The NoSleep Podcast - S18 Ep8: NoSleep Podcast S18E08

Episode Date: August 14, 2022

Tune in to Episode 8 of Season 18 for frenetic family frights!“Breakfast” written by LP Hernandez (Story starts around 00:02:55)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Danielle McRae“Between the Groves” written by Michael Paige (Story starts around 00:07:00)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Mike DelGaudio, Dylan – Matthew Bradford, Ajax – Elie Hirschman“I Don’t Know What We Brought Back From the Lake” written by Reef Weaver (Story starts around 00:32:30)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Jeff Clement“The Parlor” written by Evan Dicken (Story starts around 00:41:15)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Mark – Mick Wingert“A Mother’s Shower” written by A.C. McAnelly (Story starts around 01:07:15)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Sam – Nichole Goodnight, The Steam Man – Graham Rowat, Kris – Kyle Akers“My Best Friend’s Mirror” written by Marcus Damanda (Story starts around 01:16:40)Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Rainie – Jessica McEvoy, Shandra – Sarah Thomas, Mrs. Barclay – Nikolle Doolin, Lucas – Atticus Jackson, Officer Yates – Dan ZappullaThis episode is sponsored by:NextEvo - Stop wondering if CBD is right for you. Try NextEvo Naturals capsules, gummies, mints, and topical creams, clinically proven to be better absorbed by your body. Go to nextevo.com, enter promo code NOSLEEP and you'll get 25% off your first order of $40 or more.ShipStation - ShipStation makes it super easy to manage and ship all your online orders faster, cheaper and more efficiently. You'll spend a lot less time on shipping and a lot more time growing your business. Go to shipstation.com and click the microphone icon at the top of the page. Enter code NOSLEEP to get a 60-day free trial.Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to for the NoSleep Podcast Twitter pageClick here to for the NoSleep Podcast Instagram pageClick here to for the NoSleep Podcast TikTok pageClick here to for the NoSleep Podcast Facebook pageClick here to learn more about LP HernandezClick here to learn more about Marcus DamandaExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Between the Groves” illustration courtesy of Mark PelhamAudio program ©2022 – Creative Reason Media Inc. – All Rights Reserved – No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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promo code No Sleep. And now it's time to cure your body's horror deficiency as we start the show. Mommy's eye is open, the one I can see, and she's not blinking. A fly landed on her lip and she

didn't even flinch. We must have brought it with us because it's too cold for flies. I remember mountains and snow. Mommy hadn't driven in snow and she was scared, especially at night. She grabbed the steering wheel so tight like it might float away. I dreamt about our new life, the apartment with a pool. I dreamed about swimming, but then I was doing flips underwater. and Mommy was screaming somewhere.

That was three days ago. The doors are smushed shut. I'm so hungry. And there's cheese dust on Mommy's fingertips. She ate to stay awake. But there's no food left. I can't help it. I lick the dust, but that just makes the hunger worse.

I nipple and it's... Kind of like when I eat the hot dog on her sofa. I take a bite. Mommy hates when I don't finish my food. You're sleepless in another dimension. A dimension of horror, cursed to be frightened and disturbed. A journey into a terrifying land whose boundaries are inky darkness. Your next stop, the no-sleep zone.

Now open the door and brace yourself for the No Sleep podcast. You're now in the middle ground between light and shadow. I'm David Cummings, and this is the No Sleep Zone. Hunger, it's a powerful motivator. Like when I get to savor one of my favorite desserts, ladyfingers. Ah, a deliciously dark story from author L.P. Hernandez, from the tale which was this episode's cold. Open. Breakfast, performed by Danielle McCray.

I haven't done this in a while, and it's something which would be unheard of in the 1960s. That is, remind you about our social media sites. Yes, we're active on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and that tiki talk the kids are all on about these days. We've been posting some dark fun content lately, and it's perfect to share with your friends and followers. It really helps turn more people on to our dark delight. We're at No Sleep Podcast on most platforms, and on TikTok, we're at the No Sleep Pod. We'll include links in the show notes as well. So help us turn more and more people sleepless.

What harm could that do? Now, that's the signpost up ahead. Your next stop awaits as the horror begins. In our first tale, we tried to see the forest for the trees. Let me explain. You see, a dad and his two sons are returning from a nice day at the lake, driving home on the wooded country roads. But as we learn in this tale, shared with us by author Michael Page,

when they spot something strange on the road, the day becomes anything but nice. Performing this tale are Mike Delgado, Matthew Bradford, and Ellie Hirschman. So stay focused on the road. Don't be a distracted driver, lest you fail to see what's there between the groves. The phone on the passenger seat rang for the 20th time. I eyed it peripherally with partial attention to the road. What number are we at now?

Who cares? She'd see that none of the messages were being read, and the only thing stopping me from switching the phone to silent, or lordy, lordy, off, was my desire to let it die on its own. She wouldn't be able to deny that her brain. barrage of messages and voicemails had choked a battery to death. Regardless, she'd sure as held check. Jen always had an impulse for misgivings.

Objection, Your Honor? The question calls for speculation. I had explicitly promised that the kids would be home before nightfall. But time must have slipped to the inattentive crevice between my thoughts. It was still a great time with them, though. We had also desperately needed the day at the last. lake. How long had it been since they got to fire off the old slingshot? Too damn long. Jen always hated it and considered me childish for even owning such a thing at my age, as if she were the absolute

embodiment of it. The boys and I spent the day zapping pellets at a few empty cans atop a fat rock and digging in the sand until we found a partially buried arrowhead. By the time the rippling bar of sunset that had finished crossing the lake, I was already prepared to bleed for ignoring the clock. Oh, another goddamn one. Jesus, give it a rest already. I blurted at the phone, and then immediately twisted my head toward the back seat. Dylan and Ajax weren't stirred awake by my sudden outburst, still slumped over and sleeping against their windows. The vacant road was becoming progressively narrower. The dense tree canopies encompassed both sides of the worn asphalt. A pair of rabbit eyes reflected from within the thick foliage, and fireflies fluttered around the headlights like

shooting stars. I slapped my cheek lightly. Knock it off. You had a good day today. Don't let her ruin it. Not yet. The self-assurance didn't help much, as it was the only prickling reminder that I was happier away from home, away from her. When had that paradigm become so backward for me? Home was supposed to feel like the refuge you could come back to after a bad day. A safe place. Why bother the shark-infested waters when this was the harbor you reached? Simple. I had no clue from the get-go. The woman I had bought a drink for at the bar, the woman I had loved to make laugh, the woman I had shared vows with 12 years ago, was not the woman I had bought a drink for at the bar, the woman I had loved to make laugh, was not the same. the same woman who was waiting there for me. She was like a painting that I had carelessly grown fond of before realizing that if I'd just taken one step closer, I could see the violent strokes that made up her coating. The first of the violent strokes had presented themselves when the stiletto was flung at my face, bruising my cheek. Despite this, I still gave her the benefit of the

doubt. Maybe it had just been a bad day, a bad week. Didn't anyone consider something like that for someone they cared about? But unfortunately, it had become routine. Any time she felt her argument become lopsided, and any time she felt the need to intimidate, it resulted in shouting, a trapnel. She would scream that she'd lie and tell everyone that I was abusing her. Your Honor, permission to treat the witness as hostile?

I can't help but think. Would the version of myself 12 years ago tolerate this kind of treatment? Of course not. But what happened to me? Again, simple. Too much time had passed. Too many deposits put into a failed dream. That part of me was gone, beaten into submission and held underwater until the bubble stopped popping. I talked to my father about it last week, that divorce was inevitably on the horizon. But of course, nothing would come easy, especially in Jen's vengeful universe.

Shared custody would imply that she'd lost in that all-or-nothing brain of hers. No, it wouldn't be enough for her. It was a cyclone that I very much wanted to avoid. And, to top it all off, I was not the only victim on board. I looked dolefully in the rearview mirror. What parent wants to put their kids through that mental anguish and tug of war? One friend had warned me that custody cases primarily favor mothers in these circumstances. And, false or not, Jen would use anything in her arsenal of sleazy, dishonest connections,

and well-versed lying to see to that. As much as it made me feel sick, she'd already won in that respect. She had succeeded in turning herself into a chain, and the kids into the attached iron balls. I was trapped. Given the circumstances, my father told me, there's a snowball's chance in hell that you won't have some tough decisions to make. But if you want something, I mean really want it, Matt,

you'll have to be willing to fight tooth and nail for it. Maybe do some studying. Wouldn't hurt to get an idea of how a court of law works. And that is what I've been doing in secret for the past few weeks, reading online books and watching shows, including late-night courtroom dramas. Then, in the span of a second, there was movement ahead of me. A vague shape bolted through the headlights. I cursed as my foot flattened the brake and watched as a pair of antlers sank beneath the grill.

The loud crunch of bone impacting metal filled my ears. The vehicle lurched to a dead stop in the middle of the narrow road. As eight-year-old Ajax started to sob, his 10-year-old brother Dylan looked perplexity. at the thickets of tree silhouettes. I exhaled between clenched teeth. My heart shuddered rapidly and showed no signs of stopping. I squeezed the wrinkled leather of the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. Everyone okay? Daddy, what happened? I sucked in a deep, bitter breath and then sighed. Nothing to worry about. I'll check it out. Just caught me a little brother down. Behind the confident facade, I can only hope we weren't totaled out here. That,

would be fan fucking-tastic. I stepped out of the driver's seat and approached the damage, swatting away a few fireflies as I did so. Sure enough, an elk lay dead and broken in the road. One of the headlights was shattered and bits of glass crunched beneath my souls. The grill was reasonably dented and had speckles of blood and dangling chunks of fur. It reminded me at the time I'd accidentally hit that gray cat in the road. I must have been a juvenile, poor little guy. I thought as I leaned in to take a closer look at the animal. I stopped.

My stiff shadow stretched across the pavement from the surviving light, and my rising pulse had vibrated the inside of my throat. It wasn't an elk that I hit. Poking out of the thick reddish pile of fur was a pair of small legs and bare feet. I stumbled toward them. and fell to my knees. A young girl, maybe around nine or ten, she was wearing an elk pelt that encased her whole body, and the antlers that jutted from her hood were shedding their velvet strands. The depressions in her cheeks signified starvation. The lips on her extremely pallid face

were an invisible white, and flakes of dried mud were caked over her tight skin. I tapped her face slightly. Hey, can you hear me? Come on, please, please say you can hear me. My fingers checked her neck and her wrist were signs of a pulse. Nothing. No, no, no, no. The phone, I realized in a sheer panic, called for help. After checking both pockets mindlessly, I stood up, launched myself to the passenger seat, and rummaged for the phone. It had flown to the foot of the seat. Dylan looked distraught. Ajax was no longer wailing. I want to go home. Can we please go home now? We will. Just hold on for a bit. My hands seized the phone and tapped the screen relentlessly.

No use. The battery was done for. Killed by the woman I'd put up to it. Regretful knots fastened and choked my brain. I returned to the girl, aiming to drive her to the closest hospital. Maybe there was still time. There had to still be time. Just as I walked a few pace towards her. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Her eyelids were twitching, almost as if they were struggling to open. I leapt to her side and attempted to gently lift them. But admittedly, what I saw caused me to scream pitifully. I clambered away from her, small pebbles digging into my palms. The girl's sockets were vacant holes, and a lone firefly had crawled out from one of the craters and flown off.

Then I heard a snapping sound resonate from the trees, followed by a louder, even needier snap, like someone were breaking a thick stick over their knee. Without warning, the next loud snap shifted into a prolonged, creaking moan, as one of the trees fell to the road, the one right above my truck. Its wide trunk plummeted over the hood

in a fine spray of dust and white splinters. Broken limbs ricocheted off the asphalt. The surviving headlight dangled from its fixture, flickered a few times, and then died. No! No! I made a mad dash for the vehicle. Horrible thoughts and images flashed in my vision. I practically ripped the back door from its post. Both boys were crying hysterically, but were otherwise unhurt.

Thank God. Ajax used his small hands to cover his ears. I uncurled my grip over the heap of flesh above my heart, and immoved. embrace them. Luckily, only the front of the truck had been pinned down by the fallen Aspen. The windshield had held was now a network of cracks that interweaved like cobwebs. What the hell was going on? Why did this specific tree fall? Why did that girl have no eyes? No, I couldn't lose my wits to the pondering void. All that mattered right now was getting my boys home safely. With both headlights now retired, darkness blanked.

it at us. I remember the Coleman flashlight in the glove compartment. As I crawled in through the driver's side and popped open the hinged door, Dylan pointed his finger. Daddy, something's looking at us. I whirled around to the spot he pointed at, both eyes trying to adjust to the dense black sheet around us. Then I caught them, two yellow bulbs glowing uncannily from the undergrowth. Just lightning bugs, that's all. I said with an artificial clarity. more convincing myself than him. Yep, it's just a sprinkle of them. The bulbs then blinked and moved closer.

I slammed the car door shut and clipped the flashlight on to illuminate the area. Whatever had just been staring was gone. Just an animal, I assured myself lucidly. But how could they have shined without reflecting light? It was an animal. Drop it. Case dismissed. I lowered the window a measly inch and listened carefully. Yon, any doubt, something was moving out there. I could hear rustling behind the tree covers, shrubs, and dead leafletters being crushed and brushed aside.

The yellow bulbs appeared again, but there were more of them now. I counted about five or six creeping behind the cover of dark vegetation, their candle-lit eyes glinting. A few amorphous shapes crossed the street, but were impossible to see past the trunk and damaged windshield. I reluctantly leaned my ear further out through the tiny space at the top of the window. In between the sounds of crackling plants and pounding footfalls was something else. Whispers? All far too soft and incoherent to make out. I mentally juggled if this was a good or bad thing. Voices meant they weren't a pack of animals, but it also meant that a bunch of strangers

were hiding in the dark. Were they here for the girl I had hit? Had I idiotically stumbled into an unforgiving tribe of eyeless murderers living in the wilderness? Something else approached from the trees, and every thought retracted back to the soft tissues of my skull, snapping shut like a clam. My eyes were locked on the passenger side window. Faster than fear could inject me with hesitancy, I shined the flashlight over the sudden, obscure thing. The thing was tall, easily nine feet, if not for a eye. hunch that curved its back in a severe arch.

At first glance, I actually thought his body was covered in hair, before realizing that the hair was not its own. It was wearing pelts, a whole assortment of them, each belonging to a different animal and crudely stretched across its broad chest. A few were matted with permanent clumps of bloodied hair. In between the chaotic mesh of diverse fur were gleaming sections of yellow, doughy skin. I had never seen Blubber up close before, but this had to be the closest thing to it. Its arms were a dark yellow tinge of ridiculous length that hung limply at its sides.

They were pockmarked with gaping pores that resembled undeveloped mouths. Its slender, multi-jointed fingers rested against the dirt. When I'd first taken for its greenish-white face was actually a chunk of chalky bark wrapped over its skull. Two carved eyeholes signified it with some sort of mask that had been cut or ripped straight from a dying aspen. Large, calloused folds of black and bark were peeling off of it. Housed within each islet were twin rectangular pupils, both a dusty olive color. And extending out from its monstrous shape, climbed the jagged bones of antlers. As the flashlight trembled in my hand, I felt.

fought the urge to shut it off and return the being to its mantle of darkness. But that would be insane. All of this was insane. This is all a prank, my inner denial presented to the jury in my head. The defendants must have waited for hours for a potential victim to drive by. When one rolled up, they threw a realistic, too fucking realistic, dummy into the road. Then, when the dumb schmuck comes out thinking they'd killed a child, the defendants dropped a tree that was perfectly aligned with the poor.

point of collision. They'd pay for the repairs, don't worry. Got to avoid those legal fees after all. Then, for the grand finale, outwalks the most horrifying thing that poor soul would ever see in their life. I rest my case, Your Honor. Yes, that was the only explanation for all of this. Yet, I could not ignore the opposition, that this was horrifically real and actually happening. What would transpire if I stepped out of the car to test this theory? Either the laughter and cameras would come out, or the arteries in my throat would. Ajax started sobbing again. The thing's horizontal pupils turned toward the backseat.

Be quiet, continued. My already capsizing heart sank even deeper. Be quiet! Dylan cupped his hands over his little brother's mouth. The thing's rippling gently. chest heaved. Black, torturous veins bulged from the dark yellow bulk of its neck as low guttural sounds came out and hastened spouts. A pronounced otherworldly ribcage swelled in its sternum. At first I mistook the sound for rumbling growls, but it was too distinct, too defined.

Flaps of a jaw bobbed beneath the dead bark strips, as strands of thick saliva threaded off its translucent to human-like teeth. Good God. It was talking. I felt my stomach curl into a tight ball. It was trying to speak, clearly making a straining effort to force even the slightest hint of coherence out of that craned throat. The varnished glowing eyes still stared eerily from the thicket, most of them now congregating near the tall being.

One of the grotesquely long arms rose from the cracked asphalt. and pointed an ugly, jointed finger toward the back seat. Jesus Christ, it was pointing at the boys. A mixture of nausea and anger washed through me. Was that what they wanted? My children? You have taken one of mine. Now I will take two of yours?

As if I'd just pop open the door and hand them over to spare myself. No, there was no way in the rotting intestines of hell that I'd ever allow that to have. Whatever this thing was, it would have to kill me first. Then another thought sprouted up. Why hadn't it done that exactly? It felt like nothing was stopping one of those pulsed things from breaking the window, or even the large being itself from ripping the door clean off. It's a power play.

Vaguely recognizable voice sounded in my head. Taking them from you isn't enough. It wants you to do it willingly, save itself to trouble. The voice was my father's spoken to me just a week ago. Are you going to let it, tough guy? Hell no. I rested my head against the steering wheel. Then what was the plan?

Throw my dead cell phone at it? An idea struck. My eyes found the glove compartment where the slingshot was still tucked away. I reached over and pulled it out. Any sort of ammunition would pose a problem, as we'd used all the remaining pellets at the beach. technically I could fire off anything that could fit in the leather pouch, but that didn't automatically make for a good trajectory.

Then it hit me. The arrowhead. It was a difficult shot, but there was still a chance I could peg it in one of those large eye holes. Maybe it was a ridiculous, far-fetched schoolboy idea, but at least it was better than throwing a did cell phone at it. Dylan, Ajax? I said sternly to the two of them as I fiddled with the compartment. and found the arrowhead? Unbuckle yourselves and crawl up here to me. One after the other,

they did as they were told and squirmed over the armrest into my lap. I placed the side-notched arrowhead into the center of the leather pouch. Here, hold the flashlight. I instructed Dylan, who took it and shined it towards the beast. My pulse quickened as I visualized all the maddening what-if scenarios. I lowered the passenger window, letting an acrid, eggy smell waft in. Rotten curds mixed with spoiled milk and the overwhelming rot of carrion. I raised the slingshot and pulled the tapered band straight back to my cheek. After finding the anchor point, I visualized the invisible line between the forks of the frame. I could see fireflies within the fleshy orifices of its arms, crawling in and out like bees to a hive.

The deep guttural breathing was drawing closer. It didn't appear to notice my actions yet, but it soon will. Jesus, it soon will. After one last plea to the universe, I sucked in a bad-tasting breath and released the leather pouch. The rubber snapped forward, and the arrowhead sailed through the open window. It ran free and true before delivering itself squarely into the creature's eyes. The creature flung back, letting out a reverberating shrill of pain. With my sons in my arms, I clicked the door open, intending to run like hell.

But the efforts were thwarted as the yellow-eyed silhouettes erupted from the underbrush and collided with my car. Their different-sized bodies pushing against the door in an animalistic scramble to get inside. Nails scraped against the window. The roof was being pounded from above. A few skinny, but luckily short arms reached fruitlessly through the gap in the passenger side window. I could see their faces, hollow, sunken cheeks, tight, bloodless lips, and eyeless sockets crawling with fireflies. Is this what happens to the ones it takes?

I wondered mindlessly. I shifted my body forcefully until my spine touched the armrest and then pushed at the door with both legs. It was slow moving, but it was starting to budge. The beast's eulating scream pierced my eardrums. Dylan and Ajax buried their faces into my chest. The dwindling strength in my legs combusted one more time and pushed hard against the door.

It finally pried open, scattering the surrounding creatures. I gripped the boys tightly, leaped out of the seat, and burst into a run, heedlessly stomping over one of the small things I'd knocked to the ground. Something, maybe an arm or a wrist, crushed beneath my shoe. I pushed on, begging my out-of-shaped legs not to cramp up or my lungs not to pop from the boys squeezing them. One of my souls skidded across the asphalt, nearly making me fall forward. sets of feet scurried behind me, close enough to hear their short haggard breaths.

No, I couldn't allow myself to trip. Tripping meant the end of everything. I gained my footing back and recovered my balance. I'll fight for them. I screamed at the jury inside my head. Their skulls all plastered with Jen's face. I'll fight you, your sleazy friends, even the goddamn devil for them. One by one, the pursuing footsteps dwindled.

The beast's angry. tortured shrieks fading with them. I had a masochistic urge to look back, but their surviving speck of rationality stopped me. How far we'd have to go? I had no idea, but I'd first let my legs give out under us before I stopped again. Eventually, as the slim road connected to the main one, I saw something that almost brought me to tears. Coming down the way were two glorious balls of light, burning away the darkness as they drew closer. A car! I used the last of my energy to meet them.

The small compact car they were attached to nearly swerved when it finally saw us. The driver, a gentleman who looked to be in his freshman year of college, wore a buzzed haircut with a varsity jacket to match. He looked shocked, his jaw frozen in a, what the hell? gasp. The blonde woman next to him swung her arms in a frantic pinwheel. It looked as though they were in the midst of a piece of,

night drive only to be interrupted by a crazy man in the woods. As they came to check us out, I brought the boys in my arms closer and began to weep. Somewhere within the crippled recesses of my sanity, a sure sign of clarity remained. No matter what would come next after this, I was ready to fight. Ah, family spending time at the lake. Surely not every story like that turns out to be nightmarish, right? Well, this is. a horror show, isn't it? So let's meet a family who discover that kids playing around deep water need constant supervision. And in this tale, shared with us by author Reef Weaver, after a close call in the water, a father is concerned that his son isn't quite the same. Performing this tale

is Jeff Clement. So let's hear this man's tale as he shares a rather disturbing conclusion, as he tells us, I don't know what we brought back from the lake. It had all begun as a peaceful family outing at the lake. My wife, my son, and I were enjoying the pleasant weather. The three of us stood on the shoreline, watching the last few rays of sun reflect off the water. A last hurrah before the looming winter. My son loved to swim. So I stood on the pier watching over him.

My wife had run back to our car to charge her dying phone. I remember my son looking up at me and smiling. The next 15 seconds were a blur. What I recall was a splash. There was thrashing. There was screaming. In this chaos, I panicked. I rushed forward in a flurry of action to save my child.

My feet slipped in confusion on the wet wood of the dock, and thus I crashed headfirst onto the sodden, firm pier. The last thing I saw before passing out was my son sinking beneath the water, and something clung onto him. Its shape was shifting and contorting with the flow of the water, something alive, something evil, pulling my boy down to the depths. An outline of a face formed on the creature just defined enough to smile at me. Nearly an hour later in an ambulance, the EMT informed me that I had a concussion.

While I had lain unconscious, my wife rushed to the lake. and dove into the water to save our son. The EMT told me that my wife was a hero. Our boy was alive, and that everything was going to be all right. But whatever my wife saved that day was not our son. There was something different about him. It's hard to describe in words, but something was missing in the child in front of me. No one else seemed to notice the change, not even my wife.

He was always staring at me with blank eyes. Whenever he'd notice that I was staring, he'd plaster a smile on his face. I knew that smile. I'd seen it as it pulled my son beneath the lake. His behavior and mannerisms chilled me to the bone. Something was... What we brought back from the lake that day was not our boy. It has feared water ever since the incident.

It's taken some time, but over the last few months I've pieced it together. This creature doesn't want to go back to where it came from. It scared the water is going to wash it away. This morning, I decided I could take it no longer. I woke my son early and asked him to come with me to see a surprise. It looked up at me with that wicked smile. It didn't realize what was coming next. When we got to the lake, the facade of my child started screaming.

It fought against me, but I pulled it to the water. It screamed and cried. It fought and begged, but I dragged it forward. I took the shape of my son out to the pier I stood on three months ago and forced it back under water. There was a splash. There was thrashing. And for the creature, the world went black once again.

I've been sitting on the pier all morning watching the body float. My son's lips are blue. He will not smile. at me again. I think it's safe to say that family's recreational time is not going swimmingly. Ah, well, let's dry off and return to the horror in mere moments. Do you ever find yourself doing things in ways that are way harder than they need to be? Like trying to open a package with your bare hands when there's a box cutter right there within

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it's time to learn about making even more dough. If you've ever worked in a restaurant, you know how challenging it can be. And if you've ever grown up in your family's restaurant, you know that can be even tougher. As we learn in this tale, shared with us by author Evan Dickon, a son grows up in his dad's pizzeria, learning the ins and outs of the business. The only part which confused him, though, was the strange customers they served. Performing this tale is Mick Winger.

So stay busy. Keep your head down and do what your father says. That's the best way to be successful when you're running the parlor. A good pie is impossible to forget. It was one of Dad's favorite sayings, second only to, One day Mark, none of this will be yours. I didn't mind the former, but I hated the latter. Dad would always laugh as he said it, his doughy grin lit by the buzzing overhead fluorescence.

Then he'd spread his hands to flick flower on the tiles, the bricks, the rolled metal kneading table. Grandpa Castan's creepy old pizza oven everywhere. When I was young, I used to think dad was just being shitty and mean. He never said it when mom or Tony were around, only when we were alone. Like he thought I didn't have the guts, the smarts, the strength to keep this thing of ours going for another generation.

I'd hammer my hands into the dough, add little angry shoves to the broom when I was sweeping up, hating dad for being so sure Tony was going to inherit the place. even though I was the older brother. What can I say? I was just a kid. I didn't understand that there was a world beyond the family business, that I could do something more than toss dough and sweep floors. It wasn't until after Mom went south that I really started thinking about it.

That maybe Dad wasn't saying I couldn't handle the parlor, but that maybe I shouldn't. In his weird, dopey way, I think he was trying to protect me, to push me toward a different life. One without the long hours, the busy weekends, the swarm of gaping faces, eyeless, noseless, their ragged mouths dripping red as they chewed and slurped, moaning with delight. People say pizza is universal. I know it goes much farther than that.

The earliest memory is of counting bricks. Anthony and I would rush through the morning prep to get to the back wall before Dad lit the fire. We were still small enough to slip between the oven and the wall. The bricks scorched black by heat and rough like stubble against our cheeks. We would count them over and over, but the totals never added up. 84 one way, 93 the other. Once we got a piece of sidewalk chalk and marked the bricks with numbers end-to-end both ways. I don't know how, but the count still came out different. Somewhere in the middle, something happened, just like life, I suppose. I think that's when I first started to realize our place wasn't like other places.

You got to remember that kids have no basis for comparison. People grow up believing all sorts of screwed up shit. Not that my family was any more messed up than anyone else's. Dad yelled a lot, but he never raised a hand to mom or us, not like Grandpa Castain did to him. In the end, that's all you can really do is a parent, right? Try not to make the same mistakes your folks did. And if there's one thing I can say about Dad,

is that he made different mistakes. But enough about that. Everyone always wants to hear about Tony, like he's some sort of Midwestern boogeyman. I saw a conspiracy website the other day that linked him to all sorts of crazy crap. They had some grainy security video of a guy that kind of looked like him

boarding Malaysian Flight 370, or a shot of some dark-haired dude loitering outside the Twin Towers just before 9-11. People believe all sorts of lies. That's one of the reasons I need to set the record straight. Now that Tony's gone, I feel like the truth won't hurt him. I'm not worried about the feds bringing me in. They'll never find anything. Remember, I was there when they searched the parlor.

Forensics went over the place with a fine-tooth comb. Five days, and they came up with nothing. No blood, no hair, no signs of struggle, nothing. That article in the Cleveland Plain dealer said it was like the place had been licked clean. They had no idea how close they were to the truth. Thank God the feds didn't count the bricks. Not because of what they might have found, but because of what might have found them. Sorry for being so mysterious.

But a thing like this comes with a whole lot of baggage. I'm sick of the stuff I say being taken out of context. So I'm just going to lay the whole thing out, backwards door and all. Actually, the door is a good place to start as any. So, you see, most of the time, we were a regular pizza parlor. People came in, placed in order, got their drinks, their garlic bread, their pie. But some days, it was different. We'd clean.

Dad would fire up the oven. but he'd never flipped the sign to open. I don't know how Dad knew. The phone never rang. He never wrote anything down. He never even paused like someone was talking to him. Grandpa Castain was the same way, and later, Tony. Once, I asked Tony about it, but he just muttered something about unfolding the flame-scarred eye.

Normal doors go somewhere. You step through, and you're either coming or going. The backwards door wasn't like that. Yeah, it took us places, but you didn't have to step through. We'd be spreading sauce or sprinkling little bits of newspaper on the pizzas, and there'd just be this feeling like we weren't here anymore. Like the bricks, it's hard to explain. Once, after the divorce, Tony and I went to Florida to visit Mom over Christmas.

She and her new husband Frank had this huge place in Boca Raton. Apparently, he was some big real. estate, dude. Anyway, Cleveland was freezing, like negative 20 degrees with about three feet of snow. We got on the plane in scarves and coats, and then bang, a couple of hours later, we got out, and it's like 95 and sunny, palm trees everywhere. The backwards door was sort of like that, except without the flight. Like, you hadn't moved, but everything was different. That was good about not letting us out of the back when there were special customers. We'd finish up a pie, then sure as shit, the bell at the front door would jingle, and Dad would get this serious

look on his face. Boyce, it was the same every time. He'd kneel down, lookus in the eyes, one hand on each of our shoulders, painfully tight. You need to stay back here. Don't peek. Don't come out, or I'll have to burn you. The threat was weird enough. Like I said, Dad never got physical with us.

What was scary was the little tremble in his voice when he said. said it, the way his eyes glittered like he was fighting tears. We didn't look. Not until the DeMarco brothers disappeared. I mean, you ever try and stop a kid from doing something dangerous? Sometimes they listen. Sometimes there's no way, but for them to burn their hand on the stove. Even though we didn't peek, we could hear the special customers. Their voices were like wind through a cracked window, all tongueless and sharp. Dad talked to the things. Well, I'm not exactly sure if he talked to them as much as at them,

chattering about toppings and crusts, the type of sauce we used, where the newspaper clippings or baby teeth came from. He talked about the browns and the Indians, what kind of summer we were having, who gave the biggest donation at the St. Ignatius fundraiser. All the while, that windy, fluting babble would just keep going. I'm not sure if they cared or if they were even listening.

When I asked Dad about it, he just said, it's not the pizza or the parlor, it's the ambience. I don't think he was talking for their benefit, though. Near as I can figure, it was like insulation, a cloak of ordinary stuff he could wrap tight against the screeching call of madness. Tony and I would crouch behind the kneading table, facing the wall heads down and fingers laced behind our necks,

like a tornado drill at school. Nobody told us to do it. It just seemed like the right thing. One time, we snuck a tape recorder planning to record to record some creepy sounds to freak out some kids who were picking on us at the YMCA, but when we played the tape back, it was just mom's voice,

whispering our names over and over. After the special customers left, Dad would come back with a handful of gold nuggets. The things never paid in cash, which was a problem. People would start asking questions if the owner of a local pizza parlor started showing up to the bank with bags of gold. So, Dad had a guy. There were guys for a lot of things back in the late 70s, especially around Collinwood, even after the Danny Green thing. Dad probably got five cents on the dollar, but nobody looked into where, the gold was coming from. Grandpa Castain had some shady connections back in Quebec, so I guess

they figured Dad was the middleman for some rogue Cotein-Nor mine. Ridiculous, I know, but even low-level operators know a good thing when they see it, goose with the golden eggs and all that. I worked in the parlor until I was 17. Mom hated it, but after Grandpa Castane died, dad couldn't handle the place on his own, and he certainly wasn't about to hire any outside help. We were just trying to get by. A lot of people did far worse to make ends meet. I would have probably still been working there if Tony hadn't gone and bragged about it to Lisa Kowalski.

He had a thing for her since first grade, and being a dumb teen, thought he could impress her with stories about serving pizza to monsters. She laughed at him. They all did, especially the DeMarcos. They were these two brothers. Jim was Tony's age, and Ray one grade above me. They were real shits, the kind of kids who would sling rocks at stray cats or hang around underneath the bleachers and try to look up girl's skirts.

I'm not saying this to justify what happened to them. Nobody deserves that. But honestly, they were shits. The DeMarcos always had a wild hair for us. Something about a bunch of French-Canadian expats running a pizza parlor didn't sit right with their grade school concept of Italian pride. Anyway, they got wind of Tony's story and really started laying into him. Not just mean-spirited jokes, but full-on beatings. It was like they had a goddamn radar for when my little brother was alone.

One time, I had to stay after school because Ms. Scali found some cigarettes in my backpack, and they caught Tony walking home. It was just after Halloween 81, I remember because Tony said they were wearing Flintstone's masks. Anyway, it was hard to get the story out of Tony. He was hard-headed even back then. But near as I can tell, they came up behind and knocked him over. Ray held him down while Jim pulled off his shoes and threw them over the telephone line. Tony must have tried to fight back because they bloodied him good.

Ray had this old bicycle chain he stole off one of the other kids' huffies. Used to use it to smash beer bottles and scratch up cars. He must have whipped it across Tony's back a dozen times because the skin was all tore up. I was going to tell that, but Tony made me swear not to. I'm not sure if he was embarrassed or angry, but we kept it quiet and took care of the cuts with hydrogen, peroxide, and gauze. Not a great way to go about things. Tony's back scarred up real good.

Fortunately, Mom and Dad were just hitting the end of their marriage and were too busy with each other to keep an eye on us. If things had been even close to normal, Mom would have known for sure. and dad, well, he wouldn't have left the parlor keys out. It was one of those special days. We were hiding in back while Dad babbled away out front. Thinking back, I seemed to remember there was quite a bit of nonsense mixed in with Dad's baseball stats. It might have been his marriage unraveling that put the first cracks in his mind, but I think it started long before that.

You can't do what he did for a living and come away intact. Anyway, we were huddled behind the kneading table and Tony just looked at me. His eyes all red and angry like he'd been crying. I hate them. I want them to go away. It was all he said. But I knew he wasn't talking about the things. I mean, what was I supposed to do?

I was his big brother. He was my responsibility. It was my fault that DeMarcos had cut him up. So I just nodded. We waited for the next special. day, when the backwards door was wide open. It wasn't hard to get the DeMarcos down to the parlor. We just picked a fight with them when the teachers were nearby. It wasn't much of a scuffle, but their pride was pricked. Ray said they'd settle up after school, teach us a lesson. We told them

right where we'd be and when. It was after hours. The parlor closed up for the night. No one was watching us. Mom had gone down to live with her sister in Youngstown and dad was half way into a 12 pack of schlitz. So we swiped his keys and snuck on down the block to the parlor. Think that DeMarcos were planning on something really stupid, because when they showed up, they both had pocket knives. Not the little Swiss Army numbers, but big clip folders. They must have swiped from their dad. Anyway, they pulled up on their bikes, and we were just lounging in the back, laughing and waving. The door was open. All the doors were open. To this day, I don't know how we knew the things would show up, but they did.

Ray kicked the door open, almost jangling the bell off its hook. Both the DeMarcos were red-faced, but they didn't yell like I expected. They just had these weird little smiles, like they were about to watch something funny. It was Tony who saw the first thing. I know, because he grabbed my hand, fingernails digging into my palm hard enough to draw blood. The creatures came in a child scrawl, a twisted nose. nest of lines and curlicues scribbled through the air. From the chaos emerged long, uncomfortable limbs hooked and swollen, their fingers like a stand of bamboo knuckles all the way

down. I'm not sure if they had bodies, but I know they had heads and mouths. They hung above the DeMarcos like smoke, silent, almost reverent, like someone about to receive. the Holy Sacrament of Church. Still blind to the madness above him, Jim nodded to Ray, pointing his knife at our clasped hands. Look at the fags! They were the last words he'd ever say. It happened so quickly. Barely enough time for Jim's grin to slip, barely enough time for his eyes to widen. Blessedly, I don't think he was even aware when the talons stroked the side of his face, then down his neck. Skin and muscle peeled back. Jim cut so cleanly I could see right into the pulsing heart of him. Crooked fingers took hold of his arms, his legs, his ribs,

splaying him out like a medical cadaver, pale veins of fat draped like melting cheese over raw red innards. He went quickly after that, mouths chewing and slurping. chapped lips smacking with delight as they pulled him apart. Slice by slice. I remember Ray dropping his knife. One hand pressed to his mouth like he was going to vomit. He made these weird mulling noises, and I could smell the sharp tang of urine. Still, he didn't run when they reached for him.

Somehow I think he knew it would only make matters worse. He did scream, though. Tony and I watched as the thing. things sectioned and devoured him, folding up the slices so the softer parts wouldn't drip off. There was probably a faster way, a kinder way, that all they knew was pizza. And pizza goes piece by piece. At the time, I was so surprised no one called the cops. But thinking back on it, I'm not sure if we were even in Cleveland anymore.

When it was all done, the things slipped back into their scribbled holes as quietly as they'd come. There was nothing to clean up, no sign of the DeMarcos beyond the knife that Ray dropped. Where Jim had stood was a pile of gold, not the handful that Dad brought back, but a goddamn pile. We tossed the knife and the gold in one of the flower sacks and then buried it under the wrinkled remains of Mom's Garden. The way things were going, it was a good bet she wouldn't be home to replant this spring. Dad was out cold in the recliner. TV light glittering through the bottles lined up on the table next to him. The Tonight Show was on, Rodney Dangerfield telling jokes about his terrible wife.

I can barely remember my first kiss. The first time Dad took us to see the Brown's play. Even my college graduation is a goddamn blur. But that night comes back to me every time I close my eyes. It's not guilt, though. Getting rid of the DeMarcos was basically self-defense. I didn't like what happened. I didn't like how it happened.

But I'm damn sure that the next time Jim and Ray cornered Tony, they would have killed him. It might have been an accident. They might not have intended things to go so far. But it would be my little brother gone instead of those two worthless shits. Sometimes I wonder if that would have been better. After the thing with the DeMarco's mom threw a real fit. There was no evidence, and Tony and I never said a word to anyone, but somehow she knew. She drove up from Youngstown and stormed into the parlor, screaming at Dad for letting the place eat up his kids.

He yelled back, Tony, too. I don't know why, but Tony blamed Mom for what happened, like she had any control over anything. The look on her face was something else, like she'd opened up a Christmas present and found a dead dog inside. I tried to calm everyone down, but no one was listening. Mom said she wasn't leaving without us. Dad said we were old enough to make our own decisions. Mom picked up one of the tables and threw it through the front window. It was early spring, March or thereabouts.

The air just losing its bite. But the wind that came pouring in when Mom smashed that glass was humid and full of long white filaments like spider webs, but finer. It smelled like mildew and old mustard. Breeze hot like breath on our faces. The buildings on the other side, of Waterloo Street were little more than smudges, blurred by the yellow-brown fog that hung over everything. Strange shapes moved in the mist, twisting and writhing, as they were unfurling long,

articulated arms. Mom took one look at them, then turned back to us. Come on, boys. I went with her. Tony didn't. It had to have scared the shit out of her, but she didn't flinch. She just took my hand and marched out the door. I half expected us to step into some shadowy alien wasteland, but it was just Waterloo Street, same as always. We drove back to the house, mom went inside and came back with a purse full of gold. Dad must have known, but he never made a stink. I guess he felt she'd earned it. I finished up high school down in Youngstown, then majored in history at YSU. Mom met Frank on a cruise during my senior year. After the divorce was finalized, married and went south to Boka. My girlfriend at the time was still finishing up, so I hung around

and got a teller job at the home savings and loan on Market Street. I had plans for grad school, still do, but I'm not here to talk about that. Things were rough between me and Tony after I left. I went up a couple of times. Dad seems subdued, but Tony would hardly give me the time of day. I think he'd started hanging out with one of dad's guys, drinking and gambling, hopper, the Friday red eye to Atlantic City, then crawling back half dead from drugs and booze. It could have been worse, I suppose. Hell, it was worse. Thankfully, Dad dying was kind of a wake-up for Tony. I got a call late at night on a Wednesday.

Tony was nowhere to be found. So the cop said I needed to drive up to Cleveland to identify Dad. He wouldn't go into details over the phone, so I spent the drive from Youngstown to Cleveland, thinking Dad had blown his brains out, or maybe one of his mob guys had finally decided to try and shake him down for the gold, I should have known better. After Mom had smashed out the front window, Dad had a new one installed, one of those double-paned super-energy-efficient models. Cops found him spread between the glass panels. His body sliced into millimeter-wide sections like slides on a microscope.

The cops thought it was murder, probably mob-related, but I knew Dad had killed himself. At first I thought maybe he'd pissed off the special customers. Then I saw the careful, almost respectful way they'd carved him up, and I knew he'd asked them to do it. Honestly, I think it was their way of thanking him for so many good pies. The feds blamed my brother for that one, too, but he's innocent. Tony came back from Atlantic City on Monday.

His suit rumpled and his breath smelling like a barroom floor. He took Dad's death back. Sadly, his grief soured by something like guilty relief. Only then did I realize how much he'd needed me and how much I'd missed. We made up at the funeral. Mom even flew in from Boka. Life's too short, right? Still, there'd always be that undercurrent of anger with Tony. Unfair as it was, I'm sure he felt like we abandoned him. It's true, I guess. But it's also true he chose not to come with us. Family is complicated like that. This is the part everyone has always asked me about, but honestly, Tony and I weren't too close. He married Lisa Kowalski. They settled down, got a big

house in Shaker Heights, and had some kids, you know, the American dream. I'd come up for Christmas, Easter, birthdays, that sort of thing. Tony always had some new expensive thing to show me like a car or a boat or an entertainment system. Lisa was a public defender, great lawyer, but she really didn't rake in the cash. And Tony was still running the parlor, so I knew there was no way they could afford all that expensive stuff. Still, my brother would have me over for holidays, then rub my face and how well he was doing while I was still slaving away at the bank. It didn't bother me, which I think pissed him off more, like he had to prove he'd made the right decision that I'd been wrong for leaving. I mean, I knew where he was getting the money. God damn.

me. I always knew, but he was still my brother. And even after all that happened, or maybe because of it, I felt responsible. He was the mid-90s by then. Organized crime had learned a lot from the purges. No more car bombs, no more shooting. When people disappeared, they did it quietly. No flash, no press. The thing about it was, most of the outfits that survived were small, low-key deals, not kind to bury a lot of folk. I think that's how Tony got his start, though. Disappearing wise guys who'd gone federal witness, settling old grudges, that sort of thing. Once he'd gotten a rep as a cleaner who didn't ask questions, it would have been a pretty smooth gig. The mob would pay Tony to disappear someone, and the things would toss out a heap of gold for the privilege of chewing him up. I think it

could have carried on like that for a while, but Tony had bills to pay. He'd volunteer at soup kitchens and shelters, offer free pizza to homeless people on Christmas or Thanksgiving. Who's going to notice is some poor vagrant disappeared over the winter? And even if they did, Tony was a goddamn pillar of the community. It's my fault. He's gone. Shit, that's hard to say. You've got to understand. I still love him, even now, even knowing what he did. I got the papers, you see. I read the reports, the stats. Most of the articles blame the economy, the Rust Belt, the winter, but I knew what Tony was doing. I don't think he's responsible for everyone who went missing. Those conspiracy sites are bullshit, but I think he definitely took his cut.

It was when that runaway kid disappeared near Collinwood that I couldn't take it anymore. I drove up to Cleveland, almost killed myself speeding. It was 3 a.m. But Tony was in the parlor. I felt it as soon as I stepped in, like I'd skipped a plane to Boka. Tony was happy to see me. can you believe it? First time and I don't know how long he actually gave me a hug that felt real. He figured it out, you see. All of it. I don't know if there were sentences nestled amidst the word salad he spit at me, but God damn was he smiling. There was a big chart chalked out on the bricks at the back of the shops, a sprawling, tangled spider web of sigils that made me dizzy to look at. He would point at this or that symbol, sketching shapes in the air with his free hand.

It was when the stuff he was saying started to make sense that I really got scared. He grabbed my shoulder like Dad used to, talking fast, his words taking root in the cracks between my thoughts. The sigils were places. The chart was a map, and the bricks had always been there. Left to right, right to left. The parlor opened for me. me like a flower. Tony wasn't like that. He hadn't wrapped himself in mundanity. He hadn't just talked at the things. He talked to them. And they'd answered. At last, Tony's words came to me. Clear as my memory of the DeMarcos. He wasn't talking nonsense. He was talking franchises. I barely remember grabbing Grandpa Castain's old carving knife. It made a thin red line across my

brother's throat. His words crumbling into a wet cough. He looked at me like he had that day before the DeMarcos disappeared. Eyes wide and red rimmed. His lips pressed into a tight line. He raised a fist, then uncurled it, took up my cheek. I caught Tony as he fell, holding him tight until his eyes rolled back and his feet stopped drumming on the tiles. You got to understand. He was my brother. my responsibility. The things came quietly, like with the DeMarcos. Not through the front door, but from the back. I don't think they really understood what was happening, but they kept their distance. The parlor silent but for the click of claws on tile, the wet rasp of their lips on fire-blackened bricks. Tony was stiff by the time I was willing to let him go, but they didn't mind. Everyone knows cold

Pizza is just as good as hot, even better. There was an investigation, of course. I might have been a person of interest, I'm not sure. But I do know that nobody came forward putting me in Cleveland on the night Tony went missing, and there's nothing, nothing linking me to it. When the feds were done, I had the parlor bulldozed and Grandpa Castain's creepy old oven chopped up for scrap. I think there's an apartment building there now, or maybe a gas station, I'm not sure.

All the cash from the sale went into a trust fund. for Tony's kids. Sure, it could have helped me out a lot, but I didn't touch the money, even when I lost my job at the bank. Just like Dad said, none of it was mine. I still get the feeling, though. When I'm walking down the street or watching TV or even on the toilet, one second I'll be there and the next, well, I won't.

Whenever it happens, I find a corner and sit down, eyes closed and head bowed, hands laced behind my neck. I thought getting rid of the parlor would get rid of the things, too. I thought the backwards door was a place. But I was wrong. It's all about the ambiance. Ted was right about that. About a lot of things, actually. Feelings have been coming more often, lingering longer and longer. Sooner or later, the things will come too. I know what they want, what they crave. It's inevitable. is impossible to forget. The nightmares may be over, but the darkness will linger on, so long as you reside in the no-sleep zone.

The No Sleep podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Olivia White. Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. If you would like to find out how you can hear the extended editions of our program, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season pass program, 25 episodes each over two hours long,

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