The NoSleep Podcast - S19 Ep19: NoSleep Podcast S19E19

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

It’s Episode 19 of Season 19. We ponder weak and weary with tales about haunted halls.“The Haunted Palace” written by Edgar Allan Poe (Story starts around 00:02:45)Produced & scored by: David CummingsCast: Narrator – David Cummings“Julianne” written by A.L. Simpkins (Story starts around 00:06:00)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: David CummingsCast: Nettie – Mary Murphy, Nanny – Nichole Goodnight, Suitor – Jeff Clement, Maid #1 – Sarah Ruth Thomas, Maid #2 – Kristen DiMercurio, Maid #3 – Erin Lillis, Maid #4 – Erika Sanderson, Mother – Nikolle Doolin, Father – Jesse Cornett“Empty Hallways” written by Simon Bleaken (Story starts around 00:27:30)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Charlie – David Ault, Frank – Andy Cresswell“The Cabin Just Outside of Town” written by C.T. Flaska (Story starts around 01:04:20)Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Narrator – Matthew Bradford“Last Stop on the Yellow Line” written by Ben Lewis (Story starts around 01:19:45)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Lana – Linsay Rousseau, Thea – Kristen DiMercurio, Seth – Jeff Clement, Corrine – Sarah Thomas, Troy – Kyle Akers, Subway Announcer – Mike DelGaudio, Homeless Man – Graham Rowat, Homeless Woman – Erin LillisThis episode is sponsored by:Betterhelp - This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/nosleep and get on your way to being your best self.Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about A.L. SimpkinsClick here to learn more about Simon BleakenExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“The Cabin Just Outside of Town” illustration courtesy of Alia SynesthesiaAudio program ©2023 – 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. The works of Edgar Allan Poe reside in the public domain.

In the dark shadows of the Rue Morg, to the rhythm of the stolen telltale heart, as the black cat swings upon the pendulum, and the cask offers its sherry, deep and dry. As you knock at our chamber door, we open and usher you in. Our sleepless tales for you in store, and the terror shall be lifted. Brace yourself for the no sleep. Welcome to the No Sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. You know, back in my day, I mean back in the days before social media and the internet. The idea of being ghosted meant something quite different. Yes, it was still a rather unpleasant experience,

but it was, and is, still my favorite of all horror story genres. The Ghostly Haunting. Whether you believe in them or not, ghosts are the spectral backbone of some of the greatest horror stories of all time. Countless stories, books, films, plays, and even video games have ghosts to haunt all who draw near. Imagine how many tales have been shared around campfires on dark nights, which feature ghosts to frighten the listeners.

In this episode, we feature tales of places which aren't quite as empty as they seem. And I'm sure it comes as no surprise that the haunted Edgar Allan Poe wrote about ghosts often in tales and poems. One poem in particular, allegorical in nature, caught my eye. In it we learn of a king who rightly fears the doom of his reign and his palace. Long after it falls, the palace is haunted by phantoms which remain eternal. Perhaps meant to describe a cursed and haunted mind, the poem makes it clear that the spirits which can inflict them upon us will often last far longer than we care to admit. Allow me to share this poem with you as we begin our ghostly episode.

So come, let's visit the place forever known as the Haunted Palace. In the greenest of our valleys by good angels tenanted, once a fair and stately palace, radiant palace, reared its head. In the monarch's thoughts dominion, it stood there. Never seraphs spread opinion over fabric half so fair. Banners yellow, glorious golden, on its roof did float and flow. This, all this, was in the olden time long ago. And every gentle air that dallied in that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A winged odor went away. Wanderers in that happy valley Through two luminous windows saw, Spirits moving musically to a lute's well-tuned law. Round about a throne where sitting, Porphyrogen, in state his glory well-befitting, the ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing was the fair palace door, through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, and sparkling evermore. A troop of echoes, whose sweet duty was but to sing, in voices of surpassing beauty, the wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things in robes of, sorrow assailed the monarch's high estate, ah, let us mourn, for never morrow shall dawn upon him desolate. And round about his home the glory that blushed and bloomed, his but a dim-remembered story of the old time entombed. And travelers now within that valley, through the red-litten windows, sea, vast forms that move fantastically to a discordant melody. While like a ghastly rapid river through the pale door, a hideous throng rush out forever and laugh, but smile no more. When it comes to haunted houses, we usually think about a family moving in, experiencing the nightmarish entities and then fleeing soon thereafter never to return. But in this tale,

shared with us by author A. L. Simpkins, we meet a woman who has lived in a haunted house most of her life, and despite her family's reluctance to explain the haunting, she soon discovers the awful truth. Performing this tale are Mary Murphy, Nicole Goodnight, Jeff Clement, Sarah Thomas, Kristen De Maccurio, Aaron Lillis. Erica Sanderson, Nicole Doolin, and Jesse Cornett. So listen closely for that name being whispered softly in your ear as it comes from Julianne. For as long as I can remember, she has been here. I recall awaking in my chamber around five years old.

The room was quiet, but I awoke with a start as if someone had pressed their icy cold fingers to my neck. It woke me from my dead sleep. Curious, I sat up and lit the lamp on my nightstand. A cold draught brushed the hair from my face, causing the light of the lamp to falter, flame wavering against the airborne attack. The feeling in the air was out of tepid water. It felt as though this little pocket of the house

had not been touched in years. It pressed a deep, forgotten silence into my bones. This frightened me, of course, I took the lamp with me and scurried to my mother's bedside. The billowing curtains whispered as I walked by the blackened windows. I passed them with my eyes glued to the ground, stepping in tiny water droplets along the creaking wooden floors. When my mother saw them,

she scolded me not to spill any more on my way back to bed. When I was ten years of age, I was playing hide-and-seek with the nanny. I'd chosen a tall, deep armor that could cloak my body behind my mother and father's clothes. I had settled under a large petticoat of my mother's when I heard a soft sniffle. Baffled, I kept quiet to see if the noise reappeared. Again, a soft sniffle from somewhere nearby. My father's coat whispered as I rustled against it.

I heard my nanny call from down the hall. Are you stuck? Oh, don't cry, love, I'm coming. She found me and lifted me out, patting my cheeks for tears that weren't there. When I was 14, the neighbor boy visited our house for a chance of courtship. He was not the only boy to come around as of late. It seemed that near everyone had noticed that my hair had grown long and silky, and my bodices bit tight.

He was different, however, in the first of the first of the first of my hair. fact that I was also interested in him. He was tall, with dark eyes and strong arms. When he smiled at me, it was soft and kind, but not timid, a quiet confidence. We sat in the parlor with afternoon tea and smiled at one another as a deep darkness rolled through the windows. The room grew so dark that we lit the oil lamps beside us. It wouldn't be long before the rain made itself known. It felt cozy and warm, with his hand keeping mine company. He circled the top of my thumb with his over and over, a welcome repetition. A soft patter sounded from the corner of the room. The gentleman brought the lamp over to inspect the sound. The oil flame hissed. He found a slow,

stream of droplets from the ceiling, gathering to form a small puddle on the floor. Hmm, not to have that leak checked. But he wouldn't meet my eyes when he returned to his seat. His self-assured poise was now gone, and in its place was uncertainty. He was pale and closed off to my comfort. It disturbed me greatly. He left quickly after that, feigning. an excuse about a meeting he had in town. He never did look at me the same way after that.

He never did return to the manor either. To make matters worse, rumors started circulating in town that I was a she-devil, hell-pent on luring a young man into my arms, and entrapping him to eat his heart. I received not a single suitor after that. I inspected the ceiling once he was gone. Perhaps a leak had deterred him from wanting to inherit such a place in seemingly poor condition, I thought. I was prepared to call the roofer, but to my surprise found there was no reason to. The ceiling was dry as a bone. The puddle on the floor remained. When I was 15, I trotted down the hallway, approaching the twisting staircase that led to the kitchen.

My stomach rumbled with each step I took. I stopped when I heard a couple of laughing maids shushing one another. In the country who wouldn't have the master as her own husband if she could. Maybe so, but I shan't end up with my own Juliet. Julianne. Now shush before someone hears us and we meet the same fate. My heart pounded against my chest. Julian, there was her name again.

I heard it constantly throughout the manner, but always muted, always foreboding. The way it was spoken and muffled whispers sent goose flesh up my arms and twisted my stomach in a knot. I crept away silently, no longer hungry. When I was 16, I was curious as ever. Who is Julianne? I asked my mother one day as we sat for our afternoon tea. Her complexion paled as she looked up at me. Where did you hear that name?

Her voice was taught with anger, but her gaze showed a hint of something else. I could see the pointed hurt in her expression in the form of crystalline tears, jabbing the corners of her almond eyes. I've just heard it around the grounds. I did not have a sensible answer for her. Tell me if those maid girls say that name again. I was taken aback at her emotional response. I had never known my mother to be perturbed by anything before.

It was unnerving to see such emotions painted on her face and in her voice. I nodded in agreement and let the matter drop, but it didn't stay that way for long. I had soon after heard the truth, with my ears pressed against the wood. of the servant's quarters and the butler's pantry. I had felt the stinging torment of their staunch candor, a serrated blade plunging into my heart. I had carried the pain I had felt for my mother, as I now understood why there was not sadness nor anger in her eyes that afternoon, but the wound of betrayal by the man whom she loved. Julianne was her name. I heard she belonged to the first maid.

bearing the poor child? Where is she now? Down the well, I reckon, poor babe. And with a quick shudder they returned to their chores. At 17 years of age, I visited the well. I looked fixedly down at the rippling water that lingered so deep into the earth. I watched my reflection as I pondered what it meant to love someone so much that you would ignore the blade they had buried in your back. It was in that moment that I realized the humanity and my father, as someone who could gallantly lead an army, whose confidence could bolster the doubts of any soldier, who could also not ever cast out the shadow of doubt that now clouded my mother's eyes.

He was dethroned in my mind in that single moment. Julian! The dropping of my tears chanted as a... hit the surface of the water in the well. I looked at the glassy reflection at the bottom. I imagined a different forgotten face in the place of mine, one with longer hair and older in age, but whose cheeks were covered in rivulets of blood in the place of my tears. Julian! I wept, mourning the loss of his sister I would never meet. The only illegitimate thing I saw in that moment was the morality of my own father.

I cried her name over and over, tears cascading down the stone of the well, and rubbing salt into the wounds of my heart. Julian, Julian. Now, at 18 years of age, I sit on my father's bedside, holding his worn wrinkling hand. Father has been sick for some time now. It has not made the news any easier to bear. I press father's hands between mine, like the worn pages of a well-loved book. I can see the little bit of my mother in myself as I do so.

Mother sits on the chaise and sniffles quietly to herself. The walls are washed a dark, colorless gray as the night falls. We listen as sounds of distant thunder approach us. What is that noise? He mumbles so quietly that I almost do not hear him. What, Papa? He raises his finger to silence me and cranes his head off the pillows. The rain starts outside, the wind beginning to howl just on the other side of the wall.

Father's head snaps towards the sound of what I can only assume as raindrops hitting the glass window pane. No, that cannot be right. It's too close. It's inside. There. Mother points towards a serving tray collecting droplets. A leak in the roof, my love. Just as she declares us, a muffled wine sounds throughout the room.

Bewildered, we look around to find the source. The whining grows louder. Then whining turns to sniffles, which then turns to sobs. Father thrashes wildly at this. Even mother cannot calm him now. He is struggling to get out of bed, pushing us off as we try to settle him back into the sheets.

A crack of thunder reverberates through our souls. A flash of lightning illuminates the room. And then finally, we see her. She is poised like a spider on the ceiling above us, tears cascading down, and covering us in her mournful shower. She is as naked as she is dirty. There is mold in the tangles of her long hair.

She raises her head to meet our terrified gaze and grins a terrible face-altering smile. It stretches past her cheekbones and nearly swallows her eyes. She is terrifying and haunting and beautiful, but horribly familiar. She has my face and my hair and my body. She is me. The water has now gathered onto the serving tree, which now sits on my father's lap. It shows a clear reflection of the old man's face, but he only stares upwards as she hangs over his head.

The forgotten creature that can no longer be forgotten. She points downward at the tray. My mother gasps at the movement, but does nothing. My father looks like he is withering away faster and faster with every second that she lingers above him. She points again, more insistently, and he finally does as she asks. He pulls a tray closer and peers at it fearfully. I do not know what he sees in his own reflection,

but it must terrify him to his very core because he starts weeping. His beads of sweat and tears mix with her tears on the tray, the salty water flowing onto it as his own blood flowed through her veins. The watery stream turns to a thick shower of blood, filthy rivers running down her cheeks and tinting the tray with streaks of vermilion. The storm outside follows suit, her eye-core dying the window pane outside a deep crimson. Dear God! He clutches his chest, wincing in agony, pale cheeks turning ruddy with pain. The storm outside intensifies, claps of thunder now cracking directly outside the window. Julian!

They shriek. Please! Julian continues to smile at him, the reflection of her black eyes glimmering and the blood on his lap. She says nothing. The wind screeches loudly around us. Julian! It howls. My mother and I are frozen in place, helpless to protect him against the veracity of a man facing his own mistake. His own bloody reflection glistens in the light of the flame. Finally, he looks up and meets her stare.

His eyes glaze over. He moves no more. For as long as I can remember, she has been here. I can only imagine what the neighbor boy saw as he peered up at the ceiling. My face, hair matted and eyes hungry, with a sneer as cold as a frosty December breeze. a face that would kill for a life of her own. A face that took from me the chance at a happy future with a loving husband.

Is this too what my father saw when he looked into that tray? The stolen and perverted identity of his living daughter? Ghoulish reflection tinged with Merleau beside his own. Her face holding an expression of bemusement at his pain and hatred burning deep. She robbed me of my own father right before my eyes. Despite stealing my face, my future, my family, I cannot hold contempt for her in my heart. After all, everything that she was destined to have,

destined to be, was stolen from her and given to me. She has always been here, in the parlor, in the bedroom, on the grounds, haunting the home she was meant to have. She is a hellish creature. She is also my older sister, the firstborn, the rightful inheritor to our home. Both her existence and her death are the most horrific crimes to be committed by my own blood,

by her own blood. She is the cross I was born to bear. She has always been here. She will always be here. When the curtains caress my ankles, and the fire crackles and croons, when the storms swallow my home and the wardrobe whispers and the well winds, when I look to my window for an answer, for an explanation that will ease my palpitating heart and terror-ridden mind,

I will hear the moon murmur the cause of my madness to my maimed heart. Juliet If you want to talk about haunted buildings and we do you'll have a hard time finding a more appropriate haunt for ghosts than an old abandoned mental hospital buy one of those like the uncle

of the man in this tale did and you can be assured that the ghosts come with the property and as we'll learn in this tale shared with us by author Simon Bleakin the man is working as a security guard to watch over the property and as expected

something is in there watching over him. Performing this tale are David Alt and Andy Cresswell. So keep your wits about you and your flashlight batteries fully charged. You'll need to stay sharp while walking the empty hallways. I glanced from the pages of my book as the sound echoed down the hallway outside. A dull metallic thud reverberating from somewhere in the deep, dark heart of this old building. as if someone had struck one of the ancient pipes with a spanner. I slipped my bookmark in place and moved to the door.

The long hallway beyond was empty, just a dismal stretch of threadbare carpet vanishing into shadows, flanked on both sides by closed doors and heavy dust sheets covering peeling walls. Dust moats drifted languidly in the weak light from dangling bare bulbs, not quite bright enough to chase away all the lingering shadows. Everything here was always a little darker than it should be, and there were too many doorways in hiding places to allow anyone to feel entirely relaxed. Of course, the house was empty as far as I knew.

At least, I'm the only one with a key, and the only person's supposed to be here. But the whole place creaks unexpectedly, and is full of odd little noises that keep catching me off guard. My imagination frequently conjures thoughts of ghosts or serial killers stalking the shadows with long knives or lengths of cord to stab or strangle when my back is turned. But the mundane truth is that it was all far more likely to be nothing more than grumbling water pipes and settling floorboards. But just for good measure, I turned on my torch and walked to the top of the stairs, listening. Nothing. Everything was still now. For a moment it felt as if the house were playing a trick on me, the equivalent

of knocking on someone's door and then hiding when they answer it. Keep it down. I whispered to the darkness. I'm reading. On the way back to my room, I opened a few of the doors lining the musty hallway, casting my torch beam across empty spaces full of dust and forgotten purpose. Sometimes I wondered what scenes these rooms had witnessed in years gone by, what dramas had played out there now forever lost to time. Tonight, however, I was far too keen to get on with the next chapter to waste time with such idle ruminations. So after making a quick sweep, I return to my own room, closing all the doors behind me as I went. The only door that always remains open is the one leading into the hallway from my room.

I need to be able to hear if anything odd is happening in the main building, after all. Though odd noises are hardly unexpected in a place this old, the house is assembling quite an impressive orchestra as it ages. The property belongs to my uncle, Frank Hillman. In fact, it's about all he owns now. He sold almost everything he had to buy this place just over a year ago, and even then, I'm still not sure how he managed it. He had some grand dream of turning it into a wedding venue and hotel, or was it holiday flats.

I can never remember, and anyway, his grand dream seems to change with each passing month, or each new mood swing. Whatever the case, he spent so much money buying the place, he couldn't afford to start any of the renovations. He got so desperate he's even hiring out to paranormal groups at the weekends. Not that I'm convinced there are any ghosts here beside his slowly fading dreams. Still, it gave me a job when alcoholism scuppered a promising teaching career and gave him a cheap security guard to watch over the place at night during the week.

The pay isn't great, obviously, and I'm still not sure how much longer he'll be able to keep me on. I don't mind the job or the hours, though. It's easy enough work, and I've always been a night owl who prefers solitaire. reading to having any kind of social life. I'm not a real security guard, of course. I haven't had any training. I don't wear a uniform, and if I encountered an intruder, the best I could do would be to ring the police and let them deal with it. I'm really just there to keep the squatters out, and generally keep an eye on everything. To that end, I make a sweep of the whole house every two hours, all three floors and the four smaller outbuildings, which are little more than overgrown

sheds first-tuned with cobwebs. In between that, the rest of the time is pretty much free for catching upon my reading. I converted one of the empty rooms on the second floor into a reading space, with a clean, comfortable chair and a small table beside it for a lamp, my pile of books for the week, and my flask of strong coffee. I chose that particular room as it has a great view out over the main drive in the gates, as well as being closest to the only working toilet in the property. No sense in making life difficult. There's no CCTV. There's no CCTV. installed anywhere for me to monitor, there's just no money for it. But the entire place is surrounded by a high wall, and while it isn't impossible to think of anyone scaling it and sneaking in from the

back or sides of the house, it is high enough to deter all but the most ardent of thieves. And to be honest, there isn't really anything of value in the place anyway. The house had originally been built as a country estate, but was eventually converted into some sort of private mental hospital, the Drake Stahl Institute. It had closed sometime in the 1950s and had been empty ever since. But signs of its former existence still echoed here and there, and all of the windows had ornate metalwork fixed over them. Clearly, someone thought that would be far prettier and less disturbing than bars. I settled back into my chair before picking up my book. I found my place in moments diving right back into the story. Tonight I was reading The Haunting of Hill,

House by Shirley Jackson. The eerie atmosphere of this old place, with its long peeling hallways and creaking stairwells, made reading horror stories here especially atmospheric. But that's you to be perfectly. I enjoyed being spooked. I hadn't been reading long, sadly, before something unexpected caught my attention, shattering the spell of the story. It was a moving shadow out in the hallway, just a brief flicker seen from the corner of my eye. It flashed past the open doorway like a living silhouette, defying the light that should have banished it. Hello? I called, rising. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to get in here, not without a lot of noise and effort anyway. The metalwork covering the windows might be old, but it was all still solid enough to prevent easy access or egress.

My uncle had found that out when he had tried to remove it. As for the front, back and side doors, they were all locked and bolted from within, well built. too. I paused in the doorway, unhooked the torch from the belt of my jeans, and shone the light down the hallway's gloomy, peeling expanse. The dust sheets hanging from the walls shivered in the still air. And wasn't my imagination, or were the feeble lights overhead growing dimmer? Is someone there? There was no reply to my question, but also no sounds of anyone trying to flee. Either I was seeing things, or they were hiding. This is private property. I made my way cautiously towards the flaking metal banister of the main stairwell, the floorboards groaning softly. It was impossible to walk down this hallway at night without feeling as though you were being

watched, an impression heightened by the fact that not all of the lights were working, and the broken ones were in all the worst places. It was both fascinating and alarming how the night can transform a place. The most bland and banal of settings can become strange and sinister after dark, as though hidden doorways to other realms quietly open, turning the familiar into something alien. Or perhaps those doorways existed only within our heads, projecting our own inner fears into the growing shadows. A sudden sound echoed out of the darkness ahead of me, watery and gurgling. It was part human scream and part air bubble trapped in a water pipe. If anyone's there, you're trespassing.

I edged farther along, my book held out before me like a shield, as if the feet of Fictional phantoms within those printed pages could somehow scare away any actual spirits that might lurk in the darkness. My love of being spooked definitely didn't extend beyond the printed page. The bulbs were undeniably growing dimmer, the shadows becoming deeper and more intense. I was glad of my torch, but even that was having trouble piercing the darkness. Perhaps it needed new batteries, or perhaps I was grasping for sane and sensible explanations in the face of the unknown. The dust sheets still quivered, despite the lack of breeze. I did my best to ignore them. A breeze, even a faint one, would be

welcome about now. It was an unpleasantly stuffy night. Sweat, gummed my t-shirt to my body, and the building was airlessly hot. There was a scrape from somewhere overhead, a heavy dragging like furniture being shifted across bare floorboards. That is, if there had been anything left up there to move. I knew that the rooms on the third floor were all quite empty. As I stood there, I was struck by a thought, and an unwelcome one at that. It's something I should have picked up on sooner, something that should have piqued my curiosity long before tonight, and somehow I had quite literally walked right past it time and time again for months now. Who hangs dust sheets from the walls?

I reached for the nearest and pulled on it. It had been stuck to the wall at the top with brown packing tape and came away in my hand, dropping to the floor. In the light of my torch, I saw a black figure on the newly exposed section of wall, as if a shadow had been burned onto the surface. It reminded me of the Hiroshima victims whose outlines had been left etched on the stones of buildings and steps after the bomb dropped. Although it looked like a shadow, there was nothing external that could have cast it. Intrigued, I stepped closer and reached out to touch it, as my fingers neared the surface of the wall. the shadow moved. I sprang back with a startled shriek, but even then I couldn't pull my eyes from that impossibly moving shape. The arms lifted, the body shifting, and the head, even though

it was represented as a featureless two-dimensional shadow, turned to look at me. I backed away until my spine hit the opposite wall. Something also shifted beneath the dust sheet at my back, a faint, subtle movement, and at that I finally turned and ran, my book and torch dropping to the floor. I fled back towards my room, my sanctuary, where I knew the walls were bare, painted plaster, and where I had a lamp to beat back any shadows. It was the brightest room in the place, and it was the only room where I felt at ease. But the door was shut now and wouldn't open. I twisted the handle hard. The door was stuck. Fear grew into panic. I shouldered the wood and it held solid in the frame. I tried again and again until my shoulder throbbed.

It didn't budge an inch. But these doors don't lock, I thought desperately. They've never locked since Frank bought the place. I rattled the handle savagely for good measure, hoping to work the thing open again to no avail. It was a soft creaking from behind me. No, no, from all around, that turned my panic into horror.

The doors along the hallway all slowly opened. My breath caught in my throat. overhead the dim bulb winked out with a faint whining pop. I reached the torch at my belt, only then remembering it was gone. Another bulb fizzled out, and in the second before it died, I spied my torch lying on the floor beneath it. I ran through the darkness, relying on memory to guide me. I tried not to think about that strange shadow figure on the wall, but it was hard to clear it from my mind. What the hell was it?

And could it still exist in total darkness? I kept my focus fixed on the space in front of me. I didn't glance in any of the rooms to either side of me as I ran past. There should have been moonlight coming in from the windows within those rooms. But there was nothing to break the darkness. Only the impossibly distant flickers of the remaining bulbs now going out one by one ahead of me. The torch should be around here, I thought, just as my foot struck it. I heard it roll, then bounce and clatter noisily as it tumbled down the main staircase.

I held my breath, praying it wouldn't break when it hit the bottom. The last of the bulbs went out, plunging me into blackness. I hesitated for a moment, unsure of my next move. I gripped the cold metal railing of the banister, forcing myself to listen to the darkness as best I could over the sound of my own rushing blood in my ears. Visions of dark shapes slipping invisibly through the lightless hallway, drawing closer all around me filled my imagination.

But I pushed them away. I needed a clear head. The torch is just at the bottom of the stairs, I reminded myself. All you have to do is, oh, you bloody idiot. I slipped a hand into the back pocket of my jeans and pulled out my phone. It took just a few frantic clicks, and light returned in a bright white flash as the inbuilt torch burst to life. As it did, something recoiled from a spot just behind my shoulder, a thin hissing shriek, more cat-like than human. I plunged down those old steps two at a time,

the light from my phone lurching crazily about the walls and floor. I was half insane with fear and somehow convinced that there was a second set of footfalls following down those steps just behind me. My heels stung and the impact of taking those steps to at a time jarred up my legs. But I didn't care. Terror had me in its frenzied grip and adrenaline surge through me. I no longer knew what was real or just imagination. I only knew I had to get away from that darkness.

There was a single wall light still working down in the main lobby. I sprang from the steps into its welcome glow, and only then did I dare to glance back. All I saw was an empty staircase leading upwards and turning a corner into shadow. There was nothing else there. My heart still felt as though someone was squeezing it, and I sagged limply against the wall, getting my breath back. My soaking T-shirt clung to me, and I shivered in spite of the heat. The whole building was silent now, just as it should be. The terror still held me, though, and I wondered.

if I was losing my mind. The boundaries between nightmares and reality always felt alarmingly thin in the darkness, especially when alone. But I'd never before felt them crumble away quite like this. The torch was lying on the floor near the bottom step. I was relieved to find it intact and still functional. I clutched it tightly like a vampire hunter gripping a crucifix. This was my weapon against the shadows. As I turned back towards the main entrance, something caught my eye. It was a was a yellowed piece of old newsprint poking out from beneath the locked door that led down to the basement and boiler room, as if someone crouching behind that door had pushed it through. I tried not to think too much about that, but I was certain it hadn't been there earlier when I'd made my last

sweep through this area. Cautiously, I teased it free with the tip of my shoe. It was an old copy of the Eastworth Advertiser dated 17th of June 1953. I smoothed out the crinkled, torn newsprint, and saw a faded image of the Institute beneath the heading, Mystery Disappearances at Private Hospital. I moved closer to the light to read the rest. Police have been investigating a spate of unexplained disappearances at the Drake's Dahl Institute. The disappearances of two orderlies and three inpatients, all of which occurred within a single night,

have raised concerns around safety and security at this private hospital. I broke off, reading the rest silently, as a crawling dread blossomed in my heart. Maddeningly, the remaining article gave very little detail besides the fact that five people had vanished from within the building on the night of the 16th of June, 1953. If the article were to be believed, the inpatients had all disappeared from within locked rooms

under the noses of both the remaining orderlies and the night security staff. There was no information given on the missing orderlies, save some suggestion that police were considering them as suspects in an ongoing investigation. June 16th, 1953. I ran my finger over the crinkled newsprint. A cold dread rose in the pit of my stomach.

Today was also June 16th. This old clipping had been left deliberately for me to find. As crazy as that sounded, what other explanation fit? But left by whom? And why? I tucked the paper into the back pocket of my jeans. This wasn't a mystery I felt like entertaining in my present state, and certainly not within these walls, not with only a single light holding back the darkness of an entire building.

In fact, come to think of it, didn't the light now seem dimmer than it had a moment ago? To hell with this. I marched over to the doors, unhooking the keys from my belt. Frank could fire me if he wanted, but I just wanted to get out of this crazy place where shadows moved on the walls and where I might not be quite as alone as I had first thought. Maybe some fresh air would help calm me down, find some sanity in all this apparent craziness. I slipped the key into the lock, but it refused to turn. Come on.

I checked that it was the right key before trying again, but it still wouldn't budge. Angrily, I twisted it as hard as I could, willing it to turn. It snapped off inside the lock. Shit! I glanced over my shoulder. The wall light was definitely growing dimmer. A faint whining buzz emanated from it, and then it flickered unsteadily as if about to join all the other lights in the darkness. In desperation, I fished my phone out of my pocket at a loss for what else I could do.

The network signal here had always been weak, easily affected by the thick walls and local atmospherics. I hoped it would hold out tonight as I pressed my back against the main doors and waited for an answer. Come on, hurry up! Frank answered on the eighth ring, irritable and groggy. I heard him knock something over and curse loudly. What are the shapes? It wasn't what I had expected to say, but apparently my brain and mouth had differing ideas. What are the shadows under the dust sheets?

Yeah, it's me. I'm locked in. Something happened? He suddenly sounded more alert. What's going on? What are the shadows, the ones under the dust sheets? What are you talking about? The marks on the walls under the dust sheets. What are they?

Did you know about the disappearances in 1953? Three patients and two orderlies vanished here. It was on June the 16th. I was trembling now. My whole body shaking, though, whether that was fear or anger, I wasn't sure. That's today's date. And the shadows on the walls upstairs, they're moving. What are you talking about?

Gilt shot up inside me at the accusation. What? No. I swear, I've been off the booze for 11 months now. I could hear the doubt in his tone all the same. Why didn't you say anything about all this? The disappearances, I mean. The light in the lobby dimmed further as the shadows inched closer across the floor and walls.

My little oasis of illumination was rapidly drying up. I reached down with my free hand and retrieved my torch, shining the beam into the growing gloom. It beat the darkness back, but again not enough, not as much as it should have. Because nobody's lived here since then, have they? This place has passed from owner to owner, but nobody's actually tried living here since that night. Oh, come, snow. You've never... Yeah, you're right.

It's the date. My eyes grew wide as everything clicked into place. It has to be. Something about that date, like an echo, caught in the stone walls of this old place. You know, I bet if I counter those shadows on the walls, there would be five of them. The signal cut out.

His voice was instantly silenced, and I was alone once more with those moving shadow figures and unsolved secrets. Ahead of me, the hall light finally gave out with a feeble, shrill pop. Had it not been for the weak light of my torch, I would have been plunged into absolute blackness. My only option now was to make my way to the back or side door. Either choice meant traversing a tight maze of dark hallways, but it was better than staying here until the morning.

Besides, the batteries in my torch and phone wouldn't last that long. There was always the slim chance that Frank was even now scrambling out of bed to come to my rescue with a set of keys, but knowing him, it was far more likely he had just rolled over and gone back to sleep. I held my torch in one hand and my phone in the other, using both to cut a path through the darkness before me. My footsteps were far too loud as I navigated the maze-like hallways of this old building. It felt like I was no longer in my real life anymore. Instead, I had the crazed feeling that I had somehow stepped into the pages of the very fiction I loved so much. Right now, I could very well have been trapped inside hill houses confusing maze of rooms,

or wandering through one of the ghost-haunted tales of Benson, or be about to disappear into one of Lovecraft's Stygian darknesses filled with unnameable Eldritch horrors. The whole place was a warren. Even after all this time, I still sometimes got lost with the lights on. In the dark, it was utterly disorienting. Doors shrieked in protest as I pulled them open, hinges stiff from disuse, floorboards groaned unhappily beneath my feet, and I flinched each time in case the sounds drew the attention of something unwanted.

I moved quickly through those claustrophobic hallways, guided only by the light from my phone and a dying torch. I had walked along those hallways for months now, but never in the dark. More than once I turned, convinced that I had felt a breath whisper on the back of my neck, or heard a footstep creaking on the old boards behind me. The air was so hot and still that I constantly wiped sweat from my eyes with the back of my hand. I longed to get out into the fresh air. I took several wrong turns, blundered, lost for a moment, then backtracked hastily upon myself, wondering how all these hallways managed to fit inside this building.

Finally, I recognised a particular twist in the passage and realised I was close to the back door. I took a sharp left at the staircase, right at the next doorway, and entered the narrow hallway that would lead to freedom. Something scraped loudly against the wall close to my head, like nails dragging across the plaster. I turned in alarm, stumbled and fell heavily against the other wall. At first I wasn't quite sure what happened next. It was as if a section of the wall shifted beneath my weight,

and I tumbled through an opening where I had expected a solid surface to be. I landed on my side, cracking my head and elbow against the floor, all the air driven from my lungs. My phone and torch were also lost in the tumble. I sat up painfully, dazed, coughing and wheezing as I inhaled a thick cloud of disturbed dust. I groped blindly in the darkness, the floor beneath me thick with accumulated dust and grime. My fingers broke through ancient cobwebs in their anxious search for my phone and torch. The air in this enclosed space was stale with the stench of disuse and mildew,

normally only found in old basements and attics, and the dust-thick atmosphere was abnormally cold. Then my fingers brushed the metal shaft of the torch. I almost cried out with relief, seizing it, the weakening beam revealed that I was kneeling on a filthy, floor in a small windowless room. Mold speckled the narrow walls, but I could make out the shapes of old furniture, two chairs, and something that looked like an old lectern from a church with a curious metal bowl set atop it. My phone had landed at the foot of this lectern, and I quickly retrieved it.

Sitting back on my heels, I realized I must be in some kind of secret chamber or cubbyhole concealed within the wall. Judging by the dust motes drifting around me and making my chest wheeze, it clearly hadn't been opened in quite some time. That was when my light settled upon the far wall, and I saw a great dark oval that had somehow been burned into the plaster there. It appeared to be made up of concentric bands of decreasing thickness, moving outwards from a central solid patch of darkness. It was strangely mesmerizing to look at.

Intrigued, and with my earlier fears giving way to this new mystery, I moved closer to investigate. wherever I was, the ceiling was so low it brushed the top of my head, forcing me to stoop for fear of braining myself on one of the heavy beams. As I reached the curious oval mark, I saw that it was indeed scorched into the wall, but a series of deep cracks in the plaster also splintered out from the heart of it like a web. This appeared to be the source of the unusual coldness filling this room, and the more I looked at it, the more it seemed to ripple, like the surface of a lake stirred,

by a breeze, and I suddenly realized how much it reminded me of those strange moving shadows on the walls upstairs. At that, I backed away my returning fear conquering curiosity. But as I retreated, I collided with that strange lectern, the metal bowl on top rocking, almost falling. I reached out to steady it, and my torchlight fell upon the heat and blackened bones lying haphazardly within. They must have been the scorched remains of small animals, for they were too small and slender to be human, unless they were the bones of children, and that was a thought I was unwilling to entertain. Deciding this was a matter best left to the police, I shone the torch beam across the wall I had entered through, trying to work out both how I had accessed this space and how I might now leave. I saw the wall behind me was actually designed to pivot, operated by a clever system of counterbalances. Clearly it had to be pushed in exactly the right place and way for it to open.

The sound of nails dragging across plaster again caught my attention. My stomach felt as if it was shrinking upon itself, as I saw in the unsteady light of my dying torch that the shadow figures I had seen upstairs had appeared before me on the walls of this tiny room. They were assembling like an audience gathering to watch the performance of a play, though I noticed they avoided going near to that strange rippling oval. They were watching me, flexing their hands to make those scratching sounds with which they had drawn my attention. For a moment we just stared at each other, and then one of the shapes made a very slow and deliberate gesture with its arms towards the corner of the room.

With shaking fingers, I angled the beam of the torch to follow the direction of that pointing arm, and saw a heaped pile of accumulated detritus in the far corner. It appeared to be a random mix of fragments of newspapers, old postcards, letters, pages torn from books, and old fob watch and countless other small trinkets. For a moment, I didn't understand, and then it hit me. You pushed that old newspaper out, the one I found under the door. It was hard to make out, but I swear the figure nodded. You've been collecting things?

All this stuff, I mean, over the years. Again, the figure nodded. But what is this place? What happened here? The outline of the figure gestured again back at the heaped pile. I took a stooped step nearer and then crouched to sift through it. As I did, I spotted something alarmingly familiar atop it. It was a copy of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. My copy, in fact, the one I dropped in the hallway upstairs.

I recognised the bookmark tucked inside right away. Here it was, just another thing the shadows had stolen and carried away within the walls to add to their secret hoard. I wondered why they took items like this. Surely there must be some reason other than simple kleptomania. Perhaps it was a way to stay connected to the world to know that they were still part of it. Or maybe it helped them feel less forgotten and useless.

Or was I again looking for meaning within the meaningless? Then my questing fingers touched the remains of another book, but one quite different from my own stolen paperback. It was hidden right at the back, as though the pile had been created to bury it. It was bound in old, cracked leather, but it had also been burnt, charred almost beyond recognition. The leather split as I forced it open, ash sifting to the floor along with several fragments of pages. I rescued one of those tattered, yellowed fragments and held it up, noting with some of some of surprised that the pages were handwritten and not printed, though I could make no sense of whatever obscure language flowed in a cramped hand across that surviving portion of page. It looked similar to

the ruins used by the Norse, and I wondered if it had been written in code. Alongside that esoteric writing, there were curious geometric designs sketched on those ruined pages, circles and triangles with intersecting lines, all marked with more of the strange symbols. I'd read enough horror-fixion in my time to recognize this had to be some kind of ritual or occult tome, and I threw it back down onto the pile with a shudder, realizing as I did that the chart remains had imparted a horrible greasiness to my fingers, along with a thick black smudge and a lingering smell of musty decay and rocked. Had this hidden room existed from a time before the house was converted into a private hospital? Had it lurked unseen and unsuspecting within a place of healing, feeding upon the people

within? Or was this some insidious addition deliberately concealed beneath the guise of a respectable private institution for nefarious purposes that could only be guessed at? What other terrible secrets from the past might this old building be concealing, and what depraved rights had this room witnessed? I felt unclean just standing there, tainted by the presence of this dirty secret, as though I were now somehow complicit in its crimes through knowledge of its existence. I appeared, at the strange, rippling oval mark on the wall, and my imagination again ran wild with speculation. Could that be some kind of portal? The lingering effect of whatever terrible act had once taken place within this room? Maybe something that should have been closed and never was and was now

bleeding like an open wound in this fabric of reality. The immutable laws that governed our world now seemed worryingly flexible and insubstantial, as though they had started letting in things that shouldn't have been a part of this world at all. Had something that had something that had. come through into this room one June 16th sometime long ago, the result of some unknown ritual, something that forced those here to try and burn the book and close the portal. If so, it seemed to have failed and now appeared that whatever they summoned kept returning on the anniversary of that dreadful event. It was all wild supposition, of course, fueled by fear and overwhelmed fancy, but there was

still a horrible and gnawing sense of insane logic to that reasoning, even if that logic was as skewed and twisted as a Salvador Dali painting. The heavy dragging from up on the third floor began again like something being hauled roughly over the floorboards. It was loud even down here. I could feel the vibrations shaking through this room and grit and flakes of dirt dropped onto my head. At that, all of the shadow figures on the walls fled.

It is the only way I can describe it as if running in terror. They flitted away into the edges of the room, blending into the deeper darkness there. I wondered if I'd be. been wrong to be afraid of them and recalled the other shadow I had seen, the one that actually moved through the hallways themselves, the unseen thing that had hissed at my shoulder when my phone light had switched on at the top of the staircase. I needed to get out and fast, and not just to evade whatever unknown horror still haunted these hallways, but to call

attention to the crimes that had taken place here, to bring some justice to whatever victims this awful place had claimed. Frantically, I pushed, pulled, prodded, and thumped the wall trying to work out the correct means to open it. In the end, I still don't know what sequence or pressure point finally did it, only that the door slid soundlessly open, even after all these years of disuse. As I clambered out into the hallway once more, streaming cobwebs and dust like some phantom emerging from a tomb, my torch finally died with a soundless flicker. I dropped it. I still had the light from my phone to guide me, and the door was less than 10 feet away. I could just make it out for a thin window next to the door allowed a faint shaft of moonlight in.

It carried the promise of the outside world. But even as I moved towards it, one hand reaching for the keys hooked to my belt, something moved between me and the window blotting out the moonlight for a moment. A faint rattling hiss reached my ears, and a cold tingle of fear shivered through me. Then, unexpectedly, the light of my phone picked out something squatting, no, kneeling. on the floor between me and the door, a shadowy humanoid shape slightly blacker than the night around it. I froze, holding my breath. Back up, my mind screamed at me, back up slowly. But it was far too late for that. The shape was already standing, rising with a slow, fluid grace. As it did, the light

from my phone blinked out as the battery died. Who are you? I wanted to demand to make a bold show of strength against this unknown intruder, but all that came out was an awkward, choked sound. I took a clumsy step back, but a dry, rough hand seized my right arm in a painful grip. Its touch burned like acid on my skin. I cried out, trying without success to pull my arm free, and was answered by a soft, sibilant hiss in my right ear. Another hand clamped around the back of my neck, burning my skin, even as it twisted my head to the side. I felt fetid breath my face a rank smell like rotting filth. The burning was spreading through my body like fire. In that blackness all sense of direction left me, leaving me sickeningly disorientated.

I could no longer feel the floor beneath my feet, could no longer tell what was up or down. It felt as if I was floating and turning in a void and could only by those two burning hands on my wrist and neck. The hiss came again and then I was falling. A definite sense of downward movement that was as jarring as the sense of disconnection had been moments before. I was tumbling forward into some unknown void, turning and whirling like debris caught within a hurricane, and all sensations ceased as the darkness consumed me utterly. For a time, at least. Shadows are curious things. The light creates them just as it can banish them. But the strange shadows trapped on the walls inside the old Drake Stoll Institute don't conform to those laws.

Not exactly. I don't know what they are. Ghosts or some strange quirk of nature that science doesn't yet have an understanding of, but I do know they are real. I also know they are the forgotten victims of some unknown power or entity, whatever it is that actually walks the hallways defying the light. I learnt this the hard way. I don't recall exactly when, and or how my awareness returned, but I awoke, confused and startled to a new form of existence, one that I should have anticipated. I awoke trapped within the walls. My only view now is the back of a white dust sheet, as I move across the surfaces of this old place, a shadow torn from my body and frozen forever within the bricks and plaster of the walls. I don't even know what happened to my

physical body. Perhaps it has been burned away, vaporized by some force, leaving behind just a living echo, the moment of my last breath playing out over and over, waiting for someone to notice me. Is that why the shadows on the walls had taken such an interest in me? Because I had finally noticed their presence after years of being overlooked. They had even tried to warn me of the danger in their own way, but I had been too afraid to listen, too slow to put the pieces together. And so the darkness claimed me to. Sleepless tales have dispersed this night. Poetic works from darkness alight.

We leave you with this a question on a theme. Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream? The No Sleep podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brainslee. Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Ollie White. Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. Please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com for show notes and more details about the people who bring you this show. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for being a supportive,

Season Pass member and for joining us within the exquisite horror of our reality. This audio program is copyright 2023 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.