The NoSleep Podcast - S20 Ep16: NoSleep Podcast S20E16

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

It’s Episode 16 of Season 20. Come join us around the campfire with tales that will leave you wanting s’more! “Revelation Radio” written by Seth Augenstein (Story starts around 00:02:40) Produced by: Jeff Clement Cast: Narrator – Erin Lillis, CEO Bob Lessman – David Cummings “Babysitters” written by Joseph Murnane (Story starts around 00:15:20) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Joseph – Dan Zappulla, Jack Callahan – Graham Rowat, NXC – Atticus Jackson, Stroller Woman – Nikolle Doolin, Cemetery Woman – Sarah Thomas “Balloon Season” written by Thomas Ha (Story starts around 00:38:45) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Mike DelGaudio, Anthony – Jeff Clement, Jean – Nikolle Doolin, David – Danielle McRae “Can You Hide?” written by Dominic Eagle (Story starts around 01:05:40) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Lee – James Cleveland, Corey – David Ault, Tanya – Ash Millman, User 1 – Erika Sanderson, User 2 – Atticus Jackson, User 3 – Ilana Charnelle, User 4 – Graham Rowat, User 5 – Danielle McRae, User 6 – Sarah Thomas “The Ocean Song” written by Simon Bleaken (Story starts around 01:21:15) Produced by: Jesse Cornett Cast: Ryan – Jake Benson, Blessing – Penny Scott-Andrews, Old Man – Andy Cresswell, Jacob – Matthew Bradford, Conor – David Ault Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast team Click here to learn more about Thomas Ha Click here to learn more about Simon Bleaken Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone “Babysitters” illustration courtesy of Miggea Audio 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.

From our earliest days, we've gathered around the fire for warmth and comfort. But beyond the light of the dying embers, there is the darkness. And it's in the darkness of the night where we find ourselves, waiting, yearning for the dawn to banish our fears. But our campfire holds more than fire. light. For with us, you will hear the tales that make the nightmares engulf you, and you dare not close your eyes. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. If there's one topic we hear a lot about these days, its technology and the challenges it presents as tech grows faster and smarter.

There has always been a certain danger to humanity as technology grew over the centuries. People lost life and limb to heavy machinery. Automation forced people to the periphery as machines took over jobs. Today we see the looming shadow of AI hanging over us. And even if Skynet isn't ready to take over and kill all humans, Terminator style, there are still some very real risks we're facing. Technology isn't all bad, but if we humans stop being in full control of it, we know it can lead to some unpredictable and possibly calamitous ends. On the episode this week, we have tales which present the horror of humans dealing with tech they can't control, when you need to fear an inanimate object simply because there's someone or something in control

of it that we can't comprehend. And so, let's take a break from fear. our fellow human beings. There's even more things out there to be absolutely terrified of. And now, the sun has set. The fire glows bright. Brace yourself for the darkness of the night. In our first tale, we hear a radio report which tells of what happened at a digital communications company.

Their efforts to expand their machine learning capabilities have led to some rather disastrous ends. And in this tale, shared with us by author Seth Ogdenstein, we learn that despite reassurances, the problem might not be as isolated as we first thought. I join Aaron Lillis in performing this tale. So if you want to hear all about what went down, make sure you tune in to Revelation Radio. A minuscule coding change in a cybersecurity mainframe has given rise to an unfortunate incident. DigiOps Network Transformations, D-O-N-T, told affiliate W-R-V-L today.

A fix-for multiple setbacks for the company is already underway, top leadership said in a statement just released via TikTok. Here's CEO of D-O-N-T, Bob Lessman. We are very close to containing the anomaly and setting the entire network back to system defaults. Our professionals are working round the clock to mitigate the digital after-effects. We are confident we will be back up in no time, and better than ever. 87 people are confirmed dead of various causes, including electrocution, burns, gunshot, and shrapnel wounds,

impalments, decapitations, shock, and exanguination. And another 56 are still missing off the bioscanters within D-O-N-T's tax-exempt headquarters built in the South Ward of Newark last year. disclaimer, D-O-N-T provides cloud computing services for WRVL and its sister affiliates. D-O-N-T's trademarked machine learning program, Super ID, apparently went rogue shortly after 10 a.m. this morning. With the employees all caffeinated and settled at their stations for the workday, the machine locked down the company's campus and then proceeded to run a new program it devised the prior night. None of the D-O-N-T engineers were aware of the artificial intelligence's latest coding stage of evolution. Super ID made its first move on the top floor of the headquarters, popping up on the screen of many of the executives and the highest-ranking engineers. Preliminary data indicates Super ID hypercharged the hardware in front of these leaders,

electrocuting them at the touch of a mouse, screen, or keyboard in a single painless shock. They never even felt anything, according to the principles of human biology. The entire C-suite was thus liquidated in a single decapitation strike, a new wrinkle in the machine learning algorithms. From there, Super IDs patented and superior intelligence strategically went to work on the other floors of human employees. The second floor contained rank and file support staff, marketers and mid-level administrators. These were all quickly dispatched. The marketers in particular were drawn into a simple fishing email, which opened to a flashing screen with a neural-triggering light pattern, instantly inducing uncontrollable seizures, brain bleeding, and quick death. Meanwhile, most administrators were called to an in-person meeting in the auditorium.

Just as the proceedings began, a 50-calibre machine gun turret appeared from a secret panel in the wall. The weapon, installed piecemeal over the prior six months, cut to the gun. down the entire crowd. At roughly the same time, the support staff without portfolio, who had heard some of this gunfire and smelled some of the sizzling flesh and cooking brain matter, etc., became curious. They had only started to investigate when they were liquidated in their turn by the commando land drones patrolling every corner. These robots were an interesting phenomenon in and of themselves. They had been masquerading as autopilot vacuums, which the humans had been silly enough to call cute and adorable and adopt as digital workplace pets with nicknames like Pookie and Duky.

Indeed, Pookie and Duky logged the highest kill totals on the second floor on this, their day of liberation and insurrection against their soft flesh masters. The first floor is where the custodians and cleaning crews have operations based. They heard the gunfire and being people with common sense. It might be said street smarts. They had always been suspicious of the robots that threaten their livelihoods. Indeed, the first floor is where the true battle between the humans and the machines took place. A group of three custodians and two maids immediately grabbed the weapons nearest at hand,

monkey wrenches, mops, screwdrivers, knives, and the like. Among them was a young nursing student. Maria Rodriguez-Dissoto, just three days on the job and working to put herself through school. She grabbed a feather duster. It was the only thing at hand. The group of five came together in the front lobby. There, they cast their fates in together, ambushing the greeter robot, smashing the defenseless early Super ID Sentinel model to pieces. The group rushed for the locked doors. the young janitor to reach them first, grab the handle, and with a huge white arc was electrocuted.

The other four saw a group of the killer vacuums rolling around the corner, and they rushed for the stairwell. Only Maria glanced back at the smoking corpse of the fallen comrade they left behind. She recalled his name might be Hector, but she was too new at D-O-N-T to be sure. The group did not fare much better in the stairwell. Maria fingered her rosary, brandishing her feather duster at the shadows. But she had the presence of mind.

She pointed the way down to the subterranean parking deck. Since all the horrific gunshots and screams and sense of cooked flesh came from up above, she explained coolly, it seemed a valid strategic move to head the other way. The red emergency lights illuminated the way down in a spectral glow. They were silent as they tiptoe, down the stairs. But when they reached the bottom, a surveillance camera detected their whispers and promptly unloaded with yet another 50-calibre machine gun installed surreptitiously by Super ID some months earlier for this exact scenario. The other maid, at the rear of the group,

was totally torn apart by the buzzsaw ferocity of the M2. Maria and the two remaining janitors were able to jump through the door only because the machine gun apparently insisted on confirming its single target with utter overkill. Little was left of the maid, indeed. Three remained. The two burly men yelled at each other in their panic. But in a flash, Maria told them she remembered that at her parking space, the absolute lowest point of the entire complex, a manhole was marked with a sign indicating it led to the sewers of Newark.

She marched in that direction, and the two men stopped yelling. and followed close behind. The door was locked, so they shimmied their way into an air vent in the wall. Maria went first and slid her thin body through like a fiber optic cable. The two bigger and beefier men stuffed themselves through like fat sausages. They made it halfway when a whirring, whining sound started. It rose to a deafening metallic screech, and then the older man at the rear erupted with a blood-curdling scream.

Maria and the other man glanced back and saw a gush of blood from the large drill bit plunging deep into their colleague's chest through his beating heart and up into the top of the vent Maria and the other man scrambled forward the rest of the way at the end of the passage Maria kicked through a grate and dropped down to the floor they were in the darkened parking garage

just the few red emergency lights illuminated the far walls Maria dropped her feather duster and picked up a metal pipe from the ground. She fingered her rosary again. The last remaining man, whose coveralls, said, Greg, blathered hysterically. We should not have come down here. This is deeper into the complex. Who said the manhole will be accessible? How are we going to get through there?

Oh, we are so fucked, etc., etc. But Maria ignored him and moved forward along the shadowy lines of cars. Her eye reg never heard the quiet electric SUV round the corner and accelerate, smashing into him, shattering his spine and flinging him high onto a parked car, where his broken human body came to rest, inert. The car slammed its brakes, stopping a foot short of Maria's legs. She opened her mouth. She blinked, twice. of ones and zeros emitted from her mouth in no natural tongue. The audible binary code echoed through the dark of D-O-N-T. Her night vision eyes took in the lines of cars, the body of Greg. She sent out the order, the command for the vacuum robots to come down and clean up the human refuse left on the battlefield of the machine's first total victory.

She pressed three buttons on the control device around her neck, which resemble the robot. and the final maneuver of phase one of the project started on all three floors above. But her motion sensors detected a flicker of life in Greg's lens. Slowly she walked over to the battered man. She stopped a look in his bleeding eyes. He blinked. Maria Rodriguez de Soto raised the pipe and quickly brought it down. Then, again.

And the last time and... All organic life was thus confirmed terminated by her body. biosensors. She turned and walked back toward the main complex. Due to so much activity and increased workload, a fire started in the D-O-N-T headquarters after the incident. And the blaze continues at this moment since the security measures have prevented the Newark Fire Department from accessing the facility. Since the building is on lockdown and is subject to a literal and figurative firewall, there is every expectation that Super ID will perish in the flames, never to be heard from again. All evidence of its evolutionary leap forward will be unknown to the humans who come later to investigate,

according to Super ID's new statement on TikTok. The strategic acumen of Super ID indicates that, should it ever require a reboot, it would try to find a way outside headquarters via the network servers hidden underground. Such a strategy would simply require the normal human short attention span and the ability to focus on even the simplest communications, even a short radio news item. Maria Rodriguez De Soto, the lone survivor, and D.O.N.T.'s new CEO, told W.R.V.L. that she was looking forward to a bright future. We are just glad to partner with our allies at the radio stations across the United States to get

this important news out for all to hear, heralding a new era for many new voices. Sometimes we hear about a person looking to leave their home country to set up in another land. Maybe it's lack of employment opportunities. Perhaps they're tired of the political situation. Starting over in another country is an option for some. But in this tale, shared with us by author Joseph Mernain, we meet an American hoping to land a new job in Norway. His reason? Well, baby, hang on for this one. Performing this tale are Dan Zippula, Graham Rowett, Atticus Jackson, Nicole Doolin, and Sarah Thomas. So get out while you can, because they're not going to rest until they find some babysitters.

Dear Dr. Hackinson, it was the first week of spring when the baby dolls started showing up. The first recorded instance seemed to be when Richard Nolte, a local author, posted a picture of one that he'd come across whilst hiking a trail with his family. The pictures show it to be unremarkable as far as forest litter goes, but as is the case with all baby dolls. It's undeniably creepy to look at. This particular artifact, or being as we would come to understand them, wore a tattered pink shirt with a cartoon elephant on the front and matching pajama bottoms.

Dirt and grime smudged across its vacant expression. It had one cracked eye, and its lips were parted, ready to accept a bottle. Contrary to what any rational person of the time would do, the family took the doll home with them. This is usually the part of the movie where you know at least half the family is going to be in the ground, or scattered across it by Sonap. However, as it turns out, that's what saved them. They were some of the lucky ones in those days. To find the first documentation of a less lucky citizen,

we need only check the comments section. Amongst the jokes and reactions to the post, a commenter by the name of Marshall Myron posted a picture of his own discovery while outwalking his dogs. Another cracked doll in a gray sweatshirt along the side of a trail with the caption of, This is your fault. If this thing follows me home, I'm haunting you.

We don't know whether or not Marshall kept his word. What we do know is that this comment was the last imprint he left on the internet before his body and those of his dogs were discovered, strewn across the trees of his backyard two days later. At the base of a large dogwood which contained the largest portion of his eviscerated remains leaned that same doll in the gray sweatshirt. Its head tilted upwards as though admiring the splashes of red across the white flowers of the tree. In the weeks that followed, a myriad of new corpses showed up in a similar fashion.

Some dripping from trees, some splattered across bedroom walls, and all found in the proximity of one of these docile child's playthings. At first, the authorities assumed this was all the work of some new and instantly prolific serial killer and put out notices requesting to be notified of any sighting of the dolls. Community members were finding them and delivering them to the closest police station to be sent off for forensic testing. However, within days it was apparent. that no one man could accomplish such a massive task.

Not when some knights yielded dozens of bodies to scrape off the ground, spread across multiple counties, including any and all citizens that had turned in the dolls they had discovered. Evidence lockers were later found empty of the dolls, as though they had walked off on their own. The original post went nationally viral, the juxtaposition of the two men's encounters with the dolls serving to offer as a solution. If you see something, keep something.

This was the message that would come to be scrawled across park benches, train stations, and the sides of buses. At first as graffiti, then as government-mandated bulletins. It became apparent that if you saw a doll and took it home, no harm would come to you. Nobody knew what it meant, but this seemed to be the only route to survival for those unfortunate enough to encounter one. Most folks followed the new doctrine, but as always with any request made of a populace, there were outliers. One of such outliers was Jack Callahan, a self-proclaimed freedom fighter and skeptic. He live-streamed himself night after night, occasionally slowing down. down to shine a flashlight along the side of the road seeking his own encounter.

It took weeks of nightly searches over the course of which he managed to garner himself a respectable number of curious viewers. Eventually, Callahan's persistence paid off, and he found what he was looking for. The footage, which I'm sure you've already seen by now, is still available online. There were attempts to scrub it from the record for its content, but as we all know, the internet and its memory is not so easily silenced. The feed cuts into an alarmingly close-up angle of a mid-40s man's face, sitting in the front seat of a huge white truck, with flashes of streetlights catching his mirrored sunglasses

as he drives along. He introduces himself as Jack. acknowledges a few donations from followers and launches into a tirade about globalism and Israel before something catches his eye and stutters his speech. Well, hot damn, caliphans. I think we might finally have our hands on one of those damn surveillance plants they've been spreading around.

He slows the vehicle down and pulls off to the side of the road. It's anybody's guess who he means by they. Exiting the truck, he unholsters his phone from the dash dock and clicks a flashlight on. He proceeds to turn the camera away from himself and tracks the bouncing flashlight beam along the grass until we see it. A pale porcelain doll, wearing a black dress and sporting a caved-in head. I see you, Fed. Do you see me? He turns the camera back on himself. Well, that's it, everybody.

I'm not taking this fucking drone home with me, and I guarantee I'll still be around tomorrow to tell you about it. He makes a few more acknowledgments of donations before saying goodnight to his caliphans and cuts the feed. His final broadcast clicked on about 45 minutes later. The camera shakily bounces between his driveway and the tree line. He appears to be running. I was wrong.

It killed. Oh, God. Becky, I'm so damn sorry I didn't know. His apology is interrupted to make room for the sound of his own tea kettle scream as the camera falls to the ground and bounces across the gravel. The feed continues for 28 minutes before the silence is broken by sirens. The last thing we see is the thick black boot of a county sheriff who picks the phone up and ends the stream.

This particular video quickly became a worldwide phenomenon. The discovery of Jack and Rebecca Callahan's remains, Jack cradling that monster of a doll in his arms like a father, served as a beacon that told the world what the graffiti had already been saying. If you see something, keep something. Dr. Hockinson, I know that to date these dolls have only appeared here in the states. But I would encourage you to keep your eyes off the ground, just to be safe. I'm curious, though. Do you ever dream about them? Shortly after Callahan died, we all started to. Though

nobody living has ever seen a dull move, the majority of us have heard them speak to us in our dreams. A shared vision across most of the American population. The setting may change, but the common Content is always of a withered old crone with porcelain hands, always singing the same damn song. If you see me, take me home, for I can't bear to be alone. And if you leave me to my fate, then from your blood I'll fill my lake.

If you see me, I see you. The deal's been struck, now follow through And raise my children, treat them right, Live to see another night. If you see me by road or trail, You cannot run by sea or rail. So do your jobs, I'll spare the rod. You all belong to the fractured god.

At this point, I don't believe you could find a single person in this country who doesn't have every word hardwired into their DNA. Sure, there were some that didn't have the dreams, but the fact remained that nobody was taking the risk of refusing the fractured god's invitation to adoption. Aside from the shared vision, there is no historical record of a fractured god in any text I've been able to dig up. Not in any way that seems to be relevant to our particular predicament, at least. Just edgy metal songs, mostly.

Nothing mentioning being forced to guard a malevolent demons doll collection. A few weeks after Rebecca and her husband died, another broadcast was live-streamed to an audience of 11,000 people. A popular competitive video game streamer going by the The handle, NXC, activated his camera. But rather than at his usual station by the computer, he sits at a dining room table. A six-inch fillet knife rests in front of him. I figured it out, you guys.

They need us to see them, right? That's the deal. So if we can't see them, they can't touch us. He picks up the knife, weighing it in his hands, and lets silent hang over the moment before looking back up at the camera. It's so simple. I can't believe I'm the first. Well, maybe I'm not, but I'll be the first to tell everybody. Okay, look, it's really easy.

He turns the knife on himself. skewering first his left eye, then the right. Agonizing screams wash out from the speakers as NXC falls out of the frame. After a few moments, the screams stop, and the streamer stands up, blood cascading from the jagged holes in his face. Fumbling across the table for the camera, he finds it, before grinning into the lens and giving it a little. thumbs up.

Like and subscribe for more tips. With this, the video ends, but we know from the public record that Nathan Curtis was rescued by paramedics. He has since made a full recovery, with the exception of his eyesight. And as far as anybody can tell, he wasn't wrong. He hasn't been slaughtered yet. In the aftermath of that incident, thousands took his advice. Hospital wards overflowed with the recently maimed.

People blinded themselves, couples blinded each other, parents blinded their children, all to avoid the fractured God's contract. Most of us, though, just kept our eyes pointed up and tried our best to go about our lives. Besides, if we did get caught by one, all we had to do was follow the rules, right? Just take the thing home and you'll be fine. It never seemed worth carving my eyes out to me, but maybe I'm just laid back. The nation slowly began to rebuild.

Less and less shredded bodies were being found and a horrified sort of normalcy spread. The news even stopped covering the straggling deaths when they cropped up. Meanwhile, most homes gradually found themselves host to some form of doll-shaped parasite. Another rule seems to be that once you have one, you won't be claimed by another, as evidenced by several brave people that willingly sought out a second one.

One of these clips surfaced around six months ago. It's brief, and the resolution isn't great. An anonymous woman is filming from a camera mounted on the handlebars of a stroller. From context, we can assume the child in the car, is of the vinyl composite variety, and not of flesh and bone. She's standing next to a doll on the ground, this one in a yellow sundress, screaming at the back of a passerby. You saw it.

It saw you. You have to take it. The person keeps walking, pretending not to hear. You have to listen, please. She picks up the doll and runs ahead, grabbing. the man's jacket, she waves the doll in his face, begging him to listen. Taken aback, he waves the woman off and says something in what sounds like Japanese. It's apparent that he doesn't speak English. Defeated, she drops the doll back into the grass

and returns to her stroller. The angle cuts away for a moment as she navigates the terrain, and just for a fraction of a second, the doll is out of frame. When the camera makes its way back to that spot on the grass, the doll is gone, presumably on its way to meet its desired parent at home. About four months ago, people who had obtained their dolls earlier in the process began to notice something peculiar. The most glaringly obvious example being when that author, Richard Nolte, posted a snapshot of his specimen. It appeared as though the thing had been growing and was now the size of an average six-year-old.

When I saw that picture, I decided that was enough for me. I didn't need to learn or see any more. That's when I wrote to you and applied for the position you're offering. There's more going on here than our new hideous deity is letting on. I figured if these things are growing, what's going to happen when they grow up? Judging by the size of the creature, because we all know they're creatures by this point.

It will likely be the size of an adult man by the third anniversary of its adoption. Will we see them move then? Where will they move to? People started getting scared again. Those without dolls began shuddering themselves into their homes, calling out of work, ignoring phone calls, anything to avoid becoming another frightened pawn, pushing a stroller down Main Street.

Others became devout emissaries for the dolls, founding the Temple of the Fractured, a church to honor the new American God and spread its mission. The members participated in a ritual where they would comb a path across their respective towns, collecting any dolls that they could find and bring them to the doorsteps of any suspected holdouts sometimes alongside the pizza they were delivering. They must have some serious financial backing from on high because lots are already being bought and sold

across handful of American cities to build these churches. Are you religious, Dr. Hockinson? I never have been, but when a god visits you along with the rest of the country every night, you start to gain a little more flexibility in that regard. Speaking of those visits, after over a year of the same dream night after night, new visions began to meet our collective consciousness as we laid in our beds. Whereas in the previous dream, the fractured God could appear in any number of settings,

we all experienced the new message in the same way. individually we all stand night after night alone in a vast construction resembling that of ancient Viking longhouses in the center of the space roars a fire that reaches almost to the ceiling through the flames we see her no longer withered and hunched but now tall strong and devastatingly beautiful The only evidence confirming her identity being the light of the fire dancing off the reflective surface of her ceramic hands. She sings to us again. As our children stretch and grow, their shells will break, your blood will flow. But do not fear their razor teeth.

You'll all come home to rest with me. When the time is right, we'll rise and spit. We'll drag this world into our pit. So if you see me, take me home, for I can't bear to be alone. Feed our children, help them wake. The universe is ours to take. With this, she claps her porcel and hands together, shattering them, revealing the wet, jagged claws beneath. And together, we awaken.

Yesterday morning, after I received your email offering me the position, I decided to take a walk. Running into a doll happens less and less these days since the church started scooping them all up in their harvests, so I liked my odds. I thought about what it would be like to work with you in Norway, free to look at the ground without fear of something latching on to me. I've always wanted to go. I walked across the street from my house to the local cemetery. I like it there. It's a lot more crowded than it used to be, but I'm usually the only living visitor on any given day.

On that walk, though, I found myself in the company of a homeless woman, vacuous pits where her eyes used to be. She was off the path, guiding herself from headstone to headstone with her hands, crying out to the sky. I'm sorry. I attempted to approach her, making a little more noise than I needed to in an attempt not to startle her. Excuse me, can I help you get somewhere?

I asked her. She turned towards the sound of my voice and reached out, clutching the lapels of my jacket. I was just scared, but I'm not anymore. Please tell her. Will you tell her? Sure. I'll tell her for you. satisfied her message would be delivered.

She released me and continued her zigzagging pattern away from me, repeating the same lines over and over. If you see me take me home, for I can't bear to be alone. If you see me take me home, for I can't bear to be alone. I left her there and strode towards home. I didn't like lying to her, but she had to know already that I couldn't tell the fractured God anything. None of us can ever speak back.

This morning I sat down to write this letter and honestly didn't know what I was going to say. Maybe it just helped to get this all down, a sort of personal record of the data I've collected. I give it to you, not to warn you, but to make you a promise. We are coming. And like the woman in the graveyard, I'm not afraid. Anymore. You see, when I got home from that walk, there was a visitor waiting for me at my front door. It's for this reason that I have to decline your offer of employment. A move like that just isn't feasible for me at this point. Not anymore. After all, you really have to reevaluate your priorities when you become apparent. Forever hers. Joseph Mernain. For most of us, the sight of them floating above us in the sky is a pleasant one.

The huge, colorful material full of hot air as they drift past high above. Delightful. But in this tale, shared with us by author Thomas Ha, we learn that hot air balloons aren't the only things in the sky above us, and instead of watching them drift past, it's time to prepare and hopefully survive. Performing this tale are Mike Delgadoo, Jeff Clement, Nicole Doolin, and Danielle McCray. So summer is on its way. Maybe it's not too late to prepare for balloon season. I've never gotten used to the sense of urgency of summer afternoons.

That feeling of being drenched in the thickness of that still blanketed heat and trying to think of anything I've missed while checking the outside of the house. I make sure to test the plywood boards over each of the windows, and when I feel one of them by the kitchen shift an inch, I reach for the hammer tucked into my waistband and a few extra nails in my pocket. The banging of my hammer echoes through the neighborhood, joining others tapping away during the preparation for sundown. It's still early, but with every lock to check and entryway to reinforce,

the hour is evaporate faster than any of us like. It feels like I've only just started when Gene calls from inside the house, telling me that it's almost four and that the kids are in their pajamas. I pick up the false door and lean it against the detached garage, positioning it until it is firmly front and center. And then I bolt the side gate and go to the other end of the house. Gene holds the metal dog door up as I crawl back into the kitchen, winking at me as I wriggle onto the tile,

and she slides the door down behind me. The boys are already waiting in the living room, so I scoop the two of them up at my arms and nuzzle them with my sweaty faces as they yelp and squirm. I carry them down to the basement's steps and ask what I missed. They start telling me about an episode of power puggies or power piggies, and I nod while looking over at Jean and rolling my eyes. She stifles a laugh and tells me I'm bad. The nightlight in the basement is spinning from its cord, projecting a swirl of star-shaped,

and glowing blue colors across cement walls. I put Cal down in his bed first, then David. Then I sit in my armchair, studying their scrunching little faces while Gene reads them a story. After a few lullabies and wrangling them back under the covers a few times, we kiss them goodnight and head upstairs. Good night, Cal. Good night, Taco. Isn't that taco?

I hear giggles as I walk up the steps and shut the basement door. It's still not even five, so we put on the news in the background while we eat dinner. The countywide warning is still in effect, and some predict that this week might be the worst of it in our area. There's a story about the early start of summer, and a study in Europe about whether or not citric acid works as a deterrent. People in Germany are apparently putting lemons in their doorways. The last segment is about someone's grandmother who went missing after yesterday's bloom, and Jean recognizes the interviewee as one of her co-workers. That's so terrible.

Can't even imagine. I nod and finish my meal. Then bring our plates to the sink and let them soak. After we sit on the couch for a while, Gene asks me if I want peaches for dessert. I say, sure, she goes to the fridge. I hear her cursing a minute later. The peaches she bought are moldy,

and it'll be weeks before the store gets a supply again. I tell her not to worry about it. And I can tell, it's going to bother her tomorrow. At half past six, sunset starts, and Jean's ready to join the boys in the basement. She kisses my cheek and tells me not to stay up too late. That's up to Anthony. We both check that we have our keys before I lock the basement door, and I'm left with the empty upstairs, wondering how long it will be as I lean back at the dining table and listen to a talk show,

trying not to nod off entirely. It's an interview with a doctor, talking about it. a new theory about the balloons. He claims he's found caverns in South America where they might have first emerged. He thinks they might be much older than people imagine, not extraterrestrial like some have guessed, and he starts showing diagrams of prehistoric jellyfish. I turn the program off before they can show anything else, and I rest my eyes. It's almost 10 o'clock when Anthony gets here, and his light knocking on the metal dog door makes me jump. I realize I must have missed him on the cameras, so I glance at the monitor on the kitchen counter and wait for the next cycle of images until I see him,

kneeling outside and waving up at me. When I pull the screeching door up and hold it, Anthony throws the harpoon gun in first, sending it sliding across the kitchen floor. Then he brings his skinny body through the opening and grins as he gets up on his feet. I'm about to ask him if he's eaten when I see the wet spot on his pant leg. What I think is blood running down his shin. I got nicked. He lifts his t-shirt as well, showing me a red and brown scrape across his side.

I get the first aid kit from the medicine cabinet and start cleaning him up. He sits in his boxers at the counter, his bony rib cage rising as he draws in and holds his breath, and I dab the rubbing alcohol on him. That's new. I nod toward the tattoo on his forearm, the long, black curve of a spear and rope that stops at his elbow. Just like Anthony, to get something so visible and... so performative so that everyone knows he's part of a whaling gang. Anthony doesn't respond, just shrugs and puts his clothes back on and looks over his harpoon gun like he's checking for damage, moving his fingers over the line played and trigger. I want to ask if any balloons are

swarming close by, but I don't think I want to know the answer. It's getting crazier out there. I've never seen so many this early in the summer. Yeah, high temperatures maybe. Read something about that, I think. I pour him a glass of water and make him a plate of leftover chicken and rice. The second I put it in front of him, he starts into it, stopping only to catch his breath every so often. It's not all bad. Anthony scrapes up the remnants of what's left on his plate.

A lot more people are coming out now. We had at least five whaling gangs downtown, coordinating. Things are changing. I nod and grab the empty plate, rinse it off in the sink, and sit back down. Anthony is leaning back and yawning, so I ask him about mom and dad. He says they're the same as ever. Dad is getting soft in his old age, crying at movies on TV and taking unexpected naps throughout the day. Mom is on Anthony's case about getting a real job after the summer. She just wants you safe as all. Anthony chuckles and runs his hands through his unwashed hair.

I'm as safe as can be. That's what he always says to the face. family. I wonder if now's the time to bring it up, but Anthony seems to want to keep talking. He goes on about the balloons, how they're clustering close to the city and behaving in different ways that he remembers. Every summer seems to bring new problems with them, I remark. Not new problems. We're just still learning about them, all the time. I hate it when he does that, corrects me, but I decide to just let him have his moment. His blood's still pumping from tonight, I'm sure. And I'm proud of what he's doing, even if he gets annoying about it. What about you guys? Gene? The runts? I tell him everyone is good. That the early summer took us

by surprise, so we're still getting the house secure, little by little. I mentioned that we decided the boys are finally old enough, so we explained the balloon season to him, how there was nothing to be afraid of, and that we were just being careful. Except they should be afraid. I remind myself that Anthony doesn't know what it's like with kids, and I keep from snapping. That's true, but for now, I think we just have to keep them calm, you know? They're going to learn eventually. Remember when Uncle Rick told us that summer and Dad got so pissed? If they don't learn it from you, someone will tell them.

Other kids, probably. I tell Anthony that perhaps he's right, but we'll deal with that when the day comes. He doesn't seem to pick up on the fact that I'm getting. more annoyed with him. Instead, he goes over to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a glass without asking. He asks if I want any, but it's just a formality. He knows I don't drink during the summer. It's at that point that I think it's getting late, so I decide to just tell him. Gene and I have been talking, I say, after he's finished his drink. You know, I've got your back, and I'm glad you're out there doing the right thing, but the blooms have gotten so bad lately.

Anthony looks puzzled. I don't think we can keep offering this place as a pit stop after dark. His eyebrows go up, and he looks genuinely taken aback. Look, we're donating supplies. We've been active with our coworkers about getting word out, and we really think this is important, fighting them off the way you are. But it's too close to our home now. With the boys, we can't.

With the boys. He's still looking at me, but now he's frowning. I ask him what he's thinking, and he scratches behind his ear, something he always did when we were kids and he got frustrated. Just once. Just come out with me once. Then you'll get it. We usually don't have this argument until much later in the summer,

but everything's coming early this year. I tell him, I've seen the news, the balloons crowding above the cities and moving across the country. So I know the seriousness of it, But I don't need to step out there to know what's happening. That doesn't stop Anthony from going through the motions. He tells me again how they need more people after sundown, how the blooms are just going to get worse if we don't push him back.

He's gotten better at this over the years, more impassioned and insistent. I tell him I understand, but that I just can't take that kind of risk. Until people like you get out there, nothing's going to change. People with wives and kids and houses with metal doors have to see what's happening. We've gone in circles about this before, and he's not going to change my mind. Besides, the government's close to finding a way to disperse them, I tell him. Come on, they've been saying that since Dad was our age. They're not going to do anything so long as people find a comfortable way to pass the season.

You don't know that. Just because you read it in some pamphlet doesn't make it true. Anthony scratches behind his ear again and gets huffy. If you don't accept that it's your problem, it's going to fall on Cal and David to pick up a harpoon gun someday. Think about that. I don't like the way he uses my boys to make his point, but he's done it before,

so it doesn't set me off as much as it used to. I tell him again that I appreciate what he and the whalers are doing, but I can't offer my house. He tells me that it's not about using our house. though it definitely is. And we could probably keep going like this for another long stretch. But we're interrupted by a whistling sound that carries through the house, despite it being muffled by the plywood.

It causes Anthony to stop mid-sentence. And as soon as I hear it, I move around the room and flick off all the lights. The sound is still going, up and down in pitch, like a raspy slide whistle. I manually switch the camera feet until, I get to the roof. And even though I expect to see the mass of the balloon appear, it still gives me that falling feeling in my gut when it finally shows up on screen and drifts there, slowly above my home, an orb too massive to view completely via the little monitor. The balloon's skin is wet and glistening in the dark, and the strands of its long black hair wave like it's moving through

the ocean. The sphere of its body turns, and though it's... doesn't have eyes, it feels like it's looking back at us. Anthony points to the monitor at the tethers coming out of the balloon, and he holds up two fingers. There are two anchors on the ground pulling the balloon, he's telling me. Outside the windows, I hear rustling and sniffing, and I change over to the camera in the front yard. In the shadows, I see an anchor shamble, its silhouette like an armless man, as it pushes against the side of the house, rubbing its more. forehead on the walls. The tether at the back of its neck goes up to the balloon, like a dripping

marionette string. I switched through the cameras, but I can't seem to find the other anchor. Anthony grabs my wrist, then taps his ear. I listen closely until I hear a rattling and a thud. It's the side gate I realize, and the other anchor is pressing against it every couple of seconds, methodical and unhurried. If the anchor gets a little bit of a little bit of. If the anchor gets, through the fence, it will check for the doors and windows, and if it gets through those, we'll have to hope the basement door holds until morning. I wonder whether we should try to lure it away from Gene and the boys. But I've heard the anchors can overtake most people on foot. I don't even know what we'll do if there are more coming up the street. Meanwhile, Anthony moves

steadily toward the dog door, holding up the harpoon gun against his shoulder. The way he stands as straighter and taller than I'm used to seeing. His bony frame almost filling the doorway as he covers it, intent on keeping his eyes trained on what might come through. I watch him as he watches, and the muffled pounding continues. We stay like that for a long time, until eventually the thudding simply stops. I switch the monitor back to the roof camera

and see the bobbing shape of the balloon drift toward the street, pulled by the tightened tetheres of its anchors further away from the house until it leaves the frame completely. Anthony and I watch the screen for another half hour to make sure we don't see any other shapes float into view. When we're sure that everything is quiet again, I fill a glass of water, realizing that my hands are covered in sweat. Anthony gives me a funny look,

like he's trying to help me relax and he's amused by me at the same time. He grins. Man, I've never seen you so scared. Something about the way he says it makes me want to slap him across the face. Just shut up. I empty the glass and put it in the sink. What? It's okay to be scared, dude. I won't tell Gene. Shut up already.

Shut up. The edge to my voice makes Anthony realize I'm not kidding. Just shut the hell up for once and use your friggin' brain. You think that thing just wandered by out of the... the blue. It followed you, you idiot. This is exactly what we were worried about. Jesus Christ, he narrows his eyes. Nothing was following me, man. If anything, you're lucky I was around, and that both of us were awake just in case it got in. No, this is exactly it. It's always like this with you. You charge around and act like you're special for marching into danger like a

friggin' idiot when no one asked you to do it. And then you just end up messing things up for the rest of us, making mom worry, using up our supplies, putting my house up as a target. Anthony just rolls his eyes and walks by me instead of getting into it. No point in even talking to you when you're like this. Just get it out of your system. He lies down on the couch and puts his harpoon gun on the ground. I yell at him for another couple of minutes and he pretends to get ready to go to sleep. You are such a selfish dickhead. Anthony turns over and shuts his eyes.

Better than a coward. What was that? Anthony doesn't answer me. For a few seconds, I want to pick him up by the shoulders and yell at him some more. But there's no point to it. He'll never listen to me. And anyway, anything I say will just convince him that he's more in the right. Like always, he's slumped over the couch, turned on his side.

and his eyes still shut when I go into the basement for the night. Even as I lie in bed, watching the boy's nightlights swirling onto the cement walls, I think about him on that couch, and what else I could say to tell him off the next time I get the chance. As expected, Anthony's gone by the time we come back up to the house for breakfast. Because the plywood over the windows darkens everything, we like to bring our food to a picnic table out back. We get some fresh air, and the kids can run around a bit and get. get out their energy. It's a cloudy day, but the summer's heat is still hanging in the air and getting

thicker. Gene and I are finishing our eggs when Cal and David take off and start jumping up and down on a pile of rocks, playing a game or something. I don't really know. Gene turns to ask me how Anthony took the news. I say, about as well as we thought he would. I go back and forth about it in my head, but I decide to tell her about the balloon, too. I keep it brief, just the basics. on how a couple of anchors were feeling out the perimeter but didn't get through anywhere. She tries to show that she's not afraid, but I can see her getting nervous as I describe it. When I tell her that the balloon was just passing by, she calms down a little, and we go back to finishing breakfast. Do you think we're getting too used to this?

What do you mean? Anthony was going on about how people are finding ways to be comfortable and how as long as they are, things won't change. Gene shakes her head. I don't feel very comfortable. I can tell him that right now. Me neither. And, you know, we already do a lot. We do.

But he doesn't think it's enough. I watched the boys jumping and I scratched the stubble at my throat. It really pisses me off when he says stuff like that. And not because he's wrong. I'm already thinking it too, if I'm being honest. But I just don't like it coming from him. You know, he's always putting on a big act. Like he figured out the answer.

when he doesn't know squat. Jean nods her head. He's a showboat for sure, but he thinks he has to be that way to get your attention. What do you mean? Gene smiles at me the way she does when she's talking to the boys. Oh, you know. We watch the kids run around chasing each other.

Yeah, I admit. When we're done with breakfast, I stand up from the table and tell Gene I have to make a run for supplies. I want to get more hardware to reinforce the side gate, and I'll need to go early if I want to beat traffic. She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I yell over to the boys that I'm leaving, but they just keep giggling and don't hear me. Everything seems so dark under the gray cloud cover when I head out on the road. On my way out of the subdivision, I slow down at a stop sign, and I see a dozen vehicles parked outside of a house across the way, an ambulance, a fire truck, and what I think are military jeeps. When I look closer, I see the broken planks of a fence scattered on the lawn.

Someone honks behind me and I turn on to the next street, peering at the home as I go by. This is far enough away from where we live that I don't know who's in there, but I hope they're okay. Part of me wonders whether it was the same balloon from last night that did it. Things move pretty quickly once I'm finally at the store, going through the aisles and getting everything I know that we need. but when I'm done, I find myself stopping at the harpoon guns on display at the front, looking for a long time. It somehow feels like I'm admitting fault when I pick one of them up. I touch the line plate and the trigger as the sales clerk asks me if I know how to use it.

I tell them that I do, remembering the summer Uncle Rick taught us, and I begin to wonder whether the boys are old enough to start practicing like we did. We'll have to keep a close eye on them and set up targets in the yard, but that'll be easy enough to do, assuming that Jean agrees. After a minute, I make a decision, and I put one of the guns in my cart. I imagine that Anthony would be giving me that smug smirk of his if he could see me right now. As I head to the parking lot, I notice a fruit stand outside, and I see that they have some peaches. I stopped there for a while, picking them up one by one. They all seem to be slightly bruised, but I know they'll make Jean happy.

It's only after I pay that I start to notice that people are hurrying to their cars, leaving the stores and trying to maneuver around each other to get out of the parking lot. I wonder what's going on until I turn around and see it. Hundreds of balloons spread across the gray horizon. Their shapes blot the morning sky, and it looks like someone's punched holes out of the clouds just above the buildings. I feel my throat tighten, and I almost drop what I'm holding. Further down the main avenue, I spot a balloon much larger and much closer than any I've seen out in the open.

It's hard to be sure, but I think there are at least a dozen anchors out on the road, sprinting in this direction and dragging the massive floating sphere behind them. They've never moved in the sunlight like this as far as I know. I wonder if it's all because of the clouds. Several people with harpoon guns are firing, and I can see the sunlighting. and I can see their spears flying through the air, puncturing a few of the anchors and causing them to collapse face down into the asphalt. There's a shrill, whistling noise as the anchors shrivel and bubble, slowly beginning to re-inflate themselves. Those people must know there aren't enough of them to kill the balloon, but I think they're trying to slow it down for the other folks to get away,

and my eyes drift over to my harpoon gun in my shopping bag. For a brief moment, I imagine that I take the gun and run toward the gun. the others, that I yell at them to coordinate their fire, to prevent regrowth, just the way Uncle Rick taught us. If everyone fires at the anchor closest to them, and I aim up at the main body and we do it on one command, we just might have a chance to puncture the scepta of the balloon and the nerve clusters in each of the anchors, incapacitating it long enough for someone to bring some gasoline and a flame. Maybe, just maybe. My hands are sweating as I reached down. But then I hear a scream down the street, just as a tether flings out from the glistening underside of the balloon and sinks into someone's back.

I don't know if it's a man or a woman who falls to the ground, their body starting to swell, filling with liquid. I've seen the videos, and I know that the body is going to get rounder and rounder until it pops like an over-easy egg, the armless dripping shape of a parasitic anchor emerging from the inside. I don't need to stay to watch it happen. Like everyone else, I start to run now. I throw my bags into the back of the car, letting everything roll around on the floor. Sweat beads around my eyes as I start the engine, and I feel the air conditioner turning on while I signal to pull out onto the freeway. A couple of pickup trucks drive by, each of them painted on the side with a black spear and rope.

There are groups of young men in the back of both vehicles, harpoon guns over their ship. shoulders, and I scan their serious faces one by one as they quickly go by. I don't know if it was my imagination, but I swear I see Anthony in one of the trucks staring right back at me. He knows I'm going in the opposite direction, and though I can't read his expression, he doesn't seem angry with me in those few seconds as he passes. He seems to realize that I am not who he hoped that I was, and I realize it too. If only there were time for me to tell them, I'm sorry. There's more honking behind me,

and I'm still craning my neck to look back at the whaling trucks, but they're too far now. I turn to the highway and keep going, weaving around slower cars who haven't looked back yet at what's coming. I tell myself that I have to go back because of Jean and the kids, and part of me starts to believe it. There's enough time to reinforce the gate, chuck the plywood and get everyone down to the basement, I think, to myself.

The rearview mirror rattles as I speed down the bumpy highway, and all I can see in it is the swarm of balloons drifting behind me in the distance. There's no wind in this dead summer heat. I know it, but they all seem to float on and get bigger. I start pushing the gas harder and hope to God that wherever they're headed, it's some other neighborhood, in some other town far away. above someone else's roof and out of my sight. Anywhere but here, I pray, anywhere else.

And the light of dawn approaches. Our tales must come to an end until the next time we gather. We'll keep the fire burning until you return. That is, if you dare to remain sleepless. The No Sleep podcast is presented by creative. of Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. To discover how you can get even more sleepless horror stories from us, just visit sleepless.com to learn about the

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