The NoSleep Podcast - S20 Ep4: NoSleep Podcast S20E04

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

It's Episode 04 of Season 20. Come join us around the campfire with tales about October chills.“Late October” written by David Casi (Story starts around 00:03:25)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Kyle Akers, Father – Mike DelGaudio“Black Box” written by Charlie Davenport (Story starts around 00:16:40)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Harry – Jeff Clement, Gwen – Nichole Goodnight, Paul – Mike DelGaudio, Juliet – Linsay Rousseau, Kalen – Matthew Bradford, Father – Graham Rowat“The Back of the Man’s Head” written by Lara Musard (Story starts around 00:38:40)Produced & scored by: David CummingsCast: Narrator – Jessica McEvoy“Direst Emily” written by Robert Tiemstra (Story starts around 01:06:55)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Emily – Sarah Thomas, Lee – Matthew Bradford, Martin – David Cummings, Officer – Linsay Rousseau, Amelia – Sarah Thomas“Love Casts a Shadow” written by Jack Thackwell (Story starts around 01:36:25)Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Kit – Erika Sanderson, Rory – David Ault, John – James Cleveland, Caleb – Jake Benson, Emily – Penny Scott-Andrews, Janey – Ash Millman, Cashier – Graham RowatThis 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 teamExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Direst Emily” illustration courtesy of Jen TracyAudio 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 fireless. 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 can you feel it in the air that scent on the breeze no it's not pumpkin spice it's the delightful smell of fallen leaves, scarecrow sweat, and the impending horrors of Halloween night.

Yes, the frightful festive season is ramping up even more as the end of the month approaches. On this episode, we feature tales where people experience all that the month of October has to offer. And naturally, it tends to offer up a great deal of darkness and fear. Just how we like it. And speaking of darkness and fear, and just plain fronement, We'll be holding a Halloween game night for our sanctuary-level subscribers on Sunday, October 29th. Members will receive notifications about when and how to join in the fun as we play some online interactive games, maybe tell some scary stories, and just hang out.

Costumes and candy are highly encouraged. So if you're not yet a member of the sleepless sanctuary, you're always welcome to join any time. Just check out sleepless.com. com for all the devilish details. And finally, we hope everyone is fully braced for our annual Halloween episodes coming out next week. There will be a full-length free episode for one and all, and all the members of the sleepless sanctuary will receive an additional bonus episode full of Halloween treats. And for those sanctuary-level members, you'll find the October bonus episode coming to your feeds very soon.

It features two tales from the esteemed author L.P. Hernandez, tales which push the envelope of deliciously gory and dark themes, perfect for a hardcore Halloween haunt. So let the Halloween season grow and swell to a disturbing level of tumessence. It's going to be captivating. Now the sun has set, the fire glows bright. Brace yourself for the darkness of the night. night. In our first tale, we meet a man recalling in October from his youth, but his memory is not one of autumn fun amongst fallen leaves. No, his is much more tragic. And in this tale, shared with us by author David Cassie, we'll learn what happened to him on that fateful day and how his octobers will never be the same. Performing this tale are Kyle Acres and Mike Delgado. So enjoy the fall days while you can. Things can change come late October.

My twin brother, David, died in October, a day after a week of rain when we were just seven. The leaves were wet and pressed strangely against the ground, almost painted there. Deep, bright orange, chocolate, and candy red. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for that smell. the one that has stayed with me, somehow different than every autumn since. It was heavier, muskier in a way, a desperate, pervasive sort of rot, like it wanted to leave an impression. Like it wanted me to wonder even all these years later what exactly was under that matted quilt of decay, things that crawled and slithered and the impossible thing that tore my brother apart. as the shallow day faded into a long night,

and the wicked winds cut sharply against our brick house. I remember our father, standing in the doorway, as we climbed out of the school bus, and made our way across the lawn. He was a bright man with thin brown hair like our own, rosy cheeks, and a perfectly pleasant smile that seemed permanently etched across the whole of his face, as if it had been carved there at one time or another,

and had simply refused to go away. He looked just like us, a near spitting image, just older, and we loved him for it. I like to think of him this way, with that bright smile and childish light in his eyes, as he was never quite the same after. He offered to play hide-and-seek before supper, as he explained anything to keep us out of the house. Our mother was famously hours into her autumn chili recipe,

and surely wouldn't like to be bothered in the kitchen at this hour. We agreed, of course, greedy for the interaction with a man who was so often. often on the road working, and off we went, racing through the yard, skipping, laughing wildly, shoving each other out from behind the many shrubs that lined the adjacent walkways. And yes, the leaves, those dense mangled piles of dead things which had gathered into what most closely resembled ruinous nests under the trees. Soon they would be raked, excavated, if you will, and stuffed diligently into tightly wound black garbage bags on some long unpleasant Saturday,

where they would sit stupidly outside our home for two days until the trash collections were made. It was David who made the first move. He was older than me by nearly 14 minutes, and as he claimed, often, more equipped to make decisions because he had been in the world longer. He did make the decision for both of us that day, as our father neared the corner of the house,

making quick work of our usual hiding places and began straight for us behind the stump of an old oak tree in the backyard. We had both considered it, after all. I knew this to be true at the time, and the way a brother or sister often seemed to know what mischievous thought the other held next. Who would take a swipe at the icing on a birthday cake when no one was looking? Who would sneak a wildly forbidden Stephen King novel from their father's shelf and up to bed to read it after lights out?

Still, I hadn't imagined either of us would actually do it. It seemed in some ways inexplicably off limits, dangerous. Even though those warnings didn't make much sense to me at the time, it was the only place we knew our father wouldn't chance to look for us. To us, that October, aged seven, it was worth the risk. A spot like that, a chance to actually defeat our father in hide-and-seek was worth its weight in gold. David ran, ducking as he went,

and I followed, by some curious traction that still surprises me when I think about it. He dove, headfirst, into the stack, under that slop and dirt and grime and fish rot that had molded and festered in the belligerently brisk rain of the week. I collapsed in a heat behind him,

and the two of us struggled forward on our hands and knees, kicking and pulling, swiping ahead to clear the muck from our eyes. eyes. We stopped after a few moments. Near what we imagined must have been the epicenter, where we finally felt fully enveloped inside the canopy. Our breath was loud and hot, and fell heavily in this trapped space, as if it couldn't escape. Then something else was there too, I noticed. As I lay there, sprawled out and covered in the soil and silt, a strange and growing realization that started in the pit of my stomach and began to work out. I couldn't hear.

anything anymore. Nothing. It was as if the sounds of the dusk, the normal, everyday motions of life had all disappeared entirely, shut out, swallowed away. The distant rumbling of an engine and tires climbing asphalt as they wound up Petty Grove and toward the highway. The swirling, manic-banchy howls of autumn that crashed against the house and then whisked away into nothing with an effortless thought, the chirping of foul and scurrying of insects, and happy barking in the background. Our father, too, I couldn't hear his laughter anymore. His playful exclamations, the heavy crunching steps of his workboots in the yard. Everything was gone. True, but it was more than that, even. I noticed with creeping horror, the very light had shrunken away in that place,

disappeared entirely except for in a few distorted cracks between the leaves, where it fell in hollow crimson streaks, leaving only its absence, a yawning, crowded sort of night, an unbearable and directly terrifying blackness. It was as if none of it had ever existed. The earth, polite society, our father, and never would exist again. It is those long moments that I remember most when I remember that late October day. When I think of my brother now, these many years later, those final few seconds before everything changed. The last time I ever heard from him, felt him brush against my arm.

The worst of it still was the dawning realization that something was undeniably wrong. It was something that seemed to collapse against both of us at once. A sickening feeling that pulsed and grew outward. Something in the deepest parts of us that told us to run. We felt it then, a presence, something else filling the space as we panicked and tried to push up against the pile and felt it snap back down against our backs pinning us. It revealed itself then, caught in those few horrible red beams of light that managed somehow to tear through the cover as if it wanted us to see it, to fear, to scream and call for help. Painfully and dreadfully outlined in that malevolent dark, a bitter pale. face, wider than bone, and horribly distended. Long folds of flesh had ribboned off the skull and

seemed to drip into the very soil itself. Its eye sockets were empty black pools that cracked apart at the base, creating a sort of fissure that broke downward, like a crevasse that fed into its shattered mouth that stretched so wide its sloping chin landed where a chest should have been, buried beneath the earth. David screamed. I'm not sure if that's That's why I chose him first, and I guess I'll never know. A huge face rocked toward him and smashed against his nose. The jaw distended like a snake and forced him in. Then small, near centipede arms tore from the dirt

and began to stuff him into those writhing jaws. I'm sure I screamed then, but I can't remember. I tried to wrestle with the thing. I tried to grab my brother's heels as he was forced downward and away from me somewhere else. But it happened too fast. The whole incident, starting from his scream to his white sneakers vanishing into the ground, must have only lasted a second or two. Then he was gone.

The thing in the leaves was starving. I cried then and felt my body go limp. I didn't want to live without my brother. And in a way, I had nearly lost my mind with what I had seen. Those dozens of spindly black arms forcing him down and away from me, from the earth, from this life, it was going to take me next to that place, and no one would ever know. My parents couldn't survive this. They wouldn't be able to handle the disappearance of their children.

In an instant, it would all be undone. And I would be gone, lost, like my twin brother David. I watched as that warped mouth turned to me, as those empty sockets where eyes had once been before melting away with the leaves transfixed on me and began to lurch forward. I closed my eyes. I would be with David again, my brother, my friend, together, at least together. Fingers wrapped around my ankles and I screamed with everything I had left. A horrible animal shriek of loss and terror. The fingers tightened and ripped me backward then pulling me, forcing me out, out of that pile. and away from the thing that waited there.

I found you! My father pulled me out, and to his chest in one motion. Spotting my tears and brushing them aside, he asked. Where's David? These days, there are plenty of services which offer you interactive fun. Monthly subscriptions where you can get boxes of merch sent to you or even mysteries to solve. Good fun, that.

But in this tale, shared with us by author, Charlie Day, Davenport. We meet a young couple without a lot of time for Halloween festivities. That's why they decided to subscribe to an interactive horror experience. Performing this tale are Jeff Clement, Nicole Goodnight, Mike Delgado, Lindsay Russo, Matthew Bradford, and Graham Rowett. So perhaps it's best to stick to monthly subscriptions like Cheese of the Month Club, or your favorite horror podcast. They'll be far better Then the Black Box. I was just putting together the crib when Gwen came running into the room, holding her laptop out in front of her with the enthusiasm of a sign spinner just before tax season.

Her baby bump slightly at odds with the youthful freckles across her nose. Honey, would you like something like this? The banner above the site looked like it had been hastily spray-painted on and proclaimed, The Black Box Subscription Service, a monthly interactive journey into terror. Season passes available. Half off for the Halloween season. This was usually our favorite time of the year.

With other holidays, there's the stress of seeing family or getting just the right present. Halloween is, if you'll forgive the pun, pure sugar. We were all about taking in as many haunted houses, corn mazes, and horror movies as we could. But when we got the news, we were going to need a high chair for Thanksgiving, our lives became a whirlwind of checkups, birthing classes, and researching the best blankets, bottles, and baby monitors on the market. What exactly is it? I asked as I tucked the hex wrench into my back pocket.

Read it. Once you open it, the ad copy practically purred, you'll find yourself plunged headfirst into a horror story where you are the main character. No two customers will experience the dread in the same way. This bone-chilling journey is made just for you. I'd already mentally said goodbye to all the scares your ghosts and goblins can provide and fully embrace the anxieties of impending parenthood.

The distraction of some fun fictional frights delivered right to my door at its appeal. Gwen was all but bouncing with excitement. Well? It was about a week before Halloween, and I was shoving a load into the washer when I heard a faint brief knock at our door. I looked out of the peephole and saw what I took to be a man retreating to a white panel van,

warped at its edges by the fish-eye perspective. I pulled open the door, but the van, standard issue, windowless and creepy, was already pulling away from the curb. It was then that I spied the person. package that had been carefully placed on the walkway, a single tented card placed on it. Printed on its front, in neat block letters, was, To Harold Goodlet, from Gwen Goodlet.

Smiling, I opened the card. Mr. Goodlet, welcome to the Black Box subscription service, a personalized horror experience. The box is about nine inches long, roughly the same width, and about five inches deep. It was wrapped in a thick brown paper and fastened with a rough woven twine that made me think of the choice cuts my mom used to bring home from the butchers.

Hey, Harry, what'd you got there? Paul Ryerson was coming out of his garage across the street with a plastic tub. His yard was already filled with plastic LED jackal lanterns, styrofoam tombstones, and half a dozen makeshift scarecrows fashioned from flannel shirts

and old dungarees. He fished a rubber Wolfman mask from his bin and fitted it over the head of one of his rag dolls. Just a surprise gift from Gwen. When she do? Paul twisted Lon Chaney's head, so his hollow, empty eye sockets looked out towards the road. My watch buzzed, reminding me I had a Zoom meeting in less than five minutes. Doc says it could be the 31st. Oh, wow.

Paul's face broke out in a big, goony grin. What a treat! Yeah, I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes as I waved goodbye and stepped back inside. I placed the package on the kitchen counter while I searched for a pair of scissors. It was only as the brown sheath fell off that I realized there had been no address or postage anywhere on it. Inside was a small case made of black lacquered wood. but the nails that held it together looked like the kind of blacksmith

would have to pluck out of a fire, one at a time. They'd splintered and split the smooth sheen of the planks in various spots, as though the whole thing had been thrown together in a hurry. There was no obvious way to open it. I was looking around its edges, trying to find some gap or catch, while scanning my kitchen for something

that could be used as a crowbar. Finding neither, I looked at the note, hoping there was a little. be some form of instructions. However, there was just three additional words at its very bottom. They were just as neatly printed as the others, but entirely in capital letters. Do not open. My phone let out a beep that reminded me my teleconference was starting, and I sprinted upstairs. Juliet, my supervisor, gave me a wry nod as I dashed into frame, the box still held in my hand. What followed was the least productive meeting of my professional career.

Despite my efforts to focus on discussions of regional updates, project milestones, and third-quarter goals, my thoughts kept drifting to the box. I had the kind of excitement burbling in my chest that I hadn't felt since the childhood anticipation of Christmas morning. The idea of a box of clues, little trinkets drawing me deeper into a story, tickled me. The pad of my index finger, tracing the box's outline, slipped into one of the splintered indents that had been made by those rough hue and nails, and I felt a sudden sharp sensation and trace of dampness. I pulled it back, certain that I'd torn my finger open on some metal shard,

only to find it whole. I realized the wet sensation had traveled down my arm. I looked down in horror as I saw water spreading from it in between the seams of the the box, towards my laptop. Shit! I lifted the package up and away, watching large plops of the liquid fall downwards in its wake.

Harry? Everything okay there? Juliet and the rest of the team were all staring at me. Ed Shearsmith had shared his screen at some point, and the words, dangers of metadata, paraded themselves on an endless animated loop across my laptop. My face flushed beat red. Just a little spill here.

Um, be right back. My arms were now damp up to my elbows. What was in there? I bolted downstairs for some reason, deciding that holding the box over my head would prevent the most damage. I made it to the sink, finding it free of dishes for the first time that week, and dropped a leaking container into it. I stared at it, feeling betrayed and angry.

with this inanimate object. I had no idea what was inside, but could only assume spontaneous leakage wasn't what the black box people had intended. My phone went off again, announcing another meeting in five minutes, and I decided the box could stay where it was for now. I got some coffee from the pot on the counter.

I stood for a bit, stirring as I ruminated. Gwen was going to be disappointed. Maybe I could open it. up, see if there was anything salvageable, or call their customer service line? As I pondered this, I felt a small, reveal it of water run down the side of my face down onto my lip. I licked it away without thought. It was surprisingly cool with an earthiness to its taste, and it tipped something over in the back of my mind. For the first time in years, I thought of my cousin Kalen. We were standing on his driveway on some long ago summer day. We only saw each other at holidays, birthdays,

weddings, and funerals. That was five years younger, and he, at 12, seemed like an adult to me. The tarmac of his driveway was burning up the rubber of our cheap sandals as we filled up the kitty pool with the garden hose. It was that New England hot, where the shade could only do so much against the humid pressure of the air, and sweat-pooled at the small of your back no matter what you did. Get in. It's going to heat up fast. I winced at the chill as the water enveloped me up to the waist and soaked through my trunks. If you lay down, you'll be cooler.

There's the same tone of voice he'd had when he taught me how to play Domino's, or when he told me the scary parts were coming up in Friday of the 13th. I don't know how long I laid there, and I don't remember why I rolled over and plunding. my face just under the water's surface. Maybe it was my own idea. Maybe he suggested it. All I know is that I suddenly felt something explode against my back.

I cried out under the water, letting that deep, cool liquid slide down into my airway. I thrashed and pushed, but I was only little, and I could not force him off me. I remember thinking, he's going to kill me. and believing it more clearly than anything else in my short life. The coffee mug fell from my hand and smashed across the kitchen floor. I looked at the pot's digital clock. Half an hour had passed. I picked up the box from the sink, noting that it was bone dry.

It was right then and there, I decided. I wasn't going to put it in the bedroom closet or the cupboard under the stairs. No, that's something. sucker was going out to the shed. I slammed it down on the rack right next to the weed killer and stormed back to the house. When Gwen came home that night, she asked me about my day, and then inquired if we'd had any deliveries. I told her, no, without premeditation or rationale, but with absolute conviction. We ate dinner and silence, both of us seemingly on the verge of starting a conversation, but never actually doing so. I cleared the dishes away, and

and wordlessly she went to the living room and streamed an episode of friends she'd seen a dozen times before. Around 10.30, she shut off the TV and rose from the couch without a word. She was soon in bed, and I decided it had been too long since I'd seen the Daily Show.

I woke up the next morning, still on the couch in our living room, coughing. I spat a mouthful of water onto the rug, the stale taste of rubber and metal on my tongue. I looked up from the puddle and through the kitchen window. I saw that the shed door was wide open. For the rest of the day, a steady trickle would issue forth from time to time from my nose.

Gwen came down after breakfast and said that it might have something to do with allergies. The weekend came, and Gwen, having seen Paul's display, decided that, baby or no, it was time to decorate. That meant I was headed to the shed, which is where we stored the strings of orange lights and the plastic jackal lanterns. I hefted a bin of paper-mache skulls and rubber bats onto my shoulder. Then I heard the growling. I looked out into the yard, but the only thing I saw was my own backyard. I heard it again. The sound of barking, growing louder as if drawing closer, and coming from the box.

on the shelf. And then the bell, Stevie Mojerson's bell. It was a small sound, a piccolo that I shouldn't have been able to hear over the bass drum of his dog's barking. It was a hulking, broad beast, more in common with a bear than any dog I'd ever known. I don't remember where I had been going or when Stevie started to chase me, but I remember my legs burning as I peddled as hard as I could. He never laughed. You'd expect that, wouldn't you? The bully, the fat kid's natural enemy,

had his prey all to himself and successfully terrified. It should have been funny as hell to him. But he just kept ringing the bell. As I turned down my own driveway, Stevie let go of his companion's bright red leash before heading up the road to where his home and dinner waited for him. I started screaming for my mother for the god of my world to come and save me from this thing. My mother, with her shaggy bowl-cut hair, stout body and love so fierce it could split mountains, ran from the steps. She held a bright red broom handle, a soldier ready to bayonet the enemy. A small part of me believed that everything was going to be okay, that for once her love would be able to make things right.

Then she screamed, Harry, stop! Just before Stevie Moorison's dog caught up to me. It latched onto the back of my calf like a spring bear trap. It was more pain than I had ever felt, and it only worsened as he twisted and thrashed back and forth, trying to tear a piece of me loose. Then Mom was there, the red broom bristle swishing through the air again and again.

Finally, the dog let out a yelp and the insane pressure on my leg released. I let out a laugh as my mother scooped me up. The dog did not come after her or me, but instead limped away down our road, probably to the Moorerson place. I never saw it again. The alarm on my phone, announcing that it was time to make lunch, sounded off. I was very aware of my own breathing. I carried the tub out with me, taking a few steps into the yard, before the throbbing in my calf became too great to ignore. I dropped the decorations where I stood and limped inside into the couch. For the rest of the day, I avoided Gwen's questions

about when I was planning to finish. I woke up in the middle of the night, a figment of something between a memory and a nightmare poking out from behind my eyes. Slowly, the details of the room came into focus, and in the moonlight I saw that my wife was not lying next to me. A shrill cry of breathless fear came from the living room and spurred me out of bed and down the stairs. I was too panicked to bother to turn on the light and missed a step. I was only able to see the banister and catch it by the black-blue flashes of the television screen. Subtitles crawled across the screen as Emily Blunt fled through the forest, a hunched over

man-beast skulking after her. The pregnancy had not been easy, and Gwen hadn't been sleeping the best. The last few nights she'd been using those uncomfortable extra hours in the day to binge every horror movie the streaming platforms could offer, trying to dredge up some holiday spirit. I came up alongside the recliner and saw my wife. laid out with a blanket draped over her, a thin line of drool sliding down onto the headrest. I plucked the remote from her hand, and it was then that I realized there was no sound, no screaming, no feral snarls. The TV was on, but it was muted. As the words ominous music

danced across it. I looked down from the screen and saw the box sitting on the coffee table. No water seeped from its joints. Stevie Moyerson, his dog, and that damn bell were silent. But in that early morning dark, I heard my name. Harry, get over here or so help me. His voice was coarse from the two-pack-a-day habit that had killed him. Twelve years prior, I could hear sobbing and hacking coughs coming from inside the box. The sounds of doors being thrown open as someone in a blind rage searched for something. Knock that shit off! My head rocked back, and my hand flew up to cover my eye.

Warmth gathered just on my left cheek, and despite the years, the sensation was as familiar. As an old friend, I felt the shame, the embarrassment, the helplessness. I said, knock that shit off, or I will give you something to cry about. Tears stung in my eyes. In a flash, I grabbed the box. The rough head of one of the nails drew fresh blood from the palm of my hand. I wanted to hurl the damn thing to the ground. If it didn't break the first time, I would be.

it again and again, as many times as it took. Babe? The box shuddered and jerked against my grip, trying to tear itself free. I didn't say a word to Gwen. I stalked up to the front door and flung it open. Who throws like a girl now, you miserable old fuck! I roared, heaving the box outside. It sailed across the street.

and into the darkness of our neighbor's yard, landing with a satisfying clatter. By the sound, the impact had rendered it into nothing more than a pile of kindling. What are you doing? Confusion and concerns sliced their way through the fuzziness of her interrupted doze. Oh my God, what happened to your eye? She caressed my cheek, and I drew back involuntarily from her touch. The skin was tender. there.

We are not ordering anything online again. What? She leaned back and away from me. The box. She shook her head with no recognition on her face. The box? The black box? Black box?

The Halloween thing? Harry, you said no. I didn't order it. I looked at the table by the door. door, where at some point during the week I deposited the card that came with the box. Do not open, it had said. I peered back out into the darkness and heard the sound, rushing water, and a child's idiot laughter muffled by depth, frenzied barking dogs and tiny bells that were always coming closer and closer.

And above all of that was the sound of my father's voice. Bicycling, what a joy it can be. As an avid cycling enthusiast myself, I can attest to how good a bike ride can make you feel, gets the blood pumping, and can really help clear your mind. But in this tale, shared with us by author Lara Mussard, we meet a woman who rides her bike in order to find some relief from the stress of her home life.

That time alone on the bike means a lot to her. At least it did until she started having strange encounters on the bike path. Performing this tale is Jessica McAvoy. So get out there on the bike and enjoy yourself. Just ignore the distractions, things like the back of the man's head. When I'm on the bike trail, I get passed by a lot of blurs of spandex and helmets. Both of which make me think of being squeezed to death in a vice. I ride in my pajamas more or less, which happened to match my old bike, which rattles a lot.

It's only a little embarrassing because it does attract attention, but I stay expressionless like it's the most normal thing in the world. Somewhere between olive and mint green with a narrow brown leather seat, my bike is not meant for long-distance comfort or durability, but I don't care. At least, I don't think I do, except that I picture it crumbling beneath me sometimes. The petals falling away, then the chain, the basket, the reflectors, tires, bolts like metal raindrops, dinging the sunblasted asphalt below me until I'm a cartoon, legs pumping fast, running in place.

But this just makes me smile to myself. And this time of year is great, because the trail looks really pretty with all the leaves changing and the leaves falling and the blanket of crunchy leaves on the trail ground. Orange, red, and yellow are all around me like a quilted tube. It's someone's job to keep the tangle of trees from taking the man-made trail back, but who knows who that is. Landscapers, I imagine, though I never see them. It's a place to take for granted, I guess,

which is in low supply these days. And high demand, but I aim to get my piece. Going faster, I blink a lot to get the water out of my eyes from the chilly wind, and it probably looks like I'm crying, but I'm not. It had been a while since I rode last, so I'd build up my mileage from six to nine to twelve over the next few days. There are trail markers that I've used for years. I'm not a rider who looks a rider, but it's definitely not my first rodeo.

The electric blue trash barrel with the word penis spray-painted on, on it is the halfway point of six miles. There's this creek by it that's jumping with all kinds of ecosystem. You can tell just by looking at it that it is not the place where you take off your shoes and balance on rocks and catch passive frogs like the creeks when I was a kid. Probably nothing passive in there at all. Otherwise, the trail itself is pretty passive. With this trail, the challenge lies in distance, I guess I'd say. But really, it's the ability to know when you've reached your halfway point because the trail does not loop back around. It goes on for, who knows how far. Infinite, like open water. You know, like the spots where there's no government

control or policing, the area where pirates are. But there's still a code. Also, this is why it's pretty typical to pass the same people twice. But doesn't that obligatory smile or wave or hello or nod to get old? I'm not unfriendly, I swear. And I do love all that decency between strangers. But there are so many faces. Sweety, straining faces, fatigued between earbuds. The relaxed ones, too. The kids smiling and dogs panting,

faces talking to other faces about life. And my own face with my secret smile. I don't mean to, but sometimes my eyes just snap shut when I pass them. Some reflexive things so I don't have to engage me. Maybe. I guess this is also a challenge of the trail. I always roll in going a little too fast. You know what it's like to ride a bike. Flying at first. Hair scribbled in the wind, wondering why you're not on a bike all the time. I always roll in from the entry on my street, two blocks from my little house by the freight train, and I head south for some reason. Probably because there are many lengths of trail that way, where you can see people's houses and backyards through the shallow wall of tree. and I like checking out what they've got going on. I still fantasize, since I was a kid even. Like I could witness something deeply singular and personal and strange sometime.

Like a woman crying in her pool or a couple doing it in the window, or a dog breaking loose from the back door and tearing toward a busy road, the terror in the sound of its name. I do like to imagine things when I ride. The Northway, which I've gone on before, and is just fine, feels differently. Like, boring, maybe? Because after the beginning moments of the ride where you're wondering why you're not on your bike all the time, and you start to feel the burn in your legs and your hands are a little chapped,

and you think you probably should have worn gloves, and always the slight surprise that all that flying freedom was just of your own effort and not the magical bike, that it's only a... your tender mortal body, which sometimes has fiery knee pains. And one needs populated distraction at that point. And then you can go back to feeling free and almost normal again. But then I kept seeing the back of that man's head. I know I will say a lot of other words when trying to describe these events that aren't

quite right. But I guess the best place to start is to say that part again, that it was always the back of his head. There wasn't anything notable about the head, I suppose. Just a bald head. Though, when I close my eyes and see it on the back of my eyelids or in my nightmares, there are some disheartening elements. Firstly, the bald head was pink, like squirming newborn gerbil pink,

raw looking, but thick, like maybe there were 14, layers of skin instead of seven. And it was bald in that tight, shiny way that made me imagine thunking an industrial staple into the skull, maybe above an ear or in the soft temple, and then clenching all 14 layers of raw skin with both hands and stretching and stretching it to the other side of the skull before thunking a staple in there too. Taught is a good word. Then, and this is disheartening, too. There were the two rolls of pink skin between the bottom of his skull and the top of his neck. I don't mean to be dramatic, but at a first glance for a bit at a distance, it even looked like maybe this could be the front. His face, I mean, two meaty skin rolls like grotesque lips. I'm not

exaggerating. And here, I felt suddenly and shamefully embarrassed. It was totally something that felt intimate and private that I maybe shouldn't have seen. And not in that decadent way I imagined for myself that I mentioned before, like the crying lady or the dog. The feeling I got from the back of the man's head and made my hands kind of floppy and numb and made my face blood catch on fire. I felt embarrassed.

But I could not look away to save my life. And after I rode past him, he was walking, I forgot to mention, and even said the obligatory, On your left, I turned my head over my shoulder to see a face and to, I don't know, humanize that head. Because suffice it to say, this was not a normal experience on the trail. Remember what I said about how I hadn't ridden for a while? There's more to that story. It's never just the thing, is it?

It's not a big deal. It's certainly not a secret or anything. It's just that I suppose I can't really tell a story about this random, strange, strange thing that happened to me without this part. My young son recently began to show signs of, let's just say, a hereditary malady. It comes from my husband's side. His grandfather's father had it. His aunt and her grandchild had it. It skipped some generations and not others.

And it left my husband alone, but the thing is trying its darndest to take my child. So, that's that, this random monster in my life that I did not sign up for. Really, really fucking randomly shitty, actually. And what no one explains, not the therapists or the specialists or the family before who have suffered it, is that it's not the malady that is really, really shitty. Though it is, it definitely is. Watching your boy's little face turn red from lack of air because he can't swallow applesauce. Fear in his sweet, wide eyes.

Waiting for you to fix it. And you don't have it. The thing to fix it, I mean. And I sit him on my lap and bend him forward just a little and rub his little bumpy spine until he relaxes. throat relaxes and he can breathe again. That's really, really shitty. Terror, actually. No, it's horror. Horror. But the thing that no one tells you is that the really shitty part is the fear that this is the new normal. And that fear is insidious. One minute you're solving the problem by talking to the prescribed people and relieving pain

and outfitting your house to accommodate. And you're so busy trying to get past it that you don't notice when the walls and the floor and the ceiling become porous. Sponges opening up spongy little gaping mouth that you stuff with your own suffering and resentment and rage because it's just not fair until even the air around you is like a hundred million clogged pores. So maybe I was back on the trail to get a break from that.

to take something for granted, and look at some pretty leaves. As a parent, you learn that your job is no longer to react, but to respond. And after I passed the back of the man's head on the trail, and I turned to look at his face, as I said, I rode for too long while looking behind me like it was smart or even a little bit safe. And I couldn't move my eyes from it. I'll tell you more about that in a second, but of course, because I was just reacting, wasn't being even a little bit smart or safe.

I ran into a woman who was jogging and pushing her baby strodeer. And even though she was so, so mad at me, and also a little hurt from my front tire riding up her bloodied Achilles' heel, I was pointing behind me and apologizing and trying to explain what I could not look away from. But he was so far off now down the trail with the leaves falling between us, And anyway, it was no excuse to not watch where I'm going. But if she could only have forgotten about her pain and the safety of her baby and could have just listened to me, explain that somehow there had been no face,

there was only the back of that man's head. I'm saying that from the back and from what should have been the front, there was only the back of the man's head. She might have, and this would have been very much appreciated, she might have taken me by the shoulders and hugged me and told me how scary she thought that sounded, and that it was okay to be afraid, and she would walk me home. But why would she do that?

She wouldn't, and she did not. She did exactly what you'd expect. She called me a crazy bitch under her breath and limped away, probably towards her home. Also, she was wearing spandex. Anyway, the point is that no matter which direction I was facing, his back was to me. It was the word to describe it exactly. So I just powered through to my six-mile marker. It was really odd and gave me the creeps, but it had to have an explanation, right?

It was just a dude on the trail taking a walk. A dude walking on the path who happened to turn around at the same time I did. This happened all the time. Like I mentioned before, the trail isn't a loop. One rides or walks to the first part of their goal, then turns around to go back to finish the second half of the goal. Which is what I did at the blue penis trash can and went home and didn't bother telling my husband about it. even though he asked why I was so jumpy when the dog barked and my shoulders were at my ears.

I told him nothing new and that I love him and I'm sorry. Just a normal mood for a normal woman whose husband's genealogy ruined her son. But I don't say that part. I get it. I do. But it's one of those things, I guess. A random thing the universe shows you, but you keep going and you always go home. and you find a way to stop bringing the fear home. I even went to the trail the next day at my usual time.

Maybe not because I was being brave, but because I like how it smells when the sun is burning the morning dew off the leaves. Probably because the smell reminds me of camping with my dad and brother as a kid. And even that time that I willed myself to ignore the tickling on my leg while I was standing at the splintery campsite picnic table because I decided I was being too much of a baby about the bugs. too flinchy, and my brother was making fun of me and dad never took my side. He was toughening me up, I guess.

Whatever that means. But when the tickle on my leg wasn't going away, and I looked down at the side of my bare knee, there was a wispy, long-legged daddy-long legs, gripping my uncovered skin, decidedly making its way up to my jugular, I'm sure. And I had that quiet panic and probably made sense. some weird inhuman sound and swatted like a crazy person, and I think I probably killed it. I do feel bad about that. Anyway, I realize that isn't a good sounding memory to link to that early morning smell that I love so much,

but honestly, it was a good memory. Speaking of smells on the trail, sometimes I actually smell perfume. One does wonder about people in the quiet moments of passing, but not for long, usually. And then he was there again. Ahead, maybe ten yards or so. And I was like, please no, not again. I squeezed my brakes and flinched at the long wine they let out, so I let go of them. Don't give him the satisfaction of being...

My brain was telling me this, but my desperate face would betray me because my bike ride is supposed to be relaxing. And I was desperate for it. I couldn't even tell you what I was afraid of. Not afraid, I guess, just like unnerved. Which is, now that I think about it, exactly how to describe what seeing the back of that man's head felt like. That's the word, unnerving. It, or he, was getting closer.

Or I was getting closer to him, I mean, just a few yards, then a few feet. I cannot explain how badly I needed to see this man's face, or really just to see that he had a face, just that my entire body wanted to lift up and land squarely in front of him before he had time to turn the back of his head on me again. I was right behind him now, coming up beside him even, and I noticed that he smelled like something familiar, like mud, maybe. Now I was slowing down to try to get a look at his face as I passed, and my neck strained, and I had to rotate the handlebars fast, and wiggle the front wheel to keep balance, because I was going so slow, and I couldn't see anything more than tight pink skin,

and I lost balance and toppled to the right, but caught myself with my foot firmly on the asphalt, then hopped forward a few feet until the momentum deigned that I may stop. And I stopped, and I looked back as quickly as my neck would let me, and it was true again. the back of that man's head, moving away from me in the opposite direction. Am I describing this clearly? What I'm trying to show you is that I had ridden up behind this man, past him, and somehow, somehow, in the instant it took me to look over my shoulder to see his face, he had turned his back and was once again walking away from me in the opposite direction.

Sad and watched for maybe a full minute until he disappeared around a bend. And it was quiet. Some fall leaves were floating in the wind. I mean, I didn't even know what this was. Was he messing with me? What did I ever do? I racked my brain to think of who would be angry and dedicated enough to carry out this weird revenge or whatever this was. I don't even think I knew anyone bald. Was it someone I had dismissed while going about and living my life,

made feel unseen, which is why he wouldn't let me see him? I mean, it's possible. I don't like to think I would ever make anyone feel like that, but we do things unconsciously all the time, I guess. So I rode on pretty quickly to the blue barrel trash can and stopped and turned around and stood there watching the trail again. If I turned back now to go home, I would definitely pass him again. It had only been a few minutes, and there wasn't another exit from the trail for miles. I knew I should just talk to him. If he just got to know me. I stood on the ground off my seat, straddling my bike with my body twisted, squinting to see if he was coming back, but I didn't see anyone. And I'll tell you for sure,

that didn't make me feel any better. I thought, maybe I didn't want to turn around and go home just yet. So I pushed on past the creek to the nine-mile marker, a weathered bench with a plaque which named a lady who had been a bike rider, I guess,

died somehow. I got home much later than I had told my husband and son that I would because I had rode farther than expected, but also because my legs were so tired, I could not ride the last couple miles to save my life. I had walked a long time with my hands on the handlebars, trying not to scrape my shin on the pedal that seemed to be jutting out at me in a very not friendly way. They were worried, and I understood, but I did not tell them about the man and his head. I didn't want them to worry, and I told them that I would always make it home, and it was no big deal. That night, I watched from the hallway my child sleeping on his stomach, the back of his blonde head staring blankly at me in the dark, giving no clue as to how he felt. Was he sad? Did he feel

safe from the gaping black nothingness under his bed that has always scared him so much? and in our bed my sleeping soundly husband on his side, his back rounded and rising and falling as he breathed through his apnea machine, his curly hair facing me with absolutely no opinion. I skipped the trail the rest of the week, but it was everywhere. Standing in line at the grocery store, behind bodies settled up to a bar, glancing at people on my street through their living room windows watching TV,

the world was full of the backs of heads. And I, and I'm realizing this now as I'm talking through it, I had become a little afraid that maybe I would never be seen again. Because if it was true that one very precious person could be randomly afflicted with something, how could anything so delicate as my opinion of myself, who I think I am, ever be anything but random? And the thing is, if I'm not so delicate,

being honest. I mean really honest. I wasn't angry at life or anything because of that, because I'm a broken wild horse. I'm a confessor under torture. I'm in love with my captor. But, but it just couldn't be possible for my son not to know that I need him to see me as his safe place. It just couldn't be possible that maybe he did not. anymore. And even though there was nothing more physically natural than to be unseen by the back of a person's head, I was becoming very, very afraid that no one would ever see me again. Now, this might not make sense to you, but when I did go back to the trail, I went at night. My family was asleep, and I didn't tell them that I was going because it was going to be quick.

just the ride, just me and my bike, just to the can. There was no spongy quality to the air at all. It was fast and slick. The leaves crunched under my tires, and at night it's bats, not leaves, to weave a canopy of flapping wings and sporadic direction above my head. No one anywhere, in front of me or behind. Just like that open water I was talking about that can feel like nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

And since no one could see me, maybe I was nowhere and everywhere at the same time. And this is pretty strange, but after what felt like only a few minutes of riding, and I did not recall passing either the six or the nine, but the marker for the 12-mile halfway point was suddenly only a few yards ahead of me. This marker was an old bridge with chain-link fence

reaching high up on either side, I assume so people wouldn't jump onto the abandoning, and overgrown train track below, which apparently did not have landscapers. I was curious about this, but also feeling some kind of whimsy amidst the strangeness while approaching the farthest marker I've ever rode to on the trail, and having done it with an unexplainable lack of effort. And then it happened. Before reaching the bridge, the crash of a storm door and a woman screaming, swearing, really, really, voluble. ugly, pitchy swearing that spun a new kind of quilted tube around me.

I stopped. Light slashed through the trees and ripped across the path under my feet. And now I was seeing the things unseen. So I listened to what I was not supposed to hear and stayed very still so that I wasn't caught spying. She cried and sobbed and yelled into the house at someone I could not see. and she also sounded so confused. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and hug her. Seriously.

And she would probably be embarrassed and apologize for her public outburst, and I would tell her that this all must be so scary, and I understand, and can I walk her home? But then she started stomping towards the trees and towards the trail, and she saw me and stopped. She looked really, really angry. and asked me what the fuck I was looking at, which I get. So I did not hug her or tell her that I understood,

and instead I got on the bike and peddled forward. I assumed she turned around and went the other direction, but I was looking straight ahead. And I could not believe what I was seeing. He was there on the bridge, his back to me, walking away from me like the times before, But had he even been behind me? He hadn't passed me.

I know he hadn't. Even if I was distracted by the secret scene, I would have noticed another person on the trail. I would have noticed him. My bike was rattling so loud in the quiet night, and I thought I might stop. I thought for a minute that I might hide in the shallow woods, walk my bike down the snarly little hill and lay as flat as I could,

with briars and needles and spears of branches that would probably slash ribbons in my face, and the mud and probably a snake, spiders. A tangle of bodily harm was the price for invisibility. But then, really, as I was coming to understand, I did not want to be invisible. Passing on your left, my throat released this. And so I stopped, and my throat was wrapped so tight around my heart. heart and my mind was working so hard to make a sketch of what that face was going to look like on the other side of that tight pink skull. But I couldn't picture anything on the other side of that

head except for another back of the head. And my God, what if he actually turned around? The indentation of the eye socket, the bubble of the eye, the nose, lips. What about an expression? Blackened eyes and quiet rage, or a clenched jaw and exhausted face, or a conundated face, or a confused, raised eyebrows, quivering lips maybe, or not a face at all, but just darkness, the kind of darkness that is only under a child's bed, or the face of my child, God, or my own face. But we both stood still, my straddling my bike seat and he a few feet ahead, and he was not turning around. The bats were being jagged little razors above us, and the screaming woman had turned off her light. But the back of his head was so impossibly bright under the

moon on the bridge. And the moon made the chain link fence into a shadowy cage on his skin. And the transparency of his ears that I could see now made me remember myself as a curious child, holding the flashlight to the webs between thumb and forefinger, seeing the vainy lines that we weren't supposed to be able to see because they're on the inside of our bodies, where our delicate little lives are coming from, disgusted, marveling, looking away. It did not feel like there was a direction I could go in that was forward, or a direction that was backwards. It only felt like I could go farther away. I would only go farther. Then I was on my bike, and my eyes were shut, and I was riding past him, and then away from him, and I didn't look back this time.

I'm not sure how fast I was going, but it did not feel very fast, because then I could see my shadow from the moon on the crumbling asphalt, and appeared to be cycling in place like a cartoon. But it did not make me laugh. I would go just a bit farther, I told myself. And then... And the light of dawn approaches. Our tales must come to an end until the next time we gather.

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