The NoSleep Podcast - S21 Ep12: NoSleep Podcast S21E12

Episode Date: July 21, 2024

It's Episode 12 of Season 21. Ride the Sleepless Express into tales about creepy collectibles."Marking Time" written by Shannon Taft (Story starts around 00:03:00)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Herman Zeiten - Mike DelGaudio, Jeffrey Pascale - Jeff Clement, Woodrow Jackson - Jesse Cornett, Ed Akimo - Dan Zappulla, Carl Runcie - Matthew Bradford, Pamela Fisher - Nikolle Doolin, Flower Brooks-North - Erin Lillis, Narrator - David Cummings"People Have to Know" written by Dannye Chase (Story starts around 00:27:30)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Kathryn - Sarah Thomas, Ed - Atticus Jackson, June - Kristen DiMercurio, Narrator - David Cummings"The Tragedy of the Laughing Clown" written by Zak Cowell (Story starts around 00:52:00)Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Narrator - Dan Zappulla, Seller - Erin Lillis, The Clown - Jesse Cornett"Box-o-Screams" written by Lisel Jones (Story starts around 01:12:45)Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Ray - David Ault, Kim - Ash Millman, Mac - James Cleveland, Nadya - Penny Scott-Andrews"The One with the Haunted Friends Episodes" written by Chris Evangelista (Story starts around 01:52:25)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Dr. Edgar Burmingham - Graham RowatClick here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about Dannye ChaseClick here to learn more about Lisel JonesExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone"The Tragedy of the Laughing Clown" illustration courtesy of JornAudio program ©2024 - 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.

All aboard. Tickets, please. Find your seats. The train will be departing shortly. You're aboard, the sleepless Express. A direct journey into the darkness of the night. There are no sleeping cars available on this train. On this journey, you will experience the horrors found within

the dark landscapes and endless black tunnels, you will hear things which will leave you frightened and disturbed. And remember, there will be no stops until the very end of the life. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Welcome aboard the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your conductor, David Cummings. podcast, episode 10, to be precise, we've known the horror of boxes. Remember the Penpal series? The chapter called boxes. Hmm, good times. Yes, as Schrodinger taught us, there's something unsettling about knowing a box contains something or another, but until we open it, we don't know what good or horrible things it holds. And in the realm of horror, old boxes

usually contain old things, collectibles, cursed objects, things perhaps better off left in those old dusty boxes. Yes, there's something about things from the past which remind us to live in the present and not focus so much on the days of yore. On this episode, we have tales about old things, collections of items held in old boxes which tell tales about events and people from the past,

the past long-forgotten. and I dare say they should have stayed forgotten. So if somewhere in your home, maybe in an attic, a basement, or perhaps a storage unit off-site, if you have old boxes with treasures from your past, consider either getting rid of them or at least never opening them again. Just saying, you've been warned. And now the train is ready to depart. Your journey into the darkness begins now.

In our first tale, we enter an internet forum, a place for people to discuss shared interests. Oh, yes, internet forums alone are a horror story, but in this case, the topic of discussion seems benign enough. Clock collectors. But in this tale, shared with us by author Shannon Taft, the group of collectors are trying to help them. member with an antique watch he's been given, a watch that doesn't seem to be working quite right. I join Mike Delgadoo, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornette, Dan Zepula, Matthew Bradford, Nicole Doolin, and Aaron Lillis in performing this tale. So wind it up and let it tick, then wait while you find yourself marking time. American Association of Clock Collectors

chat forum. Posted 535 a.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. Okay, guys, I swear I'm not nuts. Yesterday, my wife Mara gave me a 1940 Abercrombian Fitch pilot's watch. Now, for those of you who have never gotten to see one, the face has three inset dials, stopwatches,

located at 3, 6, and 9 o'clock. In order, they'd count down 30 minutes, 12 hours, or 60 seconds. The watch was a steal at just $30,000, even if it is broken somewhere inside. Supposedly, the last owner tried to get it fixed, but no dice. The hands wouldn't budge. I was all set to spend next weekend tinkering with it myself. Problem is, at midnight, the main clock face finally started running, all on its own.

Backwards. Posted 702 a.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal. Dude, I think your wife got scammed. A working number 39509, which sounds like, like you described, could run as much as $200,000. She probably got some cheap-o knockoff with the gears accidentally set in reverse. Posted 724 AM, December 26, Herman Zayton.

The papers look legit. The seller's great-grandfather bought it in NYC and later wore it as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot stationed at Sneddard in Heath Norfolk. Seller gave Mara the original receipt and a photo of his great-grandfather wearing the watch while standing next to a plane, a P-51 fighter. Posted 8.12 a.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal. Herman, even a non-functioning number 39509 would cost more than $30,000. I'm telling you, it's fake. Posted 8.15 a.m. December 26. Woodrow Jackson.

Maybe the seller didn't understand what he really had. Open that puppy up. A real ANF would have the Swiss Valjeu-72 movement. Posted 951 a.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. Wow, that was tough to pry open. But it has all the right stamps inside. Ed Hoyer and Company, 17 Jules, AXF,

and every single screw and gear is in the right spot, according to the pictures on the web of what it should be. Mine simply runs backwards. Posted 956 a.m. December 26. Ed Akemo. Try resetting the time, see if that jar is something loose. Posted 10.08 a.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. I think I'm losing my mind. I moved the time back 90 minutes like Ed suggested.

But as soon as I let go with the crown, the hands jumped back to where they'd been. then continued to keep reverse time. WTF. Posted 10.14 a.m. December 26. Carl Runcie. Can you find out more about the original owner? Maybe he did something to modify his watch. Posted 11.03 a.m. December 26.

Herman Zayton. I emailed the seller a few hours ago to ask him for more info. Just got this back. My great-grandfather, Bud Gallagher. was wearing the watch when he was shot down over Bremen in 1943. He died in a POW camp while trying to escape. The German guard who shot him supposedly stole the watch from his body, but the commandant found out,

punished the guard for theft, and gave the watch to the senior POW, a British colonel. After the war, the colonel sent the watch to my family with a letter explaining it all. I think my dad still has the letter. I'll see if he can take a photo of it for me to send to you. Posted 11.07 a.m. December 26. Carl Runcie An American prisoner of war had his corpse looted by a Nazi. That might be enough to curse the watch. Anyone else die while wearing the watch since? Maybe it's the timepiece equivalent of the Hope Diamond,

counting down to your doom. Boah ha! Posted 11.08 a.m. December 26. Flower Brooks North. What's Boeha? Uh-huh. Posted 11.09 a.m. December 26. Carl Runcie. An evil cackle, like a 1930s villain? My way of saying that I was making a joke.

Posted 1114 a.m. December 26. Pamela Fisher. Don't be so insensitive, Carl. Think how that prisoner's family must have felt on hearing the news. My great-grandfather was a prisoner of war in Germany. Niena spent the whole time terrified that the Nazis would find out he was half Jewish and do something awful. Posted 1123 a.m. December 26. Woodrow Jackson. Not to buy into this curse business, but Herman, your name sounds kind of German. Your family isn't from Bremen, is it?

Posted 1129 a.m. December 26. Herman Zayton Maybe a little, sort of? My great-grandfather Maximilian Zayton came to the U.S. as a kid around 1900. My sister is a huge ancestry buff and has a copy of his immigration papers. His port of departure was Bremen, but the Internet says that Bremen was once the biggest emigrant harbor in Central Europe. So it might not mean anything. Posted 1132 AM, December 26. Woodrow Jackson

Did Maximilian have any sons who could have fought with Bud Gallagher, or been in the same POW camp? Posted 1134 AM, December 26. Herman Zayton. Nope, only one son, my grandfather. He was a Marine wounded at Guadalcanal, wrong side of the planet to have anything to do with the death of Bud Gallagher. Posted 1136 AM, December 26.

Ed Akimo. Hooh, dodge that bullet. Posted 1137 AM. December 26. Pamela Fisher. Your pun is not appreciated, Ed. Posted 11.38 a.m. December 26. Carl Runcie. Speak for yourself, Pamela.

Posted 1139 a.m. December 26. Pamela Fisher. I did, Carl. That's what posted by means on the chat board. Posted 1140 a.m. December 26. Pamela Fisher. December 26. Woodrow Jackson. I thought Carl and Pamela were dating. Did I get that wrong? Posted 1144 a.m. December 26.

Pamela Fisher Last year, Carl asked me to come meet him at the clocks of America convention. He bought me two drinks at the bar before saying, come up to my room so I can show you my 1968 Swiss Codiac Sea Wolf. He never said a word about having a wife and three kids. We were involved for six months before I found out the truth. Cheating scum. Posted 1147 AM, December 26.

Woodrow Jackson. Oops, sorry to bring up a sore point. Posted 1148 a.m. December 26. Pamela Fisher. For the record, the 1968 Swiss Coast Codiac Seawulf takes a lot of winding up, then has a short power reserve, and is spent much too fast. Just like Carl. Posted 1159 AM December 26. Flower Brooks North.

I ask the people on my psychic chat board what they think, and everyone who answered so far agrees that objects connected to a violent death can permanently harbor the spirit of of the victim, crying out for justice from his grave. But we can't agree on why some objects get the curse and others don't. They also agree that cheaters get bad karma, so you may want to be more careful in the future, Carl. Posted 1208 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. Hey, guys. At noon, the 12-hour stopwatch at the bottom started moving. It's counting down and I can't get it to stop. I tried opening the back again to get at the gears, but it refuses to budge.

Also, I'd swear the metal is getting colder. Posted 12.09 p.m. December 26. Woodrow Jackson. Do you have a thermometer you can use to measure the temp of the watch? Posted 1216 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. My house is 72 degrees. The watch is 60 degrees. according to the laser thermometer we got a few years ago. The thermometer also says my body temp is 98.9, so the device can't be off by much,

certainly not by 12 degrees. If anyone has a rational explanation for this, I'd really like to hear it. I'm also open to any advice on how to make the countdown stop. Posted 1217 p.m. December 26. Carl Runcie Holy crap, smash the watch with a hammer. Posted 1217 p.m.

P.m., December 26. Woodrow Jackson. Run it over with your car. Posted 12.18 p.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal. No, that's a $200,000 watch. Don't you dare hurt it. Posted 1219 p.m. December 26. Woodrow Jackson. Maybe Jeffrey can buy the watch from Herman if he's so determined to protect it. Posted 12.20 p.m. December 26. Ed Akemo. What is the discount on cursed watches?

Posted 1221 p.m. December 26. Woodrow Jackson. Herman said it was a steel at $30,000, right? Posted 1222 p.m. December 26. Carl Runcie. That was the price his wife paid when she thought it just had broken gear. A curse ought to get Jeffrey an additional price reduction. Posted 4 p.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal Herman, we haven't heard from you since the whole temperature thing.

Is everything okay? I mean, I can't afford to buy that watch, but surely someone on eBay would pay good money for it, especially if you leave out any mention of the watch possibly being cursed. Posted 4.25 p.m. December 26. Pamela Fisher It's not very ethical tricking someone into purchasing a watch like that

Posted 427 P.m. December 26 Jeffrey Pascal Someone did it to him or rather to his wife Posted 428 PM December 26 Ed Akimo

It's only unethical if the seller suspects it's possessed. Maybe they just thought it was broken Posted 7.44 p.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal. Herman, I'm getting a little worried here. You never answered my 4 o'clock post. Are you all right? Posted 10.38 p.m. December 26.

Herman Zayton. Sorry, I've been busy. My sister has scoured every branch of our family tree. As far as we can tell, no one has lived in Germany in the last 100 years. The closest we have to a relative getting remotely near Bremen during the war is a great uncle, who fought in Sicily under Patton before dying on the beaches at Normandy. And the watchtemp went back to normal after a while, which is a good thing, because Mara was asking why I stopped wearing my present.

I have the damn thing on again. Posted 10.40 p.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal We're all getting too superstitious. I bet we'll laugh about this one day. All the same, have you gotten a copy of the letter from the British Colonel yet? Posted 1042 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. I forgot to post it. So stressed and so busy pretending tomorrow that I love my Christmas present,

which I would, if it didn't act so creepy. I didn't even tell her I was researching the watch as previous owners. Here's the important part from the British Colonel's letter. From the moment your brother arrived, one guard, Sergeant Albrecht Schmidt, had his eye on that damned watch. Bud and another guy, Austin, tried a tunnel escape on the night of December 25th. I heard the gunshots right about midnight. Bud was hit five times, including a shot right between his eyes. Yet Austin only got hit once, and that was in the leg. Austin told me that he saw Schmidt shoot your brother after Bud was already down, and then take the watch off his body. I reported it to Commandant-Muller, who was probably a better man than most of the officers in his position, likely because his own

son was a prisoner in one of our camps. At any rate, we only had a POW's word about the last shot being deliberate, unnecessary, and the one to the head. But Schmidt did have the watch, so Mueller punished Schmidt for stealing and sent him to the Eastern Front. Mueller also took custody of the watch, saying he'd keep it safe and give it to me at the end of the war so that Bud's family could get it back. A man of his word, he did just that. And now, I'm returning it to you. It's up to you to decide how much of this you want to explain to Bud's wife and kid. Posted 10.51 p.m. December 26.

Woodrow Jackson. I wonder if we can track down what happened to this Austin guy who said he saw the murder. You're not related to him, right? Posted 10.53 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. No one by that name of my family tree. Posted 10.55 p.m. December 26. Ed Akemo.

Austin might have been the place that the guy was from, like calling a buddy Denver because that's his hometown. In the movies, they did that all the time during WW2. Posted 10.58 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. It's been too long a day to worry about it now, especially when Mara is starting to get suspicious about all my calls and texts. Maybe tomorrow I'll ask my sister if she can get locations to match all the relatives on the family tree.

Posted 11.06 p.m. December 26. Jeffrey Pascal. Sleep tight, buddy. And check in with us tomorrow. Posted 11.09 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. Sure thing. Posted 11.31 p.m. December 26. Herman Zayton. The 30-minute countdown is now moving, and the watch got cold again. I have no clue what it all means. But if I don't post something after midnight, well, it's been nice knowing all you. And, Jeffrey, since you like the watch so much, it's yours if I die tonight.

Wear it in good health. If you can. Posted 1133 p.m. December. 26, Jeffrey Pascal. Very funny. Posted 1204 a.m. December 27. Jeffrey Pascal. Herman? Did you forget to do the midnight post telling us that you're okay?

Posted 1205 a.m. December 27. Ed Akimo. Maybe his internet went down and that's why he hasn't posted? Posted 12.06 a.m. December 27. Jeffrey Pascal Well, his cell servers would have to be down too. Posted 1207 a.m. December 27. Pamela Fisher. He might not have meant that he'd post immediately after midnight.

Does anyone have his phone number to call? Posted 1212 a.m. December 27. Jeffrey Pascal. I swear, if this turns out it was all a prank, I'm going to initiate proceedings and have him remove from the association. Posted 12.13 a.m. December 27. Pamela Fisher. Herman playing a prank on us does seem more likely than a murdered prisoner of war haunting a watch. And to think, he got all of us so worried that we're up late to check on him. I'm definitely going to vote to expel him.

Posted 1214 a.m. December 27. Ed A.kemo. We need to give him a chance to explain himself. Maybe he just forgot that he said he'd send us a message once the timer ran out. He did say he was tired and stressed, right? Posted 1221 AM December 27. Jeffrey Pascal. Let's all go to bed. We can see what Herman has to say for himself tomorrow.

Posted 1249 AM December 27. Pamela Fisher. Has anyone heard from Herman at all? Posted 908 p.m. December 27, Jeffrey Pascal. Herman, if you aren't dead, we're going to make you wish you were. Posted 10.39 p.m. January 2nd, Herman Zayton. I'm sorry to have not written sooner. I just... I couldn't. One minute before midnight on December 26th, the countdown began on the 60-second timer.

When it ran out, along with the other two, and nothing happened to me, I felt like such an idiot to have thought the watch was possessed. Then I heard a crash from the bedroom. I ran upstairs and found Mara just a few feet away from our bed. Like she was trying to get somewhere, maybe to get help, to get me, since I wasn't with her like I should have been. The medical examiner says it was an aneurysm. a burst blood vessel in her brain that killed her before we even got her to the hospital. Mara's mom came to town to assist me with the funeral arrangements. When I told her the story about the watch, she stared at me like I was insane.

But when I showed her the British colonel's letter, she started to cry. I didn't know what to do, so I brought her some hot tea. She asked me for a whiskey instead. So I filled a highball glass with Jack Daniels and she downed the booze like a sailor on leave before telling me that her maiden name had been Smith. Something that I think I was maybe told at some point. I'm sure I never knew that Mara's grandfather had Americanized the name when he came to the U.S. after the war. See, he called himself Albert Smith here, but he was born.

born Albrecht Schmidt. And according to Maura's mom, he spent part of the war as a guard before serving on the Eastern Front. It must have been Maura's grandfather who murdered Bud Gallagher and looted the watch from Bud's corpse. The same watch that I stupidly said Mara had gotten from Bud's family for a steal. I've never paid much attention in church, but it seems that my mother in-law did. She showed me the part of the Bible where it talks about visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation. Well, she's not so worried about herself having lived a full life, but she pointed out that Mara was only the third generation. Don't you see,

Morrie gave me five children. Sometimes old boxes hold records and evidence of dark events, events which most want to forget about, and the records can be quite detailed if stored in a news radio station. And in this tale, shared with us by author Danny Chase, we hear the recordings from an interview done with a convicted killer, and her story doesn't seem to match the reported facts. I join Sarah Thomas, Atticus Jackson, and Kristen D. Maccurio in performing this tale.

So despite the passage of time, some facts need to be shared, because people have to know. After the floods of 2022 in Cedar City, a water-damaged box is discovered in the basement of the KCC News Radio Building. The box is marked 26B, 1991. Subject, June Leonard Death Row interview. Written on the box in Black Marker is Returned by Police, Hoax. The word hoax has been crossed out by a blue marker. The box contains an audio tape labeled January 14, 1991,

along with two KCC News Radio Press Passes on Lanyards, which bear the names Catherine Wells, reporter, and Edward Meck, Sound engineer. The photos on the passes show convicted murderer June Leonard standing in front of the KCC radio building holding a bloody knife. The audio recording is as follows. This is Catherine Wells, reporter for KCC News Radio. I'm here with Edmec, sound engineer, and we are at the state prison, along with inmate June Leonard. It's January 14th, 1991.

All right, June, are you comfortable here in the chair? In the chair? Ed, if you can't be professional. No, I got it, I got it. Go ahead. It's fine. I'm at peace with my fate. Thank you for being here. Of course. And we very much appreciate you giving us this exclusive.

Well, the story is always biggest at home, isn't it? Everyone around here has got an opinion on the mystery. What mystery? Ed. I didn't kill anyone. Why don't we start at the beginning? Tell us your story, just in your own words. Okay, yeah.

I was born in this area, tiny farm town, but my grandma lived here in Cedar City, Elaine Leonard. We used to visit all the time, me and my little sister, May. Eventually, our dad split and our mom died, so... when I was nine, we went to live with Grandma Leonard. She raised us, and then when she passed, she left the house to me. And this is the house at 241 Fall Road, where your sister and her family were murdered. Yeah, the house on Fall Road.

So Grandma left it to me, but I wasn't married, and May had a husband and three kids already, so May pushed me pretty hard to let them live in it, and I said fine. That was very nice of you. Well, I felt like Grandma would have wanted me to, you know? At the time, that's what I thought, anyway. Tell me about the house. It's just a three-bedroom split level. Had a garden in back.

We did our best with that. We never got cucumbers to come up, right? They were always bitter. But it's a nice place. It's kind of on the end of the block, and there's no streetlights or anything out that far. My grandma liked that. She liked how dark it got at night.

Not one of those places where you can see shadows at midnight, just private. Grandma kept it clean. We all did when we were living there. With May's kids, though, the place was usually a mess. Was it a happy place for you when you lived there? Oh, yeah. Grandma and I, we were close. Spent a lot of time together. I really looked up to her. You know, my grandma only had nine toes. She'd injured one as a child, and it was amputated. She still wore sandals anyway. Most people didn't notice or didn't. care, but sometimes you could see it bothered somebody. It was grotesque, if you really looked at it, almost like a hole in her foot. People would shiver or whatever. And I'd know they were thinking about nine little toes with their calluses and nail polish, and one just gone. Like maybe they

were nervous about where that last toe was. I actually used to wish my feet looked like that. Sometimes I thought about cutting off one toe, but I could never quite decide which one. Sometimes I thought about cutting off all of them. Um, did May get along with your grandmother? Well, May and Grandma were, like, very different people, different personalities. Probably why Grandma didn't leave the house to her. But, yeah, they got along fine if they had to. Did May get along with you?

Of course, she's my sister. No resentments, no... No arguments or... No? All right. So what happened after May's family moved into the house? Well, one day, I stopped hearing from them. I was living in town, but I didn't see them real often.

We just... We called. My sister would call me and tell me stuff about the kids, but she didn't for like three days. No word. Then I heard. I didn't call the police about it. They called me because Mae didn't go to work and Jason either.

And the kids didn't show up at school, so they wanted to know had I seen them or heard from them, and I hadn't, so we went to the house, the police and me, and everybody was just gone. I mean, you could tell something, it's all right when you can. No, it's okay. I knew something had happened because of the way the house, because of all the blood. And the stuff, like, stuff was everywhere. All the signs of a struggle, I guess.

Worse mess than usual. One of the kids must have run down the stairs. I tried to hide in the basement because we found a teddy bear down there. Just all bloody. Uh, right. And you didn't know about the killings? until then, until the police showed you? No, geez, like people think I'd do something like that for a house.

Come on, who kills five people for a house? You didn't regret letting your sister have the house? No, I didn't. Fuck's sake. Sorry, I mean, we had our issues, but it wasn't the house that... Jesus, anyway, the cops were there a while, and then we got it cleaned up, like, the next month, but before I could move in, I had to go there and sort through things.

There was so much stuff crammed in there from May's family. And that's when I noticed the photographs. What photographs? The family photographs on the stairs. What about them? Is this something you said in other interviews? I don't remember... No, no, you guys are the first ones I've told.

That the photographs were changing. Changing photographs? Yeah, look, I know nobody believes me about what happened. I wouldn't be on death row if they did. But I couldn't go without telling someone because people have to know. That's just... That's why when the photographs changed, why I stayed, why I kept coming back to that place,

even though it was creeping me the hell out because I had to know what happened. And something in that house was telling me the answer. Something in the house. Ed, shut up. Thank you. Okay, so my sister had photographs hanging over the stairs, family pictures, school pictures, baby pictures, you know. I never paid much attention to them, but like, the third day I was there, I noticed something weird.

None of the pictures had my brother-in-law in them, Jason, May's husband. And I thought that was so, so funny, because the two of them did. They weren't having problems, and I mean, anyway, who isn't in their own wedding photos? It was just May standing in the church by herself. I couldn't explain it, but I didn't immediately think something weird had happened. Not until May was gone. You mean gone from the photographs? May disappeared from the photographs, too?

Yeah. I got there one day, and I was going up the stairs with a load of baby clothes, and I glanced over, and about dropped everything, because now there was just a picture of a church altar with the flowers in my sister's wedding colors, but no people in it, no groom, no bride, just an empty church. Wait, wait, okay, you're saying you actually saw these photographs change?

Well, I saw they had changed, like, from one day to the next. Did you tell anyone about this? No, I couldn't explain it. and we were still trying to figure out where everybody went. The bodies hadn't been found yet. I didn't want to distract the police. Did you think someone had maybe come in and exchange the photographs for edited versions? I mean, who would do that?

And why? Maybe the killer for some reason? Did you ever think you might be unsafe in the house? Yeah, I guess it did cross my mind, but I had to know. I had to know. And something was telling me. You mean with the photographs? Yeah, because next it was Ada, the oldest.

That was worse. The kids were, because I was expecting it, like, I knew. I mean, I knew it hadn't been May hiding in the basement with a bloody teddy bear, but it had to be one of the kids, so... I knew the kids were dead, but I'd look over the pictures before I left the house at night, and in the morning, one of the kids would just be gone. Baby pictures with no baby.

Just rocking chairs and stuffed animals and little cubes that say one or three on them. It just really... I would be standing there, holding one of their little toys and looking at the pictures, and it gave me the chills. Wait, so you mean you think the people disappearing out of the photographs meant they were dead? Yeah. Because they must have died in that order, right? first the dad. You'd want to get rid of him right away. He's the strongest. It happened in the bedroom upstairs. That's where the most blood splatter was. And then the mom, they think May was in the

bathroom. And from the blood trail, it looks like she tried going down the hall towards the kids' rooms, but didn't make it. And that was the point, you know, because if the parents are dead, you can get the kids easier. I guess little Josh must have been the one in the basement because he was the last to disappear out of the pictures. Kids, right? They think it's better. to hide than to run for a neighbor's. Might have made it if he had. Jesus Christ. So you really believed the photos were telling you about the murders?

Well, I wasn't completely sure about it until the killer showed up. The killer showed up? At the house? In the photographs. It wasn't clear at first, just a black blob in the corner, like a shadow or a stain in the empty pictures. but it started getting bigger and a little bit clearer. Eventually, I could make out a hand, and the hand had a knife,

so then I knew how they died, why there was so much blood, way more than if they'd been shot. Because the police were thinking knife or maybe axe, but it was a big old bloody butcher knife in the pictures. Then after that, the shape started to have a face, weak and washed out, but enough for me to know. It looked. And this was the thing.

The killer looked like they'd always been there. The lighting and focus were right, like the picture had never been of May and her family, like they'd never been in those happy moments. Only ever this awful, staring face and the knife and the blood dripping down onto the floor. Whose face was it? My grandmothers.

Your grandmother, Elaine Lennon. Leonard, who was dead. Yeah, it was her. Okay, um, let's, let's take a little break here. Sure. This is some last-minute insanity defense bullshit. She's only got four hours before they execute her. Yeah, so she's desperate.

Right, but she might still say something we can use. We have an exclusive here. We can't waste it. Well, I'm not calling the fucking cops to tell them she's too messed up in the head to execute. Neither am I. Fine. I can prove it. What?

If you go to the house, the photographs are there. I put them under the bed in Ada's room with my diary. You kept a diary? Oh, yeah, all my life. I mean, they found the bodies the day after my grandma showed up in the pictures, but until then, I wrote it all down. The changing photographs, day by day, how I figured it out. I was writing in it when the cops came for me. I knew something was wrong because they had their lights on,

so I put the photos and diary under the bed, and I went outside, and then they told me they were arresting me. Did the police say why, how they knew it was you? Yeah, they found the bodies in the basement of my fucking apartment building, wrapped up in bloody sheets, shoved in a corner under some other junk. The smell tipped off the super, I guess, because they were rotting by then. The bugs, too. There were flies all over the building.

And that's where the cops stopped looking. Case closed. But you didn't put the bodies there? Jesus, would I? Would you? Who would be that stupid? So you were framed. You said that at trial.

The killer framed you. Yeah. But now you're saying the killer who you were framed by is your dead grandmother. I know how it sounds. But listen, I was her favorite. She left me the house, and I went against her wishes when I let May move in. May didn't deserve it. You know, I shouldn't say, but I don't think all those kids were even Jason's.

He stood by her when she got knocked up the first time, but we all knew she was hooking to bring in extra money. So you think she deserved to die for that? Of course not, but my grandmother clearly did. So your grandmother killed her own granddaughter and her first. family because she wanted you to have the house? Well, because I had given it away. She wanted May gone, but she also wanted to punish me. I was her favorite, but she was angry with me. We'd had good times in that house, the two of us, and she wanted me there, not May. May made it different, messy, loud, smelly, so my grandma put the bodies in my apartment building.

At first I thought I was lucky she didn't kill me, too, but, well, Seems she's just waiting for the state to do it. Okay. Okay, you... Okay. Your grandmother's dead, though. I know. We buried her.

She went into the ground, all nine toes. So you're saying her ghost killed May and the kids and put the bodies in your building. And then she changed the photographs to show you what she did. it's the only thing that makes sense. And the photographs are in the house still, along with your diary? Yeah. And so what do you want us to do?

I don't know, I just... People always want to know what really happened. People have to know. So I'm telling the world. And you can put it on the radio, call it a last kindness. And that's what you want? That's all you want? The only thing I had left to make a choice on was my last.

meal, honey. You got no choices on death, Roe. Okay. Just find out. Just go to my house, look under the bed. You know, it's funny. Well, it's sad, I guess. When I learned what my grandmother had done to May, I was so angry, but I still really miss her. We did a lot of fun things together. If I did have a choice, I'd find a way to go back to those simpler times. times, just her and me. Okay, well, thank you for your time, June. We appreciate it. Will you go?

So this is breaking and entering? It's news, Ed. We don't have to say how we got the stuff. Do you think there's actually going to be a diary and photographs of an undead mass murderer in here? I think... Well, there definitely aren't any pictures hanging here anymore. Just nails and wires. If there is something in this creepy-ass place, it's going to be a hoax.

You know that. June could have edited photos however she wanted and written whatever she thought up in a diary. Come on, Ed. Don't you want to know? People have to know. All right, here we go. I see the name Aida on the door here. Pink wooden letters.

There's the bed. Bed frame. anyway. Did she die in here? The little girl? Um, yeah, I think so. She tried to hide under the bed. Fuck. I've got the chills now. Well, there's something here. Let's see. Jesus fucking Christ, that's creepy. Well, it sure is Grandma Leonard, at the altar with the wedding flowers. holding a big fucking knife. Who would fake that photo? I'm going to answer my own question.

Somebody who'd kill three kids to get a house back? Okay, I think there's a book in here too. The diary? Yeah, looks like. So, do you think the grandmother knew? Like, that her granddaughter was capable of mass murder? Is that why she left to the house? To avoid bloodshed?

Because if June's really her favorite granddaughter, then that old woman had the common sense of a rock. June's like the creepiest woman I've ever... What is it? Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. What? This diary goes back years before the grandma died. They used to...

In this house, they used to... With cats and dogs, God! She said they had good... times in this house. Who? June and her grandma. Not May, just them. Remember that kid that disappeared in 62?

What, Chris Banks? They fucking killed Chris Banks. But June would have been just a kid back then. Yeah, she helped her grandma do it. Her grandma taught her to... What? To what? No.

Ed, no. No one should ever read this. My watch. Execution. The bitch June is dead. Thank God. Let's get out of here. What?

Your pass. Your press pass. What happened? What the hell? Did mine... Oh, God. Where are we? We're not in our pictures.

What the fuck? Yours is... There's a thing in it. What is that? Yours is still empty. It's... She said the dad was killed first, because he was the strongest. You're the man.

Jesus, I can see a hand in your picture with a knife. This is bullshit. This is impossible. Ed, it's June. It's June. No, no. She's dead. June's dead.

But if... If she's in the photo now, she's back, like her grandma. Oh, God, I can see something in my picture now. Huh? Antique stores, secondhand shops, thrift stores, places where you can buy old things which others have discarded. And yes, many a horror tale begins with an unsuspecting person finding a treasure which turns nightmarish. But as we'll learn in this tale, shared with us. by author, Zach Cowell.

One man isn't new to searching for antique treasures, and we'll see why he no longer collects anything. Performing this tale are Dan Zapula, Aaron Lillis, and Jesse Cornett. So play along with this one and learn the tragedy of the laughing clown. I used to make a habit of perusing dingy thrift shops, antique markets, or any kind of hole in the wall store, I could procure strange and interesting objects. You see, it's always been a hobby of mine to collect an assortment of unusual items.

This sounds strange, but sometimes I can sense peculiar energy when I come across certain objects. A palpable energy. I remember the first special item I ever found, an arrowhead in the creek bed when I was a small child. When I touched it, I immediately felt. this otherworldly force that made my fingers tingle. Over time, I came to find that my ability was not shared by any of my peers. My parents thought I was just an odd child, but as I got older,

they became irritated at me from my bizarre collection. I had this feeling at the back of my mind, this sense that each item was special and was a key to something else. perhaps a memory or some ghostly energy or something beyond comprehension like pieces to some unknown puzzle. I was raised in an old manner that had been passed down through the family. When my parents didn't notice, I would sneak up to the upper floors of the large house which sat collecting dust. These rooms and the attic had their fair share of objects which piqued my interest. I began to store my collection within the dusty rooms of the old home.

Once my parents died and left me the house, the collecting of objects continued in earnest. Through the years, I have acquired so many artifacts that I have dedicated entire rooms to my collection. My miscellany includes a plastic toy unicorn the size of my palm, a rock I stole from my ninth grade science class, a penny from 1975, an antique safe, a rail spike I found down by the tracks when I was a kid, a rusty key,

an old apothecary bottle from the early 1800s with the label still attached, an umbrella with an ornate handle, a small metal statue of the Buddha dated to the 18th century, an antique talking board, and an ancient rotary phone. Not to mention all the things I found within my old home, I could go on and on. These objects have nothing in common, except for the fact that they emit some form of odd energy, which I can detect through unknown methods. The energies are similar, though I cannot quite discern what it is that makes them alike. After recent events, I'm not sure that I care to know.

I would not classify the energies as good or evil, just something not of this world. It is as if these objects exist at a threshold between. Some objects feel like good luck, others feel like they're cursed. Some allude to a distant memory or major event that triggered the energy captured within. Most of them just feel, for a lack of a better word, significant. When I come across a sacred object, it feels like deja vu, the remembrance of a dream or something else. One fine autumn day a couple of weeks back, I was browsing an online for sale group, as I often do when I'm bored, when I came across an ad for a piece of sheet music. Sometimes it's difficult to peruse an object online, as it is harder to discern if it might be special through the computer monitor.

But in this case, it was not even a question. The sheet music was titled The Tragedy of the Laughing Clown. The description of the item read as follows. Sheet music from the 1920 silent classic film starring Don Jamerson. I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about cinema, but I know almost nothing about silent era films. I wanted the object because of the feeling it gave me when I saw it. But it wasn't just the piece of sheet music that made my stomach turn.

It was because of the strange and strange, and frightening face of the clown displayed on the front cover of the aging pages. The clown was dressed in archaic frills around the wrists and neck like silken shackles, complete with grotesque shades of red, white, blue, and black clown makeup. The features of his face were bizarre. His lips turned up in that alarming way that only ancient clowns could do were the reddest of all. The teeth, which were supposed to be white, had become gray with age along with the skin of the face. And those eyes, those beady eyes, seemed to be both pleading and full of an unearthly hunger,

as if he was tired of the charade and wanted to show the world what was under the makeup. Even through the computer screen, the face of the clown made me feel cold. reached out to the cellar and told them that I would purchase the sheet music. They agreed to meet with me the next morning to make the exchange. I met the cellar at a gas station in Devil's Peak, a small town in North Carolina about 15 minutes from where I reside. The whole town seemed to be enveloped in a thick fog which made driving difficult and filled the entire journey with a sense of foreboding. The lack of people and cars downtown was particularly, particularly eerie, even for a local like me.

I pulled into the gas station next to the cellar's car. A tired-looking woman who appeared to be in her 60s got out of the car, and we exchanged pleasantries. After a quick verbal exchange, she handed me the sheets of music. I grabbed it from her a little too eagerly and opened the folder to see if the feeling I had experienced before was still there. The sense of a palpable energy was not only present, but overpowering. A humming sound began to take over my mind. It felt as if a black snake was wrapping itself around my brain. I started to feel dizzy, and in the background, the tree branches began to sway unnaturally.

The wind picked up, blowing at the edges of the sheet music. The piece of music seemed to cry out to me with some unspoken message. That nightmarish clown on the cover, looking away and pointed to the right, seemed to be looking right into my soul. I stared at the sheet music intently, looking over the few pages it contained, completely enveloped in its aura. Everything else around me seemed to stop. I could no longer hear the dry leaf.

being pushed along the pavement and could no longer feel the cold wind on the back of my legs and neck. I got so lost looking at the sheet music, feeling its energy swallow me, that I completely forgot about the poor woman who was still standing there waiting for me to pay her. She gave me an odd look, a mixture of fear and pity. Is that what you're looking for? I apologized and then handed her the ten dollars that we had agreed upon

Good luck She shook her head slightly Before getting in her beat-up Subaru And driving away I found her remark Rather odd But the thoughts left my mind And returned to the sheet of music

With the clown who seemed to be Speaking to me With his horrible sad eyes When I arrived at my abode the first thing I did was find my special keyboard piano. I kept it in a small corner room on the third floor, amongst a few other unique items. I had already fully filled a couple of rooms with my objects,

and I was well on my way to filling this current one. It was an old cheap plug-in keyboard that could sound like a couple of different instruments, entirely ordinary apart from the energy I could feel emanating from it. I knew it would be perfect. to use with the music. I sat the piano up in what was once considered a sitting room

which was still full of fancy furniture, though it had moldered over the years. I set up at a table near an electrical outlet next to a window overlooking the woods out back. I turned the setting to the tinny organ sound I was fond of and began to play the song. It was a simple enough tune. The lyrics, however, were quite,

odd. This world is just a masquerade, and each soul plays their part. The happy soul works night and day. The sad soul makes his art. But beneath these false facades, the light does not shine far. At night, we peer into the looking glass to see what we truly are. A mask made up of rage and tears so people don't seem to care. The pain that I bury beneath is the bird. that I must bear. No matter how much we bleed and fear, we must keep smiling and acting, you must dance for the puppet master, and I must keep on laughing. The melody and the words of the song began to swirl about in my mind, and as they did so, the organ setting that I was playing on began to sound more like a carnival calliope. I became lost in the song, in the movement of my

fingers in the words of the tune. After I finished the song for the first time, I let out a laugh, which did not sound like my own. Then I began to repeat the piece, though it felt as if my fingers had lost their free will, or that I had lost control over them. In the background, as if my fingers played the clown's song of their own accord, I imagined that I could hear the sounds of the circus. crowds talking among themselves, the cheering and laughing children, sometimes sounding like screams, the dinging and the sirens of different booths, the whistling of the calliope, the groaning of the metal rides, game masters, heckling passers by and yelling, Step rider, claim your prize!

In the ancient drawing room, I began to see the wonderful swirling lights of the carnival, the game booths, the food truce, the food, trucks, the big top circus tents, the rickety rides, and the spinning carousel with the horses that looked as if they had been petrified by the stare of Medusa herself. I could smell the popcorn, the sweet scent of powdered sugar on funnel cakes, and something else, the excrement of exotic animals, and their fear, their fear of dancing before a scary audience, an audience with hungry eyes, being urged on by a sinister master of ceremonies. As I kept playing against my own free will, if we even have a free will, if we are not merely

just puppets made of meat, I felt myself crying then. I don't know why, but I began to sob uncontrollably. It was a deep sadness that suddenly welled up inside of me. Thoughts and feelings that I thought I'd buried long ago began to appear in my mind like ghosts. The depression that I had carried for years, the feelings of rejection and loneliness, every failure, every scorned love,

every joke I had made at my own expense, the fear of life itself, the feet of life itself, the feet of, existence in a meaningless reality. The ache of loss of my family who passed on. The fear of being a human. A creature trapped between being an animal and a god. A creature existing in the liminal space between meaning and non-meaning.

A prisoner of consciousness, of biological purgatory flashed before me in some sick circus show. All the while, the song. the song of the clown played in my head. And there were new lyrics to the song now. They were whispers of ancient sadness, of darkness swallowing light, of a carnival show existence where we all wear masks

and play pretend for the pleasure of others, never letting them know about the pain that we constantly walk around with, like a festering infected wound, covered with maggots and flies. The music swirled around me faster, and I began to feel something like motion sickness. The circus lights grew brighter, and the smells of the animals who had to dance for their master became so pungent. I wanted to vomit.

We're all dancing for her. And it is a pleasure. I tried to turn around to see who was with me in the room, who was speaking in my ear, but I found I could not move my head. The only part of me moving was my fingers, still playing the song of the clown. I could feel breath on the back of my neck, could smell the makeup and eternal stink upon its exhalation. But I couldn't stop playing the song.

I began to play it faster, better, as if I was subconsciously rehearsing for the clown. The harder I willed my brain to quit performing the song, the faster I played. That's splendid. I like the style you play the song. And the flourishes you add to its melody? Such vigor and feeling. Now, even if I possessed the capability, I could not bear to turn my head. I could only witness the cacophonist cyclone of visions and sounds of the circus before me,

like a swirling kaleidoscopic carousel of horror. I could smell the breath of the clown again now. It smelled like dried blood. I imagined the clown standing behind me with his twisted grin and his hungry stare as he watched me play his song, a delighted, horrific twinkle in his eyes. He kept saying things over and over, and in that moment, I realized that what the clown was saying was true. We are all dancing for the mother of the void This was why the clown was sad

Of course the classic clown's dilemma How could you make the king of clowns laugh How could you scare the ruler of darkness We are all dancing before the mother of creation, the mother of the endless abyss which birthed the stars. We are all puppets with painted faces, with strings attached. The more we try to go against this fact of life, the harder we dance, the harder we work, the harder we compare ourselves to others, and the harder we hold ourselves to a phony standard invented by flaw. Maud Monkey Minds.

At this thought, I began to laugh. The kind of laugh that comes when another of life's inevitable blows comes crashing down. The sick sadness inside of me now turned into some sort of sublime, horrific humor. I realized that the masks of the comedian and the tragedian were cut from the same cloth. One man's misfortune is another man's laugh. One lion's cub is another lion's meal. The music kept swirling, playing faster and faster, so fast now that there seemed to almost be a second-perceivable song beneath the current melody. Coming out of the first, the way that a harmonic overtone can come out of a multitude of combined voices.

Tears were streaming down my face, and I was laughing so hard. hard that I thought my insides would explode any minute. My stomach was on the verge of rupturing. At that moment, I felt that I would die. I was dead already. I was a puppet of meat held up by strings of flimsy consciousness and emotion. I could feel myself becoming unmoored from this weak, rotten reality and being sucked into some other. Then, like the flip of a switch, the demented circus in my head, in my room, turned off, and my fingers stopped moving. I sat there, alone, deathly still, in front of the plastic piano that I had found in a

dumpster when I was 21. Once I found that I could turn my head, I looked out the window. The vast abyss of the night sky greeted my eyes. The large room full of antique furnishings and ancient trinkets sat in darkness. In my unstable mind, the bulky features which decorated the room were dark beings waiting to snatch me up and take me away to some shadowed sideshow. The only light that came into the room was the moonlight that shone through the windows. The branches of the trees from outside

threw grotesque shadows upon the marble floor and the ornake carpet. I could hear the wind howling outside and could see the curtains moving slightly as the breeze found its way into my house through the poorly cocked seals in my windows. The wind could get strong in the mountains. I had started to play the song around 1.30 p.m.

Now, as I stared at the clock, I saw that it was 9.13 p.m. How was this possible? My fingers and my stomach ached, not from hunger, but from laughing so hard. I have since been up for hours trying to find information about the film, any of the actors, the composer, anything at all. but nothing comes up, only whispers in the darkest corners of the internet. I found one or two videos of grainy black and white footage of a horrifying clown with a sick grin. I also discovered a 20-second snippet of the original song, complete with the strange piano sounds and the uncanny whistling of the Calliope.

I haven't been able to uncover anything else except for one frightening detail. According to my research online, the movie was filmed in the very town where I picked up the piece of sheet music, Devil's Peak, North Carolina. The movie was also rumored to involve some sort of secret cult, formed around a group of artists who resided in Devil's Peak and made strange movies that went against every notion of what a film could be. I called the woman who I'd purchased the sheet music from, and when she answered the phone and found out who it was, she said, I want nothing more to do with it. Leave me alone. Tell them to leave me alone.

And hung up. She sounded distraught like she had been crying. Now it's past midnight, and I am afraid to sleep, because I know that when I close my eyes, I will see the swirling lights of the carnival and hear the awful music, the carousel which spins around like my mind. I'll smell the shit of a thousand enslaved animals

and feel the rancid breath of the clown. I'll hear the clown's whispers and know that his words are true. We are all members of the sickest carnival sideshow existence. and we all dance for her. We dance for the void mother. As the train pulls into the terminal, we ask that you gather what's left of your sanity

and depart the train. Thank you for traveling with us on the sleepless Express. The No Sleep podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our editorial team is Jessica McAvoy and Ashley McAnally.

To discover how you can get even more sleepless horror stories from us, just visit sleepless.com to learn about the sleepless sanctuary. Add free extended episodes each week and lots of bonus. content for the dark hours, all for only one low monthly price. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for traveling the rails with us for our 21st season. ...for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the risen consent

of Creative Reason Media, Inc.