The NoSleep Podcast - S21 Ep23: NoSleep Podcast S21E23

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

It's Episode 23 of Season 21. Ride the Sleepless Express perilous property."Open House" written by Steve Hudgins (Story starts around 00:03:05)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator - David Cummings, Jean - Erin Lillis, Harriet Loomis - Nichole Goodnight, Betty Carter - Wafiyyah White, Byron Henderson - Elie Hirschman, Mildred Woods - Sarah Thomas, Sarah McDougal - Nikolle Doolin"The Telephone Pole In The Woods" written by Monica Robinson (Story starts around 00:19:35)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Jess - Mary Murphy, Mom - Kristen DiMercurio"Many Deaths Before Dying" written by Warren Benedetto (Story starts around 00:44:45)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Jack - Mike DelGaudio, Marco - Dan Zappulla, Eddie - Kyle Akers, Sam - AllontÈ Barakat"Ghosttown, California" written by Aedan Ferrara (Story starts around 01:08:15)Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Jordan Nores - Graham Rowat, Hayden Walker - Atticus Jackson, Marian - Kristen DiMercurio"The Devil's Clearing" written by Jonathan Naylor (Story starts around 01:27:50)Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Michael - Jeff Clement, Anthony - Matthew Bradford, Alexa - Linsay Rousseau, Richard - Reagen Tacker, Roland - Atticus Jackson, Frank - Jesse CornettThis 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.CBDistillery - No fluff, no fillers - just pure, effective CBD solutions designed to help support your health. Go to CBDistillery.com and use code NOSLEEP for 20% off!Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about Steve HudginsClick here to learn more about Monica RobinsonClick here to learn more about Warren BenedettoClick here to learn more about Aedan FerraraClick here to learn more about Jonathan NaylorExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone"The Devil's Clearing" illustration courtesy of Krys HookuhAudio 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. you're likely aware of how difficult it can be to acquire some of this. Most people would love to have it, to own some of it, but it's a dream well outside of most people's budget in this day and age. No, I'm not talking about something you can hold.

I'm talking about something you can stand on. I'm talking about real estate. The chance to own some land and build a home upon it. That's an investment requiring more than just money. But since we're coming, at this from a horror perspective, we know that homes and lands can be places where the darker forces are at play. So is that house you have your eye on really as perfect as the estate listing makes it seem? Do you know for sure if it's haunted or not? And what about the land? Did some unscrupulous

builder put up a subdivision on old cemetery grounds without bothering to move the bodies? I've heard of that happening, you know? Well, in this episode, We learn of homes and huge tracks of land, which might seem quite appealing, until you look a little deeper into them, before they look deeper into you. Yes, Dorothy may have been right. There's no place like home. Let's just hope it's only the people you want inhabiting it with you. And now, the train is ready to depart.

Your journey into the darkness. begins now. In our first tale, we learn of a house newly listed on the market. Time to go check it out, because plenty of people are interested. But in this tale, shared with us by author Steve Hudgens, we hear from some of the people who walked through the place, and we find out that this is a place you'd be best to avoid. Performing this tale with me are Aaron Lillis, Nicole Goodnight,

Wafia White, Ellie Hirschman, Sarah Thomas, and Nicole Doolin. So drop in, if you like, just be fully braced for this particular open house. On September 9th, 1999, an open house took place for a property that had been vacant for 50 years. It was an East Lake Victorian-style house that was built in 1890. The original owner hung himself in the basement. Every owner of the house thereafter encountered a tragic event. Legend tells of the house being haunted and cursed.

The house had recently undergone three years of renovations. Multiple people had died during those renovations. Townsfolk warned that they should not proceed with attempting to sell the house. The real estate agency did not heed those warnings. The following are stories from those who attended. the open house. Harriet and George Loomis, 9 a.m.

My husband and I were the first ones there that day. We were met by the realtor. Her name was Jean. She appeared to be in her late 30s. She had chestnut brown hair that was tied back in a bun. She was quite pretty with bright blue eyes and a sparkling smile. Since we were the only ones there at the moment, we asked if she would show us around.

She was happy to do so and was quite helpful. The tour ended in the basement. It was a full basement with dark stone walls and very little natural light. In the center of the main basement wall was a closet door. The door was constructed of extremely weathered wood, and there was a bolt on it. The realtor mentioned that she had never even noticed the door before and proceeded to open it. When the door opened, it made a loud whoosh that reminded me of the sound one might hear when opening a vacuum-sealed container. Jean reeled back and doubled over.

We rushed to her side to see if she was okay. She was breathing heavily and had broken out in the sweat. We helped her up the basement stairs to the main floor of the house. She started coughing and appeared ill, but assured us she would be fine, so we left. Betty Carter, 9.39 a.m. When I entered the house, I could see the realtor sitting in a chair at the dining room table. It was a very long, rustic wooden table that was quite beautiful, so I commented on it. The realtor turned her head slowly in my direction, just now realizing I was there.

She was pale and appeared ill. Look around all you want. I'll be here if you need me. I love open houses, so I always take my time. As I meandered through the second floor, I could hear the realtor talking downstairs. I hadn't heard the front door open, so I assumed that there were already other people in the house when I arrived that I hadn't seen. When I went back downstairs, I saw the relator in the hallway. She was leaning against the wall like she was exhausted. She was staring forward and speaking, though, as someone else was there with her.

But she was alone. I approached her and put my hand on her shoulder. It startled her. She whipped her head around in my direction, staring daggers at me. Are you okay? I asked. Do I look okay? She was pale and sweaty.

Her eyelids appeared heavy. I answered her with honesty. Quite frankly, no, you don't. She stared at me for a moment and seemed confused. I decided just to move along and look at the rest of the house, heading for the basement. As I reached out to turn the knob on the basement door, the realtor snapped at me.

No, do not go into the basement. I was confused. Why not? She stared up at the ceiling for several seconds and then lowered her head, fixing her gaze upon me. She pointed to the front door. I think you should leave now. I did just that.

The most uneasy I felt that entire time was when I had to pass right next to her in the hall in order to get to the front door. I could hear the wheezing congestion of her lungs with every breath she took, I ran out of the house. Byron Henderson, 10.14 a.m. When I entered the house, I could hear soft cackling coming from upstairs. I just assumed it was other people looking at the house,

so I didn't think much of it. I thoroughly checked out the first floor of the house. All the while, I continued to hear that laughter from upstairs. I didn't hear anyone talking, just that cackle. I was starting to get an anxious feeling as I went upstairs. The laughter didn't seem jovial in nature. It sounded sadistic. I walked down the hallway toward the strange giggling.

The hall ended at a closed door. The laughter was coming from beyond the door. I softly knocked. There was no response to my knock, and the laughter continued. I gently opened the door. In the corner of the room, the realtor sat in a rocking chair. She was rocking back and forth methodically. Her hair was messy and frazzled.

Her eyes were heavily bloodshot. She just sat there, rocking back and forth, staring out at nothing as she smiled and cackled. I got the hell out of there. Milred Woods and Robert Mailer, 1057am. My boyfriend and I are into the macabre, and just wanted to see the inside of this famous house we had heard so much about. When we entered the house, we were met by the realtor. She looked strange.

Her hair was a mess. She was deathly pale with deep dark circles under her eyes. Her expression blank. Welcome to the house. Let me show you around. She proceeded to take us on a tour of the entire. house and things got kind of weird. As we passed by the front room, she pointed to it. In 1901, Ebenezer Spain buried a hatchet into his wife's head in this room as she drank her morning tea.

We then followed her as she started upstairs. Caroline Moss fell down these stairs in 1901. She broke her neck. When we reached the second floor and started down the hallway, she continued with the morbid history of the house. In 1914, Jack Cooper committed adultery in this hallway. She then stepped into a bedroom. This is the room where his wife shot him to death.

We were creeped out yet captivated as we followed her into the next bedroom. In this room, a young man named Samson died of pneumonia. His mother joined him seconds after he took his last breath by slitting both of her wrists, at his bedside. She then led us to the attic door. Ah, yes, the attic. We followed her up the thin flight of steps to a small room. Zelda Cortland poisoned her twin daughters in this room,

and then burned herself alive in the bathtub. She led us back downstairs and seemed excited as she directed us into the kitchen. The kitchen is marvelous. If you listen closely, you can hear the voices from the past. Can you hear them? I can. She appeared to dripped off for several seconds, before she noticed the kitchen window, which seemed to get her back on track.

Through this back window, you can see the courtyard. In 1939, right over there near the fence, Bernard Crosby buried his seven-year-old daughter alive. He then came into this kitchen, stood where I am standing now, placed both barrels of a shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. She was strangely giddy as she told us to follow her into the basement. Even though both of us enjoyed dark tales and were fascinated by the sinister history she was rattling off, this was all incredibly unusual and spooky. Still, we'd gotten this far, so we thought we'd continue on and see what the basement looked like. When we got down there, she stopped in the center and pointed up to the rafters.

This home's original owner hung himself from that rafter in 1890. It's the same rafter that the last person to ever live here hung himself from in 1949. She looked at us and smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile, though. It was menacing. She held that disturbing smile as she and stared at us. That's when I noticed her eyes were solid black. If you don't leave now, I'll cut off your heads.

I don't know why I thought she was kidding at first, but then I realized how serious she was. We turned and ran up the basement stairs and out of the house. Sarah McDougall 1127 a.m. I was supposed to meet my husband at the house, but he was held up in a meeting at work, so I went in alone. When I entered the house, I was struck by the silence. At the very least, I expected a realtor to be there. I did find a stack of one sheets that provided some basic information about the house.

They were sitting on a table near the entrance, so I figured the realtor was in the bathroom, or maybe they went out to grab a bite to eat. I decided to stroll through the house. It was perfect. Exactly what my husband and I were hoping for. We were looking for a historic house that incorporated modern technology, while still salvaging a vintage atmosphere. Our plan was to turn it into a multi-room bed and breakfast.

Yes, I was fully aware of the dark history surrounding the house, but I'm not superstitious. Quite frankly, I felt the legend of the house would help with bookings. I ventured upstairs first. It was quite lovely and had several rooms, which is what I wanted. Downstairs, I was stunned by the beauty of the kitchen in the dining room. I really couldn't have asked for more. I was ready to place a bit on the house right then,

but first wanted to take a look at the basement. I opened the basement door and was mystified by how, how the steps seemed to disappear into darkness. I mean, I've seen some dark basements before, but this was ridiculous. As I started down the stairs, I was met by the subtle stench of decay. I assumed a dead mouse. As I descended the steps further, I noticed that the air felt heavy and humid. Odd for a basement.

As I reached the bottom of the steps, I could hear a gentle creaking sound coming. from the corner. That's when I saw her. Later, I found out it was the realtor. She had hung herself from one of the rafters. There was a noose tied tightly around her throat. Her head was tilted at an odd angle. It was obvious her neck was severely broken. Her complexion appeared pasty white with dark blue web-like veins bulging in her face. The creepiest thing was her eyes. Wide open, but lifeless, and solid black. As she swayed back and forth from the rafter, it appeared as though she was staring directly at me.

Have you ever heard about a national park where you can find some mysterious stairs in the woods? Yeah, me neither. But now imagine finding something a little more common among the trees. You see, as we'll learn in this tale, shared with us by author Monica Robinson, A young woman tells us about what she found out there and about how this strange object was quite literally calling to her.

Performing this tale are Mary Murphy and Kristen D. MacGurio. So avoid strange stairs and now you'd best avoid the telephone pole in the woods. There is a telephone pole standing upright, lonely and forgotten between the trees. It is not unusual where I'm from To find strange things in the midst of tree-thick groves There are those spare rural parts of the Midwest Farm country Where junk cars rust in peace on grassy front lawns

And graying a-frame houses very seldom change hands Harboring the same families for many slow decades at a time As a child, it was not uncommon for me to stumble upon rusted tools, hollow shells of station wagons, tires rotting into the leaf debris on the ground. My childhood home backed up to a densely wooded grope and a ten-minute walk through this forest, across the creek that faded to a mere trickle in the heat of summer and flooded during the spring rains, put me at the edge of the sprawling backyard of my best friend. I was in the habit of trekking through my little forest to join her in recklessly piloting

her cherry-red go-card across the field behind her house, whipping around freshly moaned corners with childish abandon, hair streaming out behind us as we drove. When the heat of summer simmered dangerously on the air, the humidity choking us without remorse, we set up a labyrinth of hoses and sprinklers and ran wild through their cold spray in halter-tops and jean shorts. When it snowed heavily, schools closed for days on end because the plows would take their sweet time in reaching us. We threaded thick hemp rope through punctured holes in an old VW rabbit hood, and her father would pull us around the yard behind a modified tractor, reaching speeds the farmers in their frozen fields would forever envy.

When the leaves fell, we raked the vast yard until our arms ate and leapt into the river. resulting piles, burying ourselves in the mold and rot that lingered there, though we did not know it yet. All of this is to say that I had crossed that familiar landscape hundreds, thousands of times before I stumbled across the telephone pole, the anomaly that stopped me in my tracks on the opposite side of the creek running high. It had never been there before, and part of me wondered if it would ever be there again either. If when I inevitably continued my journey through these familiar woods, I would not find it there when I next returned. It was a day like any other. Isn't that what they all say? The gentle breeze in the air spoke of spring's arrival,

the fragrance of wildflowers lingering, dandelions, wild violets. A little bit younger and I would have stopped to pick them, to weave the stems into the braid I often wore down my back, when my hair was longer, and I was less sure of the world, a little bit older, and I might have pulled them from the ground for other reasons, gifts to whichever sweet-faced girl I was in love with that week. As I walked along the sunken trail running parallel to the creek bank, abandoned structures, car shells, half walls pressed deep in the ground. sinking deeper every year with the rains. All loomed at my back like distant shadows.

I could feel them even when I turned my head, even as a sun beat down against the tree canopy. They lingered like living things. And suddenly, my chest was heavy with a strange feeling of loss and wonder intermingled. I saw it then, half obscured between the branches, reaching for a sky that had shifted from sun-swept to a pale still gray, one that I recognized as the stirrings of a spring storm. The telephone pole stood unmoving, eerie,

shadowed in a place that it should not have been, that it had certainly never been before. I crept closer, sneaking up on the spindly structure, though I did not know why. As I reached the base, where the things shot up from the ground like a particularly unruly weed, I could see that the wire still ran from the pole. A black, snaking relic that extended sharply downward and across the rocky path, tangled in the branches, impressed itself deeply

into the hillside opposite. What I could not see, what I merely imagined with vivid clarity, was a snake-like black wire running inside of the hill, through the worms, detritus, and dirt, to connect to an old rotary dial phone on the other side, hidden in a nearly impossible to reach hollow. Nearly. I was struck by the lucidity of this imagining. The vision which made me so sure that should I cross over the hill that harbored the telephone wire, I would find that very phone sitting in wait, as if place there just for me. Without hesitation, as if within a trance, I climbed to the crest of the small hill and looked down into the hollow below. The trees twisted around it at odd angles, obscuring the entirety of the surface,

making it difficult to see where I would land if I should jump down. It was barely a contemplation, despite the unknowing, despite the shadows that twisted unnaturally, obscured unnaturally, hid corners that reasonably should not have been hidden. I dropped down into the hollow. landing oddly on one ankle, but ultimately finding solid footing, wincing a bit as I did. Beneath the twist of a tree, wrapped in the giant ancient arms of a root, stretching out of the ground and into the gray air, there was a rotary dial phone sitting atop a belled log.

For a moment, I simply stood there and stared at the phone, feeling for all the world as if it were staring back at me with impermeable all-knowing eyes, as cold and as dark as its black surface. There was a number on the phone, worn away by time and the elements, but still faintly visible on clean paper beneath plastic, mounted at the phone's man-made heart. The cord was frayed. The buttons faded, though these looked more like the product of time than any intervention, human or not. The forest was brimming with squirrels, birds, rabbits, deer, especially at the height of spring. But the phone was given a wide berth by those creatures that call the forest home, and it seemed to lay entirely untouched in its hollow. Staring intently at this anomaly, unsure of what to do next,

unsure of how to navigate the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I was startled by a loud, jarring ring. What else would you expect a phone to do? I suppose. And yet, it was so out of place, so unexpected that I tripped and stumbled backwards. Out of fear or shock or something else, I was not sure. The ring sliced through the forest, quiet sounds of creek-rushings and bird songs and other small noises, demanded to be paid attention to. When I had rited myself again, I walked back toward the phone, slowly, dreading the moment I knew my hand would betray me, reach out, grab the receiver from the cradle, and answer whatever damned voice waited on the other end. It was as if I no longer had any control over my own movements.

My thoughts had dull panic that did not override the ringing phone's created urgency. I took one step across the clearing in the hollow, another, another, until I found myself face to face with the cold, terrible thing. Why it was terrible I could not yet say, But I felt sure in my anticipation. My assumption. When I touched the phone, it was, to my surprise, sun warm on my skin. I was the ice-cold figure in this situation. Shivering, goosebumps running down my spine.

I lifted the receiver, heavier than I thought it might be, impressed it to my ear. The contrast of hot and cold as unsettling as anything else had happened yet. My mouth was dry, and it took me a few seconds before I could find it in myself to say anything out loud at all. Hello? Static crackled through the mouthpiece, not surprising given the age of the phone in question, but it still made me jump backwards again, tilting the body of the phone askew. Through the static, I could hear a faint, faraway voice, one that seemed familiar, though I couldn't place it right away. as obscured as it was.

The static crackled again, and the voice became clearer, almost as if it had gotten closer to me somehow. Jess, it's dinner time. Where are you? My mom. Her voice was as clear now as if she were standing right next to me, so clear that I spun around rapidly looking for her,

expecting her to have followed me there, for her to explain the joke. There was no one. Mom? My voice sounded much. to my ears as though I were underwater. The sun is down, honey. You need to head home.

I'm... I cut myself off, realizing suddenly that she... Whatever voice was on the other end of that phone was right. The sun had set, and the forest had grown dark around me, drowning the trees in a thick layer of murky, moonless light. Hidden in that hollow, it was even darker.

I could no longer see the phone in front of me or the log that it sat on, much less anything beyond that. The sound of wings flapping echoed overhead, rustles in and out of the canopy, normal forest sounds that had become eerie in the wake of that unexpected darkness. This time, I could have sworn that she was standing right next to me, whispering in my ear, the one that wasn't pressed against the phone. I swatted at the empty air, but my fingers touched nothing but leaves still warm with the sun.

I slammed the phone down. or at least I tried to. I couldn't see where the cradle was, nor did it seem to be where it had been moments before. I couldn't orient myself beyond the darkness itself. My inner compass was failing to navigate these woods. I thought I had known so well. There were no stars overhead,

or at least the trees obscured any trace of them, and I felt unmoored, utterly trapped in that lightless pit. From the phone, wherever it lay now, Line still open, I could hear a muffled voice screaming my name. Panic sat heavy in my chest, and without thinking, I screamed for my mom. The shriek that wretched itself from my throat was a terrible noise, not one I thought I was capable of making. At once, I realized how quiet it had been before I screamed, and how much more silent it seemed after I did, as though everything had stopped to listen to me. I don't think I need to tell you how uneasy of a sensation this was, to feel watched, trapped,

surrounded by impermeable darkness. Have you ever spent a night in the country? The darkness that you can find there far surpasses any other kind of darkness. There is no light pollution, and often no lights at all. Porch lights go out after nine, and there are no street lamps, even in the small clustered neighborhoods that are dotted throughout. Cars are few and far between on the pitted black roads, and headlights are sparse.

There is a different kind of blackness here, one that engulfs you as you stand a small human thing in the middle of the vast open spaces, dark fields, rolling hills. Sound carries two. Coyote howls echo for miles. The crickets chirp, cicadas buzz, Frogs sing in the shallow creek beds. On the rare occasion that an ambulance or a fire truck drives by,

the sirens linger long after the vehicle has passed. Every so often, an owl takes up residence in one of the tallest, oldest trees and sings softly into the wind. During harvest season, the wind sings through the cornstalks too. The thing about cornstalks is that they're almost like a blockade for sound and sight. three rows in and you can no longer see the road. Your sense of direction becomes skewed, and you cease to hear any external sound,

nothing but the panting of your breath, the rapid beating of your heart, and the wind with its eerie, unending song. The corn rustles, and you are never sure if it is some unwieldy, unworldly thing, or just your imagination, of act of nature gotten out of hand. but I'm getting off track here.

I just want to emphasize, for those of you unfamiliar with these strange rural spaces, that they are uniquely dark and seldom quiet. And when they are quiet, it is often because they are isolated and prone to being the sights of strange folklore, stranger creatures. These thoughts were all running through my head in a jumbled array as I stood there, Listening to the unnatural silence that followed my regrettable scream, shrouded in a darkness that was unnatural, even for me. It's getting late. I screamed again.

I could hardly help it. The voice from the phone had migrated from its muffled prison, and those words had come from somewhere to the opposite side of me, spoken in the flesh. Or at least what I truly hoped was flesh at all. I could hear a faint, humming, droning noise beneath the words, breaths heavy behind my left shoulder, something large and lingering against my back. Frozen, I waited, barely breathed, didn't blink, moving as little as I possibly could. Jess, did you hear me? It was my mother's voice, and it wasn't. I knew this partially because the figure behind me, at least judging from where the voice was coming from.

was quite a bit taller than my mother, quite a bit taller than anyone I knew, anyone or anything remotely human. Nine, ten feet, maybe, if I had to hazard a guess. But guessing was the last thing on my mind right then. I willed myself to become a statue, unmoving, though fear carved a cold knife down my spine. I could hear then the uneasy creek of limbs bowing like tree branches in the wind. As a figure crouched down to level itself at my height, its breath was hot against my cheek, reeking of flesh rot, and beneath that, the faint, woody scent of bonfire smoke,

burnt cinnamon, and the metallic iron twang of blood. Still, I did not move. Though whether it was because I was smart, or simply because I was paralyzed with fear, I did not know. The thing dragged one pointed claw down the side of my cheek, nearly a caress, but with a threat heavy behind it. Are you listening to me? The words were more hiss than human. I knew that I could not run, that I had no chance to escape the hollow without light,

and a better chance of simply being attacked by whatever creature was currently sending my teeth rattling in my skull. Shock still, I strained for some sound, some salvation, and discovered both in the droning dial tone of the phone, still presumably hanging by its curled cord, cradle empty. I counted 20 excruciating seconds before I could dare myself to move, and when I did, it was in a flurry all at once, limbs flailing gracelessly as I dove for the phone, or at least where I hoped it might be. As I leapt, I could feel the figure follow me, grabbing my legs as we both fell into the brush. A warped, staticy version of my mother's voice came from somewhere behind me. Words garbled and unintelligible from the creature, I assumed. But I was certainly in no position to find out. I fought to free my legs from the clawed grasp, wrestling the creature through the leaves.

And as I did, I felt the free-hanging phone receiver hit against my forehead. I grasped at the air, reaching desperately for the receiver, even as a creature sunk its nails into the skin of my legs, drawing blood. When I finally grabbed hold of it, the sun warm of it had not faded and felt nearly red-hot now against my skin, but I did not let go. With the receiver burning my palm, my desperate shrieks echoing as I fought the creature's painful grasp, growing stronger the harder I wrestled. the remains of other mother's voice turned into deep, primal screams that compelled me to clap my hands over my ears. But I resisted with teeth gritted and eyes wide open, seeking through the blackness for the empty bone cradle that I knew must be mere inches from my face. The screams grew louder as I freed my other hand from where it was pinned beneath my stomach and began waving it desperately out in front of me, praying I would hit plastic beneath it. I could feel the blood dripping from the open wounds on my calves.

The creatures grasp tightening around me as I kicked and flailed and stretched just a bit further, just a bit longer for the empty phone cradle. And then my fingers hit what I knew to be a faded button with far more force than I had meant, but I hardly cared. I didn't even know if this would work, but it had to or I was out of options, and was most likely seconds away from being mauled by a towering force, demon with my mother's stolen voice. I felt around for the cradle, fingers bumping against sharp edges, and when I had parsed out the shape of the phone where it had landed, presumably in the scuffle,

on the fallen, leaf-littered ground, I slammed the receiver down. The change was instantaneous, as if nothing had even happened. The creature was gone. The daylight returning as if someone had flipped heaven's light switch. The secluded hollow, empty. again, the phone sitting innocently on the ground, no dial tone, no humming, nothing saved the blood running down my bare calves to indicate that anything had ever been wrong at all. Once I realized I was safe, or at least free, I scrambled to my feet and darted upwards, climbing clumsily out of the hollow and into the clearing again, and then sprinting all of the way home. When I slammed the door open, my mother scolded me for making so much noise and mistreating the house that I didn't pay for.

And it was so usual, so expected, that I knew it was really her. She didn't seem to see the blood, the scratches or scrapes. And so I went upstairs, clean myself off, and it was never mentioned again. For the most part, at least. I didn't dare tell it as a campfire story, a sleepover tale, a confession to my mother after yet another nightmare. I didn't go into the woods for a long time after, taking the long way around to my friend's house and refusing to explain why. But when I finally braved the open, spindly arms of the tree-filled haunt, I found no trace of the telephone pole, or the hollow, or the phone itself. I didn't think that I would. Sometimes I dream of static, and when I am particularly tired, listening to conversations buzz on around me, they begin

to sound like the droning of a dial tone, until I focus my attention again, and their voices return to normal cadences, spelling out recognizable words. Often, I catch my mother staring at me strangely, or sometimes staring off into space. When I ask her about it, she tells me she's just listening. I wonder if I am paranoid, or if the world around me has changed ever so slightly. Sometimes, I wonder if I return to the right world after all. If my voice has not yet faded to static yet, as it is apt to do, I hope I can leave you with a warning. I hope you will heed it, though I know that I, before the phone, was not up to follow good advice either. If you should see a telephone pole in the middle of the woods. Do not follow its sneaking black wire into the hillside.

Do not jump down into the hollow over the crest of the hill. And do not, whatever you do, answer the phone when it rings, because it will. And you will be faced with a decision. I hope you can learn from my mistakes. Growing up in a neighborhood meant finding fun places to play. And if you needed some space for sports, there was no better place than an empty lot among the homes. And in this tale, shared with us by author Warren Benedetto, we find that Jack and his buddies are ready to play some wiffle ball in that empty lot, if they could just figure out where that huge puddle right in the middle of it came from. Performing this tale are Mike Delgado, Dan Zapula, Kyle Acres, and Alante Bericette.

So remember childhood friends fondly. As we grow, we learn that there can be many deaths before dying. The empty lot next to Eddie's house was the football field where Joe Montana threw the game-winning touchdown to Jerry Rice. It was the baseball diamond where Mark McGuire beat Jose Canseco in the most epic wiffleball home-run derby in MLB history. It was where Rambo took down the predator with a Nerf gun, and where Robocop blew the Terminator's head off with a super-soaker. It was my favorite place to hang out with my three best friends, and it was the last place I saw them alive. The four of us had known each other since we were toddlers. We lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, and played on the same Little League teams. Eddie's house was our main hangout spot, partially because,

because of the empty lot next door, but also because his mom kept the best assortment of tasty cakes stocked in the pantry. Even better, his house had a big finished basement with a ping pong table and a Nintendo with its own dedicated TV. He had all the best games, too. Mike Tyson's punchout, Metroid, Double Dragon, Contra. He even had the legend of Zelda, the one with the shiny gold cartridge that I coveted so much.

The lot was nothing special. But that's also what made it so special. It could be anything we wanted, sports field, a war zone, an alien planet, or whatever else our imaginations could conjure. Some of my earliest, fondest memories were of the four of us running around in that lot, having squirt gun battles in the summer

and snowball fights in the winter, then retreating to Eddie's house for Elio's Pizza and Fanta Orange Soda. The lot was mostly dirt, about the shape of a football field, with a row of dark green hedges separating it from the neighbor's yard. The ground turned into a mud pit when it rained, but it hadn't rained for weeks. That's why we were so confused about the enormous puddle that had appeared there overnight. There were no sprinklers, fire hydrants, or water mains nearby. The nearest hose was coiled up way over by Eddie's front porch, and it was nowhere near long enough to create a puddle in the that part of the lot. And yet, inexplicably, there it was. A perfectly round circle of water,

maybe 15 feet across, with a mirror-like sheen that reflected the cloudless sky overhead. Marco turned to Eddie. You're telling me you have no idea where it came from. Dude, I swear. Eddie held up his fingers in a scout's honor gesture. Jack, tell him. I nodded. Yep, we were We're inside all night. The previous evening, the four of us had been out in the lot until well after sunset, tossing the baseball around while listening to my deaf leopard cassettes on Eddie's boombox. We only stopped once it was too dark to see the ball anymore. Marco and Sam went home, but I spent the night at Eddies,

watching Indiana Jones movies on his VCR until like 2 a.m. We were together the whole time. This sucks. Now what do we do? The plan had been for us to play wiffle ball all afternoon. But the puddle was directly in the middle of our infield, in the exact spot where the pitcher's mound was supposed to be. It was so big that it even encroached on the baselines we had scratched into the dirt with the heels of our sneakers the day before. We could run around it or through it. We'll just take our shoes off.

I peered at the puddle trying to examine it from different angles. I don't know, guys. Looks pretty deep. There was something about the thing that just felt off to me. The puddles in the lot were usually muddy and brown. The water in this one was perfectly reflective, and oddly still, with a surface unbroken by mosquitoes or water striders. That was unusual. Any standing water in our area was usually a breeding ground for insects. But not this one.

It was like someone had left a giant, compact disc in the middle of the dirt, shiny side up. It can't be that deep. It's a puddle, not a lake. Why is it so shiny then? Don't ask me. Ask Mr. Wizard. Marco pointed at Sam. Sam was the resident genius of our friend group.

While Marco, Eddie, and I spent most of our free time playing video games, Sam preferred hacking into government computer systems using his dad's dial-up modem. He couldn't actually hack in. He had no idea what he was doing. But that didn't stop him from running up exorbitant long-distance phone bills while he tried. His favorite movies were war games and the Manhattan Project. He was a real, let's steal plutonium and make a nuclear bomb for the science fair kind of kid. Hold this.

Sam handed me the yellow plastic wiffle ball bat he was carrying, then squatted next to the puddle to get a closer look. Hmm. You sure it's even water? What else could it be? Sam sniffed the air, then wrinkled his nose. Not sure. It smells like your asshole.

You would know. Sam wasn't wrong about the stench. I couldn't vouch for whether it smelled like his asshole or not, but it didn't smell like water. It had a noxious odor. It reminded me of Mr. Burnbaum's chemistry lab, a mix of sulfur, ammonia, and something else, something sour. Sam tapped his finger on his lips thoughtfully.

Maybe it's mercury. Like, from a thermometer? Where the hell would that come from? A meteor. I'm pretty sure we would have heard a meteor hitting the ground next to my house, Sam. Hey. Marco pointed at the wiffle ball I held in my hand. Let me borrow that for a sec.

No. Why? Just give it. Marco tried to snatch the ball away for me, but I dodged out of the way. Instead of reaching for the ball again, he feigned a blow to my groin. The kid was a notorious nutflicker. I immediately reacted, dropping the wiffle ball and lowering my hands to protect my crotch. Lucky for my testicles, it was just a ruse, but it had achieved the intended result.

Marco snatched the ball off the ground and tossed it into the water. It landed right in the middle of the puddle. There was no splash, no ripple. It didn't bob or bounce. It hit the surface of the puddle and just stopped. It was like someone had pressed pause on the VCR, at the exact moment the ball had touched the water. Then, ever so slowly, the ball sunk.

That was strange, too. It was made of hollow plastic. It should have floated, but it didn't. Whoa, that was weird, right? Sam looked at us to gauge our reactions. It's like it's some kind of non-Newtonian fluid. Marco nodded thoughtfully. Mm-hmm.

Yep. That's what I was thinking, too. He clearly had no idea what the hell Sam was talking about. Now what do we do? About what? About the ball? Just go get it. And reach it how?

With the bat. I looked at the yellow plastic bat in my hand. It was about three feet long, nowhere near long enough, to reach the ball from where we stood. It's not long enough, dumbass. That's what she said. Why don't you just walk in? Why don't you just walk in? Use the bat.

See how far down it goes? You do it. I held out the bat to Sam. Oh, my God. You're such a pussy. Give me that. Marco grabbed the bat away from me. My face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

Kids our age called each other pussies all the time. But I always took it personally. I couldn't help it. None of the other kids had a dad who was an act. actual, god-dammed war hero like mine was. He had saved like 15 guys in his unit in Vietnam, taking out an entire enemy encampment while getting riddled with bullets and shrapnel, then carrying the wounded one at a time back to the LZ to be airlifted to safety. He had two purple hearts, a bronze star, a congressional medal of honor. He even met President Nixon.

My dad would never call me a pussy. He was way too old-fashioned to ever use a word like that, but I always felt like deep down, he must be thinking I was. I mean, I listened to music by guys who dress like girls. I was more into books than sports. I didn't like to hunt, fish, or do any of the things that he did with his dad when he was my age. Hell, I was almost a teenager, and I was still afraid of the dark. I would never be half the man he was. And I knew it. I think he did too. Marco plunged the bat into the puddle to test the depth, sinking it, as far as he could without getting wet. Damn, that's actually really deep.

I can't even feel the bottom. Just like your mom. He pulled the bat from the water and shook it dry. Ha, ha. So funny I forgot to laugh. Maybe it's like an old well or something. Or a sinkhole. That would suck.

So much for playing wiffleball again or anything else. Marco handed the bat back to me. A wicked grin formed on his lips. Dear you to jump in. Yeah, right. Oh, what's the matter? You scared? No.

Are you? Eddie began untying the laces of his rebox. I'll do it. See? Marco clapped Eddie on the back like a proud father. Eddie's not a pussy. Stop it. Stop what?

I'm not a pussy. Okay. So prove it. I didn't move. I didn't say anything. My face felt like it was on fire. After a few moments of waiting, Marco nodded. That's what I thought.

Pussy. Pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy. Fuck you. I started to lunge at him, but Sam stepped between us and put a hand on my chest. Chill out, Jack. He's just kidding. He gave Marco a disapproving glare. Right? Right. His tone was unconvincing.

While Marco and I were busy arguing, Eddie kicked away his. his sneakers and peeled off his socks, shorts, and t-shirt. He stood there, in his tidy whiteies, swinging his skinny arms as if loosening his shoulders for a swim. Who else is with me? Nobody else volunteered. He shot us a smug grin. All right then. See you later, pussies. He took off in a sprint toward the puddle and launched himself into the air, drawing his knees up to his chest for a full cannonball. Kawabanga! I spun away and shielded my face in anticipation of a soaking splash of water.

Marco and Sam did the same, but no splash came. Instead, there was a sharp slapping noise, the sound of an epic belly flop from a diving board. I turned back to the puddle to see Eddie sprawled on top of the water, staring at the sky with a shocked, pained expression on his face. It was like the water had turned to solid jello when he hit it. Then, just like the wiffle ball, he began to sink. His arms flailed as the seemingly solid surface suddenly liquefied underneath them. An abbreviated scream escaped his lips before it was cut off by the water flooding his mouth.

And then he was gone. Holy shit! That was epic! Sam bent closer to the puddle, trying to see past the reflective surface. He looked up at us. His brow furrowed with concern. Think he's okay? Relax, he'll come back up.

We waited for what was probably ten seconds, but it felt like forever. Finally, I broke the silence. He's not. My voice caught in my throat. I swallowed hard, then continued. He's not coming up. He will. Eddie, come on, man.

Quit screwing around. He laughed again, but I could hear panic fraying his voice. Sam's. snatched the bat away from me and thrust it into the puddle. Eddie, grab on! He moved it around, trying to find Eddie's grip. Do you feel anything? My heart was pounding in my chest.

I had a very bad feeling about what was happening. Sam plunged the bat even deeper, submerging his arm up to the shoulder. Nothing is not. Suddenly, Sam was jerked violently forward, plunging face-first into the puddle. His legs kicked wildly at the dirt as he was. was dragged into the water. Despite his struggling, there was no splashing, no splattering. It happened silently and smoothly, as if he had slipped into a pool of shadow. The puddle barely even rippled. Marco stared at the spot where Sam had just been. Guys? His previous bravado had evaporated.

He sounded scared. Guys, come on. We need to get help. But I didn't move. I felt rooted in place, as if my feet had bonded to the earth's crust. I was frozen, utterly paralyzed with fear. Sam hadn't just fallen into the puddle. He had been pulled. Why what, though? The only thing I could think of was an alligator. But were there alligators in our part of New Jersey?

And even if they were, how had they gotten into the puddle? And where had the puddle come from in the first place? And why was the water so deep and so weird? None of it made any sense. Shit, what do we do? I didn't respond. What do we do? When I still didn't answer, he looked back at Eddie's house, searching for some sort of solution.

His eyes lit up. The hose! Let's go. Give me some help. He pulled me by the arm, finally breaking me from my trance. I ran after him as he sprinted across Eddie's yard to where a long green garden hose was coiled up beside the front porch. I began gathering heavy loops in my arms as Marco unscrewed the hose from the pipe. Once it was free, we carried the messy tangle of rubber over to the puddle. Marco sat on the ground and began wrapping one end of the hose around his ankle.

What are you going to do? I'm going in. He twisted the hose into a knot and pulled it tight. No! I felt tears welling up in my eyes. You can't! You want them to drown? No, but...

And help me! He limped to the edge of the puddle, dragging the heavy rubber hose behind him. Count you twenty. If I don't come up by then, pull me out. Before I could protest any further, he took a deep breath and stepped into the water. He dropped like a lead weight, instantly vanishing under the mirrored surface. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck! I let the hose play through my hands as it uncoiled, ready to pull Marco out as soon as 20 seconds had elapsed.

I counted as fast as I could. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. The hose began to slip through my fingers faster and faster and faster. My skin burned from the friction of the rubber zipping across my palms. It seemed impossible that the puddle could be deep enough to consume dozens of feet of hose. But it was. Marco! I tried to close my hands around the hose, but I was almost jerked off my feet by the force of whatever was pulling it.

I had to let go, or risk getting yanked into the puddle myself. Just as the final coils of the hose unfolded, whatever had grabbed it had grabbed Marco stopped. It tentatively gripped the hose and hauled it hand over hand out of the water. It came out easily, too easily. After about a dozen feet, the end emerged. It was cleanly severed. Marco? The tears in my eyes spilled over.

The hose slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground. The severed end flopped into the puddle. There was no splash. A quick flash of movement in the water made my heart trip in my chest. I felt a swell of hope at the possibility that my friends were surfacing from the depths, followed by a surge of unspeakable horror at what I saw instead. It was something so alien, so incomprehensible, so other, that I struggled to describe it in terms anyone can understand.

It reminded me of the hind leg of a grasshopper, long, skinny, barbed, jointed, but twice as long as my arm and made of something that looks like black glass? At the end was a churning cluster of smaller appendages that moved like mouth parts of a crab. They had the ghostly translucency of white quartz crystals, but they were as dexterous and multi-jointed as my own finger. The nightmare limb reached the surface of the puddle and extended in my direction. I stumbled backwards, tripping over my own feet and falling on my back. Two more identical limbs emerged beside the first.

They pressed into the ground by my feet as the creature began to lift itself out of the puddle. With a desperate cry, I drove my heels into the dirt, propelling myself away from the water as fast as I could. Then I rolled over, scrambled to my feet. and ran past Eddie's house, down Grape Street, and all the way to my house on Peach Tree Lane. Throwing the front door open, I sprinted across the kitchen to the phone on the wall and dialed 911. The operator thought I was making a crank call, but after a few minutes of pleading, I was able to convince her to send the rescue squad to Eddie's house.

Then I hung up the phone and ran back the way I came. By the time I got to the lot, sweat soaked and gasping for breath, the police were already there. but the puddle was gone. All that was left in the lot were Eddie's sneakers, socks, and T-shirt, exactly where he had tossed them. There was no sign of Eddie, Sam, or Marco. Just like the puddle, they had vanished. I explained to the police exactly what happened.

But they didn't believe me. How could they? A disappearing puddle? Water that doesn't splash? A trio of giant grasshopper legs with alien finger mouths? I sounded like an insane person who had rented too many horror movies from West Coast video. Instead, the police had a much more realistic theory. The boys had run away from home.

They assumed I was covering for them, albeit badly, by concocting a crazy story to account for their disappearance. The cops could never explain why the boys might have run away or where they might have run away too, but it didn't matter. For the next 20 years, that was the official explanation. It's what Sam's parents believed

when they moved back to Minnesota, what Marco's mom believed when she hung herself in the garage the next summer, and what Eddie's parents believed when they died in their sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning a few months ago. After Eddie's folks were gone, a wealthy investor bought the land

to knock down their house so he could build a new mini mansion on the property. With the addition of the empty lot next door, the new owner had enough room to add a tennis court, a putting green, and even an in-ground pool. It was during the excavation of the pool that a new clue to my friend's whereabouts was found. The construction workers hadn't dug up any bodies or bones or anything gruesome like that, but a dozen feet underground in the exact spot where the puddle

had been, they made an unexpected fine, a large cave with a puddle of strange silvery liquid inside. And beside the puddle, an old wiffle ball, a yellow plastic bat, and a tangle of rotten garden nose. Some of the cops who had investigated my friend's disappearance were still on the force, so they immediately recognized the significance of the discovery. They contacted me and implored me to drive the four hours from my apartment in Pennsylvania so they could question me once again about what transpired that day. I decided to crash at my parents' house on Peachtree Lane while the police conducted their investigation. My dad had passed away a few years earlier, but his commendations were still proudly displayed in a case on the mantle, along with the famous photo of him shaking hands with Nixon after receiving his Medal of Honor.

there was also a plaque with his favorite quote engraved on it from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once. There was no question that my dad had died once and only once. But me, on the other hand, I had tried following in my dad's footsteps by joining the army after high school, but I couldn't even make it through basic training. The closest I ever got to a medal of honor was winning the Saturday night darts championship at my local bar. And I was still afraid at the dark. I was the coward Caesar warned about it, dying again and again every time I let my fear stop me from doing the right thing. The police forensics team spent the better part of a week poking through the dirt and

clay for any other evidence that might provide a clue to my friend's whereabouts. But in the end, they found nothing. They closed the case again and told me I was free to go. But I didn't. Instead, I drove my rental car to the empty lot where my friends had disappeared. With the investigation complete and with construction yet to resume, it was easy for me to access the lot without anyone noticing. I ducked under the police tape, then slid down the steep side of the muddy hole to the entrance of the cave where the bat, ball, and hose had been found. It was a low, flat space, maybe 20 feet across, with a domed ceiling striped with sedimentary rock. The excavation had collapsed one side of the cave, turning it into rubble and exposing it to the open air. Even in the

dark, the puddle inside was just as shiny and strange as I remembered. As I stared at the water, I thought about what happened that day, about how the lot which had been such a source of joy for us had turned into such a nightmare. I thought about Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, about Mark McGuire and Jose Canseco, about Terminator and Robocop. I thought about Marco and Sam and Eddie, I thought about my father. If I had been more like my dad, maybe my friends would have still been alive. Not a day went by where I didn't wish I had gone into the water after them. Maybe I couldn't have saved them, but at least I wouldn't have had to live with the fact that I didn't even try.

After a few minutes of standing in silence, I sat down on the rubble at the edge of the puddle, and I took off my sneakers. I removed my shirt and pants, folded them neatly on the ground, and then placed my shoes on top, along with my wallet, car keys, and flip phone. Then I closed my eyes, held my breath, and stepped into the water. It was warm, so warm that it barely registered as being wet. It felt comforting, almost wound-like. It surrounded me, cradles.

me, embraced me. As I allowed myself to sink into the Stygian abyss, I felt calm, peaceful. Then something grabbed my leg. I should have been scared. I should have been terrified. But I wasn't. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel any fear at all. 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.

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