The NoSleep Podcast - S21 Ep24: NoSleep Podcast S21E24

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

It's Episode 24 of Season 21. Ride the Sleepless Express into tales about the end times. "A Daronite Fence" written by Ron Fein (Story starts around 00:04:15) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator - Mike DelGaudio, Landry - Atticus Jackson, The Old Man - Jesse Cornett "We Hide in the Hills" written by Liz Rosen (Story starts around 00:23:20) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator - Ash Millman, The Lady - Erika Sanderson, Girl - Mary Murphy "Our Quiet Guests" written by Thomas Ha (Story starts around 00:47:35) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Jeff Clement Cast: Narrator - Graham Rowat, Grandfather - Jake Benson "Colorless" written by Noah Sarvey (Story starts around 01:10:00) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator - Nikolle Dooli, Man - Dan Zappulla "The Devil Came to Abilene" written by Caite Sajwaj (Story starts around 01:27:25) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Jesse Cornett Cast: Narrator - Kristen DiMercurio, Lenore - Sarah Thomas, Gideon - Reagen Tacker, Sheriff Smith - Jesse Cornett, Mary Elizabeth - Mary Murphy, Woman - Erin Lillis, Tom - Atticus Jackson, Man - Dan Zappulla "Papa Ed" written by Pete Aldin (Story starts around 02:07:35) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator - Ilana Charnelle, Jacko - Jake Benson, Gail - Penny Scott-Andrews, Ed - Andy Cresswell This 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. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic - Your first drink of the night for a better tomorrow. Pre-Alcohol is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol which is responsible for rough mornings after drinking. Go to zbiotics.com/nosleep and use code NOSLEEP at checkout for 15% off! Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast team Click here to learn more about Tales From the Void Click here to learn more about Ron Fein Click here to learn more about Liz Rosen Click here to learn more about Thomas Ha Click here to learn more about Pete Aldin Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone "Our Quiet Guests" illustration courtesy of Hasani Walker Audio 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. Repent sinners, repent, for the end is near. When I was younger, the image of a person standing on the street corner, usually with a large sign around their neck, screaming for people to repent before the end of the world comes, was a common thing, at least in comics and other media like that. Whether they were warnings based on religious prophecies or people convinced of their own eschatological musings, we were meant to confront the notion that human life was soon

to be doomed to some sort of final ending, that there was some dire fate on its way, and we'd better be ready for whatever was coming to be the end of it all. Ah, but let's talk about beginnings for a minute. Tales from the Void, the new horror anthology streaming series is beginning now. October 13 on Screenbox in the U.S. and October 14 on on Super Channel in Canada. The first two episodes are dropping, so please check them out and plunge into the void. But what of those street corner prophets?

I suppose the Internet has pushed those people off the streets and into the forums and social media platforms where they reach more people with their warnings of doom. And what do we do with those warnings? Do many of us worry about a God's judgment? not too much, it seems. And what about things like the threat of extinction-level diseases? Or how about the planet itself, seemingly poised to be altered so severely by human influence

that it decides to shake us off like the parasitic fleas that we are, thus resetting life on Earth and all that inhabit it? Fun things to consider. But let's avoid those two strange bedfellows, religion and science. and instead consider how the tales in this episode present the supernatural, mystical world of horror, and how it can offer us glimpses of the end of our civilization. We know all too well that there are strange forces and creatures and phenomena which can give us nightmarish visions of how everything and anything will come to one final tumultuous end.

And I dare say, you might end up seriously considering what it means to repent. And now, the train is ready to depart. Your journey into the darkness begins now. In our first tale, we meet Landry and his granddad. They're working hard putting up fence posts. Just typical farm work, you ask? Well, in this tale, shared with us by author Ron Fine, those fence posts aren't something so trivial as for keeping cows on the ranch.

No, they're meant for something far more ruinous. Performing this tale are Mike Delgado, Atticus Jackson, and Jesse Cornett. So I don't know what it's made of, but you'll be lucky if you can build a Daronite fence. Landry and the old man were driving Daronite fence posts into the stony soil surrounding the ruins. Landry struggled with the old man's relentless pace, and he paused to wipe his forehead with a dirty handkerchief. His reddened face glistened with sweat in the desert sun and his beard-itched. How many more of these we got to do, Grandpa? He was strong, but out of shape, chubby for a 20-year-old.

I'm about a dozen, I'd reckon. Landry swore under his breath and stuffed the handkerchief into a pocket in his overalls. Surely it's time enough for a break. The man can't hardly breathe when it's so damn hot. The old man shook his head. Got to get it done before the occultation. That'll be about an hour past sundown. Jesus.

Landry shambled back to the truck for another post. The old man struggled in the heat, too, but he didn't let it slow him. His sharp nose, gaunt cheeks, and unblinking eyes put Landry in mind of a raptor on its last hunt. Landry heaved a post out of the truck bed and hoisted it onto his shoulder. The post balanced precariously, two meters to his front and two behind. His legs wobbled as he staggered toward the old man. A leathery shadow flitted past the corner of Landry's eye, but when he turned, It was only the heat rising from the desert floor.

The old man studied him. You see something? Landry shook his head. Well, watch yourself. You're getting too close to the ruins. The ruins were different from what he'd imagined. Massive, unworked black stones, boulders, really, probably dragged over from the jagged cliffs looming nearby,

have been piled into walls with rough cobbles shoved into the gaps. Judging from the wreckage, the walls once towered over Landry's head, but now their tumbled remains crouched near the ground. They were arranged in a strange geometry that Landry couldn't fathom. If they marked the walls of a building, the angles didn't make sense. But if not, what was it? Some sort of shrine? The ruined walls seemed haphazard, built in a hurry and knocks down in a hurry. Still, the air around the ruins seethed with malice. Despite the heat, Landry shivered.

Sorry, Grandpa. He backed up and walked the long way around to the next post hole. Earlier, when the sun still laid low, they strung a line marking the post's edges well outside the stone wall's perimeter. Then they pounded stakes into the pebbly, gritty soil to mark the post holes. That was the easy part.

As the sun rose and reddened, the pair shoveled out hole after hole, two meters deep, until they had excavated a ring of pits surrounding the ancient foundation, connected by shallow trenches. Now, as the desert roasted, they were finally setting the posts. Landry held each plum while the old man packed the stony soil around its base. Landry knelt and squared his shoulder against the fence post. Why'd you wait till the last day? It's been 19 years since the last occultation. All this time and it comes down to the last day?

We could have done this last week when it wasn't so hot. The old man sighed but didn't stop packing soil. I've seen all the planets coming together weeks ago. I felt it too. But I couldn't get approval to use all this darinide until the last damn minute. He shaded his eyes against the sun. It was the same last time. The council bickered about how they wasn't even sure

of planetary occultation was the cause. Then, when it happened, they didn't have the spine to make the hard decisions. He finished backfilling the hole. Next. Landry rose and returned to the truck. This time, he carefully stepped around the ruined stone wall under the old man's watchful eye.

As he returned with the post, a breath of wind licked his neck. A sudden, ravenous urge stirred within him, but soon passed. He blinked and shook his head to clear it. Would have been nice for the council to rustle up some guys to help. Well, better just you and me.

Landry crouched and set the post into the hole. Maybe we can leave the fence up till next time. First, see if it works. Last time we used electrified razor wire. Didn't do Jack Squad in the end. On the night of, it just waltzed right through. But won't the Daroniite work? If a Daronite fence won't keep it in,

ain't much folks can do but cower in the cellar. Was that what the council did last time? Cower in their cellars? The old man stared hard at Landry. Brave words from the want of spit who was bawling in his diapers last time around. He shook his head and disgust. Well, what would you remember of that night? Mind your mouth, boy.

Now let's get this done while we still got light. Landry flushed and focused on the ground. Without warning, the acrid scent of hot tar overwhelmed him. He swung his head left and right, and the air cleared. You all right? Yeah, just the sun. Drink some water. Langerie removed the metal canteen from his belt loop.

After he'd swigged a warm mouthful, he set his shoulders against the post again. The old man started shoving pebbles around the base. Since you asked, last time around, we was all advised to lock in tight. Didn't protect us. Noah didn't muffle the screams. Those it takes outright are the lucky ones. Those it touches, but let's live, I don't envy. Some run howling naked into the desert or else die by their own hands within the night.

But it's the others you've got to worry about. They can't be left to see the next cycle. He wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve. It's a mercy to kill them right. Right then, though rare's the man with the steel to follow through. Landry shuffled back to the truck for the next post. He could still smell the salty tang of his own sweat, but the sun had baked his skin dry.

As he inserted the new post, he felt obligated to make some sort of comment. This time it'll work. There's nothing alive that can pass through an activated daronite fence. It's what ain't alive that concerns me. The old man shoveled in more gravelly earth. Now, quit shatter and steady the damn post. They continued all afternoon, setting the Daronite posts and laying wire in the trenches, always an eye on the setting sun.

When they finished, Landry wheeled the generator out into the cooled twilight. Light her up! Landry powered up the generator and turned the knob on the Daronite Barriers' control bunks. As the barrier spun up, an electronic hum rose to a crescendo. The air between the posts shimmered, cracked, and buzzed. Landry grimaced as a harsh metallic odor filled his nostrils. Acid surged into his parched throat. Go get the rabbit.

Landry trudged back to the truck and pulled off a thin blanket covering a wire cage. He reached in and gently scooped a quivering brown rabbit. from its corner. With a soft sigh, he returned to the invisible barrier and stood there, cradling the trembling animal in his arms. The old man leaned on his shovel, waiting. There ain't no sense in dragging it out. I know.

Let's don't do it already. I'm sorry. Landry stroked the rabbit and kissed the fur between its ears. Then he flung it between two posts. The air popped and flashed. blue, and the rabbit shattered into a million tiny fragments, then drifted away in the desert breeze. Better hope it works that good tonight. And turn it off now.

What? I said, turn it off, boy. The electronic hum descended into silence as the barrier spun down. In the lilac afterglow of the last light, the old man approached at the invisible fence line. Come here. And take a good look at them ruins. Landry shrugged. All right.

You felt something here, didn't you? Before. Landry frowned. I'm not sure what you mean. If them rocks are saying something, I need to know what it is. That don't make sense, Grandpa. You heard the call before. Now get up close and personal so you can hear.

hear it better. Tell me what it wants. You said not to get close to the ruins. I think you got the steel for it. The old man glanced at the sky. It's all right. We got a few minutes yet. Landry hesitated, then approached the crumbling wall. Slowly he bent and placed his palm on a pockmarked block of basalt. An icy thrill rushed through him. And he shuddered. Just like I thought. The old man was already back at the control box. Before Landry could object, the old man reactivated the Daronite barrier.

The electronic hums swelled and the air between the posts hissed and snapped. Landry goggled at him in disbelief. Grandpa, I'm still inside. So be it. But Grandpa, what are you doing? The old man narrowed his eyes. Most of them that's touched die the same night. If not by their own hand, then it's a mercy to deliver them.

And for longer than you've been standing in this sickened world, I've been the angel of deliverance. Nobody else has the spine to make the tough decisions. He clapped his hands together to shake off the dust. It was me who found your daddy crouching and jabberant. in the darkness. It was me who had to cut him down. I don't understand.

But in one matter, my strength failed me. There was one who I didn't have the heart to take. One who was just in diapers. Please, Grandpa. Landry dropped to his knees. Whatever you're thinking, it ain't true. The old man's eyes glimmered in the fading light. I couldn't be sure that night.

You was too small for me to know for certain. Might be, it was too young to be distressed by certain venomous truths. But I feared the night when the planets would come together again. Because I always knew it lies within you. And when the time came, it would break free. Grandpa, you got it all wrong. Landry wiped snot from his nose with the back of his hand. I ain't been touched, and I ain't cursed.

I've been watching you today, and I can't avert my eyes no more. Look at me, Grandpa. It's me. He clawed at his temples. Look at me. The old man shook his head. Now once it's awakened. It spreads, and it takes hold, and damn if it ain't relentless. He smiled and closed his eyes.

All these years, no fence or wall has ever stopped it. But who knows, might be the Daronite will. If it does, consider it a mercy. The sun had abandoned them. In the star-speckled sky, the planets huddled together. Something deep beneath the ruins began to groan. Rimmel, please don't do this. Don't leave me here.

The old man narrowed his eyes. Even now, something unholy stirs within you. It hungers to reunite with what lies beneath, but once it awakens, it'll use you for its own purpose. And I can't abide. by that. His eyes softened. I don't know where you end, and it begins. And I sure as hell don't know whether the Daronite will hold.

But I aim to find out. Landry wiped his eyes with his meaty hands. Please, Grandpa. I should have never let it get this far. The truth is, I put you in this position because I lack the spine to make a tough decision. He turned and walked back to the truck. Landry lifted his eyes.

The planets locked into place. The occultation was complete. Behind him leered the ruins, yawning maw. A thick grinding whale emerged from beneath, or was it from within? The truck's receding lights rippled in the starlight, distorted by the sinister barrier less than a meter from his nose. An allulating scream pierced the shadows, and Landry joined it. Or maybe the scream was his all along.

There's nothing alive that could pass through an activated Darinide fence. Landry's eyes darted around, searching feverishly for an escape. But his fear had given way to murderous rage. Something overcame him, and it was him, and he exulted in it. All this time, they thought they could contain him. This time, it was a Daronite fence. Last time, it had been electric wire. Before that, a series of barriers stretched back into the formless past.

A kerosene-soaked wood palisade set a flame as the sunset. A ring of ash blessed by a febrile priest who howled incantations and carved ruins into his own flesh. Once, eons ago, it had been a ten years. towering wall of heavy black stones. But none of it worked. He could not be contained. He could not be stopped. It's what ain't alive that concerns me.

It would be a mercy to devour the old fool first, but he was in no mood for mercy. If the world is coming to an end, you'll count yourself lucky if you have someone who can give you shelter and protection, especially the children. But in this tale, shared with us by author Liz Rosen, we meet a group of people who have escaped to the wilderness to avoid the horrors,

but do other horrors exist within them? Performing this tale are Ash Millman, Erica Sanderson, and Mary Murphy. So if you ask them how to stay safe, they will tell you, we hide in the hills. We hide in the hills, under the rocks, beneath mountain and the lady's veil, which is what the waterfall and the curtain of mist it throws off are called. We wander the underground river into the vast chasms that are the root of the old man. We hide and we wait, we hunger and we tell tales.

Some of us remember the coming, some of us remember our before families, but most only remember the pack now. I keep the time on the wall behind a boulder. Not that we are discouraged from keeping the time, but the lady says that counting days has become irrelevant now that we do not live by sunlight any longer. But I was at the edge of adulthood, 12, when the coming happened,

old enough to remember my before family and the mayhem and terror. I still wake all of a sudden, my heart pounding, sure that my father is standing in the doorway of my bedroom, my stepmother at his shoulder with a look of desire, and cunning on her long face. On such wakings, I go to my place behind the boulder and take comfort as I run my fingers over the pale scratchings there,

thinking to myself, surely she is dead by now. Surely they are all dead by now. When I counted more than a thousand scratches on the wall, I went to the lady. If it please you, lady, will you come with me? Her dogs rose with her, thin, sharp snows. outed mongrels that carried the damp smell of cur with them everywhere, because the lady preferred to sit near the mists of the underground river, and so their fur rarely completely dried.

Looking at them now, it is hard to remember how there had been a time near the beginning when our starving had given us the idea that the dogs were worth eating. This was one of the few times that the lady had been roused to anger with us. The fierce barking of the collie we had backed against a wall had alerted the lady to trouble, and she had come like lightning to stand between us, with our hands still raised with stones in them, and the dog, whose barking turned to a low growl of distrust as it regarded us from behind the lady.

The small metal whistle she carried always around her neck, but that we could not hear was between her teeth as she separated us from the dog. You shall not! Her tone was fiercer than even our hunger, and we lowered our stones. These are your new family. family. She pointed down and then behind us, where, unbeknownst to us, the rest of her pack had surrounded us and stood alert for the next whistleblast. Her shoulders were thrown back, and she glared at each of us in turn. Do you not remember how they kept you from getting lost in the

hills? How they kept you together and guided you safely across the mountains, away from the mayhem and terror of your before families? She pointed at one of the littlest boys, grown feral with hunger and damp. His hair was matted as the dogs, and he had snarled and snapped at the thought of the meat on the animal that sat at the feet of the lady. But when she pointed him out, his face fell in dismay. His hands limp at his gaunt sides. You, Connor, have you forgotten the fear of getting separated in the darkness of those first nights, and how it was the dogs who found and brought us to you as you cried? With a wave of her hand, she drew our attention to the blood.

bloodhound that stood stiffly in the circle behind us, with its tail erect and ears forward, waiting for a whistlebloss to direct it. But lady, we are hungry. As are the dogs. They starve with us. They and we are now part of the same group, each offering our skills to the others. Do they turn against you to eat you for your meat? Do you think they could not if they wanted to?

If I let them? I watched the bigger dogs out of the corner of my eye. their teeth visible as they panted and waited. No, it was certainly true that they could have if they wanted to, or were allowed to. The children shuffled uneasily. Some of the lady's anger had dissipated now, and with it the animals surrounding us also seemed to relax. Many of them sat or lay down to lick their paws or scratch an itch behind an ear. Children, do you forget how they should.

stand and watch over us. The mayhem and terror are never far away, and it is your brothers, the dogs, who make sure we are safe and aware of approaching danger. It is the dogs who run down game for us. I spoke up, guilty but resentful. Lady, the dogs have brought down nothing in weeks. We are starving. What use is escaping the mayhem and terror if we only starve to death in a different place. The lady looked thoughtful. She raised the dog whistle to her lips and blew a silent blast.

The dogs returned to their feet and slinked in between the children to her side where they each sat facing us. My guilt bloomed as I looked into their eyes and saw their patience and mild interest. I looked at my fellow would-be butchers and the raw hunger in our faces

made me think that we called the wrong group animals. These... The lady indicated the dogs around her. Are not for the eating. They will hunt for us again. And so they had. But not before some of the children, driven by homesickness, made worse by suffering, slipped away from the mountain hideaway and went back to their homes,

never to be heard from again by us. Better to risk the terror, they figured. After all, the rumours of parents slaughtering their children for food were only rumours to most of us. Perhaps the ones we'd left behind in our exodus of terror had been living on rats and rodents, just as we had. Only we knew it wasn't so, because the lady had taken the rodents with her. That is what she had been paid to do, once the people realised that the wasting plague was carried by the vermin. And we, the ones she had taken when the city had refused to pay, had eaten all of the rodents that had preceded us,

praising the little wire-haired terriers for catching and shaking the rodents to death and then prancing them over to our hungry hands. In the first months, we'd eaten well, until there were no more rats for the terriers to kill. Still, maybe the adults had figured out how to treat their wasting sickness. Maybe they had figured out a way to feed themselves that had nothing to do with eating the youngest among them, as the lady had warned us they were resorting to

when she promised to lead us to safety. After all, figuring things out is what elders do. That is what children depend upon their elders to do. So lovely and Peter and Applecheeks must have told themselves as they picked their way over and threw the rocks of the mountain and made their way home. With tears in her eyes, the lady had informed the ones who stayed behind

that some had decided to return home to their fates. But we could see in her eyes the new resolve that she must figure out a way to feed and protect the pack so there would be no more defections. We watched her put on her coat of cattle skin, spotted black and white, and called dogs to her. Together they went out to find food. And the next morning, true to her promise,

there were cauldrons, two large iron ones of stew for us. We fell on them and ate until our stomachs hurt, then lay in a stupor, silently blessing the lady and her dogs, wishing that our friends had had the faith to wait. When we had slept off, As Tupor, the lady told us her plan to survive. We will make bread.

We will make bread with the bones of the animals we eat, and I will go back to the city and sell it there where they are starving. So shall my prophecy come true. They will pay for reneging on their contract with me. So this is what we did. Between the bone meal and the dampness of the mountain cavern, the bread was not much to see. but it was heavy and filled the hole that hunger had gnawed away.

For a third of my scratchings, we had made the bread and loaded it into sacks that the lady put on her back and carried to the city to sell. We offered to help her carry her load, but she only shook her head and smiled, telling us that it still was not safe for little ones and that her dogs would protect her. But even with the lady's warnings, there were still some children who found it unbearable after a time to live in the damp like wrinkled grubs, growing mild and white in the perpetual twilight gloom of the cavern, and who missed their bright homes where dust motes had danced in the sunlight and made them sneeze.

These left us in the middle of the night to return to the city. We asked the lady to find out about our friends when she went to the city to sell the bread, and she would return sadly to tell us that she had found little Yvonne's body at the bottom of a chasm as she made her way down Old Man Mountain, or that in the city she would, had overheard two people discussing the meal their neighbours had made of a boy named Trevor, who we recognised as the little one we knew as apple cheeks. All this I thought about as I led the lady to my place on the wall, where there were now a thousand marks grouped by fives. Stepping around the boulder, she crouched and laid her palm against my reckoning of days.

She took a moment and counted the groupings, her delicate lips moving slightly with each number. When she looked up, her eyes were melancholy, the shadow of those thousand days setting somewhere deep inside never to be seen again. She rose to her feet. Why do you show me this child? At first, I could not answer. At last, I stammered. It has been three years, my lady. Yes.

I lick my lips. A thousand days is a dying time for those who have nothing to eat. I lowered my head in deference. Even if they are resolved to eat one another, a thousand days is a time long enough for a sickness to burn itself out, or long enough to find a cure. I had grown into my 15 years, and the lady, who had seemed tall and graceful when I first followed her,

I now looked down at. As she came from around the boulder and seated herself there, arranging her pelt coat around her, I saw that she was thin and delicate, and this gave her the illusion of height and majesty when her pelt swung around her. Her whistle hung around her neck on a long song. Her movements, as always, were accompanied by the pantings and huffings of her dogs. I see you have brought no one else here with us.

I inclined my head slightly. Why? My lady saved us once. If she's keeping us here, there must be a good reason. The lady bowed her head slightly to one side. to acknowledge the words of respect. But a thousand days have passed. If my lady is keeping us here now,

there must be other reasons than those for which we first came. Is the world not change now from then? No. No? No. It is the same place of greed and selfishness. Violence and arrogance still reign. Men care not for men and less still for women.

The two-legged are more animal than the forefooted. and have not the integrity of most of those. Injury and revenge remain constant. She lifted a finger slightly from her lap, and her favourite hound came to her knee as if to make her point about loyalty. He let his head rest on her thigh, and she scratched him between the eyes absently. The plague?

The plague has burnt itself out, yes. And the hunger? Ah, hunger still exists. Hunger for money and title. hunger for status and power hunger for the things others have hunger for the things

that dreams show us no matter the cost frustrated I shifted on my feet two of the dogs open their eyes at the movement I meant hunger of the belly my lady at the sound of the impatience

in my voice several of the other dogs now turned their attention to me the lady met my eye with a steely gaze and even in the dim light of the cave I saw her pity and contempt, but I understood so little. It was now that the idea that had begun to take shape in my mind

started to harden into a form I could recognise. Were they ever eating children? Did Apple Cheeks' family really eat him? The dogs began rising to their feet around me as I could not keep the tremor of outrage from my voice. Her eyes glittered with what for a moment seemed like amusement. Oh yes. There are always a few degenerates to engage in extremes.

But we were never in danger. She rose, her shoulders straight, looking in bearing more like a queen than the shepherding girl she once was. Of course you were. Have you heard nothing, I said? I've swallowed my fear and resolved to finish, praying for the same iron in my voice that I saw in her expression. I want to leave.

She inclined her head in agreement. So be it. but you shall leave now while the other sleep. Speak to no one, I implore you. Her face softened as she contemplated the flock she had gathered to her, then hardened as she focused again on me. Do not endanger them with your doubts. She turned her back and stood regarding the marks I had scratched into the wall,

but as I moved to go, she spoke once more. I will send one of the dogs with you. She glanced over her shoulder at me with a benevolent smile. for protection. There was no point in objecting. I could only hope, but no. As she blew a command into her whistle, the fawn-coloured mastiff rose to follow me.

He was a solid mass of animal. Even the friendly-looking speckles of dark brown and white that ran through his fawny coat could not make him less intimidating. I made to return to the sleeping niche to gather my blanket, but the dog sidled alongside me as we neared the entrance to it, and turned his head to watch me.

Though he made no sound, I thought it better not to raise his hackles. Instead, as we passed through the various caves, where the pack lived and worked, I reached out to one of the work tables, silently taking one of the sharpened flakes of flint into my palm and then hiding it in my sleeve. Long before we neared the entrance to the cavern,

the roaring sound of the waterfall that hid the way into the mountain rose around us. The mists collected on my skin, and the violent tumbling of the water into the roiling river before me was a pounding that could be felt in the chest now that I was near to it. We took the path around the back of the falls. I could smell the open air long before we emerged into it. The moon was in a waning phase and the rocky landscape no more than dim silhouettes of obstacles to evade.

In truth, had you not been the ladies, I would have been glad of the dog's company. But my mind was picking through my conversation with the lady, as with my hands and feet I picked my way through the rocks and followed the ghostly shape of the mastiff out of the mountains. Violence and greed, she'd said. Injury and revenge. There had been more than one rumour in the wasting time, some about the lady herself. I try to remember these. The mastiff stopped on the top of an outcropping and waited for me to catch up before leading our way over and alongside the edge of the shale cliff.

I remembered the cliff from the climb up three years earlier. The lady had cautioned us that we must not approach the edge as pieces of shale routinely dropped away without warning. She had placed the dogs between the children and the edge, under the sign that she had our well-being at heart. This was the place that she said Yvonne had fallen as she made her way back to the city. As I crested the top of the rock pile,

I began to slide on Lois, a pinwheeled, trying to regain my balance, but lost my footing and fell backwards, sliding helplessly down the side of the hill. I tried to dig my heels into the loose gravel to slow my slide, but only succeeded in jamming my foot against a buried rock as I passed. I came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, the slow burn of pain beginning to heat my ankle. As I lay on my back, grimacing and wondering whether the injury would prevent me from walking, the rumour about the lady came back to me.

injury and revenge slowly i pushed myself to my elbows feeling sicker as every second passed as every second it became clearer i stood and tested my weight on my foot it burned but i could use it i hobbled along the edge of the cliff the hair on the back of my neck rising as i heard the gentle shifting of the gravel under the mastiff's giant paws behind me when i was within feet of the edge I turned and faced the dog who had lowered his head to watch me. I had lost the sharpened flint in the slide down the hill. The dog's sight was no doubt better than mine, and it had no twisted ankle to contend with.

I had only one advantage, the dog's bulk. The mastiff paced closer in the darkness, preparing to attack. I felt him launch himself more than heard it, and saying a fleeting prayer, I threw myself against the side of the mountain and smelled the dank fur as the dog. dog's body passed me. It made no sound as it fell. In the still night though, the thump of the landing, like a broom hitting a rug, came to me from below. With my ankle, it took nearly two hours to make

my way to the bottom of the cliff. I sat next to the body of the war dog and waited for the light. To pass the time, I took a shard of flint, I had retrieved from the gravel nearby and began to skin the pelt from the animal. The fall had nearly liquefied the inside side of the, and the air. The fall had nearly liquefied the insides of the dog. It was like trying to skin a goat flask filled with wine, but the task kept me occupied until the sun had risen high enough to send some faint yellow light over the edge of the cliff. I threw the pelt over my shoulder to dry and began to hobble along the side of the valley looking for proof of my fears. I found the first skull within minutes. Within two hours, I had found the others. There were no other bones. I collected the skulls, placing each as I

I found it into the pelt I had slung over my shoulder until I had them all, one for each child who had returned to the city. I built a cairn, a gruesome memorial, the dog's blood smeared red across the sun-whitened bone of the skulls, empty black eye-sockets keeping watch in all directions. This, then, was the lady's revenge against the town that had shunned her. She had sold the townspeople bred, made of the bones of their own children. I tried to keep myself from thinking about the cauldrons of stew that she had lovingly fed us. I spat and wiped my mouth, lowering myself to sit on the ground. We carried within us the sins we had run from.

The stain could not be removed. The horror waxed and waned like surf. And I let it go, turning my face to the slit of sky above me and waiting until the the tidal pull lessened and I could balance again. The sun was nearly above me by the time I felt I could walk again, but I had spent my time well. I knew what I would do. I rose to my feet, tied the mastiff's blood-spotted pelt over my shoulder once more, and began to make my way out of the chasm. Her pack of dogs would not keep me from my task. I would find a way to put my flint knife to the lady's throat and slit it. As she said, injury and revenge. And because her own

actions were proof of her assessment of the world, I would make it my business to protect the children who had no defence against these dangers. Yes, I thought as I climbed towards the lady's veil. I would travel the countryside and gather them to me, leading them from the horrors of the world and into the safety of the mountains. It's not the of the world if you have rowdy people coming by to whoop up a storm at your place, right? But there are some people even more annoying and threatening. As we'll learn in this tale, shared with us by author Thomas Ha, there are rules one must follow if you're called upon by these very demanding yet demure

visitors. Performing this tale are Graham Rowett and Jake Benson. So you'd better learn how to act if you find yourself greeting our quiet guests. The day I was finally visited by those three, their tall, rigid silhouettes blotting the afternoon sun from their looming positions on the porch. I remembered my manners after a momentary catch in my throat and welcomed them into the foyer, where they filed past me with little to no acknowledgement. Perhaps studying the intricate flock wallpaper which my wife and I had specially ordered from overseas, or otherwise appreciating the uninterrupted flow of the entryway into the living room, I couldn't say.

With some care and making sure not to touch them unnecessarily, I gestured to the kitchen, where I explained we usually entertain. I hoped from that corner of the house there would be less chance of the trio detecting the presence of my son, whom I had locked away upstairs only moments ago. I pictured him crouched safely behind the double-dored closet, with strong walls constructed of red oak, and barred with the most durable tungsten locking mechanism we could afford. My visitors clearly took great care to put on ordinary appearances,

so I did my best not to linger on the skin holes or missing swathes of hair atop their skulls. I carefully chose my moments to smile warmly and seated them at our kitchen table, glancing briefly at their wondrously, inky eyes, which swallowed the light, just as my grandfather had always described. Wells of blackness surrounded by distended facial muscles that rested unevenly on cheekbones that might at any moment cascade from their faces. Each of them chose business attire for this occasion, ill-fitting but expensive suit clothes, crooked in the shoulders or uneven in the sleeves, all tailored for other bodies. Every feature and characteristic summoned a familiar voice from the depths of my memory, something low and slow, like gravel crushed underfoot.

Never cross our quiet guests. My grandfather's sour breaths would cloud around him near the fireplace, often the same advice, night after night, when he could still speak without slurring. And yes, absolutely. Cross them, I would not. Because I very well understood the rules and what was required, I knew, for example, to begin preparing coffee

as my token hospitality, without the slightest delay or sign of hesitation, maintaining a steady stream of conversation over my shoulder. Although I wasn't sure it qualified as conversation, with every question of mine left to hang in the air, unanswered. The toasted fragrance of freshly ground Guatemalan coffee scooped into the filter atop the glass carafe, the rush and patter of water into the kettle that I set upon the range. the whoosh of the flame

licking from beneath All allowed me adequate sense of normalcy To pretend these were just passers-by Nevertheless A nervous titter escaped me When my hands hovered over the Japanese ceramic cream pitcher And sugar bowl And I realized how empty we had allowed them to become

What was so few stores carrying the variety To which we'd grown accustomed My wife, after weeks of my reminders, had gone this morning to shops beyond our suburb to restock the dwindling basement supplies, leaving me here with some embarrassment and in the presence of very significant company to deal with the results of her irresponsibility, and I suppose some of my own. A part of me knew that the sugar, cream, and my petty annoyance, were smaller symptoms of something more daunting going on. A disastrous state of the world and its escalating problems.

Things that I always found too difficult, or perhaps too unpleasant, to grasp. My grandfather had warned how our quiet guests appeared in his old country, too, just as it was on the precipice of a monumental violent failure. Not so much harbingers of the fall, or the civil war or the famine that followed has drawn there because of it, he believed. Like worms break.

My three visitors only confirmed the suspicions growing in me for many months that with every alarming headline, every essential disappearing from the shelves and every government department becoming more and more difficult to contact, we were all soon headed to a very bad place. Our quiet guests sensed it too. My hands continued of their own accord across the countertop, doing the preparatory work of a gracious host as best as possible in these circumstances.

And I kept watch on the street for cars coming or going, imagining with dread what would happen if my wife were to return. I permitted myself the fantasy, if just for a second, of being the kind of man who might shout or wave my arms at the window, give her a chance of escape. But, knowing my nature, even if I were to see her lovely face, I would undoubtedly remain transfixed, paralyzed by the breath of those three behind me,

so I could only pray that she was delayed and would continue to be so for her own sake. If you wouldn't mind telling me, How do you prefer to take your coffee, messieurs? I turned to my three visitors and saw that things had already gone wrong. It was their shoes. Each of our quiet guests had removed them without a word.

All six Oxford's rested on the kitchen table like loam-crusted bricks to make clear what I now realized. Somehow, at some point, I had already committed a critical error. I saw flashes of my grandfather clutching my forearm with his good hand, pressing into the tender skin with his unkempt nails. Something goes wrong. They'll make their displeasure known. And maybe, just maybe, they will forgive one broken rule or two,

but don't expect them to remain civil if you continue down an uncouth road. Each time you offend, they will see it as permission to reciprocate, escalate, any, and all mischreatment. So you must never, and I mean, never cross our quiet guests. Yes. Obviously, I understood this point, as well as what these three were trying to tell me by presenting their footwear so unceremoniously.

But for the life of me, I couldn't understand why now. What specifically had I done to earn their ire, given how little had transpired? Did I forget some customary greeting or introductory question in my hurry to usher them into the kitchen? Did I speak incessantly as I prepared at the counter saying too many things about myself? Or was it more intangible? Something in my tone. Too sharp and imperative in offering them seats or in describing the coffee.

Or was I so pathetic? So subservient and anxious that my tenor itself managed to cause offence? Whatever the case, none of the guests reacted to my alarm. They remained in their seats, with black eyes wide and mouths agape, in a kind of excitement, a slight whistling through crooked teeth with soft sighs. I'll assume, for the coffees, that is, I began to feel unease in my throat. That black is sufficient? unless you say otherwise?

Again, their dark eyes and gasping orifices provided no intelligible response. Despite what I hoped to be my first and only indiscretion, still completely unknown to me, I proceeded to pour and serve as I would any afternoon visitors. And while doing so, it couldn't help, whether due to curiosity or dread, but to take notice of their feet,

now desewed and splayed upon the travertine tile. The appendages were so pale and moist as to be nearly translucent, giving the impression that a dripping sack surrounded their extremities. And each toe, without the cap of a nail, swelled and stretched as it rubbed against the floor, like the feelers of an insect, sensing every texture and vicarer. vibration. And the smell. Some god-awful and unmistakable chemical odor emanated from those

naked feet, similar to chlorine from the community pool, but so foul that my eyes began to sting. I placed the first cup beside one set of shoes, and then the second beside another. Unfortunately, in contemplating the strangeness of my visitor's feet, I was not careful enough with their hands, because the last guest had extended his, as if to take the final coffee cup from me courteously. And so I, without much thought, went through the natural motion of giving the desired object. But, and I swear I did not imagine this, at least I don't think it was something I would project under such serious circumstances. Rather than grasp the cup as any typical visitor might, The final guest let his long and pallid fingers open at just the moment of our handoff,

allowing the vessel to fall unceremoniously from my grip. And what could I do except watch aghast as the full cup splashed and tumbled, like its god-given purpose was to crash into the tile at full force, shattering apart in a detonation of shards and liquid at our ankles. My apologies. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I clutched the lower half of my face. The quiet guest who had let the cup plummet between us, widened his mouth, the corners curling upward at my distress. The three of them began huffing, rapid hisses from their hanging jaws. Why? Again, I felt a whirlwind of confusion and despair. If I was supposed to treat them with

courtesy, to follow the rules, just as I had been... Why would he lure me into such a situation where I'd have no chance but to err? Please! Our quiet guests tightened their shoulders. Their entire bodies grew taut. At any moment they would rise from their seats and take hold of me. So I did the only thing I knew to do. What someone of my character does when faced with something too painful to bear.

I groveled. I understand. Without dithering or qualification or smallest shred of dignity, I groveled. I held out my arms, like someone trying to placate feral hounds. I'm from one of the old families, so I know the way these things work. You see? With you? With the rules. I know. I know. Images of my grandfather returned to me, him raising his bad hand in the firelight. The missing and mangled portions of his body,

like misshapen cobwebs of flesh, had frightened me as a child. But not so much as his stories about what had been done, but had to be done for the guests with their many ancient rules of hospitality. Look! I slid the chef's knife from the nearby block, and just as my grandfather had shown me, I set its edge across the second knuckle of my pinky. The subsequent pain, though close to unfathomable, was a rushing release as bone and muscle and tendon separated from my hand. The response was immediate, a chorus of clicking, feverish delight.

Grunts and guttural trills from the three visitors when I, trembling, picked up the bloody offering and placed it on the table where the shattered cup still at my feet should have gone. The guest who'd betrayed me with his dexterous trick, hovered over the ruby-splashed finger, stretching apart his slackened, spit-lined mouth, to permit his true body, long and tentacular, to emerge. The distorted muscles along that fleshy extension of the guest's form reminded me of a starfish, or maybe a freshwater eel. At the far tip of the frightening form, I glimpsed the mouth, a spiraling corkscrew of jagged edges, disappearing into the shadowy esophagus. It felt an eternity.

But in truth, it was very few seconds from the creature's emergence to snapping up my severed pinky with a forceful chitter, to retraction entirely back into the split hole where it hid. The other two guests turned expectantly, their pale hands pawing at the table

in frustration and fervor. More. Always offer me. more. My grandfather had shown me the scars where he'd pried flesh from himself, along the hand and forearm, parts of his calf, and several toes. Until they come, you must always plan to give more. But why?

I recalled asking, that just doesn't seem right. It had been the only time I think that I'd ever questioned my grandfather's ranting, at least openly and in such a firm manner. Even then it had felt so fundamentally imbalanced, the inherent asymmetry of the rules. Those feelings came back as I raised the knife and, fearing the alternative if I did not continue with the rules, proceeded to lean down with my weight again.

Again. More fingers rolled off the countertop, landing wet and inert on the floor before I brought them to the table and served. Again, again those fleshy, bulging guest shapes appeared from those two other mouths,

sucking and crunching insatiably. It's not fair, I had insisted, and I'll never forget my grandfather's face in the shifting shadow and firelight, the lines of aggravation and agony twisting his features, His good hand digging into my arm, that sour breath. Only an idiot child would expect such a thing.

Fair? It doesn't matter what seems fair. You never cross our quiet guests. Do you understand me? Do you understand me, stupid child? You never cross them, never. The torrent of my blood, even staunched with a darkening dishcloth, began to make me dizzy. And I slid down the cabinet to the tile in a mess of ceramic shards,

while the guests enjoyed themselves noisily. None of it, fair. None of it, of course. Yes, grandfather, I understand. But I did my part. Despite my stupidity and hope, I thought he would agree. I did what was warranted to satisfy their needs. and we had reached the point of equilibrium that would bring mercy and departure from my home in peace,

as they did in all of the family stories I'd been told. Then came the noise, the thump, and was it a feeling of strange finality, like a gate shutting off a path? Our quiet guests looked, cooled ink eyes drawn to the ceiling, and their gelatinous toes rubbed vigorous. against the floor, following the sound to where I already feared it would take them, up the stairs, down the hall, into the far bedroom, and behind thick red oak doors bound with tungsten locks. No, I think I said aloud, soft and insubstantial, my bloody fist wrapped in dishcloth raised to plea.

No, I have more here to give. But they didn't care for anything I had to say. I watched two of them depart the table and make way to the stairs, while the third guest, the fellow with the trouble holding cups, leaned over me with visible anticipation. This is true self, surfaced again from the false mouth and began to chew what was left of my injured hand, crunching to the bone while I sobbed in his shadow.

It occurred to me. But the rules did not apply anymore, here in my home. No, they even applied at all. The ominous sound of soggy feet, pressing onto each stair tread, seemed impossibly loud to me. Another, then another, then another, then another in turn. As I lay shivering in sweat, my body entering shock and my wrist disappearing into the writhing guest,

I saw my grandfather's face Not that angry deformed shape by the fireplace But cold and still Sallow and kicked with powder Set in a dark, silent box These rules These ideas about how we ought to be Maybe they help that old man live a little longer

When guests visited him But not without cost And still with the same inescapable end descending upon me. The sound of wet footsteps echoed through our home, and things grew darker when I felt the guest burrowing its spiral teeth into my eye, my face hot and wet.

But I listened for the noises upstairs. The creaking of a bedroom door preceded by cries, shouts for help, screams for father. All I could think, with each second in roiling, waves of pain was the meaninglessness of all that had come to pass. The rules had served no purpose that I could understand, other than to hinder the will of these beings and their hunger, which I finally understood could never be sated. I was sure that no matter what I did now, no matter how I begged or pleaded or paid with politeness, I was already a dead man. What with the

rending of my body. Just a transitioning corpse set for the same kind of box as my grandfather before me. My thoughts drifted back to my wife. Her lovely face somewhere out there, bargaining for supplies as the world came undone. Things crumbling everywhere we turned. The terrible conditions that drew our quiet guests to us in the first place. Oddly separated from what I was enduring. I was forced to consider the greater ruin coming that would encroach no matter how many trinkets and fineries and comforts we surrounded ourselves with in this little home. And as I considered the truth of where it was all undoubtedly going,

something peculiar occurred while I lay there with my face being chewed away. In my fading belief that I and my family and the world would continue, It felt our quiet guests had given me a gift. One last thing to appreciate before the end that I saw so clearly. If I was certain to die, no matter what I said or did, no matter what rule I followed or disregarded, and I was now finally unburdened by hope and free of the fear, so familiar and close that constantly followed in its wake.

These half-reasoned notions spun messily in my mind While my blood splattered across my face And the cabinets and the flock wallpaper It all spun and spun this way and that As I reached delicately to a shard of broken coffee cup On the tile For once there was no thought No plan

No preconceived ideas of my actions or the outcome. I drove the sharp ceramic fragment deeply into the soft, moist matter of the creature's sensitive foot. The guest detached, and his dripping self-flopped and trilled wildly in the air,

but not too fast for me to grab his true throat and lock him close between bicep and maimed forearm. My good hand, spidered aside, to pick up the chef's knife from the bloodied tile, and I plunge the point into him. Mucoyed fluids rained down as I sawed fervently, separating the soft snail guest from its man-shell. And when the snaking creature was eviscerated, the suited body fell against my chest with the unmistakable flucidity of the newly dead. The other guests upstairs did not react. They battered against those red oak doors.

I listened carefully to each thud. As I dragged myself upright and pulled my soon-to-be carcass up the stairs with the last of my strength, step by step, it all seemed so comprehensible for once. The commands and etiquette I'd been taught all fallen away, and my knife still slick from blood that did and did not belong to me. I was never going to survive to see a better end with the guests. or with this world. I accepted and understood that.

Whether my boy would be fortunate enough to live through the horrors to come, or especially if he would not. All that I could do for him, all that I could show him was that I did not collapse inwardly without struggle in those final moments, that I did not leave him crying out

for me in the darkness all alone. The afternoon light from the bedroom window Warmed my bloodied cheek for a moment as I watched the blurred, hungry shapes crash against the splintering red oak doors. I gathered what remained of me and raised the dripping knife so that my son would know. I tried something in the end. I tried something. I tried! 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 McInelly. 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 first season. Consent of creative reason.