S24 Ep11: NoSleep Podcast S24E11

It can bring unspeakable horror to the most familiar places your morning shower.

“A tranquil river bank or the endless ocean.”

It's time to dive deep into the abyss. From the dark waters of the Cape Fear River, immerse yourself in horror as you embrace yourself for the no sleep podcast. Hello sleepless listeners, David Cummings here, the showrunner for the no sleep podcast.

I'd like to take a bit more time at the start of this episode to share some stuff with you.

Usually try to keep things relatively short at the start of episodes because I know you like to get straight to the horror stories. But I'd like to talk about some things and then let you know about some new stuff we'll be doing over the next couple of months. As I'm sure many of you know, on June 13th we'll be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the no sleep podcast. And we're going to try to make it a time of sleepless celebration. And when I look back over the past 15 years, I really am grateful for all the listeners who have connected with us over that time.

But I've also had a bit of an awakening recently, a reckoning, if you will.

You see, it's dawning on me that I have done a really poor job at something related to this show. And no, I'm not talking about my lame puns, my bad accents, and overall non-sensical stuff I inflict on you regularly.

“No, where I think I've really fallen short is in not allowing you our listeners to really connect with this show and the people who make it happen.”

I've come to realize that while most of you enjoy this show, I think most listeners haven't been motivated or inspired to view this as something more than just a... well, let's call it a public service of weekly audio horror stories. And understand me when I say this, no one is to blame here, except me. No listener needs to feel like you've let us down or haven't done enough. I fully believe that each one of you supports the show in the manner you're most willing and able to. So whether you support us directly as a paid member, or as someone who is content with an hour of ad-supported content, or just a casual once in a while listener, your connection to the show is what I've inspired it to be.

This show, as I see it, is that the format of this show, this horror anthology, and the way I've run it, means that there is a separation between the creators and the audience. I'm aware of other podcasts, shows similar to ours, who have fostered a much deeper connection between the people who make it and the people who listen. Their audiences feel like they're a part of those shows, and for those podcasters, that means they have shows that are earning a much more sustainable level of income. An area we continue to struggle with.

Now, ironically, I'm not saying any of this to scare you. I'm not saying the show is on the brink of collapse or anything, and yes, I regret that ill time to joke a few weeks back about the show needing to shut down. No, no things aren't that dire. But all this has motivated me to try to make the no sleep podcast into something more than just a repository of audio horror, where the audience might feel like it doesn't matter who writes or performs or illustrates the stories.

I mean, you've been hearing many of the same voices on this show for over a decade. Yet, I'll bet a lot of you haven't been motivated to know more about the team who brings the show to life. And again, that's on me.

“I honestly believe if I had allowed you to get to know us better, you'd be more interested in investing in us, in feeling like you're a part of this show.”

And there's another barrier that I think exists for some people. It's the false impression that we are a very successful show.

Some people consider the no sleep podcast to be this podcasting juggernaut,

around for years, massively successful, always near the top of the fiction podcast charts, having big name actors on from time to time.

The world tours, oh, we're probably making money hand over fist with millions in Swiss bank accounts. And to anyone who believes that and thinks we're all getting rich from this, you would be wrong. So here's the truth. We are a small, independent production. Creative reason media is just me and my wife Kelly.

We're just a small mom and pop company. We're not part of a network. We don't rely on anything other than the team of talented contributors who work with us. And each week, every episode, we have anywhere from 20 to 40 different people who make that episode come to life. All of them are paid. This is an expensive show to produce and we run on a month to month basis.

And despite what some people think, I'm not a millionaire who lives in a mansion, not even close to that level of success. All of us on this show are just getting by the best we can without much to spare. And look, I only share that because I want people to know the truth and not have a false impression of us. Because if there ever comes a day when we can no longer carry on due to not having the resources to continue,

“I would hate for people to say, well, why didn't you tell us you need more help and support?”

I could have contributed some money if I knew you were struggling, I just didn't know. So that's why I'm letting you know now. Your support is vital, much needed, and most immensely appreciated, more than you could ever know. Okay, with all that being said, let's talk about moving forward. I want to try to inspire our audience to know more about the people who make this show.

And there's one thing we're going to try over the next eight weeks. Namely, I'm going to step away from hosting the show. You've all had quite enough of me, I'm sure. So I'm going to turn over the hosting duties to some of our voice actors, most of whom have been with us for many, many years.

They're going to bring their own personalities, share more of themselves with you. I feel by doing that, it'll be a fun way to really celebrate our 15 years.

“And I think you'll not only enjoy what they have to share, but hopefully you'll feel a little closer to us.”

So for the next eight episodes leading up to the special day, you'll have new hosts to share the darkness of the night with. Okay, if you're still listening to me after all that, thank you for letting me share with you what's been on my mind. And thank you for being sleepless listeners. Now let's talk about this week's show. We have stories about famous people.

Oh, no, that should be "fay" people, not famous. If I wanted to talk about famous people, I'd remind you about Jake Benson and his Kickstarter campaign for his film, Drouger. The Kickstarter is now online, check the show notes to learn more. But like I said, it's not famous people, it's the "fay". You know, mythological creatures, usually of Celtic origin.

Those powerful creatures often found in nature settings who might seem innocent enough,

but have power to bring darkness upon the land. These aren't sweet little things like Peter Pan's Tinkerbell. No, what you'll find in these tales are creatures that would make the tooth fairy seem like a dental delight. So, we hope we can cast a spell on you this week, as you join us, and plunge into the horror of our sleepless tales.

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In our first tale, we visit the forest and meet an older lady living a solitary life in the woods,

just the way she likes it, except for those annoying kids. You see, in this tale, shared with us by author K.G. Lewis, the woman witnesses something upsetting, and she takes it upon herself to do something about it. Performing this tale, our Aaron Lewis, Jeff Clement, and Dan Zapula. So let's take a stroll in the forest and hear the tale about Winnie.

[Music] Mind your own business, Winnie.

“I crested a small rise in the forest and came upon a boy who looked to be about 12 years old,”

torturing an old gray squirrel that he'd managed to trap in a snare.

I'd happened upon him on my way back from the creek to fetch some water for my cabin. Thankfully, he was too busy with the squirrel to notice that he was being watched. Wanting to keep it that way, I ducked out of sight and took the long way home so I wouldn't risk running into him again. As I walked, the squirrel's squeals of pain haunted me. If you get involved, you'll run home and tell his folks, and they'll call the sheriff,

and you don't need that kind of trouble knocking on your door. I had to put the incident behind me.

Very few people knew I lived out in the woods, and that's the way I wanted it to stay.

“Later that night, once I was sure the boy had gone home.”

I grabbed my lantern and returned to the spot where I saw him. The body of the squirrel lay on the ground, with its head twisted around, and the snares still tied around its neck. Several sticks were skewered through its body, staking it to the ground. Bastard.

I cursed the boy. I knelt beside the body of the squirrel, and removed the sticks and the snare, before gently picking it up, and putting it in the plastic bag I'd brought with me. I wasn't going to leave it for the scavengers to pick apart, that seemed wrong given the horrible way it died. You could have saved it.

The voice of guilt whispered in my mind. Doubtful, but I could have ended it suffering in a more humane way. I'm sorry that I didn't. I apologize to the squirrel before tying the bag shut. When I got back to my cabin, I laid the squirrel out on my work table and examined it. There were various ways I could use its body, which, in my mind, would allow its death to serve a greater purpose.

I could add its fur to the blanket I was making. It's meat would make a nice stew, and the rest of it could be ground up and used as fertilizer in my vegetable garden. I thank you for these gifts. I ran my hand along the squirrel's soft fur before I grabbed my knives and started skinning it. I saw the boy again two days later when I was out collecting firewood that morning.

In this time, he wasn't alone, he had a friend with him. I quickly took shelter behind a nearby boulder when I heard them coming. Does your dad know you have his rifle? I'd seen the long-barled gun draped over the boy's shoulder before I ducked out of sight. No, now be quiet, you talk too much. Sorry.

They continued walking past my hiding place, forcing me to skirt around the boulder to prevent myself from being seen. I waited until they were out of sight before I started following them. The trail they left behind was easy to track. When I caught up to them again, I found them standing next to the creek, wanting to stay out of sight, I hid behind a fallen tree that had a gap beneath it, which allowed me to watch them.

Grab some of those pine cones and put them on that rock over there.

“He moved his finger to indicate the rock he was referring to.”

Okay. His friend moved to a blanche. Once the kid had an armful of pine cones, he carried them over to the rock and started setting them up as best he could. While he did that, the boy removed the gun from his shoulder and aimed it at his friend's back. He wouldn't.

But he did. The sound of the rifle being fired echoed through the woods.

A second later, a large spray of blood and bone erupted from the front of the friend's chest as the bullet towards through him.

He swayed on his feet for a moment before collapsing. Thankfully, he was dead before he hit the ground. I'd hate for the boy to suffer the way the squirrel had. I stood up, no longer concerned with remaining hidden. What the hell have you done?

Startled by my sudden appearance, he almost dropped the rifle. It was an accident. That was no accident. I pointed an accusing finger as I climbed over the log to confront him. You did that on purpose.

He was an accident. I swear. And I say it wasn't.

I stood there with my hands on my hips.

Who do you think the police are going to believe? You, or me? He hadn't counted on there being a witness. I could see a change come over the boy's face as he thought through his dilemma. Once he'd come to a decision, he raised the rifle and pointed it at me.

“Do you really think shooting me is going to help your case?”

It does if you can't talk to the police. And what's your reason for shooting me? I just told you what it was. He tightened his grip on the rifle to steady his aim. What's the reason you're going to tell the police?

They might by your story about shooting your friend on accident. I gestured at the other boy's body. But they're not going to believe you accidentally shot two people. He had to think about it for a couple of minutes before he came up with an answer. I'll tell them you attacked me.

He sounded confident that he'd come up with the perfect solution. I spread my arms. Look at me. I'm over 80 years old. I'm skin and bones. Do you really think they believe I'd attack someone younger and stronger than me?

“The gun wavered, signaling that I was making him doubt himself again.”

It was time to make my move. What if I told you I could bring him back? What do you mean? He had a confused look on his face. This kid is stupider than I originally thought.

I can bring him back to life.

Make it like you never shot him.

He won't even remember it happened. He studied the gun and took a step toward me. You're lying. Nobody can do that. I can.

But I have to do it soon. The longer we wait, the harder it will be. Okay. Then do it. It's not that simple.

I can't just snap my fingers and bring him back. There is a ritual that must be performed and I can't do it here. We need to take his body back to my cottage. The boy just stood there staring at me. I could tell that I was about to lose his interest,

so I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. I smiled. I'll tell you what. If you help me take his body back to my cottage, I can't bring him back.

You can shoot me. There's nothing stopping me from shooting you right now. We've already been over. Why? That's a bad idea.

But if you really think you can handle all of this on your own, go ahead and shoot me. I spread my arms. He lowered the gun. How far away is your cottage?

It took the two of us 30 minutes and several breaks

to carry the body back to my cottage. We need to place him on the table. After we did that,

“the boy started wandering around my home,”

looking at the taxidermized animals I had mounted on the walls and sitting on shelves. Did you make these? I did. I started gathering jars of herbs

and the other ingredients I'd need to revive his friend. Could you teach me how to do it? I could. I set out loud. To myself, I said, but I won't.

I grabbed a bucket and carried it over to the boy.

Make yourself useful. I thrust the bucket into his arms. Run down to the creek and fetch me some water. He looked like he was about to protest, but then thought better of it.

After he left, I retrieved the spell book I kept hidden in an old tin box under the floorboards with the rest of my valued possessions.

“The book was given to me by my mother, who got it from her mother.”

It had been handed down like that for over 300 years until it reached me. I no longer had a daughter to give it to. The state had taken her away from me when she was just a baby. They said I was unfit to raise a child on my own.

I could have used the book to find her and take her back,

but I never did. The world was changing too much, and there wasn't much place in it for people like me any longer. I decided it was better to let my daughter be a part of that world instead of dragging her into mine.

She'd be in her 60s now, with children and grandchildren of her own. Thinking about her reminded me of just how old I was, and how little I had to show for my life. I can at least do one good thing before I die, I thought.

The boy returned with the bucket of water, sloshing it all over the floor as he carried it through the door. I walked over and took it from him before he could spill anymore. I set the bucket on the table and used the water to clean the blood from the dead boy's body as best I could.

Then I mixed the ingredients I'd gathered and poured them into the dead boy's mouth. When I was done, I caught the other boy flipping through my spellbook, which I had left sitting on a chair.

I slammed the book shut and picked it up. You don't want to mess with that. What is it? It's none of your business is what it is.

“Is that what you're going to use to bring Hawi back?”

Stop asking questions and get over here and help me. I carried the book over to the table and set it down next to Hawi's body. Set your rifle down and then stand there. I pointed at the opposite side of the table. Thankfully, he did what I said without protesting.

I opened the book to the page I needed, and then read it over, making sure I had everything I required. Satisfied that I did, I looked up at the boy. For this to work, I need you to do everything that I tell you to you understand.

The boy nodded his head. Good. Now lean forward. When he was close enough, I dipped my finger into his dead friend's gunshot wound,

coating it with blood. The boy stepped back when I reached the bloody finger out toward him. If you're going to help me bring Hawi back, I have to unknowing to you. The boy still didn't return to the table.

You do want me to bring him back, don't you? I guess. Either you do or you don't. Hurry up and make up your mind. I can't bring him back by myself.

He thought about it for a moment. I do want you to bring him back. And get over here. When the boy returned to the table, I dipped my finger in Hawi's blood again.

Then reached out and started to draw an arcane symbol upon the living boys forehead. I could tell he didn't like having the blood on his skin from the way he closed his eyes and scowled, but I didn't care. The only thing that mattered was that he kept his mouth shut.

imbuing the symbol with the power needed to fuel the resurrection spell.

I could see that the boy was about to open his mouth and say something, but I stopped him by reaching out with my other hand and pressing a finger to his lips. Once I was done, I turned to him. If you had interrupted me, I would have had to start all over again. Sorry.

He reached up to touch the bloody symbol on his forehead. I grabbed hold of his hand before he could ruin it. And don't touch that. If feels weird. It's supposed to, that means it's working.

What's it for? It's called a martyr's mark, with it you are going to bring how he back to life. Me?

I thought you were going to bring him back.

The magic has to come from you. But I'm not having magic. Thanks to the mark I drew on your head, you do. Now get over here so we can finish the spell. He stepped up to the table.

What am I supposed to do? I held up the book and showed him a picture tapping the page. See this symbol?

“You need to draw it on how he's forehead using your own blood.”

What? He didn't like the sound of that. I picked up a knife and held it out to him. Just sliced your thumb.

When he didn't make a move to take the knife,

I lunged across the table, grabbed his hand and cut his thumb. What did you do that? He cratled his injured hand against his chest. Because it would have taken too long for you to do it yourself. Now hurry up and draw the mark on his forehead before the blood starts to clot.

The boy glared at me, but he did as he was told. It's done. Now what? I tossed him a strip of cloth. Wrap that around your finger.

Well, he did that. I walked around the table with the book and pointed at the page. See these words?

“You need to place your hand on how he's forehead and say them.”

But I knew what he was going to say and stopped him. You don't need to understand them. You just have to say them. They are pronounced exactly as they look. Okay.

He reached out and placed his hand on the dead boy's forehead and recited the words. I was surprised at how well he pronounced them. As soon as he was finished, he slumped to the floor. Oh, what's happening to me? You're dying.

I stood over him. That resurrection spell you just performed required a willing sacrifice. And you were that sacrifice. To put it into words, you can better understand. You gave up your life so how he could have his back.

You tricked me. Those were the last words he ever said. I rited a wrong. I said to his lifeless body. On the table, how he sat up.

My chest hurts. He fingered the huge hole through the center of his rib cage. That's not right. I thought the wound should have healed. Unless.

I looked down at the book. God damn it. Winnie, you used the wrong spell. I was supposed to use the resurrection spell, but I accidentally used the reanimate one.

Since they had similar names and requirements, it was easy for my senile old brain to get the two mixed up.

“That's what I kept for trying to do the right thing.”

I retrieved the dead boy's rifle, and aimed at how he said. Let's take a short break for our sponsors, who help us keep our heads above water. For waves of ad-free horror content,

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Homechef.com/noseleep must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Now let's plunge back into the deep waters of horror. What's going on in your head? If you're asked that question, it might mean what's on your mind,

or it might mean what's happening in your skull, in your mouth, as we'll learn in this tale, shared with us by author Amanda M. Blake. Brooke is having problems with not only her teeth, but also with her ears, or at least she thinks she's hearing a constant noise. Performing this tale are Lindsay Russo, Kyle Lakers, Mary Murphy, and Marie Westbrook.

So maybe she should brush with an electric toothbrush. That way it might drown out the drone. My mother believed in almost everything, but she didn't believe in dentists,

so I never went to one as a kid or teenager.

By the time I was old enough to make the decision for myself, I couldn't afford it, because teeth are apparently optional luxury body parts, like hair or toenails. My teeth hurt when I was a kid, but mother always said, "I would lose them anyway." And when I did, the relief that the whole left behind was nice. That dimension, the shiny gold dollar coin, that felt like something out of a dragon tail.

Then may adult teeth grew in. A little crooked, but if dentists were unacceptable, or the dentists were verboten, and what I had served me for a while, strong and ivory and solid, and too big at first, but I grew into them. My teeth started hurting again around 15, not long after my mother jumped off the roof onto her face,

smashing all her teeth out and doing so much damage that she had to be remitted into professional care. Although she really should have been before, she jumped off the roof. I bounced around foster care until I aged out. When I had to couch her for a while with friends and their parents, who were wary, but largely lovelier.

that I moved into my friend's apartment near his college campus.

“A dream just out of reach, but he brought home extra food for me on his meal plan.”

The call center provided shit, health care, and no dental, and like most people may age hustling, the good hustle that puzzled me more, seeing a dentist was out of the question, especially because my teeth hurt so much. All those years without care, it wouldn't be a routine clean. I couldn't afford the visit, much less what they'd have to do to fix me.

So I took and said, "Bow guarded rosses, CBD gummies now and then, and chewed very carefully." Some people are haunted by ghosts. They're past tormenting days and dreams. Some are haunted by beasts with glowing eyes and closets, under bed skirts waiting for unwary ankles.

I'm haunted by these things too.

I'm haunted by the memory of my mother and her stories, echoed in my medicine nearer reflection. And my aversion to vinyl dentist chairs and curved needles.

“I'm haunted by the slurre and lisp of her voice on the phone when I call her.”

And sometimes when I don't, I'm haunted by the flit of darkness at the edges of my vision, the flutter of something by my ear that's gone when I turn around. And I'm haunted by bees by a lonely drone of untethered swarm dripping honey in my skull. My mother hated dentists, but as though to make up for it, she was a stickler from the beginning about brushing and flossing.

Once my tooth aches and two early adulthood became more insistent, accompanied by embarrassing halatosis and headaches that could hit anywhere and everywhere above my neck, it wasn't unusual to spit blood while brushing. I just rinsed, swished my mouth wash and hoped it went away on its own. It always did.

Until it didn't. Blood turned the past foam pink.

“Like it should be cinnamon instead of mint.”

When I buried my teeth in the mirror, I looked like I'd just bitten into rare steak, but the bloodline traced my deep pink gums too, and when I nudged my teeth with tongue, I could swear they were a California skyline at midnight, loose and rolling in their beds on the sand and dry as fault of my mandible.

I worried that floss would simply go out the route, but I kept brushing, resaging the inflamed gums, and hoping the spa treatment would suit them to shrink. But at the back, among the squat sturdy structures of my lower right molars, I heard a distinct crunch.

Another haunting. This time for my nightmares. I spat. A quarter of a molar clattered like thousands of dollars into the enamel coated cast iron. The low drone that I'd lived with almost all my life briefly intensified,

like a misfire of pain. When I looked up my reflection showed a bubble of dark blood dripping from the corner of my mouth. Or was it black? Crawling? Fitting in the corner of my vision like moths?

I squeezed my eyes shut, spit again wiped my mouth, washed my hands. When I opened my eyes, my teeth were stained only red. And what crawled inside my cheek was near Paris, Thisha, nerves aggravated by a misaligned jaw in my propensity to grind. Foster parents and friends parents hadn't been too keen about taking in the child of a bedbug mother,

for fear that it might catch me like apple tree kindling and burn their house down. I didn't hate them for it.

Any more than I hated my father who I never knew and wasn't even a name on my birth certificate.

Too much hypocrisy to swallow when I still hit ignore on many of my mother's calls. I ignored the things that weren't real and just hoped they would never get worse. I didn't get manic or depressive like mother, and everyone saw and hurt things a little. But if it was going to happen, this was about when it was supposed to happen. And the winged shadows, the constant drone, the persistent smell of honey and copper, didn't bode well.

If there was one thing my mother's wide and varied fully embraced beliefs taught me, it was denial. But the tooth fragment didn't fit under the stopper, and as soon as I closed my teeth and met a nerve, I knew I couldn't deny that at least one of my teeth had reached the end of its usefulness. It needed to come out. You can't be serious.

In our little shared bathroom, Ross stared not at me, but at the rough pair of pliers that I'd grabbed from his toolbox.

Do I seem like I'm joking? You say things sometimes that are completely ridiculous and you're not kidding. And then you say something completely sane and you giggle, it's hard to tell. I'm serious. Brooke, can't you just go to one of those walk-in dentist places and get an extraction with,

“I don't know, novocaine and professionals with schooling and experience?”

I can call my uncle, we'll get you the family discount. This isn't like pulling baby teeth, which don't even ever root by the time they fall out. If bad teeth and a big nose are the only significant things I inherited from my mother, I'll be happy. But there's only so much good dental hygiene we'll do to solve bad teeth that are literally crumbling in my mouth. I didn't tell them about the dark blood or the black insects or the home.

I never told people about that.

I was a good student, then the good worker, studious and industrious. Get good grades and the teachers will praise you. Clean your room and don't make a sound and your guardians will keep you. Never tell your friends about your mother's dark fairy stories without a laugh. And your friends will stay.

Never tell anyone about the strange things you see in here and you won't become your mother. I took Ross's hands, which showed him how serious I was. I checked.

“I have four teeth rotting out of my mouth.”

I can't afford one extraction, no matter how cheap much less four. And even a cursory check will find more problems. I need your help. I need your help. Ross solidified his grip in my hands.

Darling. Love. Porch light of my life. I'm going to need video confirmation that you really want this, absolving me of all responsibility.

Deal.

I was on my third white Russian, nicely buzzed,

but not to the level of drunkenness that I could fall down five flights of stairs with little more than a bruise and a smile. I sat in a folding chair, set up between the sink, toilet, and bathtub. Not much room for it in the small bathroom, much less me and Ross together too. Between the pliers and the anti-fog mirror, he was ringing like a wind chime. I passed him the vodka bottle.

It would advise though it would be for someone drunk to operate if such a crude procedure could be called an operation. On a fellow drunk, verbal contract or not, his nerves were going to be the bully and my delicate Chinese shop if he didn't study himself first. Ross took a generous swing, but just one. This is the worst idea in the world. I've marked each tooth I need you to pull with blue marker.

Not Sharpie, but something that wouldn't be too toxic if little Annie or Robbie put it in their mouth. It smelled a blueberry, at least what the scented marker company said was blueberry. It didn't even smell like blueberry cobbler to me. I checked in the mirror again and touched up where the white Russians had washed some of the color away. Earlier, I'd poked each tooth with a steak knife, ignoring the writhing black that wasn't there,

and marked each one that didn't just hurt but was discolored, grommeted, and gave under a push. It was so odd though, when I smiled no matter how wide my teeth seemed fine. It slightly crooked and misaligned. They looked healthy, like wealth. My infrastructure was corrupt where no one could see.

Aim for the base, try to do it fast. If they fall apart when you pull, I have tweezers, but it all has to come out. This is the worst idea in the world. This is the worst idea in the world. He's set the tweezers I handed them on a plate with the pliers, then he picked up the pliers.

If I ever used tools, I would never use this one again.

It's yours. I equip the team.

“I'd give you all of them, but I think I'll have to resell them to pay for therapy after this.”

If you're gonna whimmed out. I want to, but if I don't do this, you're going to try to do it yourself, and that's the actual worst idea in the world. I have 36 deep breath. He's still the mirror and pliers, and I grip the arms of the second or third hand folding chair. Racing for greater pain than what I lived with all the time.

Braspo, nausea, a comical downturn on his lips. Say ah. I opened my mouth even though the drone in my skull always sharpened when I did that. And I couldn't seem to open wide enough for Ross to get a good angle on the tooth furthest in the back that I'd crunched a piece from. This had been my idea, but I immediately wanted to stop.

Despite the pain that shot through my jaw and up my temples, the constellation of my mother's face stared down at me from the bathroom popcorn ceiling.

Of my mother's broken, bleeding, jagged, lantern, grin when she raised her days head from the pavement.

“In my shock and distress, I thought her head was a wasp nest, with an abandoning swarm crawling into the dirt.”

That night, while sleeping in our creaking, flaking house all alone in the dark, I'd awakened from a dream and thought they were crawling into me, into my mouth over my tongue down my throat,

although they hadn't been there when I'd finally found the light switch.

Plain is day, she gazed down on me in that bathroom, sucking down spoonfuls of jello and strawing soy shakes and telling me nothing hurt anymore. And I saw myself sitting next to her in the hospital cafeteria, sucking down the same jello and gulping down the same shakes and smiling the same gylis, childlike smile when my lips sunk in like dried apple. Until everyone started saying how much I looked like my mother, how I was exactly like her. Ross suggested the angle of the mirror back and forth, trying to put the pliers in just the right place so he could get a solid grip.

“His reaction expressions at least distracted me from the waking nightmares.”

Brooke, I'm once removed from an actual dentist, and even I can tell you that what I'm seeing isn't normal.

I'm not supposed to be seeing, I don't know, the clinical diagnosis or anything, but you've got like what must be active decay or serious infection.

And I'm not sure how your teeth haven't fallen out on their own before this. Shit. Shit alcohol's not going to be enough. I think we need heroin. The pliers cupped the slight curve of my muller.

As soon as he determined that he wouldn't slip, he clamped down, twisted so hard that blood spirited like a popped boil against my cheek and yank.

Instead of going limp with indecision, his movements were sharp and more powerful than I expected from someone who required me to kill every spider.

We screamed together because the pliers did cause one side to collapse, and they closed instead against the inside of the tooth. A butcher knife plunged dead center into the dilapidated muller and was burned deep into the jaw and up the side of my skull to my throbbing temples. But he did pull the tooth out more or less whole because I could see a whole root while my mouth flooded with metallic hot salty sickly sweet honey. The initial stabbing pain shifted into a steady heart pounding throb, but the deep jaw ach subsided to hum instead in rhythm with the stab.

To my relief and suspended hope, I felt better, not good, but better. I'd go to the walking clinic for some antibiotics later. No dental health care, but by God they partially pay for my DIY extraction after care. I sat up to spit blood and crumbs into the sink. Cross held the partial rooted tooth between the pliers, shaking again, bloodless, siphoned through the wormhole where my tooth used to be. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I actually did that. Oh my god, I have to do it again.

Three more times, oh my god, oh my god.

“I would have told him he was being dramatic, but honestly that was the appropriate amount of panic and fear.”

Instead on spinning blood as it weld while ignoring the honey, the harm that the little prickles crawling, crawling. Fuck. Look at it, brook. That's not right. That's not right. What the fuck is that? He held the tooth up to the magnifying mirror to get a better look. The enamel decay looks like honeycomb on acid, which is bad enough, but inside there's a pattern. Like it's carved. Like looking into the pinhole of a walnut where someone's made a miniature.

It's so weird. Look at this. It's like, ow, ow, what the fuck? The drone in my head and the throbbing in my mouth swelled to a line that rivaled a drill. Everywhere in my mouth burst with bullet after bullet of pain, with itching, tingling, crawling, pins and needles over my gums and the insides of my cheeks and lips over my tongue inside my skull. Under my skin and mucus membranes between my teeth swimming from the hole on the slower flow of blood. Not just with sensation but weight. It filled me from tongue to palate, threatening my throat, but instead spilling against gravity over my lips.

And the tiny black wasps that lived in my teeth, launched themselves from the cliff of my chin at Ross, who was shaking his pliers hand to cast off the black love of insects emerging from the broken tooth he held in a metal grip.

As the black glove coding his hand and forearm ride and his more clustered on his face like flying ants, tiny cuts appeared on his knees, skin more moisturized in mine.

“Ross reel back, the only way out of the room is over my legs. I held my hands up but didn't swat at the wicked things or at my own face to scare them off.”

In the same breath she warned me about guardian illness, mole goblins and the dark dark fairies, mother had taught me to avoid anthills after a rape. Check my shoes for spiders and remain perfectly still around anything but yellow jackets and africanized honey testing. I could probably outrun and out in your yellow jackets. The killer bees would get me either way. Anything else would only try to defend itself. Ross swatted. Whenever I couldn't tell if something was real, the gold standard of reality is when someone else heard what I heard, saw what I saw.

I'd always been the only one who saw the shadows, heard the drone taste of the honey. This couldn't be real.

This couldn't be real.

“But the shadows were here and another person didn't just see them but the lead is they ravaged his hand and arm and killed his face with a thousand cuts.”

A mid-the-violent hum of fury from within my mouth inside my head now all around me, words took form. Just to your high-one and hum homes, monster of metal and mirrors, you and your kind have stolen for too long. Get off me, off, off, off.

Ross slacked it himself while they cried open his lips and flooded into hack at his gums, staining the ivory red light mine after so many brushing incidents.

The black specs continue conjuring red slashes down his neck to bosom and vine on his deceptively expensive white shirt. The girls' line holds some of the final high homes because they'd heard and heated the warning's arrest into less and now you'd deny us our last crowded recourse, our birthright. The thousands of voices that all became one rose to a scalp-splitting shriek. I clapped my palms to my ears.

“Although the stabbing and throbbing in my mouth continued as more wasps poured forth, they didn't seem interested in me or my sudden movements once out.”

They directed all their territorial aggression on the one with the pliers and broken tooth that didn't belong to him, although both had since fallen to the floor with a clatter. Ross struck his own face hard enough to swell where the stings did not. He was a chaotic stumbling, cornered ponderous beast in comparison to the nimble wasps co-weaning in and out of his screams and mostly avoiding his hands. My flies, not all succeeded. Crushed bodies lay legs up on the penny tile. I might've missed what was off about them though they hadn't been so still in the midst of the frantic swarm.

Stop, stop, stop, stop! Talking with a mouthful of wasps wasn't the easiest thing to do, but I'd been talking through sheet and forked lightning for years, and the worst offender had been removed. I grabbed Ross. Not by the wrists where the creatures were still taking diminutive revenge on his hands, but by the upper arms to keep him from flailing. Stop, they're not bees or wasps!

When Ross wailed, peeing here and oscillating turns, my chest constricted, but I squeezed his arms, mindful though that tiny shadows could have crawled up his sleeves. What's going on? Oh god, what's going on? He stared at me with saucer eyes, as though the glass tile beneath his feet and cracked apart and acid rain poured through the ceiling from compromised pipes. You can see them, tell me you can see them! Of course I could fucking see them!

When he spoke, he exposed teeth blackened by the crawling and by the tiniest pits in the enamel that they'd caused in just a few minutes. Then as eyes widened further, any covered as mouth as though he would vomit. I flinched at a crack that I'd heard before, in my skull and many at once. After a moment of silence, with neither scream nor drone in or out of me, Ross's mouth fell open. The broken incisors stuck to his lip for a moment, and fell to the floor with mine, leaving a deep black gap in his row of perfect whiteened dentist adjacent teeth.

A gap through which four or five tiny wasps crawled out, buzzing high and excited in what sounded like cheers.

He didn't pass out, but he collapsed like an overdose in the corner.

“His hands tremoring in front of his mouth as the wasps crawled through his teeth and over his face, hands head.”

Tiny footprints joined the bright blood spatter on his shirt. Are you... I reached down from my own bloody seat, but stopped to coughing as something larger than a single bee or wasp, larger than a dozen, crawled and clung on my tongue with prickled bug feet. It forced my teeth open, pushed through my lips and emerged a melanistic butterfly.

As improbable as it had been that a hive of wasps lived in my mouth, something that big living inside me seemed impossible. Yet it climbed down my chin and flew from me with the lowest dangerously calm drone. The massive wasps hovered in front of me, and I could see with perfect clarity that it wasn't a wasp at all. And it was still growing.

First the length of my thumb, the my palm, to the length of my whole hand from middle finger tip to wrist.

“The queen displayed undeniably wasp as shape and structure.”

With shiny carapass, narrow waist, delicate long limbs, aggressive triangular face, but magnified. It revealed claw-tipped fingers at the end of discernible arms and legs, a mouth of tiny as black teeth, straggly hair, loose and black, faceted eyes, and an elaborate crown of carved ivory upon her head. The queen was the last thing to crawl out. I covered my mouth as though that would stop anything.

But beneath my hand I still get struggling to swallow, to breathe. I hadn't seen the wasps that weren't wasps so clearly since Mama had broken her face, only heard them. Buzzing with the intensity of my bone pain whispering through my nights. You will not read us of our last haven. Your mother and her mother before and before.

You have always housed behind.

“Even as those who find other mouths to possess are evicted or killed in their homes,”

you are warned not to come to middle men. You see them right? You see her? I still didn't remove my hand from my mouth. Ross raised his head, still dazed, but focusing was swollen, bewildered shock upon the fairy flying before me. At least that was how he seemed to me, but he could have just been in shock at me.

If I was like mother and only did to myself what I believed the hive had done, but Ross slowly nodded. Can you hear them? Please tell me you can understand, please tell me it's real. The queen buzzed, faced twitching in anger as she lifted her clawed hands at Ross. Ross hesitated, but he nodded again. Your mother told me well, but she betrayed us.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Her mother betrayed us as well. I lowered my hand from my mouth. Grimma killed herself. teeth endure. But her coffin became hours when she put the boring her mouth before she pulled the trigger.

Your mother's mother destroyed half the hive and defend half the rest. We filled the spaces in your mother's mouth and warned her. Warn to the warn you. It's still she shattered the home of a hive need in her. We had no choice but to burrow into yours. Ross sparring into the earth when I ran to my mother with her shattered, bloody face and broken smile.

The prickly buzzing darkness that poured back into my mouth when I lay in bed that night to terrified to move, paralyzed between sleep and awake when the difference between hallucination and reality became all too tenuous. I'd already suffered my own buzzing vibrations before, but when they'd increased afterward, I just feared I was getting worse, that the silent bomb ticking in me had exploded before its expected time.

Ross clutched at the sink to stand, still plastered into the corner. The shallow cuts and violence of the fairies appeared to have calmed with their queen's emergence. They crawled over him like sluggish wasps in autumn. Ross also appeared to lack a brain cell to spare for provocation.

I, however, couldn't dismiss what hovered right in front of me.

“What had stabbed through soft tissue and done concrete damage to my best friend and made mansions”

and the dubious cul-de-sax of my mouth. Especially hard to dismiss when whole threads of my life made more sense and the chaotic tapestry mother had woven for me.

Stories I'd believed weren't supposed to make sense in the first place.

I wiped the saliva and blood dripping from my lips. Maybe you shouldn't live so crowded in our mouths that we'd rather shoot ourselves or jump off buildings to make the pain stop. We tend to clash. Lead each other host to care for their own. You can't have been caring all that well.

I did everything I was supposed to do. Everything mother told me there's only so much I can do when I have fairies living in my teeth. The queen hovered closer where I could discern the slightest detail of her naked anatomy and the obsidian gleam of her stinger long and sharp as a machete for her size.

“Lead paid fairly and gold that you accepted.”

So we take from the metal men every tooth they take from us. These monsters will see who is willing to exchange coin to entrust their teeth with them. When they cannot even protect their own. The drone around Ross intensified once more and the cracking resumed. Ross moaned as another piece of the inciser dropped out to join the others.

Some of the fairies bath their faces like flies and the tears streaking out as cheeks. Hey, enough of that! The drone, the crawl, the sounds of arguments and construction. The deep bone crunch that couldn't be anything but consumption. Knowing they'd really been there all along just making angrier.

Pollucinations are bad enough. Actually dealing with terrible tenants and my teeth offended me to my infected marrow. The queen and her hive quieted. Perhaps been used that someone would shout rather than scream. He was just trying to help!

Despite my theory, when the fairies brandished in teeth and stingers, I thought it might be smarter to soften my tongue. He wasn't evicting you. He was trying to relieve the pain from the infections that you caused. That's all they're ever trying to do.

And he's not even a dentist.

I've never gone to one because I wasn't listening to my mother.

He's just a friend doing a favor. It is not his right. They're my teeth. Hours by gold and birthright, your family is ours. Why? Why us?

The queen tilted her head and released the tension poison her stinger. Because you believed until these last generations. And because you believed, you listened and held the hive. Cradle it for cold, cold and golden honey. I laughed like I wanted to swat the queen flying into the medicine cabinet mirror

to make a windshield smear on the glass. I laughed because I wanted to cry. Mother believed in everything. Is it all true? What other beings beg to indulge in so are relevant to us?

All that matters is that she harbored the hive. And we will not relinquish. We will not rot your last cold shrivel and moat to dust. We will fight to keep what is ours and retribute any invasion. The hum still surrounded me on the outside,

“but this was the first time I could remember that the drone haunting my head was gone.”

I thought everyone had at least an electrical wire vibration, sensation if not sound. In spite of pain from both the new and the festering damage and decay that they brought,

I'd never known that my head could be so quiet.

No wonder mother had smiled. I lifted my hand under the queen. She settled on my fateline. I know what you did to grandma. And mother nearly killed herself trying to get rid of you. Who knows what others and my family have done because of what you did.

Whether you want me to evict you or not, my teeth are killing me. And if I die from infection, I'm getting cremated. The other fairies flew from Ross. One by one, then in clusters, then one by one again to swarm me instead. They didn't sting, but they were ambushed.

We will prevent this genocide, the war if we must.

“What if we could both keep what we want?”

The queen sat in my palm with her stinger tucked between her legs. We're listening. I didn't used to leave visiting hours with a smile, but these days I couldn't stop. Bumble, they used smiles so brightly. You didn't used to for so long. It doesn't hurt anymore.

As I passed the bathroom near, a gleam that my skull had never created for itself caught my eye.

Of clean ivory, of metal, ceramic, and porcelain, of straight, even unbored teeth. No architectural or nutritional value to two fairies, and fully integrated to my jaw, indistinguishable from the real thing. A complete set of the best implants that unlimited gold dollars could buy had been part of the agreement. Including repairs for Ross, who'd had his uncle, cap, his incisor, and smooth out the divots, then refer me to an oral surgeon.

“After some lengthy discussion and baffling x-rays that probably ended up in a dental journal article or two somewhere,”

the surgeon had done a complete extraction, with the provision that he'd give the teeth back. Several courses of antibiotics and months of protein smoothies and gelo later,

the surgeon had then provided me with a full set of implants.

Now that I'd finished healing, I could eat an apple without flinching from the bite, from chewing, from the cold meat. And now that I'd moved mama from the state hospital to a private psychiatric facility that would take her to surgical appointments, I'd insured that she would soon have the same. They won't nothing to do with metal. My promise was worth the weight in gold, their promise had provided me.

Bags and bags of it, to pay for Ross's repair, my implants, eventually mothers, to pay for her place in the new hospital, and maybe to eventually pay for mine.

“The drone was gone, and sometimes my world was so blissfully quiet,”

but evicting the fairies hadn't exercised all that haunted me.

Our illness had made us more susceptible to their outlandish suggestions, getting rid of them hadn't cured us, but some measure of peace made all the difference to me, as it had to mother. I was surprised that Ross still let me live with him, but once he'd taken enough benadrol to tranquilise an elephant and adjusted to the low, staticy drone coming from my room, he decided not to ask too many questions or try to evict me the way he had with them.

Maybe he was a little afraid of me too. But I also continued to help him pay rent with what the fairies provided while I couldn't work. The price for their living arrangements had gone up significantly from when I was a child, but my renovations made the rent imminently reasonable. I sat cross-legged on my bed and grabbed the supplies that I kept in the nightstand.

All it took was a little repair putty in some of my old polypocates. The largest one gaped sparkly pink into the lamp. Every one of my pitted teeth secure in the putty that adhered to the toy's miniature interior. Sometimes the queen even sat in one of the plastic chairs or couches if she needed to speak for the hive. They'd wanted my teeth.

My condition for the tooth fairies keeping them was that they comb somewhere other than my mouth. And their condition for living in something without life spring was that I bleed for the monocation. Little more than a few drops from my fingertips into their enamel chalices and help them expand their hive. Dr. Fuente didn't know why I wanted other people's teeth in addition to my own. Maybe he thought I made jewelry from them.

As long as I paid cash or coin, he didn't ask a lot of questions. Fragments could still be used for furniture and feed and an empty hole tooth held multiple families at once. When already inhabited though, new arrivals often integrated well. Like most hive creatures, they function better together than alone. As I affixed the new by cuspid into the arch, three more teeth and I'd have a complete anatomically incorrect set.

A tiny shadow peaked out of a cavity. I waved. Welcome to Blush Bridge estates. We're a growing gated community with a reasonable queen and a steady stream of food. You can come and go as you please to do what you tooth fairies do as long as you stay out of my mouth.

I flashed my new teeth and a smile that grew more comfortable by the day. Then I left a few tooth fragments in front of both occupied polypocates.

Their original plasticine denizens plastic and sanguine to what their homes would become.

“The older ones weren't as easy to find as the new versions.”

But the queen had expressed her preference and money wasn't an object. Five more were on their way from three different online sellers. I left the hive to their own devices and closed myself alone in the bathroom to stare at myself and enjoy my painless teeth. Wondering if the garden knows that my walk had been in exactly the same spot yesterday.

If unsettled soil and earthworm castings were from goblins creeping to the surface,

if I'd known when I needed to take my toy tooth mold collection to the room across from others, I let you decorate however you liked, as long as you behaved and kept your space clean.

“But even under the worst of circumstances,”

Woe betide the teeth of the poor nurse who tried to take them away from me. [Music] [Music]

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