[MUSIC]
Water, it gives us life. We are drawn to it.
Yet it holds immense power over us.
“It can bring unspeakable horror to the most familiar places.”
Your morning shower, a tranquil river bank, or the endless ocean. [MUSIC] It's time to dive deep into the abyss. [MUSIC] From the dark waters of the Cape Fear River,
Immers yourself in horror as you brace yourself for the no sleep podcast. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] Oh, that was wet.
“Hi, I literally didn't see you there because this is not a visual medium.”
Welcome to the no sleep podcast.
I am your temporary host and media director, Peter Joseph Lewis, my apologies. It is however my privilege to introduce this our 13th episode of season 24. As we've slipped into that celebratory stretch of our 15th glorious year, an achievement that rests squarely on your shoulders dear listener. Now you may already know me from all so many savory, robust and
sinful tales over the last 13 years or so. And though I'm here today in a mostly hostly capacity to deliver under your fine years, the latest in our horror anthology, I'd like to take just a
“moment to talk about my least favorite subject.”
Me. Now, the root of my deepest vulnerabilities, if I had to sum it up, in just like a tight little package or the thorn, as it were in my paw, I would say the ache at the core of the emptiness where I once, um, oh no, I've gone too deep to quickly find a shallower angle.
Um, so my love of horror stems largely from those books and films. But I was able to sneak home from libraries and video rental stores. A sentence that now feels weird in the mouth, like O'Kra had any consistency, contraband then consumed in the high branches of swaying pine trees or under the protection of a blanket fort, closed pinned on the one alarmingly thick and static
television. Hmm, you haven't lived until you've watched a jump scare late in horror film as a child inside what amounts to an inverse ferritate cage if the slightest friction should be created. Good times, some horror films are more personally meaningful to me than others, and those already privy to my dark secrets will be aware of my strange love of the
changeling the accesses to three and later that of Emily Rose.
So horror has always been in my blood, though doctors assure me that a cure, as well
as perhaps a name for the disease, maybe just or on the corner. Oh, speaking of corners, what a lovely, high traffic spot that would be to have a merchandise store where you could gather with your pals or yourself and your guilt and peruse a fine selection. We here at um, would it know how knives, knives leave, have launched a new merch store in
Jolly cooperation with Void merch and designer Jordan Shively, which there I say boasts, classic logos and brand new designs, all available in various shirts and stickers and tanks and totes and even buttons, oh my, give it a peek if you like, link in the show note. But we are really here to celebrate 15 years of you all not just tolerating, but at times actively encouraging the particular magic and madness and sadness that we practice
Here.
The shouting, sobbing, the gleefully slain, into all manner of densely coat packed, closet
“corners and makeshift pillow forts, hastily bundled motel bedding, in some cases in”
the act of telling stories to each other in the dark, no matter how far, flung, we may be. A flickering fire to give the shadow shape, whether it be of a literary auditorium or cinematic nature I have found great comfort in facing the darkness together through these stories. Navigating the monstrous title ways of grief, finding with a sharp edges are within the
sickly dark surprise of sudden loss, of love, of sanity, of safety, snuffed out. In that sense, of losing one's innocence once family, home, it provides the warn, softly patinaed music box in which spins our quartet of tales this week.
Also Brandon Boone provides the music, the ghost, you know, in the box, yes, home is always
always supposed to be safe, a sanctuary, and your guardians are supposed to do their very
“best to take care of you, but sometimes it's not how the story goes.”
Hey there folks, what's going on? Listen to horror stories without me? Well then, you'll want to learn about a podcast that has thousands of true paranormal stories waiting for you. It's the Monsters Among Us Podcast.
Each week, Monsters Among Us brings you chilling true stories from real people, sharing their eerie experiences with the paranormal. From ghostly sightings to encounters with strange creatures, this show dives into the unknown and leaves you questioning everything you thought you knew. The tales are told in the witness's own voice, from callers all around the world, like
a story about a homemade wija board, or the one about the child with no eyes, or the deliciously a literative tale about a mystery mammal in Maine. These tales of the supernatural are carefully collected and curated by host, Derek A's, and shared in the form of audio recordings that get straight to the meat of each terrifying story. Derek cultivates an atmosphere that is equal parts spooky and nostalgic.
Think Unsolved Mysteries meets Art Bell. There are over 500 episodes already waiting for you. So if you're into the paranormal, or even just a little curious, this is a deep rabbit hole. So be a skeptic or a true believer. Monsters Among Us is the perfect podcast of fuel your fascination with the paranormal and
since shivers down your spine. Go check out Monsters Among Us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. In our first spoiler, maybe I shouldn't be telling you now at the start, like which way the story does or does not go, I guess. Anyway, in our first tale, we meet Rowan and Ace.
A pair of ziplins out for a hike out searching the woods for traces of a missing family, but in this tale by author Quincy Lee, it soon becomes clear that rescue is not as straightforward as it seems. Performed by Matthew Bradford, Izzy Braunberger, Peter Joseph Lewis, and Jeff Clement,
“produced by Jeff Clement, the table is set, but who will claim the last chair?”
We never expected to find them, live family that one missing, and the trails that
will have been combed over the past week and a half. And we were, after all, not experienced hikers ourselves. My sibling Ace and I had never really roughed it, never deed to work from established trails, at least not intentionally. Somewhere in the pines, the official trail markings vanished.
Our phones lost all signals, and the narrow track we followed wound upwards along the steady slope through the trees before finally peed oring out into nothing. We were about to turn back when we spotted, just ahead, a clear, smooth patch of land with the remnants of a stone circle for a campfire and some discarded soda cans. Ace grumbled and went to collect the cans, only to call out to me when they found a bright
pink backpack. Inside was a notebook, a crumbled paper lunch bag, and a sloth plushy.
"Oh, I found a snack for you.
"He's tossed me the lunch bag." "Oh, dear, that is foul." Catching the bag, I caught a whiff of the rock inside, remnants of a sandwich now still in furry and a mushy apple. I plucked out the mushy apple and flung it at my older sibling to a swore and took.
Then together, we both examined the backpack. The same thought must have crossed both our minds then.
“What if the backpack belonged to the family that was missing?”
We'd straight off the path and what if this was the same way they came, only then they
got lost and they never found their way back.
According to the news, the bulger family, Patty and Joel Bulger, their daughter Emily and Patty's brother Mike, all-in-missing during what was meant to be an overnight backpacking trip. Witnesses saw them park their car at the trailhead and hikens the criss-crossing well-worn trails of the pines, but that was over a week ago.
Now, I squeeze the sloth plushy, it's fur matted from being cuddled so long, and could this have been the daughters. A's flipped through the notebook, showing a long-haired stick figure sketch of smelly uncle Mike. We both smart, but stopped smiling when flipping to the inside cover revealed a scrolled
name. Emily B.
“Emily and her uncle Mike, those are the names, right?”
Shit, yeah. A's turned to eye the woods around us. We need to let the authorities know. The afternoon sunlight slanted down on us. There were no other traces of the family around the campsite.
They'd clearly packed up and tricked on from here, but which direction. I scoped out the woods, wandering further away, something pink wettered in the distance. I clambered up through the bramble and over dead leaves and snatched up the pink fabric, caught on a fallen trunk. And it's a girl sweater, and you're by a trail wound up the slope.
Ace's lanky figure remained rooted far below for several moments, then they rifled in their bag and wrapped some blue tape around a branch by the campsite. They disappeared further downwards, probably a mark where the trail would even follow a wing petered out.
“Finally, they clambered up to me, and I stood waving the pink fabric the impatiently.”
Look, I turned the collar of the sweater inside out to show the tag, on which was written in Sharpie, Emily B. Looks like there's a trail that goes up that way. I added, pointing along the slope. Kets, not the way we came through. Ace squinted up the slope and back toward the campsite.
We are way off track. If we turn another piece of blue tape from the roll and added it to a branch nearby, we have to find them. We could get just as lost as they are. Nice, we can't abandon them.
Rowan. Ace's eyebrows drew together. We need to call this in. If we wander off into the woods, we might as well just put ourselves on the missing person's list.
Back in fourth, we argued. Now, I'm the ration stubborn one, Ace's the analytical equally stubborn one.
Ever since we were kids, I was always the dreamer, ready to set sail in some grand adventure.
Now, my wrist, I wore a bracelet, reading all who wander or not lost. Whereas, my older sibling followed only carefully charted paths, leaving only in hard facts and never in airy possibilities. Today, the moment they suspected we were off trail, they'd started marking branches with their blue painters tape and building piles of rocks alongside the path.
After assessing the facts of a situation they made their mind up, saw it as bedrock. You'd move a mountain before you could move Ace. But it's double bullet train before you could stop me. Think of Emily Bulger, I pointed into the woods. She's out there and she needs her sloth, and if we leave and lose all trace of that lost
little girl forever, I will never forgive you. Hesitation on Ace's face, the sun was sinking lower in the afternoon sky, sheels starting up my arms, the rays of burning orange that turned Ace's mop up around hair into a golden halo, but darken their features so I can barely see their skull. If we were going to find this family before nightfall, we had to start looking now.
Ace made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat.
Finally they swore to get their role of blue tape and slammed it into my hand.
This is the stupidest thing you've ever done, but fine.
You do what you're going to do and I'll go call it in and then I'll come back for you.
“I'll follow your trail if you get lost and star about here and die I will never, ever”
forgive you, mark every fucking tree Rowan. I will promise, I will. I sibling hugged me hard and they spun under heel and left, not before calling over their shoulder. And for the record, you're a total moron.
I flipped them the bird, without having been looking back to see this gesture Ace was already raising their arm to flip me off in return, then I turned and scoured the slope above. There, it was right there of a well-traught and path winding upwards.
I marked it with a tape and started hiking.
The temperature seemed to drop as I ascended, as if the air appear was thinner and colder. The trail itself was wide and free of debris, the afternoon sunlight filtering through
“the pines and dappling the leaf stream trail.”
It was an easy, uneventful climb, it's so easy I nearly forgot to mark the trees, it seemed pointless with the path being so clear. I only put up the tape because I promised my sibling, making sure that each blue ribbon was an eye shot of the last. I'd been hiking for about 40 minutes when the path opened up suddenly in front of me,
the slope leveling off, and there are immense the trees, the small clear patch, there was a cabinet. A pink thermos sat on the front steps, I rushed over and snatched it up, the surface was covered in stickers of handmade characters, Emily's, but then a question entered my mind.
Why isn't the cabin on our map? I knew it wasn't on the map because, say, said check the map relentlessly the moment they realized we were off trail, maybe it wasn't there because the map was too old, because the cabin was privately on, who are we'd strayed so far that both the path I'd hiked in this cabin were in an entirely different area.
A none of that would explain why the Balcher family had found this cabin, enter, and remain missing still. They must be inside.
“With that thought, tread ballooned inside me, if I open the cabin door, what would I find?”
Suddenly, I very badly wish that my sibling was with me.
I've always been the superstitious one who gets nervous about walking through grave here
at tonight. He's never worries about flickering lights or haunted cemeteries or unknown horrors. He sees only electrical problems or soil filled with decaying organic matter. Your fears are always practical, and pape bills, authoritarian laws, muggings, or violence. Never ghosts, curses, or whatever who is swaying in that cabin.
I glanced down at the plushed loft in my hand, and back at the adjardor. The windows were cracked and dark, rhyme caked the glass. The steps creak as I reach for the door, and I felt my nose wrinkle in my stomach clenched because of the smell, a terrible smell. The a came whafting on the air, like garbage and sewage and meat left to fester.
An unbearable chill numb my arm, the moment I grip the knob. I brace myself and thrust the door open. To my surprise, not only was the cabin brightly lit, but several faces turned toward me. A thin, tired-looking man raised a hand to his lips for silence. Wait, are you Joel Bulger?
The man motion to his lips again, or desperately. A woman of the seat across him glared at me and shook her head. Her mouth had strange markings across her lips, like she drawn stitches over the little girl next to the woman looked at me anxiously, her eyes widening and she noticed the tattard and sloth in my hand.
The last person, a long-haired man seated next to the tired-looking man, did not turn around and the seat or moved at all, and I could barely see the back of his head. All four of them had their hands holding each other's on the table, except for the finger that Joel Bulger had raised to silence me. He motioned me to sit down and the chair to his left.
This was so strange, I had so many questions, that came over and pushed the sloth toward the little girl before sitting down. Where are you the bulger's?
The finger at his lips and a stern reprimand, and the door to the cabin slamm...
Yeah!
“A yelped, gasping as a hand gripped mine firmly.”
Joel Bulger had hold of my arm, he jerked me closer and pointed to himself to his eyes
and closed them, and glanced to his wife and his daughter, already with their eyes squeezed shut, that was all the warning I had before I heard the footsteps, and I started to turn my head. His fingers stuck into my arm, I squeezed my eyes shut, something stepped inside through the open door, a scuff of footsteps in the wooden slots, in the sound of shockling.
There was something vaguely familiar about the voice, I couldn't place it but the long grile listened the more familiar it seemed, like a word on the tip of my tongue or a name I couldn't quite remember to a familiar face. The footsteps from the soft cackling through closer, there was also something unpleasant with the footsteps, a smell, a waft of something rotten or maybe body odor, and then
a whisper in my left ear as flips were just snacks to my skin, a cold rotten breath.
“I think it whispered my name, the fingers of my arm tightened in warning, the whispering moved”
out to my right ear, the footsteps moved around the table, I almost opened my eyes to see who or what was in the cabin with us, but instinct told me not to look, the steps circled around the room, and then receded out the door, which clicked shut.
The pressure on my hand eased and I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was for faces
turned towards me, three of the manchess and worry, Joel is wife patty with her stitched lips. Oh God, where this stitch is real, and they're a little daughter, Emily, but the fourth face, I gasped, and Joel's hand squeezed mine again, a heart, reminding me not to speak or scream it.
Sitting next to Joel was the long-haired man who must have been Uncle Mike, in a war in Jean-Jacket, recognizably the long-haired stick figure drawing from Emily's notebook, but there his eyes should have then were gaping bloody sockets, and his mouth was also stitched with thick, black thread.
“Joel tapped a finger on the table and pointed to the center.”
For the first time, I saw the words etched into the wood.
Speak and be silenced, look and be blinded, leave and be bound. In the last chair is filled, you will be free. My gaze lifted again to Uncle Mike, and then passed across the faces of the other three, looking at me with anguish. High bolted upright, but Joel sees me, shaking his head fiercely.
He jabbed a finger at Emily, and a first-of-body was saying, "Don't you dare obey to my daughter, but I realized he was pointing at her hands." He had not reached to pick up her sloth, despite having looked longingly toward it. Then I saw the little girls frightened eyes drift from me to her hands. Her hand holding her mother's, and her other hands on that table.
They weren't holding hands. Her hands were nailed to the table. Joel bulge her squeezed my arm again, and now thwart, leave, and be bound. All the air left my lungs. Heckleps back into my seat.
The wheels of my mind ground to a halt with panic, impossible, was all I kept thinking impossible, impossible. Terror numbed my brain, blocking all rational thought. Who is keeping them captive? Why?
And why did their captor sounds so familiar? Next to me, Joel bulge her still held a grip on my arm, but used his other arm to push the sloth to his daughter. She laid her head down on the plush for her. Thank you, she mouthed to me.
I nodded numbly, I couldn't speak. So I carefully freed my arm from Joel's grip and mouth slowly. Are there cameras? How was he watching you? Confusion on Joel's face.
I repeated the mouth question, and then I started tracing out letters on the table. His gaze followed and he nodded. In this painstaking way, we were able to have a conversation. Me? Who is he?
Joel? We don't know.
Me?
How long have you been here? Joel and Patty shrugged.
“Tears from Emily who only shook her head.”
Me?
Does he always know if he tried to leave?
More helpless shrugging. Joel eventually conveyed to me that Emily and Uncle Mike were the ones who spotted the path from found the way to the cabin. It looked elaptated to Joel, but Emily and Mike thought they heard someone calling from inside so the whole family entered, and that's when they noticed the writing on the table.
Well, they were trying to decipher what it meant when it came inside. Uncle Mike had looked, and it had taken his eyes when he screamed at everyone else to run. Patty took Emily one way, while Joel ran the other. Joel tried to lead their pursuer off, but he got lost in the woods.
Patty and Emily somehow got turned around while fleeing and wound up back at the cabin
with it on their heels. They tried to hide inside and barricade the door, but it forced the door open. By the time Joel returned to the cabin, he found his wife and daughter where their hands nailed to the table, his wife with her mouth sewn shut. Now, he traced out his message on the table with his finger while mouthing the words.
I can't leave them. I pointed to myself and mouthed the words as I traced back. You don't have to, I'll escape and get help. Joel, but you would need a distraction to even get out of the cabin. Me, can you distract it long enough for me to get clear?
Joel gave me a pain look. It was obvious he was afraid of bringing you more harm to himself and his family.
“Me, I'll bring help, it's the only way to save Emily.”
Joel shook his head inside, but his wife, who could neither speak nor move her hands down to her foot and caught his eye. She gave a fierce nod, Emily looked at me with shining eyes. Thank you for my sloth, no the little girl, please save us. Joel exhaled and pressed his palms to his eyes.
I didn't know if he was scared or just in despair. I'd sat like that for a long time.
And finally he turned his head to me and actually shouted, "Run!"
As booming voice startled me out of my chair, behind me the door burst open. "Don't look!" Joel lunged past me, putting himself between me and the intruder, and I don't know if his eyes were open or not, all I know is he screamed, and Emily let out a saw. And I felt my way blind into the wall and along it's where the door even as the sinister
chuckling past right by my ear. Joel groaned and there was a loud wham as he was slammed back into his seat, and then the thud thud thud of hammer. Then, I was outside, pulling the door shut behind the eye over my eyes and altered for the trees.
The sky was deep purple, just enough light for me to see.
“How many hours had passed, how long ago did the sunset?”
I ran down the slope and ran and ran and ran and not even carrying which direction. All I thought was a way, my legs and lungs burned as I flew down the slope, and stumbled through a halt, because in front of me was the cabin. To turning away I whispered it back into the woods, I now had a stitch in my side, this time I went upwards.
I was still stumbling through the braking when it struck me, which had been behind me was suddenly in front of me. No matter how many times I tried to go deeper into the woods, the laughter of that mad name, the name of your voice set up returning from close, hurting me back and sometimes calling my name.
And then I was at the cabin again, all the wind going for my lungs, and the voice whispered in my name, just behind me. His eyes were squeezed shut, patty and emily looked at me in despair. I took my place quickly, then the door burst open. Just up, clunking fast after me, and then that rotten breath walked into my ear, heavy
and close, fingers squeezing into my shoulder. Panicked, flailing, my vibe blindly against my assailants grin. My fist connected with a smack against skin and bone, but the thing person was unfaced. The gripped tightening stronger than ever, and the thing was laughing, laughing in my ear. It's a dearly familiar voice growled in my ear, it didn't sound human, and it I knew it's
Voice.
The familiar in the way it's human is familiar when you forgot in the words, but soon like
“a little boy, like I know this thing before I was even born.”
Let me go!
I screamed, I spat, I fought with everything I had, it's powerful grip only dug and harder,
more painfully. Like talent, I felt myself dragged, writhing from my chair, my heel scraping across the floorboards is a hauled me across the cabin floor. It was just a voice, a human voice, barking at me over and over as I was hauled down the creaking steps and into the dirt.
Aces, lanky, silhouette leaned over me, their face plushed as they panted with exertion. Asping, I blinked up at my sibling, the sun was so low in the sky that stars shone through the skeleton branches. Gaze? Yes!
I think fuck!
A stop down in the dirt beside me.
Oh, thanks, fuck! Oh, I think you broke my nose! Oh, what happened?
“Hell if I know, why were you sitting in their holding hands with rotting corpses?”
Corksis. I wore to look back at the cabin, we were in the dirt just below the front staffs. The door hung open, inside was dark, but the smell that wafed it out made my stomach buck. They snatched my arm and pulled me towards the trees.
Let's get the fuck away. And you're back instinctively. But Ellie, how is too confused to do much more than cast a quick look behind me as my sibling tugging me into the points? The cabin looked even more dilapidated than I remembered.
The wind up paint cracked and missing, the roofs sagging like it was about to collapse. Through the darkness of the open door, I keep making big shapes, still and solemn, positioned around the table, and the nace was pulling us into the bramble.
“The I-S-Y-We didn't take the path back down.”
There's no path! I was barely able to find your marker! He felt like I was lost between dream and wakefulness, and some strange limbo will ace shine their phone flashlight around, trying desperately to catch the beam on an occasional blue tape wound around branches, or on piles of stones or pieces of clothing tied around
trees. The apparently ace had supplemented my trail with their socks or headband and other items from their pack. Even so, it was heroin trying to find a way through the darkening toilet. He reached the campsite just as pitch black descended.
Are the police coming? No. He still had to hold my hand as if afraid to let it go. I didn't get very far before I decided I'd rather die being stupid with you than go for help and risk losing you.
Well, so there are no authorities coming to look for us. He built a small fire and hollowed together to wait for dawn, while ace told me slowly,
ultimately what they'd seen.
They followed my blue tape trail to the cabin and found me sitting at the table, eyes squeezed shut. When I didn't react to my name being called, they noticed that the family appeared to have simply died sitting around the table holding hands. And I was holding their hands to head freak them out.
Then they saw one of the family had no eyes that the eyes had been wrenched out and one of the eyeballs was held in the freehand. The man had apparently plucked out his own eyes, between us and the wreak of decomposition, ace rushed out and threw up. When they finally stopped being sick and came back inside to get me, apparently I came
bursting up past them and ran, ran, ran and ran and they chased me around the cabin two or three times before they found me, sitting back in the chair holding hands again. That's when they grabbed me and I punched them in the nose. And then, treading the answer, "Did you see anything on the table?" Ace was silent for a long time.
Yeah, uh, something about when the last chair is filled and it was for his shit because all the chairs were filled except the last one. A strange laugh bubbleed in their throat. You know, I almost felt like sitting down. Here's your pulse.
Thank God she did it, I thought.
He was Ace's total lack of imagination.
“There are dismissals that thought is nonsensical, that probably saved them and me.”
We waited until the sky turned gray and then we finally staggered to our feet.
And found our way to the deer trail and back to civilization, where we reported our finding of the missing family. But the bulgeers are still missing. The authorities got as far as the campsite before being unable to follow our markers. A family is still there, their spirits trapped within that cabin, nailed for eternity.
For as long as their souls will have to wait, waiting for me to bring help. I'm sure I could find my way, but I'm too afraid. I don't know what happens if that last chair is filled. I know something will change, but the thought of it happening fills me with a deepest, most terrible dread.
Okay, if I tell you where to look, will you go and save Emily Bulger? You want to be stuck forever, I don't think. When the last chair is filled, you will be free. Let's take a short break for our sponsors, who help us keep our heads above water. Or waves of ad-free horror content, join our sleepless universe by going to sleepless.com.
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Meet the millers.
Our second tale introduces us to Trevor and Vanessa.
“Seeking sanctuary for their growing family they've moved in to an older home built on”
swamp land. Go in this tale from author Sean Seaback, they'll soon realize the murky old bones of this place hide more than water damage. Performed by Mike Del Gaudio, Dan Zapula, Lindsay Russo, Nicole Goodnight, Danielle McCray, and Jesse Cornette, produced by Phil McCalsky.
It's not just the outward signs that must be considered, always check underneath.
Trevor never really wanted children anyway. It was Vanessa who'd insisted it'd be the best for them, what with their circle of friends already having kids at all, but before he could refute the idea Vanessa started to show. First there was a girl, Tanya, and moments later, a boy, Jonah, and just before the twins started first grade, Vanessa and Trevor had outgrown their starter home so they took their
equity and offspring and escaped to the countryside. The as was home sat on five acres, three of which was wetland, meaning you couldn't grow or build on it, but it provided a wall of privacy secure enough to justify the taxes.
“The first few months, Trevor recalled, were paradise.”
The twins were going to bed on time, and Vanessa relaxing inside their outdated living room. And finding places otherwise reserved for the bedroom.
Then the scurrying started in the attic, the gutters began sagging, and Vanessa had discovered
a snake and the bathroom. In other words, the expenses started adding up for the house that hadn't seen a repair in decades. Then for good measure, the AC went out, and couldn't be replaced until Monday, because technicians worked expensive on weekends.
With no end in sight, Trevor slapped it a mosquito as the reverie of blissful ignorance in home buying melted away. The McFarlane's don't even come around anymore. He waved an errand hand at a sweat bee, wishing he were in an air-conditioned bar, getting shit faced with his buddies.
"Can't say I blame them."
“Vanessa had her feet on Trevor's lap, sipping a mojito from a ribbed glass, watching the”
twins run through the sprinkler.
Trevor tracked her gaze. The backyard opened to the south where the sun was at its brightest, linting the water arcing heavenward into diamonds. "We've just had a lot of rain and lately is all." Vanessa sides brister necked with off.
"I'm drunk. Let's go inside and fall around." A beat of sweat dripped from Trevor's nose as he looked at Vanessa, her sunglasses made her looked insectile. How they were in style was anyone's guess.
"Too hot, the humidity. But his fingers began to slide up Vanessa's thigh. She adjusted a leg, scooted her hips closer to him, and his fingers were almost inside when she screamed." Trevor jerked his hand away, his mouth twisted in confusion, as Vanessa creep crawled away
from him, fanning her sunglasses at something long and gray on her leg. Jonah was there, too, his hands shaped like lobster claws. It took a moment for Trevor's eyes to adjust, for him to lean forward and unpitch his tent in his Burmute of Shorts. Vanessa's chest heaved as she dug her heels into the outdoor sofas cushion, before she
went full on, screamed cool. Jonah opened and closed his hands, unperturbed by his mother's shrieking. "It stinks!" "No! Get it off!
Get it off!" Vanessa continued backing away, as the lobster-like thing curled its tail along her thigh. Jonah giggled, pinched the crustacean by the tail, and observed it with peculiar curiosity. "I'll be.
It's one of those." "Crowded!" Trevor flinched. If Vanessa registered the uninvited person the voice belonged to, she didn't give any indication. Rather, she just stared at her son, holding an apparent crud at.
"Got him in my backyard, too!" The owner of the voice stepped forward into the shade of a maple, appearing as though he belonged on a high pole up in a cornfield. He smelled of wood and gasoline. He tipped his straw hat and spat from the corner of his mouth.
"Yep, got us an underground river running through my front yard there across the street, me into your backyard." He flicked his chin to the saplings in the wetland.
"And into the Hoover's property over aways there.
He offered a hand to Vanessa, who placed her mohito down.
"Drop it, Jonah."
“Jonah was now holding the crud at at way sleville with both hands, analyzing each slow”
movement of its claws. "The mum." "I don't do as your mother says." "And you are?" Vanessa took a single finger and lowered her sunglasses, her eyes suggesting the nerve of
this guy to parent her son. "Yeah. Who are you? A horse. Call me a horse."
"All my friends do."
His gaze diverted from parent to children, because now Tanya had joined in on the commotion.
He leaned close enough to cover her in a shadow. "Man, whom might he be?" Tanya kept a watchful look and sidesteped to her mother's side.
“"Oh yeah, they burrow up through the ground."”
Hoss looked around, nodding, as if approving this backyard, this home for the millers. He turned back to Jonah. "Ah, they're harmless critters, really." Jonah squinted up, flattened upon against the red sash above his brow. "What, remember?
I don't see any river?" "A polar ice cap smelted thousands of years ago. Most of it. The land drank up. And what it didn't, well, and went underground and stayed there among other things.
And just wait, more rain, and your sump pump will be work in double overtime." Hoss pointed to the water spewing from a pipe jutting from the foundation. It disappeared into another pipe somewhere underground. "And well, now." Hoss stared off into the distance, feeling the salutations coming to a close.
"Now, the history lessons free. Now, fix enough flooded basement."
“He shook his head and fished for a business card from the chest pocket of his overalls.”
Vanessa kept her hands on her hips. Trevor did the same, but he was stuck on what Hoss had said, among other things. Os waved at this miss of hand, dropped the card on the wicker table. "Ah, well, you have water getting in. Well, now you know who to call."
He flashed his dentures, bowed his head. "I'm just up the way here, blue house, with the stubborn rooster." Then he trumped away. Vanessa shook her head. "Let it create.
Meanwhile, Trevor gazed at the backyard, then to the foundation of the house, as if
for the first time noticing the discharge line from the sump pump.
The home inspection team had explained that the sump pump itself, which rested in a crock inside the basement floor, takes accumulating water from around the foundation away from the house. Trevor didn't understand the complexities of it, just that if the pump failed in any way, the basement would more than likely flood.
In H.E. sensation, tricked along his back then, he slapped at his shoulders. "An underground river." Vanessa lifted Tony up and hoped her on her hip. "Ah, squirrels are going to shower." Then she nodded at the grass, toward where the crawdad had been displaced.
"And get that thing out of here." The idea of the basement flooding kept Trevor up most of the night. He folded his hands behind his head and watched the ceiling, willing the white noise from the fan in the corner to lollum to sleep. Images of the basement wall crumbling to a great wave of groundwater ruled his mind.
Trevor reached for the nightstand for H.E.'s business card. Free estimates it's set on the bottom. He turned it over in his hand, leaning into the yellow light of the lamp, considering. How much would such a thing set them back? Biting his lower lip, Trevor decided too much, and smirked at the memory of the crawdad
riding up Vanessa's leg. He dreamt that night of a kaiju destroying small towns and cottages along an oceanside town. It claws in a mighty tail of viscerating military, police, and the lake. Ewoke almost immediately after it started with Vanessa at the foot of the bed. A red band Dan arrived around her head, a twin at each side.
Her shirt was soaked, almost see-through. A business card was sticking between her fingers. "You're calling today." Then she let the cards slip away and disappeared down the stairs. Turned out, while Trevor slept through the storm of the century, water had steeped in
and threw the foundation block and cracks in the floor like a fresh paper cut. A musty odor already dominated the entire basement. The flood came up just past the souls of his sneakers, when he went down there to inspect
The damage.
Brackish water pulled around the twins' cribs and oversized stuffies they'd outgrown.
“Various boxes were darkened and beginning to bulge.”
Each time Trevor moved, the water rippled and possessed the quality of a dead ocean's smell. Trevor folded his tongue in half and cocked his head, embracing the heat racing up his throat. When for a phone but thought the better of it, just another expense if it were to fall and met Vanessa at the top of the stairs where she was holding Hoss's business card. He plucked it away from her and dialed the number.
Hoss picked up on the first ring, Vanessa's brow furrowed and she pushed her tongue against
the inside of her cheek, stuck out a hip. The twins knew what that meant, so Jonas sliced the air with a chop, leaning back into a crane gig while facing Tanya. She waved a fist before smacking it into an open hand and they disappeared out into the yard to play karate and explore.
Meanwhile, Trevor nodded along with his haze and eyes sees, scratching the nape of his neck and pacing. Vanessa had widened her eyes, twirled her fingers during this long, expansive suspense. We'll have to talk about it.
“Then Trevor ended the call, plucked head as shirt to unstick it from his chest.”
The tower fans they'd set up seemed to only move the heat from room to room, rather than cool the air. He looked to Vanessa straight into the eye before bowing his head. Can't afford it. We can't afford not to.
We have a ton of equity in this place. We can borrow it from the bank. Trevor winds, hearing his pulse in his head. They had just paid off the balance of the last credit card before they moved in, but they still owed on the accord and were upside down on the Hyundai.
Line cooking at the Olive Garden wouldn't cut it, not with this no expense. Maybe they'll have to go into management or take a second job, neither prospect thrilled him. One of the college funds for the kids.
“He shook his head, too stubborn of an idea, too immediate of an idea, and looked”
up at her with a pallet face. Silence hung between them, lingered in the constant humidity. They looked at the floor together, when Tanya came from nowhere and hugged her father, probably sensing the dread, swimming inside the kitchen.
Trevor squeezed her back, feeling mighty ashamed for ever thinking he never wanted these
two almost exact replicas of himself and his wife. At this age, they're loved seemed unconditional. They were good kids, Tanya and Jonah, and even though the house was expensive, you were safer here than they would have been in the Old Neighborhood, which was turning into an apocalyptic wasteland with each passing month, according to the news reports, Tanya pulled
back and met her father's eyes with a cloudy face. "I'm sorry your sad daddy, is it because you miss her old house?" Vanessa was happy frowning across the way in your sink. "No, no I don't." "Good."
Tanya smacked her lips against his cheek, because I loved it here. Trevor, hugged her again, angling his face away so he could see Vanessa. "I'll call the bank in the morning." That night, high gusts rattled the windchimes on the side porch to life. Their ting, ting, tinging, carried all the way through the open window of the main bedroom.
Here the sheets on the bed were kicked to the side. Trevor was reading a book about a girl caught between two realms in some old mansion. Vanessa escaped from the reality breathing heavy just beyond the cover, when the lamp flickered and the power died. Cold sweat beaded his face as darkness engulfed him, visions of water rising through the
basement floor flashed through his mind. He laughed then, chuckling the way one mind after witnessing a ghost only they could see. His stomach nodded and flipped, his strumming pulse lowed in obnoxious in his head. Trevor sighed and closed his eyes, relinquishing himself to the chimes and the wind. To the dead, piling up, then to the mattress swallowing him.
As it always did, time passed.
Just as soon as sleep welcomed him though, the twins screamed. Vanessa galloped across the floor and down the stairwell, stopping halfway when the light above the stairs clicked on. "What is it?" The additional footsteps that followed told Trevor she had ignored him and finished her
way down stairs. The notion that there was an intruder out here in the country, raking into a Cape Cod style home that hadn't seen a coat of paint or any significant upgrade since before he and Vanessa were even born, left him quickly. So it wasn't that he had taken his time to join her.
It was just that he knew the twins were safe in their mother's hands.
Still he did his duty by hurrying toward the stairs, descending them carefully, both from
“the shock of waking to his children screaming, and from the bizarre way the light in the room”
threw itself. Vanessa had Tanya and Jonah wrapped in her arms with her back facing him, feeling Trevor's presence, Vanessa met him with a frown. They said they saw a monster outside their windows. In between sniffles and wiping his face, Jonah confirmed.
"He was glowing like a firefly and it was naked." Trevor put on his best detective voice, not wanting to patronize his son. "That it?" Tanya nodded as well. "I'll take a look.
You guys want to sleep upstairs with me and mommy." Before the twins could answer, Vanessa had one in each arm, rising like mothers do, casually lifting three pounds of dead weight on each side.
“If he footsteps carried her back upstairs, while Trevor removed the flashlight from”
the junk drawer in the kitchen, he'd been meaning to put one in each of the twins' rooms in case of emergency, or, like now, in the face of a monster that wasn't really there, so they could hopefully, wishfully, lull themselves back to bed without parental interference. Trevor clicked on the flashlight but kept the hallway in bed room lights on so he could see better.
It wasn't until he was standing in Tanya's room, hearing the sounds of trickling water through the floor vent that it dawned on him that she had nodded at Jonah's description of the supposed monster. The twins had their own rooms, and the likelihood of them conspiring with each other before both of them screamed was miles away from likely.
Trevor shook away the idea of ESP, splashing LED light along Tanya's bedroom walls. The circular beam captured a dollhouse, tinged with red, thanks to the glow of the nightlight, or gymnastics bar, and a beam bag in the corner.
“The idea of telepathy remained fresh in his mind.”
Could be, could have been a book I read. He touched the ice cream cone patterned curtains and part of them, placed the flashlight right up against the window, and scrunched his brow at the reflection of a huge white spot. Oh, he assumed the beam would feed through the window glass cleanly, allowing him to see the backyard out into the night with clarity, hovering somewhere above that white circle
was his own reflection, followed by something else entirely. Trevor leaned in, his nose kissing the glass and narrowed his brow. As gently as a snowflake, a face with prehistoric eyes encroached and peered back at him. Trevor choked on a breath, felt a pain in his chest at the sudden hitch in his lungs and drew back, pointing the beam where that awful face had been.
He, prickled on Trevor's skin, as he placed a hand to his knee and used the other one
to guide that beam at the window like it was a powerful lance.
Then, from the knee he flipped his hand repeatedly, like chewing his family that wasn't there away. Maybe that gesture was for him. Maybe Trevor was undergoing an out of body experience. Meanwhile, the wind chimes clanked together, ting, ting, ting away.
Trevor swallowed hard and lowered the beam, leaned in a second time and cupped a hand against the glass. He studied the window and what lay beyond it before committing to a closer look. Once there he stilled his nerves aware of his erratic breathing, looking at the spaces between the goliath maples in the backyard, slow moving clouds revealed a gray moon
quartered by shadow, below them a patchwork of silver maple and pine. There, in the distance, something moved. Trevor pulled away and crossed the hallway entering Jonah's room. The whole time wondering if a coyote could stand and loathe on its hind legs. Although the outline of the figure wasn't shaggy like a ferole animal, the movements
reminded him of one, like a werewolf caught in mid-transformation. Trevor turned the flashlight off, set it on Jonah's desk and parted the dinosaur patterned curtains behind it. Brambles and overgrowth dominated the marshy wetland at the back of the property. Through the floor vent came an odor of mildew and algae.
Trevor sniffed by the window sill, unsure now if the scent was emanating from the backyard, or if the basement had indeed taken a turn for the worse.
He kept his gaze locked out there, first scanning the yard and the wetland, while images
of naked, glowing creatures interloat through his mind, watching him with their slid-ed eyes, fogging over in the way a shark's does when preparing for a kill shot. But eventually, his mind relaxed and logic took over. He had seen his own reflection within a trick of the light. But it still didn't explain the twins seeing the same monster, unless Tony just agreed
When Jonah because she was too upset having been woken up by Jonah's scream.
Trevor checked the lock on the window anyway, then went to Tony's room for the same,
where he stayed until morning. The next day, Jonah fell into the backyard. As it was, Trevor was rolling weeners on the grill, thinking of the standing water in the basement lowering at a snail's pace, when he heard the blood curdling cry of his son. That scream shook Trevor to the core, and it is mind-flared the scene from the prior evening
of him holding the flashlight against Tony's window of the flat nose spread out against the glowing reflection. This rewind filled Trevor with dread, especially when he turned, spatula in hand. Jonah's arms were flailing as the boy looked to the sky.
“One of those things you do because you should, not because you expect an answer.”
Later, Trevor wouldn't remember when Vanessa had arrived, or if she had even helped dislodge Jonah.
That would come later, after therapy.
But even then he couldn't be so sure, because once Jonah was free, Trevor lay belly down on the damp ground, clutching duy blades of grass while looking into the sinkhole, watching a river rush under ground. For a moment, the phenomenon had cost Trevor his sanity. He had to laugh the idea of it was so absurd.
He got up and told Vanessa to call their realtor and went back to grilling weeners. But then, reality slapped his face, and he went running back to his wife and daughter, back to his son, who was still a little shaky from the ordeal. Ever gripped them in a loving embrace, told them how sorry he was until the word itself sounded ridiculous, as if it were a verb from a doctor's sustale.
"We're out of here, cut our losses and start fresh, I do not care." Vanessa squeezed him back.
"We'll make it like we always do."
“If family had ever felt the way family was supposed to feel, to Trevor, it was in that”
moment. The following morning, the twins were not in their bedrooms. Because the house was small enough to hear someone sneeze from anywhere, Trevor and Vanessa had cleared the entire square footage of it in about a dozen panicked breaths. "Outside."
They bolted through the door leading to the cypurge. I'll take the front. Trevor appealed away from his wife, who went in the opposite direction. The sweep of the yard took longer than the sweep of the house. Animals grew over several tree stomps on the acreage closest to where the main gravel
road's met. Wedged behind those stomps, lay a drainage pit, responsible for holding water accumulated from excessive rainfall. The pit was sandpaper dry, which made sense, considering the flooding of the millers yard and basement.
It also wasn't housing the twins.
“Trevor ran up the incline, calling their names and tandem with Vanessa's voice, letting”
thorns rip through the soft fabric of his pajama pants. He spun away, loosening their hole as their sharpness gripped onto his skin, and happened to see a figure on Hauss's front porch, sitting in an oversized rocking chair, denim from head to toe. Trevor gritted his teeth, unable to shake the feeling that Hauss knew what happened, and
what the current state of Trevor and Vanessa's life had become. He hopped on one slipper, pulling further from the weeds and the thorns, turned to his wife who was waving a red sash. Trevor's breath hitched as he tore free, ran to her while mud sprits up his legs. When he met her, she was pointing at the gaping hole and Jonah had fallen in earlier.
Her eyes were wet. She covered her face into the crook of her arm, and leaned into Trevor's shoulder. By the time Vanessa and Trevor were fully dressed for what lay below, Hauss had made it to the edge of his property, watching them with a coffee mug in his hand. Trevor gripped the flashlight while Vanessa held the rope and some tent stakes she'd
found in the garage. The "I'm coming with you, oh no, you're not debate in the garage," had ended quickly. Every Miller would survive this, or none of them would. The stakes went in easy enough, and the river was loud, which meant to Trevor that the crevice could not have been that deep.
Problem was, how far did the stream carry? Logic told him it should have emptied into the drainage pit, but he'd already checked there. He shook images of floating bodies out of his mind, held the rope as Vanessa climbed down first.
She gasped instantly, then held up a thumb that barely broke the surface of the hole. "It's freezing traffic, careful." He brought the flashlight into the hole, felt fingers trace his wrist before gripping the flashlight and taking it.
He braised himself for the cold and nearly went into shock when the water ran...
cabs up around his knees.
Vanessa already had the light beam pointed to what would be the road if they were on the surface. He followed her on a bank of sand and rock, running along each side of the river. After a few paces, Vanessa hugged him. "Take it to be anywhere. We've got to call the cops." Trevor took the light from her and flashed it the other way around, getting low.
"The water drops off." "Waterfall?"
“"That's why the drainage ditch isn't full. The river drops into something much greater."”
He crept low to the ground, getting on his hands and knees, approaching the crest of the waterfall. Tree roots brushed against his hair. His nostrils flared against the dankness of the tunnel, where he felt openings, extra tunnels along its walls.
Trevor returned to Vanessa.
"Another small drop." She nodded. Trevor gave her the flashlight and she showed it where the waterfall met a rippling stream. On his belly, Trevor edged himself along the sides of the tunnel. He extended his arms, scooted himself forward and down. A sudden jolt of solid ground against his hands, unable to anticipate it, made his head
oozing. He shook the air in his away and turned. The flashlight beam caught a scattering of berries and half-eaten apples, round from age, and where they've been bitten to the core. He followed the light guided by Vanessa to where the falls splashed over the rocks and shale, jutting like nature made steps.
“As Trevor distanced himself in the falls, his hearing tuned to a whimpering.”
Instantly, the hairs at the nape of his neck stood on end. A rush of adrenaline filled his heart. "Over there." His breath clouded as he pointed across the stream of water. The beam tacked to a cage made of sticks and vines.
Two small forms were inside, bundled together to keep out the cold. Trevor started, rushed forward. "It's the." But instantly, he was under icy water. How the stream was so deep he couldn't fathom, but the shock of the coldness around him
wrapping into his bones, brought him to the surface fast. He found the other side and only a few strokes, ran to the shoddy cage and gripped the sides. Thorne zayed into his palms, sliced at the tender meat between his fingers.
“His hands warming and slicked with blood, Trevor lifted the cage.”
"It's all right." "Mommy and Daddy are here." But his hands were stuck to the cage. After a spell he pride his hands free, taking with them broke in pieces of thorn. Tanya and Jonah hugged his legs.
"Come on." Trevor wrapped his arms around him, heads swiveling in anticipation of someone or something, peeling itself from the shadows to reclaim his children. They hurried along, with Trevor maintaining the position closest to the stream, ensuring that if anyone fell into its deep icy depths, it would be him.
His only thoughts were of daylight, of getting the children up and out of there. Later, a hotel and law enforcement could be arranged, on their way to the hospital, probably to get the kids a good one soar, make sure they were okay, that they hadn't been violated with anything dangerous down there, like the inhalation of raid on gases. Were they showing signs of early onset pneumonia?
Were they feverish? He couldn't tell. He was too busy pushing their bottoms up where the water sloped down and spilled into an impossibly deep chasm. The light blurred shook in Vanessa's hand as she pulled Tanya and Jonah out of the water,
one by one. "Go, go!"
Trevor gripped roots and hoisted himself up on the bank, first to seeing pale light coming
from the sinkhole. Then he turned, feeling a threatening presence, the glowing faces of the species inhabiting this place calmly stood there by the cage, watching as a scape. "Go!" Trevor, on his knees now, ushered his family forward with his back to the impossible.
In one fluid motion, Vanessa was already on the surface. Her hands found Tanya first, Jonah next, and before Trevor's circuits completely overloaded, they also found his collar. Trevor squinted against the brightness of the sun, bending over and panting as if he'd been doing laps around an Olympic-sized pool.
Then he remembered the monsters, he looked at his bloodied palms, he remembered the cage, up ahead Vanessa ran toward the house with the twins and her arms. "Car, get in the car!" He stumbled forward, "No, that's not right. I felt other entrances down there, multiple channels, pathways making up an ant farms
Sizzle in his mind, along with where the underground channels in the backyard...
Vanessa disappeared through the back door of the garage, while the wild Trevor focused
“on tracking a straight line with his feet, failing miserably.”
His breathing grew heavy again. He glanced back, shaking his head, watching the sinkhole while back pedaling, almost daring those creatures to come out and broad daylight, especially now that he was so close to home. Soon, Trevor spilled into the open garage, swaying his arms and reaching for nothing. He focused on the cornfield across the gravel road, with horses home looming in the borders
of his vision. His mind was telling him to look there, to cup his hands around his mouth and call out for an ambulance. But the sky was darkening above horses, and jagged lightning was fragmenting gray clouds into segments.
Vanessa had left the kitchen door a jar, and through the space between the door and the jam came a whisper, a sort of comforting sound that told Trevor the twins were okay. And of course they were. They were in their mother's arms, the one who had wanted them all along, since before the beginning.
A Trevor wanted them too, he just needed to meet them first, go through this crisis as
a family to realize how special it was being a father.
“He tried to prioritize a plan, their phones, a key fob, alternative shelter.”
But when he entered the kitchen, he gasped, pulling on the rain jackets on the coat rack to keep from falling and shrank back. He bit his tongue, warming it instantly, dug his nails and those pieces of thorn deeper into his palms until they were flush with the surface. Vanessa's back was to him.
She was bent down heels to bottom underneath embracing Tanya and Jonah.
The twins stared over her shoulder.
At their father, who had wrapped his arms around his knees and scooted himself into the corner, as if hiding behind the rain coats would somehow alter their reptilian eyes. Thank you for joining us here on the Knowsleep Podcast.
“Speaking selfishly, as I typically do, it is a privilege to perform these stories to make”
these silly jokes and share them with you all. Thank you for the gift of your time. All right, is that it? What was that? You get back in the fucking basement Kyle you've had you're putting already.
All right, bye, I love love love. As our stories sink beneath the waves, we claw our way back on to dry land. Join us again next time when we plunge into the chilling depths where water hides its darkest secrets. The Knowsleep Podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media.
The musical scores are composed by Brandon Bowen. Our production team is Phil Michaelski, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornett, and Claudius Moore. Our editorial team is Jessica McAvoy, Ashley Macanale, Ali A. White, and Kristen Samito. I'm your host and executive producer, David Cummings. To discover how you can get even more silly bliss horror stories from us, just visit
sleepless.theknowsleeppodcast.com to learn about the sleepless universe. Add free extended episodes each week and lots of bonus content for the dark hours, all for one low monthly price. On behalf of everyone at the Knowsleeppodcast, we thank you for taking the plunge into our dark waters.
This audio program is copyright 2026 by Creative Reason Media. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors, no duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media.
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