Watter.
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. Brace yourself for the no-sleep podcast. In his 1919 essay titled The Uncanny, "Sigmund Freud wrote, "The subject of The Uncanny undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible, to all that arouses dread and creeping horror."
Unlike some of his contemporaries who theorized that this phenomenon was associated with the fear
of the unknown, Freud believed the suncanny experience was rooted in the familiar environment of our childhood. Whether or not it's the familiar or the unfamiliar which triggers the uncanny experience, we've all encountered people, places or things that make us feel dread. And luckily for us, there have been many well-crafted horror stories produced on the podcast through the years, providing plenty of opportunities to experience the uncanny.
There's a spectrum of smiles from the suggestive to the graphic, something for everyone. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Nikole Doolin, and I've been voice acting on the show for over 10 years. Before I started on No Sleep, I appeared in the horror podcast Tales to Terrify, which was hosted at the time by the late horror writer and actor Lauren Santoro, who discovered my voice work on the internet and asked me to perform horror stories for them.
“And that's how David found me and he invited me to join the No Sleep podcast.”
If I remember correctly, my first story was, forget me not, a blend of horror and science fiction.
I like speculative fiction so I enjoy horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Also a historical fiction. So you can still find me on the Tales to Terrify podcast where I perform horror story solo. If you like science fiction, there are also starting a new sci-fi anthology podcast called Folded Space, which is premiering this September, and in it, I will perform a space opera like no other, so stay tuned. And if you're interested in horror stories for younger audiences, I start alongside Atticus Jackson
in the Nightmare Soup podcast. I want to take a moment to thank you for being a part of the No Sleep family. There's a lot of chaos in division in the world, but we've managed to find common ground here. People from various parts of the globe listen to and support the show, while others contribute their talent, skill, and imagination, and that's something we're celebrating. I know that listening to the stories can provide a diversion from life's challenges,
but performing them can also be diverting. When I sit down and turn on the microphone and hit record, I concerns fade and I am drawn right into that other world that the writer has created, and it can be very therapeutic. So I'm truly grateful that you make this podcast possible, and I hope that we've provided you with a pleasant escape all these years, or should I say a horrible escape? A pleasantly horrible escape? Hmm. Anyway, it's been a long journey with many ups and downs,
but we can all leave our troubles behind us and look forward to the future.
“Or can we? What if no matter what you do, the past comes back to haunt you anyway?”
What if the secrets you've buried might get exposed? What if the monsters you hope to escape find you? In today's episode, our characters have certainly had their fair share of challenges and secrets they've guarded. They'd rather not face unpleasant consequences if they're found or found out. Me at it seems time has run out. There's nowhere to hide, and they will have to confront
their demons and whatever shape they take, whether they like it or not. It remains to be seen
Which of them will succeed in keeping their secrets, being freed of their sec...
So let's pry Pandora's box open together, and let all the hidden demons out.
“In our first tale by author Tyler Jones, we meet a mother and son who hit the road in a hurry because”
it's time to move on. Corey doesn't know where they're headed, but his mother has to take care of
something first. Performing this tale our mouth you Bradford in Kristen Deamer Curio,
their attempt to start a new life might hit a road bump. The Corey knows it's best to do as he's told when his mother instructs him to "weight" in the car. Mom is driving faster than she normally does, and it makes me nervous. Not for us, but for other people, the people on the sidewalk, like those kids coming out of the stop and go or that lady walking her dog. There's a light up ahead, and I almost say something,
but Mom's jaws tight, teeth biting down on a cigarette, and she just slows for a second and spins the wheel to the right. The tires give a little squeal, and she tears around the corner without stopping.
“The lady with a dog looks up, scared. She flips us the middle finger and holds it until we're out of sight.”
Where are we going? I asked for the third time. She didn't answer for the first two times.
Smoke streams out of her nostrils like her brain is on fire. She looks a little pale, a little sick. Her window is rolled down just to crack, and the smoke gets sucked out into the air that feels like a blow dryer on high. Corey, I already told you. He takes the cigarette out of her mouth and drives one handed. The car swirves across the lines, almost into another lane before she churks it back again. He didn't though.
Don't argue with me. I'm not arguing. The foot presses down in the gas, and I watch the speedometer quickly towards 70 miles per hour as we tear down the road. The frame of the car shivers like it's going to fall apart any second. The town shrinks into the rear view mirror. I twist my seat to look at the old buildings with a faded paint blending into the desert around them. Looks like a place where a town shouldn't be. The back seat is full of our clothes,
overflowing out of Duffelbeg so full they wouldn't sit closed. A suitcase, our pillows and blankets. A plastic laundry basket holds some of my books and DVDs. I didn't even notice this stuff when she pulled me out of school early and dragged me to the car, told me to get in and put my seat belt on it. It'd been driving ever since. Turn around. She hasn't smoked in a couple days. She said she wasn't feeling all that good. It hasn't eaten a few days either in air,
sheaks are suned in. Her eyes are too big. Mom. We're leaving. And she looks at me in smiles. She's a healer.
We'd never belong in this place. You know that. We stayed longer than we should have.
I thought maybe she'd slow down once we were outside the town but she goes even faster. And the window next to my head is shaking, banging around inside the door. Is this because of the stuff that happened in school? Lomerals down the window more in a rush of hot air fills the car as she tosses the cigarette by. And the window goes back up and she pulls another cigarette from the pack,
holds it between her lips and lights it. Mom, is it? She squints not slightly. Yeah, little. I'm in small for my age. It's shorter than everyone else in the class. I always have been. And for some reason this makes me a target for those assholes who feel small inside.
“Yes, that's what my mom says. We've been learning about the survival of the fittest in”
science class and I just think it's nature acting itself out. I mean, look at the animals in the wild and then look at students in a high school. It's not that different. Some guys lock into the person who's different or shorter or smarter, whatever and take bites out of the week to remind them who's at the top of the feeding chain. This year has been bad though. I kind of Garrett Howard is made at his personal mission to break me down. And mostly I just ignore him
but lately that's only made things worse. Maybe he doesn't just feel small inside. Maybe he feels invisible too. A couple of days ago, he caught me outside during lunch and started yelling at me, calling me every name he could think of. I kept walking this so he pushed me down and punched me twice, hard, right in the face. My cheek is still sore. Garrett got suspended for it
I'm pretty sure it was worth it for him.
the animal with the sharpest teeth. I touched the still bruised flesh around my eye. It's not that bad anymore.
“Mom glances over at me and smiles. You look like hell, kid.”
Two years ago, Mom put me in a seventh grade class because of my size. But I might fit in better that way but it didn't work because I'd already been through seventh grade twice and I knew everything they were trying to teach. I ace to every assignment and every test and got bored because nothing was challenging. I begged her to let me go to high school and I turned out to be a mistake. We just don't belong here. I've been thinking about it for a while now and now is the time to
get while they're getting good. I nod like I understand but it still doesn't explain why she's driving so fast, why she looks scared. The AC is blasting right in her face but sweat still runs down her forehead. She knows cops park just off the road out here and wait for people driving like maniacs, people like her. I'm not going back. Mom's size and shakes her head, takes her hand off the wheels, scaring with her knees, tuck some wind blown hair behind your ear. I see her eyes glance
over at me from behind her sunglasses if it's just the hints of smirk on her lips. Normally she'd
tell me to watch my mouth but she lets it slide. It's never easy, even one place for another.
She taps ash out of the cracked window. On her side of the car, desert stretches all the way to the horizon. It's almost endless. Just dirt and brush and rocks as far as you can see. When the sun is burning on a hot day, the desert shimmers like it's not really there. Then all the rocks and bushes cast these long shadows on the sand. On my side, it's the same thing except for a few hills in the distance. The sun must be right above us because I can't see it but it's bright all around.
Mom and I burn pretty easy. She jokes that it's the Irish in us but
“don't know how true that is. She's always had sense in a vase, so I'm on. That's why she”
wears sunglasses even after the sun has started going down but it's not quite dark. She says my eyes will get sensitive like that someday too. Whenever I'm going to be outside, she covers me in sunscreen. The highest number they sell at the drugstore and even then I still get burned sometimes. But it's okay because I like the way my burn skin turns translucent and I pick at an edge and grab it with two fingers and peel it. It hurts a little but when the air hits
the brand new skin underneath it feels cold and sticky. Feels sort of like being boring. Sorry. She's off the gas and the car doesn't rattle quite as much. Well find somewhere we can stay longer. Somewhere we'll be safe. Are we safe here? She shakes her head again. I'll be more. Where are we? I need to get something. She turns her attention back to the road. Just a quick stop.
A stomach girl's. My whole body feels weak and tired. Mom pulled me out of school early and I didn't get to have the lunch she packed me. I didn't even have a chance to grab it out of my locker before we left. I'll probably begin a rod and stink up the hall before someone tells the janitor and he'll open up my locker to find a thick, putrid, disgusting, soup growing mold and all sorts of bacteria. And by then, who knows where mom and I'll be.
“Time is a strange thing and if I think about it for too long, I start to feel dizzy and it's”
right now and it's all around us and it's everything that's happened and everything that ever will. Like, when I try to remember all of the places mom and I have lived, they sort of blur together. I placed my bedroom from one house in the layout of the different house. We are the bathroom from our Louisiana house in the Chicago apartment. Mom says we're not running, but it feels like we
are. It feels like we always have that. And even though I don't want to leave this town, it
feels right because it was inevitable. People like us can't stay in any one place for long. There's a lot of cactus out of the desert and I see a couple of jack rabbits, the size of dogs hopping around looking for food. Here are the ears twitch and they freeze in place. Watch as we drive by. I almost say something about how much mom is smoking at adults don't like it much when you point out the things they do when they're stressed. They know
she's hungry even though she won't admit it. We haven't eaten much over the last two weeks and she's made sure I ate before she took it to get herself. Work is hard for mom. And even though
I don't know everything about her, I know enough.
Her family decided they didn't want to see her anymore and I know that hurt a lot.
“A few years ago she did a certain kind of work and night work she called it.”
She says she can't do it anymore. It makes her feel bad inside even though it paid well. It's like no matter what job she gets, eventually someone gets mad at her and she quits or gets fired. We don't have much money. I know that too. It's why my clothes are getting worn out. I've needed a new shoes for at least a month but I don't mention it. I'm already knows. I've seen her pick up my sneakers prior to the place where the soul is
separating and sigh. This isn't the first time things have been hard though and I'm sure won't be
the last. Like I said before, time is strange and I had a way of circling back around again. Sometimes, at night, I asked mom to tell me about where she lived when she was an important person. She lay next to me in bed, stroking my hair and smile like that part of her life holds all her favorite memories. She'll talk about the giant house with all the servants, people to cook and serve you food to wash your clothes, to clean, tend to the garden, the horses.
She had a bell in her room. She could ring it and a servant would come running to see what she wanted.
“She talks about the staircase, so why'd you could fit six people, shoulders shoulder across it?”
And her bedroom with a four post bed and a thin curtains hanging from it. With the rugs, soft and deep, made informed countries by people have been weaving rugs for a thousand years. A wardrobe full of beautiful dresses, shoes for every day of the week. A library filled
floor to ceiling with books, a fireplace that never seemed to go out. How could someone have all that
and not miss it? Homestyles the car down near a mailbox with a cartoon of a coyote chasing a roadrunner painted on the side. The flag you put up when you've got mail going out is a star-shaped cartoon explosion with the word 'power' written inside it. The tires bounce over rocks where mum pulls onto the dirt road next to the mailbox. I'll look in the rear view mirror and see clouds of yellow dust being thrown into the sky behind us. Mum swirves trying to avoid pot holes,
so deep I feel the impact shutter through my tailbone into my spine. She keeps driving, hasn't we sure it on a road like this? Because of the mailbox I'm thinking about cartoons, how a car like this would fall apart in a TV shop. The doors would trunk where even tires would just disassemble and crash into the dirt, leaving us exposed in our seats looking confused. But if I had I see a building, my mum calls it double-wide, not quite a house and not quite a
trailer. Homestyles jog its tighter as we get closer. I can at least four cars parked at weird angles around the place. Two were missing tires and up on blocks. We're convinced shields in a rusted middle. A few work shirts and a pair of pants hang from a live clothesline. Maybe a mechanics uniform or a janitors. They kind of flip the sand. The house is a sun bleached yellow with dirt splatters on the lower half, probably from those big once-year rainstorms that cause flash floods.
The sighting has worked and cracked. The district windows all have dirt curtains, like whoever lives there doesn't want any light to get in. Whole thing is off the ground, like gonna wooden foundation, pink-dilation billows from underneath like cotton candy clouds. A few tires are scattered around. One even has a cactus surrounding from the center. An open barbecue is some kind of huge bird's nest built right on the grill.
There's a fire pit made from desert rocks with some old lawn shares in a circle around it. The deep beer bottles litter the ground next to a five gallon bucket filled with sand. Hundreds of cigarette butts stick up out of the sand, like gravestones. Mumb brings the car to a sudden stop, making a seat belt lock and dig into my collarbone. A cloud of dust envelopes the car and just for a few seconds the double-white disappears.
She takes off her sunglasses so I can see her eyes and she turns to me. But we're even fast.
I never liked it when the other kids at school would say my mom was pretty or hot, but they're right.
She's beautiful. It's always hard to explain what people look like with words, but she has a special something not many people have. She looks like royalty, like some of you never get tired of looking at. Timeless, like, uh, statue or painting.
“Cory, listen to me. Wait in the car, okay? This won't take long, but I need you to stay here. You understand?”
I know it.
Let me hear you say it.
I understand. Good.
“No, there's a bad man in that house who was trying to blackmail me. You know what that means?”
Yes.
Good. He owes me something, but he won't give it to me unless I do some
bad things for him and then I'm just not going to do that. I not again. What if he won't give it to you? Mom's eyes get dark or voice slurs. I'm not leaving here without it. It's not just for me. It's for you too.
She takes a cigarette from the pack and puts it between her lips. She flicks the lighter and lets the flame go out. Takes the cigarette from her mouth and sets it on the dash. You know not to worry about me, right? I know it.
Yes. Okay.
“Whatever you hear, do not get out of this car and do not come inside.”
Just let me handle it and know I'll be all right. Mom takes my hand and squeezes it.
It won't always be like this.
Now, what are you going to do? Wait in the car. She undoes the seat belt. opens the door, gives me a quick smile and gets out. I wonder if there's a dog somewhere, maybe sleeping under the house.
Dogs don't like us for some reason, which is too bad because I've always wanted a dog. I almost expect to see some eyes going in a space under the wicky steps mom climbs to the front door, but there's just the dark. She doesn't even knock. She just turns the handle in the coast inside. A few seconds later,
I hear a man's voice, he'll something I can't understand. The sun beats down in the car. The armpits on my shirt get damp with sweat and I feel it tickling down my back. I rolled down the window of crack and hear mom's voice, even calm. I've learned over the years that some people get louder when they're angry, but not mom.
She gets quieter. Something moves in the corner of my vision. And I hope like hell, it's not another person out hiding in the brush. I slip down into my seat and make myself smaller, turn my head slowly. A shadow's stretch is out on the sand, leading all the way back to a
kilo monster that moves with a lazy sort of water. It's thick tongue occasionally flicking out to taste the air. I stare at the orange and white beads that make up its armor, listening as the man screams at my mom. The convoy sensor is slow and serious and he screams some more.
Sweat drips into my eyes and stinks. I read once that Gil monsters have a venomous bite that's really painful. Almost as bad as a rattlesnake.
“I think that's probably true of people too.”
We all have venom inside us, but you wouldn't know it unless you mess with us. Take something we love or need. The lizard drags its fat tail through the dirt probably looking for food, as a crash comes from inside the house. The sound makes me jump in my seat and sit up straighter. My heart rattles like our car engine when it goes too fast.
This isn't the first time I've been to a place like this with mom, but I don't think it gets
any easier. I always worry. Most of the time though, the guy doesn't know what he's dealing with.
Most people never see mom coming. She says that's her secret weapon. Like the Guilla Monster, they don't see her teeth until it's too late. Glosh shatters, followed by a scream. In this time it's not the guy screaming an anger, but in pain. I've never liked that sound. I can't help but feel bad for a person at the moment it happens.
There's more crashing like a table in chairs being knocked over. I can't hear mom anymore, but that guy is still screaming louder and more high pitched. I bet he's never yelled like that in his whole life. Then it gets thick and wet like he's gargling, choking on it, trying to spit it out, but he's drowning in it. The first couple times I covered my ears with my hands, I don't do that anymore because I understand it.
The same way someone with a pet snake probably doesn't like feeding at a mouse in the beginning, but eventually they learn this is the way it is. This is how the snake survives. In the eyes, violent and unsettling, but there's also a kind of a primal beauty in it. Life consumes life in order to keep on living. A circle, just like time. After the gurgling stops, I know mom will come back out soon. My stomach clenches with hunger.
I just hope she's not hurt too bad. She got stabbed once and it took a while to heal.
I wait.
which is good. Mom and I prefer to travel in the dark. Soon, the door of the house opens and
“light comes out. I see mom standing in the doorway. She takes one look behind her then closes the door”
and comes down the steps. She carries a small cooler in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. Now she gets closer. I see the blood all over her shirt. She opens the car door and gets inside. It's the cooler on the back seat and wipes the blood from her mouth with the back of one hand. It's mirrors on her cheek. Drips, suffragette. Riser brighter now, shimmering and her skin doesn't look quite so pale anymore. Mom gives me a smile and those two special teeth are still long.
I hear her heart pumping away, steady and strong. She hands me the beer bottle filled to the top with fresh warm blood. Drink up. We've got a long drive ahead of us. Let's take a short break for our sponsors who help us keep our heads above water. For waves of ad-free horror content, join our sleepless universe by going to sleepless.com. Now, let's be real. The advice to drink up is a good one. I don't recommend blood, however.
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And even on days when I'm not sweating like a bog monster in summer, I know the hydration
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That's dripdrop.com promo code no sleep for 20% off. Stock up now at dripdrop.com. And use promo code no sleep. Now let's plunge back into the deep waters of horror. When Charlie and his mother need a safe haven from his abusive father, his grandmother takes them into spite past differences. Known a fast becomes an ally to the young boy and teaches Charlie how to cope with his nightmares. Performing this tale by author Amanda Cecilia Lang are Marie Westbrook,
Danielle McCray, Erin Lewis, Sarah Thomas, Graham Rowat, and Nicole Goodnight. Hopefully for Charlie Sake, known as lessons help him to get rid of the he-be-g-be's. Charlie was five when known to introduce him to the he-be-g-be's that lived inside his crevices. Carrying a single suitcase between them, he and his mother came to know her from a grey-hunt bus in the midnight snow. The slippery walk from the depot stretched on and on through slushy sidewalks and unfamiliar
small town neighborhoods. By the time they reached a gigantic iron gate, Charlie's feet felt soggy and numb and his teeth wouldn't stop chit-chit-chittering. He rarely been out of his bed
This late at night and never in the blustery cold.
loomed two stories large, two monsters not to contain monsters. Charlie buried his face against his mother's hip. We must be brave for once. But his mother stood on the sidewalk for a very long time, watching the sleepy house with cold far away eyes. Only when Charlie asked with an
“earnest shiver if they are going to sleep in the snow, did she finally ring the doorbell?”
It took Nona a long time to answer. Charlie's mother had to ring twice more before they heard footsteps creaking toward the door. The sickly yellow porch lights snapped on, scattering the darkness, and Nona peered out at them. She was old, older than anyone Charlie had ever seen. Her eyes wrinkled, and she didn't seem to recognize her own daughter standing there. Finally, his mother stepped into the light, revealing her suitcase and split lip,
and Nona mumbled something Charlie didn't understand. After a slow hesitation, she suffered aside and let them in from the cold. The vast, unkempt rooms were enormous and cluttered with over-fat furniture and peculiar odds and ends. Every antique edge and corner hung heavy
“with cobwebs and dustmoats. Every shadow moved full of skittering shapes and tiny glittery eyes.”
Those first nights after running from his father, after his mother swallowed her mingled pride and asked Nona if they could stay a while. Charlie felt the house crawling all around him, chitters and whispers in the moon-wast gloom, unfamiliar scratches and scratches, shadows with spiders and spookies and things that go bump. He wanted to be brave for his mother's sake. He tried to keep his big imagination small, but hiding under a musty quilt on a creaky brass bed
and an equity bedroom was never going to make the strangeness of his new life go away.
Inevitably, the bad dreams scurried over him and turned into shrill, petrified soaps. Just like when he used to wake up the whole damn blasted house with night terrors and enrages father, little sissy boy. Charlie clapped his hand over his mouth, but too late. Heavy shuffling footsteps chased his whimpers down the hallway and filled his open doorway with the night gowns silhouette of his mother. She swapsed to the edge of his bed, but as the windows
moon-beam caught her face, Charlie's relief twisted into a wild, gay-buyed horror. His mother's smooth, familiar beauty had grizzled while she slept and standing above him was the husk of a living corpse. Just like the ones in the bedtime stories his father liked to tell, spider-shadows skittered in and out of those sunken eyes. The undead thing closed skeleton fingers around his shoulder, and only when it hushed his cries with a voice of raspy velvet to Charlie
recognized known as face smiling down upon him. "Poor child, you truly are a skittish one, aren't you?" Seem to us nervous nellies come in all sizes. Charlie borrowed deeper into his quilt, hot tears
streaming. Back then, Nona was still a stranger and Charlie never spoke to strangers, especially because
he might say cowardly words and get himself booted out onto more icy streets. His own father didn't care what happened to him, so why should Nona? "I know exactly what you're feeling." Deep down spooky ideas squirming like buggies. "You don't live half a decade alone in a big, empty house, and not feel the PBGB's creeping under your skin." "Hebie, G-B's, Charlie mouth the words, and the prickle round down his neck."
"Hebie, G-B's." "Yes, that sounded right. He pulled his quilt tighter and peered out at
Nona, breath held, fast to listen. Your mother never believed in them, but they're very real indeed."
"Nasty little pellets. They burl around your nerves and crevices, freezing you up with scary,
“ugly worries. Simply horrid." "But, you want to know a secret?"”
"Nona tapped the tip of Charlie's nose with a slife finger. G-B's can be vankwished, hot, and released. Charlie shifted inside his bundle." "They can?" "Oh, yes. Nona's watery grey eyes sparkled. May I show you my trick? He sniffled, and nodded solemnly.
Sit up straight then, and hold still.
a crystal ball, humming a curious sing-song. She closed her eyes, and raked the air around Charlie
“with watery hands. It was all rather dreamy in the wilderness. A wrinkled old woman putting on such”
an elaborate show at his midnight bedside, and he couldn't help but wobble a grin. Nona cracked an eye at him. "Oh, my stars, a most dreadful infestation right here!" She corkscrewed her fingertips into Charlie's underarm, surprising him, and his G-B's too. "That's right, I got ya, you little nerve-chewers." She tickled away, chasing those buggers until Charlie rolled backwards, wriggling and diggling.
"That's it. Oh goodness, so many G-B's hold on dear boy. It's easiest to snack their tippy toes. Just when he thought he might burst from so much squirmy-wormy laughter, known a copter wrinkled hands together. "Oh, got him." Charlie set up wiping it tears of delight. "You cut my G-B's!"
"Can I see them?"
"Oh, dear me, no. Never look a G-B in it's beaded lies. G-B's are never to be seen, Charlie.
“Especially freshly plucked. Never give them that power."”
"Nona's smile turned serious." "You understand? Promise me. Cross my heart." "Good boy." "Now." "Nona held out her cop hands to him."
"Wisper, the bad feelings into my hands." "Remind those G-B's what they are, all the awful things that frighten you." Charlie regarded Nona uncertainly. "Tell his G-B's that." "Though he bit feel braver without their nervous toes whispering all through him."
He leaned forward hesitantly and Nona nodded encouraging him. He thought he heard their spiny legs screech scratching at her palms. With a gulp, and a deep, daring breath. He told his G-B's about the monsters that go bump, especially his angry unhappy father.
Being away from the man with his tattooed knuckles and mean bedtime stories felt happy, and scary all at once. His father liked to tell Charlie about zombies eating the eyeballs of gutless pandy boys, and green hands under the beds of private babies. But scariest, what's his promise that without his roof and his paycheck?
Charlie and his no-good mother would freeze to icicles in the winter streets. Scariest because it almost came true. Now that Charlie thought about it, that other bad feelings screech scratching inside him wasn't from Nona's big call-worthy house, but the fear that she might toss them out of it. But when he sat back having told his G-B's everything,
Nona smiled at him with the warmth of a fireplace.
"Never worry, my boy, you and your mother are always welcome here,
and your father most certainly is not." Now, Charlie, one last step. Are you ready? Charlie not it.
“You must shut your eyes and let your G-B's go here.”
Wrap your hands around mine. He did so in close his eyes. On the count of three. One, two, three. Together, they opened their hands. And with the screech and a scratch across the quilt and then the floorboards,
Charlie's G-B-G-B's skirt away into the deepest shadows of the house, and were forgotten. Over that long fairy tale winter and into the next. Charlie and Nona grew to be the coziest of
bodies. Nona never kicked him in his mother out into the icy streets, just like she promised.
And in return, they dusted away the cobwebs full of moth husks and replaced all the smokey burned out lightbulbs that Nona had been too rickety to reach. The house was still big and old and full of spiders. But now it glowed like it had when his mother was a kid. Sometimes though, Charlie sensed an unhappy distance looming between Nona and his mother. They'd had a big fight a long time ago.
Way before Charlie was born, Nona told him one night. But when Charlie asked what the fight was about, Nona said sometimes it's best not to dig up nasty memories. Best to just forget, while his mother was busy batting herself, working a second shift at the diner or of taking necklaces at the college.
Nona taught Charlie how to bake ginger cake, and the difference between a fuzzy wolf spider,
A deadly brown recluse.
daddy long legs and jars. He helped her tire shoelaces whenever her spine aged too much.
“And after the doctor told her no heavy lifting on account of her upset old heartbeat.”
Charlie always carried their trays of cookies and glass bottles of coke
from the kitchen to the parlor. And of course, whenever his imagination stretched the shadows into goals, sending prickly toes racing of his spine, Nona helped him think wish his TBGBs. Catch and release. She was an expert at GB hunting. Like on Halloween when Charlie saw his first zombie during trick or treat, and later that night heard a torso groaning up the long staircase. Or the evening of the town's big snow storm, when the power went dark in the candles tossed,
distorted shadows all across the walls. Scorpions and furious father faces. The same winter. The wind and wet snow snap the tree branch outside his window. And Charlie's imagination was certain he heard Nona falling down the stairs,
“cracking her fragile old bones, all her colostane teeth knocked right out her.”
But all his main dreams, all his many legot worries, small and big. They were no match for Nona. In the menace of night, whenever Charlie needed her, Nona came shuffling down the hallway, fast as her old bones could move, ready to wrangle those GBs right up. Some liked to hide between his toes and the giggly landscape of his ribs, but the herriest jibis, like the fright about his father, hit under his arms where
he was most ticklish. Nona, what a worst jibis. I mean the easiest ones with lots of bristly legs. Oh, that's easy. Nona tapped his nose and sat on the side of his bed.
The jibis that promised I'd never meet my grandson, or see my daughter again. But look, see,
hear you both are. All those years of worrying and sadness for nothing. Charlie Beamed, though something about Nona's answer prickled the pit of his stomach.
“You felt those jibis for years? Didn't you have any one to catch them for you?”
Well, no. I suppose it was just me. You caught your own jibis? Wasn't always easy him afraid. Charlie hadn't even been sure it was possible. Once when Nona had seemed extra sleepy from their day, he tried plucking a big plump mini from between his toes. Only he wasn't sure he vanquished it. The next day his father appeared on Nona's front porch looking to sweet talk his mother. Just like Charlie had feared. Nona had refused to unlock the door for the man.
But Charlie felt certain he'd appeared because of the elusive jibis. After that, Charlie left the jibi hunting to Nona. Sometimes, the worst jibis are the ones you catch alone. Nona, if you ever need help with your jibis, just taller, promise? Such a deer? Of course. I promise.
After that, whenever the bug bum commercial came on the parlor TV, the one where roaches twitched across the screen with spiny legs and feelers. Nona would shut her and enlist Charlie's faithful help. Same whenever they sat in the waiting room at her doctor's office, but even though she swore Charlie
was a master at catching her jibis, he wasn't so sure. For one thing, he never felt their toes
inside his class pens. And sometimes, Nona's brave smile wobbled and shadow skittered behind her eyes. Then came the evening when his father returned with roses. This visit proved worse than the last, because it was already dark outside and his mother was home to unlock the door. Even so, Nona refused to let the man inside and ordered Charlie to an early bed. That's when all the unhappy feelings hiding in the silence between his mother and grandmother
came rushing out, Charlie gripped the banister, trembling like a sissy boy at the top of the staircase, while his macho father stomped back and forth across the porch. Shouts echoed up the front hall. "I can stand on my own. I'm a different person now." "And men like that never change. Don't be that same foolish girl again. I'm begging!"
"Crisis!" "Sakes! It's only drinks at the roadhouse. To catch up, he came all this way." "With satin tongue promises, temper tucked in, drinks, and then one, another CD motel room,
A lifetime time to trouble, think about poor Charlie.
"You, mother, of all people, don't get to tell me what to do with my child. Remember?"
“"Nona sucked in a sharp breath. Then the front door opened and slammed. Charlie's mother”
hadn't even kissed him good night. Then came the slow, creaking footsteps of Nona making her way up the stairs. "I see your shadow lurking there, sweet boy. Come now, bedtime awaits." From outside Charlie's bedroom window, his father's headlight sprayed across Nona's worried face, then spun away down the long driveway. "Had a nasty feeling since the day I met that man.
But your mother never believed me about the hippie jubies. Without needing to be asked,
Charlie tickled Nona's ribs. She giggled bustily, and clashed his hands together, meaning in with a hand trembling against her chest. Nona whispered her deepest fear. When she finished, Charlie promised. "I won't let him take me away. Never, ever!" Nona folded her hands around his, they closed their eyes, and released, but as always, Charlie wasn't
“so sure he felt Nona's jubies crawl away, and the shadow shapes her back, scurrying behind her”
sunken eyes before she even dimmed his bedside lamp. "Sleep tight, my boy." She became a stooped silhouette in the door, then foot steps scraped down the hallway. Charlie felt his own hippie jubies tipped
towing around. Old worries nesting beneath the tucked in quilts of his thoughts. But tonight,
of all bad nights, he wanted to be brave for Nona. At last, the exhaustion of his father's visit swept Charlie under. In the feverish imagination of his dreams, he saw the man strike his mother in his old comeryl. Splitting her lip again for daring to leave him and better herself. Then, howling, he cranked the wheel and squealed tires back to Nona's house. Nona bitch was gonna lock him out. Nona's sissy son of his was gonna cower from him.
Then in his dreams, Charlie was in his bed. Whimpering is familiar foot steps stumps down the hall. Not Nona. The hooking silhouette of his father appeared in his doorway. Charlie opened his eyes. A woe to a tearful sound. Sharp bursting cries echoing, fading. Nona. Had those sounds belong to her? Or to Charlie? He waited. Broth sucked deep. In the moon that stillness an old spider-y chill prickle the skin.
He imagined his father on all four scuttling unseen through the shadows. And this time, the whimper did come from Charlie. Loud and awful. He waited for the familiar shuffled down the hallway. Waded for the golden sweep of light from his bedside lamp and Nona soft hand on his cheek. But tonight, she didn't come. Charlie squirmed.
Maybe that first whimper had come from Nona's bedroom.
Maybe right now, Nona's hippie jeepies had her frozen in place. Charlie sat up in bed. Determined. But also certain the instant he placed a bear foot on the floor. His father would reach out from under the mattress and grab his ankles. Charlie leapt from the bed anyway. Nothing grabbed out at him. And Charlie found himself tiptoeing down the hallway.
The nightlight, Nona head installed for midnight bathroom trips scattered a faint starburst along the floor and ceiling. And stretched out gloom. Nona's door stood open at the end of the hallway. Charlie crept inside the winter cool bedroom. A beam of pale moonlight slanted in from the window. But didn't touch the murky outline of the bed, with a lump resting under a pile of quilts and darkness. Nona. Silence. Charlie inched ever closer.
I've come to vanquish your jeepies. Nona's silence stretched even louder. Standing in the moon beam now, Charlie reached into the shadow and placed the hand on his grandmother's quilt. Something shifted beneath. Riving, squirming, chittering. Nona. The quilt fell away. Like an ex-sac hatching. Jeepies erupted from known as sleeping form, abuzzing wave of pinchers and antennae in twitchy ghosts of the mind.
“In key slick exoscoctons, so pitched black they stained the eye.”
This warmed down the mattress and across the floor. Across Charlie's bare feet. He wailed and stumbled backward. Not knowing what else to do, he did what Nona would do. He flicked the bedside lamp. In the feeble glow, the creepers disappeared
At once, faster than cockroaches scattering into secret corners.
A warm night gowned bump. So we're here. A nervous nullie, if ever there was one.
I'm still right here. Don't you worry.
“Ever faithful, he tickled away the last of Nona's Hebe Jeepies. Tickled and tickled,”
until her tender warm ribs grew cold and stiff. Until the darkest before dawn return of his father's headlights flashed down the driveway in across his trembling pansy boyface. Later that week, a known as funeral. Charlie fidgeted at the end of the church aisle. Drippy nose, tear swollen, almost too infested to approach the coffin.
He knew Nona was in there. But during the pastor's prayers, Charlie had hunched low in the front pew, unable to see over the open edge of the polished white box. His father sat on the foresight of his mother. Costumed in his handsome blue eyes and best behavior. A casual arm draped over
“her solving shoulder. These calm moments of the man petrified Charlie the most because he felt”
like a deer. Go ahead, make his day. Charlie spent the service shrinking away from the grinning skulls tattooed on the man's jagged knuckles. But now the prayers were silent. Time to say good night to Nona forever. While his mother sobbed with old friends from town, Charlie tipped out a loan toward the open casket. Every step felt like the night in the hallway. A growing nest of G.B. squirming inside his ribs chewing up his heart. He had light-known a die. He let her
G.B.s get her. And now, a new hideous terror lodged inside his darkest crevices. A hard-shelded thing growing bigger with every step closer. He could see Nona's folded hands. The tip of her nose and her powdered doughy wrinkles. Her smile still his air. Startlingly wrong. A tight-lipped thing of pale molding clay. He wanted to turn and run right then. But his father might be watching with his narrowed gaze and yellowed insectile smile. Doggedly, Charlie hugged himself and talked
“his hands into his underarms. His fingers wriggled on his secret hunt for G.B.s, and to his surprise,”
and tenety tickled his fingertips. A horrified giggle escaped him. A giggle despicably out of place beside Nona's coffin. Even so, Charlie copped his hands together with a quick little clap.
As always, he was certain he'd had a G.B. in there. Standing over Nona, he brought his hands to his
mouth anyway, preparing to whisper his newest, ever-growing fear. The one where Nona whimpered from somewhere far far away. While his father stood over him, sneering with laughter. If he didn't spit out the idea soon, it would become real. Of only the words he needed didn't feel so enormous and twisty, he opened his mouth, and fell silent. His father had crept up behind him. He clamped his grease-moon fingernails into Charlie's shoulder and squeezed into the bone ached. No more tears
not track. Those are for the girls. Charlie swallowed. Something inside his cuped hands circled his palm with tiny feelers. Then spidery legs squirmed through a crack in his fingers.
Nona said never look a freshly plucked G.B. in its beauty little eyes.
Too late. The tiny monster sprung from Charlie's knuckles, and landed on the edge of Nona's coffin with a hard, chiddenous thunk. Like Nona's clays smile, Charlie wanted to scream at the wrongness of it. A bug, but not a bug. A centipede sized gooly put together with different odd bits. Like a cut-and-paste collage. Clicking legs made of greasy fingernail clippings. Thoroks of yellowed tobacco teeth. Folded wings of tattooed flesh.
Dozens of devious handsome blue eyes. That thing came from Charlie. With a twitch of leathery wings the G.B. flitted from the coffin lid into Nona's folded hands. Crawled with the intent of a cockroach. Lighting up her arm, then her shoulder and the dough of her neck. Charlie froze, horrified certain that the thing would warm inside Nona's ear canal. Instead, it skittered across her mouth. Spiny legs parting her lips in a grimace.
Revealing colis faint teeth. Choking on six screaming horror, Charlie glanced up at his father. Had he noticed? He had he was too much of a manly man to react. The G.B. finished probing known as lips and wandered up the doughy cover for cheek. It ruffled her eyelashes. Made her eye wink. Charlie's father checked his watch. Fun times over. He clamped a hand on the lid.
Hoppy to close it and trap Nona and the infested darkness forever.
sounded so puny. Can't wait. The ground at the cemetery is too frozen to barrier.
“His father leaned in with whiskey hot breath.”
Gotta get her back in the fridge right away. Before the grave bugs start squirting their eggs inside her. With a flitter of fleshy wings, the G.B. sprung off Nona's face. It darted to the air. It's round translucent belly shimmering fatally. Charlie saw the sack of tiny pulsing schools as it landed on his father's cheek. Juicy with fresh terrors. It meandered across his bristled mustache. A whimper echoed inside Charlie's bones. The stained glass church seemed to tilt the world sideways.
Sweeping his and Nona's fairytale life clean away. Hoped without a breach. With a gleeful flick of feelers, the G.B. folded its wings, then wiggle warmed up inside his father's flaring raging bull
nostril. The man never even flinched. He simply grinned at Charlie and closed the coffin up tight.
“Charlie missed Nona. Missed her so horribly, every thumpy bead inside his chest felt like”
waking from a nest of nightmares. Except Nona wasn't around to shuffle down the hallway. The lack of her was deafening. Every moment felt wrong and upset. And even in the very brightest rooms of her house, cobwebby shadows thickened and squirmed. Charlie slept with the lights on now. Alone at every bedtime, he's strained to hear the downstairs chatter of his babysitter's television. Volunteer from the neighborhood. The young woman had plopped down in the center of Nona's couch
and acted exasperated whenever Charlie tried talking. And when he summoned the spit to tell her
about his H.B. G.B. She'd only snorted. Your mother warned me about you kiddo. Bucky's aren't real.
Really, the only comforting thing about the woman was that she wasn't Charlie's father.
“After the funeral, the man hadn't been able to afford any more nights at the motel.”
And Charlie's mother wouldn't let him stay at Nona's house out of respect. Charlie expected him to rage at being told what he couldn't do. But he'd simply winged goodbye to Charlie and returned quickly to his grease monkey job in the city. With a G.B. still lodged inside his nose. Every morning since he'd called Charlie's mother to check in, the phone would chime. Charlie's stomach would clench. And the way his mother sometimes giggled, as if she'd forgotten all the split
lips and nasty middle of the night. Made Charlie spine crawl. But his mother didn't believe in H.B. G.B.s. She'd whispered into the phone just that morning. "You're all the family we have left." And Charlie missed Nona worse than ever. Now hidden under his quilt. He found himself infested. A mind-scab of clay, smiles, and tattooed wings, and coiled night-gound corpses. Gravediggers couldn't put Nona in the frozen ground, so Charlie's imagination stuff
turn the downstairs refrigerator between the glass bottles of coke, and the stiff remains of her last-ever ginger cake. The awful scrunched up image twitched inside his head. "Miner and meaner" until glass bottles rattled and Charlie cried out. Let it echo. He waited for his babysitter's footsteps to trudge up the stairs, holding his breath as tiny monsters ran circles inside. But after what happened next to
Nona's casket, he didn't want to catch his own G.B.s ever again. Even as Charlie thought it, his armpit prickled. Two bristly feelers licked out from the crevice and something plump wiggle loose. Feathery legs twisted beneath his pajama shirt. The edge of his collar shuttered and lifted. Abits and pieces monster appeared. Frozen graved art. Colustained teeth. Doeie wings and eyes, eyes, eyes. The glued shut eyes of Nona. Charlie shrieked. In the sticky yellow lamp glow,
the G.B. took flight and thumped the wallpapered corner where the blackest dreams gathered. As a vanished into the inky mark, the darkness sprouted feelers. Mendebles, legs. The shadows multiplied and slithered outward. It was his forgotten G.B.s. They skittered everywhere, dotting the walls and ceiling and floor. Everywhere, little feet clicked and chittered. Every G.B. Nona ever caught and released had returned. Only who would protect him now.
Charlie coward wailed for Nona. At the breast end of her name, a G.B. skittered out across his tongue and hooked its pincher to the corner of his cheek. He screamed spattled twisted from bed. The quilt tangled around his legs and the ground rose up to knock the air from his lungs.
The G.
Scrambleing barefoot, Charlie whimpered out into the hallway. At the top of the stairs, he paused to
“listen. The drone of the television haunted the lower floor. Shadowy legs chittered and buzzed,”
spilling out his bedroom door. The freight to look back, Charlie gripped the banister. White knuckles and tippy toes all the way down. In the parlor, every stained glass lamp glowed at peak brightness. The commercial for the bug bombs that used to give Nona the shivers hummed on the television. Shadowy little pests lit it across the screen as someone watched from the center of the couch. Not as babysitter. Charlie clapped the hand over his mouth. "Are you making all that
ruckus truck?" His father crypt his neck stood from the couch and turned with gleeful red
shot eyes. And O creepers he didn't look so hot. Dark, crusty bruises caked the inflamed edges of the man's left nostril. It his whole body had a twitch about it. "Sent the brat sitter home.
“Done letting the gagulous skirts raise my boy." Charlie's throat had gone dry. His first big”
words came out as a rasp. "You shouldn't be here. Nona doesn't want you there." "No name kickin' no more, is she?" prickly shapes twisted in and out of his sharp toothed grin. "But you're right. It's not my house. No whose house it is, Chuck." Charlie didn't understand the question.
"It was known as house. It would always be known as house. His father took a jagged step closer,
swept a backhand across his nostrils." "I grit and swept my whole life to make random allowsy to bedroom. And a pansy boy like you tumble skirts first into a big fancy castle." "Nona said I'd never have to leave here." "Imagine that. And after the hiccifit she threw when your
“mama got knocked up." The man leaned in. His bruised eyelid bulged and peaked. Something”
spiky prodded at the fine vein skin. "Didn't think we'd make nice parents. She didn't want us to keep you." "That's not true. She promised she'd never put me on the street." "Not the street, Chuck. She wanted you scraped right out of your mama." Charlie shook a sick dizziness from his head. "Just more nasty mean stories, lies to scare him." "She kept me safe from you!" "Did she?" His eyelid rippled, but the man still refused to flinch. Even as the lids split down the using
center, hatching. A GB's great loose. Made of blood-papped snow and steel scrapers in a tiny hand of babies and tummies. It glistened wetly and tracked a dotted red trail down his father's clenched jawline. "How's that old dead bitch gonna keep you safe now, Chuck?" Charlie backed away and choked on a lump. He screamed for Nona without a voice. Behind his father, beyond the doorway, glass bottles rattled in the kitchen. Then, with a magnetic suction pop, the refrigerator door swung
open. A rectangle of silver light cut across the checkered linoleum floor in the shadow filled the empty glow, wiggly fingers in a night-gowned silhouette. I see a maysman to prickled Charlie's spine and despite his looming father, he froze. "Nona?" His father ex-held a bullish laugh. A threat Charlie knew too well. More while GB's poked around inside the man's inflamed nostril and the bruised lump of his cheek. "Spaneless, runt. If I stopped on you, you wouldn't even crunch."
In the kitchen, the slow slog of a bedroom-slipper scraped along the linoleum. It was her. Charlie's throat-encorped. "Nona!" Rage cracked his father's face. His five o'clock shadow contorted and tore open with a sickening wet rip. Hands a my lid to hard-cut jaw, a nest of wriving shapes squirmed across his face. "Larvey dripped free." "You want scared, are you truck?" The man's oozing gaze narrowed on Charlie. Fist bald knuckles jagged. Ready to pounce. No.
Charlie snapped the invisible webs holding him in place and ran toward the closest escape. The staircase. Up and up, gripping the infested bannisters his father stomped after him and swiped his heels. Up and up, as G.B. spilled across his hand and crunched under his bare feet. At the top, known as bedroom was nearest. Charlie bolted for it. Behind him his father leapt off the staircase like a brown recluse, coming down hard on all fours in the hallway. The nightlight smashed to black.
The scattered stairs fell away just as Charlie slammed known as door.
door knob twisting the skeleton key and bracing for his father's scuttling weight to slam against the door.
“The chaos in the hallway cut to silence. Charlie backed away from the door,”
inched slowly through the dark of known as room. No moonlight tonight. Pricles in his blood. Nightmares crawling through every crevice. Alone. But not alone. Behind Charlie the brass bedframe exhaled a slow screech. Something shifted to top known as mattress. Uncurling, sitting up. Swinging frozen legs over the side. A thousand forgotten G.B. loosened from the quilt and scurried to the floor. Then two fast shuffling slippers
raced up behind him. No, not. Even so. Charlie choked back a whale and ran for the door. To afraid to unlock it he pressed his face against the wood and rode a chittering wave of bright white terror. From behind. Fridge chilled fingers quirk screwed into the crevices beneath his arms.
Wiggled and tickled and hunted. Finally Charlie burst with a mind crawly streak of laughter.
His hands clapped together in the darkness. Got that, G.B. Now, my boy. We vank wish him.
“The key untwisted in the lock. The door cracked open. After a few”
bumpy heartbeats Charlie realized, it was his hand on the knob. Listening with all his senses he pulled the door open. The long hallway beyond appeared empty. The far end, the sickly yellow lamp glow from Charlie's bedroom, cut a dim path across the floor. The shadows barely even twitched. Charlie crept forward arms crossed, hands jammed in his armpits. A few steps from the stairs. He rose on his tippy toes, searching for movement down below. Something uncrueled on the high
ceiling above him. He didn't want to look. A heapy G.B. dropped on the floor board's near his feet. Then another. Another. A hard-shelled rain. He looked anyway, rolled his eyes haven't
“word. The spider hunched shape of his father clung to the rafters in a squarming nest of cobwebs.”
When a goolish split faced smile, the man sprang free and landed with a heavy insectile thunk at the edge of the staircase. Teetering, towering over Charlie, he opened his mouth. "Gonna crush you, Chuck." And known as grave bugs spilled out. Skulls, crossbones, monsters that go bump. Charlie brought his hands together like a thunder clap. Hands clashed. He stood tall and terrified, and approached the maker of all his ugly
worst dreams. "I'm done having you as my father." The man snickered, showed no fear. But he should have been afraid. Charlie opened his hands in something prickly and heavy and nasty
sprung out. Lucky this time, Charlie had his eyes squalched tight. Never look at a freshly
plucked G.B. and its beady little eyes. His father roared, bellowed. The house shook with a terrible tumble clatter. Down and down his father went, ending with the chittenous crunch of bones. Then silence, release. Slowly Charlie lowered his hands and gripped the banister. Dare to peek. His father waited there. Curled in a hellbent heap at the bottom of the stairs. Jagged limbs and knuckles, swollen skull, cracked down the middle. A dark mess leaked
ever closer to the shadows. But nothing else moved. A soft giggle escaped Charlie. A ghost
sigh of relief. After all these years, known as house, was finally past free.
. I'm glad you could join us this episode. I hope you stay with us for many more strange and dark stories that take us all on a journey to the uncanny. It was a pleasure hosting and I look forward to contributing my voice to future tales. I'm Nicole Doolin and I send you all my best wishes and hope good fortune finds you. Thank you for listening and take care. As our stories sink beneath the waves, we claw our way back onto dry land. Join us again next time
When we plunge into the chilling depths where water hides its darkest secrets.
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