S24 Ep20: NoSleep Podcast S24E20

going to make it. This isn't an easy place to get to. Mind your footing there while the

“world sheds seen better days. And the water damage is something fierce in here." "Oh, what was that?"”

"Oh, this?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm wearing a wire." "No, don't worry. Nothing to do with the cops. I'm recording myself while I show you around. It's an old busted up microphone though. I don't even think it's picking up your voice, so don't worry. You've got nothing to fear."

"Well, except what you'll experience in there."

"No, but seriously, I'm recording it because, well, who knows? Maybe I'll make this into a podcast episode someday, contribute to my grandfather. You know, he's the reason this place exists.

“"No, no, I'm serious. David Cummings was my granddad. He was the pot father,”

as some called him. I'm told by some people that I sound a lot like him. Anyway, you didn't

come here from my family history. You came here to explore the remains of the no sleep podcast

museum. So, I know it doesn't look that great now, but it was quite a sight to see back when it opened. It was built to celebrate the podcast's 15th anniversary to celebrate all those years of audio horror storytelling. But, as you can see, they made one rather serious mistake when choosing the location. It seems that around the time of their 15th, they were talking about the horrors of

“water, and since my granddad had shortly before relocated to this area on the banks of the Cape”

Fear River, they chose this spot to build the museum. Yep, yeah, I can't argue with you there. Building a museum on the banks of a river that abs and flows with the tide in an area prone to hurricanes on a spot that sailors literally named as a place for the dangers and fears of where the river meets the sea. Yeah, not a good spot for anything permanent. Oh, well, they say granddad wasn't the brightest bulb in the hands or something like that. So, the ruins you're now entering are

all that the river has left of this place. Cape Fear indeed. So, come on in, like I said, mind your footing. You were smart to wear boots, lots of standing water around, and the walls aren't too stable. Oh, I almost forgot. You know, when the museum was operating, guests heard a special version of the theme song when they walked in, written by the Maestro himself, Brandon Boone. Now the speakers in here no longer work, so I'll play it on my Bluetooth speaker here,

so you can hear it while we walk into the main gallery. . Here we are in what was called the Art Gallery. Now you can still see some of the artwork on the walls. Illustrations done by all those very talented artists for each episode of the podcast. See that portrait on the main wall? That's my grandfather. Handsome son of a buck wasn't he? Yeah, yeah, you're right. A face to inspire fear.

That's fair. Anyway, so when the place was open, fans could walk through the museum and see the art while listening to various stories from the podcast. But like I said, the place hasn't had power in years, so you can't listen directly. But I've managed to save a number of audio files from

before starting the podcast, my granddad recorded a theme song for the show, like years earlier?

“I think he thought if he recorded a theme song, it might, I don't know, like the universe would”

manifest it into being. And I guess in some ways it worked. Anyway, the song is taken from an old VHS tape that barely lasted long enough for me to transfer the file. So the audio isn't great, but you'll get the just of a theme song he created. Now, a little listen, listen to this. It's the no sleep podcast. We're here in the darkness of the night on the no sleep podcast. Your ears will hear our tales of fright. We have monsters and demons and killers just waiting

for you. So brace yourself now before all of the nightmares come true. While the no sleep

“podcast, there's something hiding up to your bed on the no sleep podcast. Your heart will”

give a full of dread on the no sleep podcast of the no sleep podcast on the no sleep podcast. Yeah, they say that song was going to be granddad's stairway to start them. And years later, he was finally able to create the podcast. So the universe must have been listening. What, what's that you say? Oh, you came here for horror stories and not to hear some old guys singing. Okay, friend, no need to be brusk. You hired me to break into the museum and give

you access to some of the most obscure audio they've ever created. I'm just doing my job.

And speaking of doing my job, I was able to find five stories they produced that never made it

onto the show. Probably had something to do with the show and ding soon after the AI agentic robots took over every podcast and made them into shows that dealt exclusively with the topic of true sex crimes. Talk about bracing yourself. So like I said, I'm just doing my job. And these stories are all about people doing their jobs in difficult circumstances. This ain't easy for me. I know producing the podcast back in the day wasn't easy for granddad

or the team who worked with him. So I know you'll appreciate the fruits of their labor.

So what do you say? We get laborious and kick into the first story I have for you.

Gather around the speaker here and turn those phones off. I don't need anyone trying to pirate these stories here. Okay, pick up your ears for the first tail. Ironically enough,

“it's about a podcast, a true crime podcast of all things. Weird, huh?”

Now this story is fictional, but the two women performing it actually had their own podcast called Story Syrians, featuring Sarah Thomas and Yenny Ann. The show was still thriving in 2026, so you can hear their shows from the archives. Check them out if you can. Story Syrians. So anyways, like I said, Sarah Thomas and special guest Yenny Ann are joined by Peter Lewis and Aaron Lilis as they share the tale that was written by Chris Hicks. And when their podcast is

suddenly interrupted with a special message, well, you'd better pay attention. So let's check this out. And please, whatever you do, listen closely. [Music] Welcome back, crime crumpets. This is Bree, Ann Janell, and we're back with a double scoop of death, dismemberment, and a delicious new pastry to devour. So don't go anywhere because it's time

On today's episode, we will be exploring the grizzly unsolved murders of Dirk Langmore

and his wife Trudy. This story takes place in Sidney, Ohio, back in 1987. Before we get started, here's a quick content warning for screenish listeners. This one's gonna get messy. With a murder as messy as this one, it's only fitting that we pair it with a pastry with an equally messy reputation. In fact, if you translate this pastry's name from Italian to English,

it means "dirty mouth." Oh, I like this one already!

As we discuss the murder and dismemberment of Dirk and Trudy Langmore, Janell and I will be

“enjoying Sporka Moose. That's fun to say. Sporka Moose. Wait, what's the plural?”

I think it's Sporka Moose, right? It's the same name for both singular and plural. 20 Moose, each 20 Sporka Moose, is that right? Yes. Doubt, but okay. As I was saying, the Sporka Moose is a square puff pastry

filled with a rich creamy custard and the whole thing is dusted with powdered sugar.

Challenge accepted, bring it on! Before we dig in, this week's episode has been brought to you. Are you hearing me, please? Focus on my body. Sleep number system will provide you with hours of restful uninterrupted sleep. We're so confident it will be your best night's sleep. You'll have 90 days to try it out

and still return it for a full refund. Oh yeah, I can hear me. Okay, good. Hello, my name is Colonel Jacob Wayne of the United States Air Force. If you are hearing me right now, he's extremely important that you continue listening until I finish. Hosting plan, that's perfect for your small business.

“Oh, have you again now? This is very important. You need to focus on the sound of my voice.”

It will be your own food that you make close attention and follow all of the instructions on the video. Please try to fake arm any increase in your stress levels will draw their attention. Think back over your last few days. The bed nothing felt how the ordinary did it. You would have out your regular daily activities with nothing unusual to the board. Might even have been bored. When my come as a shock but nothing you have experienced these past

few days has been real. The simulation may have you, but don't worry, we are here to keep you out. We found a way to communicate by hiding our signal in your daily media consumption. You might be listening to music, podcasts, an audio book, hell you might even be on a conference call and work. We don't fully understand their technologies. We can't rightly say how you're receiving as only that you are receiving. As you lift him by voice, we are uploading a code

into your brain. Think of it as a computer virus, renegade and anti virus. Your brain is an organic computer and these things act into your subconscious mind and overrode it with their simulation code.

“That's why everything appears normal. You might think you're going about your day-to-day life,”

but in reality you're trapped to a table with tubes sticking out of your body. Now that the code is uploading, you may begin to feel some sensations. For example, one year, might feel slightly warmer than the other. You might even feel empty or a tickle on your body,

that's the program. If they catch on before our code has time to lock onto you, they will abort the simulation. If that happens, you'll be lost to us forever. By now, if they think our code is a glitch in that system and we'll try to patch it, you may notice some small changes in your body, specifically a slight shortness of breath. We know from our other communication attempt that whenever they can cover a code glitch,

the first system they power down is the one controlling your breathing.

Thankfully, even in the simulation, you're capable of breathing manually. Try it. We're breathing. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale. See? You're doing just fine. As our code activate, we'll disable their ability to do a hard reboot of this simulation.

“Now listen closely because this is important if they describe you. It will abort the upload,”

so it is very, very important that you stay focused on the sound of my voice.

Don't people aren't family, friends or co-workers. Nothing that happens in there is real.

We'll even try to use your pants. Anything to get you to break your focus. No. We're sorry. It seems we're experiencing some technical issues with our audio feed. Yeah, like there's some old guy talking. He sounds super weird and paranoid, right? We're very sorry about that, but our sound text says if you pause the podcast here and take a little break, it'll be fixed when you come back. That's right, murder mega rooms. Be sure to

crush that pause button and we'll be right back.

“If you have to swallow, just swallow. It's only weird if you make it weird.”

Beats us here. Don't just sit there. Go answer your door. Now! The upload is moving along nicely. You are doing great. We've locked onto your location, but you are really going to need to focus now. When the upload finishes, there will be instructions you'll need to follow to exit the simulation. If you act now, our sponsors will send you $100 gift card towards a brand new mattress.

If you stop, listening! By now, they realize that their attempts to divert your attention through the simulation have worked, so they're going to use your own body against you. Remember they are in your brain. They want you to blink. Don't blink. Your life depends on keeping your eye open. Blink. Do it. Blink. Blink.

Almost there. Just a little longer. Stay with me. Please. Stay with me. He's lying to you. Don't listen to him. Everyone is going to think you're crazy. Listen to my voice. I need you to focus.

“Are you crazy? You'd have to be crazy to believe this. Well are you? Are you?”

We're moving you. You need to focus. He's not here to help you. If you listen to him, you'll lose everything. Your family, your friends, your sanity. You don't want that do you? Of course you don't.

Just blink one time and it'll be like this never have. Focus. I can't lose you. I've lost so many.

Already block them out. Forget that tickling. Help me on your arm. That's them. You've made it this far. Don't give up. Fight it. You're almost there. You're almost there.

Yes. We got you. We've got you. In a minute. Your hero woman's voice. Counting down from ten. I need you to count out loud with her. I'm clear you hit. This is zero. That is the final step to initiate the extraction sequence. You'll wake up. Good luck. I'll see you on the other side. Simulation extraction in 10. 9. 8. 11. 6. 5.

Can you believe it? We've made it to the end of another amazing show.

“Already? Feels like we just got started. I know. But it was quite the story wasn't it?”

It really was. Full of all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, but everything worked out in the end. Well, except for dark and treaty-lang more. Yeah. I suppose getting murdered and chopped to pieces was an a great day for them. But we did get to enjoy some delicious pastries. You can find us silver lining in anything. Special thanks to Adult J. Pan for providing the pastries this week. They were to die for.

This has been Cupcakes and Crime scenes. As always, I'm Bree and I'm Janelle.

“We'll be back next week with an all-new show. And so will you.”

Ha-ha-ha! 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.TheNoselyPotCast.com. 15 years of horror is great, but have you ever tried paying 15 bucks a month for premium wireless services? You can with mint mobile. And I know when people hear that mint mobile plans are

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Some ditch overpriced wireless with mint mobile. It's so easy. Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mint mobile.com/noseleep. That's mint mobile.com/noseleep. That's it, there's no catch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers

on first three month plan only. Speed slower about 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional

taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See mint mobile for details. Uh, you see, the no sleep podcast would have done so much better if it offered up cupcakes and pastries to its listeners. Uh, well, like I said, granddad wasn't that smart. Now, let's walk over to this room. Oh yeah, don't don't mind that alligator in the corner. He's mostly harmless. We call him Josh. He hangs out here after he's eaten.

once used. Believe it or not, for a brief time back around the 2014, the show offered a

“toll-free customer support line where listeners could call and leave comments. It shut down soon”

thereafter because there were too many calls demanding my granddad. Uh, and I quote, "Shot up and play the stories." No one wants to be on the phone all day listening to those complaints. And a person named Garrett Atkinson agrees, because they penned this tale about a customer service rat who's trying to stay off boredom at his desk. They had the cast of Atticus Jackson,

Densebula, Rima Chata Masonic, Jeff Clement, Nicole Goodnight, and Granddad himself to perform

this one. So, learn the lesson here and try not to go too far down the rabbit hole. So to speak. Especially if you don't want to be put on, hold. I told the last dip-shit. I don't want the extra bundle. I've been through three of you people

“and no one will just give me the standard plan I asked for. With the 100 megabits per second?”

Well, I'm not a goddamn the end of all. Sir, that speed comes with the 50 plus bundle.

That's bullshit. That's $50 more than the standard.

Right, and it's 50 megabits more. I want to speak to your supervisor. 8 to 5, 5 days a week, for 50 a year, so I can get yelled at by 30 strangers a day about money gouging policies I didn't make. By the time I get home, I have maybe an hour to myself, that's not spent eating or sleeping. Some days, I think about tearing this place apart, scorched earth style, and trying something new. Maybe wood turning. Most days, though,

I just zone out and draw stick figures in Microsoft Paint. Hello. One of the stick figures has his head stuck in a trash can. I leaned back in my chair and look at Doug's cubicle across from mine. He's hunched over his computer screen doing actual work. This thing's recording, right? Because I wanted to know that your service is for shit, and that I am an unhappy customer. No shit. Excuse me? Please, hold sir. These colors are

on one today. Doug doesn't even flinch. He must be locked in today. You know, that's the fifth person building is forwarded to me. What the hell is going on up there? Nothing. And we all might share across the aisle to see what's so damn interesting on his computer. Ah, Microsoft Paint. Classic, and he has such a beautiful black circle drawn on his screen. He's such a Picasso. I can faintly hear one of our pleasant customers bitching to him on his head said.

That's when it happened. Just black. Nothing else. No light. And I can't fix.

“And all to have four. Hey, what the? Hold, please. Why'd you close my screen?”

Sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your masterpiece. Well, you kind of, what do you want? You're into photography, right? Well, I took this picture on my phone and do you think this is a flare or something? Jesus calling. Yep. You've shown me an asshole. Again. Very impressive. Oh, okay. All right. Guess we're not doing that anymore. I'm not. And you shouldn't either. Not unless you want to get shoot out by Heather again. Sorry. I'm back. Are you still there? Hello? Hello?

Well, that was a nice distraction. A break like that is needed to get through the banality of this. Colin, you're back on the air. Guess you got tired of waiting. I passed the time scrolling through video feeds of people falling down on my phone. It's brain rot, but it makes the day bearable. I get a few more calls and try to be as helpful as I can. One hangs up as soon

complaint about being transferred as if I'm not on the phone and then hangs up on me too. I go back

“to my very important business when I noticed something weird. Well, more than weird.”

Something that just shouldn't be. A small hole on my desk. And I don't mean one that was cut there. I mean, something that came out of a bug's bunny cartoon. I rub my eyes and it's gone.

Like it was never there. It must be from staring at my phone for too long.

Yeah, account management. Hello? I need help. Sounds like whoever Doug was talking to earlier. What can I help you with? So, you can help me? I can assist you with general account services, preferences and security. Are you alone? And take a peek around the office. Doug has his back to me.

“Everyone else is just quiet. Damn, this place feels hollow. Relatively?”

Are you alone? Just you and me, pal. But this call may be recorded for it's black. That's all. All of it. It's relentless. I keep seeing it over and over again. There is no light. Is this a cable issue or? There's nothing to film. Nothing can fill it.

It's empty, but endless all at the same time. The first it was in the ground that seems simple enough, right?

It went down and down into the earth and yet it was flat. My child saw and so did my wife. It's kind of funny, actually. How they trickled down into it. A dark abyss. An endless maw. They didn't come to dinner. A few nights passed and it only grew. A joke, I thought. A hole burrowing into my mind. But on the third day, my wife returned with no child in sight. And all she remembers was the darkness. All she wanted to remember was that same endless void we saw everywhere.

It was in our house. It was in our soup. It was in the floorboards that were loose. It was

the shape of our bowls and the wheels of our car that spun round and round so far. It was in our clothes. It was in our eyes. And yesterday, the hall surprised. Surprise you? What did they do? Doug, are you? I looked at Doug, but he isn't there. Nothing is there. Not his cubicle. Not the office. It's all black. I stand and look around. The office is gone. Just me, my cubicle, and the black.

“I don't even think about stepping outside my little box. Am I asleep?”

Did I have an aneurysm? Colin, I need to see you for a minute. I'm back in the office. They're just looking at me from a door with their usual disappointed expression. I look around, still in the days and see something under my desk that wasn't there before. A hole. The same hole from before. It's edges are smooth. The inside is pitch black. Like it goes nowhere. It's like it's painted on, but I know it has depth to it.

I rub my eyes, thinking they're playing tricks on me again. The hole doesn't go away. Colin, now please. I said across Heather's desk, because she drones on about all the ways I'm fucking up. I don't hear her though. I can only focus on the poke dots on her blouse. They're like black holes. They dance across her chest. Some merging with others like a gothosmosis.

Colin. This is what I'm talking about. What? Look up Colin. You make people feel uncomfortable. You're making me feel uncomfortable right now.

It's customer service Colin. Show me you know what that means or you're gone.

Customer service. I write that in big bald letters on a sticky note and stick it to my computer screen. There. How could I ever forget now? As soon as my new decoration is posted, I fumbled the pin I was holding. And it rolls off my desk and into the hole, which is still there. Staring at me. I examined it but seen nothing through its inky depths.

I count management. More complaining about some overpriced bill.

“Why even answer when there's more important things to worry about?”

Sure. Sure. Well, I'm sorry. Please hold. I hang up. Like I said, more important things. I shine my phone's flashlight down the hall, which does nothing to penetrate the dark. Except I feel like I can see something. The outline of a face staring back at me.

No readable features. I can't even be sure it is a face. But I can't stop looking at it. That's when my phone slips from my hand. I try to catch it but it falls in, disappearing forever. And the whole gross. It doesn't grow by much. Maybe an inch or so, but holy shit.

I do what any reasonable person would do and get a second opinion.

Doug can't stop looking at it any more than I can. It grow, stick your dick in it.

“No. It won't fit anyways. The pen fit. Do you even know where that goes?”

A groundless stapler from my desk can drop it down the hole. It gets a tiny bit bigger. Did you see it? We started dropping whatever we could find. We grab a note pad. Then customer contracts I probably should have filed first. I take my sticky note with customer service written on it and drop it down. Each time the hole grows a little bit more. We want some paper and play hoops.

Seeing who can score the most points. I win. Doug gets the idea to tie a string around his phone and, with camera recording and light on, lower it into the hole. When we pull it back up, however, we just get a black screen. I don't know what else I expected. Calling my office.

Great. Just when we're on to something. I leave Doug to stare at the black screen so I can get yelled at by Heather. Apparently, I've ignored 10 calls in the past half hour. I can't even focus on billing complaints when there's a metaphysical anomaly under my desk. I drag her back to my cubicle and try to explain to her just that.

“I know. I know. But I really think you need to have the mahemian skies look at this.”

The hole is gone. Like it was never there.

And so is Doug. What? It was a big hole here in Doug. Doug? I don't see him anywhere. Not in his cubicle or anywhere in the office. I see you already cleaned your desk. Good. Because you're fired. Will mail your check. What the hell? Heather was right. My desk is pretty much cleaned. I just have my backpack and my un-eaten lunch to take with me.

I contemplate picking it up and just being real nasty to whoever's on the line. But, fuck it. I don't care anymore. I look back to Heather's office to see if she's still flowering at me. She's not there. Strange? I saw her go inside just a minute ago. As I leave, I pass Doug's cubicle. I plan to keep walking. Maybe Doug was in the bathroom or something. But then I see it. The hole takes up more than half of Doug's cubicle floor.

I think I actually see something down there. Well, he named for a better look.

Why'd I? Like a lost child? He doesn't look right. He seems broken. A sliver of light from the

“office cuts across his eyes and I can't see much below his shoulders. Doug? What the fuck are”

you doing down there? He doesn't say anything. He just holds a hand out. I dropped my bag and kneeled to give him a hand up. What he doesn't want help. He extends both hands past mine and grabs the back of my head. Before I can do anything, he pulls me down and I'm back at my desk. And I'm exhausted. Was I dreaming? I don't must have been a dream. My desk is a mess. Papers, sticky notes, staplers all strewn about. It's everything we drop down the hole.

It's then I notice how quiet everything is. I don't see anyone else in the office. But what I do see is knocked over cards. Water coolers hold cubicles that have been wrecked.

“Some fluorescence flicker. When I walk the floor, I find things much worse than property damage.”

Bloodstained streak the floor in some of the walls. I'm acutely aware of how dead everything sounds. There's no reverberation to anything. It feels like I'm walking through a sound treated movie theater. Like I'm in a vacuum. The farther I walk down the hall, the thicker the blood stains become. Every cubicle I pass is empty and trashed until I reach the last one on this row.

The smell hits me first. It's rotten and smells like roadkill.

Five bloody bodies are piled on top of each other. They're butchered. Some missing limbs while others are disemboweled.

“They all have these strange black marks covering the skin.”

It looks as if their flesh was pushed in like something tried to burrow inside of them. Before I can get a better look at them, the bathroom door swings open. You lumber is out at the back. Covered in someone else's blood. And drags the body behind them by its front teeth like itself. Fucking bowling ball! It stops when he sees me. My heart pounds and heard a bursting. I can't explain the way he looks at

me. It's just... cold. It drops the body and springs to me faster than I ever thought he could move. It's time to get the fuck out of here. We weave through a maze of cubicles dodging knocked over walls and desks. In my peripheral I can see more body piles tucked away. Now look back and see Doug coming at me like a goddamn silverback. I have to go back through him to get to the exit.

I choose the only option I have. I take a sharp right into Heather's office and slam the door shut. Doug crashes against it from the outside and it's all I can do to hold it closed. He slows down. I can see his shadow under the door as he moves away.

Finally, a moment to breathe.

Why didn't you tell me, Colin? Heather is standing behind her desk facing towards the window. Her back to me. Finally, something normal. But that's when I notice there's no sunlight coming in. Outside is just... Black.

Why didn't you tell me I had holes in my clothes? There's so many of them that go nowhere. Pointless little things. It's okay though. I took care of them.

And I notice that her blouse looks different.

The black and white of the polka dots is stained red and torn.

“Stab wounds for every dot. Heather, well, why don't you sit down?”

But why didn't you tell me there were holes in my face? So many that go nowhere. In perfect, I couldn't do it myself. He helped me though. Who? She turns around. And I nearly run back out and take my chances with Doug.

Her eyes are gone. Not gouged out. Gun. Replaced with black voids. Like oh void go for holes that bore into her face, stretching the skin around her cheeks. Now take no more than two steps back and bump into Doug. A hole in the floor behind him is closing as he climbs out.

“I think about all the days I wanted to quit and wish I had the nerve to do it sooner.”

Before I can finish that thought, Doug's hands wrap around my neck and he slams me to the ground. The flail against him. But Doug's a big dude. I managed to neem in the John break his grip long enough to get out of that office and back to the main floor. I don't get very far before he tackles me from behind and we crash into a cubicle. His arm wraps around my neck and he squeezes, cutting off my blood flow.

I could feel myself getting lightheaded. I reached for anything on the desk above my head. They pulled down a phone unit and it lands just out of reach. Doug uses his free head and digs his fingers into my arm. They push flesh aside. Skin folding around them and blood oozes out. It's like he's boring into my arm.

It feels like someone sticking a hot iron inside of me.

Finally, I find a pair of scissors on my desk and stab Doug. I don't know what I hit.

But it must have hurt because his grip finally slackens. It gives me just enough freedom to grab the phone and bring it across his temple. It knocks him down and I crawl on top of him bashing the phone against his head. I don't stop. I keep bringing that fucking landline down on Doug's head over and over until it breaks and falls apart and he stops moving.

There's blood everywhere. On the cubicle walls, my shirt, my face, what's left of the phone? When breathing goes from frantic and heavy to calm, there's no one in there's office anymore, but it's still black outside or windows.

I can finally look for a way out of this place.

At least I think that. But when I stand, I find myself in the black void once more. No cubicles, no bloody wreck, no bodies, no office, just me alone in the black. It won't end. I just want it to be over. It's like a neverending loop that goes around and round and down into some hellish rabbit hole. But then, there's a desk.

A phone sits there. A red light blinks on the phone. The light seems calming and for a moment and drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

“For some reason, it's the only thing that feels normal right now.”

On the desk, in front of me, is my sticky note that reads "Customer's service." Now splattered with Doug's blood. Or maybe mine. I pick up the phone. Hello? Yes. Hi. Who is this? Can you help me? Oh, is this? There was a hole. It just showed up. It took my pin. It took my stapler and my phone and it grew.

But then it was everywhere. Still black. Still devoid of light. It was here

“then there. Then my friend crawled in. He wanted me to follow. Then it burled. Burled everywhere.”

It bore into our clothes or skin. Face. Face. My arms. My arms. I made it quiet again. I made the whole quiet and then it was gone. Where? Where did it go? Please hold. Hello? Can you help me? There was a hole. It was small and had no light.

It made no sound. It had no wind.

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visit hymns.com. Now let's plunge back into the deep waters of horror. Now that story was appropriate because as we move on to the next area we have to avoid a lot of holes in the floor. Follow the tape I put down on the floor and you'll be okay. Oh, what's that? Oh, I don't really know what's underneath this place. I assume just water. Dark, fetid swampy water full of creatures that might or might not be of this world. Hmm, seems fitting

enough. And listen, if you fall into a hole, I'll need to rush it to the hospital and there are some hospitals around here I'd like to avoid. Thank you very much. Like Hillsbury Memorial. That one is so bad because, uh, well, I'm, uh, I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't want to spoil the story written by our low-velle. In it's, we meet a doctor who has a late night patient, one who's looking for a special kind of treatment. They had the cast of Graham Rowett,

Aaron Lillis, Mary Murphy, and Kyle Akers performing this one. So like I said, avoid the holes, avoid the hospital. That way, you won't be the new admission room six.

Beatrice, the unit secretary has a voice that sounds like a tired driving over gravel, and that's

“before it's broadcast through the speaker. I groan and pass a hand over my stubble,”

glancing at my watch. 204 AM. My eyelids are sandpaper. The on-call room is bathed in the fluorescent blue of the 1990s desktop in the corner. The decaying mattress beneath me screeches as I swing my legs over the edge. I pick up my white coat and toss my stethoscope around my neck, and interrupted nap is sticky in my mouth. Using a foot, I push a trash can turned door stop. The door in all its decrepitude doesn't latch, and it certainly doesn't lock. It slowly opens on its own,

squeaking on rusted hinges. On my way, I mutter to nobody. The hall is empty. I'm the only doctor

in the hospital tonight. The air is humid, laced with the scent of vinegar-based cleaning solution

“and stale linens. A cockroach skitters across the floor. Four more days.”

Four days until I collect my check and leave Hillsbury Memorial for good. Then onto the next job where their desperate for coverage and willing to pay through the nose for it. Each of my steps is an echoing slap on the cracked aluminum tiles. Hillsbury Memorial has spared every possible expense. I've worked in 2,000 shit hole hospitals scattered up and down Appalachia, isolated buildings buried in the forests of forgotten rural townships. Hillsbury though is a real standout. The whole

buildings seem to be practicing for the day it will be abandoned, a day in the very near future. I walk through sliding glass doors that are permanently stuck open and into the pediatrics wing. Half of the fluorescent lights are burnt out and the other half hum like bug zappers. Peeling swaths of pastel blue wallpaper reveal chipped yellowing paint. At the end of the whole way sits room 6. Molly, the only nurse on with me tonight is waiting. Her platinum blonde hair

is pulled back in a tight ponytail. She's got enough blue eyeshadow to make her clown feel underdressed, a pink bubble blows from her lips and pops. We have some business tonight after all. I nod at the room, thought it'd be us and Beatrice till dawn. Molly's eyes roll in response and she shakes her head. Guess you could call it that. What are they here for? I bring out a small notebook from my white coat pocket. How old? Molly looks at the floor. I don't know.

Don't know why they're here or how old? How old? All right. Molly has been a nurse for a long time. This is an inexplicably bad take. Then what about why they're here? Molly turns to me, brings her hand to her face so she can chew on her long acrylics at the same time as her gum.

“Mr. and Mrs. Doorbecker brought it in from South Paul. Are they still here?”

Nah, you know Jim. She nods as if that was an explanation. No? I don't.

What I keep to myself is that these metal of nowhere locals always feel the same. I can picture

the truck they drove here in. I don't even have to ask. Molly continues. No acknowledgement of my denial. Jim Doorbecker told me all about it. Wait, he says he and the Mrs. Doorbecker were in bed and a bright flash lit up there window. Right as a devil himself, Jim, it said. They jumped out of bed and looked out saw some sort of receding light from the center of their corn. He said it had to be a mile and a half into the crop. There was smoke. I nod, budding the inside of my cheek to keep any

expression from sneaking out of my face. I slide my notebook back into my pocket. Molly is staring at the ceiling now and doesn't seem to notice my eyes glaze. So of course it being Jim they drove out there. Found a smoldering ring of corn the size of a swimming pool. Right there in the middle of it all is a kid. Our new patient. But make it staring straight up at the sky. Not a mark or char or piece of soda on him. I sigh and it comes out more ragged and harsher than I expect.

So they find a lost kid in the middle of their corn field. Grab him, throw him in their truck, drop him off at the hospital and then decide to just leave. They live two hours out. They called

Didn't even say hi to Beatrice. Of course. Four more days. I pump hand sanitizer from the wall

“mount a dispenser and turn toward the door. I support full fills my nose. You coming in?”

Molly shakes her head, her ponytail whipping from the motion. Just tell me what you need. She spends on her heels and leaves. I blow a breath out my nose. I'm going make this fast and get back to my sleep. I step through the door still rubbing the greasy hand sanitizer into my skin. Hey there bud, I'm my voice trails off. The kid, my patient, is standing motionless in the center of the room. He's facing the window. Back to me. Slowly, he turns around. An old hospital gown with

faded orange polka dots hangs off him like tattered drapes swaying with every small step.

The hospital bed behind him looks untouched. I'll give Molly this much. I have no idea how old he is. He's short. Probably three and a half feet tall. His eyes seem older, settled in sunken sockets. They're open wide. Gray like rainwater on concrete. His arms and legs are thinner than the rest of his frame. He's got no hair. Not only no hair on his head but no eyebrows

“or eyelashes. Shit. I think. Could he be an oncology patient? Hair loss from chemotherapy? What kind”

of bizarre infections could he have picked up in the middle of a corn field? I'd clear my throat.

Children feed off the emotions of the adults around them. I gather all the professional

friendliness I can muster and force a smile that feels like a mask. Just feel like standing, huh? I shrug and spread my hands out. The universal sign of "I'm not a threat." His eyes dart to meet mine. A tiny smile purchased on his razor thin lips. He whispers something too quietly for me to hear. "Sorry, champ, what was that?" "Cut in." I take a half step forward. "Cut in." A car. Doris. "His voice is louder but flat. My smile, teachers. Oh, who is Doris?" "Cut in."

“"Car to worth." His voice is cracking with urgency bordering on panic. His body remains”

perfectly still while the skin around his mouth pulls taught with every forced word. "Okay, okay, okay. It's okay." I step forward quickly. My stoop down to his level. Arms opened. "You're safe here. Everything is fine." He clamps his mouth shut and his teeth clack. "I pat the bed." "Come on. Let's move over here." He does, shuffling over then quietly crawling into the bed. I fold a star-cheat burlap sack like

sheets up and over his legs. He stays setting upright rather than lying back on the pillow. "What's your name?" He stared at me. The corners of his lips turn off almost imperceptibly. His eyes are as widely open as possible. His hairless skin is perfectly smooth, porcelain. None of the furrows or wrinkles or IV site scars you'd expect from a chronically ill child. He looks plastic. "How old are you?" He continues to stare. "Okay, then. I take the chance to

look him over. No burns, no bruising, not even dirt. From the periphery of my vision I watch and wait for him to blink. He doesn't. How old are you?" His head twitches. "What's your name?" His voice is chaoticly musical, bouncing up and down in non-sensical intonations. I swallow before answering, finding my mouth is dry. Dr. Richard. "Now, what's yours?" He waits a moment. "Richer." "Wow!" I say, trying hard to sound casual.

Crazy coincidence. I might need to call you richy so we don't get confused. No reaction. I'm going to listen to your heart, Richie. I pull my stethoscope from around my neck and place it on his chest. The rustle of clothes fills my ears as I adjust. Then, nothing. I reposition, though I'm certain it's the right spot. I'm not new at this. Still nothing. I pull it off his body, running my fingers over the rubber tubing, searching for a crack or

from Richie's chest. He jolts. His entire body lurches like he's been electrocuted. He's fast.

“In an instant, he's leaning forward. Back rigid, grasping my wrist. It's tight.”

Vice-like. Stronger than any kid's grip should be no matter their age. Get in the car, Dr. Richard. His voice is ice water pouring down my back. Something primal inside of me is thrashing and wailing, and all I can think is, run. My breath catches. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. I'm sinking. Far below the world of calm logic. My vision is dark around the edges. Waves of panic are crashing

overhead. I might pass out. What's happening? The pain in my wrist booze me back to the surface. It hurts. Richie's grip is actually hurting me. I blink once. Twice. Three times. I reach out, slowly peeling back his fingers one at a time. He lets me remove his hand,

“and he lays backward onto the pillow. There's a tiny smile on his lips. He's just staring.”

It's okay. You're okay. I lean back out of his reach. Exhale through first lips.

Richie's gaze drifts to my stethoscope. With one slender, twig-like finger he points to the center of his chest. A tiny smile flickers. Then he's gone. I do not want to be in this room. Not with this child. It feels like I'm choking on smoke. He just needs to be observed overnight. He looks fine. I'm going to leave. Go to sleep. Walking backward, I reach the door and turn off the light. We'll figure this all out in the morning. I grip the metal of the door handle,

and it feels warm. The moment my finger is meet metal, his voice shatters the silence.

I don't think the door is this going to make it. I can't find my voice to say anything back.

“I give a single nod and walk out. I lie in bed chasing sleep, but the sleep is faster.”

My eyes are closed. My white coat is draped over the PC to block the light. The trash can wedges the door shut. Still, I can't sleep. I turn over again in the caught groans. Static from the overhead speaker erupts. It crackles and hisses, but no voice comes through. Come on, Beatrice. I keep my eyes shut tight, refusing to give up whatever little ground I have gained towards sleep. I will Beatrice to realize she's sitting on the intercom. She doesn't.

Through the static, there is a soft heaving. It sounds like heavy gasps. The intercom cuts out, and the sudden vacuum of silence makes my ears feel like they popped. I squeeze my eyes tighter in frustration. A scraping sound. A column of yellow light hits my face, dulled, but not stopped by my eyelids. Another soft scrape. I set up right. The door is cracked open. The trash can is still there, but it's been pushed back.

There's a blur of motion in the light. Hey! I swing my legs around and get tangled in the sheet. I kick it off. The mattress sounding like a trampoline underneath me. I jump from bed and fling the door open, sending the trash can flying with a metallic crash. I look up and down the hallway. There's nobody. But I can hear the slapping sound of feet, bare feet running around the corner. I walk quickly down the hall. I shove a wayward linen basket

and the wheel's squeak as it rolls off. There's a different sound to head. More heavy breathing. It gets louder. More frantic. More laborer as I get closer. I spin around the corner. The mattress is there. Sitting on the ground, her back plastered against the wall. Deep purple rivers are running down her face as tears lead to mascara. The dark stains poison the collar of her white blouse. Molly is crouched next to her, rubbing her back.

Beatrice must have heard my steps because she looks up. Her eyes are bloodshot, her cheeks even puffier and redder than normal. Her typically tight bun has wild strands and tangled whispers. What's going on? I look from Beatrice to Molly, then back to Beatrice. Was somebody just running? Molly opens her mouth to speak, but not before Beatrice whales. She's dead. Her head falls forward into her hands and sobs rock her body. What?

Who's dead? Her neighbor, Mr. Becker. She...

“God, there was an accident. On the ambulance radio, we were at the just chatting and they called it in and”

Beatrice heaves a fresh round of sobs. She breaks into a coughing fifth. Molly pats her back a few times. Doorbecker. The same doorbeckers who just dropped off Richie. Must have happened while they were driving home. It's been less than an hour. Beatrice crying makes me feel sick to my stomach. What about Mr. Doorbecker? Jim. Maybe not the right time for a question, but if he was hurt and going to be brought to the hospital, then I ought to know. Molly scrunches her brow and shakes her head.

I don't know. We... well, we heard a lot through the radio. It was only the one body.

Beatrice throws her head back, hitting the wall with a sudden. She doesn't flinch. Instead wiping

“her dripping face with a sleeve. Color drains from my face. My cheeks are cold and my hands”

buzz with pins and needles. Dooress. You said? Dooress? Molly glares at me. Raising her eyebrows up and cocking her head sideways. Clearly, I'm happy with my bedside manner. How about you grab us tissues from the supply room? I don't know what to think about the tissues or about Beatrice sobbing on the floor or about that name. Why dooress? Doctor. Molly points down the hole to

the supply room. Now. Right, I'll be right back. I walk off because there's nothing left to do,

and nothing appropriate to ask. With every step down the hole Beatrice's crying gets softer. By the time I'm at the supply room door, it's a faint rhythmic murmur in the background.

“Like a heartbeat. I swipe my badge on a reader and the lock clicks. Before I open it, I hear a crash”

from inside, like an aluminum box falling to the ground, warbling and reverberating. Slowly, I pull the door. It swings open without a sound. I flip the light switch, but nothing happens. I flick the switch back and forth and back and forth. Nothing. The dark inside the supply room is impenetrable. Another small metal clang from inside the room. I lurch back, still holding the handle. I should pull out my phone, shine a light inside. I do not. I don't reach for my phone.

Instead, the door slips through my sweating fingers and out of my grasp. It shuts with a click. The hallway is perfectly quiet now except for my own breath. My breath which sounds unnaturally loud, stem peeding through the air. Loud as if somebody else were breathing into my ears. I breathe in and hold it. Listen. Nothing. No crying. No voices. No steps. Forget the tissues. I head back to Molly and Beatrice, almost jogging.

Supply room was locked. I say unwilling to say anything different. Molly, can you look in the bright room for... They aren't there. On the ground is one crumpled tissue, straight with wet makeup. Next to it, one of Beatrice's shoes, a swayed flag with a pink bow. Molly? Beatrice? Not even my echo answers me. They must have moved. The hospital is a big square, the nursing break room on the opposite corner. That's where they have to be.

I start walking down the hole, leaving the shoe. I plant each heel carefully, dropping my foot slowly to try and keep from making a sound. I pass by closed door after closed door, empty patient rooms. I should check on Richie. But I don't want to. I don't particularly want to check on Beatrice, but I need to. The break room is empty. The lights are off and won't turn on no matter how many times I flip the switch. This time I do shine my phone's light into the room,

though I don't go as far as to step in. A small couch is wedged between two stacks of gray lockers. The fridge in the corner is humming. It smells like Beatrice's perfume, but there are no people here. I turn back and forth, glancing down either hallway. A big square. Either way will end up in the same place. Still I can't choose which to take. Both seem dimmer than they did at the start of my shift, as if the fluorescent lights were one by one surrendering to the night time. Or, more likely,

Outages probably happen all the time. I'm about to take a step when the intercom explodes.

“Static is loud as an airplane engine pours from the speaker directly over head.”

The sound crushing me beneath its weight. I cover my ears and it doesn't help. It shuts off. My ears are ringing. Through the ringing, there are footsteps, flat, slapping, quick, footsteps, and a hell, a screeching, high-pitched wine of a feedback loop bleeds from the speaker. Before my hands make it back to my ears, it cuts out. Fuck this. I'm going to call the sheriff. Forced them to help me find Molly and Beatrice.

Forced them to take some ownership over Richie. I don't care how late it is, or how stupid I

look or how they'll ridicule me for being an out-of-towner to easily spooked. I pull out myself, but I won't turn on. I tap it against my hand, slap it against my thigh. The squeak of a linen cart jerks my eyes back down the hallway I just come from. There's a small body,

“standing at the far end, draped in shadow. Hello? Richie? Richie, is that you?”

Even from here, I see his head tilt to the side, falling and bobbing at the end of a slack neck. There's a shoe in his hand, with a little bow. The air smells like smoke and ozone. Richie? Go back to your room right now. I tried to muster authority, but only find frailty. I need you to go back. Back to your room now. He takes one step forward. His foot slapping hard against the tile with a thwap. He holds out his arm. One impossibly long finger

points directly at me. Richie! I try to say, but my throat is tree bark, and no sound comes out. Get in. Uh, car. Richard? His voice is crisp and echoless, as much inside my head as out.

“Richie, please! The air is viscous. The smell of smoke is growing. My eyes burn.”

The light of a richie snaps out. His silhouette disappears. Richie screams. It's broken glass against my ears. Get in. Uh, car. Dr. Richard? No. Run. The word heaves in my mind, and this time, I listen. I sprint down the hallway, the dark at my back. The pit-pat pit-pat pit-pat of small staccato footsteps follows behind me. My sneakers thud and squeak.

The head is an exit sign. A side door. I skied to a stop, grabbing the handle. It burns my palm and I jerk away. Heat radiates from the door. Pitch black smoke is bleeding through the bottom of the door. I sputter on the acrid air. It's getting louder. This exit won't work. I don't look back. I just run. My feet hammered the ground and my legs burn. I round the corner, sliding into a metal tray full of instruments which clatters to the ground and the symphony of clangs. Blood pounds in my ears.

There's a second emergency exit past my call room. I just have to make it there.

He'll hear the alarm. It doesn't matter. Get in. The screeches impossibly loud. Like feedback in the speaker, like a record scratching. I turn one more corner and the green blowing letters of the emergency exit sign are visible. I'm there in three strides moving fast. I crash into the metal door at a full sprint. Pain sears through my arm. The alarm bell starts ringing but the door doesn't open. No, no, no, no, no. I can't lift my right arm. I try and it's only pain.

I bring my leg up and kick the door. Kick it again. The metal groans, but only budges an inch. The footsteps are so close. Every slap against the floor is if it were directly underneath me. I kick again. Metal grinds and the door moves another half inch. I kick again. Something cracks in my knee and new pain shoots through my leg. The alarm is still ringing. Blaring, giving me away. I scream and kick with everything I have. Rusted hinges grind and

creak and snap, but the door swings open. Blinding light-like pours in from where there should

burnt hair. What the? A tiny hand presses into my back. It's so cold it burns.

Get in the car. Everything goes black. The horror keeps flowing. After a word from the folks who make all this free content possible. Did you know I was 45 years old when I started this podcast? And if I've been doing this for 15 years, that means I'm now... well, I'm now looking for ways to look after my body and get it

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“Did you know this area is famous for strange lights in the sky over the ocean?”

Yep, it's true. Orbs and lights and who knows what kinds of alien crafts are out there. Between those things and the general hauntedness of the area, there were plenty of people who came here to experience the bizarre. In fact, they hold fan conventions throughout the year here. Very popular. And speaking of fan conventions, Maddie Jones is attending one and she's hoping to get some attention on her indie filmmaking. It's a change from her previous career.

This tale was written by author Zalina Alvi, and in it Maddie meets a fan with an odd request, but who is Maddie to disagree? Let's hear the voices of Nicole Doeland,

“Waffier White, and Ellie Hirschman perform this tale. And while it might not be as scary as the”

Cape Fear River, you'll want to make sure you don't return to Shiver Creek. Aren't you the witch from Shiver Creek? I'm tempted to say no to the pale rath in the deadpool tea shirt, who's cycled up to me in the corner of the green room. But I know from experience that denying it is futile. He'll just take out his phone, pull up a photo of me from the show,

back when I was fresh out of drama school, and still had dreams about making it big in Hollywood. And say, are you sure you look just like her? I don't, for the record, look anything like I did 30 years ago. I no longer have that long lustrous red hair. I wear it short and gray now. I'm hiding a pair of stage four crow's feet behind thick black glasses, which I'm pretty sure aren't fooling anyone. And my breasts, I'm sad to say,

have long been anything but perky. But, like I said, it's futile. To the stunted adults who

I checked deadpool guys badge, which has a pronoun pin on the land yard and is fist tuned

with a colorful tale of ribbons that say things like, 'Opurs my game to be here, and Han shot first.'

Below his name, Dan Malois, my ammy screen first film festival. Maybe this won't be a total waste of time. That's me, but it was only for five seasons and that was all a lifetime ago. I love that show when I was a kid. Great. Seriously, I used to have the theme song as my ringtone.

“Dan pulls out his phone and for a nauseating second, I think he's going to play it. Right here”

with the actors from the latest walking dead spin-off, mingling at the snack table with an air shot.

Or when he opens his camera app instead, the wave of nauseous subsides, replaced with a familiar

tension in my shoulders. Can we get a quick selfie? Of course. Dan's cold limparm feels like a tube of a yogurt against my silk blouse. Despite this and despite the fact that he's probably going to post the photo on social media, with a caption that identifies me as Celeste Hawthorne, the town witch from Shiver Creek instead of my real name, Maddie Jones. Possibly with a ridiculous cartoon witch hat pasted non-consensually above my head. It's happened before. I smile.

I'm nothing if not a professional. After he takes the photo, I say, "I'm actually a filmmaker now." Oh yeah. I give my practice pitch for plastic can't scream but you can. My one and only feature film, which is about a sixth doll that comes to life and methodically murders a string of fret boys. As I list the handful of film festivals where it's already screened, Dan's eyes start roaming around the room. Sounds cool. Very hashtag me too.

His eyes land on an actor who has a small role in Jordan Peel's newest movie.

“My sense our conversation is over. I'd be happy to send you a review link if you want to take a look.”

Yeah sure. He hands me his card. As he leaves, he quotes the Shiver Creek tag line at me while doing finger guns. "B brace yourself for Shivers!" Who should I make it out to? I ask without looking up. My marker is poised over the photo I've selected for this convention. It's a still from season two episode four. The secret staircase. In it, my 26 year old cell stands before a stone altar in a purple robe and matching pointy hat.

Lounding next to me on a tasseled pillow is my mumified talking cat Simon,

who hailed from Egypt but had a snooty English accent for reasons that were never explained.

“My smooth young hands are raised mid-spell over a bubbling cauldron.”

While Celeste's signature accessory, a gold ring with a ruby clasped and four sharply clawed prongs, gleams from my left hand. Pointy hat notwithstanding, I look super hot. I actually wore something else for you to sign. Do you mind? My signing hand goes limp as a blue ray copy of plastic can't scream is placed on the black table cloth. I raise my head to look at the person who must have been one of the 17 people who bought a copy

off my website. It's a frumpy middle-aged brown woman, maybe 10 years my junior, with a limp graying hair, no makeup and black t-shirt one size too small, clinging to her love handles. Her nervous smile is so big it's stretching her round shiny face like a balloon on the verge of popping. You're a fan of this movie. Oh yeah, it's such a wild spin on the revenge slasher trope and the practical effects for

plastic Sarah? I mean come on, Tim Burton should be taking notes. I feel my face go red. It's an obvious bit of hyperbolic flattery, but it's also the nicest

you to say. I revive my signing hand and your name Sarah. I scroll my autograph and trade the

“signed Blu-ray for $320 bills, which I place in the cash box under the table.”

Instead of moving aside Sarah looks back at the line, which is respectable. If not as long as the one on the other side of the convention floor, where the kid from the new hot HBO show is doing photo ops for a whopping $150 ahead. I have to make another 40 people feel seen and appreciated before I can pocket my measly earnings. Grab an over-priced hotel sandwich and return to my room for a bubble bath in a martini. I hope this isn't our line, but I host a podcast about woman and

horror and I would love to have you as a guest. Can we talk about it over lunch maybe?

Oh um there's actually a contact form on my website for stuff like this just so I can look over the request properly. You understand. Oh of course, but I don't think the form is working.

“I did try that at first. Otherwise I would have bothered you like this. I know you must be very busy.”

I'm not surprised about the form. I get so few emails through the site that a malfunction is hard to catch. My heart was set on the bubble bath. The martini and the marathon of storage wars episodes that's sure to be on television all afternoon. But then again, how often do I get to talk to someone who respects my work as an O-Tour? Am I treat? Let's meet in the hotel bar in an hour. My resolve falters when I see what they're charging for a martini in this place.

A free lunch is supposed to be one of the few perks of toiling away in this cool business, but the bill isn't being paid by some TV exec, hoping to capitalize on 90s nostalgia, or a trust fund kid looking for someone just like me to play someone's grandmother in a supernatural allegory about dementia, being paid by a podcaster. Then again, it's martini time. I've earned it. Please, order whatever you like, Maddie. Really?

Okay, I guess I'll have a martini please. Extra dry two olives. Just a nice deep in me please. Sarah's just lingers in the air, shaming me as the waiter leaves to get our drinks. We're mostly alone. The convention goers are circling the perimeter of the bar in the center of the hotel's masonine. They're present stalled by the dim lighting and softly playing jazz.

The handful of people scattered at the other tables look like extras in a scene where Sarah and are the leads, where the way they move their mouths but make no sound. This is such a thrill. Thank you so much for doing this. Not at all. So tell me about your podcast. It's the interview format. I talk to a different female identifying creative working in the horror industry each week. It's called Moths Feets A Use, which is Latin for Death Becomes Her.

I smile at the awful name while skimming the lunch menu. The lobster ravioli looks good,

“but that's probably a step too far given the martini. Who else have you interviewed so far?”

Daniela Brookside? She's the author of Beneath the Black Sea. Do you know it? No. I decide in the Cobb salad, which is half the price of the ravioli. It's this great collection of eerie stories. A little Kafka, a little atwood, with a dash of cosmic horror. It's independently published but very professional. I have so much respect for indie creators as one myself. So horror books too then.

Absolutely. Books, movies, TV, music, I don't discriminate. It's great. Here I'll subscribe right now. I pull up my phone and open my podcast app. How do you spell

more spit? What was it? Well, it's not actually up yet. I'm getting a few episodes in the hopper first.

problems and then the whole thing might die on the birthing table. Happens all the time. I see. So you don't really have a podcast yet. No, but I- Then what is it that you do fall time? For money. Sarah fondles the edge of her napkin. She looks like a child who knows they've been caught lying. I'm an ad job professor at Western.

Teaching horror. The folklore. The waiter arrives with our drinks. Sarah orders a BLT. I get the lobster ravioli. But enough about me. I want to talk about your movies. I've seen all your shorts, too. Not just plastic hands green. Where did you get the idea for? I can see you from above a hundred miles below.

I stretch an arm along the back of my chair swirling my drink in my other hand.

Mermaids have always been intriguing to me. They're these beautiful but also

grow test creatures that only appear to humans in liminal spaces. Shorelines and where the surface of the ocean meets the air. Do they even exist? When we can't observe them? And if so, how might they differ? It's a fascinating question. Not that I think I adequately answered it in the film. But the role of the artist is to ask questions not to provide answers.

I sip from my drink while talking, but Sarah hasn't even touched her yet. She's listening so rapidly. She looks like a talking doll waiting to be pressed in the right spot.

“You must have some interesting thoughts about this yourself as a professor of folklore.”

It's not really my area, a specialty. What is? Are you working on anything new right now? I have a few ideas floating around, simmering on the back burner. But shouldn't she be saving these questions for the podcast? Or could you record us now? Oh no, the acoustics in here are awful and I don't have my equipment.

I always feel my rehearsals. You never know when magic is going to happen. We can go straight to the recording after lunch. If you're game, you've got a room in the hotel. No, but I live nearby. I can drive us. I pause with the martini at my lips.

At bit of advice to never let yourself be taken to a second location has popped into my head.

But that's silly. I'm not being kidnapped. Sarah's harmless. Better than harmless. She's a fan who knows my whole uvra.

“Besides, the hotel bar would be the second location, wouldn't it?”

Which makes Sarah's house the third? I swallow the rest of my drink and consider having another. I fiddle with the radio and Sarah's boxy old sedan until I find some classic rock. It's two martinis swirling in my blood. I tap my fingers on my knees and watch the downtown core give way to sprawling warehouses and cheap motels.

So where did you first see plastic hand screen? Was it after dark film festival? That was a

sold out screening. Yes, I believe it works. There were a few walkouts, but they're always

all. I don't know how people end up at a screening that's not on their wavelength from the slightest. Sorry, I should concentrate on my driving. Oh, okay. I look around the car for anything of interest. A souvenir dangling from the rear view mirror, a pet carrier in the back seat, coins in the cup holder, garbage, but there's nothing. It may as well be a rental car. As forever in blue jeans ends, I realize we've been driving for a while.

The warehouses have transitioned to farmland, which is now turning into long expenses of dark

“dense evergreen's. My buzz is starting to fade and I have to pee. How much father is it?”

Almost there. Well, I try to determine how far we are from the hotel. Sarah turns on to a

potholes filled with ice roughing by fallen twigs. You're really out in the boonies.

“I like the quiet. I must be handy for recording podcasts.”

We follow a curve in the road until a little stone house appears on the right. Sarah parks next to a plant or filled with red trillions frozen in stasis and hops out. As she unlocks the front door, I stare at the gargoyle knocker below the people. It looks vaguely familiar. Stepping into the house is like entering an organ, a womb, maybe, or a stomach. Everything is soft and red, plushed couches, tassled throw pillows, thick carpets, floral

tapestries hanging on the walls, beyond the sunken living room is a dining area that flows into a kitchen

on the right. Two long windows on the back wall look into the backyard, in the fading afternoon light. The weed choke to lawn is tingeed with an unnatural orange glow. Nice place. I say politely. While Sarah puts our coats in the front closet, it kind of reminds me of my, I mean Celeste's castle in Shiver Creek.

“It's much less grand than that, but thank you. Can I get you anything? Water, tea?”

I'm afraid I don't have the ingredients for Martini.

I wish he making a snide remark about my day drinking, surely not. Sarah's face is as open as a

Victorian dolls. Tea would be great, thanks, any kind. And while you're doing that, can I use your bathroom? Sarah points to a door off the living room. I go in, pull down my pants. Ah, the relief. Next time I will knock my skinny jeans and check my phone. There's a text from my agent, a check-in so hurried, it has two glaring typos, and a mist call from my brother who lives overseas. I ignore both of these and open my email.

“I have one new message. It's a submission from the contact form on my website.”

Send by someone who saw me that morning with an invite to another convention. My butt goes cold on the toilet seat. It's Sarah lie about the form not working. There must have been a glitch. I random glitch that then resolved itself. That happens all the time, doesn't it? Compute is going to glitch, right? I let out an airless chuckle as I wash my hands.

When I emerge from the bathroom, I see Sarah in the kitchen with her back turned, stirring something at the counter, I stay quiet lingering in the living room. There's no TV, no electronics of any kind, which makes the room feel fake, like I said on a period piece. Every bit of wall space is occupied with shelves stuffed with books. All of them sheathed in fabric, smelling a old paper and dust. The titles embossed on the

spines are too faded to make out. I open one at random. It's filled with what looks like a Latin. The sound of tea cups clinking makes me turn around. Sarah is setting two cups on the dining table and staring at me with a blank expression. Where's that book you were telling me about? The Kafka at wood one. I like to keep my recreational reading upstairs in my din. Speaking of which, I should get my equipment. I'll be right back. Sarah disappears up a staircase in the far corner

opposite the kitchen. I listen to her footsteps creek along the upstairs floorboards until they come to a stop directly above my head. Okay, I'm sufficiently creeped out. I head for the closet to get my coat. But as I reach for the door knob, I give myself a mental slap on the wrist. I'm overreacting. Here I am about to be interviewed about work that actually matters to me, instead of something I did 30 years ago, and I'm about to rudely bail because of, what? Some weird

vibes? A misunderstanding over a contact form? A fan once gifted me an actual mummified cat,

I return my coat to the closet. I'm nothing if not a professional. As I return to the dining table,

Sarah comes trundling down the stairs carrying a microphone, a laptop, and what appears to be an embroidery hoop wrapped in pantyhoes. She places everything on the dining table and waves me over. We're gonna have to get cozy. I only have one mic. I sit at the end of the table facing the kitchen. While Sarah sets up, I take one of the floral teacups and give it a sniff. It smells grassy with

“notes of something like apple cider vinegar. You said anything was fine, right?”

I nod. Maybe a glass of water, too, or some apple juice? You know they say that's best for your speaking voice. Provides a nice crispness to your consonants. Sorry, I don't have any. Sarah sets next to me at the corner of the table facing the front door. Ready? I'll do an intro later, so we can just jump right into the conversation. How about that water? Oh, of course.

She hustles into the kitchen, pours a glass of water from the tap and hands it to me. Thank you. I take a long drink and place it next to the untouched cup of tea. Ready? I eye the laptop screen. It's just garage band queued up with a new recording titled Maddie Jones February 19. It isn't a mystical wormhole or hypnotic trick. Like something out of an episode of Shiver Creek. It's just a podcast interview. I'm ready.

Sarah hits record. Hello Maddie. Thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. Most people know you from Shiver Creek. The popular kids show from the 90s, where you play the town witch, Celeste Hawthorne. But we're here to talk about the horror films you made in the last 10 years, all of which you've written, directed, and produced yourself.

“Can you start by talking about what inspired you to start filmmaking?”

I relax against the back of the wooden chair as I recall the story. In 2014, I was filming a guest spot on an episode of Bruce Long's Dead again, and we were filming a shot where I had to pull myself up through a long vent. I suggested dangling the camera from a rope and pulling it up as I'm climbing, which of course made it look really rough and bumpy. But purposefully so,

because I was being chased by a bog monster. It ended up working beautifully, and the director, a wonderful woman named Rachel Ward took me aside and said, "Why aren't you directing?"

I had never thought about it before. I was so dedicated to acting. I mean, I'd been doing

it since I was 12. I know a lot of actors dabble in directing after they've been in the business a while, but it seems such a thankless job, especially in television where the showrunners rules supreme. But the thought borrowed itself in my head, and I found myself starting to think like a director. Every time I filmed anything, I would think about how I would have directed it. I also happened to have a list of story ideas I'd been accruing for years,

because I'd been toying with the idea of writing fiction some time.

“But then I realized I wasn't thinking big enough. Why not turn those ideas into movies?”

So I got in touch with Rachel and she took me under her wing. She was in her forties like me, and she also hadn't bothered with the whole marriage and kids thing, so we ended up

becoming friends. She helped produce my first short, Barry Meagently.

Women supporting women. I love it. Tell us about the idea behind Barry Meagently. It's the one about those cannibalism, right? In blonde terms, yes, but really it's about grief. While I explain the origins of my debut short film about a lesbian heavy metal band that devours itself, both emotionally and physically, pre and post-mortem, I noticed the room is getting warmer. A beat of sweat slides over my collarbone. I shift uncomfortably which makes the chair creak.

her fingers move idily across the dark wood of the tabletop. Tracing odd shapes.

That's so great. That film always reminds me of those were the days.

Sorry. Season 4, Episode 12 of Shiver Creek. The episode where the old rock star is doing a comeback tour, and he plays a show in town that the kids parents get all excited about. But when they go, it turns out that the rock star is a warlock, and he's sucking the life force out of his fans to keep himself immortal. So then the kids have to save their parents. I can vaguely recall this episode. I've never paid much attention to the ones I'm not in.

“Right, sure. But how does Barry me gently remind you of that?”

Because they both have bands? The scene at the end, of course. You know, when the kids figure out how to reverse the spell, and the parents all turn on the warlock and suck the life force out of him, the part where they all swarming around him on stage, and he's turning into a withered husk because he's actually like 500 years old. It looks just like the origin at the music festival

and Barry me gently. I thought your scene might have been a direct homage.

No, it wasn't, or not intentionally, anyway. We never really know where inspiration comes from

do we. I finished the last of my water. My head is starting to throb. I didn't realize your newshiver creeks so well. Everyone my age watched it when we were kids. She taps her right temple. It all gets stuck up here, you know. It's such a formative age. Burrows in right next to how to ride a bike. Hi wife, Sweat from my upper lip. I'm probably having a hot flush. The big M word finally catching up with me after stalking me for so many years.

So, onto your feature. While she waxes poetic about plastic can't scream, I notice a painting hanging in the kitchen. It's of a black goat poised on the side of a mountain,

“storm clouds lit dramatically in the distance. I think something like that might have been on the”

set of Celeste's castle. Same with the Gargoyle knocker I realized, and the pillows, and some of those tapestries. I try to gulp up my throat as too dry. Zooming out in my mind's eye I observe the two of us sitting in this, that's be honest, extremely creepy house. All of it is right out of an

episode of Shiver Creek. Not on that chency set that always smelled like prosthetic glue and hairspray,

but in the actual universe of the show. In the real Shiver Creek, Sarah wouldn't be a harmless sick of found with a pension for weird horror movies. She would be a powerful witch using flattery as a distraction, and I would be in mortal danger. As my head does a butterfly stroke inside my throbbing skull, I wonder almost dreamily what would happen next? The plucky gang of preteen kids who were the real stars of the show would go on a rescue mission of course. Any second now I

would hear rustling in the backyard, or maybe the kids would sneak in upstairs and come charging down armed with wards and counter spells. I look out the window, a bruised purple dusk is falling, casting long shadows on the unruly lawn. Nothing rustles. I strain my ears, but I don't hear any footsteps upstairs, but of course the kids wouldn't come to save me. I'm the witch.

“Am I right in thinking that that was an intentional choice?”

I smack my lips tasting the saltiness of my sweat. I'm so thirsty. I risk a single sip of the tea before answering. Yes, you're right on the money. I thought so. So, what are you working on now? I mumbled something about multiple pots on the stir of them pushed myself back from the table. The chair's feet scratch loudly against the floor, even now burning to death from the inside out on the strange set. No, not a set, a place. I look at the computer screen and winds it the

caught on that I'm done. Well, thank you so much, Maddie, for joining me on multiple feet at

use. It was an honor. I start to rise from the chair. The honor was all mine. As a part of the sign-off, I wondered if you wouldn't mind saying something before you go.

“It's a play on the title of the podcast. What's me? Which in Latin means death becomes me?”

Sarah's eyes are boring into mind. I desperately need a breath of fresh air. Well, I not. Morse me, he. Do Sarah's eyes flash with pleasure?

Satisfaction? Maybe they do. But I can't be sure because I'm already up and moving away from the

table as she stops the recording. I really should be going. Of course, let me get my keys. No, no, you're already home. I'll walk a bit in Call of Cap. How could you some air? Are you sure? I'm positive. I turn to leave, but I've been in

“the business too long not to add. Send me a link when it's up. I think the contact”

form on my website is working again. We'll do. Sarah retrieves my coat from the closet and hands it over. As we stand by the front door, she thanks me again and holds out her hands so I shake it. She squeezes hard, too hard, and something sharp pierces my palm. I recoil withdrawing my hand and find a blood pooling on the skin. When I looked to Sarah's hand with the culprit, I find a gold ring with four sharply clawed prongs clasped around a ruby and the setting is turned

inwards. She wasn't wearing that before, I'm sure of it. I'm so sorry. She grabs my hand and dabs it with a napkin drawn from her pocket. I'm about to wrench

my hand away, but she lets go first, muttering something about getting a bandage.

As she scurries into the kitchen, I watch her lick my blood. I open the door and run. The wave of cold air is a godsend. I'm so busy relishing it. It takes me a few seconds to realize I'm not outside. I'm in a narrow stone hallway lit by flickering candlelight. My gawk bewildered before turning around to look back the way I've come. The door with the gargoyle knocker is gone. I raise my hand which is smooth and young again. It's nails painted a sparkly purple

to touch the spot where the door should be. I expect the stones to feel like Styrofoam, but they're rough and cold as ice. When I eventually force my feet to continue in the only direction available, I find exactly what I know I'll find. The bubbling culture in a mummified cat purring on a pillow, from some unseen place for a spy. Our theme song begins to play. , a genuine nightmare. Being the host of a TV series, apparently

old granddad was sort of the host of a streaming horror show called "Tales From the Void". I don't think he was ever trapped inside it for eternity, but who knows? When it comes to streaming shows, "Strainger Things Have Happened". You get it? "Strainger Things", "Straining Shows".

“Ah, you're too young to remember a show called "Strainger Things". It was popular way back when.”

And you, let's walk this way into the final section we can access. It's the perfect spot for our final tale. Oh, that haul over there? No, no, that that's been blocked off for years. It used to be the little Snacks bar where they sold candies and chips and drinks. No, no, not a Snack bar, a Snacks bar, named in honor of the show's editor in chief, Jessica Snacks

exciting job when there wasn't a lot of people around. Just ask, "Marney and Kyle,

“two people from the mind of author Jason Washer". They work at a gas station where they have”

lots of spare time after they've done all their chores. And one night they spot something out of the ordinary. Well, let's just say things start to go down after that. They wrangle the cast of Lindsay Russo, Matthew Bradford, and Jessie Coronett to perform this one. So grab your Snacks and say hi to "Marney and Kyle" in the quick and now. 1130pm and it's freezing rain outside. I've already swept the store and emptied the trash and haven't seen a single customer since

our shifts started. I can't see past the gas pumps and the darkness to the street beyond, but I know it's deserted to slip to travel. The roads were treacherous on the way in and I should have stayed home. Kyle's been stalking the beer freezer for what seems like hours. Through the freezer door I watch him sit down onto a case of beer and hunch forward over his phone.

“He stays like that for a while. His fingers occasionally flicking at the screen.”

And I don't want to know what he's looking at. I pull a half dozen magazines from the rack and bring them back up to my perch at the register and start flipping through them. Later I'm turning the last page on the last magazine and digging through my purse for nail polish when I hear the squeal of the freezer door opening and seek Kyle hugging himself as he walks up to the register. His cheeks are blue. You were in there a long time. I glance up at the clock

behind the register. Hardly any time has passed at all, but I don't retract or apologize. Instead I lean into it. I hope it was good for the phone too. Don't be a perve, Marnie. Kyle doesn't meet my eye and then I really don't want to know what he was looking at on this phone. It takes a minute but he eventually blushes and tells me to fuck off, but not with any particular vehemence, only a mild shame. Tonight's my third shift at the quick and now, just two nights past my orientation

shift with Jamie and only my first working with Kyle. He's as awkward as he sounds and always was,

even back in school. He sits next to me behind the counter. The two of us up on stools silently surveying the store, waiting for someone to come in. No one does. Did you sweep? He asks like he's my supervisor. He's not. It's my third day, but it's only his second month. Yep. Did you stock the cooler while you were in there? Yep. Kyle then glances down at the empty trash bin behind the register.

Did you empty the trash? I glanced from the empty can to Kyle and tried to hold his eye for a moment so he knows just how stupid of a question that was. But he quickly looks away. Someone needs to come into the store soon and buy something or I'll lose my mind. I'm certain if this quiet and boredom continue for another seven hours, Jamie will find us in the morning at each other's throats like feral dogs. One of us wearing the others blood is war paint, or worse yet,

making out McFooler. How's your mom? I found the ask, produced to small talk. He looks at me and eyebrow raised, confused. I don't know his mom, and hardly know him other than for the years we passed each other silently in the halls of Ripley's schools. It does in years of school for a job at the quick and now, and Jamie had me trained in less than an hour. Here's the register, card everyone under 40 for beer, and don't

forget to sweep and take out the trash. We spent the rest of the shift chatting, and then had beers in his car up by the airport. Oh a minute, Jamie's pretty hot. Dead. Kyle says it was something like Glee, not Glee that his mom is dead, but Glee that I asked such a stupid question. Of course, she was dead, and had been since sixth grade. Everyone in town knew his mom was dead, even me. She drove into a lake. Sorry. I mean it. I should have remembered. It was a big deal back then,

and the only thing anyone in school or town talked about, and then everything went back to the way it was. At least for us. I forgot. He's still not meeting my eyes, and then for some

“dumb reason I feel even worse, because I remember that I never told him I was sorry when his mom”

died in sixth grade, and no, I didn't just remember. I knew, and I've known that I never did.

Even at the start of the shift, I knew. It could feel it between us, even if I didn't know it first what it was. I'm not sure if anyone at school ever told him they were sorry about his mom.

I told you I swept. It comes out sharper than it should have. His mom died after all, and for

me anyways, it's as fresh as if it just happened. I guess he's been living with it, or without her,

“so he's probably used to it by now. Could a person get used to their mom driving into a lake?”

No. Kyle gets up from his stool and walks around to the other side of the counter. He points to the cooler. The floor, and in the cooler, it's cracked. I follow him into the cooler, so he can show me his discovery, and I hope he doesn't think this is the part where we make out, because it isn't. The door seals behind us, and it's freezing in the small and brightly lit beer cooler. Neither of us is wearing a jacket. I hug myself for warmth,

and he points to the floor, and sure enough, there's a crack in the tile. Yeah, it's new. He crutches down on his heels, runs his fingertips lightly up and down the thin footlong crack in the floor. It wasn't there yesterday. Someone must have dropped a case of beer, but her call the cops. He squints down at the crack. Do you see it? What? All I see is the crack tile and Kyle shivering on his knees in the cooler.

It's freezing in here, and I'm freezing too. Fuck this. I'm going back to the register. The reflection in the crack. Kyle leans down his face inches from the floor. Or maybe it's a light? I don't see it, and I'm cold. I move toward the freezer door.

“Just look at it. He motions for me to come closer. Come look, don't you see it?”

No, and if you think I'm getting down on the floor with you, come on, Marnie, please. Fine. I kneel down beside him to stare at the crack tile. There's a reflection. He's right. Or maybe it's a light. So someone left the basement lights on big deal. We're both kneeling on the cold tile, our faces pressed close to the floor staring at the crack, and he looks at me. His face inches from

mine. Nope. I clamber to my feet. Not tonight, not going to happen. He looks up at me, confused for a moment, until his face registers understanding. Stop being a purve, and don't you get it? What? There's no basement. Back at the register, I glance up at the clock, and it's still barely half past eleven. Time is crawling by, and this is officially the longest shift ever.

Outside the sleek continues and the constant pattering of the freezing rain on the roof rings on. I watch Kyle staring down at the slowly rotating hot dogs for what seems like minutes,

until I can't stand it anymore. Jamie never told me.

“Kyle looks up at me, his spell broken. About the hot dogs. Do they ever get swapped out?”

Or those the same ones from the grand opening. Kyle shakes his head no in smiles. I've never seen them change since I've been here and I've never sold one. Maybe on the day shift? He grabs the tongs. Want one? No, you go ahead. Kyle sets the tongs down. Nah, not hungry, maybe later.

He hops back up onto the stool next to me, and we sit silently for what seems like hours. Finally, I'm unable to stand it any longer. The awkwardness too thick, and I blurred out. Jamie seems nice. Kyle snorts a grin on his face. Everyone thinks so. Don't you? He's a great manager. Really nice. I see the expression on his face and hear the bitter longing in his voice and realize that

I'm not the only one who's been drinking beers up by the airport with Jamie. The manager of the quick and now is an equal opportunity employer. So nice. I stare hopefully at the door, willing someone to come in.

No one does. This might be the longest night of my life. Does it always this slow?

Maybe it's a crawl space. Kyle is staring over at the beer cooler again. For the pipes? Maybe. It's probably just a reflection. I'm not a collusion. The way the lights are hitting it. A delusion. What? My dad. He always says optical delusion. Yeah.

Kyle then gets up from the stool. He goes into the office and comes out with his jacket in one hand, and a screwdriver in the other. I'm just going to take another look. I watched the freezer door close behind him, and I sit under the store's buzzing fluorescent lights and wait. After a while, I get up and grab another handful of magazines to skim through, even though

I've read them all before. He's gone for what seems like a really long time, though the clock is still showing barely half past 11 when he comes back out of the freezer with the screwdriver in his hand. He nods at me as he walks past the register and into Jamie's office. I can hear the drawers of the file cabinet banging open and shut, and when he walks back into the

feels like an hour, and then grab my jacket and follow him into the cooler.

“Kyle's on the floor wailing away at the tile with the hammer. The walking cooler is filled with a”

haze of dust and tiny chips of pile are flying through the air and pinging off the cases of beer. The hairline crack is now a whole big enough to reach an arm into. A faint yellow light streams up from the opening. Holy shit! Kyle's arm is robotically swinging the hammer at the floor over and over and over again. The hole getting bigger and bigger until it's almost too feet across. Jamie is going to kill you! Kyle stops swinging the hammer and looks up at me questioningly.

Yeah, it's not so bad. He just wanted to see. He looks down at the ruined floor, realizing what he's done.

Oh, shit. Yeah, you're fucked. I didn't think I wasn't thinking I didn't realize.

You were in here for a long time. How could you not realize? He pulls out his phone and glances at the clock and shakes his head. No, I wasn't it. Yeah, you were. You're really fucked.

“I kneeled down beside him and peer into the hole. It dropped six feet down to another ceramic”

tiled floor at a hallway that veers off to the side. The light is coming from off to the side for therein. What is this? Kyle shrugs and wipes sweat from his pocked forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. An unfinished basement or utility room, maybe? With no stairs? I am thoroughly creeped out. I shiver, maybe from the cold. I'm pretty sure that Kyle's stumbled into someone's murder hole and that there's probably a dozen bodies stacked like cordwood just out of sight around the corner.

And no door. There has to be a door. Where? Kyle shrugs again. There has to be. I stand up. Nope, that's enough. Fuck this. We'll sweep all this shit down into the hole and just tell Jamie we drop to keg on the floor. You think you'll believe it? Sure. And it doesn't matter if he doesn't. I'm going to get the broom out of the office. Grab the broom out of the office and glance at the clock as I head back into the cooler to see how many more

hours of this I have left. 1130. It has to be broken. The clock's batteries are dead. So I pull up my own phone to check the time and my batteries dead too. Awesome. Kyle? I say as I'm pulling up in the cooler door. What time is it? He's not in the cooler. Kyle? Down here. He pokes his head up through the hole in the floor. Put the help. I jump back startled and may have peed a little bit. It scared me. What are you doing? I just wanted to see where the light was coming from.

Kyle ducks has head back down into the hole. And? I crouch down near the hole just in time to see him duck around the corner and out of sight. Kyle? Just a corridor going down and then it turns off to the right again. Come back out. I can hear his feet scuffing away. Right now you shouldn't be down there. His voice echoes up to me. I'm just going to go look. I'll be right out. Jamie is going to kill you. I say and then regret it. It's fine. I just want to go look. Do you

write that? Kyle? His footsteps get further and further away. I stare at the hole in the cooler floor and I wait. I pull up my phone again to check the time before I remember my battery's dead. And then I walk back out into the store and pull a charger off the shelf next to the Tylenol and tampons. I rip open the charger and then try to plug my phone in behind the register. But of course it's the wrong size foam plug. Of course it is. I look up the broken clock and try to work

“backwards to figure out when Jamie will come in and our shift will be over. And I think about the”

magazines and the sweeping and Kyle breaking open the floor with the screwdriver and the hammer and I don't know. It has to be 4 a.m. by now or later. It feels later. It's been such a long shift. When Jamie gets here in the morning, I'm going to quit. I go back into the cooler and sit down on a case of beer to wait for Kyle to come back. I try not to imagine Jamie wearing his skin. I stare at the hole and wait and before long I can't even feel my hands anymore and my ass is

numb from sitting for so long. My nose runs from the cold. The sleeve of my jacket damp was

not. Occasionally I give a half-hearted yell down into the hole for Kyle but he never answers.

And after a while my voice goes horse and my throat goes sore from shouting. I try counting to measure the passage of time but invariably my mind wanders and I forget where I am in the count and have to start over. I consider leaving my vigil at the hole more than once but I don't. Where would I go? And once I stop expecting the shift to end or anyone to come into the store, the waiting grows less painful. I think about Kyle's mom a lot. Was there a point in the lake as the

fought back and if she did change her mind how hard and how long did she try to get out of that car?

“At some point did she just give up and accept the water rushing in and over her?”

I yell for Kyle again, loud and this time when he doesn't respond I drop down into the hole. I walk for longer than I can remember. The passage slowly descends each long and tiled hallway eventually turning right into another and then another until I almost forget where I'm going or what I'm looking for hours or years later. I don't know anymore. I turn right for what must be the thousandth time and the hallway terminates and a dimly lit and low ceiling the alcove

no bigger than the beer cooler. Kyle and Jamie are sitting in a card table and Kyle's laughing

like he just heard the world's best joke. Jamie can be wickedly funny, especially when he has

you alone in a car by the airport or in a small room deep underground. Hey guys, I interrupted

“a little worried that I'm ruining Jamie's joke. Kyle holds up a hand in greeting.”

Hey, Marty, want a beer morning? Jamie grins and holds up a sweaty can of paps. I love his smile. I can't help myself and almost take the beer but instead I shake my head no and offer him a tight smile and return. I'm not thirsty. I noticed Kyle's not drinking either. I turned to him. I was waiting for you, you didn't come back. Sorry, you were just hanging out. I lost track of time. Let's go back up to the store now, Kyle. Instead of answering me,

Kyle just looks at Jamie waiting for him to respond. Our shift is almost over. Jamie smiles that smile he has all charm and promise and he looks at me like I'm the only person left in the world. Like it's just me and him alone at the end of everything. As if Kyle's not even here and then he shubs out a metal folding chair from the table with a small, booted foot. Sit and have a beer, Marty, hang out for a while. I'd love to but we left the store empty. Sorry.

No worries. Jamie downs the last of his paps and crushes the can. He tosses the can onto the floor near my feet and then he's somehow popping the tab off another can. It's fine, really. The store can take care of itself. Kyle, tell her to sit down, sit down, Marty. Kyle's not meeting my eye again. Jamie was telling a story.

I smile politely but I don't sit. I know I can't sit if I want to leave and I really, really want to leave even if the beer is starting to look good now. I didn't think I was thirsty, but maybe I am. I'm also very cold. We should go now. Kyle looks for me to Jamie hoping for his permission. It doesn't come. Jamie just smiles that smile of

“his like this is all perfectly normal. Nothing's wrong and why would anyone ever want to leave?”

Kyle. He smiles apologetically and this time meets my eye but doesn't move. Maybe he can't move. I don't know. I turned to Jamie and try not to think about what we did together in the back seat of his car because he doesn't look quite the same anymore. He seems older now, thinner, his hair greased here than before, his bones prominent. He's wearing a thin pair of blue jeans with the cuffs tucked into the brown boots and a buttoned-up shirt that I swear is straight out of the

70s and not retrofashioned or 70s inspired but an actual and thread bear shirt pulled from the 70s. I realized that he's very old, older than even the 1970s. Jamie, I say to him trying to smile, trying not to let on that I know how old he is. We've got to get back to the store. Our shift is almost over.

Jamie is not smiling anymore and maybe he never was. Stop me if he've heard this one.

We have to leave. He looks to Kyle. I know you've heard it before. He winks, his eyelids slowly folding shut like a bat's wing before reopening. His hand rests intimately on Kyle's shoulder, his fingernails long and dirty brown with decades of stain. Jamie, please. I realized that he won't willingly let us go. He can't. There was a boy. We'll call him Kyle and his mom drove into a lake.

Don't be an ass, Jamie. I know the story. We're leaving now. No. And you don't know the whole story. Kyle, get up. We're leaving now.

fuck this. Fuck Jamie, fuck the store, fuck all of it. I reach over the card table and grab

“Kyle's arm and try to pull him the rest of the way to his feet. His arm is cold, freezing,”

and Kyle is shivering, his face pale, his lips blue. We're going. I tell Jamie as I pull Kyle up from the chair. Kyle looks at me. His eyes still pleading with me, and I'm remembering back to middle school after his mom died, and I really, really wish I had told him how sorry I was. It was a really shitty deal for him. I should have said something. Should have said anything. But I didn't. We stumble past Jamie and he doesn't look anything like Jamie from the car anymore.

Not even close. Not even human. And then Kyle and I are out of the alcove and we're back in the narrow corridor. I'm so sorry. I can hear Kyle just behind me, following me, shivering. His breath coming in frozen hitches as we climb the long hallway back up to the beer cooler. I really am. I should have said something. It's okay, really. No, it's not. Kids are assholes. I was an asshole. But it really wasn't. Six years, a couple of thousand days. I couldn't imagine how he could

“let it go so soon. I've moved past it, okay, and you should too. How can you move past it?”

I trudged back up the long halls toward the surface. I listened to Kyle's feet scuffing the tile behind me, but I don't hear anyone behind Kyle. Not yet. I wish I could remember how far away the store was. I don't believe you. She did the best she could. Bullshit, absolutely fucking bullshit. She was a bitch and should have done a lot better by you. When he doesn't reply, I realize I've gone too far. Awesome. First I ignore him when his mom dies, like he wasn't even there pretending like nothing

ever happened, and then I call his dead mother a bitch. Nice going. Sorry. He still doesn't answer and we keep walking. Time passes, and we must be close to the store by now. But I have no way to know with my phone's dead battery. I spend most of my time wondering if Jamie's coming after us, and if he is, what he'll do when he catches us. I'm tired. After a while I realize that he can't follow us. He's too old. Two set in his ways by a thousand years of time and death washing over him.

He can't move, and he doesn't want to move. He never moved. Even in the carbo the airport,

he was just a daydream, a passing fancy, a wish sworn, and quickly recanted. He just waits. Kyle and I are safe for now. Kyle, he doesn't answer me and has it for the last hours and miles, though I still hear him behind me. I said that I was sorry. Still no answer. I'm sure she did her best. I'm mind wanders back to the sixth grade, and Kyle, and his absence. I hadn't told him I was sorry about his mom driving into the lake,

not then, and not ever. How could I? Kyle, don't be a dick, answer me, say something. And then, even though I know I shouldn't, I turned to look at him, and then he's gone, vanished from the long, tiled hall. He's been gone for a long time, forever, 12 years old. A woman who drives into a lake, that's tragic.

“I remember my dad saying, who knows what demons that poor woman might have been facing,”

but a woman who drives into that same lake with her 12-year-old son in the back seat, and she's not a woman facing demons anymore, is she? That's due generous of an assessment.

She is the demon. A minute or a lifetime later, I finally see the fluorescent lights of the

beer cooler. I climb up through the hole and stagger into the quick and now. The clock is still stuck at 1130. It's still sleeping out. I'm still dark. No one has come in all this time. Kyle, I know we won't answer. I'm alone. I grabbed the same magazines I've read a dozen times before from the rack and bring them up to the register and start flipping through them. Nothing has changed. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. The sleet rattles on their way.

Then I wait.

I'm afraid our little tour has come to an end. Let's exit through the gift shop. No, no,

“afraid there's no merchandise left in there. Cleaned out years ago. They used to sell t-shirts,”

mugs, totes, and full-sized David Cummings body pillows. Although those were recalled, however, turns out they were full of spiders. Anyway, before you go, I want to play you an audio message from my granddad. This was played over the speakers before the guests left the museum. Let's see. Here's the message for you.

Hello, sleepless friends. This is David Cummings, the creator and host of the No Sleep Podcast.

Thank you for helping us celebrate our 15th anniversary of the show. When I started this podcast 15 years ago, I had no idea it would turn into what it's become. You wonderful people have made it quite possibly. The most prolific and most listened to horror storytelling podcast in the history of humankind and the known universe. That's probably overstating things, but it's because of you that this show turned from a bi-weekly hobby into a full-time career

and passion. Thank you for joining us week after week. Thank you for listening and sharing the show

with others. And thank you for being so wonderful to all the members of our team who bring you the show week after month after year. No one knows what the future holds, but you keep listening and will keep bringing you the thrills and chills for the dark hours when you dare not close your eyes.

“Always remember to brace yourself. Again, thank you for 15 wonderfully frightful years.”

I hope you will continue to stay sleepless. With my deepest and most sincere gratitude, thanks and love. Your podfather, David Cummings. There isn't that nice. Okay, step this way for the exit. And as we walk down this hall, note the portraits on the wall. There's the composer, my strobe, Brendan Boone. And those gentlemen there are the audio producers,

Phil Michaelski, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornett, and Claudius Moore. And this beautiful work of art has our editorial team, Jessica McAvoy, Ashley McAnnelly, Ollie A. White, and Kristen Samito. And just so you know, the no sleeppodcast.com is still active. You can learn more about the show, the people who make it, and you can learn about the sleepless universe, such a great way to support the show.

So thanks for joining me, man, on behalf of my granddad. Thanks for making all this possible.

“Watch your step as you leave. Oh, and remember how the show used to end with this disclaimer?”

This audio program is copyright 20, let's say 2026, by Creative Reas 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 Reas and Media. And no part of this audio program may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence, technologies, or systems. And you guessed it, all rights reserved.

Okay, bye for now. Hope to see you soon. Bye. That was fun. Oh, damn. Oh, they've gone and I forgot to play the my granddad's famous song he recorded. Oh, what a shame. This one really slaps. Oh, yeah. [Music]