S24 Ep23: NoSleep Podcast S24E23

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

“A tranquil river bank, or the endless ocean.”

It's time to dive deep into the abyss. From the dark waters of the Cape Fear River, immerse yourself in horror as you brace yourself for the no sleep podcast. Thank you for joining us for the no sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings.

Have you heard that old joke where one person says, "Do you realize the biggest problems with

our society are ignorance and apathy?"

And the other person responds, "I don't know, and I don't care." And I understand how old that joke is because ignorance and apathy are no longer problems in today's world, right? Right?

“We all know pretty much everything these days, and we only care about the most important issues.”

So, problem solved. But in the world of horror, ignorance can be the crux of a spooky tale. A person says, "This house isn't haunted." But it is. There's no monster under the bed.

Ah, you'd be surprised. And now combine that ignorance with someone else who knows the dangers exist who try to warn the others only to be met with apathy. Now you have tales which are so well illustrated on our episode this week. We'll meet people who simply can't accept that there's something wrong.

That dangers lurk around the corner for them. And when someone else tries to warn them to know effect, well, as the saying goes, "That's on you, dude." And if there's one thing I know about no sleep podcast listeners, it's that you folks are not ignorant or apathetic.

“And that's why I want to remind you about our very own Atticus Jackson.”

You'll recall at the start of our Sleep Listy Compositions volume 22 episode Back in January, that Atticus shared his struggles with the medical condition known as Hydrodenitis, Sapirativa, H.S. for short. It's a debilitating skin condition that brings nothing but misery to those who suffer from it. Atticus has an ongoing GoFundMe campaign and is still hoping for support

to handle the crushing medical bills that are associated with this disease. Please check the link in the show notes to learn more about the campaign and if you're able, please give generously to Atticus and his family. We want that dude to be a big part of the show for a long time to come. Thanks, everyone.

So look, don't bury your head in the sand. There are dangers out there. You'd be wise to heed the warnings. Especially if the warnings are about things lurking beneath the dark waters. Now it's time to plunge into the horror of our Sleep List Tales.

In our first tale, we meet a family who have been thrust into a sudden emergency situation.

They don't know what's going on. All they've been told is to flee the city and get to a secluded location. But in this tale, shared with us by author, John Andrew Henderson, it's the father who issued the dire warning to his family and considering where he works, it's smart that they listen to him.

Performing this tale, our Seratamus, Lindsay Russo, Mary Murphy,

So sometimes you shouldn't stop to think.

“When told to run, you run all the way to Lake Fame.”

In physics, the observation of quantum phenomena is known to change their measurements. The idea that we can affect reality in this mysterious way is known as the Observer Effect. It was early on the 14th of November when Mom burst into my room and shook me awake. What's going on? I glanced at the clock and tried to pull the covers over my head.

It's six in the morning. Mom picked up my portable TV and launched it through the window. A stiff wind whipped at the curtains. Downstairs in the car, now. Okay, okay.

My heart was stumping. What have I done? Let me get dressed. No time! She pulled me out of bed and hustled me down the stairs.

My sister Donna and my younger brother, Aiden,

were already in the backseat of our convertible. The top was down and the engine running. A plume of smoke drifting up from the exhaust. On the other side of the drive was our neighbor, Mr. Voss. With him, his wife and his daughter, Ruby.

She was too little for me to play with. But Mr. Voss was a friend of my dad's because they worked together. I saw with a start that his wife had a rifle slung over one shoulder. Mr. Voss pointed and Ruby obediently climbed into the back of our car, squeezing between Aiden and Donna.

Mr. Voss was a bike nut and his Harley Davidson was parked in the driveway. Two full saddlebacks draped over the back. We have to go, Diedra. He's not here! There were tears in my mother's eyes.

I can't believe.

“They'll told us we shouldn't wait. You understand he isn't coming, don't you?”

Bill was my father. Behave yourself, Ruby. Mr. Voss straddled the bike and his wife climbed on behind. Arms around his waist. Look after my girl, Diedra.

Who will? Mom motioned to me. Get in the front. Where's Dad? Get in the car!

Aiden flinched and Donna began to cry. We lived on the outskirts of town, so it wasn't long before we were in the country. Mom turned west off the highway, driving at breakneck speed into the last few towns faded away.

Mr. Voss is Harley remained behind us the whole time.

His pace always matching ours.

I'm still in my pajamas and it's freezing. Can't we put the roof up? It stays down.

“Mom shot around a tight corner and Donna wimpered and terror.”

There's a bag of clothes on the floor and some blankets. You'll have to change on the go. Her phone rang and she japped at the answer button. It's me again, Diedra. No, we sort of waited. I'm so sorry.

I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't mean for things to turn out like this. The children were listening. Good. They need to hear. Donna broke in.

Hey, Dad. What's happening? Why is everyone acting so scary? Listen, kids. Your mother is going to drive until she is as far from civilisation as she can get. Aiden looked up. Why died? Is it a war?

Is there a bomb? Please stay quiet. Your lives depend on it tonight. Don't have much time. I clenched my fists. What did he mean that our lives depend on it?

Donna was crying again. Find somewhere remote. Get out of the car and stay outside. Do you understand? Stay out of enclosed spaces.

Don't go inside. It's the middle of winter, Dad. I'm heading for the boys' camp at Lake Fameville. Mom was crying as much as Donna. It's deserted in winter, but there's running water in a large storm.

It was supplies. Yes, but you can't go into any confined places if you do. The line went dead. No. No. There was no answer.

Tell your father you love him. He's been cut off, Mom. Tell him, anyway. We love you, Dad. We drove in silence for what seemed like hours.

Two cold and afraid to speak. We're almost there.

“My mother wiped the tears away and sat up straighter.”

This is her dad and I for Smith as teenagers. We were camp counselors.

My mother had never mentioned that before.

What did he mean to stay outside? I don't know, honey. I only know something terrible has happened. We parked by the shore of Lake Fame. Mr. and Mrs. Voss stopped right behind us.

Ruby jumped out of our vehicle and hugged them both. As Mom said, it was a summer camp. Dauded with log cabins and completely deserted at this time of year. Or so we thought. Then we heard the chug chug of a powerful engine.

After a few minutes, an old tractor towing some complicated apparatus made of circular blades and steel arms drove into view. On top, perched an elderly man in an overcoat, sporting thick glasses and a fur hat. Mrs. Voss quickly hit the rifle behind her husband's bike.

Ah, morning! The stranger waved. I'm the caretaker around here. It was more than the fields where I saw you come past and hit up the driveway. He gave an awkward grimace.

The problem is, we're closed for the winter.

Neither folks lost. Nothing like that. Mr. Voss struck his thumb at the convertible. The car trouble is all. It's been a long journey and I wondered if we might take a walk around and stretch our legs.

“Well, this is private property, but who's going to know, eh?”

The caretaker winked at us, climbing down from the tractor. Well, have a stroll. Now go to the reception building and call you a tow truck. We take a couple hours to get out here anyhow. He turned and marched off between the cabins.

Mom waited until he was out of sight, then shot Mr. Voss a panic to look. We can't just let him go. How do you propose stopping the guy shoot him? Which time up at gunpoint?

What if Bill is wrong? How much trouble would we be?

Ah, hell. Bill is never wrong.

Mrs. Voss handed her husband the rifle and he sprinted after the caretaker. A couple of minutes later, we heard a shot being fired and everyone ran in the direction of the sound. Mr. Voss was sitting on a tree stump, base action. I caught up with him just as he went into the reception building and shut the door. But as soon as he did, it changed.

Oh, God, this can't be happening. I imagine the reception building had been constructed of wood, like all the other cabins. Now it was some sort of synthetic, seamless, lump. What seemed to be vinyl stickers had suddenly replaced the windows and doors. It looked exactly like a giant plastic toy.

I don't know how else to describe it. Painted onto one window. As if he were inside. Was a 2D image of the cab caretaker. Mouth open in a silent scream.

It was obscene. Ruby and Aiden clutched at each other. Mrs. Voss turned and threw up. Fetch branches from the forest. Our mother pointed to the trees ringing the lake.

We need to keep a fire burning permanently. Keep an eye out for anything useful, like axes or rope. But don't go into any of the buildings. I like we needed to be told that. And now you kids have a million questions.

Mom clashed Aiden to her chest and stroked on his cheek. And we'll answer them the best we can tonight. Right now we have to make sure we don't dive exposure when darkness falls. By evening we had a huge pile of wood. Mom built a roaring fire and we sat around it, draped in blankets.

The temperature was just above freezing. So one side of me tingled with the heat and the other with cold. You know your dad is a government researcher and he's not allowed to talk about his work. Mom hugged her knees. I've always respected that, especially when it got us at nice house.

A big convertible and vacations whenever we wanted. Her face was a picture of misery. In other words, I didn't ask for details. All eyes swung around to Mr. Voss.

“Bill's area of expertise is quantum physics, but his research is top secret.”

Will above my clearance level. Mr. Voss tossed another log on the fire.

I knew what that was.

“The idea that you could change tiny quantum particles just by observing them.”

And quantum particles were the building blocks of the whole universe.

He said that, in theory, we might be able to change the very nature of reality. Mr. Voss looked lost. I said that sounded pretty dangerous, and he climbed up. Your father called me last night. Told me to load up the car with canned food and warm clothes.

Then be ready to leave it dawn if I hadn't heard from him before that. To drive as far as I could into the wilderness. Reflections from the flames flickered across mom's face. He absolutely insisted that we stay outside. I wasn't even to put the top up on the convertible.

She hugged her blanket tighter, and stared longingly at the cabins of few hundred meters away. And he suddenly hung up. I could tell he wasn't supposed to be speaking to me. I got a near identical call. Mr. Voss wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Bill said something he'd gone wrong with an experiment.”

But it was his fault, and he'd try to shut it down. He's shattered. Now I know why he told us not to go inside. We also would happen to the caretaker. I just don't know why.

Bill was the genius not me. Do you think that is dead?

First of all, what on the fire?

The next day, we put the things we found lying around to good use. Mrs. Voss discovered some old brooms and wrapped the handles together using strips of surgical tape from our first aid kit. We broke the lock on the store rooms, and were able to reach some more canned goods, towels, a tent, and empty plastic containers that we filled from a stream that ran into the lake. Yet the cold was ever present.

Then it rained on and off for three days.

“We tried our best, but the odds were against us.”

We lost the Voss family at the end of the first week. The sleeping bags were no real protection for night after night on the frosty ground in ice cold air. Ruby developed a severe cough, which turned into flu. Then pneumonia. My daughter and I are going to stay in the tent.

I have to get some warm air in her lungs. A tent is enclosed. It's outside, isn't it? Just a bit of canvas? Mrs. Voss stroked her daughter's hair, and smiled wonly at her husband.

You stay out here, honey. But I need to take that chance. Don't be silly. After Voss glanced at Ruby, hunched over the fire. Base waxy and sheened with sweat.

We do this together. They erected the tent and waited until we were asleep before they crawled inside. I don't know if they were just delaying the inevitable. Or wanted to spare us. The following morning, it was one solid piece of plastic, like the roof of a giant doll's house.

The entrance resembled a black sticker, and the imprint of one small hand solid the left side. Eight in hammered on it until his fists were bruised. Dad did this. Killed his best friend. I couldn't help but agree.

Two weeks passed without a single person coming our way. No surprise there. As I imagined there wasn't anyone left.

After all, in times of panic, a population always seek shelter.

The one thing that would doom them. We tried to keep some semblance of normality. Yet it was difficult. Mom pretended everything was okay, and it was all some kind of grand adventure. But it rang false, and the dark circles under her eyes grew deeper each day.

Donna was increasingly nervous, jumping at shadows, convinced some greater hardship was just around the corner. I gathered wood and picked berries, eight in spent hours staring into space. Then one night, he waited until we were asleep and crept into one of the cabins. He didn't even open the windows, just left the door wedged a jar. In the morning, he walked out, unharmed.

Mom grabbed him, and at first I didn't know whether she was going to kiss him or slap him across the face. Why? Why did you risk your life?

I had to take the chance.

“Bill said we couldn't go inside. He sounded so sure.”

Aiden stuck out his chin. If our father was right about everything, we wouldn't be in this mess. My mother looked stunned, but Donna clapped her hands in relief. That day was the best of our lives. We got right into the store room and found more canned food and drums of fuel. There were rods and reels, which meant we'd be able to catch fish, and archer equipment so we could hunt.

We also gained access to the generator room and got it working. Now we had light and hot water. Mom declared we would live in the mans, a large colonial building set aside for summer staff. Go get your brother. It's only fair he should pick the best bedroom. I found Aiden sitting on the shore of the lake and made myself comfortable on a rock beside him. Mom and Donna were sweet, but Aiden and I inherited the brains of our family.

And he was the only one I could really talk to. Cool move saving the family like that. I put an arm around him.

How did you figure out the cabins were safe?

You agreed dad somehow changed reality, yeah. He swept his hand in an arc. Created whatever this is. I do. The result of his top secret project going wrong would be my bet. I think I know. How it went wrong.

Do tell. I shuffled around to get more comfortable. He was only supposed to change things by observing. But I figure his subconscious warp the results somehow. Aiden looked sideways at me.

“Think about it, sis. What was dad's greatest obsession?”

His work? No hesitation there. I'm talking outside of work. That was a no-brainer too. Dad had an expansive workshop in the grounds out back of our house. Aircraft of every sort hung on wires from the roof.

While each shelf was crammed with miniature cars, tanks and buildings. He loved making models. Aiden nodded. Plastic models. And what scared him most?

He was claustrophobic. Another obvious one. Dad had a terror of confined spaces. And couldn't even be in a car. That's why we had to buy a convertible.

He'd totally freak out in a tent. And yet he could happily enter any room,

“cupboard, restaurant or secret government facility”

as long as a door or window was open. Aiden grand. I knew you'd work it out too. Warnings to stay outside was just dad being over anxious.

Mom always joked that he was completely neurotic.

Or he didn't want to take the chance. We might ruin his nice little experiment by dying. That's a bit harsh. My brother looked shocked. But I could tell he had been thinking along the same lines.

Either way, you've established something vital to our survival. In whatever strange new existence this is, inside and confined are not quite the same thing. Dad was being too cautious. If a space is not totally enclosed, it's safe.

Which means I can finally have a hot shower. I kissed his cheek. Making you my favorite person of all time. Eh, I may have already told mom she could have one. He got up and pulled me to my feet.

She was starting to smell pretty bad. I'm next then. We were halfway to the mans when we heard Donna shrieking. I broke into a run, Aiden right behind. We burst in and followed the sound.

Our sister was in the bathroom. I saw a light and felt mom in the shower. But it's enclosed. I clapped a hand to my mouth. The shower was one solid block of resin.

My mother silhouette etched on the side. Pushing desperately against her confines. A literal shadow of who she once was. I clutched at the sink behind me for support. Had bowed.

To numb to take it in. No, no. Aiden pointed above the macabre scene. It's not enclosed. There's a gap between the glass and the roof.

Aiden at the sea? Who was covered in clouds of steam? What did you say?

Aiden at the sea? What is it matter? I don't understand.

“Aiden pressed his hands for loringly against the plastic.”

Sorrow and confusion etched across his face.

It should have been safe. Nothing here is safe. Everything is a trap waiting to be sprung. We're trapped in our father's insane experiment. Trapped in this stupid existence.

No matter what we do, we're doomed. She sank to the floor, clutching her hair. We're all going to die here. We're going to die one by one. Aiden went to comfort her, but I grabbed his arm.

We have to go now.

She's having a panic attack.

He pushed me away. What the hell is wrong with you? Donna was curled in a ball, rocking back and forwards. Still repeating the same phrase. We're all going to die here.

We're all going to die here. I began to feel dizzy. Aiden crouched beside her. I staggered down the stairs and into the crisp morning air. Then I shut the door.

The house smoothed out and transformed into synthetic material. Cutting Donna and Aiden off mid-gride. I moved into the cabin closest to the lake. The view is beautiful. And none of the windows faced the plastic monstrosity that was once the man's.

I'm not proud of what I've done. If I had figured out the truth sooner, my brother and sister might still be alive. Too late I realized Aiden was only half right. This reality may have been shaped by dad's fears and imaginations, but it can be changed by ours.

Aiden survived in the cabin because he was sure he would. The boss family died because they didn't really believe a tent counted as outside. When Donna failed to notice the gap over the shower screen, she was certain the shower would turn plastic. So it did.

Then she became convinced we were all going to die. I had to shut her up or that would have come true as well. Aiden just cut caught in the crossfire.

“With plenty of time on my hands, my thoughts have turned from what did dad do to why did he do it?”

And I realized something disturbing. Try as I might. I don't remember my father playing with us, taking us to the park or reading a story. In fact, I don't really remember him at all.

So how do I know what he was like? I can only come to one conclusion. Another one of my father's many fears had managed to wriggle into the fabric of this existence. The knowledge that, as a neurotic, immoral, work-obsessed model building claustrophobic,

he was never going to have a loyal best friend, a beautiful wife, and healthy children.

So in the reality he created, it happened. We weren't his family. We were simply products of his pathetic attempts to be loved. Well, that's another part of his experiment that hasn't gone the way he expected. If my father could alter reality, so can I.

From now on, I'm going to shape this world in any way I desire. He wanted to play goddad? He just created one. (music) Let's take a short break for our sponsors, who help us keep our heads above water.

For waves of ad-free horror content, join our sleepless universe by going to sleepless.com. It would be a horror story to not be able to be safe indoors tucked into your comfy bed.

“But what happens when your bed is giving you nightmares?”

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We got bowl and branch sheets on our bed, it was a pleasure to slide under those silky sheets. They're cool and relaxing, so much better than our previous bedding. You really should try them. There's no complicated setup, no new routines, just a bed that feels softer, more breathable, and way more inviting the moment you lie down.

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Now let's plunge back into the deep waters of horror. We all know about the dire warnings about our environment. And when it comes to the planet's health, it's the things going on in the oceans that can signal the most pressing dangers. And in this tale, shared with us by author Shannon Weston, from her novel published by Radical Bookshop, check the show notes for more details. We meet two marine biologists who are studying what's happening to marine life in the Pacific,

and what they learn signals deep, trouble. Performing this tale, our Christendia Maccurio and Reagan Tucker. So the warning might be coded in a special way. If you study sea kelp, seek help. We don't really know what's in the ocean, at its strongest sunlight penetrates to a depth of approximately 1,000 meters. However, your average sunny day appears as about 200.

Below that, there's no visible light, no natural light. Really most of the ocean is plunged in perpetual darkness, largely unexplored by humans. At night, the shadows seem particularly sentient, heavy. To me, it almost feels like the luck's count is in the negative.

“The only thing is to keep it at bay are the floodlights, and the flashlight,”

and the other artificial methods humans have developed in order to allow light to shine where it shouldn't. They push away the mystery, because the unknown makes them scared. Most people hate what they don't understand. They revile it, reject it, and try to destroy it. Not me. There's a lot of things I don't know. It's the reason I get out of bed in the morning. My name is Cecilia Woodward. I'm a researcher stationed at the Central Oregon Coast, focusing primarily on the area around Cape Perpetua.

Take a child to an aquarium, and they leave thinking about marine mammals bigger than cruise ships, or glossy striped fish, undulating against the artificial current, or the entire neighborhoods of creatures stuffed to the tiniest rocky cracks. They tuck themselves into bed, thinking about the ocean differently, understanding that there's life in every crashing wave onto the shore, or every lap of saltwater against an uncovered angle. They go from waiting barefoot in the water, shrieking, "Oh, what just touched my foot?"

To feeling the same sensation and asking, "Oh, what just touched my foot?" Ignited curiosity. The innate desire to understand, or I'm just projecting.

I've always liked jellyfish. I like that they were graceful, and danced in a way that I couldn't predict,

that they were gelatinous and venomous. That fascination essentially drove my entire academic career, culminating in my thesis on the blasphemy formation in Nigerians, in layman's terms, regeneration in jellyfish.

and ever thinning pool of opportunities negatively impacted by governments denying the existence of global warming, by plugging their ears with their fingers, shouting "la-la-la" and funneling that cut funding directly into an offshore bank account. We're all just funny like that. I spent the first eight years of my postgraduate career researching estuaries, specifically centered around the survival rates of Pacific salmon,

and led a program that restored a title wetland critical to their survival.

There were no jellyfish, but I did receive regional coverage for my work. My positive impact on the native salmon population led to an eventual transfer to the Tidepool program. I call myself an oceanic astronomer. Why?

“My life revolves around sea stars. That line hasn't really worked on dating apps, even though I think it's pretty romantic.”

I think it confuses people. Might be for the best anyway, I come across better in person. Besides, there's not a lot of service at the coast. It doesn't matter if I'm down on the sands or inside the state-funded shoebox of a cabin provided for researchers. My phone is in a constant state of LTE, and my plan has garbage rates for roaming that I can't really afford. It's okay. I'm fine being single.

I never really got used to the blank stairs. People give me when I tell them that I study sea star wasting disease.

The mood continues to decline when I go on a rant about how rampant it is, how it's plaguing the Pacific Ocean from Alaska down to California.

“There are vital keystone predators, and in a decade over 5 billion sea stars have been lost to the disease.”

Over 5 billion. In some species, that is over 90% of their population. More people should be worried about it. No, they just look at me like they're trying to figure out what to say in order to take off my brawlinger. It never goes anywhere, even if I wanted it to. They don't want to take me home and hotel walls are thin. I can't bring them back to the cabin either. I share the space with another researcher.

Hey, seal, have you seen my binoculars? Within five hours of moving into the cabin, Adam called me seal.

I've always been known as Cecilia. All four syllables.

Sweetheart names were given to me by my family in an attempt to soften me, nicknames like C.C. or Leah or Cecilor. Snoody Magutes courtesy of my eldest brother, but they all fit me like a bad haircut, highlighting the most unflattering angles of me. They make me miss shape and then lumpy and uneven, which always bothered me because my looks have always been one of the better parts of me. It wasn't like he didn't know my full name. As he shook my hand post introductions and said, "A pleasure to meet you, Cecilia, but that didn't stop him from altering me, changing me. I laughed at it. I don't laugh at a lot of things."

Adam's a PNW transplant from one of the Carolinas. His southern accent draws words out and curls them along the edges, his cadence dipping and flowing like one of the mountain roads that leads to the coast.

“His hair is the color of burned toast. He has a big foot sticker on the back of his Subaru Forester that proudly proclaims "I believe."”

He has a tattoo of a lobster holding a wine glass on the side of his rib cage. His cargo pants have more pockets than functionality. He's generally neat and tidy and spends his evenings filling out cockroach boards. I'm not sure. Have you checked the kitchen counter to the left of the microwave? Here they are, here a genius. He brings them to the doorway to my room, large enough for a twin bed, a desk and little else, and waves the binoculars as evidence of his discovery. Adam's smiles broadly, like I truly made his day. I'm obsessed with him.

Spruce trees and ferns surround the path. After the morning rain, the trail is so muddy that our boots squelch as we walk. The difficult weather acts as a warning system to the casual beach comor, granting researchers some much-needed privacy during low tide. Our areas of research differ. I study the Ocar Sea Star, and the bacteria swiftly eradicating their numbers. He studies the Pacific's disappearing kelp forests. The boom in purple sea archimpopulations and the clon of bull kelp are related. Archens will eat anything as kind of impressive. I once read a report where a group of scientists tried to starve out a control group of archens in order to restart their physiology and better understand their dietary demands.

And then they just started eating the side of the tank, literal plexiglass. They're just little asshole zombies sitting around waiting for food to show up so they can eat it.

“Anyway, I contacted Phyllis down in Port Orford. You know her?”

I nod.

Yeah, she's reported that the efforts to reinstate kelp down there are failed. The reefs basically bear in now. A ton of workers though, have you been?

He does that a lot. He turns the conversation back at me, pinning me with his large, dark eyes from behind his thick glasses. I don't think he caught me staring at him. He spilled some coffee on his orange sweater that morning, and he still faintly wafts with the scent of that. That in toothpaste. Not in a long time. My family used to go camping around Bullards Beach, fact then they're what you could just show up and explore. Too many out of status to worry about now. I shift my backpack on my shoulders, laid in with equipment and a thermos full of hot tomato soup.

“He looks a little guilty. His eyes dart around the path ahead of us, and I realize he took my comment personally.”

Not including you, of course.

You've earned your position here. You're doing valuable research. Well, thanks. I'm trying. As the forest abruptly stops and opens to the pale sands and dark rocks of the coast, he gives me a small wave. His hand flutched around his two-way radio. I'll keep you updated, seal. Checking with you in a few hours.

Sounds good. He walks one direction. I walk the other.

“A low fog obfuscates the shoreline. Adam disappears, leaving only me and the sea.”

There's something patently unwelcoming about Cape Perpetua that goes beyond the dangers of craggy chasm and basalt flows. The fissures of volcanic rock make the waves frothy and violent, crashing the tides against the shore in a chaotic turn. On a cloudy day, the ocean is grey enough to vanish into the horizon. Making the interjection of black rock and restless waters seem lonely and isolated, cold even at the height of summer. My research station is tucked into a cave. It looks like a simple outcropping to the naked eye,

allowing me to conduct my research without the curious snooping or clomping feet of tourists. From my rudimentary assessment, my cave seems to lead to a robust system of tunnels that thread beneath the surrounding coastline. However, I haven't explored it. I'm a marine biologist, not a cave diver, nor a spulunker, and I feel that me squeezing my ass through a crack in the wall would do nothing to further the understanding of cave ecosystems. Additionally the thought makes me queasy. A partial collapse of the cave ceiling allows a steady stream of light to illuminate my tide pool.

It's deep, directly in the center of it, a dark pit of water. It appears to be a sinkhole of some kind. My steps are careful atop the thick blanket of muscles and snails, and I sigh in relief when I see my makeshift desk of driftwood and rocks intact. The basin of water is populated with common intertidal life. Barnacles, sea lettuce, green tip to nominees, loose strands of kelp. There are a few urchin corpses lying around, the hearty meal for some variety of marine creature, and I almost take a picture to show Adam the carnage. I don't, though.

At the end of the day, I'm not here for him, I'm here for my starfish. Clusters of sea stars dot the tide pool. There are kaleidoscope of purple and orange layered atop each other in heaps of limbs. I watch them carefully in order to observe signs of sea star wasting disease. Once infected, sea stars suffer from abnormally twisted arms, deflation of limbs, white lesions, arm loss and body disintegration. They die over the course of days, most commonly a week. While the search for a cause and a care remains ongoing,

there's evidence that suggests the wasting disease is an infection that leads to an inability to absorb adequate oxygen, leading ultimately to suffocation.

While sea stars cannot infect each other, the bacteria can contaminate clusters quickly, and as infected stars decay, the corpse is exacerbated by providing organic matter for the bacteria to flourish. I imagine my expertise in plasma formation is part of the reason why I'm assigned to research this disease. However, there have been no indicators that the decay can be reversed once the sea star has been contaminated.

I take multiple samples of the water in the tide pool, measuring the chemical composition of the samples. I narrate my process aloud, much in the way a lonely spinster recite poems to her house plants. Quickly, I fall into a state of cohabitation with the briny pool, the waves crash and echo within the cave. It's almost meditative. The two-way radio crackles to life, slicing through the cave with a high-pitched electronic squeal. Still, still are you there? I'm here, Adam.

Hey, I found something weird on the beach. It's a lot of, well... He does this sometimes, walking next to his point instead of getting right to it, my voice gains an edge of impatience. What is it?

I've never seen anything rocket before.

Adam?

“Well, you come here as something you have to see. I'm about a 20-minute walk north of the bad termination.”

I hesitate. There's something in his voice that I can't easily detect. I'm midway through my trek to Adam when I realized it was fear. The tide brings all sorts of gifts to shore. Pretty shells and bountiful maggots dislodged kelp and flattened the bodies of crystal jellyfish driftwood. It isn't uncommon to find bones either.

They've been picked clean by hungry critters and moved by particulates of sand and salt. Bleached by the sun and left to the whims of the waves. I see Adam silhouette staring down at the sands between him and the ocean. The sun has cut through the fog in some areas, blanching the remaining fog into a handful white. He isn't smiling. He's running a hand along his jaw.

His index finger pressing into the scar beneath his left ear that he receives from a cleat to his neck when he was 12. A nervous habit.

“At his feet, our bones, dozens of them, starting at the tip of his boot, and extending upwards.”

Walking around him, I follow the path and assess the collection. A cursory glance spots the easy curve of ribs, the knob of spines, and ring-sized joints. Some of the bones are massive, as long as my arm. There are no skulls. Slinging my backpack to my stomach, I route around the interior pocket for a pair of work gloves.

Adam watches me, expressionlessly as I kneel down to the bones and inspect them. The air thrums at the ocean's surges against the shore. I feel the vibrations of its power in my jaw. I thought you grew up hunting Adam, don't tell me that you're squeamish. I tried to dust off the knowledge I have about a million bones, but it's not my area of expertise.

I handled the skeletal remains with the object fascination of an uncultured rub visiting the Guggenheim.

“Adam clears his throat, shifting awkwardly on his feet.”

I mean, I've done my fair share of deer processing. This ain't that though. I've been on thousands of beach walks, and I've never seen a concentration of bones like this.

The bone in my hand feels heavy. Most of the bones that wash up on shore are as light as air, hollowed out by the ocean and predators. It's crabbing season, a boat probably cast out some pieces of meat as a form of chum. Use a mammal meat to go fishing? His voice hitches up at the end of his question.

Uncomfortable and disbelieving in a singular swoop. Meat is meat, Adam. I tossed the bone back and stand, cucking my gloves into my pant pocket. And the ocean's hungry. I say it with enough condescension that it closes off the discussion for other theories.

He knows that I'm right. That there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the bones, and drops the subject like he drops his arms from protectively covering his chest. Right. Was that it? It's a little harsher than I mean.

He flinches before shaking his head. No, uh, there's something else. Beckoning me closer. He leads me to the waterline between the bones and the ocean. He points down to the sand, where I see faded triangles of purple and orange.

A swallow a gasp as my knees meet the wet sand. Inter mingled with the skeletal remains are pieces of starfish.

Lost limbs that are dead and pale, and one of the first indicators of a resurgence of the wasting disease.

I look south to my cave, to my sea stars, and feel the pit of my stomach, hardened with dread. Three days later, Adam finds another abnormally large pile of bones on the beach.

Every discovery makes him more skiddish, but he hasn't called anyone at the state office to inform them of the anomalies.

“I think he's waiting to form a credible theory before phoning it in.”

He has a reference book on animal physiology on his desk, interspersed with several bookmarks, another about human anatomy. In the evenings, he's unusually glued to his laptop. Once when he went to the bathroom, I looked at the screen and saw several windows up for local missing people. He hasn't talked to me about any of his ideas. It bothers me, but I'll give him time to come around, I don't like to pry.

Adam's in the kitchen roasting squash and onions for a blender soup. The doors open for ventilation. I stare at the ocean through the entrance, enjoying the last vestiges of sunlight in the center of the horizon.

The cabin smells a little stale from the takeout burger I brought back from the local pub.

Oh fuck! Adam jumps back from the refrigerator, his hand finding his face and pressing his glasses back into the bridge of his nose. Jesus, seal. What is it? Seal?

I didn't know you brought samples back. Clear plastic bags filled with bones, sand, water samples and pieces of sea stars. I found the skull of a harbor seal with some viscera still attached. I filled the bottom of the fridge with them, tied off and labeled with the date. I didn't tell him because if he wanted to keep the details of his research from me, I would do the same to him.

Yes, I did move all of his groceries to an upper shelf in order to make room for my bags. That part was pettiness, though, and not in the name of science. Of course I did, Adam. I'm conducting research to see if there's any correlation between the remains and the disease's sea stars. He's propped his hands on the counter, hanging his head between his shoulders. I don't understand why he's so unnerved.

“Yeah, okay. Do you have to keep the research in her fridge?”

It's just, I'm not all that comfortable. Where else would I keep it, Adam? I beg your pardon? He looks at me. I meet his gaze. Where else would I keep my research?

He takes a moment to work through the thought I interrupted. He doesn't want to be rude because he wasn't raised that way. Number one says he raised his voice at me or vocalized a disagreement or called me a bitch. Instead, he inhales deeply and leans against the fridge to look at me. I understand that. You need a controlled environment in order to assess your findings.

Maybe, if it's possible, could we put the bags in the freezer between your research sessions?

“Just to, you know, keep it away from the food.”

If that doesn't work, I'll pitch in for a mini fridge. Something we can keep tucked in a corner or something like that, just to keep it separate. It's silly that he finds it so disgusting because the bags are closed and the contents are dead. But my mind keeps getting stuck on the places he used. We, like, we are a collective and because we are a collective, I need to be more understanding of the things that make him uncomfortable.

You know what? Don't worry about it. I'll find a different place to store my samples. He visibly perks up. Are you sure? Of course, I'll take care of them. Thanks, Seal. You're the best. I should have asked for permission to store my samples there, but I didn't.

I like seeing what I can get away with because I like knowing how to get the upper hand on the people of my life. I dropped down additional notes in the diary, cradled between my knees. And smile when he offers me a mug half full with the soup he made. Recognizing it as an additional piece offering, I compare him to a jellyfish in my journal. Beautiful. Spineless. Adam goes to bed early, closing the door behind his good night. I wait until he turns off his light to move.

Quietly navigating through the cabin, as I pack my bag, and put my samples in a small, hard-sided thermo cooler. I take my research back to my cave. The darkness is particularly prominent at night.

The water rushes, the rocks, drip. There is never a moment that I know what's behind me.

My desk is filled with an increasing amount of material that I haul in and out of the cave. Pipets, test tubes, a pair of gas-fueled burners, scalpels, journals, containers of iodine complex and disinfectants. My goggles have a high-powered LED light that eases my eye strain, as I look through the magnifying glasses and into my microscope. Conclusive findings remain elusive. However, I have determined a few interesting things. The bacteria associated with sea star-wasting disease react negatively to aquarium reef cleaner.

Additionally, there needs to be further research into the potential harm against other species.

“Two, while salinity levels remain consistent between samples, I have noticed an increase in calcium and phosphate.”

Sea water is a complex mixture of water, salt, and smaller amounts of dissolved inorganic and organic material. However, my samples have levels that are 8 typically high. Three, on a whim, I test for the presence of protein using a buyer at test, and it returns a positive result. I can't help but think of the animal carcass I found when I walked in, a partially eaten sea lion. Adolescent, I think.

I was able to push it into the deepest part of the tide pool without much difficulty. Regardless, the areas where it was still fleshy were rubbery and cold, the remaining parts of the mantle were eaten clean down to the white bone. I stay there for hours, feverishly working to understand the spread of the oceanic bacteria, I am already mourning the moment that my lovely specimens become infected. While there is no singular cause for their deaths, my mind turned to yachts, and the private planes, unfiltered industrial smoke eroding the ozone.

The world is getting warmer, and the ocean suffers for it.

I hate apologies, but I atone to them. I'm so sorry. It becomes a nightly routine. On day eight, I find white lesions on one of my sea stars. Did you go out last night, Sue?

His puzzle book is split along the spine from where he keeps it bent. He does all of his work in pen.

“I did, I went to the bar, you should come sometime.”

Adam's eyes look at the fridge. He's eating a peach flavored yogurt and wondering where my specimens went, but does mask the question. Every morning he looks at the fridge. Every morning he fails to ask the question. I don't drink.

The comment bothers me, because it makes me feel like he's saying that I do. That I drink more than I should, even though that isn't what he said, and I didn't even go to the bar last night. But my eyes are bloodshot from staring at my journal and research using only flashlight and lanterns. I have heavy bags beneath my eyes. I look like my night was preoccupied, but not with what he's imagining.

His phone rings. Adam has a flaw. He's extremely committed to his girlfriend. Fiancey, actually.

But I never believe that a man has a fiance unless I meet them personally.

Just like I never believe in their wives unless I see their wedding pictures. Out of sight, out of mind. It allows me to build a fantasy around them. I've never been that creative, so I generally don't mind. When the fantasy concludes in the seat of a pickup parked in a thicket.

But seeing him first thing in the morning has expanded my roster of fantasies. Adam, with his dark blue sweatpants from his alma mater. Adam with his chaotic bedhead. Adam with his addiction to disgustingly sweet and coffee. Tink, tink, tinkying his spoon inside of the mug until the sugar is fully dissolved.

Being able to watch him so closely makes me wonder what it would be like to see that every morning. The reality I constructed around him is comfortable. But he calls her every few days. His voice trills with unnerving positivity and effervescence whenever they manage to connect. Twisting his body into peculiar angles on the back porch as he fights valiantly to keep his cell signal.

I listen to every conversation through a crack in my bedroom window. She's with doctors without borders, stationed in Ukraine. She tells him horror stories and asks him to tell her silly jokes. He tells her kelp facts and wishes she was there to eat halibut with him. The distance has to be difficult for them.

But they seem dedicated and build their future lives in little pieces whenever they talk. At the end of the call, they say, "I love you no less than 17 times before hanging up." Eventually I'd like to sit at him down and explain that our research is inextricably linked. Seastar wasting disease has essentially destroyed the Pacific's population of sunflower stars, which were a key force in driving away the overpopulation of purple sea urchins,

which now decimate his precious kelp forests. It's connected. We're connected.

“Are you sure you don't want to come with me to Lincoln City?”

I've changed the scenery for a couple of days.

He's wearing sunglasses because today is light gray instead of dark gray.

“What would I possibly do at a conference about parasitology?”

Meet some folks, network. Network? It's good to get away from work sometimes, that's all. Thanks, but no. He takes the hint, reminding me to get some sleep before driving off.

It doesn't take long for me to help myself to his things. I defrost one of his frozen soups in the microwave and eat it in the middle of his room, looking at his research and paperwork. The blanket he kept folded at the edge of his bed crocheted by his grandmother. He took his laptop.

I take his dog-yared anatomy books. A blue beany and a picture of him and his fiance in the Redwoods. I go to his side of the beach. I find a large, naral of bull kelp that smells like salt and rot.

I drag the mast to my cave.

As I separate the bones into different piles, I consult his notes. Adam has done most of the research for me, identifying the differences between the bones. A dear humorous of fused all night and radius. An elk femur. Human vertebrae and ribs.

It takes time to unravel the nodded bull kelp. As I get closer to the center, the objects become stranger. A human hand. A matted nest of hair. A tennis shoe with a partially eaten foot inside of it.

There are teeth marks along the ankle bone. There are teeth marks along many of the bones actually. After bringing them to my mouth, I determine that the mall is significantly larger than mine. The arc of teeth broad and wide. They are pointed where mine are blunt.

Yet there's evidence of scraping and annoying.

“I draw a diagram from what I believe it looks like based on the indications.”

But I can't accurately match them to the diagrams of local mammals or oceanic predators. I return to the kelp. Removing layer after layer until the core is uncovered. A pristine, white spinal column. Growing.

From the stip. I follow it to the hold fast and gas at the beginnings of a pelvis. They are clean. Painter than bleached teeth. Turning the discovery in my hand.

The water behind me rolls violently within the sinkhole.

Never should anyone turn their back to the sea.

Get I know instinctively that it wouldn't hurt me. Not when I am so close to understanding it. Carefully cradling the bull kelp in my arms. I feed it back into the water. It floats to the center of the tide pool.

Where the water is so deep that it's black. A whirlpool. Develops. Drawing it down. Down.

Down until the water froths.

“And a thick layer of foam develops on top.”

It isn't unusual for an animal to feed more when it's healing. The thought occurs to me. And it doesn't leave my brain as the water. Bubbles and royals like someone turned on the jets in a hot tub. Curious.

I untie the sneaker. And wiggle the foot out of it. The hand is next. The phalanges resurface as hostile boos. I think of digestion.

Regeneration. The intake and outtake of energy and power. Torpor states and raven is hunger. Sea stars jellyfish and limbs wash to shore. The nearest butcher shop is tucked into a sad looking converted auto garage.

I buy several flanks of beef and ham the thick thalays of fish. The man behind the counter eyes me wearily as I stack my purchases inside of my backpack and leave without a word. The tide pool devours at all. Without compunction nor hesitation.

A turbulent mass of splashing water and foam leaving nothing but pure white bones when it's finished. I don't see what to beneath the water. Or the spire of liquid that forms when it gets a particularly good bite. But I handle the aftermath. I bring the t-shaped lumbar vertebrae to my mouth and nought at the same location of their mastocation.

I feel connected to it. My tide pool is healing. There are more enemies than ever. There are snails and hermit crabs as colorful as a crambox. Limbits and chitons and little fish have returned to breed and feed and swim.

It is revitalizing. Beyond that, my stars, my lovely, perfect little oakers, or showing signs of regeneration. Recovering their vibrancy and showing signs of regrowth. It responds to me now.

There's a peculiar hum that reverberates as long as I'm sitting at my desk or skimming my fingers in the water of the pool or narrating my findings or rolling the body of a lost dog into the depths.

Something in the ocean is growing. I don't feel guilt about their meals. Meat is meat. I need to keep feeding it. I find Adam in the kitchen,

staring at the interior of the fridge. Hey, seal, are you doing a keto diet or something? It's filled with white paper wrapped meat. Every shelf. I dispose of the groceries he had in order to make room for more

because my tide pool is always hungry.

Welcome back, Adam. Thanks. Hey. He pauses. Focusing on the hat I'm wearing. It's his.

So is the sweater. Um, yeah. Hey. I see a bead of sweat, form it as temple. He's incredibly handsome.

Even if he's wearing his engagement ring and it's so shiny that it picks up the overhead light. I found something interesting on the beach.

“I think it'll help with your research too.”

You want to see it? His initial suspicion flits away to something more malleable, more vulnerable. Uh, yeah. Sure.

He's oddly quiet as we walk to the beach. I'm used to him paddling on about all kinds of things in consequential to my life in my research, filling my short term memory with his voice. He's a shadow behind me as we walk along the shore,

curling him along the cliff and into the cave. What the fuck is this? He might be talking about the sleeping arrangements I've made next to the belly of my beast. Or he's spied the vast collection of bones along the wall.

The blanket his grandmother crocheted him as a crumpled heap on my camera chair. It is interesting to see his face flicker between confusion and anger.

“Adam watches me play my backpack open to reveal a collection of raw meat.”

Not all of it is from the butcher. He looks like he might vomit as I wriggle a dead cat from the black bag. My greatest discovery, Adam, watch. I tossed the dead pet into the pool and smile as the furry body disappears in a spout of water.

After it feeds, the ocean recovers. I know it sounds impossible, but I have the results. The initial findings of sea star wasting syndrome bacteria have subsided completely. But beyond that, it is returning to a state of health and growth

that hasn't been seen in nearly a century. Long before human interference negatively impacted the biosphere, I just need to keep it fed. If we can transfer the effects within this pool to the greater Pacific, we can return the coast to a burdened ecosystem.

His brain hasn't fully processed all of the information he's receiving, but he'll praise my findings.

I always knew he'd be the one to understand me.

Oh, shit.

“He wipes his sweating hands against his pants.”

You're crazy. Jesus Christ, seal your actually insane. The waves gently lap up the desecrated body of the cat. The beast has always been gentle to me. The beast is gentle to those that deserve it.

I'm not wrong. I'm never wrong. He just needs more time to understand me. I've given it all sorts of food, deer, elk, beef, pork, fish, dogs, cats. He's staring at the cat's skeleton and not me.

That too feels like a level of disrespect that he hasn't shown me before. There's one thing I haven't tried yet, though. What? Live food. His hands, strong from fieldwork, broad and beautiful and callous.

Grab for me after I push him. The tide pool bends to light, covering his screams and eating his final words as if he lives him apart. As the water crashes into the craggy rocks and bits of wool float to the surface. He calls me brilliant. And he's right.

The tide pool is dyed red. The foam is pink. I fish his glasses out of the water and wear them tucked into my collar. I take a sample of the water. It speaks in Adam's voice.

He's still here with me, rolling through the base of my skull until it feels fuzzy and warm. When he's full, he hums songs from the top 40 list. When he's angry, he grows. It sounds like a dog or a cat, or whatever else I've rolled into his stomach. He's often angry.

Sometimes I hear Adam screaming in agony. I've looked for his remains just to keep him safe.

But they've never resurfaced.

A forest of kelp is growing in the center of the pool. When the sun has added to brightest, I can see the white punctuations of bones.

He will love me.

“Because I've dowed it and fed him and tell him everything I'm thinking.”

I can be patient. He'll come out of the ocean when he's ready. Totally grown and hungry.

And I'll finally show the world the culmination of my research.

I'm going to show you the world.

“As our stories sink beneath the waves, we claw our way back onto dry land.”

Join us again next time when we plunge into the chilling depths where water hides its darkest secrets.

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