S24 Ep7: NoSleep Podcast S24E07

Water, it gives us life. We are drawn to it.

Yet it holds immense power over us.

“It can bring unspeakable horror to the most familiar places.”

Your morning shower, a tranquil river bank, or the endless ocean. [MUSIC] It's time to dive deep into the abyss. [MUSIC]

From the dark waters of the Cape Fear River, Immers yourself in horror as you embrace yourself for the no sleep podcast. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]

Welcome to the no sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. Season 24 is sailing right along. Episode 7 already. And sailing is a good metaphor,

considering this season's theme of wicked water. I could have said this season is cruising along, but cruising in horror don't go together, do they? Well, of course they do.

“That's why I'm reminding you about the crime wave at sea 2.0 cruise”

coming up next year. A big thanks to those of you who have already signed up. There are still spots available, but don't wait too long. Check the links in the show notes for more details and sign up for your code to save $100 and get our special no sleep meet and greet.

It will be a life-changing experience. And speaking of things that change our lives, horror has a long tradition of people who transform into things they're not. It's easy to think about people who become crazed monsters after a transformation, but sometimes the person can change into something much more subtle,

except the horror they inflict or experience can be anything but subtle. On this episode we feature tales about people who transition to new places or transform into new beings.

“And as you might expect, these new states of being are certainly”

to general madness and mayhem. Just the way you like it. So turn and face the strange as you learn about these ch-ch-ch-ch changes. Now it's time to plunge into the horror of our sleepless tales.

In our first tale, we meet a woman dealing with the tragic violent death of her little sister,

and despite the seemingly unchangeable end of the ordeal, she is seeking more for resolution. And in this tale, shared with us by author Fia Callahan, a mystical form of chocolate he's used to take her into a lost realm, seeking ultimate justice. Performing this tale are Ash Milman and Jake Benson.

So some tales aren't as complete as they seem, there may be more after the fall. (music) Dried cacao beans simmer on the stove top until they split. The shells sloughing off like dead skin.

Their heady earthy scent mixes with the incense I prepared of cinnamon and mother wart and cacao husks and chili. Together they whisper stories of a long forgotten battlefields, of blood promises and old gods. I break the beans into pieces, stone on stone,

picking out the frail paper like shells. The preparation is as much a part of the ritual as any spoken word, roasting the rare criolo beans by hand, grinding the nips to a paste, each turn of the pestle on mortar like the turning of a cog.

Or a key.

The cacao, of course, is not the first food used to unlock doors between worlds.

Six pomegranate seeds once tore open a gate to hades. Nine sheaves of wheat formed a bridge to avalan. In another time, in another place, a wardrobe made of applewood linked one world to another.

Only the slow, purposeful grinding of cacao by candlelight.

“It is the slowness that makes me ache with longing and rage.”

But these things cannot be rushed. The beans have passed through many hands between the rainforested cacao a tonne region of Mexico and my crumbed kitchen in South London. It's dizzying to think of the road they have taken, the road I have taken, to arrive at this moment.

As the nips break down into a paste, I hold his image in my mind as I last saw him. Clear blue eyes and a handsome face unlined by the hardships of the world. A smile playing around the edges of his lips as if somehow, despite everything we'd been through, the world was still one big,

beautiful riddle to be solved. Once the chocolate is slick and smooth, I mix it with milk and thisal honey and warm the blend gently on the stove. The stirring suaths my own steady hands. As I pour it into a chipped mug, I whisper a dedication to catch a coattle,

“bringer of all things, a prayer for his blood to keep me safe.”

Years ago, before my sister was born, we had a neighbor who would come by while my parents were at work. Claudette, who must have been at least 90 and spoke with a French accent soften by time.

How she ended up in the dirty streets of Tol's Hill, I never knew,

and never thought to ask. She taught me about the plants that grew in the back garden and skim the edges of the sidewalks and glimmered in the supermarket. Lavender, she explained, would calm an argument. Dandelions, Liz Dawn's Delhi on, would make me brave, apples, figs,

even potatoes had their own earthly magic. What about chocolate? I asked, only half joking, my favorite was Capricre Max. But the woman gave me a serious look. Chocolate is old magic, she said.

It is darkness and passion and blood. Hope that you will never need it. At 70 years old, I had not understood. I understand now. The room grows dim with incense smoke.

I sit and pick up the blade I'd set aside.

I've never been good at pain, at taking risks.

It was my sister, Millie, who was always the fearless one, jumping off the swings too early, coming home with new bruises and scrapes and ready to do it all over again. A grip my teeth and pull the knife across my palm. The wound gips raw and ragged against the heel of my hand.

I take a deep breath and wait for the pain to egg. Kakar magic is worry magic, and the place I'm going will have no patience for weakness. I whisper one last to desperate prayer to show she gets all. To coattle Kay, maiden and mother, and lift the cock to my lips. In some far distant place, I filled the smooth ceramic between my hands

and the cool wooden floorboards beneath my legs. The sensations are muted, distant, like viewing them through a dirty window. Here I am on my feet and barren red earth stretches out in every direction. The taste of chocolate lingers on my lips. I hold my hand close to my chest and a perilous flutter of fear climbs at my throat.

I don't know how long the drink will protect me. How long it'll be until the dead notice a living thing, a bleeding thing in their midst. All I need to do is find him, speak to him, just one moment. For that I will brave anything this shadowland can throw at me. I whisper his name into the dead air, William Mahoney.

It seems like such a respectable name. The kind that might have an old Irish granny waiting for it somewhere in Konemara,

wondering why he never came home.

I thought I was alone in this new landscape, but here and there I see flickers of other afterlands. They tangle up together like double exposed photographs. On one side, there are river sticks, glimmers in and out of sight. On the other, the verdant fields of Tiana Knox brawl across the icy expanse of hell. And then I begin to hear them, the cries of the damned.

Their humanity stripped away by their own twisted memories. I think of William somewhere like that.

“Unable to speak, unable to remember, and my heart twists until I cannot breathe.”

There are other things lurking in the fringes too. Shadowy is the ideal things. Hungry things. I focus my eyes ahead and remind myself of why I've come. The ache to feel him beneath my touch.

Just once, to dig my nails into his flesh and watch him bleed. The shadows hover nearby and examine my hand with curiosity. In that distant place, I raise the coffee mug to my lips and taste the smoky earthy sweetness so catch the cartel's blood. The transition is disorienting, like too much wine too quickly,

and I fight to keep my feet rooted in the afterland. As long as the cacao flows through me, the shadows will not harm me.

The last and only time I saw William Mahoney.

“We stared at each other from across a crowded courtroom floor.”

My mother and father stood beside me.

A face was bloated from tears that never stopped falling.

My father's gaunt and grey. I thought I could handle it. Being there across the room from him, giving the nightmare a human face. But I was wrong. My father dragged me screaming from the courthouse,

screaming until the words no longer made sense to my own ears. Screaming because I didn't know what else to do and didn't know how to stop. In the end, William Mahoney was convicted of murdering three girls, not older than 12. Two of the bodies had been recovered.

Millies was not one of them. My family agreed to a deal. Mahoney would tell us where to find my sister and exchange for a reduced sentence, 15 years instead of a lifetime. Maybe less.

My father hated the idea. Hated the thought of setting a monster loose on the streets.

But my mother's tears finally wore him down.

I just wanted to say goodbye.

“I didn't say anything but privately I agreed.”

It was a fair price. But then William had been found dead in his prison cell with a switch blade in his throat. I whisper his name again into the air. Rust-red dust rises and glitters in the thin CPU light. The landscape is so empty, so vast.

And a flicker of uncertainty warms its way in just before a crest of sunset coloured hilltop. And see him. William Mahoney sits alone in the dust, his eyes vacant, even here in this wasteland of broken souls. He is beautiful.

What did he promise those girls? I wonder. What stories did he tell them in the dark? Maybe they made their own promises just by looking at him. The way girls so often do when they know nothing of the world.

I know my sister is dead. To let myself believe otherwise would kill me. But maybe, if I can learn where she's hidden,

my family and I can finally find peace.

We can take a bite. The shadow shift at the periphery of my vision, straining towards my bleeding hand. There is no time here, which means there's no co-agulation. No healing.

In my far away body, I fortify myself with another sip of chocolate. I blink, reorient myself and go over to William. I sit down cross-legged in the dust. He looks up. William doesn't look tortured at all.

He looks healthy. His eyes still that vivid, disarming blue. I feel a flush of white hot rage, as if he shouldn't deserve colour after taking all of it away from my family. But not yet.

There will be time for rage after. William Mahoney. I say, with a soft smile. You're a difficult man to find. His eyes skimmed me up and down.

A series of quick judgments flickering one after the other. Ah, well.

“Or perhaps catches up with his all in the end, doesn't it?”

But he says it with a grin, mocking himself, mocking the world, mocking the great mysteries that brought us both here face-to-face. He tilts his head to one side. So, what other get you with? He must have sent a confusion on my face, because he continues.

What did you do to get stuck in this hole? Made a deal with a god. I wonder what he sees when he looks around him. What hell does he believe in? What stories kept young William Mahoney up at night?

He wouldn't be the first to make that mistake, my dear. Don't worry, you're pretty in sweet. I love that kind of thing. And he had loved it, too. Pretty in sweet.

Just on the cusp of womanhood, childhood in a sense beginning to crack and reveal the fears underneath. How many? I ask, startling myself. It doesn't matter how many.

That isn't why I'm here. How many what? I hesitate. How many girls? He was convicted of three.

But everyone knew there were more. More missing girls, more buried stories. It was only after my sister that he got sloppy. He meets my eyes for a moment. Then shrugs and looks away.

I didn't count. I dig my nails into my bloody palm until the pain clears my head. Anyway, I won't be hanging around much longer. My lawyer has a deal on the table. I open my mouth and then close it.

It takes a moment for it to click. The asshole doesn't even know he's dead. I focus on my hands. Those other hands in that other place and lift the chocolate to my lips.

The cup is empty. I'm wasting time.

I tried to keep my voice light. Two conspirators locked away. Two lost souls together in the dark. He leans back against his elbows.

“As if you were on a riverbank instead of an agile cell.”

All the sons of hell. Easial? Information. About the girls. I wish I had more time.

If he senses desperation, he will play with me and spit me out. I will lose him. The shadows gather at the edges of my vision. Drawen by the scent of my blood. From somewhere in the distance comes the fluttering of wings.

He glances down.

Notice my hand for the first time.

So I get rough with you. Something like that. I run my thumb across my palm where the blood is beginning to pull. It comes away red. What information?

He closes his eyes and a slow smile plays over his face. You ever kill anyone before? I tamped down my frustration. Not yet. Then I am men myself.

No. No. I'm not like you. He doesn't look at me. But his smile broadens into a grin.

Don't worry. You will. I wasn't worried. I want to snap. There's calm and nerves me.

What makes you think that?

“He opens his eyes again and examines my face.”

As though memorizing his contours and angles. I can see it. You're anger. That's where it begins. Before it becomes game. Before it becomes play.

Before it's a game. A hunt. Whatever you think it is long before that. It's anger. It's fire burning so hot.

It waits for everything else. I see it under your skin. It's only a matter of time. I stare at him. There is so much I want to say.

I will never be like you.

I imagine raking my nails down his face. Feeling his hot blood sinking to my cuticles. The longing so intense it makes my breath catch. Instead I say. You're wrong.

I make you dead. He closes his eyes again. Tell me your secret. Now I'll tell you mine.

“I want to know what to bother us at Trossady.”

You committed to get Trossady here with me. Not that I'm complaining. Senior he was getting dull. His closed eyes give me a chance to study his face in return. It's the kind that will stay young forever.

With full lips I may have fallen for in another life. Hatred makes my visions swim. Someone hurt my family. The police punished him but it wasn't enough. He opens his eyes and gives me an appraising look.

And never is. Your turn? I say. Smoothing down my voice like a smoother wrinkled dress. More information could be so valuable that it why you would tick it out.

I'm careful not to look at him. There is one they were still looking for. The hell enough to put me for it. They're not enough to find her. I agreed to draw him a treasure map and exchange for an early pass.

I take a deep breath. The taste of chocolate on my tongue. Every step of my preparations have led me to this moment. My mother's tears. The haunted hollowness in my father's eyes.

The sound of my screen still ringing in my ears. So ringing for weeks later. I walked through the very gates of hell for one simple question. Where is she? William Grins.

Sorry. Tree of secret. Lost. Milly is lost. For a moment the walls around my resolve tilt.

It can't be over. I won't let it be over. I will claw him apart with my bare hands. But the shadows at the edges of the world are stirring. Well, you sure run the police in circles.

Him has to be somewhere pretty clever. I'd hoped to appeal to his vanity. But my voice sounds thin and desperate to my own ears. My plan is coming apart. It's happening too fast.

He gives me a hard look. And a shadow of recognition passes behind his eyes. And did you say you were again? A study in my moment longer. His eyes are clear and blue and shrewd.

His nose gently aqueline like a hunters. I imagine him taking milly by the hand. Making her laugh. It would have been easy.

I imagine all the others who were never found.

All of the broken families. All the broken lives. Then I let my eyes flutter closed. A breeze. In the world beyond.

I tilt the curb way back. And suck at the last few drops of bitter chocolate. Coating my lips with it.

Kitsa Kawasal gives me strength. I open my eyes. Do you know where you are? William Mahoney. He gives me that boyish grin again.

“Though the caution doesn't leave his eyes.”

Said he's vanished. The reds were spooked out for the weekend. No. He frowns and looks away. You screwed up.

Made someone angry. A lot of people angry. Actually. I keep my voice steady and slow. Even as my heart jumps.

But one was all it took. He looks back at me. And I see it then. The fear, deep and primordial hidden behind layers and layers of self delusion. Perhaps a part of him does know.

After all. Do you see them? I look towards the edges of the dustland. The shadows are beginning to take shape with angles and edges. Sharp columns and sheets of darkness that beat against the still air.

He tears his eyes away from me. Squinting as though looking at the sun.

“The one reddish light of the afterland is fading.”

They're coming for you. The fear shines brighter in his eyes now. Like a shark rising to the surface of the sea. No. I have a deal.

My lawyer said. I'll make you a new one. Tell me where my sister is. And I'll get you out of here. I watch the wheels turn in his head.

His eyes flicker over me.

No doubt looking for a million in my face.

Maybe remembering what should be like in our last moments. The feeling of her delicate bones beneath his soft, boyish hands. She can do that. Think faster, William. He looks around frantically at the darkening sky.

I stand, brushing dust off my trousers, and turn away. Though it kills me, I take a step. Then another. We are. I stop, really floating my chest.

William stands too.

“There's an outdoor cellar, a heinous woman pool.”

The used to keep life jackets and stuff in there, but it's abandoned now. That's where you'll find them. I turn. My heart pounding. William has gone ash pale. Red dust clings to his clothes.

Thank you. I dig my nails into the heel of my hand and force the wound apart. Fresh blood wells up, sticky and hot. I reach out and press it to his open throat. Fill it smear beneath my touch.

He stares at me. Why died? For a while, surreal moment, I'm tempted to kiss him. To make him feel as caged and helpless as she was,

to taste the mingled blood and chocolate before his soul is ripped apart. I don't. I am not like him. Goodbye, William. I pull back my hand.

It leaves a vivid red stain behind, like a gaping mouth. The air comes alive with beating wings. We hit. We had a deal. I step back and watch the shadows descend.

His screams echoing my ears as I open my eyes. 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.

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When a person dies alone in nature, their body returns to the earth.

It's considered respectful to not interfere with the remains,

unless you're a bone collector. As we'll learn in this tale, shared with us by author Pamela Jeffs,

“a woman scours the mountainside for bones she can sell for fertilizer”

and a stranger she encounters along the way has much insight for her. Performing this tale, are Elana Chanel and Penny Scott Andrews. So acknowledge the lost and the land they die upon when you seek bones to feed fellow fields. It's said these cursed mountains devour men, but I find they eat women just as often. Either way, it matters not to me.

For bones are bones and bones are money, and I am nothing if not a woman who covers God.

My horse Keita knows these treacherous paths. She navigates the sparse dead forests for these. Passing the ethereal silver trees that stand with shattered limbs twisted by the wind. Sometimes when the melancholy mood overtakes me, I imagine they are weeping for those who have died in these lands. I harm as we travel, scurting the snowline, letting Keita choose the way. The horse hasn't known for finding the dead, and she doesn't fail me.

She soon holds, head held high, fierce pressed forward. She huffs her breath clouding to mist in the chill deer. What is it, my love? She tosses her head, front hoof pouring the barren, stony ground. Death, bones, good girl.

I slide from the saddle. My pots tied from the horn, rattle as I knock them with my shoulder. I unhook my collection sack beside them. The bones are already collected today, clatter, those of an eagle and a native dog we found on our way up. I shoulder the bag and circle Keita. I can't see what she senses, but I can smell it.

The sweet, rot cent of decomposition coming from the tumble of boulders next to the path. A cloud of flies rise from the corpse I find sprawled behind the rocks. The carcass is badly decomposed, but it's human, a male.

“Or at least I think it is the body being far taller and slimer than anything I've seen before.”

A nest of long, tangled brown hair still clings to the grinning skull. The skull armed with teeth, broader and longer than any human has the right to own. I'm sorry to see the demise of a fellow traveller, but bones are bones. I drop my sack to the ground and pull my flaying knife from my belt. The bones are no use on this cleaned, so I've ready to remove the flesh before I boil them down.

Keita, piqued by the nearest tree, cydels as I add another log to my campfire. Smoke and sparks curl up into the evening. Watercolors strokes against the night's indigo sky. I lean back on my saddle bags and watch the pots slowly boil over low flames. The water melting the last shreds of meat from the bones.

The rumminate on the strangeness of the man they belonged to. Cleaning them, while typically unpleasant, had revealed a strange, pitrified smoothness to their lengths. The bones almost seem crafted of gilded glass rather than the typical porous material I grind down to sell to the valley folk. Focused pay good money to purchase the rare powder to fertilize their fields. I pick up my stick and lean over to stir the pot. The bones clink, again like glass.

I'm not sure what you've found for us this time, Keita.

“The fire cracks in a log shifts. I jump in the mere poles against a teather.”

The light catches a long nose and casts their eyes into ghoulish shadows. It's just the fire girl. Rest easy. But she remains vigilant. Geys fixed to appoint somewhere past the tree line. Her intensity raises the hairs on my neck. This night has eyes. I'm sure of it. Another crack. This time from the forest behind me. I turn.

The tall, bone-white trees loam. Twisted limbs holding back a curtain of darkness. I recline back and ease the dagger from the shape that my hip. I lock my fingers on the hill. The breeze kicks up and the tree limbs rattle. They sound like my collection bag does when it's full.

I keep an eye on the forest.

Anyone out there? The dry grass is shift in a sudden breeze. Do you ask the traveler?

“I swivel, blade up, edge-catching the fire light. A young woman walks into camp.”

Her eyes luminous blue seems so much older than her smooth face suggests. She holds her hands up empty. May I share your fire? My hand tightens on the hill. People don't just wander around in the dark up here, so close to the summit. She smiles and fine wrinkles crinkle at the corners of her eyes. Surely you don't fear a fellow woman out past dark and traveling alone.

I take in her tall, thin form, her patchwork cloak. She looks as if she would blow over on a stiff wind.

Horses, and nod to the opposite side of the flames. You can join me to catch your breath, but you can't stay. The rest alone is welcome. The woman's circles. She glances briefly at the pot and then sits. I'm hungry. That isn't food. What, then? I lay my knife across my knee, close to hand.

Bones. I'm a bone collector. A bone collector. I gather them off the mountain to self-a-profit. I shrug. Some folk believe the ground down powder brings good luck when killed into food bearing earth. The woman frowns. And what about the mountain?

“If you take the bones and his good luck from him, how is he to remain bound to full?”

She scans the dead trees. Maybe you have already taken too much. It's all nonsense. I'd have the purse tied to my belt. It's gold that holds power in this world and the bones bring me that.

Gold? Yes. So you swap bones for gold? Yes. And you don't see the irony in that. What irony? The mountain's own bedrock. It's bones. I'm made of gold. You sell bones for bones.

Something about the way she says it suggests I should be ashamed. But outcast women like myself have two options to make a living. I choose the one that allows me freedom. I live for my chin. I only deal with the dead. Gold is metal. It's not a living part of the mountain. The woman nods and looks to the pot.

Peer eyes catch the firelight, turning them to moonstones. I understand. I shift uncomfortable. I wish to be rid of her company. Maybe if I share food she'll leave sooner. Here. I reach into my saddlepack and hold out a pouch of dried apple.

It is a much, but you're welcome to it. The woman reaches over and takes the food. Her skin brushes mine. I jerk back my hand. She's cold to touch. Her fingers like ice. She glances at me and smiles again. Thank you.

I rub my palm to warm it, but the more I rub the colder my skin feels. I hold my hand out to the fire, but the warmth feeds the uncanny sensation. The cold rises, creeping up into my wrist and forearm. It reaches my neck and my tongue. I try to speak, but the words are locked in my frozen throat. Confused, I look to the woman.

She sits quietly, eyes gleaming as she choose thoughtfully on the apple. Heat a nickers and pause the ground. Why is my mere sensing death?

I'm helpless as she lifts my rigid body from the fire side.

“Heat a cause after me as we pass hurt, but I cannot answer.”

I try to struggle, but in vain. My breath's quicken as we travel higher up the mountain, up through the dark and over bare stones. Where is she taking me? We hit the snow line and continue on. The woman's footsteps turning from the crunch of dead brushwood into the squeak of new snow underfoot.

And still we climb. Edited it seems for the summit. It's when dawn crests in the eastern sky. A canvas of orange and purple that we reach the plateau. The woman drops me to the snow hard enough that my teeth clutter.

I blink, the only movement I control.

As the thin cold air brushes my brow and lips, I again try to move, but remain wooden.

Humming fills the air. A sweet melody that brings to mind wide blue vistas. Heady thunderstorms and wild valleys that drop into shadow. A quiet rattle underpins the soul.

“The sound of bones tumbling from my sack onto the snow.”

An eagle, a dog, and the spirit of the mountain. Quite the hall bone clicker. My captor steps into my field of view. Her hair blooms around her head. The new rays of morning sunlight crowning her in gold.

Her eyes stare into mine. Unblinking. You took and took the bones from these mountains. You took until his land starved. And then when the mountain spirit, my brother, had nothing left to give.

And he died. You flayed his rotting flesh from his bones. And boiled them in your pot. Who spit all lands on my cheek and freezes there? Who is this woman? She must read the question in my gaze.

I am Cielo. The one who earns the wild skies. And I am most unmerciful.

“Sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.”

I would whimper if I could. Cielo swings away from me. Her cloak swirling snowflakes like powder. She retrieves the fallen bones and lays them around me. The skulls she positions on my chest and abdomen. She leans in close.

Now? You will give back what you took. My stomachs hours. The woman grails and slams her fist through the snow. I hear her knuckles hit the bedrock and crack like thunder.

She snars. Bearing her teeth. And they abroad and long like those in the last skeleton I found. Teeth, not quite human. But I see now are at home in the mouths of spirits or demons.

This sky woman could easily lay claim to either title. Tears trick Cielo's face as she mutters words. Words forming a strange and unusual language like wind cresting razor-back stone. The ground beneath me starts to warm.

At first I welcome the heat, a sensation of thawing.

But then I begin to burn. Gold. Liquid. Gold. Like blood seeps from the ground and crawls like maggots across my arms and chest.

My skin blisters at its touch. Waking white hot madness in juicing agony. My voice breaks free from the prison of my throat. My scream shakes the sky but is soon smothered as the boiling liquid fills my mouth and burns my tongue to cinders.

Cielo stops her tears gleam on the portal and can perceive her face. Those moon stone eyes. There's doorways into her ageless soul. As a last thing I see before the mountain's gold burns my eyes away too. The gold infused bones of the bone collector.

Grown as I grind them between two boulders. The work is hard and my fingers blister with the effort. My blood, Cielo's rain, wets my palms. But I do not falter. My brother, spirit of the mountain, was kind and generous.

almost driven mad by that unending expense.

“It was here that sang me back from oblivion.”

A gentle soul. He gave to the creatures that dwelt in his domain and with their deaths, the power in their bones sustained him. But the bone collector came. I watched from lofty heights as my brothers' sustemments were stolen from him.

I saw his body wilt as did the vegetation on the mountain. Vegetation that he had since the dawn of time carefully cultivated. And I wept when he died alone.

His corpse left to rot on a mountainside turned fallow.

Helplessness woke the rage of storms and wild winds in me. And then the bone collector came again. She defiled my brothers' corpse.

“I pushed my weight down and grind the boulder harder.”

Bone shards splinter and spray across the snow. I carefully gather them back into the pile. I grind. I grind until all that is left is bone dust mixed with gold. I carefully gather it up and move to stand at the precipice of the summit.

With purse lips, I blow the particles into the air. The wind catches them, below is them across the sweeping dead forests that stretch below. As I stand with a morning sky arcing over me, I send a wish into the vastness of the universe. Please let it be that bones are not only bones,

but that they hold to deep a magic. Let the bone collect the sacrifice. Return life to these lands. The horror keeps flowing.

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Go to home chef.com/noseleep. That's home chef.com/noseleep for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life. Home chef.com/noseleep must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Now, let's plunge back into the deep waters of horror.

We are told there is no stronger bond of love than that between a parent and child. It's unimaginable to think about a parent ridding themselves of their very own flesh and blood. But in this tale, shared with us by author, Juan Cardinus, we meet a young woman who has been abandoned, cast off into a mystical forest. She's not intended to survive, but she does.

Performing this tale, are Sarah Thomas, Christian DiMacirio, and Atticus Jackson.

It was odd for my mom to pick me up.

That should have been enough warning.

“But part of me was happy to see her on that crisp winter afternoon.”

Maybe she was trying her best. There were times when she'd get out of her funk and put up her den. She typically waited for me at home in her room, writing her blog, angrily slamming something once I got home. As if my arrival meant her free time was over.

Looking at our now felt alien, she was blank-faced and exhausted as if she hadn't slept.

I was so surprised I stopped mid-step and someone behind me bumped into me.

I didn't even say anything when they cursed me out. Mom had parked her car on the crosswalk, oblivious to the angry but silent families going around it in a mad dash home.

“She was smoking, and wordlessly just shared for me to go with her.”

So I got in the car. Her eyes resumed their usual fury, and I realized I would not be getting trying mom. I would be getting angry mom.

I got in and almost forgot to mumble.

Thank you, ma'am, to her. I appreciated the ride, but the long walk home was usually my escape from her. She was volatile, insulting, and often just cruel at home. Complaining of how much she missed out on by raising me. How my father was on easy street in jail, while she had to do the hard work of being everything to me.

“I sat in the back, my backpack by my side, and as usual stayed quiet.”

She was big on me not speaking unless spoken to. I stared out the window, people watching, a growing sense of unease settled into the pet of my stomach. Now, I was not the smartest child in my school, nor the most perceptive. So suspicion only dawned on me when we had been driving for over an hour. I looked around nervously.

Mom had been quiet the whole time. The radio had been turned to static, and she didn't bother to adjust it to find a new station. It was only when I realized we were outside the city limits that I knew something bad was happening. They were friendly looking cows standing on the side of the road, gazing longingly at the growing expanse of greenery that our car was driving into. My stomach growled when almost another hour passed.

I knew I needed to ask something, but I was scared. Once the roads started to get bumpy, I couldn't take it any longer, so I squicked out a question. Mom, where are we going? My mother didn't answer. She kept driving. Another long moment passed through us until I asked again, this time louder.

She looked in the rearview mirror, and she mumbled through red wine stained teeth that we were going to the mountains. Indeed, the little car was rising up the side of the thin winding dirt road that curved around the hills almost two hours out of town. The bright crisp cold was replaced by the now-somber and boggy chill of the mountain. The air was thinning, and I felt faint, having not eaten so long and getting a tinge of beer in my gut. The ride went on for what felt like another hour, and around several turns of the mountain until we reached a sort of plateau, a flat opening with roads leading down and even more up.

It seemed like this area was cleared out specifically for pulling over, but there was no gas station, no fenders, no people, just some sparse foliage and the multiple tire tracks of passing vehicles. Mom pulled over and killed the engine, abruptly ending the radio static that she had been listening to. Stepping out, she made sure to grab from her purse a small item, the size of a football, wrapped in paper, and gestured for me to get out of the car. It was almost evening now. I felt the cold through my thin school stockings and worn out ballet flats.

It didn't help that my jacket was ill-fitting and thread bare. Mom led me a few minutes walk, up in incline, to where a large obsidian boulder was. It was the size of one of those big sofa love seats. The top was smooth, as if sanded, and ice cold to the touch. I felt an electric unease when I looked at it.

Mom asked me to sit with her. She handed me the object. She took a deep breath, but neglected to say anything as we sat on the stone together.

Finally, Mom spoke, but not to me.

“I offer you this and only this. Please bless me as you have the others.”

Then she abruptly got up, attempting to leave. I grabbed her arm. She reacted as if a rat had touched her, but then composed herself. I asked her where we were, why were we here? When I could go home, she did an answer. I could see the glaze of a whole bottle of wine in her eyes. Do you know the story of Hansel and Gretel? I nodded.

Two siblings alone in the woods, left there by their parents when they couldn't feed them anymore. My back tightened, my jaw dropped, my heart graced. They were devastated by the betrayal. But it works out for them. No. Candy House killed a witch, and they lived happily ever after.

It was then that she left. Something compelled me to stay on that rock.

Maybe it was self-respect. Maybe it was just shock. Most likely shock. She disappeared down the path she had led me on. I opened the item she gave me.

“It was a little breadman. I knew what this was.”

It was sort of like a gingerbread man, but not flat. Like a gingerbread man, it was decorated with frosting and eaten on the holidays. Like a gingerbread man, it tasted bland. Angerly, I threw the breadman on the ground and started to cry. It was a deep, whole body cry. The kind that involves a lot of gasps, shaking,

falling to my knees and what I imagined to be quite the spectacle. It took me several minutes to calm down. The sun was setting. The fog was growing. The place was getting colder and colder. I thought about the story again. The bread crumbs. Of course. I could just follow the path back down the mountain. It took a long time to drive up here,

but I could follow the path down. I didn't need mom. I didn't need anyone. I would go back down. I would get back to town. There would be signs.

“Helpful people. Those people in the church. They have to help people.”

I could go to a church. Get a new family. Things will be great. I had these thoughts buzzing around my head as I started leaving. Absent mindedly picking up the breadman and tucking him into my sweater. As if he was a near and dear trinket of mine. I didn't make it too far before I felt like I had gotten lost somehow.

The path that I took heading down now seemed to be going up again. It didn't make sense. A few more minutes of walking and I found myself back at the obsidian stone. Sitting rigid like a block of ice in its own clearing. I ventured again. Then wound up back at the stone.

And again. And again. Every time finding myself back at the stone. I guess I should lay down the crumbs on the road. I dropped bits and pieces of the bread on the ground.

First from its head. Then it's arms. Then part of its torso.

This time. I felt like I was progressing. I wasn't immediately coming back to the obsidian stone. There was a calm in me. Then I heard a little snap. Like a twig. It was probably a good 10 minute walk from the big black stone. I froze. Not sure what to do.

The forest was almost fully darkened. And I kept thinking about what my P.E. teacher told me about the mountains and the animals they have. Basically. If you're out here and think of mountain lion is coming for you. Your best option is to get down on your knees. Pray. And sort out whatever business you got with whatever God you worship.

Because you'll be meeting them soon. It wasn't helpful. But it was all I had. There was a sudden blurry if movement. My heart jumped and I expected to see a big cat claws out leaping at me. Instead. The brush on the side of the road suddenly exploded into the outline of a man

with crazed bloodshot eyes. A filthy set of casual office slacks. And a slightly ripped button down shirt. His face was framed by a wool hat. And long hair that was matted and tingled. He ran to me like a desperate starving dog for a bone. I froze again. The side of him had startled me.

But even then my body couldn't do anything but hold my hands up to cover my face as he closed the distance between us. To my surprise. He didn't touch me. He just collapsed at my feet. Evidently exhausted. Thank God.

We got it. We got it. We got it. We got it.

But there was a softness to him, a weakness almost.

“Listen, kid. I'm going to assume you're in the same boat as me.”

So, come with me. Okay? I'm not going to hurt you. I need you. I mean, I will help you. Okay? He put a hand out as if he wanted me to take it. I hesitate it. But then, seeing no other way out, took it.

And a girl. Now we gotta go back to the rock. I protested. I dug my feet in. Go back there. I wanted to leave. I tried to tell him, but he just tightened his grip and turned to face. And turned to face me. He put on a real steely look. Like he was about to tear me limb from limb. But that quickly washed away.

He just looked me in the eyes and said to trust him. Anyway, I went. I would wind up at the slab anyway. I thought about it. It did feel like I was walking in circles in this forest, even when I went in a straight line.

And without much effort, we were back at the slab. Okay. We wait here.

“He sat, tugging my hand until I sat near him.”

He let out a beam of sigh, looking out into the forest. Now, I've seen a lot of older people being sent here. A lot of bones, a lot of deadbeats. But this is the first time I've seen an honest-a-god child out here. He must have been hell over bad kid.

I don't take offense sweetheart. I was too.

At least my dad always said so.

I did an answer. What he said struck a chord with me. Was I bad? I didn't ask my mother for money or for special privileges. I cleaned up.

I made my own meals. Hot, fresh tears came down my face. Hey, hey, no need for that kid. We can't all be wanted. It's like they say.

Someone's got to be on the bottom. It'll be over soon anyway. Wait a second. You don't know what's going on, do you? Ah, shit.

Look, let me be brief with you. You're an unwanted thing. I don't know why. Well, I don't know why I'm here either. But I sure is hell no.

I'm getting out.

“And I'm going to get that two-tonic son of a bitch that sent me here.”

Whoever brought you here, like to you, and gave you a little bread guy.

And basically made you into an offering.

A sacrifice. An exchange for good luck. The people around here give up someone unwanted to them. A large snap came from the woods. The man hushed me and reached an arm around me.

Grabbing me and pulling me up in front of him like a human shield. His sudden strength surprised me. He smelled like sweat and urine. I could feel the moist bits of his body on my neck and face. In this cold, it was like ice against my skin.

I felt terrors, stony, grip, tear apart my insides. I wanted to scream out. But my voice was caught in my throat as the man wrapped his dirt covered fingers around my neck. I was wriggling in his grip when I saw it. It rolled like a boulder out of the trees,

trampling bushes and pushing away rocks as it began to unfurl.

First, it looked like it was as big as a car,

but it was longer. The black carapace and tail segments that stretched out beyond what I could see in the dark. It rose up, easily over ten feet tall. Tilting ever so slightly, it outstretched its sharp and spindly arms. Dozens of them, like a centipede.

But most frightening of all was its massive head. It looked like a porcelain baby doll's head. It only jet black with shiny yellow and white eyes. No nose and a mouth that opened wide. Impossible wide.

Displaying row upon row of seemingly rotten, jagged yellow teeth the size of kitchen knives. It's screeched out a disturbing sound, like the horrible ear piercing squeal of an animal being slaughtered. Growing louder as it started coming for us. That's when I realized what the man was doing. I was the bait.

I was to be this man's way to escape the horrible creature. I dug my heels into his feet and his grip loosened just slightly.

It's bought in portion curling up like a spring.

After struggling some more, I was free.

“I ran off amidst the panic screens of the man chasing me as I bolted for the trees.”

Looking behind me as I shoved my way past the victory trunks, I could see him. His panic and rage were colouring his fat face up flushed red, heaving his weight through the low branches and bushes that were in his way. He was gaining on me. Though both of us were slowing down as the vegetation seemed to hold us in place.

The rumble and cracking of the trees behind us were shaking the ground beneath me. I was kicking my way out of some binds when I felt as thick fingers wrap themselves around my wrist. Squeezing it painfully as I went limp, being held up only by his grip. I'm done being nice about this.

He produced a switchblade that's shown brightly against the moonlight.

The black bramples, binds at branches were encroaching on my vision as I looked up at him. His intense, red-rimmed eyes focused on me. Back to the slab, and you get yourself eaten by that thing and I will be free. I will be free of this damn place.

“The creature erupted out of the trees, somehow having silently crept up on us.”

Rolling out like a massive pill bug, complete with the groved segments, the hairs, and the shiny black skin. Rocks and branches pound off of it. It unburled and moved like a massive snake, pushing bushes to the side, kicking up dirt and rocks high into the air as it feraled towards us. The man let go of me as we ran.

We both sprinted to the base of a massive tree, while I attempted to go around it. I turned and saw the man have fallen down. He tumbled onto a side and attempted to get up when a single leg, as thick as a pipe, segmented, hairy, black, and shiny pierced his abdomen. A disgusting, bursting wet sound the company to screams as the leg tore through his midsection.

The creature then twisted the leg that had caught the man viciously digging into its prone victim. I bumped into the tree trying to get away. I still fixated on the dying man. I felt something odd, something horizontal, like a step.

“I turned around to find a wooden wrong, mostly rotten, soft and wet.”

I looked up, there was a ladder, a rope ladder with some wooden rungs. Frightened out of my mind, but also relieved, I climbed. I moved as fast as my body could, almost falling off and slipping down. The sound of crackling and slurping behind me. It seemed impossibly high.

I went into rope movement, moving on autopilot. My thoughts on home. On a life I used to know. On the tiny and few choice I actually had, and held bound to full they seemed now.

A step cracked, I fell for a brief second.

I caught myself on my elbow, and it felt like it was going to come off. But I tried even harder. The creature was still loudly tearing into the man. At the top, I could finally look down. The massive baby head had opened wide, almost at an obtuse angle.

It spindly arm bent backwards, and dropped the body of the man into its mall, where he was impaled by the rows of jacket teeth. His already-up-thissarated torso was further damaged, as organs and limbs were neatly severed when the mall closed. I appeared over the edge of where I had climbed to,

lying low on a floor of wooden planks. Fresh blood dripped out of the sight of the creature's mouth, and what might have been the man's eye fell from its jaws. I shifted my weight, and the remnants of the breadman and my jacket fell out of my ripped clothes,

landing soundlessly in front of the creature that sat there, a light crunch and squelch coming out of its mouth from time to time. I stared at it for hours. It was sitting still, like a spinks. Its blank and expressionless eyes looking forward,

occasionally spinning back like a crocodile as its swallowed its meal. It seemed tall enough to come up here without any problem, but instead, it sat placidly like an alligator on a riverbank. When I felt like I could turn my back on it, I looked around to where I was.

It was like a little treehouse. I had it realized it, but it was a hunter's tree stand. No walls, just a little raised wooden platform, with something of a canvas roof covered in fake leaves. I felt around and found a camouflage blanket,

and a little tightly wrapped bundle in a mason jar. I opened it to find the candy bar. I almost chuckled as I ate the sweet chocolate.

expecting to see the creature,

“but only finding an empty space where it had been.”

I was almost disappointed. I wanted to tell the creature how mom was right, how it was going to be like hand-selling grettle, complete with the failed breadcrum trail, the candy house, and it, the witch.

But I guess it was for the best that the creature had gone away. No chance of me being able to shut that thing into an oven. I stayed up there longer than I want to admit. A man found me half delirious with hunger and cold.

It was a miracle he said.

I was covered in a thin layer of frost. The hillside was different that day. I could hear bird song, and the fog had lifted.

“It was explained to me when I was fully cognizant”

that my mother was gone without a trace, and I was now a ward of the state. I didn't tell anyone about the creature. The devout were of unwanted things as I came to know it by. It was too crazy.

And even though I didn't spend a single night without having nightmares about it, I managed to thrive. I started waiting tables. I'm saving money. I'm a grown woman now.

In a few years, I might have enough to get my own place to go back to school. Along the way I found a boyfriend who I felt deeply for. That is, until I found out that he had been dipping into my savings. He did like the horse races.

“He had taken over five grand from me without me knowing.”

Probably lost on his gambling addiction and who knows what else. And while I was furious at burst, I knew there was a solution. I showed up at his place one Friday night, having stopped by the bakery right before. He seemed put off by my surprise visit, but I was insistent.

We never do anything fun together.

Let's go for a nice drive in the country. He was happy to indulge me. I made my way through the dirt roads and rocky paths that I thought I had forgotten. Fully immersed in the songs of birds and the dance of dense bog in the cloudy forest. I was smiling wide as wide as the baby headed creature was with its victim in its mouth.

I let him out of the car, sat him on the now seemingly smaller slab of obsidian, and handed him the tightly wrapped breadman, giving him a quick hug. For a second, I thought of how my mother must have felt doing this to me, and how I felt now. I felt a ping of guilt, but I had a bright future to worry about.

I proclaimed to the forest that he was my offering, and sauntered back to my car. He called out to me, confused but frozen in place, as I had been all those years before. And I got in my car, lowered the window,

and told him to think about the tale of Hansel and Gretel, before speeding off, away for good this time. [music] 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. [music] The no sleep podcast is presented by creative reason media.

The musical scores are composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Michaelski, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornett, and Claudius Moore. Our editorial team is Jessica McAvoy, Ashley McAnelly, Ali A. White, and Kristen Samito.

I'm your host and executive producer, David Cummings. To discover how you can get even more sleepless horror stories from us, visit sleepless.theno sleeppodcast.com to learn about the sleepless universe.

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