Uncorrected Scribe v2 machine transcript. Neutral speaker labels are specific to this recording. Review flags: 12.
TXT · SRT · VTT · Untouched JSON · Review flags
Source: interviews/nosleep-podcast-s9e09.mp3
SHA-256: 2fa3013648a0604bca6210b0e9a5fc1a939e6dfd3d4eccd4f2aac87adc4d28e5
00:00:00.420 Speaker 1 Everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids, but what about protecting
00:00:05.360 Speaker 1 them? Outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start?
00:00:11.360 Speaker 1 Well, protecting your home and auto is a great place to start. Progressive offers
00:00:16.239 Speaker 1 customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you
00:00:20.880 Speaker 1 and your loved ones. They're basically the outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, and
00:00:25.980 Speaker 1 baby gates of insurance. Don't wait. Get your quote today at progressive.com.
00:00:32.360 Speaker 1 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and other insurers. Not
00:00:36.260 Speaker 1 available in all states. [phone ringing] [suspenseful music] This is a horror
00:00:41.960 Speaker 1 storytelling podcast. Our tales are dark and disturbing, intended
00:00:47.980 Speaker 1 to shake you up. Listen at your own risk.
00:00:53.600 Speaker 1 They are all around you. And tonight, there will be no sleep.
00:00:59.160 Speaker 1 [suspenseful music]
00:01:06.300 Speaker 1 Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast.
00:01:13.200 Speaker 1 For the dark hours when you dare not close your eyes. Tales of
00:01:18.760 Speaker 1 horror to frighten and disturb. Join
00:01:24.780 Speaker 1 us as the sleepless hours tick past.
00:01:29.440 Speaker 1 [suspenseful music]
00:01:53.700 Speaker 1 It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's
00:01:59.160 Speaker 1 show, we have five tales about confined kids, striking storms, and
00:02:05.040 Speaker 1 freaky forests. It's my pleasure to welcome two new voice actors to the show.
00:02:11.680 Speaker 1 Wafia White is a trained actor with a BA in drama from the University of North
00:02:16.480 Speaker 1 Carolina. She has a number of stage and film credits and is branching out into voice
00:02:21.860 Speaker 1 acting. We're glad you're sharing your voice with us, Wafia. Also joining us is
00:02:27.620 Speaker 1 Erin Lillis. Erin is a writer, voice actor, podcaster, and artist with a BFA in
00:02:33.640 Speaker 1 film from Emerson College. She's an experienced voice actor with numerous
00:02:38.740 Speaker 1 audiobooks, narrations, and commercial roles to her credit. Thank you for being a
00:02:43.940 Speaker 1 part of our team, Erin. We welcome both of these talented women to the show. Check
00:02:49.240 Speaker 1 the show notes to learn more about them. Longtime listeners may be familiar with
00:02:54.340 Speaker 1 some of our regular authors. We have the pleasure of collaborating with some of the
00:02:58.680 Speaker 1 best writers on the No Sleep subreddit. And occasionally, the No Sleep writing
00:03:03.360 Speaker 1 community holds a competition called No Sleep Teams, where authors are put in groups
00:03:08.960 Speaker 1 and each group creates a single story. We're pleased to be doing one such No Sleep
00:03:14.360 Speaker 1 Team story on this episode, and I think you'll recognize most of the authors in that
00:03:19.240 Speaker 1 team. It's always good to see such fine talent collaborate. And before
00:03:25.160 Speaker 1 we begin, I want to wish our Canadian and American listeners both a happy Canada Day
00:03:30.780 Speaker 1 and Happy Independence Day. Canada turns 150 years old this weekend,
00:03:36.700 Speaker 1 so we're pretty flippin' stoked about that, eh? And of course, a happy red, white,
00:03:42.360 Speaker 1 and blue Fourth of July to our neighbors to the south. May all the fireworks, hot
00:03:47.440 Speaker 1 dogs, and maple syrup-flavored poutine, in which we Canadians indulge, be enjoyed in
00:03:53.180 Speaker 1 abundance and safety this week. So this episode is really about people teaming up,
00:03:59.220 Speaker 1 collaborating, and uniting in the spirit of writing, acting, and patriotism.
00:04:05.040 Speaker 1 Let's raise the No Sleep Podcast flag, salute, and start this week's show.
00:04:10.540 Speaker 1 [fire crackling]
00:04:16.459 Speaker 1 In our first tale, we meet a young man who just can't figure out his parents. As
00:04:22.500 Speaker 1 explained by author Jared Roberts, his folks seem to be treating him differently
00:04:27.260 Speaker 1 lately. Perhaps their obsession with an old David Lynch film has something to do
00:04:32.300 Speaker 1 with it. Performing this tale are Matthew Bradford and Erin Lillis.
00:04:38.420 Speaker 1 So enjoy sci-fi epics all you want, just make sure you're fully aware of the
00:04:43.820 Speaker 1 Secrets Inside Dune.
00:05:01.100 Speaker 2 This happened a long time ago. I've been thinking of it a lot lately because I've
00:05:06.640 Speaker 2 been going through my old stuff, and I found something I never wanted to see again.
00:05:12.760 Speaker 2 This definitely feels like something I appropriate for here. When I was a teenager,
00:05:19.060 Speaker 2 I started noticing my parents behaving kind of strange. Like they were different
00:05:25.080 Speaker 2 around me. Not let's treat our son like an adult different, or he's a grouchy teen,
00:05:30.660 Speaker 2 let's ignore him different. It was almost like they were afraid of me, wanted to
00:05:36.320 Speaker 2 keep a distance. They were nicer in a way because they wouldn't ask me to do chores
00:05:41.680 Speaker 2 or anything, but not as nice because they wouldn't ask me to come watch movies with
00:05:46.500 Speaker 2 them, go places with them, and that sort of thing. I never thought I'd miss those
00:05:52.200 Speaker 2 things.
00:05:54.220 Speaker 2 One of the strangest moments early on, I walked in on Dad sobbing. He'd been
00:05:59.620 Speaker 2 drinking a lot, that much I could tell. I came up to him and placed a hand on his
00:06:04.380 Speaker 2 shoulder. He leaned away from me and spoke in a whisper
00:06:09.004 Speaker 3 She just needs to know Bobby is okay.
00:06:13.124 Speaker 2 That made my skin crawl because the thing is, I'm Bobby.
00:06:20.004 Speaker 2 I said I'm fine, nothing to worry about.
00:06:23.544 Speaker 3 Where'd you come from?
00:06:26.284 Speaker 2 He was still leaning away. He looked into my eyes like I was some mutant that just
00:06:31.404 Speaker 2 appeared in his den. I told myself he was just really drunk and went to my room.
00:06:37.924 Speaker 2 Now, I was a pretty average teen. When I hit puberty, I filled out good.
00:06:44.224 Speaker 2 I liked playing sports, hockey in particular. I had some girls, nothing serious, had
00:06:50.144 Speaker 2 a good number of friends, and I enjoyed parties. I was a C student for the most
00:06:55.084 Speaker 2 part. I did a little better in English lit because my parents were both big into
00:06:59.364 Speaker 2 reading. I was easy to get along with. I didn't have all the angst the less
00:07:04.944 Speaker 2 popular or more popular teens had. I was comfortable in the middle. I'm
00:07:10.924 Speaker 2 sure I could be a handful to my parents sometimes. I didn't think I was a bad kid.
00:07:16.464 Speaker 2 The way they were treating me, though, had me thinking I'd messed up. I was
00:07:20.844 Speaker 2 thinking, "Did I scratch Dad's car by accident? Did I say something shitty?" I knew
00:07:26.744 Speaker 2 I'd missed my chores a few times, and Mom just did them herself, so I started making
00:07:31.864 Speaker 2 sure all my regular chores were done right when they should be. They thanked me like
00:07:36.784 Speaker 2 I'd just installed their satellite television, then went back to what they were
00:07:40.484 Speaker 2 doing. So after a while of this, I decided to ask, "Hey,
00:07:46.704 Speaker 2 did I do something wrong?" They looked at each other, looked back at me, and
00:07:52.584 Speaker 2 shook their heads.
00:07:54.144 Speaker 3 You're doing great, son.
00:07:56.644 Speaker 2 Which was really, really weird. My dad never called me son before all this.
00:08:03.784 Speaker 2 After that, I started sitting with them in the evening when I had the time, just
00:08:09.024 Speaker 2 spending quality time together. I thought, "If this is reverse psychology, it's
00:08:14.404 Speaker 2 working." Dad squirmed a little when I sat next to him. I'd never seen Dad squirm in
00:08:19.844 Speaker 2 my life. "Do I stink or something?"
00:08:23.364 Speaker 3 No, you're zestfully clean.
00:08:26.704 Speaker 2 He wore an uncomfortable smile. Sitting with them every so often, I noticed
00:08:32.164 Speaker 2 something. They only ever watched one movie anymore. It was all Dune,
00:08:38.884 Speaker 2 the 1980s movie with Kyle MacLachlan, where he's this royal kid who goes to a desert
00:08:44.884 Speaker 2 planet and rides sandworms. I'd seen it when I was a kid. It was okay.
00:08:51.344 Speaker 2 I didn't think it was good enough to watch over and over, but every time I sat with
00:08:55.744 Speaker 2 them, that's what they had on. "You guys sure like Dune lately."
00:09:01.664 Speaker 2 My mom gave an odd reason.
00:09:04.264 Speaker 4 We bought the VHS. Might as well get our money's worth.
00:09:14.444 Speaker 2 One night, I told them I was heading out with some friends. Then I snuck back into
00:09:20.104 Speaker 2 my room through the window. I know, most teens do the opposite, right? So
00:09:26.104 Speaker 2 I sneak back in and just lay back on my bed listening. I can hear them watching Dune
00:09:31.104 Speaker 2 again. They're at the part where he's training the desert people to fight with their
00:09:34.784 Speaker 2 voices, and I hear them talking. Not like they're talking to each other, but to
00:09:40.424 Speaker 2 someone else. So I sneak out to the living room and look in. Mom and Dad are up
00:09:46.404 Speaker 2 close to the TV screen. There's no one else in the room. Then they start talking
00:09:52.464 Speaker 2 again. They're talking to the movie.
00:09:56.144 Speaker 3 No, no, no, we're okay.
00:09:58.824 Speaker 4 We love you, and we miss you.
00:10:02.164 Speaker 2 I couldn't believe what I was seeing. What was going on? It was like my family had
00:10:07.544 Speaker 2 been replaced by aliens. It didn't make any sense. Then Dad really started to
00:10:13.444 Speaker 2 scare me.
00:10:14.804 Speaker 3 What? No, no, he left. We saw him leave.
00:10:19.544 Speaker 2 Who are they talking to? They both turned around and saw me watching them. I'm sure
00:10:25.023 Speaker 2 it was less than a second, but the looks on their faces was just pure, stunned
00:10:29.724 Speaker 2 terror.
00:10:31.464 Speaker 4 Take it out of here.
00:10:33.184 Speaker 2 I thought she meant me, but she said it and not him. Dad turned off the movie and
00:10:39.004 Speaker 2 ejected the tape. He put it in the sleeve and went into the basement with it. Mom
00:10:43.924 Speaker 2 looked nervous the whole time he was doing this. "What's going on?"
00:10:48.284 Speaker 4 A surprise. So what happened to make you come home so soon?
00:10:52.284 Speaker 2 I didn't feel well, so I went back upstairs. She bought my lie. Dad came
00:10:58.244 Speaker 2 back into the room.
00:11:00.144 Speaker 3 Sorry, son. We were just embarrassed, you know, because of your comment about us
00:11:05.084 Speaker 3 watching Dune. It's a good movie. You learn more about it every time you see it.
00:11:10.764 Speaker 3 Just think about it, how these people are thrown into the desert planet and lose
00:11:15.524 Speaker 3 everything, but there's a secret inside. Do you know about the
00:11:21.244 Speaker 3 secret inside?
00:11:22.644 Speaker 2 Of course. The way he said it was very unnerving. I wasn't about to
00:11:28.324 Speaker 2 argue. I went up to my room. I heard them whispering as I left. I didn't want to
00:11:33.824 Speaker 2 know what they were saying. While I moped in my room, I decided to look on the
00:11:38.884 Speaker 2 internet for Dune making people behave strange. Like, remember that movie In the
00:11:44.484 Speaker 2 Mouth of Madness, where that guy's writings make people crazy? I couldn't find
00:11:49.504 Speaker 2 anything, mostly just complaints about David Lynch going commercial. So I went
00:11:55.484 Speaker 2 on IMDb and put on the Dune forum, parents acting strange, or something in the
00:12:00.124 Speaker 2 subject, and I asked if anyone else had noticed someone talking to the movie or
00:12:05.004 Speaker 2 watching it over and over and over. I got a reply almost right away.
00:12:11.404 Speaker 2 The guy sent it as a private message. He told me he doesn't know anything more than
00:12:16.516 Speaker 2 I do. All he knows is his son got obsessed with a movie before he committed suicide.
00:12:22.496 Speaker 2 He watched it over and over, drew scenes from the movie, said things like, "Kyle's
00:12:28.076 Speaker 2 desert trek and strange powers have captured me." He thought it was a phase. It was
00:12:33.796 Speaker 2 something else. He knows that now. He said his son left this suicide
00:12:39.636 Speaker 2 note, if you can call it that. "Brought to this planet of worms, only betrayed and
00:12:45.236 Speaker 2 desecrated, but I've tasted the spice and seen things I shouldn't see. But I've
00:12:49.356 Speaker 2 tasted the spice and see the secrets that are inside. You can't imagine. Dune is
00:12:54.496 Speaker 2 me." Huh. I gave the man my condolences and thanked him for
00:13:00.236 Speaker 2 sharing with me. I didn't feel any further ahead, just a little more scared. The
00:13:06.096 Speaker 2 suicide note obviously overlaps with what my dad said to me. It just confirmed that
00:13:11.496 Speaker 2 Dune seems to mess with some people's heads. It's just we'd watched Dune before,
00:13:17.596 Speaker 2 rented it from Club Videotek. It wasn't a big deal. I knew that I had to get
00:13:23.516 Speaker 2 rid of that damn tape though. If it could make some boy kill himself, maybe it could
00:13:28.956 Speaker 2 do that to my parents. So that night, I pretended to be asleep for a while.
00:13:34.916 Speaker 2 I know that sounds silly. Like, were my parents really watching me that close? It
00:13:40.416 Speaker 2 was just a gut feeling, and it paid off. After about an hour, when I'd figured
00:13:46.376 Speaker 2 the coast was clear, a shadow under the door frame that I figured was just an
00:13:50.376 Speaker 2 obstruction moved away with a shuffle. That shuffle was my mom's slippers.
00:13:56.276 Speaker 2 She'd been standing there at my door for an hour. I waited another thirty minutes
00:14:01.736 Speaker 2 before sneaking out of my room. I moved quietly because I wasn't sure how
00:14:07.536 Speaker 2 asleep they were. They were so cagey lately. I was freaking thorough.
00:14:14.136 Speaker 2 To let you know how much this was getting to me, I grabbed the WD-40 from under the
00:14:18.716 Speaker 2 sink and greased the basement door hinges because I knew they normally squeak. Yep.
00:14:24.636 Speaker 2 I snuck down and started hunting in any hiding place I could think of. The lights
00:14:29.616 Speaker 2 flicked on, and Mom and Dad both came rushing down, shouting.
00:14:34.696 Speaker 5 Get away from here, you miserable monster!
00:14:37.976 Speaker 2 What the hell is the matter with you two? That movie is driving you crazy. You know
00:14:42.736 Speaker 2 some kid committed suicide because of that movie?
00:14:46.516 Speaker 2 I don't know if those were my exact words, but I basically spewed the stuff out I'd
00:14:50.516 Speaker 2 been bottling up.
00:14:52.316 Speaker 5 Isn't it enough you took our Bobby away from us once? You have to do it again?
00:14:57.336 Speaker 2 What?
00:14:58.176 Speaker 5 You disgusting thing, living and breathing in our house for all these weeks,
00:15:04.056 Speaker 5 and you have the gall to look like our son. What do you want from us? How
00:15:09.776 Speaker 5 much more can we take?
00:15:11.896 Speaker 2 Is this a joke? I'm your son. They looked at me, and I saw the revulsion in their
00:15:17.496 Speaker 2 eyes. Now it made some awful sense. They really believed I wasn't
00:15:23.436 Speaker 2 their son. All this time, that's what it was.
00:15:28.516 Speaker 4 We knew the very day it happened that you were something different. You sound,
00:15:34.636 Speaker 4 smell, you look the same, but we loved Bobby. We know.
00:15:40.776 Speaker 4 We know.
00:15:42.676 Speaker 2 I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to prove to them the obvious fact that I
00:15:47.036 Speaker 2 was the same person. They already acknowledged that I was exactly the same. I
00:15:52.656 Speaker 2 started crying, more with frustration than hurt, I think. I happened to look up
00:15:58.976 Speaker 2 and saw the copy of Dune resting on the ceiling rafters. I grabbed it, and I was
00:16:03.816 Speaker 2 just about to smash it. That's when they started wailing. Not crying,
00:16:09.616 Speaker 2 just like loud sounds coming out of their mouths. It was like a car alarm.
00:16:15.756 Speaker 2 I stopped right away.
00:16:18.116 Speaker 4 Please, please, please don't. That's our boy in there. Bobby went into Dune when you
00:16:23.496 Speaker 4 took him away from us. Show some mercy, whatever you are.
00:16:29.056 Speaker 2 I took the tape. I didn't smash it. I just took it, packed my bags,
00:16:34.975 Speaker 2 and left. Never went back home. I put that tape away somewhere,
00:16:41.056 Speaker 2 tried never to think of it. I lost track of my parents over the years. I've tried to
00:16:46.976 Speaker 2 find them on a few occasions. They never reached out to me. I have not been hiding
00:16:53.376 Speaker 2 almost twenty years.
00:17:01.816 Speaker 2 Last week, I went looking for something in my stuff, and I found that damn tape.
00:17:08.236 Speaker 2 I couldn't bring myself to destroy it still. Instead, I decided to watch it.
00:17:14.516 Speaker 2 I thought it might do me good. I thought. I got to the scene where Leto
00:17:20.396 Speaker 2 dies. I swear I heard someone whisper, "Come on in,
00:17:26.096 Speaker 2 Bobby."
00:17:28.516 Speaker 2 I rewound and played the part a few times, but it never happened again. I put the
00:17:34.036 Speaker 2 tape away. Maybe in another twenty years, I'll try again.
00:18:11.776 Speaker 1 We all know how children are prone to do some very foolhardy things, things which
00:18:16.576 Speaker 1 can do irreparable harm Just ask author Olivia White. She shares the
00:18:22.312 Speaker 1 tale of a man who suffered a traumatic event in his childhood, but made a full
00:18:26.932 Speaker 1 recovery with no lingering effects, or so he thought. Performing this
00:18:32.612 Speaker 1 tale are James Cleveland, Erika Sanderson, and Andy Cresswell. So don't let
00:18:38.652 Speaker 1 the man confuse you when he tells us I Bought the House I Died In as a Child.
00:18:59.412 Speaker 6 I was six when I died. I lived in an old detached house in Surrey.
00:19:05.432 Speaker 6 Southwick House it was called. It was a Victorian property. My parents bought it
00:19:11.152 Speaker 6 from a very old couple who hadn't lived in it for decades. And as such, it had a lot
00:19:16.852 Speaker 6 of old furniture they'd kept that had been present in the house since it had been
00:19:20.552 Speaker 6 built. My dad was a leading heart surgeon based out of London, so my parents were
00:19:25.772 Speaker 6 pretty wealthy, and our house reflected that. It wasn't a mansion or anything.
00:19:31.732 Speaker 6 It was modest compared to other properties in the county, but it was a very nice
00:19:36.252 Speaker 6 house. Big gardens, a fountain out back that rose out of an obsidian
00:19:42.292 Speaker 6 pond in which my mom kept a few koi. I'd stand there for hours as a kid, just
00:19:48.332 Speaker 6 staring into the black mirrored surface, looking for golden glimpses of those
00:19:53.332 Speaker 6 marvelous fish. I'd explore the rest of the garden too, endlessly creeping through
00:19:58.872 Speaker 6 the flower beds, playing in the woods that bordered the property. Summers filled
00:20:03.952 Speaker 6 with scraped knees and dirty clothes. Myself and my friends building forts and
00:20:08.612 Speaker 6 exploring our own little world. It wasn't the grounds or the pond that killed
00:20:14.492 Speaker 6 me, but it was my inquisitiveness. Much like many old
00:20:20.272 Speaker 6 English properties of its type, Southwick House had two main living floors and an
00:20:25.452 Speaker 6 attic. Unlike many English properties, it also had a cellar. Dad used to
00:20:31.352 Speaker 6 store wine at the start of the cellar, which was made up of a few roughly hewn rooms
00:20:36.832 Speaker 6 that smelled of earth and roots. Beyond his wine rack, however, the cellar was
00:20:42.012 Speaker 6 basically unused, except for storing the kind of detritus that a family acquires
00:20:47.792 Speaker 6 and never has any need for, but doesn't want to dispose of anyway. I was
00:20:53.372 Speaker 6 alone the day I decided to explore the cellar. It was one of dad's rare days off and
00:20:58.752 Speaker 6 he and my mom were out in the garden sunning themselves and reading. I came inside
00:21:04.032 Speaker 6 to escape the heat, and soon the typical six-year-old boy boredom kicked in.
00:21:10.012 Speaker 6 So I decided to explore the cellar. It wasn't that I was scared of the cellar or
00:21:15.112 Speaker 6 anything. I just didn't like the smell, and I kept away from going down there
00:21:20.612 Speaker 6 knowing that the contents were largely boring, and I'd be met with little more than
00:21:25.832 Speaker 6 empty rooms. I don't know what possessed me to change my mind that day, but
00:21:31.552 Speaker 6 change my mind I did. As I'd expected, there was really
00:21:37.132 Speaker 6 nothing of interest in the cellar. Even my family's old possessions were just broken
00:21:42.972 Speaker 6 bits of furniture and clothes that my older sister had grown out of and mom hadn't
00:21:47.612 Speaker 6 yet donated to Oxfam. I was about to leave the cellar and return to my room and my
00:21:53.232 Speaker 6 toys when something on the wall caught my eye. It was a square metal door
00:22:00.052 Speaker 6 too high for me to reach, but to my good fortune, a broken chair was nearby, so
00:22:06.092 Speaker 6 I dragged it across to this mysterious hatch, climbed up, and opened it to see what
00:22:11.752 Speaker 6 treasures awaited inside. As you can imagine, it was nothing
00:22:17.472 Speaker 6 exciting. It was, in fact, a fuse box. A very old,
00:22:24.172 Speaker 6 very poorly maintained fuse box. A fuse box that I, a
00:22:30.052 Speaker 6 curious child, began to meddle with. I don't know what I did exactly,
00:22:36.371 Speaker 6 what wire I touched or connection I shorted to cause the jolt of electricity to flow
00:22:41.692 Speaker 6 through my body. All I can remember is suddenly feeling a white, hot, tingling
00:22:47.692 Speaker 6 pain unlike anything I'd ever felt before. I felt my body being thrust
00:22:53.692 Speaker 6 backwards as if an unseen force had shoved me hard.
00:23:00.552 Speaker 6 I felt my spine hit the uneven concrete floor and the breath shoot out of me. Then I
00:23:06.232 Speaker 6 felt something I can only describe as a burning hand gripping my heart. That's when
00:23:11.872 Speaker 6 I blacked out.
00:23:14.552 Speaker 6 I died. I was clinically dead for twenty minutes. The
00:23:20.212 Speaker 6 electrocution shorted out my heart, and I lay there actually dead for a few
00:23:25.952 Speaker 6 minutes before my dad even found me. He could never explain why he came searching
00:23:31.792 Speaker 6 for me that day. All he ever told me was that he knew he had to check on me, and if
00:23:37.752 Speaker 6 he hadn't, I don't think I'd be alive today. My dad, the heart
00:23:43.412 Speaker 6 surgeon, began attempts to revive me while my mom called the paramedics. After
00:23:48.932 Speaker 6 another fifteen minutes, which I'm sure must have felt like an eternity to my dad,
00:23:54.132 Speaker 6 the paramedics were able to successfully restart my heart. I woke up in hospital,
00:24:01.232 Speaker 6 painful burns covering a large portion of my body. My first thought was fear,
00:24:08.112 Speaker 6 that I'd get in trouble for touching the thing in the cellar. And I was scolded, of
00:24:13.152 Speaker 6 course, but gently, and alongside gradual explanation of what happened to
00:24:19.032 Speaker 6 me. At six years old, I don't think I fully grasped the severity of it But two
00:24:24.920 Speaker 6 things I did understand. One, I was lucky to be alive, and two,
00:24:31.920 Speaker 6 I had died and come back. It was a miracle. I'd died
00:24:37.880 Speaker 6 for twenty minutes, and frankly, that made me feel a little bit of a
00:24:43.480 Speaker 6 badass. I'd like to say I had some kind of experience during the twenty minutes I
00:24:49.320 Speaker 6 died, but the truth is I didn't, or if I did, I don't remember it.
00:24:55.800 Speaker 6 No light at the end of the tunnel, no out-of-body experience. One minute I was
00:25:01.700 Speaker 6 dying, and the next minute I was alive again. In time, the whole event became
00:25:07.520 Speaker 6 something I told friends as a point of interest. The burns healed, and other than
00:25:13.360 Speaker 6 having regular heart monitoring, life went back to normal. When I was twelve,
00:25:19.760 Speaker 6 Dad got a job working at a private hospital in the Southwest, and we moved. It was
00:25:25.380 Speaker 6 twenty-two years until I thought about that house again.
00:25:30.900 Speaker 6 It was a month after I'd turned thirty-four. I'd followed my father into medicine
00:25:36.000 Speaker 6 and become a GP in Reading, near where I'd grown up as a child. I alternated between
00:25:41.960 Speaker 6 running NHS and private clinics. On the day in question, I'd worked particularly
00:25:47.020 Speaker 6 late at my NHS practice. When I got home, my girlfriend was waiting with a glass of
00:25:52.420 Speaker 6 wine and that look on her face that let me know she had something interesting to
00:25:57.000 Speaker 6 tell me. She was practically bursting to speak before I'd even taken my jacket off
00:26:02.020 Speaker 6 and loosened my tie.
00:26:04.140 Speaker 7 I got the weirdest call today.
00:26:06.420 Speaker 6 I kissed her on the cheek and took her proffered glass of wine. "Oh, yeah?"
00:26:11.600 Speaker 7 Yeah, some guy in Sussex. Said his family lives in your old house.
00:26:16.660 Speaker 6 I frowned. "What? Southwick?" Madeline nodded. I could see
00:26:22.600 Speaker 6 she had more to tell. "What did he want?"
00:26:26.660 Speaker 7 He's been trying to track you down, apparently. Was trying to get a hold of your
00:26:29.920 Speaker 7 parents and obviously eventually found you.
00:26:33.080 Speaker 6 Both of my parents had died when I was in my twenties. They were old when they had
00:26:38.140 Speaker 6 me. Mum died of cancer. Dad, ironically, of a heart attack.
00:26:44.400 Speaker 6 My sister had long since emigrated to Canada, so it made sense that this guy had
00:26:49.140 Speaker 6 found me as the next port of call. But why? I asked Madeline as much.
00:26:55.920 Speaker 7 Okay, so this is the interesting part. He wanted to know if anything weird happened
00:27:01.060 Speaker 7 to you when you lived at Southwick. Anything supernatural.
00:27:06.600 Speaker 6 My eyes widened. It most certainly had not, but my interest was piqued.
00:27:12.860 Speaker 6 I was a horror aficionado and a firm atheist, but I guess working as a GP
00:27:18.660 Speaker 6 particularly, I'd often said that I'd love to be proven wrong about the existence of
00:27:23.600 Speaker 6 an afterlife. Of course, I expected nothing of the sort from this guy, but I
00:27:29.580 Speaker 6 was intrigued nonetheless. I called the number Madeline had taken down.
00:27:35.400 Speaker 6 When Giles Robertson answered, his voice gave me pause. The man sounded exhausted,
00:27:42.280 Speaker 6 scared even. When I told him who I was, he let out an audible sigh of relief.
00:27:49.160 Speaker 8 I just need to know, did you ever have any untoward experiences in that house?
00:27:55.200 Speaker 6 I told him that I hadn't. Nothing even remotely supernatural in feel had happened
00:28:00.840 Speaker 6 during my twelve years there. When I finished, Giles Robertson sounded disappointed.
00:28:06.340 Speaker 6 "May I ask why?"
00:28:10.040 Speaker 8 You're going to think I'm crazy.
00:28:12.460 Speaker 6 It was an unusual, candid thing for a stranger to say, especially a
00:28:18.280 Speaker 6 man who sounded rather well-to-do. I assured him that as a doctor, I knew the
00:28:24.120 Speaker 6 benefits of listening to and believing people.
00:28:28.120 Speaker 8 We moved in a year ago. It's been happening nonstop ever since. My wife and I, we'd
00:28:33.880 Speaker 8 never seen anything, never heard anything. But we have two kids, Moira, she's six,
00:28:39.320 Speaker 8 and William, he's eight. About a month after we moved in, they started talking about
00:28:44.299 Speaker 8 the burning boy, a boy who'd come into their room, and well, at first, he'd play
00:28:49.940 Speaker 8 with them. We thought it was an imaginary friend. Siblings can sometimes share
00:28:55.100 Speaker 8 imaginary friends. It's not unusual.
00:28:57.660 Speaker 6 Indeed.
00:28:59.060 Speaker 8 I mean, I thought the name The Burning Boy was unusual, but hey, kids have
00:29:03.520 Speaker 8 interesting imaginations. So for months, everything was fine. We listened to their
00:29:09.120 Speaker 8 stories of the boy with polite smiles and nods. But lately, things have escalated.
00:29:15.460 Speaker 8 My children keep sleepwalking. We find them in the cellar standing in front of the
00:29:19.700 Speaker 8 old fuse box. When we wake them, they claim to have no memory of how they got there
00:29:25.000 Speaker 8 other than the burning boy led them there. We tried locking the cellar door, but
00:29:30.780 Speaker 8 somehow they still get in.
00:29:33.180 Speaker 6 I was beginning to feel concerned now. A burning boy, a fuse box?
00:29:39.120 Speaker 6 This was horribly personal.
00:29:42.240 Speaker 8 Now, my wife and I, we can feel him too. The whole house smells of burning flesh
00:29:48.180 Speaker 8 and electricity. Just being inside the property makes our skin tingle. There's an
00:29:53.480 Speaker 8 inescapable atmosphere. It's like just walking through the door instills an
00:29:57.980 Speaker 8 unspeakable terror, and my children, they're afraid of the burning boy now.
00:30:04.740 Speaker 8 They say he wants them to do something, but they won't tell us what. We've sealed up
00:30:09.200 Speaker 8 the fuse box, but every night now we find them in front of it, and last week, my
00:30:13.900 Speaker 8 wife and I woke up down in the cellar with them. We've put the property on the
00:30:17.900 Speaker 8 market, but as soon as anyone comes to view it, they leave and never call back. I
00:30:22.940 Speaker 8 don't know what to do. I don't want my family to stay here. I'm scared. I was hoping
00:30:28.900 Speaker 8 you could help.
00:30:30.508 Speaker 9 I was wondering-
00:30:30.948 Speaker 6 But what could I do or say? How would explaining my own childhood electrocution
00:30:36.768 Speaker 6 help this man? If what he said was true and I was haunting this house, what on
00:30:42.548 Speaker 6 earth could he do about it? Hell, even I had no idea what it could really be.
00:30:48.948 Speaker 6 Nothing about it made sense or correlated with anything I knew about how ghosts
00:30:53.568 Speaker 6 should work. Then I looked at the property listing. I saw how, in their
00:30:59.208 Speaker 6 desperation, the Robertson family had listed the house for so much cheaper than the
00:31:03.588 Speaker 6 house was worth, and that's how I helped. I bought my childhood home.
00:31:10.928 Speaker 6 The chances of this being some weird scam were minimal. The Robertsons stood to lose
00:31:15.648 Speaker 6 a good few grand on the sale. I even gave them slightly more than the asking price.
00:31:21.628 Speaker 6 I could afford it. I guess I felt partly responsible, too, and I suppose my
00:31:27.628 Speaker 6 skepticism and nostalgia for the old house trumped any concern about it being
00:31:31.808 Speaker 6 haunted by, what, a specter of my very much
00:31:37.448 Speaker 6 living self? I was a fool. I don't know what it is
00:31:43.828 Speaker 6 or how it is, but there's something in this house. I persuaded Madeline
00:31:49.768 Speaker 6 to stay back at our apartment while I checked out the house for a few days. I don't
00:31:54.268 Speaker 6 know why I wanted to be alone there. I told her it was the memories.
00:32:00.628 Speaker 6 I think, deep down, I knew there was a reason to be afraid. On the
00:32:06.508 Speaker 6 first night, nothing happened. Everything was fine, and the next morning, I lamented
00:32:12.148 Speaker 6 the Robertsons' loss and celebrated my acquisition of the house I'd so loved growing
00:32:16.868 Speaker 6 up in. The next night, I awoke in my childhood bedroom to the
00:32:22.428 Speaker 6 smell of singed flesh and hair. The atmosphere was electric,
00:32:28.208 Speaker 6 tingling through my body as a muggy, oppressive heat caused sweat to form on my
00:32:33.268 Speaker 6 brow. I sat up, ambiguously afraid of nothing in particular,
00:32:40.068 Speaker 6 until exhaustion took me a few hours later and I drifted back off.
00:32:45.648 Speaker 6 On the third night, I saw him. I awoke with a jolt to much the
00:32:51.448 Speaker 6 same smell and sensation, only this time it was considerably stronger. And there,
00:32:58.088 Speaker 6 at the foot of my bed, stood the burning boy. It was me. There was
00:33:04.008 Speaker 6 no doubt about that, but the burns which covered his body were far worse than I
00:33:09.948 Speaker 6 had ever suffered. Smoke drifted from his pallid frame as he watched me with
00:33:15.288 Speaker 6 accusing eyes. There was no question that this specter had my face,
00:33:21.628 Speaker 6 but he was no ghost. How could he be? I was the man this
00:33:27.388 Speaker 6 child had grown up to become, sitting there, shivering in bed, a man of
00:33:33.368 Speaker 6 flesh and blood and very much living. The burning boy opened his mouth
00:33:39.328 Speaker 6 to reveal coal-black teeth and a rotten, stumpy tongue that twitched as he tried to
00:33:45.428 Speaker 6 speak. A foul miasma wafted towards me, that of
00:33:51.068 Speaker 6 electrical death, years-long decay. I gagged,
00:33:57.728 Speaker 6 too frozen with fear to leave my bed, too terrified to approach this phantom.
00:34:04.328 Speaker 6 There, paralyzed with dread, I could only watch and listen as the boy struggled to
00:34:10.408 Speaker 6 force words out of his destroyed mouth.
00:34:14.268 Speaker 6 At first, they sounded like a hiss, a low, monotone whisper
00:34:20.188 Speaker 6 that set my teeth on edge. As I listened, the noise grew louder. The flat,
00:34:26.488 Speaker 6 low hum made way for staccato crests, the boy's tongue vibrating against his
00:34:32.428 Speaker 6 teeth as his lips moved uselessly. The sound grew louder, pitching up
00:34:38.328 Speaker 6 at intervals. It passed through me, deep into my bones. I could
00:34:44.148 Speaker 6 feel it traveling up my spine, vibrating my back teeth.
00:34:50.128 Speaker 6 All at once, it became a familiar sensation. It was electricity.
00:34:56.248 Speaker 6 It was the sound of an electrical current. I could see the child's throat
00:35:01.988 Speaker 6 shifting up and down as the sound droned from his mouth. It filled my ears
00:35:07.948 Speaker 6 until it became unbearable, and then, only then, did I hear
00:35:13.868 Speaker 6 the words hidden within the hum, rasping, clicking jolts of speech. The
00:35:19.688 Speaker 6 taste of copper flooded my mouth.
00:35:26.828 Speaker 6 I am.
00:35:29.568 Speaker 6 I
00:35:32.148 Speaker 6 am. I am. I am. I am. I am live. I
00:35:37.988 Speaker 6 am live. The boy repeated this simple
00:35:43.828 Speaker 6 phrase over and over again until it felt like the words themselves were coursing
00:35:49.308 Speaker 6 through my body, crackling with energy as they ricocheted around my brain. I am. I
00:35:54.708 Speaker 6 am. And then, just as it felt it had become too much, that I could no longer listen,
00:36:01.088 Speaker 6 the words faded into that low, indecipherable hum, until
00:36:06.148 Speaker 6 eventually the note ended, the final fermata passing between the boy's charred
00:36:11.868 Speaker 6 lips like a wisp of smoke.
00:36:15.428 Speaker 6 In the silence, our eyes were locked. I could not look away. I don't know
00:36:21.508 Speaker 6 how long we held that staring contest. I don't know at what point I drifted off to
00:36:27.468 Speaker 6 sleep. All I remember is waking up the next morning, my sheets drenched with sweat,
00:36:33.808 Speaker 6 and the faint smell of electricity searing the air On the fourth night, I
00:36:39.596 Speaker 6 awoke in the cellar. My eyes snapped awake just in time to see my hand reaching
00:36:45.496 Speaker 6 out for the fuse box. At some point, the Robertsons had padlocked it, but
00:36:51.476 Speaker 6 now the padlock lay unlocked and discarded on the floor. I hadn't even been given
00:36:57.296 Speaker 6 the key. I couldn't see the Burning Boy, but I knew he was there
00:37:03.096 Speaker 6 behind me. I could sense him, smell him,
00:37:09.096 Speaker 6 could feel the electrical discharge coming off his terrifying, tiny
00:37:15.236 Speaker 6 form, urging me forward. I could hear him snuffling and
00:37:20.616 Speaker 6 snorting. [laughs] Laughter, I thought. With a cry, I snatched my hand
00:37:26.416 Speaker 6 away from that dreaded fuse box, ran upstairs, gathered some things, and drove to a
00:37:31.916 Speaker 6 nearby hotel. The next day, I returned to the apartment I share with Madeline.
00:37:38.736 Speaker 6 I gave her some story about how living in the house would be too painful due to
00:37:44.216 Speaker 6 memories of my parents. I'm not sure if she believed me, but bless
00:37:50.236 Speaker 6 her, she let it go. I told her I planned to flip the property,
00:37:56.276 Speaker 6 knowing I never could. I could never willingly allow anyone,
00:38:01.756 Speaker 6 family or not, to be exposed to the Burning Boy. My plan was
00:38:07.716 Speaker 6 to keep the property empty and maybe one day bring myself to have it demolished and
00:38:13.056 Speaker 6 sell off the land. My plan isn't going to work.
00:38:19.156 Speaker 6 At first, I started smelling his electric stench around the apartment. Madeline
00:38:24.876 Speaker 6 could smell it, too, although not as strongly as I claimed to. Initially, this
00:38:30.916 Speaker 6 gave me hope. If we could both smell it, then maybe it was something tangible,
00:38:36.976 Speaker 6 corporeal, genuine faulty wiring. Who knows?
00:38:43.116 Speaker 6 I was naive. It was wishful thinking. Deep down, I knew that.
00:38:49.636 Speaker 6 Nonetheless, the first time I saw him in my own apartment, I thought I was dreaming.
00:38:56.296 Speaker 6 Despite all I'd seen, all I'd experienced, I thought it had to be a nightmare.
00:39:03.156 Speaker 6 The house was haunted, not me. He couldn't be here. He couldn't.
00:39:10.256 Speaker 6 But he was. He stood in the corner staring at me as if he wanted something.
00:39:16.836 Speaker 6 At first, that's all he did. On the first few nights I saw him, he simply stared.
00:39:23.596 Speaker 6 When he eventually began his horrible electric symphony, that's when I knew I'd
00:39:29.036 Speaker 6 never escape the Burning Boy. As before, his lament buried its way into
00:39:34.896 Speaker 6 my bones, my head, not as strongly as that night in Southwick House,
00:39:41.176 Speaker 6 not quite as powerful, but it was building and building and
00:39:47.296 Speaker 6 building. One night, in sleep-deprived desperation, I even spoke to
00:39:53.176 Speaker 6 him. Whispering so as not to wake Madeline, I reached out to this wraith of my
00:39:59.056 Speaker 6 childhood self. The very effort of moving my lips felt Herculean, bordering on the
00:40:04.656 Speaker 6 impossible. I croaked out the words I'd longed to ask. Why?
00:40:11.956 Speaker 6 What do you want? [moans] Beside me, Madeline stirred in her sleep,
00:40:17.916 Speaker 6 letting out a small moan. The boy regarded me with a stare that spoke volumes.
00:40:24.116 Speaker 6 Sparks danced behind his eyes, which twinkled cruelly in the darkness. He opened his
00:40:29.456 Speaker 6 mouth, a yawning abyss behind soot-stained teeth. His ragged tongue
00:40:35.556 Speaker 6 flicked, and the sound that emerged was that of a switch being thrown, [clunk] a
00:40:40.436 Speaker 6 heavy mechanical clunk that was immediately followed by those same familiar buzzing
00:40:46.296 Speaker 6 words, as loud as they had ever been, a live current of my own making.
00:40:52.036 Speaker 10 I am live.
00:40:57.176 Speaker 6 I didn't try to speak to the boy again after that. Regardless, I knew what he
00:41:02.896 Speaker 6 wanted. It was pretty obvious, and when one night I woke up in the
00:41:08.856 Speaker 6 cellar of Southwick again, over two hours from the bed I'd fallen asleep in, I
00:41:14.716 Speaker 6 knew that the Burning Boy wouldn't stop until he got what he sought. Mercifully,
00:41:20.876 Speaker 6 it doesn't happen every night. Sometimes I have a week's reprieve,
00:41:26.656 Speaker 6 two if I'm lucky, but eventually the Burning Boy returns, and
00:41:32.376 Speaker 6 eventually I wake up in that basement with no memory of how I got there, no
00:41:38.336 Speaker 6 memory of making the drive across the county.
00:41:42.616 Speaker 6 I don't know how to rid myself of him. I can't find a single thing in any
00:41:48.576 Speaker 6 paranormal literature that could help me. I can't turn to religion. I doubt
00:41:54.556 Speaker 6 he can be exorcized. He's not a ghost. I'm still alive. He
00:42:00.336 Speaker 6 shouldn't exist. Did a part of me die and come back? Could
00:42:06.376 Speaker 6 I ever have that kind of malevolence inside me that spawned this thing?
00:42:13.516 Speaker 6 I know he wants me to finish the job, to grip the fuse box and let the current take
00:42:18.856 Speaker 6 me, and I won't lie, I've thought about doing just that
00:42:25.296 Speaker 6 every time I wake up in the cellar of that accursed house, but I have a
00:42:31.136 Speaker 6 horrible feeling about that, too. You see, it clearly wasn't
00:42:36.836 Speaker 6 just me that the Burning Boy wanted. He was after the Robertsons, too, after all.
00:42:43.616 Speaker 6 And here's the thing I found out last weekend that the entire Robertson family was
00:42:49.436 Speaker 6 killed in their new home. I don't know how they died, not yet, but
00:42:55.496 Speaker 6 I do know it was a freak accident. I can hazard a guess at the nature of that
00:43:00.316 Speaker 6 accident. And the day they died? It was the day before the burning boy began
00:43:06.256 Speaker 6 appearing in my apartment, far from Southwick House. So here's my problem.
00:43:13.196 Speaker 6 I think if I ever do reach out for the fuse box and finish what I started when I was
00:43:18.416 Speaker 6 six years old, I won't be freeing the burning boy. I think I'd be
00:43:24.536 Speaker 6 strengthening him. I think I'd be joining him.
00:44:03.516 Speaker 1 When sharing manly tales with a group of friends at a bar one night, a man recalls
00:44:08.476 Speaker 1 an experience he had, which his friends have trouble believing. But we believe
00:44:13.776 Speaker 1 author Steven Schrembeck when he shares this tale about how the man discovered
00:44:18.256 Speaker 1 something very odd indeed deep inside a forest in his home state of Alaska.
00:44:25.036 Speaker 1 Performing this tale are Peter Lewis, Jessica McAvoy, Jesse Cornett, and Dan
00:44:30.996 Speaker 1 Zappula. So when telling a story, remember, sometimes you have an
00:44:36.816 Speaker 1 unwelcome audience.
00:44:54.216 Speaker 10 I've always had a weird group of friends. They all went into
00:44:59.616 Speaker 10 manly careers like logging, oil rig work, construction.
00:45:06.056 Speaker 10 I'm the black sheep of our little group of high school buddies. I went into IT.
00:45:12.896 Speaker 10 They give me shit all the time about working on nerd stuff, and I give
00:45:18.536 Speaker 10 them shit back. Me no likey computer. Me dig holes.
00:45:24.696 Speaker 10 I'm an unlikely addition to their group of friends, but it works somehow.
00:45:31.036 Speaker 10 So there we are in a bar. This is one of those rare occasions when everyone's back
00:45:36.756 Speaker 10 in town together, and we're getting drunk, swapping stories about horrors on the
00:45:42.096 Speaker 10 job. Someone talks about when part of their oil rig blew up,
00:45:48.076 Speaker 10 killing three people a few years ago. Danny, an actual
00:45:53.456 Speaker 10 lumberjack, talks about seeing a guy working not ten feet from him get his arm
00:45:59.456 Speaker 10 torn clean off by a log line. Just a quick zip, and a
00:46:05.196 Speaker 10 limb went flying. He held a shirt to the wound as the man bled
00:46:11.256 Speaker 10 out, babbling and whining in agony until a life flight came
00:46:17.376 Speaker 10 two hours too late. All the while, I'm sitting there knowing
00:46:23.256 Speaker 10 I've got a story, but it's not the kind of story I'd usually bring up to a bunch
00:46:29.196 Speaker 10 of drunk sort-of friends. Not the kind of story I
00:46:34.976 Speaker 10 tell anybody. It's the kind of truly
00:46:39.996 Speaker 10 unsettling memory that you worry should you tell it.
00:46:46.516 Speaker 10 You might give it life. You might feed it somehow, make it more
00:46:53.096 Speaker 10 real. I carry it around in the back of my mind like a caged,
00:46:59.356 Speaker 10 dangerous animal, not considering letting it out until
00:47:05.296 Speaker 10 now.
00:47:07.515 Speaker 10 Everyone's said something already, and I'm just sitting there looking sheltered,
00:47:13.456 Speaker 10 looking obvious. So I ignore that voice in my
00:47:19.036 Speaker 10 head that says, "Don't." I ignore my dry,
00:47:24.496 Speaker 10 tightening throat. Don't. I've got one.
00:47:30.596 Speaker 10 My voice cracks, and they look surprised. I'm
00:47:36.176 Speaker 10 surprised. They all give me doubtful, amused looks.
00:47:42.196 Speaker 10 Go on then, the looks say. And so
00:47:48.216 Speaker 10 I do. I work from home on our thirty acres outside of a
00:47:54.136 Speaker 10 small town in Alaska. I live alone. No kids.
00:48:00.256 Speaker 10 It's a college town, just a small liberal arts college of a few hundred, but it's
00:48:06.336 Speaker 10 the heart of the town. The campus is huge, with the natural beauty of the area
00:48:12.116 Speaker 10 being a big draw. Reservation land neighbors the campus, and the tribe
00:48:17.956 Speaker 10 sort of acts like park rangers for the hundreds of miles of forest trails.
00:48:24.336 Speaker 10 My own land borders part of the campus on the other side. One day, I'm
00:48:30.296 Speaker 10 out at the edge of the cleared part of my property right behind my house. It's
00:48:35.296 Speaker 10 probably about two hundred yards from the house. I'm watering a set of raised
00:48:41.356 Speaker 10 beds I have right near the tree line, just enjoying the scorching sunny day.
00:48:47.956 Speaker 10 And that's when something weird happens.
00:48:54.080 Speaker 10 There's this sound like a record of someone speaking coming from
00:49:00.180 Speaker 10 a few hundred feet into the woods. It's like someone talking to you through
00:49:06.140 Speaker 10 a bad cell connection where only parts of the words are coming through, and it's
00:49:12.060 Speaker 10 just noise. But you can tell it's supposed to be words.
00:49:15.520 Speaker 10 [static]
00:49:23.920 Speaker 10 I just stood there listening to the noise, curious but not afraid.
00:49:30.880 Speaker 10 I didn't even turn the hose off. I think looking back, that's why it took me so
00:49:36.860 Speaker 10 long to get freaked out, to start taking it seriously. Weird
00:49:42.920 Speaker 10 things like that, supernatural things happen at night, at deep in the woods,
00:49:49.380 Speaker 10 not at one o'clock in the afternoon while standing right in your backyard. After
00:49:55.340 Speaker 10 about 30 seconds, it just stops. I turn the water
00:50:01.140 Speaker 10 off then to figure out if it actually stopped or just got quieter. Nothing.
00:50:08.080 Speaker 10 I file it away as a minor oddity. Something to be brought up later as a casual
00:50:14.140 Speaker 10 conversation token, or more likely forgotten. That was my
00:50:19.740 Speaker 10 first regret. Fast-forward a couple of weeks. I'm on a hike at
00:50:25.700 Speaker 10 the back of my property on one of the trails I started last summer, which is pretty
00:50:30.820 Speaker 10 overgrown at this point. I'm strolling, lost in thought beneath
00:50:36.520 Speaker 10 tree cover, simply enjoying the gorgeous midsummer weather. I'm pulled
00:50:42.380 Speaker 10 from my thoughts when I hear that odd sound in the woods.
00:50:48.380 Speaker 10 Far in the distance, there's the sound of garbled human speech. The
00:50:54.420 Speaker 10 forest around me, though, is oddly quiet. Now, I'm not much of a
00:51:00.280 Speaker 10 risk-taker, and I generally prefer looking irrational to looking dead.
00:51:07.120 Speaker 10 I casually turn and walk back towards the trail entrance, not wanting to encourage
00:51:12.980 Speaker 10 any large predators by fleeing suddenly. What the hell is making that
00:51:19.060 Speaker 10 sound anyway?
00:51:21.580 Speaker 10 I resolve to bring Danny along to check it out when he comes to visit in two weeks.
00:51:27.300 Speaker 10 Two weeks later, I'm back at the trailhead alone because Danny bailed on
00:51:33.380 Speaker 10 me. I told him that if I died, I would be coming straight to his apartment to
00:51:39.160 Speaker 10 haunt the shit out of him. Now I'm looking down the seemingly
00:51:44.420 Speaker 10 innocuous forest trail. I steel myself. I check my
00:51:50.160 Speaker 10 pack, bear spray, and brand-new bowie knife, which I have no idea how to
00:51:56.120 Speaker 10 use. [deep breath] All right. It's
00:52:01.980 Speaker 10 just a sound.
00:52:05.380 Speaker 10 I start down the path. A few miles and about an hour in, I
00:52:11.220 Speaker 10 hear the first signs of that odd sound in the distance. It's maybe
00:52:17.460 Speaker 10 100 yards ahead and just off the side of the trail. The forest,
00:52:23.180 Speaker 10 however, moves and rustles with life in that familiar,
00:52:28.440 Speaker 10 reassuring way. I carry on. As I approach the
00:52:34.200 Speaker 10 origin of the sound, I put my hand to the hilt of my bowie knife. The source
00:52:40.280 Speaker 10 of the sound, now within 20 feet or so, is not immediately apparent.
00:52:46.140 Speaker 10 It's the same stream of incoherent babble, but with a distinct
00:52:51.780 Speaker 10 crackling sound to it. Looking up, I see a small
00:52:57.400 Speaker 10 black speaker fixed to a tree about ten feet from the ground.
00:53:03.820 Speaker 10 Fairly confident the speaker poses no threat, I take my hand from my knife and
00:53:09.800 Speaker 10 inspect it. Written on the side of the speaker in white paint is the name of the
00:53:15.780 Speaker 10 local college and the words Forestry Department. Ah, a
00:53:21.600 Speaker 10 clue and a reasonable explanation. Go figure, you jumpy prick.
00:53:28.260 Speaker 10 Content that I won't have to stab anything or haunt any apartments this day,
00:53:34.380 Speaker 10 I head back home.
00:53:37.420 Speaker 10 During a slow day the next week, I call the forestry department of the college.
00:53:43.120 Speaker 10 Yes, I'd, uh, like to speak to the dean. Uh, no, I'm not a student.
00:53:50.100 Speaker 10 No, they don't know I'm calling. The dean answered in a bored voice,
00:53:56.200 Speaker 10 but seemed eager to answer my questions as if I were the highlight of an otherwise
00:54:02.220 Speaker 10 mundane day. As it turns out, the speaker is or
00:54:07.840 Speaker 10 [chuckles] was a sort of live art project in which students could write and
00:54:13.800 Speaker 10 record poems to be spoken aloud in the forest. It's
00:54:18.880 Speaker 10 solar-powered, but he suspected that the connection to the speaker I found had gone
00:54:24.220 Speaker 10 bad. Once per semester, someone was supposed to come out and upload new
00:54:29.480 Speaker 10 MP3s to a waterproof MP3 player near the base of each tree. He went on to
00:54:35.360 Speaker 10 say that they discontinued the project due to outcry from the nearby tribe.
00:54:41.460 Speaker 10 Initially, he ignored their requests to take down the speakers, but the vice
00:54:45.720 Speaker 10 president of the college eventually stepped in when complaints persisted. Worried
00:54:51.140 Speaker 10 about souring good relations with the tribe. They'd probably missed my station when
00:54:56.980 Speaker 10 they went to take them all down, he'd said. Mystery solved. [laughs]
00:55:03.020 Speaker 10 Hiking season passes without incident.
00:55:13.580 Speaker 10 About a month after the snows finally melt, I decide to take another hike on the
00:55:19.160 Speaker 10 trail with the speaker. I've got some overnight camping gear with me, and I plan to
00:55:25.080 Speaker 10 camp out near my turnaround point a few hours away. I almost miss the
00:55:30.640 Speaker 10 speaker when I'm about an hour in. It's completely silent now.
00:55:37.020 Speaker 10 I stop to poke at the electronics a bit, but there's nothing obviously wrong with
00:55:42.100 Speaker 10 it. The fraying connections appear to have finally worn out over the winter.
00:55:48.320 Speaker 10 I continue down the trail. About two hours later, I've set up my tent and prepared a
00:55:54.340 Speaker 10 simple camp. It's late afternoon, but I'm restless, and with a few hours
00:56:00.320 Speaker 10 of daylight left, I decide to walk ahead of my turnaround point for a little bit. I
00:56:06.400 Speaker 10 pick a little offshoot trail that leads upward, perhaps with the promise of a nice
00:56:11.400 Speaker 10 view. Just a few minutes into the walk, my mind is drifting. I'm
00:56:17.420 Speaker 10 just soaking up the late afternoon sun and basking in the first good weather of the
00:56:22.500 Speaker 10 season. I've picked the perfect time to explore. [laughs] "Damn, this
00:56:28.480 Speaker 10 is nice," I think to myself. And a moment later, I hear
00:56:34.540 Speaker 10 that familiar unsettling sound of speaking in the
00:56:40.080 Speaker 10 distance. I pause on the trail, my brain still registering
00:56:46.120 Speaker 10 the noise as something innocuous. This sound is a
00:56:51.680 Speaker 10 little different, and even so far away I can tell that it's a higher quality than
00:56:57.300 Speaker 10 the first speaker. I get closer and have to go a little off the trail to
00:57:03.340 Speaker 10 make out the words. It's definitely missing that crackly sound, so I can easily
00:57:09.279 Speaker 10 make out the words. It's the sound of a woman reading poems,
00:57:15.340 Speaker 10 just as the dean said. Less perturbed than I once was, I decide to sit on a
00:57:21.200 Speaker 10 rock near the speaker, pull out my water, and take a little break. I'm sitting there
00:57:27.200 Speaker 10 listening to the sounds of the forest and the voice reading the familiar poems.
00:57:33.820 Speaker 10 It still feels a little eerie, though, and after just a few minutes, I decide it's
00:57:39.060 Speaker 10 time to get going again. I toss my water bottle into my pack and
00:57:44.520 Speaker 10 stand to leave, and that's when I hear the
00:57:50.340 Speaker 10 other voice.
00:57:52.880 Speaker 10 Someone nearby is babbling these crazy nonsense words.
00:57:59.860 Speaker 10 I perk up, curious but not yet afraid. It has this
00:58:05.580 Speaker 10 strange warbling sound like the natural rise and fall of pitch in a
00:58:11.660 Speaker 10 sentence, but in all of the wrong places, like someone turning random
00:58:17.360 Speaker 10 words in a sentence into questions. It, it's the kind of sound you'd laugh at
00:58:24.240 Speaker 10 if you weren't alone in a forest miles and miles from help.
00:58:30.360 Speaker 10 The forest goes dead silent around me as if flipping a switch.
00:58:36.880 Speaker 10 The sound begins trailing close through some thick brush in front of me. I'm
00:58:42.860 Speaker 10 totally frozen in place just listening to this ridiculous noise like a
00:58:48.300 Speaker 10 giant basso baby voice. What the fuck?
00:58:55.380 Speaker 10 I see just a glimpse of something coming through the brush, and then my trance is
00:59:00.660 Speaker 10 broken. My conscious mind is slammed into the backseat as my animal instincts
00:59:06.600 Speaker 10 send me sprinting back toward the trail. I'm already careening back down the trail
00:59:12.320 Speaker 10 before I even realize what I was running from, and then it hits me,
00:59:19.180 Speaker 10 a wall of realization, a great towering cloud of
00:59:25.000 Speaker 10 cold, crippling realization. I actually stumble.
00:59:32.220 Speaker 10 My neurons fire in slow motion. The implications are forming in my
00:59:38.280 Speaker 10 mind like a slowly condensing water droplet just before the release,
00:59:45.140 Speaker 10 and then the fall. My chest tightens, and
00:59:51.220 Speaker 10 I take a sudden sharp breath. It was a hand.
00:59:57.240 Speaker 10 Some sort of elongated, grotesque hand reaching through the
01:00:02.840 Speaker 10 brush. A body to match that distorted voice. It's then
01:00:08.860 Speaker 10 that I hear it again on the path right behind me.
01:00:13.460 Speaker 10 [warbling]
01:00:21.640 Speaker 10 [sighs] Like it's learned a phrase for the first time, and it's trying it out,
01:00:27.620 Speaker 10 only it has this odd pleading quality to it. So
01:00:34.000 Speaker 10 fuck, I'm running. I'm barely touching the ground, feet flying down the tight
01:00:40.080 Speaker 10 forest trail in the late afternoon sun. Tree branches are slapping at me as I
01:00:46.080 Speaker 10 barrel down the path, careless, mindless. My nerves are on a
01:00:51.660 Speaker 10 knife's edge for the entire sprint back to camp. Ears pricked,
01:00:57.240 Speaker 10 skin covered in goosebumps. I enter a clearing and slow to
01:01:03.040 Speaker 10 walk cautiously into camp, my hand hovering lightly over my bowie knife
01:01:09.764 Speaker 10 I see my tent in the small clearing where the main trail splits into these smaller
01:01:14.904 Speaker 10 tributaries. The tent sits in the shade, flap partially
01:01:20.524 Speaker 10 open. I stop, staring at it. It would take about
01:01:26.484 Speaker 10 ten minutes to pack it up. I contemplate it for about half a second.
01:01:33.024 Speaker 10 Nope. I'm moving again, back on the main trail now. I'm holding a sustainable
01:01:38.884 Speaker 10 jog, but after about thirty seconds, I slide to stop because I hear
01:01:44.644 Speaker 10 something new. I hear nothing.
01:01:50.964 Speaker 10 A quiet deeper than anything before. No distant birds,
01:01:57.044 Speaker 10 no rustling leaves, no quiet breeze or chirping insect.
01:02:03.084 Speaker 10 There is only complete and unnatural silence,
01:02:09.204 Speaker 10 almost suffocating. It's like having a giant glass
01:02:15.064 Speaker 10 jar dropped around me. One second there's a rich blanket of forest
01:02:21.144 Speaker 10 sounds, and then the next I'm in a vacuum. I freeze. I can feel
01:02:27.024 Speaker 10 my heart pounding out of my chest, but otherwise I am as silent and still
01:02:33.044 Speaker 10 as the forest around me. The air is hot, still, and dead
01:02:39.064 Speaker 10 on my sweaty skin, like standing in a silent summer attic. An
01:02:45.064 Speaker 10 odd thought occurs to me, an intuition that I shouldn't move.
01:02:52.124 Speaker 10 People always get that feeling like they're being watched, but this isn't
01:02:57.764 Speaker 10 quite like that. It's not like being watched, it's, it's
01:03:03.744 Speaker 10 like being examined. And my gut is telling me to
01:03:09.684 Speaker 10 blend in, to do what the bugs and the birds and the trees
01:03:15.564 Speaker 10 are doing. Sit the fuck still and wait.
01:03:22.464 Speaker 10 Do as they do. This isn't something you run from.
01:03:28.664 Speaker 10 Do as they do and survive.
01:03:34.344 Speaker 10 So I wait, frozen in an awkward position, mid-stride,
01:03:40.184 Speaker 10 mid-breath, refusing to even blink or look around. I
01:03:45.904 Speaker 10 stand there like a store mannequin in the closet, watching through wooden slats as
01:03:51.304 Speaker 10 something very bad looks back through the slats at me,
01:03:57.244 Speaker 10 trying to figure out if I am actually a mannequin or
01:04:02.984 Speaker 10 just something pretending. We look at each other like that,
01:04:08.884 Speaker 10 this force and I, for ten seconds. My
01:04:14.644 Speaker 10 head is swimming with terror. Twenty
01:04:20.184 Speaker 10 seconds. My lungs are screaming for air, and my heart is pounding
01:04:26.244 Speaker 10 a frantic drum. Still it examines me, and
01:04:32.264 Speaker 10 suddenly the gaze is broken, its focus on something else.
01:04:38.804 Speaker 10 My vision narrows to a pinpoint because my brain is clamoring for oxygen.
01:04:45.304 Speaker 10 Far off there I hear a rustle of leaves. So
01:04:51.044 Speaker 10 slowly it comes my way. Not the rustle of a creature, but a
01:04:56.624 Speaker 10 great collective exhale from the forest. The sound of
01:05:02.544 Speaker 10 the forest returns in a great sweep past me. I bend,
01:05:08.424 Speaker 10 put my hands to my knees, and join in with a heaving gasp of my own.
01:05:14.504 Speaker 10 The rest of the walk is calm but cautious, a steady hike for two
01:05:20.544 Speaker 10 hours into the early evening. It's getting dark by the time I get back to my
01:05:26.184 Speaker 10 car.
01:05:33.404 Speaker 10 In the bar, my friends are all statue still, faces slack. No
01:05:39.364 Speaker 10 one has touched their drink in five minutes. My whole body is shaking as I
01:05:45.384 Speaker 10 absentmindedly run the fingers of both hands up through my hair. It
01:05:51.324 Speaker 10 was like, it was like I was staring down the barrel of a gun.
01:05:57.624 Speaker 10 A gun I couldn't see, but I knew that if I had so much as twitched,
01:06:04.544 Speaker 10 I wouldn't be here right now. It would've known I was there. It would've known I
01:06:10.444 Speaker 10 was real. And I never went back for that
01:06:16.564 Speaker 10 tent.
01:06:18.504 Speaker 10 I took a sip of my beer and a little grim satisfaction in my friends' stunned,
01:06:24.524 Speaker 10 distant faces. They let out a few half-hearted nervous chuckles at
01:06:30.544 Speaker 10 my attempt to lighten the mood. But otherwise everyone seems intensely
01:06:36.604 Speaker 10 interested in their drinks, the table, or the floor. Shit, man.
01:06:42.824 Speaker 10 Yeah.
01:06:45.024 Speaker 10 Yeah. We're all pretty quiet and unusually pensive until we pay our
01:06:51.104 Speaker 10 tabs and leave the bar. On the way out, one of my buddies pulls me aside and
01:06:57.204 Speaker 10 asks... Dang, uh, was that really true? All of it, I
01:07:03.224 Speaker 10 mean. I just sort of squint and look up at the star-strewn
01:07:09.264 Speaker 10 Alaskan sky Eventually, the words I'm looking for come to
01:07:15.232 Speaker 10 me. "There's [laughs]
01:07:21.012 Speaker 10 there's shit out there that no one can explain. Things that don't have
01:07:26.772 Speaker 10 names, and I think every now and then someone will come across one. The
01:07:32.912 Speaker 10 smart people, the lucky people like me, are the ones who get to
01:07:38.692 Speaker 10 tell their stories." He looks at me for a moment longer, then
01:07:44.212 Speaker 10 seemingly content with my answer, he nods and walks to his car.
01:07:48.952 Speaker 10 "Night." "Night." Of course, I don't tell him there's
01:07:54.952 Speaker 10 more. I don't tell him that it wasn't some ethereal,
01:08:00.332 Speaker 10 invisible force staring me down in the woods. It was a
01:08:05.752 Speaker 10 monster.
01:08:07.992 Speaker 10 A lanky, horrid, yet somehow human thing.
01:08:14.332 Speaker 10 It was in the shape of a man, but it was no man.
01:08:20.492 Speaker 10 God gave me two gifts that day. The first was sparing my
01:08:26.532 Speaker 10 life, and the other was keeping that creature in the periphery of my
01:08:32.512 Speaker 10 vision. I did tireless research after that incident in the forest.
01:08:38.792 Speaker 10 I found out about a missing homeless man and the dismembered corpse the cops
01:08:44.672 Speaker 10 found in the woods. Uh, parts of a corpse anyway.
01:08:50.992 Speaker 10 And I found out about something called the Ekatiksidi. A
01:08:56.932 Speaker 10 follow-up call to the professor from the nearby university got me that, and it got
01:09:02.272 Speaker 10 me a meeting with the grandson of the shaman who asked the university to take the
01:09:07.192 Speaker 10 speakers down. I met with him the very next day. "I don't
01:09:13.072 Speaker 10 know how well I can explain it. I don't think of it the same way my grandfather
01:09:17.892 Speaker 10 does." I follow up immediately, eager. "Try me." "You
01:09:23.912 Speaker 10 know how everything that's alive today has some of the same DNA? Like, if you go
01:09:29.352 Speaker 10 back far enough, we all have a common ancestor. Even really different things like
01:09:34.612 Speaker 10 germs. Well, I don't think the Ekatiksidi are in that family tree.
01:09:40.632 Speaker 10 I think they come from something else."
01:09:44.692 Speaker 10 He sort of trails off, perhaps expecting skepticism from me. Two
01:09:50.512 Speaker 10 days ago, maybe, but he doesn't know that I have good reason not to be a skeptic.
01:09:56.412 Speaker 10 "These things aren't a joke, you know. People at the college think my grandfather is
01:10:02.372 Speaker 10 crazy. They only listen to him because he's respected in the tribe. But even though
01:10:07.932 Speaker 10 they respect him, most of the tribe thinks he's crazy too." "Do you think he's
01:10:13.832 Speaker 10 crazy?" "About the Ekatiksidi?" He looks grave, and the sudden
01:10:19.792 Speaker 10 seriousness from such a young man surprises me. The weight of his stare
01:10:25.552 Speaker 10 hints at a wisdom beyond his apparent age and somewhat flippant appearance.
01:10:30.912 Speaker 10 "No, he's not crazy. He's not crazy because
01:10:37.032 Speaker 10 I saw one. This was like five or six years ago, and I was maybe thirteen.
01:10:43.992 Speaker 10 I was out in the woods on my ATV, just weaving through the trees and going too fast.
01:10:50.012 Speaker 10 I was a stupid kid then. I did a lot of stupid shit. Anyway, I'm in some pretty
01:10:56.112 Speaker 10 sparse woods, so it's easy to see far off, and I see this animal laying down in the
01:11:01.312 Speaker 10 distance. I turn my ATV to get closer, and I can tell it's a deer.
01:11:07.692 Speaker 10 As I'm pulling up to it, I cut the engine and just roll to a stop about twenty feet
01:11:12.672 Speaker 10 from the thing. I think it must be hurt or something because its back legs aren't
01:11:18.012 Speaker 10 working, and it's pulling itself along by its front legs. Thinking I'll need to kill
01:11:23.932 Speaker 10 it, I go to pull out my knife. As soon as I reach down, this thing's head just
01:11:30.011 Speaker 10 snaps towards me, and I don't mean it heard a sound and sort of looked around then
01:11:35.772 Speaker 10 saw me. It just immediately jerked its head right towards me. It,
01:11:42.512 Speaker 10 it didn't look right. It was like someone tried to make a deer but didn't have all
01:11:48.132 Speaker 10 the right parts. It was all twisted and gangly with these nasty, swollen
01:11:54.052 Speaker 10 eyes just staring at me. And I got this feeling like it was trying to figure me out,
01:12:00.432 Speaker 10 trying to figure out what I was, completely still. And then a
01:12:06.312 Speaker 10 couple seconds later, it just turned and kept dragging itself away."
01:12:11.392 Speaker 10 "Whoa." "I pushed my ATV as fast as it would go back to the house.
01:12:17.212 Speaker 10 That's when my grandfather told me about the Ekatiksidi. He said they were bad
01:12:22.772 Speaker 10 spirits that spawn deep in the forest. They're attracted to signs of life, noise,
01:12:28.952 Speaker 10 sight, stuff like that. And when they find something alive, they sort of copy it,
01:12:35.212 Speaker 10 but they disassemble it first. Once they've copied something, they try and find more
01:12:41.052 Speaker 10 of it to make a better copy. I don't really know why. This is just what he told me.
01:12:47.352 Speaker 10 Most of the time they're harmless. Every now and then, one shows up in the shape of
01:12:52.552 Speaker 10 a deer or dog or something, and then the shaman go out and take care of it."
01:12:57.652 Speaker 10 "So what did they do about the one you saw?"
01:13:03.532 Speaker 10 "They went out to find a deer, a real deer. When they caught one, they brought it to
01:13:08.612 Speaker 10 the Ekatiksidi. The only way to kill them is to make them copy something already
01:13:14.172 Speaker 10 dying." We sat in silence there for a moment, drinks
01:13:19.924 Speaker 10 forgotten.
01:13:22.544 Speaker 10 I saw one. What? And I think I know why your grandfather wanted the
01:13:28.164 Speaker 10 speakers taken down.
01:13:31.384 Speaker 10 What he was afraid of, it happened. Wait, slow down. What
01:13:37.364 Speaker 10 are you talking about? There's a human Akatic city out
01:13:43.164 Speaker 10 there.
01:13:54.204 Speaker 10 A few hours later, we're standing at the trailhead behind my property. It's turning
01:13:59.324 Speaker 10 into evening now, with only about an hour of real daylight left. There is a group
01:14:05.264 Speaker 10 of men nearby from Ida's tribe, shaman, talking to each other in hushed voices.
01:14:11.984 Speaker 10 Behind them are a dozen or so women and children, and some of the women are crying.
01:14:18.084 Speaker 10 Ida, what's going on? He motions for me to wait as the circle of shaman
01:14:24.084 Speaker 10 breaks up. An older man in his early 60s, who I assume
01:14:29.844 Speaker 10 is Ida's grandfather, walks over to us at the entrance to the trail. He doesn't stop
01:14:35.664 Speaker 10 to talk to us, but just nods his head in our direction and continues past us down
01:14:41.044 Speaker 10 the trail. He has a wiry sort of strength to him despite his age,
01:14:47.204 Speaker 10 and the feathered garb and war paint on his body lend him an air of danger. I
01:14:53.024 Speaker 10 can see an ornate stone dagger on his belt as he goes.
01:14:58.704 Speaker 10 Eventually, I speak. When is he coming back?
01:15:04.844 Speaker 10 Ida just gives me this flat, mournful look. He
01:15:10.584 Speaker 10 isn't coming back. And then Ida's words from before
01:15:16.564 Speaker 10 ring in my ear. The only way to kill them is to make them copy
01:15:22.584 Speaker 10 something already dying.
01:16:14.504 Speaker 11 And so, another episode has drawn to a close, and our nightmares dissolve
01:16:20.384 Speaker 11 into the ether. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length
01:16:25.444 Speaker 11 versions of our audio program, please visit thenosleeppodcast.com to learn about our
01:16:31.104 Speaker 11 Season Pass program. 25 episodes, each over two hours long, and three
01:16:36.744 Speaker 11 exclusive bonus episodes, all for only $19.99. On behalf of
01:16:42.564 Speaker 11 everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening. Join us again next
01:16:47.524 Speaker 11 week when our dark tales will envelop you in a nightmarish, swirling
01:16:52.824 Speaker 11 fog. This audio production is copyright
01:16:58.284 Speaker 11 2017 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each
01:17:04.344 Speaker 11 story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this
01:17:08.964 Speaker 11 audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media,
01:17:13.604 Speaker 11 Inc.