The NoSleep Podcast – 2026 Holiday Hiatus Vol. 1 (January 4, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode continues The NoSleep Podcast’s tradition of chilling holiday hiatus by sharing two horror tales from their Sleepless Universe platform. Host and team offer listeners eerie, original stories to savor over the festive break with the message that, in 2026, may your horror remain firmly fictional. The duo of tales—“My Family is Refusing to Leave the Basement” by Jamie Francis Janazian and “Priceless” by Kristen Sumido—showcase two very different yet equally haunting facets of horror: relentless grief entwined with the supernatural, and the destructive allure of cursed art.

Story 1: "My Family Is Refusing to Leave the Basement"

By Jamie Francis Janazian
Performed by Nicole Doolin, Nicole Goodnight, Atticus Jackson, Mike Delgadio, Dan Zapula

[03:08] Setup: New Starts, Old Sorrows

• A grieving couple, Annette and Gideon, leave their hometown after a tragic loss (the death of their daughter, Bree), purchasing a foreclosed fixer-upper to escape memories and start over in anonymity.
• The new house on Lake Shore Drive immediately gives off a disturbing air: "The place was... crushing sadness. It hit me like a wave..." (Annette, [04:10]).
• They ignore these signs due to desperation and the need for a new beginning.

[06:20] The Basement Crawlspace

• The house contains a dirt-floor basement and an ominous crawlspace beyond a wooden ladder, ignored by the realtor.
• "The black dirt seemed to swallow up any light... overpowering smell of lingering rot mixed with old earth." (Annette, [07:15])
• The couple stores Bree’s cherished belongings in the crawlspace during renovations, feeling it’s safer than a storage unit.

[09:10] Unsettling Manifestations

• Strange phenomena begin: Annette hears dragging sounds, giggles, and laughter from the crawlspace, uncannily like Bree’s, but hollow and wrong.
• "A giggle... a familiar sounding one coming from outside the kitchen window... It wasn't coming from outside. It was coming from below..." (Annette, [12:43])
• She questions her sanity, as her husband displays growing unease but remains silent.

[13:18] The First Direct Contact

• Annette hears Bree call: “Mom? Are you coming?” from the darkness ([13:17])
• Upon investigation, they discover a makeshift camp in the crawlspace—Bree’s blanket, toys, an open book—but both deny arranging it.
• Police arrive but find no evidence of an intruder. A sympathetic officer hints at knowledge of something wrong:
  • “Look, whatever you think you hear down there, it isn’t real. Nothing good could come from a place like that.” (Officer, [15:41])

[16:24] The Previous Residents

• The officer reveals the prior owners, the Makowskis, died in the crawlspace in mysterious, grisly circumstances:
  • “They weren’t in a position to tell me... there wasn’t enough left of them.” (Officer, [16:24])

[17:00] Losing Control

• Annette slips into a compulsion to return again and again, haunted by laughter, whispers, and cries.
• “The longer I stayed away from the basement, the louder her laughter got, the more persistent the pleading whispers...” ([17:49])
• Gideon warns her against going back—she doesn't remember asking to join their daughter in the dark, but he recalls:
  • “You wanted to go down there... to be with her, that you didn’t want her to be alone in the dark.” (Gideon, [17:16])
• Both know whatever is down there is not their daughter.

[19:21] The Inhuman Presence

• Confronted by the entity’s imitation of Bree, Annette is horrified:
  • “Eyes glinted up at me from the well of blackness... The little storage room was empty... As soon as the light went off, those eyes were back...” ([19:23])
  • “I don’t like the dark.” (Entity mimicking Bree, [19:36])

[20:36] Point of No Return

• Gideon insists on facing the entity, telling Annette to prepare to flee if he doesn’t return; he disappears into the basement, the ladder removed.
• Annette feels jealousy and longing, unable to leave, desperate to reunite her family—alive or otherwise.

[21:26] Final Descent

• Annette’s last attempts to call her family up from the basement yield only silence or inhuman gurgles.
• “I know Gideon told me to leave, but I can’t just leave my family... If I can’t figure something out soon... there’s only one option left.” ([22:58])

Notable Quotes:

• "We built our lives on the shattered remains of someone else's..." (Annette, [05:10])
• “You know she’s not down there, Nettie. She never was.” (Gideon, [17:31])
• “That’s what led to my husband finding me broken down, bawling at the kitchen table.” (Annette, [19:38])

Story 2: "Priceless"

By Kristen Sumido
Performed by Sarah Thomas, Graham Rowett, Wofia White, Mike Delgadio, Nicole Goodnight, Kyle Akers, Tonya Milojevich

[26:10] Setup: Art, Obsession, and the Failing Museum

• Cass, an underachieving arts graduate, curates at Enigma—an oddities museum in a small Idaho city—working under Jerry, the world-weary owner.
• Cass recalls her unsettling college obsession with Alara Claire, a late-80s figurative painter infamous for brutally violent, near-confessional canvases and ties to real murders.
  • “Alara Claire... exercised merciless wrath upon her subjects with such inventive depravity she could have scared Francis Bacon out of his grave.” (Cass, [27:00])

[33:09] Desperation and the Search for a Draw

• Enigma's declining attendance, failed events, and Cass's personal debt have tensions high; Jerry fires her for “lack of ambition” ([35:15]).
• Cass finds a potential savior: a local estate advertised on Instagram. She hopes for morbid treasures to draw crowds.

[45:06] The Estate: The Find

• Cass braves a vile, hoarder-like house run by the brusque auctioneer Lewis and discovers a stash of genuine Alara Claire paintings in the basement.
• “My white whale... what might have been an otherwise gorgeous woman screams on the stretched canvas in my hands. Her blonde hair is pulled out in bloody patches...” ([49:15])
• Desperate for the paintings, Cass lies to secure a personal loan, revealing her willingness to deceive and exploit—“I couldn’t lie about this.” ([52:29])

[56:32] Rebirth of Enigma

• She pitches the Claire exhibit as Enigma’s last hope: “For one night only, an exclusive peek into the lost arts of the posthumous painter of the macabre, Elara Claire. Don’t get too close. You might catch the curse.” ([56:34])
• Jerry is subdued, almost haunted, but relents.

[62:40] The Grand Opening: Horror Unleashed

• The opening night is a wild success; a crowd floods in, drawn by the promise of cursed, grisly art.
• “Dozens of grisly portraits... fog machine pours haze into the gallery... an old gramophone plays a screechy violin...” ([65:04])
• Cass amplifies the legend: “It’s also rumored that Claire used the blood of her victims for some of her paintings.” ([66:00])

[66:50+] The Massacre

• A frail older woman opens her throat with a box cutter before “like synchronized swimmers in a bloodbath, the crowd begins tearing, gouging, chewing, and mutilating their own bodies,” each mimicking a painting.
• Jerry vomits; some escape, but the carnage is total.
• Cass, not horrified by the violence but by her “utter failure,” attacks Jerry in a desperate, deranged bid to salvage her ambition before police arrive ([73:14]).

[75:41] Aftermath & Legacy

• Time jump: Jerry, now remarried, recounts the tale to new curator Veronica, who nervously asks about the “curse.”
• “You should consider yourself lucky. And besides, the curse only seems to affect women.” (Jerry, [77:14])
• The gallery reopens as the Enigma Murder Museum, thriving on the mythology and spectacle of the massacre.

Notable Quotes:

• “I can sell things. This kind of attraction, Jerry. I know this work better than anything I’ve ever curated for Enigma.” (Cass, [59:11])
• “Jerry, listen, this... isn’t a bad thing. This isn’t... I didn’t fuck up, okay? Look, I told you we needed this kind of thing, right? We need this publicity. Don’t throw this opportunity away. This adds value. Blood and guts, Jerry. I can work with this.” (Cass, [73:14])
• “Honestly, you got in on the ground floor, Veronica. You should consider yourself lucky. And besides, the curse only seems to affect women.” (Jerry, [77:14])

Episode Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Opening Toast ([00:29]): “Raise a cup of kindness yet for the tales of a sleepless kind?”
• Crawlspace Nightmares: The dread of the first story is rooted in grief, with supernatural terror entwined with sorrow and guilt, culminating in ambiguous, inescapable doom.
• Meta-Horror of Art: The second story draws a harrowing parallel between art as cultural obsession and the destructive hunger of modern spectacle, ending with horror commodified for mass consumption.
• Final Words ([78:51]): The line between legend and truth blurs, as visitors clamor for the murder museum—“I think about correcting her. No, no, Cassandra wasn’t the murderer, but I don’t.” (Jerry)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:29] Host’s Holiday Greeting & Episode Setup
• [03:08] Start of “My Family Is Refusing to Leave the Basement”
• [13:17] Bree’s Voice Returns
• [16:24] Revelation of the Prior Owners’ Fate
• [21:26] Annette’s Final Descent
• [26:10] Start of “Priceless”
• [33:09] Jerry Confronts Cass: “When are you gonna take ownership of anything?”
• [56:32] The Claire Exhibit Pitch
• [66:50] The Massacre Unleashed
• [75:41] Aftermath & New Curator
• [78:40] Guests arrive for the murder museum’s reopening

Tone & Style

The episode stays true to NoSleep’s signature blend of menacing, ambient storytelling and character-driven psychological horror. Both stories are intimate but escalating: one is suffused with melancholy and dread, the other shot through with desperation, cynicism, and dark satire of internet-true-crime culture.

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For New Listeners

This episode is a showcase of NoSleep’s strengths: atmospheric, modern horror stories that explore both the supernatural and the consequences of human frailty. Whether it’s the ghosts of unresolved loss or the literal and figurative price of infamy, each narrative lingers, leaving listeners haunted by the unseen and the all-too-real.

“May it be all fictional horror for you, and very little real horror.”
— NoSleep Podcast Host ([00:29])