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- [00:00]
A
Wnsp.
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B
Right, Right.
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A
Okay, okay, I'll try.
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B
I'll try. Oh, damn. I gotta go. Hey. Hey.
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A
Sorry about that. We came back from break a little quicker than I thought. You're listening to the Darkness of the night, WNSP's overnight. Listen, I'm sorry about all this, but I was just on the phone with my buddy up in Goat Valley. He told me some serious stuff is going down up there. He said he knows a woman who knows more than anyone about the campgrounds in Goat Valley. He's trying to connect us so I can speak with her and find out more. Now, I don't know who this woman is. I think he said her name is Bonnie or something. But if. Look, if. If I can't get a hold of her on this show, I'll do my best to speak with her on my next broadcast. But according to my friend, there has been a lot of police activity around the campgrounds. Strange sightings, things getting weird. I feel like there is a much bigger story about that place than we know. He. He saw a man walking around carrying a. And that there are strange groups of. Look, I don't know. It's all pretty freaky. And you know me. I live in Cryptid Valley. It takes a lot to rattle me. But if what my friend is saying is true, then I think we're in for a wild ride over the next few months. What is. What is it they say on our favorite podcast? Oh, yeah. Brace yourself. Oh, and speaking of that show, it's about time for a new episode of the no Sleep pod. A rustle of the leaves. A fleeting movement at the end edge of your vision. How often have you walked a forest trail at dusk only to feel the unmistakable sensation that something unseen is watching you? For centuries, humans have populated the darkness with creatures of legend whose existence remains unproven, yet whose presence is undeniable in the whispered tales of those who dare venture too deep into the wild wild. Brace yourself for the no Sleep podcast. Welcome to the no Sleep Podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. We are so excited to be returning to our favorite camping spot. Yes. Season two of Goat Valley Campgrounds is at hand. The first chapter has launched for our Sleepless Sanctuary members, while our free listeners will have their premiere next week on episode 12. Creator Bonnie Quinn has crafted another brilliant series for us, and we can't wait for you to join Kate as she deals with the horrors of her family campgrounds in Goat Valley. It's never too late to sign up for one of our Sleepless Sanctuary tiers to get each chapter a week early. Come join us at Goat Valley Campgrounds. And did you know the first season of Goat Valley Campgrounds was released three and a half years ago? Does that make you feel old? Probably not. It wasn't that long ago. It's not like those things you read online, like the movie Seven came out 30 years ago, or someone mentions a person you knew as a baby who just graduated from college. Where does the time go? We all exclaim with dismay. Yes, it's not easy getting older. And in the world of horror, old things are often great sources of terror. It's not just a mummy from ancient Egypt coming to life either, whether it's some antique device, an old haunted house, or some creepy old dude who claims to be the host of a horror storytelling podcast, but he's actually stalking you and peering through your bedroom windows each night. I mean, hypothetically speaking, of course. Yes, things which have been around a long time are often imbued with the ability to bring terrifying entities to life. And on this episode we have tales that remind us that some things don't grow old gracefully. So take it from this old man. You may feel young at heart, but make sure nothing is trying to rip that heart from your chest. Now tune in, turn on, and brace yourself for our sleepless tales. In our first tale, we meet a couple who have spotted something. You probably have, too. You're driving along, and there on the side of the road is an old piece of furniture. Even if it doesn't have a free sign on it, it's understood that anyone can claim it. But in this tale shared with us by author AP Royal, the man explains that the piece of furniture they brought home may have been free, but that doesn't mean they didn't pay a high price for it. Performing this tale is Peter Lewis, so maybe you should pass up a bargain, especially if you see the chair.
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C
We found it on the roadside at the end of a cul de sac, just sitting there in an open patch of grass. That meant free, according to my wife, Claire. Apart from that fact, I didn't see what the appeal was. The upholstery was faded, the black sunflower print worn out into blobs of gray. The beige fabric was frayed at the edges of the stitching attached to its cherry wood frame. Claire could never get that spot out of the seat cushion. I always wondered why Claire experimented with the placement of the chair for a long time. Some days I'd find it in the corner of the study. Other days it would be sitting in the family room. We'd watch movies together, her eyes flickering shut, her head resting against the padding, her hand in mine. It was ugly, but if she loved it, I didn't mind. I was no interior decorator myself. One evening when Claire was working, I left the cartoons running and exited the living room. It was only for a second to shut off the burner, the kettle whining atop the hot stove.
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I.
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Heard the thud and came running. Our daughter, Harper, was unresponsive, lying in a pool of blood. She was just learning to walk, I figured. She had tried to climb one of the armrests and fell, hitting her head on the edge of the coffee table. It would have been quite the fall, but it wasn't a stretch. Claire rushed to the er, but but there was nothing they could do. Harper had lost too much blood. I'm gonna get rid of it, claire promised in tears. Bad juju, we both agree. She could hardly be in the same room as it anymore because it reminded her of what happened. The last place I found it was in the basement. I had hardly noticed it at first because my eyes were fixed on her. Claire's dusty footprints were on the seat where she had reached up and tied the noose. Her limp body twisted and turned, her lips bloated and purple. Her stare was gone. The chair stood under her, angled towards me. I approached slowly, rubbing my fingers along the arms. Fresh slashes were carved into the wood. In the hollow trenches were tiny speckles of blood. The stain on the cushion had spread dark as a pool of tar. The chair has found its way to our bedroom now. Some night when the house is quiet, I swear I catch glimpses of them. I'll blink and Claire's head will be nestled against the headrest, Harper cradled in her arms, all of us together, and in the darkness, I know I can never get rid of it now.
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Foreign.
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SP will return after a word from our sponsors. You want longer episodes, no ads, and lots of bonus content. Find out more@sleepless.thenosleeppodcast.com Our episode this week is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's funny how we often act when we feel the need for some support. Nothing wrong with reaching out to a loved one, a dear friend, maybe your bartender. But let's face it, not everyone is a therapist. As fun as those people in your life are to talk with about everyday topics when you're looking for help about relationships, anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, they may not have all the right answers. Instead, get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, and BetterHelp's 10 years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. And if you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp no Sleep listeners get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com nosleep that's betterhelp.com nosleep thanks BetterHelp for supporting what we do. Now back to WNSP's presentation of the no Sleep Podcast. Speaking of old did you know that cameras used to use something called film to capture images? Yes, I fondly recall the days of film hell. I used to develop and print my own black and white photos. Ah, the good old days. Anywho, as we'll learn in this tale shared with us by author Paolo Villegas, an old camera and its film are purchased by a woman from a market. Once she discovers the photos from the camera, well, let's just say bizarre things develop. Performing this tale are Ash Millman, Andy Cruswell, James Cleveland, and Penny Scott Andrews. So say cheese and try not to scream when using the camera.
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D
There was a feeling of tender expectation in the air, as one feels when a big storm is about to rumble from the horizon. I could hear the bodies rustling against each other, the plastic bags carrying vegetables and cheese and seeds and cured meats and underwear and bread and rat poison and everything in between that could serve any purpose to anyone anywhere. The smell released by the PVC coated polyester awnings from the scorching summer morning sun melded with the untold stories of the poor and the rich to create the characteristic odor that defines a weekly market. The faces were always all the same, though I couldn't recognize any of them. I could only remember the exact places of the stands where I usually went to buy what I needed for the week. It's not the perfect place to do the weekly shopping, but it does me quite well. That morning was quiet, tranquil. The usual hustle and bustle of the past weeks was somewhat toned down, maybe because the end of the month was rapidly approaching, or maybe because the bulk of the tourists had returned to their homes after two or three weeks of trying to soothe the sore date that kept their hearts bleeding for too long a time. Maybe both. Maybe neither. It may be that I woke up too soon and got there before the whole city and its surroundings decided that they should go down to the market. I walked around for a while, just glancing at the stands passing by the early birds who, like me, couldn't sleep much or at all. Only five pounds, Miss. The old woman spoke as loudly as she could without screaming, brandishing at me some piece of clothing still in its plastic wrap. I smiled and raised my hand, thanking her. I still don't know what I want today, or if I'll buy anything at all. She understood. I understood all this just by looking at me, even before I gestured at her. Most of these people have a gift of knowing who and when to approach. Time has granted them that knowledge by having them ignored, turned down, or simply mocked by the passing buyers, not consumers. Buyers. At the market, there are no consumers. The interactions between seller and buyer cannot be described by the complex laws of the modern market. There's something so much more primal in it, something that eludes the codification of the consumer society. Yet it is what birthed it. Consumers don't haggle, they just choose. They don't discuss the price or the value with the seller. They just buy that item or something else cheaper or better, or both or neither. There's no real interaction between the consumer and the retailer. It's a game of yes or no with no space in between. I must have walked for around a good half hour before I saw the man with the tiny stand. I had never seen him there before. Maybe I missed it when the crowd suffocate the view as well as the lungs. But that morning I saw him. He was sitting on a little foldable bench, carving something out of his nails with a pocket knife, his cigarette dangling precariously at the corner of his mouth, held only by the friction of his dry, broken lips. His gray mustache had a deep yellow coloration just below the nose. His thin hair was also gray, but combed in a manner that made it look healthy, although dirty and greasy.
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B
You need anything, miss?
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I was startled by his voice, harsh and broken. I'd been staring at him for God knows how long. Oh, how much for this? I said, randomly, pointing at an old camera.
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B
I don't know.
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How much do you think it's worth?
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He was testing me, trying to see if I was really interested in it. Can I pick it up to see if it's any good? I asked, engaging in his bluff.
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Be my guest. But if you break it, it's yours.
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His smile revealed the yellow brown teeth beneath the dirty mustache. Until then, I was not at all interested in that camera. But as soon as I picked it up and held it, I fell in love with wasn't the best camera in the world. Of course, it was old. The plastic felt cheap, probably toxic, and I couldn't get the film compartment to open. If you break it, it's yours, I heard in my head. I pushed the film advance leverage, pointed out the man, and took his picture.
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Well, it seems to work. That must increase the value.
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I looked at it once more, as if I knew what I was doing. Analyzing. I don't know what it works, but I don't think it will for much longer. £35.
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30 and it's yours.
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He extended his hand for me to shake. Done. I shook his hand and gave him three tenners.
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Miss, this belongs to your camera.
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He handed me a leather strap. I thanked him as I secured the camera with it and put it around my neck. There was nothing more for me at the market. I spent more money on that camera than I was planning to on the whole day. But it didn't matter. Somehow I was in love with that thing. In some strange way, I felt like I was meant to find it, or for it to find me. Are you sure you can open it without breaking it? My hands were sweating. Ricardo was gently trying to insert a small screwdriver into the camera to open the film compartment.
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E
Don't worry. It's. It's just a bit stuck.
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B
How old is this?
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His hand moved carefully and precisely, with just the perfect measure of pressure. I have no idea. I was hoping you knew. A plastic clip came from the camera in his hands.
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Ah, finally. It must be older than you and me. That's for sure.
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D
I nodded in agreement.
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E
It still has film inside.
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D
I know. I even took one last photo with it, but it ran out.
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E
You want to see what's in there?
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Should we?
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Why not?
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I didn't know how to answer that question, but it just felt wrong. I bought the camera from someone I hadn't met before, didn't know how it came to that place, if it was stolen or lost or sold. Maybe there were family photos or erotic pictures. Maybe it had belonged to someone who traveled through somewhere and they lost it or forgot it in the rush of getting on a plane or a bus. How could I know? How could I enter some random person's life without their consent? Before I could respond with an answer, Ricardo opened the film roll and attached it to the conversation.
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In two or three Minutes. We'll have the photos on the computer. If you want to see them, fine. If you don't, I'll erase them.
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B
Okay?
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D
I nodded once again. There's one photo we can see. The last one. The one I took of the man who sold it to me.
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E
Let's start with that one.
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D
The man appeared on the screen in bright colors. It captured the various shades of yellow in his mustache, as well as the brown gray tonality of his slightly visible teeth. I couldn't help but smile when I saw him again. Not because I liked to see him, but because of the magical feeling that comes with a photograph that is not instantly available on the screen of my phone. It's the waiting, the anticipation, the imagining of what it looks like before one can know what one caught in that moment. There is nothing like the nostalgia for the future, the remembrance of things to come. A photograph taken with one's phone eludes that feeling, making the photograph a thing of the past already gone even before the moment we've taken it. We're not shooting for the future. We're shooting to kill the moment, to make our own. The ghost of the present we barely experience.
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E
Do you want to see anything else?
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D
Ricardo looked me in the eye with the hope of a yes dancing across his features. Maybe the first one we saw. The last one on the roll. It's only fair we look at the first. The reasons we make up to do whatever we want always amused me. A dog was running towards something. It looked like a child, but it didn't. Something felt quite off about that. It was a golden retriever. His four paws were all in the air, stretched as if he were flying. The child was far, so I asked Ricardo to zoom in. It really was a child, a little girl. But she was crying. Although we couldn't really see her eyes, we both knew there was fear in that little face.
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E
You want to see the next one?
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D
I nodded. It looked the same. Only the dog was further away from us. I nodded again. Now the dog looked like he was two or three feet away from the child. Ricardo once again looked at me. My heart was beating out of my chest. Yes. Next one. The dog and the child disappeared. In their place, a table filled with food and plates and silverware and glasses, surrounded by well dressed people, although not quite in formal attire, smiling and waving at the camera. It seemed like a party and the host wanted to capture the moment. This time, Ricardo didn't ask. The next photo was similar. And the next one. And the next One of the 36 photos in the roll one was mine. Three were of the dog and that little girl. And 13 were of that dinner. The dinner photo stopped. The next photo was of a child's room. Could it be the same child from the first photos?
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E
I don't know, but this is giving me the shivers. There's something eerie about this.
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D
Ricardo was sitting in his chair and I was standing behind him. I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him, but mostly to calm me. He was right. Something was off about that whole thing. He moved on to the next photo. The bed was now closer, and it seemed like there was a child there. The next one made us sure it's a girl sleeping. Maybe the same one from before. Next. Her hair was dark and it looked even darker on the white bed sheets. There was something familiar in there. I had seen that bed before. That bedroom. I've been there before.
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B
What?
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D
Ricardo looked at me.
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E
You know this place?
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D
I don't know. Maybe. It seems oddly familiar. He continued on to the next one. We could see the sleeping child's face. And I recognized it. I was sure I knew that face. A friend, A classmate. A schoolmate from 20 years ago. No, that wasn't it. Oh my God.
- [25:37]
B
What?
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E
You remember who that is?
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D
How is this possible?
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E
Who is it?
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D
Don't you recognize her? He looked a little closer.
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E
Is that.
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D
Yes, I think so. No, I'm sure it's me. Go to the next photo. The rest of the role was just that. Photographs of me as a child sleeping in a room I could barely recognize. Somehow this didn't feel real. As if it were a prank someone was pulling on me. Could anyone forge something like that? He didn't answer. He was lost in his thoughts. Ricardo.
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E
Sorry.
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D
He shook his head. To try and come back to reality.
- [26:25]
E
I guess so. But it takes a lot of time and too much work. Let me check if I can find something that indicates this was tampered with.
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D
He started to look at the photos once more, zooming in and out, looking for God knows what. Wait. Go back. That previous photo. Zoom in on that mirror. I got you. I thought to myself. If we know who took the photos, maybe we can. At that moment, my heart froze. Or skipped a beat, or stopped. And I died.
- [27:00]
E
That's.
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D
That's me. It's me as I am today. Even my clothes are the same. I had to get onto my knees so I wouldn't fall to the ground. That's me taking pictures of myself sleeping with the camera I bought today. Some things are better left alone and not meant to be understood. Or even glanced at. The following week I returned to the market to look for that man. I asked Ricardo to print the photo I had taken of him, and I showed it around. Some people had a vague idea of seeing a man that looked like that, with a cigarette and all, but no one seemed to remember his stand in that little corner. I've been at this exact place every week for longer than I can remember. I heard countless times from countless stall holders. I can't seem to recall anyone there selling whatever it is you say you were selling. I thanked everyone for nothing, but I did thank them. Sometimes you must accept that people come and go and you don't even seem to notice them. An old woman held my hand when I began to break down.
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B
Ghosts, my dear, are around us, near.
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D
Us, living with us, within us. There is nothing we can do about it except to go on, walk through.
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B
Them and put a smile on our face as if everything's fine and soon, when you least expect.
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D
I raised my head and looked at her, the cigarette and the mustache smiling back at me.
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C
Everything is fine.
- [29:12]
F
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- [30:07]
B
This is the story of the One as head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the H.
- [30:18]
F
Vac is humming, and his facility shines.
- [30:21]
B
With Grainger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces. Plus 24. 7 customer support. His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [30:46]
A
Sometimes it's not just who we are or the things we own that are old. Sometimes we turn to the old ways for guidance and purpose. Just like the man we'll meet in this tale shared with us by author David English, the man you see is having a run of Very bad misfortune. And he's desperate to find a way to turn things around. And his attempts to find better luck have him reaching out for ancient protection. Performing this tale is Mike Delgaudio. So you can run and tell your friend because you're sinking down when you're standing at the crossroads.
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B
Few years ago, I was struck with a streak of bad luck. I don't like to talk about it to people much because it makes me feel like I'm being whiny or think I'm unique somehow. Sometimes everything's gotta work out like that, right? You fall into a hole and everything you do to try and pull yourself out seems to make you slip in more. Thing is, when you're starting at the bottom, it feels a lot more personal. I was living in a trailer on the outskirts of some nowhere and never will be somewhere town in Georgia. Reason I ended up there was in fact another string of bad luck that time. It washed me out of a decent paying job in an apartment in the Midwest to what was basically a hovel in the middle of the woods. Total hell hole, complete with holes in the floor, chronically busted air conditioner, and a landlord with an almost impressive dedication to ignoring my calls. I hated it, but it was mine. I guess that was something. I was just aimlessly going from paycheck to paycheck by the skin of my teeth with nothing to look forward to. But passing out on the couch every night, drunk in front of the tv. Wasn't living so much as a holding pattern. But you know, like the trailer, it was something place and a way to exist. After everything went bad out west. I thought I'd never get that again. Believe me, things got real bad for me that first time. I was in and out of places for a while. I know you know about those. You read my file, right? Anyway, I don't like to talk too much about that one to other people. Makes them get the wrong idea. I was safe from it now though, you know, Safe and far away. At least that's what I thought. But about a year into my sad new life, the bad luck found me again. Turns out it wasn't done with me yet. It was a pile of things, really. All of it came in a jumble. That first one, though, was pretty big. See, I screwed up my knee coming off a ladder doing my roofing gig. It wasn't entirely my fault, I guess, but you know, my buddy Rod, he was holding the ladder at the time and he let go when someone tapped him on the shoulder. One little trip A fall and a costly trip to the ER later, and I was told I was gonna have no way to make money myself. Two months. Shoot. I didn't blame Rod, though. That guy was almost in tears about it. The next time he talked to me, he was always like that great big guy. But every little time he screwed something up, he would be a mess. Apology after apology. The other things started not long after. A truck broke down and I was pouring my savings into getting it running again. Girl named Sandy I've been seeing at the time one one of the few positive things I'd found in my life. Well, she just seemed to drop off the face of the planet. Stuff started breaking around the house. Microwave, the coffee machine, the washing machine. You know, all that piddly crap adds up. And then came the phone call. About two weeks into all of this, I got word from a hospital all the way in California. They found my dad lying in the back garden of my childhood home, face down. He'd had a heart attack so severe they had to put him in a medically induced coma. He was hanging on by a thread. And no matter how hard my mother was crying her eyes out for him, I had to tell her that I had no way to get across the country to see him. I know all this probably sounds like a whole lot of nothing to you. That's what I meant when I said it sounds, you know, whiny. Everyone knows when it rains, it pours. But I want you to imagine what all of it was like for me at the time. One thing after another going wrong on a daily basis. Hobbling around on that kiln of a tin roof, trailer on a bad leg. Just watching what little bits of normalcy I'd stapled and glued together. Getting pulled apart all over again. I don't think you could blame me for starting to lose it again, can you? I stopped being angry after a while, and I just started being sad. And then finally, I just sort of started thinking. That first time I'd gotten a streak of bad luck, man, it really messed me up. But I never stopped to blame it on something. Lots of bad stuff happened and all at once, you know, tore me up. It sucked. I lost a lot and I moved on. Yeah, but this time, though. This time it was an attack. Something somehow had waited for me to get my footing just so it could start breaking me again. Like I was being punished for just barely scraping by long enough to get here. That's what I mean by bad luck. Feeling personal when you got nothing. Coincidence and happenstance, even the concept of luck itself stopped feeling personal, real. The bad stuff that happens to you starts to look like it was meant to happen. You aren't slipping down that hole. God's reaching his hand down from the sky and pushing you deeper and deeper. Because you should have known better than to ever start feeling around in the darkness for footholds. Now, I'm no religious man. That was basically where my mind took me. Not in any real logical way. And hell, I didn't really blame God either. I was just convinced that I was being punished by some kind of undefined force for the crime of living. Even without any evidence, it was a notion that just kept feeling more real. Was it a curse? A spell? The universe itself? I don't know. Psychologists, you know, they call it magical thinking. And I realize now that's what I was doing because I'm better. But in the middle of all this stuff, the prospect of having someone to blame for all this was intoxicating. And I was three sheets to the wind. I started reading weird stuff online. Researching curses and bad luck took me to witchcraft, and witchcraft took me to people trying to make a science out of it called parapsychology and demonology. A lot of it was difficult to penetrate, and everyone seemed to have different standards and practices for how you're supposed to commune with whatever forces you end up identifying as the positive ones. Million voices were telling people just like me that there was a way out. All it would take is one evening, some magic words, and a distinct lack of shame. I'd try anything. At that point, boom. A real turning point was talking about all this in the sanest way I possibly could to Rod. He was worried about me, even though I kept swearing up and down that I was just doing it because I was interested in that kind of stuff, whatever the hell that meant. And, well, to his credit, he started playing into it, too. Eventually, I think he realized it made me happy. A dude went out of his way to go to the county library. Can you believe those things still exist? And he checked out a book for me on magic. It was mostly Greek mythology. Thank you for trying, Rod. And maybe it was fate that he did. Actually, man. Cuz inside, I found her. Took me a long time to reflect as to why I end up fixating on the Greek goddess Hecate. Looking at her by herself was striking. I remember a woman with three faces accompanied by a pack of dogs looked strange and alien compared to your usual concept of a God or goddess. You know, I think it just. It just grabbed me. But looks weren't the main thing, though. Hecate. She's the goddess of boundaries and liminalities in ancient times, namely Greece. But even after, people would leave offerings to her and she'd protect you from terrible things entering the boundaries of your space. Something about that got to me. I don't know, it. It resonated with me, I guess. Here I am in this terrible little trailer, finding a way to hide from the bad luck that had chased me out of a better life. But all I did was run right when it inevitably found me again. I didn't have a way to. To protect myself. I needed defense. A guardian stronger than me. Unlike a lot of the other mumbo jumbo I dedicated those months to, going over rituals to Hecity were pretty consistent and uncomplicated. All you needed was an offering, some crossroads, and a full moon. Still, as messed up in the head as I was at that point, I still had some sort of sense of dignity, pride, something keeping me from doing it, I guess. If I'm being honest with myself, I think it was actually doing something. And seeing a result, positive or negative, would change the universe in a way that. Well, it terrified me. That changed the week dad died. I got the news early one morning, and the world just turned into a fog. Nothing but misery. And my drinking got about as bad as it had ever been, Just day and night. I was at the bottom of a bottle. I don't remember a whole lot of what I did for a lot of it. Except for trying to call Sandy pretty much every night. No response. Honestly, I should have just realized we were through at that point. When I realized she was well and truly good, gone, I just withdrew entirely from what little social circle I had left. Or. Or I tried, anyway. One awful, sweltering summer night, Rod showed up at my door. I'd been dodging his calls and voicemails, and I guess he just finally got tired of it. Big guy said he was worried. About what else? Me. Always worrying. And he wanted to hang out for the night, and I couldn't dissuade him. I mean, I tried. I told him I wanted to be alone and I needed to think things out. I'd known him for a year now, and, well, he picked up on my a little too well for that. So he came and the drinking started at some point, and eventually it got out of control. Not the fun kind where you're just, like, emptying out your brain alongside a friend doing the same, either. I got worse, the way I usually did, and Rod got really weepy and apologetic. If I had realized at that point that he was as bad off as me in some ways, I didn't take time to digest it. I was in that fully selfish mode of depression where all that mattered was me and my own problems. And as the night wore on, a quick fix I'd been afraid to try wore on me more and more. Heckity. I mean, why not, right? It was almost midnight and the alcohol inside of me was singing loud enough to drown out the shame and trepidation I'd felt up until then. Why not try it? The worst that could happen was me finding it was just another barred exit for me. Go out into the woods, do some occult nonsense and go to sleep and see what the morning holds. Felt exciting, actually stringing my thoughts together in the malaise of depression. Well enough to resolve to do something. Anything. Rod passed out not long after him, 11 or so, sitting up with the bottle on his lap. So I got dressed and grabbed just a couple of things. A candle, a lighter, and a flashlight. The first two were all I decided I'd need for this Slap Dash ritual I was throwing together. And the flashlight. That was what I needed to get me there to do it right. So I went out my back door as quietly as possible and I made my way into the woods behind my house and just started walking. You see, sacrifices to Hecate are made at a crossroads, but I guess in the state I was in that night, the one at the end of my road, that that crossroads wasn't good enough. That's an excuse. It was more than that. I felt like I was being stupid when all of this began. But as I pushed through the tree line and followed the beam of my flashlight in a straight line, I stopped telling myself I was doing something spiritual and began to feel spiritual. You know, call it madness, call it getting swept up by the spirits, but I was sure that I would know where I needed to be at the end of this walk. The crossroads would be there. I'd burn the candle and say some words of praise and that would be that. Now what I didn't take into account was that it was not a full moon. I probably should have, cuz that was always mentioned as being important. But not to me, though. Not in that moment. The sky was devoid of moon and stars, and the darkness beneath the volunteer pines had a suffocating grasp on everything except me. That flashlight was pushing it back just as this grand and impulsive act would push back my rock rotten luck and let me breathe again. I don't know how far exactly that I walked only that it was further than I'd ever gone on foot into those woods. Why did I believe I'd find any sort of crossroads? No road went there. No one even lived there to my knowledge. Nothing but an endless maw that stepped further past the edge of civilization and into its outright non existence. I don't recall seeing a single animal or should even hearing one as I went. But somehow that just made it all the more special for me. I was in a trance, wrapped in the warm embrace of liquor. It felt like I was marching towards something and I just kept smiling, broader and broader as I went. I sang. Sometimes I recall the words or the tunes. But in the end all of this was validated. The spiritual upheaval in my soul. The drive towards the fantastic to banish the bad luck. The night flight that could have easily ended with my death from anything from a fall to a hungry bear. All of it led to that strange place where the trees seemed to suddenly taper off the crossroads as I knew I would in my alcohol fueled lunacy. It was there, in the middle of endless landmark free pine trees. There was a sudden breaking away of the forest into a clear and open area. Looked like no one had been here in a very very long time. Beam of my flashlight fell across soil sparsely dotted with dead brown crab grass and tall dog fennel that swayed like ghostly observers in the night breeze. I came upon the edge of what was clearly a man made path. On my first reaction, the first crack in my confidence was confusion. I stood there in stumbling drunken curiosity trying to see where the dirty uneven trail was coming from or where it was headed. That proved pointless as each end terminated in a dark wall of trees. The scattered remains of what was probably a small fence lining the path at one point were now nothing but warped old pieces of wood and posts jutting from the ground like rotten teeth. But this was only a few seconds span of reason that managed to pierce through before desperate elation forced me to shut up. Why was I asking these questions now? The crossroads was here, just as I knew it would be. I stumbled along the path to the fork. I a T shaped, halting, going left and right back into the uniform oblivion of the forest. And against it was a massive old tree. Wasn't one of the free and wild pines or shrubby dogwoods that made up this forest. It was. It was a strange kind of thing. Type I'd never seen before. Thick, strong, corded like countless trees braided into one giant and crooked beast. Well, the excitement and glee I had been hoping for had me in full swing all over again. I had tears in my eyes. It was a sign, had to be. I was in the right place. I set the candle down in the dirt of the path beneath that great tree and given it a long look up upwards. The way it was positioned, that tree seemed to lean inwards on the path, its vivid green crown like a giant hand grasping at me from above. Somehow this brought me comfort as I lit the wick and I fell backwards, my hands pressed together. Now, if there was a prayer I was meant to say word for word, I had lost, long forgotten it, and I made no effort to relearn it before I departed for this place, even with as spotty as I am with the details of that trip out there. Up until now, though, I remember the exact thing I said. Lady of the woods, lady of the crossroads, with hounds at your heels. Protect me from pain. I sat there with my eyes closed and my hands clasped together like I was a child again, praying at Sunday school. I remember there was a serenity that washed over me as soon as I'd stopped talking. I thought I was being listened to. Images danced in my head of a beautiful woman taking me again against her and promising gentle grace in return for my offering of prayers and pilgrimage. Or what snapped me out of that blissful stupor was the bark of a dog. It was a singular sound, sharp and brief, didn't repeat itself, and though it sounded very distant, there wasn't any echo to it. The things I had read about Hecate ambled through my mind. She traveled with hounds, didn't she? I didn't understand why then. It was making me feel uneasy at first, but it started to occur to me, sitting there with my eyes closed reverently and listening harder. There was no other sound by that crossroads, no crickets or summer cicadas singing. The wind blew across my face, cool and gentle, but the leaves in the trees and the weeds and the brush, they didn't rustle. There was nothing I was able to hear except the sound of my own breathing. Had it. Had it always been like that? Had I been so drunk that I didn't notice the unnatural silence until just now? But I didn't have time to examine exactly why that was making me feel so creeped out all of a sudden. Because something wet and warm and liquid hit me from above, A single droplet or something. This is what finally made me open my eyes, and the thing I saw above me rendered me stone sober in an instant. It hadn't been there before. I was sure. Sure of it. I had looked that tree up and down because I had never seen one like it before. But now, staring down at me and illuminated by the light of the candle I had lit, there was no denying its presence. It was a dog. Or the corpse of one. The thing hung down from two ropes wrapped around its forepaws, which had been yanked violently to either side and wrenched to an angle that a dog's legs could only bend. If the bones had been broken, its entire body had been almost completely relieved of its hide, bare flesh and viscera clinging to its skeletal form. I say almost because whoever did the deed had severed everything from it, save for what must have been a portion of the back of the neck, which was dripping blood from above. Someone had skinned the thing. They hadn't stopped there. There was. There was nothing left of it beyond what I described. You see, there was a torso, yeah, but it was open. Everything but the limbs and the head had been torn apart. All the organs, all the goddamn bones, even what remained was a. A collection of damp, bloody rags, opened and emptied, and my first reaction was to vomit. And somehow I held that back with that burning, acidic feeling welling in my throat. Nevertheless, I wanted to scream at the same time, but nothing's coming out. I couldn't take my eyes off that thing, holding my light on it as it fluttered and swayed wetly above me. How could I not have seen it? How could I not hear the creaking of the ropes and the sound like damp leather as it swayed in the wind? How could I not have smelled the acrid iron scent that was filling my nose now, mixed with something sour and just violently off? In the middle of this cloud of confusion and denied denial came a new thought, a realization that the splayed corpse was not only very real, it was very fresh. I saw nothing rotting. The blood was still flowing freely. An animal had not done this. The ropes it was hanging from were a testament to that. Someone had mounted this thing up here recently, in the dead of night. Why did it not scare me then? Why was I so much more scared looking up at this mangled thing draped above me than I was imagining the one who did it. The silence of where I was now all at once, seemed both menacing and deafening. This strange little clearing in the middle of nowhere no longer felt like some magical place I was meant to be. All of this, it felt wrong. Terribly wrong, like I had trespassed somewhere that had been left vacant and untended for a good reason. What it instilled in me was pure Primal fear. Now I was being observed. Something rational or irrational told me this. And like a panicked animal realizing too late that the hunter's gun was leveled at me, my instincts pushed me the skitter to my feet and run. I fled that crossroads just as aimlessly as I had wandered out to them. I pushed back through that section of old rotten fence and spilled into the tree line. My bad knee ached and burned in protest, pleading with me that I was undoing all the healing I had been doing. But I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop, because as soon as I was between the pines again, I could hear everything now. It was like everything which had been dead on the walk out had come to life. And it was screaming all at once. A whirlwind of chainsaw cicadas and crickets and other infinitesimally tiny things howling in agony. Unknown footprint footprints, stomps, gallops, claws on stone and roots. I heard the barking of dogs behind me, near and far. At times I thought they were chasing me. At times. At times I felt their breath on my skin. But the worst though it was the flapping, the rubbing, fluttering sound of ribbons of flayed flesh, I could hear it. I could still hear that God damned butchered dog. I could hear the creek. The strain of the ropes fastened to the branches of that old tree just as well as if I were standing beneath. Overrode the sound of my wobbling run and drowned out my increasingly labored wheezing. I never looked back. If I were to look back, I was sure I'd die. But in my mind I could see it somehow. I could see that dead thing gliding through the air, the ends of its bloody hide lapping for me like hungry tongues. It wanted me. I screamed and I screamed until my throat went raw. But it stopped. It all began to quiet. It was a slow thing. Almost felt like I was leaving the sound behind. The fear that gripped my mind wasn't about to let me go. I didn't stop running. But that whirlwind of noise, it began to fade. As though I had begun to leave it behind. It was a tangible shift. It felt like I had outrun the forest itself. And then that was the first sign that things were going to be all right. The second was that light ahead. I realized, despite the mad dash I had made without care or planning, that I was seeing the light of my windows through the trees. Man, against all odds, I had ended up where I had needed to go. It was at this point that my body began to rebel and my run began to slow to a weak jog and then a walk. I was completely out of breath and I felt like if I'd stopped moving, my leg would simply give out. That or it would give whatever had been chasing me a chance to catch up, even though the danger had seemed to have passed. And I don't think I'd ever seen that stupid little trailer and felt such elation before that the dim yellow of the cheap bulbs through dirty glass seemed so red, warm and inviting as I limped through the bushes bordering the backyard and towards the steps up to the door like a. Like a child slipping out of a dark hallway into the warmth of their room or in beneath the safety of their covers. I suppose the magical thinking had returned to me there because I felt like everything was going to be all right already. I was telling myself everything I had seen had been a trick of the luck, light or a trick of the mind. Even insanity would have been preferable to seeing and hearing what I was sure I just did, right? I would go inside and I would sleep and I would never tell Rod or anyone about what I just did. It was when I reached the foot of the stairs that the magic was dashed for good. This time the only warning I received was a brief flicker of movement near the top of my my vision, followed by a moist clatter of impact against the tin roof. I looked up. In the end I only got a glimpse of it. I saw it flinging itself down towards me, big and ragged and stretched out like a giant bat, a mess of broken limbs and hot, dripping tatters, its mouth open, empty sockets staring into my my soul as it cried out indescribably. Or maybe that was me in the moment. It didn't matter. It only lasted the span of seconds. I felt backwards and there was darkness. I was out. I remember dreaming that I was sitting in my trailer, looking out the window. Out there, there was nothing but refuse and ruin. Above, abandoned by God. The woodlands that swallow up everything here had been replaced by faceless, rotting buildings that sagged and sunk into their own foundations. Bodies littered the space between them, hundreds, thousands, millions decaying beneath a dead summer sky. I knew they were the people who had been left to fend for themselves against forces beyond them. And it acclaimed them. I don't know how, but I knew that. And I also knew I was safe. I knew that because of the tree branches that were growing through my walls, a cradle of twisted, gnarled wood corded and wound so gently about each other. I placidly watched as they grew and Wove through everything as dogs barked and howled on Mass. Somewhere close, I was safe and I always would be. I awoke to a man in a police uniform shaking me. I was still lying in the backyard in my head. Oh man, my head was killing me. There was a wicked knot on the back of my head from the fall. He was telling me that he had been called. There was a lot to process there. I don't think I did a very good job of hiding how absolutely terrified I was right from the get go. Well, I doubt that did me any favors in the long run. As it turned out, he'd been sent not for a noise complaint or because someone saw me lying on the ground. It was because Rod wasn't picking up his phone and the caller knew this was the last place he'd been. After everything that had happened last night, I had entirely forgotten I'd left him on my couch when I'd gone out to do my ill advised occultism in the woods. I was informed that it was already noon. I know a lot of things don't make a lot of sense in this story, but you've probably picked up a glaring one just now that even I was feeling. Through nausea and fear, I knew where everything was headed before it happened. When I saw the broken window leading into the living room where my friend had fallen asleep last night, the question was obvious. I dully accepted the officer's request to check inside my trailer, knowing full well what we would find as we made our way up those stairs that I had failed to crest last night. The question was, of course, why Rod had never found me lying in my yard over the span of half a day. When we found the answer inside, I was of course immediately arrested. Now, this part of the story I know you're more familiar with. It filled up George's newspapers for months as more details trickled out about the sheer brutality of the crime and the fact that the accused was pleading no knowledge of any of it. In the very short span of time, I went from an unknown day laborer wasting away in the Bible Belt to talked of and hushed fear on the local news and reviled on social media. Mercifully, I had no access to the Internet for most of it. Prosecution's case, it wasn't particularly complicated. I had lured Rod to my trailer one night and in a satanic furor sparked by the more lurid occult readings they found in my Internet history, I'd massacred him ritualistically in the dead of night. Their investigation had turned up Rod's responsibility for My fall at work as motive. But something new to me that came out in the trial was that the person who had called the police in the first place had been my girlfriend, Sandy. This was, of course, because she'd begun a relationship with him about a week before my accident, and despite her requests, he'd insisted on continuing to hang around with me regardless. All of that apologizing he was doing over those couple of months feels a lot different now. In retrospect, I wasn't helping matters, because a story I was sticking to was that I'd gotten drunk and blacked out. I told him I'd likely stumbled outside and hit my head. It was a lame story, but what was I supposed to tell him? That I'd been assaulted by something even I didn't understand the nature or implications of? There were times I told myself maybe I had done it, that Rod had drunkenly confessed to me and I'd lost my mind at that final straw of bad luck coming my way and segued into a fantasy of forests and crossroads and demons. But I don't think I ever truly believed them, even in my darkest moments. What ultimately saved me was that the prosecution couldn't tie anything to me in terms of physical evidence. There were no fingerprints left on the body. No murder weapon was ever found. There was a small amount of blood on my face and clothes. Another immediate grounds for the police condemning me. But it was determined not to belong to either Rod or. Or myself, but some sort of wild animal. What ultimately sank the prosecution's case was the lab results of the wounds on Rod's body. The sheer violence of the scene had made it difficult to analyze it for their laboratory. From what I heard in the trial, there were so many pieces that it was difficult to tell where the violence began and where it ended. But ultimately, one thing was determined after an intense study. A weapon was not used in the killing at all. The wounds, more than anything else, were consistent with the teeth of a wolf or a large dog. Now, my lawyer's argument that a wild animal had broken into the trailer and killed Rod had holes. But so did the prosecutions, and in the end, I was acquitted. It was controversial but eventually forgotten. Another curiosity relegated to true crime podcasts and spooky story compilation videos. Considering what really happened, my not getting the chair was lucky, I guess. I don't know if I would call it that. I really don't know. Well, I moved back in with my mother that year. I never could have returned that trailer. And in the years that followed, I've Done a whole lot of nothing. Can barely hold a job. I'm assuming drinking's gonna kill me somewhere in my 40s, and in some respects. Oh, that'd be a mercy. I never told her about the crossroads in the forest that night. Or the flayed thing. Never told anyone, actually. Anyone but you. Well, that probably seems stupid, right? All these years of staying silent about this and babbling out a crazy story about a monster to a person whose main job is determining how crazy I am and how many pills I should drown that crazy in. Well, the reason I did is because I don't think I can hold it in anymore. I gotta tell someone. And you've been around crazy people enough to know that I'm not one of them. Well, not anymore, anyway. Not in that way. I have to tell you because someone other than me has to know what happened. But more importantly, they need to know it's still happening. It never left. I don't dream much anymore. When I do, it's of thick, corded trees embracing me against a cold, dead husk of a world. But it don't seem comforting anymore. Everything is wrong about it. The tree shouldn't be there. There's no moon. The stars are swallowed or dead or pulled out of the sky as they scream. Yeah, I don't wake pleasantly on those nights. And when I sit there in bed, covered in sweat, out of the dream and back into reality, I hear it. Sometimes it's never in the room, but sometimes it's in the house. The moist, leathery, slopping sounds of something moving through the halls, dragging most of what remains of its itself behind it. It's patrolling, I think. Guarding. Because that's what it is, isn't it? A guardian. The moon wasn't right. The words weren't right, I don't know. But I cried for help. Into the darkness and something came, something very old from a crueler time. I asked it to protect me from pain. And it dealt with the pain the only way it knew how, whether I wanted it to or not. I can blame my luck. I could blame the thing, but in the end, the blood is on my hands. I brought it here. But how do I make it leave? How do I make it leave?
- [72:39]
A
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