The NoSleep Podcast – Season 23, Episode 20 (S23E20) Release Date: November 23, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of The NoSleep Podcast radiates atmospheric horror perfect for the cold and contemplative days leading up to Thanksgiving. Host David Cummings invites listeners to confront what it means to “try your best”—with each story featuring characters grappling with impossible tasks, burdened by grief, nostalgia, isolation, or supernatural dread. Familiar holiday settings are transformed into uncanny landscapes where old memories, lost loved ones, and relentless evil refuse to stay buried.

Key Segments, Stories & Timestamps

Opening & Theme

• [00:00–05:15]
  • Host D.C. introduces the night’s tales, offers Thanksgiving wishes, and muses about the local "cryptid" culture. David Cummings expresses gratitude for the community and previews the theme: "trying your best, against terrifying odds."

Notable Quote:

"You keep listening and we'll keep trying our best to bring you stories that keep you up at night. And ultimately, trying our best is all we can do, right?" — David Cummings [03:30]

1. “The Relic Eater” by Daniel Ray

• [05:15–21:10]

  • Setting: Early morning in a pawn shop, with an employee, Dylan, struggling with a hangover as an enigmatic, heavily disguised customer enters.
  • Plot: The customer seeks “a thing with many memories.” Dylan presents antiques, weaving tales for each, but the customer fixates on a heart-shaped gold locket heavy with Dylan’s own childhood memories.
  • The customer is revealed as a nightmarish clockwork automaton who consumes the locket, triggering recursive memory loops for Dylan—nested recollections of his grandmother, music, and family legacy—all collapsing as memories are devoured and distorted. The encounter ends with the relic eater promising to return for more.

  Key Moments & Insights:

  • The horror is existential—memories felt concrete are suddenly fragile, vulnerable to being erased or “eaten.”
  • Visceral descriptions make the inhuman visitor chilling:

    "A vague suggestion of human features was assembled from an unholy mess of miniature gears clicking and whirring... The levered metal about where a chin should be opened, revealing a red tinged glove glow..." — Dylan [13:57]

  • The story blurs reality and memory, cycling through loops until Dylan is left disoriented and vacant.

  Notable Quote:

  "Do not... you should not worry, Dylan. I will be back. I am Dylan. We will find more memories tomorrow. Same time, same time." — The Relic Eater [19:40]

2. “Gate C12” by D. Corisis

• [25:48–49:20]

  • Setting: Seattle-Tacoma airport, everyday anxieties over reuniting after a trip.
  • Plot: Mike waits to pick up his wife Laura, but she calls from an empty, abandoned version of the airport—one filled with thunder, endless empty halls, and baggage claims overflowing with suitcases tagged for missing persons. While Mike is in the bustling terminal, Laura is completely alone, pursued by something monstrous unseen. The split reality is punctuated by static-filled phone calls. Suddenly, Laura emerges from the crowd and everything returns to “normal”—but as she embraces Mike, her real voice screams for help from his phone.

  Key Moments & Insights:

  • Subtle details escalate tension: rainy darkness vs. bright sun, familiar landmarks in place in two parallel versions.
  • The pile of luggage with tags for actual missing persons ties urban legend with horror—implying an eternal consumption of the lost.
  • The ending—when both versions of Laura overlap, and her voice cries out from the phone—is viscerally disturbing.

  Notable Quotes:

  • "Laura, those are names of missing people." — Mike [41:26]

  • "Are those for me?" — Laura (the doppelgänger), holding flowers [48:10]

  • “Mike, are you still there? Please, for the love of God, tell me. Me. Alone. I don't want to be alone.” — Real Laura (over the phone) [48:50]

3. “A Summerland Visitor” by Charlie Davenport

• [52:24–77:09]

  • Setting: Small town in Rhode Island; an aging mail carrier, Grandpa, delivers a mysterious package to the near-empty seaside neighborhood of Summerland, known for its out-of-towners.
  • Plot: Grandpa’s delivery takes him to a lavish but seemingly abandoned house. Inside, he sees both a living man (Lipinski) and, in the next room, his bloody corpse. After a surreal exchange, Grandpa flees, but is haunted for the rest of his life, seeing Lipinski’s ghostly figure in various places, holding that same box—especially in the presence of local tragedies or deaths.
  • The story slowly peels layers of nostalgia, community gossip, and the weight of old age, ultimately resolving in Grandpa’s deathbed confession to his grandchild, traumatized by his inability to forget or dispel what he saw.

  Key Moments & Insights:

  • Strong regional flavor: blue laws, quirky locals, and the quirky, winding roads of New England.
  • Multigenerational trauma—how one supernatural event can taint memories, family connection, and the end of life.
  • The story weaves together supernatural encounter, guilt, and unexplainable legacy.

  Notable Quotes:

  • “I saw him... He flayed open like a starfish. I saw him.” — Grandpa [72:28]

  • “He was in the kitchen, Dane. Him and that damn box.” — Grandpa [74:44]

4. “Goat Valley Campgrounds S2, Ch. 10” by Bonnie Quinn

• [77:09–102:58] (Paraphrased, as full details span 25 min)

  • Setting: The supernatural Goat Valley Campgrounds, run by Kate, on the brink of losing everything to the sinister “man with no shadow.”
  • Plot: Kate reflects on the myth of fairness and the reality of being outmatched. She is pressured by her cousin/buyer (under outside influence) to sell the campground in hopes of ending the supernatural threats. As the man with no shadow manipulates events, taking campers hostage and forcing brutal choices, Kate is coerced into a deal—agreeing to sign over the grounds in exchange for her campers’ safety. Ultimately, she tries to find a way out by seeking counsel from the man with the skull cup, who cryptically affirms her as manager and destroys the legal deed, urging her to survive. Kate ends on the edge of despair and inevitability, surrendering to what seems a fatal destiny.

  Key Moments & Insights:

  • The episode uses the “hostages in the grove” scene to maximum horror, showing how evil leverages helplessness and the threat of innocent death to break its adversary.
  • Philosophical comments about helplessness, sacrifice, and inevitability resonate in Kate’s inner monologue.
  • The resolution is ambiguous but heavy, encapsulating the feeling of being doomed against supernatural odds.

  Notable Quotes:

  • “My courage is merely the flight of the hunted deer that knows all it can do is run until a misstep spells its doom." — Kate [95:07]

  • “I chose you. Don't disappoint me.” — The man with the skull cup [101:03]

  • "I don't see a way out of this one. And so I'm sitting here with that look on my face. The same look my great aunt wore when she walked into the deep woods to die. Ah. Inevitability. There it is. That's the word. This is inevitability." — Kate [102:49]

Episode Themes & Recurring Motifs

• Memory and Identity: Memories—whether devoured by supernatural beings or lost in trauma—are under threat, and the line between past and present is constantly blurred.
• Helplessness and Sacrifice: Characters are placed in horrifying situations where choice is an illusion and any action comes with devastating cost.
• Family and Legacy: From cherished lockets to “the box” in Summerland, ties to family history both comfort and haunt the protagonists.
• Isolation and the Double: The motif of split realities (“Gate C12”) and evil twins, or being haunted by your own legacy, runs through the tales.
• Supernatural Exploitation of Human Nature: Each antagonist—clockwork eater, airport predator, the man with no shadow—manipulates basic human needs: connection, belonging, and the will to do good.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On the pain of nostalgia:

  “I feel heavy beneath the weight of these women's lives, but it's more comforting than suffocating. They're sharing old dreams with me, making me a part of this family's legacy.” — Dylan, “The Relic Eater” [10:57]

• On existential horror:

  “Such vibrations couldn't have been of earthly reality.” — Mike, “Gate C12” [45:10]

• On helplessness:

  “We don't get to kill the monsters that hunt us. We can only delay. In the end, they are still the predators and we are only the prey.” — Kate, “Goat Valley Campgrounds” [91:04]

• On the nature of the fight:

  “This fight of mine, it was never a fair fight to begin with. I never stood a chance.” — Kate, “Goat Valley Campgrounds” [78:55]

Episode Structure Summary:

• Opening/Thanksgiving Reflections — [00:00–05:15]
• Story 1: “The Relic Eater” — [05:15–21:10]
• Story 2: “Gate C12” — [25:48–49:20]
• Story 3: “A Summerland Visitor” — [52:24–77:09]
• Story 4: “Goat Valley Campgrounds” S2, Ch. 10 — [77:09–102:58]
• Credits and Closing — [103:35 onwards]

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Conclusion

Episode S23E20 of The NoSleep Podcast delivers chilling tales of loss, nostalgia, and the supernatural, asking what it means to persevere—heroically or tragically—when the odds are impossible and the monsters are all too real. The realism of heartbreak and the brutal certainty of supernatural evil combine for an unforgettable, emotionally potent suite of stories.