The Pigeons Around Here Aren't Real | Creep Cast

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Welcome back to to Creepcast.

Today we are doing a grab bag of sorts from an author named Mannon Lysett.

And we wanted to read a body of this author's work primarily because I found a story called

The Pigeons Around Here Aren't Real.

And I just thought that was a really fun title.

And after looking at some of the works, they're a bit smaller.

So I figured we would read probably either like two or three of them and just get a feel for the author because a lot of these

titles of these stories are really cool.

i think we're going to start with a package marked return descender move into the pigeons around here aren't real and then end off with it all started with a hot air balloon i don't know i just i i think that the the titles are fun and also i love these little these little dives on uh authors that have like shorter bodies of work it's fun to kind of like get the just like quick glimpses of these stories

i think uh

That

Manon, I'm not seeing like a ton of published work, but it looks like a thing he does a lot of is he crafts like these little Halloween decorations, stuff like that.

Like he does little sculptures of like jack-o'-lanterns and goes.

So if you go to his Twitter, which is the same name as his, no sleep, Mannon Lissette, or Mannon Lyset, however it's pronounced, he has a link to an Etsy page called Mannon's Pumpkin Patch, and he crafts little like Christmas ornaments that are skulls and ghosts and stuff like that.

It looks pretty cool.

He also has a children's book he made, apparently.

Little Pumpkin and the Fairy Lights, which is about like a little Jack-O'Lantern pumpkin patch and stuff, and it looks very cute.

So this guy's like an artist.

These little figurines are sick.

Yeah.

He's like an artist, but like not in like just talking about dead people and like gross stuff like us.

Like in a

legitimate way.

Are we sure this is also a man?

Have we?

Are we for sure this is a man?

I was assigning a gender there when I have no idea what that i think the word man in like subtly put into my brain man

uh but i don't know that this person whoever this is does little i'm gonna you know what you said man i'm just gonna say woman i have no idea i mean it doesn't really matter to me i don't give a fuck but i like the titles of these uh stories i'm very excited uh especially just the the the the pigeon one i i the birds freaked me out i just don't like birds you know what i mean i i don't i don't like the thousand thousand-mile stare that birds give.

It's just,

I don't know.

If you don't have eyelids, it's like, what's the point?

Or whatever.

Do birds have eyelids?

It's a quick Google.

I'm almost positive that's going to be a yeah.

I think I don't know if all of them have.

I'm almost positive that's yes, birds have eyelids.

They have three eyelids.

Okay, well, that makes it even worse.

Yeah, well, that's

lower eyelid, and then

nicotating membrane, a translucent third eyelid that moves horizontally across the eye from inner to out.

Oh my God.

I do love a nice parrot, though.

Very, very, or a toucan.

This is the part of the toucan and a parrot.

This is the part where you launch into a story about like you watched a parrot like get molested or something when you were a child.

No, no, no.

Actually, I can give you a quick story about a bird.

But first, I just want to tell you.

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Now, let me get you, before we move into a package marked return to sender, I had this aunt I lived with whenever I first moved to California.

She lived in this retirement community in a town that I won't say.

I mean, I just, just did not give specifics, but she did live in

California.

And she had a bird, like a parrot, in her house that would talk to her, right?

And I always thought it was weird is she clipped the wings so it couldn't fly away.

And I remember asking her i was like that's like that's the most torturous thing i've ever heard in my life clipping a bird's wings and it's just like cool i gotta walk around that's what birds are known for you know what i mean

so then she's like oh it's not a big deal it happens that people do it all the time you know whatever and she basically made it insinuate that she's just like you know i i'm letting i'm letting my animal do what it wants it wants to hang out inside so i'm doing that and i'm like okay so that's cool it wants to hang out inside so i'm going to cripple it that's a good that's a fun way to look at it so to deviate from that because this is where it gets a little spicy is we don't even talk about the bird at all one night i come home once again i mind you she's in a retirement community i come home she's watching american ninja warrior in the living room and her dog is licking her feet like

obsessively like

whatever and i was like uh what uh

What are you doing?

She's like, I'm just watching American Ninja Warrior.

And I mean that little motherfucker is going at those piggies like crazy.

Her feet are glistening.

Like, it's just been like licking at it forever.

And I kind of sit down because,

I mean, it's, it's abhorrent.

It's like obscene.

It's like watching a car wreck.

And I was like, you just letting them kind of go at your feet.

She's like, yeah, I just let my animals do whatever they want.

And it was a weird parallel where it was the same thing with the parrot, right?

I'm letting him do this is what he wants.

So I clipped his wings.

So my ass was thinking, I'm like, did this crazy, crazy old fucking woman lather her feet up in some kind of like, I don't know, coconut oil, honey, or fucking peanut butter?

And she's just like, you want to lick my feet?

You like it.

You know what I mean?

So, anyways, the whole thing was like every afternoon she would sit there and she would

watch American Ninja Warrior.

And then that dog would come up and lick its lick her feet for like

hours.

Like, I mean, like a long time.

Are you done?

Yeah.

I guess that was just, I thought that might be that.

Whenever I heard the said parrot, that made it just reminded me of that.

So, sorry.

Sorry about that.

Hello, hello.

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Let's get back to the episode.

All right, a package marked return to Cinder by Menon Lysette.

Hopefully, I said that name right.

Lysette Lysette.

Don't know.

Let's get into it.

My neighbor is one of those annoying wannabe YouTube personalities.

Okay, well, immediately.

Okay,

I was like, all right.

What do you mean?

They're pointing guns at us.

Let's call it down here.

Okay.

Out of the gate swinging.

Over the years, I've seen him cough out cinnamon, lay flat on the hood.

Oh, it's one of these people.

Okay, in that case, yes, I agree.

We have to kill this guy.

I've seen him cough out cinnamon, lay flat on the hood of his car as it slowly creeps down the driveway, and douse himself in lukewarm water, all while screaming, epic win, epic fail, or epic maintenance of.

Would you like to read these in a YouTuber voice and an influencer voice?

Epic win, epic fail.

Fuck!

Epic maintenance at the status quo.

Who the fuck says that?

Where did that come from?

I think that's screaming.

That's the author being sarcastic.

It's like they're screaming epic win, epic fail, or epic maintenance of the status quo, for all I know.

Oh, so this is like a, this this is like a like lay lay meme moment whatever or epic maintenance of the status quo sheep yeah i think i think that's the vibe yeah sheeple sheeple it can get tiring to watch him go about his shenanigans in the pursuit of viral fame so when he knocked on my door the other day told me he was going away for a few weeks and asked that i get his mail honestly it was a relief I can't explain the peace of mind I had knowing I didn't have to brace myself for any of his stupidity for a while.

I was always afraid his stunts would wind up bleeding over into my life.

I like the idea too.

I like the idea of this guy being like, because you immediately, I immediately thought that the YouTube person was like a kid, but now he's like, hey, can you pick up my mail?

I'm like, this is a 38-year-old guy.

Yeah, well, he said, like, on his car, on his own car, right?

Yeah.

I expected like a 16 or 17-year-old is what I was expecting.

I mean, this guy should know all you need in order to be successful on YouTube is just find a bunch of stories that you didn't write and then make glorified React content.

Hey, come on, man.

Hey,

it's a campfire story podcast.

Break in the money.

Just have it.

All right, dude.

All right.

You know what?

We do a good service here and we bring...

I don't have to defend this.

No, go ahead.

I want to hear that.

You're nostracized.

I want to hear what your defense of this would even be.

Go ahead.

What do we do if it's a good work?

You know what?

Nothing, dude.

Not a damn thing.

No, no.

You know what?

I thought it was friendly banter where you could, sure, you could read the story on your own, but this is reading it with pals, fun voices, fun interaction and bits.

It's basically getting together and going camping with your buddies, except

probably less homosexual stuff going on.

Right?

How bad

can I be?

I'm just building the

little fucking...

Why do I feel like you've done a little scratch of sniff with your buddies now?

We are not finishing whatever that sentence was you were about to say.

You cut that out right now.

I was making a joke about us being like greedy economists.

There's no reason for you to take it to that degree.

That was uncalled for, inappropriate.

Right.

You, you also, you can never.

Okay, I'm not, I'm not getting back.

I'm not going down to your level.

I'm not stepping into the trench.

You always cross your legs whenever you bring up the word canoe.

You always do.

Okay.

You know what?

You can never just say, Did you ever do anything?

Did you ever have like an experience with a friend, a man, you phrase it like, got a little scratch and sniff with your buddies?

You always say,

come on, dude.

So much.

See, like that.

You always bring it down like five steps past where it would.

We don't even need to be there in the first place, but you go to the sub-basement of the floor we weren't even supposed to be on every time.

I'm not trying to belittle or make light of the things you've done with your buddies in the past.

Like, I'm not trying to, like, say it's gross.

I'm just saying sometimes little scratch and sniffs.

Okay.

I mean, can I get back to the story?

There was a famous quote that said, there was a famous quote, forgot who it was from, but it said, Sometimes the cucumber tastes better pickled.

Oh, you're referencing your own quotes.

That is how desperate we are for content.

We're cannibalizing our own clips.

No,

that was from a show or something.

I can't remember what show it was.

That was a show.

That was

like a Comedy Central show, I swear to God.

Perhaps some kind of creepy one.

No, no, no.

It was a Comedy Central show.

Okay.

Can I go go back to reading the story?

His neighbor's a YouTuber.

He asked him to take the mail.

Okay.

Yes.

He's like, come get the mail.

Things were pretty normal for the first couple of days.

He received a few bills, a bit of spam, and what I could only assume was a birthday card.

Then, one evening, I got home to find a cardboard box waiting on his front porch.

In big red letters was written, return to sender.

So that's referring to the book, like the guy sent the box, and now it's brought back to his house.

I would think.

Right.

I would think.

I'm no small fry, but I admit I had trouble lifting the box of my own.

It was really freaking heavy.

Logging it across the road to my house was even harder and I quickly realized there was no way I was going to drag it up the stairs and through my front door.

I decided I'd leave his package in my garage.

It wasn't like I kept my car in there.

The garage door was a piece of shit that refused to open without a good thug and a whack.

It was less trouble just leaving the car in the driveway than it was to fight with the garage door every morning and night.

In hindsight, I should have set the package down while I struggled to open the tricky door, but you know how it is when you've got a good grip on something.

No point in setting it down if you don't have to.

It was as I kicked the door for a third time that I lost my grip on the package and it fell to the ground.

I heard a light crack inside.

Shit.

I hoped I hadn't broken anything important, but figured I just wouldn't tell my neighbor about it and let him assume the break happened on route.

Wow, what a guy.

I mean,

what a buddy.

Look, if it broke while it was in the box, then it broke while it was in the box.

Who am I to say

when

I'm not omniscient?

I don't know.

Was it me?

Exactly.

Yeah.

I fucking punted it like a nerf football.

It was closed when I found it.

So who's to say?

It is Schrodinger's broken cat.

It's neither broken nor not broken until you open it.

Philosophical.

That's right.

Hands free, I finally managed to get the garage door unstuck.

And boy, did it screech in protest as it rolled up and over me.

I dragged the box the rest of the way, set it in the corner for whenever my neighbor would come back to claim it.

Then I forgot all about it.

Until a few days passed, that is.

I'm not sure exactly how long it took for the smell to waft in from the crack under the garage to house door, but it came in slow progression.

It was a sickly sweet odor, similar to a skunk, and for the first few days after I smelled smelled it i genuinely assumed that's exactly what it was roadkill that had left its mark on my house it was only when i realized the scent was growing more intense instead of fading that i went looking for a source that's when i opened the garage door that's when the odor knocked me back holding my nose uh so

my guess right now is that it's uh a dead person

Yeah, it makes you think of one of those like true crime

True crime things where the cops go in and it's like, oh, there's a dead body in a freezer or something or like in a closet uh yes i think because that smell the sickly sweet smell is always the way that uh dead human bodies are described uh so maybe

yes

i did not know that so wait sick so it's like roadkill but it has like a smells like i guess how would it be sweet smells like like how what smells like rotten fruit

oh okay that there's like

there's a tone why it's because i think it's because of like the bacteria in people or something like that.

It's kind of like

it's like there's a tinge of like, oh, there's supposed to be something there that isn't rotten, you know, like when food goes bad,

but it's mostly just like sickly is a good word for it.

It's like there's a drape of like smog on top of it.

Yeah.

The culprit wasn't hard to identify.

The only change in my garage was the box in the corner.

I remember thinking it must have been one of those meat of the month subscription boxes.

The meat must have gotten rancid from being left out of the fridge for so long.

How much meat could have been in there for the box to have been so large and heavy?

An entire freaking cow?

I covered my nose as I approached the box, a pair of scissors in my hands.

I probably wouldn't have needed them to open it, as it had become soggy enough at the bottom to poke through with a finger.

But I wasn't about to poke my finger into spoiled meat juices.

That soggy bottom was the reason I had to open the box in the first place.

If I tried to drag it out whole, everything would spill onto the floor.

I was going to have to dump the pieces of meat one garbage bag at a time, take them down to the dumpster.

A process I wasn't looking forward to.

My scissors tore through the tape along the top of the cardboard box.

I thought the smell couldn't get any worse, but as I flipped the flaps open, I discovered a whole new gamut of stink.

It was like opening a burning oven, but instead of a heat wave, I was met with waves of piss, sweat, shit, and putrefification.

It was so bad that I staggered back and had to force down the puke, begging a guzzle out of me.

I don't think I could have handled that scent mingling with the horrors coming out of the box.

I'm not ashamed to admit I ran out of the door for a breath of fresh air, but in the short time I'd spent in the garage, the smell had become so ingrained in the fabric of my clothes that it clung to me like a shadow.

Nothing I tried could keep the smell out of my nostrils.

Not air fresheners, not a face mask, not three showers and a change of clothes.

clothes.

Every second that box lay open in my garage was another second the smell was allowed a foothold into my home.

I had to bite the bullet.

I returned to the garage, the flaps of the box still open as though inviting me to look.

I was prepared, a clothespin pinning my nostrils shut, a garbage bag in one hand, the strongest cleaner I could find in the other, and long rubber gloves to keep my skin from having to touch what was inside.

But, as it turns out, I needed none of those things.

I wouldn't have to touch or clean the contents of the box.

I'd only have to suffer the nightmares every night.

You see, there was meat in that box, but it didn't come from a cow or a pig.

No, it was worse than that.

It was my neighbor, dead.

Still in one piece, but dead.

Oh, wow.

That's like a curled up.

So wait.

Saying that the neighbor is in the person that was like, hey, I'm leaving.

Can you check that?

Yeah, the YouTube wannabe guy.

Yeah, Yeah.

Can you check the mail for me?

So this, it's either he was...

So yeah, he was either...

It almost feels deliberative, like he knew it was going to be returned back.

Yeah.

And I guess then why would you even send it?

Or maybe I'm curious.

Well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Go ahead.

I called the cops, and naturally, they took me in for interrogation.

It's kind of hard not to suspect the man with a corpse in his garage, after all.

Thankfully, they soon realized I wasn't involved.

My DNA might have been all over the box.

Smell might have left it marked throughout my house, but there was one piece of irrefutable evidence in my neighbor's own hands that proved my innocence.

A vlogging camera.

They showed me the footage only once.

I'm not sure if they were allowed to, or if they felt so bad for me they figured it couldn't hurt.

Either way, I saw it.

My neighbor was sitting in the box outside of a shipping facility, laughing as he told the world how he was going to mail himself across state lines.

He brought pea bottles, food, pillow, and a few flashlights.

His friend, a guy I'd seen at his place several times to help with his stunts, closed the lid and presumably dropped him off for shipment.

Throughout the next couple of hours or days, I'm honestly not sure, my neighbor recorded a few short clips about his progress.

I think I'm in the truck now.

I can feel it moving.

Must be in a warehouse.

Pretty warm here.

Still got plenty of food.

That kind of stuff.

And then, on the last entry, the box toppled over.

He broke his neck, and that was it.

The camera recorded until either the memory card got too full or the battery died.

There's one thing I did tell the police after they showed me the video.

One thing I heard in the footage that will haunt me to the day I die.

Just after the tumble that broke his neck, I heard the familiar screeching sound of my garage door.

Oh, that's fun.

Oh, I like that.

The little end.

Yeah, that's a fun little.

I like...

You know, this reminds me of a bit is it reminds me of the scary stories to tell in the dark.

Yeah, just like little micro-horror vignettes.

Yeah.

It props up an idea.

You think you know where it is, and on the last second, on the last little line, it kind of subverts it at the last second of like, you know, I love the idea, too, of like,

because I'm guessing that the whole thing was he was like, I'm going to mail,

I'm going to like mail myself back to my house is what I'm wondering.

Well, the joke is

I'm going to be a box, like, I'm going to vlog going through all the statements.

And then eventually it's going to get returned to sender.

So I'll want to go back to

my buddy something.

Well, it's like, and then it's like, hey, check my mail.

So I expect he's like, the big surprise is that he's going to pop out and be like, oh,

whatever with this camera.

Crack.

But no,

you grab the thing.

I guess because, too, the thing is he would be quiet because he doesn't want you to know that it's him.

But didn't the smell already.

Didn't the smell already happen?

No, so he said, I went back to read it.

So he drops it, puts it in the corner, and he says, after a few days passed, I'm not sure how long it took for the smell to waft in

okay so he was gonna do like a little surprise thing but didn't expect to fall and break his leg so he just died

and then he says so after a few days he started to smell something and then he says the first few days after I smelled it it was slow progress but then like after just a body decomposing so after like a couple he probably didn't open this guy for a couple weeks

Yeah, and it's just like sitting in a garage or something like a hot garage just baking.

Yeah, exactly.

baking in a cardboard UPS box.

Do you know how funny that footage would be, though?

A guy in there, it's just like, you know, like heavy breathing, like

a guy probably laughing, like a little thing, and then just

that's that's all it'd be.

It'd be haunting, don't get me wrong, but at the same time, kind of funny, a little, it's a little funny.

I have to compliment the writing here because, like, it got me

like twice.

Because I remember the at the very first time when it's like because me and you said from the beginning like it's a human body it's definitely a human body but it's like oh it's his friend's human body oh that's a surprise and then at the end when it's like he died because he dropped him and that crack mentioned earlier was his neck it's like oh that's like it it kept having fun deliveries even though you kind of knew where it was going it's pretty good it's the fun uh i was wondering how it was gonna loop around too with uh It's like, oh, he's a content guy.

He does a lot of stupid stuff.

I've seen him do stupid things like choke on cinnamon.

And it was one of those things where you're probably like, oh, this is just describing like, not an imbecile, but you're just like, it's this like kind of just kind of a strange emotional person doing something for fame.

Yeah.

So you're wondering, my mind immediately went like, oh, he killed somebody and mailed it to his house or, you know, whatever, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

But the idea of him doing a prank like this is, yeah, it makes no sense.

He did like a J station, like, I'm ordering someone from the dark web video or whatever.

Like a body showed up.

Yeah.

So this next one is The Pigeons Around Here Aren't Real.

This is kind of an older one, 10 years ago, and it won the best title of 20 2015 into December 2016

Award, which it is.

It's a great title.

Very so, you know, we talk about the titles and you know how titles themselves are pieces of art as well, of like getting people hooked and your imagination also running.

Like a title is just as important as the body.

Oh, is this the one that won?

This just says best title of 2015.

So I'm guessing it won best

title, but I'm not sure.

I don't know about story.

The Reddit thing confuses me because sometimes

it'll show an award, but it's like, oh, no, that's not the stories award.

That's an award the author got one time.

Yeah,

the award the author got, or sometimes, too, I think it just like puts that, it puts that award on the author's description.

So it appears on like maybe every one of their stories, even though maybe it's just for one particular thing.

I don't know how the Reddit award thing works or like whatever, but uh

yeah, this story is called the Pigeons Around Here Aren't Real, once again by Man and Lysette, we're only reading their stories today.

So

let's dive into this one.

Pigeons Around Here Aren't Real.

Are you ready, Hunter?

The pigeons around here are not real.

I'm ready.

It's no secret that big cities have pigeon problems.

Toronto was no exception.

Like rats in the Middle Ages, the disease-carrying vermin spent the past decade running amok and increasing their numbers.

It was my job to try and keep Toronto's ever-growing pigeon population in check.

Thankfully, I came across an article about a pilot project where researchers replaced pigeon eggs with wooden substitutes.

The birds, too stupid to know the difference, spent months caring for the fake eggs instead of producing more.

The project was a huge success, and the pigeon population decreased significantly in a short amount of time.

It sounded like the perfect plan, so I implemented the solution in my city.

What I didn't count on was for those fake eggs to hatch and for the abominations inside to be released into the world.

That's kind of interesting.

Weird.

Yeah, that's cool.

Clint, my partner, came in one morning carrying a large wooden crate with a straw poking out of every crevice.

Looks like Christmas came early this year.

What is this stuff?

I walked over excitedly, helping him set the box down on a workbench.

This,

I said, prying it open to reveal its contents, is the solution to our pigeon problem.

Reaching inside, I took one of the eggs.

I was a little disappointed to see that they weren't wooden as promised.

Instead, they were thin, light, and hollow like those cheap plastic Easter eggs.

It wasn't close to what I was expecting.

Oh well, that's what you get for ordering off eBay, I thought.

Clint took a handful.

These are the replicas you ordered?

They don't feel remotely the same as the real deal.

We were well aware of what the eggs felt like.

Up until then, the only way to decrease the pigeon population was to sneak into their nest and steal the eggs.

It was a futile, temporary solution because the birds would just lay new eggs once they realized theirs were gone.

That's what made the idea of using substitutes so damn good.

A few months passed and we started seeing a decline in the amount of younger birds in the area.

I can't tell you how proud I was of what I'd done.

I'd found a safe, environmentally friendly way of dealing with the flying rats at the cheap cost of a few hundred dollars and an elevator trip to pigeon nesting grounds atop high-rise rooftops around the city.

The problem started about three months in.

Clint and I were inspecting nests on opposite sides of the city.

I was halfway up the building when Clint called me.

Yo, I said as I brought the phone to my ear.

The sound of wind could be heard in the background.

Evidently, Clint had reached his destination.

Hey, some of our eggs broke.

The elevator came to a stop, doors swinging open to let me off.

I stepped out and made my way to a small staircase leading to the rooftop.

We'll just have to replace them.

No big deal.

There had been a few violent storms since our last inspection, and I figured the eggs must have fallen from the nest and shattered on impact.

See, this is why wood would have been better.

I grumbled to myself as I exited onto the rooftop for my inspection.

Fuck.

What?

Most of my eggs were broken too.

The strange thing was that they were still tucked in the nest, right where we left them.

Had the pigeons figured out our ploy and attacked the replicas?

Were the fake eggs too frail to survive our harsh Canadian weather?

I groaned.

It's the same here.

We're gonna have to start over, I told him, defeated.

It's all good.

We can hatch a new plan.

I paused for a moment.

Did you just

I began, but he interrupted.

Just look on the sunny side up of things, yeah?

Puns, at a time like this, puns.

Don't yoke with me.

The funniest slide there to me was puns at a time like this, puns.

It's like, this isn't a joking matter, Clint.

The eggs are broken.

Yeah, the fragile hollow eggs.

This is not a time for laughter.

You never take anything seriously.

This is why Margaret left.

We couldn't leave the nest unattended for too long.

Otherwise, all our progress would go down the drain.

I sent Clint to replace the broken eggs with what was left from our original order.

In the meantime, I searched online for anyone selling wooden eggs.

Unfortunately, the cheapest and fastest shipper was the person we had ordered from the first time around.

We needed these eggs quickly and our budget was pretty tight.

I figured I'd order the subpar eggs one more time.

If they lasted long enough for city officials to see the plan was working nicely, then I was sure I could convince them to increase our budget so we could order better supplies next fiscal year.

Just to be be sure the pigeons weren't detecting our fake eggs, I also set up a security camera on one of the rooftops.

I needed to know if they gotten wise to our ruse, though I highly doubted they had the mental capacity to do so.

Still, the project would prove fruitless if the birds weren't fooled by our cheap imitations, so it was best to keep an eye out.

Over the course of the following weeks, I started getting strange reports about small animals behaving weirdly.

Frankly, I didn't pay much attention to them at first.

They sounded a little insane, to tell the truth.

One woman claimed she'd seen a pigeon climb a tree.

She said he crawled up the bark like a squirrel.

Another report stated that a chipmunk had been seen attacking and killing a neighborhood dog.

Another witness called in about an injured cat, but when he investigated, all he found was a pelt.

By the time I read the fifth report, I was starting to get a little worried.

What was even more troubling to me was that these reports were coming from all over the city.

If it had been confined to a single neighborhood, I would have suspected an outbreak of rabies or a new disease of some sort.

But the reports were coming in from all around Toronto and its suburbs, which span an extremely large area.

How could anything spread so quickly?

It had to be something else.

I was just about to do a bit of research on the subject when Clink came in, wearing a scowl.

Broke, shitty fucking eggs, broke again, he grumbled, throwing himself on a chair.

I force a grin.

Crack a smile, would you?

The puns.

He tossed his worksheet on the table.

That was an excellent pun, he replied, releasing a chuckle.

You remember they bring the footage?

He unzipped his coat and reached into his pocket for an SD card.

Got you covered.

Movie time.

We uploaded the footage and took a look.

Pigeons.

Pigeons sitting on their nests.

Pigeons preening.

Pigeons flapping their wings at one another.

A squirrel.

A squirrel getting chased away by birds.

More pigeons.

It must have been the dullest security tape in the world.

The kind of footage that even David Attenborough's lovely voice wouldn't be able to save.

We fast-forwarded through days of pigeons doing pigeony things.

Never once did they show any violence towards our replica eggs.

Clinton had dozed off by the time something finally happened happened on screen.

The only reason I was still conscious was due to the copious amount of coffee I'd ingested that morning.

It was dead of night.

In the video, at least, one of the birds flew off its egg and perched itself on the nest, peering inside.

This is it, I thought, leaning closer to the screen.

I figured he'd attack the egg, but I was wrong.

I watched as the video soundlessly continued and something cracked open the egg from the inside.

My jaw gaped open.

This wasn't possible.

The eggs were plastic shells.

The only explanation was that we'd missed one real egg somewhere in the bunch.

Yeah, that had to be it.

I was witnessing the birth of a baby pigeon.

Nothing weird.

Except, baby pigeons don't look like smoke.

A puff of dark air came out of the egg.

The pigeon, head inches from it, inhaled the gassy substance.

It reared back and stood completely still for about a minute before falling over.

I watched as it started thrashing violently like it was having a seizure.

Then, from its beak spewed some kind of chunky liquid that evaporated as soon as it hit the air.

The pigeon's body seemed to deflate like a balloon, as though the creature was being hollowed out.

I was left staring incredulously at the flat, immobile husk of what had once been a pigeon.

Suddenly, the pigeon's chest bulged out and the animal regained its form.

At least, sort of.

Its proportions were all wrong.

Its wings were bloated and angled oddly.

Most of its girth was in its neck rather than stomach, and its midsection had stretched out unnaturally.

It was like looking at an animal pelt draped over the wrong mound.

Like a lunatic taxidermist's cruel experiment.

The abomination of nature jerked its head towards the ledge.

It twisted onto its back legs, contorting and dislocating in such a way as to be able to reach the ground.

From its throat, I could see stump-like arms stretching out, clawing at the cement rooftop.

In quick and jagged movements, the creature skittered over the edge and disappeared from view.

I was shocked, unable to believe what I had seen.

I had to watch and re-watch the video several times before it occurred to me to wake Clint up.

He grumbled unhappily, rubbed his tired eyes, and looked at me.

You won't believe this.

I rewound the footage and pressed play.

His eyes widened with the same disgusted disbelief as mine.

Even on my fifth viewing, I couldn't wrap my head around it.

This is bad.

I know.

After watching the video a few more times, we went home.

I think we both hoped a good night's sleep would help clear our minds.

Maybe upon reviewing the tape, we'd realize we were mistaken.

Maybe it was a trick of the light.

Unlikely, but we could only hope.

Clint was already at work when I came in.

His eyes were glued to the screen.

Watching it again?

Not exactly.

I kept going.

I approached the desk and peered at the monitor.

Kept going.

His face was pale and his eyes weighed down by large bags.

How long had he been here?

Had he come in extra early?

There was two days left of footage on that card.

And you went through it?

Yeah.

Did you see more of those things?

clint pressed his lips together yeah and some of them came back

i raised my eyebrows looking closer at the screen i noticed something odd about one of the nests there were multiple eggs resting in the sunlight they were neither genuine pigeon eggs nor replicas they were too big for that

clint pointed to the batch his hand trembling It laid them.

I felt a flush of nervous energy climb up my spine like an elevator, and then turned to the reports I'd been reading the day before.

Were the eggs at the center of it all?

We need to call the authorities.

We are the authorities.

I paced around the room, back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum.

The phone rang, interrupting my anxious march.

It was another report of odd animal behavior.

This time, the culprit was a deer.

In a spoofed and almost disgusted tone of voice, the woman on the line explained that she'd seen a deer slithering along the river.

She said its body was sideways, but its head was upright.

What?

Oh no, I thought.

Whatever those things were, they could affect larger animals.

While I tried to comfort the worried caller, I heard something from Clint's workstation.

Crack.

I turned around only to see a puff of smoke rising towards my co-worker.

Oh,

near his keyboard was a cracked shell, just like the ones on the rooftop.

Without a word, Clint bolted to the bathroom, holding a hand over his mouth as though about to puke.

I dropped the phone and ran over to the door.

It was locked.

Clint!

Are you okay?

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

All of a sudden, I heard him heaving violently.

A sound of moist gurgling and boiling water erupted from the bathroom.

Terrified of what would happen if Clint got out, I pushed the heavy workbench in front of the door.

I stood in terrified silence as the noise came to a stop.

Was Clint now lying as flat as a pancake against the porcelain throne?

Would it turn into some sort of bastardization of a human body?

Like what happened to the pigeon?

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Bang!

Clint threw himself against the door violently.

Just one blow nearly threw the thing off its hinges.

Again and again, he slammed himself against the surface, causing the workbench I'd placed in front of it to slowly inch away.

All I could do was push myself against it to try and keep the door closed.

My only thoughts were to keep him from escaping for my own safety.

I knew he'd attack me if I let him out.

I just knew it.

The sound came to an unexpected halt, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief.

Maybe he'd expired.

Maybe that thing needed fresh air to survive.

Whatever the reason, I thought I was safe.

But then I heard a crash.

The window.

I'd forgotten all about the bathroom window.

He's out there now.

Him and those other mutated atrocities.

I don't know what they are or what they want.

All I know is that they're roaming the city right now, doing God knows what.

Most of them probably look like pigeons, but they can be anyone or anything.

I just hope something figures out how to stop them because at last count, There were over 700 of those accursed eggs planted around Toronto.

Now that I know these things can reproduce, God knows how many more eggs might be out there.

Sick.

So that was the end before the first update.

That's a really cool idea.

I'm guessing that that was their initial end and then now

there's updates to it.

Like there's more to the story.

So we're not done yet.

But no, that's really cool.

I mean, I like the idea of,

it seems like the manufacturer of this, of these eggs, do you think that they're...

some kind of like cursed egg or something or it sounds like it like hollows you out as you said and it fills you with some other animal, right?

Because it describes the pigeons looking like squirrels, and it describes like the squirrels behaving like chipmunks behaving like other things.

So

it's like there's different

animals that kind of, it's like they hollow you out and just fill you up with something, right?

Like the deer that's slithering like a snake, right?

It's like the

soul of the

soul almost, the figure of a snake inside of a deer.

It's almost like it transforms things into another kind of vermin yeah or something is what is what it feels like really putting emphasis on the vermin in the skies you know and that kind of thing and how if they could just you know have control of this thing then everything would be okay but it's like a hubris you know it's like a it's very much in like well we can control nature the thing that i'm curious about i wonder if they get into more is like the thing the place that they're manufacturing the eggs is that the thing that's like are they the reason that the things are cracking up with the smoke or is it like the pigeons themselves or something with like uh you know mother nature being with these things is it like transforming even these eggs and producing something you know what i mean

we're gonna get updates that may describe it and that's fine but i almost kind of like you never see what a human looks like when it goes through the process it like goes into the bathroom and you hear it throwing itself and it goes god help me god help me if this does not end with a pigeon man, I am going to be fucking livid.

Well, but don't you like imagining the pigeon man?

I want to see that motherfucker come back with his three eyelids and then being like, okay,

he's like,

Clint, Clint.

He's like, he's like,

you know what I mean?

Something weird like that.

I say, go for it.

Yeah.

All right.

Swing for the fences.

Fair enough.

All right, let's read the update.

All right.

Update one.

He came back.

I should have known he'd come back.

He warned me before.

He said, creature on our recording returned to its nest to lay an egg.

Those monsters seemed to have the salmon mentality, going back to their place of birth when it came time to reproduce.

Too busy answering a slew of panic calls, all the while panicking myself.

I didn't hear him when he came in through the front door.

Thankfully, I caught a shape from the corner of my eyes.

Without even finishing my sentence, I dropped the phone and locked myself in the maintenance closet, praying he hadn't seen me.

Outside the thin wooden door, the room was quiet.

If he was breathing, I couldn't hear it.

His footsteps were just as silent.

Had I overreacted?

I had actually seen Clint, just a shadow in my peripheral vision.

Maybe it was my imagination.

I needed to know, so I knelt down, peered through the crack under the door, close enough to get a better look.

I wish I had it.

I wish I could erase that thing from my mind.

To preserve Clint's memory as the man I knew him to be.

Not that.

Come on.

Anything but that.

What I saw was a mess of flesh inching along the floor like a slug.

I couldn't figure out what was facing up, his back or his chest.

His spineless torso had folded over, bringing his arms nearly perfectly in line with his legs.

His head, now completely shapeless, lay flat at his midsection.

His mouth reminded me of a figure in Munch's famous painting, The Scream.

His gray eyes stared at me, but I could tell as he continued to slither toward his desk that they were useless decorations.

He disappeared from view.

Then came a horrid sound.

A squishy and gooey noise that reminded me of that old slime ball toys I used to play with as a child.

It lasted a few moments, stopped, started again, and then stopped for good.

Shaking in my boots, I remained concealed in my dark prison all day, ignoring repeated hunger pangs and my own instinct to run.

I couldn't afford the risk of being caught.

As day shifted into night, I began began to wonder if I could sneak past him.

On our security tape, I'd seen normal pigeons sitting on nearby nests, seemingly unfazed by the creature.

Maybe Clint wouldn't attack me.

I had to take the chance.

I couldn't hide forever.

As quietly as I could, I swung the door open and stepped into the office.

The thing wearing Clint's skin was gone.

Thank God, I thought.

Out of morbid curiosity, I glanced at his workstation, where I'd heard the unsettling noises earlier.

There were two massive eggs sitting on his desk, coated in a viscous substance.

I didn't even want to think of the implications.

I didn't want to know out of which orifice he laid them.

I wanted nothing to do with this anymore.

I ran out of my office to my car and drove straight to Kingston.

I'm not going back.

I will never go back.

Someone else will have to deal with this situation.

How do you feel about Slugman?

Are you okay with that?

Uh, no, I think think that kind of to your point.

No, I don't think.

I mean, don't get me wrong, in a movie sense or something, don't get me wrong, it's cool.

Like, I mean, if I saw the thing, I'd be like, that thing rules.

But in terms of like building system,

building tension and,

you know,

you wanted the pigeon.

The horror of it.

No, not even the pigeon.

I think that if you're going this angle where you're not even confronting it, I think don't even look at it.

I think imagine it.

Hear the sounds.

Like, let kind of like in the last video we read of like a the blind woman.

It's like hearing the thing and like not really knowing what it looks like is more horrifying than being like, oh, yeah, his like, you know, his face was flattened.

And don't get me wrong, it's cool, but I think to imagine something of like hearing noises, of like animal noises, it was a mixture of man and animal, I think is, would be a little more.

effective in my opinion at least for me because then if anything too then when you go in and you see the eggs you're like what the fuck is this thing you know well that's the point i was making uh

earlier with like uh do you like it if it just ended at him flying out of the bathroom window, right?

And you never should.

Sure.

I mean, you could.

I like the idea of him coming back.

I like the idea of spicing it up or something.

Yeah.

But I think you could be like, I think keeping it at the end before the updates, it rules as well.

Would you

with also we got one more update, and it's really short.

We do have one more update.

I was going to say,

would you feel differently if it did describe it, but it was a pigeon man?

No, I mean, if it was the pigeon man, you didn't even interact with it.

it it was it would be something like it's almost like the fly or something where it's like you need to

interact with it like you need to like

it's like almost like deriving empathy from a creature even if the creature is like something that is uh

trying to attack you or something.

It's like being able to see your mutated friend and talk with it and like understand.

You know, that was the best thing of the fly initially is the whole thing is it's like an analogy of somebody like you know or that you love is like dying of cancer and you have nothing you can do.

Their body's rotting and they can't change change it.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I think like if you do something at that angle, even if you do some fun stuff where it's like a monster and it's trying to attack you, having, I think you can only go that far and you do a Pigeon Man.

I think Pigeon Man rules.

I'm going to go on my deathbed, say Pigeon Man rules.

But I think it's more so, it works more effectively if the horror comes from like

your friend, the human connection, like, you know, the human relationship can never be the same.

And it's this thing, you know, him being like, I'm not going back.

It's somebody else to deal with.

I think that's kind of a shitty character thing of like what you say you're just never like you don't give a about this guy like i think that's like one thing where i'd be like i didn't really care for that but we got one let's just finish this up yeah last update update two i thought i could get away from them but now i'm not so sure

maybe i'm imagining it but the pigeons outside look odd Not as disproportionate and disfigured as what I saw in Toronto.

But there's something wrong about the way they move.

I think those things are learning to better mimic the shapes of what they're possessing.

And now they've spread.

And that's the end of our story.

You know, and I like the hubris of somebody being like, these pigeons are annoying.

We're going to like, it's the hubris of man feeling like

it could control nature.

I'm going to trick them into not reproducing.

Yeah.

And then now it's something where it's basically you've started a new black plague or you've started a new plague.

You know, and

I think that's a lot of fun.

I like that angle of it.

I do think it's stronger if you don't do the updates at all and you just have your buddy at the end gets thrown out.

And it's like, if you're trying to have it be something short and to the, you know, punchy and, you know,

it's concise and there's not a lot of fat on it.

I think that I think the story reads stronger that way.

But all in all, I love, I think it's a really fun story, even though I still am confused by...

the eggs cracking open and like the the air coming through.

I don't think you need to divulge like, you know, you don't need to like harp on like, this is why it's doing this.

But I think think just a little something more to where it's almost like oh I bought this I bought these eggs from this dealer which they did say you know it's the cheapest one but is it like is the dealer like is it a batch of something that's like cursed just a little something to where it don't overly explain something but at least give us just a bit more even though I wasn't really worried like I wasn't like my mind I didn't really give a fuck I just like the weird body horror curse stuff that's like my cup of tea But just, you know, if I had a few criticisms, that's what it would be.

And just also the thing of him like abandoning his buddy at the end.

I think that's just kind of a shitty character arc.

And to not even be pungent,

not even to be punished for it, too.

Because that's like a thing where it's like you turn your back on your friend.

And then usually having something to where that guy now has to reap what he sows, I think is a more satisfying conclusion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I like that story.

It's a fun little vignette of like

this thing is like possessing shapes.

It's very invasion of the body snatchers.

Yeah.

But it starts with animals and then works its way up to people and stuff.

That was fun.

I like that.

Yeah.

I was just going to say, for like micro horror, this guy's really

guy or girl, since we, I don't know

which one.

Who knows, who cares?

Who knows who cares?

I like their stuff.

This is a good author.

I'm digging it so far.

Yeah.

I mean, we can, and I think just for the sake of threes here, I think just to have it be a satisfying, we'll read one more.

And it's once again by the same author, and it's called, It All started with a hot air balloon kind of like me and you our relationship it's true you remember me and you floating above the clouds that so that's why i'm going to dedicate this last one it all started with a hot air balloon to the viewer to the audience and if it sucks i'm sorry don't know i'm supposed to tell you but this one's for you this one's take it away

It appeared on the horizon early one morning at the very far edge of Caleb's field.

It was just a blip at first, but as it gently wafted closer to my property, it became large enough to blot out the sun.

My son Henry was captivated.

He'd never seen a hot air balloon in person before.

He watched it drift closer and closer, then ran out on the porch in his dinosaur onesie, watched it creeping even closer.

As I drank my coffee, I could hear the sputters of the fire keeping the colorful thing afloat.

It would stop and start periodically, bursting to life in a geyser of flames.

My son waved excitedly, but his excitement waned as the hot hot air balloon drew nearer.

Mommy!

There's no one in the basket!

I heard the burner puttering.

What do you mean, honey?

I stretched down and peered up at the object in the sky.

Henry was right.

There was no one manning the hot air balloon.

Weird, I thought, must have gotten loose.

There hadn't been much wind that morning.

but if whoever the balloon belonged to hadn't tied it down properly, it could have drifted off on its own.

Out of curiosity, I grabbed my keys, buckled my son in the back seat of the truck, took off after it.

The balloon ran out of fuel and landed on the outskirts of my field, where I finally caught up to it.

Caleb was already there, sitting on his four-wheeler and scrutinizing it with a perplexed expression on his face.

Morning, Grace.

He said, never looking away from the object as the envelope slowly lost its circular shape and fanned to the ground like curtains in the breeze.

Howdy, Caleb.

Any idea what the straggler's doing here?

I opened the back door to let Henry out.

My excitable son jumped out of the truck and bolted towards the hot air balloon.

Thankfully, Caleb grabbed him by the shoulders and held him back.

No, son, it's not safe.

Might catch fire.

Best to keep your distance.

He told Henry.

His gaze then fell on me.

Not sure.

I reckon it's a runaway tourist attraction from a few towns over.

He rubbed his bushy chin.

Hmm.

Yeah.

that's probably it.

Henry squirmed at Caleb's firm grip.

Mom, I want to go look.

The last of the fabric fell and draped over a patch of soil.

Should be safe now, said Caleb, jerking his head towards my son.

I nodded back.

He let Henry go.

My boy squealed and ran towards the basket.

Eee!

Careful not to touch the burner, honey.

It's still hot.

I called out, hands on my hips.

Caleb followed him at a much slower pace.

It's quiet this morning.

Did you notice?

I shook my head.

It's never quiet with Henry around.

I picked up the pace as Henry pulled himself aboard.

Though I knew it wasn't possible, a small part of me was afraid the balloon would inflate and my son would float off into the sky, never to be seen or heard from again.

Just one of the many ridiculous automatic thoughts you get when you're a parent.

Everything has the potential to be dangerous, even when it's not.

Thankfully, the hot air balloon stayed right where it was, and Henry ran around in the basket like it was the best toy he'd ever seen.

Oh, now don't break anything, Henry, I said, leaning over the side of the basket.

Caleb knelt down, lifted the fabric, and inspected it curiously.

Everything looks intact.

Best not leave it out here, though.

Help me put it in the back of the truck.

I'll store it in the barn until its owner shows up.

It probably cost a pretty penny.

Someone was bound to come claim it sooner or later.

Maybe I'd convince them to take us up for a ride as a thank you.

I shooed Henry out of the basket and told him to go sit in the truck while Caleb and I unhooked the fabric, rolled it, tossed it in the back.

We then grabbed the basket and hoisted it up.

Shit.

I whispered, straining to lift it.

Heavier than it looks.

Beads of sweat were rolling down Caleb's face.

Private because of the burner.

I nodded.

It wasn't easy, but we managed to force it into the truck.

Caleb helped me tie it down while Henry watched eagerly from the back seat.

Phew.

Mumbled, wiping my brow.

I was definitely having second thoughts about bringing it into the barn.

Maybe I'd just throw a tarp on it once I got home and call it a day.

Caleb wiped his hands on his jeans.

I best be head back.

The wife will want to know what

all the excitement was about.

He hopped on his four-wheeler and gave me a wave.

Thanks, Caleb.

Y'all take care.

We both took off in opposite directions.

Henry watched as Caleb disappeared on the horizon and then stared at our rows of corn the rest of the way home.

As we pulled into the driveway, Henry said, Mr.

Scarecrow doing a good job today.

All right, nope.

Nope.

Nope.

All right, Henry, you're going in that balloon.

I'm going to light it up.

That's exactly.

That's like the thing in the Babadook.

I would beat that kid with a fucking hammer.

You know what I mean?

Good lord.

Mr.

Scarecrow!

Mr.

Scarecrow is doing a good job today.

What?

Just the idea of like a kid says one freaky thing and you're like, just the most brutal way to murder someone i would do oh yeah

i am mr mr mabaduke scary you know what else is scary mr phillips yeah you know what's also scary my fucking ballpin hammer

my dewalt ballpin hammer

mr scarecrow is doing a good job today

what what he pointed to the field

look

I followed his gaze to the scarecrow.

For the first time in years, there were no crows cawing around it or anywhere else on the property.

Stupid thing never worked before.

Don't know why it was working now.

I'll be damned.

Caleb was right.

Without the incessant bird calls and with most of the animals still asleep, it was rather quiet out.

So quiet, in fact, that I could hear a low atmospheric hum droning out in the background.

The kind of sound you only notice when everything else goes away.

It was neither peaceful nor annoying.

It was just a constant, low sound, easily drowned out by my son's babbling.

Well, that I'm calling aliens.

I'm calling aliens.

I bet you're not aliens.

It's very

nope to me.

Yeah.

Yeah, like the way that the balloon's like just a vessel for like some, or it is some alien.

Yeah, I almost thought that like if it was like UFO, someone got picked up while they're in the air balloon.

Yeah, maybe someone that's abducted.

Actually, that's a I didn't even think about that.

That's a great idea.

That's crazy.

They're like, they're like, wee their balloon, and all of a sudden they're like, oh, and they just get sucked out.

Like, what for their leg?

And they pulled up a tractor, man.

Yeah, I just sucked out of it.

Spencer, our farmhand, arrived late that morning.

I was already washing the dishes from breakfast when I saw him driving up the road.

He had a bad habit of being tardy, so I wasn't exactly surprised when he came running through the door, huffing, puffing, and apologizing.

Sorry, ma'am.

This is the last time, I swear.

I stared at him, unimpressed.

Did you hear what happened?

The hot air balloon?

Yeah, it was there.

And I still managed to make it back here on time to feed the livestock.

He lowered his head in shame.

Sorry, ma'am.

It's fine.

Just get to work, all right?

He nodded.

Just as he was about to step out the door, however, he heard a booming noise off in the distance.

What in the car, Nathan, with that?

He asked, peering out towards the field.

Transformer exploded.

Too loud for Diet.

I know she meant Transformer like a power transformer, but it must be Octopus Prime.

I guess they're Go Box.

Like star screams like exploding over the field.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm going to kill you.

Transformer exploded.

Must be.

I guess it's Megatron and Octomus Prime fighting out in the cornfield again.

Do you mean that the Go Box and the Decepticons are fighting again there, Mia?

That's right, Spencer.

They have to do this battle in order to obtain the cube.

What's the name of that cube in those movies?

The Allspark.

They're trying to fight for the All Spark, man.

Well, I guess that may, but they're trying to go out and find the Allspark that are hidden in the well out back.

But be sure and throw a tarp over it, Spencer.

Gonna be a long night.

Yes, ma'am.

We stay.

Just the idea of like these two rednecks.

There's like 30-foot-tall robots like rolling.

Shooting guns is that like stray bullets are hitting the house every now and then.

Yeah, Henry's just like, I can't believe what I'm seeing.

How do they mom?

You know, like, this is going on and they're used to it.

Then it's like, a hot air balloon.

Exactly.

Oh, my God, the hot air balloon.

I've never seen that before.

That's incredible.

Their tractor is like transforming into, like, a sentient robot.

It's getting, like, fucking murdered.

Oh, God!

Oh, God!

Help me, please.

Go with Christ, tractor.

You're not gonna make it this time.

The hot air balloon turns into a transformer.

They're like, oh.

just another one of those yeah

boring

i'm bored

we stepped onto the porch and scanned the area until we spotted a wisp of smoke in the distance

looks like it's coming from the burns field

probably just a tractor mr burns has been meaning to replace the old thing for years now guess the engine finally gave out I replied and shoved him lightly.

Come on, enough procrastinating.

You've got work to do.

She is cracking a whip on this guy.

I know.

God damn, dude.

Why don't you fucking give him some time?

My word, let him breathe.

The fields are on fire and something exploded.

And you're like, are you procrastinating?

Get to work.

Hey, fucking idiot.

Corn.

Sorry about that, ma'am.

His eyes stayed locked on the small column of smoke for a moment, but he eventually nodded.

Right.

Sorry, ma'am.

While Spencer was doing hard labor outside and Henry was watching watching cartoons in the other room, I got to work pickling vegetables for storage.

It was nearing lunch when Spencer finally showed up again.

He was covered in dirt.

Took care of the cattle and everything, ma'am.

Good work, Spence.

I'll have lunch ready in a minute.

You mind doing one last thing?

There's a tarp in the barn.

Fear deer and go get it for me.

Sure, ma'am.

Where exactly?

In the storage loft.

I can't miss it.

I'll be back in a minute.

I watched watched him walking into the barn while I tended to the hash browns.

Then, I waited.

Waited for a couple of minutes.

Then five.

Then ten.

The hell is taking so long?

I paced back and forth, irritated.

His car was still in the driveway, so I knew he hadn't slipped away to go flirt with some girl in town.

With a grunt, I stomped into the barn, expecting to see him lounging about.

I was prepared to chastise him for his laziness.

Spence?

I asked angrily as the door swung open.

A ladder was propped against the wooden loft, the tarp at its feet.

I grabbed the top and peered up trying to find Spencer.

Spence, where are you playing at?

No answer.

Spence, lunch is ready.

Get down from there.

Still nothing.

Not even a single creak from the wooden planks.

All I could hear was the quiet hum from earlier.

This time, slightly louder.

If Spencer was up there, he was being perfectly still and quiet, do things he wasn't too good at.

Tarp wedged under my arm, I grabbed the ladder and began climbing the rungs.

I was about halfway up when I heard Henry calling, Mom Hungry!

Well, I had what I needed.

I had the tarp.

Spencer could play his stupid games all he wanted.

Man, she

could play his stupid games for all he wanted, for all I cared.

Spencer, no, all you can do, if you want to jack off in the loft of the barn, that's fine, but no food for you later.

Uh-oh.

I wasn't there beating his big old donkey, Dick.

All right, well, see what I mean?

You have to go too far.

Like, I'm talking about, like, oh, you're so mean to this guy, and you always take it to somebody.

That means she's like, she's making him feel like a freak show.

Some proclivity, some horrendous, like, it's something.

They're sucking his lips.

See?

Licking his lips and beating his big old donkey.

All right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

Tap out, tap out, tap out, tap out, tap out.

Okay.

Well, I had what I needed.

I had the tarp.

Spencer could play stupid games all he wanted, for all I cared.

I slid back down and went back inside to serve lunch.

Where's Spencer?

He's trying a brand new diet of cold eggs and ham.

Ew.

He's trying a brand new diet of beating his cocks.

We weren't there.

The story wasn't there.

Our bit wasn't there.

You just accelerated.

Maybe if the bit ran its course for like another like two sentences, it would have got there.

But you are flooring it to get to the

rancid.

You're going to be just like him when Giorda.

You're a monster.

You're a pig.

You see what I mean?

Now you're talking about her speaking to herself

with that tone of voice.

Spence is out back spitting his hand.

He calls it Amish Lotion.

All right.

All he had was a bag of peanut MM instead of Coca-Cola.

I think he'll be just fine.

Yeah, he asked for a couple of Jolly Ranchers.

Oh, God.

Did you give him the Jolly Ranchers?

Why you got a new Spence like that, bro?

Spence is on these hard works.

Yeah, yeah, I like Spencer.

Oh, gosh.

We finished eating with no sign of Spencer.

I was starting to get a little worried.

He wasn't the most reliable guy.

He'd often come in late and cut out early, but he'd never run off of me in the middle of the day.

And he'd certainly never leave his car behind.

I figured I'd go look for him once I was done with the dishes.

Henry was playing with his toys and I was drawing off the last of the pots and pans.

I probably never would have noticed it if the sun wasn't shining at just the right angle, sending a beam of light from floor to ceiling.

Dust particles.

They were dancing through the room's air currents.

However, about a foot below the ceiling, there was a visible decrease in the density.

I watched as little flakes swam up and disappeared beyond the invisible border.

Weird, I thought, squinting at the empty space.

There's something about it that made me feel unnerved.

It's like I knew something was wrong, but couldn't quite put my finger on what.

I looked outside.

Not a bird in sight for miles.

I thought of the hot air balloon and how empty it had been.

Thought about Spencer up in the bars loft.

Oh.

Oh, that's cool.

A bumblebee buzzed by the window, flew up beyond the intangible line, and disappeared.

One second it was there.

The next,

it was just gone.

I'm gonna get my trucks, squeaked Henry as he ran towards the stairs.

I grabbed him so quickly that he nearly fell.

Don't go upstairs, I warned, my voice a mix of stern conviction and cackling terror.

I gulped down a nod of apprehension.

My eyes were locked on the immaculate separation between the dusty and nearly dustless air.

In that moment, I could only think of one thing.

Something I heard on TV.

Dust is mainly comprised of dead skin cells.

My blood ran cold.

I could see it moving.

The separation, I mean.

Slowly, like the motion of the sun setting on the horizon.

It was subtle, but it was definitely moving down.

That's when I realized that humming sound from this morning was getting even louder.

We need to get to lower ground, I thought.

I wasn't even sure what was going on, but I knew that something bad would happen if we were caught under the unseen ceiling slowly dropping on us.

We lived on a plateau surrounded by mountains, the lowest point for miles.

There was no lower ground except for the cellar.

Ducking my head, I grabbed Henry's arms, pulled him towards the door.

What are you doing?

He whined, tugging back.

I didn't answer.

I didn't know what to say.

I closed the door tightly, unsure whether or not it would help keep it, whatever it was,

out.

The mere possibility that it might help was enough to bring me some form of comfort.

With my free hand, I nabbed the flashlight I kept on the top step and climbed down with my son.

It was cold downstairs, perfect for storage.

I had shelves with jars full of pickled vegetables, homemade jams, and sealed meats lined in every wall.

The concrete room wasn't very inviting to a seven-year-old, so Henry usually stayed out unless I asked him to fetch me something.

I let out a sigh of relief and took a seat on the bottom of the wooden staircase.

I could hear frogs and crickets chirping happily outside.

Mom?

I didn't answer.

Instead, I went over the facts in my mind.

Was I exaggerating?

What had compelled me to run and hide?

An empty hot air balloon?

A missing farmhand?

Mom!

What, Henry?

He bounced around from foot to foot.

What's going on?

There's...

I paused, thinking it over.

What was I supposed to tell the kid?

I didn't even know what was happening.

My eyebrows came together.

There's bad air up there.

Micah Fart?

Yeah, something like that.

I hung my head and hid my face behind my hands.

I was being stupid.

At least that's what I thought.

Till the croaks came to a sudden stop.

So all the bullfrogs in the the creek out back were suddenly holding their breath.

I found myself holding mine, waiting for the sound to come back.

But all I heard were the crickets.

Ten minutes later, the crickets went silent.

The void from the hush that fell over the room couldn't even be filled by the pitter-patter of Henry's feet as he ran in circles, poured out of his mind.

This is great, by the way.

This is such a cool.

The idea of like you can imagine where the level is because the frogs go first and then the crickets right?

Oh man

My fear only increased as I spotted the jars of meat sitting on the top shelf of the rack in the corner.

They were empty I pointed the flashlight up and looked at the dust particles in its ray They were disappearing about two feet from the ceiling just like they had upstairs and Just like upstairs the invisible divide was getting lower That low hum following suit.

All I could do was watch as over the course of an hour the separation came closer and closer to my son and I, till it became clear that I couldn't sit on the stairs anymore.

I pulled Henry into my lap and sat on the cold concrete floor, shaking as I watched the invisible ceiling falling on us.

From time to time, I had to jiggle the flashlight to get it working again.

I rocked my son gently, praying whatever was falling on us would stop and pull back, praying Henry wouldn't go rogue on me and run out of my grasp.

As it came closer, I lay down and told my son to do do the same.

We had to stay as low to the ground as possible.

Don't move, honey.

Mom, what are we doing?

Playing dead, honey.

If you do good, we'll bake you your favorite cake.

But you gotta be perfectly still, alright?

Okay!

I wasn't sure what to expect.

Would it hurt when it happened?

Would we disappear like the people in the hot air balloon?

Could we somehow be saved?

I held my hand against Henry's Henry's chest, pinning him down like a seatbelt.

I could feel him shivering against the cold stone floor.

I was terrified he'd squirm and disappear forever.

Should have brought a blanket, I thought.

No, the blankets were on the second floor.

Second floor hadn't been safe.

There was a rock digging into my thigh, but I couldn't risk moving.

The threshold was closing in on us, making me feel claustrophobic in the wide open room.

I dropped the flashlight, closed my eyes tightly, and held my breath for as long as I could.

I waited, listening to the droning hum getting louder and louder like a bug circling my ear.

I could feel Henry's body heat radiating from his chest.

As long as I felt the warmth on my arm, I knew my boy was okay.

Even if I disappeared, at least he'd be lower to the ground.

Low enough to be safe, I hoped.

We must have been there for at least an hour, maybe two, before the sound became more distant.

Henry had somehow fallen asleep despite the displeasing conditions.

I opened my eyes, finally gathering enough courage to reach for the flashlight.

I flicked it on and carefully aimed it at the ceiling.

The dust wasn't back, but I couldn't see a divide anymore.

Either we'd been engulfed, or the phenomena had passed.

I was afraid to move at first, but I finally raised my arm.

Nothing happened.

I sat up.

Still nothing.

I let out a sigh of relief.

We'd been spared.

Somehow, by some miracle, we'd been spared.

When the hum completely faded, I cautiously climbed up the stairs, keeping my head low.

I opened the door and looked around.

Sound was gone.

The invisible divide gone with it.

It was over.

After waking Henry and warming him up, I headed out to the barn.

It was empty.

No birds, no livestock, not even a single fly buzzing around the cow manure.

Every single animal on my farm had gone missing.

We got in the truck and headed towards town.

As we passed the Burns farm, I saw their crop duster crash to pieces in the field.

Must have been the explosion Spencer and I heard earlier.

I stopped to check, but the plane was empty.

I knocked on the Burns door, but received no answer.

I drove to Caleb's farm and tried them.

No answer.

I drove to town.

There was no one.

Not a single living being, not even a damn squirrel.

I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm afraid it's about to happen again.

I can hear that hum in the distance.

As much as I want to get out of here, I can't take the risk.

I mean, the only path out of here is through the mountains, and I don't fancy going anywhere too high right now.

I'm going to try my luck and hide in the cellar again.

If you don't hear from me, it means we weren't lucky enough to be spared twice.

What a cool idea, man.

Yeah, that was so crazy.

That's probably the strongest story we read to this.

That was awesome.

Just like, that's just such a creative idea of like, there is a visible line that anything like biological, even meat, jars of meat that go in its threshold just disappear.

It's almost like a rapture story, right?

Like everyone disappeared all at once.

It's like any, like, not living organism because the corn is probably still there, but it's like anything that's like life or something, like, like biological, like an animal.

Any animal like males.

Anything with meat.

Yeah, just gone.

And like the explosion mentioned earlier, and it's like the plane crashing, and it all started with the hot air balloon.

Like, what a fun take.

Or like the visual of Spencer walking up a ladder and disappearing.

That's so cool.

Yeah, I think.

I don't know.

I still feel like it's like a fun tale.

Like, I almost still read it as like an alien thing or something.

The hummingbird

is a flying saucer that's coming through, and it's like a new, like an interesting way of like a tractor being.

It's almost like, like you could imagine aliens have come to Earth and they've put like

a film around this planet.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's just like killing any life that it can catch in like this field.

So they're just doing sweeps over and over.

What a cool.

This was awesome.

That was really cool.

Yeah, it all started with a hot air balloon.

That was by far the funnest thing we read today.

A lot of fun.

I liked everything we read, but I think that that one was just a little bit more.

I think that was the strongest because it's such an inventive threat.

And like that part where she's laying down, I was thinking to myself, like, would it hurt?

Would you disappear all at once?

Does part of you have to touch it?

Do you have to completely disappear?

Like, it's just such a, it's so unique, such a unique concept, and it was delivered so well.

Yeah, it's very, because, like, what do you do?

You just hope that you're not.

That's kind of the hopeless thing of, yeah, you're just kind of waiting.

It's like a, you introduce this time element to this, to the threat, which makes it feel even more, you know, crazy.

It starts so high, and yeah, it's just, as the day has gone on, it's just progressively gotten lower.

And you could like,

you could do so many scenarios with that setting because that's like a new setting to me.

It's like, oh, maybe you had a group who was like out deep sea diving and they come up and everyone's gone.

Or you've got like someone who's like in a swimming pool and they have to decide between drowning or like falling into it.

And so like there's just, this is a very fun scenario.

That was awesome.

I liked everything, but I agree with you.

I think the hot air balloon was the strongest, i think yeah but they were all good they were all good all really fun but i'm really glad we at least read the hot air balloon yeah one as well i'd like to cap to uh put a period on this episode which we are at that period my friend so uh thank you all so much for watching if you haven't considered it consider Checking out the Spotify and the Apple podcast, giving us a nice rating there.

It really does help us out, and we appreciate it.

And as always, guys, we thank you so much for listening and supporting the show.

It means the fucking world.

We will catch you in the next scary episode.

We will will see you in the next one.

And also, to everyone, check out Mannon Lysett, Lysett on Twitter and Facebook.

And of course, check out their subreddit, user slash Manon Lysett, where

or not their subreddit, their Reddit account where they post all these stories on No Sleep.

Fantastic author, and they make really cool little Halloween designs.

So be sure to pick some up if you're interested.

And thank you, Mannon, for making really cool stories.

That last one, especially was awesome.

I loved it.

Thank you all so much for watching.

It means the world.

We will catch you in the next one.

Bye.