S22 Ep14: NoSleep Podcast S22E14

Oh, watch your step.

Wow, your attic is so dark.

Dark.

I know, right?

It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

Flick me.

What movie is that?

I haven't pressed play yet.

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Jimmy, what have I told you about scaring our guests?

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They're calling.

The phone is ringing.

A message from an unknown caller.

A voice unrecognizable

audio messages from the shadows

but one message is clear

and it says

brace yourself for the no-sleep podcast

Don't know what to make of all this.

Gotta call my doctor.

I had more dreams last night.

My head hurts.

I took my pill a little before breakfast, but I'm wondering if I should have.

Welcome, sleepless listeners.

Tis I, your host, David Cummings.

And I'm feeling rather philosophical this week, considering things like life, our existence, and what makes us who we are.

I'm thinking about a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote, To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

So how do we determine who we really are?

I'll touch on that more after I talk about what we here at the No Sleep podcast are made of.

We tell horror stories, and that means we are always on the lookout for more, well, horror stories.

And while we get many, many submissions week in and week out, we are diligent at working through them, and we're getting caught up.

So all of this is to say that if you have a horror story that is aching to crawl out of your twisted brain, we would love to hear from you.

To learn more about our submissions process, just visit our website, thenosleeppodcast.com, and click the submissions tab at the top.

Who knows, maybe you'll hear your story on our show.

And yes, we look forward to you submitting to us.

Now, as I was pondering, what makes us who we are?

Are we merely the sum of our experiences?

Are we changed and shaped by the things we do?

What about the things we put into our bodies?

They say, you are what you eat.

But we eat lots of things.

We ingest substances to alter ourselves.

We live with the consequences of our actions.

Who can really say what impact these things have upon us?

In our episode this week, we delve into the horror of people who experience things which have profoundly changed who they are.

And as you can imagine, the changes are likely to fall into the category of negatively impacted.

I dare say those people didn't fully brace themselves.

Maybe they should have listened to the voices.

Now, do you dare pick up your phone and listen to the voices calling to you?

In our first tale, We meet three young dudes doing what young dudes do.

Hanging out, goofing off, and generally making mischief.

It's fine when they want to mess around with themselves, but when their attention turns to something else, that's when the trouble starts.

And as we'll learn in this tale, shared with us by author Lucy Waskowitz, the boys encounter a strange bird who doesn't take kindly to their cruelty.

Performing this tale are Reagan Tacker, Jeff Clement, Matthew Bradford, Kyle Akers, and Jesse Cornet.

So be kind or face the consequences when you discover the crow.

25, 26,

27,

28.

A sharp sting on his ankle, and William lost all his balance on the thin steel rail.

29,

20,

fuck!

Rocks skittered into the brush on either side of the tracks as he scrambled to stay upright.

Aw, too bad.

You were almost at 30.

Aiden, three months older than William and with the extra three-quarters of an inch to prove it, stepped from sleeper to sleeper with the loping grace of a preteen, armed with a handful of rocks.

William knelt to examine the pink scrape on his ankle, likely not unrelated to Aiden's small arsenal.

A tiny drop of blood beaded at one end.

Screw you.

A skinny, freckled middle finger rose toward William, who stuck out his tongue.

Oblivious to both, the shortest and stockiest of the trio, Ben, counted his own steps along the rail a few feet back.

16,

17,

18.

Aiden aimed a pebble at Ben, but missed the target's knee by a good couple inches.

Fuck.

Nice aim, fuckface.

William had just begun swearing and still only dared to do so when his mother was well out of earshot.

Even out here on the tracks, he harbored a lingering fear that she might pop up out of the brush and slap him silly for his dirty mouth.

Still, he liked the way the words felt rolling off his tongue.

Hot and sharp.

Aiden rounded on him.

Excuse you, shift-brains.

Your dumbass couldn't hit a tree if your face was pressed against the bark.

Well, yeah?

William scooped up his own handful of stones and pointed at a telephone pole some hundred feet away.

Bet you a buck I can hit that pole before you, dumbass.

You're on.

23,

24.

Ben kept his steady pace behind as the two boys unleashed a torrent of rocks in the direction of the telephone pole.

Within seconds, the competition devolved into a frenzy of scraping pebbles and dirt straight from the ground and hurling the entire chunk of crap at the pole, waiting for something to hit.

At some point, a pebble ricocheted off the wood and both boys erupted into screams.

That was me.

It was mine.

Oh, it was mine.

Fuck you, fart sniffer.

It was mine.

I saw it.

Which culminated in a very creative insult regarding William and the male genitalia.

Oh, man.

Ben finally tripped off the rail to see his two buddies wrestling between the train tracks ahead.

He watched for a moment with mild interest.

Then something much more interesting fluttered, flailed really, atop the telephone pole and caught his eye.

Look at that bird!

Aiden shoved William off him with enough pseudoplay vigor that the latter landed on his backside in the rocks.

He looked over red-faced at Ben, whose pudgy index finger pointed up to the sky.

A freckly arm extended to help William up, but not before excessively brushing off its opposite shoulder.

Atop the telephone pole perched the ugliest bird William had ever seen.

It looked like a crow, but bigger, about the size of an eagle.

Its coat was disheveled, sticking up and patchy in places, and when it flapped a bit to settle, a few grayish-black feathers shook loose and floated limply to the ground.

They were dull and dry-looking, lacking the glossy black sheen of the crows that nested in the big oak by William's bedroom window and screeched him awake in the summers.

Aiden's frankly hands went to his hips as he assessed the creature.

The verdict?

Jesus Christ, that's one ugly ass bird.

The thing's head twitched, and William got the uneasy feeling that it had hurt him.

It flapped pathetically a little more, then cawed, a horrible screeching sound, worse than any sound William had heard a bird make before.

All while staring straight at the boys below it.

I don't like it.

It's weird.

It's as ugly as what it is.

Aiden shook his head and turned away from the pitiful creature.

We should start heading back.

My mom will be pissed if we're late for dinner.

William was grateful for an escape from the beady-eyed gaze of the crow.

The trio turned, Ben already well ahead and hopping up for another go on the rail.

One,

two,

three.

He'd He'd barely made a wobbly seven before there was a great thrashing noise overhead, and the crow landed on the branch of a tree in the brush.

It cocked its head in the same twitchy manner before unleashing another barrage of cause.

Oh, fuck off, you stupid fucking bird.

The bird shrieked in response.

William hated the sound the bird made.

It was coarse and unpleasant, and the last part sounded all pitching and wrong like a scream.

Stupid fucking bird.

Aiden squatted to scoop up an egg-sized rock from the ground and squinted before hurling it at the bird.

His aim skewed left by a foot.

The bird didn't flinch.

Why didn't it move?

Ben stepped back onto the rail.

A one and a two and a three

and a four and a five

and a six and a seven.

They heard the thunderlike thrashing again, close enough to their heads this time that William ducked.

The bird flailed 20 feet ahead and perched on the next telephone pole, staring.

Watching, William thought automatically.

Stupid fucking piece of shit, bird.

I'm gonna kill you.

Aiden scooped up a hailstorm's worth of small rocks and hurled them at the pole.

The bird stood stock still, screeching as stones flew all around it.

When they landed with a bunch of pathetic crunch, crunch, crunch sounds in the brush, it preened, ruffling itself enough that a few more dull feathers floated to the ground.

Aiden thrust a handful of rocks into William's arms.

You hit the sucker.

I don't want to hit the bird.

Aiden pushed William's shoulder.

Come on, you're our pitcher.

Knock its stupid head off.

Hit it, Will.

Ben's brows were furrowed and his mouth a thin line between round cheeks.

William had never seen him look distraught and wondered if Ben disliked the bird as much as he did.

Still, he didn't want to hit the bird.

He threw a lame toss that fell short of the crow.

Aiden eyed a particularly large stone.

Come on, we're going to be late for dinner because of a stupid bird.

Whatever.

Aiden satisfied himself with double middle fingers to the crow, then kicked the stone away and began walking.

Ben followed.

He didn't step on the rail.

William glanced once more at the crow.

It cocked its head in its twitchy manner, then slowly raised both massive faded wings up at its sides.

William watched as it began to flap them up and down, up and down, feathers detaching and flying everywhere, bouncing around on top of the pole, flapping, flapping, and all the while screeching.

William rushed forward and seized the large stone Aiden had kicked away, cocked his arm back, and hurled it with all his might at the horrible thing flailing around and screaming on the telephone pole.

The rock caught the crow on its left wing.

It stumbled backward but didn't fall.

It flapped once, twice, and made a horrible moaning sound.

Uh, what the fuck is happening to it?

William watched, paralyzed as the thing grew big and distorted.

Its body bulged out in odd places as it swelled up, larger and larger, feathers dropping like rain, and the whole time emitting a horrible moaning noise that was something not enough bird to be bird, and not enough human to be human.

The crow's head began to grow, bulging and twisting out until it resembled a lumpy, black, feathered softball.

Then bigger and bigger until the dry, dull feathers began to drop off, and there was

skin.

There was grayish, fleshy human skin, and more feathers fell.

And there were eyes, and a nose, and a mouth that was gaping around horrible, moaning noise.

The thing finally toppled off the telephone pole and writhed on the ground until more skin came into view.

Then a torso and trembling arms and legs.

A gray-skinned, emaciated man lay twitching in the rocks.

Williams' insides went cold as the man shoved himself upward and stood crookedly, completely naked in front of him.

His eyes were sunken deep into his skull and when he grinned with cracked lips he revealed a mouth half full of rotted brown teeth.

His dark, dull hair brushed his drooping nipples, matted and patchy at the scalp, just like the crow's feathers.

And his voice, too, matched the crow's when he let out a screechy peal of laughter that seized up his whole bony body in a trembling jerking shudder before he turned and disappeared into the brush.

The cold, cold fear that racked William's smaller, softer body bled and warmed into something very hot.

So hot, too hot and searing all throughout him.

And when he fell hard to his knees, his body felt like it was folding in on itself.

No, he was truly folding up, his arms and legs jerking and bending into his torso and staying there, stuck, immobile, fused.

He could only watch as his skin began to move like the top of a stew, bubbling and churning, and little black feathers began to poke from his pores and blanket his arms.

They emerged like white-hot needles, faster and faster, and he watched as the space between his fingers was filled with feathers.

He heard screaming, the sound of running, a sound of crying.

He saw a rock spitting up from old soul-flapping sneakers in the corner of his eye.

And William screamed for Aiden, for Ben, for anyone, but he felt his neck sinking, melting into his chest.

And the sound he was making was suddenly no longer a scream, but a screech.

He was screeching.

Not all group chats are the same.

Just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for instance, uses WhatsApp to pin messages, send events, and settle debates using polls with his friends, all in one group chat.

Makes our guys night easier.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp, which means he still can't find that text from his friends about where to meet.

Hang on, still scrolling.

No, the address is here somewhere.

It's time for WhatsApp.

Message privately with everyone.

Suffs!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

When we examine ourselves and our lives, isn't it easy to feel like you don't matter?

Like you don't belong?

Like you're nothing more than merely mediocre?

If so, you'll relate to the woman in this tale.

shared with us by author C.M.

Skandreth.

She feels like she's nothing special, and she laments the loss of her aunt, who it turns out wasn't anything special either.

Performing this tale are Erica Sanderson and Andy Cresswell.

So, if you want to become special, learn your family's history.

You can read about it in The Memoirs of a Long Pig.

We're a meat family, my dad would proudly tell strangers.

He'd wait for the quizzical look, then launch into detail, starting with how many freezers we had, how long we could sustain ourselves on the contents.

It was just his way of starting a conversation, which made sense when you considered that raising and home-killing animals for food was, for want of a better term, his lifelong hobby.

His prized possession was one of those industrial-sized vacuum sealers.

He could put half a pig inside and wrap it in plastic so tightly that every wrinkle and skin fold waxed unreal with shiny detail.

If we hadn't lived in a rural area, albeit semi-urbanised, I guess it would have been pretty weird.

But the mostly farming stock locals only found his extra enthusiasm a little bit odd.

When he wasn't being a bit embarrassing talking about it, never really paid much heed to his hobby.

I had a child's vaguely grateful awareness that, though our family went through some lean financial times, our stomachs never suffered like some of the families around us.

All the beef, pork, ham, and bacon in those big old chest freezers passed down from his dad could really have fed us for years.

I should preface all this by saying that I wasn't a particularly bright kid, though neither was I stupid.

I didn't fail badly at anything at school.

I just never achieved anything beyond a pass.

I didn't know it yet back then, still quietly dreaming about being a ballet star or a dressage champion.

But mediocrity was my destiny.

And I think that's why I got on so well with Aunt Liz.

Liz was my dad's live-in youngest sister.

She was one of those women who get described as bubbly.

Not really pretty, not really smart.

Not a lot going on besides just being, well, all Liz.

But she was salt of the earth.

Kind, caring, and great with kids.

She was the only person who would willingly mind my two older brothers, who fought like hellcats and caused more trouble than the whole last generation of my family combined.

People would privately lament my parents that it was a shame Liz didn't have kids of her own.

But dad would just shake his head and say Liz liked it that way.

That all the fun of looking after kids is being able to give them back to their parents.

I guess she was like me.

Nice but mediocre.

Lovely, but somehow forgettable when she wasn't doing something for you.

But when Liz left us, I couldn't forget her.

In hindsight, it was pretty weird timing that we had a big 40th birthday party for Liz right before she disappeared.

She was radiant that night.

She'd hired a local girl to do her hair and makeup.

And it was honestly the first time I'd ever seen her look pretty.

She'd even worn a push-up bra under a tight red dress, which flattered her very plump curves well enough that the neighbour's farmhand was spotted disappearing into the wolf shed with her for a snarl.

In my dawning awareness, that gave a plain girl hope.

If Auntie Liz could get a guy at 40, maybe things would turn out okay for me.

Anyway, I couldn't forget how her pink cheeks, her eyes, her whole self glowed that night before Liz went to bed.

She said it was the best birthday ever.

and that she was very much looking forward to the next stage of her life.

Would I have done anything different if I had known?

If I had realised what exactly that next stage was.

The week after the party, Aunt Liz said she was going on a little holiday up north to visit some old school friends.

She packed her things, she didn't honestly have that many, and drove her little orange mini out onto the main road.

And with a wave of one fleshy hand, she was gone.

Nobody really thought much of it when she didn't call, because nobody rural had cell phones back then.

And Liz was, as I said, somehow kind of forgettable when she wasn't right in front of you.

When we hadn't had contact for six weeks, Dad tracked down the landline numbers for her old school buddies.

They were surprised to hear from him.

Liz had never arrived, so they'd just assumed she'd cancelled her visit.

No one had thought to check.

My ears dropped on the conversation.

And it sounded for all the world like they'd forgotten about Aunt Liz too.

From there it became a missing person case.

The local cops came and talked to all of us.

The farmhand who'd been seen snogging her was briefly detained, then let go.

Dad got grilled at length.

Even my Helion brothers were questioned thoroughly to see if this was one of their wild and dangerous pranks gone wrong.

But everything was a dead end.

Nobody knew where Liz was.

The remains of our old mini were found halfway across the country.

burned out on a beach on a derelict stretch of ragged rocky coastline.

The police assumed murder and combed the area for remains.

But even the most expert divers couldn't conquer the incredible undertow and fast-shifting seabed of that coastline to look for evidence, so none was forthcoming.

Eventually, the cops collectively shrugged and said there was really nothing more they could do unless more information suddenly came to light.

The locals knew nothing, no witnesses had come forward, and the trail went cold.

As far as anyone knew, poor Aunt Liz had been murdered on some desolate beach far away from her home.

It didn't feel fair to me.

She'd once mentioned wanting her remains buried on our farm, in the graveyard plot beside grandma and grandad.

So, in my grief, I went into her room to look for something of hers to bury beside them.

Like I said, Liz didn't have many things.

Her room was pretty Spartan.

and her wardrobe was mostly sensible farm stuff.

There was one exception.

She, like me, did like to read, and she had a pretty good collection of well-thumbed books.

I think it's the Escapism.

Even the most mediocre girl can lose herself in the plot of some trashy romance novel.

Imagine there's still hope being swept off her feet by that handsome stableboy, his inexplicable yearning for chubby plain girls.

So, I set myself the task of going through the books.

to find the right one to bury in the graveyard plot.

Most of them were exactly what you'd expect, but some of them were racier than I was used to.

I felt various parts of my body flushing and tingling as I read breathless prose about calloused hands touching the softest flesh of the protagonist.

Okay, if I'm honest with myself, I might have got a little too invested in my project at that point.

But that was also why I persisted going through her entire collection, until I found the ragged paperback from 1970, entitled Tawny Sands.

And inside that trashy cardboard romance cover, I discovered not the the tale of Tawny Sands, but some carefully hand-cut stitched-in pages.

A handwritten story of my aunt's rounded penmanship.

Memoirs of a long pig.

I read her story twice in a row, utterly gripped.

Aunt Liz was no Stephen King.

Heck, she wasn't even the goosebumps guy.

But her story was gripping and compelling.

And I couldn't put it down.

Even if I hadn't known her, I think that would have been true.

The gist of it was that Liz, when she was 16, had discovered that our family had a very long history of eating what she described as long pork.

It's an Antipodean term, anglicised from the Pacific Islands.

Human meat.

Like me, young Liz still had some hopes and dreams.

In one of her many failed attempts to find a special talent, she'd taken up cooking as a hobby.

Naturally, with our family's overabundance of meat, she'd scoured the freezers in the shed for ingredients, the racks of ribs and stacks of pork chops, butcher paper wrappings all neatly labelled with the first letter of the name of the animal they came from.

She found familiar meat from Rodney, one of the pigs that had been recently slaughtered, emblazoned with an R in her father's strong blocky lettering.

There were cutlets labelled M for Mary, from one of the lambs she'd hand-reared, and F for Ferdinand, the steer they'd killed the month before.

But she couldn't explain the many, many curious parcels of meat on one side of the huge freezer, all labelled J.

At least, not until she took it all out and assembled it as well as she could on the scoured concrete floor of the killing shed.

A big frozen jigsaw puzzled out the box, her best attempt to discover what kind of beast the pieces had come from.

The animal she quickly realised was a long pig, her own aunt Jenny, who'd died the month before, just after her 40th birthday.

Fortunately, or perhaps not for Liz, her father entered the shed right at that moment

and realized his daughter had discovered the family secret.

He sat down calmly on the lid of the freezer and explained to her that this was a long-running family tradition, dating back to at least before his grandfather had been born.

There are always people in life, Liz, who won't really amount to much.

They want to be useful, want to be more.

They strive and they strive, trying job after job, hobby after hobby, trying to hit on something they're really good at, something that makes them special.

Those people can waste their whole lives chasing dreams that never come true.

Eventually, they die unfulfilled, knowing that all their time has been wasted.

That what they leave behind will fade quickly.

His voice was oddly gentle as he leaned down and patted one of the neatly wrapped cuts of Aunt Jenny, still sitting frozen on the shed floor.

Your Aunt Jenny was one of those people.

So was my Aunt Irene.

He paused to gaze at his daughter, his next words peppered with emphasis.

But you see, my sweet Liz,

they did find a purpose in life.

They did find a way to be special.

And they left this world utterly certain of their gift.

He stood up, stretched his back.

Let me show you.

Liz waited while my granddad meticulously stacked the meat back into the freezer.

All but one J-marked parcel that looked for all the world like a thick venison steak.

He took her back to the farmhouse and reverently unwrapped the deep red, heavily marbled meat to let it thaw.

Then he laid it in the family's ancient cast iron pan, basting it with butter and rosemary until a heavenly scent filled the kitchen, and Aunt Liz felt her mouth water.

Just try it.

Let her show you.

You'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

Even though she knew it was her aunt, Liz couldn't stop herself from taking that first bite.

There was something transcendent about the smell, overriding her natural revulsion that this was human meat, not one of their farm animals.

For the first time, she truly realized it.

We're just another kind of animal.

And weren't her memories of Mary the Lamb almost as fond as her memories of Aunt Jenny?

Liz explained then, in her curly handwriting, the explosion of taste that had assaulted her when she tried the steak.

It was tender.

It was succulent.

It was rich beyond imagining.

The fats melted on her tongue, lingering somewhere between pork and beef, but oddly neither.

The flavor of the meat defied identification.

Something familiar, yet not.

But one thing she couldn't deny: it was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten.

Tears dripped onto her plate, mingled with the juice, the grease.

Not grief, but a pure, real, giddy delight.

You're tasting your aunt's love for this family.

Her entire life was carefully curated to eventually make unforgettable moments for us, just like this.

This was her way of being special.

This was the greatest gift she could possibly bring to our world.

And because she realized that, she died with not a single regret.

She knew her life had purpose.

She was perfectly, completely fulfilled.

I felt those words.

I felt them lodge in my own belly, settling uncomfortably deep.

I knew Aunt Liz, probably better than anyone else in the family.

I'd seen how fucking happy she'd been on her 40th.

How goddamn fulfilled she was, despite apparently being a nobody and achieving nothing.

Somehow, in the space of a single day, she had gone from being a forgettable background character to becoming the main character, immortalizing herself in our family's history with her sacrifice.

Quite literally becoming part of all of us.

Forever.

I went to the killing shed after I finished with the book.

I looked inside the freezers.

But there were no vacuum sealed packages labelled L, no matter how deep I dug into the frozen stacks of plastic wrapped flesh.

Panicked now, not sure if I wanted to connect all the dots or unconnect them, I tried to think back over the last few months, recall any meals that had been unusually good.

A few Sundays ago, we'd had a stew that had really hit the spot and left me craving more.

And I realised that the family had had a really good night that night.

My brothers behaved themselves, my parents didn't fight, and grandma and grandad had been there.

Hadn't they looked far more expectant than they should have?

I strained my brain, trying to recall if I'd seen the homekill bag on the kitchen bench, if I'd registered what letter it was.

I knew it wasn't an L.

I would have remembered if it was an L.

And then it hit me.

The memory.

The connection.

Sizzling as if branded with a hot iron.

It had been an E.

E.

For Elizabeth.

Not for Edward the Pig.

I snorted at my own stupidity.

Of course Liz was short for Elizabeth.

And as I comprehended my lack of smarts, I felt something give inside me.

I wasn't clever.

And nothing, nothing would ever make me smart.

I had no big talents.

I wasn't beautiful or even cute.

And even if I had a million plastic surgeries, it still wouldn't fulfil me.

It wouldn't be real.

I was a Liz.

I was a Jenny.

I was whoever the first aunt had been.

The aunt who dedicated her life to making her flesh as delicious as possible.

Who had worked every damn minute to be the best long pig she could ever be.

Who wondered how many magical family evenings had been spent eating Aunt Jenny.

How many glorious, satisfying, memorable dishes had been made out of her.

And

I wanted that.

I wanted to finally know I had a purpose in life.

One so simple and so easy to achieve.

I wanted what Aunt Liz had.

It's my 40th birthday today, and I'm so fucking excited.

For the last 24 years, I've dedicated myself to this moment.

I've eaten exactly what I needed to.

I've exercised just enough, but not too much, to maintain that perfect balance of marbling versus tenderness.

I've relaxed and meditated to keep all those amazing flavours inside of me.

I've researched all the greatest meats in the world, from prime angus beef to A5 Wagyu.

I really think I've outdone myself.

I'm having my hair and makeup done at the local salon this afternoon, and I'm going to look so pretty, all prize piggy on show at the fair.

I'm even going to have a big red ribbon in my hair, in memory of Aunt Liz.

Maybe there'll be a cute boy I can snog in the wool shed.

Maybe there won't.

They don't really care, because the most important, most certain thing is that I'm going to be the most delicious long pig in the history of our entire family.

I'm going to make everyone so damn happy.

And I'm just so glad I can share my story with you all, instead of hiding it in a grubby book like poor Aunt Liz.

My only real disappointment?

That you won't get to taste me.

Reader, I have loved, loved my life.

My long pork will be out of this world.

Once tasted, never,

ever forgotten.

Not all group chats are the same, just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for example, uses WhatsApp to plan his grandma's birthday using video calls, polls to choose a gift, and HD photos to document a family moment to remember, all in one group chat.

Makes grandma's birthday her best one yet.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp.

And so the photo invite came through so blurry, he never even knew about the party.

And grandma still won't talk to me.

It's time for WhatsApp.

Message privately with everyone.

This season, let your shoes do the talking.

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From cool sneakers that look good with everything, to easy sandals you'll want to wear on repeat, DSW has you covered.

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Head to your DSW store or visit dsw.com today.

If you're stuck in a traffic jam, consider getting off the highway and driving through a quaint little British village.

Ah, sounds lovely, doesn't it?

Well, if you ask author Tom Hook, you might get a different opinion.

For in this tale, he shares about one man's detour to the village of Tamwood Oak.

It's a place he won't be stopping in again anytime soon.

Performing this tale are James Cleveland, David Ault, Jake Benson, Andy Cresswell, and Guy Woodward.

So behind the quiet façade, you'll find them, and you'll want to avoid anything to do with the Sunshine Men.

I couldn't see what had caused the jam when I found myself the outlier in three lanes of freight trucks on the motorway.

Somewhere between Cambridge and London, with sloping grass banks choking on congestion either side.

Wooden pegs had been knocked into the bank on my left, like rows of crosses where soldiers had been slain.

I rolled down my window and leaned out to catch the eye of the driver to my right, who rolled his down too.

I don't suppose you can see what's going on up there.

Spread your van on its side.

The yellow cap on his head sported a logo I couldn't make out.

I guessed the same logo was on his yellow shirt underneath his blue overalls.

The van behind behind him blared its horn.

He let his eyes momentarily widen in annoyance, then gave me a little shake of his head, resting his thick forearm on his window.

Nope moving light.

Looks like a hate mess.

He shrugged and leaned back into his seat.

His window stayed half open, and I took it as an invitation.

Where are you headed?

He brought it back down with a wry smile.

Righten.

Reckon I'll be here for a while.

Not another word was said by either of us before his window went back up, and his kind eyes became placid behind the transparent glass.

I was left with the grumble of engines and distant radio chatter.

My window stayed down, for it was early summer, and England was teasing a spell of good weather.

Before hopes would surely be drowned in a decisive rainfall.

I turned my fan up a notch.

It was heaven on my sticky skin.

I shut my eyes in relief for 10 minutes until a sharp hiss of air reopened them.

Somewhere, up ahead, a truck had released its handbrake.

A domino effect of hisses followed in quick succession, and we began to move.

Cooking tarmac lingered in my nostrils as we crawled along, watching helplessly the freedom of the drivers coming the other way.

I wondered if the truck drivers around me were licking their lips at the sight of open road, just out of reach.

I approached a bridge.

Two children leaned over the handrail with their mother waving.

I could see their brown legs through the mesh.

I passed under them.

The traffic stopped again before I was out the other side.

The shade, I was grateful for.

My eyes followed the curving road round to the electric signs maybe 50 meters away.

large crosses above the middle and right lanes.

I sighed and decided I'd go off the motorway at the upcoming slip road.

It took a further 15 minutes to reach it.

Even now I shudder at the memory of Tamwood Oak signposted just after the 40 miles per hour boards.

Golden rows of wheat reached up and met the horizon on my right.

To the left, green fields followed the same pattern.

only broken by a telecom's tower and a small office bungalow at the side of the road.

A stubble-headed gent was unlocking his jeep in the bungalow's gravel drive.

I pulled up beside him.

Afternoon?

You're not heading to the motorway, are you?

He smiled knowingly.

No, I've had the traffic reports in.

It's chalker for two miles.

I don't suppose you'd know if there's any way I could skip all that.

Trying to get to London?

I nodded.

You turn right at the junction there.

He pointed up the road.

And follow the road down.

It'll take you about 40 minutes, but you'll get to junction five.

All lanes should be open from there.

I thanked him and followed his directions.

An old Victorian house had been converted into a pub over the road from the T-junction.

Where I waited for it to clear either way, I could see a path leading down the side to the pub garden.

with wooden tables and chairs.

Separated from the garden by a tall hedge was a fenced-off patch of grass, I assumed, property of the church, whose steeple poked up above the trees just left of the enclosed grassland.

Following the road, I came to the war memorial at the heart of the village.

A pristine granite tombstone at least two meters tall and surrounded with poppies stood on an island encircled by the road.

Two pushbikes were left on the ground near the island's bench.

Perhaps the kids whom they belonged to were at the restaurant on the corner.

Three women, two elderly, one an adolescent but wearing a cotton shawl that could have been borrowed from either of her companions, had set up a stall in front of the memorial.

A crowd of six huddled around the fresh strawberry sign.

I told myself I would stop in on my return journey, if they were still in operation.

It was late when I made the trip home.

And I forgot entirely about Tamwood Oak until I'd already passed by it on the motorway.

When I did remember, I kept the thought in my head all the way home, where I deposited it in my diary so as not to forget.

It was there, on my second visit, I learned of the Sunshine Men.

The heat wasn't so fierce when I went back the next day.

Grey clouds troubled the skies, but unleashed no downpour.

The traffic also mild.

After the slip road, I came by the fields again, thinking of strawberries and poppies.

From the state of the car park, I deduced the public house was nigh unempty.

As I passed, something on the grass patch caught my eye.

I quickly swung into the car park, got out, and jogged to the fence.

There, a man lay, propped against the hedge.

His clothes, violently ripped, hung off him in mud-soaked tatters.

Tanned flesh was exposed in places.

In others, it was red.

Hello?

The moist timber fence between us felt brittle in my hands.

I narrowed my eyes, fear purged my voice of compassion or patience.

Hello?

I choked in fright when the gentleman turned and raised his head to me.

The face was inorganically paled with a splat of blood around the left eye.

It then slumped to the side.

On top of his head was a sickening array of claw marks.

as though a rake had been yanked across his head, tearing patches of hair out.

I was was through the gate and running to his aid in the next moment.

As I neared, I could make out crevices in his being, exposing raw pink, skin, or muscle.

I couldn't tell.

Some of it was

throbbing.

He shook like he'd never known warmth.

Help!

Me!

There was a plastic rattling sound, and I glanced down at his hands, wrapped in a a beaded lanyard on which the cross he clutched hung.

It wasn't the cross which took my attention, more his lacerated hands.

Strands of hair the same color as his were also in his grip.

I was questioning whether any of his wounds were self-inflicted.

I'll call help.

My hands went down to my pocket.

No!

Do not

call anybody!

He curled up and clasped his hands over his ears.

The clenching and unclenching of his jaw was relentless, as were his anguished grunts.

What's wrong?

What happened to you?

Along came a subconscious urge to step back from him.

I had planted one foot behind me on the grass when his eyes shot open.

Don't leave me.

I have to tell you, I can't keep it in.

If I keep it in any longer, I might go mad.

I need to get help.

I made a turn towards the gate, and the maniac let out a shrill scream and lurched at me,

landing in the grass by my leg.

His body went limp, save for the fingers at the end of his outstretched arm imposing their steel grip on my trouser cuff.

Please

don't go.

All right.

I'll stay.

What do you...

Let me tell you.

Okay.

I couldn't stomp myself.

What is it?

After I tell you,

will you leave?

Will you leave this place and never come back?

Do you give me your word?

I give you my word.

The man sighed and let his arm fall.

Of course, I considered dashing off in that moment.

Then dragged himself back to the hedge and propped himself up again.

They

came.

He pursed his lips to stop their quivering, and tears formed a film over his eyes.

I don't remember.

I don't remember if they told me.

Each breath he took was sucked back out quicker than the last.

Tell me what you do remember.

The rise and fall of his chest slowed.

I was at work one day.

It must have been recent.

Look at me.

He examined the cuts all over him.

It must have been in the last few hours that it happened.

Oh, dear God.

He clasped his hands either side of his head again.

Please, let me call someone.

No!

He flinched, startled by his own outcry.

I'll tell all.

Just listen to me.

Again, he gathered breath.

His arms rubbed each other.

I work at an insurance company in the village next on.

What I do there isn't important.

I got a call from my son.

He's off school for the summer holidays.

He never calls my office, but he called and I answered.

He said, Dad.

There's a man in the garden.

I didn't believe him, but he pressed on, repeating the same phrase.

There's a man in the garden.

He was panicking.

I never heard him sound so scared before.

I took to scolding him for trying to put the wind up me, but he broke down into tears and said, please come home, Dad.

I'm terrified.

He swore at me as well.

He never swears.

I told him to...

Stay put and that I'd be down to see him as soon as I could.

I asked if the man was doing anything, if he was trying to break in.

He's just standing there, and my boy told me.

He's just staring in through the kitchen window.

Call the police, I instructed.

Call them and tell them what you've told me.

He said to me, I've tried, Dad.

Every time I go to do it, I can't.

It's okay, I said.

You can speak to them.

No, I can't.

He was crying.

I've called three times.

Something won't let me speak to them.

All I hear on the other end is...

I started to tell him something else, but he began screaming.

Dad, he's looking at me, Dad, make him stop.

He's smiling at me.

Come and make him go away, please.

I couldn't stand anymore.

I informed everyone I had an emergency and left.

I went straight to my house and rushed through the side gate.

I thought the bastard wouldn't be expecting me to come around the side to the garden.

I hoped I might be able to surprise him.

I tried to call for help.

Couldn't reach anyone on 999.

He wiped his eye.

I don't understand why.

When I arrived in the garden, I found myself stopping dead in my tracks without another thought.

It was like the world had been sucked away.

And all that was left was this man and I.

He stood a little taller than me in a black and white pinstriped suit and beneath that he had on a white shirt and black tie.

On his head was a black derby.

This man was staring like he'd been longing for me to show.

He didn't look all human.

He was this sickly grey color and had this yellow tint to his skin.

And he wasn't morbid, but his skin was loose and sagging.

I forgot entirely that this was my property and that my son was inside.

All I could focus on was the man in the suit with the revolting skin.

All at once, he looked as likely to laugh as he was to sink to his knees and cry.

When he opened his mouth, he looked suddenly afraid.

Please don't go, he implored, distraught and shrill.

The others are coming.

A cold terror came creeping over me.

I just couldn't bear to accept that it was...

It was...

It's real.

I turned my back and ran.

I will admit to you now that I gave no thought as to what would happen to my boy until I was down the road.

My only concern was...

getting away from the man in the suit.

It was the laughter that stopped me.

All All the way at the end of the street, I heard an awful laughter echoing, and I knew where it came from.

I rushed back home and stood in the drive.

Through the windows, I saw silhouettes.

Men, every one of them dressed in suits and derbies.

It's so clear, it's carved in my head.

They had their arms around each other, raising glasses.

There was music playing as well.

You might have heard it at fairgrounds.

I wanted to enter the garden in stealth, but I couldn't.

The front door opened, and I was drifting towards it.

Nothing in my willpower could stop it.

Something

happened to me.

The man cried out

a hand to his head.

Blood glistened in his palm when it came away.

They beat me.

I shouldn't pity myself, I know, not after I left my boy.

The story paused to let the tears spill down his face.

In brief spurts, when consciousness burdened me, I was blind.

I could barely breathe.

All I could feel was them swarming on me, they're scratching.

He whipped his head around and swatted an invisible presence on his shoulder.

They're hitting and

kicking.

I knelt down.

I'm here.

They can't.

It's just me.

When I awoke, I wasn't far from here.

Did they drag you here?

They must have.

I tried to crawl.

He pointed at imprints in the mud that told of his scrambling.

What...

Where is your son?

The man gasped as if I'd winded him.

My son!

My boy!

What happened?

I gripped his shoulder with haste, narrowly missing the bloody rake marks.

I was crying with him.

What happened?

No.

What?

I heard the stove bubbling in the kitchen.

His lips foamed.

Vicious searing as something was dropped in it to card.

No.

No.

Began to back away again, wishing with everything I had that there had never been a lane closure on the motorway.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm afraid it is.

I couldn't see, and what I heard alone isn't enough to convince you of what they did.

But I know.

I swear blind that I can feel it in my bones.

They

could

my

boy.

With the end of his sentence, the very soul seemed to vacate his body as his words became a breathless scratching in his throat.

And

they ate him.

The man rolled away from the hedge and dragged his torn-up, shaking, cadaverous form across the grass.

His arms clawed at the grass with slow but sure determination, bisecting his old marks.

Unsure of what to do, I closed my eyes.

Each grunt I heard grew fainter, yet more intense than the last.

Why did they come for you?

When my eyes found him again, he was just about on his feet.

A sad smile set on his lips.

His eyes had a glassiness to them.

The sunshine men didn't tell me much about where they came from or why they chose me.

The Sunshine...

What did you call them?

The man looked down at his shoes, shrugged like a shy child.

The Sunshine Men.

I don't know if they told me that or if I just have a feeling.

But I know that's what they are called.

In fact,

yeah, yes.

Yes, I remember what they told me now.

They said they like to come in the summertime, when the sun is shining, when the children like to go out and play.

On Puppeteer's strings, his arm reached over his head.

The fingers grasping his face,

I thought he was gouging his own eyes out.

Still staring at me in a kind of relieved way, his other hand came underneath his chin.

I cried out and covered my face.

There was an appalling snap.

Mouth open, I awaited another sound.

A scream.

Anything.

None came.

When I had gathered the courage, I peeped from behind my hands and saw him splayed out on his front in the mud.

Both legs cocked as though he was sprinting.

Crept closer.

and affirmed his neck was crooked.

Enough that it was broken.

Upon his face was that same same inherently sad smile.

The smile, I supposed, of the Sunshine Men.

I thought I was shivering.

Instead, I was quaking,

mouthing the word help,

but never daring to scream it.

I was careful with my foot placement to avoid the twigs as I returned to my car.

It was...

hours before I'd put enough distance between myself and Tamwood Oak to call for help.

I have since dialed the same same number on a few occasions.

Only one of them was regarding something other than the body in the brook.

There was a fire at the bakery down the road and I was put through to the emergency services right away.

Aside from that, I was met with static.

As the boy had said, I could not talk to the police.

I set out to go to the station in person a multitude of times, but...

I'd blink and be back home ironing a shirt, cooking, or stoking the fire pit, never far from something that could melt the skin.

Perhaps they were warning me.

In the days after the abhorrence, I rarely slept and jumped to every sound that came around me.

Upon my mind was the ill man in his suit, stood in a stranger's garden and begging them not to leave.

My weight dropped significantly, and I was forced off work for two days and told to replenish both in food and rest.

I wasn't hungry.

I was, in fact, feasted upon by my own paranoia.

Checking outside my house through the blinds became habit, as did night staring out into my garden.

When I couldn't resist it anymore, I went back to Tamwood Oak.

This was some weeks later.

When I had managed to half convince myself that what I saw and the story I had been told were a result of the heat and stress I was under.

His tracks in the mud were long gone.

There were no official-looking persons sniffing about the place nor a shred of yellow tape where once they might have been.

No clump of hair left behind nor a rag from his garments nor a strip of flesh.

I allowed myself some peace of mind here but would not be satisfied until I'd been to the man's house.

Maybe further.

To his garden.

I circled the war memorial twice in my car.

No strawberry stands.

Then, I drove around Tamwood Oak looking for the house.

Something told me I'd know it when I saw it.

The night was pure and without a single cloud when it reared its ugly head.

A terrible chill would have complemented the ambiance.

Yet, in its place came a cozy warmth.

A debilitating nervous cramp in my stomach made it hard to turn the steering wheel, but I spun onto the wide, densely populated road.

My expectation was to find what I was looking for at the crown of the hill.

But it wasn't until I reached the crown that the music began.

The kind played at a fairground.

I followed it down the hill until it was no longer faint, and neither were the voices.

Voice.

A single sound projected through many a mouth.

The car stopped outside a house tucked in at the street corner.

Again, contrasting expectation in place of the envisaged tall, bleak gothic structure with bats on the roof and stained glass windows was a two-story build, from the 90s, I imagine.

A single car was parked upon the driveway.

The lights were on, all of them,

and through the windows where the curtains were not drawn, I could see silhouettes.

Many of them, in every room.

Men in suits and derbies with their arms around each other.

They swayed to the fairground music, slapping and laughing together.

The same laughter I told myself I hadn't heard up the street.

In the top left window, three figures had their arms raised to the sky, and I presumed toasting.

Then one slapped the other quite hard on the back and their laughter erupted.

The same silhouette was slapped again, and again, then on his head.

before the third man in the trio got involved and their laughter only magnified every time.

An army of silhouettes passed by the windows as they rushed in to join the fun.

Their bodies formed a single black curtain.

Both hands covering my ears in a trivial attempt to block out the endless smacking and laughter, I watched a lone figure run up the stairs to the room where the commotion was taking place.

The smacking ceased and whispering took its place.

Another whisper answered it, and another answered that, until they were all whispering over each other.

The silhouettes filtered out of the room and descended the stairs.

The victimized individual remained in the room.

He was still laughing.

His hat had been knocked off in the melee.

His heartfelt chortles grew heavy, then tipped into whimpering, which became moaning, which became a sobbing.

His shoulders drooping lower with each sorrowful gasp.

He dusted off his hat and placed it back upon his round head, and the dreaded laughter made a brief return, dying out as he followed the others downstairs.

I jerked around in my seat, checking for signs of life in the street.

Not even a meandering cat.

One by one, the lights in the house went out.

My hands went to the car controls, but grasped at nothing.

A glance down sent me into a frenzy of panic.

It was all black.

The porchlight came on, snapping me out of my daze.

Hello?

The blood in my veins froze.

Hello?

Will you join our party?

There was a bristling noise below, and I realized my foot was dragging through the grass on the lawn.

Even now, I wonder if I was actually touching the ground.

There was a soft click.

The porch door to the house had opened.

My memory holds just brief snippets of the minutes that followed.

One is sprinting to the inside lights forming a beacon in my car.

Next, twisting the key in the ignition and throwing it into third by mistake and miraculously not stalling.

I don't know how long I spent racing around Tamwood Oak, but I can tell you my foot didn't inch off the accelerator before I was on the motorway.

I barely watched the road that night.

My eyes, all the while, were on the rearview mirror.

The laughter followed me all the way to the village edge and stayed between my ears for weeks afterwards.

You won't see Tamwood Oak in the news.

Not much worth mention occurs there.

It's a quiet little village that pays its respects to the fallen in battle.

And the strawberries, I'm told, are the sweetest you'll ever try.

If curiosity delves deep inside you and drags you towards London, you may well come across it.

The story you're currently reading could feed a darkness within you.

The urge to see for yourself the maniacal scenes I witnessed may prove too much.

Carry with you my warning:

I have never been back to Tamwood Oak.

I'm sure that if I did, the Sunshine Men would be waiting for me.

Our phone lines have been cut.

The cell signals are lost.

But we will return to delve into your darkest hang-ups when the calls will be coming from inside your house.

The No Sleep Podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media.

The musical store was composed by Brandon Boone.

Our production team is Phil Mikolski, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornett, and Claudius Moore.

Our editorial team is Jessica McAvoy, Ashley McInauley, Ollie A.

White, and Kristen Semito.

To discover how you can get even more sleepless horror stories from us, just visit sleepless.thenosleeppodcast.com to learn about the Sleepless Sanctuary.

Ad-free extended episodes each week, and lots of bonus content for the dark hours, all for one low monthly price.

On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for taking our nightmarish calls.

This audio program is copyright 2024 and 2025 by Creative Reason Media Inc.

All rights reserved.

The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.

No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc.

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