NoSleep Podcast - Sleepless Decompositions Vol. 18

Repression

Deep composition

Greetings, sleepless listeners, and welcome to Sleepless Decompositions, Volume 18.

I'm your host, David Cummings.

Season 22 of the No Sleep Podcast launches the weekend of December 1st.

And while we're composing ourselves for a new season, we're presenting two episodes of our Sleepless Decompositions series this week and next.

Tales that take us off the beaten path.

Tales that are offering up some decaying delights of horror.

On this episode, we have two tales which will captivate you.

You'll be so entranced by them that you may feel like you can't get away.

You're locked in with horror.

Hmm.

Just the way you like it.

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Now, dear friends, stop trying to escape.

Give in to the madness and brace yourself for these sleepless decompositions.

In our first tale, we're asking you to wait.

Please be as patient as you can.

We know it's annoying, frustrating, and even maddening to be stuck for so long, but

well, in this tale, shared with us by author Jonathan Hart, you'd better be content with the old magazines and the soft music being endlessly played because

you're going to be here a while.

Performing this tale are Zalivir Nelson Jr., Jeff Clement, Kyle Akers, Jessica McAvoy, Atticus Jackson, and Mike Delgadio.

So don't lose hope.

We're sure you'll eventually be able to leave the waiting room.

You are now in a room.

Here's a list of the room's features.

Above you is a white stucco ceiling.

Pale light flickers down from a recessed utility lamp.

There is a row of gray interconnected seats.

A single potted plant with pointed leaves, a painting of a man smiling, a long glass window running along the wall you face, with four divided desks on the other side.

You sit on one of the seats.

At the end of your row, a woman is sleeping.

She snores.

It is a quiet snore.

It is the only sound in the room.

A young man with a bow tie and combed hair sits down at the desk on the other side of the window.

He adjusts his bow tie, then his microphone.

This is encouraging.

You stand to approach him.

Hello?

There is no seat in front of the window.

This is not on the list of the room's features.

He smiles.

Your slight discomfort does not concern him.

In that moment, looking upon his smile, it does not concern you either.

Name?

You tell him.

Date of birth?

You tell him that too.

Address?

Yes.

Social security number?

A pause.

Then you tell him.

Mother's maiden name?

A license plate number?

Vehicle identification number?

You failed to provide that last one.

You have not memorized it.

You wonder if everyone else has their VIN memorized?

Perhaps you are stupid.

It's quite alright.

We'll just have to do a few more steps.

You've set up a security question with us.

Do you you remember the question and answer?

But both of them?

The first faint surge of panic arrives.

Can you just ask me the question?

If I set it up, I'll know the answer.

I see.

He does not frown.

You assume that he is trained not to.

In that case, we will give you a serial code to verify your identity.

Your number is 726-3109.

Please remember it.

Please sit down.

Wait, is that my code?

You wipe your left palm on your right sleeve, dampening it.

No, that is your number.

It will be called when it is your place in line.

Then we will give you the serial code, and you can use that to change your password.

Again, your number is 726-3109.

Do you have something I can write with?

His folded fingers turn white.

You know what this means.

You are becoming one of those customers.

You do not want to be one of those customers.

Yes.

One moment.

Please sit down.

A vein appears in his neck, then vanishes just as quickly.

You step back and sit down.

A minute passes.

Another minute passes.

A third minute passes.

Three hours pass.

At least.

You are not sure.

You wonder where the bathroom is.

You do not have to use the bathroom, but if you are going to wait like this, you will eventually need to use the bathroom.

The woman on the far end of your row is still snoring.

She has been snoring for these three hours and three minutes, you think.

You imagine strangling her.

That's a funny thought.

It's a serious one, of course, but you insist to yourself that it will be funny later.

You consider standing up and going back to the window without being called.

This, however, is a thing that one of those customers would do.

A robotic voice calls your name.

You stand up immediately.

You fast walk to the window.

There is no one on the other side.

The robotic voice repeats your name.

Yes?

We could not verify your identity.

Oh.

You assume that you should react more to this.

You do want to go home.

If they cannot prove who you are, they will not let you go home.

It sinks in at that point.

You want to go home.

Just to get out of this room.

Here is a keypad.

A keypad slides under the window.

Ten numbers including zero.

Thirteen buttons including pound, star, and enter.

Please enter your number.

You try very hard to think back to, probably, three hours and four minutes ago.

You fail.

I'm sorry, I thought I was going to be given something to write down the number.

There's a 34-second pause.

You count.

You imagine that counting seconds gives you some modicum of control.

It helps.

I see.

Please hold.

Can I sit down?

The robot voice transforms into repetitive jazz music.

It loops every 18 seconds.

You count this.

You discover that it is not actually 18 seconds, it is 18 and a half.

If you were a genius, you would use this to count the time.

But the music makes it harder to do this.

You were estimating the time pretty well before the music.

The music begins to screech randomly, transforming into a whine of one microphone over another.

No one corrects this.

A cheerful man's voice interps the jazz.

Hello.

Your call is very important to us.

You should receive service in 27 minutes.

You like this 27 minutes.

It is a time limit.

You realize that for a moment you did not believe that they were ever going to get back to you.

You realize that you're crying.

But you won't tell them that you're crying.

That your feet hurt.

That you want to sit down.

That you cannot hear the sound from your seat and therefore cannot sit down.

Or that if they just turned up the volume, you would be able to sit down.

When a human voice finally comes on the line, you will control yourself

because you are not one of those customers.

Presumably, 27 minutes pass.

They must pass.

The voice comes again.

We are sorry.

Due to our new new system, longer than average wait times are common.

You should receive service in

39

minutes.

Your lip quivers.

Your hands are cold.

It no longer matters why you are here, because nothing matters as much as this sense of coldness that pulls out everything that has ever given you sadness and anger and makes it pale in comparison to this.

It pulses through you, a violent energy that makes you want to smash the window, tear down the picture, uproot the plant, and smack it again against the face of the sleeping one.

Not to harm any of them, but just so that you will matter.

You need to pace.

You imagine yourself pacing, taking deep, blowing breaths that expel heat from your body.

You cannot actually do it in this semi-public place, but you imagine.

A new robot voice takes over.

Hello.

Listen closely as our options have changed.

Or

The robot voice continues through French, Cantonese, Japanese.

It isn't in alphabetical order, or any order at all, but there can only be nine or ten if the zero button counts.

It's fine.

But no.

It continues to 11, to 12.

Increasingly exotic languages, none of them English.

Your focus wavers.

For English.

You freeze.

It continues on to another language.

For English, they listed the number first.

You were not paying attention.

It is your fault.

The voice continues.

You do not even know of the names of the languages it lists next.

This is also your fault.

You are dumb.

You are ignorant.

You let it finish.

The list starts over.

It's 47.

4,

7.

Then pound for English.

There's a 3-second pause.

If you are calling for help with our appliances, press 1 now.

If you are calling for help with our car services, press 2.

If you are calling for...

It goes on.

Every type of product.

Whatever can be sold.

You do not have a product.

You want to know how to get out.

There was no door on the the list of features of the room.

Didn't you notice?

There is no door.

You wait for it, for press number for help leaving the room.

The voice reaches nine.

It continues.

You want to conjure back the nice young man.

That human voice, one which will understand.

The woman at the end of the row snores.

Perhaps you will never wake up.

For the first time, you you consider killing yourself.

How would you do it?

For all other concerns, press 026 now.

Followed by.

You start typing before they finish.

The tones of your button presses interrupt them, and then there is silence.

Wait.

Did they mean followed by star or followed by pound?

You assume pound.

You press it.

We're sorry.

This is not a valid request.

Please listen to our options again.

You press it.

0, 2, 6, star.

We're sorry.

This is not a valid request.

Please listen to our options again.

0,

2, 6, star.

Enter.

We're sorry.

We require you to listen to all of our options before making a selection.

So you wait.

You wait as it goes over the entire list again.

You were right, by the way.

It was 026 star enter.

You press it with a victorious gasp.

This will route you to a human.

It has to.

Thank you.

We are putting you through to a representative now.

Yes.

Please.

Yes.

Your estimated wait time is

five years,

twenty days, nine hours, and fifty-three

minutes.

The jazz music starts again.

That inner, all-consuming coldness returns and overtakes you.

And then it reverses into pure heat, flames from the inside out.

You punch the window.

It does not break.

Or crack.

Your knuckles shatter, splitting off from each other like bloody firecrackers.

Pain pulses up your arm.

You welcome this, because it is a feeling.

The woman at the end of the row snores.

Your gaze shoots to the plant.

You run to it.

You grab it.

Dirt spills freely across the floor as you sprint to the window.

The woman snores.

The music transforms to a whine.

You smash the pot against the window.

The window does not crack, but the pot does.

More dirt spills.

You smash it again.

Again.

Again.

The pot shatters open and dirt spills across you.

Your hands, the floor.

The woman snores.

She snores.

She snores.

The dirt is getting into the bloody wounds of your hands.

It stings.

It joins the sensation sensation of that thing in your lungs tearing at you, that coldness.

The woman snores.

You run to the painting of the man.

He is smiling.

He is smiling at you.

He designed this system for you because he hated you.

You try to believe that you matter enough to be hated.

You pull the painting off the wall, then smash it across the snoring woman's head.

She does not wake.

She is not even injured.

You hit her three more times.

The painting breaks, and still, she does not respond.

You fall away into a corner, grabbing at yourself to prove that you are still here.

An hour passes.

Five hours.

A year passes, you think.

Six years, what must be six years, pass.

They do not call you.

They extend your weight.

Eight times.

At some point, you attempt to strangle yourself.

You do not breathe for ten hours and continue to live.

You pull at the snoring woman's skin and finally manage to form a gash in her stomach.

Still, she snores.

You stretch this wound open.

You climb inside of the snoring woman through the gap in her body that you have made.

You wait there.

Her snores mean something.

At any given moment, she will either be snoring or not snoring.

This is the only difference from one moment to another that is left.

Soon, it is the only one that you ever remember experiencing.

Ten years pass.

Twenty years pass.

Thirty years pass.

A hundred years pass.

It passes.

Passes.

Passing.

Thank you for your patience.

Your call is very important to us.

A representative will be on the line as soon as possible.

What does Zen really give you?

Not just hands-free nicotine satisfaction, but also real freedom.

Freedom to do what you love, when and where you want.

And with Zen Rewards, you'll unlock even more of what you love.

Simply redeem codes to earn points toward premium tech, outdoor gear, and gift cards to your favorite retailers, all waiting for you in the largest reward store of its kind.

Why try Zen Rewards?

Because it offers more than just premium items.

Zinn Rewards unlocks access to exclusive experiences, promotions, and perks you won't find anywhere else.

And like any journey, our reward store evolves with fresh, new items every season.

So you can always find something for your next adventure.

Keep finding the freedom to enjoy more with Zen Rewards.

Find your Zen and explore everything our reward store has to offer at zinn.com/slash rewards.

Warning.

This product contains nicotine.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

In our final tale, we meet Neil, a police officer in a rough situation.

Disoriented, lost, with no memory of how he got there.

Even his partner is missing.

A dire circumstance, to be sure.

But in this tale, shared with us by author Simon Bleekin, Neil starts to understand what's going on.

Only the scant answers only seem to make matters worse.

Performing this tale are Jake Benson, Reagan Tacker, and Erica Sanderson.

So keep looking for clues.

Like Neil, you may find some in a world behind glass.

I awoke on cold concrete to the shadows and silence of a frosty starlit alleyway.

Rows of derelict buildings flanked me, boarded up windows and doors that offered no clue to my location.

These were homes and businesses no longer, merely crumbling shelves filled with dust and fading memories, clad in scrolls of cryptic graffiti.

Around me, broken glass sparkled like frozen tears.

I staggered to my feet like some old drunk, sickly disoriented, pressing a hand against my pulsing temple until the world settled and my eyes focused.

Nothing was familiar.

A quick check of my duty belt revealed my radio was missing.

So was my baton, my handcuffs, flashlight and CS spray.

And even my watch was gone.

And my uniform was filthy, torn and streaked with dirt.

Didn't even know how any of that had happened.

Everything was...

fragmented, like a reflection in a shattered mirror.

My last clear memories were of climbing into the car alongside my partner, but that was back at the start of our patrol.

At first, everything had been normal, a routine sweep around the park and red light districts, checking all the usual haunts for those who tried to stay off a radar.

And then...

the memories just ended.

Jeff?

I realized I had no idea where my partner was either.

I looked around helplessly, squinting into unyielding blackness, only to catch a glimpse of my own reflection in a surviving window pane.

My face was pale, like some disembodied spectre in the gloom.

There was a bruise beneath my right eye, a cut to my lip, and the collar of my shirt had a long smear of blood in it.

Then my heart lurched as a second face appeared beside mine.

It took me a moment to realise it was somebody on the other side of the glass.

He couldn't have been more than 20, eyes wide and lips curled back in terror.

His face was smudged with grime, his his body shaking as he gulped down anxious breaths.

The outline of his skull was visible beneath his gaunt, malnourished skin.

He wore a filthy red sweater, worn through at the elbows and frayed into tattered threads around the wrists, and a pair of old jeans that looked held together by dirt.

He was speaking, or trying to, but no sound reached me.

It's all right.

I'm a police officer.

He pressed a shaking hand against the glass, his eyes locking onto mine for a moment before he turned and darted out of sight.

Hey!

Wait!

I felt compelled to help him, though I couldn't say why.

I think perhaps for that one fleeting second, he was the only thing that felt vaguely familiar, though I had no recollection of ever having seen him before.

There was a narrow gap where one of the window boards had been kicked inwards.

I wriggled through, against procedure and common sense.

mindful of the broken glass in the edges of the frame.

In the deeper darkness, I squinted to make sense of the space until my eyes adjusted.

It felt colder here, the balmy night of the alleyway shifting into a strange autumnal chill, and there was a curiously stale quality to the air.

Moving through an open doorway and down a short corridor, I emerged atop a flight of narrow concrete steps that stretched down 20 feet into some kind of long, gloomy storeroom.

complete with heavy rows of rotting shelves and three sagging desks.

There was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

The flickering yellow light it cast was noxious and sickly.

I pressed a hand over my mouth as I started down.

The whole place reeked of dampness and mold, as if it had been shut up and rotten for decades.

I stopped after just a few steps, suddenly overcome by a sharp sense of crippling terror that churned my stomach, turned my legs to jelly and set my nerves screaming.

I was no stranger to hostile situations.

In my line of work, it was a nightly reality.

But this place crawled under my skin and raised the hairs on my neck and arms in a way that felt utterly alien.

There was a numinous, palpable fear that seemed to exude from those walls and the steps beneath my feet.

It coiled in my gut like a greasy serpent.

On top of that, the air felt heavy and suffocating.

I know why I kept going.

That's a question I've been asking myself a lot.

I think it was only because the man in the red sweater had seemed so oddly and maddeningly familiar.

I needed answers.

And this was the only way he could have gone.

I was halfway down those steps, my heart racing when I realised it was somebody slumped in a grimy office chair ten feet below me.

They were facing away from me towards a battered set of towering metal doors that were thick with rust.

Hello?

The dim, obscuring flicker of the horrible yellow bulb lay between me and the figure, so it wasn't until I neared the last step that I could make anything out clearly.

Only then did the lighting give up its secrets.

The blood pooling at the feet of the individual, the ragged white shirt with black epaulets.

Then I noticed the stab vest he was wearing.

Just like mine.

It was Jeff.

I ran to him, fighting back a sickened panic.

He was alive, barely, but not conscious.

His skin was yellow and puffy, lips drawn back from his teeth.

Strings of drool oozed from between his locked jaws.

His chest rose and fell shallowly with a laboured wheeze, but when I waved a hand in front of his face, those glassy eyes didn't move.

Blood was pooling around his left foot from a deep laceration in his side that had slashed through his stab vest.

It didn't look like a knife wound, though.

Something more savage and less clean.

Jeff!

I checked his belt, but his radio was missing too.

I'll get help, I promised, not even sure he could hear me.

You can't.

I know you won't remember, but you can't.

I span around to find the young man in the filthy sweater standing a few feet away.

He was trying to shrink into the shadows in the far corner, his face a mask of anguish.

He looked so lost, so terrified, but all the same, fury surged within me.

Did you do this?

He shook his head.

He died for you.

He just hasn't been collected yet.

He's not dead.

He flinched.

They'll hear.

Who?

Who else is down here?

He pressed his back against the wall, his eyes wide.

He was shaking.

At the sight of his terror, my anger ebbed.

It was obvious he hadn't done this.

We have to be quiet.

He shot a fearful glance at the doors.

They'll kill us.

I held out my hands and lowered my voice.

Okay,

listen.

What's your name?

Lee.

Right, now listen to me, Lee.

We need to get help, and you need to tell me what happened here.

You won't get out.

Not this time.

Is that a threat?

There was a low metallic rumbling, and the tall metal doors started to shake, as if somebody was pounding their fists on the other side.

Who's out there?

No, don't.

A look of deepening terror spread over Lee's face, but it was too late.

In response to my words, the assault on the door grew louder and more savage.

It sounded as if an angry mob were now hammering against it, all punching and kicking against the metal as they tried to force their way inside.

The tarnished handles also rattled furiously, and the metal panels groaned as they bent inwards.

What the hell?

Lee gave a choked gasp and dropped to the floor, crawling into the shadows under one of the ancient shelves.

But what?

Just do it.

The doors burst inwards, buckling and twisting as if some intense pressure had slammed into them and ripped them from from the hinges.

I threw myself to the floor and like Lee scrabbled underneath a heavy shelf on the opposite wall.

I was larger than he was, only just able to squeeze beneath.

I curled up in the darkness as best I could.

When I looked back out, I saw something moving in the fractured heart of that shadowed space.

I had expected a furious mob to come pouring in, but instead...

Only a single figure stood in the doorway.

It wasn't a man, though.

It wasn't even human.

It was black against the shadows and it shifted rather than walked.

A splintered, fragmented outline, almost as if its body were a churning mass of jagged shards.

I held my breath as it drew closer.

A silent predator slipping past the buckled doors, its approach otherwise undetectable.

I felt an unaccountable sense of heart-wrenching despair sweep through me as it entered the room, as though its presence was drawing all the warmth, hope, and life out of me.

It moved towards Jeff and I knew that I should do something.

The hollow desolation that ran through me seemed to suck all the energy and will from my limbs.

I lay curled in the shadows on that cold damp floor, watching as it reached out with shifting shards that were not quite arms and clamped them to either side of Jeff's head.

My partner bucked and spasmed as if he'd received an electric shock.

A low, soft moan burst from his lips and his hands clamped onto the arms of the chair, the knuckles white and bloodless.

His eyes bulged as his flesh went from pale to grey, as if the last of his vitality was being leeched from his physical form.

His lips withered, his cheeks sinking inwards beneath those glassy eyes, and his whole body seemed to be collapsing in on itself.

The thing that held him was motionless now, yet still the thousands of shards comprising its form continued to shift and move across it.

Now, hurry.

Lee scrambled from his hiding place and darted through the open doorway, gesturing for me to follow.

For a moment, I could only stare.

Quickly, before it finishes.

That broke whatever paralysis held my limbs, and I fled after him, my head spinning and blind panic guiding my feet.

In the darkness of the cold passageway beyond, I almost lost sight of Lee.

Then I spotted his filthy red sweater as he he turned the corner up ahead, momentarily spotlighted by another flickering light.

I followed him as if he were a lifeline in that insane place.

But instead of guiding me to safety, we descended deeper into a maze of maddening impossibilities.

We plunged through claustrophobic hallways and down clanging metal staircases before emerging into a wide, moonlit room with filthy windows and heaped piles of discarded furniture.

Lee had paused here to catch his breath, and I half fell, half leaned against the wall as my confusion and horror caught up with me.

Jeff was dead.

The realization brought a sickening burst of guilt.

I had abandoned him, let that creature suck the life out of him.

I hadn't even tried to stop it.

I sat heavily on one of the desks, dimly aware that Lee was watching me now, probably guessing the maelstrom of thoughts and emotions churning in my skull and cramping my stomach.

I wiped trembling, sweating hands on my legs, trying to steady myself.

What's going on?

What the hell was that

thing back there?

There was nothing you could have done.

I felt sick to my stomach, nauseous shame rising like bile in my throat.

What was it?

I don't know exactly.

There are a few of them in here.

I don't know how many.

Learn to sense when they're near.

Sometimes they make this clicking like...

claws on stone.

But they also bring despair, crippling waves of it, as if all the suffering and anguish of the lives they've swallowed travel with them.

Best I can tell, they're like broken collections of forgotten dreams given life.

What does that even mean?

They're kind of like starved vampires.

They drain everything from inside you, all the hope and experiences, all the memories and knowledge, all the love and goodness.

They're the ones that will hunt you anyway.

But they aren't the only things in here.

What other kind of things are they?

Monsters mostly.

Things that just don't belong anywhere else.

For a moment I just stared at him.

Nothing in my training or experience had prepared me for this.

Not any of the armed thugs, drug dealers, drunken or abusive domestic incidents or terror threats I had faced.

Those things were expected, anticipated almost, even if you hoped you'd never have to deal with them.

But silent monsters made a despairing shadow.

How could anyone be ready to face something that shouldn't have been possible?

I don't think it followed us.

We can rest here.

For a while, anyway.

I walked to the window, needing some air.

It was sealed shut.

I pressed my forehead against the grimy glass.

Took me a second to realize what was wrong, but when I did, I blinked in surprise at the sight of large ships berthed in a dock.

with cranes and faultless busily unloading cargo down below.

We were nowhere near the docks.

We are now.

I don't recognize that city, though.

It's London, obviously.

He shrugged.

Is it?

I've never been there.

We're in London right now.

He gave me an appraising glance.

Guess that explains your accent in that weird cop uniform.

Look, you might have started in London, but this place isn't just any one location.

It's sort of everywhere, all at once.

It's like we've managed to slip down behind the sofa cushions of the world.

You need to start making some sense.

Look, I already told you all this last time.

You both got trapped like everyone else in this place.

Jeff gave his life for you.

That's how you got out.

That's the only way out.

Someone has to pay for you to leave.

I don't remember any of that.

They say this place keeps itself hidden.

It steals our memories of when we escape, though.

I often wondered how anyone could know that.

But they must be right, or why else would you go and crawl right back in here after you only just got out?

I got out?

Yes.

You were supposed to try and get help.

You don't remember any of it, though.

I crawled in here through a broken window.

That means there are ways in and out.

You'll never find it again.

Trust me.

I shook my head defiantly.

There are all these windows right here.

We can smash them and climb out.

There's bound to be a fire escape.

The glass won't break.

It never does.

I've even seen guys shooting at it.

There's only one way out.

It costs a life.

How can you know any of this?

He sighed, and I wondered how many times he had told the same story to disbelieving strangers.

Like I said before, I ran into a guy once, down in one of the old tunnels.

He said his name was Albert.

He looked about my age, but all skin and bones, you know, like one of those famine victims on TV.

He told me he'd been here since 1911.

He reckoned the only way out was for a willing soul to die for you.

He never said how he knew that, but he said he'd seen others who got out, though fewer and fewer as time went on.

Bullshit.

It's just glass.

Oh, and that creature back there, was that all bullshit, too?

Lee glared.

Go right ahead.

You won't believe me till you've tried.

Nobody ever does.

I was determined to prove him wrong.

If I could do that, I could make the world make sense again.

But Lee was right.

Although the glass looked old and thin, nothing I threw at it so much as chipped or cracked it.

I even tried kicking the panes out, stopping only when I almost broke toes in the process.

Lee folded his arms.

See?

You'd better tell me everything

you know.

Everything I've forgotten anyway.

Not now.

We've made too much noise here.

We'd better keep going.

They're probably coming.

We left the office and found ourselves at a crossroads of narrow hallways that looked like they belonged to some ancient hospital.

I waited as he carefully checked left and right and then decided on going straight ahead.

You know the way?

There really isn't one, but if you stay away from the darker places, you're usually okay.

It's just all it is.

Endless corridors and derelict rooms.

It keeps changing, shifting.

None of it's ever in the same place twice.

There are old train stations, tenements, hotel lobbies, alleyways, and tunnels.

You name it, and it's here.

It goes on and on, but it's all dingy and run down.

There's even a massive stairwell somewhere that goes down for miles.

It's as if every forgotten or abandoned place exists here.

Forgotten people, too.

All those who fell through the cracks of the world we came from.

We emerged at the top of a large metal ladder and carefully made our way down, descending through the thick miasmal air into the shifting shadows of that oppressive place.

Here in this forgotten realm where everything was old and decaying, where sounds seemed flat and hollow, where the senses were muted and where the spark of vitality had been leached from all things, we moved with all the substance of a memory.

I thought about what Lee had told me, about the withered man who'd been in here since 1911, and as reality sank in the dusty kiss of eternity pressed close were we doomed to slowly fade away like a photograph left in the sunlight until we were too old and weak to evade the things stalking these echoing halls i peered into the dark openings of grimy tunnels that flanked us as we pressed on trying to keep my mind from my thoughts and fears wish i had my torch Keep what's yours real close to you in here.

This place will find a way to take it from you otherwise.

I thought of my missing equipment and my fragmented memories.

They all in here too somewhere.

Is there any food?

I loot the dead when I find them.

They sometimes still have things they brought in with them.

Food, clothes.

You gotta be quick though.

This place soon takes what's left.

There are plenty of bugs and crawlies.

I guess they wandered in like we did, then found a way to breed.

At least something's thriving.

How long have you been here?

Feels like forever sometimes.

I thought of Karen, who would be sleeping right now, waiting for me to come home.

The thought that I might never see her again.

Hold her.

Talk to her.

I pushed it from my mind.

So what do we do now?

Keep moving.

Quietly.

And so we did.

I quickly learned what Lee had meant about us being in an ever-changing maze.

One section led randomly into the next with no flow of form or function between them.

There were endless warrens of concrete utility tunnels branching off in every direction, grimy storerooms filled with rotting boxes and wide sheets of cobweb, a dizzying maze of crumbling atriums and even ancient offices, whose desks still had old-fashioned typewriters sitting amidst a sea of dust and detritus.

Some rooms were so dark that we had to feel our way carefully and blindly, and others were lit by flickering electric lights caked with grime or occasionally by moonlight streaming in through ancient windows that gave tormenting glimpses of the outside world.

Hours slid slowly into days, and those days meandered off into a haze.

It very quickly became apparent to me how meaningless life was in this strange prison.

Aside from whispered conversation when it seemed safe enough, there was little else to break the long stretches of time.

We spent the next week or so walking aimlessly through a randomly changing landscape of crumbling rooms rooms and musty staircases, creeping like mice afraid of attracting the attention of a stalking cat.

Occasionally, we saw other people too, as filthy and as disheveled as we must have appeared, but only ever quick flashes as they docked away into the shadows, fleeing from us as though we were as dangerous as the inhuman things that hunted us.

Nobody trusts anyone.

Too many people just take what they need down here.

Doesn't sound too different to the outside world.

Guess that means you took a chance on us before.

back before I forgot everything.

Thanks for that.

Yeah, I'm still trying to decide if that was a mistake.

Come on.

We'd best keep going.

We were always hungry, and food was scarce.

We slept where and when we could, usually curled up, hidden under some ancient and collapsing furniture.

There was no way to know exactly how much time had passed, or if it was day or night.

With no washing or toilet facilities, I soon soon felt itchy, unclean, and decidedly ripe.

But Lee assured me I'd stop noticing or caring in time.

The curious thing was that my beard and fingernails hadn't grown since I had arrived.

Maybe we're dead, I suggested, giving voice to a fear that had been whispering in my head for a few days now.

Pretty shitty afterlife, if so.

It's more like our bodies are on hold here, cut off from the normal flow of the world out there.

He caught the look on my face.

Listen, if you're looking for this place to make any kind of sense, don't.

It has its own rules.

We stopped that night next to a wide bank of windows.

I promised to take the first watch to let Lee get some sleep, but my curiosity got the better of me.

I set to work cleaning a spot on the window so I could look out.

The dirt was so thick it took ten minutes of polishing and scraping before I could see anything.

My heart lurched at the sight of a city beyond the glass, the dim lights of cars in the distance, and again I was seized by a mad compulsion to try smashing those windows.

Instead, I pressed my back to the glass, the view too painful to look at anymore, and slipped my wedding ringer from my finger, turning it slowly in my hands.

Karen's voice echoed in my memories.

I knew the risks when I married you, Neil.

I thought I was okay with it.

Aren't you?

You're not the one who has to sit at home wondering if you're coming back?

Or lie awake at night trying to sleep sleep worrying if this is the night the phone rings or I get a knock at the door.

I know it was difficult at first

I thought you'd got used to it.

I never have

I said what you wanted to hear because I know how much you love the job But it's tough Most people go to work and only worry about missing the bus or a deadline for a report.

I sit here and worry if I'm gonna be a widow by 30 It is not that bad.

Why'd you wear that stab vest every night then?

You know I'm careful.

I know.

But sometimes bad things happen anyway.

You just have to switch on the news these days and there's something terrible happening.

I can't lose you.

You won't.

I promise.

My shoulders shook as I struggled to hold back the tears that now cut a clean path through my dusty face.

I curled my fingers into my palms until I felt the skin break, squeezing my fists as tightly as I could, drawing a strange strength from the pain.

It reminded me that I was alive, and as long as I still drew breath, I could keep fighting to get back to Karen and the world on the other side of that maddeningly impregnable barrier.

When I opened my eyes again, Lee was watching me.

I felt a sudden wave of shame at having been caught crying.

I bit my tongue.

wanting him to go away.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he moved across the room and began watching the hallway.

We set off the next day in an awkward silence after several sleepless hours.

Lee took the lead and I slouched along behind like a tightly coiled spring of fury and grief, desperately needing some outlet to vent my frustrations, but having none to hand.

I wasn't stupid enough to take my rage out on Lee or to risk making too much noise by trying to find some old furniture to smash.

So I brooded quietly, trying to push painful memories out of my head and finding it full of nothing else.

I was so preoccupied with trying to escape the ghosts of memories that it took me a moment to realize Lee had stopped halfway down a set of wide concrete steps that opened out into the next room.

Floor is flooded.

The room was vast, with a ceiling that stretched 30 or 40 feet overhead.

The floor was lost beneath a pool of foul-smelling stagnant water.

But the surrounding walls were covered in rotten shelves that ran high up along the walls.

Rustin filing cabinets rose like strange islands beneath them, and lying atop a cluster of these was a young girl, dressed in a ragged school uniform with a small satchel at her side.

She couldn't have been more than 12, her dark hair tied in a ponytail.

It looked to me like she had been climbing the top of the shelving to navigate the room and had fallen, breaking her neck.

Jesus.

She might have food in her bag.

Lee crept down the steps to to the edge of the water.

I looked at him in horrified disgust.

You want to steal from a dead child?

You want to starve?

As revolting as the prospect was, I knew he was right.

The rotten shelving was a death trap, and I knew there was no way it would take my weight.

The flooded patch of floor looked shallow enough, so I took off my shoes, rolled up my trouser legs, and decided to risk wading.

Lee grabbed my arm as I edged past him.

No, not through the water.

I shrugged him off.

It's the safest way.

That shelving won't hold us.

The foul water numbed my feet with a greasy chill as I stepped into it.

It stank like decaying flesh, and a series of large bubbles burst the surface as I started wading, stirring up whatever thick sediment lay below.

The bottom of the pool was uneven, and several times my foot sank deeper than I had expected, often going higher than my knees.

I cut my hand over my mouth, fighting back a dry heave.

Come back!

I ignored him.

I was almost halfway, and already my stomach was aching with the hope that there might be food in that satchel.

There's something under the water.

I froze at that warning, and my heart lurched as I spotted the grey outline of something large and serpent-like gliding just beneath the surface a little way ahead.

I sucked in a sharp intake of breath as it swam past me less than a foot away, sending gentle ripples across the surface.

Cautiously, I took slow steps back.

My pulse was racing.

One more step brought me just a few feet from the edge where Lee waited.

Without warning, my leg plunged into the foul liquid up to my thigh.

I lost my balance, crashing sideways into the pool and going fully under.

I broke the surface quickly, coughing and blinking.

But the thing in the water was faster.

Something slimy and muscular coiled around my neck and torso, dragging me under again.

I thrashed wildly in a blind panic, my fingers clawing at the leathery, unseen thing, slowly constricting like a noose around my throat.

White spots erupted behind my eyes and my lungs burned for air.

Not like this.

Not like this, please.

My frantic hands dug into the scales of the serpent, clawing desperately.

I felt his jaws climb onto my arm, two boned daggers slicing through my shirt, puncturing my flesh.

I grabbed at it in a wild frenzy, my fingers gouging into what felt like eyes.

For a moment it coiled even more tightly about me, and I knew the last of my air was leaving my burning lungs.

Then one of those eyes burst beneath my fingers like a ripe grape, and it released me.

I thrust my head above the surface, frantically trying to gulp down air and cough out water at the same time.

The serpent slithered away under the surface, thrushing and coiling.

Lee plunged in beside me and grabbed my arm, hauling me to the edge of the pool.

Shit.

We scrambled onto the concrete steps, soaked, shivering, and terrified.

I fought to get my breath back, unable to argue.

Those fangs had shredded my sleeve just below the shoulder, leaving two deep puncture wounds.

I touched the skin around them with a wince.

Fix it up later.

Too much noise.

We hurried through half a dozen rooms and countless twisting hallways, choosing intersections blindly, constantly listening for sounds of pursuit.

Our soaked bodies were numb and frozen, but we didn't dare stop.

The normally silent hallways echoed with sounds of strange clicking, like claws against stone.

They weren't upon us yet, but we knew they were closer than we liked.

After what felt like hours of scurrying through shadows, we found ourselves in an old hospital ward.

strewn with yellowed patient notes and overturned rotting mattresses.

The sounds of pursuit had abated about half an hour earlier, so we agreed to rest.

We started a small fire in a metal waste bin, huddling around it in the hopes of getting warm and dry.

My arm was getting worse.

The wound wet to yellow fluid, and the skin around it was purple and puffy.

Is that infected?

Poisoned, I think.

I need a hospital.

A real one.

This dump is as close as you're getting.

Get some sleep.

I shivered and hugged my wounded arm close to my chest.

My heart was racing and my head was swimming.

Maybe there's some old supplies here that...

You still don't get it, do you?

Everything here's dead.

Rotten.

There's no supplies.

There's nothing.

The only stuff that's any good is what folks bring in with them, and that doesn't last long here.

Lee insisted I get first sleep that night.

I think he was as worried as I was about the poison in my arm.

I lay there, unable to sleep, watching him pace anxiously.

All I could think about was home and the wife I might never see again.

I could feel the poison spreading, like fire coursing through my veins.

I was certain that sleep was going to elude me, but the next thing I knew was Lee shaking me awake.

Your turn to keep watch.

I felt a sudden burst of panic as I realized the swelling had spread down into my hand and up into my shoulder.

It's getting worse.

I rasped through a throat that felt full of broken glass.

I I got some water left.

I need to get to a hospital.

Good luck with that.

I mean it.

This is serious.

I have to get out.

He understood then.

Don't go getting any ideas.

I'm not dying for you.

I want to get out too.

I have a wife.

You should have thought of her before you crawled back in here then.

I came to help you!

If you really want to help me, give yourself to those things so I can get out.

Look at you, you're screwed.

No sense in us both dying.

In that second,

I hated him.

Was it selfish to expect a man to die for you?

Or was it wrong to hate him for wanting to live when you yourself desired only the same thing?

Something gave way within me.

The longing for home and the woman I loved had become a secret obsession, and I realized how much I had come to resent Lee.

He had nobody who missed him, no relatives or loved ones who were wondering where he was.

He only wanted to get home to carry on with his lonely life.

In that instant, with the poison spreading through my veins, the weight of the torment finally became too much for me.

If Lee wasn't going to offer me a way home, then I was gonna take it from him.

Something in my expression must have given the game away, for he tried to step away as I lunged for him.

We fell backwards against a rotting table, crashing to the floor in a cloud of dust.

He punched and squirmed as I locked my hands around his throat, finally succeeding in driving a knee up between my legs.

I gasped with the sudden pain and he wriggled from my grasp.

I tackled him back to the ground, fighting past his flailing fists and kneeling on his legs to pin him down.

It was easier than I expected, even with the agony in my arm.

He was so malnourished he simply lacked the strength to fend me off.

From the corridor just outside, we heard a skittering sound.

The door to the room trembled and then shook.

I'm sorry.

I locked my hands around his throat and squeezed.

He tried to claw at my face, but I twisted my head away.

His eyes were wide and bulging, and his lips were moving, but only a garbled wheeze escaped them.

It sounded like he was trying to say, please, and tears stung my eyes as guilt raced through me.

But the panic was stronger.

The shadows were coming and I needed to get home, whatever the cost.

His face contorted as my fingers tightened, turning red and then to a bloodless blue hue as his body bucked furiously.

He almost threw me off twice, but I dug my knees in and gripped as hard as I could.

His hands poured ineffectually at my face and chest, but there was no fight left in him.

He grabbed my shirt with what little strength remained, scattering buttons across the floor.

Then his hands just...

let go and slipped down.

His body thrashed twice more and then fell still.

His eyes were frozen, open.

I couldn't bear to look into him.

I crawled away from him, tears pouring down my face and my whole body trembling.

I knew I was a traitor to everything I believed in.

The door to the room burst open and a horribly familiar figure stepped inside.

The jagged form turned as if surveying the scene, the broken shards that comprised the body churning around the the central mass like orbiting debris.

I crawled into the shadows, trying to make myself as small and insignificant as possible.

As the figure stood over Lee's corpse and clamped the ends of its jagged hands to either side of the dead man's head, the lingering traces of Lee's essence were drawn up into the slender body of the inhuman presence.

I didn't stop to watch.

Instead, I ran from the room, half crazed, screaming, He died for me!

Do you hear?

He died for me!

Let me go!

But as I staggered down that long, empty hallway, I saw no doorways or windows to allow me to escape.

Nothing more.

Nothing but more shadows and darkly desolate rooms.

And it was in one of those rooms, far from the terrible sounds of those horrible monsters, that I collapsed in a heap and let the shame and grief pour out of me.

I am alone, lost amid these echoing eternities of emptiness and silent hallways of stale entropy.

What I did,

what I became,

sickens me.

I am no longer the same man that I was in the world outside.

I had a sense of morality once.

A belief that I was making the world safer.

This place has taken both.

Just as it swallowed my equipment and just as it swallowed Jeff and Lee.

In here, I am nothing.

Merely a ghost looking out on a world that I will never again be a part of.

Sometimes, I merely stand.

Whenever I find one of those rare windows that allows a view of our world, I pray for a glimpse of London.

My heart aches for home and the wonderful woman left behind there.

How long has it been?

How long since she held me in her arms, and I kissed those soft lips and looked into her beautiful brown eyes?

She must think me dead by now.

It hurts so badly sometimes, it's all I can do to keep from screaming.

But I've seen what patrols the halls in this strange place, and I know not to make too much noise.

The poison still infects my body.

My whole face has gone numb.

And I can barely open my mouth now.

My limbs are getting heavy, and I no longer move as quickly quickly as before.

On top of all that, I am always hungry.

And that has become a more maddening pain than the poison coursing in my veins.

Lee warned me that this place takes everything if you let it.

Soon, it will take me too.

But I haven't lost all hope.

Not yet.

You see, I found that room again.

The one with the dead girl.

It was just a random fluke, really.

But this time, I got hold of her satchel.

There wasn't any food in it.

There was something better.

Paper and a pen.

So I spent the last few hours writing down my story.

This story, as best as I can recall.

And I've put Karen's name and address at the top of it.

It is my confession.

My sins, failings and crimes laid bare.

It is my absolution too.

At least, I hope so.

Even if not, even if she can't forgive what I became here, at the very least she will know what happened to me.

I hope that makes it easier for her.

Not knowing that would be worse, right?

All I have to do is get it to her now.

I know I can get it outside, if I can just find a window with the right city in time.

And maybe then...

Or maybe someone will find it and get it to her.

That's my home.

The only one I have left.

That's my miracle.

Surely I'm owed that.

But I know at the very least, I can get my story outside into the world once more.

I'm giving my life for it.

As your time with us has come to an end and you can now finally escape these sleepless tales, we thank you for joining us here at the No Sleep Podcast for our sleepless decompositions.

Join us again next week as we decompose more tales for your nightmares.

The No Sleep Podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media.

The musical composer is Brandon Boone.

Our production team is Phil Michalski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett.

Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy.

I'm your host and executive producer, David Cummings.

Please visit thenosleeppodcast.com for show notes and more details about the people who bring you this show, along with hundreds of hours of audio horror stories in our archives.

On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening and for supporting our dark tales.

This audio program is Copyright 2024 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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