Nosleep Podcast #14

What's that sound? That's the sound of Downey Unstoppable scent beads going into your washing machine and giving your clothes freshness that lasts all day long. There it is again. It's like music to your ears or more like music to your nose. That freshness is irresistible. Let's get a Downey Unstoppable bottle shake. And now a sniff solo. Nice. With Downey Unstoppable, you just toss, wash, wow, for all-day freshness.

Through the murky darkness of the night, when fear banishes sleep, it's the No Sleep Podcast. Born from the nightmares of Reddit.com's No Sleep Forum. and featuring tales from reddits authors of horror we present you with tales intended to frighten and disturb and keep you awake as the night slowly creeps past.

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Our first tale is entitled Midnight in Kentucky. When you're low on gas on a lonely highway, a rest stop can be a welcome sight. unless the place makes it clear that you're anything but welcome there. This story was written by Joshua Starbringer and is read by Isla Chanuel.

There wasn't a soul on this parkway, not even a semi-driver. Both sides of the older highway were surrounded by steep shoulders and lined with tall, deciduous trees, which had shed their leaves by this time of year and only allowed their skeletal remains to be left behind. reaching into the cold, black sky lying with stars. There was no moon, so if I peered into the window long enough, I could make out the Milky Way in the southern sky.

There was absolutely nothing else on the highway, save for an exit every 20 miles to some state highway that led to nowhere, or the occasional rusted sign that exhibited the change of counties or label the small creek they'd tried to call a river.

I had driven about two hours, and I was only about 20 minutes from the interstate, which was quite a bit busier than the dead parkway I was driving on. The Honda was low on gas, and I knew there was a gas station just off the highway. It was a weird place for a gas station.

combined with some sort of food place or a rest stop of sorts, between the imposing lines of traffic right before the parkway ended at the interstate. Open 24 hours, always a stop on field trips from schools that were going somewhere. Been there all my life. I pulled off to the left ramp leading to the station. I thought it odd that I could see no lights. When I pulled up, the station was totally dark, like it was closed, but not abandoned.

There were no truck trailers under the station roofing, no semis in a lot, no cars pumping gas. But I pulled up anyway, hoping the pumps were still on and took credit, even if they weren't lit. The pump had no power to it. Its digital screens were dark, backlighting off, and plastic bags were over the pump handles, like the place was out of order. Great, I thought. They must be closed for repair or renovation or something.

and here I was with about a gallon left in the tank and 40 miles from the nearest gas station in either direction. I pulled out my old Nokia cell phone. Damn sprint. Their Kentucky coverage while I was in college was atrocious. and I didn't have any bars, even if I turned roaming on. I turned the car off and decided to wander around the lot for a signal, a sleeping trucker, or a powered pump.

It was a fairly large station, with dozens of both gas and diesel pumps and parking spaces for cars and trucks for the station. But my phone didn't give me luck. Neither did any light. There was absolutely nothing. There. Except for a black figure that just darted from the tree line on the freeway across the opposing lines of traffic and behind the station. I did a double take.

thinking I must have seen shadows from a car's headlights or some animal. But I knew in the back of my mind that even shadows wouldn't move that fast. Or have legs that could run on twos. I watched the station for several moments, but I didn't see anything else. I wandered back towards my car, still looking at my phone. No signal. Where the fuck did my car go? I knew.

I'd left it by pump number one, but there was nothing there. Not even an oil stain. I heard a sound in the silence of the station that sounded like something heavy creaking on a suspension system. Like a car that had just been lowered from a lift. I spun around, and there was my car, across the lot, at Pub 16. And the headlights were on, and the driver's door was open. I could hear the dinging from across the lot. It was so quiet.

I stopped. I must have been dreaming. I must have parked at number 16, since I was coming from the west instead of the east. That must have been it. I started back towards my car, and the driver's door shut with a slam. Luckily, it didn't lock, but it made my heart jump in my chest. I was getting a little nervous now, wondering if somebody else was here, playing some kind of sick...

joke. I eyed my car with some caution, but kept walking towards it. A black shadow ripped across the lot and leaped from the car into the back of the lot like a bounding deer, but I saw it dead on. It was human-shaped, with no discernible features. But even in the darkness of the inlet station, it was darker. I bolted for my car and locked the doors.

There must have not been much gas left in the tank because I couldn't start the car at first. Goddamn horror movie cliche. But then I realized why I wouldn't start. The car was in drive, a park. And for an instant, a huge wave of relief came over me as I shifted it into park and successfully started the engine. But horror gripped me like a cold vice when I realized I had left the car in park to begin with.

Whatever was here, I was having no more of it. I threw the car into drive and spun the poor Honda around, heading back onto the quiet parkway. I happened to notice the time. 12 a.m. Midnight. I came down the ramp and started passing the wrong way and do not enter signs. I realized I'd started going down the wrong way ramps onto the parkway.

Slammed on the brakes, backed up to the shoulder, and swung around towards the station, having to pass it to go back the way I wanted. It was still dark as ever, though there was a sense of foreboding as I passed it. I could have sworn I saw a pair of yellow, coyote-like eyes peering at me from inside the station, lit up by the headlights of my car like cat's eyes on the shoulder of the road at night. There was something black around them.

Black around those eyes. I heard a slow breathing start in my car. A breathing that was not my own. Damn it. It was coming from the back seat. I was more angry than scared. At least I caught sight of those yellow eyes in my rear. Shrouded in darkness, face of shadow. I nearly jumped out of my seat and swerved in the on-ramp, going back down the parkway. Fuck it, I thought.

If I run out of gas, at least I'll be on the interstate. That's what I thought until I got onto the parkway and the steering wheel started turning under its own power towards the steep shoulder. I instinctively pulled the wheel back and turned the car back towards the freeway lane. After a second or so, it clicked. Something was trying to control the car and forced me off the highway.

I hit the brakes and brought the car to a screeching halt on the shoulder. I threw the car in neutral, which was good, because the fucking engine began to rev off its own power, and as though the accelerator was stuck, which would have thrown me. I finally managed to stop the car, but left it running. All I could hear was the car's engine. I sat a moment, trying to get my bearings and breath. When I looked back up, the car was surrounded.

by shrouded black figures, looking at me like they were looking down into a casket at a funeral, again with no features. I didn't hesitate this time. I threw the car back in a drive and floored it. getting the Honda towards 90 miles per hour on that dark parkway. At least I'd attract police attention if anyone was out here. No one ever came after me, and the car finally started sputtering and running on fumes just as I entered the interstate.

where every few minutes at least a semi-truck was driving by. I got one of them to call the police for me, and a state trooper showed up about a half hour later with a gallon of gas. I thanked him profusely and asked about the rest stop back on the parkway.

if he knew why it was closed. He looked suspiciously at me and scratched his head, looking at me with his flashlight to see if I was on something. Ma'am, I was just there a half hour ago, and it was open, like it has been for the last 20 years. I think you best hit home for the night. I heeded his advice.

Our second tale is entitled The Sound. Modern electronics can mask unwanted sounds, but some sounds can be warnings that you should definitely heed. This story was written by April Edgreen and is read by Gil Duarte. It was such a normal night. Nothing had happened to prime me for what was about to occur. I've lived in my apartment for over a year and nothing even remotely scary has happened. Nothing even remotely scary has happened to me ever. No offense, but...

When I read ghost stories, I don't believe them. However, after this event, I think I'll be changing that preconceived notion. I was doing what I usually do on a Tuesday night. I was online, some Facebook, YouTube... Reddit and the little MMOs. I had a fan going in the living room because my apartment gets really hot for some reason. I live on the first floor and don't run the heater for the most part.

I kept hearing a weird sound within the white noise of the fan. Whenever I would stop what I was doing to listen, I wouldn't hear it. It was a small low sound that repeated itself three times before it would stop for a minute or two. I figured there was something in the fan motor or maybe emanating from a neighbor's apartment. Finally, I got up to get some water and switched the fan off to see if it was a fan itself. I waited, but the apartment was still.

I almost gave up and turned the fan back on when I heard it. The chill that ran through me is indescribable. What I heard was a small low growl. It repeated three times and ended in a weird breathing sound, as if the thing was having trouble drawing breath. It did this twice, then stopped. I just stood there, I didn't know what to do.

I was so afraid to move, so afraid that it would get me. The silence was almost as bad as the sound itself, and I nervously cleared my throat. The sound started again, and I jumped. It was coming from my bedroom, which was of course dark, and at the end of the dark hallway. I stared in that direction but was caught in the fear of actually seeing something. It sounded human and the frequency was weird and erratic.

I almost started to think it was a recording, but I was not about to go investigate. I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket to call my friend and heard a giggle. A little girl's giggle, then nothing. I think I stood there for half an hour before I could move. I slid open my phone to call when I heard the growl again. This time it was much lower, louder and longer. I think I whispered something like,

before the lights went out. I have never been in such a state of fight or flight before. My whole body was tingling and tense. Every hair was standing up and I was afraid my heart was going to stop. I shakily pressed a button on my phone to make the display light up so I could see where I was going. I had to get to my door so I could get as far away from here as possible. To say I was terrified was an understatement.

I turned my phone to point at the ground in front of me and there was a face cut in the glow of my display. It was a female with black eyes, long hair and a smile with way too many teeth. I turned and ran to where I thought my door was, searching in the dark for the doorknob. I could hear a weird shuffling behind me and again the small growl. It was getting closer and I searched more frantically.

My hand wrapped around the doorknob and I pulled it open just as I felt a tug on my pant leg. I was in the hallway and outside to my car before the door to my apartment closed. I turned on my car and was backing up before I caught a glimpse of the face in a very high part of my window. I never went back. I moved in with my friend and found another apartment. My friends got all my stuff out only when it was light. They never heard the story, but apparently, my face was enough.

The Hidden Chamber. Landscaping around the yard can be a tedious task, but when you unearth a hidden secret from the past, you'd best be prepared to stop. This story was written by Justin Williams and is read by Max Glaspie. A month ago, I decided to get started on my summer project of building a stone patio in my backyard. I live in a row home within a city, so my yard isn't large. It measures somewhere around 20 by 30 feet.

Because of the relatively small size, I thought the initial clearing work would be quick, but I had two problems. The first one I was already aware of, and that was that the previous owners must have been rip-roaring drunk when landscaping. as unruly bushes, sprawling trees, and random plants were placed almost arbitrarily throughout the yard. The second problem was that the ground was absolutely rife with bricks.

I couldn't take a shovel full of dirt without the frustrating and tiresome clank of metal striking one. It was exasperating and time-consuming, and the pile of bricks I unearthed grew quickly. After digging out the slight incline through the back of my yard, I moved towards the already level front portion. There, I discovered, was a rusted iron pipe rising out of the ground.

I hadn't noticed it initially because it had been behind a bunch of plants and tucked beside a fence post. There was about a foot of post sticking out of the ground, and there was no obvious reason for its existence. I suppose it was a ventilation, but I wasn't sure for what it would be used. My second surprise discovery was a long stone block that ran about a half foot below the dirt surface along the length of my yard.

When I first struck it, I had assumed it was just more brick, but I couldn't find an edge. After more digging, I ended up uncovering what appeared to be a foundational or structural slab that was about two feet wide and eight feet long. After trying to dig down and underneath it, I ran into another hard surface that was either more brick or another stone. It was much deeper than I needed to be and wanted to move forward with the project.

so I reluctantly filled the gap back in and moved on. After moving to the very front edge of the yard, I again ran into a hard surface. The claying of my shovelhead was different this time, and sounded more like metal on metal. My curiosity was very much piqued at this point, and I hurriedly set to digging around to uncover what I had found. When I had reached the edges of the metal surface, I took a step back at the 3x3 square I had uncovered and gasped.

I had found a hatch. I got excited and started thinking through the possibilities. My house is very old, around 145 years, and I had no reason to think whatever I had found wasn't built at the same time. It only took a few seconds to find the small metal ring on the rusted trap door, so I stopped thinking, dropped my shovel, and lifted the handle and pulled. No movement.

After 15 minutes of tugging, wiggling, and greasing the dark hinges with WD-40, the door creaked open and I fell over on my rear from the sudden imbalance. I scrambled up and tried again, and the hatch opened fairly easily on the next pull. I gently swung it fully opened and laid it back, revealing wooden steps descending into a pit that opened towards the larger part of the yard.

Light was fading outside and I couldn't see much, but I was fully in explorer mode at this point and wanted to at least take a few steps into the pit before going inside to get a flashlight. I tested the first step, and although it creaked and groaned, It seemed capable of bearing the weight. I stepped down into the hole and slowly and steadily climbed down four steps before making it down to a dirt floor. The light seemed better once I was down there.

and I could see back into the room for around 8 or 10 feet. I couldn't see a back wall, but I could see what looked like a wooden workbench tucked off to the right side near the back of the visible area. Outside of that, I saw only darkness. I figured I would check out the bench and then go back upstairs to tell my girlfriend about the room and grab the flashlight. The place smelled damp, earthy, and stale, and the combined scents almost overwhelmed my other senses as I moved towards the bench.

Just as I neared it, I heard a creak from behind me, and my stomach dropped as I felt a sudden dread. I started to spin back towards the opening when the slow, creaking sound suddenly sped up, echoing throughout the chamber. I turned just in time to see the sliver of daylight shrinking quickly and the door slamming shut with a loud, resonating boom. I was all alone in total and complete darkness.

I instantly lost my bearings in the absolute blackness that surrounded me. I was terrified about who would shut the door, and even more scared about the ridiculous possibility that something was in the hole with me. In an attempt to reorient myself, I tried to find the bench that I was so close to, but all I could feel as I groped around was the cold air. After a few moments, I stopped and crouched down.

trying to steady my breathing and build a plan. Deprived of light, I was horrified that I would hear something that I wouldn't be able to identify. Luckily, it stayed silent. After a minute or so, my breathing had almost returned to normal, and I was about to try to find a wall when I saw a faint light. I thought, I hoped... that my eyes were adjusting and I was seeing some slight light through a hole in the stone ceiling, perhaps where I had been digging earlier. Then the light got brighter.

I'd like to say that I stayed rational and continued to assume that the light was somehow natural, but as its intensity increased, so did the feeling of dread deep in my stomach. My first reaction was to move away from it and I started to back away, but I couldn't seem to add any distance between myself and the light. It was at least 30 feet away when I started.

and it stayed right there no matter how far I walked. My yard wasn't even big enough to bear a room that big, unless it had covered several neighbors' yards, and that seemed unlikely. Maybe I was just seeing things differently in the darkness. I felt a bit calmer the more I looked. Even though I couldn't identify the source, it didn't illuminate anything sinister. I couldn't move away from it.

and I was getting desperate. I wanted out. I was going to move towards it, at least a little closer. Even though I was scared, I thought perhaps I could find a hole out that I could open up and slip through. I wasn't even sure I could move towards it, or if it would just stay the same distance away again, but I started walking. I crept along the length of the hole and the light stayed bright, and I seemed to be slowly nearing it.

The source seemed to be something on the ground, but I couldn't quite see what it was, although I was sure at that point that I was in fact moving closer with each step. Once I had reached to about ten feet from the light, I could see that it was a lantern sitting on the ground. Everything felt so surreal at this point, and I remember not feeling particularly scared.

Kind of like it was a dream, and there were no actual consequences. Looking back, I have no idea where that control, or lack of it, came from. And I had no idea why I didn't just try to go the other way again. As I walked towards the lantern in this strange state, I saw something that made the dread suddenly come back worse than ever. In the blink of an eye, I could see five children sitting in a circle around the lantern.

They sat towards the light, four young girls and a boy sitting almost alone on the right. They appeared to all be around the same age, I guess maybe ten or twelve. They wore dark clothes that were dirty and worn. and their faces looked tired and muted. In a move I will never be able to explain, I called out to them, sounding out a shaky hello. There was no response at all, either verbally or physically.

I was still slowly walking and was within five feet of them at this point. I tried again to call out to them, but they continued to sit silently, looking towards the lantern. I took one more step, and one girl... The one facing me from the opposite side of the circle looked up and noticed me. I stopped. Her face was distorted in fear. She gurgled out a low note in a suppressed reaction.

and it was enough for the other girls to take notice of me as well. As I looked around the circle, I could see the outright terror in each of their eyes. Until I reached the boy. He was the only one not looking at me. but instead still sat Indian-style, playing with something in his hands. His face was different than the girls. It was painted in the unmistakable emotion of pure anger. The girls got up and moved back.

never turning away from me. They moved away slowly, pushing against the back wall that was suddenly visible. The boy never rose. As I looked at the girls, I suddenly realized something. Something that made my breath catch. As I looked at their eyes, I realized they were not looking at me. They were looking at something behind me. I swung around and felt a complete loss of control.

A man stood there at the workbench, a soft glow illuminating his back as he worked on something in front of him. I stared, unsure of my next move. I tried to catch a glimpse of what he was working on at the bench. but I couldn't quite see in the dim light. Then he calmly raised his hands, and I saw the slight light from the lantern catch the dull blade of a butcher knife. I could hear him humming a soft tune as he worked.

I swung quickly back around and the girls were gone, but the boy still sat angrily, playing with whatever was in his hands. As I stared, his face finally rose and he looked directly at me. Not behind me this time. Not beyond me, but directly into my eyes. I will never forget the vitriol I saw in his face. As I stared, unable to remove my eyes from his, I saw a blur in my peripheral.

In a flash, I realized it was the man marching quickly past me. Before I could react, he grabbed the kid roughly by one arm and jerked impartially to his feet. I took a step towards them. Protective nature of a human being kicking in, even though I knew this couldn't be real. But before I could even get close, the man had raised the knife to the boy's throat, the kid's furious eyes never losing contact with mine.

As the knife began its work, they both faded away along with the lantern. I was left alone again in the pure dark. Badly shaken and scared, I turned and moved in the direction I thought I had come from. I wanted to get out before they came back, but I wasn't even sure I was in the same room I had started in. Then, out of the still black, came a sound.

It was faint, but as it repeated, I realized it was a voice calling my name. I couldn't handle it anymore. I just wanted out. To my great relief, I realized it was my girlfriend. She was outside. I ran towards the sound. I screamed. I hollered. I begged. I was on the verge of breaking when she responded. She could hear me. quivering voice, I shouted instructions for finding the door and opening it, glancing over my shoulder all the while. All I saw was darkness. After what felt like an eternity,

I could hear the metal clank of the door as she located it and she began pulling. It was too heavy for her to lift on her own, but she managed to crack it open enough to let in a little light for a moment before it dropped back down with a clang. It was enough. I clawed around until I found the stairs, then clambered up and began shoving above me, yelling for my girlfriend to get out of the way. I felt like I could have lifted a truck to get out of that room.

After a moment, I burst out into the overwhelming light that bled into my eyes, collapsing onto the dirt outside. I laid there for a few minutes, breathing heavily and deeply before I could start to tell my story to my disbelieving girlfriend. This happened a few weeks ago.

I've scoured the internet for reports of missing children or murders in my neighborhood, but haven't found anything that would make any sense. I've talked to my neighbors and everyone else I know about it, but no one has had anything to offer. I don't think they believe me. My girlfriend seems sick of hearing about it. She's begged me to just cover up the door. I can't. I have an overwhelming desire to go back in.

Every day, I go back out and stand at the entrance, but going back in just hadn't felt right. Today, I feel different. Ready. I decided I was going to take the door from the hinges and move it aside before going back in, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to leave it on. I need to find out what happened down in the hole.

Our final tale is entitled Georgie's. An invitation to a neighborhood pub might seem friendly until you realize the pub and its patrons are not very hospitable. This story was written by Christopher McTigert and is read by Christina Schultz. There used to be a bar called Georgie's across the street from my office that had been closed and apparently just left to rot well before I started working here, and as such I had never seen the inside of it.

All that I knew about it was what I could gather walking past the front windows every morning as I got off the bus. There were signs and flyers taped to the windows, much like any bar. Course drafts were 50 cents on Tuesdays, Wednesday night was ladies night, and they required ID from all patrons.

behind the hastily taped up signs the windows were all covered in ageing brown butcher paper like many similar boarded up establishments so the signs truly were the depth of my knowledge I work really late hours pretty regularly. My company analyzes data for large institutions and most of our clients require guarantees and agreements in place to turn around any work we receive in 48 hours or less.

My part of this is the last step in a rather complicated if admittedly boring process and as such my schedule is generally the most affected by any kinks in the system.

As a result of my fucked-up work schedule, I found myself running into the building custodian doing his nightly rounds with a certain bit of regularity. He'd come in somewhere around 7 to 8 p.m. every night, Mutter to himself, pull bags out of all the trash baskets around me, tie them off, leave them in the hall by the doors and go about his routine.

it was pretty obvious looking at him that he had a few years under his belt as nobody's ever accused anybody who spent their days mired in hard labor and poor health decisions of having a deceptively youthful appearance you know what I'm saying. After a few nights of having him and I be the only two in the building, he finished off his routine by telling me that I should stop him to Georgie's some night. Georgie's. The abandoned bar crossed the street.

Now, I don't want to come off as a dick or anything, but my first thought was that the custodian was retarded in some variety and that he didn't really know what he was talking about. With little faith in the custodian's mental abilities, I sort of half-heartedly told him that I was reasonably certain that the bar in question had been closed for a while, and that I had never even seen it open since I started working in the town.

building years prior. The custodian seemed a bit put off by this and told me that one of his friends owned the building and that he had been trying to clean it out at night by inviting people to come drink the leftover booze for free. I have to admit that I was sort of put off by the idea of drinking years old liquor in a presumably dilapidated and abandoned bar, so I politely brushed off the idea. Besides, I sensed that there was just something off about a story like that.

Something that just didn't add up about an owner of an abandoned bar cleaning up his property by giving away liquor of questionable origin instead of throwing it away. But once again I assumed that there might also just be something off about the custodian himself in the form of a mental disability, so I ignored it and moved on.

I went back to work and didn't think any more of it. It was about this same time that I noticed a man who would get on the bus at my stop when I went home roughly every night. At first I hardly paid attention to him because seeing regular people at a bus stop isn't exactly out of the ordinary. After a week of seeing him though, it occurred to me that it was a bit odd to see the same person at my bus stop with any frequency, given the fact that my schedule follows no pattern.

I might leave at 7pm today and 12.30am tomorrow and something completely different next week. I stood on this for a bit, but decided not to dwell on it too much, since, as my father always told me, he only noticed coincidences because they are oddly coincidental. This series of coincidences did bring my attention to this man, though, and I couldn't help but notice that he was old and more than a bit harsh-looking. His eyes were sunken in, and his skin had the kind of

that generally accompanies people you don't want to associate with. There was just something inexplicably unsettling about him, but he was quiet and kept to himself, so I just let it pass. The custodian began asking me almost nightly about stopping into Georgie's for a drink and I politely shrugged him off every time. My personal desire for aging liquor had sadly not grown since the last time he asked me.

His insistence grew firmer every day, but there was a slight hesitation in his responses to my refusal, as if he was straining himself to keep his tone and demeanor reasonable. One morning I woke up at my apartment to catch the bus and I found that decrepit old man, who I usually see in the evenings waiting for a bus out of town, sitting at the corner of my street. not a hundred feet away from my apartment building waiting to catch the same bus as me going into town.

While this did creep me out a little, I will admit, I tried to rationalize it to myself with my usual mantra about coincidences and all of that. The bus eventually came and we both got on without saying a word. I lost myself in thought, as I usually do on buses, thinking about my schedule for the day, clients who need handled, and all of the other mindless shit I wander off to while waiting for the bus to get into town.

Today, however, my pleasant daydream cloud was hastily burst when I absentmindedly caught a glance of the old man's reflection in the bus window. He was staring at me from behind. Head slightly crooked forward, eyes dead front, teeth just visible through a barely parted cowl, staring at me. I was a bit unnerved by this but didn't want to make a scene, nor did I really know what I would do if I wanted to make a scene.

He hadn't actually done anything other than sit on the bus, and for all I know he was also just lost in thought. Perhaps he was just staring off into space and I happened to be in the path between his eyes and the nothing he was staring off into. I wasn't about to make any assumptions. Eventually we made it into town and we both got off the bus continuing our habit of not saying a word to each other. I went through the rest of my day as if everything was normal.

I left the office at 9.20 p.m. and the old man was waiting at the bus stop. Neither of us spoke to each other as usual and eventually the bus came to pick the two of us up. As the bus was coming, I made the realization that every time we had gotten on the bus together, we always line up in such a manner that I get on before him.

I had not been consciously arranging for this to happen, and while briefly considering it, I was certain that this happened whether it was just us or if it was a group of people waiting. The bus came to a stop and opened the doors. I immediately recognized that the old man was intentionally moving slower than I was so that he would end up on the bus after I did. I generally always sat toward the front, so my best guess is that he was trying to position himself to sit behind me. To watch me.

As I approached the doors to the bus, I quickly fumbled my wallet out of my pocket and intentionally dropped it under the front tire closest to me. I feigned an apology to the driver and said I would just be one minute if she could be so patient. The old man first tried to assist, presumably so he could maintain his ruse, but I sternly told him that I was capable of handling this by myself.

This prompted the bus driver, thankfully, to ask the old man if he was getting on or not, to which he relented and boarded. I picked up my wallet and stepped onto the bus. I apologized once again to the driver and walked towards the seats. The old man had taken the very front seat, and so I went a few rows back on the opposite side.

I looked in the mirror at the front of the bus and saw it. He was staring at me in the mirror. I met his eyes dead on and we stared at each other for a good five minutes as the bus began driving. I began sweating profusely as I had realized that my suspicions of the old man were most probably in the ballpark of truth and that none of the coincidences I had noticed lately were actually coincidences.

After about ten minutes, he finally broke his gaze and turned around. He looked me straight on and in an angry tone asked me a question. Why don't you ever go? To Georgie's. Spooked, I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea how else to react to this. We were still inside city limits so I yelled to the bus driver to let me off at the next stop. She obliged and I stood up to get off, my mind set on catching a taxi to any random hotel far away from my house or office.

I didn't want to see anybody familiar that night or the next morning. I wanted the coincidences to give me a break. As I walked past the old man to get off the bus, he hissed at me. You would have liked it. I stayed quiet and hurried off the bus. The old man stayed on the bus as it started moving again, finally granting me peace and quiet.

I caught the first cab I could hail, stopped at a gas station for my first pack of cigarettes in three years and then continued on to a hotel on the other side of town. Specifically, I went to one of those nice hotels with proper security where you can't even get into the elevators without a key. I stayed in that hotel for three days, not leaving my room.

living off of room service, calling off of work each day. I was at wit's end and I was sure I had lost my mental faculties at that point as nothing seemed to make sense. Eventually I checked out of the hotel at midday and took a cab to my office. I was relieved to find no old man waiting outside the hotel, outside my office or anywhere.

Perhaps he had finally moved on. When I found my boss, he asked me where I had been and I made up some bullshit about a stomach flu. I figured that if I was going crazy... I didn't need to advertise it just yet. He told me that they were running behind schedule because of my absence and that I needed to jump back in. He started bitching at me about my work responsibilities and I was pretty much tuning him out at that point, until he got to the last point he was trying to address.

Stop leaving your fucking garbage bags in the hall every night too, will you? I told him. That it was the custodian who did that every night, obviously, as I had no interest in staying late to clean the office. My boss gave me a weird look and told me there was no custodian, no janitor. no cleaning staff and that the bags were only ever found in the hall closest to where I work. It was obvious that it was my garbage and he wanted me to just knock it off and move on.

I restated my position about the custodian that I had nightly conversations with, and my boss's weird look instantly became more troubled. It took the police 23 minutes to arrive at the office. I told the police everything. The janitor, the old man, Georgies, all of it. Within hours the neighborhood was flooded with cops and they eventually received the authorization and manpower to break down the door into Georgie's. As the cops who bore first-hand witness told the story to reporters,

The smell of death was overpowering as the glass door shattered. The scene they walked into was both macabre and surreal. There were four bodies crudely stitched together from the parts of other bodies, as if somebody took four sets of heads, four sets of legs, four sets of arms and four torsos, and mixed them up into random configurations. The set however was missing pieces. One body had no arms, one body had no legs, one body had no head.

And finally, there was simply a pile of pieces with no torso to attach to. Macabre, surreal, and fortunately incomplete.

This concludes this episode of the No Sleep Podcast. Thank you for listening and for letting us share the blackness of the night with you. To learn more about the podcast and the ways you can help us

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