NoSleep Podcast 2025 Halloween Hiatus

At AJ Bell, we believe every customer deserves brilliant service, which is just one reason we're rated excellent on Trust Pilot. And we all trust pilots with their smooth, captainy voices that make you feel like you'd let them land anywhere they like. Sorry, where was I? Right, AJ Bell rated excellent by sexy pilots. I mean Trust Pilot. I'm a flight risk. AJ Bell, feel good investing. The value of your investments can go up or down. I'm going to die. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your tired host, David Cummings. Well, Halloween is over for another year. And we here at the No Sleep Podcast decided our sugar coma needs an extra week to recover. But fear not. Or, I mean, fear much. Because this week we have our Halloween hiatus episode, featuring two premium tales for you, along with chapter 7 of Goat Valley Campgrounds. And for those of you who usually listen to our show on WNSP, I understand their overnight show, Darkness of the Night, went off the air last week. Not sure if it's back online, but I'm assuming you found another way to listen to our show for now. I hope whatever technical glitches they're experiencing get fixed soon. So my sleepless post-Halloweeners get ready for hiatus horror. Because it's still time to tune in, turn on and brace yourself for our sleepless tales. In our first tale, we hear the account of an interview between two men, one who experienced clinical death on the battlefield, and the other who wants to understand what the marine went through. But in this tale, shared with us by author, John Birfay, the near death experience was profound and unsettling. Perhaps giving the man a glimpse of the afterlife, I join Reagan Tacker and Mike Delgario in performing this tale. So whether or not we see the hammer of the gods, we know in the end we shall see Valhalla. What follows is the transcript of an interview between parapsychologist Moses Harlow, and marine corporal Brandon Fitz, E4, held in late 2004. Fitz was pronounced deceased after suffering a cardiac arrest during the second battle of Falluja. He returned to life 13 hours later. Look, sir, do we really gotta go over all this again? Already said everything I can remember, Anna. I'm tired, sir. Real tired. I mean, I just came back from the dead, you know. I understand, son. I look, this will be the last time I promise. Now, let's get started, huh? What have they told you about why you're here? Well, sir, they said that I was a danger to myself and others, whatever that means. All I remember is waking up here. You see that screen on the wall? I'd like you to watch your recording and tell me what you see. I'll do my best, sir, but it's pretty grainy. Okay, that's a med bay. Those are body bags, and that's, oh shit, that's me. And what are you doing? Just laying there, looks like. No, wait, um, um, flailing my arms around. Some NCOs are running in to hold me down. My back's bridging. It looks like I'm screaming something, but I can't make out what. You're sure you don't recognize the word, son. Your third. Doesn't mean anything to you? No, sir. It's an old Norse word. Your third means battle. Now, why would you be screaming a word like that? A word you claim you don't recognize? I don't know, sir. I'm sorry, sir. You can drop the sur. I'm not military. Just call me Mr. Harlow. If you say so, but if you're not cooler than why? Let's just get back to the interview, shall we? Soon we finish here, the sooner you can go eat and get some rest. I bet you liked that, wouldn't you, Brandon? Sure would, sir. Um, I mean, Mr. Harlow. Tell me, Brandon. What's the last thing you remember from Iraq? Well, an IED had just gone off and me and my buddy, Vickers, and that's Lance Corporal Ryan Vickerman, by the way, where Hunker Down and what was left of somebody's living room. We couldn't see where the shots were coming from, so Vickers just blasted away with a Zim-Nan and anything that moved. So I'm shrapneled, grazed my face, and then I got this pain in my chest. After that, I just sort of blacked out. It was like falling asleep, you know? And after that, Yes, Brandon? I was cold. Colder than I've ever been in my life. Snow was falling on my face and I was laying in more of it, so thick that I couldn't feel the ground beneath. I was, well, I wasn't wearing any clothes. And it sounds crazy, right? Like I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming, but it was real. At least, it felt real to me. Who knows? Maybe I am crazy. Let me be the judge of that. What could you see around here? There were a bunch of tall pine trees behind me, and I mean tall, like, over a hundred feet, and in front was just more snow, as far as I could see. Nothing moved but the wind. It's funny. You'd think I would have been wondering where I was or how I'd gotten there, but I took it all in stride. I didn't want to move too far from where I'd woken up, so I called out for help. And someone came. You're shaking. Are you all right? Yeah, it's just... I could use a cigarette. Help yourself. Thanks. I'm surprised y'all are letting me smoke in here. Now this is no ordinary hospital branded. And I'm no ordinary doctor. Now, you were telling me about what happened when you called out for help. Thanks. That's better. Look, in boot camp, we learned how to kill people, right? I fired my weapon at insurgents, and I got no way to know whether I wasted any of them. In a bullet's could have been mine, and I could have been my buddies. There's no way to tell, but when it's up close and personal, this guy, he came running out of the woods. The Japanese guy with glasses, way even one of those swords, you know? He was yelling the same word over and over. I didn't know the language, but somehow I knew what it meant. Your third. Yeah, anyway, at that point, I guess the training took over. I caught him by the wrist and flipped him. A classic over-the-hit throw, and we started fighting for control of the sword. That thing was so sharp it cut into my arm like butter, but I was fighting for my life, and I had gravity on my side. I got the blade angled over the guy's neck. He was kicking and squirming for all he was worth, but at that point, all I really had to do was put my weight into it. This is difficult for you. I've heard it's sinking into him, okay? I felt the metal scraping against his collarbone. I saw his eyes get wide and then go hazy. I felt his feet stop kicking, and the smell, I cleaned myself up as best I could, cut some strips of cloth from the guy's clothes to wrap my arm. He was wearing this old-fashioned uniform like the one they had back in World War II, you know? He'd come at me like he was possessed or something. I didn't know what was wrong with him, or if there were more lock him out there, so I made for the woods. It seemed to be a good idea to get undercover. The forest, man. How can I even begin to describe it? It was so dark in there, it was like the sun had already set, and it was quiet. Real quiet. Like I was almost scared to breathe, you know? And wherever I looked, those mossy tree trunks went on forever. I picked a direction and started walking. What else could I do? Make it and heard as I was, I was surprised I could even move it all. I felt this tug in my chest like a white pulling me forward. That feeling kept getting stronger and stronger until… Until… what? Until I got impaled by a goddamn spear, that's what. There was a wishing sound, and I felt this white hot pain in my gut. When I looked down, it was hanging out of my stomach. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? Before I could wrap my head around what had just happened, another spear came flying out and nowhere. It bounced off my rib cage, but I went down anyway. And then four shadowy figures stood up out of the snow. They'd been there all along, hunting me. They were tall African guys with these shields made out of cowhide and of course more spears. What's the closest you've ever come to die, Mr. Harlow? Let's not get off track. What happened next? I only asked because I've been a dead man, Mr. Harlow. More times than I can count. What do you think happened next? They gutted me like a goddamn fish, and would stab, twirl around me and stab again. It was some kind of war dance. I could feel the warmth of my own intestines dragging underneath me as I tried to crawl away. My hands kept slipping in the blood and pond needles. Then everything went dark. Next thing I knew, it was after sunset. I was numb, cold as a block of ice. And then I felt my heart begin to be. My blood flowed back into me. The holes on my skin healed themselves up. It was like invisible hands were packing my guts into my body, snapping my bones back into place. Look, man, I thought Dyn had felt strange, but getting put back together felt even stranger. Looking up through the branches, I could see these streams of color in the sky, pink and green and blue. Northern Lodge, I think they're cold. The Aurora Borealis, yes. That's when I realized I wasn't alone. There was a woman there on a white horse, and her eyes were as broad as the lights in the sky. She was tall and blonde and dressed in armor, and she threw me over the back of her horse like I weighed nothing at all. We galloped faster and faster, and pretty soon I couldn't hear the horse's hoof beats on the ground. We were flying. I hummed onto that horse's neck for dear life, sure that at any minute I might slip off, but the woman held me in place with one hand. Her grip was like iron. We were approaching this big wooden building down below. It's funny, even though I had a bird's eye view of the place, I couldn't have said how tall it was or how many entrances it had. It was like my brain just couldn't process the whole thing at once, you know. I need you to do better than that. Surely you can give me some details about what the building looked like or what it was made of. Like I said, Mr. I'm tired. I really don't think I got all the fancy architectural vocabulary you want to hear, but if you get me a pencil and paper, I can draw it for you. All right, here you are. Thanks. Anyway, this woman's horse trotted right down out of the sky. She pushed me off of it and toward the door of the lodge or whatever it was. It looked a hell of a lot bigger from the ground. Let me tell you, the walls were made of these big timber beams. The roof was so high I could barely see it. The whole place was lit by fire light, and as I walked in, I saw some faces I recognized. The Japanese guy and the four Africans who'd ambushed me a few hours earlier. I freaked out and started fumbling around for a weapon and I realized that all of them were smiling. The Japanese guy was holding something out to me. It was my uniform folded in wash. The one that I'd uh, died in. One of the African guys clapped me on the back and handed me a horn like a real cow horn with some kind of booze in it and then the four of them went inside into the party. You interacted with them. These people who tried to kill you. Well, I mean, yeah. The Japanese dude was named hero Yuki. He had wanted to study archaeology in Tokyo, but when the war started, he lied about his bad vision and joined up. When a window, the African guy who'd handed me a drink, he was a real character. To hear him tell it, he had had three wives and killed a lion before his balls dropped. He said this so you were aware that the others were also dead. Look, Mr. The only thing I was aware of was that I didn't want to get killed three times in one day. Those guys could have said that they were clowns from Venus and I would have said, sure man, right on. Everybody in the place was some kind of warrior another and the last thing I wanted to do was piss anybody off. So I just sort of went with the flow. There were these guys and wooden thrones sitting at a hot table like kings or something. One of them was missing and I remember that. Another one had a big hammer. More of those tall women in armor were bringing drinks around, but they were a lot less cold than they had seen at first if you get my drift. I drank until I passed out. It was wild. It was your drawing, by the way. Thank you. Would you say then that it was a pleasant experience? Well, yeah, but also not really, especially not if you consider what came afterwards. See, there was something sort of bloodthirsty about the whole thing. I mean, those colorful banners on the walls and carvings on those big wooden columns looked pretty at first until I realized that theologist showed a bunch of gruesome deaths in battle and the others. Most of them didn't seem quite right in the head. All they talked about was war. How many of that killed the most gruesome ways they'd done it. Their favorite weapons for chopping off different body parts. It seemed like the more brutal you were, the closer you sat to the big table. And that wasn't all. You see, I had woken up naked. Now I had my uniform and boots back, but that was a long way from the stuff some of those guys had. Shields, bows, full body armor. Hero Yuki didn't have the sword I'd taken from him during our fight, but my window and his buddies were all carrying brand new helmets. I figured that the more fights you won, the better gear you got. And look, I like to drink as much as anybody, but the booze was sort of pushed on us. Like, we had to black out before the night could end. I get with some kind of ritual. The next thing I remember, I was waking up on some kind of foggy beach. A lodge or whatever it was was gone. I had no idea how it got in there. I should have had the worst hangover of my life, but my head was totally clear. All I felt was a sort of weird, itching sensation. I was still wearing my uniform, but at some point a bayonet knife had been put into my head. I wasn't alone. There were hundreds of us. Some with turbans and cemetars, others with green fatigues and trench spikes and everything in between. We looked at each other. There was no sound, but the cold black waves crashing against the rocks. And that itching feeling was getting stronger and stronger. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears, loud as thunder. I kept gripping the bayonet knife tighter and tighter and before I knew what I was doing, I'd grab the guy next to him and plunge it into his neck. Hey, mister, you ever hear the expression, saw red? I never really knew what it meant until that morning. What do you think was happening to you? That itch, man. It got to the point that I wanted to cut my own skin off, but even that wouldn't be enough. There was only one way to get rid of it. I knew it in my heart, as sure as I knew my own name. I had to bathe in my enemy's blood. We were all feeling the same thing, and sooner or later we all gave into the urge. I found my window and his brothers, and for a while we fought together, taking down more skilled and better equipped warriors. Teamwork is dreamwork right, but by not fall we had turned on each other too. By nightfall. Are you implying that you spent the entire day fighting? You've never been in many scraps, have you, mister? When it's hand-to-hand, the minutes feel like hours, and the adrenaline burns you out real quick. Your muscles go all limp and rubbery from so much impact. Your ears are ringing from the clash of metal on metal, or maybe from a blow to the head. Your eyes sting so much from the sweat and blood that you can barely see what you're hitting. Most people can't last even 15 minutes in a fight like that, and just because we were dead didn't make a special. Just because we had swords and spears and axes didn't make this a fancy duel between knots. This was botan, bashing, grinding faces into a mud. Whoever was less exhausted and less taken by surprise, usually won the fight, and then was killed themselves. The difference was, for us, it didn't end there. We rose again, and again, and again, until nightfall. Right, until notfall when those cold-eyed women on horseback came to take us back to the Great Hall. Hey, you mind if I take a walk around the room a little bit? Telling this story has got me tense. I need to stretch out a little bit. Oh sure, feel free. Now, did these women, or anyone else ever explain why you were doing all this? Well, well, I mean, the guys with the red crosses stitched onto the chest said that we were training to fight Satan. A guy with two simmitas and a turban said we were there to purify our souls, whatever the hill that means. Nobody could give me a straight answer, and the ones who'd been there the longest were too far gone to talk to. I'm sorry, too far gone. What do you mean by that? They were nuts. Some of them didn't even remember their own names. They used the sound of a shield bash or an arrow instead. Others called themselves by the number of kills they'd made. One of them, this huge Mexican guy with a jaguar skin hood and a club with sharp stones sticking out of it, called himself 13,724. That was the only word he would say. The next night, that word became 13,866. I believe it, too. They split my skull in half twice in one day, and last I saw it took about 15 working together to bring him down. What was I supposed to say? Hey, Mr. Mass Murder, want to give me a quick rundown of what we're doing here? I did figure out one thing that night, though. There was something special about the drink they were giving us. Special. How so? I drank more that second night. A lot more. I threw back cup after a cup of that honey-sweet booze until I thought I'd burst. Maybe I was trying to drink myself into a second death or maybe I was just trying to forget. Who knows? What I did notice, though, was the result. The next day I was faster, tougher, and stronger than I'd ever been. It was like my instincts were turned up to 11. So was my thirst for blood. The first day, I killed because I had to. The second day, I actually found myself and joined it. Disturbing as that was, the drink of the dead had another side effect, one that I didn't notice until a few days later. I was forgetting more and more details about the person I'd been. There were plenty of things about myself that I didn't remember until you all reminded me of them, but you knew that already, right? I've seen the recordings, yes. It was once you called it a paradox. If you drank the stuff, you forgot who you'd been yourself. If you didn't, you got hacked a part of 100 times over by the ones who did. Someone like you, someone who has never even died once, can't even imagine what that's like. Sure, if we rose again every time we fell, but we felt every second of it, and the ones who had been there the longest, they liked to kill you in ways you'd remember. You're right, Brandon. Yeah, just thinking. Anyway, once I realized what was going on, I decided I would pay the price. I wouldn't drink the stuff that gave us. It was harder than it sounds. Everyone else seemed to be chugging it like there was no tomorrow, and those cold-eyed attendants were always ready with the cup and smoldering glance your way. They watched just like hawks. They wanted to make sure we drank it. Look, if you'd like, I can draw one of them for you. Still got that paper and pencil? Here's the paper, but don't you still have the pencil? I would have sworn I gave it back to you. No matter. Here's another. Thanks. Anyway, like I was saying, I went through all kinds of tricks to keep that stuff out of my gut. I'll let it spill down the front of my shirt, pass my mug around, then poured what was left into my boot, everything I could think of. At first, I screwed up a lot. I could fill them getting suspicious, and I had to drink more just to throw them off track. I might wonder why I bothered hiding it at all, but if you'd been there, you'd understand. The threat of violence was everywhere in that place. They could kill me and resurrect me as many times as they wanted. Who knows what else they could do to me if I pissed them off? Eventually, though, I got good enough that I could stay sober almost every night. And once I did, I started asking questions. Harry Yuki never slammed down as much of the stuff as the others, and when he fought, he did what he had to. No more, no less. He didn't seem to enjoy Gory Deaths the way some of the others did, so I figured I'd start with him. During the next day's battle, I lured Harry Yuki away from the others and wrestled him to the ground. Instead of dealing the finishing blow, I asked him what he thought about what we were being made to do. I asked Harry Yuki if he knew, or he'd even heard of, away out of this place. How did he respond? We have to fight. We all have to fight. That's what he said. And the alternative is even worse. Before I could even ask him what he meant, I heard the snort of a horse and then felt a tall cold shadow fall over me. It was the women, two of them. I tried to run, but one fired an arrow into my side and the other crushed my shoulders in her armoured fists. Even if I would have chugged a bottomless cup of that drink the night before, I still wouldn't have been able to resist them. They were just too strong. The cold-eyed woman pushed me toward the ground. I thought she was going to suffocate me in the mud as some kind of punishment, which would have hurt, but it wouldn't have been the first time either. What they had in mind for me and Harry Yuki, though, was much worse. Go on, son. Sorry. The ground opened up in front of me. I could see down, down through the dirt and rock to a sort of underground world. It was piled high with corpses, or that's what I thought at first, until I realized those gray and decaying things were somehow still conscious. I couldn't begin to count how many there were. Billions may be all stacked on top of each other, squirming and stretching their rotten fingers out to me, begging silently to be lifted up, to rise to where I was, and in that moment I knew, down there, the darkness was never brought in. Thurston, hunger, would never quenched. There was nothing but an endless infinite night. And after that, I was back here, with all of you good people. I found your pencil. Oh, where were... Jam the other one under the door while I was stretching to make sure we wouldn't be interrupted. Did not tell you that I'd gotten good at hiding things. Now, Mr. Harlow, I'm going to need you to take your half and bot me to the death with it. Well, I mean, Brandon, let's just calm down now, or we can talk about this. No, this is the only way, see, down there, that pit, it's for all those who die peacefully. Heaven, or what passes for heaven, belongs to those who die fighting. I'm not going to the pit, Mr. Harlow, and with any luck, neither are you. Huh? No! What? No! Yard there! Yard there! Yard! Corporal Fitz died of blood-force trauma, sustained while NCOs attempted unsuccessfully to prevent him from murdering Moses Harlow. The results of Fitz's autopsy were not unusual for a young man of his age and background, apart from a perfectly preserved Norse arrowhead, exact age unknown, which was found embedded near the patient's liver. At AJ Bell, we believe investing is for everyone, even people who know nothing about investing. Like Keith, who thought dividends were a boy band. Jessica, who thought compound interest was a prison dating app, and Sue, Sue thought Fitz 100 was a bit of under the table fun, which surprised her accountant. Oh, there! If we can make investing feel good for them, it's no wonder which have recommended us seven years running. AJ Bell, feel good investing. The value of your investments can go up or down. This Ramadan, the first plate isn't for you. It's passed across the table, and when the first bite is for someone else, what you cook with matters. V.T. Megabuzzmati, extra-long premium rice, chosen for its quality, extra-long grains, soft texture in every dish, and chosen for moments that matter. V.T. Megabuzzmati, extra-long premium rice, made for sharing. Have you ever considered online dating? We like to ensure you're fully informed about all the aspects of it, so let's meet a woman on a date with a man she met online. And when a storm causes a blackout, you might assume things are going to get very romantic in the dark. But in this tale, shared with us by author K. Wallace King, the couple instead decide to tell each other scary stories, and when it comes to these stories, truth, as they say, can be stranger than fiction. Performing this tale are Christendee Maccurio, Atticus Jackson, and Ellie Hirschman. So it may be dark in there, but keep your eyes open, in case you see something at the edges. We had just finished dinner when the lights went out. A wild winter storm was sweeping through the Los Angeles night, bringing threats of severe flooding. Lightning illuminated the apartment in a brief flash of cold light, and the dark that followed seemed thicker. Denser. I sat alone at the dining table, wind whistling, the rain beating furiously. A tree branch, Jack said it was a California low quad, smacked the window, and the dim outline of leaves fluttered the glass like drowning butterflies. I got up to find my phone, I could use it's flashlight, but the dark apartment was unfamiliar, and I couldn't recall where I had set it down. Within moments, I'd banged into something, guessing it was the glass fronted Curio cabinet. Before dinner, I'd seen the knickknacks displayed inside, peasant dispensers, hot wheels, still in their original packaging, a baseball autographed in decipherably. But what had caught my eye was the plastic action figure of a superhero I didn't recognize. It was posed oddly, head down, as if it were climbing head first from down one shelf to the next. I thought at first it wore a mask like Batman's Robin, but leaning closer I realized its eyes were blacked out with a thick swipe of magic marker. What's that? Jack had laughed. That's Drew's cell. Only appeared in issue one of the walk into fried comic book series, so he's rare. So what's his superpower? A Drew's cell can climb between worlds. I'd put my hand on the door latch to get a closer look, but Jack gently pulled me away. Door is swarmed. What's with the eyes? Jack then asked if I knew how to make guacamole. I didn't, but as he was already walking toward the kitchen, I offered to help. After my second glass of wine, I'd forgotten about the weird action figure in the cabinet. Now, rubbing my banged shin in the dark, a creepy thought occurred to me. The blinded doll didn't need to see. I padded my way to the safety of the dining table and sat down. A moment later, I heard Jack muttering in the hallway. There was a loud crash, like something heavy fell or was dropped. You okay? He didn't answer. The apartment was silent except for the tree branch scratching the window. The rain pounding the roof. He'd been gone a long time. Had he really? I wished I had my phone. Maybe it just seemed long because it was so dark, but what was he doing? All that banging around in the hallway. Be there in a minute. Not every man online is an asshole. I reminded myself. There were exceptions. I didn't Hannah married a guy she met on that dating site. And Jack and I had progressed to this get-to-know-you date. The first was coffee, though it had morphed to a drink and we'd ended up almost closing the bar down. And tonight he made me dinner. While I watched him chop the onions, I'd had a moment wishing he'd lean over the cutting board and kiss me. It's dead! I jumped and let out a little scream as I stared into the dark hallway. My phone! I forgot to charge it. Jack lit a candle and set it on the table. His face bobbed across from me in a bubble of light. A few months ago the electricity in the hills was out for three days. He placed tea-light candles around the room. Little archipelagos of light floated in the dark. Now about a card game. Hoker? Rummy? Never played much. We sat in silence as thunder grumbled. In the glare of lightning I caught a glimpse of the blind doll hanging upside down in the cabinet. The little candle islands around the room seemed to make the dark between them vaster. I don't know this man. What am I doing here? Think the streets flooded? I wouldn't try driving now. Might be mudslides. Jack leaned back in his chair. An awkward silence followed and I couldn't see his eyes. Maybe I should have agreed to cards. Jack leaned toward the candlelight. He was grinning. His eyes twinkle. I thought what serial killer has ever been described with twinkling eyes. So ghost stories? What you got? Really? He smiled at me encouragingly, poured another glass of wine and pushed it across the table. He filled his own glass and held it up in a salute. In the dim candlelight, it was dark as blood. Is it true? Your ghost story? I shrugged. Who knows what lies behind the veil. We both turned to the dark hallway where the wood floor had just creaked loudly. Uh oh. What's that? I snorted a laugh, but it did spook me a little. This place is old. Let's hear it. It's scary me. It almost sounded like a challenge and I decided to drop the silly story I'd planned to tell. It wasn't any scarier than the type told at camp or slumber parties. I would tell this man about an experience I'd still found disturbing. I'd never told anyone about it before. I was living in New York, Hell's Kitchen with an ex of mine. We'd recently rented an apartment in an old brick tenement building. Frank Dooley was our landlord. His family had an old school butcher shop on the ground floor. Been there for three generations. They still sprinkled sawdust to soak up blood from butchering. I could get a fresh chicken for five dollars. Frank told me an Irish gang used to get rid of their murder victims in these old tenements. Frank said our building was one of these. Dairy them in the foundation when they were being built, brick them up in the walls. You've probably heard these legends. But Frank said he knew it was true because his great grandfather had run that gang. Frank leaned extra hard on the Tough New Yorker act. He thought it was funny because I was from Ohio. It was an ugly apartment. Freezing cold often smelled like garbage due to the dumpster under our kitchen window. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. And the second I turned on the light, cockroaches scurried like confused drunks. The bathroom was the only room with a door. Everything else was just a space with a shitty radiator and water stains on the ceiling. We'd hung a blanket in one corner around our bed to make a separate space. The kitchen was tiny and from the counter you could see the whole room from the door to the bathroom. That night I was cooking something and I heard heavy footsteps. Like someone was walking on the wood floor of our apartment. But clearly no one was. Adam was taking a shower. The bathroom door was closed and I heard the shower running. Must be the guy upstairs walking around in boots even though I knew the footsteps I heard weren't over my head. They were in the middle of the room which now looked strange. I rubbed my eyes. The room seemed wavy, distorted somehow. As if I were at the bottom of a swimming pool and looking up through the water at the room around me. The footsteps stopped. But as I stood at the kitchen counter, I could see in the center of the room in front of me. Something was slowly spinning like a small cyclone. It spun faster and faster growing in velocity and size. I'd thought at first maybe it was dust but there was no breeze all the windows were shut. Just then the smoke alarm went off. That maddening beeping must have been developed as a form of torture. And I turned to the stove expecting something to be burning. But the stove was off. There was a bang like the sound of raging wind makes when it bangs into something solid. I turned it back to the room to see Adam was whirling like some crazed, dervish, weird dance. The alarm was blaring and I yelled for Adam to turn it off because I couldn't reach it. Instead, he darted behind the blanket separating the bed from the rest of the room. But the alarm was making me so crazy. I forgot about Adam. I climbed onto a chair and ripped that alarm right off the wall. It still wouldn't stop. So I dropped it into the sink and ran water over it until it finally shut up. Silence. Thick as a blanket. Except for one sound. The shower. It was still running. The bathroom door was still closed. I threw the bathroom door open. I'll never forget Adam's face when he furiously poked his head around the plastic shower curtain. Why the hell was I letting in all the freezing air? I don't know how long I stood there. Adam glowering. The shower running. My brain was scrambling. How could I have thought that was Adam? It hadn't looked anything like him. But strangely, I couldn't remember quite what it had looked like. I tried to reconstruct features. But they were as filmy as the dissolving steam in the bathroom. I only had an impression of eyes. In a face, puffy as a cloud. But the boots, I definitely heard those. I screamed at Adam that a man had broken in. I pointed to the curtain. Adam raced from the bathroom with a plunger and yanks the blanket to the floor, revealing only the unmade bed. I was flabbergasted. But I heard those boots. I saw. What had I seen though, really? I couldn't even describe it. Months passed. Life went on. Nothing else happened. Until that summer. I had the windows wide open, listening to the radio. For once, the garbage stink was blowing cross town. I distinctly remember the station, which usually played current pop songs. We're suddenly playing an old tiny tune. Fast. Happy tempo. Made me think of those women flappers dancing kind of frantically. Like you better hurry up and have fun because it might end tomorrow. Right then, I heard the boots in the center of the floor, even though there was no one there, but me. And everything looked underwater again. I sat there, watching this little whirling cyclone rising from the rug, sparkling in the sunlight. It spun faster. And I thought I could see the boots and faintly, two legs. It's trying to become. I think I said that out loud. And then I ran. I didn't even take my purse. I sat on the front stoop until Adam came home. And even then, he had to practically drag me inside. We broke up a week later. Wasn't surprising. We'd been unraveling for a while. I made plans to stay with a girlfriend. And I was packing. When a pipe burst, flooding the closet where I kept all my clothes. I got the super and he knocked a hole in the closet wall to get the pipe. Two things fell out of the wall. And onto the floor with a bang. A pair of leather boots. As if on cue, the candle on the table between us sputtered and went out. The tea lights around the room seemed distant as stars. I had forgotten where I was, lost in the story I was telling. I had that sinking, sick feeling when the super showed me that man's boots. I know you think I just made it up, but... What's... I looked around the room. What? He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my chair, weaving us across the candlelit room to the balcony. Outside, the wind blew a cold mist in my face. It's so foggy. Brainstout, but the streets flooded. You couldn't see the drive in this pea soup. I'm afraid you stuck with me a while longer. He was behind me. I felt his breath on my neck. Once again, I found myself hoping he'd kiss me. But instead, he wove me back through the flickering candles to the table. My turn. Turn. I don't get it. Jack relipped the candle on the table. The flame flared, and a shadow flitted across his features like a mask, reminding me of the creepy blinded doll climbing in the cabinet. It happened when I was a kid. Oh, Jack was going to tell a story. I smiled, relieved. A kid's ghost story. Okay? Scare me. I was reaching for the wine bottle when he grabbed my hand. Sure you want to hear it? He looked so earnest. Different, almost childlike. For sure. He let go of my hand. It dropped to the table and lay there a moment between us before I pulled it away with an embarrassed giggle. Jack didn't notice. He'd started his story. Lockheed. McDonald Douglas. Hughes aircraft. The aerospace industry was based in Southern California. My dad was an engineer at Lockheed. In the 70s, they needed more housing. So they built Ocean Vista Village. One of those California cookie cutter developments. After Ocean Vista opened, it became clear something was wrong. Carpeting constantly smelled of mildew. Anytime someone would plan a tree or put in a world of hedges, instead of growing up, they appeared to be shrinking. One resident said their dog house, with their dog inside, vanished overnight, as if the earth had swallowed it. People claimed they could roll a marble without stopping from the living room to the back porch. Turned out Vista Village had been built on badly filled marshland. The development was gradually sinking. But people had spent harder and money to buy these houses and they fought to keep them. Then girls around town began disappearing. And not long after, their bodies were found in one of the houses. It had never been sold so there was no owner. They never learned who the psycho was who dumped the dead girls there. But that was the last straw. And the city condemned Ocean Vista. The people moved out and no trespassing signs went up. It's all gone now, a protected wetland. But back then, all those empty houses, those sinking streets, were a wonderland for a kid. It was a perfect hellscape for skateboards, bike ramps, teenagers, and drugs. I met this kid named Luca. It happened when I knocked him down with my bike. He materialized seemingly out of nowhere when I was rushing home to eat a pizza before my mom saw. She was a bit of a health nut. The kid crumpled in front of my handlebars like a Kleenex. I thought it was knocked down, but he got up and without a word started limping away. I felt bad. So I caught him, said I was sorry, I have some pizza. The box was still warm. Luca ate the whole fucking pie like he was starving. And he handed me the greasy box. He pointed at my backpack. I realized he meant the comic book sticking out. It was the first edition of Walk Into Fried and Drew so the dimensioner was on the cover. Let me see. I handed in the comic and he sat down on the curb flipping through it like I wasn't even there. Careful, don't bend the pages. You give to me. Pizza was one thing, but I'd been looking forward to this series for over a year. And the guy at Red Rocket Comics told me it would probably become a collector's item. You almost killed me. No way, dude. He looked like he was about to cry. But you can read it any time at my house. The way he stared at me made me squirm. Oh, I wasn't sure why. It was much shorter than me in... Blubbery. Yet on grimy shorts and his t-shirt was so thin I could almost see his pasty skin. Yet a dopey three-stooge's haircut. Told me later that his father really did cut his hair with a bowl. Behind his glasses his eyes kind of bulged and were a blue-salt pale. They were almost colorless. Get a weird accent too. When I asked him where he was from he just said, the mountains. I didn't ask him to be more specific. I just turned 12 and I wasn't having the best summer. My friends were away at camp and we couldn't afford for me to go. My mom and dad were getting a divorce. He'd moved out. Anyway, back then you made friends a lot easier so we just started hanging out. Luke and lived in a shitty apartment building over by the refinery. Said his dad worked the night shift somewhere. I was never supposed to knock on the door because it would wake up his dad. So I just threw a couple of babies at Luke's window and we'd take off on our bikes for Ocean Vista. This particular afternoon was overcast and we lifted our bikes over the chain-link fence that kept absolutely no one out just in time for a drizzling mist to roll in off the ocean. It was weird riding down those crumbling streets. It felt like you were riding on an invisible snake because the asphalt undulated up and down. Things in Ocean Vista didn't sink at the same pace. As we rode down streets with names like Spinnaker Avenue and Seahorse Lane, the humidity rose until it felt like I was riding through a wet towel. The mist cloaked front yards and mailboxes at the end of driveways. It was as if Ocean Vista was not only sinking, it was being slowly erased. We rode down the streets side by side, watching for sinkholes. When a house would pop out of the drizzle, it was like it had slipped the skin of another dimension. It was eerily quiet that afternoon. Maybe because the weather was shitty, no teenagers were blasting Megadeth or Sabbath. The only sound was Seagull squawking over the garbage they left behind. Once riding down a street I didn't remember even noticing before, the mist parted long enough for me to see a face in a window. A homeless drunk I told myself. A peddled faster. By the time we got to our hideout it was starting to rain and look shoved the front door open with a shoulder. The door was warped. His houses were pretty much alike. Feeling linoleum in the kitchen, molded and festive drywall. I picked this one for the Harley Davidson sticker on the mailbox. I'd just seen Easy Rider on TV and I badly wanted the chopped Harley with a panger handle bars like Captain America. Luke hadn't seen the movie. He didn't have a TV. Well, I'd explained. Billion Captain America right across the USA on motorcycles and do drugs with girls in a cool cemetery. Sad ending though. Then I'd pulled out my galaxy tape player and played born to be wild. Luke started doing this crazy jig. Picture a worm being electrocuted. Luke shouted over the music, still wriggling. Captain of America is rad, dude. Thanks to me, Luke's vocabulary was quickly expanding. Was Luke? He was. The house smelled pretty much like an unflushed toilet. But we were used to it. Soon we were sitting on the moldy couch, smoking the Virginia slams I stole from my sister. And leaving through the damp orno mags we'd found under a collapsing bed. Sadly, most pages had become glued together. The light was always dim and greenish because of the overgrown vegetation outside. And it was strange sitting in a house you knew was sinking slowly like quick sand. You knew you were doomed, but it was going to take a long time. When I looked out the picture window, everything was this pillowy gray. As if clouds had landed in the yard where the house was already submerged. I told Luke that maybe we ought to get going. It looked like it was about to rain harder. Beside me, Luke lit another Virginia slim. My father is a monster. At night he goes out and finds people. In that wavy underwater light, his pale froggy eyes gleamed as he stared at me, waiting for a reaction. What the fuck are you talking about? Luke Grand. What do you hear his story Jackie? He dropped a still lit match on the damp carpet. I heard it sizzle before it went out. Another time, let's go. I didn't know my father was monster at first. You ask about mom? She is dead. Dead, dead, dead. Poor mama. Bummer. So my father, he brings me here. California. America, the great. Sometimes though, he speaks the old language. If I do, he slaps my mouth. Oh, don't look sad, dude. He got me that bike out there. Rad, right? From Sears. Got it in the night when no one is there. And I read to him Jackie, Treasure Island and Charlotte Webb. He cries. Yeah, dude, big cry baby. Luke laughed. Slaped his knee. At night, I listened to the radio. Zero hour. Rod Sterling while I make the hamburger helper. I like rice errone best. Dude, in San Francisco, it is the favorite food. Do you think the captain of America likes rice errone? No, down, man. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a stupid jingle. What do you mean about Sears at night? Do you mean he stole it? Father sleeps in the bedroom, me in living room. I'm not allowed in the bedroom. He locks it. Sometimes he leaves when it's dark, but he doesn't go out the front door and he doesn't come out of the bedroom. I watch from the living room window peek around the curtain. You know, we are on the second floor. So how does he get out? I'll tell you, dude. My father, he goes out his bedroom window and climbs down the tree. What, what do you call it? You thought orange fruits birds like them. And it's a low quad. I knew because we had one in our backyard. We should get going. Luke pointed to his glasses. I watch him Jackie at night in the dark. I'll do window he goes and climbs like a spider. My father, down that tree crawling head first. I thought he worked the night shift. Where'd you say it was? Luke wave the hand for the beach. I assumed he meant the refinery. He all would be snickering. He doesn't know. I watch him, dude. He would whip me if he knew. Don't look worried, Jackie. I am so careful. Now listen. Last night, I hear him in the tree. Leaves flapping like crazy birdlings, but I go to the window too late. He's already in the bedroom. I hear a loud noise like he dropped something. Then Jackie, I hear him. He is pulling something on the floor. Shrush, shrush, it goes. Must be heavy and I hear breath. And what do you call it? Sad puppy sound, whippering? You mean whimpering? Luke made an exaggerated crying face. This is a weird ass story, dude. Luke nodded emphatically. Weird ass. It was early evening and the light inside the house was evaporating. It had started raining pretty good. Luke's eyes almost glowed behind his glasses. He leaned close. His breath was foul. And I wondered if he'd ever been to a dentist. I leaned away, but he scooted closer. His face almost pressed to mine. Last night, dude. I see the girl. He was creeping me out now. I stood up, puked the cigarettes in my t-shirt pocket. So your old man's got a girlfriend. I'm going home, dude. Luke grabbed my arm and pulled me back beside him on the couch. Oh man, broke it. He yelled up his broken cigarette. We ought to hit it before it rains harder. Wait, Jackie. Wait. There is a space under the door. I can see light from the bedroom. I go to the door. Careful. The floor makes noise, so I go on hands, my knees. I listen, but it is quiet. I hear my heart. I'm afraid father will hear. So I hold my breath, dragging again. You know how you do when something is heavy? Oh, if you go, then boom. The heavy gets dropped, and again, sad puppy is whispering. I put my head sideways on the floor. Look, like this. Luke cranked his head to the side so far I was surprised I didn't hear a snap. I see with only one eye under the door crack my father sneakers. Sandy, like he was at the beach, but he hates the beach. Hates the ocean, hates the people. Vulgar pigs, he calls them, but in the old language. And now I see wheels on metal legs. The wheel squeak as it rolls. Some table on wheels. My one eye can only see in front, not up. The puppy makes whippers and the wheel squeak, and my father says, shit, I never hear him say before, Jackie. And big something falls on the floor. And that's when I see the eye. The eye looks back at my eye under the door. It is blue. Eyelashes like 50 spider legs. It is stretched open. Why does the scream scream? Eye Jackie, the eye screams because their mouth it can't. There is tape. Luke zippered his mouth shut with a finger. I hear father wolf, wolf, and the eye is gone. Thump. Luke clapped his hands. The eye is back on the table. What the hell? Dude, what is this about? Luke reached into my t-shirt pocket and pulled out another cigarette. Let it and took a deep drag. Eileen dis head back and exhaled. Like the story, my dude? I think you read too many fucking comic books. His father wasn't some psycho killer, though he was clearly an asshole. Let's go. My mom's gonna be pissed if I miss dinner again. Except for the glow of Luke's cigarette, the house was dark. And must be after six. I appeared out the window. The rain's letting up, but it's probably gonna start again. I turned back around. But I didn't see Luke, or since it had gotten so dark, I didn't see the glow of the cigarette. Where'd you go? Sometimes, dude. Luke's voice was muffled, as if he was speaking through a pillow. Where are you? Sometimes I don't think it's father crawling down that low-quat tree. There was a puff of cold air in my ear. Sometimes? What the fuck? I've batted the air beside my ear, but there was nothing there. A crackly static electric feeling swelled up my spine. Sometimes I think it's really me. Okay, now you really creep me out. I'm gone. It had gone darker still inside the house. The atmosphere was oppressive. A black glue. I wanted to leave, but somehow I couldn't get off the couch. I could almost taste the dark in my mouth. Fowl. Cold. Are you going to leave me here? All alone? Come on, Luca. I'm serious. I can't see Jackie. I'm lost. I batted the surface of the couch and found a magazine. I tried to light it. It was too damp, but I managed to light another one. I could just make out the doorway to the kitchen. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke darting into it. Not funny, dude. I managed to get off the couch and was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. There was an inch of water on the floor, and unless Luke was hiding in one of the collapsed cabinets, there was nowhere else he could be. The torch burned my fingers. I dropped it. The red embers hit the floor. I padded my way back to the living room, looking for the front door. Because it was just hitting me. That wasn't Luke darting into the kitchen. The damp darkness felt heavy, sticky as a web. Not a pudgy kid with a bad haircut. And it wasn't my friend I heard breathing next to me in the dark. So, who? What? I was staring at the person across the table, feeling as if I'd been shaken from a thick dream. What'd you think? I scared you? I didn't recognize the face that seemed to be floating bodyless in the feeble glow of the candle between us on the table. What was that slapping sound? Grogly, I touched my cheek as I turned to the window. The leaves of the low-quot trees smacked the window pane, and the wind was hunting for an opening as it whistled around the building. Jack pulled out a cigarette and lit it with the candle. You smoke? Jack leaned his head back and exhaled. What that is in the ending? Ending. Of my story. Oddly, I'd forgotten it was just a story. It was as if I'd been in that dark, drowning house. I could smell the stink of mold, feel the damp sag of the disintegrating couch. Across the table, Jack smiled, eyes sparkling in the candlelight. You want to hear the ending, don't you? I wiggled uncomfortably in my chair. Okay, I felt a heaviness as if my shoes had been filled with sand. If it's not too long, you want to leave? I mean, it's late, I have to work in the morning. Jack took a deep drag of his cigarette. Well, I'll speed it up for you. Luca, remember, he's somewhere in the house, but not answering me. So I yelled something like, if your dad hits you, that's bogus, dude. I told him he could stay at my house, my mom wouldn't care. The dark felt heavy. I had this feeling I was slowly being dragged deeper into it. The floor beneath me had grown spongy. My sneakers squelched as I looked for the front door. I turned blindly to the sound down the hallway. Something was being dragged. Not cool, Luca. I called out. I knew the heavy breathing I heard was him, but I had this bizarre thought it was also the house. The dark hallway was a mouth, and it was trying to take me down with the sinking house. From leaving, I shouted, right now, but I couldn't find the door. Panicked, I patted the wall, then realized I was patting the window. The curtains had been pulled closed, which was why it was pitch black inside the living room. I yanked the curtains and the fabric came away in a rotten cloud. Pale lights shone through the dirty window, illuminating things of mold on the walls. It was as if a street light had turned on, but there had been no working streetlights in Ocean Vista for years. I yanked the front door knob, feeling panic rise as the warp door refused to budge. I could hear myself beginning to whimper. I finally managed to pull the door open just wide enough to slip through sideways. I jumped on my bike, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I thought I saw a face in the glow of light, beaming inside the house from some unknown source, but it wasn't Lucas, and I put my head down and peddled even faster. By the time I got home, I was in tears. How could I have left my friend in that awful sinking house? In the bright light of the cheerful kitchen, I couldn't eat the dinner my mom had kept warm for me. I'd run off like the biggest chicken. When I told my mom, I'd left my friend at Ocean Vista Village, she freaked out at first. She'd had no idea I went there. So dangerous, son and on. But I interrupted. I told her about the kid whose father stole stuff from Sears and smacked him around. Now, this kid didn't even have a TV, and now he was in some creepy house in Ocean Vista, and maybe he'd been kidnapped. I'd seen a face in the window when I left. Of course, my mom immediately called the police. They didn't find Luca. They didn't find anyone in that house. The cops said there was nothing inside, not even a couch. I couldn't have had a problem opening the front door because there wasn't one. The only thing that gave me hope that I had made the whole thing up was the Harley Davidson sticker on the mailbox. When the police went to Luca's building, the manager said no kids had ever lived in that apartment. In fact, the last tenant was an old man who died three months ago. I pulled the candle closer to me on the table. Then what? Jack smiled. I turned toward the hallway where the floor had just loudly creaked. When I turned back, the chair across from me was empty. Okay, you win. I'm scared. I cupped my hands around the candle for warmth. Out the window, the low-quot leaves tapped the glass. When I looked, I thought I saw a fluttering face looking back at me. A rush of air swooshed by me. I turned to the living room and there was Jack. He was dancing an odd jig in the flickering light of the dying candles. The herky jerked swirl and swiggling was exaggerated on the wall into gyrating shadows. His face kept shifting as if trying to fit puzzle pieces into a form. Darkness swarthed his upper face like a mask. I couldn't see his eyes and I had a sensation of tumbling, spinning, dropping somewhere so deep, so dark that there had never been a word for light. Hey, is you fall? I opened my eyes. The lights were back on. They were shining in my eyes so bright I was momentarily blinded. I realized I was lying on the hallway floor. Jack was standing across the room in the front doorway. I stood shakily. One hand on the wall. Jack rushed to my side, put an arm around my shoulders. Are you alright? You asshole. I wrenched away from him. You actually dragged me here? Of course not. You must have fainted after I went downstairs. Don't you remember I went downstairs to find the breaker box? Right when I found that the electricity came back on. I just now opened the front door and you were lying here. I shoved past him, grabbing my purse off an end table, slammed the door behind me. As I ran down the stairs, I tripped, catching myself with the railing. I looked down and the action figure, that thing from the cabinet was laying across the step I tripped on. His blacked out eyes, upturned to mine. I slammed out of the building and slashed to my car, despite the fog. I drove and didn't stop until a tree branch smashed onto my windshield, blinding me. I slammed on the brakes. The leaves had spread across the windshield like a grinning face. Someone behind me was honking, as a horrible realization grew. It wasn't Jack, in the candlelight, dancing that frenzied, wriggling jig. How could I have ever thought it was? It was a kid, a boy with a funny haircut grinning at me. Welcome to Goat Valley Campgrounds. Looking for a place to escape your busy life and reconnect with nature? Goat Valley Campgrounds features 300 acres of quiet, forest and peaceful scenery for you to enjoy. Come me Kate! She runs the place, like her parents before her. We know you'll enjoy your stay as long as you behave yourself and follow the rules. Your survival depends on it. The No Sleep Podcast presents Goat Valley Campgrounds, season 2. Bye, Bonnie Quinn. Chapter 7. I find myself thinking about how my uncle died. His hand outstretched for the radio and a desperate attempt to call for help. I think of my great aunt stabbing the harvesters in the face over and over. And of my own father, who stood there facing down the beast, even though he knew what the outcome would be. None of us go into the dark easily. I think this is a family trait. I've certainly seen people die easily, just roll over and let death take them, because fighting is too hard or they're too scared. I wonder if this is the prey instinct in us, whispering that it's easier to quietly shut down so that there's no pain, no fear, than the wolves close in. A quiet resignation when the mind realizes that there's no way out of this, that this is our fate, as monstrous as it may seem. I struggle to understand it, because me, I'll have to be dragged into the grave, clawing and fighting for whatever scrap of hope is left the whole way. My name is Kate, and this is Goat Valley Campgrounds. I knew my relationship with Sheriff Sibota wasn't going to be like it was with the old sheriff, the first time he showed up on my campground to collect a dead body. It was our first interaction and our official capacities. I'd been running the campground for a number of years by that point, but he was in his first year as Sheriff. I was occupied wrapping the body in trash bags to hide it from the sight of any campers that might blunder by when he arrived. It was thankfully in one piece this time, but whatever had killed him, it still managed to leave a mess behind. What looked like an entire body as worth a blood had sprayed outward in an almost perfect circle. I wanted to move the body out of the way and then spray down the entire area until the blood soaked into the earth. Thankfully, there was one of many hose attachments nearby. Sheriff Sibota brought the van to discreetly transport bodies out of the campground. He certainly hadn't wasted any time in taking on the sheriff's less savory tasks. The election had been rushed as the town desperately wanted a new sheriff. It felt like it had just wrapped up. I suppose that's to be expected. The sheriff fills a similar role as my family does. A buffer for the town, so they don't have to confront the monsters themselves. Oh, they told me when I got this position that I'd be dealing with a lot of death. And here we are. Wow. Hello to you too. Congratulations on winning the election. I mean, I only started a job a month ago. I always suspected that the town was only aware of a fraction of the deaths that happened here, but I didn't expect to be proven right so soon. Sorry to disprove your pet theory, but the town is right. We get more people hospitalized from dehydration and heat stroke than missing body parts. This will probably be the only death we have to deal with all year. One too many, don't you think? Sibota, coming on rather hard, aren't you? Give it a rest. We went to school together, remember? I didn't like you back then either. Well, this is off to a great start I can see. Really looking forward to working with you here. Let's get you what you need and get you on your way. The nearest hospital is used to working with us, so that's where the body goes. They'll figure out a plausible cause of death to put on the paperwork. I've already filled out my part here. Details on the victim, here's their emergency contact form, and then this is the campground report of what really happened. That stays with me, but you're welcome to read it over before I file it away. I want to know what you're going to do about the creature that caused this. Pardon, I what? What are you going to do about the monster? Nothing. Nothing? I don't even know what caused it. We get people with family lines from all over the world through here and their monsters follow them. That's even assuming it is something documented. So it just gets to hole up in the woods until it gets hungry again, and then I get to come out here and collect another body. Sibota, what am I supposed to do? Maybe you feel real brave with that gun on your hip, but take it from someone that's actually shot these creatures before? Bullets don't do much. If you're lucky, they slow it down long enough to give you a head start. There's rituals. Managing rituals. That means these things come back, or they go prey on the locals around town. Think you'll keep winning elections after someone's spouse or child goes missing? Besides, a lot of these things on the campground don't even show up in folklore. I'm not about to go around experimenting on them. So your family doesn't even try? Oh, we sure have tried. Have you ever taken a stroll through the family graveyard? Do the math on the dates on the tombstones? A lot of people died in their forties or earlier. You should think about why that is. Make sure to stop by my parents' grave. Think hard on that one. I stocked away after that, and Sibota didn't try to continue the discussion. It's hard to argue when someone pulls out dead parents as a trump card, I feel. Everyone in town knew the story. I felt their whispers following me in the months following their deaths. After I returned from college with no intention of ever going back to finish my degree, it felt like the ocean tide washing against my heels as I walked through the grocery store in town, as I wandered the aisles of the hardware store. And when I reached the breaking point, when I was ready to turn and scream at them that I hurt and hurt and hurt and didn't need them reminding me of what I had lost, the tide would recede and I'd find myself standing alone, surrounded by firt of silence. I was so very alone. I'm not sure what I would have done without Sheriff Russell. He filled in the gaps that my parents hadn't shown me yet on how to manage the campground. He didn't always agree with how the campground was run, but he still supported me. Let's figure it out, Kate, he'd say. Let's figure it out. Of course, I hated Sibota. I don't think we could have gotten along even without the man with no shadows interference. I kept looking at my mother's journal. That first date, the day that the man with no shadows set Sibota down this course, my mother knew could she have done something to stop this outcome? Did she try? Perhaps she was merely waiting and watching and then the little girl cut her life short before anything meaningful could be done. If my family was responsible for the designs that the man with no shadow woe for Sheriff Sibota, then it was only right that I would be responsible for Sibota's fate. I'd just finished brewing and drinking my morning cup of nettle tea, the lady with extra eyes had given me when Sheriff Russell showed up on my doorstep. He looked especially grim, his mouth drawn into a thin line. Is everything okay? No, how are you doing? You're arm working? I'm okay. My arm feels fine now, but I still feel lost and confused. Well, this isn't the first time I've seen someone have a crisis or confidence, but this is a damn bad time for it. I'm gonna need you to suck it up and do your job. Get out here. There's work to do. Harsh? I guess it was what I needed to hear though. He led me out to his car and he popped the trunk open. I'll be honest, I was not expecting who was inside. Are you thinking right now that it was the buyer? That the old sheriff had finally figured out what the game was and thought it was time to make him vanish for good? Yeah, that was kind of what I was hoping for too. Well, you're just as wrong as I was. Sibota? Inside was the sheriff. His wrists were handcuffed behind his back and his ankles were tied together with rope. His knees were tied as well, but despite this, he continued to struggle, a strangely rhythmic rocking back and forth as his hips shifted and his knees tried to bend. Dried blood crusted his face from a gash directly in the middle of his forehead. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion and fear and he weakly turned his head towards us, squinting at the sudden sunlight. Help me. And for a moment, I was bewildered as to why he would ask me to save him from the old sheriff. I turned to the man beside me who only stared grimly down at his captive. One hand still on the lid of the trunk. So are you looking for somewhere to dump a body? Because honestly, we could just drop him in my neighbor's lake and blame it on the shaleek and sing as they've been acting weird lately and all. Look, I may be reconsidering my actions, but I trust the old sheriff's judgment. And if he says someone needs to be disposed of, I ain't questioning it for an instant. Be more like your father, Kate. Come on. Help me get him out. The old sheriff reached down, grabbing Sabota's arm and hauling him out of the vehicle. I took the other man's arm and together we dragged him from the car and into my house. Then the old sheriff pulled a sizeable pocket knife out and set to song through the ropes that bound the sheriff's legs. Surprisingly, the sheriff began to fight back. No, no, no, don't do it. Don't, don't release me. Russell refused to be dissuaded and the rope snapped free, leaving the man on the floor with only his hands handcuffed behind him. And he began to weep. It was a broken sort of crying, deep within the chest, and there were no tears. It was paroxysms of despair and the hopeless weeping of a man that had nothing in him with which to fight. He stood. His legs jerked mechanically as if they were on strings. And he began to walk in a straight line and didn't stop when he hit the sofa. Just continued to go forwards and slowly, slowly, the piece of furniture began to budge. Inch by inch, being resolutely shoved forwards and to the side with each impact of the sheriff's knees. After a minute of this, the old sheriff intervened by taking the man by his shoulders and forcibly turning him to another direction. And off when Sabota, like a mindless toy, and it was only the old sheriff's intervention that kept him from walking straight into the wall of my living room. I was hoping you'd have an idea of what to do with him. Do you even know what's wrong? Well, I was hoping you'd be able to figure that out as well. Okay, hang on, I think I can at least keep him from running into the wall. I went to the garage. I don't keep pets. After the horse incident, we decided they were just a bad idea to have around. However, at some point, I acquired a dog tie out, a long spiral steak that went into the ground with a swivel on the end with a long wire lead. I don't remember how I got it and why I still haven't. Probably left behind by a camper. Let's take him out into the yard. Come on. I put the steak in the ground and the lead around Sabota's elbow. He walked in one direction until he was out of slack and then tugged to the side by the off-center pull of the lead. He began to walk in a long circle. My eye itched as he watched him. I raised a hand and paused, stopping myself before I rubbed at the splinter the lady with extra eyes at place there. Well, that's a solution. He's going to walk himself to death though if he keeps this up. He's been that this for hours and he's telling me he's exhausted and I'm afraid he's going to keep going until he simply drops dead. The man with no shadow did this. He can order people to do things this extreme. I guess he's decided that he's done with him. Or more likely, he was angry that the sheriff revealed his weakness. We stood in grim silence for a moment, watching the sheriff make his slow, torturous lap around my yard. Someone from town found the sheriff caught on a fence. The landowner saw a figure struggling at the far end of his field. He went out there to investigate and was surprised to find the sheriff. Walking. Just walking straight ahead directly into the wooden fence. He must have been out there for some time for there were furrows dug into the soft earth from his feet, repeating the same steps over and over and over. That's when they called you? Well, the landowner managed to guide him into the barn and yeah, then he called me. When I showed up the sheriff, it managed to walk into the barn wall enough times that he'd split his head open. That's where the injury came from. We found him moaning in pain with blood running down his face and he still couldn't stop. His legs just kept going. That's why you tied him up. I made him easier to transport. Don't think it made things better. I went out to the sheriff. Russell remained behind to watch. I matched pace with Sabota as he continued walking in his long circle. What did the man with no shadow tell you to do? Walk. Just keep walking. Without turning or stopping. Just walk until my heart gives out or or I blundered into something deadly like the highway. My heart sank. I freed my neighbor from the man with no shadows influenced by removing some fingers. But nothing was coming to me now. Perhaps it was because I didn't have an artifact of some inhuman creature at hand. Perhaps there was no connection that would offer up the knowledge I needed to save the sheriff. There was just me and my frail human understanding. I'll think of something. He stared hopelessly straight ahead. Don't bother. I knew something like this could happen when I gave you that gun. Go inside and get it. Speed things along a little. I'm so tired. I just want this to all stop. It wasn't just the walking he was tired of. I heard the exhaustion in his voice. He was tired of all of it. Of being the sheriff, of the body bags, of the fear, of the knowledge that were constantly always being watched from the shadows, of being hunted. Tired of this town. Tired of the dying. I know what that feels like. I went back to the house, but I did not get the pistol. If I gave up on the sheriff now, would it make it easier for me to give up in the future? That was a road that I was terrified to take, to even glance at. Lest I see how easy it would be to walk. Any ideas? Could take him to the hospital to be sedated. I like it by a some time, assuming the drugs even work. They could simply be consumed by whatever foul power was keeping his body moving. Are there any other remedies that you know of? Something that isn't normal medicine? I know a few things. There's rituals to protect against evil and others to banish some powers. The problem is that they're specific to certain cultures and creatures that come from those cultures and the man with no shadow is unique to my land. Anything that's common across all cultures? Fuck, I don't know. I went to school for business, not to study folklore. I guess that was a mistake. Maybe. I think I've seen a lot of stories where another being of power intervenes though. Another being of power. We both turned to look at the woods. Oh hell. A lady with extra eyes. She said she'd never help me again. But this wasn't for me. This was Sabota. I hate Sabota. It seemed like a reasonable loophole. We had to try. So we took the sheriff into the woods. I walked to his right and the old sheriff walked to his left. We each held one of his arms to guide him between us so that he wouldn't keep going straight into a tree. He didn't speak. He was beyond exhaustion, nearly senseless. But unable to do anything about it. Not with the man with no shadows words coursing through his body. I told the sheriff that we were taking him to see the lady with extra eyes. And that while she wouldn't help me anymore, I hoped that she'd be willing to help him. I'd stay outside. I wasn't certain if I'd be welcome anymore after our bargain. And I didn't want to risk her refusal. The old sheriff would do the asking. We didn't find the lady. We found the dancers. The young woman that has always been the one to speak to me greeted us on the road. She stood in the middle of the path, barefoot, wearing jeans and a garish hot pink bikini top. We had to adjust our path to go around her and she fell in beside me as we walked. You're looking, Bernie. I'm looking for the lady with extra eyes. I'm not really in a move to deal with you right now. You're looking for a killer. Bergens with fairies always have a price. Today's say I was a fairy. Oh, I stopped cold. I let go of the sheriff's arm and let him continue on. Kate. Kate? What are you doing? It's fine. I'll catch up in a minute. I stared at the woman in front of me with her round face and her black hair and that faint smile on her lips. You dance. There's some beliefs that a group dancing in a circle around will remove the curse. Give him to us. You will not get him back. He will join our company and live as long as he chooses to. He's not going to like this. It's not his choice to make anymore, is it? It's yours. I ran to the sheriff, took him by the elbow and turned him around. Russell didn't question what I was doing. I've got a solution. You'll go with the dancers. They'll make you one of his and that'll save you. They can break the man with no shadows hold. You'll be free. What? No. No. No, Kate. I don't want this. This is an a solution. Kate. Stop it, Kate. He couldn't fight back. His body no longer under his control. Just as he'd been unable to even raise his arms to stop himself from slamming his head into the wall over and over until he bled. All I could do was beg, as his legs carried him inevitably forwards towards the waiting dancer. She watched with bright eager eyes. They kill people. I can't do that. I'm not like you. My chest felt tight at hearing his cries of protest, but I kept going. I'd rather die. I'd rather die as a human than be one of those monsters that are trapped here on this damned campground. I have to save you. I hate you. You and your whole damn family. Your evil, all of you, you don't have the right to make this choice for me. But he couldn't stop me. The man with no shadow had told him to walk and so he did. Straight towards the dancer that stretched out her arms to take him from me. I delivered him into her waiting hands. It's okay. You fought so hard and for so long that your fight is done now. There are others who will see this through now. And she glanced backwards at where I stood with the old sheriff on the road. And she left and she took sheriff's subota with her. Did I do the right thing? I don't know. I guess we'll find out in time. He left after that. Left me to sort out my thoughts. I admit there wasn't much of that. I sat on my bed staring at the piece of thread on my nightstand as the minutes and hours ticked by. I didn't feel much of anything. It was like after my parents died. I felt numb, numb and hollow and very much alone. I didn't see Russell until a few days later when he came by to give me an update on what was happening in town. Well, I lied to them. I didn't like doing it but with everything that's going on, I think it's best to limit the information they get. I told them the dancers got to him while he was trying to find you out in the woods. Nothing about your part in it. Well, I lied to them. You ever told them the truth? After we're done with the man with no shadow? I don't know. Everyone knows you had bad blood and even without something in human whispering in their ears, they might take it badly. At least he doesn't have a family to notify. You ever think about why that is? I assumed it was his personality. You never saw the good parts of him. I think after the man with no shadow got to him, I think he gave up hope of something like that for himself. He didn't know what path was being laid out for him, but he must have known it wouldn't end well. I think that's where all that anger towards you came from. This campground was the reason he couldn't have a life he wanted. I'm angry too. What's that say about my path? Russell didn't reply. Just padded me awkwardly on the shoulder and took his leave. Last night at sundown, Brian was making the final rounds through the campground to make sure all our protections were in place. My staff were checking to make sure our extra precautions for the bad year haven't been disturbed every evening. Everything was fine, but he did see a group of people in the woods and stopped at the edge of the road to see if they were trespassers or something else. The dancers, they were setting up wood for the bonfire. The sheriff was there, stuffing dead leaves and small branches at the base in preparation for lighting it. One of the dancers touched his shoulder and he looked up to where my staff sat on their forewheeler and he waived, then he went back to work. The dancers said he would live for as long as he chose to, so I guess he's okay with this for now. I kept telling myself that maybe this is a good thing. He never wanted to be sheriff. I don't know what the sheriff actually wanted, but I wasn't that. Certainly not that. The man with no shadow dictated his future for him, took hold of his life and discarded whatever hopes and dreams he'd once harbored. And then I took him by the arm and delivered him to another fate that he hadn't chosen. I hope he's content with them. I hope he someday stops hating me. I hope he never has to kill anyone. Goat Valley Campgrounds Season 2 was written and adapted for audio by Bonnie Quinn. Produced for the No Sleep Podcast by Phil McCalsky. Musical score composed by Brandon Boone. Starring Lindsay Russo as Kate David Cummings as Sheriff Sabota, Jesse Cornett as Russell and Mary Murphy as the dancer. Join us next week for chapter 8 of Goat Valley Campgrounds Season 2. The so you can stay safe, stay secure, and stay sleepless. The NoSleef Podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Micolsky, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornett, and Claudius Moore. Our editorial team is Jessica McAvoy, Ashley McAnelly, All-EA White, and Kristen Samito. To discover how you can get even more sleepless horror stories from us, just visit sleepless.thennoSleefpodcast.com to learn about the sleepless sanctuary. Add 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 NoSleef Podcast, we thank you for joining us and seeking safety from the things that stuck us in the night. This audio program is Copyright 2025 by Creative Reason Media Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respect of authors. 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