DERELICT Presents: The NoSleep Podcast

Hey everybody, JBM here with yet another edition of Derelict Presents, where we share some of the fiction audio series that we are fans of ourselves. Today the podcast is the No Sleep Podcast, the multi-award winning anthology series of original horror stories, currently in its 15th year and created and hosted by David Cummings. Every Sunday they release episodes that give you horrifying theater of the mind experiences featuring classic stories from the internet and brand new original stories from the best of modern horror writers. They work with some talented voice actors and special guests like Elijah Wood, Mike Flanagan, Dan Harmon, and Kate Siegel. The episode we're going to share is called Moira, which tells the story of a young girl who has been gifted a very mysterious diary. But you can jump in anywhere and start enjoying some of the hundreds of hours of stories in their archives. Find them on your favorite podcast platform or visit thenosleeppodcast.com to learn more. And in addition, if you haven't already, please check out our own crowdfunding page for Season 3 Derelict War by visiting derelictpodcast.com slash war or clicking the link in the episode notes below. As always, thanks for listening and enjoy the No Sleep Podcast and Moira. This is David Cummings, the creator and host of the No Sleep Podcast. Our horror storytelling anthology is designed to keep you sleepless, to impact you on many levels. We're thrilled and chilled to be able to share this story with you. It's written by Jamie Flanagan, written down perhaps like a diary. If you've ever kept a diary, you'll know how meaningful it can be when you look back on your life documented therein. But for the young girl we'll soon meet, a diary gifted to her wasn't blank and ready to be filled in. You see, her diary comes with important rules. Rules that, if broken, can have calamitous consequences. Performing this tale for you are Kristen Di Mercurio. Mary Murphy, Danielle McRae, Aaron Lillis, Marie Westbrook, Jeff Clement, Nicole Doolin, Kyle Akers, Nicole Goodnight, and Sarah Thomas. So your diary is meant to be written by you, one day at a time. Don't believe me? Well, just ask Moira. I'm eight years old when my mother asks for the book. My grandmother pulls the diary from a dusty shelf in the kitchen as my other grandmothers exchange a glance across their weaving. It does not seem odd to me that I have three grandmothers, nor odd that the kitchen should be used to house so many books. The cottage is filled with them, Stack upon stack, shelf upon shelf. My grandmother hands the diary to my mother, boasting of her handiwork as she stirs a pot of stew. Coptic binding, hand-stitched with mare's mane. Horven ink. On parchment from Salib Gullionwood. Bound in vellum from Milo's calf. He crumbled about it, Milo, but came round in the end. Carried it here himself when he learned it was for our Moira. For old time's sake. What's old time? Like now, but happier. And a bit blurry. My grandmothers have names, of course. Cleo, Lockley, and Addie. Though I've never been able to tell them apart. I'd like Moira to have it. A silence hangs over the cottage like a cloud threatening to rain at my mother's pronouncement. For what purpose? Moira is afraid of the world. Three pairs of roomy eyes turn to me. My chest tightens as my throat closes and my cheeks begin to burn. Without a word, I can guess their answer. Dinner comes and goes, then it's goodbye kisses and tight embraces. Gran turns to my mother. Tell that man of yours we said hello. My father never visits the cottage. It's not, I'm told, a place he belongs. That night, at home, as my mother tucks me in, she gives me a conspiratorial grin, then reaches into her bag and retrieves the diary. An early birthday gift. Just don't tell your grandmothers. I take the book. It's thick and heavy, and its vellum is smooth and reassuring beneath my touch. When I was your age, I had a diary just like this one. Your grandmothers gave it to me. I read a little each day, and it made me feel safe, so long as I followed the rules. What rules? Each day, you may read one entry, but only the entry for that same day. Don't bother with what happened yesterday or the day before. Life moves forward and that's how it's meant to be read. But, and this is very important, never skip ahead to tomorrow. Or after. Promise? Promise. Good. Keep it close. Don't sell, lose, or give it away. There is one book for you in all the world and no one, not even your grandmothers, can replace it. She casts a serious gaze. I try my best to appear wise, responsible, and like someone who would never give, sell, or otherwise lose a book. Once my mother's footsteps have receded down the hall, I huddle beneath the sheets, reading today's entry by flashlight. The diary makes no mention of monsters in closets or ghouls beneath beds. I lie down to sleep, and for the first time, I'm not afraid of the dark. Sunlight spills through my bedroom window, warm against my cheek. It's the day before my ninth birthday. I can smell angel food cake baking and hear my father whistling from downstairs. In the afternoon, my mother and I finger paint flowers on my bedroom wall. She lets me paint a sunflower on her cheek, laughs, and, hands still wet with colors, holds me. Before bed, I open the diary, longing to be reassured and, because I'm exactly the girl my grandmothers know me to be, break my promise and read about what presents I'll receive tomorrow. Pages flutter beneath my touch. It's suddenly morning. I'm already dressed. I put down the book and head downstairs. My father greets me with a harried smile as he cleans up the remnants of what appears to have been a party. Ah, there she is. How about a little leftover cake for breakfast? I go to the fridge, and sure enough, there's my angel food cake, mostly eaten, with holes atop where candles should be I confused Then memories surface Details I somehow know My friends arriving the cake with lit candles what songs we sang and what presents I received But they all feel like stories from the television, like things I've seen that never happened to me at all. That night, I visit my grandmothers. They lounge in their sitting room, playing a game that reminds me of Yahtzee, but with a set of small bones instead of dice. Grans, I'm confused. Wants to know rules for a book she shouldn't have. A pang of shame colors my cheeks as a handful of Bones clatter against the coffee table. It's simple. If a tad convoluted. For any today, you can read all you like and still have those things to look forward to. If you read tomorrow or any further ahead, you'll find yourself wherever you leave off. Why? Time's a fickle relative. Shy about the future, insufferably blunt about the present, and a disaster at record-keeping. Tomorrow isn't meant for most eyes. You're half kin, so you can have a few hours preview. Any more than that, you'll skip ahead with the pages. They continue their game as though they've forgotten me entirely. Are you angry with me? Should I give it back? No, dear. You were always going to have it. Though we had never chosen to give it to you. Oh, well. Then I should probably get home then. Thanks, Grants. You're welcome, Puppet. Then, as I turned to leave... Moira. Moira. I turned to face them. Three pairs of eyes, uncharacteristically sad, Stare back. Enjoy tomorrow. Savor it. One hands me the bones. Know that you are loved. Before beginnings. Beyond ends. Always. I limp my way through the playground at recess. It's been a few days since I visited my grands, and I've taken their advice to heart. I set my bag down, the book safely inside, as I take a seat on a seesaw. That's when the boy shows up. Can I play? I stand, holding the opposite seat at waist height. He accepts the invitation and joins me. Up and down we go, back and forth, slow and creaking. And after a very long time, he speaks. Why do you limp during recess, but never during class? What do you mean? All week, you've limped during recess, but never during class. Time. What about it? My gran says time's my relative or something. If I'm happy, it'll be happy and run fast. If I'm sad, it'll be sad too and move much slower because it feels bad for me. The seesaw creaks to a stop. His brow wrinkles in confusion. So why do you limp during recess but never during class? I step off the seesaw, careful not to let him plummet. I sit in the grass, then remove one of my shoes. A trick my grands taught me. Hold out your hand. Tiny bones fall from my shoe to his palm. He sifts through them, a question perched on his lips. As I cradle my legs to my chest and rest my chin on my knees, I use them when I don't want something to end. Or when I'm enjoying something I wish would last longer. Do they hurt? Yes. Then why do you wear them? Because pain makes a moment seem longer. You're weird. Then he drops the bones to the ground before rushing away. A shrill whistle announces the end of recess. Other children rush past me in a blur. I finish tying my shoe, then gather the bones. That's when I realize my bag is gone. And for a panicked moment that rivals eternity, my book along with it. During social studies, I sit stone still despite my dread, while blindly circling answers on a multiple choice quiz. I pass a note to the boy who'd shared the seesaw with me, asking if he has my bag. With a wince of distaste, he nudges it off his desk without reading. Our social studies teacher, a severe woman with split bifocals, stops at my desk. Class? She yanks the page from beneath the tip of my pencil. Is this how we fold our paper? No, a chorus of voices reply. How do we fold it? The class mumbles something else, but I can't hear it through the ringing in my ears as the muscles of my neck and face tense up, the last bulwark against a sob. Correct. She stares down at me. Down the center, like a book. With that, she drops the piece of paper on my desk, and for a moment, the world is searing white. Then I'm in motion, on my feet, fleeing the classroom, searching for a safe place to cry. When I arrive home from school, I hurry to my mother, then fall into her arms as... Pages flutter. In the dark, I stare across my bedroom at the novelty clock on my wall, the black cat with its shifting eyes. My brow knots in confusion as the unlived memories of the last day and a half assert themselves. I remember crying. Remember my mother on the phone with other parents, trying to track down my diary without luck. I somehow keep myself from panicking. I need to find whoever has the book and stop them from reading further than they already have. I slip out of bed and run toward my parents' room, ease the door open, hesitantly call out for my mother. She sits up in bed as my father turns on a lamp. Moira? I tell her that... Pages flutter. Wearing a different set of pajamas, I stand at their bedroom door as a yesterday that never happened forces its way into my head. I sob, hands to my forehead as I open the door. Oh, bad dreams again, honey. Another coughing fit takes hold of my mother. Pages flutter. I stand at the threshold of my parents' room. New pajamas, new night. I fall to one knee as an entire week rips through me. I howl in pain. My mother sits up, doubles over in another coughing fit. My father rushes to my side. It's okay, Moira. Your mother's just feeling a little... Pages flutter. I open the door to their bedroom where my mother frail and thin wearing a knit cap sits on the edge of the bed clutching a wastebasket A missed month robs me of my ability to speak To stand My head cracks against the wooden floorboards that break my fall. Pages flutter. My father is asleep in bed. There's no sign of my mother. Before I can make sense of what I see, pages flutter. I'm sitting on the carpet of our living room on a sunny day, as a cartoon plays on the television. My lips part, eyes hood over as months of lost time etch themselves into me, each thought like a sculptor striking stone. On the mantle is an urn. Then I remember when my relatives gathered in their dark suits and dresses, how I was led by the hand toward a wooden box that both did and did not contain my mother and... In the living room, I am screaming. My father, prone on the couch with his eyes closed and fingers resting gently against a liquor bottle, doesn't so much as twitch. Pages flutter. My father leads me into an office of brown walls and leather couches. I wade through the quiet hum of central air conditioning and the smell of lemon-scented polish. It's a doctor for people who are soul-sick, I remember him telling me. I am ten years old, and I am screaming. Pages flutter. Wearing a thin gown, I seem to float through a hallway lit by halogens. Paneled ceiling above. Checkered floor below. And many, many doors. Then I remember intake. My father's tears. Bi-monthly visits. I'm twelve years old. And I'm still screaming. Pages flutter. I stare up at the ceiling of my moonlit bedroom in Shady Pines facility. Quiet as a mouse. I'm awake. Can't move. Blame it on my meds. Or another one of my fits. I have a few different kinds. Manic. Depressive. Dissociative. This one they'll call sleep paralysis. But it's the diary. Inscribing the last two years into me. My arms itch from past cuts I've inflicted. Trying to slow it all down. I just want it to slow down. Pages flutter. I'm 19 years old, and I refuse to panic, not this time. I take stock of the immediate, the clothes on my back, the wooden stool beneath me, the easel in one hand, the paintbrush in the other, the canvas in front of me. Instead of fighting the deluge, I breathe and accept the last five years. I breathe, not worrying about time or order. I breathe and let my skipped life bloom. develop in me like a Polaroid. Then I know where I am and where I've been. How I left the facility when my father, sober, finally came back to claim me. How I enrolled in community college, older than my peers. I gaze at a canvas awash with dark oil colors. A painted figure stares back. A black cat with clock eyes, old beyond counting and cruel beyond reason. I've looked for you. Called old classmates. Most didn't remember me. Others hung up. Whoever you are, please stop reading. Please. Pages flutter. I fall to the twin bed of my dorm room and then curl into a fetal position. Out of community college and into a state university. Art major. My chest vibrates as sobs breach my lips. Lottie, my roommate, lies down beside me. A soft parenthetical at my rigid back, whispering that everything will be all right. It won't be. I know it won't. Pages flutter. I'm 25, seated on a high-pile carpet in a studio apartment. A warm box of white rice in one hand and chopsticks in my left. surrounded by moving boxes and a few lit candles. She hasn't been here long enough to call the power company. The acquaintance across from me, dimly lit by candlelight. A friend of a friend. I'd agreed to help her with the move. After eating a dumpling, she wipes a bit of sauce from her lip, then gazes at me in a way that makes me feel warm. Seen. I make a fist with one hand, dig my nails into my palm, hoping the pain will turn these seconds into minutes. Just let me stay in this moment. Please let... Pages flutter. I lie next to a man. Early thirties. In a large bedroom in an expensive flat. A pristine, sterile space. Lifeless. He rises to dress. I stare at him. This person I abandoned my desire for, to share in his safety. And I pray for someone to come along with my diary so I'll no longer feel beholden. So I can find peace on my own terms. Pages flutter. The bed in the loft is disheveled. It's a bohemian studio of red bricks and dark metal accents. Looks small and cheap. Still costs more than we can afford. Holding down a job isn't easy for me, given my condition. In my free time, I paint. Art supplies and musical instruments are spread throughout the studio. The latter belong to her. At the nearby sink, a woman in her 40s, the same age as me, applies dark eyeliner. She asks why I won't be attending her concert this evening. That's when I realize I can't get out of bed. That I haven't for a day or two. save for a trip or two to the bathroom. Like my last partner's wealth, her confidence has been carrying me, and I've had nothing to offer in return. Her makeup does little to hide how much my silence hurts her. She crosses the room, reaches for her dark overcoat on... pages flutter. The coat rack. Nothing hangs there except a scarf of mine. Most of my jackets are on the floor, tangled amongst the rest of my clothing. An alarm clock sounds as I roll over on that same bed in the same studio. I reach out, silencing it. Take stock of what I've missed. The musical instruments are gone. The paint supplies in disarray. I am 45 years old. I'm alone. Pages flutter. It is loud in the art gallery. Louder than I would like. The size of the crowd is encouraging, but I worry about the critics. My black evening gown scratches at the seams. It used to fit better. I look over my collection, which, at long last, I've managed to get on display. The portraits all share one thing in common. The subjects are dead. I stare at a portrait of my mother. A wound four decades old, though somehow only minutes, splits further open. I am 47 years old and still don't know how to mourn. A man in his 80s, frail and much smaller than he'd been in my youth, approaches. Asks if the paintings are selling and no they aren He nods then looks at the portrait of my mother It exceptional he tells me His voice cracks with age and regret He says he wishes he'd taken her more places, seen more of the world with her. If only they'd had a little more time. Then, with a kindness I cling to like a life preserver, he stares at me and tells me he's proud. He is so, so very proud of... Pages flutter. I stare at a portrait of my father, which hangs in my collection. I stand there, split in two. Half of me sinks as the other floats away. I am fifty years old. Pages flutter. I pass beneath the vaulted ceiling of a vast space. My footsteps echo as I pass Roman soldiers, pharaohs, cavemen, dinosaurs. Things lost to time. I take a seat on a bench. Admire a painting that hangs on a wall. Grateful for the soothing din of passers-by. A girl about eight years old. Younger than me, and not. Wearing a puffy blue coat and knit cap, wanders over. She adjusts the straps of her backpack as she stares at the painting. I greet her, ask if she's here for school. She's shy. Shakes her head yes. Moments later, her teacher seeks her out. Relief washes over the woman's face. She'd thought she'd lost one. The girl asks me what I do. I offer to show them. Later, in a back room few can access, I invite the teacher and the girl to sit beside a work table, upon which rests an aged canvas. I put on a pair of vinyl gloves, remove the nails from the wood with a pair of pliers, mix putty, apply it to the holes and cracks, then use a hot iron to affix strips of fabric. I flip the canvas over, examine the painting with a blacklight, find the places time has eaten away. I mix my paints to match their colors, then fill in what's been lost. A restoration artist. She restores them, see? Good as new? No, I tell her, as I use a Q-tip and a bit of solvent to make a dull orange bright again. It'll never be as it was, or like it was supposed to be. There's damage, changes, even in repair. It won't keep forever. But it'll stay as long as there's someone around who believes it deserves to. Which things get to stay? No telling. Most don't. Nor do the people that made them. That's what makes them beautiful. And a little sad. And that's okay. That's the way of things. Aside from fixing stuff, did you ever make anything? Anything that stayed? The question cuts deep, but I don't let on. A practiced smile that's long since become reflex crosses my face. A small, sad thing that answers her question without answering it. Then the girl and the teacher have gone. I apply varnish to finish the piece. Hang up my smock and throw away the gloves. turning off the lights behind me as I go. I return to the bench in the gallery, to the painting which hangs there. I try to admire it as a whole, restorations and all, much like my life. The fraction I've lived, and the bulk I haven't. I feel a pain in my arm, then in my chest. The lights above dim, a subtle warning that it's nearly time to go. I stay where I am, I'm too old and young to follow such rules. So I sit with the painting and my regrets. I should never have waited so long for something to come along and save me, for someone else to make me feel safe. Tomorrows are frightening, until you start to run out of them, and what's left of my book is thin. I think back to the early parts, when scenes played out in their entirety, and the tone was the stuff of fairy tales. So it's no surprise when one of my grandmothers sits beside me, disguised as my shadow. Though I couldn't name her as a child, I recognize her now. Gentle Atropo, the one who shelves the books. I wish my grands had taught me better ways to stretch a moment. For all the pain, mine went by too fast. I can't blame you for that, though. For a while, I did. All you did was find a diary. And pages are meant to be turned. So, Redon, there's comfort in ending. The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish. Where am I? Welcome to Desert Skies, traveler. Your journey through the physical plane has come to an end. I am the attendant. My colleague here is the mechanic. Yo. This is your last stop on your way to the great beyond. It's our job to make sure you're prepared for the ride. Now, before hitting the road, we have an impressive selection of over 34 varieties of microwavable burritos. Um, what's going on? There's got to be a better afterlife than this. I mean, come on! Uh, that's offensive. Something seems to be wrong. You left something major undone. I have a life outside of this gas station, you know. You quite literally do not. Any hobbies? Nope. Ever travel? Nope. Love interests? Are you kidding? Oh my god. You're like the human version of a plain bagel. Cash register. How can I help you, attendant? Play some music? You got it. It's kind of funny, though. What I needed wasn't back there. It was here, waiting for me. I wonder what it feels like, Mac, to miss the physical plane of people you left behind. You know, I had a wife who died three years ago. Wish I could go back. No, you don't need to go back. You just need to be here. And a new traveler approaches. Ready, team? Ready. Good. Let's do this. Find desert skies wherever you listen to podcasts. But before Addy returns me to the stacks, if it isn't too much to ask, turn back to the morning before my ninth birthday, to the sun on my skin, my mother's baking and my father's whistling. Draw a sunflower in the margins so I'll feel held before beginnings, beyond ends, always. Thank you. Thank you.