NINE II MIDNIGHT - Terrors of the Real World
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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com It seems like the terrors of the real world are most appealing to you, and for good reason. Oftentimes we find ourselves laying awake at night, wondering if the sound creaking in the hall downstairs is just the house settling, or something else.

Someone waiting for you to fall asleep. The terrors of the real world are what scare you. So share with us. Share with us the truths you hold and let them become our truth as well. Jeez. Okay, so myself, Cole, Alex, Emily, Sean, Jamie, and Rat. The horrors of the real world, eh? I suppose I might as well start us off.

I feel like there's suddenly a lot of pressure to this, but anyway. You know, I chose this path because, well, most of the stuff that happens to me is real. Or at least this story is. Anyway, I had just moved into my first apartment. It was a small one-room, real shit heap of a place. You know, when you're single and living alone, you take whatever you can get.

This place, and I'm talking roaches, mice, you know, any big city apartment owner or more likely renter will tell you what it's like, but I loved it. Or I loved what it meant. The freedom, I suppose. The freedom of being alone. Only, I guess I wasn't alone. Not truly. I heard it after the first night, in the morning while I was brushing my teeth to get ready for work. Hello? Okay. Weird. At first I thought it was mice.

Something small, animal-like that was eating something else in the walls. A constant scratching. A tiny mouth eating something wet once alive. I felt assured that that was the case the night I came home from work because it had moved. I was in the kitchen making dinner when I heard it this time. On the left, again, scratching. What the hell are you? Get out! Get! Get out! Go! Get! Get! Shut the fuck up in there! Sorry!

That's when I realized it must be coming from my neighbor's apartment, so I tried to ignore it. We've all had animals, cats, you know, like to pull at the wires and I thought, "Some kitten must be having a field day while my neighbors are out, pulling at the wires that run in the walls, making them creak and scratch throughout." It was the only explanation that made sense to me, because I kept hearing it, the scratching at other places in the apartment.

Annoying as it was, I was content to go about ignoring it. Embracing the frustrations of a new renter, then the headaches started. They came on slowly at first, waking up with migraines that felt like I couldn't hear the world, let alone focus on getting out of bed. These ear-splitting shoots of pain that would just wreck me. It would carry me throughout the day, even coming home to more and more. I was taking acetaminophen daily, and it felt like something was

lingering with me. Something sinister. Eventually I just asked the landlord. Can we not see about like a gas leak? It was a gas leak. Others would complain. I know, I know, I know, I know. I'm just asking. You know, it's been a week now and I can barely... No one else complained to you, Harlan. No one else really complained to you. Okay, okay, okay. Fine. Jesus. A neighbor who must have overheard pulled me aside that night and told me that the previous tenant had died. I found him lying in bed,

on a blood-soaked pillow. The police said it wasn't foul play, but didn't disclose the cause and no one knew his family, so everyone just accepted that it was normal. But it didn't feel normal. That night I heard it again. Scratching. But this time from the ceiling. Oh no. No, shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I tossed and turned as my head pounded. Nothing felt right, nothing felt normal. The scratching was everywhere.

And then as I lay on my bed, I could hear it in my mattress. Something plucking at the threads, a deep tearing like strips of flesh from a rodent being peeled off one by one by one. Somehow I fell asleep that night. And the next day I woke up to find blood on my pillow. I didn't sleep in the apartment that night, nor the next. But I couldn't shake the feeling. It wasn't a gas leak or mold. My friend who gave me the couch to sleep on

Every morning they saw me, waking up just the same, if not worse. And then worse. Every morning. Blood dotting the pillow. I made an appointment with my doctor after that first morning with the blood on my pillow, but it took three days of agony to see him. But finally I did. And you hid the scratching in the walls everywhere? Yeah, but mainly my apartment. Have you been sleeping? Yes, I told you that. I've been sleeping, just not very well. Let me ask you a question. Yeah.

When you hear this, is it always on one side? How do you mean? Left or right of the wall? Left. Mainly left. And your pain, stronger on the left? Somewhat. Okay. Can I check your ear? My ears? From my left ear, the doctor pulled a burrowed insect. It had crawled in there the night I first arrived and chewed away at my inner ear. The doctor said he'd never seen an insect so deep, so hungry.

To this day, every time I hear something from my left, I can almost feel the tiny mandibles gnawing, chewing, feasting their way from the inside out of my ear canal. And sometimes, late at night, when I'm lying in the silence of my room and I hear something stir, I wonder if it didn't lay eggs. Anyway...

Holy shit. Yeah. Holy shit. Jesus. Did that really happen? Okay, my only question is, how are you still here? Like, how are you alive? Bug took its time, I guess. All right, well, who's next? Jamie, you take it. Me? You always got fun stories. Okay, I wanted to try something new. Are You Afraid of the Dark is old news. So, here it goes. Good evening, ghouls and boils. Have I got a gory...

Excuse me, I misspoke. Jesus Christ. Story for you. That got a little British. I'm sorry. Well, anyways, this story is called Get Up. It was 6 a.m. I was finally getting some sleep after my dog abruptly woke me up at 3.30 by jumping up on the bed and licking my face. It's gross, but I think it's just because of her anxiety.

See, we just moved to California from the East Coast for work, and she is still adjusting. She's been doing it since the day we got to the new house. Anyway, 6 o'clock comes, and my radio comes on to rudely wake me up. Breaking news, we've just received confirmation from the San Diego Police Department that there was an incident involving a prison transfer vehicle on I-405 on Monday. Residents in the area are urged to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. I shut it off and got up and ready for work.

It was the second week at the new job and I didn't think it was time to fall into my usual habit of getting to work late. Not yet, anyway. I walked the little menace and poured her breakfast and made the drive to the office. It was... just your average work day. No more stressful than any of the other days have been so far. I got home from work and pretty much immediately passed out. For some reason, sitting in an office all day makes my body much more exhausted than my old job working in a warehouse. It really doesn't make any sense. I'm in a deep sleep and then of course, out of nowhere,

I laid there for a few minutes trying to ignore her, hoping I was just imagining it. But then I realized I was being a bad dog dad and I should probably get up. "It's okay girl, I'm getting up. We'll go outside," I said. Then I reached for the switch on my lamp and turned it on before I slowly got up. And I was really surprised to see my dog just laying there sleeping in her bed in the corner of the room. Did I pass out for a bit immediately after she woke me up? Usually she's persistent when she wants something. It isn't really like her to just give up and be patient.

I didn't really think much of it at the time. I turned off the light and went back to sleep. I was concerned for the dog, but I was also excited to be able to get a few more hours of sleep before... The police are encouraging all residents to take caution when outside of their homes and to lock their doors after entering their homes. The suspect is known for... I shut the radio off and once again got ready for the daily grind. I got up, grabbed a quick shower, got dressed, walked and fed the dog, and then hopped in my car to get to work. I couldn't really focus at work that day.

I was worried about my dog. She was acting really weird that morning and it was hard to get her out of bed. I was counting down the hours until I could get home and check on her. When 5 o'clock came, I turned off my computer and got out of there as fast as I could. When I got home, my dog was still in bed. That's very unlike her. I'm a nervous person and I didn't want to risk anything, so I scooped her up and got her into the car to take her to the vet. I described to them how she's been acting recently and the vet thought the best thing to do would be to keep her overnight for observation, just to be safe.

By the time I got home it was already late, so I just had a quick bite to eat, brushed my teeth and went to bed. I was going to head to the vet in the morning before work to check up on the dog. I basically fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow, and then, "Come on girl, stop it, that's gross. I'll take you out soon, go back to bed," I said.

This just in, we've received word that the police do have the suspect in custody. He was seen trying to climb into a crawlspace of a house on Blackburn Lane. Authorities are unsure of how he escaped them for so long. I woke up in a daze and shut the radio off. I assumed my circadian rhythm was out of whack because of my dog this past week, and that's why I woke up at 3. After I picked up Bella that night, she never did the late-night facelick again.

choosing to believe that they fixed her anxiety at the vet and has nothing to do with that guy they caught. The guy they caught on my street. I'm sure it was just a coincidence, and I refuse to listen to any other opinions about it. That is pretty nuts. Wow. Does that really happen? Shit, man. God. Who's next? Sean, why don't you go? All right. Okay. Here it goes.

Although this only happened to me a year ago. The full story of this one starts back when I was much younger. A curious, yet easily scared, ten-year-old child. I spent a lot of time with my cousin growing up. We were great friends and often stayed at each other's houses. Now, despite me being so easily afraid, I always enjoyed my family home and never got any ill feelings there. At my uncle's, however, well, um...

It was a different story. I mean, don't get me wrong, my uncle's a great man. Kind, caring, and hilarious fun to be around. It was his house that made me deeply uneasy. In fact, it wasn't the house as a whole, it was one particular place in the house. The hallway, leading to the upstairs bathroom.

For some bizarre reason, whoever had built the house did so in such a way to create a long windowless corridor to a single room at the end. Worse still, no one had thought to install a light switch at the end closest to the staircase, you had to walk the whole way in the dark first. Paired with the lack of natural light, it created a very uninviting atmosphere, no matter the time of day. I can still recall every step down that gloomy corridor feeling like the fuel of my nightmares.

Sometimes my cousin, being aware of my fear, would creep down the corridor and turn the light off whilst I was in the bathroom. I never fully told him how powerful the sinking feeling I got was when I opened the door and nothing but darkness greeted me. I was always concerned that there would be something creeping in the dark, right behind me, copying my every move so I would never quite see it.

As I grew up, I realised just how irrational I was and sort of got over it, I suppose. I eventually forgot about that long corridor and the feelings it manifested. However, all that changed last year. My partner and I had recently reconnected with some friends from college and we'd been meeting every weekend to chill out, play games and just enjoy one another's company. Their house is incredibly old, hundreds of years in fact, and it's large too.

Old houses have always made me uncomfortable. Their long and mostly unknown history, paired with creaking floorboards and small windows really fuel my overactive imagination. But I'm an adult now. I can deal with this shit, right? Wrong. One of the first times we visited, they gave us the Grand Tour. Old and creepy? Sure. But pleasant enough. Especially as they'd begun to modernise some of it.

All that changed there when we were taken upstairs and shown to a long, drawn-out corridor that led, of course, to their bathroom. In an instant, a flood of fear and dread drowned my every thought and my throat tightened. At that moment, I was ten years old again, terrified of a gloomy corridor. My friends soon noticed my panic and we managed to laugh it off and carry on.

I was distracted all evening though. In my fear-ridden mind, I soon resolved that I couldn't possibly use their toilet. Stupid. I know, it was just a corridor. Unfortunately though, as I'm sure you all know by now, that's never the case with these things, is it? The next time we visited, it dawned on me quite quickly that I was going to have to use their bathroom at some point. Everyone's gonna pee, right? I psyched myself up and let them know I'd be back in a moment, just nipping to the loo.

Unfortunately for me, my friends are very perceptive and can read me like a book. They knew I was scared. "Don't let the last drone of the house get you!" She died up there, you know. "Oh, and watch out for that loft hatch that's in the corridor." "Yeah, we've still not been able to open it, so we're not quite sure what's up there." They both said, with a smirk. I did my best to ignore them, but the panic must have been visible on my face.

Still, I'd made my decision and I was sticking to it. The fears of my childhood were not about to get the better of me. So, up the stairs I headed, one creaking step at a time. Luckily, unlike my uncle's house, the light switch was at this end of the corridor. But just before I flicked it on, I saw the deep, dark outline of the loft hatch. It was clearly set apart from the rest of the darkness by a few shades of black.

Unfortunately, as I flicked the switch and light flooded the corridor, the sense of dread was only temporarily dispelled. In their renovations, they'd only partly removed the wallpaper here, and between the peeling remnants and some old nails jutting from the wall, it wasn't a comforting sight. "I got this," I said to myself. As I walked down that corridor, ears twitching at every sound, I couldn't help but keep checking over my shoulder, just like I did as a child. Soon though, I was at the end, grasping the door handle to the bathroom.

I jumped when I swung the door open as an ill-timed burst of laughter erupted from my friends downstairs. When it came time to leave the room, knowing I'd have to walk down that corridor again, I psyched myself up once more. Foolishly feeling confident, I grasped the door handle and swung it open, revealing an ocean of darkness. All the air in my lungs vanished, and I was left breathlessly paralysed in the doorway.

After a few moments, I came to my senses a little more and managed to rationalise the situation. It was my friends. Clearly, they were playing a joke on me. "'Nath!' I called out. "'Nath, you dick! Turn the light back on!' Nothing. In fact, it was more than nothing. The silence that awaited the last reverberations of my echoing voice was palpable."

I could no longer hear the dull echoes of their conversation from downstairs. And though I knew my heart was pounding, I could hear nothing but a dull, muted thud. I didn't know what to do, didn't know how to react. I just stood there, staring into the abyss, the pale light of the bathroom barely reaching past the first meter of the hallway. And it just seemed to stretch on and on. Okay, okay, I breathed to myself shakily.

The corridor is only about 9-10 meters, a quick dash following the wall and I'll be at the switch. 3, 2, I ran. 5 steps, 10, 20, thoughts were racing through my mind. I should be there, I should be at the end, no no this can't be right, I should be at the end god damn it. I turned around, looking for the light of the bathroom to reaffirm the distance travelled only to catch sight of something that nearly knocked me off my feet. There,

Silhouetted by the light behind it stood a human-like figure. Its arms seemed sickeningly long, and its legs terribly thin as the light shone from behind it. Very little about this thing looked natural. Without thinking, I took several steps back. It didn't move. Not an inch. Not one bit. And I just kept going. Slowly. One foot after the other.

Never taking my eyes off the thing. No matter what I did though, no matter how much I tried, it never got any further away. Tears began to run down my cheeks and I cried out in the vain hope of someone hearing me. Once again, no response. No sound. My vision started to blur as I wept pitifully and I failed in my desperate attempt to escape. All remained silent though, until the thing took a single step forward.

And the quiet corridor echoed with the slow creak of a floorboard. "No... No!" I silently cried. Then another, and another.

And even though its rhythmic steps mimicked my own, the distance between us began to close. Every step brought it closer and closer. My base instincts took over and I turned and ran in the opposite direction. Once again, I was ten years old with a gut-wrenching feeling of something following me, matching my every move. Except this time, I wasn't imagining it.

Without warning, a decrepit, bony hand gripped my shoulder, and a vile sickness rose up from my stomach, causing me to halt mid-stride. I spun around and flailed helplessly against the thing. Something sharp sliced across the back of my wrist. It's fingernails, perhaps? With a lance of pain shooting down my arm, I let out a scream, but it was as silent as the corridor.

The only thing that dared to rear its head was the sickening stretch of sinewy flesh and the crunch of dislocating bone. Then all was dark. I'm not sure whether I was unconscious, asleep, or otherwise. But when I dared to move again, I was standing in a corner. There were no corners in that corridor. Fumbling in the darkness around me, I felt something wooden. Thick blocks of wood stretching diagonally from ceiling to floor. The beams of a roof? A truss?

I was in the attic. I don't know how long I fumbled around up there in the pitch black, searching desperately for a way down. All the while I swear I could feel that hideous hand upon my shoulder, mimicking me in the unknown. Eventually I found my way down, although it felt far more like a predator mercifully releasing its pathetic prey than an actual escape. When I peered through the now open hatch, I was, of course, in that nightmare hallway. Except the light was on.

and I could hear the jovialities of my friends downstairs once more. I climbed down and stumbled down the stairs. No one batted an eyelid when I entered the living room, not until one of them looked at me. They were around me in moments, comforting me, consoling me, but about what they had no idea. Truth be told, they still don't. You see, they said I'd only been gone a few minutes, and whenever I tried to explain to them what had happened, my mouth just opened and closed. Opened and closed.

Oh, man. Shit. Wow. Did that really happen?

Because if so, that's a great story. Yeah, I actually enjoyed that more than I thought I would. I kind of assumed I'd be terrified or grossed out, but here I am just having a good time. Yeah. Okay. Brat? Me? Yeah. Yeah, tell us a story. If you have any real stories. I've got one that's real. Okay. Okay.

I used to hear voices in the furnace. Not the "I'm hearing voices" kind, they didn't tell me to do anything. Just some people having a low conversation I couldn't quite make out. Worst part was, they'd say my name sometimes. They'd get louder in the winter, like the burning gas got 'em all high and happy and fall quiet in the summer.

Seemed like they'd only get together when the heat was on. I'd be lying in bed, dark January night, toasty under a few layers of sheets. I'd almost doze off, and then I'd hear the whispers coming up through the vents. I wouldn't move so as to not scare them off, just lie there and listen.

Felt like I could understand them those nights, but when morning came around I couldn't remember a thing they'd said. Most likely I figured I'd just imagined the whole thing, auditory hallucinations. Happens to a lot of folks as they're falling asleep, and so that's what I'd attributed all this to, just my mind making things up while I'm halfway to dreamland.

Well, in early March, the heater went belly up. I went down to the basement to see what I could do about it. The lights don't work down there, not all the way, anyway. So I had my flashlight and screwdriver in tow. I set the flashlight on the edge of the dryer and took out the old air filter. Thing was full of dust. Must have been in there a while, I thought, but the date written in marker on the edge reminded me. I had changed the filter back in November.

"Ah well, easy fix. The new filter got it up and running that morning." The voices were giddy that night, bustling with the hissing energy of a gas leak. Not two weeks later though, furnace shut down again. What could it be this time?

The filter looked absolutely riddled with dust. So soon, too. I shook it a bit, just to see, and a plume of fine grey billowed out and floated to the ground. It wasn't dust clogging this thing up, it was ash. The interior of the furnace looked fine enough, if a little dusty, and I couldn't see anything that might be burning in there. Took me a minute to find my keys, but I bought a new filter, put it in, and went about my day.

Next morning, I stumbled over the corner of my couch on the way into the kitchen to fix up some coffee. I stood up and moved the sofa back against the wall. In doing so, I spotted a bit of ash near the basement door. It must have stuck to my boots during the previous day's repairs. I swept up the ash and dumped it in the garbage.

Things started getting peculiar when I found more the following day. I hadn't been in the basement since. There was no way I could have tracked it upstairs this time. Now, I lived alone back then, no pets either. Two rational explanations came to mind. Either the ash got blown up through the vents and settled there, or someone was getting into my house at night. One irrational thought took prominence too.

that something was alive in the furnace, something of ash and fire.

Needless to say, this one gave me a bit of a fright. I barely slept that night. Visions of dusty beings rising from the bellows, creeping through the vents, running their fingers along the walls and leaving little trails behind. A week or so of finding ash like this every morning maybe got to me a bit too much. I managed to convince the landlord to switch the furnace out. Told him it was past time to replace it since it could explode.

It was, and it could have, but that wasn't the main reason. I kept that to myself. Sure enough, all was quiet for a time as winter faded and spring came in hot and humid. I stopped finding ash around the house, and the voices were no more. Didn't have air conditioning ghosts, after all. That lasted right until the first night, cold enough to warrant the heat. The furnace lit and burned without issue.

All seemed fine. Until breakfast, that is. I grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard, popped open a half-empty box of frosted flakes, and poured. Out of the box came a stream of ash, coating the bowl in gray. I dropped the box to the floor, then looked through the pantry. All the open boxes, cans, bags, all of them filled with ash. Nothing else.

Now any rational person might think, I got rid of where these ash spirits or pixies or whatever they are live, so why is this still happening? Well that night I stayed up a bit later than I otherwise might have.

Around 1am, I crept out of bed and made my way downstairs to the living room. As I passed the railing, I saw something. A person, sitting in the chair in the corner, upright and alone. I darted back up the stairs, grabbed the flashlight, and came running back down. When the circle of light hit the chair, the person was gone. No trace left behind, but a dusting of ash on the cushion. I sat on the couch half the night, waiting to see if they'd come back, but nothing came.

Well, by then I'd had enough. I went and got a couple of security cameras, like those nanny cams, and set them up around the living room and kitchen. The cameras were programmed to record all night. In the early morning, right around when the sun finally decided to show up, I scrubbed through the footage. I really wish I hadn't. At 1am again, I saw it. Something coming through the window, between the panes, really.

A long, thin tool pointed at the tip snaked through the gap and flipped the lock. Then it retreated, and the window slid open. The void where the glass had been sat vacant for a long minute. Then, through the stillness broke three figures, dressed in black from head to toe, plain black clothes and gloves, black masks.

They crouched down and waddled along the floor by the stairs. They crouch-walked around the perimeter of the room twice. Two of the figures took to the edges of the sofa and moved it out a little, just about an inch. The third took my car keys from the hook and hid them between the cushions. Then they went low again and crawled along the hardwood floor. Slowly, they wormed on their stomachs to the basement door with intention, almost like they were performing something.

There was no urgency to their movements as one lifted themselves up to reach the handle to the basement. The door swung inwards, and the shadows quickly shambled down the stairs on all fours. The cameras lost sight of them there, but the mic could still pick up their noises.

They were talking, quietly, mumbling and whispering. I heard something sharply melodic echo up near the stairwell, like a discordant hymn to a feral god. Then there was the sound of what I assume was a blowtorch clicking on. Something burned down there for a few sweaty minutes.

Moments later, these people in black tottered up the stairs with hands full of ash. They scattered a little bit in front of the basement door, more on the couch and chair, and the rest they tossed around the kitchen sink. They crouched along the wall and whispered something into the vent, one that connected to the bedroom upstairs. I couldn't hear it in the video, but I already knew what it was.

For the next hour, they hid. One slid under the couch, another behind the chair, and the last ducked into the closet. For a whole hour, they just stayed still. I thought back on the time I'd caught one of them. How that whole night I spent on the couch, they must have been in the same room. Maybe only inches away, hiding just out of sight. And then, just as they'd come in, they left.

Each one crawled back out through the window. Then they slid it closed and locked it from the outside with that same thin, sharp instrument. And that was that. There was no logic to it, these figures coming in, hiding my keys, moving my things, scattering hash. And whatever was happening in the basement, just no logic at all.

I went to the cops with a video, but they were about as useful as concrete swim trunks. Big surprise. No identifying features, no fingerprints left behind. These folks knew what they were doing. I changed the locks on the doors that day. I put wooden planks in the windowsill so the pane couldn't even open if it was unlocked. I moved out as soon as I could. I never heard the voices in the vents again. Still a little freaked out by ash when I see it, to be honest.

Uh, alright, that's neat. Jesus, Maud. Wow. That was a great story. That's Maud. You know what? I'm proud of you. What about you next? My turn? Yeah, cool. Tell us a story. What do you got? Well, you all know that I just launched my new podcast, Tiny Terrors, right? Yeah. Yeah, okay, well, for good reason. Things have sort of taken on a life of their own beyond my control.

It all started with a story I wrote for the show called "Porogie". The basic summary is a little goofy. It's about a dog named Porogie that can communicate telepathically and manipulates its owners into feeding them. Yeah, well, what you didn't hear is that Porogie isn't just a figment of my imagination. I was in grade 9 when we got her.

I remember it was the last period of the school day and I was sitting at my desk in science class, bumping elbows with my lab partner. Mr. Oskarberg, my science teacher, was droning on the way only he could. It was like he had some mystical powers unknown to the science he was teaching us that could command time to move slower when out of nowhere I saw my mom's face pop into the tiny window on the other side of the door. If you know my mom, that wouldn't be particularly surprising.

She used to like to enact a parent-mandated jailbreak from time to time, but that day, that day was different. Because under her chin, she held the tiniest little black lab puppy. Without a second thought, I was up and out of my chair, much to the dismay of my less-than-pleasant science teacher, Mr. Oscarberg, who demanded I sit back down. "'My mom's here to pick me up,' I said, cutting him off, and I ran to the door where the smell of puppy breath and those soft little bean-shaped puppy toes waited for me."

That little puppy slept soundly in my lap all the way home and after a couple nights away from the farm where we had got her, she settled right into our lives. But she was different. In the story for Tiny Terrors I wrote that our eyes were too human to belong to a dog. And I wasn't lying. They really, truly were too human to be a pair of dog eyes nestled in amongst the black fur. I also didn't lie when I said she was a black lab shaped like a pierogi. She was, in fact, shaped like a pierogi when she lay down.

But she wasn't always that way. She used to be slim and fast. God, she was so fast. As soon as she could run, she was quick as a whip and she'd follow me around with one of my soccer balls in her mouth trying to get me to play keep away with her. She was great that way. She never wanted to do dog things. But there was something wrong with her that way too because she never wanted to do normal dog things. She used to sit like a human with her hind legs kicked out.

and she'd launch herself onto the couch and actually watch TV with me. I couldn't throw a ball for her because she wouldn't fetch it, but she'd make me dribble the soccer ball about as she tried to knock it away from me. And when she finally did wrestle it away, she'd look at me with the whites of her eyes showing, the ball clamped tight between her jaw with a string of thick, viscous dog drool always clinging to the underside of her jowls from the exertion of playing. And she'd tell me to go to bed. That's right, she'd even tell me to go to bed.

She'd waddle her way over to the edge of the hall that led to my room and throw herself on the ground with a grunt that told you just how hard her day had been. Brogy's real name was Bella, and she was my favorite dog, but even I knew there was something not quite right with her.

She'd already begun to gain weight by the time my cousin Christian came to stay with us. She was no longer fast and agile but by then had been reduced to these little stunted bunny hops of excitement when she saw me, but Christian took to her almost as much as I did.

Honestly, I was a little jealous because they became as thick as thieves. And Pierogi, or rather Bella, began to share her time between the two of us when we were both home. From a dog's perspective, I can understand though. Because despite the love she had for me, Christian did one thing I just wouldn't. He would share absolutely whatever he was eating with her. It was honestly cute at first.

He was a young goofy guy, but a little ego-stricken. But when it came to Bella, he'd get down on her level, on his hands and knees, and give her a piece of chicken or pizza and say so lovingly to her before kissing her on the forehead. One bite for me, one bite for you. Don't get me wrong, it was weird, of course, but it was cute. He'd never had a dog before, and watching him adopt all those weird mannerisms that dog owners have just so naturally was sort of funny.

But as Christian stayed with us longer and longer, it felt less and less cute and more, uh, uncomfortable is the closest word I can muster. Like I said earlier, Bella used to put me to bed, falling on the floor with her large, cumbersome, pierogi-shaped body and moan and grunt until I gave in and went to bed as well. But with Christian, it was the opposite.

I remember I'd just come home from work and I was slinking into the house trying my best to not make a sound. And as I turned the corner to use the washroom, I saw Bella, half laying, half sitting, propped up by her short stubby front legs, her barrel chest barely off the ground, staring into the black of Christian's room. Not moving, just staring into the dark. The whites of her eyes showing, unblinking, and I swear I could see the steam of her breath in the cool night air.

I was about to call her quietly and take her outside when I heard movements from inside Christian's room. Slowly from the darkness, he came out into the hallway, rubbing his barely open eyes as Bella looked up at him with those eyes that were far too human to belong to a dog. I slunk into the bathroom. As I heard him pad past me and down the hallway, behind him the distinct clicking and clacking of Bella's nails on the hardwood followed. That was the first time I saw him.

seemingly sleepwalking to the kitchen, opening the fridge and gorging himself on whatever food he could all the while taking one bite for him and then getting down on all fours to give one bite to Bella. Watching someone sleepwalking is always weird. They act just enough like themselves to not immediately be alarming, but then, like a dream, they do those things which are just slightly too odd to be natural that you don't catch at first.

i shrugged it off and didn't give it much thought i don't even think i mentioned it to him the next day but then a week later i woke to the sound of bella's nails clicking and clacking on the hardwood floor followed by the rustling of packaging and clumsy hands rummaging in the fridge

I got out of bed frustrated and went to the kitchen where Christian was again, down on all fours, feeding Bella like he had before but this time with a raw chicken cutlet hanging from his mouth as Bella daintily took nibble after nibble as if she were this old emperor of Rome being fed grapes. And when she was done her meal, Christian stood Bella's two human eyes following him unblinkingly and he muttered the words, "'One bite for me.'

One bite for you. That time I was too disgusted. I woke Christian up, which I know you're not supposed to do, but I'd just watch him hold a raw chicken cutlet in his mouth. As he came to, he fought me for a moment before settling, clearly dazed as I urged him to brush his teeth and rinse out his mouth. All the while, Bella moaned and grunted with dismay as I disrupted her midnight snack routine with her new best friend. Bella stayed away from me mostly after that.

She had a way of holding grudges, another one of her many quirks which were not normal for a dog to have. Instead, she stayed by Christian's side, staring up at him and waiting for him to feed her, always staring with those eyes, the whites of those eyes always showing and her tongue always dripping with saliva in anticipation for that next meal.

Now, why Christian came to stay with us is entirely private, but I can say that when he begged my mom to send him home, tears in his eyes, the pleading of his homesickness wasn't enough to overcome the personal situation that had originally sent him to live with us. And so he was stuck with us. And I didn't sleep much after that night, as I was always waiting to hear the clicking and clacking of Bella's nails and the sound of the fridge being pulled apart. But it stopped for a while.

A long while. And Christian settled back in and I didn't hear him speak those words to Bella anymore at dinnertime. One bite for me, one bite for you. I'd nearly put it behind me. I'd started to sleep more soundly. I was no longer anticipating the next time I'd have to rush to wash the raw, prickled chicken skin from his mouth. But then it happened again. 2.34 a.m.,

i remember picking up my phone and rubbing the sleep from my eyes seeing the blurry numbers it was the rain of kibble falling on the hardwood floor that woke me and i sprung from bed clumsily to run and stop whatever chaos was happening in the kitchen and i sighed frustrated angry fed up with christian but as i turned the corner i stopped dead in my tracks

Bella sat there, staring, unblinking, with those eyes that I cannot stress enough were too human to belong to a dog, just staring at Christian, who was down on all fours. But this time, this time his eyes were wide open as well, staring back at Bella, bloodshot and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"'One bite for me, one bite for you.' His voice sounded parched and strained, as if he'd been screaming, as if someone blew air up his windpipe from deep inside of him, playing his vocal cords like a clarinet made of cartilage and skin. "'One bite for me, and one bite for you,' he repeated, before lowering his face into a mountain of kibble poured on the floor, and Bella just sat there panting, her peeled back lips resembling a smile on her face.'

and with his mouth full and half chewing i could hear the grinding and popping and exploding of kibble on his molars one bite for me one bite for you he said i just stood there in shock not sure if i was mortified or terrified as it looked to me that bella was telling christian to eat and eat more the same way she used to tell me to go to bed the same way she seemed to have a way of telling christian to rise from the dead of sleep out of bed to feed her at night

"'One bite for me, one bite for you,' he said again with that same strained, hoarse, painful tone as he clambered then for the dog bowl of water to the side. Oh God, pieces of kibble bobbing on its surface swollen and bloated from the water. And Christian drank and drank, half sucking the water up to quench his thirst and half lapping at the water the way a dog would.'

Meanwhile, Bella sat on her haunches just staring while Christian choked on water and kibble and said, "'One bite for me. One bite for you.'"

and as i dragged him in close to me pulling him to my chest he looked at me with glassy eyes crying and his body just shaking and said so quietly that only bella and i could hear him one bite for me one bite for you

before sinking his teeth into the skin of my neck. I threw him back, grabbing at the side of my neck where he just tried to bite me and felt the hot wet slick of blood and I looked at Bella in disbelief and horror and found her looking straight back at me and in my head, in my head, I heard a voice so close to mine but not mine. I heard those words, one bite for me and one bite for you. No, seriously, this actually happened.

Well, Christian lives at Riverside Institute now, and let's just say it's assisted living. He swears he still hears Bella even though she's been gone for years now. I don't know. I never really knew what to think about it.

It's hard not to. After I wrote the story, it brought it all up to the surface. People tweeting at me day in and day out. One bite for me, one bite for you. It's like Bella has finally been given that human voice that she always wanted. All right. I can't believe it. Shit, that was good. Great story. That was a great story. Okay, okay, who's next? Alex, Emily, this is your first year. What do you got?

Tell us something scary. Okay. Um, I don't know. What do you think Alex? So we have a story and it's pretty wild, but the thing that I like is that we have evidence of it because it all happened on a call one night when we were discussing what we were going to do for our show for season three. Okay. Call is working again. I just want to say that I can't believe that the zoom crashed for the fourth time because

But like I can, I'm just incredibly tired of this. All right. Sorry, Emily. What were you saying? I think Claire should kill him. What? It'll take their arc full circle. I don't want Claire to kill Austin Bird. You're no fun. I'm super fun. Loads even. Just a cornucopia of joy.

Not right now, you're not. I'm just, I'm sorry. I'm just exhausted. Work is absolutely crushing me right now. Ian, you there? Yep. Are you listening? Huh? Great. Season three ideas. We have the back half done, but we need some ideas for that middle section. So like anything, just if you got anything, just sort of like toss it out. Let's just go. Let's do the plot ideas. Musical episode. Into it.

zombie episode that it's just very 2009 okay downton abbey parody yes please that one i want to be a fancy man i have to admit i haven't really watched the show i have do you want to write it uh no okay then i'm gonna file that under a maybe uh all right oh hey isn't it like

creepy being at the studio that late. Yeah, but what choice do I have? The mixing boards never sleep and apparently neither do I. Hopefully you can leave soon. Yeah, I'm ready to get out of here. Let's finish this up. Okay, alright. Oh, my back. I have some good ideas here. Some stuff from earlier, some of them were out there ones, and a couple that have just really big unhinged energy. But I think we're fine to move forward with what we've got and the rest we can just kind of...

Feel it out. Yeah, yeah, I think it'll be fine. The stupid CCTV doorbell camera feed thing keeps popping up. Doesn't that mean someone's outside? Well, no one is, and this thing is buggy as hell. It's popping up all over the session and messing with my edit. Come on. That is unsettling. Oh, I might have something we could use. Like, a story idea we could work with.

Okay, give it to me. I went to a friend's the other day for a bonfire and something really unsettling happened. Already got fire involved? That's a good start. She lives in this really old house up in the Junction neighborhood. Apparently it's one of the oldest houses in the area. My friend actually had a historian contact her. He thinks her house used to operate as a brothel, which is super interesting, but...

And kind of a creepy twist, he also thinks her house might be connected to the other old houses in the neighborhood by a series of tunnels. They would have been used to smuggle alcohol to the horse track and back during Prohibition.

This is a place, right? Yeah. Yeah, that basement's a fucking nightmare. Yeah, like, we have explored the basement a little, and we didn't find an entrance to a series of secret tunnels, but you can see kind of a hollow space if you crane your neck in, like, this one area. Anyway, we're in her backyard drinking wine, watching the fire, her partner's out of town, so the whole place is really quiet.

We're across from one another, and the house is behind me, but she can see straight into the living room. All of a sudden, she freezes. And then she kind of pastes this pained smile on her face and looks at me and says, Ha ha, that's really funny, Emily. I know there's no one in there. I know it's just a sheet or something. What? Yeah. What?

I turn around. I don't see anything out of the ordinary. So we decided to go in and check it out. Have you learned nothing from the show? I mean, no, clear, clearly I haven't Alex. Um, but you'll be glad to know that I did grab a knife from her butcher block for protection. Uh, but, uh, yeah, we walk into her kitchen and the oven is wide open. There's no reason for the oven to be wide open. Um,

The last time either of us were in there, the oven was very closed. We go into the living room. Nothing. No sign of a person or a sheet. We go to our front door. It's wide open. But we're both sure the door was locked. That it was latched from the inside.

In retrospect, we should maybe have called the cops or, I don't know, a friend or something, but I don't know. We just... We locked her front door tight, and we checked every inch of her apartment. I mean, every closet, every nook and cranny of the basement that we could get to, at least. And there was just... nothing. I would just move out. I would just leave. Well, we went back into the backyard to tend to the fire. We thought...

Maybe she had forgotten to lock the door and some random drunk person stumbled in and then stumbled back out or something. And I mean, it's been a week since then and she's fine. I did ask her what she saw, though. And she said, well, she thought she saw a woman in white pointing at her. That is freaky. I don't like that. Yeah, I still stand by her just moving out.

In this economy? Good point, but I think we could use part of that at the very least. Like, it's cool, it's weird, it's spooky. Uh, yeah. Thoughts, Ian? Anything? Sorry, there's a man outside. Outside the building? Yeah, I noticed him like 30 seconds ago. He's just standing outside the front door. Did he ring the doorbell? Nope, just...

Yeah, I don't know. It's weird. He's just staring through the glass. Okay, that's creepy. Hopefully he'll leave soon because yikes. Is anyone else at the studio with you? No, I'm here alone. Okay, just keep an eye on it. Yeah, I'm gonna start packing my stuff anyway.

What were we talking about? Oh, yeah, we were working on that spooky idea of yours. Right. Right. Sorry, just hearing about the creepy man outside really threw me. Not helping. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Okay, I've made notes. Me too. Ian, you good? Is the scary man still out there? I don't know. Is he?

Yes. Oh. Okay. Uh, great. He's... Oh. What? He looked at the camera. Like, staring? No, he just looked up for a moment, like, locked eyes with it. Then... Okay, maybe I'll take the fire escape out. Yeah, scale the building if you have to. Jesus Christ.

Can you, like, um, text Alex when you get home or something? Maybe so we can be sure this guy hasn't found you and skinned you? Again, not helping. Sorry. But yeah, I'll do that. Uh, oh. What? He's not there anymore. Oh, thank God. Fuck. I guess he wandered off. Like, I hope he did. I hope he's gone. Yeah. Ian? Shh. Shh.

Oh, fuck! What was that? Ian, what's going on? Shh! He got inside! Oh my god. What the- Oh my god. How? I don't know, but- Fuck, Ian, run. Hide. Please. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Get the fuck out of there. Now! See you around. Fuck, holy fuck. Holy shit, he was so close to where I was hiding. Are you okay? I'm okay.

I'm freaked out. That's what I am. Did he do anything? I don't know. I don't want to check. I just want to go home. Wait. What is it? I don't know. There's this weird black oily smear on the mouse. I don't know. I don't want to touch it. There is no world in which you should touch that. Yeah, yeah. Ian, get out of there and let me know when you're home safe. Okay? Yeah, yeah.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck. Wow. Holy shit. That's scary. Wow. Did that really happen? Or I... Well, I... Jesus. Guess that's it, right? Everyone's done.

That's it for us. Did we make it? Good job, everyone. All right, guys. It's pretty great. Should we head back and find the others? I'm here for it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I don't know if this is embarrassing to say, but I would say I really did make it. Your story got me. Is that sad? No. I don't think so. I can't believe it. You guys, I'd like to hear it.

Hey! How'd your group fare? Pretty spooky. Yours? Oh, they were fantastic. Chilled me right up. Yeah. Hey, uh, Dylan. Hang back. Hang back. So, are we going to tell them? No. Why? Because those were the rules, Dylan. Remember? It spoke to both of us. Bring them here, get them to talk. Tell their stories.

Do you think it was satisfied? Do you think we did enough? It let them leave, didn't it? I haven't stopped having the dream, though. Me neither. Look, we keep it satisfied. Right. Then we'll do it again next year. They believed me. They believed us. We just keep doing what it says. Doing what it wants.

Until? Until it wakes. Nine to Midnight was a collaborated effort for Halloween 2022 between Malevolent, Woe Be Gone, The Storage Papers, The Night Post, Nowhere On Air, Hellgate City, Out of the Ashes, Parkdale Haunt, The Town Whispers, Wake of Corrosion, The Cellar Letters, and The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere Ohio.

Each story was written, performed, and edited by one of the shows listed above. Check the notes for information and links you can follow to listen to each show. Nine to Midnight was written by Harlan Guthrie and featured Dylan Griggs, Jeremy Enfinger, Nathan Lunsford, Ray Lundberg, Jess Syrett, Kevin Barry, Vincent C. Davis, Alex Nersall, Emily Kellogg, Cole Weavers, Sean Pellington,

Jamie Patronus, Rat Grimes, Harlan Guthrie, and Alexander Newell. Nine to Midnight was produced, directed, and edited by Harlan Guthrie. Nine to Midnight original theme composed and recorded by Harlan Guthrie. Special thanks to Alex Newell and Rusty Quill. See you next year.

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