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r/nosleep
I swear, it all started out innocently enough. My wife, Carol, and I had fallen on hard times due to the pandemic, she’d gotten laid off from her position and my hours have been cut due to our clients tightening up their purses the last couple of years. We had a toddler, Marcia, and a cat to feed, as well as ourselves. It was eating up our savings. We didn’t want to be out a home. We were terrified.
One night, while we were sitting at home, she had, at least I thought, jokingly talked about creating an OnlyFans. We toyed with the idea a bit and eventually her face got more serious and she started talking numbers. I loved Carol, I trusted her, and honestly we could use the money.
We talked for a while longer about it, what our boundaries were on. We agreed that it wouldn’t be anything outright lewd or erotic, and she suggested the idea of eating in front of a camera. Apparently it’s a thing, whatever, I guess. I agreed. It seemed harmless enough.
It started out harmless.
We set up a camera in our spare office, facing the desk. Every other night, she would order take-out and eat in there while filming. She would post it wherever online. Things carried on normally like this for a couple of months, she’d order her own food, stuff herself in another room while we ate at the dining table. I’ll admit, the money was good. Good enough that it actually surpassed what she would have been making working a normal job. Carol bumped up to filming once a day. One day at lunch and the other day at dinner. Of course she gained some weight, but, hell, I’m no prime example of vigorous health.
As the weeks went on, she spent more and more time filming these eating videos. We paid off the remainders on our auto loan. We put down a good chunk on our mortgage. We were able to start a college fund for Marcia. Our savings account was looking healthier than ever. Her health, however, wasn’t looking too hot. She’d begun to lose breath quicker than usual. Eventually she stopped coming on our family walks in the park. It wasn’t a big deal, just a couple times a week we would go to stretch our legs. After a while she said she would prefer to stay home for the time being.
At this point I started to get a bit more concerned. No amount of money is worth throwing away your health, even if our insurance would cover whatever came up. I remember talking to her about it, that maybe she should slow down with her project and maybe even cut it off entirely. She was furious with me, she cried, she asked me if I still loved her, of course I told her I do. I did. She was the love of my life, she’d given us our beautiful daughter. I caved in and just pleaded with her to be careful.
As a few more months passed, we saw her less and less, she moved a television into the office. She got a larger, more comfortable chair to sit in. She’d gained so much weight in half a year I did not think it was possible, and I knew sure as hell that it wasn’t healthy. She was having trouble standing without aid, and it seemed like she almost wouldn’t fit through the door to the office, if she tried. I confronted Carol once more about it, and I swear I have never seen my wife get so furious. She was red in the face as she waved her hand around the house, “Keep your GODDAMN NOSE out of my business! This ENTIRE HOUSE and YOU are being paid for by my work! If you don’t support me here, then I will find someone who DOES!” Our daughter had peeked in and began crying.
It was horrible to see her like that. I couldn’t argue with her, she did support us at this point. I began to take her meals in to her, at her demand. She would take the food and glare at me until I left the room again. Any further attempts I made at making her see sense was met with threats of divorce. Of taking the kids. Of destroying my life. I guess I justified myself in being part of this, at least the rest of us were comfortable, money was not an issue to us anymore, and that particular nightmare is not one I ever want to revisit. I used to think financial troubles were the worst kind of nightmare I’d ever face, and honestly, they’re still up there.
Growing up, we had two rules:
Always follow the instructions
Never go upstairs after dark
We pulled into the driveway around 5:30 pm. It is a long gravel path, now overgrown, just far enough from the two-lane county road to be entirely hidden by the oaks that lined the property. I'd forgotten the rumble of tires over rocks and was surprised by how much that feeling reminded me of home.
Just beyond the trees, I see it for the first time in twenty years. My childhood home is a two-story colonial with a big wrap-around porch and a grand double-door entrance. In my memory, the house was a glossy white that would reflect the sun so brightly you could see it through the trees from the road. It looked diminished now in the evening light. Perhaps it is natural for houses to turn grey and wither when left alone. People do the same.
Nadine put the car in park but left the engine running. Then her hand was on mine. "Just say the word, and we'll go," she promised, and I knew she meant it. I felt so small for wanting to take her up on it. But I shook my head and looked at her, and before I could say anything, she kissed me, deep and long. The fear washed away and did not return.
"I believe you," she said. "Do what you need to do to say goodbye. I'll be right outside."
If there's a word for the kind of love you feel when your partner steps out of their comfort zone to support you, I don't know what it is. It made me feel brave, though, and that's what I needed tonight.
I unzipped the backpack in my lap and pulled out two plastic egg timers. My watch told me it was twenty minutes until sunset. I set the timers, gave one to Nadine, and put the other in my bag.
"If I'm not back when this goes off, call my phone. Do not come inside under any circumstances. I love you."
"Love you too," she said, and then she pew pewed me with finger guns, and the cuteness of that made me laugh.
I recently moved to this new suburban district in my city that recently finished construction. It's my first ever house that I own, well me and my fiance own. A lot of people living around the district are glad that it finally finished as the construction noises have been going on almost non-stop for nearly a decade.
My childhood home is quite close to the district so I remember the constant noise of construction machines pretty well as it started back in my eay teenage years. I always wondered why it would never stop, even at night but I brushed it off as it being connected to some bureaucratic nonsense that I simply don't understand.
I honestly really like the area. At first, I was unsure about buying a house in the area since half of it in built on grounds once occupied by a large metal refinery. However, I like it here than I would have ever imagined. Our neighbors are friendly, there's good public transportation, how close my parents live, etc. This place was meant to be just simple suburban real estate but they added space for a few small grocery stores in the planning process, turning it into a proper district. Basically, we have everything we need at arm's reach.
Last Saturday, I noticed that a lot of lamp posts in the neighborhood had loudspeakers attached to them. I asked my seemingly all-knowing neighbor about it and he said that they are for emergency warning signals. We do get the occasional heavy snow storm in the winter, usually followed by a decent flood in spring. The loudspeakers could be for extreme weather warnings, although no other district in the city has such speakers.
"They presumably have these here, in the newest district to test it out, right? Stuff like that is usually mentioned on the news but I haven't heard from it. I suppose I just have missed it." I thought to myself.
On Tuesday, I got off work super late. I work on the other side of the city at a telecom company as an IT specialist. Basically, we had some internet issues in the office ourselves and it took us nearly two hours to find out that the ethernet cable was crushed under a desk and had broken. As it's summer and my car's air-conditioning is broken at the moment, I drove home with the windows down. It was half past midnight so I didn't expect much traffic. Arriving at my home district, I started to notice a high pitched ringing noise coming from the outside. The wind in my ears, I assumed it was just crickets going wild tonight. When I got home though, the ringing noise was definitely something else.
Does anyone know that high pitched squealing noise some car's breaks do? I think it's because the break disks are dirty or something. It super annoying and makes you tear your ears out. Anyways, it was that noise, only constant and never ending. This high pitched, squealing noise. At first, I couldn't make out where it was coming from but I soon realized that it's probably the loudspeakers. I quickly grabbed my bag and ran inside since the noise was killing me. I threw my bag by the couch and before going to bed, I wrote the local council about the loudspeakers and told them that they seem to be broken, playing this painful note all night long.
The next day, I checked my email all day for a response. Around 3 in the afternoon, they finally responded. They claimed that the speakers were turned off at night and no noise was transmitted from them. They asked if I had a video recording of the noise. I didn't, but wrote that I'll see if I can get it on video tonight.
That night, I intentionally left work late to see if I hear the noise again. When I got home though, I heard no noises besides the occasional car driving by or the gust of wind. I went straight to bed, however my fiance wasn't sleeping. In fact, she wasn't anywhere in the house. I called her, it rang for a bit before it hung up and I got a text saying: "Randomly went out with the besties and lost track of time. I'll be home in 15 minutes. <3". I was tired so I texted her "Alright, no worries <3" and went to bed.
The next morning, she felt that her entire body was sore. I joked about what they might have done last night for her to be so tired but she promised that she had no idea what made her body feel so numb. I laughed it off until I checked out the district's Facebook page. People all across the district were complaining about their sore and numb arms, legs and backs. Such pain is usually related to lifting heavy things. Most who live here currently are either young children or their parents. Nobody really stays up late besides on special occasions like I did.
I just want to go ahead and get all of the really fucked up stuff out of the way now. I have social anxiety and serious trust issues due to the fact that I lost both my mom and brother when I was just a little boy. The fucked up part? It was a murder-suicide, courtesy of my apparently deranged mother. I don't know why she decided to take my older brother with her but not me; I was in the house that night as well, fast asleep, but I was left unharmed whereas my brother had his throat opened up. She didn't leave a suicide note, but I did find a ripped off piece of paper with only a few words scribbled on it in my room: Be the best you can be.
I went through a lot of trouble after that. I was bullied relentlessly by my classmates and constantly reminded that my dead mother was a murderer. Yeahhh, kids really are little shits. I didn't start making friends and having a normal life until high school. That was my great revitalization; I don't know what would have come of me had I let my mother's sins engulf me completely.
Still, despite everything, she was my mom and I still love her. It took a lot of personal strength for me to do it, but I hung a picture of her up in my bedroom. It's my favorite photo of her that I have; She's laughing, her blue eyes gleaming with joy, her wavy auburn hair framing her pale, delicate face. Looking at it, you would never guess that she would eventually go on to do what she did. I didn't stop there, though; My brother got a special spot in my livingroom, right above my T.V. stand, prominent and high. He's around 13 years old in the picture; He's wearing a birthday hat that my mom forced on him, looking slightly annoyed but begrudgingly happy, knowing that he was loved. I can't look at it too long before the tears start flowing.
Things started to get weird about a month ago. Given my traumatic childhood, I'm sure it's not a surprise to anyone that I do my share fair of drinking. And when I say "fair share" I mean to say that I drink a fucking lot. I'm a regular in several bars around town. On the first night in particular I ran into an old female acquaintance named Claudia at one of these scholarly establishments. One thing led to another and I ended up taking her home with me. As she went to the bathroom to freshen up, I sat stupidly on my bed, all of my clothes still on, blinking like an idiot and trying to fight off sleep. That was when my mother's picture caught my attention. I immediately felt uncomfortable and wondered if I would have enough time to jump up and tear it off the wall; Who the hell wants their mom watching them do the horizontal tango, right? But getting up came with the risk of getting caught with it in hand, which could potentially lead to me having to tell the story of who she is and what happened to her. So she was going to have to stay. I would just have to pretend like she wasn't there.
We were in the middle of the deed when, in my drunkenness, I happened to glance up at the picture again. What I saw didn't make sense, but it didn't fully register for a few long seconds. There were tears, actual, wet streams, running from my mother's eyes on the wall. She was still laughing, but it looked as though someone had poured water on the photo. Claudia increased her rhythm, tearing my attention away from the photo, and I completely forgot about it. I didn't even think about what I had seen until I was eating cereal on my couch the next day. I rose slowly, peeking into the room at the picture on the wall. Completely dry, looking no different than it usually did. I'd have to remember to take it down, or at least have it facing a different direction, the next time I had a girl over.
I had that chance about a week later. I met a very attractive redhead whose name I can't even remember at the bar. I ended up bringing her home and, of course, I forgot about the picture again. I was completely wasted this time; The last thing I remember from that night, before I finished up, is the sight of my mother's visage, her laughing smile gone, replaced only with a horrified expression that looked as though she was screaming, even more tears leaking from the colored paper.
I decided that I wasn't going to bring the girls to my room anymore. I know I know, it would be easier to just take down the damn picture but I'm incredibly lazy and I didn't think I'd continue getting as, well, lucky as I had been recently. I invited Claudia over one night to watch a movie with me. I really don't know what it is about her, but I suppose I took a liking to her compared to the others. I was in the kitchen making popcorn when I heard her scream suddenly from the livingroom, causing me to drop the entire bowl of popcorn. I dashed over to the doorway and peered out at her; She was clutching her chest, staring at the spot above the T.V. Uh oh.
"Does that happen all the time?" she asked, raising a finger and pointing at the picture of my brother. Little droplets were forming just under his brown eyes, slowly rolling down the photo and dripping down to the T.V. I had to improvise.
"Yeah, it uh...does, actually. It's the pipes in the walls. I've been meaning to get them fixed, the water just comes through the wall sometimes. My brother just has an unfortunate spot up there, you know?"
After Claudia had gone home for the night, I approached both pictures separately. "Come on, guys. I don't know what's going on, but I can't have this. Please, I hope your souls have found peace, but you've gotta let me have my peace. I know you can't agree, but this is my tranquility. Please, I beg of you."
My name is Ellis and I'm the mortician of a small mortuary in a rather sleepy, medium-sized town in Western England. A few months ago, I received an assistant named Brett. He's a tall, lanky guy with shaggy, deep black hair and a rather gaunt face, with a wide mouth and thin lips. I was surprised when I first met him, because of how closely he resembled the creepy, vampiric gravedigger stereotype you'd see in some gothic horror movie or something.
But he seemed a pretty nice guy. He was pleasant and talkative, and he was very empathetic when talking to grieving family members and showing them the right resources to go to, to help them through the difficult process.
These past few weeks, there had been incidents of body parts going missing from the cadavers. Mainly eyes and fingers, as well as other things, like blood covered gauze and bandages. Brett had chalked it up to rats and mice sneaking into the morgue and scavenging from the corpses and the bio-waste bins.
I had agreed with him and took the proper precautions to prevent it from happening again, you know getting an exterminator and all that (and the exterminator had claimed to have not found any evidence of a rodent infestation on the premises). But the "body part snatching" persisted and eventually an entire fucking hand went missing from a cadaver, and the dead man's family was fuming when I told them about it.
Brett threw out his "rodent infestation" theory and instead said that it might be a bigger animal, like a fox that had snuck in and made a den somewhere in the building. So I searched the entire building, every nook and cranny, and didn't find any evidence for a fox.
I started to freak out now, started thinking up all kinds of theories on what might be causing the problem. But last night, I finally found the root of the problem. And the root was Brett himself. I feel sick to my stomach. Horrified by the fact that I have been around this guy for so long, chummy with him, completely unaware of his true nature and the horrific stuff that he's been doing.
Here is how I found out. If you're squeamish, I don't recommend reading this.
...
We had just received the body of a drowning victim. Female, mid-20s, she'd gone on a midnight swim in the local river, during a goddamn storm, with her boyfriend, while they were both drunk off their asses. Unsurprisingly, it didn't end well.
Brett was quieter than usual today. He was looking paler too, paler than he already was. His eyes were looking very bloodshot too, like he hadn't slept in a good while. I asked him if he was alright, and he said he was fine, that he was just a bit "under the weather".
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