The Tall Dog of Barrow Heights | Part 2

Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep

A monster hunter investigates Barrow Heights, a haunted apartment building where children have vanished for nearly a century. After a myster

Key takeaways

• The building itself is sentient, having absorbed and transformed its victims into part of its architecture.

Main topics

• Paranormal investigation
• Sentient architecture

Notable quotes

"This is the only way. I must deliver the final offering. One last sacrifice."

Conclusion

The hunter realizes the entity is not merely hiding in the basement—it

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Part 2. The House Without Sleep Speaker 1 (0:04) My coffin hisses open with a wave of steam. I stumble forward onto my hands and knees, retching onto the hearse's floor. Jesus, June. Shirley steps over me, her blonde hair in a bun. Couldn't hold it in for five more seconds. Kent shakes his head as he passes. Odds on this one dying tonight? A hundred fucking percent. Bishop Stevenson. She's marching past me with a glare. Ellison following behind, rolling his eyes. Alvarez crouches down, hand on my back. Speaker 2 (0:36) Don't listen to those pendejos. First time riding is always a trip. You'll get used to dying eventually. Speaker 1 (0:42) I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, throat burning. Speaker 2 (0:45) Dying? Sure. Speaker 1 (0:47) That's why only pails can ride the hearse. Does something when it punches through dimensions. Kills us more or less. Stops our hearts. Shuts down our brains. The whole deal. He extends his arm. and I watch as the armor flows over his skin like liquid bone, spreading from his elbow down to his fingertips, coating his entire hand in living white carapace. Then it pulses, once, twice, like a heartbeat. The suits keep us alive, Alvarez continues. Pump our hearts while we're flatlined. They keep the blood moving, oxygen flowing. Probably where the name comes from, actually. Pale, like a corpse, Speaker 2 (1:27) get it? Speaker 1 (1:28) He grins behind his half-formed faceplate. Stevenson barks. Speaker 2 (1:32) Charlie team, form the fuck up before I die of old age. That's us, Juno. Speaker 1 (1:38) Alvarez gives me a friendly jab in the shoulder. Speaker 2 (1:40) Come on, finish Speaker 1 (1:41) puking outside. I follow him down the rear ramp, boots hitting gravel. The five of us fan out into formation in front of the bishop. A Victorian mansion looms before us. It's three stories of rotting grandeur. All sharp angles and sagging gables. It sways in the windless night, timber groaning like it's breathing. On all sides, a forest gnarled trees presses in, their branches twisted into arthritic claws that scrape at the sky. Speaker 2 (2:10) Nice of you to finally join us, Speaker 1 (2:11) Stevenson says, voice sharper than a scalpel. Speaker 2 (2:14) Alvarez, get this rookie's head out of his ass. This isn't the cubicle farm he's used to. This is the real deal. Speaker 1 (2:21) Alvarez throws a crisp salute that's somehow still sarcastic. By Speaker 2 (2:25) the end of the night, his suit will be 20 pounds lighter, ma'am. A Speaker 1 (2:29) ripple of quiet laughter moves through 6th Division. It's a known phenomenon. The more trauma a Pale experiences while wearing their armor, the deeper it bonds. The suit drinks in your pain, your fear, your brush with death, and in exchange, it fits better, moves smoother, becomes a true second skin. My armor feels like I'm wearing a concrete straitjacket. Alvarez leans close, whispering. Speaker 2 (2:55) About earlier. You can relax, Speaker 1 (2:57) compa. Protocol 13 just means the Inquisitor bailed. Usually happens after the entity already killed its targets. So there's no one left to save. We're just cleanup. Scorched earth policy. Think Rambo meets Ghostbusters. Speaker 2 (3:11) I glance back at the mansion, stomach twisting. Speaker 1 (3:14) So the family's already dead? Bingo! Alvarez Speaker 2 (3:18) chuckles. Speaker 1 (3:19) No civilians to evacuate. No witnesses to gaslight. We just burn the whole thing down and Speaker 2 (3:24) call it a night. Something funny, Alvarez? The Speaker 1 (3:28) bishop's suddenly right there, jamming a finger against Alvarez's chest. She's fast, silent. Her armor bond must be next level. Speaker 2 (3:36) No, ma'am. This isn't a normal Protocol 13. Speaker 1 (3:40) She hisses, close enough that her forehead nearly touches his nose. Speaker 2 (3:43) It's a real one, jackass. As in there's a dead Inquisitor behind those doors. Speaker 1 (3:48) The blood drains from his face. Around us, the rest of Sixth Division goes rigid. Haunted. My throat closes up. Speaker 2 (3:56) But I thought... That Inquisitors never die? Speaker 1 (4:00) Stevenson wheels on me, gray eyes flat and merciless. That's Speaker 2 (4:04) exactly what Speaker 1 (4:05) Protocol 13 was designed for. Propaganda. Morale control. To convince the rest of the Order's worker bees that Inquisitors are some kind of mythical heroes. Unlikable James Bond motherfuckers who always save the day. Speaker 2 (4:18) She Speaker 1 (4:18) steps closer. But Speaker 2 (4:20) they're not. They bleed just as red as any of us. Speaker 1 (4:23) She turns back toward the mansion, addressing the squad. Speaker 2 (4:26) Our mission Speaker 1 (4:27) is to recover Inquisitor Torsen's Red Book. But whatever's inside that house isn't just another paranormal clusterfuck. It's a Class 5. A cosmic goddamn Speaker 2 (4:37) nightmare. In Speaker 1 (4:38) other words... She racks her rifle. The sound echoes across the clearing like a death knell. Speaker 2 (4:44) It's more than capable of killing every single one of you. She Speaker 1 (4:47) glances back, eyes boring into mine. Some more easily than others. Speaker 1 (4:56) for spiring, Mr. June. The memory shatters. I'm back in Agnes Miller's apartment, but her voice has changed. It's no longer the beleaguered cadence of a woman on death's door. It's warping into something inhuman, like a scream shoved into a blender full of broken glass. She rises from her chair. Her forehead bulges like something's pushing from the inside. Her eyes do the same, pupils dilating until they're all black, sclera stretching tight. the revolver up. Agnes's evolution halted at class four. Shade. Dangerous, sure, but manageable. I've got six rounds. Four to guarantee a kill, plus two to spare if things go sideways. Piece of cake. The watch convulses. Error. Fuck. Entity dissolution in progress. I freeze. What? Four years as an Inquisitor, dozens of cases, and I have never, not once in my career, seen that warning. To say it's rare would be an understatement. An entity dissolution means one of two things. Either the entity has become unstable and is falling apart at the seams, or... Alert! Cosmic distortion detected! Entity merging with environment! God fucking damn it! Agnes's body inflates like a pus-filled blister. The apartment throbs. Her stomach flops over the table, then pulls it into her. Her skull flattens against the ceiling, absorbing the hanging lights. and her torso claims the crooked picture frames lining the wall. Target parameters indecipherable. Immediate retreat recommended. Agnes! I Speaker 2 (6:28) shout, finger hovering over Speaker 1 (6:29) the trigger. Tell me how to open the basement! Speaker 2 (6:32) If Florence is down there, I will bring her back! You have my word! Speaker 1 (6:36) Her head swivels down, eyes narrowing. The motion is unnervingly smooth, like a turret tracking a target. Speaker 2 (6:43) Do you think it'll let her leave if I- Speaker 1 (6:46) Her voice booms, vibrating through the floorboards, through the walls, through my bones. The blackened apartment windows crack, spiderwebs racing across the glass. Speaker 2 (6:55) This is the only way. I must deliver the final offering. One last sacrifice. Speaker 1 (7:01) Her mask shifts forward, medical equipment sparking as it's absorbed into her expanding form. Speaker 2 (7:06) And I won't let you or anyone else stand in the way of that. Speaker 1 (7:10) So much for diplomacy. I let the bullet fly. The first round catches her center mass. White lightning arcs across her surface, arcane sigils flaring bright enough to leave afterimages. She snarls. I fire again. The second bullet punches between her eyes. More lightning, more screaming. She stumbles backward, arms windmilling, eyes flashing like dying stars. I line up the third shot. A pipe lashes out from the wall. It coils around my throat like a python, yanking me backward off my feet. My spine slams against the hallway wall. She's merged with the building. Every pipe, every beam, every nail driven into rotting wood is under her control. And all I've got is a six-shooter and a pocket watch. The pipe tightens. I can't breathe. I twist my jaw sideways, angling my head to create a gap, and wrench myself free before the coil can fully constrict. I hit the floor hard, gasping, scrambling backward on my hands and heels as more pipes tear free from the walls. Rusted iron tentacles whipping through the air, seeking anything they can grab. I roll left. My pipe slams into the floor where my head was a second ago. Roll right. Another cracks against the wall, leaving a crater in the plaster. But they're slow. I can see the windup. The way the walls buckle slightly before a pipe tears free. The way the floor trembles before something erupts from below. I can work with that. Thump. Speaker 1 (8:32) Agnes rumbles toward me, enormous now. The desk is visible beneath her skin like a jagged tumor. The coil of a telephone receiver hangs from her mouth like a tongue. When she speaks, I hear the mechanical click, click, click of a rotary dial spinning inside her throat. Speaker 2 (8:48) You're caught in a ruin, Abby. All those lives I offered over the years, all the sacrifices I gave to see my sister again, you'll ruin it all the moment it devises what you're doing. Speaker 1 (9:01) She's too big, too wide. Agnes fills the entire hallway now, a living barricade of absorbed matter blocking the stairwell, and my only escape route. I'm trapped. She's forcing me backwards, step by step, down the sprawling corridor, toward the elevator shaft. toward the rusted bars and the 10-story drop waiting behind them. I set another bullet free. It hits her throat. Her blob-like body, now SUV-sized, flickers as the arcane round works its magic. Three bullets down, three left. Most of the time, entity dissolution proves more annoying than dangerous. It means your target is escaping, diffusing into its environment, spreading itself so thin you can't land a killing blow. Ever try shooting a skyscraper to death? Doesn't work. The entity just bleeds into the building until there's nothing left to kill. But Agnes is doing the opposite, pulling Barrow Heights into her, fusing with the tower, absorbing its mass, channeling its power directly against me, which makes her stronger, yes, but also a much, much bigger target. My thumb cocks the hammer. She's class 4. One more bullet should do the trick. I lift the gun. A pipe screams through the air. I duck. The iron rod whistles past my ear and slams into the wall behind me, splitting the wood. Before I can reset, the hallway rolls like a ship in a storm. Floorboards buckling into waves. I stagger, trying to stay upright. Doors fly open on both sides of the corridor. The bad-ending specters come pouring out in droves. A woman clutching fistfuls Speaker 2 (10:31) of Speaker 1 (10:31) her own hair, scalp bleeding. A man sobbing. She Speaker 2 (10:34) deserved it! She deserved it! Speaker 1 (10:36) Like a mantra. More behind them. Shadows with knives, baseball bats, with hands twisted into claws, and worse. They rush me. I throw myself backward, reeling, ducking under a knife slash, sidestepping the swing of a bat. The woman lunges at me, nails raking from my eyes, and I twist away, lose my footing on the rolling floor before catching myself against the wall. Meanwhile, Agnes keeps coming. Thump. As she passes beneath the flickering fluorescent lights, she absorbs them, pulling the fixtures down into her mass. Her eyes flare with stolen electricity, pupils strobing like live wires. Speaker 2 (11:13) this building, she Speaker 1 (11:15) bellows, voice echoing from a hundred absorbed surfaces. And I am here. The man with the bat swings at my head. I lean back, but not far enough. The aluminum clips my shoulder, jolting pain down my arm. But I'm already wheeling, deflecting the momentum, and catching the bat under