NoSleep Podcast S25E01

The NoSleep Podcast

In the 25th season premiere of The NoSleep Podcast, host David Cummings introduces 'the frequency of fear'—a focus on auditory horror that leverages sound design to create

Key takeaways

• Sound design is central to horror—distorted voices, rhythmic breathing, and ambient noise create psychological dread beyond visual stimuli.
• The forest itself becomes an active, sentient entity, manipulating perception through subtle changes like shifting trail markers and deepening shadows.

Main topics

• Auditory horror
• Environmental manipulation

Notable quotes

The breathing didn't change. Didn't stop. Didn't quicken. Just kept on. Steady as a metronome.

Sound doesn't do that.

Conclusion

The episode masterfully demonstrates how sound can be weaponized in horror, transforming natural

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:41) You're listening to the No Sleep Podcast. Thanks for making us part of your horror soundtrack. I'm your host, David Cummings. We are delighted to welcome you to the 25th season of the No Sleep Podcast. In traditional folklore, 25 is the silver anniversary. For us, that doesn't mean jewelry. It means we finally have enough silver to forge the bullets. And with our new season, we're going to focus on something that might seem rather obvious for an audio production like ours. The focus is on the sounds of horror, audio nightmares, or as I'm calling it, the frequency of fear. From the very first episode of this podcast, our focus has been to adapt stories to audio by combining the words with music, sound effects, and audio sound design to enhance the horror. And I'm sure we all realize how much terror can come from sounds. Those haunting footsteps heard in an empty attic above. The creak of a door opening when you're alone in the house. The whisper that floats past your ear just as you're falling into sleep. The things we hear can be as devastatingly terrifying as the things we see. And we want to bring you auditory terror that will stick with you long after the stories are over. So make sure you have some good headphones. Settle into a quiet space and close your eyes. Let the sounds transport you into a world where horror surrounds you and embraces you. It's season 25 and it's time to listen up. Now, brace yourself for the frequency of fear. Speaker 6 (3:43) In our first tale, we meet Sarah and Marcus, two friends out for a hike, and they've split up to see which path to the scenic outlook is the best. But in this tale, shared with us by author Cosmic Dread, Sarah is waiting for Marcus to show up. His lateness is making her worried, and all she really wants is to hear the sound of his voice. This tale has been produced by Jeff Clement and features performances by Aaron Lillis and Jeff Clement. So listen for the sounds of the forest. Is that a voice or is it the breathing woods? Speaker 4 (4:41) 20 minutes of calling out Marcus's name was when I stopped pretending everything was all right. The plan was simple. Split at the fork. Meet at the overlook in 45 minutes. Marcus goes high, I go low. And we'd argue over whose view was better like we'd been doing since our college backpacking trips. Except Marcus was 30 minutes overdue, and my phone was dead, and the forest had gone quiet in a way that gave me the creeps. I doubled back to the junction, hiked up onto the high trail, and called his name, my throat already hurting. The red markers were there on the trees in the same pattern the trail map said they'd be. Yet something wasn't quite right. The spacing of them, maybe? Or, and this was the maddening thing. They seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at them. Come on, Sarah, pull yourself together. I stopped, puffing harder than the incline really required. I was 42 and out of shape, and I felt every one of those ears. Marcus was probably at the parking lot already, checking his watch, wondering what on earth was taking me so long. Except he wouldn't do that. He would wait. Marcus always waited. The smell seemed to coalesce out of the air. Rotten sweetness, heavy enough to choke on. Something must have died in the underbrush and stayed there, rotting. I pulled my sleeve across my nose. My eyes were burning. Must be a deer, maybe a bear kill. The ranger that morning had promised us the black bears around here usually avoided people. Usually. I went on. My boots grated on rock and bare roots. Above me, the branches tangled like fingers knitting together. I looked away, but the image had already rooted itself in my mind. Cut it out, you're spooked because Marcus is late and you've been watching too much true crime TV. Speaker 2 (6:52) That's when I heard the Speaker 4 (6:53) breathing. Deep, rhythmic, deliberate. I froze in my tracks. That wasn't me. I'd stopped, wasn't even breathing that hard for a second there. This was off to my left, off the trail, in the woods where no one had any business being. In. Out. In. Slow. Patient. Like something asleep that wasn't quite asleep. Marcus? My voice came out wrong. Too small, too scared. The breathing didn't change. Didn't stop. Didn't quicken. Just kept on. Steady as a metronome. Not very human. I knew it and hated myself for knowing it. My hand fumbled for the bear spray holstered on my belt. What had the ranger said? Make noise. Make yourself big. Back away slowly. But this wasn't a bear. Bears didn't breathe like that. All measured and intentional. All aware. I stepped back once. My gaze tore at the woods, darkening. Wait, darkening? I glanced at my watch. 3.47 p.m. Hours of daylight left. Yet the shadows under the trees had deepened to almost solidity, pooling in the low spots like oil. Movement. at the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around. Nothing. Trees and underbrush and that infernal breathing. But the second I turned back, I saw it again in my periphery. Something large, pacing me as I backed down the trail. I have bear spray. My voice shook. I hated that, but couldn't stop it. I'm leaving. Right now. I don't want any trouble. Speaker 4 (9:09) The breathing ceased. Silence hit like a punch. Worse in a way than the breathing. My entire body screamed at me. That old reptile brain that warns you when something's watching you? When you've become the prey? All the horror movie cliches crashed through my head. Don't run. I stopped suddenly. Seeing something off the trail. Bones were scattered over a flat rock. Small bones. Finger bones, my brain added unhelpfully, uselessly. spirally arranged, and in the center, one tooth. Too big for a human. Not quite right for an animal either. Yellow and serrated, curved like a fish hook, and it gleamed wetly in the failing light as though it had just been torn from someone's mouth. My stomach lurched. I stumbled backward, almost fell, and that was when I heard Marcus behind me. Speaker 7 (10:19) Sarah, where Speaker 4 (10:21) are you? Relief hit so hard I almost cried. Speaker 2 (10:27) Marcus! Oh, thank God! I'm right here! I'm in! Sarah! Speaker 4 (10:32) His voice was in front now. That wasn't... Sound doesn't do that. Speaker 7 (10:39) Sarah, I can't find the trail! Speaker 4 (10:44) Behind me. No, to the left. No... Speaker 4 (10:50) The voices repeated. Marcus voices superimposed over Marcus voices, shouting my name in every direction. Some were a little off kilter, some with the cadence just half a beat off. I clamped my hands over my ears, but I could still hear them. All those almost Marcus voices echoing through the trees. I ran. Red markers flashed by like warnings of peril. Breath came in rags, heart thudding against my ribs. A great something crashed through the underbrush. Behind, ahead, beside. Keeping pace while I stumbled and flailed like wounded prey. The breathing started again. All around this time, the whole forest inhaled and exhaled, and the trees swayed in rhythm with invisible lungs. In, out, in, out, waiting. Timeless, patient. Speaker 4 (11:47) I dropped into a clearing I didn't recognize. The overlook should have been there. I could have sworn it, but what I'd stumbled upon was a ring of exposed earth circled by gnarled oaks whose roots writhed above ground like snakes turned to stone. Marcus stood in the middle. Marcus! I ran to him, crying. Something's out here. Something's really wrong with this place. We have to get out. He turned around. It was Marcus. His face. His gear. His concerned look. But his eyes were wrong. Pupils expanded so wide they took up the whole iris. And when he smiled, there were too many teeth. Just a bit. Just enough to make a difference. Speaker 7 (12:41) You found me. Speaker 4 (12:43) His voice was okay. Except that it was happening behind him. A half-second delay, like watching a movie with bad audio sync. I backed away. Bear spray between us. What are you? Speaker 7 (12:58) I'm Marcus. It Speaker 4 (13:02) took a step forward. Speaker 7 (13:04) Don't you recognize your old friend? Speaker 4 (13:08) Where's the real Marcus? The thing wearing Marcus's skin cocked its head. Considering. Speaker 7 (13:16) Does it matter? You called him. I answered. Speaker 4 (13:23) The breathing enveloped us now. Emanating from the trees, I finally grasped. From all the trees. Every shadow. Every grass blade. All of it alive and waiting and hungry. The red markers. You changed them. You've been leading me here. Not Marcus smiled wider. So Speaker 7 (13:53) easy to turn back. One marker moved when you weren't looking. One path that doubles back. Humans never notice. You trust your maps more than your senses. My Speaker 4 (14:15) finger was on the trigger of the spray. Let Speaker 2 (14:19) me go. Speaker 7 (14:20) But you wanted to find your friend. Speaker 4 (14:25) It gestured to the edge of the clearing. Marcus was on the ground in the ferns, not moving, pack torn open, things spilling out. I couldn't see his face. Didn't need to. The angle of his neck told me everything. What did you do? Nothing. The way it was said made me believe. Speaker 7 (14:52) He fell. Happens all the time. So easy to lose the trail. So easy to take one wrong step. Speaker 4 (15:07) It moved a step nearer. Its shadow didn't match its body going too long, spreading like roots. But you, you're different. Speaker 7 (15:19) You kept calling. Your voice Speaker 6 (15:25) led Speaker 7 (15:26) us. Speaker 4 (15:34) The breathing was now louder. The trees seemed closer. The clearing was shrinking, roots inching inwards, and shadows reached out with finger-like branches. I sprayed. Orange mist splattered, not Marcus, right in the face. It didn't blink, just stood there, wearing my friend's face while the chemicals dripped off like water on stone. Speaker 4 (16:04) Then it laughed like wind through an empty skull, hollow and never-ending. I ran. I didn't know where, just away, away from the clearing, the thing, Marcus's broken body. The woods closed around me. Branches whipped my face. Roots stretched out to snag at my feet. The breathing came next. That slow in, out, in, out. And beneath it, I could hear things forcing their way through the undergrowth. More than one closing in. I crashed through the underbrush and suddenly there. The trail. Red markers pointing the way down. I didn't ask questions, didn't ask myself why it was here. I just ran, following the markers down and down and down. The parking lot materialized like an oasis. My car, Marcus's truck parked beside it. My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the keys. I roared to life on the first turn of the key. I backed it up in a shower of gravel, not noticing where I was going, just away to get to town, get help, bring back Marcus. Speaker 4 (17:23) few mirror at the tree line, I saw myself. Same clothes, same face, same look of utter terror, standing perfectly still, watching the car drive away. I drove. I knew. Gut level, bone deep. That wasn't my reflection. That was the woods trying on my skin for size. The ranger station was vacant. A back in 30 minutes sign leaned crookedly on the door. I sat there, engine running, hands tight on the wheel, waiting. My watch said 4.15 p.m. Impossible. I'd been in the woods for hours. It should be dark. Unless... I checked my phone for the date. Same day. My gaze fell to the road behind. Back to the parking lot, the trailhead, the breathing woods. I could see them from here, a dark blood on the horizon, waiting, eternal. I thought of Marcus, of returning. Then I looked down at my hands, dirt under my fingernails that hadn't been there this morning. I breathed in, under my fear, sweat, and the car air freshener, something else, faint but there, rot, sweet and heavy. From my clothes, my hair, my skin. In, in. I drove. Away from the station, away from the woods, away from what was left of Marcus in that clearing. Drove until I hit the highway, then drove on, checking the mirror for anything following. But the road stayed empty. Speaker 2 (19:28) The only breath was Speaker 4 (19:29) mine. Hours later, I stopped. A gas station several towns over. I looked at myself in the mirror of the bathroom. My face, my eyes, everything exactly as it should be. Standing behind me in the reflection, just visible at the edge of the mirror, something tall and wrong stood watching. I didn't turn around, didn't scream, didn't run. I knew because deep down in a place I didn't care to look too closely at, no matter how far I drove, I had taken too many wrong turns. The woods had my Speaker 2 (20:12) scent now, Speaker 4 (20:13) and Speaker 2 (20:14) the woods were patient. Speaker 4 (20:17) I exited the bathroom, got in my car, and merged onto the highway. In the backseat, barely visible in the rear view, something stirred in the darkness. Something that breathed in perfect harmony with my tires, humming on asphalt. Speaker 6 (21:06) Sponsors bring you all this content for Speaker 8 (21:11) LeapLess Universe. For even more ad-free audio nightmares. Speaker 6 (21:17) We're excited to kick off our new season with our newest sponsor, Vinted. Listen, I'm no fashionista, but even my closet is full of clothes I'll likely never wear again. So I could pitch them or I could list them on Vinted. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app that makes it easy for everyday sellers,