NoSleep Podcast S25E06

The NoSleep Podcast

Guest host Dan Zappula introduces an episode centered on the themes of isolation and inescapable attachments. The anthology features three t

Key takeaways

• In 'The Footsteps at 3:33', the protagonist's physical identity begins to merge with the rhythmic pacing of a deceased resident.
• The story 'Random' explores how digital curiosity can lead to witnessing traumatic, reality-altering rituals via live streaming.

Main topics

• Psychological Isolation
• Body Horror

Notable quotes

The footsteps. Not heavy. Not hurried. Just a slow, deliberate pacing above my bed.

Conclusion

A chilling exploration of how curiosity and observation can lead to ir

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:42) Welcome Speaker 2 (1:34) to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your guest host, Dan Zappula. You know, when David asked me to host this week's episode, my initial reaction was, Hey you, how'd you get in here? But once I'd calmed down, I was delighted. Yes, I've been on the show for a decade, but we don't get to talk directly much, you and I, now do we? So I thought it might be fun to learn a little bit more about me, the man behind these tantalizing and confusingly arousing vocal cords. I have so many fond memories of being on this show, especially meeting some of you at Boston tour stops past. When you spend so much time recording into a microphone, actually getting to meet the people on the listening end is a pretty nice treat. There are so many stories that have stayed with me over the years, too. Creeping Crimson is one that still comes to mind all these seasons later. I think... Above anything else, it's the friendships and relationships that you form over this long period of time that really stick with you. From David, to the production team, to the cast, it's a family. And I hope everyone out there feels like they're part of the family too, because you certainly are. Now, aside from my sappy reminiscing on my voice acting career, some of you may also know me through my music. When I'm not voice acting, I'm a musician on the side. I've been lucky enough to attend the past couple of Grammy Awards shows, and I have a new album coming out this fall called Life and Death. Yes, Life and Death. I can't get away from these existential themes in all of the work that I do. So if you're curious about that side of my life, look up Dan Zapula on Spotify or wherever you happen to listen to music. And you can also follow me on Instagram at Dan Zapula. I will spell it because no one can. That's D-A-N-Z-A-P-P-U-L-L-A, all one word. And I'll be sharing more about my voice acting and music ventures there. Oh, the idea of life and death does sound right at home here though, doesn't it? And that's what keeps drawing me into horror. The unknown. I want to discover something. Show me something I don't know and just scare the heck out of me with it. Give me one of those psychological stories where I'm trying to put the pieces together and man, I am happy. Especially if one little detail makes me reconsider everything I've heard so far. I'll still be working on it after that story ends. Speaker 3 (4:09) But of Speaker 2 (4:09) course, curiosity like that can become an obsession. Something gets inside your head and feeds on your attention until you barely notice how much of your life you've given up for it. And the stories in this episode explore that slow type of isolation, a type of secret you can't share, an attachment you can't break. The people who care about you, they grow distant, while whatever has a hold of you keeps drawing closer. And eventually, it's just you and that thing you just can't let go of. So, brace yourself for isolation and for the frequency of fear. Speaker 2 (4:59) In our first tale, we meet a woman who's having trouble sleeping, and don't we all from time to time? But there's a sound that she simply can't ignore. And once she starts listening for it, oh my, do the nights begin to feel very, very long. My friends, you can spend hours explaining away a noise in the dark. It's funny how none of those explanations seem quite as convincing when it starts again. Author Marwa Ayyad invites us to lie awake with her for a while. This tale has been produced by Jeff Clement, with performances by Erica Sanderson, Andy Cresswell, James Cleveland, and Penny Scott Andrews. So in the quiet of the night, listen for The Footsteps at 3.33. It Speaker 1 (6:11) always begins at 3.33 a.m. The footsteps. Not heavy. Not hurried. Just a slow, deliberate pacing above my bed. Back and forth. Back and forth. A restless tide pressing into plaster. At first I thought insomnia. Some neighbour with a wandering mind and aching bones. I buried my head under the pillow. Waited for the lull. It never came. By the third night I was barefoot on the stairwell. Palms sliding along the chipped banister. Hair damp with unease. The flat above was always dark. Curtains sealed. I knocked once. Twice. No answer. Speaker 1 (7:01) The lock held. The air beyond felt sealed too. The building manager laughed when I complained. Speaker 5 (7:09) That place? Empty for years. No one since the widow died. Speaker 1 (7:15) He shrugged, like death was the neatest lease termination. Keys chattered against his belt. Speaker 5 (7:23) You hear creaks, pipes, old buildings talk. Don't make stories of it. Speaker 1 (7:29) Then who walks up there? Speaker 1 (7:32) He scratched his jaw, glanced towards the landing as if the word upstairs had a draft. Speaker 5 (7:38) The widow used to pace. After her boy died, ten steps stop, ten steps back. Wore a groove so deep I had to replace it. Said it kept the walls from closing in. Speaker 1 (7:54) So what's walking now? He closed his mouth. Speaker 5 (7:59) I'll check the latch, but no one's in there. Speaker 1 (8:03) Yet at 3.33, the footsteps returned. I started to map them. Chalk on my ceiling. Arrows for each turn. Ten steps east. Pause. Ten steps west. Pause. A pendulum hammering inside my skull. Five nights. Or six. I can't be sure. Sleep left me. Notebooks piled at my bedside. Tallies, crude foot diagrams, the scrawl of someone who no longer trusts memory. My body thinned. Skin under my eyes purpled. Lips cracked. My spine ached as though bent by some invisible metronome. My calves knotted with cramps that never released. One dawn, a thin grey film clung to the soles of my slippers. Its tang bit at the back of my throat like rubbed raw copper. When I brushed, my gums bled. Tap water ran cloudy, leaving grit at the bottom of the glass. The kettle clicked. A rim of scum ringed my cup. I poured it down the sink and watched a grey film drag its feet along the porcelain. Even food tasted wrong. Bread metallic. Apples mealy. Milk soured two days early. The fridge hummed like a second heartbeat. The stupid hum followed me into dreams. The hum wasn't steady either. It dipped, rose, stalled, like something else was breathing through the motor. Sometimes I thought I heard words beneath the whir. A thin rasp. Counting, maybe. Or prayer. I went back to the stairwell with the manager. His keys jittered. He fitted one, then another. Speaker 5 (9:55) See? Still sealed. Speaker 1 (9:58) He pushed the door open. Air of disuse. Old newspapers. Old breath. No furniture. No curtains. No body. Footprints scored the dust from east to west and back again. Grooves so deep it looked like someone had walked the same path forever. He crouched, pinched grime between finger and thumb, and his brow tightened at the smear it left. Speaker 5 (10:26) I cleaned this once, years ago, after they took her away. Took? Her sister. Come on, no good standing in it. Speaker 1 (10:40) But I knelt. Dust smeared my fingertips, grey-black, like I'd pressed them into a cold fireplace. The silence swelled after, not pure, not neat, but thick, as if the flat itself was waiting to breathe and never quite did. I whispered hello. The dust shifted, not quite wind, as though answering. Speaker 1 (11:09) That night I waited. 3.33. The steps came. Only now they echoed inside. The rhythm matched my pulse. Ten east, ten west. My body rose without permission, feet pressing grooves into the carpet, tracing the corridor I'd memorised. I did not stop. I could not. The ceiling above stayed silent. I realised dimly that I was walking for both. For us. For... no. By the seventh night, neighbours whispered on the stairs. She never leaves her flat. The lights never go out. Even her curtains twitch, like someone pacing behind them. Someone banged once at my door at 4am. A man's voice, thin with fear. Speaker 3 (12:05) Keep it down in there. You're scaring the Speaker 1 (12:09) building. I'm not making the noise. He sucked his teeth, stepped back, slippers slapping. Another neighbour, hair stuck in curlers, cornered me at the bins. I started to speak, throat tight, but she'd already turned, muttering into her scarf, scraps of words breaking apart before I could catch them. Whispers spread. The widow's curse. That one upstairs again. Doors shut faster when I passed. I caught two boys scratching marks into the hallway wall. Ten little lines, then a slash. They giggled when they saw me. Then bolted. Skin rubbed raw where fabric clung. Flakes came off like shavings. Still, I couldn't stop. When I slumped on the chair, my heel kept twitching against the floorboards. Tap. Speaker 1 (13:06) the rhythm dragging me on. And when I passed the mirror in the hall, the face staring back at me didn't always belong. Sometimes the reflection was older, hollow-eyed, whispering numbers I hadn't yet spoken. It began to move out of sync. While I marched east, it paused. While I stumbled west, it mouthed words I couldn't hear. One night it smiled, a thin, cracked smile that made my stomach clench. Speaker 1 (13:39) Then, the flat changed. Cabinets slammed in rhythm with the unseen steps. Bulbs flickered at exactly 3.33. A window I had locked stood open each dawn, a blade of cold slicing in. On the sill was a crust of dust, not neat at all, scattered crescent-shaped, as though an elbow, or maybe a stupid heavy head had leaned there to listen. Other traces bled through. A wiry grey hair snagged in the hinge of my door. A tea stain bleeding a perfect circle across my table even though I hadn't brewed in days. The faint perfume on my pillow. Sour sweet, old lady, sharp. Not mine. Even my clothes carried it. When I pulled my jumper from the chair, the cuffs were streaked with grey. My coat pockets filled with a fine grit, as if someone had reached in with dirty hands. The upstairs was bleeding down, claiming my rooms one by one. By the fourteenth night I could no longer sit. I paced the groove until dusk, until dawn. My nails cracked against the floorboards. The carpet frayed under my steps, threads curling like veins. My joints popped, shoulders hunching with the rhythm. My tongue blistered from breathing the dust. Water no longer cleared it. Even in sleep, what little sleep I stole, my teeth ground grit. When I closed my eyes, I saw the widow, or something like her, walking the same path, endless. Sometimes she wore my own face. Always the face. Always the knees. The manager caught me again. Speaker 5 (15:29) You look pale. Eat something. Take a train to the coast. Speaker 1 (15:34) I can't. If I leave, it'll stop breathing. He flinched. Used Speaker 5 (15:42) to say that. Said the building was a lung. If she walked, it breathed. If she stopped... Speaker 1 (15:51) He rubbed his thumb along an old scar on the banister. Speaker 5 (15:55) She asked me once to walk with her. Three in the morning. I said no. Don't go up there again. You don't want to be what a building needs. Speaker 1 (16:12) That night the walls seemed to expand and contract with my steps. The plaster creaked as if ribs adjusting. A picture frame tipped itself an inch lower. By now I'd stopped eating properly. Toast tasted of nails. Coffee left sludge like bone dust at the bottom of the cup. I sat at the table, staring at it, and thinking, maybe this is how the widow fed herself. Maybe the dust is all there is. Neighbours avoided me now. In the post room, they shuffled their letters fast, eyes down. Someone muttered widow's curse as the door shut behind them. A child dropped her toy car and screamed when I bent to pick it up. Speaker 1 (16:57) On the 19th night, the footsteps arrived early. 3.13. A new tempo. Shorter, quicker strides. The chalk lines on my ceiling blurred as if rubbed by unseen hands. I repainted them at 4.07am, furious, then apologised aloud to the empty room. The bulb steadied for a minute, then stuttered harder. A sickly pulse. Speaker 1 (17:25) On the twentieth night I woke at the door. Ash under my nails as if I'd clawed free of something gritty and long. My mouth tasted of plaster and coin. The sink coughed when I spat grey. Somewhere in the pipes, something thudded. Not water. Not exactly. A sound too heavy. Like knuckles wrapping deep inside metal. The mirror showed the older face again. The delay shrank to nothing. Then it moved before I did, anticipating each step like a partner who knew the routine by heart. Sometimes its lips moved faster, shaping numbers I couldn't yet catch. Sometimes it mouthed my name, though I never admitted it aloud. I'm certain. I'm not. On the 21st night, I passed the mirror and stopped. My reflection did not. It kept walking, pacing the corridor inside the glass. Ten steps east. Pause. Ten steps west. Pause. Lips counting without sound. Then it turned, stared at me, and pressed its palm to the other side of the glass, skin grey with dust, eyes hollow, mouth forming one slow word. Switch. Speaker 1 (18:50) I tried to scream, but it jammed low in my chest, snagging like a cough. What came out wasn't sound at all. Just air. Thin and useless. The reflection stepped back into darkness. I felt my own body jerk forward, pulled on strings. My hands slammed into the glass. From the inside. Speaker 1 (19:13) The room wavered. Corners pulled taut like canvas in a wind. The ceiling became a lid, the floor a tray collecting breath. Footsteps layered into a choir that had never stopped. Through the glass I watched myself, younger, desperate. Freeze, then begin to walk. Grit spilled from my mouth instead of words. She blinked, smeared the glass clean with her palm, then went on walking. I wanted to warn her. The shards would cut. The dust would clog her stupid lungs. The whole place would just move on to another body. The hammer slipped. Hit the floor hard. Bounced once like it didn't want to settle. She lurched, knees buckling, eyes gone watery and blank. I pressed both palms to the trembling glass, skin squeaking against it, begging it not to split. Then it struck back. Speaker 1 (20:13) A blow from the inside so violent the pain boomed like a drum. The walls rippled. Cupboards clattered open. A picture fell. The bulb overhead burst in a fizz of sparks. The steps weren't upstairs anymore. Not at all. Fast, deliberate strides. Grey dust marking each print on the carpet. My own face came into view. But not me. Its lips moved, counting numbers I hadn't reached yet. Louder, faster, the voice scraping raw as it filled the room. It circled the flat, each turn closer, each step louder, until the walls themselves shuddered in time. And it kept walking, even as I froze, even as I begged my legs to move. It was louder than me, much louder. The dust thickened until I couldn't see the walls. In the blur, a figure paced. The widow, shawl trailing, head bowed, her steps matching mine. I tried to stop. I couldn't. My body jolted, my back bowed to her steps. I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound was wrong. Her voice came out, cracked and endless. Then I saw her hands where mine should have been. Grey, veined, wearing my skin like a glove. and understood she wasn't beside me anymore. She was inside. Sounds Speaker 8 (22:16) of sponsors bring you all this content. Free. Sleepless Universe for even more ad-free audio nightmares. This Speaker 7 (22:27) episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you're done pacing all night and wake up from a good night's sleep, imagine this. You've awoken with the ability to be better at one thing. What would that be? It could be something fun, like being better at finding the best sales