Friendly Secrets Between Bones and Dying Dogwood Leaves

It's our last Nosleep of the season, so we've got another bits and pieces episode today. This one is featuring four tales by Nosleep author Travis Brown (u/grand_theft_motto), one of which was written just for the show. 

Transcript

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You never used your kitchen to its full potential. You tried to get more into it when you bought your house, because it just seemed like such a waste not to use all the space. But it just wasn’t your thing. You never used the pizza oven, you never used more than half the giant fridge, and you never used the massive granite island in the middle. When scouring up food, you made do with the area by the sink, because it was all you needed. Until tonight, that is. Tonight, what you’ve brought home fills nearly the entire island. Tonight, you use your kitchen to its full potential. You make use of a meat cleaver you’ve never touched before to separate the joints. You practice getting a standard kitchen knife between the bones that you struggle with, cutting enough connective tissue to pull them apart. You check the floor periodically to make sure the tarp you’ve improvised from trash bags and duct tape is holding. And when you’ve sliced and stabbed and cut enough, you see how neatly you can pack the carcass into fresh bags. You make note of how much sawdust to put in to keep the blood from threatening to leak. When you’re done, you sit near the blood for a while, getting used to the smell. You sit until your stomach stops rolling. That wasn’t bad for the first test run, but you know you need to practice more. You need to practice until your hands stop shaking and you can get it all done much faster. And as you sit there on the floor you convince yourself that when you finally work your way up to what you’re practicing for, what you know you need to do, that it will be easy. That if you practice enough, then cutting up the real monster you’re after won’t be any different than processing a deer. That when the day finally comes, you can shut off all those pesky emotions that get in the way; empathy, disgust, fear. You tell yourself that you can practice your way into acting enough like the monster to finally slay it once and for all. You look at those bags, and in them you imagine not the deer, but The Podcast Inside Your House. 

As Season Two comes to a close, we’d like to share another Bits and Pieces Episode. Today, we’re bringing you four fearsome tales by Travis Brown, or as you might know him from Reddit, GrandTheftMotto. Travis is prolific on Reddit, and you can read many of his stories there. You can also support him by buying his books: How to Build a Haunted House, and House with One Hundred Doors. 

Story Number One: The Secrets Between Knife and Bone

There’s a perfect honesty hidden under the skin. Lies are easy to peel away, both the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves. Truth is running water, pressurized, always looking for a way out. Clover loved truth more than anything else. His greatest talent was cutting out avenues in flesh so that the truth could flow and secrets drown.

You see, secrets can’t hide once you break the skin and introduce sunlight into the system. Clover hated mysteries. He needed to know what made people tick, who they really were deep down under the ego and the presentation and the bullshit. That compulsion to know was with Clover ever since he was a boy. If you asked him, Clover would claim he couldn’t remember the first time he cut into someone. But that’s a lie, one of the few Clover would tell, out of a sense of...modesty, maybe? Humility?

The truth is Clover remembered every time he ever pressed cold steel to warm skin. He dreamed about the feeling of slicing through light resistance, of metal scraping against bone. Memories of screaming and begging and absolute honesty were Clover’s only companions. He knew that his purpose in life was to strip away all of the lies people wrap around themselves.

When Clover dreamed, he always dreamed in red.

If Clover was feeling philosophical, which he often was, he’d answer questions as well as ask them during a session. The most common question was, “why are you doing this,” accompanied by sobbing. Clover always answered the same.

“Digging for a soul.”

Clover’s most recent session (an old man taken from a Costco parking lot) was an unusual one. The old man never once shrieked or whimpered or attempted to bargain. He simply sat and bled far more blood than Clover guessed such a worn-out thing could contain. And as the man stained the plastic sheeting under him stoplight red, he stared up at Clover. He didn’t ask why or what Clover was doing. His questions were sharper.

“Who are you?” the old man asked. “What are you?”

Clover didn’t know.

After the old man was finally out of blood, Clover sat down in the little scarlet pool he’d let loose. Clover chose his favorite knife, a straight razor with a walnut grip.

Who are you? What are you?

Clover wasn’t sure, hadn’t ever thought to check. Such an oversight. As the razor kissed skin, Clover smiled. Soon enough he would know his own secrets, buried between knife and bone. He would work quick and clean, doing what he was put on this Earth to do.

Digging for a soul.

Story Number Two: Dogwood and the Boys Who Don’t Do Nothin’

The town never much cared for Dogwood and his boys. They were the closest thing Claxen, Maryland (pop: 414) had to a gang. But they were harmless. That’s what everyone said. A more harmless bunch of layabout, cloud-watching chair polishers you’ll never find.

That’s what everyone said.

But Dogwood was a dreamer. Tall and lean and with oak-eyes, he would sit by the creek and fish with the boys and ponder on the peculiarities of life. His was the philosopher’s mind, a puzzle picker, a lover of riddles and rhymes. More than anything, Dogwood was a lover of love itself. During the autumn that he turned 33, Dogwood found himself infatuated with the mayor’s daughter.

Her name was Laura Lane.

The affection struck from nowhere like an arrow dropping from a clear sky. But once love had Dogwood gripped he was helpless. He was not a handsome man though his face held a slow cleverness and his laugh had a way of spreading. Once his heart and mind were fixed, Dogwood did his best. He spent an afternoon picking Laura Lane the best wildflowers he could find around the creek.

After Dogwood presented the bright, white, yellow and blue blooms to Laura Lane, he waited. She only laughed.

Not if you were the last man in Claxen, Laura Lane said.

It’s damn rotten the way the town treats us, Dogwood told the boys later.

They look at us like we ain’t even people, Tor replied. Hannah and Kat nodded along.

Well, if they don’t regard us as people, maybe we should be something else, Dogwood said.

First the wild animals began to disappear around town, then the tame ones. Dogwood and the boys camped out at the creek. Folks stopped going around that part of the forest. Those who did swore they saw Dogwood and the others dancing naked around a bonfire. Hearing all the rumors, Laura Lane became curious and one night snuck down to the water to watch.

They boys were indeed dancing around a fire. Jagged shadows like shattered teeth whipped back and forth. Laura could smell them from where she hid among the elm trees. Thick, wet and aggressive, the odor crashed against Laura. She thought of roadkill and rain.

The figures around the fire were shaped like human-things. But they didn’t move human. Sound human. They snapped and shivered and jerked. They howled. One stood laughing while another dug at the ground with their hands. Laura left the creatures to their night games and returned to town.

The disappearances began the next day. Children at first. Parents would look out windows to find empty yards where empty yards should not be. Kids stopped going out at night. Then they stopped going out at all. But still each day the puddle of youth evaporated from the town of Claxen.

Now, the folk there didn’t simply accept that. They suspected Dogwood and the boys from the start. Nobody called ‘em harmless any longer, no one laughed. Least of all Laura Lane. As the mayor’s eldest daughter it fell to her to lead the first mob down to the creek. All they found were gnawed bones and excrement. Small bones, mostly. But no sign of Dogwood or the others.

Soon enough there were no more children in Claxen. After that the adults began to vanish as well. Maybe some left, feeling the town somewhat cursed. Others, though, pieces were found. Leftovers. No matter how hard the mob searched there was seen hide nor hair of Dogwood. Until one chilly evening in October. He marched into town just as the sun was draining and the sky was cooling blue.

Dogwood led a gruesome parade down Main Street. There wasn’t much of a man in him anymore. He was covered crown to sole in stolen fur, a variety of shades. Behind him came Tor, with darker fur and a wolf’s head where the human one used to sit. Kat followed, bristling with feathers, whistling, warbling. Last came Hannah wrapped in vines. Her arms were crawling with kudzu, her skin was bark, and she left a trail of leaves.

The group stopped in front of town hall. Laura came down the marble steps to meet them. Her father was gone, taken or fled the night before. All of the streets and buildings were empty. Not a soul in Claxen. Only Dogwood, his boys, and Laura Lane.

Dogwood stood waiting, swishing his tail back and forth. His face was a dog’s face in most ways but his eyes were newborn-blue. And when Dogwood smiled Laura saw his teeth were tiny and fresh white. He turned to Hannah and plucked flowers from her tongue. The petals were dead and the stems stank like…

Roadkill and rain, Laura thought.

Dogwood held out the flowers. Laura watched them wilt. Then she met Dogwood’s harvested eyes and giggled.

I’ve always considered crocodiles lovely creatures, Laura said.

Dogwood smiled and offered his arm. The whole filthy lot of them were last observed near the creek doing nothin’ at all.

Story Number Three: When the Leaves Start Dying

Dear Matilda,

When the leaves start dying, my mind always finds its way back to you. Do you remember the time we went to that pumpkin patch outside of Easton? The rain came and drove us into the forest where we saw shadows dancing between the trees.

Was that real? Or a dream masked as a memory?

The leaves die then the wind shifts, crashing in from the east over the Atlantic. Ghosts blow in with the breeze, torn and cold. I’ll walk through them, brushing away as they stick to my jacket like spiderwebs. Some I’ll carry with me but you wouldn’t know them as them from what remains.

Do you remember the orchard we picked apples at that October before you got sick? Remember the faces we saw in the trees, the way bones pressed through the trunks like compound fractures? It’s not the faces that stayed with me but the shape of the elms and oaks and silverpine; the way their spines would flex with the wind and how they would sigh as we passed hand-in-hand.

Do you think it was envy? Or did they sense you leaving?

When the leaves start dying I turn my face to the autumn sun, bright but fading. The sky is still wide, yet coming closer each day. One night soon after, I’ll feel that familiar drop in pressure, winter’s first knock before she takes her boot to the door. I’ll pour a drink and walk outside under the moon that’s there or the space where it should be. The tools are already in the truck.

It’s a short drive to the cemetery. Once I’m parked I’ll place my hand against the wall but the stone won’t feel like stone. It will be soft and alive, like a palm I recognize. The moment won’t last; the stone will only be stone.

I’ll enter through the gate with the axe and the shovel and I’ll wait. Usually by the time I get there, you’ve dug yourself most of the way out. I’ll stand there while you claw at the earth. I’ll try to speak with you but you won’t hear me, not over the sound of your own wailing. It must hurt terribly, having to breathe air again after a year in the gentle dark. Are the stars too bright? I would douse them for you if I could.

Once you’re out you’ll come for me, hungry as always. And, as always, I’ll return you to the dirt. I might try fire again this year, even if it never seems to stick.

Dear Matilda, when the leaves start dying, I’m always caught by the question that I run from the rest of the year.

Am I the reason you keep coming back?

Our final tale this episode is also our first story written just for the show by an outside author, which is a very exciting milestone for us. Travis Brown has always been a huge supporter of new writers, and we’d like to thank him once again not only for helping with this episode but also for all the support he’s shown to new writers trying to navigate the indie horror scene. So without further ado, please enjoy: 

Story Number Four: Happy Friendly People

I first met Martin while I was frantically searching for a vein in my foot. We met in the stairwell of our apartment building. It was the worst stairwell in the worst building in, arguably, the worst city in the country, and that combined awfulness is why I think it took me a few minutes to understand that Martin wasn’t human, only human-shaped. 

“Are you okay?” he asked me, watching me jab a syringe between my toes. 

“Never better,” I grunted, snarling when my latest prospect turned out to be a junk vein. 

“My name’s Martin. Who are you? What are you doing?” the stranger asked, his voice a little muffled.

I looked up, confused by the question. In the flickering lights of the well-tagged stairwell, Martin appeared to be nearly seven feet tall. He was broad-shouldered and thick-necked, but his arms were terribly thin. His profile was hidden by layer after layer of the kind of clothing even thrift stores would take out back to burn. All of the layers were particularly odd since we met in August and our building lacked air conditioning, leaving it roughly as hot as Hell’s parking lot both day and night. Martin wore a baseball cap and a stained blue medical mask and he smelled like the dumpster outside of a hospital. He had a camping backpack slung across one shoulder.

“My name’s Jay and I’m trying to die with a smile,” I replied, tapping the syringe. 

“You’re a happy human. Why would you want to die?” Martin asked.

“I’m not happy and I don’t feel human. If I could be something else, I would. Maybe I’d be happy as a dog.”

“How about a monster?” 

“Sure,” I said, sighing as I finally found a good vein. “Sounds better than this.” 

Martin leaned in close and pulled down his medical mask. I saw then that he had not just one face but many unmatching ones, all stitched and stapled together, some of the seams still freshly bleeding a rank yellow fluid. 

“I think we can help each other,” he told me, smiling with mismatched teeth.

I stared up at him for what felt like a long time, long enough for the paradise to come parading through my veins. Long enough that my curiosity overrode my common sense and self-preservation. Long enough that I agreed to follow Martin back to his apartment. 

It felt like a fever dream moving through the dirty hallways of our sweltering building. The entire place was more shit than mortar, as my dad would probably say if I’d ever known him. I floated in a warm trance through the tall thing’s door and into his dark rooms. There was no furniture in his apartment, no signs of life, and the only light came from a neon sign flashing outside one window. In that strange glow, I watched Martin spill the contents of his backpack onto the floor. Out came faces, a dozen or more, most still wet. Dead, dumb expressions stared up at me without eyes. 

“I like people,” Martin explained, sifting through the faces reverently. “I’ve always wanted to be people. I haven’t found the right one to be yet but maybe I could be you.” 

The drugs had me in their tender clutches and no shrill shriek of danger could penetrate the cottoncandy fog of fent. I smiled at Martin, a little drool on my chin. 

“But if you became me, then who would I be?” I asked, feeling as if I was posing some timeless riddle. 

Martin’s grin got wider. “Maybe you could be one of these.” He gestured at the flesh on the floor. “Maybe one of them has the life you’d want. And, if you’re still not happy, you could try being a monster. Do you agree?”

Not understanding the situation but not wanting to offend my new friend, I nodded enthusiastically. Martin let out a pleased croak and clapped me on the back. 

Then he grabbed me with those thin, strong arms. He dragged me into the bathroom and left me in the tub. I fell asleep for a moment and woke up to find Martin pulling out the skin of my cheek so he could saw under it with a sharp knife. I was too high for pain but I did feel the unusual sensation of the skin parting. Martin peeled and pulled until my face came free with a sticky pop. I fell asleep again as he returned with a thick thread, a needle, and a few options from his bag to replace what he’d taken. 

I woke up some hours later in the hospital. I woke up screaming. I’m not sure if there’s a day that’s gone by since then that I haven’t screamed but it all blurs together. The face Martin gave me didn’t take and now it’s too late to get mine back. I hope, wherever Martin is, he’s happy with my face and he won’t feel the need to look for another. 

Because that will leave more for me.

Until next time, remember that it’s always easier to take apart a puzzle than to put it back together, especially if that puzzle was alive when you started.