I'm using this one for my Scary Women Authors square.

I just realized that I have never reviewed a NoSleep production. That's going to have to change because they are doing some amazing work and I need to stop keeping them all to myself. I listen to a ton of podcasts but this is the one I look forward to every Sunday morning when I'm making breakfast or cleaning up someone's mess.

Borrasca is a longer story than typically found on the podcast. You can find it by checking out NoSleep S7 E25. You can also read it on reddit but I recommend you listen to the full cast audio production. It is fantastic.

“This story is about a place that dwells on the mountain; a place where bad things happen. And you may think you know about the bad things, you may decide you have it all figured out but you don’t. Because the truth is worse than monsters or men.”

When 9 year old Sam’s dad is reassigned to a new location as sheriff, for some never said wrong-doing, he packs up the family and relocates them to a sleepy little town in the Ozarks. Sam makes two new best friends who tell him all about the local legend they call “Borrasca”. Apparently, every now and again people hear screams in the woods and blame it on Borrasca. There’s also a weird treehouse that requires a certain ceremony to enter and leave . . . alive.

"Underneath the Triple Tree there is a man who waits for me and should I go or should I stay my fate’s the same either way.”

A few years later Sam’s older sister goes missing and he just knows, is absolutely certain, that she performed the ceremony incorrectly (or not at all) and hasn’t run away but has become the next victim of Borrasca. His dad, who is still the sheriff by the way, doesn’t believe him nor does he seem overly concerned that his daughter is missing. Perhaps she was just too annoying or maybe he’s hiding something . . .

More time passes, more teen girls go missing and very little is done about it by anyone except for Sam and his friend Kyle who have to do their own research. In a longer book, this likely would’ve annoyed me but that’s the joy of the short story format, there’s no time to ponder and get all worked up over plot points that seem to make no sense at all. When the secret is revealed, everything that happens prior; the strange conversations and the odd behavior of the adults, make all kinds of sense. It’s a dark, disturbing, horrible secret and not one I saw coming. This story may require a reread to catch everything said and done but I don’t know if I can bear it honestly. That ending, ewwww!