[creepy music]
♪
[birds chirping]
♪
[chuckles] You made it!
SAWYER: Surprise!
-[laughs] -[chuckles] Let's go!
[both giggle]
[toy car wheels squeaking]
HOLDEN: Wow.
How'd you do that?
SAWYER: Usually, they have test ones
like this at the store.
This one handles way better, though.
It isn't beat up yet.
[thud]
[Holden gasps]
Whoops. I'll fix it. [chuckles]
[birds chirping]
[mysterious music]
♪
Wow.
Check this out!
[footsteps approaching]
Nola, are... are you seeing this?
MRS. TOLES: Girls!
Here you go, baby.
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
Girls?
-Here you go, sweetheart. -Thanks.
[Sawyer pants]
Hi, Mrs. Toles. It's so nice to meet you.
It's really nice to meet you too, Sawyer.
After everything Nola's told me about you,
I guess, I imagined you'd be 12 feet tall. [laughs]
-[Nola laughs] -[laughs]
Well, I am normal size.
[all laugh]
-Did you bike here? -Mm-hmm.
Don't you live down at the base?
Yeah.
Do your parents know you're here?
[chuckles softly] Dad and Jill? Yeah.
They said they were busy,
so I got up extra early to bike over.
Wouldn't want to let my friend down.
-[chuckles] -[chuckles]
Aww. Well, come on in.
-[Nola pants] -[footsteps thudding]
You have your own room?
No. [scoffs] It's me and Holden.
-Where's his name? -Well, I make the rules.
-[giggles] -[Sawyer giggles]
[door creaking]
Whoa.
Holy!
[gasps, chuckles] You have a TV in your room?
-Whoa! What... -[Nola giggles]
Where did you get all of this?
My mom. We watch a lot of movies at night.
-Can I show you something? -SAWYER: Yeah.
Come on.
♪
Whoa.
♪
-[both chuckle softly] -[tin can clatters]
-Don't tell Holden. -[shushes]
[tin can scraping]
[eerie music]
[trees rustling]
[cutlery clinking]
MRS. TOLES: Did you guys wash up?
HOLDEN: Yeah.
MRS. TOLES: Are you sure?
-HOLDEN: S... Sawyer didn't. -NOLA: Mind your own business!
HOLDEN: I'm just saying!
That's not where we keep the dishes, dear.
Oh, um, you're right. I'm sorry, Mrs. Toles.
Why don't you wash up? Dinner's ready.
[eerie music]
♪
-[crickets chirping] -[insects chittering]
NOLA: So, Robyn, she was following me,
and she kept yelling, "Nerd alert, nerd alert."
And it was so annoying!
And I told her to stop, but she wouldn't listen.
So then, Sawyer, she's like...
"You better stop, or else..."
-[giggles] -[Sawyer giggles]
-And... and then Robyn's like, "Or else what?"
"Are you gonna tattletale on me?"
[chuckles] And, so Sawyer, she leans in super-close,
and she whispers something to her,
and then Robyn, she turns around,
she apologizes to me,
and then she walks away. [laughs]
Wait, what did you say to her?
Um... I just asked her nicely to apologize to my friend.
[both chuckle softly]
And how are you enjoying middle school, Sawyer?
Um, I like it a lot.
It's way better than my last school.
How so?
Everything's just, like, really clean and new.
Hmm. Do you like your teachers?
Yeah. They're just... [chuckles]
...like, really into teaching.
Okay... [chuckles] ...this one time...
I forgot to do my math homework, right?
And Mr. Munroe, actually called my house!
[chuckles] It was so funny, and he was furious.
And he was on the phone with my dad for like an hour.
What a loser! I'm like, get a life!
Uh, Mrs. Toles, could we be ex...
could we be excused? Um...
Yeah.
Thank you. The food was amazing.
-Thank you so much. -MRS. TOLES: You're welcome.
[ominous music]
♪
[dramatic music over TV]
♪
[bowl clatters]
What? You're gonna miss the movie.
[scoffs] Only for a minute.
You don't have any scary movies?
Um, well, we don't really like scary movies.
That's just because you haven't watched
the right ones.
Okay. [chuckles] So, we're gonna start with this,
um, and then,
-maybe if we have time... -[door knocking]
How we doing?
ALL: Good.
Good. All right, well, unfortunately, it is bedtime.
Time to clean up.
What... [chuckles] ...wait? Bedtime already?
Bedtime's nine o'clock. No exceptions.
It's getting late. You need to get home.
Uh... uh, Mrs. Toles.
Do you allow sleepovers?
You can come back some other time,
and you can watch as many movies with Nola as you'd like.
Right now it's getting late. You need to get home.
You don't want your parents to worry.
[scoffs] My parents, they don't worry.
-Let's get you packed up. -[Sawyer sighs]
[ominous music]
♪
[exhales]
[wind rustling the trees]
[fire crackling]
[thudding]
[Holden gasps]
-[Holden gasps] -[Nola gasps]
-Did you hear that? -We... we should get Mom.
SAWYER: [muffled] Guys... It's Sawyer!
Come on! I'm out back.
[owl hooting]
[crickets chirping]
[owl hooting]
NOLA: Sawyer!
Hey! [laughs]
Guess we're having a sleepover after all.
Shh...
♪
[door creaks open]
Why does your mom have all these crazy locks
around the house?
To keep us safe at night.
Uh, that's insane!
This is the safest neighborhood I've ever seen.
You shouldn't have come back here.
You say that now,
but wait till you see what I brought.
A black square from another dimension!
A creepy haunted doll!
A serial killer chopping up the neighborhood kids!
Oh, never mind, this one sucks.
Hey? Everything okay?
Don't be scared.
Uh, maybe we can watch one of my movies,
then we can watch one of yours.
Okay.
It's a sleepover. This is what best friends do.
-Okay? -Yeah, okay.
-Which one do we watch first? -That one.
-This? -I'll show you how to put it in.
-Okay. -[Nola] Come on.
[woman screaming in movie]
SAWYER: Okay, watch, watch, watch.
She's gonna stab the knife into his throat.
It's gonna be so cool.
Just give it a second, just give it a second...
[Sawyer gasps]
-HOLDEN: Ew! -Isn't that so cool? [laughs]
Come on.
♪
[woman screaming in movie]
Could we, maybe, watch a different movie now?
Shh. It's getting to the good part.
Why are we watching this?
Shh!
Did you like it?
No.
Was it too scary?
No, it was just... gross.
You think you can do better?
All right, Nola, give us your best scary story!
I don't think I have one.
Come on, everyone has at least one.
Well, there was this one kid...
his name was Tucker.
He and his family moved to a new neighborhood.
It was kind of like this one.
The people and the houses, you know?
But, this neighborhood had a dark secret.
When Tucker and his family first moved in,
folks from around the neighborhood warned
his dad and mom about a whistle that came from the woods.
Tucker couldn't really hear much of what they were saying,
but he could tell it was serious.
And one night, his dad told him
that if he ever heard anything,
anything coming from the woods at 3:00 a.m.,
to stay in bed and go back to sleep.
The problem was,
Tucker didn't listen to his parents.
And he'd sneak out of bed sometimes
to hear the whistle.
And he could hear it real well if he was in the right spot.
[whistling]
The thing is, if you hear the whistle every night,
it lures you in.
It wants to be found.
And one night, Tucker just couldn't take it anymore.
He needed to know what was going on,
and so, he drew up his blinds and...
No one ever saw him again.
Whoa. That was a nice story.
For being about a scary whistle.
Where did you hear that one?
We hear it every night.
Wait, so you're saying that's this neighborhood?
Nuh-uh, nice try. You almost got me there, though.
We should go to bed.
Wait, guys, I thought we were gonna watch another movie.
Nola, Holden, come on.
We have to be quiet, okay? My mom might hear.
Ugh.
[ominous music]
♪
[eerie whistling from beyond]
[whistling continues]
No way.
[whistling continues]
SAWYER: Who's there?
[whistling gets louder]
Is this a trick?
Did Nola put you up to this?
[shuffling sound]
[unlocks door]
[scream-like sound]
♪
NOLA: Sawyer?
[ominous music]
♪
Sawyer?
♪
[suspenseful music]
[screams in terror]
♪
Hey! What did you see?
[whistling continues]
[banging on door]
It's here.
[banging and rattling]
Upstairs, now!
[whistling continues]
MALE VOICE: Hey, is that Sawyer?
It's me, Mr. Toles.
Come on outside. I'd love to meet you.
EVIL VOICE: Come to me!
[dramatic music]
[banging and rattling]
-[roaring] -[glass shatters]
[roaring]
[beast-like snarling]
♪
[beast-like snarling]
♪
I'm gonna have to ask you to step outside.
Wait, what?
I can't let it hurt my family again.
It wants you.
Please... please don't make me go outside.
[sobbing] Please.
Please, I don't want to die.
I know I broke the rules, I know I shouldn't have.
Please, please, please!
I'm not gonna ask you again.
NOLA: Mom?
Go to your room!
♪
NOLA: I'm sorry, Sawyer.
♪
[door creaks shut]
[whistling]
[whistling continues]
[Sawyer breathing frantically]
[whistling continues]
[monster breathing]
[dramatic music]
♪
Aah!
[dramatic music]
[whistling continues]
[monster growls outside]
[knock at door]
FEMALE VOICE: Hey, Nola. It's Sawyer.
Do you want to keep playing?
Please listen Nola.
I have so many things I want to show you.
[eerie giggle]
DAVID: Welcome back from The Void.
Thanks for watching.
I'm David Cummings, the creator and host of the NoSleep podcast.
Today, we're joined by author Travis Brown,
writer of the NoSleep story
"Something Walks Whistling Past My House Every Night at 3:03,"
which we've adapted into the episode titled,
"Whistle in the Woods."
Welcome, Travis. Thanks for being with us today.
David, thank you so much for having me.
You have contributed many stories
to the NoSleep subreddits,
and you've been doing that for a number of years now.
I'm curious how you discovered NoSleep,
and what drew you to the stories,
reading them and then writing them.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I've always been a big fan of horror my entire life,
particularly, you know, consuming horror literature,
short stories. I've got a million paperback anthologies
from Amazon, from back when that first started being,
you know, a big thing with books.
But, I found Reddit NoSleep through my internet search,
diving through different creepypastas
throughout the years.
And as soon as I found NoSleep, I was hooked.
Obviously, the entire vibe around it
is built around reader buy-in, and immersion of the stories,
and it's just such a unique horror community online.
And what was it about the community that drew you
to wanting to write and post stories there?
Was there something about
the community that really felt...
made you feel comfortable to do so?
Absolutely.
Part of it, is just it being such a supportive community,
everyone from the moderators of the subreddit
to the fantastic readers, to all the other writers there.
It is one of those places where it feels like
a rising tide lifts all ships.
Everyone wants to see you succeed,
everyone wants to read your story,
everyone wants to talk about what you're writing,
and what they're writing.
It's just an amazing place to be,
and such a wonderful, like, jolt of energy as a writer,
is getting to interact with these folks,
particularly the readers who will, maybe,
find stuff in your story that you didn't even think about,
then you get to claim credit for it, like,
"Yeah, I put that there on purpose, the entire time."
I'm very curious to know, what inspired this story?
How did that form in your mind?
I think a lot of the stories that I posted on NoSleep,
and just write overall are fairytales at their heart.
That was one of the things that I loved as a kid.
You know, those were two of my favorite genres,
is horror, and then actually, really just classic fairytales
and mythology. Loved all of that.
So blurring them and blending them together
is something that I enjoy and try to do
as much as possible.
So I started with the idea of, you know, this invisible noise
that is just terrible and awful, and it fits into
that fairy tale mold of a villain
that's more of, almost, a concept than a creature.
And then I paired that with all these memories
and nostalgia I had about my neighborhood growing up.
'Cause we lived in a very close neighborhood.
I had friends over for sleepovers all the time,
and we used to take turns
just scaring the absolute heck out
of each other with whatever dares
we could come up with.
Getting someone to look out the window
while one of our other friends was out there making noise.
And so all those things, kind of percolated in my mind,
and I thought about, "Well, what if one of those sleepovers
that we had where we're trying to scare each other,
there actually was something out there?"
And from there it just kind of jumped out,
and I remember posting it,
and it was only my fourth or fifth story
I'd put on NoSleep. And I had one do really well,
and then a bunch completely flop,
and then I looked at this one after I got off work,
and it had gone through the roof in terms of notifications,
and I think that's the point where I really got hooked
and just wanted to post on NoSleep all the time.
You mentioned how popular the story was
when you first posted it, and it's gone on
to be adapted in many different audio formats,
and now, of course, coming to the screen.
What do you think it is about this story
that people find so compelling?
So, there's a few things that I hope that it is
and there's a few things that I also think
probably play a role.
And for the things I hope that it is,
I think that, maybe, that fairy tale vibe.
that I was going for,
people kind of connect with that.
I think a lot of us just,
you know, feel fairy tales at a fundamental level,
'cause it's such a stark,
but beautiful way to tell stories,
where everything is larger than life,
and there's this mixture of reality,
but the surreal coming together.
I also think, maybe, there's a nostalgia factor.
A lot of us, especially '90s kids,
you know, I'm 35 now,
so I grew up very prominently in the '90s.
Sleepovers and playing Nintendo 64,
and telling ghost stories,
and all these things that we had to do
before we had the internet for fun, just clicks.
But there's still, always the idea of
dread hiding behind nostalgia,
is what if those monsters that were so scary
when we were kids were actually out there?
Maybe we got lucky, and we dodged them,
and we're adults now, but looking back,
you know, you kind of question it.
And then NoSleep helps with that,
because of the immersion,
and the everything being in character.
You know, it really becomes easy to play along with this,
because it's such a shared life experience
for so many folks.
And then, that's all the stuff I hope is why it's popular,
and some of the reasons I think that it might be popular too,
is that, on NoSleep titles are very big,
and I think that I just hit a really good title.
I like to think the story is good too.
I'm very proud of it,
but something about the title, that particular day,
that particular hour, you know, maybe there were some trends
I didn't even know about with invisible monsters, maybe,
you know, there's the start of noise-based horror
coming on after that,
but I think a lot of stars aligned,
and it was a catchy title,
and once it started getting momentum on NoSleep,
it just shot to the top.
And once it was towards the top of NoSleep,
it continued to get momentum from YouTubers,
and podcasts, and...
it just grows. So, NoSleep is great.
Any time a story doesn't do well, though,
there, I would not tell a writer to worry about it.
There is just so much
other randomness involved in it.
The title, the time you post, who's online.
It's an interesting and wonderful place,
but definitely more of a training ground,
rather than a, "I need to be concerned,
'cause my stories aren't getting read."
What draws you to symbols like the time?
3:03 in the morning.
So, the 3:03 is fun.
That one is just based on a really common trope
about kind of evil numbers,
and I think it's even the mocking of the Holy Trinity.
It comes up in The Conjuring. So, that's something
that's been in horror for a while.
And it was just something that also flowed naturally
into the story. Like, well, if there's this creepy thing
that's happening at night,
what's the creepiest possible time at night it could happen?
Like, midnight? Nah, that's not quite there.
3:00 a.m. is almost it.
So, 3:03 just kinda clicked with me.
One of the things that I love personally
about the story is the fact that you have
this menacing creature, if you will,
That is only heard, you never see it.
And I think back to famous movies like Jaws,
where the mechanical shark always broke down,
and so people say the movie was more effective
because you didn't see the shark that much,
and you're letting the audience imagine
what's really out there.
And so, was that your intention?
To keep this creature just on the fringes?
A heard, never-seen,
and kind of leaving it up to the audience
to imagine who this whistling person or thing is?
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's wonderful that you mentioned Jaws.
That was actually the inspiration,
along with the first Alien movie, which,
both of them... and as a horror movie buff,
I knew this years ago,
and it always kind of stuck with me...
both of those productions encountered budget issues
with their monsters that resulted in
a lot of the footage not being used,
or them being filmed in very dark locations,
and you barely seeing them,
because if you got too good of a look at them...
you know, like you said, Jaws,
the shark looked pretty silly up close in bright daylight,
same thing with the Alien suit, or Predator.
But if you just show a hint of it,
and let the audience's imagination
fill in the blanks, as long as you're showing them enough
to get them started, usually they will go somewhere
much scarier than you could ever possibly communicate.
There's a fantastic quote, I think it's from Spielberg,
who said, "Never show them the zippers."
And he was referring to, with, like, classic movie monsters,
Swamp Thing,
Monster from the Black Lagoon,
they would have these terrible rubber suits,
and they would be filmed
pretty starkly in the '50s and '60s,
and you could literally see the zippers sometimes.
And it makes the monster more comedic than anything else,
which is why so many of those are now
unintentional amazing movies to watch just for the silliness.
But, yeah, so much of it is just the trope built around,
"Nothing is scarier."
You need to find the exact amount
to give an audience to get them started
and filling in the rest,
and then they will do the work for you,
and they will go way beyond.
Well, Travis, thank you for joining us,
and for sharing your experiences,
your writing approach,
and of course, your great story with us.
And all the best with future endeavors.
David, thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for joining us for this exclusive interview
with our NoSleep writers.
We look forward to you joining us next time.
♪