NoSleep Podcast S24E03

September 6, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The NoSleep Podcast’s S24E03 opens with host David Cummings musing on authenticity in a world of fakes and AI trickery — only to undercut the sincerity by announcing that the episode’s stories will do the opposite: they will take ordinary people living ordinary lives and flip reality until their worlds come crashing down. The throughline is the collapse of the familiar, and the three tales that follow each achieve it by twisting something mundane — a rice paddy, a late-night grocery run, a neighbor’s moving help — into something deeply wrong.

The Slurper and the Rice Farmer

The first story, by Russell Nichols, follows a woman who inherited a 440-acre rice farm in California’s Sacramento Valley after her husband’s suicide. She is already struggling: the drought has cut her surface water allocations, forcing her to buy expensive groundwater just to keep her paddies flooded at the required four and a half inches. Then one morning she wakes to find all the water gone — the field reduced to cracked mud. She buys more water, floods it again, and stays up to watch. What she sees is a figure in a wide-brimmed hat that moves in a stuttering pattern — step-step-step-freeze — kneels at the edge of the paddy, and drinks until the water is gone. The slurping sound is the story’s central horror detail. After the creature leaves, her dog Fudge, who had barked at it, begins barking at

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What you'll learn

1 (01:42) **Host Introduction: On Authenticity and Horror** - David Cummings muses on authenticity in a world of fakes, then promises stories that flip reality on its head.
2 (03:47) **Story 1: “The Slurper” – The Drained Rice Paddy** - A rice farmer in Central California discovers something is drinking all her irrigation water.
3 (21:45) **Story 2: “Attention Shoppers” – A Gig Driver’s Nightmare** - A delivery driver for the “Shoppers” app enters a creepy grocery store and finds a body.
4 (45:43) **Story 3: “I Only Knew Miss Gager for a Short Time” – The Wrong Dog** - A young man helps an elderly neighbor pack, only to discover her dog, Lester, is an unnatural, upright-walking creature.
5 (69:12) **Outro and Credits** - The episode closes with music, production credits, and a reminder of the podcast’s copyright and anti-AI-training policy.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

David Cummings

Show Notes

It's Episode 03 of Season 25. The frequency of fear brings you sounds of unsettling unreality.

"The Slurper" by Russell Nichols (Story starts around 00:03:40)
TRIGGER WARNING!
Produced by Claudius Moore
Cast: Narrator - Erin Lillis, Slurper - Kyle Akers

"Attention Shoppers" by Z Martin (Story starts around 00:23:50)
Produced by Jeff Clement
Cast: Narrator - Atticus Jackson, Intercom - Mike DelGaudio, Customer Service - Kyle Akers

"Lester" by Philip Schaefer (Story starts around 00:44:50)
Produced by Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator - Dan Zappulla, Ms. Gager - Mary Murphy

"New and Improved!" by Lauren D. Rossi (Story starts around 01:06:10)
TRIGGER WARNING!
Produced by Jesse Cornett
Cast: Narrator - Linsay Rousseau, Mom - Sarah Ruth Thomas, Dad - Mike DelGaudio

"Forever" by Connor Isaac (Story starts around 01:37:00)
TRIGGER WARNING!
Produced by Phil Michalski
Cast: Sarah - Marie Westbrook, Charles - Jeff Clement, Charles’ Mom - Mary Murphy

This episode is sponsored by:
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Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast team
Click here to learn more about Z Martin

Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings
Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone
"Lester" illustration courtesy of Kelly Turnbull

The NoSleep Podcast is Human-made for Human Minds. No generative AI is used in any aspect of work.

Audio program ©2026 - Creative Reason Media - The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media. No part of this audio program may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. All rights reserved.