A new series has launched! It has its own feed so as to not confuse the two series. Check it out on our website, somewhereohio.com, or search "Department of Variance" wherever you get your podcasts! Further episodes will only be posted to the Department of Variance channel. Hope you enjoy!

Episode 1: New Employee Orientation.

The Department of Variance, a clandestine government agency, experiences a crisis and the building goes into lockdown. Two employees–Jasmine Control and Scarlet Jaunt–are stuck on different floors as the emergency begins. The two must communicate and get to the bottom of the skyscraper however they can. 

(CWs: voice modulation, implied death, strong language)

Check out our website or carrd for all the links you need!

Join our Patreon for early access!

CREDITS:

Cast, in order of appearance: Jesse Syratt, Em Carlson, Emily Kellogg, Shaun Pellington, Justin Hatch, William A. Wellman, Tatiana Gefter, Saph the Something, Taylor Michaels, and special guest Shannon Strucci.

Art by NerdVolKurisu

Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.

Transcript available on our website!

A new series. New characters. New stories. Same Ohio.

The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio is a new sci-fi/horror audio drama by Rat Grimes, creator of the Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio. 

The Department of Variance is a full-cast serial fiction podcast about a shady governmental group that experiences a containment breach at its main office. One new hire and one mid-level employee from the Bureau of Transnatural Resources–named Jasmine Control and Scarlet Jaunt–are stuck on different floors when a lockdown begins. The two must communicate and get to the bottom of the building however they can. Not all is as it seems in the department, however

Beginning December 7th and airing weekly. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our website or patreon for more information. 

The Department thanks you for your time.

It seems like the terrors of the real world are most appealing to you and for good reason... 

On the Eve of Halloween, a dozen storytellers sneak inside the abandoned Darklight Carnival grounds to share a chilling batch of stories in two varieties. This year they split up to uncover the fears that lurk within and horrors that walk among us.

One group will head to the Ferris Wheel to tell tales of real-world terror. The other will venture into the Funhouse to spin yarns of the frightening spirit world. Which path will you embark on first?

Nine II Midnight is a collaborative storytelling event between 12 podcasts:

Hell Gate City

Malevolent

Nowhere, On Air

Out of the Ashes

Parkdale Haunt

The Cellar Letters

The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio

The Night Post

The Storage Papers

The Town Whispers

Wake of Corrosion

WOE.BEGONE

CREDITS & CONTENT WARNINGS

CW: General horror, swearing throughout

Produced by Harlan Guthrie

Master edit by Harlan Guthrie

'Nine II Midnight' written by Harlan Guthrie.

 

Performed by Harlan Guthrie, Dylan Griggs, Kevin Berrey, Shaun Pellington, Rae Lundberg, Vincent C. Davis, Jess Syratt, Alex Nursall, Rat Grimes, Jeremy Enfinger, Nathan Lunsford, Cole Weavers, and Jamie Petronis.

Pick a path on October 30th at midnight, and keep your wits about you.

9️⃣🔪🔪🕛

TRANSCRIPTS ARE AVAILABLE HERE

CREDITS: 

MALEVOLENT

“Scratching” was written, directed, performed, and edited by Harlan Guthrie. 

CW: insects, gore

Malevolent

Website: www.malevolent.ca

_________________________

THE CELLAR LETTERS

“Get Up” was written, edited, and performed by Jamie Petronis, and features Brandon Jones as the Newscaster

CW: general horror, mouth noises, licking sounds

Website: www.thecellarletters.com

_________________________ WAKE OF CORROSION

“The Quiet Corridor” was written, performed, edited and mixed by Shaun Pellington.

CW: sounds of bone crunching/cracking, mild terror, explicit language

Website: wakeofcorrosion.com

_________________________

THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE OF SOMEWHERE, OHIO

“Voices in the Vents” was written, performed, and scored by Rat Grimes (they/them).

CWs: fire, home invasion

Website: www.somewhereohio.com

_________________________

THE TOWN WHISPERS

“Bella” was written, Directed, Editing by Cole Weavers

CW: body horror, sleepwalking, nightmares, evil pets

Website: www.thetownwhispers.com

_________________________

PARKDALE HAUNT

“Who Goes?” was written by Alex Nursall and Emily Kellogg, with engineering and sound design by Alex Nursall.

Performed by Emily Kellogg, Alex Nursall, Ian Boddy, and Harlan Guthrie.

CW: ghosts/hauntings, home invasion

Website: www.parkdalehaunt.com

It seems like the horrors of our dreams are most frightening to you... 

On the Eve of Halloween, a dozen storytellers sneak inside the abandoned Darklight Carnival grounds to share a chilling batch of stories in two varieties. This year they split up to uncover the fears that lurk within and horrors that walk among us.

One group will head to the Ferris Wheel to tell tales of real-world terror. The other will venture into the Funhouse to spin yarns of the frightening spirit world. Which path will you embark on first?

Nine II Midnight is a collaborative storytelling event between 12 podcasts:

Hell Gate City

Malevolent

Nowhere, On Air

Out of the Ashes

Parkdale Haunt

The Cellar Letters

The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio

The Night Post

The Storage Papers

The Town Whispers

Wake of Corrosion

WOE.BEGONE

CREDITS & CONTENT WARNINGS

CW: General horror, swearing throughout

Produced by Harlan Guthrie

Master edit by Harlan Guthrie

'Nine II Midnight' written by Harlan Guthrie.

Performed by Harlan Guthrie, Dylan Griggs, Kevin Berrey, Shaun Pellington, Rae Lundberg, Vincent C. Davis, Jess Syratt, Alex Nursall, Rat Grimes, Jeremy Enfinger, Nathan Lunsford, Cole Weavers, and Jamie Petronis.

Pick a path on October 30th at midnight, and keep your wits about you.

9️⃣🔪🔪🕛TRANSCRIPTS ARE AVAILABLE HERE

CREDITS: 

WOE.BEGONE

"The Almanac Building" was written, directed, performed, and scored by Dylan Griggs. 

CW: gore, animal death

Website: www.woebegonepod.com 

_________________________ 

OUT OF THE ASHES

“Train Ride” was written, directed, and performed by Vincent Comegys-Davis.

CW: hospitals/medical issues, death, blood, gore

Website: www.outoftheashespodcast.com

_________________________ 

THE NIGHT POST

"Dead Space" was written, performed, and produced by Rae Lundberg

CW: animal peril, drowning

Website: nightpostpod.com 

 _________________________ 

NOWHERE, ON AIR

“A Dream” was written, performed, and edited by Jesse Syratt (credits for SFX available in the transcript)

CW: brief graphic description of body horror and sounds.

Website: https://nowhereonair.carrd.co

_________________________ 

HELL GATE CITY

“Shadow of the Eliminator” was written and performed by Kevin Berrey with music by Cheska Navarro.

CW: hallucinations/visions, bodily fluids

Website: www.hellgatecity.com

_________________________ 

THE STORAGE PAPERS

“Silly Billy” was written, edited, and mixed by Nathan Lunsford.

Performed by Jeremy Enfinger (as Jeremy) and Nathan Lunsford (as Billy).

Music credits available in the transcript.

CW: profanity, child injury, brief gore (SFX)

Website: www.thestoragepapers.com

 

On the Eve of Halloween, 14 storytellers make their way to the Darklight Carnival to share horrific tales of mystery and murder… but not all is as it seems. This October 30th, the feed you’re listening to now, along with all other participating shows, will post two episodes simultaneously for Nine II Midnight. One episode will feature tales that are based in reality with terrors that may be part of our waking life. The other episode will share the horror of the most esoteric and spiritual side of the dark and terrifying. NINE II MIDNIGHT is another collaborative storytelling event, and sequel to last year’s episode. Both episodes are comprised of stories written and produced by the Nine II Midnight participants:

Hell Gate City Malevolent Nowhere, On Air Out of the Ashes Parkdale Haunt The Cellar Letters The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio The Night Post The Storage Papers The Town Whispers Wake Of Corrosion WOE.BEGONE

On October 30th, you get to choose which stories you want to enjoy first, then, make sure to listen to the other for the complete tale.

See you then.

The Prologue was written, produced & edited by Harlan Guthrie

Guest starring Alexander Newall Series Art by Nathan Lunsford ---------------------------------------

Content Warnings: Descriptions of Violent Death

Starring: Harlan Guthrie Rat Grimes Jeremy Enfinger Nathan Lunsford Rae Lundberg Jess Syratt Shaun Pellington Kevin Berrey Dylan Griggs Vincent C. Davis Alex Nursall Emily Kellogg Jamie Petronis Cole Weavers

Forward and backward are not stable concepts. The curtains close, a mask is shattered, but we're still here. Wren helps a lost soul and meets some familiar ones.

Thank you all so much for listening, and special thanks to guests Jess Syratt of Nowhere, On Air and Shannon Strucci of Critical Bits and more.

(CWs, spoilers: bullying, derealization, implied dysphoria, brief fire and engine sounds, alcohol, smoking)

 

 

*audience shuffling and chatting, dies down*

LOST FISHERMAN: “Good evening, dear audience. Tonight we present to you the final act in a series of strange events. The detective this evening will be played by Wren once more, with the receiving clerk reprising the role of the vanished. I will be your chorus. When you see me again, it will all be over. When I return, you will not be ready, but it must end as all things do. Until then, please enjoy the show.

“A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me”

WREN:

The vault wasn’t so much an actual vault, but–as you’ve no doubt surmised–a cave. Like the cave I had encountered before, where Lucy served me breakfast. Where I cried over eggs and toast. Maybe just a different part of the same cave, even. All around me, stacked and scattered throughout the yawning caverns was dead mail: letters, packages, objects covered in grime and dust. The light from my phone only revealed a harsh circle in front of me, leaving much of the vault in total darkness. I felt things stirring in that darkness whenever I turned away. They gathered behind me, at my sides, spiraled gaseous tendrils around my ears. But they dissipated any time I faced them.

I flipped through folders and sifted through cabinets and baskets full of decomposing paper. I found many strange stories among the mundane cruft. Some stories I had heard before, some I had not. These pieces had little in common: from different parts of the country, different times, different people. Many followed a similar thread, though.

Something under the office’s purview, my purview, appeared in each: a moth here, an alien worm there. Just little hints of the ineffable, the sublime radioactive backdrop that most people tune out. This damp hall was where my furry friend would have ended up, had I not saved them from that fate. I panned the pulp silt for gold, trying to find any clue I could sink my teeth into.

I went further and farther back, in time and in space. The older files were kept ever deeper in the cave. I was in the middle of reading a peculiar letter regarding an ill-tempered neighbor when my boot struck a vein. Masonry. Not the deep brown rock surrounding me, but a gray slab shaped by human hands. Around the base of the stone was a shallow puddle. I looked up and there I saw an angel.

An angel in gray, its features blurred and worn by time, its form smudged with black. Had the angel been there the whole time, or had it just appeared a moment ago? I leaned closer and inspected its surface.

All across this sculpture–from the top of its head to the base–were dark fingerprints. I gently slid the letter I was carrying through one of the tacky prints. The black substance followed, sticking to the paper. Simply looking was going to get me nowhere. What use is a detective that only uses one sense, anyway? I held the tacky substance close to my nose and inhaled.

Fire, smoke, machinery. This thing was covered in scorched oil. The angel’s hands were clasped to its chest, and I could tell there was something within. I recalled a story I had heard about a sculpture of similar kind. About a disappearance and a hanging thread.

I had to know what was held in its hands.

As if already planting its roots in my mind, the angel’s stone fingers unfolded, and there it proffered an egg, no bigger than a chicken’s. I dared not touch the angel, this seraph bathed in the blood of the ancient earth. I took a step back and shuddered. At this rejection, many fish fell around the angel, all dead and frozen, slapping hard against the cave floor.

Then, from the deepest recesses of my consciousness, there came a sound: steel wire hanging high above a field of corn. The lines shivered in the breeze and sang like clockwork sparrows. Metallic spring sprung forth in a curl of light and noise. An electrical pylon, its arms spread wide, so wide it held the whole state to its chest. Transmissions from everywhere and nowhere collected in the still air inside its ribs. It blew a whispered kiss through the heavy bent stalks, through iced cities and rolling foothills. It blew a kiss as loud as the trumpets of revelation, and spoke in a hundred tongues of electric rapture:

“The next time you see me, you will be dead. And when I come, you will not be ready…”

All of my training, all of my will and wit was for naught in the face of it. And in my mind were two diverging paths, two images in a cracked mirror. One was the face of god, of satan, of bosses and kings, of whips and chains, of a thousand bodies clawing and tearing their way to the top of a pyramid of their own kind. I saw the end of history, a prison of gold bars. I saw an ant on fire under a magnifying glass, carrying this flame back to its colony.

In the other I saw a face I thought I had seen before, strong hands held and strong hearts holding fast against the unceasing tide. But this second image was hazy, uncertain. No way to tell what was to come, but at least something was to come.

I was not prepared to face this pyramid of corpses on my own. I had yet to contend with a force of this magnitude before, and have yet to still again.

So I ran. I ran blindly, avoiding every rocky spire and pitfall as if possessed. I ran until my lungs burned cold and my throat was a sandpaper bellow. I may have run for all time, the ant ever fleeing the flame, were it not for a flickering glow oozing from a bend in the path ahead.

I slowed my jog and warily closer to the light. Beyond the turn I came to its source: a small television set, hissing with static, resting atop a vcr. Nearby were stacks of tapes.

I heard no chase being given behind me, so I closed my eyes hard and just let myself breathe. Once my chest ceased its convulsions, I picked up one of the tapes at my side. There were no official markings or symbols: not mass produced media, these were home movies. And along the spine of each was a different date, but the same name: Lucy.

***

Sound of vcr

Some collage of sounds here

***

The video I saw on the screen was odd, clearly taken on a camcorder, but its point of view didn’t make any sense, and seemed to shift scenes at will. There were birthdays, static, soccer games, color bars, a lakeshore, hissing, a hundred domestic scenes.

Then the video slowed and focused on a single point: a specific space and precise time. And here there was a lone child, 10, maybe 12. She sat alone in her room, the low sun filtering golden through the falling leaves outside. A breeze snuck in through the cracked window and stirred the cotton balls on her bed. She held one hand out in front of her, a tiny brush in her other. Once the dark blue paint had been applied to her nails, she rested her hand on the sill to dry.

Static

She was in the woods, laughing and kicking at sticks and stones. She was alone, but content. She climbed a wide oak, chipping a bit of her fresh polish on the rugged bark. From the low branch she stood and surveyed her quiet kingdom. Not far from her perch, she saw the cave. She had heard stories about it from others at school, rumors of danger in this cave. She heard that people had gotten lost there, or lost parts of themselves. That there was something within that would eat you alive. She heard these rumors, but didn’t fully believe them. Usually she stayed clear anyway. Just in case.

This day, however, she was old enough to know better but still young enough to feel invincible. So she went in.

***

This child snuck into the shale chasm and strained to see in the dark. She took a few steps forward and stopped, startled by the echoing of her own footsteps. She could hear her breathing on the air growing shorter, heavier as the cave whispered it back to her. This wasn’t enough to deter our brave little explorer, however.

She gripped the strap of her backpack tight to her shoulder and trudged inward, farther away from the circle of daylight that dared stick show its face in the cave.

Before long, she heard different sounds ahead. Anonymous low voices, clinking and hissing. She thought about turning back, but wasn’t sure which way back was. The voices and clanking grew louder, and a flicker of light drew her attention. She saw fire spark to life. Glowing embers floated in the dark like tiny red eyes. These eyes, these sounds, she thought, must belong to a great beast with many heads and many eyes, glass knives for fingers, blowing fire in the deep.

She stepped on a loose rock during her ingress, the movement of which clicked and clacked down the stone corridor. She froze, and a great circle of light struck her. The beast had her in its horrible sight. She strained to see through the awful beam. She held her hand over her eyes and tried to speak, to apologize to the great creature, to say she was sorry for disturbing its home. But peals of laughter interrupted her.

More beams of light flickered in front of her, and she saw that the many heads of this beast were actually attached to tall, lanky bodies–human bodies–leaning awkwardly against the shale in baggy shirts and shorts. The lights weren’t the dread traces of a monstrous eye, but simple flashlights. And the floating embers weren’t red eyes, but lit cigarettes, the kind her uncle smelled like.

There were four of them in all: teens who snuck into the cave for a little underage drinking. Though teenagers could be just as fearsome as some beasts, she had learned. She lowered her hands as the laughing died down.

One teen boy pointed his ashy smoke at her hands, snorted and spoke some words she didn’t understand yet but would some years later. The kinds of words that curse a person, that haunt their dreams and sink in icy fangs when they’re at their lowest. No, she didn’t understand the words at the time, but she felt their dripping intent. She knocked over one of the half empty beer bottles and fled the cave, leaving only a thin line of tears in her wake.

She sat on the uneven rock of the cave’s entrance and kicked her heels against the dirt. She looked down at her fingernails, rich cerulean inexpertly applied like waves whipped up by a storm.

She grabbed a piece of loose shale from the ground and chipped at the polish on her left hand until there was nothing left but little scratches.

And then she vanished, and this lone figure became two: a mask, and an invisible hand to hold it.

***

There were other tapes, too, footage of a first kiss, driving exams, awkward names. College, empty pockets, kaleidoscopic tigers licking their stripes and worms inhaling copious ether. And jobs, so many jobs, so many painful jobs that weakened the back and hands. Breakfast joints, transmission towers, a post office. A letter, an angel, a tower, an engine. A promise, split in half: a face sold for a seat in the boardroom.

The last image I saw before the tape jammed in the vcr was a fuzzy lighthouse. Then the cathode ray spat black and white fizzling particles over the cave wall. And in this, I knew clarity.

At this time, I knew where Lucy was, who she was, but not yet how to get to her. I thanked the glowing television and ventured beyond it.

Fresh air soon tickled my skin, and led me to the mouth of the vault–the cave–and I stepped once more into the cold blue sun.

I was surrounded by trees, and all around me was quiet. To my right, a leaf jumped from its branch and made a slow descent to the forest floor. I felt a gust stir my hair from behind my ear. Things here in the land of the real had begun moving again, which meant…

I rushed aimlessly through the trees, desperately searching for an opening in the canopy. I needed to see it, I needed to be sure. And sure enough, in time I did see it: the giant hand above was once again resuming its thunderous plummet to the earth.

I spun around, hoping someone else would be there, someone older, wiser, maybe, someone who knew what to do, whose job it was to fix this sort of thing.

There was no one under the denuded trees but me. That’s when it dawned on me, perhaps much later than it should have. It was my job to fix this sort of thing. I had been called to this middle of nowhere, ohio branch for a reason. The boss wanted me here, and not just to talk about Lucy. There was more.

I keenly felt the same pain that lone child did. I felt the looks and the comments and the barely-stifled giggling. I felt the carceral hex of the conjurers of orthodoxy. I felt the box they taped me in. Luckily, tape is temporary, and cardboard soft: it only appears to be a prison if you let it be so. I ripped at the tape, set fire to the box, and came out real and raw and wreathed in black flame.

And I felt that I was here to help Lucy do the same.

You see, Director, the moral arc of this world doesn’t bend toward anything. History isn’t an arc, or a line, it’s a tapestry of ever expanding silk. And unlike an arc, there is no end to this tapestry. Even if we won here, even if everything went just right, the tapestry weaves on, eons before we were born and millennia after we’re dead. There are a thousand knots and tears and creases all the way down. But this didn’t dissuade me. No, it opened my eyes. All the feats of our past weren’t accomplished by a few great men, ordained by the universe to bend history by hand. It was threads like us that made it happen. Though I may be just one thread among billions, every thread composes the whole, and the more threads that intertwine, the stronger we become.

In times like these, we threads must act together, act decisively, to prevent the weave’s destruction. We must hold the things we cherish close, yes, but also smother the flames that singe our edges. No half measures, no hesitation, no waiting. We must offer our hands in love, and offer fists in kind for our jailers. We cannot survive on one of these alone.

This, Director, is what I believe is at the core of it all: there can be no love too fierce for ourselves, for each other, and no fury too fierce for our oppressors. No one will come to save us–no one will embrace us–but ourselves.

I looked up to the hand in the sky. Though it was now a fist, perhaps it could be opened. I held my hand aloft and called her name. The stone hand in the sky relaxed as it fell, its fingers extended. If you looked at it at just the right angle, we lined up perfectly. I held the falling hand in my hand, gently and sweetly.

The cold stone turned to skin, and the missing second came to an end.

***

The biting wind and rain of Aisling was no more, replaced by yellow leaves sailing on stiff curls of wind. I saw the cave in front of me, a child sitting at its entrance with tears streaming down her face. I gently called her name and her head rose. She seemed confused, didn’t expect anyone else to be there. But the way her eyes widened told me she recognized me. Somehow she knew who I was, and why I was there.

I placed my hand on her head and tousled her hair lightly. I told her I would be right back, and stepped into the cave. I could feel red heat bloom in my face, and my fists clenched into white circles.

The adolescents who had teased this child were still children themselves. They had much to learn about the world, about how to be human. I would forgive them this trespass and hope that Lucy would too, some day. Though they were children, sometimes children require instruction, and I was eager to teach. None but those of us within the cave know what was said next, and I will not reveal it here nor anywhere. Needless to say, some important lessons were learned that day.

By the time I left the hollow again, I had calmed down. I unclenched my jaw and let out an extended breath. Lucy noticed my posture soften, and she too relaxed. She looked up at me from her spot on the loose shale.

WREN: “Are you ready to go home?”

She silently wiped the drying tears from her cheek. I took her hand and helped her up. She stood for a moment, gripping my hand tight, then nodded.

We walked through the woods quietly. No one else was around today, no hikers, no one walking their dogs. We listened to the whistle of the air fluttering through the sparse leaves and the percussive crunch of sticks breaking under our boots. We eventually came to the end of the woods, beyond which was a narrow gravel road.

Lucy released her hand from my grasp and made for the treeline. The dark boughs and branches of the trees overhead leaned and bent around her, pulling away in semicircles. The limbs formed parted stage curtains around her. Under her feet, roots twisted and twined, laying themselves as planks beneath her. An audience waited with baited breath beyond. She turned back at the edge of the sylvan stage one last time. She smiled as she waved goodbye, and walked beyond the wooded theatre into the unknown.

I tried to peer beyond the webbed drapes, but all I could see were points of light near the ground, shining my direction. I stepped up to the edge of the stage myself, took a bow, and returned where I belonged.

***

I found myself exiting the vault door, once more inside the inverted lighthouse. The hanging ice that had been occupying its ceilings and clinging to its walls had almost entirely melted now, and the oppressive atmosphere was clearing. In the center, the engine had vanished. In its stead was a white rotary phone, and strung around its cradle was a mask of a dead president. I waited for the inevitable haunting ring for a second, a minute, an hour, but nothing came. The room was silent save for the occasional drip of water. There would be no call for me. I had to make one myself.

I dialed a familiar number. The line rang only once, and then the call was answered. There was no greeting, however, just a single plaintive line.

“You can take the mask off now, Wren. I’m ready to go.”

I placed the receiver gingerly back on the cradle. Next up was untangling the mask’s elastic strap from the phone cord. Once freed, I held the plastic face in front of me. A cheap, ugly mask from a halloween store, sunbleached from sitting out too long. I peered through its empty eyes and felt bile rising. I knew in that moment that I could put on the mask. That things would be easier if I did. That I had one last chance to take over the Office. One last chance to be the Boss. One last chance to be at the top of the pyramid.

I threw the mask to the wet floor and crushed it underfoot. It made a sickening crunch as I twisted my heel. The fragile mask snapped and broke apart beneath me. In the same instant, I felt a seismic rumble in the earth. The lighthouse shook, and its walls began to crack. I stomped again, and again, and again, just to be sure. And with each stomp, the walls of the lighthouse crumbled further and fell heavy around me, allowing fresh sunlight steal into the chamber. When I finally lifted my foot, the plastic face was nothing more than fragments, loose change. The lighthouse had been reduced to rubble.

I was exposed to the wintry weather again, standing in the open air near the shore of lake Erie. I scanned the clouds above for any indication of the falling arm, but there was no trace of it. The town around me, the specter that once haunted this coast, was leveled. Bits of debris blew in the lashes of wind and sleet. Much of the scrap of this place was being pulled and washed away by the advancing tide, as if the lake itself was reclaiming this rancid land.

And so the inverted lighthouse was gone, the hand was gone, Aisling was gone, and all that remained was me, alone among waterlogged wreckage and rising slush. Well, not totally alone. Along the cold broken shore of the great lake, I found a friend. Alas, it was a friend who couldn’t commiserate with me due to their lack of vocal chords. The little creature’s fur was soaked, yellow beak chipped, but they survived their encounter with the frozen beasts. I brushed the beads of ice from the fur as best I could. My phone was completely dead by now, so I wandered to the edge of the former town. We sat in the frosty grass by the side of the road under a rocky overhang. No sign of my car, of course. It figured it had been swept away with the rest of the place.

We leaned against the wet rock for a time, the chill creeping in once the adrenaline wore off.

“Well friend, we best hope someone drives by before sundown and we can hitch a ride.” I kicked at the loose gravel lining the road. “Otherwise, we might be in for a tough night.”

I sat with legs folded, one arm out with thumb extended. The other arm cradled the little mechanical creature. I let my head hang. I was exhausted and getting colder by the second. The rhythmic patter of the light rain swept me into an unsettling dream.

But as I struggled against sleep, something stirred the air. A rumbling engine. I winced at first, still dazed, but reminded myself that the terrible machine was gone. This had to be something else. The source of the rumble had pulled up in front of me. It was an old cutlass–my cutlass! My precious jalopy!--idling a few feet away.

In the drivers’ seat was a young woman I didn’t recognize. Her dark hair curled and danced in the storm, her eyes obscured by big reflective sunglasses.

LIZ: “Hey, is that you little bird? We’ve been looking for you.”

Though I didn’t recognize the face, I knew the voice. The shadow on the other line.

WREN: “Liz? Oh my god, you made it! And you…stole my car! Okay!”

LIZ: “Hey, just be grateful we got here before you turned into a popsicle. Hop in, we’ve got some insurance money to collect.”

There was another in the car as well, a woman in the passenger’s seat. I sidled into the back.

LIZ: “I’ve been legally dead for, what, a year now? I think I deserve a payout. Plus I’ve got an expensive plane ticket to buy. Let’s get you warmed up. Blast the heat, Ash.”

Liz sped down the slick roads a little faster than I’d have liked, but still, I really was grateful.

WREN: “You have to tell me everything. I’m dying to know what you went through on your side.”

Now in cases like this, Director, it’s important to take in more than just the events. You need a feel for the atmosphere, the scene, the unseen. You’ll recall that forward and backward are not stable concepts: the past outlines the future, and the future colors the past.

If I were an animal, maybe I would be the scrappy songbird, or the oblivious beetle, but recent events leave me feeling uncertain. Perhaps I was the hawk after all. Or simply a beetle playing at being a hawk. Only time would tell. For now, I was alive, and that had to be enough.

***

WREN, on tape: So the town was leveled, and the engine hasn’t been found since. Is that all? Okay, I’ll send her in next. Thank you, Director.

***

Office ambience, phones going off in the background, quiet indistinguishable chatter.

WREN

Now that the director’s debriefing is over, It’s nice to finally meet you face to umm…face, Conway.

LUCY

Oh, Conway’s my last name, actually. Call me Lucy.

WREN

Well, Lucy, it’s nice to know there’s another one of us in the office.

LUCY

Another what?

WREN

You know. Another Gay.

LUCY, with a slight laugh

Right. Well, speaking of this office, I’m actually leaving.

WREN

Oh yes, my assignment at this branch is over, as well. At least once I finish the mountain of paperwork regarding your case. Then I’ll be heading out west for a while. A matter surrounding a few odd streetlights calls to me. It’ll be nice to see the ocean again, too.

LUCY

No, I mean I’m LEAVING leaving. I don’t think I can deal with any more of this psychedelic bureaucracy stuff.

WREN, disheartened

Oh…I understand. What are you going to do?

LUCY

I’m honestly not sure. I’m tired Wren. The radio station is gone, the DLO is not for me. Don’t want to go back to the gas station or the Waffle House if it can be helped. I’ll be kissing my health insurance goodbye, regardless. Might try my hand at painting. If war criminals can find peace in it, maybe I can too.

WREN

That sounds lovely. I wish I could do the same. But the reality is that this is what I’m good at, this is where I feel at home: surrounded by things no one else sees, hearing things no one else should, dipping my toes into pools I’ve been warned not to disturb. I don’t really fit in elsewhere, you know? I don’t have a community. Too weird for queer spaces, too queer for weird spaces. It is what it is. Maybe I’ll have better luck finding commonality outside the midwest.

LUCY

I sure hope so. Well, good luck to you, then. And thank you. You helped me find my way out of the dark. Find myself. You could’ve given up anytime, but you didn’t. You put your hand out even after I bit it. Metaphorically speaking.

WREN

Think nothing of it. After all, we have to stick together if we want to continue onward. It’s a dangerous world for us at the best of times, and we are not in the best of times.

LUCY

True enough. By the way, I got these for you. To thank you. Even after all this, I don’t know you that well, so I made an educated guess. Hope you like flowers.

A silent moment passes.

WREN

What a lovely gesture. Say, Lucy: d-do you have any plans this evening? I was considering stopping by the Song Bird one last time. A little drink, a little song, a little dance. Would you like to join me? After what we went through, I feel like I should make more of an effort. To put myself out there, to make friends. I can show you around if you’ve never been. And maybe we could take some time to finally get acquainted.

LUCY, hesitant

Oh. Um, that’s mighty nice of you, but I ought to skip this one. I’ve got to have my cubicle cleared out by 5, and I…well, I wouldn’t want to impose on your good time.

WREN, disappointed

I see. Then best wishes to you, and I hope we meet again someday under more auspicious circumstances.

LUCY

...you too. Stay safe out there, Wren.

WREN

And you stay you, Lucy.

Wren steps away from the desk. Another moment passes. Then Lucy drops the box on the desk.

LUCY

H-hey Wren! You know what, to hell with this. I’m done wasting my time dithering: let’s dance. Let’s sing. Let’s pretend things are normal for a couple hours. I’m buying. What’ll you have?

WREN

Corpse Reviver number two.

LUCY

Do…do they serve absinthe there?

WREN

As if I’d patronize a bar that didn’t.

LUCY

Fair enough. But you’re not allowed to laugh when I whiff the high note in Life on Mars.

WREN

I wouldn’t dream of it.

LUCY

To the Song Bird it is.

Outro music begins, seems like the end of the episode. All is resolved. But the music eventually fades to an eerie drone.

LUCY, cautious

Hey, Wren.

WREN

Yes?

LUCY, with some fear

...we’re still here.

WREN

Yes, I won’t be leaving until next week.

LUCY, anxious

Well, I just thought…we finished what we started, didn’t we? We’re back at the office, the Boss is gone, the shadows are free. You took a bow, the curtains closed, you got you roses. This should be it. Why are we still here?

WREN

Of course we’re here, we haven’t left yet. Are we taking the bus to the Song Bird or should I drive?

LUCY

No, no. I just. I feel like something is…When you started this job, did they tell you much about it? Why we were doing any of this cataloging and recording?

WREN

Not particularly, no. I investigated the matter on my own, but I was stonewalled at every turn.

LUCY

Same with me. And do you know who hired you in the first place?

WREN

What are you getting at? No, I don’t remember his name. It’s been a while.

LUCY, with growing concern

Neither do I. Now that I think about it, I’m having a hard time remembering when I started working for the office.

WREN, concerned for LUCY

Lucy, are you all right? Do you feel light-headed? Just take a breath. Remember that odd radio station I told you about? The drone of the astral plane? Tune into that.

LUCY, now starting to panic

I'm forgetting something. Something big. Wren, tell me this: how did we get here? Back to the office, I mean. Literally.

WREN

I…we walked from the parking lot…right?

LUCY

Maybe. But are you sure? You’re not, are you. You’re not sure how we got back. You’re not sure because…because nobody saw it.

WREN, trying to help

I’m not sure I follow. Lucy, you’re sweating. Here, sit down.

A chair is pushed back, squeaking on wood.

LUCY, making a terrible realization

No. I need to think. This is like…deja vu. ‘Now she walks through her sunken dream to the seat with the clearest view.’ Wren I…I think I’ve seen this before.

WREN

Wait. What do you mean?. How could you have...Oh my god. I think we…I think I miscalculated. There was an…unexpected variable in my equation. A remainder. I should have seen this sooner, how did I miss it? This anomaly…It vexes my thesis. Damn it all. I should have seen this. Not now.

LUCY, feeling impending doom

The man under the stage. He’s the one doing all this.

WREN

“All the nightmares came today, and it looks as though they’re here to stay.” There must be so many. Like a winter morning full of constellations. It’s almost beautiful.

Lucy, I know this may sound like a joke, but I promise you I am deadly serious. This is vitally important, perhaps the most important question I’ve ever asked in my life. I want your full attention, ignore everything else. Look me in the eyes. Feel my hands. We’re still here. Now tell me: what do I look like?

LUCY, realizing there’s nothing to see

Wh...Wait, I…I can’t…

WREN

Please…let us–

The scene instantly changes to the shore of Lake Erie. A man is casting his line into the cold water. The line goes taut, reeling begins. The fisherman has caught something big. A heavy object is pulled ashore.

LOST FISHERMAN:

Now I am speaking to you as in a dream. I told you that when you saw me again, it would all be over. And that when I came, you would not be ready. That reality is but a veil, a scent on the breeze. So easily dismissed if you know how. It’s the dream that lingers. It’s the nightmare you still remember.

Now, I want you to think real hard on what I’m about to ask you: What’s my name? What were you doing before you heard this message? Now look at the clock. Can you read it?

What time is it?”

An engine sputters to life and roars.

THE END

Wren has a chat and descends into the dark. Liz gathers allies for a revolt. Major thanks to the MVPs of this episode: Rae Lundberg as Shadow, Jess Syratt as Liz, and Nathan from the Storage Papers as the Director.

(CWs, mild spoilers: fire, death, body horror, distorted voices and faces, static, dripping noises)

Transcripts available at somewhereohio.com

Apologies for the delay!

TRANSCRIPT:

*Fizzling Boss tones*

*boss tones coagulate into a voice*

BOSS: “Because I needed you alive long enough for us to talk.”

WREN, barely conscious: “wh-what? Where…”

WREN: Drops of frigid water pelted my forehead, stirring me from the astral plane. Above me was a whitewashed ceiling, stone walls curving in a circle like a shackle. I wasn’t restrained, however. I sat upright on crossed legs. Someone had been speaking just then, right?

WREN: “Is someone there?”

BOSS: “Ah, good, you are awake. I was a tad worried the furball out there hit you too hard.”

The curdled voice had to be coming from…somewhere, but it felt like it was all around me, under me, seeping into my hair and nails. The impact of the sheer cold of this place finally hit me as my head stopped spinning. I sat hunched for a moment before responding.

WREN: “Boss? I-is that you? How did you–”

BOSS: “I live in the wires, creep through static, remember? And your friend out there is about 50% wires, give or take. It’ll be fine once its circuits or whatever they have reboot. But that thing isn’t what I’m interested in. I brought you here to talk. So let’s hop to it.”

WREN: “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry for leaving? For trying to help you?”

BOSS: “Lucy. I want to talk about Lucy. See, Ever since our phone call, I’ve been…unsettled. Now that I’ve always been the boss, I have near unlimited knowledge of the DLO, of the things around me, but still no sign of Lucy. That bothers me.”

I warily stood up and looked around the frozen lighthouse. Long icicles hung from the ceiling–floor? whichever--dripping and freezing once more on the ground. The whole interior was covered in a thin icy sheen. No sign of Conw–er, the boss. I needed to find where this voice was coming from, but I needed time. I’d have to string him along for a bit and hope his confidence would play against him.

WREN: “Okay, then. Let’s talk Lucy. But first, there are some things I want to know. I’ve heard about some sort of machine salvaged from the lakebed. What is it?”

BOSS: “Might as well indulge the little worker bees in a bit of honey while they can still taste it. Very well, Wren.”

As he spoke, I snuck around the perimeter of the dark tower, listening for any changes in directional sound. 

BOSS: “That machine is what made this place, made me real. It shepherded a new era for this state. Sure a few people lost a job or two, a few houses demolished, a few forests burned down, but it made way for industry, for growth. For potential. You shouldn’t blame this engine for your troubles: it’s people that run it. Without us, it’s just a hunk of junk. But with our hand on the till, we can remake the world. You’re stuck in the old ways, Wren. You’re a dinosaur, flailing in the tar, and I am the good god above, shaking my head. 

Yes, this little engine can be dangerous, if you can’t handle the power. Kenji couldn’t. Look what happened to him. I could handle it, and here we are.

Speaking of power, don’t think I don’t know about the little coup attempt you’re plotting with some of my…former associates. It won’t work. As soon as we’re done here, I’m crushing your little salt and feeding her to the engine. Then it’s back to business.”

I should have known he’d know. But just because he knew what was happening didn’t mean he could stop it. If all went well on Liz’s side, it would be many hundreds against one. Those are decent odds in my ledger. I just needed a bit more time.

WREN: “So this ‘lucid engine’ really runs on human misery. It carved its way across the midwest, burning through the souls of workers, flattening towns, setting forests ablaze, bringing nightmares to life. But it’s our touch that makes it glow, our will that drives its whips and chains. Is that right? A conduit for economic malice? 

You know you weren’t always like this. I’ve heard your earlier memos. You were kind, artistic, even funny sometimes, I must grudgingly admit. I trusted you. 

I want to believe that person is still in you somewhere, trapped among the paperwork and oil. If it is, I intend to find that person, and bring them back. If it is not, I don’t intend to show any mercy.”

BOSS: “You sure say a whole hell of a lot and say a whole lot of nothing, huh little bee?”

I found no hints to the direction of his voice, but I did discover a narrow staircase winding down to the top of the lighthouse. 

BOSS: “I believe it’s your turn now, Wren. Where is Lucy?”

WREN: “I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know. I encountered her at a waffle house at the end of the world. But she didn’t talk to me.”BOSS: “Well…no, that can’t be right. I was…No. No. NO. You’re not going to play with my mind like he did. Said I wasn’t real. You’re talking to me right now! Real as real gets.”

WREN: “You sound unfocused, boss. Tell me this: what’s your full name? How old are you? I’m Wren Crawford, nonbinary claims adjuster born November 1st, 1998 in Illinois. My favorite color is silver, I love driving at night with the windows down, and I hate pineapple.

How about you? No easy answer? You think much too literally, Boss. Of course, ‘real’ can mean extant, physically in the world. But it has many other meanings, too. Genuine, authentic. You may be here, but you’re not authentic. You are a fiction.”

I had inched my way to the stairs as I spoke. Before I could take the first step, he noticed where I was headed. 

BOSS: “Whoa, whoa whoa, hold on now, hoss. Sorry to disappoint you, but what you’re looking for ain’t down there. That’s just the DLO’s vault. All you’re gonna find there are dusty old letters.

You’ve shown a lot of grit to even get here, Wren, a good deal of stick-to-it-iveness. You’re bright, hardworking, got a keen eye. You shouldn’t waste your life scrounging around in the dark. I’m a compassionate leader, I recognize potential when I see it. So to make your trip worthwhile, I’ve got an offer for you.

I could use someone else under my wing. A right hand, so to speak. Someone to watch over the warehouses and offices while I’m away on executive duties. You would have your own office–with a window!--your own assistants, access to all the documents you could want. You could escape the life of the worker bee. You could be the Supervisor, Wren. A damn good one. Wealthy, to boot.”

WREN: “In my time, I’ve come to find that wealth acts like a poison. The more concentrated it is in one host, the more dangerous it becomes. But dilute it among many and it’s harmless, or as with a serpent’s venom, a vital part of its own antivenom. It should be the sweet fruits picked from trees we planted ourselves. I don’t want your poison apples.”

I stood at the precipice of a yawning mouth to hell. One more step and I could never go back. 

WREN: “Sorry, Boss, I’m no insect. I am a hawk.”

My foot hit the metal stair, and the world above went dark. 

***

LIZ: “Suuure, just round up some shadows and commit arson, Liz. This is a perfectly normal thing people say all the time, Liz. Well, no time like the present, I guess.

Hey, uhhh, you at the desk! What’s your name?

*Harsh buzzing and static emanate from the shadow*

LIZ: “All right, forget you then. Stapler dude, with the cool glasses. My guy, what are you up to?” 

*more unwelcoming noise*

LIZ: “This isn’t working. How was that other shadow able to talk to me?”

SHADOW: “I’m not sure, how can you talk? You’re a shadow, too.”

LIZ: “Christ, you’re still here?” 

SHADOW, gently: “You needed someone to talk to.”

LIZ: *pause, sigh* “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound so…”

SHADOW: “Hostile?”

LIZ: “Right. There’s just a lot going on right now. I keep thinking I’ll see her here somewhere. I can almost feel her nearby. But then I turn around and it’s all gone, just a puff of smoke, sifting through my fingers like sand. 

I just want to be back at our apartment, building a little house in the sims together. Pretending that someday WE could own a house. I need to find her before we get out of here. IF we get out of here.”

SHADOW: “And I need to make sure that thing in the middle is taken down.”

LIZ: “Well we’ve both got something to do then. I wonder…Do you think that having purpose makes here us…tangible?

SHADOW: “Makes about as much sense as anything else that’s happened to me in the last 24 hours.”

LIZ: “Ever read any Sartre?”

SHADOW: “No.”

LIZ: “Me neither. But if his stuff’s anything like Groundhog Day, it’s about how we’re defined by what we do, not who we are. Making the choice to continue in the mouth of the void. We have goals, those goals give us meaning, that meaning gives us solidarity. Err, solidity.

SHADOW: “Then all we have to do is remind these people there’s more to the world than this office. Give them something else to live for.”

LIZ, speaking to the room: “All right, listen up, folks. You’ve been working, what, Eight? Nine hundred hours? With no break? Do you even know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it?

Look at me, I’m not glued to a desk, grumbling and sneering at everyone trying to be nice to me. I’m free! No boss to tell me what to do. Come on, you can’t tell me you actually like your boss. What’s more American than hating your boss? You in front, yeah I know you think he’s a real pissbaby.” 

SHADOW, whispering: “I hope you know where this is going, because we’ve got a lot of eyes on us.”

LIZ: “Good! I want them to see. There’s got to be some part of you that knows this office is busted, this state is busted. Hell, this whole damn system’s gone busto. You’re all toiling away down here in the dark for someone that doesn’t even know your name. Not to mention the giant column of flesh. That has to be an OSHA violation. And these folders on the floor–serious fire hazard. Do you even get sick leave?” 

SHADOW: “More are listening. Keep going!”

LIZ: “Are we not meant to be free? To see the sun with our own eyes? To be entitled to the spoils of our own labor? 

Have you all become ants, mindless cogs to be spun, or does some sliver of you yet remain human? Can none of you work up the courage to hold on to that sliver of humanity?

Lay down your tools and come with me. Then you’ll find your answer. 

Maybe you can go home again. Maybe we’ll meet on the other side. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to kick the guy who did all this in the teeth.

Shadows of the cave unite, you have nothing to lose but your chain letters!”

***

WREN: “Wow, did you really come up with all that on the spot?”

LIZ: “I may have been taking some poetic license with what happened near the end, but you get the gist.”

WREN: “Okay…then what happened?”

***

LIZ: Many of the shadows dropped their papers and stamps, littering the floor with office trash, and stood on desks with me. Some shades remained hard at work. They buried their faces in their books. I don’t think those shadows wanted to be helped. I think they were happy being pawns in the DLO’s game. I only hope they’ll find peace some day.

I hopped down from the desk to be among the shadows. We gathered on one side of the massive file cabinet and started pushing. It didn’t budge much at first, seeing as it was about 60 feet high. The tower of tissue noticed what we were doing, and sent some dark matter assassins our way. But more and more shades joined our cause, and the wall of drawers started to tip under our collective strength. It fell toward the tower in the center of the room. An enormous tongue shot out from the tower, halting the fall of the cabinets. I shouted for any stragglers to join up with us before it was too late. Then we did what you said to do.

The friendly shadow I’d been talking to found a small space heater at one of the abandoned desks. She set it down next to the base of the giant leaning cabinet and switched the heater on. I opened a few of the lower drawers, which spilled their contents onto the floor beside the heater. A big pile of dry paper plus an unsupervised space heater…You can imagine what happened next. And you can imagine the smell, too, as the paper and flesh were licked by the flames. 

We stood in front of the burning tower for just a minute, outlined in the dark by a ring of righteous flame.

And then with our shadowy friends, we left the way we came.

Which is to say: through a series of unexpected and inexplicable moves and feelings that I can’t recall. And then we were in the cold.

***

WREN: I prowled down deep into the guts of the wretched lighthouse. Each footfall was imbued with growing dread. I descended into the darkness for some time, passing a grim scullery and fetid living quarters, until a dim light and faint roar made their presence known. As I continued, the light and sound grew stronger, and then came the smell: scorched oil and exhaust. Illusory hellfire overwhelmed my senses until at last my boots made contact with the lighthouse floor.

The circular room was small, only just wide enough for a small walkway around the lamp in the center. There was a door across the way, so I started to work my way around the lens. But I quickly realized that in the center of this lighthouse was not a light. Instead, there was a horrific chunk of alien steel, like quicksilver in one corner and immovable iron cubes in another. It had pipes running up and down its sides, spouting haze into the tiny chamber. This is what had been making the dizzying light and sound.

I felt a pit open in my stomach at the moment of recognition. I was terrified and thrilled in equal measure. I, much like Conway, had been unwittingly trailing this engine. This room felt more like a shrine than a beacon, a place of worship for a dead metal messiah. White fire burbled into the air, and the rattling hum of the engine grew as I approached. I was drawn to run my fingers along its cool surface, but I restrained myself, and recalled what had happened to the others who came in contact with the engine.

I knew not where it came from and probably never would, so I looked at rather teleologically. I whispered to myself: “What does this thing DO? What is its purpose?”

And I received an unexpected answer. 

BOSS: “It can make your dreams come to life.”

I crept around the edge of the machine to confirm my horrible suspicion. This is indeed where his voice had been coming from, but not in the way I expected.

On the other side of this nightmare device was a face–Conway’s face–stretched across its surface beyond the point of possibility. It spanned maybe three feet across, skin and metal fused and tangled, a simulacrum of a sick rubber mask pulled taut. The large eyes were dull and hazy, roving aimlessly. The distended mouth hung open, through which I could see the burning fire within. 

 

My autonomic nervous system kicked in, and unfortunately my fight and flight instincts often exert equal and opposite force, leaving me frozen in place. I couldn’t move, and could barely make a noise.

WREN: “C-conway…is that?” I whispered through my pale lips.

The cloudy eyes rolled without clear direction, angrily searching for the source of my voice. The engine rumbled and spit embers, and then the mouth of the Conway mask moved slowly, with some effort.

BOSS, stuttering and glitching: “Please, call me Boss. I’m your superior after all. Unless you’re quitting now.”

WREN: “I already…quit. Boss, you…you’re not…this isn’t right. This isn’t…you.”

BOSS: “Of course it’s me. I am fire. I am steel. I am the Boss.”

WREN: “You weren’t always like this. Do you remember playing in the woods? Studying art?”

The voice using his face like a puppet grew harsher, more mechanical.

BOSS: “Your conjecture interests me not, insect. I am the standard. I am the control. I am the Boss.”

WREN: “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m not stopping now. I’m going into the vault, and I’m going to bring you back with me. The real you. Just keep…breathing, if that’s a thing you still do. It’s not over yet.”

I tore my eyes away from the shining abyss and passed through the door across from the engine. As it closed behind me, the sound and heat from the machine dissipated, and I was once again on my own in a dark, quiet cave. I could hear water drip from stalagmites onto the damp stone ground. My phone had just enough battery left to cast its light across the rock, revealing hundreds of boxes and bags, all stuffed to the brim with letters, packages, objects. A chef’s knife, a game cartridge, cassettes unspooling their magnetic tape through dirty puddles. All things forgotten but not lost. 

I was finally in the Vault of the Dead Letter Office of Aisling, Ohio.

***

CONWAY: “Yeah, good to meet you. *ow* Strong handshake you got there. So this is still my first week, what did he say I should do with the ones that uhh fit the criteria?”

DIRECTOR: “The Boss says to make a note of it, send the memo to your supervisor, and place the letter or object in the shaft to the vault.”

CONWAY: “Right. Now pardon me if this sounds a little funny, but who is my supervisor? Where’s this vault?”

DIRECTOR: “At present, you don’t need to know any of that. Just follow the steps exactly as prescribed.” 

CONWAY: “Aw hell, you’re the ones giving me health insurance, I’m not dumb enough to question that. So you got it, sir.”

 

DIRECTOR: “Good to hear. You know how to keep a secret, right? Because at this agency, we value our privacy. We don’t need your average citizens finding out what we do. So this vault is where we send all evidence that we, and the things we handle, exist. You don’t want to go in there. Could be dangerous. It’s best that it’s forgotten. You understand?

CONWAY: “Not really, but I promise I won’t go in there. Wherever ‘there’ is.”

DIRECTOR: “Oh and one more thing: you like baseball, Mr. Conway?”

CONWAY: “Sure, well enough. And please, call me–”

*STATIC*

CREDITS

Hey everybody, it’s your host here with just a few brief announcements and shoutouts. So this is the penultimate episode. The next episode will be out soon and that will be the finale of the series, or at least the series as it exists now. I’m sure I’ll make more at some point, but it’s not going to be these characters, it’s not going to be this story, it’s going to be a whole different thing. So I hope you still enjoy it and I will certainly enjoy my break. 

I want to thank everybody who’s listened so far, or left reviews or subscribed or shared the show. It really helps and it means the world to me.

And without further, I’d love to give a shoutout to our lovely patrons:

 

Carriers Alien Octopus, BertBert, Feather, Flo, and Jessica.

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Just a quick update about some merchandise available now and some coming in the near future.

Check out the merch at:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/SomewhereOhio/shop

Wren visits the town of their dreams. A man finds a doll that looks just like him. Featuring Jess Syratt of Nowhere, On Air as Liz.

(CWs, some spoilers: alcohol, possible murder, body horror, derealization, dysphoria?, blood, insects)

CONWAY: Sometimes a drop of water is all it takes for rust to form. A single grain of sand to gum up the gears. One thought to plant to the seed of doubt.

 

Sometimes we don’t want to think that thought, so it festers, mold in our minds. We wear masks, build whole cities–empires–just to obscure that one thought. It can drive some people to madness, others to enlightenment. 

 

What that thought is I’ll leave up to you. I’m not here to give you answers. I’m here to tell you what happened. The facts, as I see them.

 

Despite my power and wealth, something stung me. Ants crawling on my skin, salt in my wound. Defection among the ranks. And something else, too. A feeling that something wasn’t right. That I wasn’t right. That something had gone wrong somewhere along the line, but I couldn't remember what.

 

You can’t usually go back and fix the past, so what you’ve got left is thought, grains of sand, drops of water. Masks. What happens if the mask takes over, starts to be more real than the face underneath? And if you’re a mask, who’s wearing you?

 

Was it too late for me to take it off? Was I really…me? Or was I just what I thought I should be? Was I in the cave, or in the tower?

Wren, can you see my face? Or do you see the mask? 

 

***

 

The first thing I noticed was the fog. Wisps of light gray curling and drifting above the tall grass that framed the narrow road. It wasn’t the fog itself that gave me pause, it was the movement. I hadn’t seen anything outside of my control move at all these past 3 days.

 

The yellow cones of the car’s headlights illuminated a sign, bent and scored by weather and age: “WELCOME TO AISLING, THE TOWN OF YOUR DREAMS. POPULATION–” I couldn’t read the rest: rust and time had swallowed the populace of this place.

 

Though there was movement here, it was nearly silent and empty. No crickets, no birds, no rumbling engines or hushed voices. I suddenly felt very exposed in my car. I pulled off into the dewy grass and got out. I took the flashlight and jacket out of my emergency kit in the trunk and ventured into the haze.

 

As I drew nearer, a cluster of short buildings emerged from the mist, and I could smell the lake on the air. Its gentle lapping barely pierced the foggy aura surrounding the town. The steady beam from my flashlight guided me as best it could, given the conditions. 

 

The second thing I noticed was the cold. The temperature dropped precipitously as I crept through the barren streets. I focused the flashlight between my heavy puffs of breath onto the nearby houses. Every home along this road was encased in hanging ice, sheets of gray vacuum sealed to the facades, dripping at the edges in a thousand angry fangs. The frozen tendrils hanging from every surface mimicked alien architecture: these were no longer houses, they were noneuclidean sculptures hauled from the deep itself, symbols of tentacled things unseen and unspoken dwelling miles below the surface. Spiraling, bubbling cathedrals dedicated to the worship of beings our species had forgotten, or chose not to remember. There is a difference. One in particular near the shore stood elevated on a dock, now smothered in sharp icicles. There it sat hunched before the lake like a withered king on a throne, now too thin for his hanging robes. All he can do is watch as his kingdom melts away.

 

The third thing I noticed was whistling. As I explored the town further, I could make out a faint ethereal tune floating on the air. I followed it, and it grew in volume as I neared the lake. Out on the frozen piers stood a man in an orange vest, human alone amongst the jaws of ice, casting his line into what had to be frozen lake water. 

 

I shone my flashlight his direction, which made him pause. His shoulders tensed and the line went slack. He slowly turned to face me from across the sculpted pier. 

 

I couldn’t see his face. Or maybe he didn’t have a face. He waved at me, then pointed to my left. There in the frigid alien landscape was a warm glow. Incandescent light poured through windows thick with condensation. I heard voices carry across the dense atmosphere, quiet conversations, glasses clinking, laughing. I turned to thank this kind fisherman, but he was gone.

 

Shivering and nose running, I hopped along toward the bar. Even if this was somehow a trap, at least I’d die warm. I could feel the heat and light radiating from the building. It stood out so sharply from the rest of the town. I pushed the door with my shoulder and it swung open.

 

Instead of being greeted by central heating and stale beer, I was met with more ice. The door to this place must have been left open during whatever had affected the rest of the town. Ice hung from the ceiling, the bar, the rough stools. The walls were coated with translucent spears. The sole artifact spared from the ice was a black rotary phone, sitting in the center of the bar’s counter.

 

A sharp bell rang out from bar, through the town. I jumped, I’ll admit it. I was startled. It rang again, and I turned the phone around to see how they managed to wire it up in this place. Of course, there were no wires. No phone line. Simply a disconnected phone ringing in a frozen town that shouldn’t exist. Given the circumstances, I presumed the call was for me. 

 

***

 

WREN: “H-hello?”LF: “Weeelll, now you’ve stepped in it, huh?”

WREN: “What do you mean? Who is this?”

LF: “Just a fisherman angling for a bite. And what I mean is you’ve crossed over. Welcome to the unwaking world. I’m sure you’ve got questions, but I can only answer three, and it looks like you’ve used two. So I’d watch my words, if I were you.”

WREN: “I see. Well, instead of asking questions, I’ll request that you tell me about this place.”

LF: “Clever work. Now this used to be a big lumber town. Imports and shipping. Real nice little place across the lake from canada. Town was run by an old robber baron’s kid, scion of the Van Leer family. Had this funny notion there was something special about this lake and boy, was he right in all the wrong ways.

WREN: “Maybe if you weren’t arbitrarily governed by genie rules, I’d ask you  more about this town’s history and this Van Leer person.”LF: “As well you might. Then sometime round 1918 was when it all went to hell. This Van Leer fella put together a team to dredge the lake. Lookin for a shipwreck from years back he said had some kind of vast wealth in it. The Oneiros. He even went in himself in his diving dress. I’ll spare you the guessing as to whether he found that shipwreck. He did. And more. 

 

The crew dragged this massive crate from its grave in the muck and pulled it into the center of town. Took 4 men stout and true to get it open. Inside was a mass of iron, smooth in some parts and sharp in others, pipes and wheels gone wrong, like a steam engine built by a madman. Van Leer had found his treasure. It’s said that the next night, he went out and tried to start this wicked machine. Wouldn’t burn coal or wood, though. Needed something with more…vitality. So he fed its dark cravings with blood.

 

The engine roared and huffed black smoke. This activity must have stirred something in the water, because soon a white maiden flanked by hideous beasts visited the town. Nobody’s quite sure what came of Van Leer or the rest of the people here. Place has been frozen since. Or so the story goes. 

 

Now I’m not sure how much of that is true, but I have seen the drag marks. You can follow them if that sick engine is what you’re looking for. 

WREN: “Oh, my.”

LF: “‘Oh my’ puts it mildly. Oh and Wren, I’ve got a warning: you’re in danger.

WREN: “Danger?”

LF: “I’ll pretend there wasn’t a question mark at the end of that sentence. You’re real, Wren, the only real thing here, and that puts you in a pickle. The last real person here was a man named Kenji, and I assume you heard what happened to him.

WREN: “Oh, my…”

LF: So that’s why I had to call you. To let you know that he knows you’re here, and his dark messengers are coming for you the second you step out of this bar. The frozen horrors of this town have started to thaw. Hope you can run, kid.”

WREN: “Oh…fuck.”

LF: “Now you’re getting it. Well, I best be lettin ya go…”WREN: “Wait! I still have a question left. Where’s Conway?”

LF: “Which one?”WREN: “huh?”

LF: “That Van Leer kid, name was Conway, too.”

WREN: “Two Conways.”

LF: “Sort of. Before you brave the cold again, let me tell you a story…”

 

****

 

NARRATOR: Joe had always been a bit of an odd guy. A nice guy, but a little hard to live with. Real picky about certain stuff–liked to have stuff just so–had a hard time letting go of grudges, and usually felt that the people around him didn’t really care for him. He had a small group of friends he’d known since college that he figured were accustomed to his predilections. They sure all had their own, as everyone does. But this didn’t stop the thoughts from creeping in. The thought that maybe he didn’t belong, that they’d rather he disappear.

 

After living with friends for years, he decided it would be easier to live alone. Now moving is stressful, even under normal circumstances. For Joe, it was a nightmare. How to box everything so that it doesn’t mix rooms, split functions, lose pieces. Trying to find someone to help lift furniture that won’t resent you. Picking an apartment in the first place. 

 

Joe moved in most of his belongings, but found this apartment a bit smaller than his last. This meant some boxes had to go in the basement. Joe carried a stack of books in a laundry basket down the stairs, and nearly dropped it on his foot when he came across something he hadn’t expected. Below his kitchen was a large crate, nearly as tall as the basement ceiling, with a scribbled note that read “do not open.”

 

Joe lasted about 3 weeks before he opened the crate. The best tool he had for the job was a screwdriver and he was too stubborn to get a crowbar, so it took him a while to pry the planks up, but eventually they splintered. The tiny bit of light leaking in from upstairs illuminated the interior, and made visible the shape of a man. Joe recoiled and dropped the screwdriver bouncing across the cement floor. He reeled backward and slammed into the stairs behind him. He sat with his hand over his mouth for a good minute, breath caught in his chest, staring at the body inside the box. There was no movement. Surely dead, after all this time in a sealed container, he thought. Should he call the cops? The FBI? The president? He leaned a bit closer and finally took a breath. No, can’t be a corpse: he could only smell the freshly torn pine of the box and the usual basement mildew. Not a whiff of rot.

 

He fished his phone out of his pocket and switched on the flashlight. Sitting inside the box was a life sized doll. A mannequin of sorts. Joe stalked over to the box and hesitantly turned the head toward him. Staring back at him in the stark light was a startlingly familiar face. Joe’s face. His own damn face, in molded and painted plastic and silicone and whatever the hell else. He instinctively pushed the doll away. It landed naked and cold in the sawdust and packing. Not only did it have his face; it was his height, his build, his hair. This couldn’t have been a coincidence. It was supposed to be him. 

 

He felt sick to his stomach, dizzy with questions flooding his mind. The most pressing of which wasn’t who or how, but why. Why would someone make this? Why would someone leave this effigy here?

 

His landlord had no idea what he was talking about, and didn’t want to make the drive up from Cinci to look at a box. He sat with this doll for a time, both leaning against their respective walls, both silent. Then Joe piled the splintered planks up, trying to seal the doll–mannequin, whatever it was–back in its container. He at least managed to cover enough of it that he didn’t have to see it from the stairs.

 

Joe could hardly sleep that night, and his dreams were fitful and strange. He’d be sitting in a small, dark room, unable to escape. Then came a light, and the man who stole his face. Then he’d wake up.

 

Day after day, the events in Joe’s life only grew stranger. Joe felt a connection to this doll, a kinship, and an equal and opposite revulsion. He’d go down to check on it late at night when he couldn’t sleep. There he’d find pieces of wood stacked in places he’d swear he hadn’t left them. He’d hear footsteps in the dazed half-waking hours of the early morning. He’d find bags of chips that were lighter than he remembered. But he never saw it move. It was just a doll, after all. 

 

Joe’s acquaintances found out about it (how long can you keep something this strange to yourself) and they were powerfully curious. Joe took them down, a few of his closest friends, to “meet” the doll, which he’d been calling Joseph. They were stunned at the similarity. Uncanny. So similar to Joe but not quite. And in his own house. They said it could easily be his twin if they didn’t know better. Lots of playful joking and laughing. He laughed along too, for a time.

 

The laughing stopped when he came home from work to find the doll standing in the corner of his kitchen, wearing one of his shirts. He called his friends in a flurry, asking around to see which of his them had pulled this awful prank. Not a soul would confess. A cruel trick, I’d say, to make someone think they’re losing their mind. He returned the shirt to his closet. He was determined to keep this thing under cover, so this time covered the box with a tarp. He figured his friends probably didn’t actually like him, were humoring him at events. That they were messing with him. It didn’t occur to him that none of his friends had a spare key to get inside his place.

 

Joe tried to carry on with his life, even put an ad online to get rid of the doll: FREE, LOCAL PICKUP ONLY. But there were no bites. By now, Joe’s lack of sleep was getting to him, and he was getting irritable, antisocial. When his friends texted him, he was snippy. He avoided calls and meetups.

 

He was trying to make dinner on a steamy midsummer night when he heard a thud downstairs. He hadn’t checked on the doll in some time, and for a moment wondered if he had an intruder. He grabbed a shovel from the porch and crept down to the basement. 

 

In the cascading luminance from the open doorway, he saw the legs of the mannequin laying on the bare floor, covered in denim. A pair of his jeans. Joe was instantly furious, then that anger cooled to desperation. He begged his friends to stop whatever game they were playing. Said he didn’t care who was doing it, didn’t want a confession anymore, he only wanted it to stop. He’d leave them alone if they stopped. Still they claimed innocence.

 

Summer had come and gone, and Joe’s 30th birthday was fast approaching on the back of a biting winter, and while he wasn’t looking forward to getting older, he did find himself excited to see friends for the first time in months.

 

Derek had set up a whole party at his place. Drinks, music, cake, the works. Joe wanted everything to go right. He put on a nice shirt and pants, but when he reached for his favorite tie, he found the hanger empty. Ah, well, Joe thought, I’ll skip the tie. Maybe a bit formal for a birthday party anyway.

 

Surreal. That’s what it was. Uncanny.

 

Joe knocked on Derek’s door, who gave him an apprehensive look as he opened it. Surreal.

 

“Oh, hey Joe, uhh come on in,” Derek warily led Joe into the living room. Mid-2000s indie music scored the scene of friends and couples drinking, talking, laughing. And on the couch among his friends, wearing his favorite tie and nothing else, was the doll. They were chatting as if nothing was out of place. The mannequin even had a little controller in its hand for playing kart racing games. Sitting next to it was a girl Joe had been talking to for a few weeks. He thought this issue had been settled.

 

“What the hell is that thing doing here? I told you it wasn’t funny anymore.” Joe strained to keep his anger under control.

 

“Whoa watch it, man” 

 

Joe stormed out of his own party. Derek looked around the room and issued an awkward shrug.

 

Joe sped home, gunning it down highway lanes dotted with circles of orange vapor glow. He crunched up the frosty grass slope to his door, and locked himself inside. Derek tried to reach out, but Joe wasn’t ready yet. This was a massive breach of trust.

 

A few days passed and Joe realized that he’d probably overreacted. His friends were probably trying to get a rise out of him. And even if they did genuinely hate him, they were the only friends he had. He texted Derek. They planned to meet at the coffee shop down the block so he could apologize and catch up.

 

Joe strolled down the crisp downtown streets toward the cafe. He stood on the corner across from the shop and took in thin air through his nose. Behind the cafe’s foggy window, he saw Derek, sitting at a table already. He smiled and took a step forward.. That’s when he saw that sitting across from Derek, in a striped shirt and slacks, was the doll. On the table in front of it was a full cup of coffee. It still wasn’t moving, it was just a doll after all, but Joe could see Derek’s lips moving.

 

This was too much. This wasn’t a joke anymore, this was hostile action. He could only be kicked so many times before he’d kick back. What were they thinking? Did they like the doll more than him? Why, because it wouldn’t make snide remarks, wouldn’t feel down, wouldn’t drink your beer and forget to replace it?

 

Joe needed rest badly. He had gotten some sleeping pills from his doctor at some point he couldn’t remember, but hesitated to take them before. Not so this time. Joe swallowed the pill and went into the kitchen.

 

He descended the basement stairs, holding the shovel from the porch. The tarp over the box was flipped up, and inside was the mannequin. Joe licked his dry lips and stepped lightly into the crate. He tapped the doll with the handle of the shovel. Nothing. He shouted at it. Nothing. It was just a doll, after all. 

 

Then his phone rang. It was Derek.

 

DEREK: “Oh, uhh hey dude, I was wondering if…is Joe there?”

 

Joe’s face grew red. Embarrassment, anger, jealousy, fear, who can say which feeling specifically caused the break. He hung up and threw his phone across the concrete floor. Joe twisted the shovel’s handle around in his sweaty palms, then lifted the shovel high. He brought the sharp edge down directly on the doll’s head.

 

At this point, the drug took hold, and as the doll fell to the side, Joe collapsed against the wall and plunged into a deep, woozy sleep.

 

He hoisted the limp doll over his shoulder and dragged the heavy object upstairs. He wrapped it in an old area rug and stuffed it into his trunk.

 

He drove on in the frosty moonless night, down country roads outside the city, heading to the pine forest nearby. He was quivering, quiet. He kept checking the rearview mirror to see if he was being followed.

 

He passed a sheriff near the woods and a cold chill ran down his back. What if the sheriff pulled him over and checked the trunk? He was speeding a bit. But then again, he hadn’t actually done anything wrong, right? It was just a doll, after all.

 

He found a suitable spot and pulled off the road. Dripping rug and shovel in tow, he finally stepped into the woods.

 

The ground was hard, digging even harder. He was sweating and coughing as he dug a hole for the doll. His twin. His reflection. He dug until he physically couldn’t anymore, arms sore and lungs ablaze.

 

By now the sun was starting to cast its pink rays through the snowy branches. High conifers bowed in the breeze, shaking loose a dust of fine white into the air, which caught the milky morning light and shimmered in sapphire. The hole was barely deep enough for a body now, and the ground was too hard to dig further. He rolled the thing into the cold grave, then slowly covered it with dark soil. 

 

It would be gone, finally, and he could live his life. His friends would be happy to see him again. No more jealousy, no more fear, no more worry. No longer burdened by the weight of his imposter. Everything was in its right place. He was free.

 

Even if that sheriff spotted the tire tracks in the fresh snow, followed the footprints down into the frozen woods. If he uncovered the freshly churned earth, and what was decomposing within. If sirens blared, a line of cruisers shining in the neon sunrise. If they checked his car and found the stained rug, brought him in and asked him a thousand questions, about his past, his friends, the bandaged gash on his head, he would still be free.

 

It was just a doll, after all. 

 

CLICK

 

***

WREN: uhh, is someone still on the line?

LIZ, apprehensive: “Hey, uh, Wren? What does Conway look like?”

WREN, on the phone: “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him described. Hmm, dark hair, normal height I suppose, 28-36 years old?” 

LIZ: “Sooo…not a towering column of flesh?”WREN: “....no?”

LIZ: “Got it. Well, that’s what’s here in the boardroom.”

WREN: “Board room??”LIZ: “It’s like this…bureaucratic nightmare cave. Probably 10 stories high, walls lined with filing cabinets floor to ceiling. Stacks of papers and folders everywhere, with more of those shadow things flipping through them and stamping pages.”

WREN: “Oh…that sounds bad.”LIZ: “And in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of empty chairs and desks, is this tower of skin and paperwork fused together. There are eyes and mouths all over it, just twisting, pulsing…like it’s breathing. Like this thing is a person, or a tumor imitating a person. What should I do?”

WREN: “It’s always been a game of facades, hasn’t it. Gather what shadows you can–you seem good at that–then leave. Whatever that is, it’s not Conway anymore, if it ever was. On your way out, burn whatever remains.”

 

CLICK

 

***

 

WREN: Immediately upon hanging up the phone, the town outside started to shift. I could hear water pooling under the gap under the bar’s door. Sloshing and groaning, crunching, far-off wailing carrying on the wind outside. “None of this is real, I’m what’s real,” I whispered to myself a few times, standing right beside the door. Of course, merely because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it can’t kill. It’s happened before. I stretched my left leg, then the right, and hopped up and down a few times to get the blood flowing. I hoped I could run, too.

 

The door flung open with more force than I’d intended. The slamming door reverberated throughout the town, once empty but not so anymore. The rows of anomalous buildings shook and rose. Unholy behemoths descended from their perches, writhing and dripping as they freed themselves from their stupor. The sound of the door alerted them to my presence. They slinked along the roads toward me, some still half encased in ice, dragging massive blocks of frozen terror in their wake. I couldn’t go home now, even if I wanted to. I planted my feet and took off full speed toward the dock. 

 

Just my luck, only three steps in, I slipped and faceplanted into the stone below. My nose crunched and shards of ice dug into my skin, painting trails of red across my face and palms. I scrambled and clawed until I was on my feet. Hunched, bloodied, and soaking now, I came face to face with one of the awakened giants. Icicles still hung from its head, a wilted crown, its body bulky and strong. From the hole where it’s mouth should be, a long whiplike tongue unfurled. It darted toward the drops of blood running down my cheek. I wiped away the flowing blood and snot with my sleeve and skittered to the side. I saw an alleyway behind the beast. Narrow, empty, just wide enough I might sneak through it. The creature turned as I moved around its horrible frame, and from its spine sprouted many more tongues. They lashed at me, a hundred tiny blades. The tongues tore at my shirt and left slashes across my arm. They sliced and curled, but the beast couldn’t grab hold of me; the slush I was covered in kept me slippery. I darted down the alley. 

 

A look over my shoulder revealed the creature leaning on its back, now carried by dozens of pink slavering tongues. It tried to follow where I had gone, but the alley was too narrow. Stuck between the two buildings, It let out a gurgling howl, like a psalm for drowned god. I briefly smirked. Then it began tearing at the wood and brick around it, and the fleeting moment of triumph vanished.

 

I kept moving, on and on the melting streets went, each rounded corner possibly harboring another death. The sky overhead was a crumpled sheet of tin, and the remaining houses seemed to lean inward around me, casting their spiky shadows over me as I ran.

 

I managed to escape the center of town and found myself at the lakeshore, dread mariners following in my wake. There, through my panting sweat and blood and dried tears I saw the tracks in the ground. My eyes followed the deep lines in the earth to what I had been looking for. There, floating in the misty air, impossibly suspended upside down, was the Lighthouse. The tower issued a distorted bellow and the shore was shrouded with fog. I could hear wet tendrils slapping close behind me.

 

I ran for the lighthouse. Its tip stood about 5 feet off the ground, the rotating lens nearly at my eye level. The beacon spun toward me as I approached, its dazzling light shining on me. I was instantly overcome with nausea. It was clear that whatever entity resided here didn’t want me any closer. The light was a nameless god here, and these were its charnel angels. I dropped to my knees under its watch, as the intense gaze of this tower soaked into me. I felt the skin on my bloodied hands and face burn and peel away from the bone like an orange rind. Static filled my head, and my body disintegrated. 

 

But this was not my first rodeo, as they say. Unlike Conway, I’ve dealt with this static, with this withering glare, before. I took a deep breath and focused my thoughts. I imagined a radio, and on that projected radio was a dial. My spectral fingers reached out and turned the dial. I felt the astral station change and the static dissipate, replaced by the gentle plinking of piano keys. The fire on my flesh turned to tingling, and I realized my body had not actually been damaged, despite the pain.

 

This was enough to get me standing upright again, but forward progress was still slow; the full focus of the burning lens was still on me. The light had a physical presence that continually repelled me with every step. I was losing energy, and the blasphemous vermin behind me were slithering ever closer. A long, mucous tentacle skated over the ice and reached for my ankle. 

 

The last thing I saw there in Aisling was a flash of brown fur. A blur of claws and hair leapt out of the haze and slammed into the malicious angel that had tried to grab at me. Talons ripped into a monstrous carapice. A pink light from the furry creature’s forehead sent the horrid bug flying ino the frigid water.

Why is something always swooping in at the last moment to save me? I'm not 12 anymore, I can legally drink now! I can handle myself. Well, maybe not in this situation, but usually I can. The furry creature turned its long neck my way, its face covered in synthetic brown hair, and I locked eyes with my one-time-nemesis, my friend, my deskmate, my savior.

 

Its yellow beak parted and it spoke.

 

“U-nye-way-loh-nee-way”

 

My eyelids grew heavy, my head spun, and I fell to the ground, unconscious. 

 

“SLEEP.”

The first stand-alone semi-canon bonus episode, which going forward will be exclusive to patrons of any level.

A podcast host learns about a strange solution to a common problem. 

Inspired by an episode of Reply All.

(CWs, mild spoilers: strong language, body horror, brief gore sounds)

Wren takes a road trip. A divorcee spots an odd insect. Conway tries to shake a rock out of his shoe.

Featuring the voices of Nathan from Storage Papers (https://thestoragepapers.com), Jess Syratt from Nowhere, On Air (https://nowhereonairpodcast.weebly.com), and Rae Lundberg of The Night Post (https://nightpostpod.com/).

(CWs, mild spoilers: LOTS of insects, body horror, fire, car braking sound)

Transcript incoming, here's the rough script for now, which mostly follows the episode.

“Now let’s get to the weird stuff…”

WREN: We humans generally like stability. Predictability. We like to figure out patterns and stick with them. I think that’s why change can be so frightening for us. It throws the future--which once seemed so certain--into chaos. Anything could happen. We could be on the verge of destruction at any moment. But we could also be inches away from utopia. If you can learn to live with this change, this constantly revolting present, you just might make it out of the apocalypse with your sanity intact.

Or so that’s what I hoped. I had little else to count on. I tried to flow like water with the shifting tide. You can be the judge of how that all turned out. That’s why you’re here, right?

Pockets of shadows remained in the cave, about a dozen or so people, seemingly oblivious to the life outside. They toiled under The Boss’s directives, worked day and night for the Dead Letter Office. To what end, I couldn’t really say. Seemingly just to perpetuate the office itself. If I could show them the way out, maybe they would help me take on the Boss. One shadow, Liz, was receptive to my offer. She still had some kick left in her diminished form. Her girlfriend, though, was blind to the world, just a single atom in the bureaucratic monolith.

In Liz, I had someone on the inside. If she could go back and agitate from within the machine, we might stand a chance of turning a few more souls back to the light. It would be risky, though; if even one shade suspected outside forces were at work, they might alert the Boss. Even given all my experience with the paranormal and extranormal, I have no idea what would happen then. My gut feeling told me that facing the Boss prematurely would be...ill-advised.

If I wanted to find more of these shadows, I’d need to search through the dead mail, find the stories that might have caught Conway’s attention, and seek out their writers. The problem was that I had just walked out of my job, and I had a suspicion that if I showed back up unannounced, the Boss would take notice. Where, then, would I find these letters if not the office?

I’d need to find the place that Conway kept all of the clues. I’d need to find Aisling. I’d need to find the vault. Would anything be left in the old vault, or had the Boss already figured out my plan and purged it? Only one way to find out.

Yes, change can be terrifying. Yes, the future is in flux. But the scariest part is that the past can be made just as uncertain as the future. Memories fade, records burn, and witnesses pass on. Entire decades lost, cultures lost. Lessons unlearned. Mistakes repeated. If a place loses its history, how can its people know the present? Without a past, how can we make sense of the future? As a butterfly forgetting it was once a worm, who are we without who we were?

Driving through the clogged artery highways of the state was a challenge, given that time appeared to be at a standstill for most of the world.

If all the postcards and letters were to be believed, I was looking for a lakeside town. Somewhere along the Erie was a town full of shadows, a place haunted by its own history. And within that town was a lighthouse. This lighthouse was my metaphorical beacon. I kept the postcard printed with its image folded and tucked into my pocket. It was among the few items I took with me on this road trip: a cassette player with some of Conway’s old tapes and a furry little friend also jostled around in a cardboard box on the passenger seat. I couldn’t just leave the poor thing in the office after all we’d seen.

The morning air was silent and stiff, only the sound of my rumbling engine accompanied the pink rays glancing off rows of glass and steel. I turned the stereo’s knob, but the radio was entirely dead air. I loaded up one of the tapes to see if it would be of any help.

The enormous hand still hung overhead like the executioner’s ax. What was our crime, Conway? What did we let ourselves forget?

*on tape* OLD INTRO MUSIC

This is Conway, receiving clerk for the Dead Letter Office of Aisling, Ohio, processing the national dead mail backlog. The following audio recording will serve as an internal memo strictly for archival purposes and should be considered confidential. Need I remind anyone: public release of this or any confidential material from the DLO is a felony. Some names and places have been censored for the protection of the public.

Dead letter 11919. An SD card found in a condemned building. The house caught fire in fall of 2011, but card was mysteriously undamaged. The fire department contacted one of our carriers, who brought it back to the office for investigation. The contents of the SD card are as follows.

*off tape

A month after my divorce I took up photography. Call it a midlife crisis if you want. I needed something to keep my mind occupied now that I was perpetually alone again, and a camera is a hell of a lot cheaper than a sports car. Photography’s really for lonely hearts; you’re by yourself, but surrounded by people. You watch them through the lens, feed on their fleeting touches. I threw myself into it fully without thinking too much, like I do with just about everything. Like I did with her.

Three months after the divorce, I went to the butterfly house. To see things so wet and new enter the world, so hopeful, was healthier projecting my turmoil onto the world around me. The insects’ colorful wings rendered through the lens like stained glass, and there was so much variety. I started shooting at the conservatory whenever I could, and gleaned a lot about butterflies in the process.

Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, migrate long distances, from the great lakes to the gulf, then come back again when the weather warms up. How they remember the path back home, no one’s quite sure. Almost romantic. On the other end of the spectrum, some moths only live for a week. Actias luna don’t eat anything during their brief week of existence, because they can’t: their mouths are vestigial. Instead, they rely on what they ate in their larval state to sustain them throughout their lives. They eat, change, mate, and die. Also kind of romantic. In a sense.

Six months after the divorce is when I saw it. The reason for this video.

I was kneeling in front of a coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, waiting for one of the little powdery things to alight on a petal. A kid running through the conservatory was scaring off most of my subjects, but I could be patient. What else did I have going on in my life? My friends were mostly married and mostly busy, my family...well, I’d rather not go there. So I waited. Crouched, holding the hefty camera, lens focused, my mind was sharp but my body was getting stiff. I was about to call the day a wash when something interesting came into view.

A large butterfly landed on the purple flower. Its folded wings were pure ashy black, and it looked sharper than the objects around it. This one had a sort of presence, a portentous aura, as if the events of the world waited on every flap of its wing.

In my time here, I’d never seen anything like it. It held my attention in a vice, like it wasn’t a bug at all, but a treacherous cinder in a pile of dry leaves. Like it demanded a watchful eye, else the ember might be stirred by a breeze to glow again and burn and burn.

I snapped a few photos of its dusky form. Then it turned, its back now facing the camera, and spread its wings. There smudged across its span were three bars of color: white over red over brown on black. Like three chalky rectangles floating in the void. The thing that worried me most about this creature was that it was somehow familiar, like somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind I had seen this before. But not on a butterfly, no, it had to be something else.

Six years ago, we drove up to canada in a cheap rental car. We threaded a trail up and east, across the Erie border, into the marigold hills of pennsylvania, through the vineyards and thin eastern pines of new york, up across the border.

We were spending a long weekend in Toronto, taking in the sights and sounds of a real city, a place where public transportation isn’t just a pipe dream. We bought fresh pears from a bodega in and took the metro across the river. We walked through the financial district and saw a seagull pick at fries in a discarded styrofoam container.

I say we. I can see the places in my mind, remember the sounds and smells, but she’s not really there in my memory anymore. My mind erased her from the picture, but the empty space she occupied is still there. Like a citation to a book that doesn’t exist, an overexposed blob on a film negative haunting every frame.

This was our last trip together, not that we knew that at the time. We were both worn out, a wordless static swelling between us. Radios tuned to different stations. We were growing apart, but neither of us wanted to admit it. That would be too brave. Easier to let it wither away until it’s a dry husk of what it once was. We had exhausted just about every other method of holding this thing together, so in a mocking reflection of our first date, we went to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

We casually wound through the hallways going through the motions, pointing out something interesting here, gently nodding there. In a dark room near the end, among the abstract expressionists, was that pattern I had seen before. A Rothko, white and red something, on display. It shook me more than I had anticipated that day. Something about the frankness of it. There was no obfuscation, no dalliance. It just was. I knew then that we had to split, come what may.

The camera fell from my eye as my arm went limp. This couldn’t possibly be the same pattern I’d seen six years ago. I must have been remembering the painting wrong. Or maybe some sicko had meticulously painted its wings. A cruel obsession. But the nausea welling inside me told me that I was flailing for a rational explanation for the irrational. That to know the thing was to unknow all else. That I was throwing darts at the tide. Putting a leash on an acorn. Crying over spooled milk.

I pulled myself from my stupor and shot a few pictures of its outstretched wings before it flew off. I showed the photos to the head of the butterfly house, almost just to reassure myself that I hadn’t imagined it. He had no idea where it had come from or what it was, but he did see the pattern, too. He guessed it was a rare genetic mutation occurring in a more common variety of butterfly. He went with me to look for it, but we didn’t find a trace of it in the conservatory.

Once I got home, I searched for the painting. There it was, Mark Rothko’s No.1, White and Red from 1962. It was identical to the pattern on the butterfly’s wings.There had to be some kind of connection between the bug and the painting, but even after hours of research, I just wasn’t seeing it. Eventually, like anything else, the novelty of that day wore off and I went back to my usual routines as if it had never happened.

One afternoon weeks later I stepped out of the humid greenhouse into the glaring september sun. The courtyard was hot and white. Sweat was dripping down my forehead, rolling into my eyes and stinging my vision. I squinted against the salt and light, and in my periphery saw a bird eating its dinner under an oak tree. A blackbird, large iridescent green-black, a white streak dripping down one wing. I rubbed my eyes to clear the sweat. The bird had something sticking out of its mouth: its poor prey hadn’t been completely devoured yet. Poking out of the black beak was a butterfly. It didn’t look like one from the conservatory, though. I took out my camera and zoomed in on the bird. The wing dangling from its mouth had a stunning pattern. Swirling blues and whites, tangerine globes and black spires. Before I could even register what I was seeing, the bird took off into the thick air.

That sickening deja vu hit me again, but this time I didn’t need to look it up to know what it was.

Eight years back on our trip to New York we explored the Museum of Modern Art. It was the first household-name-famous painting I’d seen in person. Not as big as I expected, but stunning nonetheless. Van Gogh. Starry Night.

I ran through the conservatory and out the door, tracking the blackbird as best I could. Jogging with my camera and bag wasn’t ideal. By the time the bird landed, I was red and puffing hard.

The shining bird with the dripping wing had landed on a branch next to a shuttered house. The surrounding houses were also condemned, and this one seemed to be in the worst condition of the bunch.

The white paint on the doorframe was peeling, revealing the wood grain underneath in stripes like the teeth of a great beast. The shutters were drooping eyelids, hanging crooked from their hinges. The windows were dusty and glazed over with cataract grime, those that weren’t shattered anyway. It was falling apart, a relic leftover from a more prosperous time, but it had an austere dignity that so many ancient and forgotten things do.

The tree next to the slouching old shack had crashed through the roof at one point. There the blackbird perched, inviting me into its home.

The door creaked open with a push, and the smell of wet wood and rotting fabric flushed out and spread over the brown lawn. Vines and mold reached in equal measure up the splotchy walls. Sunlight falling in through the hole in the ceiling stepped lightly down the stairs and caught dust in its place. An offwhite couch sat mouldering in one corner of the den, a table with a broken leg had years ago spilled its contents onto the floor. Green tendrils wrapped around lamp cords and stretched across rooms. A gentle drip in the stained kitchen sink rang out through the silent house.

And all across the ceiling through the house hung little crystalline pods. Hundreds of cocoons dangling from the stucco, from fan blades, from mounted pots and pans and light fixtures. A few butterflies were already emerging, casting aside their comfortable skin to face the new. These cocoons continued up the stairway and onto the ceiling of the second floor.

I crept up the uneven stairs, testing each one with a press of my foot just in case the whole thing was about to collapse. More chrysalis dotted the ceilings here, and so too did the pudgy little bugs that make them, inching their way across the abandoned home. Some bright and colorful, some drab and fuzzy, the caterpillars had moved into this space that people no longer wanted.

The hole in the ceiling up there had been worse than it looked from the outside. A section of the wall had been caved in as the tree grew through it. Its boughs outstretched along the broken wall as if cleaving it open, a large ovular hole in the trunk  nearby slack like a hungry maw. Living branches and leaves intertwined with the dead lumber planks and leaden drywall. Caterpillars nibbled at the corners of the vibrant green foliage fanning out across what was once a bedroom, crawled up and down the bedposts and nightstand. I shudder to think what might have been festering under the mildewy comforter. The tiny creatures here covered nearly every interior surface after the mold and water damage had taken their parcels. A faint hum reverberated from somewhere within its walls.

Now that I had taken in the place, I could start examining the insects themselves. The caterpillars were mostly typical: short, rotund, many brightly colored like little tubes of acrylic paint, but they were hardly exceptional. They went about their business with a casual disinterest in my presence in their reclaimed home.

The butterflies, on the other hand, were illogical, inconceivable, exquisite.

Every lepidoptera had painted wings. Gently fluttering clouds, each point engraved with some classic or another; a monet here, a frankenthaler there. My mind reeled at the implications that this suggested. Did we influence them somehow, affect them to grow with these patterns? Or were our artistic hands subtly moved by some unseen force to create these great works? That’s what a lot of the ancients thought. Certain gods and muses could be literal in their influence. Divine inspiration.

On the other hand, what if there was an outside force affecting us, but it wasn’t helping us? What if it was indifferent to us, like the rest of the universe? Or actively malevolent? What if it wanted to reclaim the land from us, like the insects had taken this home?

I knew that if I thought too much about the big questions of the universe I’d lose myself, forget I’m a person and feel that cosmic unreality in the pit of my stomach. It struck me as odd that other people could perceive me. Odd that I existed at all.

I knew I should go home, but I couldn’t leave for fear that it might vanish just as quickly as it had popped into my life. I briskly walked to the truckstop up the highway to grab snacks, drinks, and a travel blanket. I was going to stay and document what I saw for as long as I could.

The insects in this house behaved quite differently from the ones outside. For one, they rarely traveled beyond the yard. The overgrown lawns dotted with wildflowers and tall grasses surrounding the place provided all that they needed. They also seemed to function as a unit, like a school of fish: when one moved, many moved in a cascading wave.

The artwork on their backs spanned ages. I saw greek pottery imprinted on their wings, the birth of venus, carvaggio’s light and shadow. Many of the works I recognized, some I didn’t. Who knows how many photos I took of the butterfly with the Last Supper on its back.

It must have been weeks that I slept on the dusty floor with a thin blanket and my camera bag as a pillow. The excitement and wonder kept me in place. I subsisted on empty gas station calories and sugary soda. The wrappers and empty bottles started radiating around me in a ritualistic circle as time wore on beyond my knowledge. My skin grew pale and oily, my hair matted, but I hardly noticed. I ate, observed, and very rarely slept.

I was so enthralled I had hardly noticed the change. The recent hatchlings had been trending toward modern art: no longer DaVinci’s and Gentileschi’s, the butterflies flitted about with more post-industrial design on their wings, Mondrian’s squares, Picasso’s blue period. The hum within the house had grown as well, but I hardly took notice at the time.

Then came the seismic shift. I was feeling weak, lightheaded and nearly delirious, when I saw a horse and rider mid-gait painted on an eggshell white body. No, not painted, I realized after some inspection. Photographed. Days passed and more butterflies emerged with film on their backs: images of war, recreation, winston churchill and che guavara.

The hum was loud enough now that I couldn’t ignore it. My head was pulsing and the noise was only exacerbating it. I needed to get out for a minute of fresh air.

I walked the abandoned neighborhood, then beyond into the former arts district. The stars were crystals hanging in deep blue velvet overhead. The streets were empty and still. I crossed the old craft store and paused to look in the window. I felt an irresistible compulsion to paint. But I had no money left after abandoning my job for weeks. I tore a section of my greasy shirt and wrapped it around my fist. The window shattered more easily than I’d expected.

I absconded back to my hideaway with tubes of oil paints, turpentine, brushes and rags, canvas.

Wading through the trash filling up my own little cocoon, I began to paint. I started on the canvas, but soon found it confining. My paint spilled off the page and onto the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the trash. I couldn’t say how long I painted. I never grew tired or hungry. I didn’t need or want. I was in the flow. I simply was.

The house was only so large, though. Two floors entirely covered in paint, dirty rags scattered about and turpentine dripping down the stairs, and yet I wasn’t satisfied. I’d have to make something else my canvas.

I started on my free hand, red and purple spots along my fingers, then green up my arm. Black along the torso, white stripes near ribs. I stripped off my remaining clothes that got in the way of my brush. Blue around my eyes, yellow bands across my head.

Once I was entirely encased in paint, I felt my mind relax, deflating like air let out of a balloon. I grew aware of my surroundings again. The hum had grown so loud it was shaking the remaining furniture in the bedroom. I had been so preoccupied with the transformation of the creatures that I hadn’t even noticed where they were actually coming from: caterpillars were pouring out of the hole in the encroaching tree. Swaths of crawling, squirming bugs spilled from the crooked mouth of bark and writhed in the dark room.

On the wall opposite the tree, butterflies gathered. They stationed themselves in a square on the white paint. They flapped their wings and moved in unison. This patch of living color formed a pointilist image of her face. An image I had taken. My own photograph of my former wife. The insectoid screen undulated and shifted, forming new images in succession like a flipbook, each one displaying a moment from my past that I had captured. New York, Toronto, chopping vegetables, hiking through shale caves, the first snowfall of our last year together.

I could feel the change curling inside me. Was I destined to take these photos, to mirror the natural patterns of the world? Or were these insects somehow directed to grow in accordance with my life? The swirling thoughts surged forth in waves of vertigo. My brain was swelling, pushing up against my skull.

I smelled smoke from the stairway, acrid chemical flame and burning cloth. Flames of every color rose and licked at the blackened walls, dancing and fluttering. Thick smog was filling the room. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled to the only place that seemed safe, into the buzzing tree. I nestled down into the bark as far as I could, only the top of my head peering out through the opening. I felt my new brethren creeping and slinking in the darkness all around me.

I set up my camera and recorded this testimony with the last of its battery.

Oh my stomach is pulsing, moving, as if something is crawling inside. I can feel it bubbling up like gold from deep within. My back is splitting with wet folded wings. The photographs on their wings flip faster and faster until it’s a moving image, a film, streaming through the striations of black smoke. I can’t stifle my laughter as I see my life playing out before me on the living screen. Loud full body spasms. How else can you react to the absurdity of life laid bare so bluntly before you?

If a caterpillar can become a butterfly, what might I look like after my metamorphosis? What glory might humanity ascend to in its next phase? I envy you, because if you’re watching this, you know.

We’re ready to reclaim what you have taken. I am hatching. I am ascending on painted wings ablaze. But I am not in pain. I am beautiful.

CONWAY ON TAPE:  Well, I...I’m gonna need a minute.

CLICK

***

CONWAY: Nothing stays the same, no matter how hard we try. Something somewhere is always changing, like the water to vapor. Hell, even electrons are always moving around, can’t quite pin ‘em down. The changes inside are the hardest to spot, though. And you’re usually the last one to notice you’ve changed. You’re you, after all.

As I slipped my influence into every corner of this state, I could barely recall most of my life, such as it was. Didn't miss my body all that much either, never really felt like I fit in it anyway. But for a moment, I felt a bit nostalgic for my old job.

This nostalgia is a warning sign that something isn’t what it once was, that some part of you is no longer there. I hadn’t seen the cracks forming yet. I was still intoxicated with my new position. There was a rock in my metaphorical shoe, though. A lingering thought I just couldn’t shake, even with all this.

It started with the phone call from the fisherman. “You’re not real.” What the hell was that all about? Of course I’m real. “I think therefore” and all that. I’m the Boss. I’ve got buildings full of people who listen to me. Doesn’t get much realer than that.

But there was that itch somewhere in the vast and ever expanding recesses of my consciousness I couldn’t quite scratch. I felt like I was forgetting something, or like I was about to remember something big.

“How’s Lucy?”

***

Outro--interrupted

*brakes screech*

I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up at the bottom of an off-ramp. With no one else around and nothing to distract me, I dozed off. Just for a second. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth. I caught myself quickly enough that I somehow managed to avoid smashing into any of the parked--well “parked”--cars on the highway. I was at a stop sign, and ahead of me was a one-lane country road. I couldn’t see anyone in either direction for as far as my eyesight allowed. But below the stop sign was a bright green plaque, emblazoned with a path to what I’d been looking for:

AISLING - FIVE MILES.

Conway, here I come.

***

LIZ: Is anyone here?

*muffled response*

LIZ: Hello? I know you’re around somewhere.

LIZ: Hey. Hey!...hmmm...hail and well met, shadow, I mean you no harm. *under her breath* “Hail and well met”? Jesus, what’s wrong with me.

SHADOW: *anxious* What was that?

LIZ: I’m Liz, who the hell are you?

SHADOW: *slowly, with effort* I...I don’t know. It’s hard to think. I’m...where am I? What am I?

LIZ: I know, I totally felt the same. Just take a minute. Relax. I’m a friend.

SHADOW: I can’t feel my...anything.

LIZ: Yup, that’ll happen. Corporeality’s kinda messed up here. So it goes. If you focus really hard, you might be able to keep yourself solid. See?

SHADOW: I’m dreaming. This isn’t real...I must still be asleep.

LIZ: Sure, you sort of are. Anyway, what do you say we get out of here? See your friends again.

SHADOW: But...wait, I remember something. I can’t go yet. The Head Office. The Board Room. There’s...there’s something there. It’s...oh god. The tower. We can’t just leave it there.

LIZ: Board Room? Can you show me?

SHADOW: I think I can lead us there. But...

LIZ, to WREN: Wren, this could be big. Could be a whole lot of shadows there for us to recruit. I’m going in. Good luck out there.