Speaker 1: M thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart radio, Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron
Speaker 1: manky headphones recommended. Listener discretion advised. Hello, friend, forgive me.
Speaker 1: Startling you gives me such pleasure. I'm so sorry. You
Speaker 1: must have followed the smells. Welcome to Hawthorne Manners Kitchen.
Speaker 1: The architect designed it after his own childhood kitchen. The
Speaker 1: cast iron cauldron was said to belong to one Martha
Speaker 1: carrier who was tried and executed for witchcraft some years ago,
Speaker 1: though I suspect she only used it for cooking. Well,
Speaker 1: do not mind the strange, sickly green of the fire.
Speaker 1: The wood here burns strangely. Don't breathe too long, a bit,
Speaker 1: trust me, the sleep it brings off as little in
Speaker 1: the way of rest. Please sit. Mm Hmm, that smell.
Speaker 1: Can you describe it? That's right, you're a quiet one.
Speaker 1: Allow me a venison stew, onions and garlic browned at
Speaker 1: the bottom in rendered bacon fat and then layered with
Speaker 1: fresh killed game. Added to that green albums for bite
Speaker 1: and yams for sweetness and heft, dried sage and time
Speaker 1: from the garden. Ah, my mother's recipe. When she died,
Speaker 1: there was still a little of it left in the cauldron.
Speaker 1: I ate it slowly over the coming days, a spoonful
Speaker 1: at a time, a taste slowly slip in a way,
Speaker 1: until it was gone, lost to memory, until the first
Speaker 1: day I walked into this kitchen and smelled it. I wept.
Speaker 1: It's a trick. What you are smelling is not what
Speaker 1: I am smelling, is it? It's something that you loved,
Speaker 1: isn't it? Don't tell me. It doesn't matter, because what
Speaker 1: is in the Quldron is most assuredly not that. I
Speaker 1: think it's the fire that gives off the smells. That's
Speaker 1: why I don't trust it, nor the one who wields it.
Speaker 1: In all of my years here, I've never met our chef.
Speaker 1: Whenever I enter the room I'm always keenly aware that
Speaker 1: someone else is just vacated suddenly. I try to assume
Speaker 1: that whoever it is has good intentions, because there is
Speaker 1: always ample food and the poisonings have stopped. Now, my friend,
Speaker 1: I have a task for you, if you're willing. You're
Speaker 1: so bliant, such a pleasant change of pace. Follow me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce you to another of our guests,
Speaker 1: who regularly requires assistance. I'm sure you'll get a full
Speaker 1: explanation here. Give her these. You'll understand. Della, my dear,
Speaker 1: this is my good friend. He's excited to meet you
Speaker 1: and he comes bearing gifts. I'll return shortly. Oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I have a seat. Make yourself comfortable if you can.
Speaker 1: I must look pretty crazy. Huh, skinny old lane living
Speaker 1: up here in an empty room, no chairs for company,
Speaker 1: like hanging everywhere and not a drop of shade. You
Speaker 1: don't even have a blanket on the bed. Did you
Speaker 1: notice that blanket makes dark, so blanket had to go.
Speaker 1: You can't understand, I know, but if they had their
Speaker 1: sights on you. You've ever seen those greasy stains that
Speaker 1: show about of nowhere, sometimes on the wall or ceiling,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're soaked into the carpet or your mattress. I
Speaker 1: used to think that they were just sweat stains, but
Speaker 1: now I know better. They're what gets left behind when
Speaker 1: they sink back through into the dark, the residue of
Speaker 1: whatever or whoever they took with them. I think it's
Speaker 1: the pressure, the physical pressure of being squeezed right through
Speaker 1: into another dimension does the same thing to a human
Speaker 1: body that a juicer does to an orange. Just rings
Speaker 1: the Grease and oil right out of your skin. Moush,
Speaker 1: you're gone. That oily stain is all that's left. Or
Speaker 1: that's my theory on it at least. M Hmmm. I
Speaker 1: thought I had more time, but they just started popping.
Speaker 1: And that one light over there in the corner, you
Speaker 1: see it, that one shattered first, just the main fluorescent
Speaker 1: in the kitchen net one a few minutes after that,
Speaker 1: and I figured I was looking at trouble. I've been
Speaker 1: keeping them at bay for so long now, but if
Speaker 1: they figured out how to blow the bulbs, well, I'm
Speaker 1: lucky you arrived, really I am. I'm grateful there's still
Speaker 1: light in here for now, but if I leave to
Speaker 1: get more bulbs on my own, just too risky for me.
Speaker 1: Too many shadows, too many places where they can grab on.
Speaker 1: But they haven't attached themselves to you yet, right, they haven't,
Speaker 1: have they? No, but having you in here for too
Speaker 1: long really isn't a good idea. The longer you're in here,
Speaker 1: the more likely they are to notice you and then,
Speaker 1: but anyway, they haven't seen you yet. You can still
Speaker 1: go out and do whatever you want in the night
Speaker 1: and the dark, without them sinking the bony little spurs
Speaker 1: into you. Why are you here again? Right, the light.
Speaker 1: You've brought me more light. That's right, you're an angel.
Speaker 1: M Hmm. You don't know how grateful I am. Really.
Speaker 1: Do you happen to know how fresh these are? I
Speaker 1: could swear the caretaker has been purposefully fetching me bulbs
Speaker 1: that go out immediately, it was. Some of them even
Speaker 1: burn out before you've been done screwing them in. I
Speaker 1: wonder about him some Nimes. Have you ever noticed anything
Speaker 1: about this? Oh Jesus, we're sorry, I'm doing that thing again.
Speaker 1: I don't see people very often, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: not really used to conversation. I could be nerve is,
Speaker 1: but I think that it feels this way all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm nervous. Probably would help if
Speaker 1: I slept better, but all hard to sleep with all
Speaker 1: the lights, you know. I mean, look at this place,
Speaker 1: like a football stadium in here, right. How many lights
Speaker 1: do you think I have? There's forty two of them,
Speaker 1: varying watts. Well, there's thirty seven, now thirty four. No matter,
Speaker 1: as long as the big floodlights stay on. I should
Speaker 1: be okay for a while. I bet you've seen their
Speaker 1: leftovers before and didn't even know what you were looking at.
Speaker 1: Probably just wrote it right off right. And sometimes they
Speaker 1: leave more than just the stains behind too. When they
Speaker 1: took my husband, Joseph, back in our old house, they
Speaker 1: took him right through the mattress. I remember we were
Speaker 1: going through a heat wave and I was sleeping on
Speaker 1: top of the covers, but Joseph never could. I woke
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night because I felt
Speaker 1: the bed shift, like a weight had suddenly lifted right
Speaker 1: off the box spring. And Joseph it was just gone.
Speaker 1: Skin slick discoloring his side of the bed and all
Speaker 1: the men made parts of him just laying there in
Speaker 1: the indentation his body. Left behind one full set of
Speaker 1: false teeth and three metal pins, like they were too
Speaker 1: corporeal for wherever he was going. I thought after that
Speaker 1: they'd be done, but that's not how they work. When
Speaker 1: they see you, when they really he could notice of you,
Speaker 1: they come for you too, in the dark. They saw
Speaker 1: me when they came after my husband, and they've been
Speaker 1: coming ever since. Joseph said he picked it up at
Speaker 1: work like a flu or something, a virus. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what he meant, but right away he started acting different,
Speaker 1: funny little anxieties that turned a corner out of nowhere
Speaker 1: and transformed into full forn paranoia. Do you want to
Speaker 1: know the first thing he did? He bought a night light,
Speaker 1: a little kid's night light shape like some sort of
Speaker 1: cartoon character. I didn't even know who was supposed to
Speaker 1: be and we never had kids and I wasn't on
Speaker 1: to date on it doesn't matter. The point is he
Speaker 1: started sleeping with that thing on, lighting up our bedroom,
Speaker 1: and didn't bother me at first, but after about a
Speaker 1: week I woke up in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: to go pee and I found him there, curls up
Speaker 1: on the floor, nestles up against the wall and the
Speaker 1: glow of at night light. And it just got worse
Speaker 1: from there. He insisted on sleeping with all the overhead
Speaker 1: lights on too, kept the closet doors open all the time.
Speaker 1: I taped the windows up to get the night time out.
Speaker 1: I thought he was crazy, I really did. The problem
Speaker 1: was he wasn't crazy enough. He didn't think things through.
Speaker 1: He kept all the lights on, sure, but like make
Speaker 1: shadow and they can travel even in that it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what kind of dark it is. If it's dark,
Speaker 1: they'll come. That's how they get you, and they were
Speaker 1: you down, wait for you to slip up and leave
Speaker 1: some blackness for them to hiden behind closed doors, under
Speaker 1: blankets in your shoes. When they first came from me,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was hearing. Scraping like fingernails
Speaker 1: on a window pane. It was quiet at first, so
Speaker 1: quiet and slow that I wasn't even sure I was
Speaker 1: really hearing it, and then it got louder. There I
Speaker 1: guess you'd call them fingertips. They're sharp and hollow, like
Speaker 1: birds bones. They Sound Brittle, like the snap right off
Speaker 1: of the scratch too hard, but I never do snap
Speaker 1: right off. And once you filled them, they're cold grasp.
Speaker 1: It's like clammy flesh pulled tight over glass shards, like
Speaker 1: somebody spilled orange juice on a stretched leather hide and
Speaker 1: didn't bother to clean it up before it dried sticky
Speaker 1: to the surface. But it's colder than that and meaner.
Speaker 1: Those glass, burnt bone fingers are vices, strange and the
Speaker 1: teeth smarted and colow and cold all at the same time.
Speaker 1: You see that you see this mark. It happened about
Speaker 1: a week after they took Joseph. Talk until Joseph was
Speaker 1: gone before I believed any of what he had been
Speaker 1: spouting off about. But after I did everything he did.
Speaker 1: Kept the light on, keptain windows taped over. But still
Speaker 1: I was too careless. I hadn't yet learned from my
Speaker 1: husband's and steaks. I had a raised bed, more comfortable clothes.
Speaker 1: I used to like wearing hats. I thought they suited me.
Speaker 1: I looked pretty in them. Just the thought now a hat,
Speaker 1: that much dark space between the fabric and my head,
Speaker 1: my head of all things. I can't believe I was
Speaker 1: ever that reckless. I think they probably came in through
Speaker 1: the silver withdrawer, slipped down under the kitchen sink, crept
Speaker 1: through cast shadows until they dragged their sharp damn bodies
Speaker 1: into my bedroom, scraping against the surfaces. They couldn't be
Speaker 1: seen in the lights were on. I thought it was safe,
Speaker 1: but I hid underneath my blinket. At the time. Should
Speaker 1: have learned my lesson from Joseph, but I surely didn't,
Speaker 1: and one of them met me there. I couldn't quite
Speaker 1: see it. It was too dark under the things in
Speaker 1: the comforter and the tears were cloud in a fishing
Speaker 1: but I can tell you that there was something reminiscently
Speaker 1: human about it. Quite maybe it was more what would
Speaker 1: you call it in the Mammalian crinkled paper flesh and
Speaker 1: clumps of coarse hair, the hazy memory of a creature
Speaker 1: from a campfire story, you were told. As the child,
Speaker 1: dead and alive at the same time and desperate hungry,
Speaker 1: somehow scraped up the foresight to kick the blanket off
Speaker 1: and the thing in the dark went with the blanket.
Speaker 1: But it left me this scar, a reminder for both
Speaker 1: of us, for me a reminder of what's always there,
Speaker 1: hiding for the thing in the dark, the scar is
Speaker 1: a reminder of my taste. So it can follow me.
Speaker 1: I had to leave our home, where my husband and
Speaker 1: I lived together for three decades, to get away from
Speaker 1: all the nooks and crannies that come with a house
Speaker 1: like ours. You can't keep it all lit up all
Speaker 1: the time. It's not possible. But here it's just one room, manageable.
Speaker 1: But I'm tired now, all the time. I'm just so,
Speaker 1: so tired. Down to have you've been keeping count. It's
Speaker 1: fifteen lights in the past half hour. At this rate,
Speaker 1: they're popping faster than I can screw them in. All right,
Speaker 1: go on, get out of here, scoot gotta get these
Speaker 1: bulbs changed while I still can. And I've kept you
Speaker 1: here too long already. They've noticed you by now. Ain't
Speaker 1: a way around that. I'm sorry about that. Well, that
Speaker 1: was one of the big security floods, only afterw I
Speaker 1: guess I'm probably no better than a set of false
Speaker 1: teeth in a grease streak at this point, but still,
Speaker 1: I made it this far. There's still a chance with
Speaker 1: what you've brought me here. But wait, before you go,
Speaker 1: I need you to listen to me for one more minute. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're listening good, and this is important. You need to
Speaker 1: go out, go right now, and buy all the lights
Speaker 1: you can. Set them up in your room, hang them
Speaker 1: from the ceilings, prop them up on the floor, put
Speaker 1: them all over, then strip everything down and keep out
Speaker 1: the dark. Being particulous about it more than you think
Speaker 1: you have to be, because it will be worse that
Speaker 1: you think it is. You hear me, they're clever, nasty,
Speaker 1: deathlike things, every one of them, and they are coming
Speaker 1: for you and they're going to find a way to
Speaker 1: kick you. Yeah, in the dark, am h h AH,
Speaker 1: done so soon? Yes, well, don't worry about running out
Speaker 1: to the store, and I'm afraid you wouldn't find one.
Speaker 1: We will replenish Dalla's supply from our own stocks, which
Speaker 1: are plentiful. My friend, you look positively piqued. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: we'll make sure your room is also well lit, should
Speaker 1: you find it necessary. Dela is right about one thing.
Speaker 1: You do well to mind the shadows and Hawthorn manner.
Speaker 1: Most are friendly, but a handful of them undecidedly. Not
Speaker 1: a question, though. Did you discuss it all the door
Speaker 1: we spoke of yesterday? Did it come up in the
Speaker 1: course of conversation? Worry not, we still have plenty of time.
Speaker 1: My friend, I am afraid that I must take my
Speaker 1: leave of you. I can't take this job is never
Speaker 1: complete in a place so complicated. Meet me tomorrow in
Speaker 1: the garden. Yes, rest well tonight and do yourself a favor.
Speaker 1: Sleep with a light on. I have so much to
Speaker 1: show you. Thirteen days of Halloween was created by Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick and Alex Williams and executive produced by Aaron Manky,
Speaker 1: starring Keegan, Michael Key as the caretaker. Today's story was
Speaker 1: written by Zoe Cooper, performed by Jeane Rakiki and directed
Speaker 1: by Matt Frederick, with editing and sound designed by Josh Thane,
Speaker 1: additional writing and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski, casting by
Speaker 1: Jessica Losa. Only eleven days remain. Tomorrow another story. I
Speaker 1: watched a single drop of Red Appear in its center.
Speaker 1: I stared at it, the Bright Crimson Dot in the
Speaker 1: Sea of pure white batter. It was blood, my blood.
Speaker 1: I didn't have another mix, I had no fun facts,
Speaker 1: I had nothing else to offer. I only had cupcakes.
Speaker 1: Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Speaker 1: Blumhouse television and Grimm and mild from Aaron Nankey. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart radio, visit the I heart
Speaker 1: radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows, and learn more about thirteen days of Halloween
Speaker 1: at Grimm and mild dot com. H