Speaker 1: Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Speaker 1: Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron Bankey. Headphones recommended.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion advised. Hello friend, how was your morning? Did
Speaker 1: you dream last night? I can tell by your face
Speaker 1: that you did. You'll find it difficult to hide anything
Speaker 1: from me. It's the micro expressions mostly. Come quite excited
Speaker 1: to show you this feature of the manner. This is
Speaker 1: the door to the north tower. Now a warning. Keep
Speaker 1: your wits about you. What you see and hear will
Speaker 1: likely be confounding. A trap door in the floor, a
Speaker 1: winding stare that carries you hundreds of feet upward to
Speaker 1: another small trap door. underwhelming. Yes, you were expecting something
Speaker 1: mind bending. Well, here's the best part. Take Note. When
Speaker 1: I opened the trap door in the floor, the door
Speaker 1: in the ceiling likewise opens. And if we shout into it,
Speaker 1: my dear fair do you see, my dear friend, this
Speaker 1: door below US somehow opens into the ceiling above us,
Speaker 1: and vice versa, an impossibility made possible by the genius
Speaker 1: of the architect. A Chamber of Endless Echo. A famous
Speaker 1: poet from Nova, Scotia was once a guest and after hours,
Speaker 1: climbing up and down, being driven nearly to madness, swearing
Speaker 1: that his own voice must be that of another man
Speaker 1: mocking him. wrote a poem about the UNCANNY experience. It
Speaker 1: became quite popular. Yesterday, upon the Stair, I met a
Speaker 1: man who wasn't he wasn't there again today. Oh how
Speaker 1: I wish he'd go away. Of course, there was no
Speaker 1: other on the stairs. The board was terrified of nothing
Speaker 1: more than his own reflection, an occurrence more common and
Speaker 1: comfort would allow. Oh well, shall we? Ah, look who
Speaker 1: it is. Nathaniel, be a dear and tell my friend
Speaker 1: here about your journey. Be Wary of this one. He's
Speaker 1: a little off even for this place, likely his room's
Speaker 1: proximity to the tower. You'll be fine. Just follow along
Speaker 1: until I return. Now, fellows, I must run to remove
Speaker 1: the birds from the BELFRY that make such a mess
Speaker 1: of the stone work. I shall make short work of
Speaker 1: them and return post taste. He calls your friend. Huh,
Speaker 1: my name is Nathaniel, or at least it was once.
Speaker 1: Please join me. I had set out for a sharp
Speaker 1: October stroll. I wanted the bracing air and the ripening
Speaker 1: colors all around, nothing more than that. I was young
Speaker 1: then my wife had stayed behind in the cottage where
Speaker 1: we were presently boarding. She was too burdened by the
Speaker 1: fullness of our first child to join me in the wood.
Speaker 1: We were far from home but close to family, a
Speaker 1: necessity for the birth. I became lost so quickly as
Speaker 1: I meandered through the wood, a roof of clouds encroached upon,
Speaker 1: then devoured, the remaining sun and behind it the creeping
Speaker 1: blanket of mist. All sense of time reduced to the
Speaker 1: crunching dead leaves neath my boots and the low panic
Speaker 1: in my chest. I attempted to retrace my steps and failed.
Speaker 1: At some point I emerged onto the road. It wasn't
Speaker 1: so much a road as it was a tunnel of trees,
Speaker 1: but I blessed it all the same. The Path was
Speaker 1: hard packed, wide enough for a coach, and I made
Speaker 1: my way along. Yet telling myself of a refuge was
Speaker 1: not far off. The moon cast blue slivers through the
Speaker 1: foliage and fog. I pictured the haze of gas like
Speaker 1: almost hearing a wash of voices from a pub that
Speaker 1: was shortly drawing nearer. For roads have destinations. They lead
Speaker 1: to towns and to people and to warmth. Instead the
Speaker 1: first true curve of the Path brought into view the
Speaker 1: hers waiting beside the road, the tall spoked wheels of
Speaker 1: here undamaged. speckles of Moonlight revealed a set of red
Speaker 1: curtains drawn closed inside the rear door. As I gazed
Speaker 1: upon this curiously placed her, grateful for the glimpse of civilization,
Speaker 1: from inside came a heavy wooden fud. Then something within
Speaker 1: produced a terrible sound. The fog somehow began to thicken,
Speaker 1: narrowing my focus on this now undulating black box. Then
Speaker 1: the rear door burst over and out from it crawled
Speaker 1: would appeared to be an old woman. She emerged with
Speaker 1: hair hung over her face like a wet gray veil.
Speaker 1: She drew herself to the ground and all fours limbs
Speaker 1: bent like a spider. Her body was terribly withered and thin,
Speaker 1: but it was too long in the darkness I couldn't
Speaker 1: make out if she was naked or if all that
Speaker 1: skin was instead some many jointed fabric trailing after her.
Speaker 1: Her head turned to regard me from within that shroud
Speaker 1: of hair, and then she slipped around the hearse and
Speaker 1: passed into the wall of trees, a white blur guttering
Speaker 1: into the black like a candle. I stood there paralyzed,
Speaker 1: contemplating what I had witnessed, questioning all I had previously
Speaker 1: believed about this natural world and its possibilities, until I
Speaker 1: glimpsed something small and white in the ground where one
Speaker 1: of her hands had rested. I was drawn to it,
Speaker 1: a scrap of paper so rich that it was more
Speaker 1: akin to cloth bearing a strange symbol in rusty ink,
Speaker 1: a shaky horizontal line with three circles joined at the
Speaker 1: right end, like a clover laid on its side. I
Speaker 1: tucked it in my suitcoat pocket, remembering my dear wife
Speaker 1: an hour soon to be child. I gathered all remaining
Speaker 1: courage and set off down the road past that godforsaken
Speaker 1: hearse on I trudged with purpose beyond my own. To
Speaker 1: be with them again, I would have to first survive
Speaker 1: the night. When the trees withdrew at last and the
Speaker 1: structure rose up under a crowd of muddled black sky,
Speaker 1: I could have fallen to my knees. The building looked
Speaker 1: as though it had seen a century of the elements
Speaker 1: and in my mind I kissed each crumbling brick. The
Speaker 1: pub I had envisioned was not in evidence. Nor was
Speaker 1: any hint of a village. The building stood alone amongst
Speaker 1: the trees and the road seemed to be swallowed back
Speaker 1: into the wood. Not Far ahead, somewhere beyond ellen, waited
Speaker 1: for me a lamp sputtered with gas on the pathway,
Speaker 1: next to a signpost missing its side and two of
Speaker 1: the windows I could see wavered with oil light. It
Speaker 1: was civilization, it was something a road led to, and
Speaker 1: my heart swelled. The structure was equally faded. Inside a
Speaker 1: one sumptuous lobby, now threadbare and patched with gloom. A
Speaker 1: large dead fireplace, worn arm chairs, the sense that cobwebs
Speaker 1: had been swept away only moments ago. The smell of
Speaker 1: must and neglect hung in the air. An indistinct man
Speaker 1: stood behind a scarred counter. As I shoveled eagerly toward him,
Speaker 1: tucking my hand into a coat pocket, I realized I
Speaker 1: had set out from our cottage without purse or money.
Speaker 1: I could only produce that inscrutable note the woman in
Speaker 1: the hearse had dropped at the side of it. The
Speaker 1: clerk said, very good sir, you are most locome to
Speaker 1: stay the night. I'm terribly sorry, but it is urgent.
Speaker 1: I contact my wife. Is a telegram possible tomorrow? Certainly
Speaker 1: it's gone midnight now. No luggage. He pressed the key
Speaker 1: into my hand, a cumbersome brass rod with a bow
Speaker 1: formed by three circles touching one another. Room twelve, sir,
Speaker 1: up two flights and to the left. It is easy
Speaker 1: to blame my fatigue, the ache and my legs my
Speaker 1: burning eyes. I scarcely recall feeling any hunger then, though.
Speaker 1: I had not eaten in many hours, but nothing seemed
Speaker 1: so untoward that I could not wait out the night indoors,
Speaker 1: away from those trees and that creature now haunting them.
Speaker 1: I turned back once to ask about it, but the
Speaker 1: man was gone. The buildings, landings and hallways were each
Speaker 1: hung with oil paintings of forests. I stopped by one
Speaker 1: of them, holding aloft the greasy lamp I had been given.
Speaker 1: It was grim, somehow mournful. Art Hunched between trees. A
Speaker 1: glimpse of a Pale figure could be seen, a small
Speaker 1: blob of white brush stroke that I would not have
Speaker 1: recognized an hour ago. A Vanity Mirror stood on a
Speaker 1: small table just inside number twelve. Then a double bed
Speaker 1: halfway between the door and the single window a second
Speaker 1: table bore its hollow candle, and there the inventory of
Speaker 1: furnishings ended. No washstand, no chamber pot. I set the
Speaker 1: oil lamp down next to the mirror, turned its flame
Speaker 1: low and lay on the dead without undressing to save
Speaker 1: my boots. The mattress was hideously uncomfortable, near as unyielding
Speaker 1: as the floor. I sent up a prayer for Ellen
Speaker 1: and our child and I was soon asleep. In spite
Speaker 1: of it all, the low light still tinted the room orange.
Speaker 1: When I woke disoriented, my heart pounding with such force
Speaker 1: I could feel it in my back and in the
Speaker 1: thick red quilt beneath me. I lay waiting for the
Speaker 1: nightmare or whatever had shunted me from sleep to fade
Speaker 1: until calm, until I realized that it was not my
Speaker 1: heart knocking, but something below, something inside the bed. I
Speaker 1: leapt across the room and twisted the lamp bright. When
Speaker 1: again I heard the knock, muffled but resounding, I reached
Speaker 1: forward and pulled the quilt towards me. It slid to
Speaker 1: the floor to reveal not a mattress, my two coffins,
Speaker 1: one nearest me shuddered as something within bumped against it.
Speaker 1: I sprang for the door. It was locked. I fumbled
Speaker 1: for the key, but there was no keyhole on this side.
Speaker 1: I hammered against the frame, but my efforts were to
Speaker 1: no avail. This was no rooming house. It was a
Speaker 1: holding cell. But what was it keeping enclosed? I turned
Speaker 1: back to my discovery. Compelled drawn, I approached the nearest coffin.
Speaker 1: I pulled at the LID until the rusted nails on
Speaker 1: one side gave way through the crack. I saw it.
Speaker 1: Inside lay the old woman from the hearse, her body
Speaker 1: folded in half due to its great length, her limbs
Speaker 1: bent at extra joints, gray hair spilling away from her face,
Speaker 1: her eyes shone with black gloss. She turned them towards
Speaker 1: me and smiled out. I forced him the lid back
Speaker 1: down and knelt upon it, praying my weight would suffice.
Speaker 1: The other coffin was more easily opened. It was not
Speaker 1: sealed with nails. Contained a man as withered as his mate,
Speaker 1: but clearly dyed. A mist of dark blood stippled the
Speaker 1: Pine Wall. With each rasping breath, his eyes crept up
Speaker 1: but could not stay focused on mine. I closed his
Speaker 1: lid and lay across both coffins awaiting the light of morning,
Speaker 1: but morning never came. That night never ended. It merely
Speaker 1: has electric lights. Now it has elongated itself and will
Speaker 1: continue along gating the roof of clouds that ate the sun.
Speaker 1: That night never gave it back. The creature not in
Speaker 1: to be let out, kept him with her these long years.
Speaker 1: She kept me weak and fed me in this endless dark.
Speaker 1: She let me sit at the window from which I
Speaker 1: have witnessed other strange sights. There is no key hole
Speaker 1: on this side of the door. I withered too far
Speaker 1: here to the end of my companionship, but finally I
Speaker 1: have found my predecessor. You seem a hail fellow. I
Speaker 1: do not think it will help you, but take this
Speaker 1: morsel of hope while it still has a taste. I
Speaker 1: am an old, wasted thing now, but you have been called.
Speaker 1: Your arrival here means that I can sleep at last. Ah,
Speaker 1: this is all so very expected. That, Daniel. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to steal my friend away now. Don't Fret, I'll
Speaker 1: be back field my lootine now. I trust you've learned
Speaker 1: something new. Well, add this little morsel of knowledge to
Speaker 1: the feast. The trap doors in the north tower were
Speaker 1: built not as an entertainment but as it means to
Speaker 1: an end. They were the architect's first attempt at building
Speaker 1: the ascension door. As a matter of fact, much of
Speaker 1: what we have discovered along the way point towards this pursuit.
Speaker 1: We have four more nights, dear friend, we must use
Speaker 1: them well and with that, and once again take my leave,
Speaker 1: enjoy the rest of your evening here at Hawthorne Manner
Speaker 1: and try not to obsess over the construction of the
Speaker 1: north tower. There will be plenty of time for that later. You.
Speaker 1: Thirteen days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and executive produced by Aaron Manky, starring Keegan
Speaker 1: Michael Key as the caretaker. Today's story was written by
Speaker 1: Michael we hunt, performed by Ben Bolan and directed by
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, with editing and sound designed by Trevor Young,
Speaker 1: additional writing and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski. Only four
Speaker 1: days remain. Tomorrow another story. They held my skeletal hand
Speaker 1: and looked at me through glassy eyes, searching for some
Speaker 1: sign of my former self and the tiny sliver of
Speaker 1: a human thing hidden underneath a heaping pile of blankets
Speaker 1: and they cried and they mourned and one by one
Speaker 1: they confessed. Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart radio, Blumhouse television and Grimm and mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey. For more podcasts from my heart radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. And learn more about thirteen
Speaker 1: days of Halloween at GRIMM AND MILD DOT COM