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: mankey headphones recommended. Listener discretion advised. You heard them, didn't you?
Speaker 1: Sorry to startle you, friend. They're always luring people up here.
Speaker 1: Listen to me, luring. They only want someone to play with.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the attic. I have to admit, friend, that
Speaker 1: this is not my favorite space. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I avoid it like the plague. Despite the toys and
Speaker 1: the picture books, this was not a happy place. The
Speaker 1: architect only had one child, a daughter, and she was
Speaker 1: grown before this attic was ever designated as a place
Speaker 1: for children. Many years ago there was a great fire
Speaker 1: at the Corn Hill orphanage. Many perished and a few
Speaker 1: that survived had neither a home left nor any one
Speaker 1: to care for them. At the urging of the local
Speaker 1: parish priest, our architect took in the five remaining orphans,
Speaker 1: designating this attic as their space. As his staff scrambled
Speaker 1: to find someone to care for them, a great stroke
Speaker 1: of luck, a man appeared at the front gate offering
Speaker 1: his services as tutor. Without so much as asking his references,
Speaker 1: he was allowed in after so much chaos from the attic.
Speaker 1: The quiet that followed seemed to be quite the blessing
Speaker 1: for all downstairs. With the children's apparent welfare provided for,
Speaker 1: they were promptly forgotten about. That is until one day
Speaker 1: one of the maids noticed a strange stain growing on
Speaker 1: the ceiling of the room located below the children's attic.
Speaker 1: The scene, as you imagine, was not pretty. And as
Speaker 1: for the children's tutor, well, Mr Fish was not seen
Speaker 1: again for a long, long time. The children keep luring
Speaker 1: on witting people up here, though they must get so
Speaker 1: lonely at year's an on witting guests. Now, Yvonne, I
Speaker 1: almost didn't notice you there something to attend to. I
Speaker 1: trust that the two of you can keep each other
Speaker 1: company for a bit. Sure, actually, I always liked the
Speaker 1: piece of it. The graveyard shift at Blue Star gas
Speaker 1: was long and lonely, so I'd spent hours not doing
Speaker 1: much of anything. Occasionally I will look outside keep an
Speaker 1: eye on the pumps. I would also glance at the cameras.
Speaker 1: But thinking back, I always heard the customers before I
Speaker 1: saw them, and they came in, I usually kept the
Speaker 1: headphones on. I rang up their coffee and gas and
Speaker 1: pretzels and six packs, while I listened to podcasts or
Speaker 1: the latest news about the Wakefield crusher. Or sometimes I
Speaker 1: would just keep the headphones in with nothing playing at all,
Speaker 1: because I saw the customers but they did not see me.
Speaker 1: Something I thought about a lot back then. How many
Speaker 1: people are invisible in our day to day lives? The
Speaker 1: men trimming hedges by the roadside, that lady handing you
Speaker 1: a milkshake at the drive through, people like me behind
Speaker 1: a counter selling snacks and lotto tickets. It's like the
Speaker 1: gas station is a machine and I was a piece
Speaker 1: of it. I was a ghost. We all are at
Speaker 1: some point in our lives. One day you realize no
Speaker 1: one has seen you, really looked at you in hours
Speaker 1: or months or years, and you realize I am invisible,
Speaker 1: I am a ghost and this body, this life I inhabit,
Speaker 1: it's nothing but another haunted house. I had regulars and
Speaker 1: one offers. Folks from town tended to show up for
Speaker 1: the same things around the same time. Truckers gassing up
Speaker 1: for the weak, state troopers in the late hours, stopping
Speaker 1: by for Lado and energy drinks. Then the one offers.
Speaker 1: I call them that because they were usually one exit
Speaker 1: off from where they meant to be. You'd get out
Speaker 1: of towners on the way to family or someone in
Speaker 1: a rental car or college kids on a road trip,
Speaker 1: or once in a while you'd get the other ones.
Speaker 1: Most people have been about seven minutes in a gas station,
Speaker 1: longer if they're taking a ship. That evening I had
Speaker 1: seen the usual mix, which is to say not many.
Speaker 1: I looked out at the pumps. I could see the
Speaker 1: bridge across the turn off. How the moon was waxing
Speaker 1: above it. I wondered idly if it would rain. The
Speaker 1: fat man sitting by the coffee machine had asked if
Speaker 1: he could sit down. Before he did he said it
Speaker 1: was a full twenty four hour drive from Charleston. When
Speaker 1: you drove like him, all back roads, he said, the
Speaker 1: road rides you. May I sit stretch my legs? I
Speaker 1: remember thinking how odd he was, from his speech to
Speaker 1: his tiny movements, sometimes like a bird, sometimes like a cat,
Speaker 1: how strange he looked, slowly stretching his legs like an
Speaker 1: athlete warming up for a race. Coffee is over there,
Speaker 1: I said. Dan Checked in just before midnight, buying an
Speaker 1: energy drink and two scratchers fit late for a pick
Speaker 1: me up, I said. Do you think? He said, but
Speaker 1: never us for the wicked. He sighed, a hand on
Speaker 1: his gun belt. Have you seen those college kids out? Yvonne,
Speaker 1: I hadn't yet, but there's a long road between midnight
Speaker 1: and dawn. You've seen any crazies tonight? I could tell
Speaker 1: by the way he asked. Those holesting kids must be out.
Speaker 1: And the fat man said you see any crazies out tonight?
Speaker 1: In a weird voice. Dan Looked at me, hands walking, squawked.
Speaker 1: I'll step back in a few he said. You all
Speaker 1: be safe. The fat man giggled. He said really low,
Speaker 1: like he's talking to himself. We'll all be safe. I
Speaker 1: wondered if he was on drugs. Mr I said, are
Speaker 1: you gonna pay for that coffee? Oh yes, I apologize.
Speaker 1: Needed to rest these bones. It's been a long drive, Yvonne,
Speaker 1: was it? He looked at me when he talked to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I couldn't help but look back. Do you
Speaker 1: have any frozen burritos here, he asked, and I said sure,
Speaker 1: down to the right past the soda. I've never had
Speaker 1: a chicken Green Chili Barrito. How exotic, he said. Is
Speaker 1: there a charge to use the microwave? No charge, I said,
Speaker 1: but are you going to eat all those here? He said.
Speaker 1: It's a good question, he said, that's the best part. No,
Speaker 1: I have to choose, and our choices follow us. Do
Speaker 1: we dare disturb the universe? Do we eat experience? Does
Speaker 1: experience eat us? Does the tongue taste, the eye envision itself?
Speaker 1: Definitely drugs, I thought. I remembered I was still wearing headphones.
Speaker 1: I took one out. Sign look, I said, I'm Vegan.
Speaker 1: The burritos are two for one and I've never tried them. Yes,
Speaker 1: he said, Chicken Green Chili it is, and these two
Speaker 1: as well as the coffee. He walked back to the
Speaker 1: booth by them microwave and hot dogs. He unwrapped the
Speaker 1: Burritos and I heard the punch of numbers. I heard
Speaker 1: him crowd into the booth. I felt his eyes again
Speaker 1: upon me and I thought about how strange it is
Speaker 1: to be seen. Well, I pretended to listen to something else.
Speaker 1: The microwave hummed and the fat man said, in a
Speaker 1: calm voice like an ocean, that everyone, at some point
Speaker 1: in their life, is beautiful. Sometimes, he said, they are
Speaker 1: beautiful for years decades. Sometimes a person shines when they
Speaker 1: reach sixty one years old, he says, sometimes eleven. Sometimes
Speaker 1: newborn children open their eyes and see the sun or
Speaker 1: a bright blue star in the darkness and they think
Speaker 1: it sees them as well and they smile and they
Speaker 1: are beautiful. For some people, he said, it's a day,
Speaker 1: a night on the water, a graduation walk, a glory.
Speaker 1: That was their room or some people at a moment,
Speaker 1: and they often do not see it when it happens.
Speaker 1: To see it, to be seen. They look back years
Speaker 1: later and they think I was beautiful. We can be
Speaker 1: beautiful too. I remember reading comic books when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. I like spider man mainly because of his
Speaker 1: weirdest power. The spider sense and something bad is about
Speaker 1: to happen. Spider man gets these vibes. They shoot from
Speaker 1: his head in squiggly lines. He ducks or jumps or
Speaker 1: shoots a web just in time. I thought a lot
Speaker 1: of US people working late and alone, women especially, I
Speaker 1: always thought we learned something like that. I was getting
Speaker 1: that feeling. Nothing was happening. The fat man wasn't saying anything.
Speaker 1: He was just humming again to the radio. I felt
Speaker 1: his eyes on me it chew slowly, staring. It was
Speaker 1: a sensation of some invisible pressure rising, that tick, tick
Speaker 1: tick in the air. I should text someone, I thought.
Speaker 1: The hair is on the nape of my neck leaned
Speaker 1: back and up. I couldn't remember the last time someone
Speaker 1: looked at me, like saw me. I felt the gaze,
Speaker 1: the sensation of something sliding along me, a touch of
Speaker 1: ghostly hands across my throat. I heard my own heart beat, thoughting,
Speaker 1: loud and distant, as if in another moment. Part of
Speaker 1: me is still in that moment. Part of me will
Speaker 1: always be here and it will always be now. Suddenly
Speaker 1: I was praying for someone to come in. Dan's winging
Speaker 1: back by lost one offers one. The next few seconds
Speaker 1: were a blur. I was still in a daze when
Speaker 1: the two men stepped inside. At first I didn't notice
Speaker 1: the guns. It was like underwater, swimming up to the surface,
Speaker 1: back up, screaming of the men, back up and I
Speaker 1: shot ripped through the ceiling. For a moment I couldn't
Speaker 1: hear it, but I thought I must be screaming everyone down.
Speaker 1: The man said, and I realized he must be screaming too.
Speaker 1: He got closer and I saw his wild eyes, looking
Speaker 1: everywhere at once, babbling, saying register, get the register. Move
Speaker 1: I'm going. I tried to say. I'm going. You two,
Speaker 1: fat boy, said one of the men. Get down. I
Speaker 1: turned for the first time to look at the fat man.
Speaker 1: He was chewing a Burrito, smiling. Sure, I'll just finish
Speaker 1: my burrito first. Shut your damn mouth. Already watched the door.
Speaker 1: There's no call for profanity. I was looking at the
Speaker 1: second robber, the one who must have been already and
Speaker 1: he was holding his gun close, peering through the glass
Speaker 1: of the gas station front entrance. I kept trying to
Speaker 1: open the register, but my hands were trembling. He was
Speaker 1: turning back and yelling last chance, fat boy, the ground now,
Speaker 1: get on the ground. Oh, said the fat man. I
Speaker 1: don't think I will. He sounded cheerful, like a kid
Speaker 1: saying they're going to get out early for summer. At
Speaker 1: pressure I was talking about earlier. It felt suddenly dense
Speaker 1: in the room, dense and cold. I finally pulled a
Speaker 1: register free and the first robber was leaning back over
Speaker 1: the counter, gun in my face, jabbing it at me.
Speaker 1: When I saw one enormous hand grabbed his neck from behind.
Speaker 1: It's strange what we remember. I kept thinking, look at that,
Speaker 1: he bites his nails, he must be so hungry all
Speaker 1: the time. And I heard of and the robber's body
Speaker 1: went slack, his eyebrows knitted up. He opened his mouth
Speaker 1: like he had to ask me some terrible question, and
Speaker 1: his eyes widened as if he saw the answer. And
Speaker 1: I watched the fat man put his face right up
Speaker 1: against the robbers, almost nose to nose. He was holding
Speaker 1: the robber up with his other hand, like cradling him.
Speaker 1: Talking very softly at first. He said, look at me,
Speaker 1: look at me. The robber was gurgling a low, wet wheeze.
Speaker 1: Very are my beautiful boy, said the fat man. The
Speaker 1: fat man squeezed the robber's neck and took his other
Speaker 1: hand and he dug out the robber's eyes. What the
Speaker 1: said the second robber. He was standing by the door.
Speaker 1: He must have been on drugs, and maybe the fat
Speaker 1: man thought so too, because he dropped the first robber's
Speaker 1: body and said shooting the do it like he was
Speaker 1: at a restaurant and suggesting we split in order of
Speaker 1: French fries for the table. Get Down, said the second robber. Already,
Speaker 1: I will put a bullet between your eyes, and the
Speaker 1: fat man said, will you like? He was curious. I
Speaker 1: see you, I see you. Defied you already. He put
Speaker 1: one of the eyes in his mouth. He must be
Speaker 1: so hungry all the time. Well, here's your chance. He
Speaker 1: chewed the eyeball. The second man already. He said, you
Speaker 1: crazy mother, and his hand was shaking. Whether from the
Speaker 1: speed or the fear, I didn't know, but I thought,
Speaker 1: at this distance he will miss. Then the fat man.
Speaker 1: He started dancing, he giggled and he hopped from one
Speaker 1: foot to another, watching Artie's gunhand. He's saying while he danced,
Speaker 1: the weight of him Jiggling as he hot from one
Speaker 1: foot to the next, what will you do, what will
Speaker 1: you do? What will you do? He danced slow back
Speaker 1: and forth over the other robbers, eyeless body. What will
Speaker 1: you do, what will you do? What a duck. But
Speaker 1: I know the gun shop. Next I closed my eyes
Speaker 1: for the stamp of feet and grappling. I heard the cracking,
Speaker 1: the crunching. I heard the hand. I do not see.
Speaker 1: I heard him again. He's whispering, sh sh those beautiful
Speaker 1: blue lies. Your parents must be so proud. I knew
Speaker 1: what was happening. You can hear a sound like that
Speaker 1: just once and always no, then nothing, just the radio
Speaker 1: through the store speakers a million miles away. I held
Speaker 1: my phone, squinting at the screen. Nine I pushed, then one,
Speaker 1: then one, and Yvonne, can you hear me? My Thom
Speaker 1: betrayed me. I was trying to hold my breath. I
Speaker 1: closed my eyes, dreamed. I was invisible. I was curled
Speaker 1: up in a ball. I had the phone in my hand,
Speaker 1: but not to my ear. The Fat man knew the way.
Speaker 1: He knew already. Wouldn't shoot. He and those like him
Speaker 1: have their own sense of spiders. I kept thinking about
Speaker 1: that hand, the fingernails, the eyes. I couldn't stop shaking,
Speaker 1: and I also could not move my thumb, and it
Speaker 1: would not sh don't he look, not yet. I have
Speaker 1: a gift for you. His arm moved above me. Cold
Speaker 1: up close, he smelled like a thunderstorm. I heard and Jesus,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, and I oh, Jesus, sorry, Jesus please, my
Speaker 1: thumb wouldn't move in fair now they're blue as the
Speaker 1: blameless guy. One. Are you one for me? We see
Speaker 1: each other now. He leaned down, nose against my ear,
Speaker 1: one day you will be beautiful too. Come by you
Speaker 1: fre I felt him walk away, the wet, slow squish
Speaker 1: of his shoes on the floor. I heard the door Chine.
Speaker 1: I heard my heart beat far, far away. I closed
Speaker 1: my eyes, my thumb slipped into the night and the
Speaker 1: call went through. Blue Star and whispering at first two
Speaker 1: and two Maple Street. Blue Star, Blue Star the gas station.
Speaker 1: If you drive there now, you'll see Perry's, but the
Speaker 1: Blue Star moved. You'll see an empty field, just trash
Speaker 1: and grass next to the intersection. I can't remember things
Speaker 1: so much now. It's fuzzy. They said I was crazy,
Speaker 1: but I know something they won't tell you. The eyes.
Speaker 1: No one asked me about them. I was a ghost seeing,
Speaker 1: but I I kept some thing. Look, do you see? Yeah, blue, blue,
Speaker 1: as the blame with guy. I see into it now.
Speaker 1: He sees me, he sees you, and he says one
Speaker 1: day he only beautiful too. I trust that Vonne told
Speaker 1: you her tale. Perhaps it's why she spends so much
Speaker 1: time here in the attic. I think she takes comfort
Speaker 1: among the invisibility these days. Come, let us go. There
Speaker 1: are still many mysteries to uncover here at Hawthorne Manner,
Speaker 1: and I do very much hope that you will continue
Speaker 1: to assist me as we draw Evan nearer to the
Speaker 1: door which we seek. I can see in your eyes
Speaker 1: the anticipation. Alas, I fear I'll be gathering the children
Speaker 1: all evening. They are fond of mischief. If you happen
Speaker 1: to find any toys under your bed this evening, leave
Speaker 1: them there. They should be gone by morning. That's you,
Speaker 1: my friend. Parting is, as always, such a sweet sorrow.
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: Ben Boland, performed by Megan Perry and directed by Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: with editing and sound designed by Ben Kybrick, additional writing
Speaker 1: and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski casting by Skaloosa. Only
Speaker 1: seven days remain. Tomorrow another story. I stepped out of
Speaker 1: the real world and into somewhere else. I was on
Speaker 1: the ocean floor, holding my breath in the hull of
Speaker 1: a sunken ship. I felt pressure crushing in on me
Speaker 1: and it was very dim the entire world was gray
Speaker 1: and heavy and I could barely move. I walked through
Speaker 1: the door of something that looked like a vault and
Speaker 1: there was a flash of light and I was staring
Speaker 1: at rows of long, sharp teeth, all curving in different directions.
Speaker 1: Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Speaker 1: Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron Mankey. 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 grim and mild dot com.