Speaker 1: M twelve Ghosts is a production of I Heeart three
Speaker 1: D audio and grim and mild from Aaron Banky Headphones.
Speaker 1: Recommended listener discretion advised. Out of the bosom of the air,
Speaker 1: out of the cloud, folds of her garments, shaken over
Speaker 1: the woodland's brown and bear over the harvest fields forsaken,
Speaker 1: silent and soft and slow, descends the snow. But we
Speaker 1: are warm here inside. Who are you? I'm the innkeeper, now, Annabel,
Speaker 1: who are you? More wine? I think the Romans called
Speaker 1: this conditum paradox um, and it was a bitter brew,
Speaker 1: but it fortified the soul all the same, warmed the body, relaxed,
Speaker 1: the mind, loosened the tongue. Over time, recipes changed based
Speaker 1: on what was available, and eventually, praise all that is good.
Speaker 1: It became palatable. But it doesn't matter, does it. The
Speaker 1: spirit is still the same. So to speak. We fill
Speaker 1: ourselves with the warming spices and alcohol courses through our veins,
Speaker 1: and for a little while at least we forget the
Speaker 1: cold wind rattling the windows. M Look at the time,
Speaker 1: will you? Oh? We should be expecting our next guest
Speaker 1: right about huh, Well, pardon me, won't you good evening traveler.
Speaker 1: I've been expecting you come in. I was, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: It's so fine. Please sit. This is Annabelle. Hello. We
Speaker 1: were just having a nice warm cup of mulled wine.
Speaker 1: Would you like to join us knock a little of
Speaker 1: the chill off your bones? Yes? Yes, thank you. Annabelle
Speaker 1: and I were just discussing the history of drunkenness of
Speaker 1: in a warmth. Here join us. Thank you. Something troubles you? Noel?
Speaker 1: Have we met? We've not, but I've read your name
Speaker 1: in my ledger earlier. Oh what is it that weighs
Speaker 1: on your mind? I have a question, please, How does
Speaker 1: one know if they've encountered something supernatural? Are are signs
Speaker 1: spectral symptoms? Or are we ready made with just some
Speaker 1: base human instinct where we can like smell the lack
Speaker 1: of blood in their hollow little veins. I can't smell anything.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Homer, Alaska? Folks call it
Speaker 1: the end of the road. One way in, one way out,
Speaker 1: and you have to really try to get there. You
Speaker 1: don't just stumble upon it blindly. You have to seek
Speaker 1: out the finite ends of things in this world. There
Speaker 1: aren't many of them. And Homer is one of those few.
Speaker 1: The town looks like a postcar it mountain back drops
Speaker 1: nestled right up against the sea. Thousands are small and
Speaker 1: candy colored. The air feels like cold nourishment, and I
Speaker 1: see snake nuzzling your lungs, reminding you of the life
Speaker 1: somersaulting through your body. If there's a heaven, it looks
Speaker 1: like Homer. It's a small town, beautiful but small, just
Speaker 1: over five thousand residents. Now, five thousand sounds like a
Speaker 1: big number until you realize that you know everything there
Speaker 1: is to know about each and every one of your neighbors.
Speaker 1: Which ones are cheating with which other ones, who's hiding
Speaker 1: their drinking problem, who's not hiding their drinking problem, and
Speaker 1: which ones came all the way to some tiny village
Speaker 1: to start a new life where no one would come looking.
Speaker 1: Now that last one, that's most of them. No shame
Speaker 1: in it. I believe most people think about disappearing at
Speaker 1: one point or another, leaving all of your possessions and
Speaker 1: loved ones behind. The Residents of Homer were just brave
Speaker 1: enough to pull the trigger and actually do it. You've
Speaker 1: thought about doing it too, haven't you? Or you're thinking
Speaker 1: about it now, at least just you alone, staring down
Speaker 1: the end of the road. M HM. I used to
Speaker 1: work the overnight shift at the Sheriff's Office rookie officer,
Speaker 1: which in this sense means I was essentially a glorified
Speaker 1: night porter. In all my time there, not one person
Speaker 1: had ever been brought in late night. So naturally it
Speaker 1: took me off guard when I found a stranger in
Speaker 1: the holding cell halfway through my shift on a blustery
Speaker 1: Tuesday evening, Dan, I'm near scared the iron right out
Speaker 1: of my blood. No clue how long he had been
Speaker 1: in there. There was no intake paperwork, no note from
Speaker 1: the previous guard, just a sallow husk of an older man, gaunt,
Speaker 1: his face patchy and red, chewed raw by the cracked
Speaker 1: teeth of Alaskan winter air. He was thoroughly dehydrated, his
Speaker 1: muscles and veins popping from his frame like a failed
Speaker 1: escape Trapped to his body by only the worn elasticity
Speaker 1: of his paper skin. The man was haggard, chased by
Speaker 1: a massive debt of sleep. His eyes were open, though
Speaker 1: yellow and bloodshot, as they were tracking my movements. As
Speaker 1: I stepped closer to peer into his cell like he
Speaker 1: was some diseased animal and a roadside zoo. I thought
Speaker 1: it was a simple enough question, jen what's your name?
Speaker 1: The man blinked at me, a whirlpool of delirium behind
Speaker 1: his eyes. He opened his mouth, moved his lips around
Speaker 1: a series of words, but soundlessly, like someone had put
Speaker 1: the old bastard right on mute. Most unsettling thing I'd
Speaker 1: ever seen at that stage of the night. Anyway, I repeated, sir,
Speaker 1: what is your name? And there he went, moving his
Speaker 1: mouth again. But this time I thought maybe I could
Speaker 1: hear something buzzing deep in his gullet, like a tiny
Speaker 1: faction of bees. I'm having a little trouble hearing you,
Speaker 1: I said, Can you come a little closer? He stood,
Speaker 1: wavering on his feet and shuffle toreward to the bars
Speaker 1: of the cell. I planned my feet firm and pulled
Speaker 1: my shoulders back. I'm not a big woman, but I've
Speaker 1: learned how to fake stature in my time. I asked
Speaker 1: him a third time, can you tell me your name?
Speaker 1: This time I could confirm the man was indeed speaking.
Speaker 1: He sounded like a recording of a recording put on
Speaker 1: the lowest volume setting. And trapped in a tin can,
Speaker 1: he said. His lips continued crawling around the shape of
Speaker 1: his words long after the sentence fell from his mouth,
Speaker 1: like a poorly dubbed movie, and then he jerked a
Speaker 1: purple hand into his multi jeans pocket and pulled out
Speaker 1: his wallet for me. I d red Kyle Gibbert, Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: I told old Kyle he was quite a ways from home,
Speaker 1: and in that staticy, faraway voice, he simply repeated, I
Speaker 1: mean no offense to our host, but this wine tastes
Speaker 1: like the forgotten dreams of a used up band aid.
Speaker 1: It's weak as hell. You water it down. Oh, I
Speaker 1: would never, but go on. I could probably stand to
Speaker 1: drink more water anyways, So I put Mr Gilbert into
Speaker 1: our database. Turns out he'd been missing since and was
Speaker 1: officially pronounced dead seven years later. Funny thing. The man
Speaker 1: prowling around in that cell like a feral animal only
Speaker 1: looked half dead to me. But this wasn't the first
Speaker 1: time someone new showed up in Homer to disappear. So
Speaker 1: I ran a full background check. No jobs, no residences,
Speaker 1: no taxes, paid nothing at all to indicate that Kyle
Speaker 1: Gilbert should be standing here in front of me, sucking
Speaker 1: in the air that was intended only for the living.
Speaker 1: I asked if he went by any other aliases, but
Speaker 1: through that same thick, mismatched static, he wheezed again. I
Speaker 1: just need to waste m hm. So I did the
Speaker 1: next logical thing. I called his estranged wife in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, woke her plumb up and asked,
Speaker 1: Mrs Gilbert, I swear to God, you never heard the
Speaker 1: grog drop from somebody's voice faster in your life. Set
Speaker 1: me straighter than spider silk. Mrs Gilbert made it very
Speaker 1: clear that she did not go by that name anymore.
Speaker 1: I older that I had Kyle with me, thirty miles
Speaker 1: away in a dinky, little drunk tank at the end
Speaker 1: of the road. Kyle, my Kayle, she asked. I checked
Speaker 1: the idea again. The little picture showed a healthy young man,
Speaker 1: handsome by some standards, life coursing through his cheeks and
Speaker 1: hanging plump around his face and neck. This thing in
Speaker 1: the cage across from me bore no resemblance. But before
Speaker 1: I could say so, the woman on the line told
Speaker 1: me she had long since made peace with the death
Speaker 1: of her husband, and she'd take legal action if harassment
Speaker 1: of this nature were to continue, and even if he
Speaker 1: were alive, she didn't want him no more. She was done,
Speaker 1: moved on, remarried and all and then click, she was gone,
Speaker 1: and Kyle Gibbert was fully my problem. A saggy gray
Speaker 1: holding cell ain't no proper place to get a good
Speaker 1: night's eap. I knew nobody else would be coming in
Speaker 1: that night, and I knew what it's like to turn
Speaker 1: up brand new for the first day in a fresh life.
Speaker 1: Second chances are everything. We don't judge or ask questions.
Speaker 1: And Homer, you want to wander out of your Los
Speaker 1: Angeles apartment, disappear off the face of the earth, convinced
Speaker 1: the world you're dead, then show up nearly ten years later,
Speaker 1: ready to start all over. Well, I suppose I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you a warm bed to sleep in that night,
Speaker 1: and a hot cup of coffee in the morning to
Speaker 1: get you on your way. It's the neighborly thing to do.
Speaker 1: The world looked different walking beside Kyle on the way
Speaker 1: back to my home. I remember thinking, maybe I just
Speaker 1: never really paid attention to the world. At night, Those
Speaker 1: candy colored houses dulled to mute shades of their daytime glory.
Speaker 1: In the shadows. I could feel the wind sawing at
Speaker 1: the tip of my nose, but couldn't hear it's normally
Speaker 1: persistent whale, and the snow that dripped from the sky
Speaker 1: white crystall line fluffs during the day smeared like ash
Speaker 1: on my fingertips under the moon's two tone pallor. Kyle's
Speaker 1: mouth moved wordlessly as we walked, a steady drone of
Speaker 1: static buzzing from his windpipe. At one point he threw
Speaker 1: his head back, mouth wide, his throat undulating with the
Speaker 1: heft of a screeching, feedback laden belly laugh. He quieted
Speaker 1: contemn wide smile on his sunken, cracked face. I lived
Speaker 1: alone in a cozy one bedroom. A rookie sheriff's salary
Speaker 1: doesn't buy any much, but what I had suited me
Speaker 1: just fine. Besides, the overstuffed couch stationed in my living
Speaker 1: room had seen its share of wayward visitors, and it's
Speaker 1: time never once with any complaint. I layered the cushions
Speaker 1: a thousand blankets deep and fluffed my finest down pillows
Speaker 1: for my guest. But Kyle stood frozen in the door
Speaker 1: frame flickering underneath the faulty porch light. I took him
Speaker 1: by the hand to lead him inside, cold, his fingers
Speaker 1: rigid like they had snap under the pressure of my
Speaker 1: gentlest touch. The winters are harsh and home. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's get you to sleep, I whispered to Kyle. I
Speaker 1: just me to rest, to spell. He crackled. The chill
Speaker 1: of the next morning woke me earlier than usual. I
Speaker 1: thought the pilot light must have gone out at some
Speaker 1: point in the middle of the night. I bowled on
Speaker 1: my thickest robe and warmest house shoes, hoping that the
Speaker 1: veritable sauna I'd created out of blankets had been enough
Speaker 1: to keep Kyle Gibert warm on the couch that to
Speaker 1: no one's real surprise, Kyle wasn't there. The blankets were
Speaker 1: pulled tight and ducked in, completely undisturbed aside from their wetness,
Speaker 1: damp and freezing cold like, Kyle was nothing but a
Speaker 1: man shaped block of ice that had melted right through
Speaker 1: the sofa into the floorboards, absorbed into earth itself. Mh.
Speaker 1: I didn't go back to work after that, never called
Speaker 1: in or gave any notice. I just walked right past
Speaker 1: the sheriff station, and kept on walking. They call Homer
Speaker 1: the end of the road. One way in, one way out.
Speaker 1: I never tried walking past the end of the road
Speaker 1: before until that next day. The sky was overcast, blinding white,
Speaker 1: perfectly camouflaged against a new layer of fresh snow, impossible
Speaker 1: to tell where the ground ended and the sky began.
Speaker 1: And then in all that whiteness, night fell, and everything
Speaker 1: blotted out into an inky abyss there and then nothing.
Speaker 1: There was something, the buzzing of a tiny faction of
Speaker 1: best Kyle Gilbert's feedback laden laughter. And there were others too,
Speaker 1: Recordings of recordings of droning, indecipherable whisper spattered through the dark,
Speaker 1: static e siren songs for me to follow. So I did,
Speaker 1: and then well you know where this is going, sparked
Speaker 1: from the void. There was suddenly a beacon of light,
Speaker 1: of flickering orange flame through thick tempered glass windows and
Speaker 1: olden you all hunkered down inside. Oh yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to say, it's been so nice meeting all of you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I think the Knight's caught up with me
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. I'm who's so tired? That's all right, though,
Speaker 1: I'll be better. I just need to rest a spell.
Speaker 1: You've come a very very long way, Noel, and it
Speaker 1: just so happens that you've arrived at the very best
Speaker 1: place to rest. Yes, good, I happen to have here
Speaker 1: a beautiful key, simple brass, polished to shine, an older key,
Speaker 1: hollow barrel, and baroque bow, one of my favorites. It
Speaker 1: belongs to a door on the second all the second
Speaker 1: door on the left. On the other side is the
Speaker 1: very thing that you have come to find. I'll give
Speaker 1: it to you. I hope that it will suffice. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Go now, Noel, good night, good night? Ah Now where
Speaker 1: were we? Oh? The wine? We were talking about the wine,
Speaker 1: and before that you were going to tell me your story?
Speaker 1: Was I I do believe so I don't recall agreeing
Speaker 1: to that. Oh well, I must be mistaken. But the
Speaker 1: night is long, Annabelle, and there is more than enough time.
Speaker 1: The True Out Twelve Ghosts, starring Malcolm McDowell as the
Speaker 1: Innkeeper and Gina Rikiki as Annabelle. Episode two, rest a
Speaker 1: Spell written by Zoe Cooper with additional writing by Nicholas Takowski,
Speaker 1: editing by Chris Childs and Stephen Perez featuring Suhila E.
Speaker 1: Young as Noel. Directed by Nicholas Takowski. Original score and
Speaker 1: sound design by Chris Childs. Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: Alexander Williams and Nicholas Takowski. Supervising producer Josh Stain. Producers
Speaker 1: Chris Child's and Stephen Perez. Casting by Sunday Bowling c
Speaker 1: s A and Meg Mormon cs A. Production coordinator Wayna Calderon.
Speaker 1: Recorded at Lantern Audio in Atlanta, Georgia, engineered by Chris
Speaker 1: Gardner Arrows Sound and recording in Ojai, California, engineered by
Speaker 1: Ken Arrows. Twelve Ghosts was created by Nicholas Takoski. Then
Speaker 1: is a production of i Heeart three D Audio and
Speaker 1: Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Learn more about the
Speaker 1: show at Grim and Mild dot com and find more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio by visiting the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.