Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween Penance, a co production of iHeart
Speaker 1: three D Audio Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Nankey. Headphones recommended, Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: What is there to say about prison life that hasn't
Speaker 2: been said a million times before? It is so boring.
Speaker 3: Likes up on your feet, the same shit every.
Speaker 4: Day you again, move along.
Speaker 3: I imagine some people thrive on that routine.
Speaker 4: Checkmate.
Speaker 1: Not if I move here, checkmate, still.
Speaker 3: Know and that it beats down those who fight back.
Speaker 5: Checkmate.
Speaker 6: No, that's oh darn.
Speaker 3: They say.
Speaker 2: The pen gets everyone eventually, either by force or attrition.
Speaker 3: What's nuke all? My question is what are they after?
Speaker 1: It's your turn to share today, sireen.
Speaker 3: But I don't have anything to say.
Speaker 5: How does that make you feel?
Speaker 2: If they can keep us physically detained, I'm going if
Speaker 2: they have ways to enter our minds.
Speaker 7: Any side effects from the medication.
Speaker 3: Makes me sick to my stomach. Maybe time to up
Speaker 3: your dosage. What's left but the soul?
Speaker 7: Take and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding,
Speaker 7: and my entire will. All I have and all my
Speaker 7: own You have given all to me.
Speaker 2: I swear no matter what, I refuse to submit choice.
Speaker 3: But I also wonder how long can I hold out?
Speaker 2: Already I'm starting to lose track of time, Identical days
Speaker 2: turning into identical weeks, filling identical months against a clock
Speaker 2: and calendar that I have no reason to trust. I
Speaker 2: wonder what is all this time doing to me? How
Speaker 2: is it changing me?
Speaker 5: Has something changed about you?
Speaker 3: Well, I've practically quit smoking.
Speaker 5: Good for you.
Speaker 2: I've started going to church at least more regularly. I noticed,
Speaker 2: and well, I was just so angry when I got here.
Speaker 2: I'm still angry, furious. Actually, if I could, I'd trample
Speaker 2: those guards, break straight through the wall, burn this whole
Speaker 2: place of the ground, and never look back.
Speaker 5: But something's changed.
Speaker 2: Well, that kind of rage was hurting more than it
Speaker 2: was helping me specifically, And if the anger isn't gone,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a little more contained.
Speaker 7: If you were to give it a word, would it
Speaker 7: be fair to say patience?
Speaker 3: I hate to think that I'm just waiting around. That
Speaker 3: makes me feel so weak.
Speaker 7: I would say it demonstrates tremendous strength. Whoever is patient
Speaker 7: has great understanding, But one who is quick tempered displays folly.
Speaker 2: But understanding about what how to marchin a line, what
Speaker 2: not to eat in the cafeteria, who to avoid contact
Speaker 2: with if you don't want a knight stick to the gut.
Speaker 7: Maybe a more personal understanding. Humans have an innate desire
Speaker 7: for control over their own lives. It's a fallacy, really,
Speaker 7: but even the sense of control can be powerful. The
Speaker 7: freedom to make your own choices, to set your own
Speaker 7: goals can come to define your very identity. So what
Speaker 7: happens when that illusion of control vanishes?
Speaker 3: You lose your mind or you grow Ah crap, do
Speaker 3: you know what time it is?
Speaker 5: About twelve thirty?
Speaker 3: I think, well, I gotta get to the rec center.
Speaker 5: Exercise can be good for the soul.
Speaker 3: Well maybe it's just uh, I'm supposed to.
Speaker 7: Meet someone, meet someone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, don't keep them waiting.
Speaker 3: Thank you, chaplain.
Speaker 5: I hope to see you tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Why what's tomorrow?
Speaker 5: Christmas? Eve?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Snap, I gotta find a gift. Okay.
Speaker 2: Leaving the chapel means libraries on my left, TV rooms.
Speaker 6: On my room.
Speaker 3: Here's a weight room, the art room. I just need
Speaker 3: to go down these stairs. Rodriguez, I'm never gonna get
Speaker 3: used to that.
Speaker 4: What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 3: Uh, recreation, not like that. You're not, but I'm sure
Speaker 3: this is the right door. That hair, my hair. What's
Speaker 3: the last time you had a cut. Hmmm, well I
Speaker 3: came in before Easter.
Speaker 4: Weekend, so right, Captain has strict policies.
Speaker 3: Mm okay, I'll get right on that.
Speaker 4: Now with me, let go, I said I could walk, Lorena,
Speaker 4: you got space for one more. This one here has
Speaker 4: never seen a brush in your life.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry, didn't know. I was here to impress.
Speaker 4: Your hair is like a nest birds or spiders. I'm
Speaker 4: afraid to look.
Speaker 3: Then don't go. Go.
Speaker 4: I'll take care of this one. Don't be afraid to
Speaker 4: use a little force.
Speaker 3: Maybe I do need a trim.
Speaker 4: No, you needed a trim three months ago. Now, Mirena,
Speaker 4: what you need is a miracle good thing. I'm mean. Come,
Speaker 4: I wash first, then we gleam. So what's your style?
Speaker 4: Are you more a pixie cot or maybe a little framing?
Speaker 4: Give some shape to that pretty face.
Speaker 3: No, you're not listening. I don't want you to do anything,
Speaker 3: just a trem.
Speaker 4: Oh, but indulge me. There must be something you want.
Speaker 4: Come on, you can tell me.
Speaker 3: Don't fight it.
Speaker 4: She'll get it at it you always does do.
Speaker 3: What I wanted before I did.
Speaker 4: She's always right. By the time I'm done, I'll have
Speaker 4: you a feeling all new.
Speaker 3: Look. It's nothing personal. I just don't spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time thinking about how I look.
Speaker 4: Oh, Jerre one of those?
Speaker 3: Aren't you one of those?
Speaker 4: Here? Sit lean back?
Speaker 3: What is that supposed to mean?
Speaker 4: I'll change you if you sit, Let me guess you'll
Speaker 4: turn away makeup and hair styling. And she close, saying
Speaker 4: you're not into fashion? But nonina, no service. Is that
Speaker 4: that's a fashion statement in itself?
Speaker 3: No, that's not I don't know.
Speaker 4: Deny, then I deny, but I seen you?
Speaker 2: Oh and what because you cut someone's hair gives you
Speaker 2: license to judge them.
Speaker 4: There's a lot you learn when you shape someone's look.
Speaker 4: I mean, how we present is a mask. No one
Speaker 4: is exactly what they look like. How painfully boring. So
Speaker 4: while they're in my chair letting me chop away at
Speaker 4: little pieces of them, you get to drop the mask
Speaker 4: and I listen. Like a therapist, I heals me or
Speaker 4: no therapist. They want to fix you. I prefer to
Speaker 4: enable better dips twenty years at the same overpriced salunge
Speaker 4: you hear every entitled complaint. Convertible in a shop AND's
Speaker 4: in the lakehouse, and now myn as sources out of
Speaker 4: town and my husband is canoodling with the maid. Oh,
Speaker 4: I always hope for something with more substance. Maybe I
Speaker 4: hope too hard. One day I had this woman come
Speaker 4: in sunset of her life, glory, silver hair down to
Speaker 4: her chest. I loved it. I wanted it, oh, to
Speaker 4: age like that, But she said it made her look witchy.
Speaker 4: Now who could have put that idea in her head?
Speaker 4: Turns out kids were shattering her windows with rocks.
Speaker 5: They riding on.
Speaker 4: Their bikes, dark of night and no one awake. Then crash,
Speaker 4: kill the witch, they yelled, and then they were gone
Speaker 4: just as fast because acido, poor woman. I could hear
Speaker 4: it in her voice. No not chop it off, chop
Speaker 4: it all off.
Speaker 6: I don't want it anymore.
Speaker 4: How it heard her to lie about, let's get you
Speaker 4: in a chair.
Speaker 3: Did you cut it off?
Speaker 4: No, that would have been a crime. Instead, I listened
Speaker 4: to what she really wanted here sit?
Speaker 3: What did she say?
Speaker 4: Nothing at first, but I pushed. I always had that gift,
Speaker 4: you know, getting people to open up. Usually it's a
Speaker 4: lot of cheesemay. By this time this was different. Something
Speaker 4: in her eyes and how her lips scrunched like she
Speaker 4: was chewing on her words. Benures and all lone and all.
Speaker 3: I want to take those rocks.
Speaker 4: I want to find her houses and I want to
Speaker 4: break their bones. Al rinkled little thing. And then she left,
Speaker 4: Lift your hair, got wrap fist around your neck.
Speaker 3: Do you think she did it?
Speaker 8: How could she?
Speaker 4: No? That would have been insane. At least that's what
Speaker 4: I thought, And it's what got me through the night,
Speaker 4: because as soon as I got home, there was a
Speaker 4: stamped in my brain. Horrible, horrible headache that whole week,
Speaker 4: actually my last week on the outside of horrible.
Speaker 3: Oh careful, what the scalp?
Speaker 4: This is nothing? They after another woman came rolled out
Speaker 4: a magazine and pointed at a model wanted her seventies
Speaker 4: disconneon prom emitra. I'm divine at what I do, but
Speaker 4: my conscience wouldn't let me, so I tried to wear
Speaker 4: her somewhere safe. And you know what she said to me.
Speaker 4: If I wanted safe, I wouldn't put nails in my salad.
Speaker 3: What I can't believe she met that literally.
Speaker 4: I didn't either until she smiled, teas cracked and chipped
Speaker 4: gums blead. She needed a dentist, not a perm. I
Speaker 4: don't know why she told me, But then the nasia
Speaker 4: hit and I spent the rest of my shift head
Speaker 4: first in a toilet, feeling like there was a hole
Speaker 4: in my got. I think one of the other girls
Speaker 4: ended up giving her a PERM. I didn't care anymore.
Speaker 4: I'd swear there was something in the air that week,
Speaker 4: but all the crazy seemed to ask for me, And
Speaker 4: the next one was even worse.
Speaker 3: Worse than eating nails.
Speaker 4: There's always worse, Melina, and it's never who you expect.
Speaker 4: Tilt your head for me, wouldn't you wait?
Speaker 3: How about are you taking off?
Speaker 4: Really had to get either? Don't you want to know.
Speaker 3: Who came next? Just a trim? Got it?
Speaker 6: Mm?
Speaker 4: Now? This girl so thin and twiggy, it was like
Speaker 4: she floated in on a breeze Carolina with her heart
Speaker 4: on the eye. That's how she signed in in for
Speaker 4: a trim, just like you. She didn't make so much
Speaker 4: as a sweek. For the full hour, I could tell
Speaker 4: it was something heavy, something ugly, building up. But who
Speaker 4: am I to pry? If a client wants silence. I
Speaker 4: gave them silence. I was nearly done styling her before
Speaker 4: she finally spoke, turned to me with her dull eyes
Speaker 4: and asked if I was married. No, no, no, I said,
Speaker 4: I love myself too much to share. She liked that.
Speaker 3: She was jealous.
Speaker 4: What about you, I asked, and she went quiet again.
Speaker 4: She jamed me in and whispered, I'm going to kill
Speaker 4: my husband. I just haven't figured out.
Speaker 3: How I was frozen.
Speaker 4: I mean, what do you say back? Don't do it?
Speaker 3: Good luck?
Speaker 4: I couldn't tell if she was kidding, Or maybe I could,
Speaker 4: and I didn't want to admit it. It's not like
Speaker 4: she waited for me to react. She just got up,
Speaker 4: dropped a tip on the counter and left.
Speaker 3: Or was it a good tip?
Speaker 4: Best of my life? But not even close to worth it?
Speaker 4: My fever that night was like a.
Speaker 8: Caulduring fluids, boiling skin, melting every nerve on fire, or
Speaker 8: at least it felt that way, pinned me down to
Speaker 8: a bed for two days now.
Speaker 3: Still, am I expected to tip?
Speaker 4: I mean I would, but ridiculin this is currency enough
Speaker 4: for once I'm the one talking. Take a look, how
Speaker 4: do you.
Speaker 3: Feel that's not a trim?
Speaker 4: I know, and we're not done yet.
Speaker 3: See you, Rhina, Oh, see you and the girl?
Speaker 4: Will you kin me? Chris? Good luck, Si, you're gonna
Speaker 4: need it.
Speaker 3: How do they know my name?
Speaker 4: Ninya? Haven't you been listening? You learn all kinds of
Speaker 4: things in a place like this. Haven't you worked a
Speaker 4: service job?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Actually back before.
Speaker 4: So you know? And I've had dozens. That's why I
Speaker 4: didn't question it at first. How you offer a service
Speaker 4: but they treat you like a product. People think they
Speaker 4: have a right to your time, to your attention, and
Speaker 4: they don't care what you carry home. I'm just happy
Speaker 4: to unload. Even worse when you work for taps.
Speaker 3: Were there more clients like her?
Speaker 4: Carolina Gegetts Mass No, she was the last, but that
Speaker 4: wasn't the last time she came. When I finally forced
Speaker 4: myself out of bed after that burning fear, I thought
Speaker 4: enough of this, No more helpful ear? But what does
Speaker 4: fate care for our plans? My first day back, I
Speaker 4: found her waiting there, almost shivering with fear, cold. I
Speaker 4: don't know. Turns out she'd come every day asking for me.
Speaker 4: What an honor?
Speaker 3: What did she want? Now?
Speaker 4: A manicure? Some pastelic color? And obviously an excuse because
Speaker 4: I'm no technician. Mister Iden is my boss. He knew that.
Speaker 4: But there comes Carolina waiting a stack of fifty, so
Speaker 4: of course he sells me out. Who cares what I want?
Speaker 4: Lorena pisso everybody helps.
Speaker 3: Did you ask if she did it?
Speaker 4: No? Remember, I was done asking questions from now on,
Speaker 4: just smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding. Hole. Still, this
Speaker 4: is for texture.
Speaker 3: So she didn't talk to you.
Speaker 4: Now, where did you get that? All I said was
Speaker 4: that I didn't ask. So while I prepped the manicure,
Speaker 4: she stared at me with those big dough eyes, unblinking, uncomfortable,
Speaker 4: like there was an itch she couldn't scratch. And I
Speaker 4: could tell that heaviness, that ugliness from before it was
Speaker 4: back and she was ready to gossip. So I laid
Speaker 4: out a towel and I asked for her hands, And
Speaker 4: when she spread out her fingers, all I could see
Speaker 4: was blood on her nails, crusty flooded cutocles, hand stand
Speaker 4: up to her wrists. Can you wash it? She asked,
Speaker 4: as if a pink salt exfoliant was enough to scrub
Speaker 4: whatever monstrosity she committed I couldn't speak, I couldn't even
Speaker 4: look up, so instead she leaned.
Speaker 9: In loudina, I so appreciated our last session. He was
Speaker 9: such a weight off my shoulders. You're so easy to
Speaker 9: talk to.
Speaker 4: You know that. I didn't want to be I didn't
Speaker 4: want to listen to another word. She wouldn't stop.
Speaker 9: I did it, I really did. I waited until Rob
Speaker 9: was asleep. Then I grabbed my knitting box, took out
Speaker 9: my seam ripper, and I unsold him.
Speaker 4: I looked around, but no one else in the whole
Speaker 4: room had even flinched. Was I going insane? Or was
Speaker 4: everyone around me losing their minds? I ran out bio
Speaker 4: coming up in my throat, and the last thing I
Speaker 4: saw was Carolina's face. She looked relieved, like that weight
Speaker 4: was really gone. I quit that very day. Let's get
Speaker 4: you dried up.
Speaker 3: There'd you go?
Speaker 4: Shaped up, real nice with some value?
Speaker 3: Were you sick again?
Speaker 4: Clado ruined my upholstery and pushed the absolute limit on
Speaker 4: how much I'd be broken A person can take. But
Speaker 4: I had to find out if this was awesome twisted job,
Speaker 4: So I did what any irrational person would do. They
Speaker 4: followed her home. I watched her enter a big gated massion,
Speaker 4: you know the fancy sword where the bushes are all
Speaker 4: cut into shapes. And I waited, quiet and in pain
Speaker 4: to catch any glimpse of her husband still alive. It
Speaker 4: was well after dark before I saw her come out again,
Speaker 4: wheeling out the trash. The curiosity ate me a lot.
Speaker 4: I had to know what was in those cans. Now
Speaker 4: I wish with every bone in my body that I
Speaker 4: never looked inside. I jumped in my car and floored
Speaker 4: La Ville and seat that eighty miles an hour, as
Speaker 4: fast as my little clanker could go. That's when I
Speaker 4: saw the cruiser parked at the burger joint, cop leaning
Speaker 4: on his hood, and I told him everything about Carolina,
Speaker 4: her confession, the gorriness in her trash. I knew I sounded,
Speaker 4: but I pleaded for him to believe me. And you
Speaker 4: know what he did. He said he believed me, but
Speaker 4: that he just didn't care. That punchy mustache man acne
Speaker 4: on his necks, wet on his collar. He said he'd
Speaker 4: seen worse, hell, that he'd done worse chewing on that gristy,
Speaker 4: tripping burger, he told me, bragging.
Speaker 6: Sometimes when there's a body, and I'm supposed to call
Speaker 6: it in. I don't, because for a couple of hours
Speaker 6: after death, there's still warming enough to have fun.
Speaker 4: He just kept going, unloading repulsive details after details. Even
Speaker 4: after I shut myself in my car and blared the horn,
Speaker 4: he was at my window and I could still read
Speaker 4: his lips. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?
Speaker 3: What did you do?
Speaker 4: Nothing? I regret. I just wish they hadn't caught me,
Speaker 4: because that holding seally threw me into. That was my
Speaker 4: own brand of hell, not like the rooms we've got here. Handcuffed,
Speaker 4: I couldn't even cover my ears while everyone else just
Speaker 4: spilled and spilled. There was something wrong with me. I
Speaker 4: knew that, but I couldn't stop it. So instead I
Speaker 4: screamed the back what I heard, because why should I
Speaker 4: suffer alone?
Speaker 3: How long were you there?
Speaker 4: Not long? Grass, sadios? I suppose eventually somebody listened to
Speaker 4: what I had to say, because two doctors showed up
Speaker 4: from the Pendleton.
Speaker 3: What gave it? The way they dragged you here too?
Speaker 4: Dragged me? No, they offered the help, said they could
Speaker 4: make the secret stop, and for that I would have
Speaker 4: claimed in their trunk. You look like you don't agree.
Speaker 3: Why would you choose to come here? We can't leave?
Speaker 4: What makes you think I want to free meals, free
Speaker 4: roaming and never having to suck up to anyone else
Speaker 4: for tips, Nina, But it's not Tahiti.
Speaker 3: But it'll do. Did they help you?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 4: You mean? Though? I still hear people's secrets sometimes, but
Speaker 4: at least the pain is gone. They've got me on
Speaker 4: this regimen. Pills and test and prodding and so on
Speaker 4: is meant to contain it altogether.
Speaker 3: But we'll see. So then you have heard things while
Speaker 3: you've been here.
Speaker 4: Of course, stranger and stranger every day.
Speaker 3: Strange?
Speaker 4: How oh no, no, no, I do what you're doing?
Speaker 4: Do you think knowing more is always better? But you're
Speaker 4: ignoring how it might hurt you?
Speaker 3: What do you mean hurt me?
Speaker 4: What I mean, Sayuri, is how will you handle the
Speaker 4: darkest secrets of this place when you don't even know
Speaker 4: your own?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 3: While I was here? Were you? Is she ready yet?
Speaker 4: Almost? There's no rushing beauty. Take a look in the mirror.
Speaker 4: Do you like who you see?
Speaker 3: That's not me?
Speaker 4: Clad o ca see? Like I said, when it comes
Speaker 4: to my work, I'm divine, don't worry your secrets safe
Speaker 4: with me?
Speaker 3: What do you mean.
Speaker 4: Now? Are you done? Yes? I'm done? But out you
Speaker 4: go now, beauty queen, and don't forget to brush your hair?
Speaker 4: What's up?
Speaker 6: Three far?
Speaker 4: Nighty night o?
Speaker 3: Damsa same shit every day?
Speaker 8: Wait?
Speaker 3: Did she leave a bobby bit in my hair?
Speaker 9: Hey?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 3: I thought we had a date. I know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I got caught out for looking up haggard was the implication,
Speaker 2: and they dragged me into what account for the beauty
Speaker 2: salt around here? Lady took her sweet time too. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I tried, but I couldn't get out. It looks nice, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: real nice. I don't quite feel like myself. What is
Speaker 2: that like to feel like you? I don't really know anymore.
Speaker 2: I guess I've never liked to be fussed over, and
Speaker 2: now even that has been taken away. The chaplain said
Speaker 2: something today that I can't stop thinking about. He said
Speaker 2: that losing control over your life forces you to re
Speaker 2: evaluate your identity. Then have you learned a lot about
Speaker 2: yourself since you've been here? To be honest, I have
Speaker 2: learned that I need other people more than I ever
Speaker 2: wanted to admit before.
Speaker 3: Can I fuss over you for a second. Okay, you
Speaker 3: look beautiful. It's some haircut. I like it, but it's
Speaker 3: not the haircut.
Speaker 2: I wish we didn't always meet like this, these damn
Speaker 2: bars between us. What would happen if we met on
Speaker 2: the outside, if you said something like that to me
Speaker 2: the way you just said it. Yeah, well I might
Speaker 2: have to reach over and kiss you.
Speaker 3: I Kenleena oh YEA.
Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween pennance starring Natalie Morales, Episode eight
Speaker 1: care written by Alessandra Hara del Castillo and Alexander Williams.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound designed by Trevor Young, featuring the voices
Speaker 1: of Sandra Viadares, Rachel Rosenbloom, Wayne Bastrup, Raphael Corkil, Jeff Bowser,
Speaker 1: Blair Chandler, Morgan Brown, and Laura Shine. Directed by Alexander Williams.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Noah Feinberg, Chris Dicky, Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: and Alexander Williams. Supervising producers Trevor Young and Josh Thain.
Speaker 1: Producers Jesse funk Rima Ilkali Nowami Griffin, Chandler Mays, and
Speaker 1: Casby Bias. Script Editing by Lauren Vogelbaum, Story consultants Ben
Speaker 1: Bolan and Matthew Riddle. Casting by Sunday Bowling CSA and
Speaker 1: Meg Mormon CSA. Production coordinator Wayna Calderon. Production assistants Jenna
Speaker 1: Johnson and Winona Lowe. Theme music by Rose Azerti with
Speaker 1: vocals by Anna Hummler, recorded at This Is Sound Design
Speaker 1: Studios in Burbank, California. Engineered by Ross Arnot, Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Romelia Osorio, Nathan Rule, Glen Nishida, and Rob Mosca.
Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and
Speaker 1: Alexander Williams and is a production of iHeart Podcasts, Blumhouse Television,
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Makey. Learn more about
Speaker 1: the show at Grimandmild dot com slash thirteen Days and
Speaker 1: find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween,