Latest / INSPIRE STORY / Dreams Beneath The Witch Tree

Transcript

Dreams Beneath The Witch Tree · INSPIRE STORY

0:03
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm recording this from my house because I wanted
0:05
to talk about something. The creep Cast fans submitted stories
0:11
are so frequent and there's so much content happening that
0:15
it feels odd having it be all on a creep
0:18
cast fan server. I feel like it should exist on
0:21
its own storytelling server, where even people who don't know
0:25
the show could stumble upon it and be like this
0:27
is fucking sick and start writing stuff.
0:30
Speaker 2: Therefore, we have made a new.
0:33
Speaker 1: Subreddy called Tales from the Creep where you can go
0:37
upload your stuff there and then we will still be
0:39
picking from those stories and reading them on the channel,
0:42
but that way people in the Creepcast server it can
0:44
be memes, stuff about the fandom, all that kind of
0:47
stuff people complaining about the fandom, just kidding that doesn't happen,
0:52
and we can have an area where you have stories here,
0:56
and you have memes and jokey fun stuff here, and
1:00
you know all the other conversation that happens on the
1:02
Creepcast server. I think it's just gonna help clean stuff
1:05
up because I feel like the stories, they're awesome, but
1:08
I miss all the fan art, seeing fan art. I
1:10
miss seeing all the memes and that kind of stuff,
1:12
So I think separating them will uh will be good
1:15
for everybody. And that way, if you're really into reading
1:18
the storytelling now there's no other memes and stuff getting
1:20
in your way. If you're really in.
1:21
Speaker 2: The memes now, it's not being drowned out by a
1:23
bunch of stories. That's what's happening. That's what it is.
1:28
Speaker 1: If you don't like it, don't alsopos to tell you
1:30
just kidding, that's I'm just messing around.
1:33
Speaker 2: We like to joke here, am I right? Have fun writing.
1:36
We'll see you there. Welcome back to Greek Ghost.
1:56
Speaker 1: Today we are reading another wonderful story by our good
2:00
friend Nick Lowe, who was the author of Dagon's Mirror,
2:03
and it's a story called the Dreams Beneath the Witch Tree.
2:07
Speaker 3: Yes, he did Dagon's Mirror, which was really cool. I
2:12
don't think he had a ton of attention before then,
2:14
but thanks to you all being so supportive, he has
2:18
since made an Instagram account called low Craft, which like
2:22
the name low dot Craft, and of course he has
2:25
his Creepypasta account which is just under his name Nick
2:28
low He's got a.
2:29
Speaker 4: Bunch of other cool stories.
2:31
Speaker 3: We already read Dagon's Mirror, but there's Dagon's Beacon and
2:34
Dagon's daughter, so he did series out of that. There's
2:37
the Shambler in the Attic, the House of Dead Gods,
2:40
and we really loved it the first time we checked
2:41
it out, so why not check him out again. So,
2:43
of course, as always, thank you to Nick for writing
2:45
such a cool story.
2:47
Speaker 1: Yes he is. Yeah, No, I really enjoyed his last one,
2:50
all the lovecrafty and goodies and stuff like that, And
2:53
I think one thing I really liked though, was the dialogue.
2:57
The characters I thought were extremely well written, and I
3:00
think especially the world that he's set up in that
3:02
like dilapidated, wet, moldy house.
3:05
Speaker 2: So I'm curious to see how.
3:07
Speaker 1: This story fares as well, and to see if it
3:09
does it go in that similar direction again or does
3:11
it kind of like take a new approach somehow.
3:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I like the lovecraft stuff. It's hard
3:24
to pull off, right. A lot of people try to
3:25
pull it off and it comes off as dumb. But
3:28
Dagon smers want the only like true love crafty and
3:31
things that I've seen other people try to emulate and
3:34
do a good job at Obviously there's good examples of
3:38
it in other media, but I'm specifically talking about like
3:41
creepy pasta.
3:42
Speaker 4: Online horror stories. Nick is one of the few to
3:44
pull it off.
3:44
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I believe, And I just want to take
3:46
time to think people who are listening on Spotify or
3:49
have a podcast right now. If you are listening over there,
3:51
be sure to give us a nice rating or consider
3:53
going over there and listening.
3:54
Speaker 2: And also to all.
3:55
Speaker 1: Of our beautiful patrons who help up just keep this
3:58
thing going and help get all the little goodies that
4:00
come with it. So thank you so much, Isaiah.
4:03
Speaker 3: Are you ready, I'm ready to begin with that. Let's
4:08
get into it. That was sarcastically cough and it made
4:16
me really cough. Okay, Nick Low The Dreams Beneath the
4:21
Witch Tree britt And below is the last known statement
4:24
of Benjamin Harper, a former parish priest serving the village
4:27
of Barton, Cheshire. Mister Harper was relieved of his position
4:31
by Bishop Gerald Ellison of the Chester Dioces, taken here
4:35
to Byron House, a home for the mentally disturbed, shortly
4:39
after suffering an acute episode of hysterical anxiety. There he
4:44
came under the direct care of one doctor George Monroe,
4:48
the head psychiatrist. Mister Harper's growing insanity is believed to
4:52
have been triggered by his inability to accept the loss
4:54
of his close friend and predecessor, Steven Adams. Following the
4:59
death of his mentor, mister Harper suffered a rapid decline
5:02
in both his sanity and his faith that ultimately led
5:05
to his confinement. Mister Harper's stay in Byron House was, however, brief,
5:10
as he vanished from his cell not long after this
5:13
statement was recorded. The unknown means he is thought to
5:16
have overcome the security staff brutally murdering one of the
5:19
junior physicians, doctor Howard Fleming, or making good his escape.
5:24
The weeks prior to his flight marked some of the
5:26
most drastic alterations in his demeanor. The house staff would
5:29
often report that mister Harper's mood would shift dramatically and
5:32
without provocation, particularly during the nighttime hours. Some of the
5:38
orderlies even refused to work with him, citing a disturbing
5:41
smirk that would creep across his face, most often as
5:44
a precursor to his fluctuating moods. In the months that
5:48
have passed, Since his disappearance, I've been able to directly
5:51
confirm several of the less outlandish claims made in his statement.
5:56
Some of the events described within, however, are simply too
5:59
fantastical for me to officially stake my reputation on acknowledging.
6:03
Others are woefully and worryingly repugnant in their authenticity. So
6:08
his mentor died and that led to like a mental
6:11
breakdown that then led him to killing the staff to
6:14
break out? Is Byron House a thing? I feel like
6:17
that's a love It's probably a Lovecraft reference. I was
6:19
gonna say, it's already skewing so hard. This also has
6:22
little remnants and hints of like this short story that.
6:26
Speaker 2: Lovecraft did called from Beyond.
6:28
Speaker 1: That's uh, well, I don't know if that's actually what
6:31
the story was called, but it was adapted into like
6:33
a Stuart Gordon movie in the eighties. It's my favorite
6:35
Stuart Gordon film. It's like a really really short story
6:38
that he turns into a full fledged film. But it
6:41
kind of reminds me of that of like two scientists
6:43
doing something, one of them dies, one of them goes
6:45
crazy and kind of like goes on not necessarily killing spree,
6:49
but like you know, it has drastically changed him. He
6:52
has seen unknown forces just very yeah, very big fun actions. Yeah.
7:01
Speaker 3: Okay, So looking up Byron House, it seems I was wrong.
7:03
There's a guitarist named Byron House, but I don't think
7:06
that's the one.
7:07
Speaker 1: I was there just thinking of Arkham House, which was
7:09
the publishing which was a publishing company that was Lovecraft's thing.
7:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, Arkham Arkham for sure. But uh, I thought I
7:17
was onto something. I was making it up.
7:19
Speaker 4: I lied.
7:20
Speaker 3: There's little doubt that Barton is a strange place. Stranger
7:24
still is the unsettling grip that it has upon some
7:26
of the village's residents. There's a tangible miasma of superstition
7:31
and fear that lurks over the village like a blanket
7:33
of fog. Outsiders may very well scoff at those who
7:37
put stock in old tales of witches and werewolves, but
7:40
to many residents of the village there's a little distinction
7:44
between reality and folklore. I cannot deny that I, despite
7:48
being a man of science, find the strange history of
7:51
Barton's seductive and even nourishing, as it is for all
7:54
those who harbor a secret and inescapable appetite for the weird.
7:59
One need only one down decayed streets in the south
8:02
end of the village and take note of the odd
8:03
symbols and signs that the common folk keep over their
8:06
doors to see that a great many in Barton refuse
8:09
to let the old ways die. During my time at
8:13
Byron House, I too have seen things that I cannot
8:15
fully comprehend or provide reason for.
8:18
Speaker 4: I have treated many longtime.
8:19
Speaker 3: Barton residents who firmly believe, with a level of conviction
8:23
not seen in many conventional religions, that the devil makes
8:26
his grotto in the shadowed woods that crown the edges
8:29
of the village. I have decided to share mister Harper's
8:32
account of his growing madness in his own words, in
8:35
the hopes that many and the scientific community will be
8:38
able to gain an insight into how and why such
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episodes of insanity come to fruition, and how they can.
8:44
Speaker 4: Be successfully treated.
8:46
Speaker 3: It is also my hope that should any of the
8:48
stranger occurrences written below ring true for you, the reader,
8:52
then this statement will also serve as a dire warning
8:54
and lesson in meddling within the affairs of certain circles
8:58
who clearly take kindly to outside interference. He's then are
9:04
the last known words of Benjamin Harper.
9:06
Speaker 1: That's a fun intro. I was like, iways like stories
9:09
to start off with like hooks of stories where a
9:13
man of science, or like a very like obvious non
9:15
believer in supernatural superstition UH has his UH has his
9:22
own uh sanity tested, or his own like belief system shaken.
9:27
I think it's always a really fun I always make
9:29
you know, like a sleepy hollow Ichabod crane kind of
9:31
meme or something like that. It's always it's always just
9:34
a fun way to start a story.
9:36
Speaker 3: It's also cool to have like the old town where
9:39
like they don't let the old ways die and they
9:41
keep vigils over their doors and say the devil works
9:44
his way through the tree line and stuff.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's already such an older, like you know, from coming
9:47
from the scientists standpoint, It's already such like an outdated,
9:52
like just completely different world that's like archaic. You know,
9:56
it has like just like such a weird alien vibe
9:58
to it.
9:59
Speaker 4: Hey, you think you think it was based on a
10:01
gravity falls I.
10:02
Speaker 2: Would probably assume, so. I think that's what it is.
10:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, Lovecraft guy got his idea from gravity Falls.
10:12
Speaker 1: Yes, Lovecraft in the thirties did say that he loved
10:15
gravity falls. It was one of his best, Yes, his
10:17
favorite memes.
10:18
Speaker 4: That's right. I do remember that.
10:20
Speaker 3: It was, if I recall correctly, he hated anyone that
10:23
wasn't white, but loved gravity absolutely. I think that was
10:27
in his manifesto. So he would listen to That's why
10:30
famously he named his cat gravity Falls.
10:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, the very infamous uh HB. Lovecraft cat
10:36
gravity Falls.
10:38
Speaker 3: Uh.
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Speaker 2: He would, he would, you would yell at it.
10:40
Speaker 1: He would scream at gravity Falls, and he would play
10:42
uh Fortnite and listen to Breaking Benjamin.
10:45
Speaker 3: That's the average HB. Love craftings. Well, I don't I
10:47
don't think he. I don't think he had those in
10:50
the thirties. Those are the nineteen thirties. I don't think
10:52
he had brank You Benjamin or Fortnite. I don't even
10:55
think they had video games to be.
10:56
Speaker 2: Right, But they did have gravity falls.
11:00
Speaker 4: Falls. Yeah, you really liked it.
11:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where a lot of this stuff gets it's
11:04
inspiration from. So yeah, it's it's cool to see, you know,
11:09
artists like Lovecraft getting their inspirations from the greats. Yeah,
11:13
my Gravity falls like the creepy tow.
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Speaker 4: I bet Gravity they.
11:16
Speaker 3: Didn't have video games, but I think they did have
11:17
Alan Wake somewhat, So I bet he also get his
11:20
idea from Alan Wake, and then later Twin Peaks got
11:23
their ideas from Lovecraft. So you know, some people think
11:27
that Alan Wake came off of Twin Peaks, but it's
11:28
actually the other way around, going through the whole, you know,
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nineteen thirties Lovecraft round.
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Speaker 4: It.
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Speaker 3: We should probably read the story. Okay, I don't understand.
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What more do you want me to say. I've told
11:41
my sword to the police, to the doctors here, and
11:43
to anyone else who will listen. You have no right
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to keep me locked up in this place. I've committed
11:48
no crime and caused no harm to anyone. I would
11:52
still have my freedom and the village it's safety. Had
11:55
it not been for a lone passer by spotting me
11:57
in the darkness of the cemetery on that awful knight
12:00
and alerting the police, this whole affair would have been
12:03
covered up and be done with, and you would have
12:06
remained blissfully ignorant to my involvement. In the matter, had
12:08
those blundering bobbies not interfered. That was the most British
12:16
that caught me. Like a side swipe.
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Speaker 4: I did not.
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Speaker 2: Definitely just got t bone right there.
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Speaker 3: I'm not going to try a British accent, and I've
12:24
tried it before on the show Never Again.
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Speaker 4: You say I'm mad, you may well be right.
12:29
Speaker 3: But if you had come to the same conclusion as
12:31
I did regarding the fate of my poor friend, I
12:34
am sure you too would have taken some form of
12:36
desperate action.
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Speaker 4: No doubt, the police report will detail the.
12:40
Speaker 3: Simple facts of the matter, without pothering to add the
12:42
nuances that hold the whole affair together. I'm confident that
12:46
the report will dryly state that I, in the early
12:49
morning of December fifth, I, Benjamin Harper was found in
12:52
the darkest corner of.
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Speaker 4: Barton Parish Cemetery.
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Speaker 3: I was discovered, the report will say, disturbing a suspected
13:00
burial site, digging up the cold winter earth below an
13:03
ancient and twisted which elm tree beneath which once laid
13:06
the remains of a wicked and vile occupant. It will
13:10
also state that, in a fit of unrestrainable rage, I
13:13
attack two policemen with a shovel, rendering them unconscious, so
13:17
that my grim labor could be completed without interruption. It
13:21
is not my sanity that I fear now, rather the
13:23
possession of my feeble mind and the body it is
13:26
currently master over. For I am now horridly aware that
13:29
the mind, soul, and body are not as tightly entwined
13:32
as the so called experts of medical and spiritual matters
13:35
believe them to be, but are instead three separate spheres
13:39
of mastery. I can only hope that the truth of
13:42
my tale is fully appreciated before an all too familiar
13:45
terror is forced upon my mind. For I now wonder
13:48
if wickedness and insanity are truly mental conditions, or some
13:52
form of spiritual sickness can either be inherited, carried in
13:57
the blood, and passed on to our descendants. Can they
14:00
transfuse from parents to their children? If so, what other
14:04
darkness can be inherited carried along the roots of our
14:07
family history? Is it possible that sin itself can plunge
14:11
endlessly in the crimson rapids of our ancestors, veins, biting
14:15
its time, patiently waiting for the chance to emerge within
14:18
the next generation.
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Speaker 4: I confess to you, gentlemen, that I am.
14:22
Speaker 3: Uncertain as to the authenticity of what I am about
14:25
to tell you. The terrible truth is that ever since
14:28
I came to Byron House, I cannot recall if what
14:30
happened was but a dream. Even now I cannot say
14:34
with any certainty that I am awake or simply dreaming
14:36
that I am awake. Boundary between reality and hallucination is
14:40
a frail shroud, indeed, and who can say from which
14:43
side of the curtain any of us? It's truly peeking, park, gentlemen,
14:47
parking unto me, I beseech you to take heed of
14:50
my words. There is something wicked out there in the
14:53
backwoods and borders of our village. Though its earthly fetters
14:57
have been laid to waste the potency of its beit lingers,
15:01
in time he will find a new home and set
15:04
its powers against us. For the sake of my soul
15:07
as well as the soul of my dear friend, I
15:09
will now try to recount for you in detail that
15:12
blasphemous chain of events that led me to the grave
15:15
of Francis Ellis Pendle, the occupant of that hidden burial
15:20
chamber and immerse his body in acid until nothing bubbling
15:24
black sludge remained. Steven Adams had been a family friend
15:27
for as long as I could remember.
15:29
Speaker 4: A devout man of God, he had been the local.
15:32
Speaker 3: Vicar since I was a young boy, and was very
15:35
much loved by the community he served. He never married
15:38
or had much in the way of a family of
15:40
his own, and as such I think he had always
15:42
looked at me, and my mother is his own flesh
15:44
and blood. In the twilight of my teenage years, my
15:48
father sadly passed away from a heart attack. My relationship
15:51
with Stephen grew stronger, forming a bond that nurtured me
15:54
into manhood and shaped me into the person I am today.
15:58
For this, I owe Stephen a debt of gratitude, one
16:01
I hope I came close to repay when I finally
16:04
destroyed the horror that had inflicted itself upon his life.
16:07
Speaker 4: In that lonely December ninth.
16:10
Speaker 3: Stephen was a true paragon godly, honorable, and wise. He
16:15
was devoid of vice and all the other flaws in
16:17
heron in most of us. I never once saw him
16:20
grow angry or fearful, or disappoint at any point save
16:24
towards the very end. Despite his almost saintly behavior, the
16:28
man was also incredibly human and very much interested in
16:31
matters of science as.
16:33
Speaker 4: Well as faith.
16:34
Speaker 3: He had on occasion said that Darwin's theories made a
16:37
lot of sense, and that he enjoyed reading books covering
16:40
topics such as biology as well as chemistry, physics, and history.
16:44
He was a remarkably well rounded and well adjusted man.
16:48
Not once did his belief in God falter. He was
16:51
just able to see the sense of how the world
16:53
worked and blended it into his love of his fellow man.
16:56
Speaker 4: And in The Almighty Let's.
16:57
Speaker 1: Tell You No, a character's getting ready to getting ready
17:00
to see a character really slipped the fuck up when
17:02
it's like this is like the very like he's a
17:05
reasonable man, yes he has faith, but he also, you know,
17:08
is a learned sign science man. This is definitely a
17:11
guy who's gonna have his entire fucking reality smashed right
17:14
in front of him.
17:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they are.
17:18
Speaker 3: They're they're setting this up to rug pull later with
17:21
how yeah much he changes the counterbalance between the two,
17:26
much like I haven't actually watched gravity falls, but I
17:31
was gonna make I was gonna make it that he'll
17:34
gravity falls reference to diminish the story.
17:36
Speaker 1: Imagine that he'll probably like abandon God or something. I
17:39
think like the trials and tribulations will have him like, uh,
17:44
definitely if it goes to love Crafty in realm, it's
17:46
going to be that, like his understanding of what faith
17:48
is is manipulated to where he's horrified by it. Or
17:52
it's like a new entity comes in and he like
17:55
dives even deeper into a new faith or something is.
17:58
Speaker 3: The trajectory he find he finds something supernatural that isn't God.
18:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:03
Speaker 3: When I came of age, I decided to follow in
18:05
his footsteps and join the church myself. I can't say
18:09
my mother was particularly pleased with my choice, but Stephen
18:12
was very proud of me, and it was disapproval that
18:14
fueled my desire to serve my God and community just
18:17
as he did. My mother had never been warm with Stephen,
18:20
despite how closely he associated with us.
18:23
Speaker 4: Both.
18:24
Speaker 3: I suspected that they had once harbored feelings for each
18:26
other and that he's had turned sour around the time
18:29
of my birth.
18:32
Speaker 4: How much Holder is Stephen than him? I don't know.
18:36
Speaker 1: Are you trying to do you think Stephens folded his mom?
18:40
Speaker 3: Well, in less drastic words, yes, uh.
18:46
Speaker 4: My mother had never been.
18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:48
Speaker 3: But well, while I was thinking that Stephen might be
18:50
his dad, where it says they have feelings that sowered
18:53
around the time of my birth.
18:55
Speaker 2: I have a feeling that.
18:56
Speaker 1: What I think is, I think he probably wanted to
18:58
get some pussy, but then the dad. But then his
19:01
actual dad came in, had a child, and then like them,
19:04
basically having a kid together soured any chances of the relationship.
19:09
Speaker 4: Maybe potentially, yeah, could be that.
19:14
Speaker 1: Well.
19:14
Speaker 3: The reason I think it might be his dad is
19:16
because at the beginning of this entry, our author now said,
19:20
is it possible that craziness like madness can be through generations?
19:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean from one generation to the I think
19:28
you're probably right too.
19:29
Speaker 1: I mean also, especially if he knows it's his kid
19:32
but she won't like let him see it, or if
19:34
like this person she's with now is just like, fuck off,
19:37
it's not your kid, even though it is. Uh, that's maybe,
19:40
that's that's probably what's happening.
19:42
Speaker 3: My father had never allowed this matter to interfere with
19:45
their own friendship, and they had been like brothers right
19:48
up until my father's last breath. It was Stephen who
19:51
had been at my father's deathbed, who had spoken kind
19:54
words into his ear as he gasped for breath, and
19:56
who had given a moving eulogy as his casket was
19:59
lowered into the ground. I don't recall my mother ever
20:02
mentioning my father's death after the funeral, nor had I
20:05
once seen her cry or lament his passing. She simply
20:09
grew colder and more distant with the people around her,
20:12
including both me and Stephen. As such, I didn't feel
20:17
burdened by my decision to leave her and Barton behind.
20:21
My heart wasn't heavy at the thought, but rather the opposite.
20:24
Stephen assisted my decision to join the ministry, and as
20:27
I spoke to several authorities from the Diocese of Chester
20:30
and attended an interview with my bishop, my resolved to
20:33
become ordained only grew stronger by the time I had
20:37
secured my place at the Theological College and Worchester. Yeah
20:42
that my mother had slowly come to terms with my choice,
20:46
but I never received her blessing or encouragement for treading
20:49
the path. I was determined to embark upon Worcestershire wasn't
20:54
close to Cheshire, a five hour train journey was required
20:58
whenever I wished to visit my family home. I remained
21:01
in contact with Stephen weekly via letter, and regularly a
21:04
handwritten note in a tailtale stiff card envelope would arrive
21:08
for me in the post. Our correspondence wasn't particularly thrilling,
21:14
but it was welcomed, as his letters of encouragement helped
21:17
to guide me through the more difficult parts of my
21:19
study and fire up in me a conviction that only
21:22
he could coax. Months of grueling study passed me by,
21:26
and I am not too proud to admit that I
21:28
occasionally regretted my choice.
21:30
Speaker 4: During these bouts of demoralization.
21:33
Speaker 3: I would call my mother, who would delight in such
21:35
talk and beg me to return home, a gesture I
21:38
found amusing, considering her absent feelings for me were part
21:42
of the reason that I chose to leave Barton. Steven's letters, however,
21:46
that held me back and kept me upon the path
21:48
I had chosen for myself. On rare breaks, I would
21:52
return to Barton for brief stays, and I would check
21:54
in on my friend and we would chat about the
21:56
various topics we had discussed in our exchange of letters.
22:01
Stephen's main areas of interest had changed drastically in the
22:04
months I had been gone, and he was now ferociously
22:06
researching local Cheshire history, in particular our folklore and other
22:11
esoteric matters, details of which were lost on me.
22:16
Speaker 4: I would make a.
22:16
Speaker 3: Token effort at visiting mother, but the blanket of cold
22:19
repression that fell across the kitchen as we sat there
22:21
in silence over a pot of tea was becoming more
22:24
and more unbearable. Once or twice I felt as if
22:27
she wanted to tell me something, she would stop herself
22:30
before anything significant left her lips, and she would instead
22:33
inquire sarcastically as to Stephen's well being before reaffirming her
22:37
objection towards my study. As time passed, the sojourns to
22:41
Barton ceased altogether, as I threw myself deeper and deeper
22:44
into theological pursuits, relying solely upon Stephen's letters to keep
22:49
me informed about how my mother was faring. It had
22:52
been some weeks before I noticed a gradual change to
22:55
my routine that piqued my interest in matters beyond my
22:57
own affairs. Had I been in my studies that I
23:02
neglected to notice that Stephen's letters had abruptly stopped. I
23:06
waited a week before sending him a note of my
23:08
own in hopes of her response, but nothing came. I
23:12
could only assume that he had become engrossed in study himself,
23:15
as he had a habit of picking up a new
23:17
topic and devouring as much information on it as he
23:20
could before finding a new sphere of knowledge to move
23:22
on to. To be quite honest, I was focused on
23:25
my own study and so welcomed the break in my
23:27
weekly task of finding something interesting to fill my letters with.
23:32
This absence of communication lasted just under five weeks when
23:35
eventually one of Stephen's letters arrived for me on a
23:38
Friday morning. I was already on my way out, and
23:42
so opened the letter and read its contents Whilst walking
23:45
to the local parish I was helping to curate out
23:48
dodging traffic and pedestrians alike. I read the note, folded
23:51
it into my pocket, determined to pin my reply as
23:54
soon as time permitted. As best as my memory serves me,
23:59
much delayed letter right as follows.
24:02
Speaker 5: Benjamin. Firstly, let me apologize for my lack of communication
24:06
with you. Over the past few weeks, I have, as
24:09
you may have figured out yourself, stumbled upon a fascinating
24:12
area of Cheshire history that our own parish was directly
24:15
involved in some two centuries ago. Now I understand that
24:19
this is hardly an excuse for neglecting you, and I
24:22
sincerely apologize. If my absence has caused you any worry,
24:26
Please read on and I shall attempt to explain. I
24:30
have been investigating our Paris's history, and in doing so
24:32
came across an obscure piece of information that points to
24:35
witch trial taking. That points to a witch trial taking
24:38
place within our community, well after the Witchcraft Act of
24:42
seventeen thirty five had forbidden all forms of necromancy and
24:45
sorcery for being punishable crimes.
24:48
Speaker 1: How scandalous to think that our dear community of Barton
24:52
was involved in some sordid affair well after such matters
24:56
had ceased to be acknowledged by the Crown. Details are sketchy,
25:00
but it seems much of the affair was conducted in secret,
25:03
and many later recordings destroyed in order to prevent the
25:05
facts surround and get from ever resurfacing. Now it comes
25:09
the really intriguing part that the individual tried and executed
25:13
for practicing witchcraft is none other distant relative of mine
25:17
on my mother's side, one Francis Ellis Pendall.
25:20
Speaker 2: This is how I was.
25:21
Speaker 1: Able to unearth certain details as they have been sat
25:25
as they have been sat in my family's records for
25:27
over a century. The whole matter has me deeply excited,
25:30
and I am currently waiting on several sources to provide
25:33
me with the information on various subjects. But I believe
25:36
I am close to warming out the truth. I have
25:38
reason to believe that this ancestor is buried right here
25:41
in the parish cemetery. Try as I might, I cannot
25:44
find a grave, or from what I have read, which
25:47
is were sometimes buried in unmarked plots occurs upon their
25:50
names and a final punishment for trucking with the devil.
25:53
It was also a precaution for if any of their
25:56
covenant could unearth the remains, they could restore them to life,
26:00
or so the folklore goes. But here I am getting
26:03
ahead of myself again. How have you been, my boy?
26:07
Speaker 5: I look forward to hearing about the past few weeks
26:09
I've missed out on, So please furnish me with all
26:12
the details. I understand if you will be finishing your
26:14
first year soon, and once you have.
26:16
Speaker 1: I asked that you come and stay with me and
26:18
bought them for a while for these for there as
26:21
much we must discuss about my findings. Take care of yourself, Benjamin, yours, Julie. Steven.
26:26
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think one hundred percent Steven is what.
26:32
Speaker 4: That's That's just such a funny letter to get out
26:35
of the blue. It's like I found a witch in
26:37
the cemetery.
26:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyways, how are you doing? Okay? Cool? See you soon.
26:42
I do think that Steven is his dad, and I
26:45
think that like what is going to be because it
26:47
already started with at the beginning, Benjamin was digging up
26:53
a grave of some kind. That's what the that's how
26:55
the cops caught him.
26:56
Speaker 4: So now the one underneath the elm tree.
26:59
Speaker 1: Think, yeah, so it's either so it's probably the witch
27:02
that's there. But I'm wondering if Steven somehow curses himself
27:06
reveals that, Like I'm wondering if he thinks that like
27:08
the curse itself is hereditary to Benjamin.
27:11
Speaker 3: You know, well not to well, not to put our
27:16
author in a box to say the stuff he does.
27:18
But what was interesting about uh, Dagon's Mirror, which is
27:22
based off of you know, shadow over in Smith and stuff.
27:26
That is the Lovecraft story with Dagon, right shouto over
27:28
in Smith.
27:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep.
27:32
Speaker 3: In that story, the whole thing was the family we
27:35
were reading about was always doomed to this reality. They
27:38
were always going to go back and be servants of Dagon.
27:40
Is just a matter of when they matured to that phase.
27:44
So here, especially because of what Benjamin talked about in
27:47
the beginning with like, is this curse in the in
27:50
the veins of ancestors?
27:51
Speaker 4: Is it carried through generations?
27:53
Speaker 3: Maybe the witch was a member of their family, and
27:56
they're always meant to come back to it. Like both
27:58
Steven and himself are compelled to like tick up the
28:02
body maybe resurrect or something like that. Perhaps that's also
28:07
just really fun to not hear from your boy for
28:09
a while and he goes, I'm going to get the
28:11
body out of the cemetery.
28:13
Speaker 4: Okay, you knew you, all right.
28:17
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to the episode, don't get too scared.
31:22
Speaker 3: The letter did not unnerve me in the least. It
31:25
was just like him to find some new topics to
31:27
obsess over, and I thought little about the matter. Hotter,
31:33
if I sent you a text crandomly, I'm like, I'm
31:35
going to find the body.
31:37
Speaker 1: It would in the same boat as Benjamin I would.
31:40
Speaker 2: It would be the exact same.
31:41
Speaker 1: You'd be like, yeah, I don't know, I want to
31:43
I went down to Georgia and I found it. I've
31:45
been you know, I made friends with paranormal investigators and
31:48
we're doing I mean, I would it would mean nothing
31:50
to me if my wife said that, it would be
31:52
a different story.
31:54
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, So now I don't like that you phrase
31:57
it that way, because now it's like you just don't
31:58
care about me.
32:00
Speaker 1: Not that it's just that I would not be surprised
32:02
because I'd be like what and you're just like, I
32:03
was really cool and I see it as a video.
32:07
Speaker 4: All right, all right? See the YouTube thing does cover
32:10
up a lot of the like weird you.
32:11
Speaker 2: Need to become a serial killer?
32:12
Speaker 1: Is so what I'm trying to tell you.
32:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of situations I'll be and I'm like,
32:19
this is kind of odd.
32:20
Speaker 4: But then you say you're a YouTuber.
32:21
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, well, I was making a YouTube video.
32:23
Speaker 2: They're like, how fun I was.
32:26
Speaker 4: I was breaking it, entering the abandoned property for a video.
32:29
Speaker 2: It's like, it's just.
32:32
Speaker 4: You're fine, Yeah, oh what's that?
32:35
Speaker 3: You found the school thing in there that someone definitely
32:37
owns this property and you stole It's for a video.
32:40
Speaker 4: It's a video, of course, not come on video.
32:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, money laundering, drug possession, it's a video, guys. Steven
32:53
had always been this way, no doubt in his next
32:55
letter he would be talking just as enthusiastically about a
32:58
completely different topic, with Witchcraft far from his mind. I
33:03
wrote a meager reply that night, nothing terribly fancy, just
33:06
a passive interest in what he had mentioned, and also
33:09
a little update on how my own studies were progressing.
33:13
I responded to his invitation to join him at Barton
33:15
Parish and said that it would be a pleasure to
33:17
spend some time with him. After my first year was finished,
33:20
I was able to come home for Christmas. My delight,
33:23
my mother invited Stephen to our home for lunch. Christmas
33:27
itself is a busy time for the ordained, but I
33:29
was grateful for the snatches of conversation we managed to have.
33:33
To my surprise, Stephen had not dropped his inquiries into
33:36
his ancestor and the various Cheshire witch trials, both legal
33:40
and illegal, that had occurred in the county. In fact,
33:44
he would speak of little else during my short stay
33:47
with him. He was particularly excited because he believed he
33:50
had finally located where Francis Ellis Pendle had been laid
33:53
to rest. He described to me great detail over Brandy
33:58
that at the very back of the cemetery, close to
34:00
where the gunner's cloth woodlands starts to encroach upon the
34:03
hollowed ground, there can be found a small copse of
34:06
witch elm trees, so called because witches were once hanged
34:10
from them. He was his belief that Francis had been
34:13
interred in the ground beneath one of these trees. Precaution
34:17
levied against him, as the old folk believed that the
34:20
roots of a tree would pin the witch's body and
34:22
soul in place, denying either the power to rise from
34:25
their grave and avenge themselves upon the living metal. The
34:29
next morning he took me out to see the cops
34:31
where he suspected the final resting place of his witch
34:34
ancestor lay. Even in the daytime, it was a dark
34:38
and blasted place. The trees looked more dead than alive,
34:41
with twisting, dry branches that groaned like the creaking of
34:44
a floorboard as the wind lightly danced around them. Here,
34:49
somewhere beneath the dark ground, Stephen was convinced that the
34:52
body of Francis lay. I cannot say with conviction that
34:56
even then I was worried about him. I had convinced
34:59
myself that his interest was purely historical. He was nothing
35:03
more than an enthusiastic amateur. Hindsight, however, the warning signs
35:08
were undoubtedly present. I would come and visit Barton sporadically
35:11
during my second and third years at college. I think
35:14
I was subconsciously outgrowing the place, but in the best
35:17
possible way.
35:19
Speaker 4: I was shaping into.
35:20
Speaker 3: The man I always wanted to be, and I felt
35:22
renewed by my growing independence from both Stephen and my mother.
35:27
It was during the last part of my ordination, my
35:29
final year, that I first heard the growing rumors regarding
35:32
Stephen and his radical change of behavior. The source of
35:36
such gossip came from none other than my mother. There
35:40
was a certain sense of satisfaction in her tone upon
35:42
informing me of the various distasteful exploits that Stephen was
35:45
being accused of. He was now apparently drinking heavily and
35:50
had been spotted meeting with certain unsavory types after dark.
35:54
Strange visitors had been seen in the cemetery always at night,
35:59
he was said. He was, she said, keeping company with
36:03
odd strangers who's spoken foreign tongues and who wore bizarre clothing. Loud,
36:08
violent behaviors in the middle of the night was becoming
36:11
a regular occurrence for his neighbors, as voices were heard
36:14
emanating from the church house at all hours. That's really
36:17
funny to imagine that. It's like, yeah, he's talking to
36:22
some weird foreigners, I think, and it's like a demon
36:25
and a cloak. That's like, oh, keebotgut dot dot com.
36:27
They're like, I think that guy is from Italy. Yeah,
36:31
I'm pretty sure.
36:33
Speaker 5: No one gets scared, but I'm pretty sure it's a
36:36
Chinese guy.
36:37
Speaker 3: I think that guy over there might be I'm not sure.
36:41
Speaker 4: I don't want to I don't be Portuguese.
36:43
Speaker 1: I don't want to freak anybody, but I think that's
36:45
a Chinese guy over there.
36:48
Speaker 3: I never met someone from Portugal, but I'm almost positive
36:50
Father Stephen would be what that would look like.
36:53
Speaker 1: Father Stephen, would you come over here please? Actually, never mind,
36:57
don't we all go down this road?
37:00
Speaker 4: No, no, don't, don't.
37:01
Speaker 1: We don't do that.
37:04
Speaker 4: I think you keep going the road, and I think
37:07
you're setting up a really.
37:08
Speaker 3: Good, classic, wholesome creep cast bit with that one.
37:14
Speaker 4: If you noticed. I tried to.
37:15
Speaker 3: Keep the nationality vague and keep switching it up, like, oh,
37:17
it's Allian Portugal.
37:18
Speaker 4: These are fun.
37:19
Speaker 3: You really logged it on that Chinese thing there for
37:22
a second, so I know you go ahead that one
37:26
play out.
37:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, no, no, no, no, we're having fun.
37:33
Speaker 3: We're having fun, no reason to get anyone in trouble now,
37:36
not having good time. But also like there was noise
37:39
coming all hours of the night, like there's loud incantations
37:42
and it's like those you know, Steven's always been a
37:45
real wild one.
37:46
Speaker 4: Was having his parties have.
37:47
Speaker 1: A party, getting drunk on brandy and having gay sex
37:49
with the Chinese guys. That sounds like, I see, there
37:53
you go.
37:53
Speaker 3: You brought them back into right now.
38:00
Speaker 4: He's there. We tried to ask him to leave, he won't.
38:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Well now.
38:05
Speaker 2: Not favor I think Stevens trung.
38:07
Speaker 1: Mean, he's got himself in a literal Chinese finger trap now,
38:09
so he's gonna watch out. He's got a push and twist.
38:12
You know what I'm saying.
38:13
Speaker 4: He's in a Chinese finger trap with the Chinese guy.
38:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
38:16
Speaker 4: Well, no, okay, no, no, no, no, no, don't put
38:20
it down the.
38:21
Speaker 3: Way you giggled when you said, well, I know I
38:24
opened the door on that one.
38:25
Speaker 4: I'm shutting the door back. I didn't walk into the room.
38:28
The door is shut. We're done. I don't need to
38:30
see what's going on there. We're good. We're just gonna
38:32
keep moving.
38:33
Speaker 3: There was even talk that several pets had gone missing
38:35
in the village, in particular Missus No. There ain't no
38:42
way that that is a Polish name or something, and
38:46
that is that is messed up the Wicks in particular
38:56
Missus the Nibblewick's tabby cat Cleo, and old Man Slater's
39:00
greyhound Basil. The latter was known to roam freely around
39:04
the village and was almost always in constant trouble, tipping
39:07
over rubbish bins and chasing Jack Duncalf's chickens. Some people
39:12
assumed that the dog had either run off or been
39:14
hit by a car, but a fair number attributed a
39:17
more ominous reason behind the dog's sudden vanishing. The cat, however,
39:22
was rarely seen outside of the Zadibah Wicks home. Many
39:27
assumed that the eldest son Ian was the culprit. The
39:30
boy had always had a cruel striak and was disliked
39:33
by almost everyone in the village, including his own mother.
39:37
But when the decayed, headless body of a cat and
39:39
the severed head of a greyhound were found casually discarded
39:43
in the gunner's cloth by some local children the day
39:46
after Walprigis, many began to suspect that Stephen sinister new
39:50
acquaintances were responsible. The most disturbing revelation, however, was that
39:56
Stephen's face appeared to have taken on a rather unusual countenance,
40:00
kind of sardonic smirks that greatly unearthed.
40:03
Speaker 4: Those who saw it.
40:04
Speaker 3: By all rights, the expression was wholly alien to the man,
40:08
and when seen, it appeared to twist his face to
40:11
such an extent that he looked like a stranger. The
40:14
Bishop of the Cheshire Diocese had issued him with a
40:17
formal warning about his behavior, the outcome of which I
40:20
would soon learn of At the time, I found all
40:24
of this impossible to believe. The evils being attributed to
40:27
my friend were nothing more than village gossip, I believed,
40:31
and the usual Barton superstitions, something for the old codgers
40:34
to grumble over whilst deep in their cups, and I
40:37
refused to accept the rumor or take the matter seriously.
40:41
Soon enough, however, I too became embroiled in the abnormal
40:45
changes in Stephen's life. Again, there was a period of
40:48
time where I didn't receive regular correspondence from Stephen. In fact,
40:52
these periods had grown more frequent, but I admit that
40:55
I was beginning to grow worried as the rumors regarding
40:58
his behavior churned out over in my mind, and the
41:01
large gulf between his letters was growing even wider as
41:04
time passed. I hadn't received a letter back from him
41:07
for a very long time, perhaps four months, but when
41:11
I finally did, it was far more disturbing than anything
41:14
I had ever read from him, and it filled me
41:17
with an urgent need to see my friend and assist
41:19
him however I could. It arrived from me unexpected, much
41:23
like the previous one I have described, and despite looking
41:26
like a letter from Stephen. It was so hastily scrawled
41:29
that for a few seconds I thought it was written
41:32
by a stranger.
41:33
Speaker 1: Benjamin, I am afraid to tell you this, but I
41:37
fear I have let myself down a dork and winding path.
41:41
So far have I descended into darkness, and so deeply
41:45
have I gazed at the blackness that I wonder if
41:47
I will ever be able to find my way back
41:49
to the Lord's light By middling. The past affairs of
41:52
the parish and my own family history have brought me
41:55
nothing but misery.
41:58
Speaker 4: I am doomed.
42:00
Speaker 1: It's the dream's been hideous dreams. I dream constantly, so
42:06
much that I no longer tell what is reel and
42:08
what is phantasy, A dream often of a cold, godless place,
42:12
devoid of warmth and comfort. Above me, I see twisting
42:17
black roots warming their way slowly towards me like serpents.
42:21
Try as I might, I cannot move my arms and legs,
42:25
but my body is confined to a casket, a bauried, rotting,
42:29
maggot infested casket. When I finally awake, the clock by
42:34
my bedside always displays the same time three a m.
42:37
A witching hour.
42:40
Speaker 5: By the time you read this, I may not be
42:43
at the parish. I must leave this place, leave Barton,
42:46
and never return. I have some die matters to attend to.
42:50
Most importantly, I must return to that which I have called.
42:54
He has his own black designs, and I must ensure
42:57
that these that they never come to fruition. In my
43:00
more lucid moments, I am formulating a plan, but I
43:04
must be prudent unless he suspects me of acting. I
43:08
must be decisive and deliberate in my actions and conceal
43:11
all evidence from him before the sun sets and my
43:13
and and his time begins. He has his means, that
43:18
is beyond doubt. But I also have mine. I know
43:22
of certain antique form does and signs that can ward
43:25
off his spirit. Hoping as it may be, once I
43:28
am once, I am sure that this evil is returned
43:30
to the cold ground.
43:31
Speaker 1: His remains must be destroyed.
43:34
Speaker 4: Fire is no.
43:34
Speaker 1: Good, It will leave too much intact.
43:37
Speaker 5: It must be something stronger, something that will obliterate him
43:40
until that there is nothing left.
43:42
Speaker 1: I will then take my leave.
43:45
Speaker 5: I have already spoken with the Bishop, and we both
43:47
agree that you are ready to take my place.
43:48
Speaker 1: Ben.
43:49
Speaker 5: May you, May you be a better guide to the
43:51
people of this perish than I then, if I feel
43:56
in my endeavors, I can offer you only this warning. Fear,
44:00
that which looks beneath the witch tree do not invited in,
44:05
but will make itself a home within you and through
44:08
your work.
44:08
Speaker 1: It's black magic. You will invoke those who look at
44:11
the threshold, those unnamed blasphemies from the great outside. And then,
44:16
my friend, we're all ruined. God bless you.
44:22
Speaker 4: That is the average text from Hunter at three in
44:24
the morning.
44:25
Speaker 1: That is just about what I do, Isaiah. I think
44:29
I'm having a heart attack. The pizza, ros and whiskey
44:32
have finally kept con finally caught up with me and
44:35
the grim Reapers by by my nightstand, he chuckles and
44:40
does for.
44:46
Speaker 4: Girls in wits. Gets such a depressed.
44:49
Speaker 2: He keeps telling me of you.
44:51
Speaker 1: He keeps telling me of a Chinese man that's haunting
44:54
my dreams.
44:56
Speaker 3: I mean this in the best way, uh and not
45:00
You and Alison are a lovely couple, and I think
45:02
you guys are never going to break up. But I
45:05
mean this was full sincerity. You have all the makings
45:10
of a divorced father.
45:11
Speaker 2: Thank you.
45:16
Speaker 4: In the best way.
45:17
Speaker 3: Like the humor, the jokes, the whiskey and pizza rolls dinner.
45:24
Speaker 4: It's like built into you. Also, does that mean was
45:28
that too far?
45:28
Speaker 1: No, that's fine.
45:30
Speaker 2: I think it's true. It is built in me.
45:32
Speaker 1: I consume it and then it builds itself like little legos.
45:37
Speaker 7: Uh So, in this letter, he's having visions now that
45:42
he's the body beneath the witch Elm, which is his ancestor,
45:45
and he is determined to destroy it somehow.
45:49
Speaker 4: It says that it's now time for Benjamin to take
45:51
his place.
45:53
Speaker 1: Is it the witch or do you think it's the
45:55
man he was looking for?
45:58
Speaker 4: Well, he Francis Petal was a witch.
46:00
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, okay, okay.
46:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.
46:03
Speaker 3: To say that this letter disturbed me greatly would be
46:06
a gross understatement. I had never known my friend to
46:08
be so worried or panicked over anything in his life,
46:11
and yet here he was telling me that his very
46:14
soul was in jeopardy. I spoke with my superiors at
46:17
the college, but I did not show them the notes
46:19
Stephen had sent me. I feared that should anyone else
46:23
read the note, they would question his sanity, and that
46:25
might put into motion a whole course of events regrettable
46:28
to the man's already fred reputation.
46:31
Speaker 4: No bes, I speak to him first and get to
46:33
the root of the issue.
46:35
Speaker 3: Uh h, I get it because he's under a tree.
46:41
A few days later, I was on a train and
46:44
bound home for Barton. I disembarked at the nearby east
46:47
witch of the station and caught a rickety old bus
46:49
into the village, arriving around midday, and hastily made my
46:53
way in the direction of the parish church. Several locals
46:56
recognized me, and I had to pause momentarily for a
46:59
few exchanges before resuming my journey. I did my best
47:04
and not to look panicked, and to keep my gait
47:06
to an acceptable stride as I gave each passer by
47:08
my time, But deep inside I was overcome with a
47:12
crippling dread that only increased as I neared my destination.
47:16
When at last I arrived at the church gates, I
47:18
found them closed but not barred. Pushing their heavy iron
47:21
frame inwards, I walked past a small stone fountain which
47:25
was bone dry and not flowing with a gentle trickling
47:28
sound that usually welcomed visitors. The surrounding benches that crowned
47:32
the fountain were empty, as was the entire churchyard and cemetery.
47:36
I couldn't help but notice the serene yet disturbing quiet
47:39
of the places. I headed straight for the church doors,
47:42
which were worryingly locked. I looked around, puzzled Stephen should
47:48
have been inside and getting ready for the evening service.
47:51
I picked up my bags and made my way around
47:53
the church and towards the small residence at the back
47:55
where Stephen lived. The front door, like that of the church,
47:59
was locked. Curtains were open, and I peeked inside, but
48:03
could see no signs of life. I then did a
48:06
quick tour of the perimeter, knocking and calling on every
48:09
door and window, before returning to the front. I assured
48:12
myself that there must be a perfectly mundane excuse for
48:15
him not being president at the church, and mused that
48:18
maybe he was out picking up provisions from Littler's store
48:22
on Townfield Lane. The relief of such a normal explanation
48:26
was abruptly shattered, however, by the gruff and familiar voice
48:29
of a man barking out to me from the direction
48:32
of the cemetery.
48:33
Speaker 1: Vicker's gone, Ben, and I don't suppose he's coming back
48:37
into time soon.
48:39
Speaker 3: I cocked my head in the direction of the voice,
48:41
and called out my words, feebly battling the expanding gust
48:45
of wind that were coalescing piles of brown autumn leaves,
48:49
causing them to dance around the try gray.
48:51
Speaker 4: Fountain behind me.
48:53
Speaker 3: Is that you, Ted, I called out, already knowing the
48:56
answer to my question. To me my reply, The tall
48:59
and wire frame of old Ted Quilt slowly emerged from
49:02
behind a large headstone. He had a small shovel in
49:06
one hand and was no doubt tending to the earth
49:08
around the cemetery, just as he had for as long
49:10
as I could recall, despite the autumn chill. He wiped
49:14
sweat from his brow and waved at me before picking
49:16
up his tools. As he made his way towards me,
49:19
his long white hair and beard billowing in the wind,
49:22
I cannot banish thoughts of the old pagan gods from
49:25
my mind. With his towering height and wizened but friendly
49:29
old face, he reminded me of Wodin, chieftain of the
49:32
gods and the leader of the dreaded wild hunt from
49:35
the old Saxon legends.
49:37
Speaker 1: Sorry, Ben, didn't SKay? Did I heard you come in? Well?
49:42
I heard the gate clang Forard. I'll let you look
49:45
around before speaking of n It's quite all right, Ted,
49:50
What did you mean just now? This Stephen was gone
49:52
and wouldn't be coming back. Best to be Come inside, boy,
49:57
The Viking left me some instructions for you and the
49:59
keyst Come on, I'm making some tea.
50:03
Speaker 4: He rested one of his giant hands on my shoulder.
50:06
Speaker 1: Don't lie to you, Ben, I've got some queer things
50:10
to tell you. I keep having gay sex with.
50:15
Speaker 4: You. Said that word.
50:17
Speaker 3: You were gonna say something, I thought to myself, I
50:20
better read the next one before.
50:23
Speaker 1: Some things to tell you.
50:24
Speaker 4: You're you're you're horrible.
50:26
Speaker 1: I've got some queer things I can make a man
50:28
come and probably.
50:32
Speaker 4: This is a good story. Quick quit.
50:37
Speaker 1: In sixty seconds.
50:39
Speaker 4: Oh Quet, this is miserable.
50:43
Speaker 1: I had my period draft week.
50:45
Speaker 4: I've trapped. What are you?
50:47
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
50:49
Speaker 1: I had my period last week, Ben, Ted, I don't
50:56
think that's I don't think that makes much sense. I
50:59
thought I was pregnant, but luckily I got my period.
51:03
I got a lot of things. I gotta tell you,
51:06
some weird witchcraft going on in the cemetery, Ben, I
51:10
keep get my period it's not monthly, it's weekly.
51:21
Speaker 2: I keep sucking male ghost dick.
51:24
Speaker 1: No, the ghost of men are very.
51:28
Speaker 2: Happy in the cemetery for me, did.
51:30
Speaker 4: You gotta quit? The number of people I see get mad.
51:34
Speaker 3: They're like, Isaiah is such a proud Why would Isaiah
51:37
let Hunter tell jokes? If I just let him tell
51:40
these things, the show would.
51:42
Speaker 1: Get washed their souls clean.
51:45
Speaker 2: Ben like that.
51:46
Speaker 4: There's gotta be some pushback to it somewhere. I've gotta
51:49
be love.
51:51
Speaker 3: People at church ask about the show, and I'm like,
51:54
I don't really what creep cast?
51:55
Speaker 4: What is that?
51:57
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters? Just ghost cock in the cemi? No, no, what
52:02
it is?
52:03
Speaker 4: So it isn't all.
52:04
Speaker 3: It was funnier when it was the Chinese Guy, but
52:06
it was just less detailed.
52:09
Speaker 1: Babe, you're gonna go to the afterlife with a smile
52:17
on your face.
52:18
Speaker 3: This story is getting good. Sorry, go ahead, everyone.
52:27
Speaker 1: Did you at least laugh with I got my period
52:29
because I thought that was fun.
52:32
Speaker 4: I'm not telling you. You're gonna have to watch the recording.
52:35
Speaker 3: Back to everyone who gets mad at me for quote
52:38
unquote being approved.
52:40
Speaker 4: This is what I'm holding off. There's a I am.
52:42
Speaker 3: I am the little Dutch boy with his finger in
52:46
the damn keeping the entire village from being flooded. Okay,
52:50
everyone's like, oh, why is the Dutch boy standing next
52:52
to that damn? Because the Dutch boy knows what it
52:54
takes to save the town.
52:58
Speaker 1: You can you can stick a finger in it if
53:00
you want, put a finger in a ben, the classic
53:11
Ted quote, put a finger in a bin. You're so
53:18
crassy your pinky's a wine cork. Okay, all right, just
53:24
one pinky band please, it's it's.
53:26
Speaker 4: Just you go, you go.
53:28
Speaker 3: There's not just like a joke. It's just in all
53:30
the nitty gritty, that's all. I can see everything you're describing.
53:36
Its way too, right down to the knuckle. God, you
53:39
got no, no, no, no, no, no.
53:43
Speaker 4: That that's a good story.
53:44
Speaker 1: Big old knuckles on you like a half dollar right
53:48
there on right there on your hand. Ted, can he
53:51
just take me back to Stephen's house? Yeah?
53:54
Speaker 3: Sure, Ted didn't say any of this. Ted was the
53:59
nice old man who works in the guard.
54:02
Speaker 4: Hey, guys say any of this?
54:04
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so this is this is real quick.
54:08
Speaker 4: Didn't actually say that stuff, So I don't even wait,
54:12
don't give me that voice does to say don't give
54:15
me that voice. Don't give me that voice.
54:17
Speaker 2: If it's not canon that Ted is his second ghost
54:20
talk and.
54:20
Speaker 1: Getting fed in the graveyard, then I don't want any
54:24
part of it.
54:27
Speaker 4: I'm gonna keep reading.
54:29
Speaker 1: My asshole looks like a used catcher's glove.
54:31
Speaker 4: Man.
54:32
Speaker 1: That's the last time, And that's actually the last one,
54:34
because that's disgusting for you and for you to and
54:38
for you to, honestly, for you to let that happen.
54:40
I think that's gross.
54:42
Speaker 4: For me to let that happen, for me to let
54:44
you talk.
54:44
Speaker 3: I did every think of my power to keep you
54:46
from talking, and it was completely ineffective. You just wan
54:50
get tired out. And then you say any talks about
54:54
me holding back and being a prude or whatever. What
54:56
am I holding back? M It doesn't do any him.
55:00
Speaker 1: Him hiding behind the headstone now is a lot more devious,
55:03
isn't it. What are you doing back there?
55:05
Speaker 3: I'm reading I No, I'm reading you've said that would
55:09
be the last You don't want to see the no.
55:13
You said you gave me your word and it was
55:16
over here in the cemetery.
55:23
Speaker 2: Get out of here, Ben, You don't want to see this,
55:25
all right?
55:26
Speaker 1: Come take a look. Do you want me to see
55:30
it or not? I don't care what you do. Just
55:34
make a move, honcho. All right, where we're done, Go ahead,
55:40
I got my period. Many it's good, good stuff. Ben.
55:48
Do you see it? Tampas lying around here somewhere? Okay?
55:51
Speaker 2: That's actually that's and that is it. That's that's the
55:54
last of the bits.
55:58
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Speaker 4: Episode with the he pulled the front.
57:02
Speaker 1: So defeated sounding how you're reading.
57:05
Speaker 3: This With that, he pulled the front door key from
57:10
the back of his tattered trousers and unlocked the front
57:12
door of Stephen's house, causing the lock to make a
57:15
heavy clunking sound as the door opened a jar. He entered,
57:18
and I followed behind, still confused as to what I
57:21
could have missed in the time since I last heard
57:23
from Stephen. Teddy immediately headed for the kitchen where Trudos's word.
57:28
He put on a pot of tea and then sat
57:30
down to roll himself a cigarette whilst waiting for the
57:32
tee to broom. Hungry, he turned to ask me, scraping
57:36
his tongue across the cigarette's paper skin and gesturing into
57:39
some biscuits on a nearby plate.
57:45
Speaker 1: Yond that.
57:48
Speaker 2: Later, perhaps Isaiah my son stay strong in the name of.
57:55
Speaker 4: The Lord, I replied with a weak smile.
58:02
Speaker 3: The smell of the brewing tea filled the room and
58:04
offered me a little comfort. Stephen had always appreciated a
58:07
strong tea. I placed my bags down and looked around
58:10
the room. It was exactly how I remembered it, untouched
58:13
and impeccably clean, as was Steven's fancy.
58:17
Speaker 4: Ted Hm.
58:25
Speaker 3: Ted looked quite out of place in such an uncluttered arena,
58:28
his wild beard and dirt stained clothing. He didn't say
58:31
anything to me, engrossed as he was in his cigarette rolling,
58:35
which caused me to grow a little impatient with the man.
58:38
Speaker 1: Look if something's happened to Stephen, g's a little bit, no,
58:41
quickly ted, what is it?
58:43
Speaker 3: He proceeded to pour two cups of tea, and after
58:45
passing one along with a small jug of milk, he
58:48
struck a match and lit a cigarette, before leaning back
58:51
in his chair and sign.
58:53
Speaker 1: Ah, there isn't an easy way to say this, Ben,
58:58
so I'll just come with it. Steven has left the parish.
59:02
His ways, shall we say, over the last few months
59:06
have been unnerving many of his parishioners, and the Bishop
59:10
felt he was in everyone's best interest that he takes
59:12
his leave, at least for a few months.
59:15
Speaker 3: I nodded, not so much in agreement, but simply out
59:18
of shock. I reached into my pocket and pulled out
59:21
the last two letters Stephen had sent me and handed
59:23
them over to Ted. He placed his cup on the
59:26
table and took them into his huge hands without saying
59:28
a word. He stroked his snow white beard whilst intermittently
59:33
nodding and sighing as he flitted from page to page,
59:36
occasionally rereading a section and then nodding once more. Once finished,
59:41
he handed them back to me, picked up his cup
59:43
and took a sip, straining the brown liquid through his beard.
59:46
Speaker 1: Do these letters mean anything to you? He was talking
59:49
about the bloody witchcraft business an awful lot. I knew
59:52
some of what he was talking about, especially those trees
59:55
out back pairs the graveyard. I used to play around
59:59
the gunners uh klow as a boy, and there was
1:00:02
always tell about how evil that place was. You're from Barton,
1:00:06
you must have heard the old tales about the ghost
1:00:08
and goblins, and how and how old Saltpeter would get
1:00:12
you if you linger too long past sundown.
1:00:14
Speaker 3: Saltpeter, I replied with a smile, recalling the childhood memory
1:00:18
of how my grandfather would warn me of entering the
1:00:21
gunner's cloth after dark. Stay away from those woods. Boy,
1:00:25
you would say, salt Peter, salty pete. Some call it
1:00:29
three legs. He goes, he'll trick you into the woods,
1:00:31
using the voice of someone you know.
1:00:33
Speaker 1: That's just an old wives tale. Ted Steve would have
1:00:37
never taken such talk seriously. Imps and witches, familiars, it's
1:00:40
just childish superstition. Well, I can't argue with you, there, Ben.
1:00:45
Speaker 4: He said, taking another sip of the tea.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: But it was more than weird changes in its nature
1:00:50
that I wanted to talk to you about, not all
1:00:52
this witchy nonsense.
1:00:54
Speaker 3: Tap the letters on the table, as if to emphasize
1:00:57
how little they thought of their contents, such as I said,
1:01:00
picking up my own cup.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: Well, a couple of folks rumbled him. Good to the
1:01:05
bishop over his nightly doings. They said he'd been calling
1:01:09
regularly with shady types from Eastwich and that he was
1:01:13
involved in some missing money here at the parish. Quite
1:01:16
a slam of folks are quite as slamon folks are
1:01:20
to be believed. Then there's a strange sounds and stranger
1:01:23
lights coming from the cemetery. My mother was telling me
1:01:27
about this week's ago. I didn't want to believe her,
1:01:30
and she's never been too keen on Stephen. Not just
1:01:34
that Ben, he was his whole manner. You just stopped
1:01:38
giving a damn about the community, grew slacking his duty,
1:01:42
and you know that's not Stephen. He turned into this cruel,
1:01:48
morose man, almost a complete stranger really, and said a
1:01:52
lot of the vocals, took.
1:01:53
Speaker 3: A few more SIPs from his tea and finished his
1:01:55
cigarette before continuing.
1:01:57
Speaker 1: So there was a village meeting and with the agreement
1:02:01
of the diocese and Chester and the bishop who was
1:02:04
decided that he should leave us. He can't say I
1:02:07
know where he's gone, but I reckon that you don't
1:02:10
want to take over his duties if you're willing, at
1:02:12
least until the bishop can find a replacement.
1:02:15
Speaker 3: He stood up and opened a nearby drawer, producing a
1:02:18
sealed letter for the mark of the Chester Diocese. Opening
1:02:22
its contents confirmed what Ted was hitting at.
1:02:26
Speaker 4: They know what to say.
1:02:28
Speaker 3: I was supposed to start my tenure as a curate
1:02:30
under Stephen, not becoming the village Viker.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: Why didn't Bishop Ellison speak to me directly about this?
1:02:37
Speaker 4: Ted simply shrugs, before continuing.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: There's something you should know.
1:02:40
Speaker 4: Ben.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: You brace yourself because what I have to say next
1:02:45
is gone upset.
1:02:46
Speaker 4: You stiff in my back in response, and allowed him
1:02:48
to continue.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: Some believe that Stephen maybe did.
1:02:54
Speaker 4: I opened my mouth to reply, but he raised his hand.
1:02:57
Speaker 5: Let me finish, I said. Some believe he may be did,
1:03:00
but that doesn't make it so. Nonetheless, no one has
1:03:04
heard hide or hear of him since he left. Phil
1:03:07
Crouch heard a rumor that a man who looked just
1:03:10
like Steven had been spotted down by the locks a
1:03:13
few nights ago, you know the ones by the river
1:03:17
down past the canal that run through Blackcroft.
1:03:20
Speaker 1: He was ranting and raving Stephen. That is almost as
1:03:24
if he was having a quarrel with himself. Well, Phil
1:03:28
says he came out to see what the fuss was,
1:03:30
and he swears hands down that he saw Stephen throw
1:03:32
himself into the locks. He told the local bobbies about
1:03:35
what he'd seen, and they couldn't find anything amiss. I
1:03:39
thought you sho, I thought you should know unless you
1:03:42
hear it from someone else in less favorable terms.
1:03:46
Speaker 3: I felt my world come crashing down around me. This
1:03:49
is too much for me to absorb at once. Every man,
1:03:52
be he a saint or a center, as his share
1:03:54
of faults. But to hear of these developments, coupled with
1:03:57
the last letter Steven had sent me in the news
1:03:59
that he may have killed himself, not to mention the
1:04:02
expectation that I should take his place at the.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: Parish, I'll need time to think about it, ted.
1:04:07
Speaker 3: I said, standing up slowly. He nodded and finished his
1:04:10
drink before standing himself.
1:04:12
Speaker 5: I understand, Look, no one's expecting you to hold a
1:04:15
service or anything. The whole village knows the situation, and
1:04:19
I just think that they are that. I just think
1:04:21
that they and the council are glad to have you here.
1:04:25
You won't have to perform any public services, not until
1:04:27
you were good and ready. At least, no doubt or
1:04:29
a placement will.
1:04:30
Speaker 1: Be found before too long, and try not to worry
1:04:32
too much about what Phil Krouch says. You know him
1:04:36
stupefied with the drink at the time. I'm sure Steven's fine.
1:04:40
He's probably just taking the time he needs.
1:04:42
Speaker 4: You pointed to the keys on the table.
1:04:44
Speaker 1: These are years until it's all sorted out. Look, I
1:04:47
get I best get back to work out there. If
1:04:50
you need me, just say so, But I hope you'll stay.
1:04:54
Speaker 3: Patting me on the shoulder, Ted left, leaving me sat
1:04:57
alone in the kitchen, was ablazed with confusion and doubt.
1:05:02
Just what chaos did I returned to? It took no
1:05:05
small amount of time for me to settle into the house.
1:05:08
I avoided going into town at all costs, and only
1:05:10
received the minimal amount of visitors, many of which were
1:05:13
only at my doors seeking gossip. I quickly dismissed the
1:05:16
worst of them and focus instead on the genuine well
1:05:19
wishers and sympathizers, of which there were depressingly few. Apart
1:05:24
from Ted, the only person I spoke to regularly was
1:05:27
my mother, who was less than supportive with the whole
1:05:30
matter and only offered a few snipes about the man
1:05:32
I had come to think of as my father.
1:05:34
Speaker 4: I spent the rest of my time in.
1:05:36
Speaker 3: The church, taking care of daily chores and wandering around
1:05:38
the cemetery, where I would occasionally bump into Ted and
1:05:41
have a short, pleasant though sterile conversation about the weather
1:05:45
before moving on. The days were growing colder, and I
1:05:49
would frequently bring him hot tea and food as he
1:05:52
worked relentlessly on maintaining the church grounds, especially those close
1:05:55
to where the feral brambles of the gunner's cloth constantly encroached.
1:06:00
He wasn't bad company by any means, but as the
1:06:03
days turned into weeks, we found less and less to
1:06:05
talk about. I also kept at constant I also kept
1:06:09
in constant contact with Bishop Ellison, who offered me all
1:06:13
the support.
1:06:13
Speaker 4: He could in running the parish.
1:06:15
Speaker 3: He was confident that a replacement for Stephen would be
1:06:18
found quickly, but was very sensitive about discussing it in detail,
1:06:22
knowing just how close he had been to me. It
1:06:25
was during one of these many daily excursions around the churchyard.
1:06:28
It was during one of these many daily excursions around
1:06:31
the churchyard that I decided to revisit the witch Elm
1:06:34
trees that Stephen had once shown me. I'd explored most
1:06:38
of the large open cemetery, and decided to walk around
1:06:40
the far back end, which borders with the gunner's cloth.
1:06:44
I cannot state with any clear conviction what had possessed
1:06:47
me to walk along the lonesome and lonely stretch of graveyard,
1:06:51
crammed as it was with crumbling tombstones, the names of
1:06:54
their occupants long since worn away by the passage of time.
1:06:58
In the shade of those forsaken trees, there rested some
1:07:02
of the oldest and most decrepit headstones in the whole cemetery.
1:07:05
Many of them leaned, had steep angles, and some it
1:07:08
toppled over entirely, their surfaces now home to moss and lichen.
1:07:13
I passed each in turn, trying in vain to make
1:07:16
out the names and dates that have been washed away
1:07:18
by the relentless rain of northwest England, till I came
1:07:21
across the Whitshelm trees once more Nestled at the very
1:07:25
back of the copse, deep in the shadows of a
1:07:27
particularly diseased looking tree, I could see a patch of
1:07:31
ground that appeared to have been freshly excavated. I made
1:07:35
my way closer and stood in front of it, noticing
1:07:38
that a small carved stone had been half submerged in
1:07:41
the recently disturbed soil.
1:07:43
Speaker 4: It was green and furry with moss. I've been down
1:07:47
and ran my hand around it, and.
1:07:49
Speaker 3: Found the clumps of moss growing upon its surface easy
1:07:52
enough to pull off. Neath the vegetation, I could spy
1:07:57
that there was an inscription and a date chiseled into
1:08:00
the sandstone underneath, or the moss that preserved it. Here
1:08:04
lies Francis Ellis Pendle, beloved by the Devil, unforgotten by
1:08:10
his disciples, seventeen fifty one AD. The carving was undoubtedly old,
1:08:17
and despite the protection afforded to it by the moss,
1:08:20
it was.
1:08:20
Speaker 4: Still eroded and worn away in parts.
1:08:23
Speaker 3: As I pulled the stone out of the earth, I
1:08:24
noticed a newer, presserre looking carving on the back. It
1:08:28
was an odd shape, some kind of hieroglyph. It's difficult
1:08:31
to truly say just what it was. It appeared somewhat
1:08:34
similar to a Payan pinagram, but the lines were broken,
1:08:38
resulting in a series of independent points. They said what
1:08:41
looked like a lazin shaped eye. In place of a pupil,
1:08:45
there was instead a small flamelike shape. The symbol must
1:08:49
have been heathen in origin, for I had never encountered
1:08:52
its likes in all my years.
1:08:54
Speaker 4: Of religious studies.
1:08:56
Speaker 3: The whole stone was perhaps only ten inches in height,
1:08:59
hardly what one would call a tombstone, but appearing to
1:09:02
hold the same purpose. Instinctively, I dropped the stone close
1:09:06
to where I had found it and rubbed the dirt
1:09:08
off my hands. I felt as if I had just
1:09:10
come into contact with something unmistakably evil, as if my
1:09:14
very soul had been touched by the hoary and eldritch
1:09:17
nature of whatever darkness it had been used to commemorate.
1:09:21
It was then that the words from Stephen's last note
1:09:24
crep into my mind.
1:09:25
Speaker 5: Fear that witch looks beneath witch tree, Do not invite
1:09:29
it in, for it will make itself a home within you,
1:09:32
and through you work its black magic.
1:09:34
Speaker 3: The hour was growing late, and the deming sun caused
1:09:37
the darkness of the gunner's cloth to wash over me,
1:09:39
meloping me within its black folds. I had no desire
1:09:43
to stay in that place, and hastily made my way
1:09:45
back to the house, determined to reach it before the
1:09:47
sun disappeared behind those vile trees. Once inside, I breathed
1:09:51
the sigh of relief, and then set about preparing myself
1:09:54
a supper of some toast and fresh tea. Try as
1:09:57
I might, I could not banish the warning from Stephen's letter.
1:10:01
Eventually raps driven by a knee. To see if I
1:10:03
had remembered his words correctly, I took the bundle of
1:10:06
Stephen's letters from the kitchen drawer, where I kept them
1:10:09
tucked away beneath some parish leaflets, and sifted through them
1:10:12
until I found the one that mentioned Stephen's talk of witchcraft.
1:10:16
I had folded it and reread it until I came
1:10:18
to the passage with the warning.
1:10:20
Speaker 4: I had indeed remembered it verbatim.
1:10:23
Speaker 3: Unnerved, I folded up the letters and hastily placed them
1:10:26
back into the drawer. A moment later, Ted came into
1:10:29
the kitchen, trembling about the cold and wiping his mud
1:10:32
stained boots on.
1:10:32
Speaker 4: The door mat.
1:10:34
Speaker 3: He nodded and helped himself to the tea I had brewed,
1:10:37
before sitting himself down and pulling out his tobacco to
1:10:39
roll himself a cigarette. I waited a few minutes for
1:10:42
him to progress halfway through his task before.
1:10:45
Speaker 4: Approaching the subject of Stephen and his strange decline.
1:10:48
Speaker 1: So ted, did Steven ever mission a grave to you?
1:10:53
We're not in the yard close to the woods.
1:10:55
Speaker 4: He put his tobacco down and nodded Hi.
1:10:58
Speaker 5: I saw him looking over it a bunch of times.
1:11:00
He told me it was a grave of a witch
1:11:03
hung for his crimes hundreds of years ago, one of
1:11:06
the last in England he reckoned, And that was the
1:11:08
last he was studying him before his change of character
1:11:10
came over him.
1:11:11
Speaker 3: He nodded again and lit his cigarette with a match
1:11:13
before extinguishing it with the shake of his hand.
1:11:17
Speaker 5: Study is one way of putting it. Obsession would be another.
1:11:20
You know, he converted the cellar of his house into
1:11:22
some kind of study, A library. I guess you could
1:11:25
call it, filled with all sorts of queer looking books. Latin,
1:11:30
I reckon, not unusual for a vicar. I guess some
1:11:34
of them is written in German and others and languages
1:11:36
I can't begin to understand. Not only that, but it
1:11:40
moved all kinds of bloody chemicals and equipment in there too.
1:11:44
Can't really say I recognized most of it. Place stinks
1:11:47
to high heaven. Is it still there in the cellar?
1:11:51
Speaker 1: No, I reckon. He took almost everything with him when
1:11:54
the Bishop told him to leave. Might be some bits
1:11:56
and pieces down there, but he'd be lucky to find much.
1:12:00
Speaker 3: We both then sat in silence, ted, turning his attention
1:12:03
to a local newspaper folded on the table, and myself
1:12:06
to my thoughts. The next day, acting largely upon a hunch,
1:12:10
I contacted the Eastwitch College and asked to speak to
1:12:13
their head, who turned out to be a rather jovial
1:12:15
man named Lee Humphrey, who was all too happy to
1:12:19
answer any and all of my questions over the phone.
1:12:22
He confirmed the suspicion of mind that he and Stephen
1:12:24
had had some mild correspondence concerning lab equipment and various chemicals,
1:12:29
compounds and assets. He reeled off several overly long and
1:12:33
complex names, oblivious to the fact that I was totally
1:12:36
ignorant of what he was speaking.
1:12:38
Speaker 4: I thanked him and hung up the phone.
1:12:40
Speaker 3: A few more pieces of the puzzles sliding into place
1:12:42
in my mind. The distance between them, however, was too
1:12:45
great to form a larger cohesive picture. Witchcraft and science,
1:12:50
chemistry and an obsession with a two hundred year old
1:12:52
hidden grave. How do they connect determined to uncover more,
1:12:57
I decided to visit the library Stephen had set up
1:12:59
and dismantled during that time we were separated. The entrance
1:13:03
to the cellar was in the kitchen, behind a narrow
1:13:06
door that I first presumed to have been a broom
1:13:08
covered it concealed a flight of coldstone steps that led
1:13:12
to a distinctly dank.
1:13:13
Speaker 4: And musty underground room.
1:13:15
Speaker 3: A few cramped shelves on the walls either side of
1:13:17
the steps house a collection of mundane objects candles, dried
1:13:21
out paint cans and the.
1:13:23
Speaker 4: Like, but also, luckily, a working torch.
1:13:26
Speaker 3: I took the ladder and switched it on as I
1:13:28
descended the steps, so it it drives me crazy hour
1:13:31
British people call flashlights torches. Can't you just be normal?
1:13:35
Torch is another thing? Stupid whatever. He has a torch
1:13:38
in my head now, like a flaming torch.
1:13:40
Speaker 1: Ben, I just said, Ben. Ben.
1:13:44
Speaker 3: The cellar wasn't very far down, but the low ceiling
1:13:47
above the steps was frightenly claustrophobic, and I was forced
1:13:50
to cock my head to the side to avoid banging it.
1:13:52
Speaker 4: On the wooden beams.
1:13:54
Speaker 3: I reached the bottom and found an open doorway to
1:13:56
my right, which led into a very simple, square room
1:13:59
that the stairs possessed, an oppressively low ceiling, and a
1:14:03
strong musty scent. I entered the cellar, relying upon the
1:14:07
feeble cone of sickly yellow light emanating from the torch
1:14:10
to make out any firm details from the malaise of
1:14:13
murky darkness. Beyond, a large rotting wooden table served as
1:14:17
a centerpiece for the room, and there were rows of
1:14:20
badly handmade shelves lining the back wall, sagging and leaning
1:14:24
at odd angles. The shelves were mostly barren, but there
1:14:28
was evidence in the dust that a large collection of
1:14:30
books had once stood here, and a bare steel skeleton
1:14:33
of chemistry equipment and a few empty bottles set on
1:14:35
the desk. As I moved the light around, it reflected
1:14:39
off several large bottles on another shelf to my right,
1:14:43
large thick, almost barrel like. Most were full of clear
1:14:46
yellow liquids. Others were not brown oil in color. A
1:14:50
few were marked with hastily scrawled labels that read royal water.
1:14:55
Beyond the collection of chemicals, there was a door that
1:14:57
appeared to lead out of the cellar. Confuse me for
1:15:01
I cannot recall any outside entrance that led to the
1:15:03
cellar beneath the house. The door itself looked ancient, with
1:15:07
its rusted bolden handle barely holding onto the crumbling wood
1:15:10
to which they were both crudely nailed into, so I
1:15:14
moved closer to it. The light for my torch caught
1:15:16
something carved into the frame above the door. It was
1:15:20
that curious star hieroglyph I had seen on the stone
1:15:23
above the grave of Francis Ellis Pendle. I ran my
1:15:26
finger along the carving, almost as if to ascertain that
1:15:30
it was real. As my finger traced the freakish shape,
1:15:33
I felt a chill creep over me, the same chill
1:15:36
that had caused me to flee from the shadows of
1:15:38
the witch elms. This time I refused to let fear
1:15:42
grip me, taking the door by its wrested handle and
1:15:44
pushing it inward. To my surprise, the door did not
1:15:48
lead to the outside of the house, but instead revealed
1:15:51
another set of stone stairs leading further down into the earth.
1:15:55
The odor that assaulted my senses as I took a
1:15:57
solitary step towards those stairs was foul. It was a
1:16:01
putrid stench unlike anything I'd ever smelt before. If I
1:16:05
was to describe it as an ungodly mixture of some
1:16:08
acidic compound and rotting excrement, I would be on the
1:16:11
verge of doing justice to the malignant, invasive scent. I
1:16:15
instinctively took a step back and raised my hand to
1:16:18
cover my nose, as if it would somehow relieve me
1:16:20
of the burden of breath in that foul and feted air.
1:16:24
For a brief moment, I considered turning around and leaving
1:16:27
the cellar, but out of burning curiosity, I slowly started
1:16:31
to descend those awful stairs. Well lay at the bottom
1:16:34
of something that will haunt me until my final days.
1:16:38
For laying beyond it was a second chamber, not unlike
1:16:41
the first. But whereas the above cellar space had been
1:16:45
converted into some kind of perverse amalgamation of esoteric library
1:16:48
and alchemists laboratory, this hidden chamber was nothing less than
1:16:52
the devil's workshop.
1:16:55
Speaker 4: Strange images were.
1:16:56
Speaker 3: Carved and painted onto the walls, many of them resembling
1:16:59
the hieroglyphic if I had seen on the meager gravestone
1:17:02
of Francis elie Pendle. There was little to tie the
1:17:05
various pictographs together. Some depicted its spears or eyeballs. Others
1:17:10
were long snakelike tendrils that curled upon themselves to create
1:17:13
a rudimentary alien text. As I edged further into the room,
1:17:18
I could make out various objects nailed to the ceiling.
1:17:21
Some were rusted tools, like the kind you would find
1:17:23
at a slaughterhouse. Others were odd assortments of twigs held
1:17:27
together with twined, creating shapes that had a vague human
1:17:30
outline to them.
1:17:32
Speaker 4: The crowning horror, however, was the table.
1:17:36
Speaker 3: This long stone edifice was less a desk and more
1:17:39
like a butcher slab, stained a hideous reddish brown.
1:17:42
Speaker 4: All over. There were grooves.
1:17:44
Speaker 3: Carved into the table's surface, all of which culminated towards
1:17:47
a round hole, underneath which a rusted iron bucket had
1:17:51
been attached. It was from this bucket that the stench
1:17:54
appeared to originate. And bending down to inspect its contents,
1:17:59
I could see the glisse rotting hind limb of a dog.
1:18:04
Maggots wriggled across its surface, burrowing in and out of
1:18:07
the putrid flesh. I felt bile rise in my throat,
1:18:11
but I managed to keep it down and continue my investigation.
1:18:15
Like the room above, there were shelves fitted to the walls,
1:18:18
these were not bare, instead being filled to the brim
1:18:21
with various manuscripts, papers, maps, and class jars.
1:18:25
Speaker 4: The whole scene had an unmistakable sense of.
1:18:27
Speaker 3: The bygone laid over it, as if it had set
1:18:30
there undisturbed for centuries. Among the papers and jars, I
1:18:35
found a small linen bag tied with a piece of string.
1:18:38
Brown stain on the bags underside made me think twice
1:18:40
about opening it, but I eventually found the courage to
1:18:44
do so. Inside were numerous small white objects that looked
1:18:47
like tiny stones, But upon tipping the contents out and
1:18:51
inspecting them with the torch, I found my horror that
1:18:55
they were children's teeth.
1:18:58
Speaker 4: Brutal.
1:18:59
Speaker 3: Okay, so when Steven went mad, he began to like
1:19:03
give himself over to these occult teachings and the dogs,
1:19:06
the animals that went missing. All the rumors and stuff
1:19:08
was him performing like experiments in this lower basement.
1:19:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also I think that the witch. I think
1:19:14
that he let it in and this is him doing
1:19:16
the black magic that he was talking about as well.
1:19:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you think it's him getting possessed, and that's
1:19:22
why he's like, that's how a role with himself while
1:19:24
he's fighting himself, that's how red.
1:19:26
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's like he's going insane and
1:19:29
he's like performing obviously non holy black magic kind of Uh.
1:19:36
I wouldn't say even say experiments. I just think he's
1:19:38
like doing rituals and shit in his basement.
1:19:41
Speaker 3: Do you think that maybe he started doing this because
1:19:44
he thought he could defeat the witch, like there was
1:19:46
some ritual he could perform to get rid of it.
1:19:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
1:19:49
Speaker 1: I also think that he went in ignorantly thinking that
1:19:52
this was just like a cool discovery and not realizing
1:19:54
like the thing that he just like let loose.
1:19:58
Speaker 4: That's how it goes.
1:19:58
Speaker 3: Sometimes you think you found a dead witch and the
1:20:00
next thing you know, you're collecting children's teething dogs. Yeah,
1:20:04
it's you know, it's rough that happens to us. By
1:20:07
this time, the smell was becoming unbearable and I had
1:20:10
no wish to linger further. Siding to abandon my investigation,
1:20:14
I spied a small, frayed notebook left on the right
1:20:17
hand corner of what I now thought of as a
1:20:20
vivisection By this time, the smell was becoming unbearable and
1:20:24
I had no wish to linger further. Deciding to abandon
1:20:27
my investigation, I spied a small, frayd notebook left on
1:20:31
the right hand corner of what I now thought of
1:20:33
as a vivisectionist table. For whatever reason I could not
1:20:37
then fathom, curious woodblock image on the front must have
1:20:40
caught my eye, and I picked the book up and
1:20:43
tucked it into my jacket before making my way back
1:20:45
to the sanity of.
1:20:46
Speaker 4: The house above.
1:20:48
Speaker 3: I immediately removed my jacket and threw it onto the
1:20:50
kitchen table, disgusted that the terrible stinch from below had
1:20:53
somehow attached itself to me like a parasite, and then
1:20:57
methodically opened all the windows of the house, hoping that
1:20:59
the chill air would purify the hideous odor that had made.
1:21:03
Speaker 4: A nest for itself in my nostrils.
1:21:05
Speaker 3: Tired, my poor mind swirling from the revelations of that
1:21:08
hypogene realm, I eventually collapsed onto my bed and succumbed
1:21:12
to exhaustion. I cannot say how long I had been
1:21:15
slumbering when the first of those terrible dreams came to me.
1:21:19
My sense of time had been grossly warped by my
1:21:22
exploration in the cellar. But it must have been quite sudden,
1:21:25
as the sun was still in the sky when I
1:21:27
finally jolted awake, my pillow wet was sweat. It's impossible
1:21:31
for me to tell if the dreams were brought on
1:21:33
by Stephen's final letters, or if that hidden chamber below
1:21:37
the house had awokened something macab and unwelcome. In my imagination,
1:21:41
I found myself standing within the cemetery. Outside, only it
1:21:45
was different. The land around me was sparser, with fewer
1:21:48
tombstones jutting out of the soft, mossy ground.
1:21:51
Speaker 4: The gunner's cloth.
1:21:52
Speaker 3: Lay before me, its outlined far more feral and foreboding
1:21:56
than it had any right to be. The sky above
1:21:58
me was a blackened abyss, punctured by thousands of twinkling
1:22:02
stars that glittered and gleamed from the grate beyond. The
1:22:05
fat silver moon slowly crept above the tree line, casting
1:22:09
its pale white light upon the cemetery, causing long, deep
1:22:12
shadows to detach from the headstones and crawl upon the
1:22:15
ground towards me. I took a few steps back, but
1:22:19
they still followed me. Chilling me as they swept over
1:22:22
my feet, legs, and body. Then out of the tangled
1:22:27
briars he came, popping and gamboling out of the branches,
1:22:31
the awful form of Saltpeter. On three legs, he danced
1:22:36
the sleek body of a greyhound, upon the neck of
1:22:39
which there leaned and swayed the head of a cat.
1:22:42
His eyes were milky orbs, faintly illuminated like phosphorus toadstools.
1:22:47
From his feline jaws there dripped a reddish, clear syrup
1:22:50
that hissed as it hit the sanctified ground of the courtyard.
1:22:54
He momentarily seized his incessant frolicking to scratch himself, but
1:22:59
I could see that it was his missing back leg
1:23:01
that was attempting the impossible task, a raw, bloody stump
1:23:05
that gesticulated feebly towards the source of his irritation. Then
1:23:10
beyond the twitching imp I could see another figure, a man.
1:23:15
Even at this distance, I can make out the repulsive
1:23:17
details of his form. He was tall and thin, his long,
1:23:21
slender fingers like twigs, His lengthy nose and sunken eyes
1:23:25
were clearly visible through the cemetery gloom. Worst of all,
1:23:30
a sardonic and wolfish grin lay stretched across his face.
1:23:34
There was a hunger in that smirk, a deep and
1:23:36
terrible burning hunger. And saw Peter cease to scratching, and,
1:23:40
in a hollow voice that somehow sounded like my mother's,
1:23:44
spoke these words.
1:23:45
Speaker 1: Come, child, Come, We have marmalade and massapan and all
1:23:51
manner of big treats for you. We have seacakes and
1:23:54
toffee apples, all that you hate desires. Come with me
1:23:59
into the forest, and I'm sure the delights beyond your dreams.
1:24:03
Speaker 3: I felt myself being pulled towards those honeyed words. All
1:24:07
the while the tall, sinister man said nothing, only grinning
1:24:10
at me from beneath his wide brimmed hat.
1:24:13
Speaker 1: I can't, it's dark, and my mother will want me
1:24:16
home for supper.
1:24:18
Speaker 3: Supper, replied Saltpeter, his rotting, pale tongue licking around his chops.
1:24:24
Speaker 1: Oh, we shall have supper, won't we.
1:24:26
Speaker 3: Master The imp then looked up towards the terrible man,
1:24:30
who stayed silent while nodding his head in agreement. I
1:24:33
tried once more to turn away, but my feet were spellbound,
1:24:36
marching me towards what I knew to be my demise.
1:24:39
Speaker 2: Mother, Mother, please him, stared.
1:24:42
Speaker 3: Terrible Man laughed as Saltpeter rubbed himself upon his master's
1:24:45
bloodstained breeches, a wheezing purr emanating from his twisted form. Mother,
1:24:51
I cried once more, the words mercifully pulling me back
1:24:54
from the precipice of my dreaming madness. Mother whimpered, awaken
1:24:59
now and once more in my bed to say that
1:25:03
the dream the nightmare had unnerved me would be a lie.
1:25:06
In fact, it was all I could think of for
1:25:08
the next few days. I did not dare to sleep
1:25:11
again on the first day, and instead piled myself with
1:25:14
the strong Turkish coffee that Stephen had kept hidden away
1:25:16
for special guests. When I finally did succumb to sleep
1:25:20
the next day, my dreams were less vivid and mercifully brief.
1:25:24
I felt the presence of Saltpeter and the Terrible Man,
1:25:26
on several occasions managed to awaken myself before they could
1:25:29
make themselves known. I also dreamt offen, of the gunner's cloth,
1:25:33
and of the outer cops of witch elm trees that
1:25:35
lay beyond Uh. I think Saltpeter was an old name
1:25:40
for gunpowder. I thought, so, I wonder if there's a
1:25:43
connection between Am I wrong?
1:25:46
Speaker 4: Yeah? Potassium nitrate?
1:25:48
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, Well like the it's the chemical that choose
1:25:51
in gunpowder and black powder and stuff like that. I
1:25:54
wonder if there's a connection between this creature being called
1:25:56
Saltpeter and then all the references to the chemical stuff
1:25:59
that's even was doing in his basement.
1:26:03
Speaker 4: I don't know. The manuscript I had taken from the
1:26:08
hidden sellar du what.
1:26:10
Speaker 1: I just said? Who knows?
1:26:12
Speaker 4: Who knows?
1:26:13
Speaker 3: The manuscript I had taken from the hidden cellar chamber
1:26:15
lay forgotten on the kitchen table during this haunted time,
1:26:18
until by chance, a week or so later, I happened
1:26:21
to find it beneath a small pile of local newspapers
1:26:23
that Ted had been collecting.
1:26:25
Speaker 4: I was once again taken aback by.
1:26:26
Speaker 3: The grotesque de monocal woodblock printing on the front of
1:26:29
the manuscript. Sitting down and inspecting it further, I could
1:26:33
see roughly a dozen or so figures depicted in the image.
1:26:36
Most were what I would describe as crones and hags,
1:26:39
many of them riding upon the backs of black goats,
1:26:42
and other less discernible creatures. Various furtive demonia characters were
1:26:47
also shown, some of them dancing and copulating with the
1:26:50
crones and disgusting detail. Around them were various smaller figures.
1:26:54
I guess you would call them imps or familiars of
1:26:57
varian anatomy. Many of the figures were oddly named text
1:27:02
appearing next to them to be what I took for
1:27:05
some form of early English queer titles such as pie Wacket, Grizzle,
1:27:10
greta Gut, and peek in the Crown. But one of
1:27:14
the odious creatures had a name next to its image
1:27:17
that caused my heart to jump in my chest for
1:27:20
a moment. The image was that of a three lay
1:27:23
town burying the head of a cat.
1:27:26
Speaker 4: Next to the beast lay the words Saltpeter.
1:27:30
Speaker 3: I pause for a moment, images of that terrible nightmare
1:27:33
playing out of my mind like a perverse pantomime.
1:27:35
Speaker 4: I glanced back at the yellowed manuscript.
1:27:38
Speaker 3: There was no title on the front, so I slowly
1:27:40
peeled back the first page, and there, printed in bold
1:27:43
black lay the words Sussex manuscript cultis cultis molific harem
1:27:50
ah so that means cult manuscript. I'm pretty sure, I
1:27:54
think is how a malific caram maybe in maliciousness. Oh
1:27:59
my computer gets possessed immediately a molific careum.
1:28:04
Speaker 4: Uh?
1:28:06
Speaker 3: Okay, molific caarum is in reference to witches because the
1:28:09
book Malice molific harum means the hammer of witches.
1:28:13
Speaker 4: So cultest would be cult of Witches. I would imagine
1:28:16
then the.
1:28:18
Speaker 3: Sussex manuscript the Cult of Witches. Also the other name
1:28:24
pie wack It's a legend. Two right, I'm making that up. Yes,
1:28:33
pie Wackett is one of the familiar spirits of a
1:28:39
convicted witch accused to be claimed of witchfinder. Okay, yeah,
1:28:42
so it was a spirit that like witches would something
1:28:45
and stuff like that. So it's a book of spells,
1:28:46
Book of Witches.
1:28:47
Speaker 4: Do you remind the script of we had of like.
1:28:49
Speaker 3: These weird shapes, these half man things like uh, copulating
1:28:54
with the crones and stuff like that. Remind me of
1:28:56
a lot of old depictions of like witch festivals were
1:28:59
there around a fire and the demons appear and dance
1:29:01
with them, kind of like the ending of the movie
1:29:04
The Witch. But there's a painting I think it's called
1:29:07
Black Sabbath.
1:29:12
Speaker 4: This is important to me. Witch is Sabbath.
1:29:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a painting called Witch's Sabbath that's a
1:29:18
very famous one of like all the witches gathered around,
1:29:21
like a depiction of the devil or Baphomet whatever goat
1:29:24
headed thing. But yeah, typically, in like old tradition, the
1:29:30
witches would gather together and have these big fires where
1:29:32
the spirits would come out and keep them blessings and
1:29:35
stuff like that. Anyway, no author or date appeared anywhere
1:29:41
in the front or back of the manuscript, but as
1:29:43
I flicked through, it opened on.
1:29:45
Speaker 4: A section roughly half of the way through.
1:29:47
Speaker 3: This particular chapter must have been referenced many times, for
1:29:51
the manuscript almost appeared to want to open. At this
1:29:53
point I glanced down and saw the title Calling upon
1:29:57
My Black In all most looked like something out of
1:30:01
a cookbook or repulsive recipe that was half profane culinary
1:30:05
instruction and half magical incantation. Odious images accompanied the next page,
1:30:10
showing a gnarled crone gleefully chopping up the bodies of rabbits, cats, dogs,
1:30:15
calves with an oversized meat cleaver. I decided to put
1:30:18
the manuscript in the kitchen drawer next to Stevens letters
1:30:21
and did my best to banish its foul images from
1:30:23
my mind. That's a really funny place to put it. So, oh,
1:30:27
what's the caretaker's name?
1:30:29
Speaker 1: Ten?
1:30:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he's just like walking around one day and
1:30:34
he opens he's like, oh, what's in the cookbook? Oh
1:30:36
my god, oh boy, oh god. Oh no, it's happening again. Okay,
1:30:44
all right, this isn't a drill. Days and then weeks
1:30:47
passed by, and eventually I managed to put most of
1:30:49
the pass behind me, regarding the Horde manuscript as well
1:30:52
as Steven in a strange turn of personality. The dreams
1:30:56
lingered for a while, but eventually they released me from
1:30:58
their grip. My sleep grew more RESTful. I resumed my
1:31:02
duty as a stand in vicar with a renewed gusto
1:31:05
and open the church. At first, the locals were slow
1:31:08
to return, but as words spread, my sundays were soon busy,
1:31:11
and I found myself welcoming faces new and old to
1:31:14
my service.
1:31:15
Speaker 4: I allowed myself to forget about all.
1:31:17
Speaker 3: This talk of black magic and imps and witches that
1:31:20
had plagued my return to the village, and instead focused
1:31:23
on serving my community. With the help of a few
1:31:25
curates appointed by the bishop to assist me. I haven't
1:31:29
found the courage to descend once more into the cellar
1:31:31
and bricked up the entrance that led to the hidden
1:31:33
room beyond. Thoughts of Stephen still occasionally crept into my mind,
1:31:37
of course, typically in the form of short dreams I
1:31:41
still experienced from time to time, but these were less
1:31:43
disruptive than my prior nightmares, being less sinister in nature.
1:31:47
I had resigned myself to the awful truth that I
1:31:50
may never see or hear from Stephen again, and so
1:31:53
spent more time with my mother and rekindled a few
1:31:55
friendships in the village that had grown cold whilst I
1:31:58
was away studying.
1:32:00
Speaker 4: I grew keenly aware that I was being.
1:32:02
Speaker 3: Groomed by the diocese to replace Stephen as the parish priest,
1:32:05
and struggled with my conflicting feelings on the matter. I
1:32:08
had managed, however, to develop a firm mental robustness that
1:32:12
permitted me to carry on with my new daily routine,
1:32:15
growing my flock and welcoming the Lord's slide and forgiveness
1:32:17
into the hearts and minds of my community. Sadly, this
1:32:21
period of respite would abruptly end with an event that
1:32:23
was singular in its horror and absurdity.
1:32:27
Speaker 4: It was an event that at.
1:32:28
Speaker 3: A certain time in my life I would have welcomed wholeheartedly,
1:32:32
and now it was one that filled me with an
1:32:33
inescapable could dread. For the first time since returning to Barton,
1:32:38
I finally received word from Stephen, a note that plunged
1:32:42
my mind back into madness.
1:32:44
Speaker 4: Oh that's cool.
1:32:45
Speaker 3: The letter was from Stephen, but this wasn't obvious to
1:32:48
me immediately, as it lacked not only the hallmarks of
1:32:51
his handwriting, but also that of any normal, saying human being.
1:32:55
The writing was a mere scribble, childish and scratchy. Crampscript
1:33:00
appeared as if it had been fighting with itself as
1:33:02
it spilled onto the page in a vain effort to
1:33:04
form some kind of discernible legibility.
1:33:07
Speaker 4: The paper itself is also odd.
1:33:09
Speaker 3: It appeared to have been torn from a book, as
1:33:12
the printed stamp property of bart Library appeared on the
1:33:15
opposite side. The paper was also slightly damp, Water stains
1:33:20
in a strange grit like sediment dotted around the written words.
1:33:24
Content of the note, as best as I care to remember,
1:33:27
was as follows.
1:33:29
Speaker 1: Then don't have long before these hands are not mine.
1:33:33
Managed to make it back to my body. I can
1:33:35
feel them pulling me back to his. Don't think I
1:33:38
can escape again. I will try do one last thing
1:33:42
for me. I beg you beneath the tree. I'm beneath
1:33:46
the tree and in pain. His spirit is free now
1:33:50
it wants you. My body's no longer suitable. Yours is better.
1:33:56
I beg you. Dig up the earth under the tree,
1:33:59
take what you find and burn it. Not fire. It
1:34:02
must be acid, hit the royal water and dredge his
1:34:05
remains in it. None of the essential salts can survive.
1:34:08
Do you understand you can return if you use fire.
1:34:12
I'm slowly in the ground. I cannot stand the blackness anymore.
1:34:16
I am myself for a few moments, back here in
1:34:19
my own rotting body, to write and bring you this note.
1:34:22
Soon I must return to the soil, my own fault.
1:34:25
I called to him, and he answered, I'm so sorry
1:34:29
for bringing you into this madness. Do as I ask Steven.
1:34:33
Speaker 3: So.
1:34:35
Speaker 4: Not to diminish the story. It's really cool.
1:34:37
Speaker 3: But if I was to text you that randomly, would
1:34:41
you come burn the body?
1:34:42
Speaker 1: I yes, in a heartbeat, even if you're still if
1:34:46
you're walking on the street, I'd cover you in gasoline.
1:34:50
I'd light you ablaze, or no, I throw acid in
1:34:52
your face.
1:34:54
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, throw aid on me. I just looked it
1:34:56
up to you.
1:34:56
Speaker 3: Royal water is an old name for a mixture of
1:35:00
nitric acid and hydrochloric acid.
1:35:02
Speaker 1: It's a metal way of saying it.
1:35:04
Speaker 4: Royal Wah that that was a cool way to say it.
1:35:07
Royal water. The stuff that just burns. Stuff that's pretty sick.
1:35:12
Speaker 3: But so so if I texted you that, which he's
1:35:15
not even I mean, he's saying burn the body so
1:35:17
that I can be freed of it because he's possessed
1:35:19
by it. But he's not saying to burn his own body, right,
1:35:22
He's saying burn the witch. Yeah, so why would you
1:35:26
burn me if I texted you that?
1:35:29
Speaker 1: Oh, I wouldn't think about that in the moment. I
1:35:32
would think about that later. Oh shit, I guess.
1:35:34
Speaker 4: Oh well, i'd I'd be wrong.
1:35:37
Speaker 1: Was anops, daisy. That's why i'd say. Oops.
1:35:41
Speaker 4: I'm on the ground screaming, my faces melted, That's what
1:35:44
I say.
1:35:44
Speaker 1: Oh dang, fuck man, I'm so sorry.
1:35:49
Speaker 4: Oh that's rough, dude, I'm sorry to hear that. That's sorry.
1:35:53
Oh well, you know, this is really one of those
1:35:55
when some lose some scenarios. I'm bleeding everywhere.
1:36:00
Speaker 3: No, that's fascinating. I see more and more where the
1:36:02
story opened up at with him in the madhouse for
1:36:05
digging up a body.
1:36:07
Speaker 1: I must burn it.
1:36:08
Speaker 3: The note must have been burn it. The note must
1:36:11
have been hand delivered, or it lacked a stamp or
1:36:13
even an address on it. It was simply a folded
1:36:16
up piece of paper with bin scrawled on the front
1:36:18
and the same spidery penmanship. I needed some fresh air
1:36:21
to clear my mind after reading the baffling note.
1:36:24
Speaker 4: And took a brisk walk through the village.
1:36:26
Speaker 3: The vanishing sun was pleasant enough, but it was punctured
1:36:29
cruelly by a cutting wind that caused my skin to
1:36:32
shrivel with goosebumps. The village was quiet and I saw
1:36:35
only a few locals as I walked a loop around
1:36:38
the village, starting at town Filled Lane and then along
1:36:41
run Cord Road, finally back up Lit Lane and towards
1:36:44
the church.
1:36:46
Speaker 4: There was so much chaos.
1:36:47
Speaker 3: Flowing in my mind that upon returning home I simply
1:36:50
collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and lay
1:36:52
my head down. Weighed heavily upon my heart that Stephen
1:36:55
was out there somewhere, either a drooling madman or the
1:36:58
victim of some black source that I could barely bring
1:37:01
myself to.
1:37:01
Speaker 4: Give credence to.
1:37:03
Speaker 3: But if God and his mighty kingdom were real, as
1:37:05
I had been raised to believe, and surely the devil
1:37:08
and all the denizens of the pit must be also,
1:37:11
this affair did not strike me as madness. There was
1:37:13
a revolting authenticity to it, not to mention an alien
1:37:16
element that my mind struggled to grapple with in its complexity.
1:37:22
As the sun sank upon that day and gave birth
1:37:24
to the inevitable darkness, I found myself drawn to the
1:37:27
decanter of brandy that Stephen had kept in the lounge,
1:37:30
and indulged myself heartily of its warming contents. The fire
1:37:34
conjured in my throat by the liquor was very much
1:37:37
welcomed him. By the time I had polished off of
1:37:39
a fourth glass, I was very much under the sway
1:37:42
of hypnose that carried myself numbly to my bed for
1:37:45
the first time in weeks. The dreams returned. I tossed
1:37:48
and turned all night unable to settle. My brain buzzed
1:37:51
with a thousand thoughts. Its half imagined fears danced in
1:37:54
my mind's eye. There is a horrid semi realization that
1:37:58
my slumbering form was being watched. More than a few times,
1:38:01
I felt my spirit lift out of my body and float.
1:38:03
Speaker 4: Above my bed.
1:38:04
Speaker 3: From this observation point, I could see a dark figure
1:38:07
standing in the shadowed corner of my room, his eyes
1:38:10
glaring at my sleeping body with an alien hunger. I
1:38:14
saw Saltpeter, that hideous abomination, leap upon my bed and
1:38:18
paw playfully at my lips.
1:38:20
Speaker 1: This one won't do nicely.
1:38:22
Speaker 3: The empty spoke once more, in a voice that sounded
1:38:25
like my mother's.
1:38:26
Speaker 1: This one master, and then we are free.
1:38:29
Speaker 3: When the morning sun blissfully shined through my bedroom curtains,
1:38:33
I was able to vanish the night's stread back to
1:38:35
whatever foul pit it had spawned from.
1:38:37
Speaker 4: But each night they returned.
1:38:39
Speaker 3: I held sermons for the following fortnight, designed more to
1:38:42
comfort myself than my community.
1:38:44
Speaker 4: I spoke with fiery conviction.
1:38:45
Speaker 3: Now Jesus had defeated both death and the devil, and
1:38:48
how with his love there was no evil on the
1:38:50
earth that would not be banished, settled my nerves somewhat
1:38:54
on comfort of normality, which I craved eluded me. A
1:38:59
few days after receiving this crude note, I learned with
1:39:01
great dismay that Stephen's body had been found on the
1:39:04
Black Croft Teeth. Though his bloated corpse had been discovered
1:39:07
some distance away from both the canal and the nearby river,
1:39:11
Corner ruled his cause.
1:39:12
Speaker 4: Of death as drowning.
1:39:14
Speaker 3: The funeral shortly followed, and I decided to leave the service,
1:39:17
despite the bishop offering to take that burden front me.
1:39:21
The turnout was higher than I expected, which comforted me,
1:39:24
and I even saw my mother shed.
1:39:25
Speaker 4: A few tears for our villages departed Biker.
1:39:29
Speaker 3: Eventually, with both the terrible dreams and Stephen's demise weighing
1:39:33
upon me, I made the decision to step down from.
1:39:36
Speaker 4: The parish and to leave the church entirely.
1:39:39
Speaker 3: What had once been a dream was rapidly transforming into
1:39:41
an unending nightmare. I planned to leave Barton altogether, to
1:39:46
never again step foot within its haunted streets. I had
1:39:49
concluded that the village was not a good place to linger,
1:39:51
and made plans to relocate to Manchester. This decision, final
1:39:56
and resolute in my mind, did manage to bring some comfort,
1:39:59
and I allowed myself to hope that this whole affair
1:40:01
would one day be behind me. I didn't inform the bishop.
1:40:05
I was concerned that he would try to convince me
1:40:07
to stay. I gave myself no longer than two months
1:40:10
to wrap up my affairs and then inform the diocese
1:40:12
of my decision. As fate would have it, that decision,
1:40:16
along with many others, stolen from me on that awful
1:40:19
night that was to come. The renewed sense of peace
1:40:23
brought on by my impending resignation and relocation might have
1:40:26
lasted had that crowning horn and autovated my world. On
1:40:29
that dark December night, I had retired to bed early,
1:40:33
but the constant lashing of the rain had been relentless
1:40:36
all day and was set to continue throughout the night.
1:40:39
I slept fitfully and in sporadic episodes of thrashing, where
1:40:42
I was experiencing the most vivid and horror dream imaginable.
1:40:47
I dreamt of being confined found in the darkness. My
1:40:51
arms worked, when my legs felt numb and lifeless. I
1:40:54
struggled ceaselessly to remove myself from this foul bondage. But
1:40:57
my body felt like some spindly merriyan whose strings had
1:41:01
become tangled around my fingers, cutting off the blood flow
1:41:04
and leaving the numb and useless. After what seemed like
1:41:07
an eternity, I somehow managed to muster what little strength
1:41:10
I had and force my form through the cracks of
1:41:12
my prison. I dreamt it pushing upwards, forever, upwards, passed
1:41:17
the rotting wood and the soft wet earth, past the
1:41:20
worms and the matted tangle of endless roots, and finally
1:41:23
to the cold, rain lash surface above. I awoke suddenly
1:41:28
with that last thought, set upright in bed, with cooling
1:41:31
sweat pouring down my back. But it wasn't the dream
1:41:33
that had startled me awake. As my senses adjusted, I
1:41:37
could hear that it was the ringing of the church
1:41:39
bells that had mercifully returned my mind from the abyss.
1:41:43
The clear and familiar sound of ringing bells pierced the
1:41:46
night air, and I glanced at the clock to see
1:41:48
that it was just past three, the witching hour, I thought.
1:41:52
I jumped out of bed and grabbed my dressing gown.
1:41:55
No doubt the noise would eventually awaken the entire village,
1:41:58
and I would be to blame. I raced down the
1:42:00
stairs and bolted out of the kitchen door into the
1:42:02
chill of the night. I barely noticed the cold rain
1:42:05
pelting my face as I ran.
1:42:07
Speaker 4: Towards the church.
1:42:08
Speaker 3: My slippers greedily soaked up the muddy water that pulled
1:42:11
around my footsteps, and I shuddered as the cold, damp
1:42:14
muck sank it between my toes. Determined to stop the commotion,
1:42:19
I fumbled with the keys, but the door was already
1:42:21
a jar, and I pushed it open and made my
1:42:23
way to the main hall in.
1:42:24
Speaker 4: The direction of the bell chamber.
1:42:26
Speaker 3: By the time I reached the door, the ringing had
1:42:29
mysteriously stopped, and I slowed down my pace. As I've
1:42:33
been over to catch my breath. I noticed a disgusting
1:42:36
trail of mud and slime shaking its way from the
1:42:38
doorway and through the hall. It seemed to lead directly
1:42:41
to where I was headed. I kneeled and swiped my
1:42:44
fingers through the baffling sludge. It possessed a charnal stitch,
1:42:48
not unlike the feated aroma that had sickened me in
1:42:52
the cellar that terrible day. I immediately pulled a handkerchief
1:42:55
from my gown pocket and wiped the horror jelly from
1:42:57
my fingers as best I could. I was determined to
1:43:00
find out the cause of the ringing, but it crept
1:43:03
over me that there was perhaps a mundane yet still
1:43:06
unnerving explanation. Suppose someone had broken in and was using
1:43:10
the bells as a diversion.
1:43:11
Speaker 4: While an accomplice robbed my home.
1:43:13
Speaker 3: I thought still, As much as I would have liked
1:43:16
to accept the solution as fact, I felt compelled to
1:43:18
investigate the muddy trail. There's little value in the house
1:43:22
that a thief could steal, and even if it was true,
1:43:25
I had no desire to confront a burglar in the
1:43:27
dead of night. I therefore slowly entered the nubrous chambers
1:43:31
that housed the bell ropes beyond the main hall. There
1:43:35
was a feeble sliver of light that glowmed through the
1:43:37
window from the street lamps outside. I could just make
1:43:40
out the basic parameter of the chamber. I was certain
1:43:44
that no one else was in the room, and I
1:43:45
carefully walked deeper into the darkness to inspect the six ropes.
1:43:49
All were unmoving except one, which swayed gently in the dark.
1:43:55
Speaker 4: Just like the floor outside.
1:43:57
Speaker 3: There was a smear, foul smelling mud over the ground
1:44:00
as well as on the moving rope. I placed my
1:44:03
hand upon it and it stopped swaying. Then, just as
1:44:06
I was considering leaving, I suddenly became aware of a
1:44:09
shape on the ground in the far left corner. My
1:44:13
eyes were still adjusting to the dark of the room,
1:44:15
but at first I fancied it looked like a mudstained
1:44:17
bundle of.
1:44:18
Speaker 4: Rags and twisted sticks.
1:44:20
Speaker 3: But as I inspected, further creeping horror washed over me,
1:44:24
along with the terrible recognition what I was seeing?
1:44:27
Speaker 4: What did I see?
1:44:29
Speaker 3: That is at once an easy and a difficult question
1:44:32
to answer, and is perhaps at the crux of this
1:44:34
whole affair.
1:44:36
Speaker 4: Relying on the ground in front of me.
1:44:38
Speaker 3: Face or should I say, skull, pressed to the stone floor,
1:44:41
was an ancient collection of decayed bones and mummified flesh.
1:44:46
Chunks of stinking, sodden earth and flayed, tattered skin were
1:44:50
wrapped around the grizzly mound of decrosis. It was a brown,
1:44:54
spindly thing, more bone than meat, with a whitish cracked
1:44:58
dome for a head.
1:45:00
Speaker 4: Round its spine.
1:45:01
Speaker 3: Close to what once passed for a neck was the rotten,
1:45:04
damp rope of the hangman's noose. It was then that
1:45:07
I heard a muffled and strained sound emanating from the
1:45:09
skeletal horror lay at my feet. It was at once
1:45:13
a whisper and a growl, human and beastrial, disembodied and
1:45:18
echoing all around me, yet at the same time focused
1:45:21
upon that massive rags and fused bone.
1:45:24
Speaker 4: The noise ollulated of my soul.
1:45:27
Speaker 3: For the voice was that Stephen Adams corpse thing before me,
1:45:32
issued forth a single sentence for growing still and silent once.
1:45:37
Speaker 1: More, and for the love of God.
1:45:40
Speaker 3: Please, oh gosh, dude, m oh, your boy says that
1:45:46
he's been like possessed by the spirit of this ancient witch.
1:45:49
And then the witches like decomposing skeleton shows up and
1:45:53
you hear your friends say, please, my gosh. So it
1:45:57
seems that the witch's witches places with Stephen. Like the
1:46:02
witch's spirit is still trapped in his tomb, but because
1:46:04
Stephen came into contact with it, Stephen now possesses the
1:46:09
rotten body of the decaane witch. Deep beneath the earth,
1:46:12
explains his visions of being covered in roots, unable to
1:46:14
get out, and now it wants Benjamin next. So Stephen
1:46:19
has to horrifically switch his body with a corpse that's
1:46:21
decomposing in a coffin, right, and now it's crawled to
1:46:25
the church to try to get Benjamin to help him.
1:46:28
That's rough, those who have bothered to speak to me
1:46:31
at any length and know the rest of my story.
1:46:33
Half mad and howling with a volatable mixture of fear
1:46:36
and fury, I retrieved the yellow chemicals from the basement
1:46:38
and together with the rotting bundle, threw their contents into
1:46:42
the self exumed grave of Francis Elspendle. At some point
1:46:46
two police officers accosted me, and I managed to overcome
1:46:49
them and continue my grizzly task, dissolving the whole mess
1:46:52
into acrid sludge. I watched it bubble and froth into
1:46:57
the black soil as the earth reluctantly absorbed the dis
1:47:00
gusting mass. Despite the obvious horror, I felt a great
1:47:03
relief wash over me. The chaos of the past few
1:47:06
months of my life came sharply into view like a
1:47:09
not unraveling before me, madness gave way to clarity. Though
1:47:14
this is the end of my account, it's not the
1:47:16
end of the matter, For there was no doubt in
1:47:19
my mind that beneath that lonesome witch elm, beneath the
1:47:22
coolders of that hidden grave, the soul of my dear
1:47:25
friend Stephen Adams, laying incarcerated for months in silent torment,
1:47:30
he had called up the wicked soul of his ancestor,
1:47:33
for whatever purpose I can now only guess at he
1:47:35
had not been strong enough to put down that which
1:47:38
he had called for us, and paid for it with
1:47:39
his life and soul. A terrifying spiritual transfusion had taken place.
1:47:44
Pendell had taken Stephen's body, that Stephen had been forced
1:47:47
into Pendles. At some point, Stephen had managed to take
1:47:51
control of his body long enough to hurl it into
1:47:53
the churning waters of the river, hoping to end that
1:47:56
evil which had made a home for.
1:47:58
Speaker 4: Itself within him.
1:48:00
Speaker 3: Have been reduced to a mere consciousness, his pendle's spirit
1:48:03
roam freely as the witch set about renewing his covenant,
1:48:07
conjuring up his black amps. Stephen's sentient mind fully aware
1:48:11
with that senses intact understood with abominable clarity that it
1:48:15
had now inhabited the two hundred year old corpse of
1:48:18
Francis elie Pendle, He who had been hung for his
1:48:21
crimes against God and the King, He who had sought
1:48:25
to bargain with the devils of the sky and of
1:48:27
the earth, He who had slept restlessly beneath the dark
1:48:31
soil of the gunner's cloth, his presence felt by all
1:48:34
who dared enter, He who had dreamt of nothing but
1:48:38
the torment and wickedness he would unleash upon the descendants
1:48:41
of those who had delivered him to his grave. Dreams
1:48:44
of vengeance and dark oaths, those terrible dreams of blasphemy
1:48:48
and madness, the dreams beneath the witch tree.
1:48:53
Speaker 2: And that is the end of the story.
1:48:58
Speaker 1: Whenever stories end with like a little exposition dump like that,
1:49:01
usually I'm like, eh, but it was nice. It's like
1:49:04
a little it's a city poetic. Yeah.
1:49:08
Speaker 3: And also you have to take that ending and compare
1:49:11
it back to the very beginning of the story, where
1:49:13
it's like we're reading an investigator's account or like he's
1:49:16
talking about Benjamin who Benjamin was thrown in a madhouse
1:49:19
after being found, you know, dissolving the body in acid,
1:49:23
and says he came under direct care, and says he
1:49:27
one night he vanished from his cell not long after
1:49:29
his statement was recorded through unknown means. He is thought
1:49:32
to have overcome the security staff, brutally murdering one of
1:49:35
the junior physicians, doctor Howard Fleming, for making good his escape.
1:49:40
Speaker 4: So he's made it out. He's hiding in the wood somewhere.
1:49:42
Speaker 3: So what I think happened is Pindall's body switched with Stevens. Right,
1:49:47
we know that happened, and then Steven managed to come
1:49:50
back from the grave or crawl out of the grave
1:49:52
to have Benjamin dissolve him so that he'd be no
1:49:55
more wich. Sure Stevens finally laid to rest, his soul
1:49:58
is no longer trapped in the body. But even though
1:50:01
Stephen got to throw the rotting corpse or he got
1:50:06
to throw himself into the river for a quick moment,
1:50:09
we know that spirits can still possess rotting corpses. So
1:50:12
that would mean Pendall's spirit is inside of Stephen's body,
1:50:16
meaning that's still out there. And again, if my theory
1:50:19
is correct, that Stephen and Benjamin are father and son.
1:50:23
Then it's likely that Pindall is now seeking Benjamin's body.
1:50:29
And in our intro to the story, which is set
1:50:31
after the events of the letter, it seems that Pendall
1:50:35
got what he wanted. Perhaps Steven's or Benjamin's dream of
1:50:39
being beneath the ground wasn't him in Pendall's old body,
1:50:42
it was him and Stephen's own body. And now Pendall
1:50:44
has possessed Benjamin in the psychiatric ward, killed the doctor
1:50:47
on his way out, and made it into the night.
1:50:50
Speaker 4: So his witchcraft came.
1:50:51
Speaker 3: To fruition because he didn't need the father anymore because
1:50:54
he had the son.
1:50:56
Speaker 4: So I think that's where the story ends.
1:50:57
Speaker 3: It's all And also there's some clever stuff in there
1:51:00
about Benjamin not feeling fit to take over the moniker
1:51:04
of the church and saying God will protect him and.
1:51:05
Speaker 4: All this stuff.
1:51:06
Speaker 3: But despite his stated assuredness in God protecting him, he
1:51:12
always continued to think on these evil things. He continued
1:51:15
to go down into the basement. He continued to look
1:51:17
into the witchcraft. He looked more and more into it.
1:51:19
He told himself that God would have it under control,
1:51:21
but he kept prying into the demonology into the witchcraft
1:51:23
of it all, and eventually he suffered the price, because
1:51:25
at the end of the story it seems he became
1:51:27
the next vessel. So it's ultimately like a story of
1:51:31
him slowly drifting off the slope. He starts a story
1:51:34
like you mentioned saying, Stephen was such a good guy,
1:51:36
Stephen would never do anything wrong, and Stephen does all
1:51:38
this evil, gives himself over to the spirit of Pendle
1:51:43
that now at the end of his story, he's fallen
1:51:45
into the same trap Stephen, who I believe to be
1:51:47
his father, was just a forerunner for him. So it's
1:51:50
a fascinating story with of like one character's descent into madness,
1:51:55
even though trying to convince himself that he's able to stop,
1:51:58
not being able to stop, and eventually so coming to
1:52:01
the same fate that he tried to save and eventually
1:52:03
save Stephen from.
1:52:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a good it's a good work, saying
1:52:09
again with his other story, Dagon's Mirror, really great characters,
1:52:13
great interactions between like little setups like I feel like
1:52:17
they just having like a character like Ted come in
1:52:20
for a brief moment and kind of be at least
1:52:23
someone who was there watching him and be like, I know, seriously,
1:52:26
it's it's getting really fucked up. It's just a fun
1:52:28
little addition, even if it isn't, like, you know, tie
1:52:31
itself into a huge part of the outcome of the story.
1:52:35
Speaker 2: It's just a lot of fun, but you know, a
1:52:37
really really fun story.
1:52:38
Speaker 1: I always like when of her stories have a thing
1:52:39
too of like a priest like it kind of reminds
1:52:42
me of the movie The Final Prayer, which I reference
1:52:45
all the fun time. But it really is just like
1:52:48
people coming to a parish where the guy is seeming
1:52:51
a little like a little out of usual, like not
1:52:55
not super normal, kind of a bit weird, and it
1:52:58
just fully envelops into like a giant horror that the
1:53:01
guy has been having to deal with for some time.
1:53:03
So that's always fun. But guys, that's our episode this week.
1:53:07
Thank you so much to the audio listeners on Spotify
1:53:10
and Apple Podcast. Thank you so much for giving us
1:53:12
a nice and beautiful rating there, and also patrons, we
1:53:15
appreciate you so much for supporting the channel. Be sure
1:53:18
to check it out if you want some extra goodies.
1:53:19
But until next time, Stay creeped everyone, Bye.
1:53:22
Speaker 4: Bye, Stay creeped.
1:53:24
Speaker 3: And of course, check out niklos Instagram and creepypasta countdown.
1:53:27
In the description, I'm looking forward to when he inevitably
1:53:30
writes a story about me saving Hunter from being in
1:53:34
the spirit of an ancient witch, only for me to
1:53:36
then quite tragically wind up in Hunter's rotten body. I'm
1:53:40
sure that will happen on this podcast at some point,
1:53:42
so stay tuned. Thanks for watching.