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The Village That Disappeared Overnight · The Midnight Archives

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  Speaker 1: The Midnight Archives, Season 1, Episode 2, File 002. The
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  Speaker 1: village that disappeared overnight. Every file has a story. Some
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: should have remained closed. The file arrived three nights after
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  Speaker 1: I sealed the Margaret Hale recordings into their cabinet. I
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  Speaker 1: had not slept properly since... And every time I closed
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  Speaker 1: my eyes, I saw the photograph from her case. The
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  Speaker 1: one taken from inside my own office, showing me at
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  Speaker 1: my desk, unaware. I still have no explanation for it.
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  Speaker 1: I have stopped expecting one. File 002 was thinner than most.
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  Speaker 1: A single survey map, six photographs, and a census ledger
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  Speaker 1: with 40 pages torn out. The police report. No witness statements.
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  Speaker 1: Only a note in Arthur Bell's handwriting. dated 11 years ago,
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  Speaker 1: three days before he vanished. It read, Do not trust
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  Speaker 1: the map. Count the houses yourself. The file concerned the
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  Speaker 1: village of Dunmaray, a coastal settlement of about 300 people,
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  Speaker 1: 40 miles north of Bellwether. According to every official record,
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  Speaker 1: Dunmaray never existed. The survey map in the file showed
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  Speaker 1: empty coastline. The Census Bureau had no entries. The road
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  Speaker 1: that should have led there ended at a cliffside turnout
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  Speaker 1: with a rusted barrier and a sign warning of unstable ground.
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  Speaker 1: But the photographs showed a village. Unstirred cottages with slate roofs,
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  Speaker 1: a chapel with a whitewashed tower, fishing boats pulled above
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  Speaker 1: the tide line, washing on lines, smoke from chimneys, and people,
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  Speaker 1: dozens of them, going about an ordinary evening. The photographs
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  Speaker 1: were dated October 9, 1987. The last photograph was taken
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  Speaker 1: the following morning, from the same position. It showed the
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  Speaker 1: same coastline, empty, no cottages, no chapel, no boats. The
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  Speaker 1: ground itself looked undisturbed, as though nothing had ever stood there.
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  Speaker 1: As though 300 people and their entire village had been
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  Speaker 1: lifted away in the night, without leaving so much as
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  Speaker 1: a foundation stone. I spent two days verifying the locations.
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  Speaker 1: I compared rock formations, the curve of the shore, the
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  Speaker 1: position of a distinctive sea stack. The photographs were genuine.
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  Speaker 1: And the coastline matched exactly. Whatever stood there on the
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  Speaker 1: 9th October was gone by the 10th, and the ground
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  Speaker 1: bore no trace of it. On the second day, I
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  Speaker 1: drove to the turnout myself. I do not usually leave
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  Speaker 1: the archive during an examination, but I needed to stand
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  Speaker 1: on that ground. The barrier was, as the file described,
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  Speaker 1: rusted through at the base. Beyond it, the cliff path
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  Speaker 1: continued for perhaps 200 yards before crumbling into scree. There
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  Speaker 1: was nothing. Gorse and stone and the sound of the sea.
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  Speaker 1: But the air smelled faintly of wood smoke, though no
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  Speaker 1: fire burned anywhere I could see. and no cottage stood
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  Speaker 1: within miles. I found the sea stack exactly where the
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  Speaker 1: photographs placed it, and at its base, half buried in shingle.
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  Speaker 1: I found something that does not appear in any photograph.
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  Speaker 1: A door knocker. Brass, green with age, shaped like a
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  Speaker 1: closed fist holding a ring. It was warm to the touch.
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  Speaker 1: I want to be precise about this, because precision is
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  Speaker 1: the work. The morning was cold enough to show my breath.
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  Speaker 1: The stones around it were cold. The knocker was warm,
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  Speaker 1: as though a hand had closed around it moments before
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  Speaker 1: I arrived. I brought it back to the archive. It
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  Speaker 1: sits on my desk now, beside Margaret Hale's file. It
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  Speaker 1: has not cooled. In three days, it has not cooled
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  Speaker 1: a single degree, and I have stopped touching it, because
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  Speaker 1: each time I do, I hear, very faintly, knocking. Three knocks. Patient.
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  Speaker 1: From below. From the lower levels where the sealed cabinets stand,
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  Speaker 1: where Arthur Bell's own files wait in the dark. On
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  Speaker 1: the third day, I examined the censor's ledger. Forty pages
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  Speaker 1: torn out, as I said. But the remaining pages held
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  Speaker 1: a partial resident list, and I read every name. Because
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  Speaker 1: that is the work. Halfway down the second page, I
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  Speaker 1: found an entry that stopped my breath. Vane. Elias Vane.
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  Speaker 1: Listed as a resident of Dunmara. Occupation, archivist. I have
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  Speaker 1: never lived in Dunmara. I had never heard of Dunmara
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  Speaker 1: before opening this file, and yet there was my name,
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  Speaker 1: in faded ink, in a ledger from a village that
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  Speaker 1: does not exist. Before I touch the photographs, I examine
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  Speaker 1: the tall stubs in the ledger. the ragged half-inch of
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  Speaker 1: page still bound in the spine. Forty stubs. Under the
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  Speaker 1: magnifying lamp, I could make out fragments, a street name
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  Speaker 1: ending in Sankar Lane, a date, the 9th of October,
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  Speaker 1: repeated in what looked like a tally. And, on the
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  Speaker 1: last stub, in Arthur's hand, two words underlined. Still warm.
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  Speaker 1: Arthur had been to Dunmarra. Or Arthur had known someone
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  Speaker 1: who had. Eleven years ago, three days before he disappeared,
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  Speaker 1: he handled this file. And he wrote, still warm. And
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  Speaker 1: then he was gone. And the file sat in the
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  Speaker 1: intake queue for over a decade, waiting. For me, I
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  Speaker 1: know now. These files have been waiting for me all along.
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  Speaker 1: I turned to the photographs again. And this time, I
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  Speaker 1: looked at the people. Really looked. I borrowed the magnifying
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  Speaker 1: lamp from the restoration room and went through all six
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  Speaker 1: village photographs face by face. In the fourth photograph, standing
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  Speaker 1: at the edge of the chapel yard, half turned away
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  Speaker 1: from the camera, was a man in a dark coat.
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  Speaker 1: I could not see his face clearly, but I recognized
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  Speaker 1: the coat. I recognized the way he stood, one hand
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  Speaker 1: in his pocket, head tilted as though listening to something.
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  Speaker 1: It was my coat. It was my stance. It was.
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  Speaker 1: Unless I have lost my mind entirely. Me. I sat
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  Speaker 1: in the silence of the archive for a long time
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  Speaker 1: after that. The rule about the telephone seemed very far away.
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  Speaker 1: I pictured Margaret Hale, and the visitor wearing Arthur Bell's face,
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  Speaker 1: and the photograph taken from inside my office. I re-read
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  Speaker 1: Arthur's note in my head. Do not trust the map.
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  Speaker 1: Count the houses yourself. So I did. I counted the
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  Speaker 1: houses in the village photographs. I counted them three times carefully,
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  Speaker 1: marking each one. There were 41 houses. Then I counted
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  Speaker 1: the chimneys, with smoke rising from them. There were 42
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  Speaker 1: plumes of smoke. One house, too many was warm. Until
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  Speaker 1: one house too few was standing. I do not know which.
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  Speaker 1: I only know that when I looked at the fourth
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  Speaker 1: photograph once more, the man in the dark coat was
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  Speaker 1: facing the camera. He had not been facing it before.
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  Speaker 1: I am certain of this. And his face, though blurred
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  Speaker 1: by distance and age, was smiling the way Arthur Bell
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  Speaker 1: used to smile when he knew something I did not.
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  Speaker 1: I have sealed file 002 into its cabinet, but I
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  Speaker 1: have kept one of the photographs on my desk, the
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  Speaker 1: empty coastline the morning after. Because sometimes, late at night,
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  Speaker 1: when the archive is quiet and the telephone has not rung,
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  Speaker 1: I look at that empty shore and I see something
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  Speaker 1: I cannot explain. A thin column of smoke, rising from
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  Speaker 1: ground where nothing stands. Forty-two plumes. Count them yourself. Some
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  Speaker 1: files document the past. Others reveal what is about to happen.
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  Speaker 1: And this one I am beginning to understand. Maybe documenting me.