October 31, 2023 • 64 mins
As per tradition, today Josh and Chuck perform a spooky Halloween story reading to delight, amuse and FRIGHTEN YOU TO YOUR CORE. Will Meagle show up? Tune in to find out! Thanks to guest producer Ben Hackett for all the great sound effects.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, and welcome to the Spectacular. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry, the Ghoul Jerome Roland is here and
we're about to get jiggy with it Halloween style.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's right. It's one of our favorite episodes of the year. Yeah,
we like to remind everyone. This is one of two
ad free episodes we do every year, that's right. And
I feel like lately we have been just sort of
for the uninitiated, giving a quick overview of what we
do here on Halloween, and that is we read a
couple of public domain scary stories short stories from now
(00:57):
we're up to nineteen twenty eight and previous.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, yeah, I think so, maybe nineteen twenty seven one
of the two.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
These aren't even that I think these Mine was from
before that, even though.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, we're not even close to the line right now.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
No, we don't want to get litigious for anyone to
get litigious with us. So that's right, we're not even
dancing close to the line.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
If you have no idea what we're talking about goes
into our intellectual property episode. It basically explains our Halloween.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Episode that's right, but we you know, Josh picks one out,
I pick one out. It has become very fun in
recent years as Josh has gotten more creative with his
voice work.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I'm actually really kind of nervous because it's a
tough act to follow, and I thought, well, I'll just
bring Megl back, and I have been summoning Megal's spirit
to take over my body again.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Nothing, I've done so many unspeakable acts as offerings to
bring meg back. And basically I'm like Emma Roberts at
the end of Black Coat's Daughter, just screaming and frustration
because I can't get possessed again. So I'm sorry everyone,
I don't think Megl's going to be here this year.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, it's like Emma Roberts at the end of Black
Coat's Daughter, screaming like everyone in the theater. I don't
even look that much like that other girl.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, that was a rather serious transition.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah that was just me though, But I know what
you mean. It seems like there's nowhere to go but
down after Megle. I mean, that was an a Josh
apex for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So I guess that maybe we'll just call this episode
a wash I won't even try, and we'll get back
to business again next year. How about that?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, that sounds great. And you know, I actually did
a little road testing of some different British accents, but
I have no idea what's going to come out of
my mouth or yours, and that it's not going to
be as rehearsed.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I've learned to speak German, right, Really, no, I had
to say.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
If I had, I would not have told you or
anybody else ahead of time. Just now. I would have
just started speaking German.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
That would have been amazing, it would have been.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But this episode's a wash this year, so I'm not
going to be speaking German either.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Which one do you want to start with? You want
to do yours or mine? I think they're both terrific.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I don't know. I've got no persuasion either way, or
I'm not being persuaded either way. Is there any of
the two that you feel even remotely more like should
go first?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You know, for some reason, instinctually, I just want to
pick up yours.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I think it's the gripping and spooky and a good
place setter, and it's you know, it's HG. Wells, It's
a classic author.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, so let's dig into yours, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
HG.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Wells trying to remember my parts though.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you are the old man with the shade on
his head.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Okay, he's the one that walks in last right.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yes, and then the old lady. Oh perfect, okay, And
this is HG. Wells, everybody, the guy who predicted our
current rocket program with NASA and wrote the time Machine
and did all sorts of really neat stuff. He also
wrote a scary story. And that's what we're going to
read now. It's called The Red Room. So Chuck, how
(04:24):
about you narrate first? Uh?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Okay, Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the reading of The
Red Room by H. G. Wells.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
No I meant in the story?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh oh oh yeah, sure, I didn't know what you meant.
I was like, what narration?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Youre?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You talking about your reading?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You're like, all right, don't give it a try. Okay, okay,
you're ready.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Sure, but but you're you're playing the main guys. You're
starting right exactly. Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I can assure you, said I that it will take
a very tangible ghost to frighten me.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
And I stood up before the fire with my glass
in my hand.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
It is your own choosing.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Said the man with the withered arm.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I want to take that again.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Okay, it's your own choosy, said the man with a
withered arm, and glanced at me askance.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Eight and twenty years, said I I have lived, and
never a ghost have I seen. As yet.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her
pale eyes wide open.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Iye, she broke.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
In, and eighty and twenty years, you have lived and
never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's
a many things to see when one's still but eight
and twenty.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
She's she's making fun of this guy for being twenty
eight years old. Yeah, she swayed her head slowly from
side to side. A many things to see and sorrow for.
I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance
the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence.
I put down my empty glass on the table and
(06:10):
looked about the room and caught a glimpse of myself
abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness in the queer
old mirror at the end of the room.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, I said, if I see anything tonight, I shall
be much the wiser before I come to the business
with an open mind. I'm so disappointed with myself this year.
Uh oh, yeah, it's me is your.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Choosing, said the man with a withered arm. Once more,
I heard the faint sound of a stick and a
shambling step on the flags, and the passage outside the
door creaked on its hinges. As a second old man entered,
more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first.
He supported himself by the help of a crutch. His
(06:56):
eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip
half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth.
He made straight for an armchair on the opposite side
of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough.
The man with a withered hand gave the newcomer a
short glance of positive dislikes. The old woman took no
(07:17):
notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes picked
steadily in the fire.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
I said it to your own choosing.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Said the man with a withered hand, when the coughing
had ceased for a while.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
It's my own choosing, I answered.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
The man with the shade became aware of my presence
for the first time, and threw his head back for
a moment and sideways to seebee. I caught a momentary
glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then
he began to cough and sputter again.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Why did you drink?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Said the man with a withered arm, pushing the beer
toward him. The man with the shade poured out a
glassful with a shaking hand that splashed half as much
again on the deal table. Stress shadow of him crouched
upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured
and drank. I must confess I had scarcely expected these
grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman, insinility,
(08:13):
something crouching and atavistic. The human quality seemed to drop
from old people insensibly. Day by day, the three of
them made me feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their
bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another.
And that night, perhaps I was in the mood for
uncomfortable impressions. I resolved to get away from their vague
(08:36):
foreshadowings of the evil things upstairs.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
So ageous, very ageist.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
If said I.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I will show me to this haunted room of yours.
I will make myself comfortable there.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The old man, with a cough, jerked his head back
so suddenly that it startled me, and shot another glance
of his red eyes at me from out of the
darkness under the shade. But no one answered me. I
waited a minute, glancing from one to the other. The
old woman stared like a dead body, glaring into the
fire with lackluster eyes. Ef I said a little louder.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
If you will show me to this haunted room of yours,
I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
There's a cannon on the slab outside.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The door, said the man, with a withered hand, looking
at my feet as he address me.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
If you go to the red room tonight.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
This night of all nights, said the old woman softly.
You go alone, very well, I answered shortly, And.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Which way do I go? This guy's sick of the
old people by now. He's just satically mad at.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Them, he is. He's being very aggressive.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
You go along the passage for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Said he, nodding his head on his shoulder at the door.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Until you come to a spiral stircase. And on the
second landing is a door covered with green baize. Go
through that, and on the corner at the end of
the red room is on your left, up the steps.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Have I got that right, I said, and repeated his directions.
He corrected me in one particular. And are you really going,
said the man with the shade, looking at me again
for the third time with that queer, unnatural tilting.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Of the face.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
This night of all nights, whispered the old woman.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It is what I came for.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I said, and moved toward the door. As I did so,
the old man with the shade rose and staggered round
the table so as to be closer to the others
and to the fire at the door. I turned and
looked at them, and saw they were all close together,
dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders,
with an intent expression on their ancient faces.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Good night, I said, setting the door open.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
It's yourn't choosing, said the man with a withered arm.
All right, so as we like to do little recap.
This guy has come to this spooky place, and there
are three olds there. And this guy didn't like olds.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
No, he doesn't like them, and they don't seem to
like him very much. I think they also are taking
him as foolish over the cavalier and getting himself into
hot water.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
To put it mildly, Yeah, because he wants to spend
the night in this room that we don't even know
anything about. But I'm already scared.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, it's a scary room that you would not want
to go into. They're kind of half talking about of it.
Maybe I don't know, maybe a quarter.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
All right, you ready, I'll buy that. Yeah, let's go
switch it up.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
I left the door wide open until the candle was
well alight, and then I shut them in and walked
down the chilly, echoing passage. I must confess that the
oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge her
Ladyship had left the castle, and the deep toned, old
fashioned furniture of the housekeeper room in which they foregathered,
had affected me curiously, in spite of my effort to
(12:05):
keep myself at a matter of fact phase. They seem
to belong to another age, in older age, in age
when things spiritual were indeed to be feared, when common
sense was uncommon, In age when omens and witches were credible,
and ghosts beyond denying their very existence, thought I as spectral,
(12:25):
the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains.
I think he's talking about no incore here. Yeah, the
ornaments and conveniences in the room about them even are ghostly,
the thoughts of vanished men which still haunt rather than
participate in the world of today. And the passage I
was in, long and shadowy, with a film of moisture
(12:46):
glistening on the wall, was as gaunt and cold as
a thing that is dead and rigid. But with an
effort I sent such thoughts to the right. About the long,
drafty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle
flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes
rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow
(13:06):
came sweeping up after me, and another fled before me
into the darkness overhead. They came to the wide landing
and stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling
that I fancied I heard creeping behind me, and then,
satisfied of the absolute silence, pushed open the unwilling baze
covered door and stood in the silent.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Corridor bays is like a felt.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's what I got, too, Like what they used to
put on billiard tables.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, might look nice on a door. You never know.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It's a weird choice, kind of upsetting if you think
about it. Should I keep going?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
The effect was scarcely what I expected for. The moonlight
coming in by the great window on the grand staircase
picked out everything in vivid black shadow or reticulated silvery illumination.
Everything seemed in its proper position. The house might have
been deserted on the yesterday instead of twelve months ago.
There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and
(14:09):
whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the
polished flooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible
in my candlelight. A waiting stillness was over everything. I
was about to advance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group
stood upon the landing, hidden from me by a corner
of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvelous distinctness
(14:30):
upon the white paneling and gave me the impression of
someone crouching to waylay me. The thing jumped upon my attention.
Suddenly I stood rigid for half a moment perhaps, Then,
with my hand in the pocket that held the revolver,
I advanced only to discover a Gany Mead and eagle
glistening in the moonlight. That incident, for a time restored
(14:51):
my nerve by the way, Ganny Mead was the most
beautiful mortal in Grease whose Zeus napped and took as
a basically a love slave.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, and a Ganny Meat and eagle was just like
a little statue of an eagle with this scanny meat character.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But the shadow was super scary.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
For a second, I believe it.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
The door of the Red Room and the steps up
to it were in a shadowy corner. I moved my
candle from side to side in order to see clearly
the nature of the recess in which I stood before
opening the door. Here it was I thought that my
predecessor was found, and the memory of the story gave
me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my
(15:34):
shoulder at the black Ganny meat in the moonlight, and
opened the door of the Red Room rather hastily, With
my face half turned to the pallid silence of the corridor.
I entered closed the door behind me at once turned
the key I found in the lock within, and stood
with the candle help of off surveying the scene of
my vigil, the great red room of Lowering Castle, in
(15:55):
which the young Duke had died, or rather in which
he had begun his dying, For he had opened the
door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended.
That had been the end of his vigil, of his
gallant attempt to conquer the ghostly tradition of the place,
And never I thought, had apoplexy better served the ends
of superstition. There were other older stories that clung to
(16:17):
the room, back to the half incredible beginning of it all,
the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end
that came to her husband's chest of frightening her. And
looking round that huge, shadowy room, with its black window bays,
its recesses and alcoves, its dusty brown red hangings, and
dark gigantic furniture, one could well understand the legends that
(16:37):
had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darknesses. My
candle was a little tongue of light in the vastness
of the chamber. Its rays failed to pierce to the
opposite end of the room and left an ocean of
dull red mystery and suggestion, sentinel shadows and watching darknesses
beyond its island of light and the stillness of desolation
(16:59):
brooded over it all.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
All right, So, like a lot of these stories, you
get a little bit of a vague setup and then
they sort of dole out what's happening. Yeah, as it goes.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
On pretty much what he's doing here, I would.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Say, Yeah, so he got this guy, he's going to
this castle now where the person before him that went
to sort of ghost investigate through him? Sounds like he
threw himself down the stairs and took his life right
with madness.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think he. I get the impression, who's trying to
get the heck out of that room and died running
falling down the stairs.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Maybe okay, either one.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And then this whole thing was haunted though by a woman.
And do I gather that her husband used to like
kiddingly frighten her and that led to a death.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's what I took it as.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, okay, not a nice guy.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Don't do that, guys, No, it wasn't jest.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I'm sure he regretted it pretty deeply afterward if he
was even half way decent. Right, are you taking over now?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yes? It feels like a switcher roo me, I think
so too. All right, so this guy's in this room now,
finally he's all set to go.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I must confess some impalpable quality of that ancient room
disturbed me. I tried to fight the feeling down. I
resolved to make a systematic examination of the place, and
so by leaving nothing to the imagination, dispel the fanciful
suggestions of the obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me.
After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, I
(18:35):
love that. I get the feeling this guy's like, check
to make sure it was locked, like eight times. I
began to walk around the room, peering round each article
of furniture, tucking up the balances of the bed and
opening its curtains wide. So basically, this guy's doing what
any kid would do.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, he's trying to bring as much light as possible
in there and checking everything right.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, yeah, he's looking at He's like, I don't want
those sheets hanging down below, like what's under the bed.
It's likely to tuck that in. Let's lock the door
eight times. I like this guy. Yeah, okay. In one
place there was a distinct echo to my footsteps. The
noises I made seemed so little that they enhanced rather
than broke the silence of the place. I pulled up
the blinds and examined the fastenings of these several windows.
(19:19):
Attracted by the fall of a particle of dust, I
leaned forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney. Then,
trying to preserve my scientific attitude of mind, I walked
round and began tapping the oak paneling for any secret opening.
But I desisted before reaching the alcove. I saw my
face in a mirror white.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I mean, what color do you think he was?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I think he might have kale is a sheet kind
of thing. He looked like scared, maybe.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
There were two big mirrors in the room, each with
a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf,
too were candles and china candlesticks. All these I lit
one after the other. The fire was laid an unexpected
consideration from the old housekeeper, and I lit it to
keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was
burning well, I stood round with my back to it
(20:13):
and regarded the room again. I had pulled up a
chintz covered armchair and a table to form a kind
of barricade before me. On this lay my revolver ready
to hand. Oh that's right, he's strapped. That was pretty important.
My precise examination had done me a little good, but
I still found the remoter darkness of the place, in
its perfect stillness, too stimulating for the imagination. The echoing
(20:36):
of the stir and crackling of the fire was no
sort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove
at the end of the room began to display that
indefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking,
living thing that comes so easily in silence and solitude.
And to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into
it and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there.
(20:59):
I stood that can upon the floor of the alcove
and left it in that position. By this time I
was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although to
my reason there was no adequate cause for my condition.
My mind, however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly
that nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time,
I began stringing some rhymes together in Goldsby fashioned concerning
(21:23):
the original legend.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Of the place.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant.
For some reason, I also abandoned after a time a
conversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting.
My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs,
and I tried to keep it upon that topic. Yeah,
(21:46):
so he's like doing the uh oh, I'm not scared
thing right, knocking himself out of.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It and Ingldsby apparently wrote legends and laws and stuff
as poems.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I guess, okay, that's a name.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah ready, yep, I am too. The somber reds and
grays of the room troubled me. Even with its seven candles,
the place was merely dim. The light in the alcove
flaring in a draft, and the fire flickering kept the
shadows and penumber perpetually shifting and stirring in a noiseless
(22:20):
flighty dance. Casting about. For a remedy, I recalled the
wax candles I had seen in the corridor, and with
a slight effort, carrying a candle and leaving the door open,
I walked out into the moonlight, and presently returned with
as many as ten these. I put in the various
knick knacks of china with which the room was sparsely
adorned and lit, and placed them where the shadows had
(22:42):
lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the window.
Recesses arranging and re arranging them, until at last my
seventeen candles were so placed that not an inch of
the room but had the direct light of at least
one of them. It occurred to me that when the
ghosts came, I could warn him not to trip over them.
Ha ha. The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There
(23:03):
was something very cheering and reassuring in these little silent,
streaming flames, and to notice their steady diminution of length
offered me an occupation and gave me a reassuring sense
of the passage of time.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Can you imagine what a like Now you go into
a scary room, you just turn on all those lights exactly.
This took twenty minutes to do it back then right.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And also he's like, so trying to make time pass
that he's staring at candles melting. Yeah, that's reassuring. That's
how it kind of up an arms.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
He is. Yeah. Good times.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Even with that, however, the brooining expectation of the vigil
weighed heavily upon me. I stood watching the minute hand
of my watch creep toward midnight. Then something happened in
the alcove. I did not see the candle go out.
I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there,
as one might start and see the unexpected presence of
(23:54):
a stranger. The black shadow had sprung back to its place.
By Jove said, I allowed, recovering from my surprise that
drafts a strong one, and taking the match box from
the table, I walked across the room in a leisurely
manner to relight the corner.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Again.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I get the impression that was a forced leisurely manner,
don't you.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, yeah, like, oh, I'm fine, everybody.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded
with the second, something seemed to blink on the wall
before me. I turned my head involuntarily and saw that
the two candles on the little table by the fireplace
were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet ahed,
I said, did I do that myself? In a flash
of absent mindedness, I walked back ReLit one, and as
(24:39):
I did so, I saw the candle in the right
scance of one of the mere's wink and go right out,
and almost immediately its companion followed it. The flames vanished,
as if the wick had been suddenly nipped between a
finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking,
but black. While I stood gaping, the candle at the
foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed
(24:59):
to take an stepped toward me.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
For the record, I think that a little bit with
the candle going out but no smoke or no glow,
that's like, I think that's legit. The scariest line in
this thing.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, it was a really good little little thing, little
nice details detail, That's what I was after. This won't do,
said I in first one and then another candle on
the mantle shelf followed. What's up? I cried with a
queer high note. Sorry, what's up? I cried with a
queer high note, getting into my voice somehow at that
(25:35):
the candle on the corner of the wardrobe went out,
and the one I had reltt and the alcove followed
steady on. I said, those candles are wanted, speaking with
a half hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away to match, though
all the while for the mantle candlesticks, my hands trembled
so much that twice I missed the rough paper of
the matchbox. As the mantle emerged from darkness again, two
(25:58):
candles in the remoter and the room where eclipsed, but
with the same match. I also ReLit the larger mirror
candles and those on the floor near the doorway, so
that for a moment I seemed to gain on the extinctions.
But then in a noiseless volley, there vanished four lights
at once in different corners of the room, and I
struck another match in a quivering haste, and stood hesitating.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Whether to take it.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
This is really scary. At this point, I can picture
this happening.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, I mean, think about it. The whole reason he
went and gathered seventeen candles because he didn't want any
darkness in there, And now something, it seems as is
extinguishing these candles all over the room while he's trying
to get them re lit. I would be flipping out
at this point.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, and that one little detail too, H wells good writer.
When he's trying to strike the match, but he's on
the smooth part of the box. That's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, everybody's been there.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Uh switch through?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, I think switch roof for sure?
Speaker 5 (26:58):
All right.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep
out the two candles on the table with a cry
of terror. I dashed at the alcove.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
You can do the cry of tear, then into the.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Cry of terror.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh goodness, then into the corner, and then into the window,
relighting three as two more vanished by the fireplace, and
then perceiving a better way, I dropped matches on the
iron bound deed box in the corner and caught up
the bedroom candlestick. I don't what is he doing there.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I don't quite follow that he has he's basically forgotten
the matches. Now he's just gonna like use a candle.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Though, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that'ld move With this, I
avoided the delay of okay, I just should have kept
breathing with this. I avoided the delay of striking matches.
But for all that, the steady process of extinction went on,
and the shadows I feared and fought against returned and
crept in upon me. First a step gained on this
side of me, then on that. I was now almost
(28:05):
frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my
self possession deserted me. I leaped, panting from candle to cantle,
in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance. Nice I
bruised myself in the thigh against the table, I sent
a chair headlong. I stumbled and fell, and whisked the
cloth from the table in my fall.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
It's got's like at three stitches.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another
as I rose abruptly. This was blown out as I
swung it off the table by the wind of my
sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But
there was light still in the room, a red light
that streamed across the ceiling and staved off the shadows
from the fire. Of course, I could still thrust my
(28:50):
candle between the bars and relight it. I turned to
where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals
and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps
toward the grate, and incontinent, incontinently, Yeah, did.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
You poop themself?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Or peeded one of the two?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished,
the reflections rushed together and disappeared. And as I thrust
the candle between the bars, darkness closed upon me, like
the shutting of an eye, wrapping around me in a
stifling embrace, sealed my vision and crushed the last vestiges
of self possession from my brain. And it was not
(29:28):
only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror. The candle fell from
my hands. I flung out my arms in a vain
effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and,
lifting up my voice, screamed with all of my might, once, twice, thrice.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Ah ah ah.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Then I think I must have staggered to my feet.
I know, I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and
with my my head bowed on my arms over my face,
made a stumbling run for the door. But I had
forgotten the exact position of the door, and I struck
myself heavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back,
turned and was either struck or struck myself against some
(30:15):
other bulky furnishing. I have a vague memory of battering
myself thus to and fro in the darkness of a
heavy blow at last up on my forehead, of a
horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age of my
last frantic effort to keep my footing.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And then I remember no more.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Boy, that's some good folly work right there, my friend,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I've been I would say I was practicing, but it
is all to soft.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
The cuff, all right.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So this guy a key detail there is like I
was either struck myself or was struck and like that's
a key detail, bro for sure.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
But for all intents and purposes, it does not matter
at this point because he's been knocked out. And frankly,
I think we have a little bit of detail about
what happened to that earl, that count who fell headlong
out of the door.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Right yeah, I think I see where this is headed.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Ready, I'm taking it home, Take it home, baby.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged,
and the man with the withered hand was watching my face.
I looked about me, trying to remember what had happened,
and for a space I could not recollect. I rolled
my eyes into the corner and saw the old woman,
no longer abstracted, no longer terrible, pouring out some drops
(31:35):
of medicine from a little blue file into a glass.
Where am I? I said, I seem to remember you,
and yet I cannot remember who you are. They told
me then, And I heard of the haunted room as
one hears a tale. Let's see, I think this is
the old man with the withered arm. Yeah, we found
you at dawn, said he. And there was blood on
(31:57):
your forehead and lips. I wondered that I had ever
disliked him. The three of them in the daylight seemed commonplace,
old folk enough. The man with the green shade had
his head been as one who sleeps. It was very
slowly I recovered the memory of my experience. You believe now,
said the old man with the withered hand, that the
room is haunted. He spoke no longer as one who
(32:17):
greets an intruder, but is one who condoles with the friend. Yes,
said I, the room is haunted, and you have seen it,
and we who have been here all alives, have never
set eyes upon it, because we have never dared TuS.
Is it truly the old earl who no, said I
it is not, I told you show, said the old
(32:40):
lady with the glass in her hand.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
It is his poor young countess who is fright.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It is not, I said. There is neither ghost of
earl nor ghost of countess in that room. There is
no ghost there at all, but worse, far worse, something impalpable.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Well, not bad, Yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal men,
said I. And that is in all its nakedness, fear, fear.
It will not have light nor sound, that will not
bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It
followed me through the corridor. It fought against me. In
the room. I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence.
(33:25):
My hand went up to my bandages. The candles went out,
one after another, and I fled. Then the man with
the shade lifted his face sideways to see me and spoke,
that is it, said he.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I knew that was yet a power of darkness? Is
he Sean Connery.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Sean Conry and James Earl Jones had a baby. And
this guy's it.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
A power of darkness to put such a curse upon
a home. It looks they're always You can feel it,
even in the daytime, even of a bright summer's day,
and the hangings curtains keeping behind you. However you face
about in the dusk, it creeps in the corridor and
follows you so that you dare not turn. It is
(34:10):
even as you say, fear itself is in that room,
black fear, and there it will be so long is
this house of sin indoors? Wowsy wows or wowser?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
You really finished that in grand style. Man, that was great.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Stuff, Thanks dude, Man HG.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Wells. That is no wonder he was a popular writer.
That's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Still is popular. We just brought him back, buddy. Yeah,
so I guess we should take a message break.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Huh No, No, not for how to We Eat?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That never gets old for me. I think I say
that every year. Yeah, I love it, so, yeah, I
guess then we'll move on to the next one. This
is your right.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah. This is called the Misanthrope by J. D. Beresford.
And you'll see what's going on here? Got to do
with a lot of these stories are the same. I
feel like, yeah, horror writing back then, these short stories
often had to do with people investigating some creepy place
where something creepy had happened, or maybe that's all horror.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Movie, and they were usually approaching it from like a
rational mind, and they end up like being proven that
there's something worse there, and yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
All right, it works.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
So what am I doing again?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I'm the visitor to the island and the boatman and
you're the.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Herm Okay, that's right, right? Why do we bother working
this out?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
I always forget all right, here we go.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Everybody, pour up a spoopy drink, blow out the candles,
relight them, blow them out again, and listen to the
Misanthrope by J. D.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Beresford. Take it away, Josh, did you say spoopy? Very nice?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Since I have returned from the rock and discussed the
story in all its bearings, I've begun to wonder if
the man made a fool of me. In the deeps
of my consciousness, I feel that he did not. Nevertheless,
I cannot resist the effect of all the laughter that
has been evoked by my narrative. Here on the mainland,
the whole thing seems unlikely, grotesque, foolish. On the rock,
(36:31):
the man's confession carried absolute conviction. The setting is everything,
and I am perhaps thankful that my present circumstances are
so beautifully conducive to sanity. No one appreciates the mystery
of life more than I do. But when the mystery
involves such a doubt of one's self, I find it
pleasanter to forget. Naturally, I do not want to believe
(36:52):
the story. If I did, I should know myself to
be some kind of human horror. And the terror of
it all lies in the fact that I may never
know precisely what kind. Before I went, we had eliminated
the facile and banal explanation that the man was mad,
and had fallen back upon two inevitable alternatives, crime and
disappointed love. We were human and romantic, and we tried
(37:15):
desperately hard not to be too obvious. That is the
most inscrutable paragraph I've ever read in my entire life. Yeah, right,
Once before a man had made the same attempt, and
had built or tried to build a house on the
Golden Rock, but he had been defeated within a fortnight,
and what was left of his building was taken off
the island and turned into a tin church. Is there
(37:36):
still We all went to trevone and ruminated over and
round it, perhaps with some faint hope that one of
us might, all unknowing, have the abilities of a psychometrist.
So I think what he's saying, there's something on this
island that he's very interested in. There's a person that
he's trying to figure out what their deal is, and
they're so into it that he and his group of
(37:57):
friends went to visit this tin church that had won's
been a house on this island for like two weeks,
just in an effort to glean some sort of information,
even psychic information if possible.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, and he's recounting this, So he's recounting something that
has already happened to him that he's very sort of
embarrassed about.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yes, And we both read this already, and I can
promise you everybody, it gets more comprehensible as things go on.
As a matter of fact, we should probably reread this
beginning at the answer and be like, oh, okay, I
get it.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, it kind of makes sense. It's sort of like
the movie that picks up with the guy that all
the stuff has already happened, and then he's like, and
here's the story.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, but at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard, no one's like,
what are you talking about? This story doesn't fall into
the same category. Okay, here I go. Nothing came of
that visit. This is the visit to that ten chirt,
(39:00):
but a slight intensification of those theories that were already
becoming a little stale. We compared the early failure of
thirty years ago, the attempt that was baffled with the
present success. For this new misanthrope had lived on the
gullen through the whole winter and still lived. Indeed, the
fact of his presence on the awful lump of rock
was now accepted by the country people. To them, he
(39:22):
was scarcely a shade madder than the other visitors. That
renunerative recurrent host that this year broke their journey to
Bedrethon in order to stand on the Trevone Beach and
stare foolishly at just the visible hut that struck like
a cubicle gull on the landward face of that humped,
desolate island. The best I can tell is there's somebody
(39:43):
who lives there now, this hermit you on this island,
and the country people who live on the mainland just
off of the island are like whatever. They don't think
too much of him, but they can see his hut
from their house on the mainland.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
You want to take over. You want me to keep
reading a jumble of words that barely makes sense.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
I'll go okay, all right.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
We all did that, stared at nothing in particular, and
meditated enormously, but in what I felt at the time
was a wild spirit of adventure. I went out one
night to the point of gun ver Head and saw
an actual light within that distant hut, a patch of
golden lichen on the mother parasite.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, great line, some aspect of humanity I found in
that light. It was that finally decided me that in
some quality of sympathy, perhaps with the hermit, mad criminal
or lovelorn who had found sanctuary from the pestilent touch
of the encroaching crowd. It was, in fact a wildish night,
and I stayed until the little yellow speck went out,
(40:50):
and all I could see through the murk was an
occasional canopy of curving spray when the elbow of the
trebon light touched a bare corner of that black Gulland
so this guy's just watching this island as well, But
he feels a little empathy, maybe.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Ye toward this guy sounds like it.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
The making of a decision was no difficult matter. But
while I waited for the necessary calm that would permit
the occasional boat to land provisions on the island two
miles out from the mainland, I suffered qualms of doubt
and nervousness. And I suffered them alone, for I had
determined that no hint of my adventure should be given
to anyone of our party until the voyage had been made.
They might think that I had gone fishing, an excuse
(41:27):
which had all the air probability given to it by
the coming of the boatmen to say that the tide
and wind would serve that morning. I had warned and
bribed him to give no clue to my friends of
the goal of my proposed excursion. So this guy's going
to go out there on a boat, But He's like,
don't tell.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Anyone I'm doing ditching his friends. Ditching his friends.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
My nervousness suffered no decrease. As we approached the rock
and saw the authentic figure of its single inhabitant awaiting
our arrival. I had some consolation in the thought that
he would be in some way I'm prepared by the
sight of our surprisingly passengered boat. But my mind shuddered
at the necessity for using some conventional form of address.
If I would make at once my introduction and excuse,
(42:11):
the civilized opening was so helplessly incapable of expressing my sympathy,
presenting instead so unmistakably it seemed to me the single
solution of common curiosity. I wondered that he had not,
as the boatman so clearly assured me, was the case
had other prying visitors before me. My self consciousness increased
as we came nearer to the single opening among the
(42:33):
spiked rocks that served as a miniature harbor at half tide.
I felt that I was being watched by the man
who now stood awaiting us at water's edge, and suddenly
my spirit broke. I decided that I could not force
myself upon him that I would remain in the boat
while its cargo was delivered, and then return with a
boatman to Trevone. So resolute was I in this plan
that when we had pulled into the tiny landing space,
(42:55):
I kept my gaze steadfastly averted from the man I
had come to see, and stay there solemnly out at
the humped back of trebone, now seen in an entirely
new aspect. All right, So this guy's having second thoughts now,
He's like, I'm already out here, and maybe I should
just go back.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't force myself on a hermit who
I want to find out. What's your deal man?
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, exactly, Why don't you take over? Because there's a
lot of me stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Okay. The sound of the hermit's voice startled me from
a perfectly genuine abstraction.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Fairly decent weather today.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
He remarked with, I thought a touch of nervousness he had,
I remembered addressed the same remark to the boatmen, who
were now conveying their cargo up to the hut. I
looked up and meta's stare. He was, indeed regarding me
with a curious effect of concentration, as if he were
eager to know every detail of my expression. Jolly, I
replied him pretty basically. The last day or two kept
(43:55):
her rather short, hasn't it.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I make allowances for that, he said, keep a resume
of you know, are you I staying over there?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
He nodded towards the bay for a well, weak or two,
I told him, as we began to discuss the country
around Harlan with the eagerness of two strangers who find
a common topic at a dull reception.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Never been on the gullen before, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
He ventured at last, when the boatmen had discharged their
load and were evidently ready to be off. No, no, no, no,
I haven't, I said, and hesitated. I felt the invitation
must come from him. He boggled over it by saying.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Dashed, awkward place to get to and nothing to see.
Of course, I don't know if you're at all keen
on fishing.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well, Rather, I said, with enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
There'sh deep water on the other side of the rock.
He went on, in the right weather you get splendid
bass there.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
He stopped, and then added it will.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Be absolutely top zero for him this after noon.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Well, perhaps I could come back, I began, but the
boatman interrupted me at once.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Is this Josh Clark that's visiting this guy? It sounds
very much like this something you would do.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
All right, you can come back tomorrow, sure enough, he said,
tide only serves once every twelve hours.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
If you'd care to stay now.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Uh, thanks, that's awfully good of you. I should like
to of all things, I said, I stayed on the clear,
understanding that the boatmen were to fetch me the next morning.
At first, there was really very little that seemed in
any way strange about the man on the gully.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
I could picture what heaven here, and he's like, yeah, yeah,
I'll stay. Then he turns around, he's like, you'll get
me tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
He's like, yeah, yeah, this will be great. We'll do
some fishing, like you guys are coming right in the morning, right.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
They're like sure, sure, we'll be right back. His name,
he told me, was William Copley, but it appeared that
he was no relation to the Copleys I knew, And
if he had shaved, he would have looked a very
ordinary type of englishman roughing it on a holiday. His
age I judged to be between thirty and forty. Only
two things about him struck me as a little queer
(46:23):
during our very successful afternoons fishing. The first was that intense,
appraising stare of his, as if he tried to fathom
the very depths of one's being. The second was an
inexplicable devotion to one particular form of ceremony. As our
intimacy grew, he dropped the ordinary formal politeness of a host.
But he insisted always on one observance that I supposed
(46:46):
at first to be the merely conventional business of giving precedence.
Nothing would induce him to go in front of me.
He sent me ahead, even as we explored the little
peerlius of his rock. The only level square yard on
the whole island was in the floor of the hut.
But presently I noticed that this peculiarity went still further,
(47:06):
and that he would not turn his back on me
for a single moment. This is weird, This is a
this is yeah, it is weird. So but the hermit
thirties forties, all he needs to do is shave?
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Is he like he's just a normal person.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
But there's the one thing about him is that he
will not let that guy get behind him no matter what. Yeah,
I get it, okay, So that I think if anything,
him having that weird quirk would be expected. It was
him being just totally normal was the unexpected part.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, that's what I agree. I agree with it.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Well it's you, buddy.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Oh okay. That discovery intrigued one. I still excluded the
explanation of madness. Copley's manner and conversation were so convincingly sane,
but I reverted to and elaborated those other two suggestions
that had been made. I could not avoid the inference
that the man must, in some strange way be afraid
of me, and I hesitated as to whether he were
(48:06):
flying from some form of justice or from revenge, perhaps
a vendetta. Either theory seemed to account for his intense
appraising stare. I inferred that his longing for companionship had
grown so strong that he had determined to risk the
possibility of my being an emissary sit by some to
me exquisitely romantic person or persons who desired Copley's death.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Man, I know.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I recalled and wallowed in some of the marvelous imaginings
of the novelist. I wondered if I could make Copley
speak by convincing him of my innocent identity.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
How I thrilled at the prospect.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
So this guy's just like ooh, maybe he thinks I'm
an assassin, and maybe I can convince him that I'm not.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
That'll be fun, right, Maybe that'll get me some currency
with him if I convince him I'm not here to
kill him.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
But the explanation of it all came without any effort
on my part. He said, me out of the hut
while he prepared our supper, quite a magnificent meal, by
the way. I saw his reason at once. He could
not manage all of that business of cooking and laying
the table without turning his back on me. One thing, however,
puzzled me a little. He drew down the blind of
the little square window as soon as I had gone outside. Naturally,
(49:18):
I made no demure. I climbed down to the edge
of the sea. It was a glorious evening and waited
until he called me. He stood at the door of
the hut until I was within a few feet of him,
and then retreated into the room and sat down with
his back to the wall. We discussed our afternoon sport
as we had supper. But when we had finished and
our pipes were going, he said, suddenly, I don't see
(49:39):
why I shouldn't tell you. Like a fool, I agreed eagerly,
when I might so easily.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Have stopped him.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
It began when I was quite a kid, he said.
My mother found me crying in the garden, and all
I could tell her was that Claude, my elder brother,
looked horrid. I couldn't bear the sight of him for
days afterward, either, But I was such a perfectly normal
child that they weren't seriously perturbed about this one idiosyncrasy
(50:08):
of mine. They thought that Claude had made a face
at me and frightened me. My father whacked me for it. Eventually,
I'm playing this guy over than thirty five years old.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I realized he's just morphed into hannibal lecture.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Okay, fly fly Claris.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Perhaps that whacking stuck in my mind. Anyway, I didn't
confide my peculiarity to anyone until I was nearly seventeen.
I was ashamed of it, of course, I still am
in a way. He stopped and looked down pushed his
plate away from him and folded his arms on the table.
I was pining to ask a question, but I was
afraid to interrupt, and after a moment's hesitation, he looked
(50:49):
up and held my gaze again, but now without that
inquiring look of his. Rather, he seemed to be looking
for sympathy.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
I told my aushmaster.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
He said he was a splendid chap and he was
very decent about it. Took it all quite seriously and
advised me to consult an occultist, which I did. I
went in the holidays with the pater. I had given
him a more reasonable account of my trouble, and he
took me to the best man in London. He was
tremendously interested. And it proves that there must be something
(51:20):
in it that it can't be imagination, because he really
found a defect in my eyes, something quite new to him,
he said. He called it a new form of astigmatism.
But of course, as he pointed out, no glasses would
be of any use to me. But what I began,
unable to keep down my curiosity any longer, hopefully hesitated
(51:44):
and dropped his eyes. A stigmatism, you know, he said?
Speaker 5 (51:49):
Is it defect.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
I quote the dictionary. I learned that definition by heart.
I often puzzle over it, still, causing images of lines
having a certain direction to be indist while those of
lines transverse to the former are distinctly seen. Only mine
is peculiar. And the fact that my sight is perfectly
normal except when I look back at anyone over my shoulder.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
He looked up almost pathetically.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
All right, So this guy's getting the truth out of him.
This's got something wrong with his eyes.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yes, And he found out that there actually is something
wrong with it because he got his dad to take
him to essentially, I guess a psychic or something in London.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
And the deal is, though, is the guy when he
looks over his shoulder at somebody, something's up, right, which
is why I didn't want anyone behind him.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yeah, okay, take it away.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
I could see that, he hoped I might understand without
further explanation. I had to confess myself utterly mystified. What
had this trifling defect of vision to do with his
coming to live on the guland I wondered, I frowned
my perplexity. But I I don't see, I said. He
(53:08):
knocked out his pipe and began to scrape the bowl
with his pocket knife.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Well, mine is a kind of moral astigmatism, too, he said.
At least it gives me a kind of moral insight.
I'm afraid I must call it insight. There are some
who call me Tim.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
I proved in some cases that.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
He dropped his voice. He was apparently deeply engrossed in
the scraping out of his pipe. He kept his eyes
on it as he continued.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
Normally, you understand, when I look at people straight in
the face, I see them as anybody else sees them.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
But when I look back at them over my shoulder.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
I see, oh, I see all their vices and defects.
Their faces remain, in a sense the same. I'm perfectly recognizable,
I mean, but distorted beastly.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
There was my brother Claude.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Good looking chap he was, But when I saw him
that way, he had a nose like a parrot, and
he looked sort of weakly voracious and vicious.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
He stopped and shuddered slightly, and then added.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
And no one knows now that he is like that too.
He's just been hammered on the stock exchange, rotten sort
of failure. It was so this guy. Uh, he's explaining
about his brother.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Yes, so his look like a creep.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Right, And he looked at him over his shoulder and
saw his brother looking really weird.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, like his true self basically m hm. And then Dennison,
my house master, you know, such a decent chap. I
never looked at him that way until the end of
my last term at school. I had got into the
habit more or less of never looking over my shoulder,
you see, But I was always getting caught. That was
(55:01):
an instance. I was playing for the school against the
old boys. Dennison called out good luck, old tap just
as I was going in, and I forgot and looked
back at him.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Hey, that was a flashback.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Nice work on the fly.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Go ahead, oh am, I narrating, that's right. Yeah. I
waited breathless, and as he did not go on, I
prompted him with was he was he like wrong too?
Copley nodded, weak, poor devil.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
His eyes were all right, but they were fighting his
mouth if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
I have no idea what that means.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
I looked it up. I can't find any explanation of
that whatsoever. So no, we don't know what you mean,
William Copley.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
I think he just means he looked funny or something.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
I guess, but I feel like he's talking about a
specific way that he looked funny.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Well, he says, if you know what I mean, your
guys should say nobody knows what you.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Mean, right, Harold, I'll add that line.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
Okay, they were fighting his mouth.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
If you know what I mean, I feel like nobody
knows what you mean.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
Oh man, you're really milking this one.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
There would have been an awful scandal at that school
there four years after I left, if they hadn't hushed
it up and got Dennison out of the country.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Still no idea what was wrong with Dennison?
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Yeah, I think it's one of those things left unsaid. Then,
if you want any more instances, there was the occultist,
Big Fine Chap he was, of course. He made me
look at him over my shoulder to test me, and
I told more or less he was simply livid for
a moment. He was a sensualist, you see, And when
I saw him that way, he looked like some filthy
(56:52):
old hog. I realized my accent is completely different than
the big.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
But it's very pleasing I was going to tell you,
great job with.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
This, I found it. But he's morphed.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Yeah, but that's what happens. He's evolved.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
That's right. The thing that really finished.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Me he went back to the beginning.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
Okay, keep nearrating, though, he.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Went on after a long interval.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Was the breaking off of my engagement to Helen. We
were frightfully in love with one another, and I told
her about my trouble. She was very sympathetic, and I
suppose rather sentimentally romantic too. She believed it was some
sort of spell that had been put on me. I
think anyway. She had a theory that if I once
saw anybody truly and ordinarily over my shoulder, I should
(57:39):
never have any more trouble, the spell would be broken
sort of thing. And of course she wanted to be
the person. I didn't resist her much. I was infatuated.
I suppose anyway. I thought she was perfection, and that
it was simply impossible that I could find any defect
in her. So I agreed and looked that way.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
His voice had fallen to an even note of despondency,
as though the telling of this final tragedy in his
life had brought him to the indifference of despair.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
I looked, he continued.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
And saw a creature with no chin and watery, doting eyes,
a fateful, slobbery thing. Eh, I can't. I never spoke
to her again. That broke me, you.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
Know, he said.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Presently after that, I didn't care. I used to look
at everyone that way until I had to get away
from humanity. I was living in a world of beasts.
Most of them looked like some beast or bird or other.
The strong were mor vicious and criminal, and the weak
were loathsome.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
I couldn't stick it.
Speaker 5 (58:46):
In the end.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
I had to come here, away from them all.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
The thought occurred to me, Ah, have you ever looked
at you know, you're in the glass?
Speaker 1 (59:02):
I asked, Are you certainly drawing with your toe and
the sand in front of them?
Speaker 3 (59:09):
Very batchful?
Speaker 1 (59:10):
I'm no better than the rest of them, he said.
That's why I grew this rotten beard. I hadn't got
a looking glass here, And you.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Can't keep it like a stiff neck as it were.
I asked, you, you know, like going about looking humanity
just you know, you know, like straight in the face.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
The temptation is too strong, Copley said, and it gets
stronger curiosity. Partly, I suppose, but partly it's the momentary
sense of superiority.
Speaker 3 (59:46):
It gives you.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
You see them like that, you know, and forget how
you look yourself, and then after a bit it sickens you.
Speaker 2 (59:54):
You haven't, I said, and hesitated. I wanted to know.
I was horribly afraid you haven't. I began again, Er
you have? Uh? Or have you let me figure out
how to say this? Have have you looked at me
(01:00:23):
that way?
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Not yet?
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
He said?
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
M M.
Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
Do you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Do?
Speaker 5 (01:00:35):
You suppose?
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Probably you look all right, of course, but then show
did heaps of the others.
Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, So you have no idea none how I should
look to you that way?
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Absolutely none. I've been trying to guess, but I can't.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Oh man, you wouldn't you know? You wouldn't care. Not now,
he said, sharply, Perhaps just before you go m ah,
you feel fairly certain. Then he nodded with disgusting conviction.
(01:01:25):
I went to bed, wondering whether Helen's theory wasn't a
true one, and if I might not break the spell
for poor old Copley. The boatman came for me soon
after eleven. The next morning, I had shaken off some
of the feeling of superstitious horror that held me overnight.
(01:01:45):
And I had not repeated my request to Copley, nor
had he offered to look into the dark places of
my soul. He came down after me to the landing
place and we shook hands warmly, but he said nothing
about my revisiting him. And then, just as we were
putting off, he turned backward toward the hut and looked
at me over his shoulder, just one quick glance. Uh
(01:02:08):
hold on, hold on, wait, I commanded the boatman, and
I stood up and called to him. Uh Copley, I shouted.
He turned and looked at me, and I saw that
his face was transfigured. He wore an expression of foolish
disgust and loathing. I had seen something like it on
the face of a child who was just going to
(01:02:29):
be sick.
Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Oh boy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
I dropped down into the boat and turned my back
on him. I wondered then if that was how he
had seen himself in the glass. But since I have
only wondered what it was he saw in me, and
I can never go back to ask him.
Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Pretty great stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah, torturous ending though, for sure. But I means nicely cinematically,
you know for sure?
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
I mean, isn't not knowing the most horrible thing of all?
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Well? Yeah, especially when you see Kopley turn around and
look and then look like a kid that's about to puke.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, what would have been? Graters? Have you just been
over and started puking after something?
Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
All over the rock?
Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Really?
Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Man, I feel like we should make a second career
of punching up old short stories and making them better.
Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Yeah all right, yeah, I think it's a good market
in that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Let those painters that go around and find like yard
sale paintings and then paint stuff in them.
Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Okay, speaking of let's do it, Chuck, I say that
this this Halloween Spectacular has come to an end, don't you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah, there's been great fun, my friend. This is always
one of the more fun episodes that we do, along
with our Christmas special. We have a lot of fun
doing these, and you did a great, great job this year.
Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
As did you. Thank you so Happy Halloween everybody from
Chuck and Me and Jerry from Ben from Dave from Dave,
from Livia, from Ed from the whole crew. Here it's
stuff you Should Know, stay safe, and be ghoulish.
Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, and welcome to the Spectacular. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry, the Ghoul Jerome Roland is here and
we're about to get jiggy with it Halloween style.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's right. It's one of our favorite episodes of the year. Yeah,
we like to remind everyone. This is one of two
ad free episodes we do every year, that's right. And
I feel like lately we have been just sort of
for the uninitiated, giving a quick overview of what we
do here on Halloween, and that is we read a
couple of public domain scary stories short stories from now
(00:57):
we're up to nineteen twenty eight and previous.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, yeah, I think so, maybe nineteen twenty seven one
of the two.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
These aren't even that I think these Mine was from
before that, even though.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, we're not even close to the line right now.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
No, we don't want to get litigious for anyone to
get litigious with us. So that's right, we're not even
dancing close to the line.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
If you have no idea what we're talking about goes
into our intellectual property episode. It basically explains our Halloween.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Episode that's right, but we you know, Josh picks one out,
I pick one out. It has become very fun in
recent years as Josh has gotten more creative with his
voice work.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I'm actually really kind of nervous because it's a
tough act to follow, and I thought, well, I'll just
bring Megl back, and I have been summoning Megal's spirit
to take over my body again.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Nothing, I've done so many unspeakable acts as offerings to
bring meg back. And basically I'm like Emma Roberts at
the end of Black Coat's Daughter, just screaming and frustration
because I can't get possessed again. So I'm sorry everyone,
I don't think Megl's going to be here this year.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, it's like Emma Roberts at the end of Black
Coat's Daughter, screaming like everyone in the theater. I don't
even look that much like that other girl.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, that was a rather serious transition.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah that was just me though, But I know what
you mean. It seems like there's nowhere to go but
down after Megle. I mean, that was an a Josh
apex for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So I guess that maybe we'll just call this episode
a wash I won't even try, and we'll get back
to business again next year. How about that?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, that sounds great. And you know, I actually did
a little road testing of some different British accents, but
I have no idea what's going to come out of
my mouth or yours, and that it's not going to
be as rehearsed.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I've learned to speak German, right, Really, no, I had
to say.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
If I had, I would not have told you or
anybody else ahead of time. Just now. I would have
just started speaking German.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
That would have been amazing, it would have been.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But this episode's a wash this year, so I'm not
going to be speaking German either.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Which one do you want to start with? You want
to do yours or mine? I think they're both terrific.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I don't know. I've got no persuasion either way, or
I'm not being persuaded either way. Is there any of
the two that you feel even remotely more like should
go first?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You know, for some reason, instinctually, I just want to
pick up yours.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I think it's the gripping and spooky and a good
place setter, and it's you know, it's HG. Wells, It's
a classic author.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, so let's dig into yours, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
HG.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Wells trying to remember my parts though.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you are the old man with the shade on
his head.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Okay, he's the one that walks in last right.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yes, and then the old lady. Oh perfect, okay, And
this is HG. Wells, everybody, the guy who predicted our
current rocket program with NASA and wrote the time Machine
and did all sorts of really neat stuff. He also
wrote a scary story. And that's what we're going to
read now. It's called The Red Room. So Chuck, how
(04:24):
about you narrate first? Uh?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Okay, Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the reading of The
Red Room by H. G. Wells.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
No I meant in the story?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh oh oh yeah, sure, I didn't know what you meant.
I was like, what narration?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Youre?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You talking about your reading?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You're like, all right, don't give it a try. Okay, okay,
you're ready.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Sure, but but you're you're playing the main guys. You're
starting right exactly. Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I can assure you, said I that it will take
a very tangible ghost to frighten me.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
And I stood up before the fire with my glass
in my hand.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
It is your own choosing.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Said the man with the withered arm.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I want to take that again.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Okay, it's your own choosy, said the man with a
withered arm, and glanced at me askance.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Eight and twenty years, said I I have lived, and
never a ghost have I seen. As yet.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her
pale eyes wide open.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Iye, she broke.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
In, and eighty and twenty years, you have lived and
never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's
a many things to see when one's still but eight
and twenty.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
She's she's making fun of this guy for being twenty
eight years old. Yeah, she swayed her head slowly from
side to side. A many things to see and sorrow for.
I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance
the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence.
I put down my empty glass on the table and
(06:10):
looked about the room and caught a glimpse of myself
abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness in the queer
old mirror at the end of the room.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, I said, if I see anything tonight, I shall
be much the wiser before I come to the business
with an open mind. I'm so disappointed with myself this year.
Uh oh, yeah, it's me is your.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Choosing, said the man with a withered arm. Once more,
I heard the faint sound of a stick and a
shambling step on the flags, and the passage outside the
door creaked on its hinges. As a second old man entered,
more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first.
He supported himself by the help of a crutch. His
(06:56):
eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip
half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth.
He made straight for an armchair on the opposite side
of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough.
The man with a withered hand gave the newcomer a
short glance of positive dislikes. The old woman took no
(07:17):
notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes picked
steadily in the fire.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
I said it to your own choosing.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Said the man with a withered hand, when the coughing
had ceased for a while.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
It's my own choosing, I answered.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
The man with the shade became aware of my presence
for the first time, and threw his head back for
a moment and sideways to seebee. I caught a momentary
glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then
he began to cough and sputter again.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Why did you drink?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Said the man with a withered arm, pushing the beer
toward him. The man with the shade poured out a
glassful with a shaking hand that splashed half as much
again on the deal table. Stress shadow of him crouched
upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured
and drank. I must confess I had scarcely expected these
grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman, insinility,
(08:13):
something crouching and atavistic. The human quality seemed to drop
from old people insensibly. Day by day, the three of
them made me feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their
bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another.
And that night, perhaps I was in the mood for
uncomfortable impressions. I resolved to get away from their vague
(08:36):
foreshadowings of the evil things upstairs.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
So ageous, very ageist.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
If said I.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I will show me to this haunted room of yours.
I will make myself comfortable there.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The old man, with a cough, jerked his head back
so suddenly that it startled me, and shot another glance
of his red eyes at me from out of the
darkness under the shade. But no one answered me. I
waited a minute, glancing from one to the other. The
old woman stared like a dead body, glaring into the
fire with lackluster eyes. Ef I said a little louder.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
If you will show me to this haunted room of yours,
I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
There's a cannon on the slab outside.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The door, said the man, with a withered hand, looking
at my feet as he address me.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
If you go to the red room tonight.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
This night of all nights, said the old woman softly.
You go alone, very well, I answered shortly, And.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Which way do I go? This guy's sick of the
old people by now. He's just satically mad at.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Them, he is. He's being very aggressive.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
You go along the passage for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Said he, nodding his head on his shoulder at the door.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Until you come to a spiral stircase. And on the
second landing is a door covered with green baize. Go
through that, and on the corner at the end of
the red room is on your left, up the steps.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Have I got that right, I said, and repeated his directions.
He corrected me in one particular. And are you really going,
said the man with the shade, looking at me again
for the third time with that queer, unnatural tilting.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Of the face.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
This night of all nights, whispered the old woman.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It is what I came for.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I said, and moved toward the door. As I did so,
the old man with the shade rose and staggered round
the table so as to be closer to the others
and to the fire at the door. I turned and
looked at them, and saw they were all close together,
dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders,
with an intent expression on their ancient faces.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Good night, I said, setting the door open.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
It's yourn't choosing, said the man with a withered arm.
All right, so as we like to do little recap.
This guy has come to this spooky place, and there
are three olds there. And this guy didn't like olds.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
No, he doesn't like them, and they don't seem to
like him very much. I think they also are taking
him as foolish over the cavalier and getting himself into
hot water.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
To put it mildly, Yeah, because he wants to spend
the night in this room that we don't even know
anything about. But I'm already scared.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, it's a scary room that you would not want
to go into. They're kind of half talking about of it.
Maybe I don't know, maybe a quarter.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
All right, you ready, I'll buy that. Yeah, let's go
switch it up.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
I left the door wide open until the candle was
well alight, and then I shut them in and walked
down the chilly, echoing passage. I must confess that the
oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge her
Ladyship had left the castle, and the deep toned, old
fashioned furniture of the housekeeper room in which they foregathered,
had affected me curiously, in spite of my effort to
(12:05):
keep myself at a matter of fact phase. They seem
to belong to another age, in older age, in age
when things spiritual were indeed to be feared, when common
sense was uncommon, In age when omens and witches were credible,
and ghosts beyond denying their very existence, thought I as spectral,
(12:25):
the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains.
I think he's talking about no incore here. Yeah, the
ornaments and conveniences in the room about them even are ghostly,
the thoughts of vanished men which still haunt rather than
participate in the world of today. And the passage I
was in, long and shadowy, with a film of moisture
(12:46):
glistening on the wall, was as gaunt and cold as
a thing that is dead and rigid. But with an
effort I sent such thoughts to the right. About the long,
drafty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle
flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes
rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow
(13:06):
came sweeping up after me, and another fled before me
into the darkness overhead. They came to the wide landing
and stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling
that I fancied I heard creeping behind me, and then,
satisfied of the absolute silence, pushed open the unwilling baze
covered door and stood in the silent.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Corridor bays is like a felt.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's what I got, too, Like what they used to
put on billiard tables.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, might look nice on a door. You never know.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It's a weird choice, kind of upsetting if you think
about it. Should I keep going?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
The effect was scarcely what I expected for. The moonlight
coming in by the great window on the grand staircase
picked out everything in vivid black shadow or reticulated silvery illumination.
Everything seemed in its proper position. The house might have
been deserted on the yesterday instead of twelve months ago.
There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and
(14:09):
whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the
polished flooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible
in my candlelight. A waiting stillness was over everything. I
was about to advance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group
stood upon the landing, hidden from me by a corner
of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvelous distinctness
(14:30):
upon the white paneling and gave me the impression of
someone crouching to waylay me. The thing jumped upon my attention.
Suddenly I stood rigid for half a moment perhaps, Then,
with my hand in the pocket that held the revolver,
I advanced only to discover a Gany Mead and eagle
glistening in the moonlight. That incident, for a time restored
(14:51):
my nerve by the way, Ganny Mead was the most
beautiful mortal in Grease whose Zeus napped and took as
a basically a love slave.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, and a Ganny Meat and eagle was just like
a little statue of an eagle with this scanny meat character.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But the shadow was super scary.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
For a second, I believe it.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
The door of the Red Room and the steps up
to it were in a shadowy corner. I moved my
candle from side to side in order to see clearly
the nature of the recess in which I stood before
opening the door. Here it was I thought that my
predecessor was found, and the memory of the story gave
me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my
(15:34):
shoulder at the black Ganny meat in the moonlight, and
opened the door of the Red Room rather hastily, With
my face half turned to the pallid silence of the corridor.
I entered closed the door behind me at once turned
the key I found in the lock within, and stood
with the candle help of off surveying the scene of
my vigil, the great red room of Lowering Castle, in
(15:55):
which the young Duke had died, or rather in which
he had begun his dying, For he had opened the
door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended.
That had been the end of his vigil, of his
gallant attempt to conquer the ghostly tradition of the place,
And never I thought, had apoplexy better served the ends
of superstition. There were other older stories that clung to
(16:17):
the room, back to the half incredible beginning of it all,
the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end
that came to her husband's chest of frightening her. And
looking round that huge, shadowy room, with its black window bays,
its recesses and alcoves, its dusty brown red hangings, and
dark gigantic furniture, one could well understand the legends that
(16:37):
had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darknesses. My
candle was a little tongue of light in the vastness
of the chamber. Its rays failed to pierce to the
opposite end of the room and left an ocean of
dull red mystery and suggestion, sentinel shadows and watching darknesses
beyond its island of light and the stillness of desolation
(16:59):
brooded over it all.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
All right, So, like a lot of these stories, you
get a little bit of a vague setup and then
they sort of dole out what's happening. Yeah, as it goes.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
On pretty much what he's doing here, I would.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Say, Yeah, so he got this guy, he's going to
this castle now where the person before him that went
to sort of ghost investigate through him? Sounds like he
threw himself down the stairs and took his life right
with madness.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think he. I get the impression, who's trying to
get the heck out of that room and died running
falling down the stairs.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Maybe okay, either one.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And then this whole thing was haunted though by a woman.
And do I gather that her husband used to like
kiddingly frighten her and that led to a death.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's what I took it as.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, okay, not a nice guy.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Don't do that, guys, No, it wasn't jest.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I'm sure he regretted it pretty deeply afterward if he
was even half way decent. Right, are you taking over now?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yes? It feels like a switcher roo me, I think
so too. All right, so this guy's in this room now,
finally he's all set to go.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I must confess some impalpable quality of that ancient room
disturbed me. I tried to fight the feeling down. I
resolved to make a systematic examination of the place, and
so by leaving nothing to the imagination, dispel the fanciful
suggestions of the obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me.
After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, I
(18:35):
love that. I get the feeling this guy's like, check
to make sure it was locked, like eight times. I
began to walk around the room, peering round each article
of furniture, tucking up the balances of the bed and
opening its curtains wide. So basically, this guy's doing what
any kid would do.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, he's trying to bring as much light as possible
in there and checking everything right.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, yeah, he's looking at He's like, I don't want
those sheets hanging down below, like what's under the bed.
It's likely to tuck that in. Let's lock the door
eight times. I like this guy. Yeah, okay. In one
place there was a distinct echo to my footsteps. The
noises I made seemed so little that they enhanced rather
than broke the silence of the place. I pulled up
the blinds and examined the fastenings of these several windows.
(19:19):
Attracted by the fall of a particle of dust, I
leaned forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney. Then,
trying to preserve my scientific attitude of mind, I walked
round and began tapping the oak paneling for any secret opening.
But I desisted before reaching the alcove. I saw my
face in a mirror white.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I mean, what color do you think he was?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I think he might have kale is a sheet kind
of thing. He looked like scared, maybe.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
There were two big mirrors in the room, each with
a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf,
too were candles and china candlesticks. All these I lit
one after the other. The fire was laid an unexpected
consideration from the old housekeeper, and I lit it to
keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was
burning well, I stood round with my back to it
(20:13):
and regarded the room again. I had pulled up a
chintz covered armchair and a table to form a kind
of barricade before me. On this lay my revolver ready
to hand. Oh that's right, he's strapped. That was pretty important.
My precise examination had done me a little good, but
I still found the remoter darkness of the place, in
its perfect stillness, too stimulating for the imagination. The echoing
(20:36):
of the stir and crackling of the fire was no
sort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove
at the end of the room began to display that
indefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking,
living thing that comes so easily in silence and solitude.
And to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into
it and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there.
(20:59):
I stood that can upon the floor of the alcove
and left it in that position. By this time I
was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although to
my reason there was no adequate cause for my condition.
My mind, however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly
that nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time,
I began stringing some rhymes together in Goldsby fashioned concerning
(21:23):
the original legend.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Of the place.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant.
For some reason, I also abandoned after a time a
conversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting.
My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs,
and I tried to keep it upon that topic. Yeah,
(21:46):
so he's like doing the uh oh, I'm not scared
thing right, knocking himself out of.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It and Ingldsby apparently wrote legends and laws and stuff
as poems.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I guess, okay, that's a name.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah ready, yep, I am too. The somber reds and
grays of the room troubled me. Even with its seven candles,
the place was merely dim. The light in the alcove
flaring in a draft, and the fire flickering kept the
shadows and penumber perpetually shifting and stirring in a noiseless
(22:20):
flighty dance. Casting about. For a remedy, I recalled the
wax candles I had seen in the corridor, and with
a slight effort, carrying a candle and leaving the door open,
I walked out into the moonlight, and presently returned with
as many as ten these. I put in the various
knick knacks of china with which the room was sparsely
adorned and lit, and placed them where the shadows had
(22:42):
lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the window.
Recesses arranging and re arranging them, until at last my
seventeen candles were so placed that not an inch of
the room but had the direct light of at least
one of them. It occurred to me that when the
ghosts came, I could warn him not to trip over them.
Ha ha. The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There
(23:03):
was something very cheering and reassuring in these little silent,
streaming flames, and to notice their steady diminution of length
offered me an occupation and gave me a reassuring sense
of the passage of time.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Can you imagine what a like Now you go into
a scary room, you just turn on all those lights exactly.
This took twenty minutes to do it back then right.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And also he's like, so trying to make time pass
that he's staring at candles melting. Yeah, that's reassuring. That's
how it kind of up an arms.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
He is. Yeah. Good times.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Even with that, however, the brooining expectation of the vigil
weighed heavily upon me. I stood watching the minute hand
of my watch creep toward midnight. Then something happened in
the alcove. I did not see the candle go out.
I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there,
as one might start and see the unexpected presence of
(23:54):
a stranger. The black shadow had sprung back to its place.
By Jove said, I allowed, recovering from my surprise that
drafts a strong one, and taking the match box from
the table, I walked across the room in a leisurely
manner to relight the corner.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Again.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I get the impression that was a forced leisurely manner,
don't you.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, yeah, like, oh, I'm fine, everybody.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded
with the second, something seemed to blink on the wall
before me. I turned my head involuntarily and saw that
the two candles on the little table by the fireplace
were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet ahed,
I said, did I do that myself? In a flash
of absent mindedness, I walked back ReLit one, and as
(24:39):
I did so, I saw the candle in the right
scance of one of the mere's wink and go right out,
and almost immediately its companion followed it. The flames vanished,
as if the wick had been suddenly nipped between a
finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking,
but black. While I stood gaping, the candle at the
foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed
(24:59):
to take an stepped toward me.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
For the record, I think that a little bit with
the candle going out but no smoke or no glow,
that's like, I think that's legit. The scariest line in
this thing.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, it was a really good little little thing, little
nice details detail, That's what I was after. This won't do,
said I in first one and then another candle on
the mantle shelf followed. What's up? I cried with a
queer high note. Sorry, what's up? I cried with a
queer high note, getting into my voice somehow at that
(25:35):
the candle on the corner of the wardrobe went out,
and the one I had reltt and the alcove followed
steady on. I said, those candles are wanted, speaking with
a half hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away to match, though
all the while for the mantle candlesticks, my hands trembled
so much that twice I missed the rough paper of
the matchbox. As the mantle emerged from darkness again, two
(25:58):
candles in the remoter and the room where eclipsed, but
with the same match. I also ReLit the larger mirror
candles and those on the floor near the doorway, so
that for a moment I seemed to gain on the extinctions.
But then in a noiseless volley, there vanished four lights
at once in different corners of the room, and I
struck another match in a quivering haste, and stood hesitating.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Whether to take it.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
This is really scary. At this point, I can picture
this happening.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, I mean, think about it. The whole reason he
went and gathered seventeen candles because he didn't want any
darkness in there, And now something, it seems as is
extinguishing these candles all over the room while he's trying
to get them re lit. I would be flipping out
at this point.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, and that one little detail too, H wells good writer.
When he's trying to strike the match, but he's on
the smooth part of the box. That's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, everybody's been there.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Uh switch through?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, I think switch roof for sure?
Speaker 5 (26:58):
All right.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep
out the two candles on the table with a cry
of terror. I dashed at the alcove.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
You can do the cry of tear, then into the.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Cry of terror.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh goodness, then into the corner, and then into the window,
relighting three as two more vanished by the fireplace, and
then perceiving a better way, I dropped matches on the
iron bound deed box in the corner and caught up
the bedroom candlestick. I don't what is he doing there.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I don't quite follow that he has he's basically forgotten
the matches. Now he's just gonna like use a candle.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Though, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that'ld move With this, I
avoided the delay of okay, I just should have kept
breathing with this. I avoided the delay of striking matches.
But for all that, the steady process of extinction went on,
and the shadows I feared and fought against returned and
crept in upon me. First a step gained on this
side of me, then on that. I was now almost
(28:05):
frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my
self possession deserted me. I leaped, panting from candle to cantle,
in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance. Nice I
bruised myself in the thigh against the table, I sent
a chair headlong. I stumbled and fell, and whisked the
cloth from the table in my fall.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
It's got's like at three stitches.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another
as I rose abruptly. This was blown out as I
swung it off the table by the wind of my
sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But
there was light still in the room, a red light
that streamed across the ceiling and staved off the shadows
from the fire. Of course, I could still thrust my
(28:50):
candle between the bars and relight it. I turned to
where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals
and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps
toward the grate, and incontinent, incontinently, Yeah, did.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
You poop themself?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Or peeded one of the two?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished,
the reflections rushed together and disappeared. And as I thrust
the candle between the bars, darkness closed upon me, like
the shutting of an eye, wrapping around me in a
stifling embrace, sealed my vision and crushed the last vestiges
of self possession from my brain. And it was not
(29:28):
only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror. The candle fell from
my hands. I flung out my arms in a vain
effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and,
lifting up my voice, screamed with all of my might, once, twice, thrice.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Ah ah ah.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Then I think I must have staggered to my feet.
I know, I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and
with my my head bowed on my arms over my face,
made a stumbling run for the door. But I had
forgotten the exact position of the door, and I struck
myself heavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back,
turned and was either struck or struck myself against some
(30:15):
other bulky furnishing. I have a vague memory of battering
myself thus to and fro in the darkness of a
heavy blow at last up on my forehead, of a
horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age of my
last frantic effort to keep my footing.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And then I remember no more.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Boy, that's some good folly work right there, my friend,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I've been I would say I was practicing, but it
is all to soft.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
The cuff, all right.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So this guy a key detail there is like I
was either struck myself or was struck and like that's
a key detail, bro for sure.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
But for all intents and purposes, it does not matter
at this point because he's been knocked out. And frankly,
I think we have a little bit of detail about
what happened to that earl, that count who fell headlong
out of the door.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Right yeah, I think I see where this is headed.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Ready, I'm taking it home, Take it home, baby.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged,
and the man with the withered hand was watching my face.
I looked about me, trying to remember what had happened,
and for a space I could not recollect. I rolled
my eyes into the corner and saw the old woman,
no longer abstracted, no longer terrible, pouring out some drops
(31:35):
of medicine from a little blue file into a glass.
Where am I? I said, I seem to remember you,
and yet I cannot remember who you are. They told
me then, And I heard of the haunted room as
one hears a tale. Let's see, I think this is
the old man with the withered arm. Yeah, we found
you at dawn, said he. And there was blood on
(31:57):
your forehead and lips. I wondered that I had ever
disliked him. The three of them in the daylight seemed commonplace,
old folk enough. The man with the green shade had
his head been as one who sleeps. It was very
slowly I recovered the memory of my experience. You believe now,
said the old man with the withered hand, that the
room is haunted. He spoke no longer as one who
(32:17):
greets an intruder, but is one who condoles with the friend. Yes,
said I, the room is haunted, and you have seen it,
and we who have been here all alives, have never
set eyes upon it, because we have never dared TuS.
Is it truly the old earl who no, said I
it is not, I told you show, said the old
(32:40):
lady with the glass in her hand.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
It is his poor young countess who is fright.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It is not, I said. There is neither ghost of
earl nor ghost of countess in that room. There is
no ghost there at all, but worse, far worse, something impalpable.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Well, not bad, Yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal men,
said I. And that is in all its nakedness, fear, fear.
It will not have light nor sound, that will not
bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It
followed me through the corridor. It fought against me. In
the room. I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence.
(33:25):
My hand went up to my bandages. The candles went out,
one after another, and I fled. Then the man with
the shade lifted his face sideways to see me and spoke,
that is it, said he.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I knew that was yet a power of darkness? Is
he Sean Connery.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Sean Conry and James Earl Jones had a baby. And
this guy's it.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
A power of darkness to put such a curse upon
a home. It looks they're always You can feel it,
even in the daytime, even of a bright summer's day,
and the hangings curtains keeping behind you. However you face
about in the dusk, it creeps in the corridor and
follows you so that you dare not turn. It is
(34:10):
even as you say, fear itself is in that room,
black fear, and there it will be so long is
this house of sin indoors? Wowsy wows or wowser?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
You really finished that in grand style. Man, that was great.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Stuff, Thanks dude, Man HG.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Wells. That is no wonder he was a popular writer.
That's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Still is popular. We just brought him back, buddy. Yeah,
so I guess we should take a message break.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Huh No, No, not for how to We Eat?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That never gets old for me. I think I say
that every year. Yeah, I love it, so, yeah, I
guess then we'll move on to the next one. This
is your right.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah. This is called the Misanthrope by J. D. Beresford.
And you'll see what's going on here? Got to do
with a lot of these stories are the same. I
feel like, yeah, horror writing back then, these short stories
often had to do with people investigating some creepy place
where something creepy had happened, or maybe that's all horror.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Movie, and they were usually approaching it from like a
rational mind, and they end up like being proven that
there's something worse there, and yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
All right, it works.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
So what am I doing again?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I'm the visitor to the island and the boatman and
you're the.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Herm Okay, that's right, right? Why do we bother working
this out?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
I always forget all right, here we go.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Everybody, pour up a spoopy drink, blow out the candles,
relight them, blow them out again, and listen to the
Misanthrope by J. D.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Beresford. Take it away, Josh, did you say spoopy? Very nice?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Since I have returned from the rock and discussed the
story in all its bearings, I've begun to wonder if
the man made a fool of me. In the deeps
of my consciousness, I feel that he did not. Nevertheless,
I cannot resist the effect of all the laughter that
has been evoked by my narrative. Here on the mainland,
the whole thing seems unlikely, grotesque, foolish. On the rock,
(36:31):
the man's confession carried absolute conviction. The setting is everything,
and I am perhaps thankful that my present circumstances are
so beautifully conducive to sanity. No one appreciates the mystery
of life more than I do. But when the mystery
involves such a doubt of one's self, I find it
pleasanter to forget. Naturally, I do not want to believe
(36:52):
the story. If I did, I should know myself to
be some kind of human horror. And the terror of
it all lies in the fact that I may never
know precisely what kind. Before I went, we had eliminated
the facile and banal explanation that the man was mad,
and had fallen back upon two inevitable alternatives, crime and
disappointed love. We were human and romantic, and we tried
(37:15):
desperately hard not to be too obvious. That is the
most inscrutable paragraph I've ever read in my entire life. Yeah, right,
Once before a man had made the same attempt, and
had built or tried to build a house on the
Golden Rock, but he had been defeated within a fortnight,
and what was left of his building was taken off
the island and turned into a tin church. Is there
(37:36):
still We all went to trevone and ruminated over and
round it, perhaps with some faint hope that one of
us might, all unknowing, have the abilities of a psychometrist.
So I think what he's saying, there's something on this
island that he's very interested in. There's a person that
he's trying to figure out what their deal is, and
they're so into it that he and his group of
(37:57):
friends went to visit this tin church that had won's
been a house on this island for like two weeks,
just in an effort to glean some sort of information,
even psychic information if possible.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, and he's recounting this, So he's recounting something that
has already happened to him that he's very sort of
embarrassed about.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yes, And we both read this already, and I can
promise you everybody, it gets more comprehensible as things go on.
As a matter of fact, we should probably reread this
beginning at the answer and be like, oh, okay, I
get it.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, it kind of makes sense. It's sort of like
the movie that picks up with the guy that all
the stuff has already happened, and then he's like, and
here's the story.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, but at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard, no one's like,
what are you talking about? This story doesn't fall into
the same category. Okay, here I go. Nothing came of
that visit. This is the visit to that ten chirt,
(39:00):
but a slight intensification of those theories that were already
becoming a little stale. We compared the early failure of
thirty years ago, the attempt that was baffled with the
present success. For this new misanthrope had lived on the
gullen through the whole winter and still lived. Indeed, the
fact of his presence on the awful lump of rock
was now accepted by the country people. To them, he
(39:22):
was scarcely a shade madder than the other visitors. That
renunerative recurrent host that this year broke their journey to
Bedrethon in order to stand on the Trevone Beach and
stare foolishly at just the visible hut that struck like
a cubicle gull on the landward face of that humped,
desolate island. The best I can tell is there's somebody
(39:43):
who lives there now, this hermit you on this island,
and the country people who live on the mainland just
off of the island are like whatever. They don't think
too much of him, but they can see his hut
from their house on the mainland.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
You want to take over. You want me to keep
reading a jumble of words that barely makes sense.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
I'll go okay, all right.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
We all did that, stared at nothing in particular, and
meditated enormously, but in what I felt at the time
was a wild spirit of adventure. I went out one
night to the point of gun ver Head and saw
an actual light within that distant hut, a patch of
golden lichen on the mother parasite.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, great line, some aspect of humanity I found in
that light. It was that finally decided me that in
some quality of sympathy, perhaps with the hermit, mad criminal
or lovelorn who had found sanctuary from the pestilent touch
of the encroaching crowd. It was, in fact a wildish night,
and I stayed until the little yellow speck went out,
(40:50):
and all I could see through the murk was an
occasional canopy of curving spray when the elbow of the
trebon light touched a bare corner of that black Gulland
so this guy's just watching this island as well, But
he feels a little empathy, maybe.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Ye toward this guy sounds like it.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
The making of a decision was no difficult matter. But
while I waited for the necessary calm that would permit
the occasional boat to land provisions on the island two
miles out from the mainland, I suffered qualms of doubt
and nervousness. And I suffered them alone, for I had
determined that no hint of my adventure should be given
to anyone of our party until the voyage had been made.
They might think that I had gone fishing, an excuse
(41:27):
which had all the air probability given to it by
the coming of the boatmen to say that the tide
and wind would serve that morning. I had warned and
bribed him to give no clue to my friends of
the goal of my proposed excursion. So this guy's going
to go out there on a boat, But He's like,
don't tell.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Anyone I'm doing ditching his friends. Ditching his friends.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
My nervousness suffered no decrease. As we approached the rock
and saw the authentic figure of its single inhabitant awaiting
our arrival. I had some consolation in the thought that
he would be in some way I'm prepared by the
sight of our surprisingly passengered boat. But my mind shuddered
at the necessity for using some conventional form of address.
If I would make at once my introduction and excuse,
(42:11):
the civilized opening was so helplessly incapable of expressing my sympathy,
presenting instead so unmistakably it seemed to me the single
solution of common curiosity. I wondered that he had not,
as the boatman so clearly assured me, was the case
had other prying visitors before me. My self consciousness increased
as we came nearer to the single opening among the
(42:33):
spiked rocks that served as a miniature harbor at half tide.
I felt that I was being watched by the man
who now stood awaiting us at water's edge, and suddenly
my spirit broke. I decided that I could not force
myself upon him that I would remain in the boat
while its cargo was delivered, and then return with a
boatman to Trevone. So resolute was I in this plan
that when we had pulled into the tiny landing space,
(42:55):
I kept my gaze steadfastly averted from the man I
had come to see, and stay there solemnly out at
the humped back of trebone, now seen in an entirely
new aspect. All right, So this guy's having second thoughts now,
He's like, I'm already out here, and maybe I should
just go back.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't force myself on a hermit who
I want to find out. What's your deal man?
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, exactly, Why don't you take over? Because there's a
lot of me stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Okay. The sound of the hermit's voice startled me from
a perfectly genuine abstraction.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Fairly decent weather today.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
He remarked with, I thought a touch of nervousness he had,
I remembered addressed the same remark to the boatmen, who
were now conveying their cargo up to the hut. I
looked up and meta's stare. He was, indeed regarding me
with a curious effect of concentration, as if he were
eager to know every detail of my expression. Jolly, I
replied him pretty basically. The last day or two kept
(43:55):
her rather short, hasn't it.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I make allowances for that, he said, keep a resume
of you know, are you I staying over there?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
He nodded towards the bay for a well, weak or two,
I told him, as we began to discuss the country
around Harlan with the eagerness of two strangers who find
a common topic at a dull reception.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Never been on the gullen before, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
He ventured at last, when the boatmen had discharged their
load and were evidently ready to be off. No, no, no, no,
I haven't, I said, and hesitated. I felt the invitation
must come from him. He boggled over it by saying.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Dashed, awkward place to get to and nothing to see.
Of course, I don't know if you're at all keen
on fishing.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well, Rather, I said, with enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
There'sh deep water on the other side of the rock.
He went on, in the right weather you get splendid
bass there.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
He stopped, and then added it will.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Be absolutely top zero for him this after noon.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Well, perhaps I could come back, I began, but the
boatman interrupted me at once.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Is this Josh Clark that's visiting this guy? It sounds
very much like this something you would do.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
All right, you can come back tomorrow, sure enough, he said,
tide only serves once every twelve hours.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
If you'd care to stay now.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Uh, thanks, that's awfully good of you. I should like
to of all things, I said, I stayed on the clear,
understanding that the boatmen were to fetch me the next morning.
At first, there was really very little that seemed in
any way strange about the man on the gully.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
I could picture what heaven here, and he's like, yeah, yeah,
I'll stay. Then he turns around, he's like, you'll get
me tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
He's like, yeah, yeah, this will be great. We'll do
some fishing, like you guys are coming right in the morning, right.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
They're like sure, sure, we'll be right back. His name,
he told me, was William Copley, but it appeared that
he was no relation to the Copleys I knew, And
if he had shaved, he would have looked a very
ordinary type of englishman roughing it on a holiday. His
age I judged to be between thirty and forty. Only
two things about him struck me as a little queer
(46:23):
during our very successful afternoons fishing. The first was that intense,
appraising stare of his, as if he tried to fathom
the very depths of one's being. The second was an
inexplicable devotion to one particular form of ceremony. As our
intimacy grew, he dropped the ordinary formal politeness of a host.
But he insisted always on one observance that I supposed
(46:46):
at first to be the merely conventional business of giving precedence.
Nothing would induce him to go in front of me.
He sent me ahead, even as we explored the little
peerlius of his rock. The only level square yard on
the whole island was in the floor of the hut.
But presently I noticed that this peculiarity went still further,
(47:06):
and that he would not turn his back on me
for a single moment. This is weird, This is a
this is yeah, it is weird. So but the hermit
thirties forties, all he needs to do is shave?
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Is he like he's just a normal person.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
But there's the one thing about him is that he
will not let that guy get behind him no matter what. Yeah,
I get it, okay, So that I think if anything,
him having that weird quirk would be expected. It was
him being just totally normal was the unexpected part.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, that's what I agree. I agree with it.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Well it's you, buddy.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Oh okay. That discovery intrigued one. I still excluded the
explanation of madness. Copley's manner and conversation were so convincingly sane,
but I reverted to and elaborated those other two suggestions
that had been made. I could not avoid the inference
that the man must, in some strange way be afraid
of me, and I hesitated as to whether he were
(48:06):
flying from some form of justice or from revenge, perhaps
a vendetta. Either theory seemed to account for his intense
appraising stare. I inferred that his longing for companionship had
grown so strong that he had determined to risk the
possibility of my being an emissary sit by some to
me exquisitely romantic person or persons who desired Copley's death.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Man, I know.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I recalled and wallowed in some of the marvelous imaginings
of the novelist. I wondered if I could make Copley
speak by convincing him of my innocent identity.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
How I thrilled at the prospect.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
So this guy's just like ooh, maybe he thinks I'm
an assassin, and maybe I can convince him that I'm not.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
That'll be fun, right, Maybe that'll get me some currency
with him if I convince him I'm not here to
kill him.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
But the explanation of it all came without any effort
on my part. He said, me out of the hut
while he prepared our supper, quite a magnificent meal, by
the way. I saw his reason at once. He could
not manage all of that business of cooking and laying
the table without turning his back on me. One thing, however,
puzzled me a little. He drew down the blind of
the little square window as soon as I had gone outside. Naturally,
(49:18):
I made no demure. I climbed down to the edge
of the sea. It was a glorious evening and waited
until he called me. He stood at the door of
the hut until I was within a few feet of him,
and then retreated into the room and sat down with
his back to the wall. We discussed our afternoon sport
as we had supper. But when we had finished and
our pipes were going, he said, suddenly, I don't see
(49:39):
why I shouldn't tell you. Like a fool, I agreed eagerly,
when I might so easily.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Have stopped him.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
It began when I was quite a kid, he said.
My mother found me crying in the garden, and all
I could tell her was that Claude, my elder brother,
looked horrid. I couldn't bear the sight of him for
days afterward, either, But I was such a perfectly normal
child that they weren't seriously perturbed about this one idiosyncrasy
(50:08):
of mine. They thought that Claude had made a face
at me and frightened me. My father whacked me for it. Eventually,
I'm playing this guy over than thirty five years old.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I realized he's just morphed into hannibal lecture.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Okay, fly fly Claris.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Perhaps that whacking stuck in my mind. Anyway, I didn't
confide my peculiarity to anyone until I was nearly seventeen.
I was ashamed of it, of course, I still am
in a way. He stopped and looked down pushed his
plate away from him and folded his arms on the table.
I was pining to ask a question, but I was
afraid to interrupt, and after a moment's hesitation, he looked
(50:49):
up and held my gaze again, but now without that
inquiring look of his. Rather, he seemed to be looking
for sympathy.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
I told my aushmaster.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
He said he was a splendid chap and he was
very decent about it. Took it all quite seriously and
advised me to consult an occultist, which I did. I
went in the holidays with the pater. I had given
him a more reasonable account of my trouble, and he
took me to the best man in London. He was
tremendously interested. And it proves that there must be something
(51:20):
in it that it can't be imagination, because he really
found a defect in my eyes, something quite new to him,
he said. He called it a new form of astigmatism.
But of course, as he pointed out, no glasses would
be of any use to me. But what I began,
unable to keep down my curiosity any longer, hopefully hesitated
(51:44):
and dropped his eyes. A stigmatism, you know, he said?
Speaker 5 (51:49):
Is it defect.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
I quote the dictionary. I learned that definition by heart.
I often puzzle over it, still, causing images of lines
having a certain direction to be indist while those of
lines transverse to the former are distinctly seen. Only mine
is peculiar. And the fact that my sight is perfectly
normal except when I look back at anyone over my shoulder.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
He looked up almost pathetically.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
All right, So this guy's getting the truth out of him.
This's got something wrong with his eyes.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yes, And he found out that there actually is something
wrong with it because he got his dad to take
him to essentially, I guess a psychic or something in London.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
And the deal is, though, is the guy when he
looks over his shoulder at somebody, something's up, right, which
is why I didn't want anyone behind him.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yeah, okay, take it away.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
I could see that, he hoped I might understand without
further explanation. I had to confess myself utterly mystified. What
had this trifling defect of vision to do with his
coming to live on the guland I wondered, I frowned
my perplexity. But I I don't see, I said. He
(53:08):
knocked out his pipe and began to scrape the bowl
with his pocket knife.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Well, mine is a kind of moral astigmatism, too, he said.
At least it gives me a kind of moral insight.
I'm afraid I must call it insight. There are some
who call me Tim.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
I proved in some cases that.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
He dropped his voice. He was apparently deeply engrossed in
the scraping out of his pipe. He kept his eyes
on it as he continued.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
Normally, you understand, when I look at people straight in
the face, I see them as anybody else sees them.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
But when I look back at them over my shoulder.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
I see, oh, I see all their vices and defects.
Their faces remain, in a sense the same. I'm perfectly recognizable,
I mean, but distorted beastly.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
There was my brother Claude.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Good looking chap he was, But when I saw him
that way, he had a nose like a parrot, and
he looked sort of weakly voracious and vicious.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
He stopped and shuddered slightly, and then added.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
And no one knows now that he is like that too.
He's just been hammered on the stock exchange, rotten sort
of failure. It was so this guy. Uh, he's explaining
about his brother.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Yes, so his look like a creep.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Right, And he looked at him over his shoulder and
saw his brother looking really weird.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, like his true self basically m hm. And then Dennison,
my house master, you know, such a decent chap. I
never looked at him that way until the end of
my last term at school. I had got into the
habit more or less of never looking over my shoulder,
you see, But I was always getting caught. That was
(55:01):
an instance. I was playing for the school against the
old boys. Dennison called out good luck, old tap just
as I was going in, and I forgot and looked
back at him.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Hey, that was a flashback.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Nice work on the fly.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Go ahead, oh am, I narrating, that's right. Yeah. I
waited breathless, and as he did not go on, I
prompted him with was he was he like wrong too?
Copley nodded, weak, poor devil.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
His eyes were all right, but they were fighting his
mouth if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
I have no idea what that means.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
I looked it up. I can't find any explanation of
that whatsoever. So no, we don't know what you mean,
William Copley.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
I think he just means he looked funny or something.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
I guess, but I feel like he's talking about a
specific way that he looked funny.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Well, he says, if you know what I mean, your
guys should say nobody knows what you.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Mean, right, Harold, I'll add that line.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
Okay, they were fighting his mouth.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
If you know what I mean, I feel like nobody
knows what you mean.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
Oh man, you're really milking this one.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
There would have been an awful scandal at that school
there four years after I left, if they hadn't hushed
it up and got Dennison out of the country.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Still no idea what was wrong with Dennison?
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Yeah, I think it's one of those things left unsaid. Then,
if you want any more instances, there was the occultist,
Big Fine Chap he was, of course. He made me
look at him over my shoulder to test me, and
I told more or less he was simply livid for
a moment. He was a sensualist, you see, And when
I saw him that way, he looked like some filthy
(56:52):
old hog. I realized my accent is completely different than
the big.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
But it's very pleasing I was going to tell you,
great job with.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
This, I found it. But he's morphed.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Yeah, but that's what happens. He's evolved.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
That's right. The thing that really finished.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Me he went back to the beginning.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
Okay, keep nearrating, though, he.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Went on after a long interval.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Was the breaking off of my engagement to Helen. We
were frightfully in love with one another, and I told
her about my trouble. She was very sympathetic, and I
suppose rather sentimentally romantic too. She believed it was some
sort of spell that had been put on me. I
think anyway. She had a theory that if I once
saw anybody truly and ordinarily over my shoulder, I should
(57:39):
never have any more trouble, the spell would be broken
sort of thing. And of course she wanted to be
the person. I didn't resist her much. I was infatuated.
I suppose anyway. I thought she was perfection, and that
it was simply impossible that I could find any defect
in her. So I agreed and looked that way.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
His voice had fallen to an even note of despondency,
as though the telling of this final tragedy in his
life had brought him to the indifference of despair.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
I looked, he continued.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
And saw a creature with no chin and watery, doting eyes,
a fateful, slobbery thing. Eh, I can't. I never spoke
to her again. That broke me, you.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
Know, he said.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Presently after that, I didn't care. I used to look
at everyone that way until I had to get away
from humanity. I was living in a world of beasts.
Most of them looked like some beast or bird or other.
The strong were mor vicious and criminal, and the weak
were loathsome.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
I couldn't stick it.
Speaker 5 (58:46):
In the end.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
I had to come here, away from them all.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
The thought occurred to me, Ah, have you ever looked
at you know, you're in the glass?
Speaker 1 (59:02):
I asked, Are you certainly drawing with your toe and
the sand in front of them?
Speaker 3 (59:09):
Very batchful?
Speaker 1 (59:10):
I'm no better than the rest of them, he said.
That's why I grew this rotten beard. I hadn't got
a looking glass here, And you.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Can't keep it like a stiff neck as it were.
I asked, you, you know, like going about looking humanity
just you know, you know, like straight in the face.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
The temptation is too strong, Copley said, and it gets
stronger curiosity. Partly, I suppose, but partly it's the momentary
sense of superiority.
Speaker 3 (59:46):
It gives you.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
You see them like that, you know, and forget how
you look yourself, and then after a bit it sickens you.
Speaker 2 (59:54):
You haven't, I said, and hesitated. I wanted to know.
I was horribly afraid you haven't. I began again, Er
you have? Uh? Or have you let me figure out
how to say this? Have have you looked at me
(01:00:23):
that way?
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Not yet?
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
He said?
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
M M.
Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
Do you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Do?
Speaker 5 (01:00:35):
You suppose?
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Probably you look all right, of course, but then show
did heaps of the others.
Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, So you have no idea none how I should
look to you that way?
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Absolutely none. I've been trying to guess, but I can't.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Oh man, you wouldn't you know? You wouldn't care. Not now,
he said, sharply, Perhaps just before you go m ah,
you feel fairly certain. Then he nodded with disgusting conviction.
(01:01:25):
I went to bed, wondering whether Helen's theory wasn't a
true one, and if I might not break the spell
for poor old Copley. The boatman came for me soon
after eleven. The next morning, I had shaken off some
of the feeling of superstitious horror that held me overnight.
(01:01:45):
And I had not repeated my request to Copley, nor
had he offered to look into the dark places of
my soul. He came down after me to the landing
place and we shook hands warmly, but he said nothing
about my revisiting him. And then, just as we were
putting off, he turned backward toward the hut and looked
at me over his shoulder, just one quick glance. Uh
(01:02:08):
hold on, hold on, wait, I commanded the boatman, and
I stood up and called to him. Uh Copley, I shouted.
He turned and looked at me, and I saw that
his face was transfigured. He wore an expression of foolish
disgust and loathing. I had seen something like it on
the face of a child who was just going to
(01:02:29):
be sick.
Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Oh boy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
I dropped down into the boat and turned my back
on him. I wondered then if that was how he
had seen himself in the glass. But since I have
only wondered what it was he saw in me, and
I can never go back to ask him.
Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Pretty great stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah, torturous ending though, for sure. But I means nicely cinematically,
you know for sure?
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
I mean, isn't not knowing the most horrible thing of all?
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Well? Yeah, especially when you see Kopley turn around and
look and then look like a kid that's about to puke.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, what would have been? Graters? Have you just been
over and started puking after something?
Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
All over the rock?
Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Really?
Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Man, I feel like we should make a second career
of punching up old short stories and making them better.
Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Yeah all right, yeah, I think it's a good market
in that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Let those painters that go around and find like yard
sale paintings and then paint stuff in them.
Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Okay, speaking of let's do it, Chuck, I say that
this this Halloween Spectacular has come to an end, don't you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah, there's been great fun, my friend. This is always
one of the more fun episodes that we do, along
with our Christmas special. We have a lot of fun
doing these, and you did a great, great job this year.
Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
As did you. Thank you so Happy Halloween everybody from
Chuck and Me and Jerry from Ben from Dave from Dave,
from Livia, from Ed from the whole crew. Here it's
stuff you Should Know, stay safe, and be ghoulish.
Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Josh Clark
Chuck Bryant
Show Links
Order Our BookRSSStoreSYSK ArmyAboutPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.