S1/E9 | The Winding Stair

A tower most curious and a bed most firm.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron Bankey. Headphones recommended.
Listener discretion advised. Hello friend, how was your morning? Did

(00:25):
you dream last night? I can tell by your face
that you did. You'll find it difficult to hide anything
from me. It's the micro expressions mostly. Come quite excited
to show you this feature of the manner. This is
the door to the north tower. Now a warning. Keep

(00:45):
your wits about you. What you see and hear will
likely be confounding. A trap door in the floor, a
winding stare that carries you hundreds of feet upward to
another small trap door. underwhelming. Yes, you were expecting something
mind bending. Well, here's the best part. Take Note. When

(01:10):
I opened the trap door in the floor, the door
in the ceiling likewise opens. And if we shout into it,
my dear fair do you see, my dear friend, this
door below US somehow opens into the ceiling above us,
and vice versa, an impossibility made possible by the genius

(01:34):
of the architect. A Chamber of Endless Echo. A famous
poet from Nova, Scotia was once a guest and after hours,
climbing up and down, being driven nearly to madness, swearing
that his own voice must be that of another man
mocking him. wrote a poem about the UNCANNY experience. It
became quite popular. Yesterday, upon the Stair, I met a

(01:58):
man who wasn't he wasn't there again today. Oh how
I wish he'd go away. Of course, there was no
other on the stairs. The board was terrified of nothing
more than his own reflection, an occurrence more common and
comfort would allow. Oh well, shall we? Ah, look who

(02:27):
it is. Nathaniel, be a dear and tell my friend
here about your journey. Be Wary of this one. He's
a little off even for this place, likely his room's
proximity to the tower. You'll be fine. Just follow along
until I return. Now, fellows, I must run to remove
the birds from the BELFRY that make such a mess

(02:49):
of the stone work. I shall make short work of
them and return post taste. He calls your friend. Huh,
my name is Nathaniel, or at least it was once.
Please join me. I had set out for a sharp

(03:15):
October stroll. I wanted the bracing air and the ripening
colors all around, nothing more than that. I was young
then my wife had stayed behind in the cottage where
we were presently boarding. She was too burdened by the
fullness of our first child to join me in the wood.

(03:35):
We were far from home but close to family, a
necessity for the birth. I became lost so quickly as
I meandered through the wood, a roof of clouds encroached upon,
then devoured, the remaining sun and behind it the creeping
blanket of mist. All sense of time reduced to the

(03:57):
crunching dead leaves neath my boots and the low panic
in my chest. I attempted to retrace my steps and failed.
At some point I emerged onto the road. It wasn't
so much a road as it was a tunnel of trees,
but I blessed it all the same. The Path was

(04:19):
hard packed, wide enough for a coach, and I made
my way along. Yet telling myself of a refuge was
not far off. The moon cast blue slivers through the
foliage and fog. I pictured the haze of gas like
almost hearing a wash of voices from a pub that
was shortly drawing nearer. For roads have destinations. They lead

(04:43):
to towns and to people and to warmth. Instead the
first true curve of the Path brought into view the
hers waiting beside the road, the tall spoked wheels of
here undamaged. speckles of Moonlight revealed a set of red

(05:05):
curtains drawn closed inside the rear door. As I gazed
upon this curiously placed her, grateful for the glimpse of civilization,
from inside came a heavy wooden fud. Then something within
produced a terrible sound. The fog somehow began to thicken,

(05:29):
narrowing my focus on this now undulating black box. Then
the rear door burst over and out from it crawled
would appeared to be an old woman. She emerged with
hair hung over her face like a wet gray veil.
She drew herself to the ground and all fours limbs

(05:52):
bent like a spider. Her body was terribly withered and thin,
but it was too long in the darkness I couldn't
make out if she was naked or if all that
skin was instead some many jointed fabric trailing after her.

(06:12):
Her head turned to regard me from within that shroud
of hair, and then she slipped around the hearse and
passed into the wall of trees, a white blur guttering
into the black like a candle. I stood there paralyzed,
contemplating what I had witnessed, questioning all I had previously

(06:36):
believed about this natural world and its possibilities, until I
glimpsed something small and white in the ground where one
of her hands had rested. I was drawn to it,
a scrap of paper so rich that it was more
akin to cloth bearing a strange symbol in rusty ink,

(06:57):
a shaky horizontal line with three circles joined at the
right end, like a clover laid on its side. I
tucked it in my suitcoat pocket, remembering my dear wife
an hour soon to be child. I gathered all remaining
courage and set off down the road past that godforsaken
hearse on I trudged with purpose beyond my own. To

(07:23):
be with them again, I would have to first survive
the night. When the trees withdrew at last and the
structure rose up under a crowd of muddled black sky,
I could have fallen to my knees. The building looked
as though it had seen a century of the elements
and in my mind I kissed each crumbling brick. The

(07:46):
pub I had envisioned was not in evidence. Nor was
any hint of a village. The building stood alone amongst
the trees and the road seemed to be swallowed back
into the wood. Not Far ahead, somewhere beyond ellen, waited
for me a lamp sputtered with gas on the pathway,

(08:07):
next to a signpost missing its side and two of
the windows I could see wavered with oil light. It
was civilization, it was something a road led to, and
my heart swelled. The structure was equally faded. Inside a
one sumptuous lobby, now threadbare and patched with gloom. A

(08:30):
large dead fireplace, worn arm chairs, the sense that cobwebs
had been swept away only moments ago. The smell of
must and neglect hung in the air. An indistinct man
stood behind a scarred counter. As I shoveled eagerly toward him,

(08:51):
tucking my hand into a coat pocket, I realized I
had set out from our cottage without purse or money.
I could only produce that inscrutable note the woman in
the hearse had dropped at the side of it. The
clerk said, very good sir, you are most locome to
stay the night. I'm terribly sorry, but it is urgent.

(09:13):
I contact my wife. Is a telegram possible tomorrow? Certainly
it's gone midnight now. No luggage. He pressed the key
into my hand, a cumbersome brass rod with a bow
formed by three circles touching one another. Room twelve, sir,

(09:35):
up two flights and to the left. It is easy
to blame my fatigue, the ache and my legs my
burning eyes. I scarcely recall feeling any hunger then, though.
I had not eaten in many hours, but nothing seemed
so untoward that I could not wait out the night indoors,

(09:57):
away from those trees and that creature now haunting them.
I turned back once to ask about it, but the
man was gone. The buildings, landings and hallways were each
hung with oil paintings of forests. I stopped by one
of them, holding aloft the greasy lamp I had been given.

(10:18):
It was grim, somehow mournful. Art Hunched between trees. A
glimpse of a Pale figure could be seen, a small
blob of white brush stroke that I would not have
recognized an hour ago. A Vanity Mirror stood on a
small table just inside number twelve. Then a double bed

(10:41):
halfway between the door and the single window a second
table bore its hollow candle, and there the inventory of
furnishings ended. No washstand, no chamber pot. I set the
oil lamp down next to the mirror, turned its flame
low and lay on the dead without undressing to save
my boots. The mattress was hideously uncomfortable, near as unyielding

(11:08):
as the floor. I sent up a prayer for Ellen
and our child and I was soon asleep. In spite
of it all, the low light still tinted the room orange.
When I woke disoriented, my heart pounding with such force
I could feel it in my back and in the

(11:29):
thick red quilt beneath me. I lay waiting for the
nightmare or whatever had shunted me from sleep to fade
until calm, until I realized that it was not my
heart knocking, but something below, something inside the bed. I
leapt across the room and twisted the lamp bright. When

(11:52):
again I heard the knock, muffled but resounding, I reached
forward and pulled the quilt towards me. It slid to
the floor to reveal not a mattress, my two coffins,
one nearest me shuddered as something within bumped against it.
I sprang for the door. It was locked. I fumbled
for the key, but there was no keyhole on this side.

(12:13):
I hammered against the frame, but my efforts were to
no avail. This was no rooming house. It was a
holding cell. But what was it keeping enclosed? I turned
back to my discovery. Compelled drawn, I approached the nearest coffin.
I pulled at the LID until the rusted nails on

(12:35):
one side gave way through the crack. I saw it.
Inside lay the old woman from the hearse, her body
folded in half due to its great length, her limbs
bent at extra joints, gray hair spilling away from her face,
her eyes shone with black gloss. She turned them towards

(12:58):
me and smiled out. I forced him the lid back
down and knelt upon it, praying my weight would suffice.
The other coffin was more easily opened. It was not
sealed with nails. Contained a man as withered as his mate,
but clearly dyed. A mist of dark blood stippled the

(13:21):
Pine Wall. With each rasping breath, his eyes crept up
but could not stay focused on mine. I closed his
lid and lay across both coffins awaiting the light of morning,
but morning never came. That night never ended. It merely
has electric lights. Now it has elongated itself and will

(13:47):
continue along gating the roof of clouds that ate the sun.
That night never gave it back. The creature not in
to be let out, kept him with her these long years.
She kept me weak and fed me in this endless dark.
She let me sit at the window from which I

(14:08):
have witnessed other strange sights. There is no key hole
on this side of the door. I withered too far
here to the end of my companionship, but finally I
have found my predecessor. You seem a hail fellow. I
do not think it will help you, but take this

(14:30):
morsel of hope while it still has a taste. I
am an old, wasted thing now, but you have been called.
Your arrival here means that I can sleep at last. Ah,

(15:09):
this is all so very expected. That, Daniel. I'm just
going to steal my friend away now. Don't Fret, I'll
be back field my lootine now. I trust you've learned
something new. Well, add this little morsel of knowledge to
the feast. The trap doors in the north tower were
built not as an entertainment but as it means to

(15:31):
an end. They were the architect's first attempt at building
the ascension door. As a matter of fact, much of
what we have discovered along the way point towards this pursuit.
We have four more nights, dear friend, we must use
them well and with that, and once again take my leave,
enjoy the rest of your evening here at Hawthorne Manner

(15:54):
and try not to obsess over the construction of the
north tower. There will be plenty of time for that later. You.
Thirteen days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and
Alex Williams and executive produced by Aaron Manky, starring Keegan
Michael Key as the caretaker. Today's story was written by

(16:17):
Michael we hunt, performed by Ben Bolan and directed by
Matt Frederick, with editing and sound designed by Trevor Young,
additional writing and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski. Only four
days remain. Tomorrow another story. They held my skeletal hand

(16:37):
and looked at me through glassy eyes, searching for some
sign of my former self and the tiny sliver of
a human thing hidden underneath a heaping pile of blankets
and they cried and they mourned and one by one

(16:58):
they confessed. Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of
I heart radio, Blumhouse television and Grimm and mild from
Aaron Mankey. For more podcasts from my heart radio, visit
the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. And learn more about thirteen
days of Halloween at GRIMM AND MILD DOT COM