S1/E6 | The Attic

A lonely place and a deep blue eye.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I
heart radio, Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron
mankey headphones recommended. Listener discretion advised. You heard them, didn't you?

(00:41):
Sorry to startle you, friend. They're always luring people up here.
Listen to me, luring. They only want someone to play with.
Welcome to the attic. I have to admit, friend, that
this is not my favorite space. As a matter of fact,
I avoid it like the plague. Despite the toys and

(01:04):
the picture books, this was not a happy place. The
architect only had one child, a daughter, and she was
grown before this attic was ever designated as a place
for children. Many years ago there was a great fire
at the Corn Hill orphanage. Many perished and a few
that survived had neither a home left nor any one

(01:26):
to care for them. At the urging of the local
parish priest, our architect took in the five remaining orphans,
designating this attic as their space. As his staff scrambled
to find someone to care for them, a great stroke
of luck, a man appeared at the front gate offering
his services as tutor. Without so much as asking his references,

(01:50):
he was allowed in after so much chaos from the attic.
The quiet that followed seemed to be quite the blessing
for all downstairs. With the children's apparent welfare provided for,
they were promptly forgotten about. That is until one day
one of the maids noticed a strange stain growing on
the ceiling of the room located below the children's attic.

(02:14):
The scene, as you imagine, was not pretty. And as
for the children's tutor, well, Mr Fish was not seen
again for a long, long time. The children keep luring
on witting people up here, though they must get so
lonely at year's an on witting guests. Now, Yvonne, I

(02:36):
almost didn't notice you there something to attend to. I
trust that the two of you can keep each other
company for a bit. Sure, actually, I always liked the
piece of it. The graveyard shift at Blue Star gas
was long and lonely, so I'd spent hours not doing
much of anything. Occasionally I will look outside keep an

(03:00):
eye on the pumps. I would also glance at the cameras.
But thinking back, I always heard the customers before I
saw them, and they came in, I usually kept the
headphones on. I rang up their coffee and gas and
pretzels and six packs, while I listened to podcasts or
the latest news about the Wakefield crusher. Or sometimes I

(03:22):
would just keep the headphones in with nothing playing at all,
because I saw the customers but they did not see me.
Something I thought about a lot back then. How many
people are invisible in our day to day lives? The
men trimming hedges by the roadside, that lady handing you
a milkshake at the drive through, people like me behind

(03:45):
a counter selling snacks and lotto tickets. It's like the
gas station is a machine and I was a piece
of it. I was a ghost. We all are at
some point in our lives. One day you realize no
one has seen you, really looked at you in hours

(04:06):
or months or years, and you realize I am invisible,
I am a ghost and this body, this life I inhabit,
it's nothing but another haunted house. I had regulars and

(04:28):
one offers. Folks from town tended to show up for
the same things around the same time. Truckers gassing up
for the weak, state troopers in the late hours, stopping
by for Lado and energy drinks. Then the one offers.
I call them that because they were usually one exit
off from where they meant to be. You'd get out
of towners on the way to family or someone in

(04:49):
a rental car or college kids on a road trip,
or once in a while you'd get the other ones.
Most people have been about seven minutes in a gas station,
longer if they're taking a ship. That evening I had
seen the usual mix, which is to say not many.
I looked out at the pumps. I could see the
bridge across the turn off. How the moon was waxing

(05:09):
above it. I wondered idly if it would rain. The
fat man sitting by the coffee machine had asked if
he could sit down. Before he did he said it
was a full twenty four hour drive from Charleston. When
you drove like him, all back roads, he said, the
road rides you. May I sit stretch my legs? I

(05:31):
remember thinking how odd he was, from his speech to
his tiny movements, sometimes like a bird, sometimes like a cat,
how strange he looked, slowly stretching his legs like an
athlete warming up for a race. Coffee is over there,
I said. Dan Checked in just before midnight, buying an

(05:53):
energy drink and two scratchers fit late for a pick
me up, I said. Do you think? He said, but
never us for the wicked. He sighed, a hand on
his gun belt. Have you seen those college kids out? Yvonne,
I hadn't yet, but there's a long road between midnight
and dawn. You've seen any crazies tonight? I could tell

(06:14):
by the way he asked. Those holesting kids must be out.
And the fat man said you see any crazies out tonight?
In a weird voice. Dan Looked at me, hands walking, squawked.
I'll step back in a few he said. You all
be safe. The fat man giggled. He said really low,
like he's talking to himself. We'll all be safe. I

(06:37):
wondered if he was on drugs. Mr I said, are
you gonna pay for that coffee? Oh yes, I apologize.
Needed to rest these bones. It's been a long drive, Yvonne,
was it? He looked at me when he talked to me.
You know, I couldn't help but look back. Do you

(06:58):
have any frozen burritos here, he asked, and I said sure,
down to the right past the soda. I've never had
a chicken Green Chili Barrito. How exotic, he said. Is
there a charge to use the microwave? No charge, I said,
but are you going to eat all those here? He said.
It's a good question, he said, that's the best part. No,

(07:21):
I have to choose, and our choices follow us. Do
we dare disturb the universe? Do we eat experience? Does
experience eat us? Does the tongue taste, the eye envision itself?
Definitely drugs, I thought. I remembered I was still wearing headphones.

(07:43):
I took one out. Sign look, I said, I'm Vegan.
The burritos are two for one and I've never tried them. Yes,
he said, Chicken Green Chili it is, and these two
as well as the coffee. He walked back to the
booth by them microwave and hot dogs. He unwrapped the
Burritos and I heard the punch of numbers. I heard

(08:07):
him crowd into the booth. I felt his eyes again
upon me and I thought about how strange it is
to be seen. Well, I pretended to listen to something else.
The microwave hummed and the fat man said, in a
calm voice like an ocean, that everyone, at some point
in their life, is beautiful. Sometimes, he said, they are

(08:28):
beautiful for years decades. Sometimes a person shines when they
reach sixty one years old, he says, sometimes eleven. Sometimes
newborn children open their eyes and see the sun or
a bright blue star in the darkness and they think
it sees them as well and they smile and they

(08:48):
are beautiful. For some people, he said, it's a day,
a night on the water, a graduation walk, a glory.
That was their room or some people at a moment,
and they often do not see it when it happens.
To see it, to be seen. They look back years

(09:09):
later and they think I was beautiful. We can be
beautiful too. I remember reading comic books when I was
a kid. I like spider man mainly because of his
weirdest power. The spider sense and something bad is about
to happen. Spider man gets these vibes. They shoot from

(09:32):
his head in squiggly lines. He ducks or jumps or
shoots a web just in time. I thought a lot
of US people working late and alone, women especially, I
always thought we learned something like that. I was getting
that feeling. Nothing was happening. The fat man wasn't saying anything.

(09:55):
He was just humming again to the radio. I felt
his eyes on me it chew slowly, staring. It was
a sensation of some invisible pressure rising, that tick, tick
tick in the air. I should text someone, I thought.

(10:19):
The hair is on the nape of my neck leaned
back and up. I couldn't remember the last time someone
looked at me, like saw me. I felt the gaze,
the sensation of something sliding along me, a touch of
ghostly hands across my throat. I heard my own heart beat, thoughting,

(10:39):
loud and distant, as if in another moment. Part of
me is still in that moment. Part of me will
always be here and it will always be now. Suddenly
I was praying for someone to come in. Dan's winging
back by lost one offers one. The next few seconds

(11:05):
were a blur. I was still in a daze when
the two men stepped inside. At first I didn't notice
the guns. It was like underwater, swimming up to the surface,
back up, screaming of the men, back up and I
shot ripped through the ceiling. For a moment I couldn't
hear it, but I thought I must be screaming everyone down.

(11:26):
The man said, and I realized he must be screaming too.
He got closer and I saw his wild eyes, looking
everywhere at once, babbling, saying register, get the register. Move
I'm going. I tried to say. I'm going. You two,
fat boy, said one of the men. Get down. I
turned for the first time to look at the fat man.

(11:47):
He was chewing a Burrito, smiling. Sure, I'll just finish
my burrito first. Shut your damn mouth. Already watched the door.
There's no call for profanity. I was looking at the
second robber, the one who must have been already and
he was holding his gun close, peering through the glass
of the gas station front entrance. I kept trying to

(12:10):
open the register, but my hands were trembling. He was
turning back and yelling last chance, fat boy, the ground now,
get on the ground. Oh, said the fat man. I
don't think I will. He sounded cheerful, like a kid
saying they're going to get out early for summer. At
pressure I was talking about earlier. It felt suddenly dense

(12:33):
in the room, dense and cold. I finally pulled a
register free and the first robber was leaning back over
the counter, gun in my face, jabbing it at me.
When I saw one enormous hand grabbed his neck from behind.
It's strange what we remember. I kept thinking, look at that,

(12:54):
he bites his nails, he must be so hungry all
the time. And I heard of and the robber's body
went slack, his eyebrows knitted up. He opened his mouth
like he had to ask me some terrible question, and
his eyes widened as if he saw the answer. And

(13:16):
I watched the fat man put his face right up
against the robbers, almost nose to nose. He was holding
the robber up with his other hand, like cradling him.
Talking very softly at first. He said, look at me,
look at me. The robber was gurgling a low, wet wheeze.

(13:40):
Very are my beautiful boy, said the fat man. The
fat man squeezed the robber's neck and took his other
hand and he dug out the robber's eyes. What the
said the second robber. He was standing by the door.
He must have been on drugs, and maybe the fat
man thought so too, because he dropped the first robber's

(14:01):
body and said shooting the do it like he was
at a restaurant and suggesting we split in order of
French fries for the table. Get Down, said the second robber. Already,
I will put a bullet between your eyes, and the
fat man said, will you like? He was curious. I

(14:23):
see you, I see you. Defied you already. He put
one of the eyes in his mouth. He must be
so hungry all the time. Well, here's your chance. He
chewed the eyeball. The second man already. He said, you
crazy mother, and his hand was shaking. Whether from the

(14:46):
speed or the fear, I didn't know, but I thought,
at this distance he will miss. Then the fat man.
He started dancing, he giggled and he hopped from one
foot to another, watching Artie's gunhand. He's saying while he danced,
the weight of him Jiggling as he hot from one

(15:07):
foot to the next, what will you do, what will
you do? What will you do? He danced slow back
and forth over the other robbers, eyeless body. What will
you do, what will you do? What a duck. But
I know the gun shop. Next I closed my eyes
for the stamp of feet and grappling. I heard the cracking,

(15:34):
the crunching. I heard the hand. I do not see.
I heard him again. He's whispering, sh sh those beautiful
blue lies. Your parents must be so proud. I knew

(15:55):
what was happening. You can hear a sound like that
just once and always no, then nothing, just the radio
through the store speakers a million miles away. I held
my phone, squinting at the screen. Nine I pushed, then one,

(16:17):
then one, and Yvonne, can you hear me? My Thom
betrayed me. I was trying to hold my breath. I
closed my eyes, dreamed. I was invisible. I was curled
up in a ball. I had the phone in my hand,

(16:37):
but not to my ear. The Fat man knew the way.
He knew already. Wouldn't shoot. He and those like him
have their own sense of spiders. I kept thinking about
that hand, the fingernails, the eyes. I couldn't stop shaking,
and I also could not move my thumb, and it

(17:00):
would not sh don't he look, not yet. I have
a gift for you. His arm moved above me. Cold

(17:20):
up close, he smelled like a thunderstorm. I heard and Jesus,
Jesus Christ, and I oh, Jesus, sorry, Jesus please, my
thumb wouldn't move in fair now they're blue as the
blameless guy. One. Are you one for me? We see

(17:47):
each other now. He leaned down, nose against my ear,
one day you will be beautiful too. Come by you
fre I felt him walk away, the wet, slow squish
of his shoes on the floor. I heard the door Chine.

(18:10):
I heard my heart beat far, far away. I closed
my eyes, my thumb slipped into the night and the
call went through. Blue Star and whispering at first two
and two Maple Street. Blue Star, Blue Star the gas station.
If you drive there now, you'll see Perry's, but the

(18:31):
Blue Star moved. You'll see an empty field, just trash
and grass next to the intersection. I can't remember things
so much now. It's fuzzy. They said I was crazy,
but I know something they won't tell you. The eyes.

(18:51):
No one asked me about them. I was a ghost seeing,
but I I kept some thing. Look, do you see? Yeah, blue, blue,
as the blame with guy. I see into it now.

(19:15):
He sees me, he sees you, and he says one
day he only beautiful too. I trust that Vonne told

(19:52):
you her tale. Perhaps it's why she spends so much
time here in the attic. I think she takes comfort
among the invisibility these days. Come, let us go. There
are still many mysteries to uncover here at Hawthorne Manner,
and I do very much hope that you will continue
to assist me as we draw Evan nearer to the
door which we seek. I can see in your eyes

(20:13):
the anticipation. Alas, I fear I'll be gathering the children
all evening. They are fond of mischief. If you happen
to find any toys under your bed this evening, leave
them there. They should be gone by morning. That's you,
my friend. Parting is, as always, such a sweet sorrow.

(20:37):
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
Ben Boland, performed by Megan Perry and directed by Matt Frederick,
with editing and sound designed by Ben Kybrick, additional writing
and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski casting by Skaloosa. Only

(21:01):
seven days remain. Tomorrow another story. I stepped out of
the real world and into somewhere else. I was on
the ocean floor, holding my breath in the hull of
a sunken ship. I felt pressure crushing in on me
and it was very dim the entire world was gray
and heavy and I could barely move. I walked through

(21:24):
the door of something that looked like a vault and
there was a flash of light and I was staring
at rows of long, sharp teeth, all curving in different directions.
Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron Mankey. For
more podcasts from my heart radio, visit the I heart

(21:46):
radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows, and learn more about thirteen days of Halloween
at grim and mild dot com.