SYSK's 2025 Shocktober Halloween Spooktacular

Co-producer Ben knocked it out of the park again, taking the two classic horror stories we read for our annual Spooktacular - Caterpillars and The Deep Drowse – and creating a moody Halloween masterpiece for your spooky listening enjoyment. So enjoy it!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, and welcome to the Spookfest. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and we're flying solo today. I should probably stop
speaking like this because I'll bet it's getting annoying.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
That's right, Welcome to the One of our most fun
traditions are ad free Spooctacular, where in which we read
two stories, one of your choosing and one of mine,
and yours is up first by Edward Frederick Benson, Is
that right.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, better known as EF to his friends.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah. Did you see where this was published? Should we
give a shout out to that?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
It was published in one of his books? He wrote
several books, but this one comes from ninth Team twelve.
And I don't remember the name of the book, Chuck,
thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, I have it, sir. It was first published in
an anthology called The Room in the Tower and Other Stories.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
And this is not The Room in the Tower. So
this is and other Stories, but it's called Caterpillars. And
at first I thought, by the way this was going
to be you know, we read stuff in the public domain,
so a lot of these stories are sort of like
you know, the creepy house and the you know, there's
not actually a creature or monster. It's like it was

(01:31):
within me all along. Sure that was the direction of
a lot of these stories, but this one actually has
a nice little payoff with some real creep stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, it is a creepster for sure. And before we
get started, Chuck, I want to tip our hats to Ben,
guest producer, Ben that's right, who last year just laid
a smack down with his first version of editing one
of our Halloween spectaculars, and I expect to do it again.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, I agree, and we plugged it recently. But Ben
is a musician, so we might as well plug it
again here since everyone's listening here at the top. Ben
has a new collection of songs out called Songs for
Sleeping Dogs, and it is great. It's instrumental, it's very
biby and cool, and you can find it wherever you
find any music.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yep, wait to go, Ben, Okay, I say we get
started as per usual. We haven't talked about this at
all up until this very moment.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I didn't even know you knew the name of the
anthology until you busted it out. It was spectacular.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
That's how we roll.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
So who wants to read first? You or me?

Speaker 3 (02:44):
I mean your story? So I say you kick it off?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Okay, all right? Are you ready for this?

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, let's do it. Do your cheeks, Oh wow, it's
been a while. Let me see if they still flop.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh yeah, this is gonna be a good one, I
can tell. And everyone, here we go. Settle in, put
on some fake cobwebs all over your skin, get a
mug of bat juice, and get ready for caterpillars. By E. F. Benson.

(03:20):
I saw a month or two ago in an Italian
paper that the Via Cascana in which I once stayed
had been pulled down, and that a manufactory of some
sort was in process of erection on its site. There
is therefore no longer any reason for refraining from writing
of those things which I myself saw or imagined I
saw in a certain room and on a certain landing

(03:41):
of the via in question, nor from mentioning the circumstances
which followed, which may or may not, according to the
opinion of the reader, throw some light on or be
somehow connected with this experience. Everybody got that?

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Can I stop you real quick? We're going with the via.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, okay, what would you say a valet?

Speaker 3 (04:01):
How I say a villa like a you know, an
Italian villa? You say, bea.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, the l's make it nice. It sounds all right,
all right.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
I'm following your lead. Bell.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, then maybe we can look up who is correct,
and then Ben cann edit in your voice over mine.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, no for villa.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Are you ready?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
The Keskana wasn't always but one a perfectly delightful house.
Yet if it were standing now, nothing in the world
I use the phrase in the literal sense, would induce
me to set foot in it again, For I believe
it to have been haunted in a very terrible and
practical manner. Most ghosts, when all is said and done,
do not do much harm. They may perhaps terrify, but

(04:46):
the person whom they visit usually gets over their visitation.
I feel like that's quite a presumption, don't you. Yeah, totally,
Like what about somebody whose hair is white because they're
being that scared. It's tough to get over that's happened. Okay,
back to it. They may, on the other hand, be
entirely friendly and beneficent, but the appearances in the via

(05:08):
Cascana were not beneficent, and had they made their visit
in a very slightly different manner. I do not suppose
I should have got over it any more than Arthur
Inglis did me think.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I think, so far, so good. We have that scary
setup of a creepy place, which seems to be most
of our stories. But again, this one goes in a
different direction.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
You want me to keep going?

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Ah, yeah, I feel like you're doing strong work.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh okay. The house stood on an islex clad hill,
alex being holly bushes. Oh not far. Yeah, I looked
it up, not far from Sestry to Levante on the
Italian Riviera, looking out over the iridescent blues of that
enchanted sea, while behind it rose the pale green chestnut

(05:56):
woods that climb up the hillsides till they give place
to the that black in contrast with them, crowned the
slopes all round at the garden, in the luxurious of
mid spring, bloomed and was fragrant, and the scent of
magnolia and rose borne on the salt freshness of the
winds from the sea flowed like a stream through the
cool vaulted rooms.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, it's got it right.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
This is a very nice house.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, sounds lovely.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
He continues on the ground floor, a broad pillared loja.
And I look this up too. A lojah is a corridor.
But that is essentially like a place, a corridor where
you'd sit with arches in the front face. It's not
just open with like a railing, Okay. And also that
means that Robert Lojah's name means Robert corridor.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
So the lojah ran round three sides of the house,
the top of which formed a balcony for certain rooms
of the first floor. The main staircase, broad and of
gray marble, steps led up from the hall to the
landing outside these rooms, which were three in number, namely
two big sitting rooms and a bedroom arranged en suite. Well,

(07:07):
the latter was unoccupied, the sitting rooms were in use.
From these the main staircase was continued to the second floor,
where were situated certain bedrooms, one of which I occupied,
while from the other side of the first floor landing,
some half dozen steps led to another suite of rooms, where,
at the time I am speaking of Arthur Ingliss, the
artist had his bedroom and studio. Thus the landing outside

(07:31):
my bedroom at the top of the house commanded both
the landing of the first floor and also the steps
that led to Ingliss's room, Jim Stanley and his wife finally,
whose guest I was occupied. Rooms in another wing of
the house were also were the servants quarters. And I
feel like this is way way too much detail about

(07:52):
this house.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
That's what they all do though, all these old stories.
I feel like there's always a very detailed sort of map,
and at the end of all of them fa like
they almost should type does everyone get it?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, Like, I've read the story a bunch of times
and I still don't have any conception a mental map
of this house. It's all just blobs of steps in
like sitting rooms, you know.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, but having known what happens, Really, the only important
thing you need to know is this guy's staying in
a room upstairs and there's another room close by that's unoccupied.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Very nice. Yeah you want to take over here?

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, sure, sounds like a good switch. I arrived just
in time for lunch on a brilliant noon of mid May.
The garden was shouting with color and fragrance.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Bernciena and not less.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Delightful after my broiling walk up from the marina should
have been the coming from the reverberating heat and blaze
of the day into the marble coolness of the villa.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Is that where you're going.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
With with villa only in parentheses. The reader has my
bare word for this and nothing more. Only the moment
I set foot in this house, I felt that something
was wrong. This feeling, I may say, was quite vague,
though very strong. And I remember that when I saw
letters waiting for me on the table in the hall,
I felt certain that the explanation was here. I was

(09:09):
convinced that there was bad news of some sort for me.
Yet when I opened them, I found no such explanation
for my premonition. My correspondence all reeked to prosperity. Yet
this clear miscarriage of a presentiment did not dissipate my
uneasiness in that cool, fragrant house. That was something wrong.
So homeboy gets some letters and things like that's what

(09:29):
I think is my bad feeling, like I've got bad
news awaiting me. But it's all great news.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
But also keep in mind he's a house guest, and
he plans to stay so long that he's forwarded as
mail here. I hope he cleared that with the hosts.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, that's a little weird too. A lot of presumptions
going on here. Yeah, here we go. I'm at pains
to mention this, because to the general view, it may
explain that though I am, as a rule so excellent
a sleeper, that the extinction of my light on getting
into bed is apparently contemporaneous with being Paul. On the
following morning, I slept very badly. He could have said,

(10:03):
I sleep great.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, but I kind of like that one.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, I slept very badly on my first night in
the Villa Caskana. It may also explain the fact that
when I did sleep, if it was indeed in sleep
that I saw what I thought I saw, I dreamed
in a very vivid and original manner. Original, that is
to say, in the sense that something that, as far
as I knew, had never been previously entered into my

(10:26):
consciousness usurped it then. But since in addition to this
evil premonition, certain words and events occurring during the rest
of the day might have suggested something of what I
thought happened that night, it will be well to relate them.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, Benson never met a parenthesis that he didn't like.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh, man, you after lunch, then I went round the
house with missus Stanley, and during our tour she referred,
it is true to the unoccupied bedroom on the first floor,
which opened out of the room where we had lunched
a little more mapping going on. Uh are you going
to do? You want to read her voice?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (11:04):
All right, we left that unoccupied, she said, because Jim.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
And I have a charming bedroom and dressing room, as
you saw in the wing, and if we used it ourselves,
we should have to turn the dining room into a
dressing room and have our meals downstairs. As it is, however,
we have our little flat here. Arthur Inglis has his
little flat in the other passage. And I remember parentheses.
Aren't I extraordinary that you once said that the higher

(11:31):
up you were in a house, the better you were pleased.
So I put you at the top of the house
instead of giving you that room.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Hey, And I imagine this guy at this point is like,
oh god, lady, just can I go to my room?
Got a crossword puzzled to do you want to take
it from there?

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Oh? Sure? It is true that a doubt vague as
my uneasy premonition crossed my mind at this I did
not see why missus Bany should have explained all this
if there had not been more to explain. I allow
therefore that the thought that there was something to explain
about the unoccupied bedroom was bometarily present to my mind.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
I got to say, though, I really do love that
he did acknowledge what we disacknowledged, Like she didn't have
to say all that.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
No, And if you're like, what is this guy talking about?
So basically he's laying all this out and he's letting
you know everything that possibly could have influenced him imagining this. Yeah,
to leave it to you, the reader slash listener, to
decide if it was imagined or not. I think that's
what he's doing. That's how I'm interpreting it same, that's
what cliff Notes said at least.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
The second thing that may have borne on my dream
was this. At dinner, the conversation turned for a moment
on ghosts. English, with a certainty of conviction, expressed his
belief that anybody who could possibly believe in the existence
of supernatural phenomena was unworthy of the name of an
ass burn. The subject instantly dropped. You can't imagine. As

(13:01):
far as I can recollect, nothing else occurred or was
said that could bear on what follows. I needed to
take a simple water.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Chuck, unworthy of the name of an ass.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, that is pretty low.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yeah, and or English is just roasting people.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
But also you can see this guy with a walrus
mustache wearing a pith helmet at lunch, Yeah, being a
pompous jerk, and everyone's like, well, I'm not going to
say wow, I feel about it.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
So dinner has taken place, and now he's going to bed.
And we know this because he says. We all went
to bed rather early, and personally, I yawned my way upstairs,
feeling hideously sleepy. My room was rather hot, and I
threw all the windows wide and from without poured in
the white light of the moon and the love song

(13:48):
of the many nightingales. I n dressed quickly and got
into bed. But though I had felt so sleepy before,
I now felt extremely wide awake. Yeah, but this guy
I was okay with it, because he says, but I
was quite content to be awake. I did not toss
or turn I felt perfectly happy listening to the song
and seeing the light. Then it is possible I may

(14:10):
have gone to sleep, and what follows may have been
a dream. I thought, anyhow, that after a time, the
nightingale ceased singing, and the moon sank. I thought also
that if for some explained reason, I was going to
lie awake all night, I might as well read. And
I remembered that I had left a book in which
I was interested in the dining room on the first floor,

(14:31):
which has seventeen steps and is heady corner to the
maid's corners.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Each step is but eight inches in depth and made
of oak, white oak.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
From the black forest. So I got out of bed,
lit a candle and went downstairs. I went into the room,
saw on a side table the book I had come
to look for, and then simultaneously saw that the door
into the unoccupied bedroom was open. Yeah, not only that, chuck,

(15:05):
A curious gray light, not of dawn nor of moonshine,
came out of it, and I looked in the bed.
Stood just opposite the door a big four poster, beautiful
lots of carvings hung with tapestry at the head. Then
I saw that grayish light of the bedroom came from
the bed, or rather from what was on the bed,

(15:27):
where it was covered with great caterpillars get this, a
foot or more in length, which crawled over it. They
were faintly luminous, and it was the light from them
that showed me the room. Instead of the sucker feet
of ordinary caterpillars. They had rows of pincers, like crabs,
and they moved by grasping what they lay on with

(15:49):
their pincers and then sliding their bodies forward. This is
where it turns creepster, right.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah, I mean, you have no idea the sense of relief.
When I was like, is this all just about a
sense of dread? Because I feel like all these stories
are just about a sense of dread. And then when
these crab caterpillars, mutant crab caterpillars came on the scene,
I was really knocked out.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
It gets even worse, though, Chuck.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
He says that in color, these dreadful insects were yellowish gray,
and they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings. There
must have been hundreds of them. These are foot long
caterpillars with crab pincers for feet, For they formed a
sort of writhing, crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally one

(16:38):
fell off onto the floor with a soft, fleshy thud,
and though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded
to the pincer feet as if it had been putty,
and crawling back, the caterpillar would mount onto the bed
again to rejoin its fearful companions. They appeared to have
no faces, so to speak, but at one end of

(16:59):
them was a mouth that opened sideways and respiration.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah all right, I mean, bravo, bravo Ef Benson for
coming up with some really creepy stuff. Yeah, it shocked me.
I was not expecting this, and now we have a
genuine sort of monsters situation. I love it.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
You know, I thought this one was gonna get you,
because you're absolutely right. Almost all of our previous stories
have been about like a house, an empty house, and
most of the time it is just dread. Very few
things actually happened. Something happens here, and it is fat, lumpy,
foot long caterpillars, hundreds of them on this bed of
this unoccupied room.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah. I wonder what kind of drugs Ef was taking.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
He was passing the ether rag.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, what did they have back then yet probably ether.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Oh they had a lot of ether?

Speaker 3 (17:51):
Is it me? Is it time?

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah? Yeah? I think so?

Speaker 3 (17:54):
All right, Then as I looked, it seemed to me
as if they all suddenly became conscious of my presence.
All the mouths, at any rate were turned in my direction,
and next moment they began dropping off the bed with
those soft, fleshy thuds onto the floor and wriggling towards me.
For one second a paralysis as of a dream was
on me. But the next I was running upstairs again

(18:16):
to my room, and I remember feeling the cold of
the marble steps on my bare feet. They're marble, they're
not oak, right, Yeah, oh well I rushed onto my
You know, marbles a lot to take care of. So
that that's not the great, great choice for a floor,
especially stairs.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
It's true, and it could have still possibly come from
the Black forest, so.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, maybe so you got to seal that stuff though
every year or so.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, But I want to give a little shout out here, Chuck.
If this is genuine, you can make a poultice out
of baking soda and water only, and you have to
make it kind of thick. Okay, but if you have
like a wine spot or something sunk into your marble countertop. Huh,
put that on there, leave it for a couple of hours,
scrape it off and wipe it down. I'm not kidding.

(18:57):
Your red wine spot will be gone from the mark.
It's a miracle of housekeeping.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Well, mister fancy pants, I have no marble, but I
do drink wine. But I'll keep that in mind if
I'm ever at a fancy pants house.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
It works. I have limestone on my countertop, and it
works for that too. Like, oh yeah, it works for
for Micah. For Micah, it works for whatever. The like
a plasticly shiny cabinet door is made of all right,
lamb in it. It works on lamin it's it works everywhere.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Man, I didn't see this coming. I didn't what a turn?
Where were we? Fleshy thuds, paralysis running upstairs marble floors,
that's right, all right? So he ran up the marble
floors and into that bedroom, which is the sensible thing
to do. I rushed into my bedroom and slammed the
door behind me, and then I was certainly wide awake.

(19:48):
Now I found myself standing by my bed with the
sweat of terror, pouring from me. The noise of the
banged door still rang in my ears. But as would
have been more usual if this had been mere nightmare,
the terror that had been mine when I saw those
foul beasts crawling about the bed or dropping softly on
the floor did not cease then awake. Now, if dreaming
before I did not at all recover from the horror

(20:10):
of dream, did not seem to me that I had dream.
And until dawn I sat or stood, not daring to
lie down, thinking that every rustle or movement that I
heard was the approach of the caterpillars to them, and
the claws that bit into the cement. The wood of
the door was child's play. Steel would not have kept
them out. So basically like, this guy's just waiting for

(20:32):
these caterpillars to bum rush him. Yeah, and all night long.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, he's saying to himself the.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Horror, Yeah, That's what I'd be saying. But with the
sweet and noble return of the day, the horror vanished,
The whisper of wind became benignant again. The nameless fear,
whatever it was, was smoothed out and terrified me no longer.
Dawn broke queless at first, then it grew dove colored.
I like this detail, by the way. Then the flaming

(20:59):
pageant of life spread over the sky. The admirable rule
of the house was that everybody had breakfast where and
when he pleased, And in consequence, it was not till
lunchtime that I met any of the other members of
our party, since I had breakfast on my balcony and
wrote letters and other things to lunch. In fact, I
got down to that meal rather late, and the other

(21:19):
three had begun. Between my knife and fork there was
a small pill box of cardboard, and as I sat
down Ingliss spoke, should I do English?

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, okay, let's hear what you got?

Speaker 3 (21:32):
And these are Brits, right, m hm? And English is
kind of an ahole right.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
A little bit. He was the guy wearing the pith
helmet and walrus and overly emphatically stating his opinion is fact.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Right, and we know what he does later, So he's
an a hole. Do look at that? He said, since
you are interested in natural history, I found it crawling
on my couch of pain last night, and I don't
know what it is. You want to pick it up? There?

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Sure? I think that before I opened the pill box.
I expected something of the sort which I found in it.
Inside it, anyhow, it was a small caterpillar, grayish yellow
in color, with curious bumps and excreases on its rings.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, what a word.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
It was extremely active, hurried around the box this way, Matt.
Its feet were unlike the feet of any caterpillar I
ever saw. They were like the pincers of a crab.
M I looked and shut the lid down again.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
All right, so this is These are in real life.
Now They're not a foot long, but they have been realized. No,
it wasn't a dream.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
No, do you want you should be Oh? I don't
know that. We ever hear his name? Is it the narrator?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
No, I'll be English. You could be the narrator.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Okay, let's see. Let's see. So he's terrified. No, I
don't know it, I said, but it looks rather unwholesome.
What are you going to do with it? Oh? I
shall keep it, Oh said English.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
It has begun to spin. I want to see what
sort of Martha turns into.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
I opened the box again and saw these hurrying movements,
where indeed the beginning of spinning of the web of
its cocoon. Then English spoke again.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
It has got funny feet too, he said, they're like
crabs pincers. What's the Latin for crab?

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yes, cancer, So in case it is unique, let's christen
it mm cancer Engli censes.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
I love how inevitably all your voices end up being
an old witch's every time. And it's a great voice too,
so I'm always very satisfied when that starts to happen.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
I love it. He names this thing after himself.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
What a jerk, I know, he is? Uh Oh, I
continue on right, Yeah. Then something happened in my brain,
some momentary piece together of all that I had seen
or dreamed. Something in his words seemed to me to
throw light on it all, and my own intense horror
at the experience of the night before linked itself onto

(24:11):
what he had just said. In effect, I took the
box and threw it, caterpillar and all out of the window. Hugh,
this must have been fairly surprising. In the middle of
the conversation, just picks up the box and throws it
out of the window. There was a gravel path just outside,
and beyond it a fountain playing into a basin. The
box fell on to the middle of this English laughed.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Oh, so the students of the occult don't like solid facts,
he said, My poor caterpillar.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
The talk went off again at once to other subjects.
I can imagine everybody's a little embarrassed that I was
just so anyway, how about them Yankees?

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Right?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
And I have only given in detail as they happen,
these trivialities in order to be sure myself that I
have recorded everything that could have borne on occult subjects,
or on the subject of caterpillars. He really wants you
to know, like I'm giving you all this, all the
stuff here. I'm surprised he didn't say what he had
for launch and breakfast.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Agreed.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
But at the moment when I threw the pill box
into the fountain, I lost my head. My only excuse
is that, as is probably plain, the tenant of it
was in miniature exactly what I had seen crowded onto
the bed in the unoccupied room. I think that was
an unnecessary thing to point out. Yeah, and though this
translation of those phantoms into flesh and blood or whatever

(25:35):
it is the caterpillars are made of, ought perhaps to
have relieved some of the horror of the night. As
a matter of fact, it did nothing of the kind.
It only made the crawling pyramid that covered the bed
in the unoccupied room more hideously real.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I could imagine, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
I wouldn't see this thing that was the actual, like
similacrum of what had scared the Jesus out of me
the night before. Why would that make you feel any better?

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Now? Agreed?

Speaker 2 (26:07):
You want me to keep going? It seems like you
could do this now, all.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Right, I'll take ever.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
After lunch we spent a lazy hour or two strolling
about the garden or sitting in the Robert loggia. And
it must have been about four o'clock when Stanley and
I started off to bathe down the path that led
by the fountain into which I had thrown the pill box.
The water was shallow and clear, and at the bottom
of it I saw its white remains. The water had
disintegrated the cardboard, and it had become no more than

(26:32):
a few strips and shreds of sodden paper. The center
of the fountain was a marble Italian cupid, which squirted
the water out of a wine skin held under his arm.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
That's not where I was expecting him to say, it
was scorting from.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
Nope, A lot of times it comes right out of
a little marble peepee.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
It's a tinkle.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
It's a tinkle exactly. And crawling up its leg was
the caterpillar. Strange and scarcely credible, as it seemed. It
must have served vibe the falling to bits of its
prison and made its way ashore. And there it was,
out of arms reach, weaving and waving this way and
that as it evolved its cocoon. Then as I looked

(27:11):
at it seemed to me again that like the caterpillar
I had seen last night, it saw me, and, breaking
out of the threads that surrounded it, crawled down the
marble leg of the cupid and began swimming like a
snake across the water of the fountain towards me. Oh
my god, it came with extraordinary speed. The fact of
a caterpillar being able to swim was new to me.

(27:32):
That's in parentheses, of course, And in another moment was
crawling up the marble lip of the basin. Just then
Inglish joined us, why if it isn't old cancer Inglish
sensu again, he said, catching the side of the beasts.
What a tearing hurry it is in We were standing
side by side on the path, and when the caterpillar

(27:52):
had advanced to within about a yard of us, it
stopped and began waving again, as if in doubt as
to the direction in which it should go. Then it
appeared to make up its mind and crawled onto English's shoe.
It likes me best, he said, But I don't really
know that I like it. And as it won't drown,
I think perhaps he shook it off the shoe onto

(28:15):
the gravel path and trod on it. Nice man. English
guy just stomps this thing.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, well he's the pith helmet type and they do
those kind of things. They don't have a huge value
on bug life, agreed, They didn't even like the movie
A Bug's Life. Noh am, I starting again.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah it feels like you.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Okay, all afternoon, the air got heavier and heavier with
the Sirocco that was, without doubt coming up from the south.
Would you say that as Sorocco or.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Sirocha, I mean, Chuck would say so.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Well. VW always call it Sorocco.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Oh yeah, those are great cars here.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
They are, uh and that night again I went to
bed feeling very sleepy, but below my drowsiness, so to speak,
there was the consciousness, stronger than before, that there was
something wrong in the house, that something dangerous was close
at hand. Breaking for water, gope, cope, ah. But I

(29:20):
fell asleep at once, and how long after I do
not know. Either woke or dreamed. I awoke feeling that
I must get up at once, or I should be
too late. That was in italics this time, then dreaming
or awake parentheses. I lay and fought this fear, telling
myself that I was but the prey of my own nerves,
disordered by sorocco or what not, and at the same time,

(29:43):
quite clearly knowing in another part of my mind, so
to speak, that every moment's delay added to the danger.
At last, the second feeling became irresistible, and I put
on my coat and trousers and went out of my
room onto the landing. And then I saw that I
had already delayed too long, and that I was now
too late. The whole of the landing of the first

(30:06):
floor below was invisible under the swarm of caterpillars that
crawled there. The folding doors into the sitting room from
which opened the bedroom where I had seen them last
night were shut, but they were squeezing through the cracks
of it and dropping one by one through the keyhole,
elongating themselves in a mere string as they passed, and

(30:26):
growing fat and lumpy again. I'm emerging, ghil. Some, as
if exploring, were nosing about the steps into the passage
at the end of which were Inglish's room. Others were
crawling on the lowest steps of the staircase that led
up to where I stood. The landing, however, was completely
covered with them. I was cut off and of the

(30:48):
frozen horror that seized me when I saw that I
can give no idea in words.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
I bet he could if you tried.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Okay, continuing on chuck. Then at last a general movement
began to take place, and they grew thicker on the
steps that led to Inglis's room. Gradually, like some hideous
tide of flesh, they advanced along the passage, and I
saw the foremost visible by the pale, gray luminousness that
came from them, reach his door. He's like, better you

(31:16):
than me, Anglis. Yeah, again and again, I tried to
shout and warn him and terror all the time that
they would turn at the sound of my voice and
mount my stare instead. But for all my efforts, I
felt no sound came from my throat. They crawled along
the hinge crack of his door, passing through as they
had done before, and still I stood there, making impotent

(31:36):
efforts to shout to him, to bid him escape while
there was time. This is getting serious. At last the
passage was completely empty. They had all gone, and at
that moment I was conscious for the first time of
the cold of the marble landing on which I stood barefooted.
The dawn was just beginning to break in the eastern sky.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Sunrise always a good sign.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah. That seems to chase away the nasties.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, all right, I'm bringing it home.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, bring us home, Chuck.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Six months later, I met missus Stanley in a country
house in England. We talked on many subjects, and at
last she said.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Oh, h oh, that's me. I'm hurt.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
Oh yeah, I don't think I've seen you since I
got the dreadful news about Arthur English.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
A month ago. And this guy's still scared. So he
says I haven't.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Heard said I.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
No, he's got cancer. They don't even advise an operation,
for there is no hope of a cure. He is
riddled with it, the doctor's say.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Now, during all these six months, I do not think
a day has passed on which I had not had
in my mind the dreams, parentheses, or whatever you like
to call them, which I had not seen in the
villa Cascana.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
It is awful, is it not.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
She continued, And I can't help feeling that he may
have caught it at the via.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
What's a villa?

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Caught it at the villa?

Speaker 3 (33:09):
I asked. She looked at me in blank surprise.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
Why did you say that, she asked?

Speaker 2 (33:16):
How did you know?

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Then? She told me in the unoccupied bedroom, a year before,
there had been a fatal case of cancer. She had,
of course taken the best advice, and had been told
that the utmost dictates of prudence would be obeyed, so
long she did not put anybody to sleep in the room,
which had also been thoroughly disinfected and newly whitewashed and painted.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
But that's it, Yeah, that's it. But ellipses, I even
went back and double checked that I had copied and
pasted everything.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
But I did too, that was it. Yeah, it just
ends with the you know that room had cancer in it.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
It seems like, yeah, and those things transferred cancer, which
explains why they were lumpy. Sure they were tumorous, I
guess you'd say. And then also when he said that
Arthur Ingliss called them cancer eng census, I think, yeah,
English census. That that kind of trips something in his mind.
So yeah, was it maybe.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
It's a vanity tale, morality tale.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Was it a dream, Chuck or did he really experience
all this?

Speaker 3 (34:30):
I think it's all real.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
I do too. Let's go with that since it's a
good horror story.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
All right. Moving on, then we come to my pic,
which is it's called the Deep Brows. It is what
I say, brows, the deep drowse, and it's this is
taken from Weird Tales, which volume was this September nineteen
forty nine, that the Great pulp Rag Weird Tales. And

(34:57):
this is sort of a mysterious case because Alison be
Harding is listed as the writer. But Alison b Harding
is a bit of a mystery, right.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah. The closest I've seen as someone a master as
Gene Milligan. But that's pretty far from being proven without
a doubt.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, I think so. I've seen various things. I've seen
Gene Milligan or Lamont Buchanan or maybe a husband wife team.
But it was a non diplom and this is someone
who didn't want to be recognized because they wrote whoever.
It was like ten or fifteen stories, most of which
were in weird weird tales in like the nineteen forties
and fifties, and then just sort of stopped writing and disappeared.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, pretty neatly interesting. I think that they were so
adamant about their pseudonym because that they were being paid
under the table.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Oh maybe so, or maybe they had some I think
one of them was an attorney or something, so maybe
they didn't like sometimes they have like a proper job
in writing for a pulp rag wouldn't be looked upon favorably.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
It would be today because they turned out to be
one of the great overlooked horror writers of all time.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Yeah, agreed? All right, So without any further ado, maybe
i'll start this one out. Does that sound good?

Speaker 2 (36:12):
I think that's a great idea.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
This is the Deep Brows by pen name Alison B. Harding.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Did you say brows again?

Speaker 3 (36:19):
I think I did the deep drowse? What is my
deala the deep drows Wow? All right, here we go.
Arthur Hodges had very bad hay fever. He and his
wife Francis lived in a cheerful white painted woodhouse with
a big stone chimney and a tastefully designed stone terrace

(36:42):
out back. That they lived in this house in the
country was one of the factors that made the Hodges
place in the history of this world secure. For whatever
stretch of time there is a head for this universe, everything,
of course, had to dovetail perfectly. Have you ever thought
about an accident, for instance, a man who was hit
on the head by flower pot or a brick. The
man is say, forty years old, and yet the months

(37:04):
and days and hours and seconds of those forty years
have to be perfectly synchronized to bring him to that
spot on the sidewalk precisely at the time that the
brick is unloosened by the wind and sent plummeting on
its mission of death. Three pt Anderson Magnolia set up
for sure. So it was with the Hodges. Then, you see,

(37:25):
Arthur Hodges was a writer. That's important. If everything else
had been perfect but he hadn't been a writer, there
would have been no record for the incredible events that
follow Likewise, everything else would have been upset if Arthur
Hodges just hadn't been a successful writer, Just being a
writer wouldn't have been enough, because his junk, as he
called it in his deprecating fashion, was turned out with

(37:48):
sufficient facility and talent to have made his name a
headliner on many of the nation's biggest magazines. He had
more than enough money.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
All this is important, I think, is what Alison B.
Harding is saying.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
That's right. Money meant two new autos in the two
car garage out back. His pretty redhead wife Fran dressed inconspicuously,
but in the good taste, which signals expensive clothes. And
this is of course the most important part. He had
What he jokingly confided to his neighbors was a hermetically
sealed study and bedroom for those summer months when ragweed,

(38:21):
Timothy and other such deadly pollens would have made his
life in the country quite terrible. They had a joke,
Fran and Arthur did from July through September he takes
some manuscripts down to the post office to mail, and
also provide himself with a few other errands in town
to keep him away a couple of hours. By the
time he got home. Depending on the length of his mission,
fran could predict almost exactly how red his eyes would be,

(38:44):
how uncomfortable his nose. It's quite a joke, all right,
So these are This is a wealthy or at least
a well to do author living in the country. But
he has very bad allergies. So he has a safe room.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yes, a hermetically sealed one too.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
That's right, you can pick it up from their mind,
all right.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Arthur had a habit of coming in with whatever packages
he collected in the village, banging the summer screen door
of the porch and saying, funny thing, Darling, I feel
fun I guess we'll turn off the damn air conditioning
unit and save on our electric bill. But this was
always announced in a deeply nasal voice. Oh let me

(39:23):
try that again.

Speaker 5 (39:25):
For I, Thirk Darling ar felt fine, our gust will
turn off the damn air conditioning save on.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Our electric bell. Oh man, go for it, and he
would almost immediately subside into a frenzy of sneezing and wheezing,
whereupon his wife would push him into the study bedroom
part of the house, where the engineers who'd installed the
expensive but efficient unit swore not a breath of outside
air could penetrate. Arthur worked in here most of the day,

(39:55):
except for periods of never more than a few hours
when he played tennis at the club or used the
swimming pool there with Fran and his other friends. If
there was a bridge game schedule, it always took place
in Arthur's study. He's got some bad, bad allergies.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
The whole business, in other words, was accepted by the
neighbors and nobody thought anything about it. If he'd been poor,
Arthur obviously would have had to suffer or live in
the city as far away as possible from growing things.
But his three months of travail had now been neatly
gotten around by the ACME Air Conditioning Units Company, Detroit, Michigan.

(40:33):
Of course, it had taken extra airproofing of the windows
so that all cracks of the two rooms could be
perfectly sealed, and that, in addition to the conditioning machines themselves,
was expensive, but it kept them both out in the country,
which they liked and had become as much a part
of their lives to be taken for granted as the
dishwasher in the kitchen or the electric door on the garage. Fancy. Yeah,

(40:58):
so now it is easy to see the component parts
of the whole affair. Arthur had very bad hay fever,
but he liked the country, lived in the country, and
got around his July through September agonies because he had
the money to purchase for himself a hermetically sealed refuge.
And he was a writer. Don't forget that.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
It's actually written in there, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
With an exclamation point.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, it's a nice little summation. Shall I takeover you?

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Shall?

Speaker 4 (41:25):
All right?

Speaker 3 (41:26):
It was a late afternoon of August fourteenth. Brand came
back from the village in the convertible to find Arthur
out on the lawn practicing with a putter. She forgot
to upbraid him for his running nose and swollen eyes
because of the important looking envelope in her hand. A
writer's wife gets to sense these things, open it up,
she ordered. The registered letter was from a movie company.

(41:47):
Hodges had been dickering with them on his latest cereal
for one of the big magazines. The letter was good news.
They were offering to buy, and at the kind of
fabulous price that movies deal in. Woh, said Arthur, holding
the open letter in one hand and clutching for his
pocket handkerchief with the other.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Well that's pretty cot.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
He tried, as always to appear unconcerned, but Fran threw
her arms around his neck and gave him a big kiss.
You're wonderful, darling, she cried gaily. He sighed, trying not
to show how pleased he was with the news at
her attentions.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
At least those will play for the air conditioner for
another summer.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Man.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
How did she tolerate this guy?

Speaker 2 (42:28):
I don't know, but she is pretty pretty kind to him,
it seems.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Uh. Then Fran took him by the elbow and steered
him inside. You'll get back into the cave, she ordered him.
It was their pet name for their sanctified haven of
pure manufactured pollen tree air. The breeze died down, and
with the wind gone, it grew very hot. Fran prepared
a cold supper and brought it into Arthur's den. She
thought it was actually much nicer here than outside, where

(42:52):
the humidity had become a crescent. She looked out across
the green country from the window of his study, and
noticed and the failing light, the pockets of fog to
the lower lives of land art, she said, turning away
from her contemplation to the window scene and spooning up
some of her potato salad. It's nice detail, she said.
I think we ought to celebrate your latest triumph. She

(43:15):
went back to American by the way, Kay, she forgot
where she was from for a moment. He made a
deprecating gesture with his hand. No, I really mean it.
We haven't seen some of the old gang for a while.
Jack and Cynthia, for instance. We ought to really have
them out. And then there's Tim and Mary. Let's have
quite a party, he warmed to the idea. Thinking about

(43:35):
it as she went, she took some plates into the
other part of the house and got some ice cream
out of the freezer to bring it back to the study.
She noticed then how warm the rest of the house
was after the clean cool air of the cave. As
an afterthought, she decided first to bring a deck chair
in that they'd left on the terrace where she'd been
sunning herself in shorts earlier that day. When Fran went outside,
she noticed again the oppressive heaviness of the air made

(43:57):
it hard to breathe. It made her sleepy. With the
evening approach, the darkening sky was burned with purple and orange.
She thought it probably meant another blisterer tomorrow. She went
back into the cave with the ice cream in the plates,
slammed the special door which hermetically sealed it, and they
started talking about their plans again. This is the night
of August fourteenth, the night which would initiate Arthur Hodges

(44:18):
to the part he would play, which in its way,
would make him as famous in the sweep of history
as the names of Darwin, or Columbus or fran Aside
from being pretty, was a methodical girl. She was self
appointed watchdog of the budget. No Darling Brand insisted it
would be a lot of fun to have a celebration

(44:39):
next weekend would be fine, and she mentioned his very
best friends, the Fisks and the Barns. Fill out the
big guns. I'm going to call them, she said, resolutely.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Do no.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
You'se trying to Arthur suggested.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
He's one of those office wretches, and you'd simply remind
barn and I think he wasn't home. Yet, it's nearly eight.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
O'clock, said Fran, reproachfully with a new look at the
small desk clock, getting ready to tinkle the news. I'll
try Jack and Cynthia. Doodling with a phone pad, she
noted the time eight pm, just as the clock chimed
out musically, she asked the operator for the FISKS number
and waited for three rings. Cynthia, she helloed to the
feminine voice. It answered, it's Fran Hodges. Take it away.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I will, but first I want to point out happily
that Tinkle has made an appearance in both stories.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Now, oh, that's right to tinkles.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Arthur could hear the other girl squeal with delight over
the phone. Fran began to explain the invitation, and from
his wife's expression and the noises from the earpiece, Arthur,
from the other side of the room could tell that
the invitation had gone over well and the girls were
about to get on all sorts of other subjects. He
came over, say hello, to sit there for man, let

(45:54):
me speak to that shyst the husband of hers. Fran
wrinkled up her nose and mocked anger at this inner
eruption of their gossip, but after all, it was his night. Cynthia,
where's Jack, She relaid over the phone.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Oh so early, Well, throw some water on him or something.
Art wants to speak to him.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Old Ad just crept up on the barrister. Sin says,
he's sleeping on the living room sofa.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Probably what too many on the way home? Art put
in irreverently. Oh, Jack, Friend's attention was called back to
the phone.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Don't make your excuses to me. If I were your wife,
I'd make you do the dishes that would keep you awake.
Here's my genius husband with a momentous word for you.
It's probably a lie, Jack about his latest golf score.
Don't believe it.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Fran handed the receiver over to her husband. Oh, counselor
said Art into the phone. They talked and joked, and
then Jack relaid through Art to Fran. Some thought about
a big casey heg coming up at the end of
next week. If it broke in a certain way, he'd
probably not be able to make it, or at least
it would be difficult. He was hearing from the client involved.

(47:03):
As a matter of fact. Later that evening, Friend made
another face and took the phone away from Art.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Jack put Cynthia back on. You men always louse everything up. Look, Sin,
after Jack has heard from this old client, you call
us back tonight, will you. Oh, we'll be up to
well after midnight. How is it in there, hot? I
bet it is. We're in the cave now to cure
Art sniffles. I stepped outside for a minute after supper,
and there wasn't a breath of air even here in

(47:29):
the country. You be sure and do that, Sin. We'll
wait for you. We're going to call Tim and Mary Barnes.
We thought we'd get them because you and Jack can
always beat them at bridge, and Art loves mister Barnes
because he once took him in a golf match.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Here from you later, baby friend hung up. It was
eight thirty.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Grains, a real pistol. We really shouldn't have talked so long,
she reproached. But I guess we can afford it now,
can't we.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Genius Art ruffled her hair and then kissed an auburn
curl on the top of her head. Night rates. He murmured,
That's what I'm counting on.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
Tried Tim marry old mad Barnes ought to be hoped
from his vulgar money baking pursuits by now, Gee, I'm
glad I don't commute to the city every day and
then come back to some suburban neighborhood house that looks
so much like the neighbors on either side. You have
to be careful, you don't go in the wrong door.
Cut somewhere out to Bothe.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
You skirted very closely to Homer Simpson there first I did.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
That was a complete accident. I've never been able to
do Homer. But now I know the secret.

Speaker 3 (48:35):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yes, agreed, I just amazed myself. Should I continue?

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Ah? Sure?

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Frank gave the suburban number that belonged to the Barns,
and Art stole the phone from her hand. The study
window showed that it was completely dark outside. Now, miss Barnes,
Arthur boomed, these are your long art country colored to
the hodges. He frowned a bit, and after a moment,
passed the phone back to his wife. His mouth formed
the words think we just start them? Frank carried on nobly.

(49:07):
Tim wasn't back from the city yet. Was it beastly hot?
There couldn't be much worse off in the city. Oh, yes,
Fran nodded to reassure Mary. She just talked to the
Fisks and they said the city was simply unbearable. Poor Tim,
what was keeping him? Well? Anyway, you too need a
vacation in the country. How about next weekend. Look, we'll
call again a bit later after Tim's home. She hung up. Funny,

(49:29):
Fran said.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
It, what well, I mean, we lead this bucolic life
of solitary splendor, where you can't see your next door
neighbor's house without a telescope. We're supposed to be lazy
and going to weed, while our city friends and their
first cousins, the suburbanites are still supposed to be in
there swinging with their eyes on the main chance.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
What's the point, Arthur asked.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Oh, nothing, exactly, replied Fran. Except when we call these
live wires. Jack sounds asleep at the end of a
big career punching day, and Mary, well, I have the
sneaky feeling we woke her up.

Speaker 5 (50:02):
Art nodded, Think you're right. Well, I always said this
was the racking out here of the real country.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Aren't you glad that I agree with you?

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Frank came over to his side and rumpled his hair.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
You wouldn't like it so much out here without me, honey.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
He said, and kissed her.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Whah.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Then he had a thought.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
You're gonna put the garage door down, did you?

Speaker 3 (50:26):
No? But silly, don't bother about it. It's not going
to rain or snow tonight as.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Well, said Art. Principals turn and all that. You know, silly, silly,
said Fran.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
And you might get sneezing again.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
I hope I do so I could come back here.
I really appreciate. But this setup is costure bay.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Homer was it again? Yeah, just a little tinge, a
homeric tinge.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
This also has just evolved into a John Cheevers story
where a couple in the country's trying to get their
city friends to come out for a night of bridge.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
You want to take it a call?

Speaker 5 (51:01):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Sure. He went out and into the unair conditioned part
of the house. It was very warm, and almost immediately
he began to sweat. God, how it must be in
the city. He started out the back door and found
he couldn't see a thing in the starless night. He
came back and got the torch that hung in the
coat closet, followed its rays to the garage. He thumbed
the down switch that controlled the electric doors, and they
rumbled into place. Because he got pleasure out of the

(51:24):
accoutrement that science had designed for easier living, he thumbed
the upswitch and watched the doors rise again. Doat up
door groats down. It was neat the whole operation. He
let them descend, and then stood there with the flash
turned off, trying to see if his eyes would grow
accustomed to the gloom. Somewhere out towards where the bird
bath stood, a firefly pricked the wall of blackness. Momentarily,

(51:47):
he shone the light and picked up the marble path.
Oh more marble. Mm hm, you know what's good for that?

Speaker 2 (51:54):
A poultice made a baking soda in some water.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
That's right. Arthur walked a few steps away from the
house in the garage, passed the bird bath towards the field,
enjoying the freedom of these few steps as someone does
who has even the relatively inoffensive restriction that he did.
Things always looked different at night, he reminded himself, as
he torched the yellow beam of the flashlight. Here and there,
the trees and shrubbery had a particular lifeless aspect, as

(52:18):
though they were prop scenery from the ridge that crowned
the southern horizon of his property. The far away lights
of a speeding car shoveled the gloom back for a
few instants, and then with a vehicle gone on its
dark errand there was nothing but the little light in
his hand and the occasional, very seldom pinprick of a
firefly off to the left, or perhaps over.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
To the right, and just.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
Not in front of him. The ground underneath his moccasins
had its fine sheen of night dew. He could feel
the taller blades of grass swish damply against his ankles.
As he walked from out of the endless blackness that
stretched away from where he stood across the universe, something
came that blinked green and red in the sky. It
was the male plane heading for the state capitol one

(53:00):
hundred miles north, and idly he turned his flash upward
and pinched the switch and a staccato series, then, thinking
foolishly of the action, flicked it off to them. If anything,
it would be as a firefly was to him, a
tiny indistinct something for an instant against the pall of
darkness that cover the earth.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
I just want to add here, Chuck that if you listener,
like me, thought that that was going to become something
later on, it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Well, it sort of does. The plane.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, well, him flashing the plane, I thought something bad
was going to come of it, and nothing does whatsoever?

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Yeah, you're right, but you know, if a plane flies
over an act one, it may not fly over neck three.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
That's true, the spoiler. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
The plane fled from him into the northern night, fled
as though afraid, and a feeling of momentous loneliness welled
up inside of him, making him turn abruptly so he
could see the lights of the house, their house, brands
and his you know, their house, the one they live in,
just right there where he just came from.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Sometimes off the left, sometimes off to the right.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
He walked rapidly back in this time, secured the front
and back doors and windows for the night, before rejoining
Fran in the cave. You can pick it up, but
I believe I'm Fran.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
You are Nobody's called, she said petulantly.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Have you been outside all this time fussing with that
old garage door that tickles you?

Speaker 2 (54:21):
So he nodded, how many sneezes? Not one, he avowed,
surprised at the realization himself. She squinted at him dubiously.
Upop my honor. He put a hand on his heart
and raised the other. I don't think there's a tough
air out there to blow the old Paul on a
round bity stuffy. He sank down in a chair and
enjoyed the cool, pure oxygen of the room. I tell you, Fran,

(54:45):
this thing's worth it. I mean, even if you didn't
have an allergy or ghastly hay fever or anything.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I'm picturing Dennis Hopper now in blue velvet, sucking off
that mask.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yeah, I was trying for Dennis Miller. No crop, this
is silly, Fran said. After a while longer.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
I'm going to call the FISKS. They promised to call,
and they have it.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Fran picked up the receiver and it was just past
ten thirty. Arthur went over and sat beside her, held
his head close to hers eavesdropper, she whispered. They both
stropp her. They both had the same reaction when the
voice answered. As they said afterward, and as Arthur wrote it,
it was don't forget he was a writer and he's wealthy.

(55:31):
It was Cynthia's voice, and yet it wasn't. Arthur's first
thought was that she'd been drinking. Fran more charitably thought
that she was ill.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Darling, you were going to call where's Jack? You sound
a little funny.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Cynthia talked, and as she talked her voice got stronger.
It was so terribly hot there in town, she apologized.
Finally Jack came to the phone, groggy in voice too. Yes,
his client had called up quite a long time ago.
It had been kind of unsatisfactory, but hang it all
they'd come out the next weekend.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
I guess that should be Cynthia. I'm gonna mony python
this whole thing, all right, all right, who is Cynthia?
Who is Sydney?

Speaker 2 (56:12):
What's her motivation?

Speaker 3 (56:13):
Yeah? Exactly? Well she's not sounding well too though, right.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
No, she sounds very tired.

Speaker 6 (56:19):
Okay, gee, I think we need to get.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Away, Cynthia confided.

Speaker 6 (56:24):
Jack's just worn out, and I feel pretty mush too.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Then Frank couldn't get Cynthia's attention for a few minutes,
and when the other girl came back on the phone,
she had an edge of excitement in her voice, Chuck,
can you hear that?

Speaker 6 (56:38):
Fan, I mean over the phone. Listen as I hold
the mouth piece this way.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
Can you hear it?

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Fran listened intently, and Arthur pressed his ear as close
to the receiver as he could. There was something like
a hissy radiator, little boiler letting off steam. Cynthia came
back on.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
I don't know, I think the heat Scottess.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
We just love to come out to the country.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Before they rang up, which means hang up, hung up.
Cynthia dropped the phone once and had to pick it up.
Ran hung up. Worried, drunk, said Arthur. His hay fever
had come back.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Don't be silly, his wife.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Is it remonstrated?

Speaker 3 (57:20):
I think remonstrated.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Okay, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Remonstrat It sounds right too, but.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Also it looks a lot like demonstrated. But the D
and the R were switched at birth.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
That's right. Don't be silly.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Oh, his wife remonstrated, remonstrated.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
She doesn't drink jack. Maybe once in a while, but
she doesn't. I'm worried. I think they're both sick, like
food poisoning or something.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
So now his hay fever is coming in and out
by the second. Well, as long as it's over by
the next weekend. Arthur put in, go ahead, try the
Barnes And my little technique didn't work as well as
I thought. But I was ramming the sides of my
nose trying to come in and out of a nasally quality,
and I can tell you from experience it doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Okay, don't try it at home.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Frank gave the number and waited. The connection took quite
a while, and when it was made, Arthur saw his
wife's face tighten.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
I can hardly hear you, Mary. What is it. Yes,
it's Fran Hodges. We're calling up about next weekend. What Mary?
It's awfully hard to understand. You must be a bad connection.
What's wrong with Tim?

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Arthur was watching her expression from the lounge chair.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Yes, he's probably been working too hard. You don't sound
too spry yourself, my chicken. Hey, listen, you both need
a rest. What here? What?

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Fran's face blanched a bit then, and her eyes saw Arthur's.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Now you just pack yourself into bed, young lady, and
make your plans tomorrow morning. With that overworked money making
husband of yours, come out before the weekend. Have Tim
knock Off come out Wednesday. We'd love to have you anytime.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Fran hung up slowly.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
I think our friends are all giving out. She sounded
awfully funny and said, oh, you men are terrible. She
said she couldn't seem to wake him up, that he
got back from the station and just sort of collapsed. Apparently,
Arthur commented.

Speaker 5 (59:22):
The Barns and the fifth separated by what fifty or
sexty miles? And your theory is that they both got
food points in from the Saint Bad oysters.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
We might eat subs for you.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Can you understand what he's saying essentially? So this is
what I'll do. I'll read it like that, unintelligibly, and
then I'll explain what he just said.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
It's sort of like Gary Oldman and slow Horses. You
really need to turn those subs on.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Okay, I don't know the reference, but I will do
what you say.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Oh you don't watch the Horses. I thought you watched that.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
No.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Is it a TV show?

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Is it a limited series?

Speaker 6 (59:57):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (59:57):
No, I think it's in season five or so. It's great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
I tried Tulsa King last night and was like, I'm
just not in the mood for any like mean bullying
right now. So I didn't go any further than the
first like fifteen minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Oh, I have not seen that. But a friend of
the show, Kevin Pollock, is in the new season.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
He sure is.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Yeah, they're shooting here in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Oh, I didn't know that. It looks a lot like Tulsa.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
I think they do some exteriors there, I see anyway,
is this me?

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
All right, Franz smiled. It's funny, though, art about one thing.
She said something about hissing too, just like sin. Fran's
hand came up to her mouth and her eyes got bigger. Darth,
you don't suppose you don't suppose it's any sort of
enemy attack. You know that article we read about, you
know the way when war came this time, Arthur laughed heartily.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Oh okay, So, by a quick instant poll on social media,
we've decided that Arthur's hay fever no should go away.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
No snappole.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Yeah, Now, wait a minute. I'm supposed to be the
one with the imagination. I make money out of it,
and you're doing it for free.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
She relaxed. But he saw the puzzlement was still in
her face. To reassure her, he switched the radio on
and the sounds of a jazzy record filled to study.
The MC came on sounding sleepy, but then they all
do and have her ages. There was certainly no momentous
we interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin.
The president has just announced that this country has been
attacked by and so forth. Nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
He sounded like, pee wee herman.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Oh Beijing, mister Harriman, that's right, that's one of my
favorite parts of That's great. He saw that Frans Fright
had passed. But then she said, resolutely turn that thing down, art,
will you. I'm going to call Jack and Cynthia again.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
So he did another snappole, and it turns out people
did like the nasally voice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
After all, great, it's back.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
Look this time you really are going to wake them up.
It's getting hot towards midnight.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
But I knew his wife, and when she was determined
to do something, she did it. Luckily, he reflected many
times in the past it usually had turned out to
be the right thing. He shrugged his shoulders and said,
half jokingly.

Speaker 5 (01:02:10):
Well, I warned you after this, they'll never even think
of accepting our invitation next weekend, we'll be in their
doghouse for weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Fran dialed the operator, gave the number, and in the
interim before the connection was made, the quiet of the
country seemed depressed from the black out of doors around
them in this lit oasis of the night. Takes that
operator an awfully long time, said fran aloud. Finally the
ringing commenced. It seemed interminable to Art, sitting on the
other side of the room. At last there was an
answer for Franz said hello, Cynthia, but all was not well.

(01:02:41):
Art knew from the way his wife's hand tightened to
whiteness around the receiver. Frand seemed to be explaining, pleading,
and finally Arthur came to her side and spoke down
to her upturned.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Face, what's the matter?

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
She shook her head. He took the phone, and a
sloth's voice assailed him, droning on. Fran was sitting on
the edge of her chair, terrified that he called, sharply.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
What wrong, aren't you ill? Worre doc put a mom He.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Could barely make sense out of this thing. Cynthia was
saying slowly laboriously, as though drugged or sick, that Jack
had passed out, and that funny she couldn't seem to
get any help. He listened for a moment more and
then hung up. Quickly he died for the operator, and
after long seconds she came on.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
I'm going to call doctor McCollum in tout.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Do you remember how fran nodded approval?

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
So something really weird is going on with everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Yeah, this is no John Cheever, No, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
I suspect it has something to do with the shrubbery
looking like movie props.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Oh, I'm going to start up again.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
You ready, I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
He was a physician they'd known. This is a doctor McCollum,
who Art's calling. He was a physician they'd known when
they lived not many blocks away from the Fisks. The
McCallum connection seemed to take an eternity, and then there
was a voice at the other end. Arthur asked for
the doctor, and the voice said, slowly, Doctormer calms Becking.

(01:04:14):
Hodges identified himself and told what he thought that the Fisks,
good friends of his, were apparently unable to get aid.
Could doctor McCollum, go himself or get someone. There was
a long pause, then the voice answered.

Speaker 5 (01:04:27):
Funny Hodges, damn funny, something strange.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
There was a noise and an interruption. Arthur's helloes brought
no new response. He kept us back to Fran as
he hung up for fear she would find fuel for
her fright in his expression, he would try the Barnes.
The minutes ticked away. Their village operator was apparently no
here she was. He gave the number and there was
another long wait, and then the sound of ringing in

(01:04:56):
the city suburb. He waited no usual time, but allowed
fully five minutes. Finally he pictured the scene. The phone
was dragged from its cradle. It was Tim, a lethargic Tim,
who slurred his words. Arthur asked Tim if Mary was
all right? Was the mumbled answer, you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Know what's happening? What the deep browse, the beep drowse,
the pep trows is happening?

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Okay, Arthur spoke quickly. Then I want you listen to
me carefully, call a doctor, Tim, or your local police.
Do it immediately.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Do you hear me?

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Hear you, echoed the voice weakly. Tullip, tell them how
you feel and ask for help. Do that, Tim, do
it right away. The voice at the other end gurgled
something unintelligibly.

Speaker 6 (01:05:44):
Oh god, what.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Arthur cradled the phone. He turned squarely to face frame.
Something happened, darl like, I don't know what. See what
you can get on the radio. She jumped at his bidding.
He was at the phone again, dialing, dialing. Finally, the
operator sounding like Cynthia, like doctor McCollum, like Tim. The police,
he said, distinctly, great band, give me the police. The

(01:06:11):
operator's fumblings were audible. He heard her mouth the word
police as a drunk would. But at last her instinctive
reflex is taking over, he guessed. The connection was made.
A gruff male voice mumbled what might have been police heads,
and then subsided into a deep, long yawn. Before Arthur
had a chance to say anything. Look, this is Arthur Hodges,

(01:06:35):
he persevered. I big colleagues of friends abide around the country,
and I don't know what it is, but everybody acts
kind of drugged. The policeman's gruff voice mumbled something about
just drunks, yawned again and became quiet. Hello, Hello, shouted Arthur.
There was no response, he hung up. Finally, Darling Frank

(01:06:59):
called a small, frightened voice, Starley from the other side
of the room.

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
There seems to be an awful lot of silences on
the air, even for past one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
But even as she spoke, a cophony of jazz broke
into the still room, and they both brightened with the
noise of a saxophone being strangled over and over again. Ark,
the jobs are down, he said, in an attempt at lightness.
They sat and waited for what neither knew. Frank kept

(01:07:32):
looking at the telephone, and they both had their ears
glued to the radio. It was a typical all night
disc jockey show, the record set up in a series
beforehand and automatically playing one after another, but without the
MC's comments between each. That was Arthur's fear, but he
did not give words to it. He knew Fran and
he knew what she was thinking. He was thinking himself.

(01:07:54):
Somehow something had happened. The record on now was something
by Andre Pustole. Yes, it had a noisome, crashing crescendo
at the end. The silence following it was, by contrast,
even heavier. No other record, no voice making between disc comments,

(01:08:14):
They both waited, smiled bravely inside their heads, thinking the
next minute, the next second, there are silences on the air.
Suppose you had to go to the washroom. Even disc
jockeys are human. Somebody will come on. But there was nothing.
Finally they knew it. They looked at each other, and
Arthur managed another smile. Franz answering grin. Like the radio

(01:08:36):
lacked life, to keep busy, to keep from saying anything.
Arthur picked up the phone again. He held it free
for fifteen minutes, dialing at intervals, but there was no operator,
and the telephone was as dead as if he must
wait till tomorrow for it to be invented.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
All right, should I pick it up? H All right,
here we go. There were still the dial numbers left
to him, and one after or another, Arthur methodically dialed
the numbers of friends and acquaintances. Hereabouts the phones would ring,
each with their different timber, but there were no answers.
Across the dark brow at the town with its mantle
of night. From this valley and this ridge on across
the black shrouded lanes and vales and hills, the phones

(01:09:16):
chimed and vibrated and rang and shrill, but they stopped
only when he admitted defeat by hanging up across this
town and further, much further. As he knew, there seemed
no one. A peculiar theory was forming in Arthur's mind.
After all, they were all right, unaffected. Apparently there was
a mister Hoskins, a small bentman who was caretaker at
the movie house. He took tickets and often worked in

(01:09:37):
the projection room and slept in the barn like building
at night, for he, like Arthur, was a hay fever sufferer.
The building was air conditioned, even though not with the
scientific perfection of the cave. Anyway, Hoskins swore it helped.
So Arthur called the theater, knowing that the late movie
would have been out now for about an hour. The
phone was downstairs. He could picture it from his and

(01:09:59):
Frans excursions by a window in the lobby. Hoskins room
was above. The phone rang and rang. It was like
those others. As he was about to give up, a
click made it suddenly importantly different, and there was Hoskins,
his old man's quavering voice, sleepy and queerless. But it
made sense, as he understood. When Arthur identified himself.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
Mister hawk sits listen very carefully. Your life may depend
on it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
The other man made some protest about was this a joke,
but Arthur went.

Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
On, whatever you do, whatever you do, mister Hoskins, don't go.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
But the caretaker broke in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
I think you're the caretaker. If anybody you're born to
play that part.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
That's right way, mister Hodges.

Speaker 6 (01:10:43):
Mister Hodges through the window here, I can see him
through the street. There's really some people lying there, mister Hodges.
I think there must have been an accident. I have
to go out and see.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
See. That was wonderful. I could not come up with
that one.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
Uh take it over.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Even as Arthur screamed at the man screamed no, no,
what urry dude, don't go out. He knew it was
too late. The phone clicked and Hoskins was off on
his Errand there must be others like that, Arthur reasoned,
in the country, in the state, the nation. But who
knew how broad this was or what it was? But
had those others any chance? Without knowing suspecting, Arthur made

(01:11:24):
up his mind, rad I'm going out a bit. She
was on her feet, her arms around him, tears very
close to the surface.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
No art, Please, don't, please, please, something's terribly wrong. Don't
leave me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
He held her gently and caressed her red hair, only
for a take of friend, Honey, I'm trying to dope
this thing out.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
It's war, isn't it? Art? Some kind of poison gas.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
I don't know, honey, but it's the best that I
can take a turn around outside. I won't go far,
but we've got to know what's going on, you mean,
she said.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Hopefully we might be in some sort of pocket here
on the ridge that doesn't get the gas.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Could be, he said, but it was a forlorn hope.
He took the flashlight and she walked him to the
door of the cave, her fingers entwined tightly in his.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
If you're not back in ten minutes, I'm coming.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Out, don't worry. Frad He opened the door abruptly and
shut it as quickly, walking rapidly through the other part
of the house, The air impressed him immediately. It was
flat and had a peculiar stale quality, although some of
this he discounted as being the result of having just
come from the pure oxygen of the cave. They left
that part out there breathing pure oxygen in the cave. Yeah,

(01:12:38):
it seems foolish. He didn't bother to turn on the
other house lights, but used his flash instead. The bright
wallpaper and the cheerful chintz on the chairs looked strangely
forlorn and unreal. Outside, the black world was very quiet,
as quiet as any two am. As he stood on
the terrace, he first noticed lightheadedness. A feeling of illness

(01:12:59):
touched the pit of his stone, and the palms of
his hands began to sweat unduly. He thought it back
as best he could, listening looking for any other sound
or sign in the night around of human movement, a
car light from the state highway up the ridge, a
plane in the heavens, a train whistle in the distance.
There was nothing. There might not have been in this

(01:13:20):
chosen space of time at this hour, anyway, but it
was peculiarly disturbing. His brain was suddenly dull and very lonely.
He wanted to sit there and then on the terrace,
to recline, to put the flashlight down, loosen his belt
in his collar. He turned and sped for the door
of the house, his heart pounding, lights within his head

(01:13:42):
despite himself and the chiding that it was purely psychological.
He yawned and knew the yawn was real. Fatigue and
sleepiness had struck suddenly like a heavy dose of sedative.
Still going, yeah, all right, he found the knob and
jerked it open through the dark corridors of the unlit
part of the house and thankfully reached the door of

(01:14:04):
the cave. Yanked it open and went in. His face
showed more than he wanted it to, for fran came
over to him and there were tears in her eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
Are you all right, Arthur?

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
He nodded his head and tried to smile, but the
heaviness was still on him. He turned his head away
so she wouldn't see his yawn, and sat down. Very suddenly,
his wristwatch told him that he'd been gone but eight minutes,
a very short time, so that if franz hunch about
the poison gas was right, it must be a fairly
potent one to strike so fast in the oxygen of

(01:14:35):
the cave. Hodges soon felt better. As the small hours
of the morning wore on. He made trips into other
parts of the house, quick trips for his tolerance to
the outside seemed to grow less and less. The almost
incredible drowsiness became stronger, and he could stay away less
long each time.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
All right, but in those trips he brought every bit
of food in the house back to the cave, some sternocns,
and whatever odds and ends he decided they might need.
At five am, they held what he called a council
of war. There was, Arthur admitted something going on. What
it was, he didn't know and couldn't guess, but they
were particularly lucky for their hermetically sealed quarters and the

(01:15:15):
oxygen supply. They ran the radio dial up and down
at intervals and found only silence. Arthur tried Hoskins again
on a forlorn chance. There was no answer. No operator
answered when he dialed the zero.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
It didn't be alone right now.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
He admitted. The first threads of gray were streaking the
eastern view, and Arthur packed Fran onto the couch with
a blanket around her, and saw her dripped off for
a little nap. He sat at the desk and calculated
the two most important items of their lives now food
and oxygen. Of the you need water, that's really the
most important. He forgot that part of these. The latter

(01:15:51):
was a prime significance. The can goods, he felt could
be rationed to last almost indefinitely. They'd had quite a
stock in the kitchen cabinets, but oxygen. He toted up
the number of fresh cylinders available. It seems like that
should be totalled. But whatever, with continuous use, usually they
turned the mechanism off to save on the precious stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
As the spirit of E. F. Benson that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:14):
Their supply would last at the most seven or eight days.
It was unthinkable that by then some explanation or solution
to this whole business would not be found. At the worst,
in that time an enemy would take possession, but they
would at least be free from their present dilemma. It
was daylight when Fran woke up, and the sun was
a molten gold burning a hole through the hazy sky.
As on the previous evening. The trees stood silent, almost

(01:16:35):
too tired to hold up their limbs. The breath of
the air stirred it was though the outside All outside
was a vacuum. They opened some cans and ate, and
then Arthur went into the adjacent bedroom and slept till noon.
When he awoke and rejoined fran in the study. Her
fright had surged upward again. He found out why almost
immediately she'd admitted she'd gone out. There was some small

(01:16:56):
things she wanted to get the feeling art. It was
so terrible. Well, I couldn't fight against it. It was
like when you take either at the hospital and you
begin to float. You fight and fight, but it's stronger
than you are. I just got back here. I almost
fell outside the door, but I got back. It angered
him a little, for he had been asleep, and if

(01:17:16):
she failed to get back, he wouldn't have known until
probably too late. They swore not to leave the cave
hereafter at all unless absolutely necessary, and then only while
the others stood by inside to perform rescue work if
need be. They spent hours talking, wondering, speculating. They coaxed
and wheedled the radio for sounds. It would not come.
Commercials and soap operas and five piece bands became precious

(01:17:39):
by their very absence. And then, as a writer will
under almost any circumstances, Arthur found his way to the
typewriter and began tapping the keys. Franz said, with mock pestilence,
my God, you're not going to do a story now, Darling.
You've forgotten, but we don't know if you have any
audience left anywhere. The joke fell flat, perhaps too frightfully

(01:18:00):
true for all they knew to be funny.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
We took another snappole, and everyone agrees that I should
do Arthur as euphoric.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
Oh wow, no, Fran, Arthur replied, seriously, I just want to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Put the dope down on this thing since last night,
sort of a chronology. You know, you can fuss with
those tin cans, and so I like to keep busy.
I might as well be this.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
And he began to bang away at the typewriter. Take
it away.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
At first. Time passed very slowly, as though the weight
of doubt that clouded their minds clung to the hands
of the clock, slowed them so that one wondered if
time too, had become affected by the lethargy of the
outside world. Occasionally, Arthur or Fran, one or the other
of them would go to the phone dial the operator
or some familiar, unfamiliar number series. There was ringing showing

(01:18:51):
that the inanimate sinews of wire and electricity and mechanical
appliances were still alive, but nothing else, and the radio hummed.
The small needle that moved across the dial from low
to high chilicycles. Touching the familiar stations that customarily fed
so much noise, both human and instrument, into a nation's ear,
found nothing on its course. They spent much time at

(01:19:14):
the windows of the study and bedroom. Off of it.
They looked out at the countryside, so green with August,
so familiar with things they had done. Why there see
from the window was a divot dug in the lawn
where Arthur had practiced as golf swing. Now in the
late afternoon, there was still some haze across the land,
but the sun had burned part of it away. Still,

(01:19:36):
though there was no wind, and all the outside had
the flat, motionless appearance of scenery weird. Without giving voice
to their reason, both Arthur and fran took themselves to
the window. At six p m. A four motored commercial
passenger plane always shot over just southward. At the time.
It was a twilight flight that impressed itself on them

(01:19:56):
with the roar of its high speed, heavy motors. Arthur
had joked once that he could even feel the vibration.
Sitting in his bathtub. Six came and went, as did
six point fifteen. A quarter of an hour later, which
is appropriate. Towards six point thirty, Franz said, matter of.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
Factly, I guess there's no plane either.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Arthur turned from the window and translated that fact onto paper.
It was after supper out of cans that fran sitting
cross legged on the floor, asked, suddenly.

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
What are we going to do? We can stay here
only so long. Suppose we're the only people.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
She left the sentence unfinished, and her fingers went to
her temples. He boshed and poo pooed. But much later,
after she was asleep in the bedroom, he examined the
oxygen supply, computed the number of full cylinders left, and
adjusted the flow of the precious air downward. The days
went a little faster than as though for spite. Arthur

(01:20:51):
worked some of the time at his typewriter, and Franz
stood looking over his shoulder, not once again saying what
she'd said.

Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
First, But darling, who's going to read this?

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
If it had been a joke, then it was not.
Now the telephone, it might as well be that the
wires were cut radio likewise, it was like a detective
play cat and the canary, or people marooned on an island,
and the most important people in their lives were the long,
gray oblong cylinders with the silver diamond shaped labels that

(01:21:23):
said oxygen dangerous, inflammable, which means flammable. They were people,
They lived, or at least they contributed life, and their
two lives would last just so.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
Long, Darling, I've got an awful headache. I feel funny.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
And Arthur would have to turn up the oxygen supply
a bit more, for it was quite suddenly seven days
now the length of time their air supply would last them.
But he had husbanded it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
Never heard that term.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
I think this is you, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
They talked less now. A few times Art came upon
Fran in the bedroom crying, but she always tried to
hide it and found him a smile on short notice.
That's a great sentence. Toward the end of their alloted time,
as Arthur could figure it, as the last cylinder hissed
out its oxygen, he wondered whether it would be better
to stay here in the cave and let the stale
air slowly, ever so slowly, sap their strengthen their senses,

(01:22:15):
or whether they should open the door and go outside
into whatever there was waiting out there. But Fran, to
whom he had not wanted to bring up the subject,
had thought of it. Two spoke of it, and together
they decided that the known capital K was better than
the unknown capital U. Besides, they'd had experience out there,
and the memory of that sudden, melancholy and pathological drowsiness

(01:22:36):
was not all pleasant. They started on what must be
the last day. Arthur announced, somewhat weakly, for there wasn't
much air left, that they'd stretch the oxygen out five
days more than he'd figure it the twelfth day, murmured Fran.
It reminded her of something biblical. Arthur had finished whatever
he had to finish at the typewriter earlier, with nearly
the last of the strength in his fingers. The page

(01:22:59):
merely gave the fact of their predicament, the supreme fact
of which was that their fresh oxygen had been gone
since early morning. Nobody had worried about opening a can
of food this day. Instead, they found themselves arm in
arm and the settee by the window. He gave Fran
an affectionate squeeze and noted with the terrible sadness that
must be controlled for her sake. How pale she looked,

(01:23:19):
he knew that he likewise must look affright. They'd leaned
their heads together, their foreheads rested against the window pane.
It was another warm day from the feel of the
thick glass, and already the temperature of the room without
its fresh, mechanically cooled oxygen, had risen noticeably. It was
no day to die, Arthur thought, as men have thought
of every day so marked by destiny capital. Indeed, he

(01:23:41):
looked at the greenness outside, the sameness, so funny that
all this had happened, that all this could have happened.
He felt very tired. His breath was shallow and unsatisfying.
Fran pressed against him, and he'd managed to turn his head.
She was crying, and he kissed her. Their mouths dry
except for where tear ran down and touched their lips
in This would be at least their way to die

(01:24:04):
as completely together as two people could be. Yeah, not
quite h and that had compensation. He was going to
tell her after the kiss how much he loved her.
When her head moved away from his, her eyes slid
from his eyes to peer out It widened and a
little gasp came from her mouth. He turned. It was
an effort. He looked where she was looking through the

(01:24:25):
window into the outside the lawn. D D take it away?

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Uh? Yeah, Before I do, I should say to all
of the listeners who are used to our episodes for
Halloween and are like, wow, this one's going really long.
We don't practice these, and we had no idea how
long this one was going to be, so we're finding
out with you.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
I read this in twenty minutes myself, but uh, you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
Know, did you speed read it?

Speaker 6 (01:24:50):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
You know, well I added some time with all of
my jokes, snapples, quips and stupid stuff in the first one.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
Oh that's right, let's get on with it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Oh okay, The lifeless stage scenery had become alive for there,
Hopping nonchalantly across the grass was a plump brown rabbit.
It seemed to eye their window for a moment, as
though it knew of the two people there, and then
a hippity hopped unconcernedly on toward the terrace. The two
overwhelmed people turned from their window, uttered small, meaningless noises.

(01:25:21):
They made their way to the door of the cave.
As best they could. Fran reached at first, but they
pulled it open and went out together, arm in arm,
leaving behind the manuscript neatly clipped and piled on the
typewriter table, memorandum of the twelve days that eternity that
had yet been so short. The rest of the house
burst upon their senses, the familiar furniture, the bright wall paper.

(01:25:44):
Fran was sobbing unashamedly, and Arthur, with a surge of
new strength, helped her forward. After the stale, nearly airless
atmosphere of the cave, even the hot stuffiness of out
here was welcomed. They made the terrace door, and their
weakness was a joke to be laughed at. Now they
went out. They staggered out onto the lawn and the

(01:26:05):
sob beneath their feet, hard and dry, for lack of
rain still was a treat for their footsteps. They had
not walked far when Arthur realized, with the stabbing shock
of a knife in the heart, that all was not well.
The same feelings as before, not the weakness and suffocation
of the cave a few moments earlier, but the before
when they'd been outside, since this terrible thing had happened.

(01:26:28):
He turned abruptly and almost fell, and they reached for
each other for mutual support. He saw that Fran was
so affected too. They had not walked far, but it
was too far. The stretch of lawn to the terrace
to the back door was impossible, leagues uphill, dragging weight
beyond measure. They fell together and lay close, panting into

(01:26:49):
one another's face. There was simply an overwhelming desire to sleep,
to rest. Now. Arthur saw it in Fran's face, and
he had not the heart to hold up her bedtime,
nor the strength to stay sleeping himself. The grass was
home in a mattress, and as his head came down
to it, the greenness unfolded and engulfed him. The rabbit, meantime,

(01:27:11):
popped unconcerned around the corner of the house and perhaps
wondered at the strange antics of these humans as he
took his plump brown body across the lawn and into
the field beyond.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
All right, this is about to get Scooby, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
It is. But also I just want to say I
triumphantly finished Arthur's parts.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
Well done, Robo.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
The same to you, my friend. You did a great sin,
a great fran a great mister Hoskins, all of them bamed.

Speaker 3 (01:27:45):
Nice work. All right, I'll take this part and then
you can take it home at the next Here we
go the conclusion of the Beep Drowse. The Institute of
Hieroglyphics had made an intensive study of all data, particularly
with an eye to evaluating and discovering new facts concerning
that momentous change in the solar system whose influences had

(01:28:08):
caused what came to be known in future eons as
the suspension polty capitalists. Amazingly enough, one of the clearest
records found for in the beginning it did not seem
possible that this species could be wiped out universally and
so abruptly, was one made by a biped who confessed
ability in existence was the making of hieroglyphics. It had

(01:28:30):
taken much time, of course, for the Institute and other
such institutes to understand these record symbols of another age.
But this biped, whose name was A. Hodges, this is
art with his companion Biped F. Hodges, good old friend,
had written of the twelve days a day being a
measure of time commonly used by biped science. It was

(01:28:52):
in its way a classic the sudden, far more sudden
than could be imagined by the most sanguine thinking of
that time. The suspension of Biped civilization. This A. Hodges
had told well of it in his Marks, and the
Institute of Hieroglyphics, along with the other learned of the age,
were inclined to accept the details set down as an

(01:29:12):
accurate picture of what had taken place, at least in
the first twelve days of the suspension. From the start
of this event which Biped thinking would have unquestionably accepted
and labeled a catastrophe, to the end of the record,
there was, interestingly enough, no accurate guesses on the part
of the one identified as A. Hodges as to the
real significance of what was happening. Those who had studied

(01:29:35):
tribal customs and actions of the Biped world averred that
in that faraway period, the chief concern of any segment
was that some other faction would make war upon them,
a word which had vanished from the now capital n
but meant the violent attacked with intent to destroy as
much in the way of living organisms and material as possible.

(01:29:56):
Message Biped Hodges had concerned himself with marking referring to
Adam Baum and poison gas. It took some time before
present eon scientists could correctly evaluate precisely what these terms meant,
but both were eventually tied in by semanticists, which the
tribal factionalism and the obvious intent of Biped to destroy Biped.

(01:30:18):
It was the most interesting report this hieroglyphic of Hodges,
for at first it was quite difficult for these enlightened
of the now capital n to appreciate fully what had
gone on. And then the capital t an examination of
the universe and the Earth does not reveal everything, for
after all, meanings and values themselves change.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
Oh boy, so this is taking place way into the future.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
Right, Yeah, they found his writings and don't even know
what war is. And interesting to see what happens here. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
For instance, much of the lore of those misshrouded dark
ages had been handed on from generation to generation of
the enlightened by what in the vernacular of the then
would have been called informers in those unions called households
of the biped age. Even the use of the word
biped must be qualified, for there are, as any student

(01:31:10):
knows bipeds today but not uniquely so, whereas in the
then the biped was supreme and reigned over all, including
the other forms of life that inhabited the planet, whose
moraseabilities in true eventual place were neither understood nor even
considered by the biped. Painstakingly information from that forgotten biped

(01:31:32):
species was gathered, and of the catastrophe that had removed
them from the rule of the Earth. It seemed apparent
now that some cosmic force, whose mechanization had been set
in motion by the shifting of great astrobodies, had altered
not only the oxygen belt which surrounds this globe some
very made up, but more subtly altered its ingredients. Of

(01:31:53):
all living things, only the biped species, which then ruled
the world had been unable to adjust to it. Because
of certain structural peculiarities of the cortex. The race had
been stupefied, made unconscious by the withdrawal from other's atmospheres
of an ingredient necessary for the retention by the species
of consciousness. The Hodges Report and other hardwon indications proved

(01:32:18):
this beyond a doubt, and it was accepted by historians. Contrary,
of course, to the hieroglyphics manuscript, there had been no
poison gases such. There had been instead a closing of
that conscious and the biped species went into a state
of suspension through sleep, though it was in the last
analysis starvation that caused the wiping out of that civilization. Later,

(01:32:42):
these atmospheric alterations had righted themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:32:46):
So people fell into a drowse and slept such that
they didn't eat and starved to death in their sleep.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
Pretty gnarly jeez. Another day of considerable moment in this
present eon had occurred not too long ago, when ours
had brought from some remote far cave place a biped who,
as the last of his species, had survived. It seemed
that somewhere else in the world at the time of
the Great Suspension, two bipeds, one of each sex, had

(01:33:13):
survived through some quirk of fate and nature. They had
passed on what was left to their age through children
and children's children, and so on and so forth through
the years, but conditions were now too adverse for them
to multiply and take back the earth as they would
indubitably try to. Present historians surmised had they been able

(01:33:33):
for centuries, this spark from another age had rekindled itself
with new prodigy reared in a cave high in a
ridge of desolate mountains at the loneliest spot in the world.
Atmospheric conditions in that spot, because of natural phenomena, maintained
a vacuum which allowed the retention of an ozone form
not antagonistic to the Biped. But the day of greatest

(01:33:55):
moment was when the last Biped was brought to the
administration building. Nature Samantisis decided had robbed this one of
his last chance to prolong himself in flesh and blood image.
I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad.
He came then to their administration halls, a strange creature
on two legs, making strange, angry sounds that until the

(01:34:18):
wisest were summoned, could not be interpreted. As the Biped
stood in front of their councils, they urged a tablet
on him and a writing device, and this being, thinking
that perhaps his message would reach those of his kind
somewhere some day, made markings feverishly. Then the Biped was
led away, despite his violence and ravings, orders were given

(01:34:40):
to care for him, well, feed him, and give attention
to his every need. Afterward, wise and aged scholars were
brought to study the tablet. This then had been a member,
the last member of that race which had called itself human.
The human had written angrily and self chiding that he
had been captured by jack in wolves and brought before

(01:35:01):
a jury composed of a lynx, a giraffe, two squirrels,
a bear, and other creatures. His hieroglyphic markings had trailed
off at the end, but there were words of obscure
meaning which the wise men decided stood for anger markings.
So chuck. Thus the big reveal. Eh, yeah, we'll talk

(01:35:22):
about it in a second. Despite the best of care,
the Biped died not long afterward, still, according to records
of the event, making loud noises at his caretakers. In
reviewings of the whole affair at Animal Institute, it was
decided that this fact, far more clearly than any markings
or other dead evidence that had been found, illustrated the

(01:35:44):
basic unfitness of the Biped civilization, which should so proudly
call itself human. It is obvious was the finding that
the shortcomings of the Biped were many. Likewise, it was
inevitable even many centuries before it happened at the time
of the suspension that the biped human would vanish, that

(01:36:04):
animals is enlightened of the present eon would inherit the Earth.

Speaker 3 (01:36:25):
So uh, sort of Planet of the Apes.

Speaker 2 (01:36:28):
Yeah, kind of, but with giraffes this time in squirrels.

Speaker 3 (01:36:31):
Yeah, you know, this is a good one. I will
say it's a fifteen pager that could have been nine easily.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
I mean, the whole boondoggle about trying to get the
neighbors to come out seven times this was a bit much. Yeah,
but it was still good and you can see why
Gene Milligan was the best.

Speaker 3 (01:36:47):
Yeah, agreed. And that's the spectacular twenty twenty five style.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
Yeah. Well, and I'm pretty happy with it, Chuck.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):
Yeah, I can't wait to see what Ben and Jerry
do with the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Yeah. Same here, and to all of you while we're
waiting for Ben and Jerry to whip this thing into
good shape, Happy Halloween to you. Enjoy lots of candy,
look out for razor blades and apples and all that stuff,
and we'll see you back in regular time after Halloween.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
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