March 12, 2025 • 32 mins
Hope you enjoy this episode of The Black Mass! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. Podcasts @ Apple | Spreaker | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart
Black Mass featured macabre and supernatural tales with a eldritch vibe. The series also featured dramatic readings of dark-themed classic literature from the likes off H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and several others.
Black Mass featured macabre and supernatural tales with a eldritch vibe. The series also featured dramatic readings of dark-themed classic literature from the likes off H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and several others.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Black Mass tonight a ghost story by
(01:20):
Ambrose Bis. Here is the moonlit road.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Mmm mmm.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Mmmm, you haven't touched your tea, mister Stephen.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Shall I warm it?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Don't fassailing?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Please, don't fast shere it?
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Then?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, I have it here.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well, this pillar will be more comfortable.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
Ail and stop. I'm not helpless yet. What you can
do is close it has window. There's a draft again.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Oh, mister Stephen, but the windows closed.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
There's no draft, not from here.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Not hoping good, I feel, oh yes, well, never mind.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Then it's a chill you have, mister Steven. And I'm
gonna have Billy fetch doctor Bence.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
For God's sake.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Stop Ellen, stop it, get Billy to stoke up the
fire and that's all.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now let me alone, Yes, sir, no, not a draft.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
Well he'll have the house to themselves now soon enough,
as you can see, I am the most unfortunate of men.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I am rich.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
I'm respected and well educated, and until just recently, of
sound health. I'm the only child of Joel and Julia Hetman.
My father was a well to do country gentleman. His wife,
my mother, was a beautiful and obedient woman to whom
(03:12):
he was passionately attached with what I now can suspect
was a jealous and exacting devotion. The details that I
can relate hardly add up to a story. Indeed, they
could fit together in any number of ways. I have
imagined all sorts, with feeling so opposed.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That they've worn down finally to no feeling at all.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Doesn't matter now it.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
Ought never to have mattered. Briefly, then I was a
student at Yeal. One day I received a telegram from
my father of such urgency that, in compliance with its
unexplained demand, I left it once a home.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
H Harper, Harper, Stephen, Stephen, this way, Stephen is it's
terrible to have to tell you this way?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, tell me, for God's sake, what is it?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Your mother?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It's your mother, Stephen. What's happened? She's even dying?
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Father, Now, what's happened?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
She's dead?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Stephen?
Speaker 5 (04:29):
But oh, murdered, barbarously murdered, murdered.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
What we don't know? We don't know, we don't know anything.
I had gone to Nashville.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
I didn't expect to be back before the following afternoon.
There was a complication, and I returned home the same night.
It was late, nearly dawn. I found I had no
let here. I didn't want to wake the servants, so
I walked around to the back and why the doors
(05:19):
were always locked, But to my surprise, the back door
was opening. He was standing open, as if someone had
just used it. I entered and went upstairs to your
mother's room. In the darkness, I stumbled over. I'll spare
(05:40):
you the details, safe to say that she was already dead. Strangulation.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But why was anything taken from the house?
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Nothing so far as we could see.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
What about the servants. Hadn't they heard any sound? No?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
No, nothing?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And the assassin, he is there? A tracy?
Speaker 5 (05:59):
He nothing but those terrible finger marks on her throat.
Dear God, that I may forget them.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
I gave up my studies and remained with my father.
He was greatly changed. He'd always been of a sedate,
taciturn disposition. Now he had fallen into so deep a
dejection that nothing could hold his attention. Yet anything could
arouse him to a fitful interest. A footfall, a sudden entrance,
(06:39):
one might have called it an apprehension.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Hey, hey, who's there?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Who is it?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It's only me?
Speaker 8 (06:49):
Father?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Oh, Oh, come in.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Er, Oh, don't stand there in the.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Dark that way. Shall we take our walk this evening?
Speaker 5 (07:00):
No? Oh, the garden's chilly and I'm tired. I think
I'll go to my room directly. I'll worry about you, father.
I know that this whole thing has been terrible for you,
but you've become too melancholy. Have you taken to sleep
(07:21):
walking as well?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Sleep walking?
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Why last night didn't you enter my room?
Speaker 6 (07:29):
I heard steps along the hall, and then my door opened.
Someone stood there in the doorway. I thought it was you,
and I called out. When I turned on the light,
you'd call got to the door only soon enough to
see your door closing down the hall.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Wasn't it you?
Speaker 6 (07:47):
Father?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Can you remember?
Speaker 5 (07:52):
No? No, no, it wasn't me. It must have been
your mother. She worries if you come in. Yes, yes,
I remember. She got up door in the night and
then came back. She couldn't have Stephen.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
What are you trying to do do? Isn't it bad
enough for me?
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Now? Must you make things worse with your your fantasies,
your your imagining.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, it might have been a servant.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Must been Ellen. She's always doping over here.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
I only wondered that, Well, if it wasn't you, it.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Might have been.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
What do you mean, but I mean that the assassin
might have returned, might still be in the house. That's nonsense, nonsense.
Why he's never been found, He's still somewhere.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yes, I suppose, father, Have.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
You told me everything that happened that night?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Of course? What else?
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Why do you ask? Because it doesn't make sense. Mother
was adored by every one. She was the kindest woman
who ever walked the earth. No sane creature could possibly
want to heard.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Her saying, why why do you say sane?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Father? Did she have a luh? Stephen?
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Was that it is that who opened the back door
that night you came back from Ashville?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Are you hiding that from me? To save her memory?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Stop?
Speaker 6 (09:29):
He might have done it. I could imagine that mother
loved you. I know that she was devoted to you.
She'd never have been unfaithful, but she was kind to everyone.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I can imagine his jealousy.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
His fury at her refusing him. Stephen stopped this, Well,
what deed happen?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
She was murdered?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Isn't that enough?
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Enough?
Speaker 5 (09:59):
Is?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But is it enough for her? Is she still here
in this house?
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Does she haunt us, searching for her lover or a murderer.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Does she blame us?
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Father, Stephen, let her alone, the God's sake, let it alone.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
I never saw her, but I was convinced that her
ghost walked the house. The terrible cold of the presence
of the dead was everywhere. Perhaps he saw I could not.
But there were moments at night, Stephen, oh, Steve, mother sleeping,
(10:53):
the iciness of the grave, the smell oft cay. No,
I won't see your cat, but I imagine I saw
her face, hideous, quite with hate, rotting, rotting.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
No, no, go away.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
I am not your assssin, not your assssin.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
One night, a few months later, my father and I
would return her home from our evening's walk. A full
moon was high above the horizon, and the road, save
for the black shadows of the bordering trees, was a
ghostly white. As we approached the gate of our dwelling,
(12:03):
the father suddenly stopped. He clutched my eye, Father, what's
the matter there there?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What is that? I see nothing?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Father?
Speaker 5 (12:13):
There there the gate directly head.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
There's nothing. Father, Come on now, we'd better go in
for your eel.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Now go away, ah, go away, father, what do you
see now, Julia, No, no.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
I tried to follow him, but for some reason couldn't
move from the spot away.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You'll had touched my face. It was all about me, Julie.
I couldn't turn my head.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
No, no, leave me alone, Leave me alone.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
When I turned to look for my father, he was gone.
And in all the years that have passed, no whisper
of his fate has reached me. I remained here, my youth,
the brilliant parts and promise faded, its life, blood drained,
(13:12):
sifted into the darkness and the silence of this house.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Voices seek me out.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
I hear them not, but only doubt, doubt, doubt, in emptiness.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah, drink up, a.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Drink up.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Tomorrow today, I suppose you would say I was alive, live.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And tomorrow.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Well, there's no tomorrow, no yesterday. Ah, there's nothing beyond
that forest, those trees. That's all I can remember. Back
to forest. Twenty years ago. I came out of a forest,
(15:08):
made my way across the country, all the way.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
To this.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Place.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Well, that was something that was something I didn't even
know my name. I called myself. I called myself Casper. Casper.
Everyone wants to know what's your name? What's your name?
(15:44):
In this world, everyone must have a name. It prevents confusion,
even when it does not establish an identity. Casper prevented
confusion and spent twenty years trying to find her comfortable
(16:04):
way to die. There's some small light though, of a past.
I don't believe it, and I can't believe it. Yeah,
(16:26):
that's the only thing that seems like a recollection, even
if it's wrong or confused. The only thing I power
that life. Two scenes that play over and over. First,
there there's a house, a big house owned by a
(16:51):
prosperous plant. There's a there's a woman, beautiful woman.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Like a child, and the boy.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Their sons, a vague figure, never clear, usually not there
at all. The father loves the wife terribly, but he's
tortured by by a fear that she doesn't belong to him.
He can seem to believe her devotion, her love, and
(17:29):
he's reduced to vogue and commonplace ways of testing her.
One day, one day he goes to the city. He
tells her, I'll be gone till the next afternoon, but
I come back, come back that night and go to
(17:51):
a readore that I had left unlocked.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
It starts all around the house.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Approacher. I hear something. The door was opening, and a finger.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Man.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
I thought it was a man. I feared it was
a man sometimes now I can't even believe it was
a human. He he hided straight for me, then just
disappeared in the dark. I didn't know where to chase him.
So intensely did my my, my jealousy and rage feel me.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I didn't search.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
I rushed into the house and up the stairs, up
the stairs to her room, and I pushed open her door.
I shot the bed vaguely, and the colors tossed about.
I went to it empty. She was gone, escaped, Hadden, Hadden.
(19:04):
I looked, I looked about in the darkness, walked straight
to a corner where she knelt against the wall. I
could see her face, the tearing eyes, the.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Guilt, the guilt.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Ah. My hands red her throat and kneeled on her
struggling body, and there then the darkness. I strangled, strangled, uh.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Till she was dead, dead.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
Dead dead.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
No, No, it never happened. It never happened. I don't
believe it. I was possessed, possessed by some no someone,
But it's all I have. It's all that comes from me,
and I.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Go over it again and again.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Now there's another scene, another dream, another.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Vision of the night.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
I stand among shadows along the moonlit road. Someone is
with me. I cannot see who, but there's another presence it.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Where the road ends at the gate, in.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
The shadow of the large house, I catch the gleam
of white garments. Then the figure of a woman before
me on the road. Huh oh, my wife, Julia, murdered
(21:08):
death in the face, marks, marks on the throat, has
a fixed on mine with an infinite sense sadness, not
et not menace. But the apparition terrifies me. It terrifies me,
(21:30):
still terrifies me. See, still reaches out on me here No.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
No, ohakable.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Dream, this does it? Oh wips it out, to wipes
it out for a little while, for a little.
Speaker 9 (22:14):
While, Stephen, Stephen, No, no, go away, Why not, jole assassin.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
It's no use, and it only confuses me. Why it's
so fearful. He doesn't see me, He never saw me.
I can't imagine what he would see now. But fear
has no sense at all.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
It's crazy, just crazy.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It makes horrible things out of those who want only
kindness and some peace. I keep wandering among these scenes,
these rooms, in search of something that just doesn't matter anymore,
what really happened. No one seems to know. Joel's gone,
(23:25):
and there's only Stephen left for a little while. Stephen's
my son, who wasn't here at the time. He was
away at college. Joel wasn't here either, He'd gone to
Nashville on some business and was staying in the night.
(23:46):
I'd retired early and fallen into a peaceful sleep.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
But then I awoke.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
The house seemed more than usually quiet. I had a
strange sense of danger, of something. Not that I was
afraid of being alone. I was off and alone, but.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
This was different.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
There was a chill as one waits for a thing
long imagined or feared, and the feeling grew As I
lay there. I felt as if I were lying straight
and cold in my coffin, the white satin around my head,
(24:27):
the smell of dried flowers, a little bouquet I held
in my hand. I wanted to pull my fingers apart,
but couldn't, as in a dream. No no, I strained
for some sign of life in me, and then oh,
(24:55):
I could feel my heart pounded. It was a dream.
I sat up in the dark and listened. My own
heart was the only sound.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
At first.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I listened, and after a while I wondered if the
beating came from inside me or somewhere else. I tried
to hear which, and then, as if my own fears
had decided, had reached out into the dark house and
began to assemble some figure.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Something.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I heard it first on the stairway from the back entrance,
just below my room, A soft, irregular sound of footfalls
on the stairs. It was slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of
something they did not see its way, to my disordered reason,
(25:52):
all the more terrifying for that, as the approach of
some blind and mindless malevolence.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
To which there is no appeal. I said that fear
has no brains. It's an idiot.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
But this said a growing purpose bacon shapes It approached.
It approached my door, and then stood there.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I heard the breath. He hesitated his hand.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
On the door, and it turned and went away down
the stairs, hurriedly, as if in sudden fear. I rose
to call for help, but hardly my shaken hand found
(26:42):
the torn up. When I heard it returning, it ran
up the stairs, shaking the house. I fled to corner
the room and crouched on the floor.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
I tried to crow.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I tried cold old bausband. But suddenly it was in
the room, searching me out. Oh hit. It gone to
the pit, stopped there and turned and came directly to me.
(27:21):
I felt a strength and glutch upon my throat. I'll
be against something. Bomb, don't cru itself.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
And then I passed into this life.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
No, I have no knowledge of what it was.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
The sum of what we know of death is the
measure of what we know afterwards no new light, For
upon any page of it in memory is written all.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
That we can read.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
We hide in the dark and peer out into the
dim light of the present and the fading past. But
there is one more scene, a night.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
We know when it is.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Night, For then you retire to your houses, and we
can venture from our places of concealment, to move unafraid
about our old home, to look in at the windows,
even to enter rooms and gaze upon your faces as
you sleep. I could see my husband Joel and Stephen,
(28:46):
how strange they looked, how lone had they loved me?
After all they were saddened and aged by my departure.
I tried so often to make them see me, some way,
to let them know I was here and send them
(29:07):
my great love and pity. But always if I dared
approach awake them in their sleep, they were turned toward me,
the terrible eyes of the living, frightening me, and I
would hesitate as if my hand was now upon the door,
(29:29):
and turn away. On this night I had searched for them,
but they were nowhere in the house. I looked about
the moonlit long, and then moved in the white light
along the path to the gate. Suddenly I saw them
on the road. They had stopped walking and were looking
(29:50):
toward the house.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
I heard their voices.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
They stood in the shadow of a group of trees.
They stood near, so near. Their faces were turned towards me,
and Joel's eyes were fixed on mine.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
He saw me.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
At last, he saw me. All my terror and hesitation
was gone. He sees, he sees, he will understand. I
moved forward, smiling, unconsciously, beautiful, to offer myself to his arms,
to comfort him, to speak words that would restore the
(30:32):
broken bonds between the living and the dead. Joe, Joe, Joe,
but his face went white with fear. His eyes were
those of a hunted animals.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Leave me alone, back.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Away, and ran ran right into the woods.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
He never returned.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Maybe he died and wanders about some other places. I
do here, and Stephen, poor Stephen, has left even more alone.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
You have touched you to I have never.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Been able to make him know that I'm here, watching him,
longing to care for him as a mother should. But
soon he too must pass to this life invisible and
be lost to me.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Lost, windows closed, here's no dress.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
That was The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce. The part
of Julia was played by Norman gen Wandig, Stephen was
Martin Punch. Ellen was played by Nancy Punch, and Joel
was played by your Host of the Black Mass, Eric Bauersfeld.
(32:22):
The technical production was by John Whiting and Now good
Night
Welcome to the Black Mass tonight a ghost story by
(01:20):
Ambrose Bis. Here is the moonlit road.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Mmm mmm.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Mmmm, you haven't touched your tea, mister Stephen.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Shall I warm it?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Don't fassailing?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Please, don't fast shere it?
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Then?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, I have it here.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well, this pillar will be more comfortable.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
Ail and stop. I'm not helpless yet. What you can
do is close it has window. There's a draft again.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Oh, mister Stephen, but the windows closed.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
There's no draft, not from here.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Not hoping good, I feel, oh yes, well, never mind.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Then it's a chill you have, mister Steven. And I'm
gonna have Billy fetch doctor Bence.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
For God's sake.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Stop Ellen, stop it, get Billy to stoke up the
fire and that's all.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now let me alone, Yes, sir, no, not a draft.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
Well he'll have the house to themselves now soon enough,
as you can see, I am the most unfortunate of men.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I am rich.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
I'm respected and well educated, and until just recently, of
sound health. I'm the only child of Joel and Julia Hetman.
My father was a well to do country gentleman. His wife,
my mother, was a beautiful and obedient woman to whom
(03:12):
he was passionately attached with what I now can suspect
was a jealous and exacting devotion. The details that I
can relate hardly add up to a story. Indeed, they
could fit together in any number of ways. I have
imagined all sorts, with feeling so opposed.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That they've worn down finally to no feeling at all.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Doesn't matter now it.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
Ought never to have mattered. Briefly, then I was a
student at Yeal. One day I received a telegram from
my father of such urgency that, in compliance with its
unexplained demand, I left it once a home.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
H Harper, Harper, Stephen, Stephen, this way, Stephen is it's
terrible to have to tell you this way?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, tell me, for God's sake, what is it?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Your mother?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It's your mother, Stephen. What's happened? She's even dying?
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Father, Now, what's happened?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
She's dead?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Stephen?
Speaker 5 (04:29):
But oh, murdered, barbarously murdered, murdered.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
What we don't know? We don't know, we don't know anything.
I had gone to Nashville.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
I didn't expect to be back before the following afternoon.
There was a complication, and I returned home the same night.
It was late, nearly dawn. I found I had no
let here. I didn't want to wake the servants, so
I walked around to the back and why the doors
(05:19):
were always locked, But to my surprise, the back door
was opening. He was standing open, as if someone had
just used it. I entered and went upstairs to your
mother's room. In the darkness, I stumbled over. I'll spare
(05:40):
you the details, safe to say that she was already dead. Strangulation.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But why was anything taken from the house?
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Nothing so far as we could see.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
What about the servants. Hadn't they heard any sound? No?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
No, nothing?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And the assassin, he is there? A tracy?
Speaker 5 (05:59):
He nothing but those terrible finger marks on her throat.
Dear God, that I may forget them.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
I gave up my studies and remained with my father.
He was greatly changed. He'd always been of a sedate,
taciturn disposition. Now he had fallen into so deep a
dejection that nothing could hold his attention. Yet anything could
arouse him to a fitful interest. A footfall, a sudden entrance,
(06:39):
one might have called it an apprehension.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Hey, hey, who's there?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Who is it?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It's only me?
Speaker 8 (06:49):
Father?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Oh, Oh, come in.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Er, Oh, don't stand there in the.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Dark that way. Shall we take our walk this evening?
Speaker 5 (07:00):
No? Oh, the garden's chilly and I'm tired. I think
I'll go to my room directly. I'll worry about you, father.
I know that this whole thing has been terrible for you,
but you've become too melancholy. Have you taken to sleep
(07:21):
walking as well?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Sleep walking?
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Why last night didn't you enter my room?
Speaker 6 (07:29):
I heard steps along the hall, and then my door opened.
Someone stood there in the doorway. I thought it was you,
and I called out. When I turned on the light,
you'd call got to the door only soon enough to
see your door closing down the hall.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Wasn't it you?
Speaker 6 (07:47):
Father?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Can you remember?
Speaker 5 (07:52):
No? No, no, it wasn't me. It must have been
your mother. She worries if you come in. Yes, yes,
I remember. She got up door in the night and
then came back. She couldn't have Stephen.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
What are you trying to do do? Isn't it bad
enough for me?
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Now? Must you make things worse with your your fantasies,
your your imagining.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, it might have been a servant.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Must been Ellen. She's always doping over here.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
I only wondered that, Well, if it wasn't you, it.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Might have been.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
What do you mean, but I mean that the assassin
might have returned, might still be in the house. That's nonsense, nonsense.
Why he's never been found, He's still somewhere.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yes, I suppose, father, Have.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
You told me everything that happened that night?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Of course? What else?
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Why do you ask? Because it doesn't make sense. Mother
was adored by every one. She was the kindest woman
who ever walked the earth. No sane creature could possibly
want to heard.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Her saying, why why do you say sane?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Father? Did she have a luh? Stephen?
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Was that it is that who opened the back door
that night you came back from Ashville?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Are you hiding that from me? To save her memory?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Stop?
Speaker 6 (09:29):
He might have done it. I could imagine that mother
loved you. I know that she was devoted to you.
She'd never have been unfaithful, but she was kind to everyone.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I can imagine his jealousy.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
His fury at her refusing him. Stephen stopped this, Well,
what deed happen?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
She was murdered?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Isn't that enough?
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Enough?
Speaker 5 (09:59):
Is?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But is it enough for her? Is she still here
in this house?
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Does she haunt us, searching for her lover or a murderer.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Does she blame us?
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Father, Stephen, let her alone, the God's sake, let it alone.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
I never saw her, but I was convinced that her
ghost walked the house. The terrible cold of the presence
of the dead was everywhere. Perhaps he saw I could not.
But there were moments at night, Stephen, oh, Steve, mother sleeping,
(10:53):
the iciness of the grave, the smell oft cay. No,
I won't see your cat, but I imagine I saw
her face, hideous, quite with hate, rotting, rotting.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
No, no, go away.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
I am not your assssin, not your assssin.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
One night, a few months later, my father and I
would return her home from our evening's walk. A full
moon was high above the horizon, and the road, save
for the black shadows of the bordering trees, was a
ghostly white. As we approached the gate of our dwelling,
(12:03):
the father suddenly stopped. He clutched my eye, Father, what's
the matter there there?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What is that? I see nothing?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Father?
Speaker 5 (12:13):
There there the gate directly head.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
There's nothing. Father, Come on now, we'd better go in
for your eel.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Now go away, ah, go away, father, what do you
see now, Julia, No, no.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
I tried to follow him, but for some reason couldn't
move from the spot away.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You'll had touched my face. It was all about me, Julie.
I couldn't turn my head.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
No, no, leave me alone, Leave me alone.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
When I turned to look for my father, he was gone.
And in all the years that have passed, no whisper
of his fate has reached me. I remained here, my youth,
the brilliant parts and promise faded, its life, blood drained,
(13:12):
sifted into the darkness and the silence of this house.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Voices seek me out.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
I hear them not, but only doubt, doubt, doubt, in emptiness.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah, drink up, a.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Drink up.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Tomorrow today, I suppose you would say I was alive, live.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And tomorrow.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Well, there's no tomorrow, no yesterday. Ah, there's nothing beyond
that forest, those trees. That's all I can remember. Back
to forest. Twenty years ago. I came out of a forest,
(15:08):
made my way across the country, all the way.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
To this.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Place.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Well, that was something that was something I didn't even
know my name. I called myself. I called myself Casper. Casper.
Everyone wants to know what's your name? What's your name?
(15:44):
In this world, everyone must have a name. It prevents confusion,
even when it does not establish an identity. Casper prevented
confusion and spent twenty years trying to find her comfortable
(16:04):
way to die. There's some small light though, of a past.
I don't believe it, and I can't believe it. Yeah,
(16:26):
that's the only thing that seems like a recollection, even
if it's wrong or confused. The only thing I power
that life. Two scenes that play over and over. First,
there there's a house, a big house owned by a
(16:51):
prosperous plant. There's a there's a woman, beautiful woman.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Like a child, and the boy.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Their sons, a vague figure, never clear, usually not there
at all. The father loves the wife terribly, but he's
tortured by by a fear that she doesn't belong to him.
He can seem to believe her devotion, her love, and
(17:29):
he's reduced to vogue and commonplace ways of testing her.
One day, one day he goes to the city. He
tells her, I'll be gone till the next afternoon, but
I come back, come back that night and go to
(17:51):
a readore that I had left unlocked.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
It starts all around the house.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Approacher. I hear something. The door was opening, and a finger.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Man.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
I thought it was a man. I feared it was
a man sometimes now I can't even believe it was
a human. He he hided straight for me, then just
disappeared in the dark. I didn't know where to chase him.
So intensely did my my, my jealousy and rage feel me.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I didn't search.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
I rushed into the house and up the stairs, up
the stairs to her room, and I pushed open her door.
I shot the bed vaguely, and the colors tossed about.
I went to it empty. She was gone, escaped, Hadden, Hadden.
(19:04):
I looked, I looked about in the darkness, walked straight
to a corner where she knelt against the wall. I
could see her face, the tearing eyes, the.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Guilt, the guilt.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Ah. My hands red her throat and kneeled on her
struggling body, and there then the darkness. I strangled, strangled, uh.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Till she was dead, dead.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
Dead dead.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
No, No, it never happened. It never happened. I don't
believe it. I was possessed, possessed by some no someone,
But it's all I have. It's all that comes from me,
and I.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Go over it again and again.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Now there's another scene, another dream, another.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Vision of the night.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
I stand among shadows along the moonlit road. Someone is
with me. I cannot see who, but there's another presence it.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Where the road ends at the gate, in.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
The shadow of the large house, I catch the gleam
of white garments. Then the figure of a woman before
me on the road. Huh oh, my wife, Julia, murdered
(21:08):
death in the face, marks, marks on the throat, has
a fixed on mine with an infinite sense sadness, not
et not menace. But the apparition terrifies me. It terrifies me,
(21:30):
still terrifies me. See, still reaches out on me here No.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
No, ohakable.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Dream, this does it? Oh wips it out, to wipes
it out for a little while, for a little.
Speaker 9 (22:14):
While, Stephen, Stephen, No, no, go away, Why not, jole assassin.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
It's no use, and it only confuses me. Why it's
so fearful. He doesn't see me, He never saw me.
I can't imagine what he would see now. But fear
has no sense at all.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
It's crazy, just crazy.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It makes horrible things out of those who want only
kindness and some peace. I keep wandering among these scenes,
these rooms, in search of something that just doesn't matter anymore,
what really happened. No one seems to know. Joel's gone,
(23:25):
and there's only Stephen left for a little while. Stephen's
my son, who wasn't here at the time. He was
away at college. Joel wasn't here either, He'd gone to
Nashville on some business and was staying in the night.
(23:46):
I'd retired early and fallen into a peaceful sleep.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
But then I awoke.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
The house seemed more than usually quiet. I had a
strange sense of danger, of something. Not that I was
afraid of being alone. I was off and alone, but.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
This was different.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
There was a chill as one waits for a thing
long imagined or feared, and the feeling grew As I
lay there. I felt as if I were lying straight
and cold in my coffin, the white satin around my head,
(24:27):
the smell of dried flowers, a little bouquet I held
in my hand. I wanted to pull my fingers apart,
but couldn't, as in a dream. No no, I strained
for some sign of life in me, and then oh,
(24:55):
I could feel my heart pounded. It was a dream.
I sat up in the dark and listened. My own
heart was the only sound.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
At first.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I listened, and after a while I wondered if the
beating came from inside me or somewhere else. I tried
to hear which, and then, as if my own fears
had decided, had reached out into the dark house and
began to assemble some figure.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Something.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I heard it first on the stairway from the back entrance,
just below my room, A soft, irregular sound of footfalls
on the stairs. It was slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of
something they did not see its way, to my disordered reason,
(25:52):
all the more terrifying for that, as the approach of
some blind and mindless malevolence.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
To which there is no appeal. I said that fear
has no brains. It's an idiot.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
But this said a growing purpose bacon shapes It approached.
It approached my door, and then stood there.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I heard the breath. He hesitated his hand.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
On the door, and it turned and went away down
the stairs, hurriedly, as if in sudden fear. I rose
to call for help, but hardly my shaken hand found
(26:42):
the torn up. When I heard it returning, it ran
up the stairs, shaking the house. I fled to corner
the room and crouched on the floor.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
I tried to crow.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I tried cold old bausband. But suddenly it was in
the room, searching me out. Oh hit. It gone to
the pit, stopped there and turned and came directly to me.
(27:21):
I felt a strength and glutch upon my throat. I'll
be against something. Bomb, don't cru itself.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
And then I passed into this life.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
No, I have no knowledge of what it was.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
The sum of what we know of death is the
measure of what we know afterwards no new light, For
upon any page of it in memory is written all.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
That we can read.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
We hide in the dark and peer out into the
dim light of the present and the fading past. But
there is one more scene, a night.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
We know when it is.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Night, For then you retire to your houses, and we
can venture from our places of concealment, to move unafraid
about our old home, to look in at the windows,
even to enter rooms and gaze upon your faces as
you sleep. I could see my husband Joel and Stephen,
(28:46):
how strange they looked, how lone had they loved me?
After all they were saddened and aged by my departure.
I tried so often to make them see me, some way,
to let them know I was here and send them
(29:07):
my great love and pity. But always if I dared
approach awake them in their sleep, they were turned toward me,
the terrible eyes of the living, frightening me, and I
would hesitate as if my hand was now upon the door,
(29:29):
and turn away. On this night I had searched for them,
but they were nowhere in the house. I looked about
the moonlit long, and then moved in the white light
along the path to the gate. Suddenly I saw them
on the road. They had stopped walking and were looking
(29:50):
toward the house.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
I heard their voices.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
They stood in the shadow of a group of trees.
They stood near, so near. Their faces were turned towards me,
and Joel's eyes were fixed on mine.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
He saw me.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
At last, he saw me. All my terror and hesitation
was gone. He sees, he sees, he will understand. I
moved forward, smiling, unconsciously, beautiful, to offer myself to his arms,
to comfort him, to speak words that would restore the
(30:32):
broken bonds between the living and the dead. Joe, Joe, Joe,
but his face went white with fear. His eyes were
those of a hunted animals.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Leave me alone, back.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Away, and ran ran right into the woods.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
He never returned.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Maybe he died and wanders about some other places. I
do here, and Stephen, poor Stephen, has left even more alone.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
You have touched you to I have never.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Been able to make him know that I'm here, watching him,
longing to care for him as a mother should. But
soon he too must pass to this life invisible and
be lost to me.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Lost, windows closed, here's no dress.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
That was The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce. The part
of Julia was played by Norman gen Wandig, Stephen was
Martin Punch. Ellen was played by Nancy Punch, and Joel
was played by your Host of the Black Mass, Eric Bauersfeld.
(32:22):
The technical production was by John Whiting and Now good
Night
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com