The Horror from The Vault by Isaac Boissonneau

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The following conversation, audio recordings, and testimonies all pertained to
the incident, which occurred from October seventh to October thirtieth
in the Aiden County National Reserve and its outlying towns
Alden and Greenvale. This first part contains both a series

(00:23):
of emails between researchers Michael Hayes and Richard Harris.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
From Hayes Research dot gmail dot com two Richard Harris
at Alden National Research Subject important find, Richie. I know
that we haven't spoken in a long time and that
you need your space. But earlier today, while me and
my crew were digging from new mineral samples, we stumbled

(00:52):
upon something huge. Get back to me as soon as
you can, Michael.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Brum Richard Harris at Alden NAT Research too at Hayesresearch
dot gmail dot com subject what is it? Despite the
creeping feeling that you're trying to get me to respond,
I'll bite. What did you find? Oh? And uh, what
do you mean by new mineral samples? What happened to

(01:18):
the old mineral samples?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
From Hayesresearch dot gmail dot com two Richard Harris at
Alden National Research subject the vault, Richie, what happened to
the old samples. Isn't anything to worry about right now.
We've got bigger things to discuss. As I had said
in my previous email, me and my crew, that is

(01:42):
to say, a crew of twenty board college grads. We're
digging up at the base of the tallest mountain in
the park. I can't remember its name. When we found
the entrance to the vault, most of the kids were
more interested in the view, which was, granted, a very
nice one. But some of the kids were actually trying
to earn their credit for a change. And it was
this little group who called me over rather suddenly, just

(02:02):
as I was about to call it a day. Their
voices were so loud and their collective tone was both
excited and frightened. I leaped from my chair and ran
past a little cluster of trees to where they were.
I found them all crowded around something that I couldn't
make out until I was close enough. But when I
saw what it was, I understood both the reactions. The

(02:22):
ground had collapsed where they had been digging, the loose
soil falling away into a hole which had appeared out
of nowhere. So I pushed past the whispering frightened students
and looked down, trying to see if someone had fallen in,
hoping that no one had. Were on a shoe string
budget as it is, without having to deal with a lawsuit.
But I didn't see some deep dark pit. I saw

(02:43):
a set of stairs descending down into the darkness. A
faint rush of cold air hit me when I leaned
in for a closer look, and I backed away. I've
heard stories about toxic spores found in the tombs beneath
the pyramids, so I went to my tent and retrieved
my bandana, which I tied around my face, as well
as my gloves, which I put on. I mean, I

(03:04):
just had to see what was down there. I had to.
I returned to find that some of the kids were
already starting towards the stairs. I warned them off it
in my best stern teacher voice and made sure that
they had some form of protection, as well as lights.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I swear I.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Must be the only one who thinks these things through.
I had one of the kids, a girl by the
name of Lauri Summers, go tell the others what we
had found and what we intended to do, And when
she came back, we started our exploration. The stairs led
farther down than I had anticipated, The descent halted only
by a few landings, where we stopped and talked amongst

(03:41):
each other, or rather, the kids talked. I was too
busy examining the floor, walls and ceiling, and what I
found is pretty damn strange. The material looked like obsidian.
Now I'm not an expert in archaeology, but I've never
heard of a tempt made of obsidian. Maybe you could

(04:02):
share some of that knowledge with me. The stairs ended
after a bit and we found ourselves in an anti chamber.
It was colder than a frost giant scrot down there,
but the air was so still stagnant even, probably a
good thing. I wore my mask and gloves, huh. Anyway,
from the antichamber, we emerged into a short tunnel which

(04:22):
led to a surprisingly spacious chamber. Everything was so dark
that our flashlights did less than we'd hoped. Thankfully, nobody
got hurt. As it turned out, there were five chambers
in total, just five, which strikes me as more than.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
A bit weird.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
But believe me, it got weirder from there. You see,
the first four rooms held nothing, no dust, no furniture,
no bodies, and no signs of animal life. I didn't
even see a single spider or cobweb while I was
down there. But the fifth room was different. The fifth
room had something in it. I honestly have no idea

(05:02):
what the hell it is. At first glance, I thought
it was a sarcophagus of some kind due to its shape,
but when I got closer, I saw that this wasn't
the case at all. It had a rudimentary face and
body etched into it, but unlike the mummies tombs that
I've seen, the overall picture didn't add up to something human.

(05:23):
I honestly can't really describe what was wrong with it,
but everything about it looked off despite how it looked
from a distance. The coffin is also made of metal,
though I'll need to run a few tests to determine
just what type of metal it is. We brought it
back here and have been setting up the necessary equipment,
but I think that this one will give us a

(05:43):
bit more trouble than the usual fair mostly because I
can't see any way into the damn thing. I feel
like one of those handsome adventurer scientists you'd see in
a B movie looking over something new and interesting, waiting
with baited breath to see what will come of this
new find. It's so interesting. Maybe we can talk more
in person, say over dinner. Michael from Hayesresearch dot gmail

(06:12):
dot com. Two Richard Harris at Alden National Research Subject. Sorry,
sorry I missed dinner. Work at the lab has yielded
some unforeseen results, and me and most of my team
have been feeling under the weather. I'm glad the kids
let my team do the rest of the work. Don't

(06:33):
think that I could stand to hear them whining about
how much their head's hurt or how sick they've been feeling.
I feel like crap in.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
The usual flu type way.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
But I haven't stopped working on opening that damned coffin.
Whatever it really is, it seems as though we stumbled
across something new. How many of us get to say that? So, yeah,
my health is worth it. The samples the metal from
the coffin and stone from the chamber came back yesterday.

(07:03):
I can safely say that I've never seen anything like it.
As it turns out, the stone is obsidian in appearance,
only it was apparently filled with microscopic bands of frozen liquid,
which is yet to yield a match to any known
chemical compound. And I swear this is true. It's warm,

(07:24):
not room temperature. It's consistently stayed at thirty seven degrees celsius.
And the metal every one of our tests have come
up negative, every single one. It looks and feels like metal,
but it isn't. I don't have any idea what it is.

(07:44):
This could be big, Richy, really big. This last email
wasn't ever sent. It was found as a safe draft
on mister Hayes's computer from Hayes Research dot Gmail two
Richard Harris at out in National Research subject Have you

(08:07):
ever had a dream that was so bad you woke
up in tears? I did last night. It was so awful,
so real. At first I thought I was on a seashore,
but the ground was warm and moist beneath my feet,
and when I looked down, I saw that instead of sand,

(08:27):
there were pores and tiny hairs and purple veins. I
looked at the sea and saw something that looked like
water but was stagnant and stank like an infected cut.
And above me I saw a dark, cloudless red sky
without stars or moon. It was so real I didn't

(08:48):
think that I was going to wake up.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Today.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
At the lab, everyone went about their business without talking.
I knew that something was wrong. Something was hanging over
everyone's head like a guillotine waiting to fall. Some of
my colleagues are irritable today. Many smell like they haven't washed,
and all have bags under their eyes. They're not listless, though,

(09:12):
If anything, they're more intent on their work than they
usually are. Most of them aren't even talking to each other.
We've decided to open the coffin, using strong acids to
weaken the metal or whatever it is before taking a
saw to it. We'll have it open in a few
hours and then we can all rest.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
The following is the transcript of the testimony of police
officer Eileen Moore, who was called in to investigate the
research facility after two weeks of no outside contact. It's
November thirtieth. I'm here with the witness. State your name
and badge number for the record, please.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
Officer Eileen Thomas Moore. My badge number is hold on
zero nine, zero two four, five to three.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
All right, so you could proceed with your testimony.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
Oh, can I can I really, it's only been three
hours since we started. U FBI agents are exactly as
uptied about roles as the movie. Say. Either that or
you're unbelievably shitty at figuring out how recorders work?

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Is the testimony? Please, Officer more?

Speaker 5 (10:32):
What is this new fangled computer thing too much for
you to handle? You look like you're what twenty twenty one?
How the hell do you not know how to work
a computer?

Speaker 1 (10:42):
The testimony, Officer More.

Speaker 5 (10:43):
I have all day, obviously, Officer more. All right, all right,
it's just just give me a minute, Officer more, do
not rush me. You weren't there, kid, you didn't see it,

(11:06):
So with all due respect, shut the fuck up and
give me a damn minute, all right. I was called
in on October tenth. I'd been anticipating some time alone
with my wife, so I was a bit ticked when
I got the call. I wanted to tell them to

(11:26):
get another officer, but the recent flooding in Alden had
left the station understaffed and stretch pretty thin. What my
little town lacks in population, it makes up for an
over zealous whining. I cannot count the times I've been
called out because some old lady thought she saw a
wolf for a bear or pickfoot. Despite their pleading, I

(11:51):
wanted to let them handle it, but Andrea, that's my wife,
told me to go.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
So that was that.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
Now my little town lies farther from the National Reserve.
Alden is the town closest to it, but some of
that wilderness reaches us and makes it pretty as a
post guard. So we were constantly ranked pretty high up
on the lists of prettiest towns, right next to some
in Vermont and Maine. I used to agree with popular

(12:23):
opinion on that the summers out there were warm and
full of every shade of green you could think of.
The falls were cozy, and the local kids made a
hell of a lot of profit from leaf raaking. The
winters sucked, though, but when do they ever not? I'm stalling, sorry.

(12:46):
It was early in October, so the cold was creeping
in and the leaves were clogging the gutters. It had
rained all that week, and all the weather reports were
saying that it would keep raining. It did rain a
bed on the way to the lab, but it cleared
up pretty quick, New England weather and all that. The
Lab was a big, four story concrete and metal monstrosity

(13:07):
which looked out of place and all that wilderness like
a scar almost I got out of the car and
noticed that the lights were still on. I went up
to the door, hoping that all the people there were
just too deep into their work to talk to the
outside world. But I got no response no matter what

(13:28):
I did. So I called in our resident lock pick,
who overcharged me before he did his job, and went in.
I looked around, gave myself a tour of the facility.
I knew that something wasn't quite right from the moment
I stepped a foot in there. It was far too quiet.
There were no sounds except the pattering of rain on

(13:49):
the roof. The more signes started appearing as I worked
my way through the place. Kitchen full of expired food,
a spilt cup of coffee near the stairway to the
third floor that was feeding a mouse, an upended wastebasket
near a bathroom, and a whole lot of open doors.
And there were little things, but each one put an

(14:10):
extra weight on my mind. But I wasn't scared, just unnerved.
And then I got to the fourth and final floor.
I was walking down the hall when I felt a
draft through one of the open doors. I looked in
and saw the largest window in the room had been shattered.

(14:32):
I went in to investigate and immediately noticed that there
were no trees near the window that were high enough
to reach it. There was no debris on the floor
and no glass on the inside, and the outer edges
of the window frame were bent and cracked.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And that was what scared you.

Speaker 5 (14:50):
So it finally talks, and no, it wasn't. It was
what I found lying in a heap off to the side,
away from the window.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
What did you find?

Speaker 5 (15:03):
Clothes? A big pile of wet clothing, just lying there,
soaking up the rain. That was when I started to
get scared. It was an image that just struck me
as unnatural. I rummaged through them and found the wallets
and jewelry and money all intact too, So whatever it was,

(15:26):
it wasn't a robbery.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Was there any blood none.

Speaker 5 (15:31):
The clothes were ripped, but that was it. At this
point I was sufficiently ready to call in back up,
so I went out of the room to see if
I could get a better signal outside, and I was
about halfway to the stairs when I saw a shadow
on the wall opposite me. I turned around, and there
she was, standing in a doorway, dirty and mad, like

(15:52):
a rabid dog. The instant she saw me, she bolted.
I decided to err on the side of caution and
call him back up. I didn't follow her. The look
in her eyes was warning enough, but I did take
a look at the room where she had come from.
The room had probably been one of the swank ear labs,
but everything, all the equipment, the beakers and the chemicals

(16:15):
in them were smashed and shattered, and at the center
of the room was a tall metal thing looked like
a coffin, but there were way too many sides, and
the metal bulged out in weird ways. I went up
to get a closer look, and I saw that the front,
at least I think it was the front, was decorated

(16:36):
with some kind of ghoul or monster, one whose face
was gone.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Could you elaborate?

Speaker 5 (16:47):
There was a hole where the face used to be.
It was like something had punched through it, but the
edges of the metal were bent outwards.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Just just for the record, do you have any fear
as to what might have been in that coffin?

Speaker 5 (17:04):
Even after what's happened, I still don't know, and I
don't want to know. Leave it at that and the
woman we later found out her name was Laurie Summers,
but it took some doing, considering she was far too
violent to let us fingerprint her. We eventually got lucky

(17:25):
and another officer managed to get some hair from her.
She was trying to tear hers out. She didn't really
tell us anything that we thought was important. When I
asked her what had happened to her colleagues, she only
said they were taken after what happened at the lab.
Everyone at the station, myself included, or a bit on edge.

(17:49):
We had a bunch of missing people, the family and
friends of whom were breathing down our necks within a
day of rumor spreading, and our only witness wasn't in
the right mental state to tell us anything. I was
more unnerved than the others because I was there first,
So when the call came and I heard what was
going on, I felt like I was going to throw up.

(18:09):
Over the course of one night, we received about a
dozen emergency calls from Alden, all of which sounded legitimate.
Alden is too small to have a real police force.
The most they have as a sheriff a car and
a few guns inside a puny former office building. So
they call us for the big emergencies. The call started

(18:32):
at eight forty five, when a local hunter called from
his lodge to report that his friends hadn't returned from
what was supposed to be a short trip. An hour later,
an old woman called to say she saw something moving
outside of her summer home, and fifty minutes after that,
a little girl called us to say that she had
seen a monster outside her window. Her parents had gone

(18:52):
out to calm her down and hadn't come back. The
calls kept coming in after this verse three, but the
other's were pretty similar. Eventually the call stopped. I was
called in after the last one had been recorded.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
It was a woman.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
She said her name was Sandra Williams. She said that
her and the rest of the town had huddled up
in the high school. There's something outside, she said. We
keep hearing it out in the streets. It sounds big.
We went to all done at dawn and found a
school full of very frightened, very tired people. Once that

(19:32):
was done, we all formed search parties to go out
looking for the missing townspeople. I was the one in
charge of the second largest group, and we took to
the alleyways and backyards. But all I saw was a
trampoline with its mesh sighting ripped apart, a few cars
with their doors opened, and seven piles of clothes all torn,

(19:53):
all bloodless.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
I see. Now, before we take a break, I need
to bring something that you previously set up. You mentioned
having a nightmare the same night. Can you tell me
about that?

Speaker 5 (20:08):
Why they're just dreams?

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Just please tell me?

Speaker 5 (20:12):
Why do I need to?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
All I can tell you is that the scientists who
are working on the coffin may have experienced nightmares similar
to yours. Now, will you please recount your first dream?

Speaker 4 (20:27):
All right?

Speaker 5 (20:31):
I was standing in some kind of field or plane,
surrounded by trees on all sides. It was dusk, so
the light was getting dim, but I could see the
ground beneath me and the horizon. I knew something wasn't
right almost immediately. It was so quiet, the air didn't move.

(20:53):
There are no signs of life all around me, and
I got this feeling that the place, wherever the hell
it was, was a dead place, a place where nothing
could grow or thrive. I started walking, but the ground
never moved when I did it was like I was
walking in place, and then a shadow fell over me,

(21:16):
and I got this feeling of being watched from some
place high up. I looked up, and there above me,
where the sun should have been, was this big, swollen
tumor that moved like a heart. And as I looked,
it got closer and closer, making the ground tremble as

(21:39):
it did. And something moved just underneath the ground. Something
I couldn't see, but I could still feel through the
soles of my shoes, something very large, something that kept
me from running. And then I heard something pierce through
the quieting tore it up and filled my ears, and

(22:02):
I wanted to cover my ears, but I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
What was it that you were hearing?

Speaker 5 (22:09):
Screaming men, children, women, all of them screaming like the
skin was being pulled off their bodies, screaming like they
had been set on fire. The tumor was right above
me now, and when I looked up again, I got
a good look at its surface. It wasn't a tumor.

(22:36):
It was a mass, a mass of people, all naked,
all fused to each other, with their own blood and skin,
all bloody and mutilated and screaming and struggling to tear
themselves free as something beneath them. More people, I think,

(22:57):
pressed up against them, and Andrea was among them. I
picked her out almost immediately. I told you about Andrea.
We've been married for almost twelve years now. She's the
light of my life. I do anything for her. And

(23:17):
to see her like that, begging and screaming like that,
I I'm glad the phone woke me up. I see
are you married? You got a girlfriend? Boyfriend?

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Na not as of right now, and you don't know shit.
Officer more. We're not done yet.

Speaker 5 (23:44):
Please sit that I'm taking a smoke break.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
This next testimony was given by Sandra Williams, who recounts
her night in the school.

Speaker 6 (24:05):
I'm not a heavy sleeper. I've been living alone for
about five years, and I guess I'm a bit paranoid.
Even out in Olden, which is by all accounts totally
nice and pleasant, I never felt exactly safe at nighttime.
I don't know. Maybe it was just how close to
the woods my house was. I've never been a big
fan of the great outdoors. I just don't like the

(24:27):
idea of being alone out there in the dark. Even
before that night, I heard things near my backyard, and
the constant mention of wolves and bears and snakes didn't
help either, So I guess my paranoida paid off. It
was around midnight when I woke up. My house is
a little one story placed with the big backyard. I'd

(24:47):
heard and seen animals in there before, raccoons and cats mostly,
but what I heard moving around in the dark sounded
a lot bigger. I got it quickly, got my socks
on and went to the window in my bedroom. I
didn't see anything but a tree trunk, so I went
to the back door and looked out.

Speaker 5 (25:06):
It was so dark out there. The trees grow pretty
tall out.

Speaker 6 (25:10):
There, so the moon was hidden, and my porch lights
were getting up in their years so they weren't as
bright as they used to be, so when I turned
them on, they barely lit up the porch. I couldn't
see anything out there, so I thought that maybe whatever
it was got scared off or moved on or something.
I just started to go back to bed when I
heard something bump into the side of the house farther

(25:30):
away from the backyard near the bedroom. A second later,
the window in my bedroom shattered and I ran out
the front door as fast as I could. I tried
my neighbor's house, but they were gone for the week
and I'd left my car behind, so I ran all
the way into town. I got to the sheriff's office
and told him what had happened. He promised that he'd
send someone to check out my house and had me

(25:52):
wait and fill out some paperwork and give a statement.
So he sent someone out and I sat back and waited,
but the officer didn't come back. And then the call
started coming in, one after the other, each one making
the sheriff more and more stressed. I tried to ask
him what was going on, but he told me to

(26:13):
wait at the station while he went out and looked
things over himself. I honestly didn't expect him to come back,
but he did. He came back into the office clutching
his side and huffing like an asthmatic. I went over
to see if he needed help, but he grabbed my
shoulders and said, Sandy, something's happening here, something bad. We
need to go to the school and meet up with

(26:34):
the others. Something's out there and it's taking people, as
you can expect. What he said made my heart leap
into my throat and I beat him to the car.
We rode in silence, with me staring at the window,
taking in the empty houses and cars. A few times
I thought I saw something moving in the alleys and

(26:55):
on rooftops. I tried to dismiss them as just shadows
and my exhaustion kicking in. But after what happened, I
think that whatever it was that came into our town
was following the car our town as a school that
had obviously been designed by someone who thought that Alden
was going to become some massive city. It's a big,
four story brick building with a lot of very tall windows.

(27:18):
We were able to fit most of what was left
of the town in the gym. Everyone looked scared and tired,
and the mayor looked like he was about to have
a heart attack. Everyone was just standing around, looking worried
or crying because someone they knew or loved had gone missing.
I wasn't feeling very talkative, so I left the main
group and wandered over to the nearby window. Everything was

(27:41):
so still. There wasn't a breeze, there wasn't a sound
from outside. It was like someone had pressed the mute button.

Speaker 5 (27:48):
On the world.

Speaker 6 (27:49):
I'd even tuned out the people in the gym, trying
to just just get a hold of myself. I didn't
bother trying to see who was or wasn't there, but
I I later learned that out of a thousand, only
five hundred and twenty.

Speaker 5 (28:04):
Three people were left.

Speaker 6 (28:06):
A few hours passed and my eyes started to get heavy.
Everyone else had quieted down and were just milling about,
looking unsure of what to do. The families were all
clustered together, trying to comfort each other.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
The full weight of what.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
Had happened hit me right then, I think, and I
just leaned against the window as my knees got weak. Outside,
the moon was hidden by clouds and pretty low on
the horizon. It was that time of night when dawn
wasn't too far away, but it still wasn't light out.
The window overlooked both the playground and the street which
passed the school. I decided to stare out into space

(28:44):
and try to keep myself calm. I kept telling myself
that help would come soon, but I honestly didn't know
if that was true. Maybe the calls hadn't gotten through
to the real police. Maybe they didn't believe us, or
maybe whatever was out there in the dark had gone
to Greenvale first. That last thought made me want to

(29:05):
throw up. I was about to go ask someone for
their phone when I saw something outside move. I didn't
see all of it, but I saw how big it
was and how I honestly can't really find a word
to describe how its silhouette looked. Besides wrong, I couldn't
spend too much time trying to piece together what I
had seen. The thing, whatever it was, had found us

(29:27):
and was right outside the school. I alerted everyone, and
they all set about going into the depths of the
school to lock the doors and barricade the windows with
whatever they could find. I commandeered a phone from someone
and called the police in Greenville. After about an hour,
the people who had fortified the school came back, and
we all sat huddled together in the dark, listening. I

(29:49):
honestly didn't expect to hear anything. It was getting lighter outside,
and I guess I guess I was remembering all those
childhood stories where the monster vanishes at some but that
wasn't the case. Just as the morning bird song was starting,
we heard one of the barricades near the gym break.
I was one of the people who got to the

(30:10):
barricades first. I saw the thing push the tables away
from one of the windows near the main entrance. Again,
I didn't see all of it, but I did see
three hands clawing at the table, pushing it and splintering
it with punches. I was close enough to see that
the hands are bloodied, the skin in tatters, the nails
ripped off, bits of glass stuck through the palms. But

(30:33):
I never heard a sound from outside, no breathing, no grunting,
no talking. The hands just kept coming at the table. Someone,
a man who I think must have been a teacher,
had found a fire extinguisher somewhere in the building, so
he tried bashing at the hands. He actually broke some fingers.

(30:54):
I could hear the bones breaking from where I was.
It took a few hits, but eventually the hands drew
back through the window. And that's when the smell hit me.
I swear to you, it's stink like the world's biggest
infected cut. It was horrible. Reminded me of maggots and
puss and rotting meat. The thing left us alone after that,

(31:17):
but we could still hear it moving around the school,
so we were all on edge even after the police came.
I'm honestly surprised that none of them got attacked.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Two.

Speaker 6 (31:27):
I haven't gone back home yet. I don't think I
can after what happened. I have a friend who still
lives there, and she says that the whole town feels
like a tomb, and everyone who still lives there can
feel how wrong the place is. She tells me that
everyone there looks tired out and afraid. Says she's been
having bad dreams, although she won't tell me what they're about.

(31:48):
She says that even the policemen who are stationed there
are just as uneasy as.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
The people who chose to stay.

Speaker 6 (31:54):
I'll have my friend get my things for me. She's
going to move away, and I think I'll join her.
Alden isn't safe. I think it needs to just fade away.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
This next testimony was given shortly after Sandra Williams. Not
long after her testimony was recorded, several officers stationed in
Alden were found in Comatos states near wooded areas near
them were found several strange clusters of an organic material
which was found to admit a noxious gas in large quantities.
Most of these clusters were burned, several were taken for examination.

(32:41):
Please state your name and occupation for the record, Sir, my.

Speaker 7 (32:44):
Name is Herbert Halsey, a coroner and microbiologist work and
at Quantico. I was brought in to study the mounds
found in Alden.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
All right, My next question was going to be what
you were called in for, but I can see that
you've beat me to that so well. Can you tell
us about the mountains?

Speaker 7 (33:03):
Well, some people came into my office one day and
told me that there was something that I needed to
take a look at. At first I thought it would
be a standard autopsy or something like that, But when
they shepherded me into a decontamination shower in a hazmat suit,
I knew I.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Was in for a day. Sure it was. Now can
you tell me about the mountains?

Speaker 7 (33:24):
Of course, when I first saw them, I wasn't honestly
sure whether or not I was being pranked. I mean
they looked like big old piles of ovals just plopped
into trays. But then I got closer, and let me
tell you, I decided to drop what I was doing
to examinate them. I mean, I don't mean to get

(33:44):
my own hopes up. But what I found will probably
get me in a few medical papers, maybe some of
the big ones, like the New England Journal of Medicine.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
I mean, how many could you please describe the mountains? Oh? Yeah,
of course.

Speaker 7 (34:00):
Well they were large and red and covered with fine
white hairs. They were soft to a degree and filled
with little holes like a showerhead, and their bases had
a few dozen offshoots that looked like well, like veins
and arteries.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
So the stuff was flesh. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (34:23):
I ran it through a few dozen tests, took a
look at it under the microscope, all that stuff, and
I found that it was composed mainly of dog, deer, bobcats,
several types of birds, and a unknown substance that I
have yet to identify. I found various animal organs inside
of the thing when I cut it open, but all

(34:44):
of them had been well, I guess the scientific term
is assimilated. They had been assimilated into one mass. But
it wasn't some bizarre case where the organs had rotted
and future and turned into a slurry. No, it was
whole and it was functional. Everything needed for an organ

(35:09):
to work was in place. There was no damage that
different parts had been blended together seamlessly.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Well was it? What was its function?

Speaker 7 (35:20):
I found a strange, very volatile liquid inside of the organ,
one which reacted to oxygen in a very odd way.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
You see.

Speaker 7 (35:32):
I took a sample and put it under an electron microscope.
When I took a look, I discovered that the cells
within the liquid were actually multiplying. Within a few hours,
my peatrie dish was filled with little red clumps which
had a cellular and biological structure like I'd never seen before.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
I see how fast did they grow?

Speaker 7 (35:58):
Fast enough so that they build out over the peach?
Redition started to spread over the counter and I had
just left the office for a few hours. Of course,
we had to burn the samples after that happened, but
it was for the best.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
And the mountains.

Speaker 7 (36:15):
We recorded what we could, froze a few samples and
burn the rest. It was excreting spores that probably would
have had dangerous effects had we not decontaminated the whole
damn place.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Well, thank you for your testimony, doctor Halsey. You can
leave now.

Speaker 7 (36:30):
Oh trying to get rid of me quick? Huh you
got another interview coming up?

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she'll she'll be back from her
smoke breaks soon. I think it was a pleasure speaking
to you. Same here, welcome back, Officer More.

Speaker 5 (36:51):
Yes, hi, whatever, let's just finish this. You want to
know what happened on the twenty third and twenty fourth, right, yes, fine,
Just let me leave.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
After this, Okay. I think I can arrange that.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
Good.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
This place stinks like a hospital and I don't like
to be out after dark anymore.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Could you please?

Speaker 4 (37:14):
You know that what was out there wasn't human.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Right, you've indicated that, Officer More. But I don't believe
in monsters, at least not the not the kind that
you're talking about.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
The thing wasn't human, kid. There's evidence to support my theory,
like what Sandra Williams saw that night in the school.
She told me in vivid detail.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
She said that it was dark, No, the sun was
already up. She might have been hallucinate.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
From what we tested her. She came out clean of
any mind altering drugs, and her fellow talentspeople corroborated her story.
We tested them all and no one was on anything,
So that's out the window. Try another kid.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Maybe the scientists were contaminated by some kind of mind
altering spore from the coffin, and they just they went
crazy and around.

Speaker 5 (38:18):
That's almost a comforting thought. But if that were the case,
then did the same thing happen to the people and
all them? I asked the people who got a hold
of that coffin to check it for anything like that,
and do you know what? They concluded.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
That there were no spores.

Speaker 5 (38:38):
That's right, no spores, not even the slightest trace of
mold or fungus. They told me that coffin barely had
dust on it. So what would make a building full
of respectable seeing people strip and run off into the woods.
Were they on drugs too? Huh?

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Well? I maybe maybe they were.

Speaker 5 (39:04):
Scared, scared, scared so bad they jumped out of their clothes.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Well, I I don't know. Let's let's wrap this.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
Up all right. I was called in after a bunch
of my fellow officers were found in Coma's up in Alden,
and I, uh don't honestly know what the chief was
thinking sending them up there. It's not like whoever took
the people was just going to come waltzing out of
the woods and give itself up. And I highly doubt

(39:39):
that anyone left in Olden had the spirit to riot
or start shit with each other. So the officers, their
names were Tony Rhodes, Claudio Diamico, and Curtis Parker, if
you want to know, ended up in Coma's near a
bunch of meat pods or whatever the hell they were,
and that got most of my higher ups off their asses,

(40:01):
and they actually tried to do something. They called me
and a bunch of others in to do a search
of the woods. They brought the dogs, plenty of firepower,
and the helicopter with the big ass searchlight whole nine yards.
We split up into groups of two and spread out
with the intent of going in a grid pattern. Me
and my partner, guy named Bill Lincoln, who was as

(40:23):
old and experienced as I was, found ourselves alone pretty quick.
We tried the usual things to keep away that uneasy
feeling when you're alone in the wilderness. We joked and
talked about our favorite movies and our loved ones, but
our words ran out after a while, so we walked
in silence. There was a silence. I think that started

(40:46):
getting to me. I've been in the reserve plenty of
times and there was always always animal activity, but not
that night. That night, all I could hear were our
footsteps and the wind moaning through the trees around us.
It was like whatever had settled there had driven the

(41:09):
animals away. Bill and I were quite a ways in
when we heard something coming at us from the undergrowth
to our left. We readied our guns and aimed them
where we thought the attack would come from. I can
still feel the trimmer in my hand when I think
of that moment. I was petrified, waiting for the boogeyman

(41:31):
to lunge out from the shadows, wondering if I could
fire the gun. But as it turned out, I didn't
have to. The thing that bounded out of the undergrowth
was a deer, a big buck with one of its
antlers snapped off. It was gone just as quickly as
it had come, but the fear in its eyes told

(41:56):
me that the thing was close. Another few steps and
we passed a canopy and came to a place where
the trees had been bent and cracked, and the ground
was torn up and covered in tracks, some of which
looked just like the marks of bare feet and hands.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
What did you do? Then?

Speaker 5 (42:15):
I did my job and called it in. Now I
was content to stay put and wait until everyone grouped up.
But all that went out the window when I heard
something ahead of us, not too far away, but far
enough so that we had no clue where it was
coming from. It was a girl, a little girl, and

(42:39):
she was screaming. Do you have any younger siblings?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yes, I have a brother.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
You have a break a bone when he was little.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, we were at a walgreens. He slipped on some ice.
He broke his arm in two places.

Speaker 5 (42:58):
Do you remember how he screamed?

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yes, yes, I do.

Speaker 5 (43:05):
The sound that I heard that night from out of
the darkness was a thousand times more agonized than that.
It was a little girl screaming like every bone in
her body was getting ground to paced. The screaming kept going,
and both of us were looking around, and neither of

(43:27):
us knew where the hell it was coming from. And
then Bill screamed. What happened next happened so fast, so
damn fast. One minute he was beside me, his gun drawn,
and the next minute he was on his back, his

(43:49):
gun gone, and his body being dragged into the darkness
with more speed than I thought was humanly possible. He
was gone before I could try to help, But I
did see something in those seconds before he was gone.
I saw two hands clutching Bill's ankle, one with painted nails,

(44:11):
one with the wedding ring. It was stupid, but I
just stood there after it had happened. I I couldn't
wrap my head around what had just happened. I didn't
see where the hands ended, or where they had come from,
or how they could have dragged poor Bill away like

(44:33):
that with as much speed as they did. I felt
like someone had sucker punched me. But I shive reacted faster.
Maybe I could have gotten a shot off. Yeah, scared
the thing away. Then again, maybe not. I was only
really brought back to earth when I heard Bill start

(44:58):
screaming from somewhere nearby. And unlike the girl, he kept
on screaming, and I was able to get a good
read on where he was, so I ran after him.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Your fellow officers said that they found you near the
main road. Is is that where you went?

Speaker 4 (45:20):
No?

Speaker 7 (45:20):
No.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
I followed the screaming deeper into the woods, got some
nasty cuts from the brambles, stumbled over roots, nearly broke
my neck a few times, but I didn't care. It
had just been such a long month, a month of
waking up from nightmares, of listening intently to the local radio,

(45:42):
wondering if i'd hear about more disappearances, of wondering if
whatever had taken those scientists had seen me in the lab,
if I was going to come home to find it
waiting in the darkness for me, or maybe coming back
home and finding a window broken, isle of ripped clothes
belonging to my wife. And now I was going to

(46:07):
get some answers, at least that's what I thought. Bill
kept screaming, and the louder it got, the more afraid
I became. That I kept on running until I burst
through a cluster of trees and found myself in a
clearing well it was it used to be a clearing

(46:31):
When I got there, it looked more like Hell itself
had oozed up from the earth. Those mounds you guys found,
the ones made from animal parts, Yeah, they were everywhere.
They were all growing from animals who'd had their stomachs
opened up and their guts stretched down over the ground.
There were so many of them it must have been

(46:54):
most of the reserve's animal population In one place. The
ground was completely covered in them. When I got closer,
I saw that their muscles and tissue, their skin and bones,
they'd all been ripped out and woven together like like
a carpet. And the mounds were all moving, pulsing like hearts.

(47:19):
I could hear them from all of them together at
the same time. And the animals, the animals were still alive.
I saw them move and twitch. I could hear them
trying to breathe. I saw the moonlight reflected off their eyes.

(47:40):
They couldn't have been alive, but they were.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Off more pleas.

Speaker 5 (47:45):
That's why the woods were so silent.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
You know.

Speaker 5 (47:49):
All of the fucking animals were plastered together in that
clearing and turned into a living carpet. I can still
hear their long striving to work, and those those tie
any little limbers they made. And at the center of
the glaring, surrounded by these huge, throbbing mounds, was a
pond upon that stink like piss and blood and other things,

(48:13):
a pond where all the juices from those animals collected.
I heard Bill from across the way, and I looked,
and there there he was, being dragged to the pond
by I. It looked like a tentacle or a tail.
But when I look closer. I saw the two hands
that had grabbed him, then two more, then a dozen more,

(48:36):
and then I saw arms of every skin color and
wet muscle and dripping intestines. The thing that had hold
of him was made of human parts, and it was moving.
Bill screamed for help. He screamed like a child, like

(48:56):
a baby when it gets delivered. He begged and cried
and howled as he was ragged closer to the pond.
And I I, I just stood there and watched, And
then I saw something in the pond move, something big,

(49:20):
something that twitched and moved like every part of it
was living. A leg at least that's what I think
it was, came out and grabbed a hold of the
ground with a thousand fingers. Another followed, than four more,
and then the rest of it came out. Have you

(49:44):
ever seen a person going to shock? Of course you have.
I have to, but I never actually experienced it before
that night. But when that that thing surfaced, I just
felt my whole body go cold. It looked like a

(50:07):
spider and a crab and an octopus all at the
same time, but every part of it was made from
human remains. Legs with their feet still attached into arms,
with their hands intact, dangle below it, twitching and grabbing
at nothing. Its back was made from bone, spines, femers,
all fucking skeletons, all bound by tendon and other stuff.

(50:31):
And between the cracks in its hide, I saw organs
and smaller limbs. The thing which had a hold of
Bill was I think the thing's tongue, I don't know.

(50:52):
I used what I had left of my strength to
run the other way as fast as I could.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
It ate Bill.

Speaker 5 (51:00):
I know it did. Officially, he's been reported as missing,
but they're never going to find his body. They might
find his clothes, though they ever find that clearing and
h if they do, they're not going to leave to
report back.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
I quit after that night, packed my things and left
with Andrea and didn't say a word to anyone. I
don't feel guilty about that. I had to get out.
I had to protect my wife. I used to think

(51:45):
the world was simple, that bad shit happened and we
had to live with it, That the universe was one
big cluster fuck of bizarre coincidences, that there's nothing supernatural,
no Boogeyman, no monsters.

Speaker 5 (52:04):
That didn't look human, but I know better.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
Now, listen to me, kid, if you have any say whatsoever,
you'll get your bosses to go into that reserve and
set the fucking place on fire.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
I don't that's I can't believe that.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
Have you seen the news, kid, I have. It seems
like the people who live near the reserve have started
reporting less animal activity than is normal. Pretty soon, whatever
remained of the animal population is going to be gone.

Speaker 5 (52:47):
Fuel for whatever that thing is doing. And how much
you want to bet that you'll be seeing a few
disappearances in the towns that are farther away in the
coming months. Take my advice. Talk to our bosses.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
I think our time is up here, Officer more you
can go now. We'll have a car waiting when you
get out.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
Oh thank god. You remember when I said, kid, burn
the reserve.

Speaker 5 (53:29):
Don't let that thing spread.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
As of now, seventeen disappearances have been reported in towns
near and around the reserve. There also seems to have
been a sudden rash of nightmares with elements such like
the ones described previously in many people in the surrounding
towns and even outside of them. As far as I
could find, these statements originally transcribed by the Alden County

(53:55):
Police Department. He either kids, it's me mister creepy Pasta.
I just want to say thank you guys for watching
Connects video listening to tonight's episode of the podcast. Also,
I want to give a huge thank you to everybody
on this list of patreons. If you'd like to join
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check the description in the link down below, which I

(54:17):
really appreciate because this helps me one keep the flights
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(54:38):
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(54:58):
honestly anybody who can pledge, even it's like one dollar
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(55:18):
during this kind of rough time for me having you
guys around, and I mean this wholeheartedly, it is incredibly
so hey, thank you, thank you for being here, thanks
for being a part of this, and as always, folks,
sweet dreams,

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