15th Annual SYSK Halloween Spooktacular!
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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the spooktacular spookcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. And we are all wrapped in bandages because we're mummies. Scary mummies. Mummies that have been dead for thousands of years, but now want to pull your brains out with the hooks we were buried with.

That's good. Thanks. I've been writing it and workshopping it for months. I think it paid off, my friend. So if you are new to the show or new enough that you don't know what we do on Halloween, what we do is we each pick a spooky story that's in the public domain so we don't get sued. And we read it together, sometimes with fun accents, sometimes without accents.

This is an ad-free episode. We've mentioned this before, but we had it written into our work contract that Halloween and Christmas are, I guess, barricaded off from ads so you can enjoy the spooktacular without...

Having ads right in the middle of it. Yeah. That's easy. It was a good move. Good move. Yeah. So, Josh, we're going to read yours first. You want to set this one up? Yes. This is a story by Aldrin in Blackwood. He's a recurring friend of the spooktacular episodes because he's squarely in the public domain. But he was also a good writer of ghost stories for sure. This one, it's not his best work.

But we, and you in particular, but I think we both did, looked for a story written by a woman. And it's harder to do than you would think because the stuff that's in the public domain, I think we're up to 1928 or 29.

there weren't a lot of women published at the time. At least it was very disproportionate compared to men. So, um, what we did this time was we found a story written by a man, but told from the point of view of a woman. That's as good as we could get this year, everybody. That's right. Uh, the other thing too is, especially back in those days, women didn't write a bunch of horror, short horror. Yeah. And, um, I did find some good ones in the weird tales magazines, but, um,

Those I don't think are in the public domain yet. Some are. That's where you can. Oh, some are. These from like the 1940s. Oh, okay. I found some from like 1928, 29, and they're pretty good.

Yeah, it's also hard to find like a clean copy of those. Like the one I found, I had to blow up a PDF of the magazine itself. It was kind of cool. Wow. But ended up ended up being too long. But maybe I don't know. Maybe we can knock that one out one year. That's funny. We both found a new source of rich source of horror stories to use in the future at the same time. Well, mine was Weird Tales. What was yours?

Amazing stories, astounding stories, something like that. I don't remember. But the first one I sent you, that was from one of those pulp magazines. Oh, okay. Cool. Well, maybe, you know, if we live long enough, we'll be able to read some of those. Yeah, I was thinking if we keep this up for another like 50, 70 years, we're really going to get into some good stuff.

And I won't have to do a creepy accent thing. All right, I'm going to start, okay? All right, so I'm playing the woman, Monty Python style, I guess, right? Mm-hmm. I'm going to be the man. Okay. And by the way, this story for a quote-unquote horror story gets a little sexy.

It does, for sure. You know, I just realized something. The entire story is told by the woman from her point of view. So you're going to be doing a lot of reading unless we split up the stuff where she's relating the story. Well, no, no, no. I think that's what you should do.

Okay. I'll just read her part. And once, once the man comes in, you know, he gets his due, I think. Okay. But we can also switch. You can be the lady. No, no, it's okay. I was just saying it occurred to me that we, um, we should hash this out right here, live on the, on the episode. That's what we usually do. Okay. You ready? All right. Yeah. Let's do it. What's it called? This is the woman's ghost story by Algernon Blackwood. Oh, geez. Sorry. One more quick question. Are they British?

They can be. It doesn't matter. Okay. Okay. I'll probably do British. That's fine. Because you know I'm so good at it. Algernon Blackwood was, I think, 100% British. So we'll just go with that. So we'll go Brit on this one. At least I will. Oh, and then one more thing. Big hat tip and a big thank you to guest producer Ben, who's handling the sound effects this episode. So thanks a lot, Ben. That's right. Sherry decided she didn't like fun in her life anymore.

Okay, so here we go with the woman's ghost story by Aldrin and Blackwood. Yeah. Sorry. Good. Take two. All right, back to one, everybody. So I start, then you're going to read the other stuff, right? Yes, sorry. Okay, all right. Ready? Here we go. Yeah. She said from her seat in the dark corner.

She laughed. No.

We agreed. We were all serious. After listening to a dozen prolix stories from people who merely wished to talk but had nothing to tell, we wanted essentials. In those days... She began feeling from the quality of our silence that we were with her. In those days, I was interested in psychic things and had arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in the middle of London. She's not really British, is she? No. Middle English? Sure. All right.

It was a cheap and dingy lodging house in a mean street, unfurnished. I had already made a preliminary examination in daylight that afternoon, and the keys from the caretaker who lived next door were in my pocket. That doesn't seem essential to me, quite honestly. The story was a good one, satisfied me at any rate, that it was worth investigating, and I won't weary you with details as to the woman's murder and all the tiresome elaboration as to why the place was alive, enough that it was."

I wished to show you the room, he mumbled, and of course I couldn't exactly refuse, having tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and table. I said.

Don't be dumb.

I said...

I felt uncomfortable, as you might imagine. I was a psychical researcher and a young woman of new tendencies and proud of my liberty, but I did not care to find myself in an empty house with a stranger. Something of my confidence left me. Confidence with women, you know, is all humbug after a certain point.

Written by a man? Or perhaps you don't know, for most of you are men. But anyhow, my pluck ebbed in a quick rush and I felt afraid. Who are you? I repeated quickly and nervously. The fellow was well-dressed, youngish and good-looking, but with a face of great sadness. I myself was barely 30. I am giving you essentials or I would not mention it. Out of quite ordinary things comes the story. I think that's why it has value.

Boy, she's really talking a lot about how much she's editing this story. She fills it with mundane details. All right, here we go. The keys were in her pocket, everybody. That's right. And now you. No, he said. I am the man who is frightened to death.

His voice and his words ran through me like a knife, and I felt ready to drop. In my pocket was the book I had bought to make notes in. I felt the pencil sticking in the socket. I felt, too, the extra warm things I had put on to sit up in. As no bed or sofa was available, a hundred things dashed through my mind, foolishly and without sequence or meaning, as the way is when one is really frightened. Unessentials...

Unessentials leaped up and puzzled me, and I thought of what the papers might say if it came out, and what my smart brother-in-law would think, and whether it be told I had cigarettes in my pocket and was a free thinker. The man was frightened to death. I repeated aghast. That's me, he said stupidly.

Well, your name is Gomer. I stared at him just as you would have done. Any one of you men now listening to me and felt my life ebbing and flowing like a sort of hot fluid. You didn't even laugh. That's how I felt. Small things, you know, touch the mind with great earnestness when terror is there. Real terror. But I might have been at a middle class tea party for all the ideas I had. They were so ordinary. But I thought you were the caretaker I tipped this afternoon to let me sleep here. I gasped.

Did Carrie send you to meet me? No, he replied in a voice that touched my boots somehow. I am the man who was frightened to death. And what is more, I am frightened now. So am I. I managed to utter, speaking instinctively. I'm simply terrified. Yes, he replied in that same odd voice that seemed to sound within me. But you are still in the flesh and I am not. What?

I gasped.

The silence of the night swallowed up my voice for the first time I realized that darkness was over the city, that dust lay upon the stairs, that the floor above was untenanted and the floor below empty. I was alone in an unoccupied and haunted house, unprotected, and a woman!

I gasped.

She's kind of dense. I know, man. I told you who I am, he repeated quietly with a sigh.

Looking at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. And I am frightened still. By this time, I was convinced that I was entertaining either a rogue or a madman. And I cursed my stupidity in bringing the man in without having seen his face. My mind was quickly made up and I knew what to do. Ghosts and psychic phenomena flew to the winds. If I angered the creature, my life might pay the price. I must humor him till I got to the door and then race for the street.

I stood bolt upright and faced him. We were about of a height, and I was a strong athletic woman who played hockey in winter and climbed Alps in the summer. My hand itched for a stick, but I had none. Now, of course, I remember. I said with a sort of stiff smile that was very hard to force. Now I remember your case and the wonderful way you behaved.

Hmm.

Though no sounds of footsteps came, and I dashed up the next flight, tearing my skirt and banging my ribs in the darkness and rushed headlong into the first room I came to. Luckily, the door stood ajar, and still, more fortunate, there was a key in the lock. In a second, I had slammed the door, flung my whole weight against it, and turned the key.

Hmm.

The man leaned against the window, watching me while I lay in a collapsed heap upon the floor. "So there were two men in the house with me," I reflected. "Perhaps other rooms were occupied too? What could it all mean?" But as I stared, something changed in the room, or in me, hard to say which, and I realized my mistake, so that my fear, which had so far been physical, at once altered its character and became psychical.

I became afraid in my soul instead of in my heart and I knew immediately who this man was. How in the world did you get up here? I stammered to him across the empty room, amazement momentarily stemming my fear. Now let me tell you, he began in that odd faraway voice of his that went down my spine like a knife. I'm in different space for one thing and you'd find me in any room you went into for according to your way of measuring, I'm all over the house.

Space is a bodily condition, but I am out of the body and am not affected by space. It's my condition that keeps me here. I want something to change my condition for me, for then I could get away. What I want is sympathy, or really, more than sympathy, I want affection. I want love. That accent, are you from Toledo?

While he was speaking, I gathered myself slowly upon my feet. I wanted to scream and cry and laugh all at once, but I only succeeded in sighing. For my emotion was exhausted and a numbness was coming over me. I felt for the matches in my pocket and made a movement toward the gas jet. So this lady's already bored of talking to a ghost. Right. Yeah, that wants love. Right.

"I should be much happier if you didn't like the gas," he said at once, "for the vibrations of your light hurt me a good deal. You need not be afraid that I shall injure you. I can't touch your body to begin with, for there's a great gulf fixed, you know, and really this half-light suits me best. Now, let me continue what I was trying to say before. Oh, you know, so many people have come to this house to see me, and most of them have seen me, and one and all have been terrified.

His voice was so sad that I felt tears start somewhere at the back of my eyes. But fear kept all else in check and I stood shaking as cold as I listened to him.

Well, who are you then? Of course Carrie didn't send you. I know now. I managed to utter. My thoughts scattered dreadfully, and I could think of nothing to say. I was afraid of a stroke. An elf stroke.

I know nothing about Cary or who he is, continued the man quietly. Oh, sorry. I know nothing about Cary or who he is, continued the man quietly. And the name my body had I have forgotten, thank God. But I am the man who was frightened to death in this house ten years ago, and I have been frightened ever since, and am frightened still for the succession of

cruel and curious people who come to this house to see the ghost and thus keep alive its atmosphere of terror only helps to render my condition worse.

If only someone would be kind to me, laugh, speak gently and rationally with me, cry if they like, pity, comfort, soothe me, anything but come in here in curiosity and tremble as you are now doing in the corner. Now, madam, won't you take pity on me? His voice rose to a dreadful cry. Won't you step into the middle of the room and try to love me a little?

A horrible little laughter came gurgling up in my throat as I heard him, but the sense of pity was stronger than the laughter, and I found myself actually leaving the support of the wall and approaching the center of the floor. "'By God!' he cried, at once straightening up against the window. "'You have done a kind act. That's the first attempt at sympathy that has been shown to me since I died, and I feel better already.'

In life, you know, I was a misanthrope. Everything went wrong with me. I can understand this. And I came to hate my fellow men so much that I couldn't bear to see them even.

Of course, like begets like, and this hate was returned. Finally, I suffered from horrible delusions, and my room became haunted with demons that laughed and grimaced and laughed and grimaced and laughed and grimaced. And one night, I ran into a whole cluster of them near the bed, and the fright stopped my heart and killed me.

It's hate and remorse as much as terror that clogs me so quickly and keeps me here. If only someone could feel pity and sympathy and perhaps a little love for me, I could get away and be happy. When you came this afternoon to see over the house, I watched you and a little hope came to me for the first time. I saw you had courage, originality, resource, love.

If only I could touch your heart without frightening you. I knew I could perhaps tap that love you have stored up in your being there and thus borrow the wings for my escape. It sounds like he's asking for consent. It does sound a lot like it. Very forward thinking at the time. Yeah. That's Aldrin in Blackwood for you. That's right. All right. Where were we? He was about to tap something, right? Okay.

Now, I must confess, my heart began to ache a little, as fear left me and the man's words sank their sad meaning into me. Still, the whole affair was so incredible and so touched with unholy quality, and the story of a woman's murder I had come to investigate had so obviously nothing to do with this thing, that I felt myself in a kind of wild dream that seemed likely to stop at any moment and leave me somewhere in bed after a nightmare. Moreover, his words possessed me to such an extent.

that I found it impossible to reflect upon anything else at all, or to consider adequately any ways or means of action or escape. I moved a little nearer to him in the gloom, horribly frightened, of course, but with the beginnings of this strange determination in my heart.

"'You women,' he continued, his voice plainly thrilling at my approach, "'you wonderful women to whom life often brings no opportunity of spending your great love. "'Oh, if only you could know how many of us simply yearn for it. "'It would save our souls if but you knew.'

few might find the chance that you now have. But if you only spent your love freely, without definite object, just letting it flow openly all over the place for all who need, you would reach hundreds and thousands of souls like me and release us. Oh, madam, I ask you again to feel with me, to be kind and gentle, and if you can, to love me a little."

Am I being love bombed? Yes. It seems like it for sure. He's a little desperate, even for a ghost.

He was doing downward dock.

I think so. Put your arms around me and kiss me for the love of God, he cried. Kiss me. Oh, kiss me. And I shall be freed. You've done so much already. Now do this. I know it's getting hot and steamy. It really is. I stuck there, hesitating, shaking, my determination on the verge of action, yet not quite able to compass it. But the terror had almost gone.

Forget that I'm a man and you're a woman, he continued in the most beseeching voice I ever heard. Forget that I'm a ghost and come out boldly and press me to you with a great kiss and let your love flow into me. Forget yourself for just one minute and do a brave thing. Oh, love me, love me, love me, and I shall be free. Wow. This Halloween episode is taking a turn.

The words, or the deep force they somehow released in the center of my being, stirred me profoundly, and an emotion infinitely greater than fear surged up over me and carried me with it across the edge of action. Without hesitation I took two steps towards him where he knelt and held out my arms. Pity and love were in my heart at that moment, genuine pity, I swear, and genuine love. I forgot myself and my little trimlings in a great desire to help another soul."

I love you, poor aching unhappy thing, I love you! I cried through hot tears. And I am not the least bit afraid in the world! The man uttered a curious sound, like laughter, yet not laughter. Oh, I was waiting for it. Oh boy, uh... Okay.

Oh.

All our pipes had gone out and not even a skirt rustled in that dark studio as the storyteller paused a moment to steady her voice and put a hand softly up to her eyes before going on again.

Now, what can I say and how can I describe to you all, all you skeptical men sitting there with pipes in your mouths, the amazing sensation I experience of holding an intangible, impalpable thing so closely to my heart that it touched my body with equal pressure all the way down and then melted away somewhere into my very being. And it's at this moment the pipes fell from their mouths. Right, yeah.

For it was like seizing a rush of cool wind and feeling a touch of burning fire the moment it had struck its swift blow and passed on. A series of shocks ran all over and all through me. A momentary ecstasy of flaming sweetness and wonder thrilled down into me. My heart gave another great leap, and then I was alone. I wonder if this story is just one big euphemism.

Maybe. I just realized I'm doing Harvey Korman from Blazing Saddles. Nice. That's technically the second Harvey appearance because she mentioned Mean Streets earlier and Harvey Keitel was in that. That's right. Is this me? Okay, here we go.

The room was empty. I turned on the gas and struck a match to prove it. All fear had left me and something was singing round me in the air and in my heart like a joy of a spring morning in youth. Not all the devils or shadows or hauntings in the world could have caused me a single tremor.

I unlocked the door and went all over the dark house, even into kitchen and cellar and up among the ghostly attics, but the house was empty. Something had left it. I lingered a short hour, analyzing, thinking, wondering, you can guess what and how. Perhaps, but I won't detail, for I promised only essentials, remember, and then went out to sleep the remainder of the night in my own flat, locking the door behind me upon a house no longer haunted.

Eh.

"'First,' he said, "'I wish to tell you a little deception I venture to practice on you. So many people have been to that house and seen the ghost that I came to think the story acted on their imaginations, and I wish to make a better test. So I invented for their benefit another story, with the idea that if you did see anything I could be sure it was not dear merely to an excited imagination.'"

He's a horse, by the way. I'm doing a horse for her uncle. I thought that was really good. He went for the accent. Then what you told me about a woman having been murdered and all that was not a true story of the haunting? No, it was not. The true story is that of a cousin of mine went mad in that house and killed himself in a fit of morbid terror, following upon years of miserable hypochondriasis. It is his figure that investigators seek.

"'That explains, then,' I gasped. "'No, explain what?' I thought of that poor struggling soul longing all these years for escape, and determined to keep my story for the present to myself. "'Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost of the murdered woman,' I concluded. "'Precisely,' said Sir Henry. "'And why, if you had seen anything, it would have had value, "'inasmuch as it could not have been caused by the imagination working upon a story you already knew.'

End and scene. Wow, that one got pretty sexy. Yeah, I figure that most of our Halloween episodes are not quite steamy enough, so I wanted to steam this one up. Yeah, and it all makes sense now with Algernon Blackwood writing the story from a woman's point of view. He's like, mm-mm. Yeah, exactly. Every couple paragraphs he stopped and made that sound. Right.

You did great, by the way. I mean, you really carried that story, Chuck. I mean, you had the accent the whole way through. It was just a delight to listen to you. I feel like she's a part of me now, you know? Yeah, she is forever. And thus I a part of you. I don't know about that. I mean, I held you to my bosom and we kissed. Yeah, that's true. We made out a lot. My Toledo and ghost. I like the horse guy too. Yeah, he was great. Can you just see like his huge mutton chops? Oh yeah, totally.

So now we're on to your story, right? It's time for your story, the story you chose. That's right. This is from Ambrose Bierce. It's called The Middle Toe of the Right Foot. Not on, but of the right foot. And here we go. Just to give you a little preamble, this is a story about some men who go to a haunted house and some stuff happens.

I should probably do some of this reading, huh? Yeah, you should do a lot of this reading. And it's kind of hard to tell who's who at first. Yeah. Because it goes for a chapter and then it jumps back and tells the pre-story in chapter two and then back to the present. So we'll figure it out. Yeah. All right. Take it away. Okay. The Middle Toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Bierce, The Wickedest Man Alive.

It is well known that the old Manton House is haunted. In all the rural district near about, and even in the town of Marshall a mile away, not one person of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it. Incredulity is confined to those opinionated persons who will be called cranks as soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demence of the Marshall advance.

I think this is worth explaining. So he was basically taking a shot at the local paper saying that they're intellectually, they weren't even smart enough to use the word cranks yet. Yeah. I had to read that like five times. So I thought it might be worth pointing out. No, totally. I didn't get it. So now I do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for thanking me. You're welcome.

The evidence that the house is haunted is of two kinds. The testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular proof, ocular meaning eye witnesses, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged against it by the ingenious, but facts within the observation of all are material and controlling. I'm not going to explain that last bit because even I still don't understand it. Okay.

In the first place, the Manton House has been unoccupied by mortals for more than 10 years, and with its outbuildings, is slowly falling into decay, a circumstance which, in itself, the judicious...

we'll hardly venture to ignore. It stands a little way off the loneliest reach of the Marshall and Harrison Road in an opening which was once a farm and is still disfigured with strips of rotting fence and half covered with brambles overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with the plow.

The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though badly weather-stained, and in dire need of attention from the glazier. The smaller male population of the region, having attested in the manner of its kind, its disapprovals of dwelling without dwellers. That means that the kids throw stones through the windows and have broken them all. Yeah, this place is not in great shape. No. And Ambrose Bierce...

He composes such thick plumage, it's hard to see the meat sometimes. That's right. He's not all about the essentials. No. He hasn't even mentioned the keys in his pocket yet. That's right. Or that he climbs the Alps.

It is. This is the house. It is two stories in height, nearly square, its fronts pierced by a single doorway flanked on each side by a window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding windows above, not protected, serve to admit light and rain to the rooms of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about, and a few shade trees, some with the worst for wind and all leaning in one direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to run away.

In short, as the Marshalltown humorist explained in the columns of the advance, the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only logical conclusion from the premises. The fact that in this dwelling, Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena.

All right. So there's our first little reveal here is that the former Manton gentleman murdered his wife and child and left and fled. That's right. He was a real putz. He was. Oh, you want me to keep going? Sure.

To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a wagon. Three of them promptly alighted, and the one who had been driving hitched the team to the only remaining post of what had been a fence. The fourth remained seated in the wagon. Come, said one of his companions approaching him, while the others moved away in the direction of the dwelling. This is the place. The man addressed... Do you want to be the man addressed? Uh, sure. The man addressed... The man addressed did not move. By God!

He said harshly, "'This is a trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it.' "'Perhaps I am,' the other said, looking him straight in the face and speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in it. "'You will remember, however, that the choice of place was with your own assent left to the other side. Of course, if you are afraid of spooks—' "'I'm afraid of nothing,' the man interrupted with another oath. "'Darn it!' and sprang to the ground.'

The two then joined the others at the door, which one of them had already opened with some difficulty, caused by rust of lock and hinge. All entered. Inside, it was dark, but the man who had unlocked the door produced a candle and matches, and made a light. He then unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage. This gave them entrance to a large square room that the candle but dimly lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust, which partly muffled their footfalls.

Cobwebs were in the angles of the walls and depended from the ceiling like strips of rotting lace, making undulatory movements in the disturbed air. The room had two windows in adjoining sides, but from neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surface of boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace, no furniture. There was nothing besides the cobwebs and the dust. The four men were the only objects there which were not a part of the structure.

All right. So four men are now visiting this old haunted Manton house where a supposed murder has taken place. And one of them doesn't seem to like really know the other guys and seems like he's saying, hey, you played a trick on me by bringing me here. And they were like, you agreed to it, buddy. Yeah. Shut your mouth. Yeah, exactly. Shut that pie hole. You want me to pick up? Yeah, you pick up. All right.

Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the candle. The one who had so reluctantly alighted was especially spectacular. He might have been called sensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deep-chested and broad-shouldered.

I know I'm playing him. Looking at his figure, one would have said that he had a giant strength. Maybe not. At his features, that he would use it like a giant. He was clean-shaven, his hair rather closely cropped in gray, his low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes and over the nose. These became vertical. Those are called 11s. You can have them taken care of with filler.

Is that in between those little worry lines are called 11s? Yeah, in between your brows. Never heard of that. Because they're a pair of vertical lines. It looks like an 11. The heavy black brows followed the same law of the 11, saved from meeting only by an upper turn at what would otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these, glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain color, but obviously enough too small.

There was something forbidding in their expression, which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The nose was well enough, as noses go. One does not expect much of noses. All that was sinister in the man's face seemed accentuated by an unnatural pallor. He appeared altogether bloodless. So this guy that they brought with them, the three guys brought, is like creepy looking and weird looking. Yeah, and seems pretty grumpy, standoffish.

Yes, I agree. You want me to pick up or are you going to keep going? Well, let me do this part and then we'll get to the play parts. The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace. They were such persons as one meets and forgets that he met. All were younger than the man described, between whom and the eldest of the others, who stood apart, there was apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at each other. So the other three are younger than the grumpy man.

And they don't really like him or vice versa, it looks like. Right. And I think the grumpy man is Grossmith, right? Yeah. No, I don't remember what they call him. Grossmith is. Yeah. No, because. Yeah. We'll get there one day. Yeah. We should tell everybody, if you haven't noticed already, one of the reasons it's so difficult to keep up with who's who is Ambrose Bierce didn't go to the trouble of naming most of them until partway through. And it's just confusing. Yeah.

I definitely know Grossmith is the big creepy guy that they brought there. Oh, is that right? Okay. I think that's Rosser. No, that's Rosser. Is it? Yeah, because listen. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you're right. Go ahead. Gentlemen, said the man holding the candle and keys, I believe everything is right. Are you ready, Mr. Rosser? The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled, which is what you would do if your name was Rosser. Right, and not a part of the group. And you, Mr. Grossmith? Yes.

The heavy man bowed and scowled. Oh, wait. See, this is so confusing. So you're right. Grossmith is the grumpy older man. I think so. Why do I even argue with you, you know? Well, everyone, I promise we read these several times on our own. It's just a little confusing. This was not just put in front of us by Jerry. That's right.

Right. Yeah.

The man with the candle now nodded, and the fourth man, who had urged Grossmith to leave the wagon, produced from the pocket of his overcoat two long, murderous-looking bowie knives, which he drew now from their leather scabbard. They are exactly alike, he said, presenting one to each of the two principals, for by this time the dullest observer would have understood the nature of this meeting. It was to be a duel to the death. Wow.

Yeah. So they see what's happening here. I didn't realize it until he said it was a duel or really until they produced the knives that that's what was going on. So, yeah, yeah, it's a little confusing. You want me to take it? Yeah, sure. All right.

Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle, and tested the strength of the blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their persons were then searched and turned, each by the second of the other. The second is in the second of the duel, is that right? Yeah, like the assistant dueler. Yeah, your backup, your wingman for the duel. All right, go ahead. Oh. If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith, said the man holding the light, you will place yourself in that corner.

Okay, so his second is, sounds like he was forced into this maybe. It sounds like it.

In the angle nearest the door, Mr. Rosser stationed himself and after a whispered consultation, his second left joined him, joining the other near the door. At that moment, the candle was suddenly extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have been done by a draft from the open door. Whatever the cause, the effect was startling. "Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar in the altered condition affecting the relations of the senses.

Gentlemen, you will not move until you hear the closing of the outer door. A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner door, and finally, the outer one closed with a concussion that shook the entire building. So these guys have been locked in a dark room with knives to fight to the death. That's pretty creepy. Yeah. A few minutes afterward, a belated farmer's boy met a light wagon...

which was being drawn furiously toward the town of Marshall. He declared that behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third with its hands upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly to free themselves from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was clad in white and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the haunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable former experience with the supernatural thereabouts, his word had the weight justly due

to the testimony of an expert. So this guy had seen this kind of thing before, basically. Yeah. And also, Ambrose Bierce was meant to be read silently. Right.

The story, in connection with the next day's events, eventually appeared in the advance, which is the newspaper, with some slight literary embellishments and a concluding imitation that the gentleman referred to would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their version of the night's adventure, but the privilege remained without a claimant.

Okay, some weird stuff happened. Four men go in, three men fly past a superstitious farm boy who mentions it to the paper. And the paper says, this is crazy. Anybody who wants to come forward and say this was us and tell us the story, go ahead. And no one did. Right? That's right. And now, chapter two, we jump back in time.

The events that led to this duel in the dark were simple enough. One evening, three young men of the town of Marshall were sitting in a quiet corner of the porch of the village hotel, smoking and discussing such matters as three educated young men of a southern village would naturally find interesting. Hogs. Their names were King, Sancher, and Rosser. At a little distance, within easy hearing, but taking no part in the conversation, sat a fourth.

He was a stranger to the others. They merely knew that on his arrival by the stagecoach that afternoon, he had written in the hotel register the name of Robert Grossmith. He had not been observed to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk. He seemed indeed singularly fond of his own company, or, as the personnel of the advance expressed it, grossly addicted to evil associations.

But then it should be said in justice to the stranger that the personnel was himself of too convivial disposition fairly to judge one differently gifted and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an effort at an interview. You want to be king? Sure. I hate any kind of deformity in a woman. Said king? Whether natural or acquired, I have a theory that any physical defect has its correlative mental and moral defect.

Okay. I infer then, said Rosser gravely, that a lady lacking the moral advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become Mrs. King an arduous enterprise. I'm doing Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained. Okay. Where's my beautiful sister? That was so creepy. So is this me? Yeah, I think so. Of course, you may put it that way.

was the reply. But seriously, I once threw over a most charming girl on learning quite accidentally that she had suffered amputation of a toe.

My conduct was brutal, if you like, but if I had married that girl, I should have been miserable for life and should have made her so. I just want to point out, you morphed just briefly into Zach Galifianakis in the middle of that. Okay. Who's Sancher? Am I Sancher? Sure. Or is he new? Yeah, I like it. You could be Sancher.

Let's see. Whereas, said Sancer with a light laugh, by marrying a gentleman of more liberal view, she escaped with a parted throat. Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, she married Manton, but I don't know about his liberality. I'm not sure, but he cut her throat because he discovered that she lacked that excellent thing in a woman.

"'The middle toe of the right foot. Am I right, guys?' "'Look at that chap,' said Brosser in a low voice, his eyes fixed upon the stranger. "'That chap was obviously listening intently to the conversation.' "'Damn his impudence,' muttered King. "'What ought we to do?'

That's an easy one. My guides turned into Forrest Gump. Rosser replied, rising, sir. He continued addressing the stranger. I think it would be better if you would remove your chair to the other end of the veranda. The presence of gentlemen is evidently an unfamiliar situation to you. So these guys are talking about what happened to the guy who supposedly killed his wife because she had no toe.

And he's, this guy's overhearing this conversation and they're not too thrilled with that, right? Yeah, and one of them apparently dated her for a while but found out that she didn't have a toe and was like, no way, no how. Right. All right, I'll pick up. You ready? Mm-hmm.

You are hasty and unjust, he said to Rosser. This gentleman has done nothing to deserve such language. But Rosser would not withdraw a word. By the custom of the country and the time, there could be but one outcome to the quarrel. You're the stranger, I think, right? That's right, and I forget how I was doing him. I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman. Said the stranger. Oh, yeah, this is you.

said the stranger, who had become more calm. "I have not an acquaintance in this region. Perhaps you, sir," bowing to Sancher, "will be kind enough to represent me in this matter." Sancher accepted the trust,

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, there you go, Josh. I noticed that, too. And the upshot of it was...

The principals having retired, a meeting was arranged for the next evening. The nature of the arrangements has been already disclosed. The duel with knives in a dark room was once a commoner feature of southwestern life than it is likely to be again. How thin a veneering of chivalry covered the essential brutality of the code under which such encounters were possible we shall see.

Yeah. So just by Southwestern, he's basically talking about Louisiana or Mississippi, probably. At that point. Yeah, I guess so. And also what he's talking about is like, so one man was insulted by another man and now they've agreed to a duel. Yeah, because he was eavesdropping. Yeah. Yeah.

And in the South, especially at these times, you basically had to kill somebody else who insulted you. Yeah, you mind your own business. You want me to pick up with Chapter 3? Please. Chapter 3. In the blaze of a midsummer noonday, the old manton house was hardly true to its traditions. It was of the earth. Earthy.

The sunshine caressed it warmly and affectionately, with evident disregard of its bad reputation. The grass greening all the expanse in its front seemed to grow, not rankly, but with a natural and joyous exuberance. And the weeds blossomed quite like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows and populous with pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade trees no longer struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their burdens of sun and song.

Even in the glassless upper windows was an expression of peace and contentment due to the light within. Over the stony fields the visible heat danced with a lively tremor incompatible with the gravity which is an attribute of the supernatural.

Aha. Aha. And if you put all those three together, you have a proper sentence. Yeah. Ha ha ha.

which has been for a certain period abandoned by an owner whose residence cannot be ascertained, the sheriff was legal custodian of the Manton farm and appurtenances thereunto belonging. So in other words, the sheriff, if it's an abandoned house, the sheriff is sort of taking care of it. Yeah, he owns all the appurtenances. Right. And so this is the sheriff. The sheriff and his deputy, who was one of the four guys, and Brewer...

The brother of the killed woman are now after this duel going to the house to check things out, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. His present visit was in a mere perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit was made on the day after the night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another in very different purpose.

His presence now was not of his own choosing. He had been ordered to accompany his superior and at the moment could think of nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience to the command. Me keep going? Me keep going? Yeah, maybe I should. Me read now. It me.

So this is the stuff they took off the night before, I guess. Yeah.

Mr. Brewer was equally astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. He knows why those clothes are there. With a new and lively interest in his own actions, the sheriff now unlatched and pushed open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently vacant. No, as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light, something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human figure, that of a man crouching close in the corner.

Something in the attitude made the intruders halt when they had barely passed the threshold. The figure more and more clearly defined itself. The man was upon one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated to the level of his ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the fingers spread and crooked like claws. The white face turned upward on the retracted neck.

All right, I'll do this paragraph and you can take it home. Ready? Yep. In thick dust that covered the floor were some confused footprints near the door and along the wall through which it opened.

Along one of the adjoining walls, too, past the boarded-up windows, was the trail made by the man himself in reaching his corner. Instinctively, in approaching the body, the three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the outthrown arms. It was as rigid as iron, and the application of a gentle force rocked the entire body without alerting the relation of its parts. Brewer, pale with excitement, gazed intently into the distorted face.

God of mercy, he suddenly cried. It is Manton. Am I king? You're king. You are right, said king with an evident attempt at calmness. I knew Manton. He then wore a full beard and his hair long, but this is he.

He might have added, I recognized him when he challenged Rosser. I told Rosser and Santer who he was before we played him this horrible trick. When Rosser left this dark room at our heels, forgetting his outer clothing in the excitement and driving away with us in his shirt sleeves, all through the discreditable proceedings, we knew with whom we were dealing, murderer and coward that he was. So the original murderer in the Manton house,

is now come back. Is that what we're to believe? Yeah. And he went by Grossmith, but these three recognized him immediately. And so they, I don't know if they set up a duel or whatever. I don't know if they set the whole thing up, but once a duel was going on, they knew exactly where they were going to take him, which was the very house that he murdered his wife and children in. Can you imagine being in that position? No, no, you can't. No, but they didn't kill him.

No. You ready? Yeah, let's do it. Take it home, brother. But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light, he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death. That he had not once moved from the corner where he had been stationed. That his posture was that of neither attack nor defense. That he had dropped his weapon. That he had obviously perished of sheer horror of something that he saw. These were circumstances which Mr. King's disturbed intelligence could not rightly comprehend.

groping in intellectual darkness for a clue to his maze of doubt. His gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day, in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror, in the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor, leading from the door by which they had entered, straight across the room, to within a yard of Manton's crouching corpse.

were three parallel lines of footprints, light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones those of small children, the inner of women. From the point at which they ended, they did not return. They pointed all one way. Brewer, who had observed them at the same moment, was leaning forward in an attitude of rapt attention, horribly pale. E.B. Brewer.

"Look at that!" he cried, pointing with both hands at the nearest print of the woman's right foot, where she had apparently stopped and stood. "The middle toe is missing. It was Gertrude!" Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer.

Oh, boy. So she came back for some revenge. And the kids, too. That's right. The kids were chanting and clapping, kill, kill, kill, kill. Yeah. And the mom was like, you got it. You think you think I look weird without this middle toe? Check out my neck. How'd you like it up your butt? Nice. That was probably how Ambrose Beards would have written it. I think so. That was great, Chuck. You did great.

I did great. We did great. Jerry did great. I assume Ben will do great. Ben's going to do great. And you guys all did great listening to us and thrilling to the adventures that we wove for you. That's right. I guess we want to say happy Halloween to everybody. Have a safe and happy and fun and candy-filled Halloween. That's right. And this one falls on Halloween for a change. So that's pretty much a bonus for us. Yes. So happy Halloween to the max. Yes.

Yeah. And since I said happy Halloween to the max, we're not going to do a listener mail, right? We're just going to end this and say adios. That's right. So if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com. Thank you.

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