NINE II MIDNIGHT - The Horrors of Our Dreams
01:02:34 Share

Hi folks, Billy Hindle here, the voice of Alice Dyer in The Magnus Protocol. Today I just wanted to take some time to run you through some of the exciting Magnus merchandise, as well as affiliate links, a brand new way to support the show. You can find affiliate links in the description of all new episodes. If you are based in the UK, be sure to check out Phantom Peak, a unique, immersive, open world adventure in London. Use the link in the show notes or code RUSTY to get 15% off tickets.

perfect for fans of escape rooms. Next up, be sure to check out our bespoke merchandise from our partners, including exclusive perfume scents inspired by John and Martin and ex-Altiora. Find out more by going to www.rustyquill.com forward slash S-B-P. Find Magnus and Rusty Quill themed TTRPG accessories, including dice trays, dice towers, and beautiful coasters from Harpscore by going to harpscore.com forward slash rusty dash quill.

See the Magnus Archives polyhedral die set from Dice Dungeon, including an exclusive D16 featuring icons representing the fears. Visit thedicedungeon.co.uk forward slash collections forward slash rusty dash quill to find out more. There are also new designs available on our official merchandise stores for t-shirts,

Stickers, posters and more. Check the links in the description or go to www.rustyquill.com forward slash support. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy the show.

Your animation destination.

Now streaming on Hulu. To get people excited about Boost Mobile's new nationwide 5G network, we're offering unlimited talk, text, and data for $25 a month. Forever. Even if you have a baby. Even if your baby has a baby. Even if you grow old and wrinkly and you start repeating yourself. Even if you start repeating yourself. Even if you're on your deathbed and you need to make one last call. Or text. Right, or text. The long lost son you abandoned at birth. You'll still get unlimited talk, text, and data for just $25 a month with Boost Mobile. Forever. Forever.

After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. This summer, Instacart presents famous summer flavors coming to your front door. Or pool. Or hotel. Your grocery delivery has arrived, sir. That was faster than room service. No violins in the lobby? Seriously?

Anyway, sit back, relax, and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Starring your favorite snacks, drinks, and more. Download Instacart for free delivery on your first three orders. Rated H for hungry audiences. Offer valid for a limited time. Minimum $10 per order. Excludes restaurants. Additional terms and fees apply.

Brutal summer heat. It's no fun for humans or pets. But it's even worse for your lawn. Fortunately, Virginia Green has you covered with our Dog Days of Summer Savings Bundle. Just sign up for a new lawn program and you'll save 20% on aeration and seating. It's the easy way to rescue your fescue and set your lawn up for success. The Dog Days of Summer Savings Bundle.

Sign up now at virginiagreen.com. At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. At Ashley,

Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

Hi everyone, it's Kareem, the voice of Simon Fairchild from the Magnus Archives. Today I'm here to advertise Hainai, a podcast recently launched on the RQ Network. Hainai is an atmospheric, analogue-style horror audio drama featuring folk horror, mythology and chilling supernatural terrors in an urban setting. Follow Mari, a Filipino immigrant in Toronto who casually handles supernatural threats like it's just another Tuesday.

Using her lived experience raised by her Babylonian mother to save the city from unimaginable horrors. She's joined by two supernatural detectives, Donna and Murphy. Her strong-armed lesbian neighbor Laura and Ashvin, a conman guru with real magic powers. The title, Hi Nai or Hi Mum, comes from Mari Fonkhananai, or Mother, in the Philippines about her adventures. Season 1 has our protagonist face rich immortal occultists from the early 1900s called...

elders who feed off ordinary people's deaths. In particular, they must hunt down the elder's leader, the benefactor, who's so powerful nobody remembers his face or name. The story centers mystical immigrants fighting the supernatural to cope with the real-life horrors of fascism and corruption, which characterize Maori's childhood flashbacks in the Philippines. Search for Hainai wherever you listen to your podcasts, or go to HainaiPod, that's H-I-N-A-Y P-O-D dot com, or www.rustyquill.com for more information. ...

It seems like the horrors of our dreams are the most frightening to you. How many nights we find ourselves woken from a dream to wonder if the darkened corner of our room is staring back at us. There is much in this world that is unexplained, much that makes us question what exists between those spaces of black.

Okay, so who's on the dream team then? Looks like me, Jeremy, Nathan, Ray, Jess, Kevin, and Vincent. Alright.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that y'all thought it was me that invited you here. Wow. I'm not into abandoned places anymore. It's starting to get played out. Like dudes on the internet call it urbex instead of urban exploration because that's not cool enough anymore. Give me a break. I actually wrote a whole Blogspot post about this. Did you guys not see that? You probably saw it. It was a few weeks ago. You forgot. It's fine.

Anyway, my new thing is finding new ways to explore places that aren't abandoned. Bonus points if they're still full of people while I'm finding the cool stuff that's lurking under their noses. No judgement to the noses that I've lurked under. I wouldn't exactly be searching out the wonders of a place if I had to work there for 15 bucks an hour either. Every hourly job I've ever had, I was gone when my shift was up.

Did you know that you can just buy elevator keys? You have to know what type of elevator that you need it for, but there are only so many types of elevators. So if you know where you're going, you can check to see what type of elevator they have. Most elevators of the same make and model are keyed alike, meaning that they use exactly the same key. Most cop cars are the same way, but you didn't hear that from me.

Once you have this key, you can enter an elevator alone, enter the individual service mode, which unpairs the elevator from the group of elevators in the building, stop it on a floor with the doors closed, and wait for everyone to leave. If you time it right and are smart about it, no one will ever notice that one of the elevators isn't ever showing up when being called from the hall.

So, there's this building in my city, a big, old, tall office building, called the Almanac Building, because it's on the corner of Almanac Drive. There are multiple businesses inside, all of which operate 9 to 5, meaning that only security is there when the whistle blows and everyone goes home, and not everyone knows each other, so it's no big deal to see a strange face. It's been renovated, like, six times, some more transformative than others.

Namely, for the purpose of my story, at one point they fundamentally altered the height of all of the floors in the building to make them taller and to give them a more deluxe, modern feeling.

Fewer floors, higher ceilings. In the process, it is rumored that there was an empty space, smaller than a standard floor, that got left behind between floors, and that one could access it through some tricky use of the elevators. This was not simply a key protected floor. Being between floors, it was not served directly by the elevator anymore.

There were some photos on this floor on various websites, the veracity of which I doubted for reasons that are about to become clear. And I had never actually used an elevator key to snoop around, so I thought that I would grab my camera, my flashlight, my elevator keys, and my machete, and see if this building was worth the hype.

Passing through the lobby and acquiring an empty elevator was as simple as I had hoped it would be. Inside the elevator there was a panel, behind which the individual service switch could be keyed into, so I did that, giving me control over the elevator, and then picked floor 6. I arrived at the destination and did not open the doors. Individual service mode ensured that the elevator was not called to another floor.

The mystery floor in question was allegedly between floors 6 and 7. It was nearing closing time when I arrived, so I waited an hour, futzing around on my phone, waiting for everyone to leave, and then got to work.

When I felt confident that most people were out of the building, I, and don't ever do this, got on top of the elevator using a method that is neither advisable nor safe. At this point, using my flashlight, I could see the doors to this abandoned half-floor. I was able to pry them open with a little effort. It was pitch black as I stepped inside.

The floor was as wide and long as the rest of the floors in the building, with about a five and a half foot ceiling. Enough to walk, obviously, but in a frustratingly hunched fashion, or a frustratingly crouched fashion, dealer's choice. What I would have given in that moment to be a short king. My first experience of the room, before I could even adequately shine my light around, was that it was surprisingly cold.

I was in a walk-in meat freezer.

It was not only cold, it was actually freezing. Whole pigs were held up on hooks from the short ceiling as far as I could see in every direction. The cold dampened the smell, but the smell of blood and meat was omnipresent. I trudged further into the darkness, finding more rows of slaughtered pigs at every plunge.

In the center of the room was a full cow, hung up via a meat hook through the neck. Its body contorted, its limbs bent unnaturally to fit under the low ceiling. Its blank eyes stared out at me, right at eye level with me, its body hunched much as I was. After having enough time to be thoroughly unnerved and considering snapping a couple pictures and heading back, the worst possible thing happened.

For reasons that I don't understand, I could suddenly hear the elevator leaving without me. Not only was it leaving, it was leaving upwards at considerable velocity.

They say that you shouldn't be worried about an elevator falling, you should be worried about it going up and hitting the overhead at max speed, because the counterweight weighs more than the cab, and that is exactly what was happening. It smashed into the overhead at the top of the building, causing a horrific rending of metal, probably to the tune of thousands of dollars in damage. I would have a hard time proving this wasn't my fault if I were caught snooping. Security were surely alerted, but I didn't see them.

This both removed my only exit and intensified my desire to leave. The only option that I could see was leaping down the elevator shaft six and a half floors to my death or disfigurement. I was getting seriously cold as well. Rubbing my hands together for warmth was not sufficient. I decided to methodically check all edges of the room for exits.

I didn't have time to leave the center of the floor before realizing that the pigs directly surrounding the cow appeared to be swaying on their hooks. The air was otherwise still and I hadn't touched them. Worried that I was not alone on the floor, I used my flashlight to survey the area around the pigs. My flashlight was pathetic compared to the size and the darkness of the room. I couldn't see anyone.

"Stay back! I have a machete!" I called out. No one answered. I walked in a circle around the cow, checking each of the pigs, stopping each of them from swaying as I made my way so that I could tell where I had been. I made a full circle around the cow, stopping all of the pigs from swaying and seeing nothing else of interest in the process. The room was still once again. I shined my light back over to the cow, into the eyes that had blankly met mine a few minutes prior.

My eyes found the cow's eyes again. They were not blank. The pupils were no longer fully dilated. I could see awareness in them, a terror or an anger or both. The pupils snapped to pinpricks as a light from the flashlight entered them. The cow was alive. The cow immediately began to thrash its limbs. I let out a cry, jumped back and readied my machete.

The cow, scrambling, managed to get all four hooves on the ground of the cold office floor. In one swift motion, it jerked its head down, pulling the meat hook with it. The meat hook, attached to a thick chain bolted to the ceiling, came down with the cow's head, pulling the chain out of the ceiling and pulling a huge chunk of the ceiling out with it. Blood shot out of the gaping wound in the cow's neck and splattered down the cow's chest and legs. It looked at me with that expression of terror and anger. Then...

It charged. No longer confident in my machete, I ducked behind a pig for protection. The cow rammed into the pig, sending the pig swinging and sending me flying backwards onto my back. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the pain. The cow charged again, demonstrating a drive that I knew would outlast me. I couldn't make it much longer, only retreating. I darted towards the center of the room where the cow had been, where the chain had ripped a hole in the ceiling.

I looked up. I could dimly see into the seventh floor. The chain had made a large enough hole for me to climb through. I leapt up, grabbed the edge of the hole, and pulled myself up onto the seventh floor. I could still hear the cow charging after me. I put distance between myself and the hole and looked back. The cow had reared up on its hind legs and thrust its head into the hole, but its body was too large to fit through.

Its eyes were still as frantic as they had been. It wailed at me as I got to my feet and rushed to the stairwell. I ran and did not look behind me. I did not stop running until I was in my car. I drove and I did not stop driving until I made it home.

I went back to the Almanac building the next day. The elevator looked good as new, no signs of a crash. I pretended to have business on the seventh floor. I knew where the hole should have been, and it wasn't there. No one remarked about a mysterious hole leading to a meat freezer, though I don't know if that was because it disappeared or because the people working there weren't paid enough to care about what happened after hours.

The whole thing soured my interest in elevators, frankly. And I paid like 200 bucks for that key set on eBay. What a waste. Jesus, that's insane. Did that really happen? How are you still here? Okay, okay. So who's next? Honestly, telling scary stories hasn't really been something I've been interested in for a while. I can see it on your faces. You want to know why. It's because of what I went through.

So... um... Two years ago my sister's heart gave out. I rushed to the hospital as soon as I heard but never got the chance to say goodbye. You know a lot of people look back on these things and wish they had more time. I was no exception. I loved my sister. She knew that. But I wish I would have said it more. She was all the family I had left. But anyway, my therapist suggested that I do something for her. Something special that could offer closure.

There was only one thing I could think of. Years ago when our mother had passed, we talked about getting away together for a cross-country train ride. You know, see the sights, get away from all the hustle of the world. We never got around to doing it. We buried ourselves in our work, hiding from everyone, even each other. So it was decided. I would take that trip and nothing was going to stop me. I bought the tickets, let my job know, and at the end of that week, I was at the train station, ready to board.

If you would have asked me if anything seemed weird when I boarded, I would have said no. I mean, I haven't been on many trains, only the local ones that get me across the city. But everything appeared to be normal. I handed my pass to the ticket collector and he kindly pointed me to my room. The walk through the hall was normal. There was a blue carpet on the floors, the walls on the top had an off-white hue, and a layer of sheet metal was at the bottom. The windows looked like they hadn't been opened in years.

Everything about the train seemed dated, but was kept really clean. The smell of fresh pine saw dissipating in the air. It was obvious they had just disinfected. My room was no different. The blue fabric, the windows, the shelf, all dated but kept clean. It was a modest room. The bed took up most of the space on the right side, and to my left was a small sink, and next to that a shelf. Sitting down on the bed, I couldn't believe I was finally taking that long-awaited trip. At that moment...

I felt my sister there with me, happy for me. The call came over the intercom announcing final boarding. A little later the train departed and our journey was underway. I sat there for what felt like hours contemplating my life. Suddenly, the light from the sun was gone. The rumbling of the train echoed off walls as it moved through a tunnel. A small dim light would pass by my window in intervals. Each time that light would grow bigger and each time that light would change colors.

A nauseous feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. A feeling of dizziness escalated in my head. The train seemed to move faster and faster. It all left. We emerged from the tunnel and everything seemed to return to normal until I noticed a light. Instead of the soothing warm yellow light of the sun, I was greeted with an intense cooling feeling and bathed in a red light. Then came the screams. The screams. Oh god, they were horrifying.

Filled with so much pain, they froze my blood and goosebumps froze across my skin. I thought maybe terrorist or some crazed passenger but I didn't hear any yelling other than the screams. Eventually, the screams die out and I muster enough courage to look. I opened the door to my cabin and what I saw shocked me. The once immaculate blue carpet and walls were now coated with blood. There was a body laying motionless right in front of my door. Quickly, I closed it.

Shocked and scared, I tried to calm my breathing. After a few minutes, I gained my composure and decided the best move would be to make my way to the conductor. I couldn't stay in the room. Eventually, whatever was out there would come back and realize the room was missed. I tried to hear any footsteps in the area, but hear only the sound of my heart pounding. I take a deep breath in and out, calming myself, then step out of the room into the hall.

The smell of cleanliness is now overwhelmed by the smell of death. The hall is littered with disfigured corpses that had been mauled by some creature. It takes every ounce of willpower I can muster to move my feet, and move they did, until out in the distance I hear a muffled roar, but it's no animal I've ever heard before. It was more like a baritone shriek. My body goes numb.

I subconsciously was still walking but couldn't feel my feet hitting the floor. I paused for a moment at the door wondering if I should open it, wondering what would be on the other side. I pulled on the handle and the door slid open quickly and hit the end of its track with a bang. I winced and paused for a moment, waiting for whatever it is to come running through the cars ready to kill me. I stand there silent, a soft ringing in my ears, my heart pounding in my chest again.

I turn my head to listen more intently, but there's nothing. So I walk and walk and walk through the cars, trying not to get sick as I witness the carnage that has been left by this thing. Finally, I reach the final car, relieved and ready to get to the conductor's room. I open the last door and standing there at the other end of the car is a figure in a black cloak. The figure resembles a human.

Full body, two arms, two legs. If it wasn't for the tentacles wriggling and protruding from its back, I would have never known. It takes a step towards me and begins talking. I don't recognize the language, but the energy of hostile intent is the same across language barriers.

I turned and ran through the car trying not to slip on the pools of blood, but I couldn't get away fast enough. Something grabbed me, knocking me off my feet. I look back to see one of the tentacles has more than doubled in length and grabbed me from the other car. The appendage tightens its grip on my ankle. The spikes dig into my skin. I can feel the blood slowing in my foot. The thing continues to walk towards me, still speaking.

Just as the creature is within feet of me, I hear a familiar sound. The train has entered another tunnel. Everything goes dark. The sound of the train rumbling through the tunnel echoes off the walls. A light passes the windows at different times, showing the creature as it gets closer after moving through the darkness. It reaches out, lifts me up off my feet into the air and whispers something into my ear. At that moment, the train emerges from the tunnel.

The creature disappears. I drop to the floor of a crowded rail car. I look around to see everyone looking at me with fear in their eyes. Was everything I just experienced an hallucination? I thought that to myself. I stood there, ready to leave the car, but as I do, a sharp pain starting from my ankle shoots up my leg. I lift my pant leg up, and there it is. The injury. Lake.

A tentacle had wrapped itself around my leg. Holy shit, that's scary. Did that really happen? Okay, okay, so who's next? What about you next? Me? Well, I guess I can follow that one. A couple years ago, I unexpectedly came into some money in a depressing way. So I decided to spend it on something frivolous and indulgent that wasn't attainable for me before. I got into scuba, is what I'm trying to say.

Coming from landlocked Kentucky, this was a whole new world. A whole new place. Anyway, after one dive, I was obsessed. The unique wildlife, the coral formations, the submersion, even the equipment. It was like exploring a breathtaking alien planet. I doubt the novelty would have ever worn off, but it was only my third dive when I discovered something really amazing. So I'm in the La Jolla kelp forest, which is incredible on its own merits.

As much as I want to stay in the moment on my dive, I'm already wearing out my new waterproof camera, snapping the sharks and rays and the hundred-foot kelp twisting and swaying like oceanic entrails. I'm leveling the viewfinder at this beautiful moray eel ribboning among the kelp when the window goes dark. I shake the camera, like that's gonna do anything, before I realize it's a shadow moving through the water.

I look up, expecting to see a sea lion or maybe a whale who's lost, but there's nothing there. Nothing casting this 15-foot shadow that's darkening the stalks like a reverse spotlight. It's not fast, but it's definitely moving away from me, so I snap a photo while I have the chance, even though I know it won't turn out.

By the time I get the attention of my dive buddy, Carmen, the shadow's almost out of sight. I point at it like I've just discovered the lost Santa Maria, but it's too late. Carmen says later it was probably just a ray, and I resolve to get a more experienced buddy next time. It takes several next times, and I burn through a considerable chunk of my funds just in La Jolla, but I find it again at the sea caves.

I've gotten better at navigating currents, and I can almost keep pace with it. But I'm using too much oxygen and tiring myself out. So I find a rough rock to hold on to, make sure my new buddy, Max, is still in sight, regulate my breathing, and wait. After a few minutes, the shadow starts drifting toward me. It seems slower than when I was chasing it, but maybe I'm just getting impatient. As it gets closer, I can make out more of the... texture.

It doesn't look like shadows underwater normally do. You know, rippling with wave-refracted light. This one seems more solid. It doesn't change when it slides over rocks or sand or seaweed. It's moving so slowly now and I almost can't bring myself to stay still. The dark pool finally halts a few feet from me. Its edges are strangely crisp, not shifting with the movement of the ocean. I peer up through the water, confirming what I saw before.

Clear blue all the way to the surface, shot through with ribbons of sunlight that end abruptly in the dark outline. Inside the shadow's perimeter, about ten feet across this time, are several fish. Closest to me is a large black sea bass, seemingly frozen in place. Its gills are still working, fins waving just enough to keep it upright, but it's not going anywhere, like it's stuck on a pin.

The bass doesn't seem to see me, its glassy eyes swirling lazily in the socket. I start to take out my camera but think better of it. Instead, I use my rocky handhold to carefully draw myself forward, an inch at a time, until I'm close enough to reach the shadow. With a jerk, the bass's eye fixes on me, and its gills start flapping wildly, its whole body shuddering. Can a fish hyperventilate?

It's still not really moving, just twitching in place in a way that somehow reminds me of my own panic attacks. And I'm just as transfixed, staring back into the mirror-like orb until the thrashing stops and the fish is truly still. It doesn't appear to be dead, at least not yet, but it's not breathing. I hesitate for a second and then think, "Yeah, I'm gonna touch it. What, after all, is the worst that could happen?"

That's not something you should say to yourself while scuba diving, but keep in mind that I'm still an amateur. Before I can start utilizing the scientific method, however, Max is flagging me down. He has an equipment malfunction and needs to surface. Flail my arms, gesturing to the bass in the shadow like some sort of deranged aquatic Vanna White, but it turns out there's no hand signal for this situation.

Max is already on his way up, and I reluctantly follow, cursing the buddy system and the fact that I'll never afford enough dives and experience to go solo. As I ascend, the shadow drifts away in another direction, and the space it leaves behind is empty. I try to stop myself from wishing Max would get the bends. The shadow eludes me for the next several dives. I'm so fixated on this stupid black spot that I can't even appreciate the experience that was so life-changing for me when I started.

Eventually, I get tired of the explainable phenomena in the sea caves and move on to La Jolla Canyon. I hear the night dives there are amazing, but I worry I won't be able to see the shadow in the dark. And it's there. Oh yes, it's there, drifting over the steps like a grim and unnatural cloud. It maintains its perfect round shape as it descends the ledges, unaffected by the severe slopes.

Its failure to behave like any earthly shadow doesn't surprise me anymore, and I follow it into darker, colder depths. Max is ogling a fat halibut, and he doesn't notice me slipping below his line of sight. The dark circle speeds up, takes an abrupt left, and I kick my fins hard. I haven't seen it move like this before, and I'm determined not to lose it, even as I get farther from my dive buddy and any semblance of safety.

I'm swimming as fast as I can, really pushing myself, looking straight ahead as I cross the last ledge. The world seems to fall away beneath me, the ocean opening up and dropping into sightless depths. It feels like I've been untethered on a spacewalk, and suddenly all of the cosmos has opened wide to swallow me. A wave of vertigo crashes over me, and I close my eyes. Becoming panicked or disoriented on a dive can be deadly.

and I take a moment to still my emotions. When I open my eyes, everything is dark. Infinitely dark. And I know instantly what's happened. The shadow has moved over me. The first thing I notice is the cold. It shouldn't be this cold in SoCal, but the chill has snuck into my wetsuit and set me shivering. I try to keep my breathing even, but each lungful is harder to take than the last.

There's nothing around me. Absolutely nothing. Like I'm drowning in the pitch black pupil of some unfathomable sea monster's eye. If I could just make a 180 and start swimming, I think I'd eventually reach the shore. But I'm not convinced I know which way is up anymore. God, why is it so hard to breathe? Pressure. I try to check my wrist, but...

Either my dive computer's light isn't working, or the shadow has smothered it. Dead space. Dead space all around me. Dead space in my airways. And all the safety videos I had to watch told me exactly how this ends. Blood pounds in my temples. My limbs thrash out of my control. Every labored breath is full of needles. More CO2 than air, and my mask presses hard into my cheekbones.

The shadow is crushing me. The burn of oxygen deprivation seeps through my veins, and through the fog of my mind, I meet the glossy, listing eye of a fish that doesn't know it's dead. Completely drained, I hang limp in the water. The blackness all around seeps into me, covering everything, hushing my thoughts. I'm too weak to take another futile breath. I let go.

My next memory is on shore. For all that shit I said about Max, he did save my fucking life. Managed to ascend while pulling me along without injuring either of us. Didn't believe my story, though. Who would? Of course, I sold all my diving gear. Kind of lost some of its magic after that, you know? Sometimes, when I'm at the beach, I see a dark spot way out in the water, and I always hope it's something harmless. Like a shark. But you never know.

Did that really happen? Oh man, that's insane. I am adequately spooked. Yo, how are you still here? Okay, so who's next? Uh, well, I guess I can follow that one. Allow me to walk you through a dream I once had. You dream you're in the woods. No woods in particular. Standing in a rounded clearing. The trees on all sides of you are grim. Harsh, all skeleton branches, bark bleached gray.

The sky above is black, a perfect void. But, despite the sky's emptiness, it isn't dark around you. Not like the night is dark, though there is a shaded vignette framing the back edges of the clearing. Ahead of you, though, is clear, and the trees stretching on cast no shadows onto the snowy forest floor, and neither do you.

And the path ahead of you is not paved or cleared, but still, you know it. A way through the trees to a thing that is calling your name, calling your feet forward through the white, blanketed snow one crunching step at a time. So you walk, the echo of your steps imprinted on the snow behind you as you travel deeper and deeper into the thick of your dream, of the woods, and of the sinking, twisted knowing that there is something ahead of you.

and you don't know how long you walk time in a dream both still and passing as your feet one after the other pass over the ground but soon coming into view in the center of the path ahead of you is a well a circular base of old worn stone contoured with veins of black rotten moss and for a fleeting second there is a sound

You stretch your neck out over the mouth of it, peering down, hands resting on the rough stone lips of the well as you gaze into its abyss. The well casts a shadow perpetually into itself, a stomach of darkness your eyes strain to adjust to, and you pause for a moment, staring, listening to the reflection of your own breath, wondering if there's water at the bottom, inhaling the smell of wet stones and deep earth.

A voice swells from the deep, faint as a whisper and stranger too, so much so it could have very well been ignored or imagined. You breathe softer and listen closer. How deep is the well? Daring to lean a little farther into the gaping hole, narrowing your gaze, straining to see, and you see a pair of eyes shining against the dark.

staring back at you staring from a face that makes your back arch and prickle and your stomach drop to the very snow beneath your feet makes you pull a few steps back from the well in a terror you know no words for a strange pull in the center of your chest how deep is the well then a sound like scuffling the echo rising faintly like smoke out from the deep and through the chimney of the well like skin against stone

You run down the path until the well fades into the distance. You run as you think maybe it was only your reflection. Perhaps that is what pulled at your chest when you saw it. And you run until standing before you are the old wooden bones of a chapel. Lonely, and like the trees, casting no shadow. You open its groaning doors. Before you is an old font, a stoop, with water too dark to be water.

Too still, even as your feet alternate and bear weight on the old, tired wooden floor. Its surface does not ripple, does not waver. In the space before you, a few humble rows of pews, a center aisle, and a pulpit, half rotten, are all bathed in red light. There is no light outside.

No moon, no stars, yet there are beams of light striking through the battered red stained glass, and in here, there are shadows. You step forward to the nearest window and put your hand into a beam of this light, and the light shows you what you really are.

It doesn't hurt, you don't think. The way this light seems to pull back the skin and flesh of your fingers and the sinew of your knuckles and palms and eats away at the tissue knitting this part of your body together. A kind of undressing. A revelation. And as you see your hand for the bone that it is, the bone the color of the lumber used to build this chapel, you hear it again. A sound from somewhere below, calling to you.

And at the back of the room you find a staircase. And at the bottom of these rickety wooden stairs you find a door, locked with large metal locks and chains, and behind it a voice. Help me. Not like the one you may have heard in the well, not strange, not multiplied, but muffled, words dulled and muddied behind the wood. But desperation needs no words to be known.

It cries over and over again like a prayer, a raw-throated plea, begging you to open the door. And why shouldn't you? In spite of the way the back of your neck prickles, the way those eyes that face at the bottom of the well flash against your memory, why shouldn't you open the door? It is only a dream, right? Your dream.

And the pleas will not stop. The locks and chains are easily released. Rust-eaten and weather-worn, they pull free from the door with a few good yanks. All the while, the voice calls for you. In response, you reach out your hand and open the door. And then the voice calls louder. Yes.

Different, changed, layered and wretched and so very like the voice at the bottom of the well that froze your spirit and caught your breath halfway up your throat, the one with that face. But it's too late. You've already opened it. Breath held hand, trembling and then a sudden, gaping silence in the dark. You have opened the door into an unlit room.

cavernous, shadows so heavy you cannot see the walls off which your footsteps bounce. The voice has disappeared and across this room is a figure walking towards you, matching your steps on the dark earth as you approach the center. This figure is wearing your clothes, wearing your face, staring back at you, a pair of eyes shining in the dark.

A reflection in some transcendent mirror that seems to hang in the air, shadowed floor to shadowed ceiling, a great wall of shimmering something. A curtain, like fluid glass, like water, rippling and wavering, and the door slams closed behind you, and you turn around to face it as the sound of rusted metal meeting wood resounds on the other side.

You turn to face your reflection and you find it smiling before reaching a hand with a strange shifting mirror and pulling you forward. It is cold and rushing and when you open your mouth to scream it is filled with this rushing coldness for a few terrible moments. Your breath is gone from you as is your sight and all you know is strange pulling rushing darkness then the surface breaks.

You gasp, taking in close, humid air, eyes open but straining to adjust in a new, perpetual dark. You can feel you are waist-deep in something wet. You reach out your hand before you. The hand you had seen in the light meets the slick, stone walls, narrow enough you can follow the cool, rounded edges in their full circle. You look up to see a strange, brief, ringed break in the darkness.

You know this. It is your dream. You know this is how far down the well goes. You call. Your voice, odd. A swirling, mocking echo resounding against the round, dank tomb. A moment of unbearable silence follows. Then, above you, a scuffed echo and a face peering down into the depths. You stare back.

Holy shit, that's a great story. Jesus. Okay, so, who's next? Kevin, you want to go? I'm going to talk about a deathly fear of dreams. And, well, nightmares don't even cover it.

I've been plagued with a bit of what we might call sleeping sickness for much of my life. As a kid, I hated going to bed due to parasomnias, primarily sleep paralysis. At the age of three, I said, I will not be put to bed and tossed to the wolves of sleep paralysis, papa.

No, I just bawled and cried, anticipating the utter terror that was certainly in store for me. And I know dreams are not scary because no one gets hurt, but this tale is about much more than just dreams. You see, I have narcolepsy. So as an adult, dreams are never far from reach. In fact, I've had dreams of dreams for a long time.

I'm like the Ferrari of dreaming. I hit REM sleep in 0 to 60 seconds, leaving most of you in the dust Sandman resorts to when he's out of sand. That's why I brought the backpack, if you must know. To carry my chimes. Not because I have dream sand. You thought I had dream sand? Wow. Neurologically, yes. But no. Come to think of it,

It might have something to do with why I chose to make an audio drama about a radio host who uses futuristic technology to livestream his nightmares for ratings. But I'll leave that analysis to the experts. Anywho, there I am, lying in bed, let's call it three and a half years old so I don't sound like a wuss...

I hounded my parents into reading to me to ward off the horrors, but that only worked for so long. I'm staring at the ceiling in the dark, as you do, when the most gut-wrenching, horrid thing drifts right out of the wall above me. The school bus.

Not any school bus. This is THE school bus that takes me away from the warmth of my family and the comfort of being a carefree loiterer for the rest of my life. Also, you usually only see the underside of a school bus after it's run over you. I've lost literally everyone. What else did I bring?

Huh. A plain granola bar from 2003. The sleep paralysis part of being a frozen observer of my own impending demise was for me the most tormenting at this point. My infantile dreaming mind could not come up with anything more creative than just a dream of laying paralyzed in my bed. You could say my young brain was a veritable HP Lovecraft of the banal since...

The brilliant part about dreaming that you are frozen stiff in your bed is it sure as hell feels like you are not actually dreaming, but rather being punished by specters and monsters of the infinite dark. Next was a giant octopus.

I honed in on its swift brute strength and ability to out wrestle a four year old underwater and then crack open the child's skull using that beak thingy or the nearest rock. Yet again, your little man survived unscathed. You're thinking what I was thinking. These terrors are zero for two. Maybe anything that floats out of the wall without leaving an ectoplasmic slime stain like a phantom in Ghostbusters ain't really a problem.

Still, it was nerve-wracking to be locked to the bed and powerless. Then the head appeared. I minded my business. I cataloged the various shapes and forms around the bedroom. That's the window.

What's that shadow? Ah, that's from the tree. There's the woven carpet, the bin with the pieces of a hand-me-down erector set, which, whoever named that, I hope they got therapy. And then there's the desk. All good. Except, what's that on the desk? How did I not notice the head poking up from it like an imp, staring at me in the dark, anticipating how it would prey upon me the moment I closed my eyes?

Yes, I could tell it had committed to winning a staring contest to the death. I hadn't fully adjusted to night vision and I couldn't make out its eyes. Great. There's a head coming out of my desk. Wait, is it looking away from me?

That's kind of rude. No. Then it's eyes. Black holes with the faintest yellow flame shown in the darkness. You know I'm paralyzed, right? All I've got is time, friend. And you? You are the owl lamp my brother made in shop class. Bugger.

Let's see. Looks like I'm the king of dreams now, because that's everything. By the way, did you all see that episode of Sandman, the Netflix TV series or what have you, where the muse calls him Juan Noodles? Is Dream the Endless' real name Juan Noodles? I imagine he's like, it's actually spelled noodles. Yeah, not, no, that'd be silly. It's with a T.

Y'all missed that scene? I'm pretty sure someone called them Juan Noodles. Okay, I'll find it. And then we can, you know, circle back to it. Anyway, I was wrong. For I had not yet encountered he who devours the little ones. The Eliminator. The one who wishes only to transform us into gold. The middle-aged bald man in that goth nightgown-looking get-up friar's wear. Is that a thing? Friar wear? Probably right next to monk wear. It's Gargamel.

nemesis of the Smurfs. I spot him lounging along the entire length of my bookshelf in the dark one night. I can't see his eyes, but you know he's watching. Sick, twisted, sociopathic, pedo. Not gonna say anything? Is that even you, Gargamel? Huh. That's all you've got. And that's how I got into comedy.

It turned out he couldn't hurt me. I guess that's what I landed on. He could terrorize me, but he couldn't back it up. Little did I know the horrors of nightmares extend far and well beyond a personal threat of bodily harm.

Now we're in a new house in Ohio. I'm eight. It's summer. I'm about to start a whole new life in a new school. And I've been having nightmares about being buried alive in a coffin. Thanks, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. My initial panic devolves as I realize if I had a flashlight and some coloring books, I'd probably be fine. Mind you, I'm eight, and I've never finished a coloring book. So this is my version of, finally I'll have time to get around to that.

But my mind goes to the next step, which is death. And once I realize that's awaiting me in the dark, well, there's no getting around it. I'm on the welcome mat to hell. I woke up one night, probably right before I was supposed to start third grade...

I've been contemplating death. It's not pretty. I'm ill-equipped. And I would go to the bathroom, but I freeze on all fours, halfway through the act of scooting out of my bed. My heart begins to pound relentlessly in my chest because I see the thing one never wants to see. A shadow on my wall that looks almost identical to a knife in a man's hand.

This man has obviously climbed up to the window pane. We're the new folks in town. Easy marks. It'll be a quick murder. Force your way in through the kid's room, then get the parents. And here's my logic: If I stay still, you might think I'm part of the scenery. I know it doesn't quite check out in retrospect, but you try dismounting from your childhood bed knowing your killer is a few paces away with a loaded butcher's knife.

I don't know how long I perch, frozen on my hands and knees. It feels like about six hours. Could have been two minutes. My room consists of unfamiliar things. There's my bed, which I'm outgrowing. A woolly off-white carpet. And that's about it on my end.

Across the room sits my old desk with no head, and there's a door to the bathroom. And of course there's the window. The killer's shadow undulates, overlapping with mine on the wall. It hesitates. But here's the real kicker. I'm so scared for my life that, for the first time, I'm about to shit myself out of sheer terror.

I know what my predator is playing at, and it's a sick game. He's not satisfied with murder. No, he wants more. He wants to humiliate me for every second that remains of my very short life, and this I cannot abide.

Slay me if you must, you savage angel of death. But I will not go down as one of those kids whose killer held him at knife point until he shat his bed. So after another minute or so of panicked deliberation, I sprung into action. I can't tell you exactly what happened next, but I can say it was more embarrassing than my worst nightmare. True, I showed the courage needed to avoid shitting the bed. But somehow I succeeded at shitting the rug.

And folks, when it's a white rug, there's no bouncing back from that. You just have to move your bed over that spot. I do recall screaming a blood-curdling howl at the time to alert my parents that the killer was upon me and they should save themselves. However, my plan failed. They came running, and I did not have the wherewithal to explain what had led to this traumatic series of events. Victims rarely do.

As I reflect on the situation now, I realize it could have gone another way. I could have died in my bed. So, I'm grateful to be alive. And shout out to the cleanup crew that night. Great story. Okay, okay, so who's next? I got a story that'll work. I've mentioned this before, but I moved around a lot when I was younger and was always a latchkey kid.

You never really see a house as a home when you move that much. There aren't memories attached in the same way you have when you grow up in a place your whole life. But there was one house we lived in for less than a year, just a few months really, out in San Antonio that always sticks out in my mind. Sometimes my homework load would be light or my parents would be late and I would find some extra time on my hands by myself. That's when I'd go exploring to find what made each particular house so unique.

Sometimes it was a nook in the attic or a loose floorboard that had an old forgotten diary in it. In that house, it was a whole hidden room. The closet in my bedroom was shallow, but behind my hanging Sunday attire was a door. It was as tall as the closet and the molding to either side blended well with the vertically striped pattern on the wall itself. There was also no door handle on the bedroom side. Instead, you had to push it open.

I could see how my parents had missed this when we were moving in. It's not easy to describe the wonder I felt when I first entered. I mean, show of hands, you've all dreamed of pulling on a certain book on a shelf, or tapping the right brick in the fireplace mantle, or twisting the right sconce to have a hidden door suddenly swing open, right? Exactly. Who hasn't? I didn't stay in there for too long. I think I just wanted that little bit of magic to myself. For a while, at least.

But I took in the room before I left, noting that aside from the old children's toys, it was pretty much empty. I soon backed out and, with some difficulty, closed the door. I asked my mom about the house several years ago, and she told me a lot more than I had remembered at first. She was glad we'd gotten out of there for a few reasons. They'd started looking the next day after I'd found that door because I had an accident.

There was a loose part of the railing near the top of the stairs and I'd leaned the wrong way on it after dinner, tumbling all the way down to the hardwood floor below. I managed to break my fall before my head connected with the ground, but I broke one of my wrists in doing so. After that, my parents felt like the house was a death trap waiting to happen. My mother also mentioned it was odd how I had an imaginary friend there. To be honest,

That's something I had forgotten until she said it, but now I can remember it as clear as day. It started when I got home from the emergency room with my wrist in a cast. I was lying in bed, the room far from my mind, when I heard it. What'd you think of my room? I just about shat my bed. Hell, maybe I did and I just blocked that part out. I haven't had anyone to play with in so long. Thanks for letting me come out and play again. I called out, asking who was there.

"I'm Billy, silly. Silly Billy. What's your name? Or should I just call you Silly Billy too?" I didn't see anyone and couldn't even pinpoint where the voice was coming from. But it didn't sound like a scary monster, just another kid like me. "I'm Jeremy," I said. "Jer-e-me. I haven't met a Jeremy before. Do you want to be my friend?" I kept looking around. "I'm here, but not in a way you can see."

I can't really do much of anything right now. I can't even play with my toys. But you can, if you want. If you'll be my friend. Are you like a ghost or something? Hmm. I think I'm more like an imaginary friend. Silly Billy doesn't sound like a ghost name, does it? I guess not. So is that a yes? A yes? Will you be my friend? Uh... Sure.

I'll be your friend, silly Billy. Okay. Get some good sleep tonight. We can play tomorrow. I eventually fell asleep. I discounted it as a dream, or maybe just the pain meds they gave me. But when I got home the next day, there he was. Or rather, there his voice was. I'm so glad you're home, Jeremy. Are you ready to play? At his direction, I did end up playing.

I played all over, both inside and outside the house, imagining all sorts of scenarios with the aid of my new friend, Silly Billy. I had some difficulty doing it all one-handed, but he got particularly excited when I started playing with his toys when he asked me to. This kept up for a few weeks, and I eventually got completely comfortable with Silly Billy always being around, even though nobody else could hear him, and I couldn't even see him. One day while we were playing...

He called out something in the room. "Do you see that metal thing over there in the corner?" I looked around until I saw a metal grate. "You mean the air duct?" "Open it." When I had some difficulties, I could hear some irritation in his voice. "Why don't you go get something to open it?" I asked if we could do something else instead, but Silly Billy was persistent. I went downstairs and got a screwdriver, then came back and finally got the grate off.

Inside the vent was a series of metal jars. I asked him what they were. Open them. I felt uncomfortable. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something in his tone had shifted and his voice was raising the hair on the back of my neck. Come on, just open one, Jeremy. I don't really want to. Take off the fucking lid and open the goddamn jar. I jumped, startled. I threw the jar down and ran out of the room.

My dad walked in the door less than a minute later and I didn't hear Silly Billy for a few days after that. I thought it might be over, but one night he came back to apologize. "Jeremy?" I didn't respond. "I'm sorry I yelled at you." I still didn't say anything. "I can make it up to you though. I promise." I finally sat up slightly in bed. "Follow my voice and you'll see."

I reluctantly got out of bed and followed Silly Billy as he happily hummed his way out of my room and to the top of the stairs, where he stopped. "Well?" I asked. "You see where that part of the railing is broke?" "Yeah. That's how I got this cast on my wrist. I felt a cold spot growing on my back as I spoke." "You just didn't do it right. There's a special way to land. Here."

I'll show you. Suddenly the cold spot grew hard and I felt myself being shoved toward the edge of the staircase. I screamed and reached out to grab anything I could with my hand. Silly Billy just wants to play, Jeremy. We all just want to play. My dad heard me scream and managed to catch me before I fell. We didn't stay in the house for long after that and I never heard Silly Billy again.

It took some prying, but eventually, my mom told me all the reasons she was glad we had left. Not long after, they found body parts in the jars within a hidden room. The body parts belonged to several different people who'd slipped off the stairs, just as I had, but had landed in just the right way so they didn't survive. It had happened to nearly everyone who'd lived there, all the way back to a child nearly a decade ago, William Bartlett.

Holy shit. Oh, man. That's insane. How are you still here? Well, that's it for me. So, did we all make it? Great job, everyone. Wow. I can't believe it. Oh, this is fun, but I'm so ready for new ones. I don't know what I'm feeling about waffles this year. Yeah, I don't know. Right? That was the best one. This is a weird one. Okay, one time, I've never heard of a hip-hop club. I think these are kind of a big deal.

Hey! How'd your group fare? Pretty spooky. Yours? Oh, they were fantastic. Chilled me right up. Yeah. Hey, uh, Dylan. Hang back. Hang back. So, are we going to tell them? No. Why? Because those were the rules, Dylan. Remember? It spoke to both of us. Bring them here, give them a talk, tell their stories. Okay.

Do you think it was satisfied? Do you think we did enough? It let them leave, didn't it? I haven't stopped having the dream, though. Me neither. Look, we keep it satisfied. Right. Then we'll do it again next year. They believed me. They believed us. We just keep doing what it says. Doing what it wants.

Until... Until it wakes. Nine to Midnight was a collaborated effort for Halloween 2022 between Malevolent, Woe Be Gone, The Storage Papers, The Night Post, Nowhere On Air, Hellgate City, Out of the Ashes, Parkdale Haunt, The Town Whispers, Wake of Corrosion, The Cellar Letters, and The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere Ohio.

Each story was written, performed, and edited by one of the shows listed above. Check the notes for information and links you can follow to listen to each show. Nine to Midnight was written by Harlan Guthrie and featured Dylan Griggs, Jeremy Enfinger, Nathan Lunsford, Ray Lundberg, Jess Syrett, Kevin Barry, Vincent C. Davis, Alex Nersall, Emily Kellogg, Cole Weavers, Sean Pellington,

The most powerful designer drugs are the digital ones we use daily. And we get high off them. When touch, tap,

Like, scroll at a time. You know, just like tech creators want us to. Use digital without digital using you. Learn more at sync.ithra.com.

Forever!

After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from. From earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens.

Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

Hi everyone, it's Kareem, the voice of Simon Fairchild from the Magnus Archives. Today I'm here to advertise Hainai, a podcast recently launched on the RQ Network. Hainai is an atmospheric, analogue-style horror audio drama featuring folk horror, mythology and chilling supernatural terrors in an urban setting. Follow Mari, a Filipino immigrant in Toronto who casually handles supernatural threats like it's just another Tuesday.

Using her lived experience raised by her Babylonian mother to save the city from unimaginable horrors. She's joined by two supernatural detectives, Donna and Murphy. Her strong-armed lesbian neighbor Laura and Ashvin, a conman guru with real magic powers. The title, Hi Nai or Hi Mum, comes from Mari Fonkananay, or Mother, in the Philippines about her adventures. Season 1 has our protagonist face rich immortal occultists from the early 1900s called...

elders, who feed off ordinary people's deaths. In particular, they must hunt down the elder's leader, the benefactor, who's so powerful nobody remembers his face or name. The story centers mystical immigrants fighting the supernatural to cope with the real-life horrors of fascism and corruption, which characterize Maori's childhood flashbacks in the Philippines. Search for Hainai wherever you listen to your podcasts, or go to hainaypod, that's H-I-N-A-Y-P-O-D dot com, or www.rustyquill.com for more information.