the Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio

On the eve of Halloween, nine storytellers make their way to an abandoned asylum to share their terrifying truths about the darkness that exists around them. As the tales unfold, each more visceral than the last, the nine may just discover that it is not the waking world to fear, but the horrors that lay within.

Nine to Midnight is a collaborative storytelling event between nine podcasts:

Malevolent (https://www.malevolent.ca)

WOE.BEGONE (https://www.woebegonepod.com)

Wake of Corrosion (https://wakeofcorrosion.carrd.co)

The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio (https://www.somewhereohio.com)

The Cellar Letters (https://www.thecellarletters.com)

The Storage Papers (https://www.thestoragepapers.com)

The Town Whispers (https://www.thetownwhispers.com)

Nowhere, On Air (https://nowhereonairpodcast.weebly.com)

Hell Gate City Companion (https://www.hellgatecity.com)

CREDITS & CONTENT WARNINGS

CW: General horror, swearing throughout

Produced by Harlan Guthrie

Master edit by Harlan Guthrie

'Nine to Midnight' written by Harlan Guthrie.

Performed by Harlan Guthrie, Dylan Griggs, Shaun Pellington, Rat Grimes, Jamie Petronis, Jeremy Enfinger, Nathan Lunsford, Cole Weavers, Jess Syratt, and Kevin Berrey.

8:05 | 'Rare Book' written, performed, edited, and mixed by Harlan Guthrie of Malevolent.

16:50 | 'The Knocking' written, performed, edited, mixed, and music composed & performed by Dylan Griggs of WOE.BEGONE.

27:05 | 'The Broken Man' written, performed, edited, and mixed by Shaun Pellington of Wake of Corrosion.

CW: Violence, injury

35:30 | 'The Pool' written, performed, edited, mixed, and music composed & performed by Rat Grimes of The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio.

CW: Death, drowning

44:42 | 'The 1 to 5 Minute Man' written, performed, edited, and mixed by Jamie Petronis of The Cellar Letters.

52:24 | 'Ridgefield Manor' written, edited, and mixed by Nathan Lunsford.

Performed by Jeremy Enfinger and Nathan Lunsford of The Storage Papers.

Additional sounds from Zapsplat (https://www.zapsplat.com).

CW: Discussion of murder and suicide

1:02:45 | 'Public Access' written, performed, edited, and mixed by Cole Weavers of The Town Whispers.

1:12:34 | 'The Shortcut' written, performed, edited, and mixed by Jess Syratt of Nowhere, On Air.

1:22:14 | 'Peepers Creepers' written, produced, performed, edited, and mixed by Kevin Berrey, Screaming Panda LLC of Hell Gate City Companion.

Music composed by Cheska Navarro (https://www.cheskanavarro.com).

Sounds from Zapsplat (https://www.zapsplat.com).

Additional sounds and effects licensed under CC BY 3.0: https://freesound.org/people/Garuda1982/sounds/570378/ by Garuda1982 https://freesound.org/people/cbakos/sounds/50646/ by cbakos https://freesound.org/people/trip_sound/sounds/190470/ by trip_sound https://freesound.org/people/Omar%20Alvarado/sounds/251538/ by Omar Alvarado

https://freesound.org/people/SLCBagpiper/sounds/337743/ by SLCBagpiper https://freesound.org/people/GM180259/sounds/491997/ by GM180259

Forward and backward are not stable concepts. The curtains close, a mask is shattered, but we're still here. Wren helps a lost soul and meets some familiar ones.

Thank you all so much for listening, and special thanks to guests Jess Syratt of Nowhere, On Air and Shannon Strucci of Critical Bits and more.

(CWs, spoilers: bullying, derealization, implied dysphoria, brief fire and engine sounds, alcohol, smoking)

*audience shuffling and chatting, dies down*

LOST FISHERMAN: “Good evening, dear audience. Tonight we present to you the final act in a series of strange events. The detective this evening will be played by Wren once more, with the receiving clerk reprising the role of the vanished. I will be your chorus. When you see me again, it will all be over. When I return, you will not be ready, but it must end as all things do. Until then, please enjoy the show.

“A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me”

WREN:

The vault wasn’t so much an actual vault, but–as you’ve no doubt surmised–a cave. Like the cave I had encountered before, where Lucy served me breakfast. Where I cried over eggs and toast. Maybe just a different part of the same cave, even. All around me, stacked and scattered throughout the yawning caverns was dead mail: letters, packages, objects covered in grime and dust. The light from my phone only revealed a harsh circle in front of me, leaving much of the vault in total darkness. I felt things stirring in that darkness whenever I turned away. They gathered behind me, at my sides, spiraled gaseous tendrils around my ears. But they dissipated any time I faced them.

I flipped through folders and sifted through cabinets and baskets full of decomposing paper. I found many strange stories among the mundane cruft. Some stories I had heard before, some I had not. These pieces had little in common: from different parts of the country, different times, different people. Many followed a similar thread, though.

Something under the office’s purview, my purview, appeared in each: a moth here, an alien worm there. Just little hints of the ineffable, the sublime radioactive backdrop that most people tune out. This damp hall was where my furry friend would have ended up, had I not saved them from that fate. I panned the pulp silt for gold, trying to find any clue I could sink my teeth into.

I went further and farther back, in time and in space. The older files were kept ever deeper in the cave. I was in the middle of reading a peculiar letter regarding an ill-tempered neighbor when my boot struck a vein. Masonry. Not the deep brown rock surrounding me, but a gray slab shaped by human hands. Around the base of the stone was a shallow puddle. I looked up and there I saw an angel.

An angel in gray, its features blurred and worn by time, its form smudged with black. Had the angel been there the whole time, or had it just appeared a moment ago? I leaned closer and inspected its surface.

All across this sculpture–from the top of its head to the base–were dark fingerprints. I gently slid the letter I was carrying through one of the tacky prints. The black substance followed, sticking to the paper. Simply looking was going to get me nowhere. What use is a detective that only uses one sense, anyway? I held the tacky substance close to my nose and inhaled.

Fire, smoke, machinery. This thing was covered in scorched oil. The angel’s hands were clasped to its chest, and I could tell there was something within. I recalled a story I had heard about a sculpture of similar kind. About a disappearance and a hanging thread.

I had to know what was held in its hands.

As if already planting its roots in my mind, the angel’s stone fingers unfolded, and there it proffered an egg, no bigger than a chicken’s. I dared not touch the angel, this seraph bathed in the blood of the ancient earth. I took a step back and shuddered. At this rejection, many fish fell around the angel, all dead and frozen, slapping hard against the cave floor.

Then, from the deepest recesses of my consciousness, there came a sound: steel wire hanging high above a field of corn. The lines shivered in the breeze and sang like clockwork sparrows. Metallic spring sprung forth in a curl of light and noise. An electrical pylon, its arms spread wide, so wide it held the whole state to its chest. Transmissions from everywhere and nowhere collected in the still air inside its ribs. It blew a whispered kiss through the heavy bent stalks, through iced cities and rolling foothills. It blew a kiss as loud as the trumpets of revelation, and spoke in a hundred tongues of electric rapture:

“The next time you see me, you will be dead. And when I come, you will not be ready...”

All of my training, all of my will and wit was for naught in the face of it. And in my mind were two diverging paths, two images in a...

The office receives a grisly letter from the early 20th century about an experimental composer. Conway muses about his past and present.

(CWs: blood, body horror, knuckles cracking, death)

Music:

Purcell - Rondeau From Abdelazer

Vivaldi - Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor

Saint-Saëns - Danse macabre, Op. 40

TRANSCRIPT:

CONWAY: This is Conway, receiving clerk for the Dead Letter Office of ***** Ohio, processing the national dead mail backlog. The following audio recording will serve as an internal memo strictly for archival purposes and should be considered confidential. Need I remind anyone: public release of this or any confidential material from the DLO is a felony. Some names and places have been censored for the protection of the public.

Now this is an old one. I feel like if I’m not careful opening this, the whole thing’s gonna tear. Dead Letter 312. A letter addressed to a Mr. Markos. I’m not entirely sure how it made it into our backlog, given it’s about 100 years old, but there appears to be no address for this Mr. Markos. The letter reads as follows.

EDGAR, NARRATOR: "Malicious. Obscene. Substandard. Most disagreeable and indigestible. The proverbial Dickensian crumb of cheese splattered on the stage by an ill-tempered mind, one assuredly perverted by rhythm and reason hitherto unknown to polite society. A complete aesthetic and moral failure for Monsieur Edgar, and a black spot on all contemporary English works. Perhaps Edgar should have retained his study of internal medicine, whereby he could make messes of the human form as he sees fit, sans audience."

These “kind words” and more you levied at my first premiere in Paris one year ago, Monsieur Markos. Certainly your confidant Madame Stein has long ago heard the tale of my ballet’s misfortune and ensured all the other aesthetes gathered in her gilded salon from Apollinaire to Matisse know my shame.

I can imagine you poring over this text now, after my second premiere, in a frenzied allegro--perhaps accompanied by the horns of bobbies--seeking any news of your daughter’s health, any drop of comfort for your troubled heart. Though my frame shudders with mirth at the mere thought, that revelation must come in due course, monsieur. First I should like to give you a thorough recounting of the creation of my latest, and final, piece.

One evening the 25th of October, 1915. Deep in the trench of a gas-laden graveyard, a medic stood just outside the range of an artillery shell detonation. Three other medics within the radius were torn apart and died instantly, along with several soldiers a touch more slowly, leaving just this lone medic as the frantically bandaging witness. It was in these trenches that the medic saw the true barbarity of our race, the needless suffering we undergo and inflict for the benefit of our supposed betters. We, merely the chess pieces of our modern gods callously tossed off the board for a coin. He saw the very threshold of what man’s body can endure, and what Herr Freud might call the collective psyche of a nation can withstand--or bury. You, Monsieur, championed this war in your paper of record and seem determined to bury its atrocities.

At the time of my release from service, a friend apprised me of the goings-on at a salon in Zurich, of Mr. Hugo Ball and his associates at the Cabaret Voltaire. I was divinely inspired by their destruction and reconfiguration of the old modes into new ones, of the unseen grotesque discovered. The absurdity of our modern condition, in the twisted forms in a Braque, or a Duchamp, were not so dissimilar to the horrors of the Great War, to the bodies out of joint and out of space strewn across Europe. I spent the majority of my cached income to bring these radical new movements to the orchestra, to replicate the impossible bodies in dance, and to never let us forget what they have done to us, and what you and yours encouraged; the grinding of our bodies into dust in the gears of imperial war and industry.

As for Stein and all: I hadn’t the slightest interest in their approval in any case. However, since my premiere, your words had rattled around my mind like a sharp stone in my shoe. I thought I’d be rid of it only to be sorely reminded of its presence by a prick in the heel. I did not seek your approval, yet your critique soured me on my own work. I was driven to rework the piece entirely, to transmogrify it into a ballet that would test the very limits of the form itself. The fruits of this labor you were witness to this very night.

I began the process many months ago. I would spend hours in my parlor with my mandolin, plucking out atonal melodies and discordant passages derived from sources both holy and profane. Dominant sevenths with no tonic, tritones without resolution. I found these enlightening, but not fully to my taste. There was a rhythmic certainty ...

A letter writer reminisces about his strange childhood pet. Conway explores the guts of an abandoned mall and finds someone he wasn't looking for. Wren gets chewed out for something they can't control.

(CWs: body horror, brief mention of violence and death, alcohol, dead animal, whispering, some strong language)

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, this is Wren, claims adjuster for the Dead Letter Office of *******, Ohio. The following audio recording will serve as evidence for Conway’s case. Public release of this or any other evidence is strictly prohibited. Some names and facts have been censored for the protection of the office.

As we’ve previously established, forward and backward are not necessarily stable concepts. So let’s begin today by looking at the next letter in Conway’s backlog, which may give me insight into what happened to him.

Dead letter 14417, a long note written on several folded pieces of printer paper, sent by a Stephen ***** to his mother in late 2016. The letter reads as follows.

NARRATOR STEPHEN: Hey mom.

Did I ever have a pet growing up? I know dad never wanted one and then Dave was allergic. It’s getting harder to remember if this actually happened or if it’s a vivid dream that’s stuck with me through the years.

Before high school hit me like a semi truck, you’d let me bike up to the arcade at the Deerland Mall on the weekends.

LOUDSPEAKER: “WELCOME TO THE DEERLAND MALL, YOU’LL GO BUCK WILD FOR THESE DEALS! Our store hours are: 9am to 7pm” *slowly fades out*

NARRATOR: I remember the huge globe of stale gumballs loitering in the foyer. I’d chew on them even though I knew they were rock hard and would probably cut my gums up. Sorry about the quarters missing from your purse. Then I’d stop by the candy store and get a big bag of sweaty gummies that had been sitting in the foggy display case for god knows how long and a tall cherry coke from the concession stand.

The light gun shooters and fighting game cabinets there were cool enough, but my favorite was the racing game. It had a whole mock driver’s seat that moved side to side as you steered. It was also more expensive to play than the others, so I’m sorry about the missing dollar bills. Whatever change I had leftover after a few laps of hairpin turns went into the vending machine full of capsule toys. Since I couldn’t get a dog, I was desperate for one of those new Tamagotchi toys. But where was I gonna get a whole twenty dollars? Coincidentally, the top prize advertised on the machine was a bright blue Tamagotchi. I was old enough to know there was probably only one in there, if any at all. I knew I’d probably end up spending more than twenty dollars trying to get it, yet here I was pouring money down the slot anyway instead of saving it up to buy one.

On a particular lazy afternoon, the arcade was empty: not too uncommon for a summer weekday. I put two quarters in the slot on the capsule machine, twisted the tough old crank, and out dropped a peculiar toy. The capsule itself was identical to the others: a translucent plastic casing, a bubble with a colorful top that popped off. Almost like an acorn fallen from a petroleum tree. But what was inside the case gave me pause then, and still makes me uneasy today.

I cracked it open under the flickering lights of the arcade. Inside wasn’t a Tamagotchi, but rather an egg: bigger than a robin’s egg but about the same color with a few white spots, and surprisingly heavy for a toy its size. What’s a thirteen-year-old boy want with a plastic egg? Waste of 50 cents, I thought. I put it in its case and set it on top of the claw machine so I could go play a game about shooting aliens in area 51. I was winding down a blocky corridor when I heard something behind me. I had thought I was the only one in there. I froze, and a bead of prickly sweat rolled down my neck. I turned my head to the entrance of the arcade. Nobody there. I scanned the stained carpet for anything out of place. Spilled on the ground near the rusty change machine was the capsule I’d just won, split up as a cracked egg. The toy that was inside sat upright among the wreckage. I took a step closer, still gripping the orange gun tethered to the cabinet. The egg on the ground shook. A tiny wobble. I shut my eyes hard for a few seconds, inducing those familiar mental fireworks, then looked again. Another teeter.

I pointed the light gun at it and fired. Kid logic would state that if this toy came to life, it could similarly be brought down by a toy gun. By then my connection to kid logic was hanging on by a single synapse, constantly threatening to disappear from my thought patterns forever, on the precipice of the bigger, darker realizations that the adult world foists upon the unsuspecting teen.

Well, sometimes kid logic doesn’t hold up to real world testing anyway. But now this blue egg had my interest: it...

Conway sorts through some old--and possibly haunted--video games. The office receives a letter from someone with a peculiar ghost problem.

Happy (late) April Fools! I certainly hope no major video game publishers listen to this show!

(CWs: alcohol, brief blood, implied death)

TRANSCRIPT:

CONWAY: This is Conway, receiving clerk for the Dead Letter Office of ***** Ohio, processing the national dead mail backlog. The following audio recording will serve as an internal memo strictly for archival purposes and should be considered confidential. Need I remind anyone: public release of this or any confidential material from the DLO is a felony. Some names and places have been censored for the protection of the public.

Dead Object 2513, a box of old video game cartridges. Let’s see what we’ve got. The label appears to have been weathered off on this first one, and someone’s written a name on the front in permanent marker. The games arrived with some other belongings, the leftovers from an estate sale that just couldn’t find a buyer. I’ve got an old system set up, paid for out of pocket of course, just on a lark. The interior of this cartridge looks pretty corroded, so I guess we'll see if it even plays.

All right, looks like the logo’s coming up. There's the title. Select a file. We’ve got one file with a person’s name, probably the old owner, and another file. Let’s choose that second one.

Okay, on the screen we’ve got the main character, all in green, lying all twisted up in some kind of dark atmosphere. I can’t move him, and can't really do much else on this screen. There’s an eerie looking gentleman with a large backpack nearby smiling at me. Seems he’s got some masks on his bag. Oh, we’ve got some text coming up at the bottom now. It reads as follows: “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”

Nah, I’ve seen this one before. Not interested.

Let’s try this one.

OLD-FASHIONED NARRATOR: You are about to travel to another place, a place not only of truth but of allegory. Beyond this title screen, you will see a nightmare, a reflection, a fiction more real than any photograph.

You’re looking at a nondescript bar in the middle of a town in the heart of America. The exact location of this town is not important, for it’s not the place you must consider, but its people. A people in dire need of change to stave off collapse. Unfortunately for the people of this place, there will be no drastic change from those at the top, only distraction, diversion, entertainment.

STORYTELLER: Condensation covers the windows as heat from the patrons inside cools on the chilly glass. A tall man in a green hat sits by himself at the bar, looking forlorn over his thick mustache into his nearly-empty glass. The noises of the night--murmurs, clinking glasses, cars passing outside--melt into a gauzy hum behind him. He drains the remainder and wipes his mouth with a white-gloved hand. He fishes into his pocket for his wallet and gives a sharp sniff to stop his bulbous nose from running. He’s out of cash. He puts the glass down in front of him, wobbles in his stool for a moment, and then wraps his knuckles on the counter for another drink. The bartender turns to face him.

The man behind the bar tips back his green hat and tugs on his suspenders as he looks the patron over. The bartender shakes his head and twists his mouth up under his full twirled mustache. The man at the bar doesn’t like this answer. His eyebrows furrow and his mustache twitches. He slams his hand on the counter. This catches the attention of the rest of the patrons sitting at tables around the bar. They all turn toward him. Everyone’s on edge tonight. Despite the chilly weather, the patrons are similarly dressed in blue overalls with brass buttons, green shirts, green lettered caps, and white gloves. All tall, all mustaches. A football game plays on the television in the background, lines of mustaches in shoulder pads facing off. The angry patron at the bar, feeling the eyes of the others, hangs his head. He shrugs and makes a remorseful gesture with his hands. He slides his hat off his head and holds it to his chest as he slinks out of the bar’s side door.

Outside, gentle snowflakes drift and fall onto the chartreuse hats of two figures kissing in the alley beside the bar. A cart darts by in the road, a blur of emerald as its roar cuts the still winter air. The drunk man from the bar stumbles through the side door into the alley, and the two lovebirds freeze and look anxiously his way. After he passes them by, they embrace again, giggling. One shushes the other playfully with a gloved white finger to his lips through visible breath.

Then another noise disrupts the alley pair, this time deeper in the freezing darkness ahead. Something is rustling in the dumpster. They nervously peer ahead, with shorte...