Arkham

Good evening and welcome to Night's Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They say it's Rod through Ling's Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod through Las Night Gallery. It's somebody else's. Oh we know, we talk about it a lot.

Your curators at Midnight Viewing are the projection booths. Mike White. What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion and culture casts? Chris Stashue, small boy incased in the Crystal Ball, and I'm father Malone, the kind of thing that usually infest nightmares, joined us monthly at Midnight Viewing. The Night Gallery podcast at weird Ingwaymedia dot Com doesn't remotely belong to me.

I have no proprietary interest in that at all. Weird Welcome to Dark Destinations, an ongoing investigation into the shadowy corners of the Gloom, where our haunted past meets our startling future. All right, here we go. It is April to twenty seventh. I have just landed at Logan International Airport here in Dreary, Boston, Massachusetts, and this is August Ward Recording.

Hi Shelley, thanks again for taking this assignment at such short notice. You are the only producer I trust. With this piece, I'm going to be doing things a little differently with this one. There's still going to be plenty of interviews and personal notes and wild sound pieces to wade through, but rather than record months later back in some airless studio, I'm going to do my best to put my Ivy League education on display and actually narrate on the fly. And to that end, I bought a new recorder and it is programmable, so whenever I finished a session, it should make a Q sound like this.

How's that? Isn't that great? You can choose any sound you want, and I thought this one is appropriately spooktaculative in our subject matter. Anyway, my mysterious benefactor has spared every expense for this investigation. I flew here coach, and now I'm in the parking lot of what must be the worst rental car agency in all of Massachusetts.

I was shocked when the ancient rental car shuttle bus didn't need to be lifted by the passengers and run here Flintstone style, and now I'm finally at my rental car. It is a Ford Taurus, an older model, not surprisingly and covered in a kind of late spring grime. I had mercifully forgotten about me, and the interior absolutely stinks. I don't know that for certain, because I haven't gotten insided yet. I'm just guessing, all right, Shelley, here we go.

Route one is a Massachusetts mainstay. It connects at the Rhode Island border and winds its way through the eastern portion of the state, terminating in New Hampshire, somewhere at the halfway point. If you take Eggs at twenty five A and head east, you'll find yourself on the Massachusetts coast, just north of Marblehead, a city that spawned an entirely colloquial non sequitor light downs on marble Head and south of Kingsport lines the famous and in some cases infamous town of Arkham. We're a few minutes from the town line, which is as good a time as any, dear listeners, to introduce you to your narrator storyteller. I don't know either way.

My name is August Ward. I've been a radio journalist, podcast guest, and overall rack and tour for the last twelve years. Who better than a one time local boy to investigate the sometimes intriguing, sometimes frustrating, and at other times inspiring town of paranormal rumor and old world conjecture of Arkham, mass We're crossing from Swampscott and into Arkham proper right now. There's that familiar signpost Welcome to Arkham, with the town's insignia a shamant Indian's feather encircled by the outline of a cod The sign is fairly playing given the likes of its closest neighbor, Salem, Massachusetts, which features a cartoon which a stride of broom flying through the night sky as its governmental seal.

Salem has always been Arkham's older brother on a national scale, better known, better regarded, always more fascinating to the casual observer. Every Halloween, the entirety of the US population seems to funnel into its supposedly haunted borders. Hundreds of books, films, and television series have been devoted to its dark history and reported supernatural underpinnings. But Arkham always more diligent, more focused, and overall far more ignored as any good younger sibling tends to be bear Salem no ill will to be honest. Growing up in Arkham, we were always glad Salem drew such notoriety.

Better the public sees on them and they're freaky passed than delve too deeply into our own. Hey, Shelley, our mysterious benefactor, in his endless attempts to save a buck, booked me into an Airbnb instead of a hotel. I was pretty unhappy when I saw that on my itinerary. Sharing a bathroom and eating communal breakfast with a bunch of tourists doesn't appeal in any way. But whatever, It's a job, not a vacation.

You know. They say you can't go home again, and that's a sentiment I've always known to be true. Compounding it in my case is the fact that my parents moved to Scottsdale a few months after I went to college. They passed away a few years ago, so even my newly adopted home feels unwelcoming. I haven't been there in a few years, and I certainly haven't back to Arkham and well over a decade.

I never imagine I'd be home. You can't see it, but I'm making air quotes, so it's surreal to be back in such familiar environs, made even more so by the fact that said airbnb just so happens to be my childhood home. The outside looks great, I must admit. The owner replaced the traditional New England wooden shingles with some sort of aluminum siding, which is probably a good idea, given what a bitch it is to replace them anytime the weather gets bad, and my father never seemed to get around too. And it's a bright shade of yellow, which it had once been, the kind of deep chocolate that most houses in this region seem to favor.

The owner is sweet, a fading ginger named Megan Holsey, who must have been a stunner back when Nixon was in the White House. If I'm being totally honest, she's kind of a stunner even now. I tried to get her to install me in my old bedroom, but that's a sitting room now, so instead she gave me the spare bedroom on the third floor, or as my parents used to call it. Get the hell out of that room. It's not for you.

It is four am. Sorry, it's so late, chilly. Wait no, I resend that apology. It's not four am there, knowing you you're listening to this at two am tops. Anyway, I was sleeping pretty hard when I heard a scratching noise somewhere in my room.

I was hoping to get it on tape, but just like the sound your car makes until you get it to the mechanic, it's disappeared completely. But my magical new recorder does have a voice activation setting. I'll probably turn it on before I go to sleep from now on. At worst, it'll be a wake up call from miss Halsey that the exterminators inter future. At best, some cool spooky atmosphere for the podcast.

There it's on now, I hope. H m hm m. Good morning, Shelley, and it is a beautiful morning. I'm spending it soaking up the old hometown atmosphere. I'm sure the notion that everything you grew up seeing seems smaller when you return to it as an adult, but it's no less shocking a sensation to experience.

I thought i'd run into some familiar faces. A few townies have waved in my direction, but I didn't recognize any I haven't recognized anyone odd in any event. At three today, I've got an interview at the Arkham Historical Society with a Shirley Fromeyer. These small town crones do love to talk and ramble and a drone on, so prepare for a deluge of minutia. Wish me luck.

Wow, this is germane to nothing at all, Shelley, I'm just amazed. That beautiful sound you're hearing is christ Church's tower bell toning out the time of day. I'm sure adults have managed to tune it out of their consciousness, like people who live near airports tend to forget the endless rumble of jet engines. But as a kid growing up here, those bells felt like a lifeline. When you heard only two bells, there was no sweeter sound in the world.

William Dyer Memorial High School's day ends it too. I don't know why I'm so shocked that the bell tower is still in operation. I guess everyone believes their hometown will fall apart without them, in this case, pleasantly surprised that it isn't true. Hey, Shelley, I'm actually a little early, so I'm wandering around inside the voluminous Miskatonic University library stacks. The Historical Society is housed in the same building as the library, and I realize that I've never actually been in here.

Miskatonic's library contains one of the world's most well regarded collections of ancient and first edition texts, and the place does not disappoint. It's all wrought iron, spiral staircases and an innumerable row of bookcases. I get the sense you can get lost in here very easily. It's well maintained from what I can see, but there's an odor of decay, like a basement after a flood. And the lighting is let's be generous and say it's atmospheric.

I don't know if these bulbs are on a dimmer or what, or if they keep it at such low levels to discourage you from spending too much time in here. But it's off putting in ways I find hard to describe. Of course, rumors have abounded about the secret library contained somewhere inside here, where you can find forbidden tomes that exist nowhere else, and one book in particular that you're a student here, young man. Oh no, I'm just having a look around. I've got an appointment with the historical society.

Yeah, of course, Okay, Shelley, So this won't be a total waste. I'm going to give a bit of history, and I'm going to give you the full story later. Ready. I'm currently standing in a bit of an anomaly. While Arkham is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, an Old Grove forest to the north, south and west, the town itself is fairly urban, bordering on industrial in your approach its center, and yet currently beneath my feet is a verdant koreen lawn that stretches for many city blocks all the way down to Garrison and hemmed in on either side by College in Church Streets.

This is the quadrangle. Most similar institutions simply refer to it as a quad of Miskatonic University. It isn't as old as Harvard or well known as MIT, but Miskatonic University is a venerable and venerated higher education mainstay. Found it originally as Arkham College back in seventeen forty. It became Miscatonic in seventeen ninety six after the largesse of Arkham's first true industrialist, jebediah Orne, and today boast accreditation of thousands of PhDs.

Housed within its gambrel roof is the Arkham Historical Society, which was to be the purpose of my visit. Yeah, okay, I'm going, I'm going. Come on, damn it, all right, Shelley to forgive the background noise in here. But then again, this is just a note. It's not for publication.

I had to get something to eat, so I'm currently at Consalvi's, which is the pizza place I used to frequent as a kid. You know, when that argument comes up, which is better New York or Chicago pizza? I know they're both wrong. It's Gonsalvies here an Arkham. Anyway, I was escorted from the library to the Historical Society.

Shirley Froemeyer was much younger than I expected. Given that name. I anticipated an old crone, but she couldn't have been more than twenty eight or so. But she was glad in a business suit that fairly screamed don't waste my time. So anyway, she asked me for my credentials, which I showed her such as they are, then asked me the areas of interest as far as the interview.

I should point out that she told me to keep the recorder off until the interview was to begin, which is why you're now getting this second hand. She was fined with the basics of town history and its rivalry with Salem. She even seemed eager to dish on that subject, but when I brought up the actual subject matter, her demeanor went black. She was polite about it, but told me that she'd be unable to help me and was book solid for the next few weeks. Suspicious, yeah, I'd say.

I'd also say that I'm clearly on the right track with the subject matter. I don't think I've ever seen a scholarly dissemination of the tragedy held. Even a cursory online search of Mayzeve will produce zero results. And now I'm going to turn off the recorder because as soon as I said Mayzeve, I got quite a few dirty looks from my fellow diners, and they are continuing to stare Right now, the hell was that about. I've been in weird situations before, Remember that piece about San Pedro meth heads?

Man, this is how surreal it felt. I'm currently driving to my rented room in my childhood home, and that seems totally normal now. I don't know if you can hear, but compounding everything, we just got hit with a freak New England spring storm and it looks like it's going to blow for the rest of the evening. I'm glad I ate, because once I get into my room, I fully intend on remaining there till the morning. Even without the Historical Society interview, I still have a ton to say on the subject matter, so I'm going to do my best to salvage the day once I get there.

Okay, Shelley, a little bit of notes and I'll let you know when we're going into the actual narration. Like I mentioned, the storm has descended like the wrath of God, and everyone in town is huddling in their domiciles. I've got my windows closed, but somehow it still seems wett in here, and since Miss Holsey seems singularly determined to keep her heating bills down, it's chilly enough that I'm wearing a sweater of and wrapped myself in a blanket. As I mentioned, I'm on the spare bedroom up on the third floor, which is a room I barely remember entering as a child. I do have vague memories of weird bits of my parents' own childhood items being stored in here, dolls mainly, I guess it was more my moms than my dad's.

I suspected that my parents had been hoping for another child. Dolls would indicate a girl, and this was to be their intended bedroom when it became a parent, that I was going to be their sole creation. That regarded the room with at best disinterest and at worst disgust, probably became a symbol of their waning fertility. In any event, they were very discouraging whenever I ventured up here. To that end, the citizen of Arkham's said, in decision to discourage my investigation hasn't changed the fact that there's plenty about its dark history.

I readily recall, I guess, so I'm going to start the actual narration here. Arkham, Massachusetts, is home to the country's oldest asylum. The Arkham Sanitarium has been in constant operations since its creation in the yearly seventeen hundreds. The building was relocated twice and currently looms above the quaintly named Hangman's Hill on the north side. There goes to power hold.

On a second, I'm sure, Miss Holsey intended the plethora of scented candles littered around the room as decorative pieces. But they're coming in handy right now anyway. Sorry, back to the narration hold on, Arkham experienced a typhoid outbreak back in nineteen oh five, a pandemic along the entire Eastern Seaboard. Can't be pinned on this town per se, but there were disturbing events that took place here during that time. Evidently, a Miskatonic medical student seized on the opportunity of so many freshly dead bodies to perform what can euphemistically be called experimentation.

Is motives have been lost to history, though they've been described as everything from altruistic dissecting the bodies to better understand human anatomy and further the field of surgery to downrite diabolical Many were convinced he was attempting to reanimate those corpses. That student, Herbert West was his name disappeared entirely, so we can only guess it is true intent, But he did have a conspirator, Dan Kane. He was convicted of West murder and then shuffled off to the sanitarium where he spent the remainder of his life babbling about catacombs that run beneath the town and of blood sacrifices that must be maintained to satisfy the old ones. Those are his words, the old ones, which is a phrase not unknown to me.

I heard it every now and again as a kid, and snatches of conversation among adults that would cease immediately once they've realized you were listening. I always assume they meant that Saint Mary's retirement home over on Boundary Street, or at least referencing Arkham's ancestors. Whether that meant the early settlers or the Shama tribe before them, didn't matter to me. It just meant old people. But now I'm not so sure.

It may or may not have something to do with the most interesting piece of twisted history here in Arkham. Not the last, mind you. One could do hundreds of these podcasts about the isolated weirdness that's occurred within city limits, and you'd never want for new material. But the one that has always fascinated me, the one I came here to shend light on, is the phenomenon known as maize Eve. It is literally the last day of April or night technically every decade or so since the town's incorporation.

On that night, particularly a group of children go missing. It can be anywhere from one or two in some cases, or like once in the mid nineteenth century when over thirty children disappeared in one evening, and I do mean disappeared. Not one bone or tooth or fragment of clothing has ever been found in the city or along the shore. Now, i'd say it was a serial killer prowling the streets of Barkham with a fixation on the last day of April. But the sheer span of time that these disappearances have occurred rules that out, and predatory murder isn't hereditary, so it's not as if it's some lunatic family's legacy to the town.

Those kids are just gone. I don't have all the specific names and dates in front of me. I'm probably going to stop by the public library. Martin nailed down that data, but I assure you it is a number so high that you'll be shocked that a major investigation has yet to be mounted. Even more shocking is the town's reaction, a collective shrug, What are you gonna do?

It's Chinatown. What are you gonna do? It's artcom The program will resume momentarily, but we have dark destinations. Need to comment on what you're about to hear. Our reporter August Ward received a phone call, and, as best as we can surmise, the caller wished neither to be identified nor put on the record for this piece.

Given that mister Ward has recently gone missing, we can only assume his motive with regard to recording the call. We err on the side of mister Ward's proven integrity, and given the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance, leave the call itself worthy of examination. However, the caller's name has been redacted and his voice altered electronically to preserve his identity. It's four o'clock in the morning. Organs, Who are you?

Mister private number? Or why don't you come back? You're supposed to stay gold? Don't you know the date? Don't you go?

I am well aware of the date. What I'd like to know is who's calling? Are you tell me you're not back in the house? O God, you can't get it back? You know that?

Can't get who back? Listen? If you're not going to identify yourself. This call is over and I'm going back to sleep. I guess that's good, but you can't stay.

Get out of the house, get out of the city. I'm getting a little tired of Arkham's treatment of me. Good cool. I don't know what you remember about me, but I'm not that kid anymore. I'm not going to be bullied out of town the same change.

It's all the sturt. Well, thanks for colin town for your sister. The hell does that mean? Hello? God, damn it you get all that, Shelley.

Remind me we're in the twenty first century now, right, lunatics. It's fine. I only need three hours of sleep. Good night, Shelley, Morning Shelley. I had intended to attack the day, but given how little sleep I got and the fact that I have a bit of a slow and grinding headache, explicably I'm taking things a bit slow this morning.

I'm still at my house. Well it's miss Halsey's house now. Power is back on, but the weather has not improved, which is fine by me. Less animals roaming the streets. When I finally do get motivated, the third floor doesn't have a bathroom, so I've been schlupping my toiletries up and down the stairs.

When I returned to the room from my shower, I dropped my aftershave, and thanks to its super sleek cylindrical shape, it promptly rolled away faster than I could keep up, and it disappeared beneath a bookcase in the corner of the room. There was no way I could reach it, so I moved the bookcase. And are you ready for this? I found a door? So shocking about that?

Well, I'm glad you asked. The door is three feet high, like a closet for a doll or a small child. What on earth could it be for? And why on earth did I know nothing about it? You spend enough time somewhere, say eighteen years, you figured to have pretty much everything in your immediate surroundings mapped out.

It's locked. I tried, and Miss Halsey is a scrupulous cleaner, so I couldn't see any lines of disturbed dust to indicate the last time it was open. It could be decades. There is a fair amount of pitting in the wooden floor where the door swings out, so it definitely has been in use. I'm sure you're screaming at the computer writer about now, Shelley, what does this have to do with anything?

Probably nothing, but it's another bizarre aspect of this homecoming, and I feel like I ought to documented that's all. Hey, Shell, You know, whenever I'm in Boston, I always marvel how that city seems to straddle the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first centuries. It's a neat balancing act, and given their geographic proximity, I always feel like Arkham manages the same nifty trick, and so far that feeling has been borne out except here inside the Arkham Public Library. I'm currently scanning through news items on a microfiche machine. Digital you say, never heard of it?

Boy, you will not hear me complain about some standard Wi Fi speeds ever. Again. Having said that, prepare yourself for an onslaught of frustration. Anyway, They've had films of the Arkham Gazette going back to eighteen eighty three. If there is not one major article about Maysive, there are smattering of missing persons notices throughout April every decade or so, but nothing tying these seemingly isolated instances together.

I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't allow a fictional regional yarn used to scare children to coalesce into a real and ongoing problem in my mind. If I remember correctly, there should be a section of books dedicated to local history and the stacks downstairs. I'm gonna have to check it, but I'm not hopeful. But then I do have to find something just between you and me, Shelley, I already cashed my check for this assignment. Oh I'm sorry, I'm turning it off, Shelley.

I'm back in my house. The windows are shut tight against the rain and the wind, and I have a steaming cup of clam chowder from the King's Head Pub in front of me. Is that New England or Manhattan? You should never ask a New Englander. New York can keep their clam ketchup soup.

So the library closed up early today, how unusual. But before they tossed me out into the rain, I did manage to check out a volume of Arkham Lore, imaginatively titled Arkham Lore. It's not exactly a dissertation worthy look into the folk tales and true crimes of my hometown, but it does at least provide a little bit of Illumination on mays Eve got its own chapter, a slight three pages, but beggars can't be choosers when those same pages assuage the fear that I'm losing my mind. It has some names and dates which I'm going to have to follow up on, but it's mostly a compendium of crackpot theories on the mysteries, origins and potential meetings. They're hardly worth mentioning.

So why do I sound so jimber? Honestly, the chowder is going a long way to lighten the mood. But more importantly, on the last of those scant pages about May's Eve, someone has written in the margins as someone I'm going to have to try and track down. I don't think asking who took out a book previous to you is going to breach any library and book borrower confidentiality agreement. But regardless whoever it was has written Miskatonic Library lower level, and underneath that they've scrawled two words in Latin infinitem kneehel.

I assume that's a book title, because beneath that they've written a Dewey decimal number. Now, as with everything I've encountered so far, I'm not rejoicing just yet. But it's a good lead, I think, and I'm strangely hopeful. I just have to figure out a way to get in there undetected, but that is for tomorrow. I'm going to put the voice activation thing on again before I go to sleep.

I hope we've got something good. But oh, I'm sure you'll find something. Night. Shelley drops, staring m Good morning, Shelley. The rain has stopped.

The sun is well. The sun is covered by angry clouds, but the rain has stopped, and I feel incredible. Must have slept like the dead because I am all energy today. Ten year old's got enough on my exuberance. And this is a weird thing to say, but I feel purposeful, if that makes any sense.

It's like I'm a metal shaving and the story is a magnet buried somewhere in Arkham, pulling me forward. Or maybe I've lost my mind. Lots to do today, lots to record. I'm going to start over near the river on Water Street. I really need to yah yah Cuthulu Patagan before I attempt getting back inside the Miscotonic Library.

Arkham and its citizens have been so far unkind, but that end. Today, Today, I'm going to break this town wide open. End of Part one. This episode of Dark Destinations was written and produced by Father Malone. Title music was written and reformed by Darren Curtis from Darren Curtis music dot com.

We hope you join us next time for the conclusion. Until then, may all your travels lead to Dark Destinations.