Pod Insights Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries HSP Presents: The Timekeeper Ep. 2 "He's Always Watching." About this episode Episode 2 of 4
After the video game behaves weirdly, Charlie and Gama pay a visit to Zoe (Chandler Kinney) to try and figure out how it works. Charlie storms out when Zoe’s boyfriend arrives, but calls on them for help once he comes to believe The Timekeeper is somehow watching him play.
The Timekeeper, Episode 2 features Judah Lewis as Charlie, Chandler Kinney as Zoe, and Arjun Athalye as Gama.
The Timekeeper was created, written, and directed by Matthew A Brown.
Sound Design, Scoring and Mix by Jeff Schmidt
Original Score composed by Joshua Zimmerman
Additional dialog editing by Marika Perlmutter
Executive Produced by Matthew A Brown, Kaelyn Moore, and Judah Lewis
The Timekeeper is a production from Heart Starts Pounding.
For more from Heart Starts Pounding:
Subscribe on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/heartstartspounding to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society and enjoy ad-free listening, monthly bonus content, merch discounts and more. Members of our High Council on Patreon also have access to our weekly after-show, Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt.
You can also enjoy many of these same perks, including ad-free listening and bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts .
Follow on Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@heartstartspounding?lang=en and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heartstartspounding/ for a daily dose of horror.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kaelyn Moore? This episode is brought to you by GU Skincare. GU just launched their Heal and Seal Trio, a simple three-step Korean skincare routine that replaces those complicated seven-step regimens: Polish pads to exfoliate, toner pads for dark spots and redness, and NAD Plus cream to lock in hydration overnight. These three products, three minutes a day. Dermatologist tested with over 650,000 happy customers and a 90-day money-back guarantee. Recently, I've been using their NAD Plus cream, which has been so nice to put on at night. I really love it. It's not super heavy, which I love, but it still feels very moisturizing. It doesn't have a lot of scent, which I'm really sensitive to, which is why it works great in my routine. For a limited time, GU is having a crazy deal for our listeners. Their Heal and Seal Trio is already up to 50% off right now,
0:45 Kaelyn Moore? but our listeners can now get an additional 20% off plus free shipping with code HSP at J I Y U skin dot com. That's J I Y U skin dot com and use code HSP for an additional 20% off. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.
1:18 Speaker 01 We went to her bedroom window since her mom was on the night shift at the hospital and probably still asleep.
1:22 Speaker 02 Zoe, Zoe.
1:27 Speaker 01 Maybe this was a bad idea.
1:28 Speaker 02 Zoe, open up.
1:32 Speaker 03 Why didn't you text me back?
1:33 Speaker 01 Hey Zoe.
1:34 Speaker 03 Hey G. You didn't answer my question, Charlie.
1:37 Speaker 01 I hadn't seen her. Actually seen her, not on the screen, in a month. That was at Tasty Burger. I'd stopped by to see my dad on my way home from Funland and she and Buzz came in for milkshakes. I tried to act normal, whatever that means, but instead I stuffed an entire carton of fries in my mouth and pointed to my cheeks as if apologizing for not being able to talk while I ran out the door and got in my car and drove away. I wished I had more fries as I stood there with the rain dripping down my face and the laptop ticking under my arm.
2:07 Speaker 03 No? Okay, well, see you later.
2:11 Speaker 01 Wait. We need your help. I need your help. I'm sorry.
2:18 Speaker 03 Go around.
2:27 Speaker 03 You bring a bomb?
2:28 Speaker 01 Basically.
2:30 Speaker 03 Cool.
2:31 Speaker 01 How's the stream?
2:33 Speaker 03 I'm gonna need more coffee.
2:40 Speaker 03 Hey, chat. Can I take a break for a few?
2:44 Speaker 03 I'm really sorry, Charlie. For real. About Blake. I know you weren't super close or anything, but it still sucks.
2:52 Speaker 01 Thanks. That's, that's actually why we're here. Do you know anything about Shady Pines?
2:58 Speaker 03 Haven't heard anyone talk about that place in forever. Old mental hospital that burned down. I mean, it wasn't a hospital anymore. I just remember someone in class had a cousin who was a fireman up there, whatever, so the kid was telling all these stories about what he'd found. Burned bodies and stuff.
3:14 Speaker 01 Well, do you remember any of them?
3:15 Speaker 03 The stories? No, I was like eight.
3:17 Speaker 01 Well, yeah, it was a tech company called Next Level. We think this game is part of whatever research they were doing. Tim was cleaning the place up and found it on an old server. He and Blake were both playing it. Yeah, and Blake's dead and Tim's missing.
3:29 Speaker 03 Missing like he won't call you back?
3:31 Speaker 01 Missing like the Borden County Sheriff called his house and said they found his truck.
3:34 Speaker 03 Oh, shit. You think it has something to do with the game?
3:38 Speaker 01 Yes. No. I mean, not really. We just wanted to see if you could tell where the server was, like, is it really at Shady Pines?
3:46 Speaker 03 Sure, just need the VPN address so I can get the IP.
3:49 Speaker 01 Here.
3:50 Speaker 03 Is this your laptop?
3:51 Speaker 01 No, it's Tim's.
3:53 Speaker 03 Ugh. Gross. I don't wanna know why the keys are sticky.
3:58 Speaker 03 Why is it ticking?
3:59 Speaker 01 Because I'm not playing the game.
4:01 Speaker 03 God, this OS is old. Uh, let me see, so, yeah. Shady Pines is the name of the VPN. Tim is logged in as a guest. Let me just get the IP. Looking it up, and... Yep. Checking the map, and we're in... Borden County.
4:20 Speaker 01 Shady Pines.
4:21 Speaker 03 Looks that way. X marks the spot.
4:23 Speaker 04 Yo, we looking for treasure?
4:25 Speaker 01 Buzz, what the hell?
4:26 Speaker 03 Jesus, didn't hear you pull up.
4:28 Speaker 04 Hey, babe. I thought you wanted to go to Burger Barn?
4:31 Speaker 03 No, not until I finish the game.
4:33 Speaker 04 Oh, cool. What's up, Charlie Brown? G-money?
4:36 Speaker 01 What's up, Buzz? Babe. Somehow, hearing Buzz say it was more grating than the constant tick-tock of a laptop.
4:44 Speaker 02 Well, that's all we really needed. Thanks, Zoe.
4:47 Speaker 03 Wait, I wanna see the game. Is it cool?
4:49 Speaker 02 I don't know, we haven't really played it.
4:51 Speaker 01 Zoe brought the game up and tried to move around the hospital-like room, but the character was frozen.
4:56 Speaker 03 Is it not Wazdi?
4:57 Speaker 02 No, it is. Keeps doing this, it just, it just freezes. Here, let me try.
5:03 Speaker 01 It worked fine for me. I moved the character around the room, back and forth, side to side.
5:09 Speaker 03 Weird. Okay, let me drive.
5:12 Speaker 01 Zoe sat back down and nothing.
5:14 Speaker 03 Huh. Gama, you try.
5:17 Speaker 02 Nah, I'm good.
5:18 Speaker 03 Come on, G, just play.
5:19 Speaker 02 Fine.
5:21 Speaker 03 Um... And... Charlie, you try again?
5:26 Speaker 01 I sat back down and it worked perfectly.
5:28 Speaker 02 Ghosts! I, I knew it was ghosts! I told you not to play, but you didn't listen!
5:31 Speaker 03 Yo, chill. Gama, you think your phone has ghosts in it?
5:35 Speaker 02 I don't know!
5:36 Speaker 03 It's facial recognition. You look at your phone, it knows it's you, it unlocks. Wow, you guys have controller brains. Probably part of what they're working on out there. You said it was a tech company, right?
5:48 Speaker 02 Super smart, babe.
5:50 Speaker 01 There it was again. Babe. So familiar. So... annoying.
5:57 Speaker 03 Thanks, babe.
5:58 Speaker 01 Babe, babe, babe, babe. It was one thing when Buzz said it, but... When Zoe said it... It was like that feeling you get when you know you're about to vomit and you can't think about anything else but sprinting to the nearest toilet.
6:10 Speaker 02 Let's go, Gama. Wait, don't you wanna ask about the leaderboard? How someone could stay awake that long? Zoe, only one person beat the game and she stayed awake for like a month.
6:18 Speaker 03 Wait, really?
6:19 Speaker 02 Thanks for your help, Zoe.
6:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, she played almost non-stop for thirty days to get all thirteen keys, but she was the only one.
6:28 Speaker 03 Charlie, wait. If you're gonna play it, just play here. I'll be up all night anyways, it'll be like the old days.
6:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, just like the old days.
6:42 Speaker 01 I looked at Buzz when I said it, but it's not like Zoe didn't know what I meant. Buzz was oblivious, because Buzz lived his entire life in the state of blissful oblivion. I don't want to play, okay? I just wanted to make sure it wasn't my fault.
6:54 Speaker 03 That what wasn't your fault?
6:56 Speaker 01 Blade, dying. I wanted to make sure I couldn't have played.
6:59 Speaker 03 Oh, I get it.
7:02 Speaker 01 What?
7:03 Speaker 03 You don't think you can beat it, and you don't want to be embarrassed. It's only one girl who beat it, so I understand.
7:09 Speaker 01 I'll beat it before you beat Elden Ring.
7:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, right.
7:12 Speaker 01 I will.
7:12 Speaker 03 Bet then, if you're that confident.
7:15 Speaker 01 Three days.
7:15 Speaker 02 No, no, you guys, isn't that serious?
7:18 Speaker 03 Fine, three days.
7:20 Speaker 02 I don't think-
7:20 Speaker 01 Deal.
7:21 Speaker 03 Deal.
7:22 Speaker 02 Charlie, wait up!
7:24 Speaker 01 Three days meant three days where the other person got to choose what you wore to school, which usually meant at least one trip to the principal's office.
7:35 Speaker 02 Dude, what's your problem? You need Zoe to help with the game.
7:38 Speaker 01 I don't need Zoe, okay? I have Tim's notebook. It probably shows how to get the first 12 keys, anyway. All I need to figure out is the last one.
7:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, the last one is the hard one.
7:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I don't want to hang out with Buzz.
7:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, I know that, dumbass, but what, you're just gonna avoid Zoe all of senior year?
7:52 Speaker 01 I don't know. Maybe.
7:55 Speaker 02 Well, I'm not choosing between you, so you two need to figure it out.
7:58 Speaker 01 Do whatever you want.
8:00 Speaker 02 I just said what I want. I want you to figure it out. Talk to her, man. You can't just put your head down and ignore things forever.
8:06 Speaker 01 I don't have to ignore them forever. I just have to ignore them for another nine months.
8:10 Speaker 02 That's your plan?
8:11 Speaker 01 It wasn't a plan so much as my default way of handling everything in life. When my mom got sick, she kept her head down and kept working like everything was fine. She just went about her business until she was too weak to stand. And even then, she tried carrying on like normal from the hospital bed. After she died, Dad and I did the same thing, because Dad said it's what she would have wanted: to keep moving. And we had. We just weren't going anywhere. I pulled up in front of Gama's house and gripped my steering wheel so tight I could feel the disintegrating bits of rubber turning to powder in my hands.
8:48 Speaker 02 Charlie.
8:49 Speaker 01 What?
8:50 Speaker 02 The vein in your head is doing that thing where it looks like it's gonna explode.
8:53 Speaker 01 Ah, it's just years of pent-up rage.
8:55 Speaker 02 Okay, cool, cool. Well, um, if you want to play the game over here tomorrow, let me know.
9:06 Speaker 02 But, seriously, you guys gotta figure it out, and this stupid competition does not count.
9:10 Speaker 01 Kamu's right. I didn't know how to figure it out. What I knew how to do was stay busy. So that's what I was gonna do.
9:28 Speaker 01 I was going to beat the game. I knew one person had done it, even if it had taken her a month. Tim got twelve keys and he only played for two days. And I had all his notes if I needed them. Surely I could figure out the last one. I at least knew it was possible. The first thing was getting out of the hospital room. The door was locked, but there was a number pad I could interact with, so I needed the combination. When I stood in front of the computer monitor on the desk, I noticed a set of numbers would flash every ten seconds or so. Barely long enough for me to see them, and then they were gone. Nothing I did would make them stay up, but the numbers were the same each time. Fifteen numbers.
10:09 Speaker 01 I figured maybe at the facility, people wouldn't have been allowed to write things down when they played, which would have made it harder. Maybe everything in the game was that way, which would explain why Tim had gotten the keys so fast. I copied the numbers down and entered them one by one.
10:24 Speaker 01 The door opened and I walked into the hallway. It was empty except for an ID badge on the ground. It said Jacob Fairchild. I remember the name from the articles. It showed up in my inventory as Jay Fairchild. The floor I was on was a square with hallways cutting it into four equal quadrants. And one hall all around the perimeter. There were rooms around the outside. Offices with glass walls, some with two-way glass looking into empty patient rooms like the one I'd started in. But most of the doors were locked. There was a lot of generic art on the walls. Geometric shapes and colors. Bland stuff you always see in hospitals, and a waiting room with a coffee pot and a vending machine and a TV looping the same video. The weird thing was, it was a real video of the guy talking on a stage.
11:09 Speaker 01 The screen said it was Jacob Fairchild.
11:14 Speaker 05 This thing all things devours. Birds, beasts, trees, flowers. Knives iron, fights steel. Grinds hard stones to meal. Slay's king, ruins town. Beats, mountain down.
11:31 Speaker 01 I remembered the riddle from The Hobbit.
11:33 Speaker 05 Of course, we probably all know the answer to the riddle.
11:37 Speaker 05 Time. That's right. Time is, for living organisms like us, a mechanism for decay. You probably can't hear my watch ticking there in the audience, even though it's quite loud. Loud enough to annoy my colleagues who've given me the, I like to say, friendly nom de guerre of the Timekeeper. But I like the reminder.
11:58 Speaker 01 The Timekeeper. The man in the mask, covered with eyes, I'd seen when Tim ran out of time. If it was Fairchild's program, Fairchild's game, I guess it made sense that he was the Timekeeper. The one who's always watching.
12:13 Speaker 05 Humanity has always had dreams of eating time back. The search for the Fountain of Youth still goes on today, though it's in well-air-conditioned Silicon Valley laboratories instead of the sweltering jungles. But I've decided to go down another path. The rear guard against time. Assuming we can't get more of it, could we perhaps use more of it? Or even all of it?
12:38 Speaker 01 At this point, I decided this was the worst video game I'd ever played. But if I had to listen through an actual TED Talk to get a key, whatever.
12:46 Speaker 05 Think about this. Let's say you live eighty years, which, for a person in a rich country today, is pretty good. Of those eighty years, you'll probably spend about twenty-six sleeping. A third of your life. You can't say it's a third of your life wasted because the human body, the human mind, requires sleep. If you don't sleep, you die. But what if you didn't? The human brain, like all animal brains, has evolved to become what it is today. There are animals like horses that sleep fifteen minutes at a time. Just a couple of hours each day. Proponents of the so-called "Superman sleep schedule", and perhaps one or two James Bond villains have tried this out, but I wouldn't encourage it. What I find more interesting is animals like dolphins and many types of birds
13:31 Speaker 05 who use what we call "hemispheric sleep", where they shut down the left brain for a while and let it rest while the right brain works and vice versa. Why did their brains evolve this way? Well, dolphins live in the water, but they need air. If they slept like we slept, they'd drown. Birds have to migrate long distances, fall asleep while you're flying and you probably won't wake up. So what does this have to do with us? Well, the brain evolves. And unlike birds and dolphins, humans have the luxury of shaping that evolution in new ways. And that's the focus of my research, which I am grateful to announce today, is what we'll be working on at next level. The next stage of evolution in the human brain.
14:15 Speaker 05 This thing all things devours.
14:17 Speaker 01 And then it started over. The next stage of evolution in the human brain. Brains that didn't sleep. Zoe would love it. If that's what they were researching, the game made sense. See how long people could stay awake while you bored them to death. Give them more money, the better they did. Pretty much how the world seems to work, anyway. I went back to the elevator in the center of the floor. I could open it with Fairchild's badge. There were thirteen floors. One through B12. I was on one. I went through every button and the elevator moved to each floor. But I couldn't get out on any of them because every time the elevator opened, to a different-style door with a different-style key.
15:01 Speaker 01 One was huge, and wooden, and looked like it had been ripped from a castle. Another had a padlock connected to a chain. Another was covered in brightly painted flowers. Another was made of dark glass and had a keypad. One had a sensor for a badge, but Fairchild's wouldn't open it. And then there was B12. B12 opened into a long, dark hallway. I could get out, but I didn't want to. At the end was a door, and behind the door, something was ticking. I stepped out. It felt like the hallway narrowed as I went on. And the light from the elevator seemed very far away. The only other light was a red light coming through the keyhole that ran through the center of the door.
15:46 Speaker 01 A keyhole with teeth on the top and bottom. A double-sided lock. The ticking wasn't my time counting down. It was the tick of a watch coming from behind the door. In my mind, it was the sound the watch Fairchild had held on stage would make.
16:04 Speaker 01 It felt like the eyes of whoever held it were on me. I turned and headed back toward the light of the elevator as fast as the character would go, which was maddeningly slow because I hadn't found a way to sprint.
16:18 Speaker 01 I went back up to the first floor and laughed at myself for getting so scared. I remembered Zoe and I staying up all night playing Amnesia and Gama huddled in the corner covering his eyes because he was too afraid to watch. I figured I'd better check in and see how far along Zoe was. I opened her stream on my phone.
16:35 Speaker 06 Do you think I'm going to sleep, Jeff? Well, you're wrong. Are we still hours and hours and hours away from finishing? Yes. Do I have a constant stream of coffee? Yes. Buzz? Buzz! Coffee.
16:53 Speaker 04 I got you, babe. You want orange juice or something?
16:55 Speaker 06 What?
16:56 Speaker 04 On TV, you know? It's always like, here's a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice for like breakfast.
17:01 Speaker 06 Uh, yeah, okay, you know, two-way emoji, why not? I love stuff.
17:08 Speaker 01 I wanted to sleep, but I didn't want to lose. Zoe had had a head start, so it was only fair I use Tim's notes. I opened the first page of the notebook. He'd written in thick, black Sharpie front and back, so it had bled through and made it hard to read, but I could tell it was the same number sequence I'd written down to get out of the first room. Below were a lot of symbols I recognized from the elevator. I went back to B1 in the elevator. The door had an abstract pattern. Reds, blues, greens. I realized the colors and shapes were the same ones in the boring paintings upstairs. Tim had written the symbols in a specific order with the words "vending machine." I walked to the vending machine in the waiting room and noticed it didn't have normal buttons for sodas.
17:52 Speaker 01 Instead of brand names, there were shapes and colors. I could interact with it, so I hit the buttons in the order Tim had written down. And a key dropped out. One down. My key counter went up and when I stopped playing, I could tell the clock had sped up just a fraction. I flipped ahead in the notebook. "He takes your days, he takes your nights, and then he takes your life," was written across one of the pages. "He's always watching." That same phrase filled a whole page, over and over. Then scribbled through in thick, black lines. Facial recognition. Using the camera. Of course, he was always watching. I guess Tim had figured it out, too.
18:38 Speaker 01 I looked right at the camera. And I noticed something. Something I hadn't noticed it's always. The light in the kitchen caught the laptop just right, and there was a glare on the screen. But the reflection over the camera was dull and flat.
18:53 Speaker 01 I looked closer, and over the pinhole, it seemed like someone had scribbled over it with a black marker. I minimized the game and opened the webcam app. A black screen loaded.
19:04 Speaker 01 I ran my fingernail back and forth across the camera, and cracks of light began to appear. I kept scratching until I could see my face. Tim had blacked out the camera. There was no facial recognition. No way he could know who was playing.
19:21 Speaker 02 Hey, it's Gamma. Uh, leave a message after this town thing.
19:26 Speaker 06 I swear to God, if this doesn't work, I'm throwing my computer out the window. Not answering, Matt.
19:32 Speaker 01 Come on, Z.
19:33 Speaker 06 Okay, a quick break chat, then we beat the shit out of Mr. Blacklight. What do you want?
19:40 Speaker 01 Hold on, Gamma's calling me back. I'm adding him.
19:42 Speaker 02 What's up?
19:43 Speaker 01 Guys, the camera is blacked out.
19:45 Speaker 06 What?
19:46 Speaker 01 Tim's computer, the camera on the laptop, he scribbled over it. It doesn't work.
19:50 Speaker 06 I mean, it has to work. It's recognizing your face when you play.
19:53 Speaker 01 No, that's what I'm saying. It can't. It can't recognize anything because it doesn't work.
19:58 Speaker 06 Okay, then how does it know who's playing?
20:00 Speaker 02 Ghosts.
20:01 Speaker 06 Not ghosts.
20:02 Speaker 02 Then what is it?
20:02 Speaker 01 The Timekeeper is always watching.
20:04 Speaker 06 The Timekeeper doesn't exist.
20:06 Speaker 01 He did exist. Fairchild was the Timekeeper.
20:09 Speaker 06 What are you talking about?
20:10 Speaker 01 There's a video in the game. Fairchild says the people he worked with called him the Timekeeper. Shady Pines was his program. It's his game.
20:18 Speaker 06 Charlie, Fairchild is dead. He's been dead for ten years.
20:22 Speaker 01 I know.
20:23 Speaker 06 So the Timekeeper isn't watching shit.
20:26 Speaker 01 I could make up a believable story for Blake writing TikTok on the door as a joke and dying in the accidental fire. And there were plenty of reasons Tim wouldn't have texted us back. But I couldn't explain how it knew Blake was playing. How it knew Tim was playing. And now, how the game knew I was playing.
20:47 Speaker 06 Okay, look, we'll figure it out.
20:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:49 Speaker 06 The Gama will be there in ten. Okay. Wait, what? Why are you bringing the ghosts here? Buzz? Grab the coffee.
21:03 Speaker 01 My dad was asleep. I left a note telling him I was spending the night at Gama's and sprinted through the neighborhood. When I got onto Gama Street, I saw Buzz's truck pulling up to the curb.
21:19 Speaker 02 What up, Charlie Brown? You want some mojito?
21:22 Speaker 01 Nah, I'm good.
21:23 Speaker 02 Hey, keep it down. If you wake up my brothers, you're dealing with him. Sorry. Hurry up and come inside.
21:36 Speaker 01 We spent the first hour experimenting. We all agreed the camera was useless, but we still tested it. Me sitting in front of the screen, Zoe or Gama trying to type. Didn't work. Zoe sitting in front of the screen, but my hand's typing. Character moved fine. Even the most basic things like interacting in the elevator to move to a different floor. I was the only one who could do them. And I was the only one the clock would stop for. By the time we gave up, I had fifteen hours and eight minutes left, and I was still sitting on one key.
22:05 Speaker 03 Ugh!
22:06 Speaker 01 Well?
22:07 Speaker 03 I don't know. I-I-I don't know what it is.
22:10 Speaker 02 It's a cursed ghost game is what it is, and you brought it into my garage!
22:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, the good news is you're not playing.
22:16 Speaker 03 It's not cursed, it's just...
22:18 Speaker 02 What? Magical, extraterrestrial? What are the other options here, Zee?
22:23 Speaker 03 I, I don't know. I need to see the code, and I can't get to the code because we're logged in as a guest. And the only thing you can do as a guest on this stupid VPN is play the game.
22:32 Speaker 01 So what if you were logged in to someone else?
22:34 Speaker 03 Sure, if I could log in as an admin or something, I could probably see all the reference files. I don't suppose you've found a login?
22:42 Speaker 01 No.
22:42 Speaker 03 Maybe that's the thirteenth key. Get to see how the game actually works.
22:47 Speaker 02 Too bad nobody gets the thirteenth key.
22:49 Speaker 03 You said one person did?
22:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, Maria Shepherd. Zee.
22:52 Speaker 03 Charlie, I was joking.
22:53 Speaker 01 The only person on the leaderboard with all thirteen keys.
22:57 Speaker 03 She was up for a month straight?
22:58 Speaker 02 That's what I said.
22:59 Speaker 01 It's easier now, though. I mean, I, I don't think they could write anything down. It was all mental. That's why Blake and Tim could get keys a lot faster. Wait, the last thing Tim wrote down was Maria's name with a bunch of numbers beside it.
23:12 Speaker 01 Maybe it's a login. Here, Zoe. Look, what do you think?
23:16 Speaker 03 They look like coordinates.
23:18 Speaker 02 What?
23:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, latitude and longitude.
23:21 Speaker 01 Coordinates for where?
23:22 Speaker 03 I'm about to tell you. Look, here.
23:25 Speaker 02 Nine Mile Bridge. That's right by Nine Mile Bridge.
23:28 Speaker 03 You know it?
23:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's where the sheriff found Tim's truck.
23:31 Speaker 01 Everything else he wrote down is a clue about the game. I mean, whatever's there has to be a clue to the thirteenth key.
23:36 Speaker 02 Uh, Charlie, video game keys are usually in the video games?
23:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, but maybe this one isn't. Maybe that's why only one person ever found it.
23:44 Speaker 02 So the thirteenth key was a ten-mile hike from Shady Pines?
23:47 Speaker 01 Okay, in the video, Fairchild talks about dolphins and birds being able to do these basic physical functions like fly and swim while half their brain is asleep. Maybe people had to, like, sleepwalk?
23:58 Speaker 02 I think we all need to sleep because that's the dumbest idea I've heard.
24:01 Speaker 03 I agree.
24:02 Speaker 01 Well, with who?
24:04 Speaker 03 Both of you. Super dumb, but he had to have written down Maria's name for a reason. It just doesn't make sense why Maria would be a clue to a key in the game she was playing.
24:14 Speaker 02 Maybe she worked there, and it was like an Easter egg.
24:16 Speaker 01 Wait, yeah, the other people who worked there would still be alive. It was just Fairchild who died.
24:21 Speaker 03 Well, it shouldn't be that hard to find out.
24:25 Speaker 03 There's gotta be something online. Okay, uh, Marie Shepherd, Borden, Next Level, 2010.
24:34 Speaker 01 Anything?
24:35 Speaker 03 Oh shit.
24:36 Speaker 01 Did she work there?
24:37 Speaker 03 No, but she was definitely there. It's a missing persons report. Marie Shepherd, age 26, last seen at a Greyhound bus station on March 26th. Participated in a study at Next Level Technologies, taken to the bus station by the staff after she finished. Left on the next bus, bus driver remembered her, but that was the last time she was seen.
25:01 Speaker 01 Please tell me there's a found persons article?
25:03 Speaker 03 Doesn't look like it. What are the other names on the leaderboard?
25:07 Speaker 01 Uh, let me see. Steven Schiller.
25:11 Speaker 03 Okay, Steven Schiller. Borden, Next Level.
25:15 Speaker 01 I could see the search hit. The report was filed in 2010.
25:18 Speaker 03 Steven Schiller, reported missing, last known whereabouts, helping hands, halfway house. That's only a few hours from Borden. Who's next?
25:28 Speaker 01 Uh, Danielle Sharp.
25:31 Speaker 03 Danielle Sharp. Missing persons report, 2010. Missing, June 2010. Last seen Friday evening, near corner of Powell and St. Mark's. Who's next?
25:44 Speaker 01 Philip Brona. We went through all 10 names on the list. Four died the night of the fire. Two didn't turn up at all, and four had missing persons reports. People who were last seen at homeless shelters and halfway houses in big cities a few hundred miles in every direction. But the only one who was reported missing after they left Shady Pines was Maria.
26:06 Speaker 03 Gama, where are you going?
26:07 Speaker 02 My dad has a bottle of holy water, he got it when the Pope was at his hometown. I'm going to drink it. Anyone want anything?
26:13 Speaker 04 Nah, I'm good, bro.
26:14 Speaker 02 Jesus, Buzz, I forgot you were here.
26:16 Speaker 04 Had to get a little power nap in, gotta keep the mind fresh.
26:23 Speaker 03 Hey, this doesn't mean anything, okay, Charlie? We already knew a bunch of people died in the fire, and like... Okay, they were running experiments, so they got people who were desperate. We still don't know what happened to them. We still don't know what happened to Tim. For all we know, he's fine.
26:38 Speaker 01 Yeah. Zoe was right, but it wasn't exactly comforting. The twelve people we knew played the game were all dead, or missing. Whatever was going on there, it had to have started with Maria. The high scores all show the date they were set, and Maria's was first. March of 2010. Everyone else is after.
26:58 Speaker 03 Is that really holy water?
27:00 Speaker 02 No, it's from the Brita. I forgot my sister knocked the holy water over last week.
27:03 Speaker 01 What were they doing out there?
27:04 Speaker 02 Burning people alive?
27:06 Speaker 03 Eventually, yeah, but Fairchild gives that talk, right? "Hey, we're starting this really cool program to change the evolution of the human brain," or whatever. He's not going to announce whatever they're doing if the program is actually a murder factory. Something had to have gone wrong.
27:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, you think? Fairchild went wrong, that's what happened. Didn't you read the articles?
27:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, I read them. God, I hate this stupid ticking, there's gotta be a way to shut it up.
27:31 Speaker 01 Zoe messed around with the volume, but it still didn't work. It never had. But when she gave up, she left the cursor hovering over the file, and I noticed something. Hey, Z, you see that?
27:41 Speaker 03 See what?
27:43 Speaker 01 The metadata for the game file. It was modified January 10th, 2011 at 1:58 a.m.
27:48 Speaker 02 That's the night of the fire.
27:50 Speaker 03 Who changed it?
27:51 Speaker 01 Let's see, "Modified by user Jay Fairchild." Zoe, can you tell what he changed?
27:56 Speaker 03 Not without comparing the code to the version before, which means I'd need to log in as Fairchild.
28:01 Speaker 01 I'd been thinking about the night of the fire, and something about the story hadn't made sense. But I was pushing 24 hours awake, and my brain was jello. I knew I had a thought I wanted to share, but every time I tried to grab it, it evaporated. Jello. What?
28:16 Speaker 04 Red usually. Green's okay, though.
28:18 Speaker 03 Charlie, what about Jell-O? Is that the password or something?
28:21 Speaker 01 No. No, I... I mean, maybe that's what Fairchild was doing that night. Putting clues into the game.
28:28 Speaker 02 Clues about what?
28:29 Speaker 01 About what really happened. Or was about to happen.
28:32 Speaker 02 We know what happened. He chained the doors, dumped a bunch of gasoline, and cooked everyone inside.
28:37 Speaker 03 And locked himself in the server room.
28:39 Speaker 01 Right. And then he dies, wrapped around the server. Like he's trying to keep it from being destroyed.
28:44 Speaker 03 Which he did, apparently.
28:46 Speaker 02 Okay, so what? He goes insane and lights the place up, and then has a change of heart, and it's like, no, no, I gotta protect my life's work?
28:52 Speaker 01 Exactly. Zoe, you've been building your Survive the Night game since, like, 8th grade. Would you ever just destroy it?
28:58 Speaker 03 I wouldn't, and I would murder anyone who tried to.
29:01 Speaker 01 Exactly.
29:02 Speaker 02 Okay, so why not just unlock the doors and run out?
29:05 Speaker 01 Maybe he couldn't unlock them.
29:06 Speaker 02 Why not? Did he lose the keys?
29:08 Speaker 03 Maybe he didn't lock them.
29:09 Speaker 02 Wait, what?
29:10 Speaker 03 Maybe he was locked in. If he was locked in the server room and the network was offline, he wouldn't be able to send anything out. The game would be the only thing he could change that anyone else, anyone who ever logged onto the server would have access to.
29:26 Speaker 02 But if he didn't lock them, who did?
29:28 Speaker 01 Maybe that's what he was trying to tell us.
29:31 Speaker 03 Okay, that almost maybe makes sense. Whatever was happening there was bad enough people didn't want it getting out. Maybe Fairchild was going to expose it?
29:42 Speaker 02 Expose it? It's his game. He's the timekeeper. What are you guys even saying? Everyone who plays this game dies or disappears.
29:49 Speaker 03 It's just a game, G. Charlie, how many keys do you think you can figure out from Tim's notebook?
29:55 Speaker 01 Um, I mean, it's kind of a mess, but probably most of them.
29:59 Speaker 03 Okay, so keep playing. Look for anything that might be a password, and I'll try it. If he was changing things in a hurry, he changed simple stuff. Names, numbers, anything text-based.
30:10 Speaker 03 And he wouldn't be hiding it. It would be in plain sight.
30:14 Speaker 01 Okay, so we go to Nine Mile Bridge and see what Tim was looking for. And I look for a login in the game on the way. Use Tim's notes to get as many keys as I can. Plan?
30:24 Speaker 03 Plan.
30:25 Speaker 01 Gamma?
30:26 Speaker 02 Bad plan, terrible plan, but plan.
30:29 Speaker 01 Alright, I'll go get my car.
30:32 Speaker 03 Wait, Buzz, can you drive?
30:34 Speaker 04 Oh yeah babe, for sure. I got a good power nap in, I'm juiced. No, I can drive.
30:38 Speaker 03 Charlie, no offense, but your car isn't making it to Borden, and you need to be playing the game.
30:44 Speaker 01 She was right. I could imagine my car stalling out halfway there and it taking more than the time I had left to walk the rest of the way. At which point I'd be dead. And that still would have been better than getting a ride from Buzz.
30:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, I guess, I mean, my car would be fine, but like, it's not, it's not here, so...
31:02 Speaker 03 Good. Clock's ticking.
31:19 Speaker 07 The Timekeeper: Episode 2 features Judah Lewis as Charlie, Chandler Kinney as Zoe, and Arjun Atalier as Gamma. The Timekeeper was created, written, and directed by Matthew A. Brown. Sound design, scoring, and mix by Jeff Schmidt. Sound design, scoring, and mix by Jeff Schmidt. Original score composed by Joshua Zimmerman. Additional dialogue editing by Marika Perlmutter. Executive produced by Kaelyn Moore, Matthew A. Brown, and Judah Lewis. The Timekeeper is a production from Heart Starts Pounding. Additional cast includes Matt Anspah as Buzz and Guy Kent as Jacob Fairchild.
32:14 Kaelyn Moore? Do you want more Darkly Curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content, our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven day trial. Link in the bio or go to patreon.com backslash heartstartspounding. But whatever you do, stay curious.
Previous 142. The Siren: Belle Gunness, The Husband Luring Serial Killer // MONSTERS SERIES Next Spooky Listen! Jack the Ripper | CLUES Podcast Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated