SYSK's 2025 Shocktober Halloween Spooktacular

Co-producer Ben knocked it out of the park again, taking the two classic horror stories we read for our annual Spooktacular - Caterpillars and The Deep Drowse – and creating a moody Halloween masterpiece for your spooky listening enjoyment. So enjoy it! See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 0:18Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the Spook Fest. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and we're flying solo today. I should probably stop speaking like this because I'll bet it's getting annoying.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  That's right. Welcome to the, one of our most fun traditions, our ad-free Spooktacular, where, in which we read two stories, one of your choosing and one of mine. And yours is up first by Edward Frederick Benson. Is that right?

• 0:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, better known as EF to his friends.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Did you see where this was published? Should we, should we give a shout out to that?

• 0:56Josh Clark?

  It was published in one of his books. He wrote several books, but this one comes from 1912. And I don't remember the name of the book, Chuck. Thank you.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I have it, sir. It was first published in an anthology called The Room in the Tower and Other Stories.

• 1:10Josh Clark?

  That's it.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  And this is not The Room in the Tower, so this is and Other Stories. But it's called Caterpillars. And at first I thought, by the way, this was going to be, you know, we read stuff in the public domain. So a lot of these stories are sort of like, you know, the creepy house and the, and the, you know, there's not actually a creature or a monster. It's like it was within me all along.

• 1:33Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  That was the direction of a lot of these stories, but this one actually has a nice little payoff with some real creep stuff.

• 1:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is a creepster for sure. And before we get started, Chuck, I want to tip our hats to Ben, guest producer Ben.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:51Josh Clark?

  Who last year just laid a smackdown with his first version of editing one of our Halloween Spooktaculars. And I expect he'll do it again.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. And we plugged it recently, but Ben is a musician, so we might as well plug it again here since everyone's listening here at the top. Ben has a new collection of songs out called Songs for Sleeping Dogs. And it is great. It's instrumental. It's very vibey and cool. And you can find it wherever you find any music.

• 2:20Josh Clark?

  Yep. Way to go, Ben.

• 2:25Josh Clark?

  Okay, I say we get started. As per usual, we haven't talked about this at all up until this very moment.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:33Josh Clark?

  I didn't even know you knew the name of the anthology until you busted it out. It was spectacular.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  That's how we roll.

• 2:41Josh Clark?

  So who wants to read first, you or me?

• 2:44Speaker 02

  I mean, it's your story. I say you kick it off.

• 2:46Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right. Are you ready for this?

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 2:50Josh Clark?

  Do your cheeks.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. It's been a while. Let me see if they still flop.

• 2:57Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. This is gonna be a good one, I can tell.

• 3:01Josh Clark?

  And everyone, here we go. Settle in, put on some fake cobwebs all over your skin, get a mug of bat juice,

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:10Josh Clark?

  and get ready for Caterpillars by E.F. Benson.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  "I saw a month or two ago in an Italian paper that the Via Cuskana, in which I once stayed, had been pulled down and that a manufactory of some sort was in process of erection on its site. There is therefore no longer any reason for refraining from writing of those things which I myself saw, or imagined I saw, in a certain room and on a certain landing of the Via in question, nor for mentioning the circumstances which followed, which may or may not, according to the opinion of the reader, throw some light on or be somehow connected with this experience." Everybody got that?

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Can I stop you real quick? We're going with Via?

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  What would you say, Villa?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  I always say a villa, like, you know, an Italian villa. You say Via?

• 4:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the L's make a nice "ee" sound.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  All right.

• 4:09Josh Clark?

  All right.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  I'm following your lead, pal.

• 4:11Josh Clark?

  Well, then maybe we can look up who is correct and then Ben can edit in your voice over mine.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  For Via. Are you ready?

• 4:21Speaker 02

  I'm ready.

• 4:23Josh Clark?

  The Cascana wasn't always but one, a perfectly delightful house. Yet, if it were standing now, nothing in the world, I use the phrase in the literal sense, would induce me to set foot in it again, for I believe it to have been haunted in a very terrible and practical manner. Most ghosts, when all is said and done, do not do much harm. They may perhaps terrify, but the person whom they visit usually gets over their visitation. I feel like that's quite a presumption, don't you?

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 4:53Josh Clark?

  Like, what about somebody whose hair is white because they're being that scared? That's tough to get over.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  That's happened.

• 5:01Josh Clark?

  Okay, back to it. They may, on the other hand, be entirely friendly and beneficent, but the appearances in the Via Cascana were not beneficent, and had they made their visit in a very slightly different manner, I do not suppose I should have got over it any more than Arthur Inglis did. What do you think?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  I think so far, so good. We have that scary setup of a creepy place, which seems to be most of our stories. But again, this one goes in a different direction.

• 5:30Josh Clark?

  You want me to keep going?

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like you're doing strong work.

• 5:34Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 5:39Josh Clark?

  The house stood on an ilex-clad hill, ilex being holly bushes.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 5:44Josh Clark?

  Not far, yeah, not, I looked it up, not far from Sestri di Levante, on the Italian Riviera, looking out over the iridescent blues of that enchanted sea, while behind it rose the pale green chestnut woods that climb up the hillsides till they give place to the pines that, black in contrast with them, crown the slopes. All round it, the garden in the luxurious of mid-spring bloomed and was fragrant, and the scent of magnolia and rose, borne on the salt freshness of the winds from the sea, flowed like a stream through the cool vaulted rooms.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Man, this guy can write.

• 6:19Josh Clark?

  This is a very nice house.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, sounds lovely.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  And he continues, "On the ground floor, a broad-pillared loggia," and I looked this up, too. A loggia is a corridor, but that is essentially like a place, a corridor where you'd sit with arches in the front face. It's not just open with like a railing.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:38Josh Clark?

  And also, that means that Robert Loggia's name means Robert Corridor.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of.

• 6:45Josh Clark?

  "So the loggia ran round three sides of the house, the top of which formed a balcony for certain rooms of the first floor." The main staircase, broad and of gray marble steps, led up from the hall to the landing outside these rooms, which were three in number, namely, two big sitting rooms and a bedroom arranged on suite.

• 7:07Josh Clark?

  The latter was unoccupied; the sitting rooms were in use. From these, the main staircase was continued to the second floor, where were situated certain bedrooms, one of which I occupied, while from the other side of the first-floor landing, some half dozen steps led to another suite of rooms, where, at the time I am speaking of, Arthur Inglis, the artist, had his bedroom and studio. Thus, the landing outside my bedroom at the top of the house commanded both the landing of the first floor and also the steps that led to Inglis's room. Jim Stanley and his wife, finally, whose guest I was, occupied rooms in another wing of the house, where also were the servants' quarters.

• 7:48Josh Clark?

  And I feel like this is way, way too much detail about this house.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  That's what they all do, though. All these old stories, I feel like there's always a very detailed sort of map. And at the end of all of them, I feel like they almost should type, "Does everyone get it?"

• 8:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like, I've read the story a bunch of times, and I still don't have any conception, a mental map of this house. It's all just blobs of steps and, like, sitting rooms, you know?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but having known what happens, really, the only important thing you need to know is this guy's staying in a room upstairs, and there's another room close by that's unoccupied.

• 8:22Josh Clark?

  Very nice. You want to take over here?

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. Sounds like a good switch.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  I arrived just in time for lunch on a brilliant noon of mid-May. The garden was shouting with color and fragrance.

• 8:33Josh Clark?

  Burnt sienna!

• 8:35Speaker 02

  And not less delightful after my broiling walk up from the marina should have been the coming from the reverberating heat and blaze of the day into the marble coolness of the villa.

• 8:47Josh Clark?

  Is that where you're going with Villa?

• 8:47Speaker 02

  I'm going with Villa.

• 8:49Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Uh, "Only," in parentheses, the reader has my bare word for this and nothing more. "Only the moment I set foot in this house, I felt that something was wrong. This feeling, I may say, was quite vague, though very strong, and I remember that when I saw letters waiting for me on the table in the hall, I felt certain that the explanation was here. I was convinced that there was bad news of some sort for me. Yet, when I opened them, I found no such explanation for my premonition. My correspondence all reeked of prosperity, yet this clear miscarriage of a presentiment did not dissipate my uneasiness. In that cool, fragrant house, there was something wrong." So, homeboy gets some letters and thinks like, "That's what I think is my bad feeling. Like, I've got bad news awaiting me, but it's all great news."

• 9:34Josh Clark?

  But also, keep in mind, he's a house guest, and he plans to stay so long that he's forwarded his mail here. I hope he cleared that with the hosts.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a little weird, too. A lot of presumptions going on here.

• 9:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Uh, here we go.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  "I'm at pains to mention this because, to the general view, it may explain that, though I am, as a rule, so excellent a sleeper that the extinction of my light on getting into bed is apparently contemporaneous with being called on the following morning, I slept very badly..." He could've just said, "I sleep great."

• 10:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I kinda like that one.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. "I slept very badly on my first night in the Villa Cascana. It may also explain the fact that, when I did sleep, if it was indeed in sleep that I saw what I thought I saw, I dreamed in a very vivid and original manner, original, that is to say, in the sense that something that, as far as I knew, had never been previously entered into my consciousness, usurped it then. But since, in addition to this evil premonition, certain words and events occurring during the rest of the day might have suggested something of what I thought happened that night, it will be well to relate them."

• 10:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, F Benson never met a parentheses that he didn't like.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man, you kidding? Uh, after lunch, then, I went round the house with Mrs. Stanley. And during our tour, she referred, "It is true," to the unoccupied bedroom on the first floor, which opened out of the room where we had lunched. A little more mapping going on. Uh, are you gonna, do you want to read her voice?

• 11:03Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  All right.

• 11:05Josh Clark?

  "We left that unoccupied," she said. "Because Jim and I have a charming bedroom and dressing room, as you saw in the wing. And if we used it ourselves, we should have to turn the dining room into a dressing room and have our meals downstairs. As it is, however, we have our little flat here. Arthur Inglis has his little flat in the other passage. And I remember, parentheses, aren't I extraordinary? That you once said that the higher up you were in a house, the better you were pleased. So I put you at the top of the house, instead of giving you that room. Eh?"

• 11:41Speaker 02

  And I imagine this guy at this point is like, oh, God, lady. Just can I go to my room? Got a crossword puzzle to do. Uh, you want to take it from there?

• 11:50Josh Clark?

  Oh, sure.

• 11:53Josh Clark?

  "It is true that a doubt, vague as my uneasy premonition, crossed my mind at this. I did not see why Mrs. Stanley should have explained all this, if there had not been more to explain. I allow, therefore, that the thought that there was something to explain about the unoccupied bedroom was momentarily present to my mind."

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I got to say, though, I really do love that he did acknowledge what we just acknowledged. Like, she didn't have to say all that.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  No, and if you're not, if you're like, what is this guy talking about? So basically, he's laying all this out, and he's letting you know everything that possibly could have influenced him imagining this.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:28Josh Clark?

  To leave it to you, the reader slash listener, to decide if it was imagined or not. I think that's what he's doing. That's how I'm interpreting it.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Same.

• 12:36Josh Clark?

  That's what Cliff Notes said, at least.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:39Josh Clark?

  The second thing that may have borne on my dream was this. At dinner, the conversation turned for a moment on ghosts. Inglis, with the certainty of conviction, expressed his belief that anybody who could possibly believe in the existence of supernatural phenomena was unworthy of the name of an ass.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Burn.

• 12:58Josh Clark?

  The subject instantly dropped, as you can imagine. As far as I can recollect, nothing else occurred or was said that could bear on what follows. I need to take a sip of water, Chuck.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Unworthy of the name of an ass.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that is pretty low.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, Inglis is just roasting people.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  But also, you can see this guy with a walrus mustache, wearing a pith helmet at lunch.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:22Josh Clark?

  Just being a pompous jerk, and everyone's like, "Okay, well, I'm not gonna say how I feel about it."

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  So dinner has taken place, and now he's going to bed. And we know this because he says, "We all went to bed rather early, and personally, I yawned my way upstairs, feeling hideously sleepy. My room was rather hot, and I threw all the windows wide, and from without poured in the white light of the moon and the love song of the many nightingales. I undressed quickly and got into bed, but though I had felt so sleepy before, I now felt extremely wide awake."

• 13:57Speaker 02

  That's the worst.

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but this guy was okay with it, because he says, "But I was quite content to be awake. I did not toss or turn. I felt perfectly happy, listening to the song and seeing the light. Then, it is possible I may have gone to sleep, and what follows may have been a dream. I thought anyhow that after a time, the nightingale ceased singing and the moon sank. I thought also that if, for some explained reason, I was going to lie awake all night, I might as well read. And I remembered that I had left a book in which I was interested in the dining room on the first floor, which has seventeen steps and is a corner to the maid's quarters."

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Each step is but eight inches in depth, and made of oak, white oak.

• 14:44Josh Clark?

  From the Black Forest.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:49Josh Clark?

  So I got out of bed, lit a candle, and went downstairs. I went into the room, saw on a side table the book I had come to look for, and then simultaneously saw that the door into the unoccupied bedroom was open.

• 15:04Josh Clark?

  Not only that Chuck, a curious gray light, not of dawn nor of moonshine, came out of it, and I looked in.

• 15:12Josh Clark?

  The bed stood just opposite the door, a big four-poster. Beautiful, lots of carvings, hung with tapestry at the head. Then I saw that grayish light of the bedroom came from the bed, or rather from what was on the bed. For it was covered with gray caterpillars, get this, a foot or more in length, which crawled over it. They were faintly luminous, and it was the light from them that showed me the room. Instead of the sucker feet of ordinary caterpillars, they had rows of pincers like crabs, and they moved by grasping what they lay on with their pincers, and then sliding their bodies forward.

• 15:57Josh Clark?

  This is where it turns creepster, right?

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you have no idea the sense of relief when I was like, is this all just about a sense of dread? Because I feel like all these stories are just about a sense of dread. And then when these crab caterpillars, mutant crab caterpillars came on the scene, I was really knocked out.

• 16:15Josh Clark?

  It gets even worse though Chuck.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:18Josh Clark?

  He says that in color, these dreadful insects were yellowish-gray, and they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings. There must have been hundreds of them. These are foot-long caterpillars with crab pincers for feet.

• 16:33Josh Clark?

  For they formed a sort of writhing crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally, one fell off onto the floor with a soft, fleshy thud. And though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded to the pincer feet as if it had been putty. And crawling back, the caterpillar would mount onto the bed again to rejoin its fearful companions. They appeared to have no faces, so to speak, but at one end of them was a mouth that opened sideways in respiration.

• 17:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  All right. I mean, bravo.

• 17:11Josh Clark?

  Bravo EF Benson for coming up with some really creepy stuff.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it shocked me. I was not expecting this and now we have a genuine sort of monstrous situation. I love it.

• 17:20Josh Clark?

  You know, I thought this one was gonna get you because you're absolutely right. Almost all of our previous stories have been about like a house, an empty house. And most of the time it is just dread. Very few things actually happen. Something happens here and it is fat, lumpy, foot long caterpillars, hundreds of them on this bed of this unoccupied room.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wonder what kind of drugs EF was taking.

• 17:45Josh Clark?

  He was passing the ether rag.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. What did they have back then? Yeah, probably ether.

• 17:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, they had a lot of ether.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Is it me? Is it time?

• 17:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  All right. Then, as I looked, it seemed to me as if they all suddenly became conscious of my presence. All the mouths at any rate were turned in my direction and next moment, they began dropping off the bed with those soft, fleshy thuds onto the floor and wriggling towards me. For one second, a paralysis as of a dream was on me, but the next, I was running upstairs again to my room and I remember feeling the cold of the marble steps on my bare feet. Oh, they're marble. They're not oak.

• 18:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Oh, well. I rushed onto my, you know, marble is a lot to take care of. So that's not the great, great choice for a floor, especially stairs.

• 18:30Josh Clark?

  It's true. And it could have still possibly come from the Black Forest. So.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe so. You gotta seal that stuff though every year or so.

• 18:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I want to give a little shout out here, Chuck. If this is genuine, you can make a poultice out of baking soda and water only and you have to make it kind of thick.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 18:46Josh Clark?

  But if you have like a wine spot or something sunk into your marble countertop, put that on there, leave it for a couple of hours, scrape it off and wipe it down. I'm not kidding. Your red wine spot will be gone from the marble. It's a miracle of housekeeping.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Well, Mr. Fancy Pants, I have no marble, but I do drink wine, but I'll keep that in mind if I'm ever at a fancy pants house.

• 19:09Josh Clark?

  It works. I have limestone on my countertop and it works for that too. Like.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:13Josh Clark?

  It works for like.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Formica?

• 19:16Josh Clark?

  Formica. It works for whatever the, like a plasticky shiny cabinet door is made of.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  All right.

• 19:23Josh Clark?

  Laminate. It works on laminates. It works everywhere, man.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  I didn't see this coming.

• 19:29Josh Clark?

  I didn't.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  What a turn.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Where were we? Fleshy Thuds, paralysis, running upstairs, marble floors?

• 19:37Josh Clark?

  Baking soda.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  That's right. Alright, so he ran up the marble floors and into that bedroom, which is the sensible thing to do. "I rushed into my bedroom and slammed the door behind me, and then, I was certainly wide awake now, I found myself standing by my bed with the sweat of terror pouring from me. The noise of the banged door still rang in my ears, but, as would have been more usual, if this had been mere nightmare, the terror that had been mine when I saw those foul beasts crawling about the bed or dropping softly on the floor, did not cease then. Awake now, if dreaming before, I did not at all recover from the horror of dream. It did not seem to me that I had dreamed. And until dawn, I sat or stood, not daring to lie down, thinking that every rustle or movement that I heard was the approach of the caterpillars.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  To them and the claws that bit into the cement, the wood of the door was child's play. Steel would not have kept them out." So, basically like, this guy's just waiting for these caterpillars to bum rush him.

• 20:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  All night long.

• 20:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. He's saying to himself, "The horror."

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I'd be saying. "But with the sweet and noble return of the day, the horror vanished. The whisper of wind became benignant again, the nameless fear. Whatever it was, was smoothed out and terrified me no longer. Dawn broke, cueless at first, then it grew dove-colored." I like this detail, by the way. "Then the flaming pageant of light spread over the sky. The admirable rule of the house was that everybody had breakfast where and when he pleased, and in consequence, it was not till lunchtime that I met any of the other members of our party, since I had breakfast on my balcony and wrote letters and other things till lunch. In fact, I got down to that meal rather late, and the other three had begun.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Between my knife and fork, there was a small pillbox of cardboard, and as I sat down, Ingles spoke." Should I do Ingles?

• 21:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:31Josh Clark?

  Let's hear what you got.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  And these are Brits, right?

• 21:33Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  And Ingles is kind of an a-hole, right?

• 21:37Josh Clark?

  A little bit. He was the guy wearing the pith helmet and walrus and overly emphatically stating his opinion as fact.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Right, and we know what he does later, so he's an a-hole.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Do look at that, he said. Since you are interested in natural history, I found it crawling on my couch of pain last night, and I don't know what it is. You want to pick it up there?

• 22:00Josh Clark?

  Sure. I think that before I opened the pillbox, I expected something of the sort which I found in it. Inside it anyhow was a small caterpillar, grayish-yellow in color with curious bumps and excresces on its rings.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Ugh, what a word.

• 22:16Josh Clark?

  It was extremely active, hurried round the box, this way and that. Its feet were unlike the feet of any caterpillar I ever saw. They were like the pincers of a crab.

• 22:28Josh Clark?

  I looked and shut the lid down again.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  All right, so this is, these are in real life now. They're not a foot long, but they have been realized.

• 22:36Josh Clark?

  No.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  So it wasn't a dream?

• 22:39Josh Clark?

  No. Do you want, you should be, um, oh, I don't know that we ever hear his name, is it? The narrator?

• 22:46Speaker 02

  No, I'll be Inglis. You can be the narrator.

• 22:48Josh Clark?

  Okay, uh, let's see.

• 22:52Josh Clark?

  Uh, let's see, so he's terrified. "No, I don't know it," I said. "But it looks rather unwholesome. What are you going to do with it?"

• 23:02Speaker 02

  "Oh, I shall keep it,"

• 23:05Josh Clark?

  Oh, said Inglis.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  "It has begun to spin. I want to see what sort of moth it turns into."

• 23:11Josh Clark?

  I opened the box again and saw these hurrying movements were indeed the beginning of spinning of the web of its cocoon. Then Inglis spoke again.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  "It has got funny feet, too,"

• 23:23Josh Clark?

  he said.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  "They're like crab's pincers. What's the Latin for crab? Oh, yes, cancer. So in case it is unique, let's christen it. Mmm, Cancer Inglisensis."

• 23:36Josh Clark?

  I love how inevitably all of your voices end up being an old witch. It's every time, and it's a great voice, too. So I'm always very satisfied when that starts to happen.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  I love it. He names this thing after himself. What a jerk.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  I know he is. Oh, I continue on, right?

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:56Josh Clark?

  Then something happened in my brain, some momentary piecing together of all that I had seen or dreamed. Something in his words seemed to me to throw light on it all, and my own intense horror at the experience of the night before linked itself onto what he had just said. In effect, I took the box and threw it, caterpillar and all, out of the window.

• 24:19Josh Clark?

  This must have been fairly surprising. In the middle of the conversation, he just picks up the box and throws it out the window. There was a gravel path just outside, and beyond it, a fountain playing into a basin. The box fell on to the middle of this. Inglis laughed.

• 24:36Josh Clark?

  So the students of the occult don't like solid facts, he said. My poor caterpillar. The talk went off again at once to other subjects. I can imagine everybody's a little embarrassed that all this just-

• 24:47Speaker 02

  So, anyway.

• 24:50Josh Clark?

  How about them Yankees?

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:53Josh Clark?

  And I have only given in detail, as they happen, these trivialities in order to be sure myself that I have recorded everything that could have borne on occult subjects or on the subject of caterpillars. He really wants you to know, like, I'm giving you all the stuff here. I'm surprised he didn't say what he had for lunch and breakfast.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 25:14Josh Clark?

  But at the moment when I threw the pillbox into the fountain, I lost my head. My only excuse is that, as is probably plain, the tenet of it was, in miniature, exactly what I had seen crowded onto the bed in the unoccupied room. I think that was an unnecessary thing to point out.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:31Josh Clark?

  And though this translation of those phantoms into flesh and blood, or whatever it is the caterpillars are made of, ought perhaps to have relieved some of the horror of the night. As a matter of fact, it did nothing of the kind. It only made the crawling pyramid that covered the bed in the unoccupied room more hideously real.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I could imagine.

• 25:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I wouldn't see this thing that was the actual simulacrum of what had scared the bejesus out of me the night before. Why would that make you feel any better?

• 26:05Speaker 02

  No, agreed.

• 26:07Josh Clark?

  You want me to keep going? It seems like you could do this now.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  All right, I'll take it.

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  After lunch, we spent a lazy hour or two strolling about the garden or sitting in the Robert Loggia, and it must have been about four o'clock when Stanley and I started off to bathe down the path that led by the fountain into which I had thrown the pillbox. The water was shallow and clear, and at the bottom of it, I saw its white remains. The water had disintegrated the cardboard, and it had become no more than a few strips and shreds of sodden paper. The center of the fountain was a marble Italian cupid, which squirted the water out of a wine skin held under his arm.

• 26:44Josh Clark?

  That's not where I was expecting him to say it was squirting from.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Nope, a lot of times it comes right out of a little marble pee pee.

• 26:50Josh Clark?

  It's a tinkle.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  It's a tinkle, exactly. And crawling up its leg was the caterpillar. Strange and scarcely credible as it seemed, it must have survived the falling to bits of its prison and made its way to shore. And there it was, out of arm's reach, weaving and waving this way and that as it evolved its cocoon. Then, as I looked at it, it seemed to me again that, like the caterpillar I'd seen last night, it saw me, and breaking out of the threads that surrounded it, crawled down the marble leg of the cupid and began swimming like a snake across the water of the fountain towards me. Oh, my God.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  It came with extraordinary speed. The fact of a caterpillar being able to swim was new to me. That's in parentheses, of course. And in another moment was crawling up the marble lip of the basin. Just then, Inglis joined us. Why, if it isn't old cancer Inglicensis again, he said, catching the sight of the beast. What a tearing hurry it is in. We were standing side by side on the path, and when the caterpillar had advanced to within about a yard of us, it stopped and began waving again, as if in doubt as to the direction in which it should go. Then it appeared to make up its mind and crawled onto Inglis's shoe. It likes me best, he said, but I don't really

• 28:08Speaker 02

  know that I like it. And as it won't drown, I think perhaps, he shook it off his shoe, onto the gravel path, and trod on it.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Man, this English guy just stomps this thing.

• 28:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, he's the pith helmet type and they do those kind of things. They don't have a huge value on bug life.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 28:31Josh Clark?

  They didn't even like the movie A Bug's Life.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 28:36Josh Clark?

  Am I starting again?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it feels like you.

• 28:39Josh Clark?

  Okay. All afternoon, the air got heavier and heavier with the seraco that was without doubt coming up from the south. Would you say that is seraco or seroccho?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean Chuck would say seroccho.

• 28:53Josh Clark?

  Well, VW always called it seraco.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, those are great cars.

• 28:58Josh Clark?

  They are. And that night again, I went to bed feeling very sleepy, but below my drowsiness, so to speak, there was the consciousness, stronger than before, that there was something wrong in the house, that something dangerous was close at hand. Breaking for water?

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Gulp gulp?

• 29:20Josh Clark?

  But I fell asleep at once, and how long after I do not know, either woke or dreamed I awoke, feeling that I must get up at once, or I should be too late. That was in italics this time. Then, dreaming or awake, parentheses, I lay and fought this fear, telling myself that I was but the prey of my own nerves, disordered by seraco or whatnot, and at the same time, quite clearly knowing in another part of my mind, so to speak, that every moment's delay added to the danger. At last, the second feeling became irresistible, and I put on my coat and trousers and went out of my room onto the landing. And then I saw that I had already delayed too long and that I was now too late. The whole of the landing

• 30:05Josh Clark?

  of the first floor below was invisible under the swarm of caterpillars that crawled there.

• 30:12Josh Clark?

  The folding doors into the sitting room, from which opened the bedroom, where I had seen them last night, were shut. But they were squeezing through the cracks of it and dropping one by one through the keyhole, elongating themselves into mere string as they passed and growing fat and lumpy again on emerging.

• 30:31Josh Clark?

  Some, as if exploring, were nosing about the steps into the passage, at the end of which were Inglis's room. Others were crawling on the lowest steps of the staircase that led up to where I stood. The landing, however, was completely covered with them. I was cut off. And of the frozen horror that seized me when I saw that, I can give no idea in words.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  I bet he could if you tried.

• 30:55Josh Clark?

  Okay, continuing on Chuck. Then at last a general movement began to take place, and they grew thicker on the steps that led to Inglis's room. Gradually, like some hideous tide of flesh, they advanced along the passage, and I saw the foremost, visible by the pale gray luminousness that came from them, reach his door. He's like, "Better you than me, Inglis."

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:18Josh Clark?

  Again and again, I tried to shout and warn him, in terror all the time that they would turn at the sound of my voice and mount my stare instead. But for all my efforts, I felt no sound came from my throat. They crawled along the hinge crack of his door, passing through as they had done before, and still I stood there making impotent efforts to shout to him, to bid him escape while there was time.

• 31:42Josh Clark?

  This is getting serious. At last, the passage was completely empty. They had all gone. And at that moment, I was conscious for the first time of the cold of the marble landing on which I stood barefooted. The dawn was just beginning to break in the eastern sky.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Sunrise, always a good sign.

• 32:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that seems to chase away the nasties.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, all right, I'm bringing it home?

• 32:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, bring us home, Chuck.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Six months later, I met Mrs. Stanley in a country house in England. We talked on many subjects and at last she said,

• 32:20Josh Clark?

  "Oh, uh, oh, that's me. I'm her. Oh, yeah. "I don't think I've seen you since I got the dreadful news about Arthur Inglis a month ago." And this guy's still scared, so he says, "I haven't heard,"

• 32:32Speaker 02

  said I.

• 32:34Josh Clark?

  "No, he's got cancer. They don't even advise an operation, for there is no hope of a cure. "He is riddled with it, the doctors say."

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Now, during all these six months, I do not think a day has passed on which I had not had in my mind the dreams, parentheses, or whatever you like to call them, which I had not seen in the Villa Cascana.

• 32:56Josh Clark?

  "It is awful, is it not?"

• 32:58Speaker 02

  she continued.

• 32:59Josh Clark?

  "And I feel, I can't help feeling, that he may have caught it at the Via."

• 33:05Speaker 02

  "What's a Via?"

• 33:07Josh Clark?

  "Caught it at the Villa?"

• 33:09Speaker 02

  I asked. She looked at me in blank surprise.

• 33:13Josh Clark?

  "Why did you say that?"

• 33:15Speaker 02

  she asked.

• 33:16Josh Clark?

  "How did you know?"

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Then she told me, in the unoccupied bedroom a year before, there had been a fatal case of cancer. She had, of course, taken the best advice and had been told that the utmost dictates of prudence would be obeyed so long as she did not put anybody to sleep in the room, which had also been thoroughly disinfected and newly whitewashed and painted. But...

• 33:46Speaker 02

  That's it?

• 33:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  But ellipses.

• 33:51Josh Clark?

  I even went back and double-checked that I had copied and pasted everything, but...

• 33:55Speaker 02

  I did too.

• 33:56Josh Clark?

  That was it.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it just ends with, uh, you know, that room had cancer in it, it seems like.

• 34:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and those things transferred cancer, which explains why they were lumpy.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 34:09Josh Clark?

  They were tumorous, I guess you'd say. And then also, when he said that Arthur Inglis called them cancer Inglisensis, I think.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, Inglisensis.

• 34:18Josh Clark?

  That that kind of trips something in his mind. So, yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  So maybe it's a vanity tale, morality tale.

• 34:27Josh Clark?

  Was it a dream, Chuck, or did he really experience all this?

• 34:30Speaker 02

  I think it's all real.

• 34:31Josh Clark?

  I do, too. Let's go with that, since it's a good horror story.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  All right, moving on then, we come to my pick, which is, it's called The Deep Brows. And it is, what did I say, brows? The Deep Drows. And it's, this is taken from Weird Tales. Which volume was this? September 1949, The Great Pulp Rag Weird Tales. And this is sort of a mysterious case, because Alison B. Harding is listed as the writer, but Alison B. Harding is a bit of a mystery, right?

• 35:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the closest I've seen of someone a master is Gene Milligan, but that's pretty far from being proven without a doubt.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I've seen various things. I've seen Gene Milligan, or Lamont Buchanan, or maybe a husband-wife team, but it was a nom de plume. And this is someone who didn't want to be recognized, because they wrote, whoever it was, like 10 or 15 stories, most of which were in Weird Tales, in like the 1940s and 50s, and then just sort of stopped writing and disappeared.

• 35:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, pretty neat.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Really interesting.

• 35:39Josh Clark?

  I think that they were so adamant about their pseudonym, because that they were being paid under the table.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Oh, maybe so. Or maybe they had some, I think, one of them was an attorney or something, so maybe they didn't, like, sometimes they have like a proper job and writing for a pulp rag wouldn't be looked upon favorably.

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  It would be today, because they turned out to be one of the great overlooked horror writers of all time.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed. All right, so, without any further ado, maybe I'll start this one out. Does that sound good?

• 36:12Josh Clark?

  I think that's a great idea.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  This is The Deep Brows by pen name Alison B. Harding.

• 36:17Josh Clark?

  Did you say brows again?

• 36:19Speaker 02

  I think I did. The Deep Drows. What is my deal?

• 36:23Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  The beep drows. Wow. All right, here we go.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Arthur Hodges had very bad hay fever. He and his wife Frances lived in a cheerful, white painted wood house with a big stone chimney and a tastefully designed stone terrace out back. That they lived in this house in the country was one of the factors that made the Hodges place in the history of this world secure for whatever stretch of time there is ahead for this universe. Everything, of course, had to dovetail perfectly. Have you ever thought about an accident? For instance, a man who was hit on the head by a flower pot or a brick. The man is, say, 40 years old, and yet the months and days and hours and seconds of those 40 years have to be perfectly synchronized to bring him to that spot on the sidewalk precisely at the time that the brick is unloosened by the wind and sent plummeting on its mission

• 37:17Speaker 02

  of death. It's very P.T. Anderson Magnolia set up.

• 37:21Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  So it was with the Hodges. Then you see, Arthur Hodges was a writer. That's important. If everything else had been perfect, but he hadn't been a writer, there would have been no record for the incredible events that follow. Likewise, everything else would have been upset if Arthur Hodges just hadn't been a successful writer. Just being a writer wouldn't have been enough because his junk, as he called it in his deprecating fashion, was churned out with sufficient facility and talent to have made his name a headliner on many of the nation's biggest magazines. He had more than enough money.

• 37:55Josh Clark?

  All this is important, I think, is what Alison B. Harding is saying.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  That's right. Money meant two new autos in the two-car garage out back. His pretty redhead wife Fran dressed inconspicuously, but in the good taste which signals expensive clothes. And this is, of course, the most important part. He had what he jokingly confided to his neighbors was a hermetically sealed study and bedroom for those summer months when ragweed, Timothy, and other such deadly pollens would have made his life in the country quite terrible. They had a joke Fran and Arthur did from July through September. He takes manuscripts down to the post office to mail and also provide himself with a few other errands in town to keep him away a couple of hours. By the time he got home, depending on the length of his mission, Fran could predict

• 38:41Speaker 02

  almost exactly how red his eyes would be, how uncomfortable his nose.

• 38:45Josh Clark?

  It's quite a joke.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  All right. So this is a wealthy, or at least a well-to-do, author living in the country, but he has very bad allergies, so he has a safe room.

• 38:55Josh Clark?

  Yes, a hermetically sealed one, too.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  That's right. You can pick it up from there, my friend.

• 39:00Josh Clark?

  All right. Arthur had a habit of coming in with whatever packages he had collected in the village, banging the summer screen door of the ports and saying, "Funny thing, darling, I feel fine. I guess we'll turn off the damn air conditioning unit and save on our electric bill."

• 39:20Josh Clark?

  But this was always announced in a deeply nasal voice. Oh, let me try that again. Funny thing, darling, I felt fine. I guess we'll turn off the damn air conditioning unit and save on our electric bill.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Going for it.

• 39:37Josh Clark?

  And he would almost immediately subside into a frenzy of sneezing and wheezing, whereupon his wife would push him into the study bedroom part of the house, where the engineers who'd installed the expensive but efficient unit swore not a breath of outside air could penetrate.

• 39:53Josh Clark?

  Arthur worked in here most of the day, except for periods of never more than a few hours, when he'd play tennis at the club or use the swimming pool there with Fran and his other friends. If there was a bridge game scheduled, it always took place in Arthur's study. He's got some bad, bad allergies.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:12Josh Clark?

  The whole business, in other words, was accepted by the neighbors and nobody thought anything about it. If he'd been poor, Arthur obviously would have had to suffer or live in the city as far away as possible from growing things. But his three months of travail had now been neatly gotten around by the Acme Air Conditioning Units Company, Detroit, Michigan. Of course, it had taken extra airproofing of the windows so that all cracks of the two rooms could be perfectly sealed, and that in addition to the conditioning machines themselves was expensive. But it kept them both out in the country, which they liked, and had become as much a part of their lives to be taken for granted as the dishwasher in the kitchen or the electric door on the garage. Fancy.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:58Josh Clark?

  So now it is easy to see the component parts of the whole affair. Arthur had very bad hay fever, but he liked the country, lived in the country, and got around his July-through-September agonies because he had the money to purchase for himself a hermetically sealed refuge. And he was a writer. Don't forget that.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  It's actually written in there.

• 41:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, with an exclamation point.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a nice little summation.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Shall I take over?

• 41:24Josh Clark?

  You shall.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  All right. It was the late afternoon of August 14th. Fran came back from the village in the convertible to find Arthur out on the lawn practicing with a putter. She forgot to upbraid him for his running nose and swollen eyes because of the important looking envelope in her hand. A writer's wife gets to sense these things.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  "Open it up," she ordered. The registered letter was from a movie company. Hodges had been dicker-ing with them on his latest cereal for one of the big magazines. The letter was good news. They were offering to buy and at the kind of fabulous price that movies deal in.

• 41:59Josh Clark?

  Whoa.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Said Arthur, holding the open letter in one hand and clutching for his pocket handkerchief with the other.

• 42:06Josh Clark?

  Well, that's, that's pretty good.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  He tried, as always, to appear unconcerned, but Fran threw her arms around his neck, gave him a big kiss. "You're wonderful, darling," she cried gaily. He sighed, trying not to show how pleased he was with the news at her attentions.

• 42:23Josh Clark?

  At least those will pay for the air conditioner for another summer.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Man, how did she tolerate this guy?

• 42:28Josh Clark?

  I don't know, but she is pretty, pretty kind to him, it seems.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Then Fran took him by the elbow and steered him inside. "You get back into the cave," she ordered him. It was their pet name for their sanctified haven of pure, manufactured, pollen-free air. The breeze died down, and with the wind gone, it grew very hot. Fran prepared a cold supper and brought it into Arthur's den. She thought it was actually much nicer here than outside, where the humidity had become oppressive. She looked out across the green country from the window of the study and noticed in the failing light, the pockets of fog clinging to the lower lies of land. "Art," she said, turning away from her contemplation of the window scene and spooning up some of her potato salad.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Nice detail.

• 43:10Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  She said, "I think we ought to celebrate your latest triumph." She went back to American, by the way.

• 43:17Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  She forgot where she was from for a moment. He made a deprecating gesture with his hand. "No, I really mean it. We haven't seen some of the old gang for a while. Jack and Cynthia, for instance. We ought to really have them out. And then there's Tim and Mary. Let's have quite a party."

• 43:34Speaker 02

  He warmed to the idea, thinking about it as she went. She took some plates into the other part of the house and got some ice cream out of the freezer to bring it back to the study. She noticed then how warm the rest of the house was after the clean, cool air of the cave. As an afterthought, she decided first to bring a deck chair in that they'd left on the terrace where she'd been sunning herself in shorts earlier that day. When Fran went outside, she noticed again the oppressive heaviness of the air. It made it hard to breathe. It made her sleepy. With evening approaching, the darkening sky was burned with purple and orange. She thought it probably meant another blisterer tomorrow. She went back into the cave with the ice cream in the plates, slammed the special door, which hermetically sealed it, and they started talking about their plans again. This was the night of August 14th, the night which would initiate Arthur Hodges to the

• 44:18Speaker 02

  part he would play, which, in its way, would make him as famous in the sweep of history as the names of Darwin or Columbus. Or, or... Fran, aside from being pretty, was a methodical girl. She was self-appointed watchdog of the budget. "No, darling," Fran insisted. "It would be a lot of fun to have a celebration. Next weekend would be fine," and she mentioned his very best friends, the Fisk's and the Barnes, which is a lot of big guns. "I'm going to call them," she said resolutely.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  "No, you strike him."

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Arthur suggested.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  "He's one of those office wretches, and you'd simply remind Barry that he wasn't home yet."

• 44:57Speaker 02

  "It's nearly eight o'clock," said Fran, reproachfully, with a new look at the small desk clock getting ready to tinkle the news. "I'll try Jack and Cynthia." Doodling with a phone pad, she noted the time, 8:00 PM, just as the clock chimed out musically. She asked the operator for the Fisk's number and waited for three rings. "Cynthia," she hallowed to the feminine voice that answered. "It's Fran Hodges."

• 45:24Speaker 02

  Take it away.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  I will, but first I want to point out happily that Tinkle has made an appearance in both stories now.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right, two Tinkles.

• 45:33Josh Clark?

  Arthur could hear the other girl squeal with delight over the phone. Fran began to explain the invitation, and from his wife's expression and the noises from the earpiece, Arthur, on the other side of the room, could tell that the invitation had gone over well, and the girls were about to get on all sorts of other subjects. He came over. Say hello to Cynthia for me. Let me speak to that shyster husband of hers. Fran wrinkled up her nose in mock anger at this interruption of their gossip, but after all, it was his night.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Cynthia, where's Jack?

• 46:05Josh Clark?

  She relayed over the phone.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Oh, so early. Well, throw some water on him or something. Art wants to speak to him.

• 46:13Josh Clark?

  She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Old age has crept up on the barrister, since as he's sleeping on the living room sofa.

• 46:20Josh Clark?

  Probably had one too many on the way home, Art put in irreverently.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Oh, Jack.

• 46:26Josh Clark?

  Fran's attention was called back to the phone.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Don't make your excuses to me. If I were your wife, I'd make you do the dishes. That would keep you awake. Here's my genius husband with a momentous word for you. It's probably a lie, Jack, about his latest golf score. Don't believe it.

• 46:42Josh Clark?

  Fran handed the receiver over to her husband. Hello, counselor, said Art into the phone. They talked and joked, and then Jack relayed through Art to Fran. Some thought about a big case he had coming up at the end of next week. If it broke in a certain way, he'd probably not be able to make it, or at least it would be difficult. He was hearing from the client involved, as a matter of fact, later that evening. Fran made another face and took the phone away from Art.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Jack, put Cynthia back on. You men always louse everything up. Look, Sen, after Jack has heard from this old client, you call us back tonight, will you? Oh, we'll be up till well after midnight. How is it in there? Hot? I bet it is. We're in the cave now to cure Art's sniffles. I stepped outside for a minute after supper, and there wasn't a breath of air, even here in the country. You be sure and do that, Sen. We'll wait for you. We're going to call Tim and Mary Barnes. We thought we'd get them, because you and Jack can always beat them at bridge. Huh. And Art loves Mr. Barnes, because he once took him in a golf match. Hear from you later, baby.

• 47:48Josh Clark?

  Fran hung up. It was 8:30.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Fran's a real pistol.

• 47:52Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  "We really shouldn't have talked so long," she reproached. "But I guess we can afford it now, can't we, genius?"

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Art ruffled her hair and kissed an auburn curl on the top of her head. "Night rates," he murmured. "That's what I'm counting on. Try Tim and Mary. Old man Barnes ought to be home from his vulgar money-making pursuits by now. Gee, I'm glad I don't commute to the city every day and then come back to some suburban neighborhood house that looks so much like the neighbors on either side. You have to be careful you don't go in the wrong door and catch somebody else's breath."

• 48:27Speaker 02

  You skirted very closely to Homer Simpson there for a second.

• 48:30Josh Clark?

  I did. That was a complete accident. I've never been able to do Homer, but now I know the secret.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  Yes, agreed. I just amazed myself. Should I continue?

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Uh, sure.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  Fran gave the suburban number that belonged to the Barnes and Art stole the phone from her hand. The study window showed that it was completely dark outside now. "Mrs. Barnes," Arthur boomed, "these are your long-lost country cousins, the Hodges." He frowned a bit and after a moment passed the phone back to his wife. His mouth formed the words, "Think we disturbed them." Fran carried on nobly. "Tim wasn't back from the city yet? Was it beastly hot there? Couldn't be much worse off in the city." "Oh, yes," Fran nodded to reassure Mary. "She'd just talked to the Fisk's and they said the city was simply unbearable. Poor Tim, what was keeping him? Well, anyway, you two need a vacation in the country. How about next weekend? Look, we'll call again a bit later after Tim's home." She hung up.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Funny, Fran said it.

• 49:31Josh Clark?

  But...

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, we lead this bucolic life of solitary splendor where you can't see your next-door neighbor's house without a telescope. We're supposed to be lazy and going to weed while our city friends and their first cousins, the suburbanites, are still supposed to be in there swinging with their eyes on the main chance.

• 49:47Josh Clark?

  What's the point, Arthur asked.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Well, nothing exactly, replied Fran. Except when we call these live wires, Jack sounds asleep at the end of a big career-punching day and Mary, well, I kinda have the sneaky feeling we woke her up.

• 50:02Josh Clark?

  Art nodded. Think you're right.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  Well, I always said this was the racket out here in the real country.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Aren't you glad that I agree with you?

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Fran came over to his side and rumpled his hair.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  You wouldn't like it so much out here without me.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Honey, he said and kissed her.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  Mwah.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Then he had a thought. You didn't put the garage door down, did you?

• 50:25Speaker 02

  No, but silly. Don't bother about it. It's not going to rain or snow tonight.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Might as well, said Art. Principles are in all that, you know.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Silly, silly, said Fran. And you might get sneezing again.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  I hope I do, so I can come back here and really appreciate what this setup has cost you.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Homer.

• 50:47Josh Clark?

  What was it again?

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, just a little tinge. A Homeric tinge.

• 50:51Josh Clark?

  This also has just evolved into a John Cheever story where a couple in the country are trying to get their city friends to come out for a night of bridge.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 51:00Josh Clark?

  You want to take it?

• 51:01Speaker 02

  Good call. Uh, sure. He went out and into the un-air-conditioned part of the house. It was very warm and almost immediately he began to sweat. God, how it must be in the city. He started out the back door and found he couldn't see a thing in the starless night. He came back and got the torch that hung in the coat closet, followed its rays to the garage. He thumbed the down switch that controlled the electric doors and they rumbled into place. Because he got pleasure out of the accoutrement that science had designed for easier living, he thumbed the up switch and watched the doors rise again.

• 51:31Josh Clark?

  Door goes up, door goes down.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Uh, it was neat, the whole operation. He let them descend and then stood there with the flash turned off, trying to see if his eyes would grow accustomed to the gloom. Somewhere out towards where the birdbath stood, a firefly pricked the wall of blackness momentarily. He shone the light and picked up the marble pad. Oh, more marble.

• 51:51Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  You know what's good for that?

• 51:53Josh Clark?

  Uh, a poultice made of baking soda and some water.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  That's right. Arthur walked a few steps away from the house in the garage, past the birdbath, towards the field, enjoying the freedom of these few steps as someone does who has even the relatively inoffensive restriction that he did. "Things always look different at night," he reminded himself as he torched the yellow beam of the flashlight here and there. The trees and shrubbery had a particular lifeless aspect, as though they were prop scenery. From the ridge that crowned the southern horizon of his property, the faraway lights of a speeding car shoveled the gloom back for a few instants. And then, with the vehicle gone and its dark errand, there was nothing but the little light in his hand, and the occasional, very seldom, pinprick of a firefly off to the left, or perhaps, over to the right.

• 52:38Josh Clark?

  Anyway.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Just not in front of him.

• 52:40Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  The ground underneath his moccasins had its fine sheen of night dew. He could feel the taller blades of grass swish damply against his ankles as he walked. From out of the endless blackness that stretched away from where he stood across the universe, something came that blinked green and red in the sky. It was the mail plane heading for the state capitol 100 miles north, and idly, he turned his flash upward and pinched the switch in a staccato series, then, thinking foolishly of the action, flicked it off. To them, if anything, it would be as a firefly was to him, a tiny and distinct something for an instant, against the pall of darkness that covered the earth.

• 53:18Josh Clark?

  I just want to add here, Chuck, that if you, listener like me, thought that that was going to become something later on, it doesn't.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Well, it sort of does. The plane?

• 53:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Well, him flashing the plane, I thought something bad was going to come of it, and nothing does whatsoever.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. But, you know, if the plane flies over in Act One, it may not fly over in Act Three.

• 53:42Josh Clark?

  That's true.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  It's a spoiler. "The plane fled from him into the northern night, fled as though afraid, and a feeling of momentous loneliness welled up inside of him, making him turn abruptly, so he could see the lights of the house, their house, Fran's and his. You know, their house, the one they live in, just right there, where he just came from."

• 53:59Josh Clark?

  Sometimes off to the left, sometimes off to the right.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  He walked rapidly back and this time secured the front and back doors and windows for the night before rejoining Fran in the cave. You can pick it up, but I believe I'm Fran.

• 54:13Josh Clark?

  You are.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Nobody's called.

• 54:15Josh Clark?

  She said petulantly.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Have you been outside all this time, fussing with that old garage door that tickles you so?

• 54:21Josh Clark?

  He nodded.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  How many sneezes?

• 54:23Josh Clark?

  Not one, he avowed, surprised at the realization himself. She squinted at him dubiously. Upon my honor. He put a hand on his heart and raised the other. I don't think there's enough air out there to blow the old pollen about mighty stuffy. He sank down in a chair and enjoyed the cool, pure oxygen of the room. I tell you, Fran, this thing's worth it. I mean, even if you didn't have an allergy, or ghastly hay fever, or anything.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  I'm picturing Dennis Hopper now in Blue Velvet, sucking off that mask.

• 54:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was trying for Dennis Miller.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  K'kwe k'wap. This is silly.

• 55:05Josh Clark?

  Fran said after a while longer.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  I'm going to call the Fisk's. They promised to call and they haven't.

• 55:10Josh Clark?

  Fran picked up the receiver and it was just past 10:30. Arthur went over and sat beside her, held his head close to hers.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  Eavesdropper.

• 55:19Josh Clark?

  She whispered.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  Eavesdropper.

• 55:22Josh Clark?

  They both had the same reaction when the voice answered, as they said afterward and as Arthur wrote it. It was, "Don't forget, he was a writer and he's wealthy." It was Cynthia's voice, and yet it wasn't. Arthur's first thought was that she'd been drinking. Fran, more charitably, thought that she was ill.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Darling, you're going to call. Where's Jack? You sound a little funny.

• 55:43Josh Clark?

  Cynthia talked, and as she talked, her voice got stronger. It was so terribly hot there in town, she apologized. Finally, Jack came to the phone, groggy in voice, too. Yes, his client had called up quite a long time ago. It had been kind of unsatisfactory, but hang it all, they'd come out the next weekend.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  I guess that should be Cynthia. Am I gonna Monty Python this whole thing?

• 56:07Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  All right. All right. Who is Cynthia? Who is Cynthia?

• 56:12Josh Clark?

  What's her motivation?

• 56:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Well, she's not sounding well, too, though, right?

• 56:17Josh Clark?

  No, she sounds very tired.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  Gee, I think we need to get away.

• 56:22Josh Clark?

  Cynthia confided.

• 56:24Speaker 04

  Jack's just worn out, and I feel pretty bushed, too.

• 56:27Josh Clark?

  Then Fran couldn't get Cynthia's attention for a few minutes. And when the other girl came back on the phone, she had an edge of excitement in her voice, Chuck.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  Can you hear that, Fran? I mean, over the phone? Listen as I hold the mouthpiece this way. Can you hear it?

• 56:43Josh Clark?

  Fran listened intently, and Arthur pressed his ear as close to the receiver as he could. There was something like a hissing, radiating like a boiler lighting off steam. Cynthia came back on.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  I don't know. I think the heat's got us. We just love to come out to the country and stay.

• 57:01Josh Clark?

  Before they rang up, which means hang up, hung up. Hmm. Cynthia dropped the phone once and had to pick it up. Fran hung up, worried.

• 57:13Josh Clark?

  Drunk, said Arthur, his hay fever had come back.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Don't be silly.

• 57:17Josh Clark?

  His wife rom- Is it remonstrated?

• 57:20Speaker 02

  I think remonstrated.

• 57:22Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Or, I don't know, remonstrated sounds right, too.

• 57:24Josh Clark?

  But also, it looks a lot like demonstrated, but the D and the R were switched at birth.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  That's right. Don't be silly.

• 57:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, his wife remonstrated? Remonstrated?

• 57:37Speaker 02

  She doesn't drink, Jack. Maybe once in a while, but she doesn't. I'm worried. I think they're both sick, like food poisoning or something.

• 57:45Josh Clark?

  So now his hay fever is coming in and out by the second. Well, as long as it's over by next weekend, Arthur put in, go ahead, try the Barnes. My little technique didn't work as well as I thought, but I was ramming the sides of my nose, trying to come in and out of a nasally quality, and I can tell you, from experience, it doesn't work.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Okay. Don't try it at home.

• 58:09Josh Clark?

  Fran gave the number and waited. The connection took quite a while, and when it was made, Arthur saw his wife's face tighten.

• 58:17Speaker 05

  I can hardly hear you, Mary. What is it? Yes, it's Fran Hodges. We're calling up about next weekend. What? Mary, it's awfully hard to understand you. Must be a bad connection. What's wrong with Tim?

• 58:31Josh Clark?

  Arthur was watching her expression from the lounge chair.

• 58:35Speaker 05

  Yes, he's probably been working too hard. You don't sound too spry yourself, my chicken. Hey, listen, you both need a rest. What? Hear what?

• 58:45Josh Clark?

  Fran's face blanched a bit then, and her eyes saw Arthur's.

• 58:50Speaker 05

  Now, you just pack yourself into bed, young lady, and make your plans tomorrow morning with that overworked, money-making husband of yours. Come out before the weekend. Have Tim knock off. Come out Wednesday or Thursday. We'd love to have you anytime.

• 59:01Josh Clark?

  Fran hung up slowly.

• 59:05Speaker 05

  I think our friends are all giving out. She sounded awfully funny and said, "Oh, you men are terrible." She said she couldn't seem to wake Tim up, that he got back from the station and just sort of collapsed.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  Apparently, it's good.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Arthur commented.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  The bars in the fifth separated by, what, 50 or 60 miles? And your theory is that they both got food poisoning from the same bad oysters?

• 59:32Speaker 02

  We might need subs for you.

• 59:35Josh Clark?

  Can you understand what he's saying, essentially? So this is what I'll do. I'll read it like that unintelligibly, and then I'll explain what he just said.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  It's sort of like Gary Oldman in Slow Horses. You really need to turn those subs on.

• 59:47Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 59:49Josh Clark?

  I don't know the reference, but I will do what you say.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Oh, you don't watch Slow Horses? I thought you watched that.

• 59:53Josh Clark?

  No, is it a TV show?

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:55Josh Clark?

  Is it a limited series?

• 59:57Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I think it's in season five or so. It's great.

• 59:59Josh Clark?

  I tried Tulsa King last night and was like, "I'm just not in the mood for any, like, mean bullying right now." So I didn't go any further than the first, like, 15 minutes.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  Oh, I have not seen that, but a friend of the show, Kevin Pollak, is in the new season.

• 1:00:14Josh Clark?

  He sure is.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, they shoot in here in Atlanta.

• 1:00:17Josh Clark?

  Oh, I didn't know that. It looks a lot like Tulsa.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Well, I think they do some exteriors here.

• 1:00:20Josh Clark?

  I see.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Anyway, is this me?

• 1:00:24Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  All right. Fran smiled. It's funny, though, Art, about one thing. She said something about hissing too, just like Sin. Fran's hand came up to her mouth and her eyes got bigger. Darn. You don't suppose, you don't suppose it's any sort of enemy attack? You know, that article we read about, you know, the way when war came this time? Arthur laughed heartily.

• 1:00:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. So by a quick instant poll on social media, we've decided that Arthur's hay fever nose should go away.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  Oh, no? Snap poll?

• 1:01:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Now, wait a minute. I'm supposed to be the one with the imagination. I make money out of it and you're doing it for free.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  She relaxed, but he saw the puzzlement was still on her face. To reassure her, he switched the radio on and the sounds of a jazzy record filled the study. The MC came on sounding sleepy, but then they all do in half her ages. There was certainly no mementus. We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin. The president has just announced that this country has been attacked by, and so forth. Nothing like that.

• 1:01:32Josh Clark?

  He sounded like Pee-wee Herman.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Beijing Mr. Herman.

• 1:01:35Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  It's one of my favorite parts of that movie.

• 1:01:38Josh Clark?

  It is great.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  He saw that Fran's fright had passed, but then she said resolutely, "Turn that thing down, Art, will you? I'm going to call Jack and Cynthia again."

• 1:01:47Josh Clark?

  So we did another snap poll and it turns out people did like the nasally voice after all.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  Oh, great. It's back.

• 1:01:53Josh Clark?

  Now, look, this time you really are going to wake them up. It's getting hot towards midnight.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  But Art knew his wife, and when she was determined to do something, she did it. Luckily, he reflected many times in the past it usually had turned out to be the right thing. He shrugged his shoulders and said, half jokingly,

• 1:02:10Josh Clark?

  "Well, I warned you. After this, they'll never even think of accepting our invitation next weekend. We'll be in their doghouse for weeks."

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  Fran dialed the operator, gave the number, and in the interim, before the connection was made, the quiet of the country seemed to press from the black out-of-doors around them in this lit oasis of the night. "Takes that operator an awfully long time," said Fran aloud. Finally, the ringing commenced. It seemed interminable to Art, sitting on the other side of the room. At last, there was an answer, for Fran said, "Hello, Cynthia." But all was not well, Art knew, from the way his wife's hand tightened to whiteness around the receiver. Fran seemed to be explaining, pleading, and finally, Arthur came to her side and spoke down to her upturned face.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  What's the matter?

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  She shook her head. He took the phone, and a sloth's voice assailed him, droning on. Fran was sitting on the edge of her chair, terrified.

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  Cynthia!

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  He called sharply.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  What's wrong? Are you ill? Where's Jack? Put him on.

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  He could barely make sense out of this thing. Cynthia was saying slowly, laboriously, as though drugged or sick, that Jack had passed out, and that, funny, she couldn't seem to get any help. He listened for a moment more, and then hung up quickly. He dialed for the operator, and after long seconds, she came on.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  I'm going to call Dr. McCollum in town. You remember him?

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  Fran nodded approval.

• 1:03:33Josh Clark?

  So something really weird is going on with everybody.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. This is no John Cheever.

• 1:03:39Josh Clark?

  No. I think, I suspect it has something to do with the shrubbery-looking-like movie props.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Josh Clark?

  Oh, I'm gonna start up again. You ready?

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  I'm ready.

• 1:03:50Josh Clark?

  He was a physician they'd known, this is Dr. McCollum, who Art's calling. He was a physician they'd known when they lived not many blocks away from the Fisk's. The McCollum connection seemed to take an eternity, and then there was a voice at the other end. Arthur asked for the doctor, and the voice said slowly,

• 1:04:07Speaker 06

  "Dr. McCollum speaks."

• 1:04:14Josh Clark?

  Hodges identified himself and told what he thought, that the Fisk's, good friends of his, were apparently unable to get aid. Could Dr. McCollum go himself, or get someone? There was a long pause. Then the voice answered,

• 1:04:27Speaker 06

  Funny, Hodges. Damn funny. Something strange.

• 1:04:34Josh Clark?

  There was a noise and an interruption. Arthur's hellos brought no new response. He kept his back to Fran as he hung up, for fear she would find fuel for her fright in his expression. He would try the barns. The minutes ticked away. Their village operator was apparently—no, here she was. He gave the number, and there was another long wait, and then the sound of ringing in the city suburb. He waited no usual time, but allowed fully five minutes. Finally, he pictured the scene. The phone was dragged from its cradle. It was Tim, a lethargic Tim, who slurred his words. Arthur asked Tim if Mary was all right.

• 1:05:12Speaker 03

  Asleep, was the mumbled answer.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  You know what's happening.

• 1:05:16Josh Clark?

  What?

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  The deep brows.

• 1:05:18Josh Clark?

  The beep drows.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  The beep drows is happening.

• 1:05:22Josh Clark?

  Uh, okay. Arthur spoke quickly then. I want you to listen to me carefully. Call a doctor, Tim, or your local police. Do it immediately. Do you hear me?

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  Hear you, echoed the voice weakly.

• 1:05:35Josh Clark?

  Tell them, tell them how you feel and ask for help. Do that, Tim. Do it right away. The voice at the other end gurgled something unintelligibly.

• 1:05:43Speaker 06

  What?

• 1:05:46Josh Clark?

  Arthur cradled the phone. He turned squarely to face Fran. Something's happened, darling. I don't know what. See what you can get on the radio. She jumped at his bidding. He was at the phone again, dialing, dialing. Finally, the operator, sounding like Cynthia, like Dr. McCollum, like Tim. The police, he said distinctly. Great man. Give me the police. The operator's fumblings were audible. He heard her mouth the word

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  Police.

• 1:06:16Josh Clark?

  As a drunk would. But at last, her instinctive reflex is taking over. He guessed the connection was made. A gruff male voice mumbled what might have been

• 1:06:27Josh Clark?

  And then subsided into a deep, long yawn before Arthur had a chance to say anything. "Look, this is Arthur Hodges," he persevered. "I've been calling some friends of mine around the country, and I don't know what it is, but everybody acts kind of drugged." The policeman's gruff voice mumbled something about jazz drunks, yawned again, and became quiet. "Hello? Hello?" shouted Arthur. There was no response. He hung up finally. Darling! Fran called in a small frightened voice. Darling! From the other side of the room. There seems to be an awful lot of silences on the air, even for past one.

• 1:07:08Josh Clark?

  But even as she spoke, a cacophony of jazz broke into the still room. And they both brightened with the noise of a saxophone being strangled over and over again. "Can't knock the Javesthru down," he said in an attempt at lightness. They sat and waited. For what? Neither knew. Fran kept looking at the telephone, and they both had their ears glued to the radio. It was a typical all-night disc jockey show, the records set up in a series beforehand and automatically playing one after another, but without the emcee's comments between each. That was Arthur's fear, but he did not give words to it. He

• 1:07:49Josh Clark?

  knew Fran, and he knew what she was thinking. He was thinking himself. Somehow, something had happened. The record on now was something by Andre Postelens. It had a noisome, crashing crescendo at the end. The silence following it was, by contrast, even heavier. No other record, no voice making between disc comments. They both waited, smiled bravely inside their heads, thinking the next minute, the next second, "There are silences on the air. Suppose you had to go to the washroom. Even disc jockeys are human. Somebody will come on." But there was nothing. Finally, they knew it. They looked at each other, and Arthur managed

• 1:08:33Josh Clark?

  another smile. Fran's answering grin, like the radio, lacked life. To keep busy and to keep from saying anything, Arthur picked up the phone again. He held it free for 15 minutes, dialing at intervals, but there was no operator, and the telephone was as dead as if he must wait till tomorrow for it to be invented.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  All right, should I pick it up? Mm-hmm. All right, here we go. There were still the dial numbers left to him, and one after another, Arthur methodically dialed the numbers of friends and acquaintances hereabouts. The phones would ring, each with their different timbre, but there were no answers. Across the dark brow of the town, with its mantle of night, from this valley and this ridge on across the black shrouded lanes and bales and hills, the phones chimed and vibrated and rang and shrilled, but they stopped only when he admitted defeat by hanging up. Across this town and further, much further as he knew, there seemed no one. A peculiar theory was forming in Arthur's mind. After all, they were all right, unaffected, apparently. There was a Mr. Hoskins, a small bent man who was caretaker at the movie house. He took tickets and often worked in the projection room

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  and slept in the barn-like building at night, for he, like Arthur, was a hay fever sufferer. The building was air-conditioned, even though not with the scientific perfection of the cave. Anyway, Hoskins swore it helped. So Arthur called the theater, knowing that the late movie would have been out now for about an hour. The phone was downstairs. He could picture it from his and Fran's excursions there by a window in the lobby. Hoskins' room was above. The phone rang and rang. It was like those others. As he was about to give up, a click made it suddenly importantly different, and there was Hoskins, his old man's quavering voice, sleepy and queerless. But it made sense, as he understood when Arthur identified himself.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  Listen, Mr. Hoskins. Listen very carefully. Your life may depend on it.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  The other man made some protest about, was this a joke? But Arthur went on.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Whatever you do, whatever you do, Mr. Hoskins, don't go.

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  But the caretaker broke in.

• 1:10:36Josh Clark?

  I think you're the caretaker, if anybody. You were born to play that part.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:10:41Speaker 04

  Wait up, Mr. Hodges. Mr. Hodges, through the window here, I can see into the street. There's barely some people lying there, Mr. Hodges.

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  Think there must have been an accident. I'll have to go out and see.

• 1:10:55Josh Clark?

  See, that was wonderful. I could not have come up with that one. Uh, take it over. Oh, even as Arthur screamed at the man, screamed, "No, no, whatever you do, don't go out." He knew it was too late. The phone clicked and Hoskins was off on his errand. "There must be others like that," Arthur reasoned, "in the country, in the state, the nation." But who knew how broad this was, or what it was? But had those others any chance without knowing, suspecting? Arthur made up his mind.

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  "Fran, I'm going out of bed."

• 1:11:26Josh Clark?

  She was on her feet, her arms around him, tears very close to the surface.

• 1:11:31Speaker 05

  "No, Art, please don't. Please, please. Something's terribly wrong. Don't leave me."

• 1:11:36Josh Clark?

  He held her gently and caressed her red hair.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  "Only for a second, Fran. Honey, I'm trying to dope this thing out."

• 1:11:44Speaker 05

  "It's war, isn't it, Art? Some kind of poison gas."

• 1:11:47Speaker 03

  "I don't know, honey, but it's the best that I can take a turn around outside. I won't go far, but we've got to know what's going on."

• 1:11:56Speaker 05

  "You mean..."

• 1:11:56Josh Clark?

  She said hopefully.

• 1:11:58Speaker 05

  "We might be in some sort of pocket here on the ridge that doesn't get the gas?"

• 1:12:03Speaker 03

  "Could be," he said, but it was a forlorn hope.

• 1:12:08Josh Clark?

  He took the flashlight, and she walked him to the door of the cave, her fingers entwined tightly in his.

• 1:12:14Speaker 05

  "If you're not back in 10 minutes, I'm coming out."

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  "Don't worry, Fran."

• 1:12:18Josh Clark?

  He opened the door abruptly and shut it as quickly, walking rapidly through the other part of the house. The air impressed him immediately. It was flat and had a peculiar stale quality, although some of this he discounted as being the result of having just come from the pure oxygen of the cave. They left that part out there, breathing pure oxygen in the cave. Yeah. Seems foolish. He didn't bother to turn on the other house lights, but used his flash instead. The bright wallpaper and the cheerful chintz on the chairs looked strangely forlorn and unreal. Outside the black world was very quiet, as quiet as any 2:00 a.m. As he stood on the terrace, he first noticed lightheadedness. A feeling of illness touched the pit of his stomach, and the palms of his hands began to sweat unduly.

• 1:13:03Josh Clark?

  He fought it back as best he could, listening, looking for any other sound or sign in the night around of human movement. A car light from the state highway up the ridge, a plane in the heavens, a train whistle in the distance. There was nothing. There might not have been in this chosen space of time at this hour anyway, but it was peculiarly disturbing. His brain was suddenly dull and very lonely. He wanted to sit there and then on the terrace, to recline, to put the flashlight down, loosen his belt and his collar. He turned and sped for the door of the house, his heart pounding, lights within his head. Despite himself and the chiding that it was purely psychological, he yawned and knew the yawn was real.

• 1:13:48Josh Clark?

  Fatigue and sleepiness had struck suddenly, like a heavy dose of sedative.

• 1:13:54Josh Clark?

  Still going? Yeah. All right.

• 1:13:58Josh Clark?

  He found the knob and jerked it open, walked through the dark corridors of the unlit part of the house, and thankfully, reached the door of the cave, yanked it open and went in. His face showed more than he wanted it to, for Fran came over to him, and there were tears in her eyes.

• 1:14:13Speaker 05

  Are you all right, Arthur?

• 1:14:14Josh Clark?

  He nodded his head and tried to smile, but the heaviness was still on him. He turned his head away, so she wouldn't see his yawn, and sat down very suddenly. His wristwatch told him that he'd been gone but eight minutes, a very short time, so that if Fran's hunch about the poison gas was right, it must be a fairly potent one to strike so fast. In the oxygen of the cave, Hodges soon felt better. As the small hours of the morning wore on, he made trips into other parts of the house, quick trips, for his tolerance to the outside seemed to grow less and less. The almost incredible drowsiness became stronger, and he could stay away less long each time.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  All right. But in those trips, he brought every bit of food in the house back to the cave, some sterno cans and whatever odds and ends he decided they might need. At 5:00 AM, they held what he called a council of war. There was, Arthur admitted, something going on. What it was, he didn't know and couldn't guess. But they were particularly lucky for their hermetically sealed quarters and the oxygen supply. They ran the radio dial up and down at intervals and found only silence. Arthur tried Hoskins again on a forlorn chance. There was no answer. No operator answered when he dialed the zero.

• 1:15:27Josh Clark?

  We'd seem to be alone right now.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  He admitted. The first threads of gray were streaking the eastern view and Arthur packed Fran onto the couch with a blanket around her and saw her drift off for a little nap. He sat at the desk and calculated the two most important items of their lives now: food and oxygen. Of the— well, you need water. That's really the most important.

• 1:15:48Josh Clark?

  He forgot that part.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  Of these, the latter was of prime significance. The canned goods, he felt, could be rationed to last almost indefinitely. They'd had quite a stock in the kitchen cabinets, but the oxygen? He toted up the number of fresh cylinders available. Seems like that should be totaled, but whatever. With continuous use, usually they turn the mechanism off to save on the precious stuff.

• 1:16:11Josh Clark?

  That's the spirit of E.F. Benson.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  That's right. Their supply would last at the most seven or eight days. It was unthinkable that by then, some explanation or solution to this whole business would not be found. At the worst in that time, an enemy would take possession, but they would at least be free from their present dilemma. It was daylight when Fran woke up and the sun was a molten gold burning a hole through the hazy sky, as on the previous evening, the trees stood silent, almost too tired to hold up their limbs. The breath of the air stirred. It was, though the outside, all outside, was a vacuum. They opened some cans and ate, and then Arthur went into the adjacent bedroom and slept till noon. When he awoke and rejoined Fran in the study, her fright had surged upward again. He found out why almost immediately. She'd admitted she'd gone out. There was some small thing she wanted to get.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  The feeling art, it was so terrible. I couldn't fight against it. It was, it was like when you take ether at the hospital and you begin to float? You fight and fight, but it's stronger than you are. I just got back here. I almost fell outside the door, but I got back. It angered him a little for he had been asleep and if she failed to get back, he wouldn't have known until probably too late. They swore not to leave the cave hereafter at all unless absolutely necessary. And then only while the other stood by inside to perform rescue work if need be. They spent hours talking, wondering, speculating. They coaxed and wheedled the radio for sounds it would not come. Commercials and soap operas and five-piece bands became precious by their very absence.

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  And then, as a writer will, under almost any circumstances, Arthur found his way to the typewriter and began tapping the keys. Fran said with mock pestilence, "My God, you're not going to do a story now. Darling, you've forgotten, but we don't know if you have any audience left, anywhere." The joke fell flat, perhaps too frightfully true for all they knew to be funny.

• 1:18:03Josh Clark?

  We took another snap poll and everyone agrees that I should do Arthur as euphoric.

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:18:09Josh Clark?

  No, Fran.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  Arthur replied seriously. I just want to put the dope down on this thing since last night. Sort of a chronology, you know? You can fuss with those tin cans and so I like to keep busy. I might as well be this. And he began to bang away at the typewriter. Take it away.

• 1:18:29Josh Clark?

  At first, time passed very slowly, as though the weight of doubt that clouded their minds clung to the hands of the clock, slowed them so that one wondered if time too had become affected by the lethargy of the outside world. Occasionally, Arthur or Fran, one or the other of them, would go to the phone, dial the operator some familiar unfamiliar number series. There was ringing, showing that the inanimate sinews of wire and electricity and mechanical appliances were still alive, but nothing else. And the radio hummed. The small needle that moved across the dial from low to high telecycles, touching the familiar stations that customarily fed so much noise, both human and instrument, into a nation's ear, found nothing on its course.

• 1:19:13Josh Clark?

  They spent much time at the windows of the study and bedroom off of it. They looked out at the countryside, so green with August, so familiar with things they had done. Why, there, see from the window, was a divot dug in the lawn where Arthur had practiced his golf swing. Now, in the late afternoon, there was still some haze across the land, but the sun had burned part of it away. Still, though, there was no wind, and all of the outside had the flat, motionless appearance of scenery. Weird. Without giving voice to their reason, both Arthur and Fran took themselves to the window at 6:00 PM. A four-motored commercial passenger plane always shot over just southward at the time.

• 1:19:53Josh Clark?

  It was a twilight flight that impressed itself on them with the roar of its high-speed, heavy motors. Arthur had joked once that he could even feel the vibration, sitting in his bathtub. Six came and went, as did 6:15, a quarter of an hour later, which is appropriate. Towards 6:30, Fran said matter-of-factly, I guess there's no plane either. Arthur turned from the window and translated that fact onto paper. It was after supper, out of cans, that Fran, sitting cross-legged on the floor, asked suddenly, What are we going to do? We can stay here only so long. Suppose we're the only people? She left the sentence unfinished, and her fingers went to her temples.

• 1:20:35Josh Clark?

  He boshed and poo-pooed, but much later, after she was asleep in the bedroom, he examined the oxygen supply, computed the number of full cylinders left, and adjusted the flow of the precious air downward. The days went a little faster then, as though for spite. Arthur worked some of the time at his typewriter, and Fran stood looking over his shoulder, not once again saying what she'd said first. But darling, who's going to read this? If it had been a joke then, it was not now. The telephone? It might as well be that the wires were cut. Radio? Likewise. It was like a detective play. Cat in the Canary, or People Marooned on an Island.

• 1:21:16Josh Clark?

  And the most important people in their lives were the long gray oblong cylinders with the silver diamond-shaped labels that said, "Oxygen. Dangerous. Inflammable." Which means flammable. They were people. They lived. Or at least they contributed life. And their two lives would last just so long.

• 1:21:37Speaker 02

  Darling, I've got an awful headache. I feel funny.

• 1:21:40Josh Clark?

  And Arthur would have to turn up the oxygen supply a bit more, for it was quite suddenly seven days now, the length of time their air supply would last them. But he had husbanded it.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  Never heard that term.

• 1:21:51Josh Clark?

  I think this is you, buddy.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  They talked less now. A few times Art came upon Fran in the bedroom crying, but she always tried to hide it and found him a smile on short notice. That's a great sentence. Toward the end of their allotted time, as Arthur could figure it, as the last cylinder hissed out its oxygen, he wondered whether it would be better to stay here in the cave and let the stale air slowly, ever so slowly sap their strength and their senses, or whether they should open the door and go outside into whatever there was waiting out there. But Fran, to whom he had not wanted to bring up the subject, had thought of it too, spoke of it, and together they decided that "the known," capital K, was better than the "unknown," capital U. Besides, they'd had experience out there, and the memory of that sudden melancholy and pathological drowsiness was not all pleasant.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  They started on what must be the last day. Arthur announced somewhat weakly, for there wasn't much air left, that they'd stretched the oxygen out five days more than he'd figured. "The twelfth day," murmured Fran. It reminded her of something biblical. Arthur had finished whatever he had to finish at the typewriter earlier with nearly the last of the strength in his fingers. The page merely gave the facts of their predicament, supreme fact of which was that their fresh oxygen had been gone since early morning. Nobody had worried about opening a can of food this day. Instead, they found themselves arm in arm in the settee by the window. He gave Fran an affectionate squeeze and noted with a terrible sadness that, must be controlled for her sake, how pale she looked. He knew that he likewise must look affright.

• 1:23:22Speaker 02

  They leaned their heads together, their foreheads rested against the windowpane. It was another warm day from the feel of the thick glass and already the temperature of the room, without its fresh mechanically cooled oxygen, had risen noticeably. "It was no day to die," Arthur thought, "as men have thought of every day so marked by destiny." Capital D. He looked at the greenness outside, the sameness, so funny that all this had happened, that all this could have happened. He felt very tired, his breath was shallow and unsatisfying. Fran pressed against him and he'd managed to turn his head. She was crying and he kissed her, their mouths dry, except for where her tear ran down and touched their lips in union. This would be, at least, their way to die, as completely together as two people could be. Eh, not quite.

• 1:24:08Speaker 02

  And that had compensation. He was going to tell her, after the kiss, how much he loved her. When her head moved away from his, her eyes slid from his eyes to peer out. They widened and a little gasp came from her mouth. He turned. It was an effort. He looked where she was looking, through the window, into the outside, the lawn.

• 1:24:29Josh Clark?

  Dun, dun, dun.

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  Take it away.

• 1:24:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, before I do, I should say to all of the listeners who are used to our episodes for Halloween and are like, "Wow, this one's going really long." We don't practice these and we had no idea how long this one was going to be. So we're finding out with you.

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

  I read this in 20 minutes myself, but, you know, it's different.

• 1:24:48Josh Clark?

  Did you speed read it?

• 1:24:50Speaker 02

  No, you know.

• 1:24:51Josh Clark?

  Well, I added some time with all of my jokes and

• 1:24:53Speaker 02

  Snap balls.

• 1:24:55Josh Clark?

  quips and stupid stuff in the first one.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right, let's get on with it.

• 1:24:59Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. "The lifeless stage scenery had become alive, for there, hopping nonchalantly across the grass, was a plump brown rabbit. It seemed to eye their window for a moment, as though it knew of the two people there, and then it hippity-hopped unconcernedly on toward the terrace. The two overwhelmed people turned from their window, uttered small, meaningless noises. They made their way to the door of the cave as best they could. Fran reached it first, but they pulled it open and went out together, arm in arm, leaving behind the manuscript neatly clipped and piled on the typewriter table, memorandum of the twelve days, that eternity that had yet been so short." The rest of the house burst upon their senses, the familiar furniture, the bright wallpaper.

• 1:25:44Josh Clark?

  Fran was sobbing unashamedly, and Arthur, with a surge of new strength, helped her forward. After the stale, nearly airless atmosphere of the cave, even the hot stuffiness of out here was welcome. They made the terrace door, and their weakness was a joke to be laughed at now. They went out. They staggered out onto the lawn, and the sob beneath their feet, hard and dry for lack of rain, still was a treat for their footsteps. They had not walked far when Arthur realized, with the stabbing shock of a knife in the heart, that all was not well. The same feelings as before, not the weakness and suffocation of the cave a few moments earlier, but the "before," when they'd been outside since this terrible thing had happened.

• 1:26:28Josh Clark?

  He turned abruptly and almost fell, and they reached for each other for mutual support. He saw that Fran was so affected, too. They had not walked far, but it was too far. The stretch of lawn to the terrace, to the back door, was impossible leagues uphill, dragging weight beyond measure. They fell together and lay close, panting into one another's face. There was simply an overwhelming desire to sleep, to rest now. Arthur saw it in Fran's face, and he had not the heart to hold up her bedtime, nor the strength to stay sleeping himself. The grass was home and a mattress, and as his head came down to it, the greenness unfolded and engulfed him.

• 1:27:10Josh Clark?

  The rabbit, meantime, hopped unconcerned around the corner of the house, and perhaps wondered at the strange antics of these humans as he took his plump brown body across the lawn and into the field beyond.

• 1:27:23Speaker 02

  All right, uh, this is about to get Scooby-Dooed.

• 1:27:27Josh Clark?

  It is, but also I just want to say, um, I triumphantly finished Arthur's parts.

• 1:27:34Speaker 02

  Well done. Bravo, bravo.

• 1:27:36Josh Clark?

  The same to you, my friend. You did a great sin, a great, um, Fran, a great Mr. Hoskins, all of them, bam.

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  Nice work. Uh, all right, I'll take this part, and then you can take it home at the next. Here we go. The conclusion of The Beep Drows.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  The Institute of Hieroglyphics had made an intensive study of all such data, particularly with an eye to evaluating and discovering new facts concerning that momentous change in the solar system, whose influences had caused what came to be known in future eons as "The Suspension." (capital T, capital S.) Amazingly enough, one of the clearest records found, for in the beginning it did not seem possible that this species could be wiped out universally and so abruptly, was one made by a biped who confessed stability in existence was the making of hieroglyphics. It had taken much time, of course, for the institute and other such institutes to understand these record symbols of another age.

• 1:28:37Speaker 02

  But this biped whose name was A. Hodges—this is art—with his companion biped F. Hodges— good old Fran—had written of the 12 days, a day being a measure of time commonly used by biped science. It was, in its way, a classic. The sudden, far more sudden than could be imagined by the most sanguine thinking of that time, "Suspension of Biped Civilization." This A. Hodges had told well of it in his marks, and the Institute of Hieroglyphics, along with the other learned of the age, were inclined to accept the details set down as an accurate picture of what had taken place, at least in the first 12 days of "The Suspension." From the start of this event, which biped thinking would have unquestionably accepted

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  and labeled a catastrophe to the end of the record, there was, interestingly enough, no accurate guesses on the part of the one identified as A. Hodges as to the real significance of what was happening. Those who had studied tribal customs and actions of the biped world averred that in that faraway period the chief concern of any segment was that some other faction would make war upon them, a word which had vanished from the now (capital N), but meant the violent attack with intent to destroy as much in the way of living organisms and material as possible. Message. Biped Hodges had concerned himself with markings referring to atom bomb and poison gas.

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  It took some time before present eon scientists could correctly evaluate precisely what these terms meant, but both were eventually tied in by semanticist, which the tribal factionalism, and the obvious intent of biped to destroy biped.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  It was a most interesting report, this hieroglyphic of Hodges, for at first, it was quite difficult for these enlightened-of-the-now, capital N, to appreciate fully what had gone on then, capital T. An examination of the universe and the Earth does not reveal everything, for after all, meanings and values themselves change.

• 1:30:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, boy. So, this is taking place way into the future, right?

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they found his writings and don't even know what war is, and interesting to see what happens here.

• 1:30:49Josh Clark?

  Right. For instance, much of the lore of those misshrouded Dark Ages had been handed on from generation to generation of the enlightened by what in the vernacular of the "then" would have been called informers in those unions called households of the biped age. Even the use of the word "biped" must be qualified, for there are, as any student knows, bipeds today, but not uniquely so, whereas in the "then", the biped was supreme and reigned over all, including the other forms of life that inhabited the planet, whose mores, abilities, and true eventual place were neither understood nor even considered by the biped. Paints-takingly, information from that forgotten biped species was gathered,

• 1:31:33Josh Clark?

  and of the catastrophe that had removed them from the rule of the Earth, it seemed apparent now that some cosmic force whose mechanization had been set in motion by the shifting of great astrobodies, had altered not only the oxygen belt which surrounds this globe (sounds very made up), but more subtly, altered its ingredients. Of all living things, only the biped species, which then ruled the world, had been unable to adjust to it. Because of certain structural peculiarities of the cortex, the race had been stupefied, made unconscious by the withdrawal from others' atmospheres of an ingredient necessary for the retention by the species of consciousness.

• 1:32:15Josh Clark?

  The Hodges Report and other hard-won indications proved this beyond a doubt, and it was accepted by historians. Contrary, of course, to the hieroglyphics manuscript, there had been no poison gases such. There had been, instead, a closing of that conscious, and the biped species went into a state of suspension through sleep, though it was, in the last analysis, starvation that caused the wiping out of that civilization. Later, these atmospheric alterations had righted themselves.

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  So people, so people fell into a drows and slept such that they didn't eat and starve to death in their sleep?

• 1:32:52Josh Clark?

  Pretty gnarly.

• 1:32:53Speaker 02

  Jeez.

• 1:32:54Josh Clark?

  Another day of considerable moment in this present aeon had occurred not too long ago, when outriders had brought from some remote, far cave place, a biped, who as the last of his species, had survived. It seemed that somewhere else in the world, at the time of the great suspension, two bipeds, one of each sex, had survived through some quirk of fate and nature. They had passed on what was left of their age through children and children's children, and so on and so forth, through the years, but conditions were now too adverse for them to multiply and take back the earth, as they would indubitably try to, present historians surmised, had they been able. For centuries, this spark from another age had rekindled itself with new progeny reared

• 1:33:37Josh Clark?

  in a cave, high in a ridge of desolate mountains, at the loneliest spot in the world. Atmospheric conditions in that spot, because of natural phenomena, maintained a vacuum, which allowed the retention of an ozone form not antagonistic to the biped. But the day of greatest moment was when the last biped was brought to the administration building. Nature, semanticists decided, had robbed this one of his last chance to prolong himself in flesh and blood image. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad. He came then to their administration halls, a strange creature on two legs making strange angry sounds that until the wisest were summoned could not be interpreted.

• 1:34:21Josh Clark?

  As the biped stood in front of their councils, they urged a tablet on him and a writing device, and this being, thinking that perhaps his message would reach those of his kind somewhere someday, made markings feverishly. Then the biped was led away. Despite his violence and ravings, orders were given to care for him well, feed him, and give attention to his every need. Afterward, wise and aged scholars were brought to study the tablet. This then had been a member, the last member, of that race which had called itself human. The human had written angrily and self-chiding that he had been captured by jackals and wolves

• 1:35:01Josh Clark?

  and brought before a jury composed of a lynx, a giraffe, two squirrels, a bear, and other creatures. His hieroglyphic markings had trailed off at the end, but there were words of obscure meaning which the wise men decided stood for anger markings. So Chuck, that's the big reveal eh?

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:21Josh Clark?

  We'll talk about it in a second.

• 1:35:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:35:24Josh Clark?

  Despite the best of care, the biped died not long afterward, still, according to records of the event, making loud noises at his caretakers. In reviewings of the whole affair at Animal Institute, it was decided that this fact, far more clearly than any markings or other dead evidence that had been found, illustrated the basic unfitness of the biped civilization which had so proudly called itself human. "It is obvious," was the finding, "that the shortcomings of the biped were many. Likewise, it was inevitable, even many centuries before it happened at the time of the suspension, that the biped human would vanish, that animals, as enlightened of the present aeon, would inherit the earth."

• 1:36:25Speaker 02

  So sort of Planet of the Apes?

• 1:36:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, kind of, but with giraffes this time and squirrels.

• 1:36:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, this is a good one. I will say it's a 15 pager that could have been nine.

• 1:36:36Josh Clark?

  Easily. I mean, the whole like boondoggle about trying to get the neighbors to come out seven times.

• 1:36:41Speaker 02

  It was a bit much.

• 1:36:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but it was still good and you can see why Gene Milligan was the best.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed. And that's the spooktacular 2025 style.

• 1:36:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I'm pretty happy with it, Chuck.

• 1:36:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't wait to see what Ben and Jerry do with this thing.

• 1:37:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, same here. And to all of you while we're waiting for Ben and Jerry to whip this thing into good shape, happy Halloween to you. Enjoy lots of candy. Look out for razor blades and apples and all of that stuff. And we'll see you back in regular time after Halloween.