Episode 205: Cheryl
Alex: From Pacific Northwest Stories and Minnow Beats Whale, it's season two of The Black Tapes Podcast. I'm Alex Reagan.
This season, we're continuing our exploration of the Strand Institute's enigmatic president and founder, Dr. Richard Strand. We're telling the story of the black tapes in order, every two weeks. So if you haven't listened to the first few episodes, go back and start there. We'll be here when you get back.
Alex: A holiday. A break from everything. We talked about that scenario, of putting everything on hold for a week, maybe two. But there's just so much happening lately, and if I slow down... I dunno, it feels like the paranormal black tapes train is set to leave the station with or without me. And to be frank, I've put in too many hours. I really need to be on that train.
Speaking of metaphorical trains, somebody's train had recently switched tracks, so to speak. Nic had invited Strand to the studio, which was a lot easier now that Strand was in Seattle full time. I know. I was as surprised as you. It turns out Strand's been in possession of his father's house for years and interestingly, he's never been there. Not once. Not even when his father was alive. But he's here now, and until he can sell the place, he's going to be living and working out of his father's house. There's a lot to unpack there, literally and metaphorically, but in the meantime, Strand is in Seattle. And Nic asked him to meet us at the studio to discuss some interesting voicemail messages.
Alex: Something I should probably clear up from last episode: Strand was understandably upset upon learning that I'd recorded him and Amalia without permission using the talkback mic in the studio. Nic had a conversation with Strand and he allowed us to use that recording on the show, with one caveat: that I publicly promise not to record him without permission again. So here I am, publicly making that promise.
We'll get back to Strand and the white chickens soon. But first, Nic had something else to show me.
Alex: It was an email that read: "Dear Alex, Please see the attached file. I think I figured this thing out. I should be dead. I've passed the one year mark. If I am still alive, and I believe I am, it's because of this. I'll be back in touch soon. Trying to come home. Keith Dabic."
Alex: The discovery of arcane symbols beneath the blood covering Maddie's walls, along with the revelation that the blood didn't belong to Maddie, actually pushed me over the edge. I was shaken by everything up to that point, but I would have been fine had I been sleeping. The insomnia coupled with this... stuff, well, it was just too much. That was the point Nic finally convinced me to take some time off. A three week vacation.
I did get a bit more sleep. Not much, but it was better... for a while.
Alex: I was at Dr. Strand's new house. Well, new old house. The house that he'd inherited from his father. It was three stories tall with a large front porch. The exterior paint had mostly peeled off, but it looks like it used to be yellow. It was barely furnished, and there was a thin layer of dust on most of the surfaces. And boxes, lots of boxes.
Alex: I walked around the adjacent rooms, looking at boxes. They were pretty much all labelled "Books." Inside what looked to be the smallest of the rooms I saw a box marked "Unsolved." It was open, and over half the VHS cases were already stacked one on top of the other on the floor. It was strange seeing them like this, the now famous, I suppose, black tapes. They were just piled up loosely, unorganized, on the floor of an old house. How could something as mundane as this stack of VHS cases end up... well, you know.
I was about to turn and ask Strand where he was going to put them, when I saw the one marked "Cheryl."
Alex: 20 minutes or so later, Strand loaded a USB drive onto his computer. It was wedding photographs. His wedding. Seeing Strand like this, in a tux, eating wedding cake, looking... happy, it was weird. Like, really weird. He pulled up a photo of the hotel. They were married at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada.
Alex: We spoke about Coralee for a while longer. Strand was convinced that message was from his missing wife, and I'm pretty sure he's going to be heading up to Canada to look into it. After a cup of tea and some small talk, well, as small talk as Strand and I could get, he loaded up some footage from the tape labelled "Cheryl." It was grainy video, horrible resolution, playing off an old CD-R.
Alex: It's a boy and a girl. We don't see the boy. He's the one holding the camera. The girl is maybe six or seven. It looks like he's filming her in their living room. It's night. She stands by the patio doors looking outside into the dark through the glass.
Alex: The girl points at something in the corner of the room. The camera pans toward it, but there's nothing there. Just an empty corner. The camera goes back to the girl. She definitely believes she's looking at something in the corner, up near the ceiling.
Alex: A missing wife who's suddenly not so missing. And a strange daughter. And a junior paranormal explorer friend named Cheryl. Usually when you peel back the layers of a person's life you get a feeling of gaining ground, a clearer picture, of getting closer to their center. But I was finding Strand and his friends and family... impenetrable. As if under every layer were just more layers, like those Russian stacking dolls. Except for one thing: his experience of the paranormal. Here was a black tape with Strand's skepticism itself as a subject. He was not doubting the paranormal here. Here he was doubting himself.
Alex: I left Strand's house feeling slightly off balance. Suddenly Strand didn't seem so sure of himself. What he saw as an unsolved experience, I saw as proof of the one thing he hadn't shown until today: doubt. I went back to the studio to tell Nic what I had learned.
Alex: Dr. Michael Pullman is our resident structural acoustician. He's become something of a regular on this podcast.
Alex: It was a photo of Keith Dabic. His face was in the foreground. It's hard to make out the rest of the photo, since Keith himself, or whoever took the picture, uses a flash so the light reflects off the walls. But it looks like he's in a long hallway or room, and the wall behind him looks like it's built of large stones.
Alex: Nic clicked on the photo of Keith and suddenly all this data popped up. He copy and pasted that data into a program and placed that information into Google Maps. And that's how we found the location.
Alex: I'd like to thank all of you for your patience and understanding during our hiatus. I'm still not really sleeping much, but I'm optimistic and I'm feeling a lot more like myself again these days.
It's The Black Tapes. I'm Alex Reagan. We'll be back again in two weeks.
The Black Tapes Podcast is a Pacific Northwest Stories and Minnow Beats Whale production. Recorded in Seattle and Vancouver. Produced, mixed, and engineered by Nic Silver. Edited by Nic Silver and Alex Reagan. Executive producers Paul Bae and Terry Miles.
Thank you for listening to The Black Tapes.
This season, we're continuing our exploration of the Strand Institute's enigmatic president and founder, Dr. Richard Strand. We're telling the story of the black tapes in order, every two weeks. So if you haven't listened to the first few episodes, go back and start there. We'll be here when you get back.
- Alex: Have you ever had someone share a common experience, maybe a conversation at dinner or something similar, and the way they recount the story doesn't sound anything like the way you remember it? In fact, their account of your dialogue or your behavior doesn't sound anything like you at all, but you know that person isn't lying, there's no reason they would. So what you're left with is the feeling that there's an unrecognizable part of you out there, a kind of public you living a completely separate life. And you're left interpreting aspects of that life from the sidelines, like everyone else, separate from that experience, that... reality, that... alternate version of... you.
- Nic: How are you doing? You okay?
- Alex: Yeah! I'm... fine.
- Nic: Yeah?
- Alex: Mmhm.
- Nic: Your sleep journals are... getting kinda... concerning.
- Alex: Yeah?
- Nic: Yeah.
- Alex: Well, we do need to talk about the voice, I suppose.
- Nic: Yeah, I think so.
- Alex: Well if it was my voice then...
- Nic: I'm pretty sure it was your voice.
- Alex: Okay. So what do you think is going on?
- Nic: Well I'm certainly no sleep doctor, but I feel like it must be connected to your insomnia.
- Alex: You think I'm sleepwalking? Or sleep talking?
- Nic: Maybe, I mean it's possible. All the demon book stuff. It's obviously concerning to you.
- Alex: To me?
- Nic: Umm. You know I don't really believe in demons right?
- Alex: Right, sure, but you believe in weird mythical forests...
- Nic: (laughing) Okay, yeah.
- Alex: Yeah.
- Nic: Yeah.
- Alex: So you really think the voice on the recorder is mine? I, I dunno, I just...
- Nic: I do, I mean, it's the only rational explanation. Isn't it?
- Alex: You sound like Strand.
- Nic: Okay, well, I don't think that's necessarily always a bad thing, to sound like Strand. Occasionally.
- Alex: Mmhm.
- Nic: What's the other option? Somebody sneaking into your apartment while you're sleeping, leaving scary messages? A kind of creepy tooth fairy or Santa Claus?
- Alex: I always thought Strand would be the one to ruin Christmas for me, not you. (laughs) And what about the knocking? You said you were gonna call the Three Rivers State Hospital?
- Nic: I did, yeah.
- Alex: You did? Okay, and?
- Nic: And I said "Hey quick question, do you happen to know if Simon Reese has been bilocating lately?"
- Alex: (laughing) Okay, okay.
- Nic: I asked how he's been doing, and according to his new doctor, Simon's fine. I mean, as fine as Simon Reese can be I suppose.
- Alex: And that's it?
- Nic: Yeah. He's locked up, Alex. That knocking wasn't Simon Reese.
- Alex: I suppose (sighs). I mean, (sighs) I know you're right, but I just (sighs).
- Nic: Maybe you need a holiday or something?
- Alex: Really, Nic?
- Nic: I know it sounds kind of trite, but maybe?
Alex: A holiday. A break from everything. We talked about that scenario, of putting everything on hold for a week, maybe two. But there's just so much happening lately, and if I slow down... I dunno, it feels like the paranormal black tapes train is set to leave the station with or without me. And to be frank, I've put in too many hours. I really need to be on that train.
Speaking of metaphorical trains, somebody's train had recently switched tracks, so to speak. Nic had invited Strand to the studio, which was a lot easier now that Strand was in Seattle full time. I know. I was as surprised as you. It turns out Strand's been in possession of his father's house for years and interestingly, he's never been there. Not once. Not even when his father was alive. But he's here now, and until he can sell the place, he's going to be living and working out of his father's house. There's a lot to unpack there, literally and metaphorically, but in the meantime, Strand is in Seattle. And Nic asked him to meet us at the studio to discuss some interesting voicemail messages.
- Alex: Hi.
- Nic: Doctor.
- Strand: Hello, Nic. Alex, how are you feeling?
- Alex: I'm, I'm good. How are you?
- Strand: I'm fine. Thank you.
- Nic: Okay so, I have a few things I'd like the three of us to listen to together if you don't mind.
- Alex: Okay.
- Nic: As you know, we receive a lot of texts, emails, voice messages, from women claiming to be Coralee.
- Strand: And you think one of them could be genuine?
- Nic: Well normally all it takes is a cursory examination to rule them out, but these ones... are a bit different.
- Strand: How so?
- Nic: (sighing) Well, I was hoping you might be able to tell us that.
- Woman 1: This is Coralee Strand. I'm in Phoenix, I'm in trouble. Please, somebody come soon, I ca--(voicemail beeps, cutting her off)
- Strand: That's not my wife.
- Woman's voice, electronically distorted to a deeper pitch: I'm calling for my husband Richard. It's Cora. I'll be at--(voicemail beeps, cutting her off)
- Strand: She would never refer to herself as Cora.
- Nic: Okay, well the rest are kinda crazy. A lot of nonsense like this:
- Woman 2: I'm with the bees now. Buzz buzz. (voicemail beeps)
- Computerized Woman’s Voice: Richard Strand. Please don't worry. It's Taddycoram Dickens. I left you something beside the white chickens. (voicemail beeps)
- Nic: And that's it.
- Strand: Play that one again.
- Nic: The one with the bees?
- Strand: No. The computerized voice.
- Nic: (pause) Really? (pause) Okay. (hits keyboard key)
- Computerized Woman’s Voice: Richard Strand. Please don't worry. It's Taddycoram Dickens. I left you something beside the white chickens. (voicemail beeps)
-
- Strand: Could you send that to me?
- Nic: (pause) Um, yeah... sure.
- Alex: What is it?
- Strand: William Carlos Williams.
- Nic: White chickens, red wheelbarrow.
- Alex: Of course.
- Strand: William Carlos Williams is Coralee's favorite poet.
- Alex: But somebody else could know that, right?
- Strand: It's possible.
- Nic: It doesn't say Coralee anywhere in the message.
- Strand: Taddycoram. It's from Dickens. Taddycoram's real name was Harriet.
- Nic: So?
- Strand: So Coralee's real name was Harriet. She changed it in high school.
- Nic: Oh.
- Alex: Do you know where we might be able to find the... white chickens?
- Strand: I think I might.
Alex: Something I should probably clear up from last episode: Strand was understandably upset upon learning that I'd recorded him and Amalia without permission using the talkback mic in the studio. Nic had a conversation with Strand and he allowed us to use that recording on the show, with one caveat: that I publicly promise not to record him without permission again. So here I am, publicly making that promise.
We'll get back to Strand and the white chickens soon. But first, Nic had something else to show me.
- Nic: You have to see this.
- Alex: What is it?
- Nic: Here... it's... there.
- Alex: And who's this from?
- Nic: Keep reading.
- Alex: (under her breath, reading to herself quietly) Dear Alex please see the attached file, figured this thing out... (At her normal volume) This... is that... is that Keith?
Alex: It was an email that read: "Dear Alex, Please see the attached file. I think I figured this thing out. I should be dead. I've passed the one year mark. If I am still alive, and I believe I am, it's because of this. I'll be back in touch soon. Trying to come home. Keith Dabic."
- Alex: So, did you open the attachment?
- Nic: Yeah. Listen.
- (loud static-y noise abruptly plays, with a very faint lilting tune in the background)
- Alex: That's it?
- Nic: Yeah, what do you think?
- Alex: I've got a crazy theory.
- Nic: Let's hear it.
- Alex: Okay. (Breathes in) I think... I think Keith Dabic found, or believes he found, a cure for the Unsound. And this file is that cure. And that's why he's still alive. Like he said, it has been over a year.
- Nic: Okay (laughs), wow. First, there's no cure for the Unsound, because the Unsound is an urban legend, there's no such thing as a sound that kills you a year later. Right? I mean, talking about this stuff like it's real is crazy. Right?
- Alex: Right.
- Nic: Don't get me wrong, I think Keith Dabic definitely believes in the curse of the Unsound, and maybe he did, I mean probably he did travel to Percival Black's monastery to apprentice under the mad monk hoping to find a cure, but...
- Alex: ...Okay.
- Nic: Okay, Keith did sneak some photos from Percival Black's music journal and send them to us last year, and now he's recorded something he thinks is the cure for the Unsound. It's pretty clear. Keith Dabic is more than a little obsessed with this myth.
- Alex: I guess, but... You know, he didn't strike me as somebody who'd go off the deep end like that.
- Nic: Really?
- Alex: (pause) Yeah.
- Nic: There is something about this that actually concerns me more than Keith Dabic.
- Alex: And what's that?
- Nic: I'm worried that you're actually starting to believe this stuff, Alex. That's really concerning.
- Alex: (curtly) I'm fine.
- Nic: Yeah?
- Alex: But thanks.
- Nic: (sound of disbelief, sound of reluctant assent)
- (cell phone notification plays as someone stands)
- Nic: Alex?
- Alex: Mmhm?
- Nic: Wait a sec.
- Alex: What?
- Nic: I just received an email from a friend in the coroner's office.
- Alex: Maddie?
- Nic: Yeah. You remember all that blood on the wall?
- Alex: Uh, yeah I remember.
- Nic: Well they're saying they don't think it's Maddie's blood.
- Alex: (pause) What?
- Nic: Hold on. Yeah, they're testing it again, but the initial blood type tests indicate it's not hers. It's not a match.
- Alex: Okay, that's weird.
- Nic: And there's more.
- Alex: What?
- Nic: Something under the blood.
- Alex: Something? Like what?
- Nic: All over the walls.
- Alex: What?
- Nic: There were signs and symbols.
- Alex: ...Oh.
- Nic: The press are probably going to say that it was ritualistic, the police are gonna want to ask us more questions.
- Alex: (groaning) Ohh.
- Nic: Alex? Are you okay?
- Alex: (long pause) Yeah, I'm fine.
Alex: The discovery of arcane symbols beneath the blood covering Maddie's walls, along with the revelation that the blood didn't belong to Maddie, actually pushed me over the edge. I was shaken by everything up to that point, but I would have been fine had I been sleeping. The insomnia coupled with this... stuff, well, it was just too much. That was the point Nic finally convinced me to take some time off. A three week vacation.
I did get a bit more sleep. Not much, but it was better... for a while.
- Alex: I had a dream about Maddie. A kind of hazy, almost like a vision. About 45 minutes ago, I found myself in the bathroom washing my face and caught myself staring into the mirror. Not at myself, but at something behind me, in the shower. It was obscured, but as I stared... it started to take shape. A silhouette. A shadow. Then... the image sharpened. It was a woman. Hanging on a noose. Her back was to me. And the walls turned black. Then... the hanging woman slowly started to turn on the noose, her long hair obscuring her face. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't take my eyes off her. And... I saw her fingers twitch. As the figure was turning, just about to face me, her fingers slowly started tapping the glass on the shower. Two taps. (two loud taps) And that's when I realized I was dreaming, and I awoke... lying on the bathroom floor.
-
- Alex: Wow, this is large.
- Strand: And a mess. I apologize. (awkward pause) Please, come in.
Alex: I was at Dr. Strand's new house. Well, new old house. The house that he'd inherited from his father. It was three stories tall with a large front porch. The exterior paint had mostly peeled off, but it looks like it used to be yellow. It was barely furnished, and there was a thin layer of dust on most of the surfaces. And boxes, lots of boxes.
- Strand: Have a seat if you like. Wherever it's clean.
- Alex: Okay. (pause) SeaTac isn't that far from here. Do you get a lot of airplane noise?
- Strand: I hadn't noticed.
- Alex: (long pause) So... this is gonna be your new office?
- Strand: For the time being, yes.
- Alex: And how long are you staying? Ruby said you might be here for at least a year?
- Strand: I was just going to pack everything up and sell, but... I spoke to a realtor friend of Ruby's and... she told me to hang onto it.
- Alex: Yeah, I've heard the same thing.
- Strand: Plus, everything surrounding Coralee's disappearance seems to keep pointing back here, to the Pacific Northwest.
- Alex: Really?
- Strand: Yes.
- Alex: (pause) I can... show you around if you'd like?
- Strand: (pause) That computerized recording of Coralee...
- Alex: The white chickens?
- Strand: Yes.
- Alex: Are you ready to talk about the white chickens?
- Strand: I'll have to show you. I haven't been able to find that box, if you'll excuse me I'll take another look downstairs.
- Alex: Sure. Do you mind if I look around?
- Strand: Go ahead. I'll be right back.
Alex: I walked around the adjacent rooms, looking at boxes. They were pretty much all labelled "Books." Inside what looked to be the smallest of the rooms I saw a box marked "Unsolved." It was open, and over half the VHS cases were already stacked one on top of the other on the floor. It was strange seeing them like this, the now famous, I suppose, black tapes. They were just piled up loosely, unorganized, on the floor of an old house. How could something as mundane as this stack of VHS cases end up... well, you know.
I was about to turn and ask Strand where he was going to put them, when I saw the one marked "Cheryl."
- Alex: Shouldn't these black tape cases be in a safe or something?
- (box hits the ground)
- Strand: I think a bookshelf will be fine. They're quite worthless.
- Alex: Not to our listeners. (long pause) What's this one?
- Strand: An unsolved.
- Alex: Cheryl?
- Strand: I couldn't think of a better title.
- Alex: May I?
- Strand: (sighs) We'll have to hook up the computer.
- Alex: If... you don't want to, that's fine.
- Strand: No, we'll need it for what I'm going to show you anyway. Could you give me a hand?
- Alex: Sure.
Alex: 20 minutes or so later, Strand loaded a USB drive onto his computer. It was wedding photographs. His wedding. Seeing Strand like this, in a tux, eating wedding cake, looking... happy, it was weird. Like, really weird. He pulled up a photo of the hotel. They were married at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada.
- Alex: It's beautiful.
- Strand: This is where she read that poem to me. She told me that poem, The Red Wheelbarrow, it was her wedding vow to me. She's telling me with that recording, she's... she's trying to tell me something.
- Alex: It was a computerized voice. Most likely a nutjob looking for attention.
- Strand: It was her.
- Alex: (pause) I don't think...
- Strand: It was her, Alex.
Alex: We spoke about Coralee for a while longer. Strand was convinced that message was from his missing wife, and I'm pretty sure he's going to be heading up to Canada to look into it. After a cup of tea and some small talk, well, as small talk as Strand and I could get, he loaded up some footage from the tape labelled "Cheryl." It was grainy video, horrible resolution, playing off an old CD-R.
- (recording device button clicks on)
- Boy: What are you doing?
- Girl: I can see them.
Alex: It's a boy and a girl. We don't see the boy. He's the one holding the camera. The girl is maybe six or seven. It looks like he's filming her in their living room. It's night. She stands by the patio doors looking outside into the dark through the glass.
- (button clicks on)
- Boy: Who can you see?
- Girl: The men.
- Boy: What men?
- Girl: The tall men.
- Boy: Let me see. (the door slides open, there's a short pause) There's nothing out there.
- Girl: You shouldn't have opened that.
- Boy: Why not?
- Girl: They'll want to come in.
- Boy: There's nobody there. Look.
- Girl: They're not out there anymore.
- Boy: Where are they?
- Girl: (pause) They're here now.
- Boy: (pause) Where?
- Girl: There.
- (button clicks off)
Alex: The girl points at something in the corner of the room. The camera pans toward it, but there's nothing there. Just an empty corner. The camera goes back to the girl. She definitely believes she's looking at something in the corner, up near the ceiling.
- (button clicks on)
- Girl: Hello.
- Boy: Cheryl, please don't.
- (button clicks off)
- Alex: Uhh... creepy.
- Strand: I can see how some might think that.
- Alex: Why is this an unsolved case? It's just a kid with an overactive imagination.
- Strand: It may have been mislabelled.
- Alex: (pause) Tannis Braun. He said I should ask about it.
- Strand: I see.
- Alex: Who's Cheryl?
- Strand: Cheryl was a childhood friend.
- Alex: (pause) The boy doing the filming... that was...?
- Strand: Me, yes.
- Alex: I have to ask again, why is this unsolved? I didn't see anything.
- Strand: (long pause) I did.
- Alex: Y-you saw something? In that room?
- Strand: I thought I did, yes.
- Alex: But it's not on camera.
- Strand: Yes, there's plenty of research explaining visions, how the brain tricks you into seeing things that aren't there, but very few reputable studies have been done on shared hallucinations. The closest explanation is something called shared psychotic disorder. But in that case my friend would have had to have been quite dominant over me, and she definitely wasn't.
- Alex: (long pause) What was it? (pause) What did you see?
- Strand: It was nothing.
- Alex: ...It was nothing?
- Strand: (pause) I don't remember.
- Alex: Where's Cheryl now?
- Strand: I don't know.
Alex: A missing wife who's suddenly not so missing. And a strange daughter. And a junior paranormal explorer friend named Cheryl. Usually when you peel back the layers of a person's life you get a feeling of gaining ground, a clearer picture, of getting closer to their center. But I was finding Strand and his friends and family... impenetrable. As if under every layer were just more layers, like those Russian stacking dolls. Except for one thing: his experience of the paranormal. Here was a black tape with Strand's skepticism itself as a subject. He was not doubting the paranormal here. Here he was doubting himself.
- Alex: So how is it that Tannis Braun knew about this tape?
- Strand: You didn't ask him?
- Alex: No.
- Strand: This video recording of that film was in my father's office at the university when he passed. I was out of the country for an extended period of time. The university ended up auctioning off several of his belongings. Tannis Braun was at that auction, won a collection of my father's books. This tape was filed among the books, so... Braun sent it to my office.
- Alex: When was this?
- Strand: Back when I opened the Strand Institute.
- Alex: I'm assuming you were grateful to him?
- Strand: I was.
- Alex: But... you two don't seem to get along now.
- Strand: You're referring to when we ran into him at the police station in California.
- Alex: Yes.
- Strand: I believe his sending me this tape was a way of challenging me, of saying he believes my mission of debunking the paranormal is a direct result of my insecurity stemming from this incident.
- Alex: And it's not?
- Strand: Of course not.
Alex: I left Strand's house feeling slightly off balance. Suddenly Strand didn't seem so sure of himself. What he saw as an unsolved experience, I saw as proof of the one thing he hadn't shown until today: doubt. I went back to the studio to tell Nic what I had learned.
- Alex: Is that countdown clock still going?
- Nic: Last I checked, yeah.
- Alex: Did you check today?
- Nic: ...Yes.
- Alex: Okay well, I asked Strand if he told anyone about the Unsound, specifically referencing the day we listened to it. And he gave me that look he does when he thinks your question doesn't make sense.
- Nic: Does he have another look?
- Alex: (laughs) Have you figured out what I, or whoever, said on my sleep note?
- Nic: Kind of. But it's...
- Alex: What?
- Nic: Okay well I listened to it at least 30 times and... Well, listen.
- (recording device button clicks on)
- Alex: Okay.
-
- Extremely Quiet Voice: (whispers) Ah-za-zeel.
- (button clicks off)
-
- Alex: Okay, but I remember what it sounds like.
- Nic: Okay... well, do you remember it sounding like "Azazel?"
- Alex: (long pause) Again?
-
- Extremely Quiet Voice: (whispers) Ah-za-zeel.
- Alex: Yeah, that could be it. I mean, it sounds right. What's Azazeel?
- Nic: Well I looked it up, in the Old Testament it means scapegoat. But then there's this ancient Jewish text called The Book of Enoch, and in there Azazeel is a fallen angel.
- Alex: You know, there's another name for fallen angels...
- Nic: Don't. freak. out.
- Alex: I'm not... yet.
- Nic: Okay.
- Alex: Okay, but why would I be whispering the name of a fallen angel that I've never heard of?
- Nic: (pause) It could just be gibberish. (pause) Couldn't it?
- Alex: It could.
- Nic: I mean, we're so immersed in all this stuff, what's, what would Dr. Strand, what did he call it? The mind fitting unrelated things into a pattern?
- Alex: You're pretending you don't know the word is apophenia to get my mind off demons.
- Nic: Fallen angels.
- Alex: Them too.
- Nic: Is it working?
- Alex: Kind of. (pause) Thanks. (keyboard keys tapping) What's that?
- Nic: Okay so, your theory about Keith Dabic...
- Alex: That he's unbalanced and believes in the Unsound curse so much that he may have joined a Russian monastery to look for a cure?
- Nic: Yeah, that one.
- Alex: (laughs)
- Nic: So, we received this in our inbox today.
- Alex: There's nothing there.
- Nic: Look at the From address.
- Alex: Ah, Keith Dabic.
- Nic: Yeah. No subject heading, no text in the body, just... this attachment.
- (loud warbling wall of sound plays abruptly and continues for 15 seconds)
- Alex: What the hell was that?
- Nic: Right? I have no idea, but I sent it to Dr. Pullman to see if he could dig up anything.
- Alex: Oh, what did he say?
- Nic: He's waiting for your call.
Alex: Dr. Michael Pullman is our resident structural acoustician. He's become something of a regular on this podcast.
- Pullman: Alright, first thing's first, it's not the Unsound.
- Alex: Well that's a relief.
- Pullman: Yeah. It was emailed to you by somebody you know?
- Alex: Is that what Nic said?
- Pullman: Yeah.
- Alex: Well we think so, but we're not sure.
- Pullman: Huh, okay. Well um, what you're hearing is definitely man made.
- Alex: Okay, so... uh, musical instruments?
- Pullman: That's my best guess.
- Alex: Mmkay. Well, that's interesting.
- Pullman: (laughs) You're really not great at hiding your disappointment, you know that? (both laugh) Um, let me ask you, have you heard of infrasound?
- Alex: Infrasound, I think Dr. Strand might have mentioned it once.
- Pullman: W-who?
- Alex: Oh sorry, he's a friend of mine.'
- Pullman: You... you call your friend Dr. Strand?
- Alex: Yes (laughing) Yes, Dr. Pullman, I do.
- Pullman: (laughing) Very uh, professional friendship.
- Alex: (laughing) In a way.
- Pullman: Okay um, alright. Well, infrasound is any sound with a frequency lower than 20 hertz. So basically what that means is at those frequencies the human ear can’t pick it up.
- Alex: Well, we heard something.
- Pullman: Mm, that is just the tip of the iceberg, metaphorically speaking.
- Alex: (laughing) Right. But didn't you say something like that about the Unsound? That we couldn't hear it, or we shouldn't hear it, or...?
- Pullman: I did. The Unsound was a low frequency that we shouldn't be able to hear, but it was, it was surprisingly audible. What's on this file is infrasound behaving normally.
- Alex: And that's interesting because...?
- Pullman: (laughs) Well, it's interesting to me. It's interesting because if what you're hearing on the surface is some kind of music, then why would anyone place infrasound under it unless that person wants to make people sick?
- Alex: With... infrasound?
- Pullman: Yeah, that's... So, even though you can't hear infrasound, it still affects you. It can cause nausea, headaches, even pain in the eardrums.
- Alex: Oh. But Nic and I were fine hearing it.
- Pullman: Oh yeah, me too. But prolonged exposure to infrasound can, it can actually be quite harmful. There was this engineer in the 80s named Vic Tandy, he was working in some medical lab by himself and he just started to feel sick. He broke out in a cold sweat, and this overpowering feeling of dread kind of flowed over him. And he had that feeling you get, you know, when you think somebody's in the room with you, kind of watching you?
- Alex: Mmhm.
- Pullman: And then out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark um, sort of shadowy figure standing beside him in a corner of the lab. He turned towards of course and it vanished. And it happened, supposedly it happened a few more times. Later he discovered that a new fan had been installed near his desk and it was emitted these infrasound frequencies. So as soon as they had the fan fixed, the sickness and the creepy visions stopped.
- Alex: Wow. So someone placed infrasound under that music to make us see visions of ghosts?
- Pullman: Um, maybe it was placed there accidentally somehow?
- Alex: Maybe.
- Pullman: Yeah, uh good luck.
- Alex: (laughing) Thanks.
-
- Alex: So why would Keith Dabic send that file?
- Nic: If it was Keith Dabic.
- Alex: What do you mean?
- Nic: So what if Dabic actually did go to this monastery to try to find a cure for the Unsound? And what if the people there, the monks or whatever, what if they believe the Unsound is real? What if this Order of the Cenophus actually believe they can use music to open portals to hell and bring on the apocalypse using whatever Percival Black resurrects out of the Mysterium? What if Dabic got himself into trouble with that group of lunatics?
- Alex: Okay, is there something you're not telling me?
- Nic: We received this an hour ago from Keith Dabic's email.
- Alex: (long pause) It's him, Keith.
- Nic: Yeah.
Alex: It was a photo of Keith Dabic. His face was in the foreground. It's hard to make out the rest of the photo, since Keith himself, or whoever took the picture, uses a flash so the light reflects off the walls. But it looks like he's in a long hallway or room, and the wall behind him looks like it's built of large stones.
- Alex: So he sent us a selfie.
- Nic: Mmhm.
- Alex: But why? And where is he? I mean, he could be anywhere.
- Nic: Well I have no idea why, but where is a different question.
- Alex: Okay...
- Nic: Okay well, on most smartphones if you take a picture while you have your location tracker on, your photo gets geotagged.
- Alex: So we know where this photo was taken?
- Nic: Yes.
Alex: Nic clicked on the photo of Keith and suddenly all this data popped up. He copy and pasted that data into a program and placed that information into Google Maps. And that's how we found the location.
- Nic: I think Keith Dabic is trying to tell us where he is.
- Alex: (long pause) Oh my god!
- Nic: Yeah.
- Alex: That's the demon monk seance monastery.
- Nic: Yeah.
- Alex: Keith Dabic is in Glushka.
Alex: I'd like to thank all of you for your patience and understanding during our hiatus. I'm still not really sleeping much, but I'm optimistic and I'm feeling a lot more like myself again these days.
It's The Black Tapes. I'm Alex Reagan. We'll be back again in two weeks.
The Black Tapes Podcast is a Pacific Northwest Stories and Minnow Beats Whale production. Recorded in Seattle and Vancouver. Produced, mixed, and engineered by Nic Silver. Edited by Nic Silver and Alex Reagan. Executive producers Paul Bae and Terry Miles.
Thank you for listening to The Black Tapes.