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Leanne: Wasting Company Time presents Tell No Tales, Episode Two: Close Call

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[SFX: Recording Begins]

[SFX: Mouse clicks, classical music begins playing]

Leo:

Audio diary of Leo Quinn, assis-(YAWNS) assistant to Frank Williamson, director of Better Place. I got back from Walthamstow pretty late last night, and after showering three whole times and still not being quite free of the feeling of those maggots on me, I couldn’t resist staying up a bit later to take a look at the data I’d collected. Honestly I’d be tempted to call it a solid night’s work and take a little nap at my desk right now, but Frank is out all day again interviewing for that Dispatcher position and I can’t afford to waste a whole Frank­-free day. Being assistant to the Big Boss definitely has its pros and cons. Pro: having direct access to Frank’s schedule so that I can know exactly when I won’t be caught. Con: being so busy all the time managing said schedule to have much time to do anything worth catching. So, yknow, swings and roundabouts and all that, it’s- (YAWNS AGAIN) It’s fine. God I need a coffee. I’ve got a new case file to check out, and just my luck it’s a category three. I’m going to need my wits about me. But, like I said, I can’t throw away this chance to work a case, and Riley dropped this file on my desk personally this morning. Which they could definitely get into trouble for doing. But that’s Riley. We might be different brands of nerd, but they’ve dedicated their whole life to research. They can understand a little scientific curiosity. Only problem is, I can’t tell them exactly why I need these files, not without putting them in even more trouble. Which means I can’t tell them exactly what kinds of files I need. They think I’m just doing desk research, but to gather enough EMF data to get my recorder up and running, I need cases which are unsolved or still active, cases where I can go and collect data from the spirits before the dispatchers remove them. This one though, well this one is a bit of a time crunch. A category three in a public building is kind of a priority for the dispatchers. But if Riley compiled the research on this case, that means they were the first person to have access to it ­so that makes me the second. The dispatchers will have to have a whole meeting where they go over the file, the spirit’s history, personal details, then they’ll need to have a tactical meeting and request gear and tech, it’ll take them a while. I think, if I go check it out on my lunch break, I can be in and out before they even leave the office. Which leaves me just enough time to make some audio notes on the file before I go. Case RM#2223, Category 3, Case status-­active. Reported by Richard Blackwell via email, initial report:

Dear Better Place Customer Service Department, I represent Regent’s Care Private Maternity Hospital, and I am contacting you regarding a disturbance we require assistance with. Approximately seventeen years ago we began receiving reports from staff and patients alike of unpleasant associations with a particular wing of the hospital. Patients recalled strange and unsettling dreams, and staff discussed a sensation like that of being watched. These concerns were initially dismissed, however they increased in quantity over the next decade, until we began experiencing leaks of unusual substances from no discernible source, and several electrical faults that were, of course, unacceptable for a hospital. We closed the wing to locate the issues, but when none were found, construction was halted for several years. We have recently begun work on renovations in the wing for a planned re­opening late next year. However we have discovered a more alarming development. Construction crews have reported progress being torn down overnight, tools being thrown at workers, etc. I look forward to receiving an estimated quote as soon as possible, as we cannot resume construction until this problem is resolved.I’m sorry, just… Who writes like that? Like, “Oh you know, just chucking tools at people, that kind of thing. Standard stuff like that.” Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. I should be scared. A normal person would be scared. Though, honestly? Like, look I know I’m not a dispatcher. I’m just an amateur scientist who didn’t have the formal qualifications for the tech department and ended up in admin, nobody’s asking me. But if someone were to ask me… I mean, I get why people think category threes are scary, I do, but I’m pretty sure they only think that way because they’re operating on the assumption that all spirits are malicious. If that were true, then fair enough, I can see why a ghost that can pick up a hammer and launch it at you is, generally speaking, considered something of a danger. But the way I see it, just because a ghost can throw a punch doesn’t mean it’ll want to. Everyone I work with can throw a punch, but I’ve never gotten a black eye in the office. And maybe I’m biased, but a category two doing things like, oh I don’t know, spawning a human­ shaped mass of maggots sounds… and correct me if I’m wrong here… Way worse than throwing a punch, right? Category twos can manifest a myriad of horrifying ways to mess you up without ever having to lay a finger on you. So, I’ll be fine. I was fine last night, I’ll be fine today. Plus, I’m well prepared. Riley and their team are brilliant. This is the most thoroughly researched case file I’ve ever seen. It’s usually quite hard to pinpoint the identity of a spirit in a hospital, for obvious reasons, but Riley traced the phenomena to one room they believe the spirit died in, which helped them narrow it down to one patient ­­ Lisa Henry, who died of complications from a C-­Section only a few days after giving birth to her daughter. There are a lot of reasons a spirit might stay behind. Sometimes because of violent deaths, sometimes because of untimely deaths, sometimes because they just have too much to hang on to. A newborn daughter would, I’m pretty sure, fall under that last group. There is some information included on the daughter. She’s just received a conditional offer from Durham University to study literature, and there’s even a school photo included, smiling in a stiff blazer and neatly pinned back hair. This is Riley’s touch, definitely. They always delve just a bit deeper than most into the personal. It’s the kind of thing the dispatchers always overlook, but Riley gets it. These ghosts have sometimes spent decades, sometimes centuries without being acknowledged. They’re people, you know? They’re dead, but they’re people. I might not be able to save Lisa Henry. But I’m damn well going to acknowledge her before the dispatchers get there. More when I get back, I guess.

[SFX: Recording Ends]

[SFX: Recording Begins]

Leo:

So… that wasn’t great! Didn’t, er, didn’t go exactly to plan. I’ve had the tube journey back to calm down but, er, yeah. Nothing about that was… ideal. I’ll start from the beginning.[SFX: Mouse clicks, classical music begins playing]There wasn’t much security on the disused wing, to be honest. I went in through the main building, told the receptionist I was from Better Place and she went completely pale. Just handed me the keys to the side entrance and pointed me in the right general direction. Didn’t ask for my name or anything, thank God, all things considered. I left the door unlocked when I got there. Something about the place made me feel like maybe having a quick exit as an option wasn’t such a bad idea. It was icy cold in there. Far colder than it had been outside. My breath clung to the still air in a thick fog, and though it was light out, in the part­ demolished building, the tarps and plastic sheeting that hung between that place and the sun gave the whole building an eerie, dream­like feeling.[Ambience: Classical music fades out, ambient spooky music fades in]I felt my own fingers trembling as I reached for the EMF meter, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I wasn’t scared. Some of the rooms still had numbers, so I found myself counting the doors in soft whispered rhythms. 101, 102, 103. That was the one. The door opened before I even touched it. An invitation, maybe? Or a warning? I tried to take a deep breath but the air shuddered in my lungs. When I stepped inside, the room was littered with abandoned tools. One wall was partially brought down, another had what looked to be deep, frantic scratches from fingernails. The EMF meter blinked alive, and my skin lit up with static as all around me, the abandoned tools and materials began to quake. Rumbling, first, where they sat on the ground, a terrible cacophony of plastic and metal and wood shuddering against the concrete flooring, until all at once the sounds stopped and everything around me rose. It was a sickening feeling, like the floor was falling out beneath me. This ghost was more powerful than I expected. The ability to touch, I had assumed, meant she’d be limited only to what her hands could reach. But no, every one of those tools, all across the room, sat suspended, trembling, poised in the air. The realisation that I had gotten it wrong, that there was more to these spirits than I’d known, it overwhelmed me, so much so that in my awe, for just a second I forgot to be afraid. I forgot that every object that hung in the air, a brief stasis before inevitable flurry, seemed to be pointed at me. “Lisa!” I called out in frantic panic as my anxiety crashed back into me just a heartbeat before, I’m sure, the tools would have. “Lisa, I’m not here to disturb you, I want to help, please hear me out.” The objects twitched, a small but deliberate threat, and I swallowed back a new wave of terror at just how quickly and horrifically this spirit could end my life if it chose to. But the twitch was all that came. So I pressed on. “There are people on their way to help you move on. I can’t stop them from coming. But I think I can help. If you’ll let me, before you go, I can tell you about your daughter.” The stillness in the long moment after I spoke seemed to press down on me, stifling and awful. And when it broke, it broke into chaos. Everything came crashing down all at once. Around, near, but not at me, though I flinched as if it might. And amidst it all, I watch the lights on the EMF meter sway and flicker, once again mirroring what I knew from last time was the cadence of speech. I tried not to focus on that too hard, though. Tried to focus instead on the single hammer in front of me, now the only raised object. Not hovering exactly, not like the others had been, but transfixed at an odd angle. That was her, I realised. She was standing there, holding that hammer in her own hands. A person. A person making threats, I’m sure ­­ between the hammer and the ongoing rhythm of her speech ­­ but a person, still. I waited for her to finish speaking before I continued. “I can’t hear you, I’m sorry.” I told her. “I can see when you’re speaking, but I can’t hear what you’re saying. But…” I reached, slowly, deliberately, for the photo in my pocket. “Here.” I held out the photo in unsteady hands. “This is your daughter. She’s eighteen now. She’s going to Durham University in September, to study literature. She’s named after you. Lisa Henry. Though her friends call her Liza, apparently. She seems happy. She’s doing well in school. I even have her medical records for some reason. Just one broken bone, when she was seven. She fell off her bike.” I watched the hammer advance, though it seemed to droop slightly as it did, and I tried not to gasp as the photo was taken from my hand. Tried not to gawp too openly as the photo lingered in the air for a long moment until the soft thud of a tear fell hard on the paper. A person. She’s a person. Lisa Henry is a person who loves the daughter she never got to meet. The daughter that could never have known she was trapped here, in this hospital, all these years. I watched as the lights on the EMF reader quivered, a soft burst of light, until suddenly it all spilled out, those lights rising and falling in a rush of emotions as my breath caught in my chest and I listened. I couldn’t hear her, but I could listen. She deserved that. At least. I was crying, I think, when the sound shocked us both into sudden, numb stillness. The sound of a door thudding open, the sound of footsteps,­­ multiple sets of footsteps, ­­hurried but sure across the plastic sheets on the floor. I like to think I’m a lot of things, but good in a pinch isn’t necessarily one of them. I froze for a beat too long, knowing that if any one of these dispatchers recognised me then everything could be over for me. I was not supposed to be here. I didn’t have any kind of reasonable explanation for being here. I could lose my job. Riley could lose their job just for giving me the file. By the time it all set in, the fear enough to propel rather than stun, it was almost too late. I kind of collided with a dispatcher on my way out down the corridor. I didn’t see who it was, just kept my head low in the hood of my raincoat, I just barrelled past, ignoring the confused shouts behind me. I kept running until I reached the tube station. Then I emptied my pockets and shoved the coat in the bin. A sky­ blue rain coat could be recognisable enough to give me away back at the office

[Ambience: Spooky music fades out, classical music fades in]

So, yeah. Like I said. Not ideal. Not ideal at all. I think I’m going to have to be more careful in future. I might have just gotten away with it this time, but it was a close call. I think next time, I’ll pr-

[SFX: Office phone rings]

Oh crap.

[SFX: Phone receiver is picked up]

Riley, hey! W- er, what’s up?

Riley (through phone):

(INAUDIBLE ANGRY BUZZING)

Leo:

Oh? Wild, I, er, the file said the wing was closed down, I wonder why someone would-

Riley (through phone):

(MORE INAUDIBLE ANGRY BUZZING)

Leo:

Well, blue raincoats are actually pretty common. I got it from Next you know, big seller over there.

Riley (through phone):

(INAUDIBLE ANGRY BUZZING INTENSIFIES)

Leo:

Ginger people are… Actually far more common than we’re led to believe?

Riley (through phone):

(ANGRIEST INAUDIBLE BUZZING YET)

Leo:

(DEFEATED) If I told you it was for data collection is that something you’d be able to just, take at face value and ask no more questions about?

Riley (through phone):

(BRIEF, BUT DEFIANT, INAUDIBLE BUZZING)

[SFX: Dial tone through phone receiver]

Leo:

Yep, that’s what I thought.

[SFX: Phone receiver being hung up]

They’re coming up to my office. I’d better, er… (SIGHS)

[SFX: Recording ends]

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Leanne: Episode Two of Tell No Tales, Close Call, was written and performed by Leanne Egan. You also, just barely, heard the voice of Phil Thompson as Riley Matkins.If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support the show is to spread the word. Leaving us a rating and review in your listening app of choice is a huge help, or you can follow us on Twitter or Tumblr @tellnotalespodLinks and information about transcripts can be found in the show notes. Tell No Tales is distributed by Wasting Company Time Productions, under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share-alike 4.0 international license. Thank you for listening, and remember: the dead don’t bite

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