Leanne:

Please note that the following episode of Tell No Tales contains instances of body horror, depictions of a violent physical attack, and the character’s resultant experience of trauma – please proceed with caution if you may be affected by any of these issues. Links to the transcript can be found in the show notes if you would like to scan ahead. Take care, listeners.

Opening theme begins

Leanne:

Wasting Company Time presents Tell No Tales, Episode Seven: Reliving

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[SFX: Recording Begins]

[SFX: Classical music playing]

Leo:

Audio diary of Leo Quinn, assistant to Frank Williamson, director of Better Place. I’m close. I’m so ridiculously close to having this recorder working. I’m pretty sure a good amount of data from one more category three should do it. Just one solid conversation. Problem is, these days, we just don’t get a lot of category threes. Guess Better Place is too good at its job, because we keep removing the category twos before they can progress, which like, good for Better Place or whatever, but sucks for me. I… kinda… hounded Riley for a case and eventually they passed along this one, it’s the talk of the research department apparently, and er… Well, they were very adamant that I do not go and actually seek this one out. “This is just for desk research, right Leo? You’re not going to put yourself in danger by going to visit this very volatile spirit, are you Leo?” Yes Riley. Exactly, Riley. Of course not, I wouldn’t dream of it. And they never have to find out otherwise. Okay?

[Ambience: Classical music fades out, ominous atmospheric music fades in]

Case BL#2225, Category 3, Case Status – Active. Report passed on by City of London Police, victim anonymised for data protection.

Transcript of victim’s report: Fro- From the beginning? Sorry, I… It’s all a bit muddled, I… Could I get another tea? Thanks. Well. Okay, so I was walking home. I’d just walked my girlfriend back to her place. I live in Whitechapel, which isn’t the safest area, but she’s always talking about how I don’t really get how scary it is for a woman to be walking around by my place after dark, which is fair enough, I suppose, so sometimes when she can’t spend the night I walk her back. Normally I’m fine making the walk back alone, I don’t bring my wallet or anything, just my keys, and I always figure, what’s the worst somebody could do? Mug me? In which case, I’ve got nothing on me worth mugging. B-but, I mean. I didn’t- I wasn’t- There was no reason… Sorry, right, yes. From the beginning. So I was cutting through a side-street, I’d been that way tons of times, but this time, he was… Well maybe not a he… that’s quite… God my girlfriend’s gotten in my head, this isn’t the point. I’d never met a ghost before, but I know people who have, and it felt how they described. Goosebumps, and this horrible feeling, everywhere, in the air, inside my gut, and everything got darker. The streetlights went out, and then… It was like the city went out, the moon went out, it went unnaturally dark, total pitch black, and everything just kind of fell away, like the ground beneath me was swallowed up by the blackness, and all I could feel was a hand closing tight against my throat and… Sorry. Just, was that my tea? Thanks. Um, yeah, so, he- it- had me by the throat, holding me in the air, and I felt it cut into me. I felt the knife… Go… All the way down, from the tip of my scalp, felt the blood spilling over into my eyes and my mouth, then spilling down my collarbone as the- the knife followed, and as it hit my chest it went (CLEARS THROAT) sorry. It went… Deeper. I felt. I felt my lungs… I don’t know, I can’t… It was like they… Just, burst. I felt m-my, my, um. My guts. I heard them fall I- sorry, is there… bathroom, a bin or-(STEADYING BREATHS) I don’t think I’m going to read any more of that transcript. Actually.[Ambience: Atmospheric music fades out, classical music fades in]Maybe Riley wasn’t messing around when they said this was just for desk research. I mean, the guy was fine. Physically. The police report says there wasn’t a scratch on him. Except for some bruising around his neck. Clear finger marks. But, no cuts or anything. The category three held him up by his throat but the rest was all illusion, a manifestation of… Apparently of the spirit’s own murder. It’s not like the original spirit was hard to find. Don’t get too many people who are killed by… Well, not hanged, drawn, and quartered exactly. But whatever the slower, more sadistic version of that is. The coroner’s file of the original murder was more clinical than the transcript of this victim’s report, but it looks like the knife was drawn in a kind of cross, from the original victim’s forehead to stomach, then across his chest. Hardly surprising he got stuck behind. It actually sounds kinda rough, for the ghost I mean. He just has to, what, spend eternity reliving his own death? And he seems to be recreating his murder without doing any actual long-term physical harm, at least. Just an apparently quite believable illusion. I’ll be okay, I won’t go too far into the side street. I’ll go on my lunch break, so it’s still daylight. It’s just an illusion. And he’s the only category three we’ve gotten for ages. I really, really think one more category three is all I need to get this recorder working. Sure, I could wait for the next one to come around, but how long will that take? And, in the meantime, how many Brian Mathesons are going to be destroyed just for existing peacefully as spirits? No. I can’t wait. If I have the power to do something, then waiting around just because I don’t want to face some spooky illusion is… inherently unethical. Frank’s away on some workshop thing, it’s unclear exactly what it is from his schedule, but he’s out all day. Which means I can report back after my lunch break. I’ll be fine. Really. I will.

[SFX: Recording Ends]

[SFX: Recording Begins]

Leo:

(SOBBING, GASPING FOR BREATH, FAILING, SOBBING AGAIN) Sorry. Sorry. Sorry I, thought… I thought I could… (SOBS) No, no, no I can’t-

[SFX: Recording Ends]

[SFX: Recording Begins]

Leo:

Try again. I’m fine. I’m (FAILS TO SUPPRESS ANOTHER SOB). Physically, I’m fine. I’m okay. (SLIGHTLY STEADIER BREATH) Going in the daytime didn’t help. I just hovered for a while, on the edge of the cordoned-off side street, but the readings on the EMF meter were so faint, I thought, maybe it… it couldn’t hurt to take a few more steps. But it was just like in the police report. As soon as I was properly in the alley, it was as if the sun just went out, the whole place just fell away, the ground beneath my feet, all of it. Everything went dark. And not like any kind of darkness I’d ever known. Not the kind of darkness your eyes can adjust to. Just total blackness. I was just, kind of, suspended, in this void, and the only things anchoring me were the EMF reader in my hand and the… The f-fingers, closed around my throat. I think it was worse, knowing what was coming. I felt the skin split over m-my forehead, and I mean, everyone knows what forehead wounds are like, I felt the rush of the blood, all- all that blood, and my first thought was that, ok, I’m going to die from this. But my second thought was that I knew I wouldn’t. That I’d survive it all, every last second, right the way down to- Well, I’d read the police report. I never rea- I never really expected to live to know how it feels when skin and-and organs just… just give way like… Oh, god. The only thing keeping me steady… the only thing keeping me sane was the, the EMF reader in my hand. Reminding me it wasn’t real, just the manifestations of a spirit. A spirit that, if nothing else, did seem to be… I guess… monologuing? While he… Er… Worked. So there’s that, at least right? There’s a silver lining? Which maybe doesn’t completely make up for how it felt for my… For my… my stomach to… open and (NEVER MIND, THEY’RE BACK TO SOBBING)

[SFX: Knock on door, then door opening]

Riley:

So I was thinki- Leo?

Leo:

(STILL SOBBING) hi

[SFX: Door closes, footsteps as Riley approaches quickly]

Riley:

Hey, hey, what’s the- Oh shit, Leo, who did that to your neck?

Leo:

So, er, remember the case file you gave me? The- the category three?

Riley:

Leo, no.

[SFX: Riley pulling out a chair and sitting]

Leo:

Leo, yes. If ever you’ve got ‘told you so’ rights, now is-

Riley:

Oh, come on, what kind of monster do you think I am, let me look at you, what did it do to you? Right, come on, get your things, I’m taking you to the hospital, now.

Leo:

I- no, really, just my neck. It’s just some bruising where it- where he- held me up.

Riley:

Jesus, Leo. Did he-

Leo:

Yeah, the whole thing. It- yeah. Exactly like in the case file. Except it didn’t hurt. The knife. They never mentioned that in the file. It didn’t hurt. I- Why didn’t he mention that, in his report?

Riley:

It didn’t sound like the pain was the main problem.

Leo:

No. No it wasn’t. Even if it had hurt, it wouldn’t have been… God, I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. The whole point of this was to prove that they’re human. That they’re people. And I forgot what that meant. I just let myself believe that every single spirit was good or kind or harmless and I got so lost in the tragic backstories and the romances and the powerlessness of spirits I’ve spoken to that I forgot that the whole point is that humans are flawed and sometimes they’re evil and sometimes they’re messed up and I forgot, I forgot that humans can hurt people I was such an idiot Riley, such a naive, ridiculous idi-

Riley:

Oi, shut it. Only I get to call you an idiot. And you’re not. You’re not, Leo, seriously, you get like one instance of total sincerity from me every ten years or so, so pay attention. I have no idea what’s going on, I don’t know what you’re talking about or why you went to see this ghost in person, but I know you’re not an idiot. Seriously. You’re like, disgustingly intelligent. You’ve got no common sense, to be fair, sure. But you’ve always had that mind for science, even in school, god it was annoying. You’re not an idiot, you’re just… You’re an Aries moon.

Leo:

(SMALL TEARY LAUGH) I don’t know what that means.

Riley:

It means… You’re a bit impulsive, but you always go after what you want. It means of course you were going to run headfirst into danger, if you had good reasons. You… had good reasons, right? (LONG PAUSE) What’s the etiquette here, do I have to wait until you’re not hyperventilating to ask what those reasons are, or?

Leo:

You should, but you wouldn’t.

Riley:

Accurate.

Leo:

Ugh, okay, give me a second to- (SNIFFS, BREATHES, PULLS THEMSELVES TOGETHER). So. The research I’ve been doing.

Riley:

The mystery research.

Leo:

Yes, that. Well it’s not just, theoretical. I’m working on a device that will let me record the voices of ghosts.

Riley:

(GENTLE GASP) ghost album! Sorry, no, carry on

Leo:

Well, the end goal is to be able to take the statements of the ghosts we capture, and use them to build a case against Better Place

Riley:

Ooooh corporate takedown, this just got exciting. Wait, why?

Leo:

(OUTRAGED) Bec- Because Better Place has no right to decide when to end a life. Whether it’s an afterlife or not. And spirits are still human, so shouldn’t be exempt from human rights, especially in the pursuit of profit for one comp…

Riley:

(OVERLAPPING)… agreed.

Leo:

Wait, what?

Riley:

Agreed. It means I agree. I’m on board, what can I do to help?

Leo:

You… Really? it was that easy to convince you to take down the company paying both our salaries?

Riley:

Well, yeah. I work as a researcher, remember. It’s literally my entire job to dig up the humanity of these spirits. Every time we send dispatchers off to dispose of a ghost, I’m the one finding out everything from their middle name to their worst fear. I love research, don’t get me wrong. I love the challenge. I love being given an approximate date of death and a location and being told, ‘here you go, now give us everything you can about who this person was!’ But after a while it takes its toll, having a file full of research that you dug up, feeling like you know this person inside out, then handing that file over knowing it’s going to be used against them.

Leo:

Good point. Guess I didn’t think about it that way.

Riley:

Plus your Aries Moon nonsense clearly needs some help from my Virgo Moon

Leo:

I… thought I was a cancer?

Riley:

Keep up, Cancer is your sun sign. Moon signs are different. It’s like you don’t even listen when I tell you things.

Leo:

I listen. You’re a Gemini.

Riley:

That one was easy, I mention it all the time. So. Want to talk about it?

Leo:

You… being a gemini? (LONG PAUSE)… Oh.

Riley:

Yeah, oh.

Leo:

Not that much to tell. I’m just being dramatic, because how can I be so messed up over something that didn’t even hurt? It’s just… God it’s ridiculous but I feel kind of betrayed. Like I was so trusting that I was doing something… good, and that the spirits would know that, that they wouldn’t hurt me. Like I said, it was my own stupidity. For forgetting that they’re human, that they have the capability to be… awful. God, it was so awful. I won’t ever forget how it feels for my stomach to just.. To feel everything just… (SOBBING AGAIN)

[SFX: Fabric rustle as Riley moves closer to comfort Leo]

Riley:

Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re… Recording this?

Leo:

Oh.

[SFX: Recording Ends]

Closing theme begins

Leanne:

Episode Seven of Tell No Tales, Reliving, was written and performed by Leanne Egan. You also 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 @tellnotalespod Links 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. Until, of course, they do.

Closing theme ends