Speaker 1: You're listening to whispers of the Wicked on ninth Story studios.
Speaker 2: Give me a story, a voice.
Speaker 3: When you work in audio long enough, every coffee shop
Speaker 3: meet up feels like a reunion of ghosts. Projects that
Speaker 3: burned bright for a season, collaborations that fizzled, ideas half
Speaker 3: born and left to wonder. A few months ago, I
Speaker 3: found myself in New York, sitting across from my friend Graham.
Speaker 3: We hadn't seen each other in person for years. We
Speaker 3: talked about the usual things, the shows we'd built, the
Speaker 3: scripts we recorded, the late nights, editing until our ears rang,
Speaker 3: And eventually we circled back to a name that always
Speaker 3: seemed to follow us around even now, The Wicked Library.
Speaker 3: It had been gone for years, mostly gone anyway, a
Speaker 3: hand full of new episodes than silence. But the Library
Speaker 3: is one of those places you just don't forget. You
Speaker 3: carry it with you, like an unfinished story that refuses
Speaker 3: to stay closed. That day, what started as nostalgia, just
Speaker 3: two friends swapping memories, shifted into something else, a question
Speaker 3: neither of us wanted to ask, but couldn't quite ignore.
Speaker 3: What really happened to the Wicked Library. We thought we'd
Speaker 3: treat it like a joke, side project, a way to
Speaker 3: dig into a little mystery together, maybe make a true
Speaker 3: crime podcast just for fun. We called it Whispers of
Speaker 3: the Wicked. But the deeper we looked, the clearer it came.
Speaker 3: This wasn't just a story we were chasing. It was
Speaker 3: chasing us. And before long, the library stopped being a
Speaker 3: memory started feeling like a crime scene.
Speaker 4: You know, it just popped into my head. The Wicked Library.
Speaker 4: Remember that show, Horror anthology, creepy narrator, weird sponsors used
Speaker 4: to be a big deal.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yeah, that intro music will give me goosebumps.
Speaker 3: It just vanished, didn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like one day it was everywhere and the next
Speaker 4: hoof silence. Some people say the host just walked away burnout.
Speaker 3: Maybe No, I heard something way weirder. Someone said they
Speaker 3: saw him after the show stopped, but he was wearing
Speaker 3: someone else's coat, like not metaphorically literally and he didn't
Speaker 3: recognize him.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's creepy, but like perfectly creepy. We should look
Speaker 4: into it.
Speaker 5: Sorry to interrupt, but are you two talking about The
Speaker 5: Wicked Library?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: We are.
Speaker 5: That was my favorite podcast. I still check the feed
Speaker 5: every other month or so, hoping it wakes up again.
Speaker 4: We might be working on that.
Speaker 5: Shadows, drink the ink of stories, doors, remember every name.
Speaker 5: If you listen past the silence, you will never leave
Speaker 5: the same. The books are always waiting, their pages sharp
Speaker 5: with fear. They hunger for the trembling hands that dare
Speaker 5: to open here. What oh, I was just asking if
Speaker 5: you wanted a refill.
Speaker 4: I think we're good for now, no problem.
Speaker 5: If you need a warm up or a pumpkin spice muffin,
Speaker 5: just let me know. 'tis the season?
Speaker 4: Okay? What was that?
Speaker 2: Weird?
Speaker 4: Really weird?
Speaker 3: Welcome to Whispers of the Wicked.
Speaker 4: I'm Addison and I'm Graham.
Speaker 3: The show started as a whim, a joke, really, a
Speaker 3: way to dig into the disappearance of a podcast that
Speaker 3: both of us had enjoyed working with, The Wicked Library.
Speaker 4: Okay, so we're doing this a podcast about a podcast.
Speaker 3: Not just any podcast. This one had a cult following
Speaker 3: and now it's gone, or maybe it's hiding.
Speaker 4: Just a few days after we met up in New York,
Speaker 4: we received a delivery a box wrapped in weird black paper,
Speaker 4: paper that makes no sound, doesn't crinkle, and can't be torn.
Speaker 4: Or cut and no it's not plastic right.
Speaker 3: No sender or receiver address, no postage.
Speaker 4: No FedEx truck, no UPS driver. It was just there
Speaker 4: sitting lurking in the studio.
Speaker 3: Really weird, that smell of old books wafting out of
Speaker 3: it as soon as it was opened, and.
Speaker 4: The contents scraps of wet paper covered with odd writing.
Speaker 4: Thumb drive with recordings, some of which we'll share with
Speaker 4: you all, and a key to a storage unit.
Speaker 3: So we started asking questions, casual ones at first, reaching
Speaker 3: out to people we'd known through the show writers, narrators, producers.
Speaker 3: We figured we'd get like polite brush offs or vague
Speaker 3: stories about burnout and moving on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, except that's not exactly what happened, right.
Speaker 3: Several people agreed to talk, but only off the record.
Speaker 3: Some of the voice actors we reached out to said
Speaker 3: they'd rather not be named at all, and what they
Speaker 3: told us was strange, unsettling.
Speaker 4: One described getting postcards handwritten, no return address, just fragments
Speaker 4: of phrases, almost like spells. Another actress we know swore
Speaker 4: she recorded dialogue that was never released, a character for
Speaker 4: Enfield Detective Agency, the promised mini series that was written
Speaker 4: by Aaron Bleck as a sequel to The Private Collector.
Speaker 3: Right, didn't she say when she pulled up the original
Speaker 3: file she could hear a weird whispering layered underneath her vocals.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was really freaked out by it.
Speaker 3: And then there was the music, because the Wicked Library
Speaker 3: wasn't just about stories and narration. It had a sound
Speaker 3: of signature atmosphere created by composer and producer Nico Vitzi.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Nico's music was the Library in a lot of ways,
Speaker 4: the tone, the dread, the pulse behind it.
Speaker 3: So we reached out to Nico, and while he agreed
Speaker 3: to speak with us us, what he told us wasn't
Speaker 3: exactly reassuring. You'll hear from him a little later in
Speaker 3: this episode.
Speaker 4: But for now, let's start at the beginning, where the
Speaker 4: Wicked Library first went silent and why some people still
Speaker 4: check the feed every other month hoping it will wake
Speaker 4: up again.
Speaker 3: If you're listening to this, maybe you were one of them.
Speaker 3: Maybe you were refreshing the feed year after year, waiting
Speaker 3: for something to appear.
Speaker 4: And most of the time nothing, but then out of nowhere,
Speaker 4: one or two new episodes, no announcements, no explanation just
Speaker 4: enough to remind everyone the library wasn't entirely dead.
Speaker 3: Those episodes were different, rougher, sparse. Some of the regular
Speaker 3: narrators were missing, and a few listeners swore the production
Speaker 3: sounded off like there were extra voices in the background.
Speaker 4: Which is where our so called investigation started. We figured, fine,
Speaker 4: let's just call around see what people remember. At worst,
Speaker 4: we'll waste a weekend chasing rumors.
Speaker 3: Except people didn't laugh, they didn't roll their eyes, They hesitated,
Speaker 3: they lowered their voices. Some told us they couldn't go
Speaker 3: on record because they'd signed agreements. Others said they talk,
Speaker 3: but not with their names attached, and a.
Speaker 4: Couple of them told us things that were well, you'll hear.
Speaker 4: We're not the type to throw around words like possession
Speaker 4: or curses. But some of these stories they don't fit
Speaker 4: neatly anywhere else.
Speaker 3: Which brings us back to the people closest to the library,
Speaker 3: the voices you remember, the ones who helped build it.
Speaker 3: A few of them agreed to speak to us carefully, cautiously,
Speaker 3: and their stories are where this gets darker than we expected. Okay,
Speaker 3: I've got the recorder on. Say that again. If you
Speaker 3: don't mind.
Speaker 2: You don't distort our voice.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Okay.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, I don't know what happened to
Speaker 2: the library, None of us do. But one day the
Speaker 2: recording started sounding wrong, like there was someone else in
Speaker 2: the booth with us, breathing, waiting. I told myself it
Speaker 2: was Mike bleed. But it kept happening, same whisper low
Speaker 2: every time. But I talked to I mean, one of
Speaker 2: the other voice actors we know, and she said she
Speaker 2: was having the same problems with her recordings. The producer
Speaker 2: once said it felt like he was editing in a hallway,
Speaker 2: not a studio, like the tracks stretched on too far
Speaker 2: and the walls kept moving away from him. He laughed
Speaker 2: and called it liminal space. But the way he said it,
Speaker 2: it didn't sound like a joke anyway. Don't tell them
Speaker 2: I said this, I can't be.
Speaker 4: Named a Whoay, Okay, that's definitely not creepy at all.
Speaker 3: But that wasn't the only story. We heard variations of
Speaker 3: the same thing from three different people. The voice is
Speaker 3: the sense of someone else in the room. Let's take
Speaker 3: a quick break and when we come back. Graham's interview
Speaker 3: with Nikovitezi.
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Speaker 4: Nico, you were the music producer for the Wicked Library
Speaker 4: for years. Your sound more or less was the Library.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was me, all those years, tucked away in
Speaker 7: my little room, trying to make it sound much bigger
Speaker 7: than it was. I always thought of it as painting
Speaker 7: with shadows. Creepy, sure, but it needed heart too. Otherwise
Speaker 7: it's just noise.
Speaker 4: And when the show slowed down and then went quiet.
Speaker 4: Did you notice anything unusual?
Speaker 7: At first, I thought it was just tired is I'd
Speaker 7: bounce to track down neat as anything. Then the next
Speaker 7: morning it sounded different, heavier, like there were layers I
Speaker 7: hadn't written, notes bent out of shape, Sometimes even voices. Voices, yeah,
Speaker 7: low whisper in the reverb tales. Once I swear one
Speaker 7: of them said my name, not loud, but enough to
Speaker 7: freeze me.
Speaker 4: And you're sure it wasn't just a glitch.
Speaker 7: That's what I told myself. But soon every session fell off,
Speaker 7: like I wasn't in my studio anymore more, like a
Speaker 7: hallway that stretched forever, doors on either side, none opening,
Speaker 7: just me sat there, finishing tracks that wouldn't end.
Speaker 4: That's unsettling.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I started to think maybe it wasn't just me
Speaker 7: right in the music anymore. Maybe something else had joined in.
Speaker 7: Ink bleeds backwards through the margins, whispered, lines erased, the day,
Speaker 7: shelves will shift when eyes are closing, guiding wanderers astray.
Speaker 4: Sorry what was that.
Speaker 7: I was saying? I hope you too have success figuring
Speaker 7: out what happened. Best of luck with it.
Speaker 3: Nico's story lined up with what we'd already been hearing,
Speaker 3: whispers buried in the recordings, a sense of someone or
Speaker 3: something else in the room. He chalked it up to
Speaker 3: long hours, tired ears. Maybe it was just audio paradolia.
Speaker 3: But when you hear the same story over and over
Speaker 3: from different people, it stops feeling like a coincidence. It
Speaker 3: starts to feel like a pattern. And patterns are where
Speaker 3: every investigation begins.
Speaker 4: So voices in the music, endless hallways and producers who
Speaker 4: started sounding like they've stepped out of a seance. Totally
Speaker 4: normal day at the office.
Speaker 3: Right, Except Nico wasn't the only one.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: We've heard stories from actors, editors, listeners, even.
Speaker 4: And we're just getting started.
Speaker 3: Next time, we'll talk about what showed up in the mail,
Speaker 3: that box filled with corrupted audio, scribblings, transcripts, letters that
Speaker 3: don't quite make sense.
Speaker 4: And what we found in that storage unit.
Speaker 3: That's what's coming up on Whispers of the Wicked.
Speaker 4: And if you are still checking the Wicked Library feed,
Speaker 4: maybe you should keep doing that just in case. We
Speaker 4: leave you today with one of those recordings from the
Speaker 4: mysterious box.
Speaker 1: What a piece of work is, man, What a piece
Speaker 1: of work is man a lattice of sinew stretched upon bone, pliable, breakable,
Speaker 1: host to one thousand tremors. How noble in reason he
Speaker 1: who screams logic into the void, and he has only
Speaker 1: his own breathless echo, How infinite and faculty his fingers
Speaker 1: made to pry upour secrets, never meant for hand, nor minds,
Speaker 1: nor stars. Inform in motion, how express, how admirable? Yes,
Speaker 1: watch him dance brief, trembling thing upon the lip of
Speaker 1: the cosmic drain in action, How like an angel one
Speaker 1: cast down, molting wings and gutters, slick with memory, an apprehension,
Speaker 1: How like a god, a god of gnats and mirrors,
Speaker 1: blind to the pattern beneath the skin of the world,
Speaker 1: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals, Dust
Speaker 1: made recursive, flying upward, ever upward, to glimpse a truth
Speaker 1: that will not love him back? And yet to me,
Speaker 1: what is this quintessence of dust? A vessel, a joke,
Speaker 1: a candle in the wind of void? Man delights not me,
Speaker 1: nor woman, nor anything born of clay, though by your
Speaker 1: smiling you seem to say otherwise. Tell me, when did
Speaker 1: your smile learn to lie