Speaker 1: Calarugu Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Ghost Scary Stories and the October Records, a
month long Halloween nightmare. This is episode one, the Discovery.
Speaker 3: October one, nineteen seventy four, Silas Crane, Millbrook Public Library.
This is this is the first recording I need to
document what I saw this morning. I arrived at four
point thirty, as I always do. The library was locked.
I checked twice last night before leaving. Twenty years of
locking this place up. I know when a door's been opened.
These hadn't. But in the children's section I found them.
Five children standing in a perfect circle, facing outward, completely
still not breathing that I could see, just standing. They
were bone dry, even though it's been raining for three
days straight. The Henderson boy, the Patterson Girl, Little Timothy Brennan,
the Ashford twins, all in their school uniforms. Their eyes
were wrong, clouded, like looking at fog through glass. When
I called out, no response. When I touched Timothy's shoulder,
the cold burned through my shirt. That's when they moved,
all at once, like puppets on the same string. They
placed their books back on the shelves, turned and walked out,
single file through the doors through them. The wood didn't open,
they just passed through, like the doors weren't even there.
But they left something behind, small wet hand prints on
the books and every book they touched, the words inside
have changed. The store is now all end the same
way they all end with drowning.
Speaker 1: I should explain how i came to possess these recordings,
though I'm still struggling to believe what I've discovered. My
name is Margaret Blackwood, and I've been the head librarian
at Millbrook Public Library for six years now. This morning,
October one, twenty twenty five, I arrived at my usual time,
four point thirty in the morning. I've always preferred the
quiet hours before opening, when I can soort returns and
prepare displays without interruption. The ritual of it, the solitude,
has always calmed me. This morning was different. The smell
hit me first as I unlocked the main entrance. Milled
you and something else, something older, like flowers left too
long in water, That sweet, sick smell of decay. It
was coming from below, not the main basement where we
keep the archives. I know that smell, all dust and
old paper. This was coming from somewhere deeper I followed
it to a door I'd walked past hundreds of times,
painted the same institutional beige as the walls. Easy to miss.
The sign read Foundation Storage eighteen ninety two in fading letters.
In six years, I'd never seen anyone open it. I'd
been told it led to the original stone foundations, that
it was empty except for some broken Victorian furniture no
one had bothered to remove. The door was open, just
a crack, but enough to notice, enough to let that
smell escape. The padlock that should have secured it lay
on the floor, not cut, not broken, melted. The metal
had run like candlewax pooling on the concrete, still warm
to the touch. I should have called someone, the police,
perhaps security, at the very least, that would have been
the sensible thing. But libraries have their own peculiar magnetism,
don't they. They called to those of us who tend them,
and this was my library calling. The stairs beyond the
door were stone worn, smooth by more than a century
of feet. The smell grew stronger as I descended, and
there was something else now sound music, but not quite music,
more like the memory of music, like hearing a song
played in another room. Through water. The sub basement was
not empty. In the center of the room, illuminated by
a light source I couldn't identify. It seemed to come
from the walls themselves. A phosphorescent glow sat a wooden crate.
The wood was so dark it seemed to swallow light,
and it looked untouched by the dampness that permeated everything
else down here. On top of the crate, a yellowed
envelope with my name written in spidery handwriting, four m blackwood,
October first, twenty twenty five. My hands trembled as I
opened the envelope inside a single sheet of paper, the
writing cramped and urgent. Play one per day never more.
The dead grow stronger when rushed. Inside the crate. Thirty
vinyl records in plain black sleeves, no labels, accept dates
October first through October thirty first, written in the same
trembling hand. Beneath them, all wrapped in oilcloth. A photograph
the Millbrook Public Library staff, nineteen seventy four. Five people
stood on the front steps the building, looking almost exactly
as it does now. Four faces I didn't recognize, though
something about their features seemed familiar, But the fifth the
elderly man in the center, with hollow eyes and a
grim expression. I'd seen his portrait upstairs. Silas Crane, head librarian,
disappeared October thirty first, nineteen seventy four. They found blood
in the reference section, too much blood for anyone to
survive losing, but they found him. I brought the crate
to my office, moving as if in a dream. I
don't know why I didn't call the police. Perhaps because
the note had my name, not the librarian, or to
whom it may concern my name specifically, Perhaps because October
has always been a strange month in Millbrook, Perhaps because
I needed to know. I have a record player in
my office, an old thing I bought at an estate
sale three years ago, thinking it quaint. I'd played a
few albums on it, jazz, mostly late at night when
I was working alone. I placed the first record on
the turntable October first, and let the needle find its groove.
Silas Crane's voice filled my office, trembling, afraid but determined
to document what he'd seen. The children he described. I
knew those names. The Hendersons still run the pharmacy on
Main Street. The Pattersons have owned the hardware store for generations.
Timothy Brennan. There's a Timothy Brennan in the elementary school,
now about seven years old. The Ashford Twins. The Ashford
family has twins in every generation. They joke about it
at town gatherings. These were the ancestors of children I
see in the library every week. When the recording ended,
I sat in absolute silence for several minutes, trying to
process what I'd heard. Children walking through solid doors, books,
changing their contents. It had to be madness silas Crane
had suffered some sort of breakdown. That was all. But
then I did what librarians do. I researched the October
nineteen seventy four newspaper archives were made sing, not just misplaced.
The entire month had been cut out of every newspaper.
I could see the careful razor marks where someone had
removed them. The microfiche for that period was black, as
if someone had exposed the film to direct light. When
we digitized our records in the early two thousands, October
nineteen seventy four had somehow been skipped. Every query returned
the same error, files corrupted. But I found other things,
death certificates, filed with the county. Thirty of them, all
dated October nineteen seventy four, all marked cause of death inconclusive,
all signed by the same doctor, doctor Marcus Ashford, who,
according to his own death certificate, had died on October
third of that year, three days after signing the others.
Records showing seven families had abruptly left Millbrook in November
nineteen seventy four, selling their homes for far below market value,
school enrollment records showing a sudden drop of forty three
students between September and November nineteen seventy four, and in
the police files a single report dated November one, nineteen
seventy four, signed by Detective James Morrison. Investigations suspended per
maural order, town curfew lifted, no further action required, No
further action required, thirty people dead, a librarian missing, families
fleeing town and no further action required. I returned to
my office shaking. Now the sun had risen while I
was in the archives, and the library would open in
an hour. I needed to check the children's section, needed
to prove to myself that Silas's recording was just the
delusion of a troubled Man. The children's section was exactly
as I'd left it yesterday evening, every book in its place,
no sign of disturbance. I laughed at myself, actually laughed
out loud at my own foolishness. Ghost Stories, October nonsense.
Then I saw them, the handprints, small, wet, fresh on
five books pulled slightly forward on the shelf, as if
recently replaced The Little Engine that Could, Curious George, Where
the Wild Things Are? Good Night Moon, The Cat in
the Hat. Classic children's books, books that have been in
our collection, and for decades, books that I've read aloud
hundreds of times at story hour. My hands trembled as
I pulled out the Little Engine that Could, the familiar
story of determination and perseverance. I knew it by heart,
the little blue engine chugging up the mountain, carrying toys
and treats to the children on the other side, repeating
I think I can, I Think I can. But as
I turned the pages, the words began to change subtly,
at first a word here, a phrase there. The mountain
became steeper, the cargo heavier. The other engines that refused
to help were no longer too tired, or too important
they were afraid. By the final pages, the story had
transformed completely. The little engine wasn't climbing anymore. It was
sinking down into dark water that had somehow flooded the valley,
still saying I think I can, I think I can,
as the black water filled its smokestacks as it pulled
the toys and treats and the children who'd been waiting
down into the depths with it. The last line, which
should have read I thought I could, now read I
thought I could float. I checked another curious George. George's
adventures now led him to a river that hadn't been
there before. Every curiosity drew him deeper into the water.
The man with the yellow hat tried to save him,
but George was too curious about what lay beneath the surface.
The final illustration, which should have shown George safe in bed,
now depicted him floating face down in still water, the
yellow hat drifting near by where the wild things are.
Max's journey to the Land of the wild Things now
ended with his boat sinking, the wild things watching from
the shore as the waves closed over his wolf suit,
and Max, the King of all wild things, was finally
still every book, every single book those children had touched.
But here's what truly terrified me. Here's what made me
understand that this wasn't just about nineteen seventy four. At
eleven o'clock this morning, just twenty minutes ago, I heard
the front door chime. The library wasn't open yet. The
doors were still locked. I know, because I had just
checked them. But in the children's section stood five children
in a perfect ze, facing outward. Not the same children
from nineteen seventy four. These were children I knew, children
from today. Little Sarah Henderson from the pharmacy family. Marcus Patterson,
whose father runs the hardware store. Timothy Brennan, seven years old,
same as his namesake from fifty years ago. The Ashford Twins,
identical girls with identical blank stairs. Their eyes were clouded
like fog through glass. Their clothes were bone dry. Though
I could hear the rain hammering against the windows, they
stood perfectly still, not breathing that I could see. I
called out, children, how did you get in here? They
moved in perfect unison, turned toward me, walked single file
to the shelf. Each pulled out a book, books that
hadn't been there before, books with titles I didn't recognize,
and placed them carefully on the shelf. Then they walked
toward the door, through the door, through the solid wood.
I ran to the window and watched them disperse in
different directions, walking through the rain without getting wet, passing
through cars and walls as if they weren't there. The
books they left behind are all the same, blank covers,
blank pages, except for the first page of each, which
bears a single sentence. The pattern begins again. It's starting again.
Whatever happened in October nineteen seventy four is happening now,
and I have twenty nine more recordings to play, twenty
nine more days to understand what's coming. I've made a decision.
I'll play one record each day as instruction. I'll document
what I learn, what I see, what happens in Millbrook
as October progresses. Silas left these for me. Specifically, my
name was on that envelope, which means either he knew
I would be the librarian in twenty twenty five, or
something else ensured I would be. Either possibility terrifies me.
The sun is setting now, the library is closed. I'm
alone here with the shadows growing longer and the sound
of something that might be footsteps in the sub basement,
something that might be Silas Crane, still walking his rounds,
still checking the locks, still trying to protect his library
from what's coming. Tomorrow, I'll play October second. Tomorrow, I'll
learn about the thing in Missus Davidson's walls. Tonight I'll
be checking the locks twice, though I suspect, given what
I've seen, that locks mean nothing to what's coming. The
children can walk through doors, and the children are just
the beginning.
Speaker 2: Ghost Scary Stories is a production of Calaoga Shark Media.
Some elements of AI may have been used in this production,
but it was written, edited, mixed, and produced by Real
Live People Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott.