[CLICK]
[BACKGROUND NOISE OF CROWDED AIRPORT]
ARCHIVIST: I’ve, uh, just touched her in O’Hare International Airport, following up on the address I received from Xiaoling.
ARCHIVIST: Apparently they were staying in West Pullman, Chicago. At least, they were when Gertrude requested the statements forwarded on to them. I’m going to get a hotel and follow up the address tomorrow.
ARCHIVIST: I wouldn’t normally bother recording here, but I think… I thought I was being followed.
ARCHIVIST: (sigh) I might just be jumpy. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST: The address didn’t really pan out. The place deals in short-term rentals, and a dozen people must have gone through that apartment since Gertrude and Gerard stayed there.
ARCHIVIST: The owner did remember her - “that old Brit and her son” - but he said anything they left behind was either sold or thrown out. They did leave a forwarding address, of sorts: anything that came was to be sent on to the Usher Foundation in Washington, DC. Who, I assume, would send it on to the Magnus Institute.
ARCHIVIST: I asked him about circuses around at the time, and he said he didn’t remember there being one, but a few nights while Gertrude was there, he had heard music - “like one of those little organs” - coming from West Pullman Park.
ARCHIVIST: I’m planning to make the journey down to Washington in the hopes that Gertrude might have visited the Usher Foundation. According to our earlier emails, they don’t have any record of it on file, but… (sigh)
ARCHIVIST: I did notice however the one of the Greyhound routes there goes through Pittsburgh. Now, according to the details Melanie retrieved a few months back, Pittsburgh is where Gerard Keay allegedly died. He was admitted to UPMC Presbyterian emergency department having suffered a massive seizure, and died less than a day later. I think I might have to pay a visit and ask around.
ARCHIVIST: …
ARCHIVIST: (sigh) Also, I’m definitely being followed.
ARCHIVIST: There’s a police officer, I saw him at the airport as well, he stood out a bit because he wasn’t immigration, or TSA or anything like that. He just, he just looked like a Chicago beat cop.
ARCHIVIST: Well, I saw him again today. And I’m pretty sure he was watching me.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST: (hoarsely, wheezing intermittently) The, the hospital was, the hospital was interesting. It’s all very well being able to get people to answer your questions, but if they genuinely don’t remember something, it’s not always as useful as it seems.
ARCHIVIST: I only found one person, Louis Brown, a nurse, who recalls working the night Gerard Keay was admitted. His “mother” was with him - and I almost feel like Gertrude took a perverse joy in the pretense - she explained his condition to the doctor, though could apparently offer no good reason he wasn’t in full-time treatment, as his cancer was by this point… very advanced. (sigh) They did everything they could to save him, but he had a second seizure shortly after he was admitted, and there was nothing they could do.
ARCHIVIST: Unless he was somehow able to lie to me this nurse, Louis, honestly believes Gerard Keay is dead. (sigh) Maybe I came all this way for nothing.
ARCHIVIST: …
ARCHIVIST: There’s one thing I very much do need to follow up on, though. Apparently Gertrude was arrested shortly afterwards. Louis only heard about this secondhand, but she was… apparently… caught breaking into the morgue… where Gerard’s body was being kept…
ARCHIVIST: I need some sleep.
ARCHIVIST: I haven’t seen a cop since I left Chicago, so maybe I was wrong.
ARCHIVIST: …
ARCHIVIST: I’m not feeling so good.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST: (hoarse, sluggish- and vague-sounding) I’ve been looking into Gertrude’s arrest. I couldn’t get through to Melanie, but Martin managed to find a few details online.
ARCHIVIST: Gertrude was arrested for trespassing, but released shortly afterwards without being charged. I managed to track down the arresting officer, one Jay Rebecks, who said that she’d been found over the body of Gerard Keay reading from a large, strangely-shaped book.
ARCHIVIST: They’d been unable to determine if the mutilations on Gerard’s body had been done by her, and in the end she somehow managed to talk them out of pressing charges.
ARCHIVIST: Officer Rebecks didn’t remember what she’d said, but he did recall that she’d never returned for the book. It was sitting in evidence for almost a year before, as far as Rebecks was aware, it simply vanished.
ARCHIVIST: I, I don’t really know what to make of any of this. I’m, uh, I’m confused, I’m, I’m dizzy, I, I think I saw the police officer from Chicago again, in the station where I was talking to Rebecks.
ARCHIVIST: I…
ARCHIVIST: I’m not… feeling well…
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST: (very hoarse) Elias has, um…
ARCHIVIST: I, I, got a letter, well, an envelope… it’s, it’s a statement. There’s, there’s a note, “to tide you over,” and, uh…
ARCHIVIST: …
ARCHIVIST: Statement of Howard Ewing, regarding his interview with an unidentified member of British Transport Police. Original statement given February 1st, 2010. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
ARCHIVIST: Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): The room is hot. It’s small and there are no windows, and the table is sheet metal. It shouldn’t be so hot in January, but I think maybe they’ve just got the heating turned up too high. When I rest my arm on the table too long, I can see the patches of sweat on the smooth surface as I lift them up again. I’ve asked for water so many times, and he always says it’s coming, but it hasn’t come yet.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): He just sits there. He’s wearing the uniform of the British Transport Police. Three pips on his shoulder, but he won’t show me his badge, he won’t show me any ID.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): Why are they doing this? I didn’t do anything. The officers that brought me here were friendly, kind. It was only after they left and it got so hot and he started sitting across from me.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): He’s smiling, asking me questions again and again.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What were you doing earlier tonight?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): My job, I was doing my job. Cleaning Moorgate Station. Me and Kelly and Vihan were the night cleaners and that’s what we were doing. We’d done the ticket office and the corridors and the entrances and we were getting started on the platforms. Why is that so hard for him to understand?
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): He laughs, and I wince as sweat drops into my eye.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “When did you first notice something was wrong?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): We had just started work on the platform itself when we heard the tannoy come on. I don’t know how. As far as I kne, it wasn’t even powered. But there was that slight crackle and then: “this is a security announcement”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): We all waited, confused, but what came out next sounded muffled, like it was coming up through five feet of water. I couldn’t make out any of the words, and from the looks on their faces, neither could my colleagues. We strained to listen, but after a few seconds it was silent again.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): We all looked at each other and Vihan started to shrug when there came an incredible shrieking noise from the speakers. It felt like needles through my eardrums, and it was all I could do to stay upright. I saw Kelly fall to the floor clutching her head.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): Then it stopped completely, and we all looked at each other again, catching our breath, trying to figure out who to report this to, and how.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “How did you become aware of the train?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): The first thing I noticed was the smell. Even before the noise or the heat, there was a sticky greasy smell in the air, like burning chemicals and spoiled bacon. I tried to figure out where it was coming from, and I realized it got stronger the closer to the tunnel mouth I moved. By the time I reached the end of the platform I was almost gagging.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): The others looked like they had mostly recovered from the screeching tannoy, and were noticing my odd movements and came over to investigate themselves.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I saw Vihan pull a face as he approached, and I pointed weakly to the opening of the tunnel. I carefully climbed down onto the tracks and looked out into the dark that led to Old Street. That’s when I saw it.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What did the carriage look like?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): It was hard to tell through the flames. They were all over it, curling and writhing and crawling through the crevices in the wreckage. It wasn’t intact, though. Parts of it were clearly crumpled and broken, and I saw shards of steel and glass embedded in the wall. It was lit by the dim red flames.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What did it look like?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): There were people still inside. I could see them, arms and heads reaching out of broken windows and split metal, blackened and rendered almost unrecognizable by the fire and the heat, but they still moved and twitched and cried out in pain and terror, scratching at the edge of their burning metal tomb. But everything was choked and surrounded by a thick acrid black smoke that stunned my eyes and lungs, so nothing seemed the same from one moment to the next.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What did it look like?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): It looked like hell.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What did you hear?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): Everything. The tunnel echoed and funneled the sounds until I could hear every agonized cry, every pop and crackle of the fire, the groaning of metal that matched the groaning of the wounded and the dying, it all hit me at once, like the tunnel was pushing the tidal wave of sound out just for me. The shape was perfect for a terrible screaming oven.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): From behind me I heard the shouts of Kelly and Rehan, though I don’t know if it was because they saw it, too, or because they saw me fall to my knees in horror.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I could hear the tannoy again, now clearly speaking: “Will Inspector Sands please report, will Inspector Sands please report,” over and over again.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): He smiles, and the tiny room gets hotter.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “Who is Inspector Sands?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): It’s a code, one of the codes we use to alert staff to situations of disaster or fire. It usually means there’s a fire. It’s to keep people calm. It’s meant to not cause any panic, keep them safe, even if there’s an emergency.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): He laughs, and I wish I could go home.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “How many people were on the train?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I don’t know.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What sort of train carriage was it?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I don’t know.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “Where did it come from?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I don’t know.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “Did you scream?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): Yes.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): At least I think so. The back of my throat was dry and hot and painful, so my mouth must have been open. I think I was screaming.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What were your colleagues doing?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): Vihan was gripping me by the shoulders, shaking me, yelling at me to wake up. But I was awake, I was wide awake, and I think in some ways he was talking to himself. Kelly was walking past me, trying to battle through the choking rancid smoke.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I hope she was planning to try and rescue those trapped in the wreckage, but maybe she was simply trying to join them.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I couldn’t do anything to help either of them, and I knew that if I touched them I would burn them.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): He inhales as if in triumph.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “And where are they now?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): They’re dead.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): At least that’s what I was told when the officers brought me here.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): They found no wreckage, nothing in the tunnels, no corpses wailing through an underground inferno, just the dead and burnt bodies of Kelly Dwyer and Vihan Prasad.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What do you love most in the world?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): The question sends a shock through my whole body. I know this is what he wants, all he truly cares about. I want to lie, to say that I love nothing and nobody, that I am alone in the world, and he’ll have to look elsewhere. My tongue burns in my mouth as I try to keep it still.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “What do you love most in the world?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): My father. I love my father more than anything.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): “Who am I?”
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I don’t answer, and he lets me leave.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): My father is dead a week later.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): A heart attack at the age of 63. Everyone is surprised and saddened, but not shocked. I try to tell myself it’s a coincidence, that a heart attack is the most natural death in the world, but at the funeral, despite arranging it myself, despite selecting the burial plot and the headstone, I watch as they take my father off for cremation, and nobody can tell me why. They simply say how sorry they are for my loss, and hand me my father’s ashes. I don’t want his ashes.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I know he’ll be back, the policeman with three bright pips on his shoulder.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): And he’ll ask me what else I love. And I’ll tell him.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): Then he’ll ask me who he is, and I won’t say.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT): I don’t want to cause any panic.
ARCHIVIST: Statement ends.
ARCHIVIST: …
ARCHIVIST: (sigh) I’m going to bed.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST: I feel… a lot better.
ARCHIVIST: I’d love to rattle off a list of potential other reasons for this - nice rational causes of recovery - but… I think we’re past the point of transparent rationalizations. It looks like the recording of statements has now passed over from psychological compulsion into a more physical dependence.
ARCHIVIST: I don’t know whether this is some sort of classical addiction, or something a bit deeper. But either way, this is not the time for experimentation. I am on a deadline, and if I need to be reading statements to stay well enough, then I suppose that’s what I shall do.
ARCHIVIST: What irritates me most is that Elias was clearly aware of this, hence his sending me this, which seems to serve no other purpose but as a restorative. But, as usual, he chose to keep this very useful information to himself.
ARCHIVIST: I think I’ve reached another dead end here. I’ve decided it’s the last one. The Institute needs me there, not jetting around the world following a cold trail that may well not have led to anything useful the first time.
ARCHIVIST: (sigh) I’ve a Greyhound booked down to Washington DC tomorrow. I’m going to stop in at the Usher Foundation, just in case they have anything that might help, and then I’m flying home.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST: I’m at a rest stop. The, uh, the buses, they’re, they’re giving us a comfort break, but there’s, there’s a woman here in the cafe, the diner, whatever. I’ve seen her car, I think she’s following the bus. She’s early 30s, I think, dressed nondescript: hard-wearing denim, old leather.
ARCHIVIST: And she is… definitely watching me. She doesn’t look like - she’s coming over, I think -
ARCHIVIST: Hello? Uhh, can I… help you?
WOMAN: Sure. Whatever you’re reaching for, don’t.
ARCHIVIST: I… what?
WOMAN: Keep your hands on the table, and we can all walk away from this.
ARCHIVIST: You, you’re English.
WOMAN: So are you. Ah-ah! Hands on the table.
ARCHIVIST: Who are you?
WOMAN: Julia. Who are you?
ARCHIVIST: Uh… uh, you don’t know me?
JULIA: Should I?
ARCHIVIST: No, I-I guess! Just, uh, I mean everyone normally seems to.
JULIA: Hm. Good for you.
ARCHIVIST: N-not really.
JULIA: So, who are you?
ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, uh, Jonathan! - uh, John. Sims. Uh, I’m the Head Archivist for the Magnus Institute. London.
JULIA: Oh, you don’t say. So what brings you down to the I-70. Pennsylvania.
ARCHIVIST: Uh, look, I mean… you’re the one following me.
JULIA: We were told you were asking some interesting questions around a few places back in Pittsburgh. And you seem to have attracted the attention of something we’ve been watching for a while.
ARCHIVIST: …uh… my, my bus is leaving…
JULIA: Let it. You’re riding with me.
ARCHIVIST: I don’t think so.
JULIA: Then try to run.
JULIA: Go on.
ARCHIVIST: So… kidnapped. Again.
JULIA: Think of it like… an escort. Personal bodyguard.
JULIA: You’re heading to DC, right? Come on, we can chat in the car. I’m sure you’ve got a ton of librarian stories. The miles will just fly by.
ARCHIVIST: Do I have any choice?
JULIA: If you did you’d only make a mistake.
[ARCHIVIST SIGHS]
JULIA: Come on.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
[SOUNDS OF INSIDE OF MOVING CAR]
ARCHIVIST: …are you alright? You seem, uh…
JULIA: Sure. Just keeping an eye out. Waiting, you know.
JULIA: …
JULIA: So you’re from the Magnus Institute?
ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. You, you know the Institute…?
JULIA: Oh, yeah. Checked myself in there a while back. Ended up spilling my guts to this old woman about my dad. Just, letting it all out.
ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, that would be Gertrude. My, my predecessor.
JULIA: Didn’t catch her name.
JULIA: Weirdest thing, really. Didn’t mean to spill half of it, but… really helped me put the pieces together. You know?
ARCHIVIST: Uh, I’m starting to.
JULIA: Hm.
JULIA: You still haven’t told me what you’re doing this side of the pond. Or why you’re asking around about Gerard Keay.
ARCHIVIST: Uh (nervous laugh)… would you… believe me if I said I was trying to save the world?
JULIA: Probably not.
ARCHIVIST: …
ARCHIVIST: What about you?
ARCHIVIST: What brings the daughter of Robert Montauk all the way out here? And why, exactly are you -
[SIRENS AS POLICE CAR APPROACHES]
[JULIA PULLS OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD]
JULIA: (quietly) Hunting.
[FOOTSTEPS AS POLICE OFFICER APPROACHES]
[TAP ON WINDOW; JULIA ROLLS IT DOWN]
POLICE OFFICER: License and registration.
JULIA: Can I see some ID, please?
POLICE OFFICER: Of course… you British?
JULIA: I have my green card, Officer… Mustermann.
MUSTERMANN: And your friend?
JULIA: Visiting from home!
ARCHIVIST: Julia…
MUSTERMANN: Does he have his passport on him?
ARCHIVIST: Julia.
JULIA: I assume so. Can’t say I asked him - John.
ARCHIVIST: J-J-Julia, I-I don’t, I don’t think - ah…
MUSTERMANN: Step out of the car, please, sir.
JULIA: Now, hang on a second.
MUSTERMANN: Step out. Of the car.
[TWO METALLIC CLUNKING SOUNDS]
MUSTERMANN: Pop the trunk, ma’am.
JULIA: I mean, there’s nothing in there.
MUSTERMANN: I’m not gonna ask you again.
JULIA: …
JULIA: Fine.
MUSTERMANN: Don’t move. Either one of you.
[FOOTSTEPS]
[SOUND OF TRUNK BEING OPENED]
MUSTERMANN: HOLY SH -
[A GUNSHOT]
[JULIA LAUGHS AS MUSTERMANN SWEARS AND SHOUTS]
[ANOTHER GUNSHOT]
[GRUNTING]
[FOOTSTEPS]
MAN: Oh, bloody hell, Jule. You said he’d stop after a couple of miles. Been near on an hour.
MAN: Ohhh, look at my neck, it don’t feel right…
JULIA: Oh, you knew it might take a while.
MAN: This him, then?
JULIA: It is. John, Trevor.
ARCHIVIST: Uh - T-Trevor Herbert, the, the Vampire Killer!
TREVOR: Julia…
JULIA: He works for the Magnus Institute. He’s read all about us.
TREVOR: Oh. Well, isn’t that something.
JULIA: My thoughts exactly.
TREVOR: Time for that later. You two help me now, this one needs its head off.
JULIA: You didn’t kill it?!
TREVOR: We don’t know what it is yet, do we?
JULIA: Ugh!
ARCHIVIST: What, the, the, the police officer? I think I have an idea.
TREVOR: Oh-ho! Do you now. Then you get the axe. It’s in the boot.
ARCHIVIST: I-I-I, I don’t…
JULIA: Come on.
ARCHIVIST: …right. Uh…