The Black Tapes S01E06 - The Devil's Door

Alex: So far, my least favorite aspects of this podcast, which is like radio for the internet, have been the creepy credit union mental hospital and the possibility of demon possession. So of course this week Dr. Strand is dragging me to an asylum to meet with a boy who murdered the ever loving shit out of his parents in a fit of apparent demonomania. I’m starting to think Dr. Strand doesn’t like me very much.

Richard Strand: I don’t know why you could possibly think that. I mean sure, I’m being endlessly harassed by so-called journalists, and I’ve been invited to debate a creationist on CNN, and been overwhelmed by the attention heaped upon me due to your podcast, but why would I ever hold a grudge?

Alex: I thought you wanted publicity?

Richard Strand: I wanted publicity for my acute mental abilities and precise logic, not for the “rumors” that I “murdered” my wife in a fit of “demonic rage!”

Alex: And you don’t see why anyone would be interested in that?

Richard Strand: No I do not, and I resent the implication. Now if you will excuse me, I need to storm off in the first of many huffs.

Alex: Since Dr. Strand was no longer willing to offer his keen insight into the supernatural, I turned to Sanford Haynes, author of The Consolation of Ghosts: Why Bullshit Stories Make Us Warm and Fuzzy.

Sanford Haynes: Look, when it comes to the afterlife, we’re all just making shit up. But I happen to think that my horseshit theories are just as reasonable as anyone else’s, and also quite profitable comforting to those who believe it. Also Richard Strand is a giant poopey head.

Fred Barnes: Hi Alex, huge fan of the podcast. Anyway, I’m the health care manager at Three Rivers State Hospital, and I kinda need a favor. See, we’ve got this kid named Simon Reese who can hear your secrets whispered in the shadows, and reach out through the darkness to throttle the life from your helpless form, and the staff are really hoping Dr. Strand can drop by and explain exactly how full of shit we are, because the alternative is so mind-shatteringly terrifying that it threatens to drive us all insane, which is ironic given that we’re all caretakers at a mental facility.

Nic Silver: In a shocking coincidence, Simon Reese was also the subject of a Pacific Northwest Stories episode we just uncovered from our archives!

Alex: Was he the kid who overcame his crushing social anxiety and became the world’s foremost expert on the migratory patterns of butterflies?

Nic Silver: No, that was Simon Ross. Simone Reese is the kid who brutally murdered his parents with a butcher knife, somehow managed not to get any blood on himself, and then fell silent, refusing to utter even the quietest word, and interacting with his caretakers through a series of knocks, one for yes, two for no.

Alex: I was really hoping he was the butterfly kid.

Court Psychologist Dr. Hanz Holder: Hi Simon! Do you remember the night your parents died?

Simon Reese: [knock]

Court Psychologist Dr. Hanz Holder: And were you in the room when your parents died?

Simon Reese: [knock]

Court Psychologist Dr. Hanz Holder: Okay, and did you–

Simon Reese: [knock knock]

Court Psychologist Dr. Hanz Holder: Wait, were you in the room or not?

Simon Reese: [knock knock knock]

Court Psychologist Dr. Hanz Holder: Hold on, are you claiming that you were in two places at once?

Simon Reese: [knock]

Court Psychologist Dr. Hanz Holder: Wait wait wait, are you claiming the supernatural ability to be in two places at once, and that the brutal murder of your parents was a result in a demonic force that has been stalking your family for generations, its dark tendrils wrapped around your ancestral tree, its vile fruit now manifesting in your life, food for the dark god that will rend open the veil and lay claim to our shattered reality?

Simon Reese: [knock knock knock knock knock knock knock]

Fred Barnes: Hi Alex, I made a video to show you Simon’s room, and hopefully explain why we’re so confused and concerned. As you can see, it’s a pretty normal holding cell for a psychiatric patient. Here’s the window, with bars spaced just wide enough to allow a slender figure to slip through. Here’s the video camera, with a frayed, faulty wire running back to our recording equipment. This is the 1970s style bed, made from thin metal slats that could be easily pulled off and used as a weapon. And here’s the complicated and unsettling sacred geometry Simon painted on his wall, a mural he calls “the mathematics of the great unmaking,” dedicated to someone he calls “the false god of the forever night, he who sees all yet is blind, the one who stalks, the one who must be sated, the one who cannot be appeased.” We like to encourage our patient’s art projects. We’ve found it has a calming effect.

And now we’re in Trent Orville’s room. As you can see, the camera is pointed up at the ceiling, because the mounting bracket broke five years ago and we don’t have the budget to replace it. The bars in the window have been chiseled out, but we’re a good four feet off the ground, so we think it’s still pretty secure. The lock on the door is also faulty, and can be forced open with a solid blow from a shoulder, but Simon is kind of skinny and we don’t think he has the weight required.

So anyway, Trent claims that the spectral apparition of Simon Reese came to him at night, told him Jesus is a big dummyhead, drew another mural, this one entitled “the calculus of the incipient calamity,” and proceeded to throttle him nearly to death. His thrashing drew the attention of our nurse, who was not happy to be torn away from Nic at Night, but responded promptly. He saw a dark figure rushing from Trent’s room, but since patients aren’t allowed out of their cells at night, we assume it must have been a ghost. Any theories?

Simon Reese: Hey guys! I can totally talk now. Just wanted to let you know that I totally murdered my parents.

District Attorney Hang Emhigh: Great! Can you explain the events of that night?

Simon Reese: Happy to! So first I left my body and teleported into their room, and then I used my psychic knife to flay their flesh, and then the overwhelming presence of The Great Deceiver stole from me the gift of speech, which I have only recently recovered through the use of arcane mathematical rituals and a side of ultraviolence!

District Attorney Hang Emhigh: …This is not the compelling testimony I was hoping for.

Fred Barnes: So after careful review, we’ve diagnosed Simon Reese with hyperdisociative antipersonal amnesiatic schizoid apoplexia resulting in catatonic dynamism with an undercurrent of antidyscalculia narcissism.

Alex: Did you just make those words up?

Fred Barnes: Only some of them.

Alex: Hi Trent! Sorry about all the strangling! What can you tell me about Simon Reese?

Trent Orville: Well, I’ve never actually met him, but I have had close personal contact with his astral projection. Also he’s a devil worshipper, and also he hates it when I pray, and also he added a bunch of demon summoning rituals to my super awesome book of trucks and dinosaurs.

Alex: You spend your entire day drawing trucks and dinosaurs?

Trent Orville: I feel like you’re missing the big picture here.

Alex: Hi Dr. Strand, I know you said you didn’t want to be a part of this show anymore, but I have a case I think you might be interested in. You see–

Richard Strand: Oh wow this is awesome! The glyphs on Simon Reese’ wall are Sumerian, and the writing around them is from a proto-babylonian language known only to the most dedicated scholars! The primary recurring theme is the symbol for Marduk, the God with a Fifty Names and creator of the original Tower of Babel. The location of the symbol is also very interesting; it’s positioning relative to the cardinal directions and the movement of the sun indicates that this is a Devil’s Door, a kind of portal that would allow a demonic entity to gain access to our world!

Alex: Dr. Strand this is fascinating! How would you explain Simon having this knowledge, when he’s been institutionalized his entire life, under the constant, wary eye of a team of psychologists and doctors?

Richard Strand: Eh, you know how it is. Kids and the internet. Can’t keep them away form this stuff.

Alex: The Black Tapes Podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Sign up now and enjoy a free audiobook. This week, we recommend So Your Coworker is an Asshole: A Modern Guide to Dealing with Insufferable Shitheads who Think They’re So Damn Smart.

Nic Silver: Alex, that isn’t even a real book.

Aelx: YEAH WELL STRAND ISN’T EVEN A REAL PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR ALL HE DOES IS MAKE EXCUSES AND SCREAM APOPHENIA.

Simon Reese: Hello, Alex. I’ve been watching you. Watching you in your home in Seattle, watching you in your terrycloth robe, sipping your hot mug of coffee in the morning. Watching you at the computer, staring at the flickering screen long into the night, hopeful that one day your journalistic genius will be recognized, but fearful that you’re simply fooling yourself. I’ve watched you cry yourself to sleep at night, so isolated, so alone, convinced that you’ve traded your last chance at true happiness for this thankless job.

Alex: Please, like you couldn’t say that about any unmarried, mid-thirties journalist working for a rag-tag podcast about the paranormal.

Simon Reese: He watches, he knows, and he sees all, but things can still be hidden from him.

Alex: Isn’t that a direct contradiction? If he sees all, how can–

Simon Reese: It’s all a vast equation, plusses and minuses, lines connecting infinite points, mechanisms and means, songs that cannot be heard and music that must not be played, truth inside the chaos, order inside the lies.

Alex: …What?

Simon Reese: Oh for fuck’s … look, someone is creating a door that will unleash a demon that will usher in the apocalypse, you’re right in the middle of it, and he is going to hound you until it shatters the fragile shards of your sanity. Also your bathrobe has a small tear beneath the left arm. Also also I strangled the shit out of Trent with my brain while you were wasting my time here.

Richard Strand: Okay, so after careful investigation, I have determined that all of Simon’s arcane knowledge comes from a collection of Magic: The Gathering cards, the Trent and Simon are in league with each other, attempting to take over their hospital using fear and superstition, and the only paranormal events at the psych center are Dr. Barnes’ supernatural levels of ignorance.

Alex: That’s it?

Richard Strand: Chalk up one more victory for the Strand Institute for Brushing Shit Under the Rug!

Detective Collins: Hey guys, this is the Los Gatos police department. Just wanted to let you know that Sebastian Torres was kidnapped last night, and the only clue if a hastily-scrawled note which reads, and I quote, “the end is nigh and Richard Strand is the key that shall unlock the great ruination,” so if you guys could stop down for a few questions, that’d be swell.

Alex: The Black Tapes Podcast is a production of Pacific Northwest Stories, in association with the National Radio Alliance and Minnow Beats Whale. Join us next time, when I add obstruction of justice to my rapidly growing list of professional failures. I’m Alex Regan, and we’ll be back in two weeks.