The Black Tapes S02E01 - Sleepless in Seattle

Alex Reagan: Last season, we discovered that Coralee Strand, Richard Strand’s long-lost and presumed-dead wife, was alive, well, and living in Tahoe, and that Sexy James Bond, the mysterious stranger who stole Richard’s DNA and forced me to change my underwear, is actually a mysterious billionaire named Thomas Warren. My producer, good friend, and unhinged lunatic Nic Sliver helped me think all of this through:

Nic Silver: Okay Alex, let’s start with Keith Dabbic, friend and bandmate of Simon Reese! Any updates on his whereabouts?

Alex Reagan: Nope!

Nic Silver: All right, how about mysterious composer and possible Satanist Percival Black?

Alex Reagan: No idea!

Nic Silver: Well then, how about Edward Lewis and the brothers of the mount? Any clues as to their goals or motives?

Alex Reagan: Absolutely not!

Nic Silver: Okay … well, what have you uncovered about Thomas Warren, CEO of Daeva Corp and possible lynchpin of this whole cabal?

Alex Reagan: He sure is cute!

Nic Silver: Do you … maybe think he’s the Advocate?

Alex Reagan: Maybe!

Nic Silver: Jesus Ch … okay, thanks Alex. Talk to you soon.

Alex Reagan: Bye bye!

Alex Reagan: It’s been three months since that conversation, and in that time a lot has happened. None of it related to the above topics of interest, or really to the Black Tapes at all, but I have taught myself how to crochet, and made myself a very fetching scarf, and Nic and I started a coed kickball team, but we had to shut it down when the other members kept getting kidnapped and tortured for information about “the coming conflagration,” whatever that means. I assume it’s a new thrift store in Seattle.

Richard Strand: Hey Alex, I just wanted to touch base with a couple of minor issues with how you’ve been editing my statements. For example, when I said “the light passing through the window seemed to create the image of a cross on the south wall,” you left out the part where I said “but that is unintentional, and not really in keeping with traditional sacred geometry.”

Also, in the Simon Reese investigation, you didn’t include some of the ways I pointed out Reese could have faked his so-called paranormal abilities.

Oh, and then there was that time I said “this is clearly a case of misinterpreted evidence. It would be silly to suggest that a sinister conspiracy is about to unleash a plague of shadow demons upon an unprepared world,” but you edited it to say “this is clearly evidence that a sinister conspiracy is about to unleash a plague of shadow demons upon an unprepared world.” That was kind bullshit.

Finally, LEAVE MY GODDAMNED WIFE OUT OF YOUR GODDAMNED PODCAST YOU TALENTLESS TMZ WANNABE HACK.

Alex Reagan: I’m sorry, could you be a bit more specific about your concerns regarding tone and editing?

Richard Strand: Hey, maybe go fuck yourself?

Alex Reagan: beep boop boop beep beep beep boop boop beep boop

Ruby Carver: Hello, this is Ruby Carver, unpaid intern and interim CEO of the Strand Institute for Plausible Explanations. Richard Strand is currently experiencing a mental breakdown, and is unable to take your calls at this time. For paranormal debunking, please contact Penn Jillette. For an alternative million dollar prize, please contact James Randie. For help with the PNWS investigation into Richard’s private affairs, please go fuck yourself. Have a nice day!

Rebecca Yee: Hi Alex! I’ve been emailing you obsessively every day for the past three months, but you must have missed all my messages, so I decided to track you down in person! Hope that isn’t creepy!

Anyway my husband was killed by a drunk driver, so I’m the single mother of a darling little girl named Katie. Unfortunately, Katie seems to be the epicenter of some terrible occult phenomena!

For instance, she will stand up in her bed at night, chanting dark songs and laughing about the terrible fates set to befall humanity! And sometimes I’ll leave the room, and come back to find all of the furniture moved, as if someone was making space for a dark ritual! Oh, and there was this one time a crow committed suicide by flying through our window, and the trail of its blood spelled out the blasphemous name of a forgotten elder god!

Alex Reagan: Okay, so the bird thing is creepy, but I don’t see how it stands up as proof of the supernatural.

Rebecca Yee: Oh yeah? Well what about this shadow in the middle of the floor?

Alex Reagan: It could be … the crow’s shadow?

Rebecca Yee: Or it could be Satan! Anyway, we fled out home and moved into a hotel room. Our neighbor said birds fly into her window all the time, because the building is tall and the windows are mirrored, but we all know that’s bullshit, right? Like there’s no way a bird would just “fly into” something that looks exactly like the “sky” to its peanut-sized brain, right?

Oh, and then there was this time I was in the shower, and I heard something knocking on the bathroom door, and I thought it was my daughter, so I told her to come in, but the thing just kept banging and banging and banging, and it scarred me because my daughter is a tiny weakling who couldn’t have made all that noise, and when I opened the door there was nobody there, and when I went to check on Katie, she was just staring at me and smiling this super creepy smile, and then she told me that “he” was the one banging on the door!

Alex Reagan: And did you catch this on the nanny cam?

Rebecca Yee: Yes I did! Here you can see my daughter drawing in her notebook, and here you can see her walking mechanically toward the camera, and here you can see her staring into the camera with the dead and soulless eyes of the irredeemably damned, and here you can see my door banging and slamming, with nobody at all to bang or slam, and here you can see my daughter pointing to the seven foot tall shadow monster she claims is her best friend in the whole wide world, and here you can see the blackened form of some unknowable abomination moving between Katie and the camera!

Alex Reagan: Hey, have you sent this to the Strand institute by any chance?

Rebecca Yee: Of course! Hey, did you know that there are at least twenty-seven technical terms for “your mind is playing tricks on you?” Because thanks to Richard Strand, I sure do!

Alex Reagan: Hey, what’s with all the sacred geometry carved into the floor beneath your daughter’s bed?

Rebecca Yee: Oh yeah, those! Maybe I should have led with that, huh? Also these markings are identical to the unholy sigils she draws in Crayola after slipping into a mystical trance right after her juicy-juice.

So what do you think? Is my kid part of a terrible plot to rend open the fabric of reality, or should I make up a few more facts to convince you?

Alex Reagan: beep boop boop beep beep beep boop boop beep boop

Richard Strand: Hello, this is the Strand Institute for Intractable Denial. If you have so-called evidence of the so-called paranormal, please press ‘1’. If you would like assistance in debunking a spurious claim made by a gullible loved one or coworker, please press ‘2’. If you are an amoral tabloid writer masquerading as a journalist who has to publish her work as a podcast because no reputable outlet will sully their reputation by being associated with her, please go fuck yourself with your portable microphone.

Alex Reagan: In our intro, we promised you an update on Amalia, who is both our hired investigator, searching for Keith Dabbic and Percival Black in Russia, and Nic’s former lover. She received a series of threatening messages while investigating the Black Tapes for us, and then vanished from the face of the earth. We’re super worried for her, but her mother insists she’s just banging some Ukrainian chick on the side. I have a terrible feeling that something is wrong, but since my investigation skills begin and end with googling “amalia where are you?” and since that just brings up her number in my contact list, I’m at a loss.

Also, Nic felt like I should tell you that I’ve been experiencing what my doctor calls “chronic insomnia coupled with emerging paranoia, hypnogogic hallucinations, signs of PTSD, and possible megalomania, given how frequently I weave an implausible tale of conspiracy and magic which makes my podcast seem like the center of a vast, world-shaking plot.”

Anyway, I don’t sleep real well anymore, so I drink a bunch.

Elizabeth Sawyer: Hi Alex! I heard you wanted to talk about my nanny duties for Rebecca Yee?

Alex Reagan: Yes, and the more salacious details you can include the better!

Elizabeth Sawyer: Well, how about the fact that she’s become an obsessive fan of The Black Tapes Podcast, and how she has carefully refined her story, changing details and claims with pathological ease, until she had woven a tale that she was sure would catch your attention? Or the fact that she doesn’t sleep anymore, but instead sits alone in her room, staring at the wall, rocking back and forth and chanting to some dark deity? Or how she carved a bunch of sigils into her daughter’s floor, and then accused me of doing it?

Alex Reagan: Why yes, those are exactly the kinds of details I was looking for!

Nic Silver: Hey, I talked to Ruby at the Strand Institute for Knee Jerk Denial. One, she’s apparently appointed herself “Executive Overlord and Minister of All Truth.” Two, she has a bitching new nose ring. And three, she told me Richard will not be available for comment until, quote, “Alex grows a goddamned brain, and perhaps a moral conscience, and agrees to focus on scientific investigation rather than salacious personal details surrounding the disappearance of a woman she clearly sees as a romantic competitor,” unquote.

Also, it turns out most of Strand’s investigations, residencies, and public talks, and it turns out that the majority of his funding comes from –

Alex Reagan: Thomas Warren and Daeva Corp! Holy shit Nic! This blows the lid off of everything! I am going to hop on a plane and fly to Chicago right this minute and confront Richard with this indisputable evidence!

Nic Silver: Um actually the company isn’t connected to Warren in any discernible way, and is located like a block away from PNWS … and she’s gone. I knew I shouldn’t have given her a company credit card.

Alex Regan: Hey Ruby, since we can now afford a voice actor for you, would you mind appearing on our podcast?

Ruby Carver: Absolutely! I have exactly fifteen seconds to devote to your useless speculation and illogical conclusions!

Alex Regan: Oh, I actually didn’t have any questions prepared for you, but I was hoping you could leave the room real quick so I could poke around where I don’t belong!

Ruby Carver: Well, I do need to go file these papers, and Dr. Strand’s office is over there, so why don’t you go ahead and check out the Wall of Weird he has set up in what I have stared calling Insane Investigations Incorporated!

Alex Regan: Awesome! Should I pick the lock or …

Richard Strand: Or … why don’t you let me open the door for you?

PNWS BOOM

Alex Reagan: And just like that, Dr. Strand was back. Join us next week, when Richard makes a complete mockery of my attempts to investigate Rebecca Yee’s claims; Amalia, or a very convincing pod person pretending to be Amalia, turns up; and I breathe a sigh of relief as the weight of being at all skeptical or objective is finally, after these long, long minutes, lifted from my shoulders. It’s The Black Tapes Podcast, and we’ll be back in two weeks.