S3/E9 | The Mausoleum

was not by my hands. But they still died, and you told them to do it. Do you think they deserve to live? I don't think that was my choice, and it isn't yours either. What would you have done? I don't know, but that can't happen never again. All right back. The children, on the other hand, innocent as they are still drugged and following orders. I think I can outrun some little kids on again. I don't understand what we're doing it cemetery. Take it from me. There's

always some trouble you're on Devil's Night. Kids drink and vandalizing the headstones. One time I swear to God, I broke up what was about to be some kind of satanic ceremony. They're too close. What do you know? There is somebody here? I told you so, all right, Now, come on out. We know you're there. Which way to go? I think back that way behind the big cross. You know you're violating curfew and you're trust passing out of here. I don't want to add resisting arrest. If you come

out now, we'll make it easy on you. How this boy is out, it is entirely up to you. You know I can stop this sick you behind the cross on your feet now run it's doing both. Do you stop right there? Go around, get them from the other side, snored hide You could go in that building. Can you just for a second, where are you going to go? Throw the cops? Okay, I will, but seriously, don't hurt anyone. I will not. Just let them chase me a little. I won't return as soon as I can, how you

tall fella? Yes, officers, we want to talk to you, of course you do, but you will have to catch me first. I get back here in the name of the law. Seems cellib you've got here. Okay, Oh no, no no, no, no, no no no no no no yea, well crap, I could have left me a candle. Is is someone there? What do you want here? I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone else. You shouldn't be here, boy, it isn't your place. I know, I was just hiding, hiding. Why there was? There are some people after me? Again?

I asked why. I didn't mean to intrude. I didn't know there would be anyone else here. I tried to leave, but the door what was that? Did you hear your voice? There's a tremor in it. What is that? Fear? Sadness, a guilty conscience, whatever it is, you are not welcome. This place is sacred, a monument built on hallowed ground, a final resting place, and it deserves respect or resting place for who my daughter? Oh, I'm sorry. She was my entire world and I was hers. When I closed

my eyes, all I see is that face. When I listen into the night, I still hear the musical tone of her voice, like the ringing of a bell. And unlike other pretty girls, she was not jaded by this world. She was perfectly kind, generous, trusting. She sounds like a very nice person nice. Yes, she was nice, two nice. And you know what happens to nice people, They get taken advantage of who happened to her. What happened is she resented me. I devoted every waking moment to that child,

and she resented me for it. I realized now that it was my own fault. I wanted to keep her safe, but in doing so, I kept her isolated, naive to the world and the evils lurking in it. But children, even the innocent, obedient ones, are destined to outgrow their confinement, to find a way to test their boundaries. It was Halloween two years ago to day, a dark, cold, wet night that autumn. It rained like it would never end, swelled the river, overflowed the dam, and saturated every inch

of god forsake and ground. While the other kids were out gallivanting in the streets, taking candy from strangers and getting into god knows what other kinds of trouble, me and my baby were all to ourselves, just like any other night. I put her to bed. I remember standing in the threshold of the door, the shape of her sweet little form buried under the blanket. In the middle of the night, I woke suddenly. The storm outside was raging,

and I figured that's what had stirred me. I left my room and I went back to check on my angel. From the doorway, it looked as if she hadn't moved an inch. I sat down on the bed next to her, just to stroke her hair. I pealed back the covers, and you know what I saw, you do, don't you lo what? Two pillows were stuffed beneath the quilt, and my girl was gone. I tore through every room, praying, please God, let me be wrong, let her just be hiding. But it was pointless. She was not in the house.

If I had slowed down to think, I might have noticed that the window in her room was ajar. But I wasn't thinking. I was panicking. I rushed out into the storm, still in my slippers, no raincoat, no lantern, and no sense of where my little girl had gone. I ran through the streets from one end of town to the other, screaming her name. Who was that? I think you know already. I didn't find her that night.

The next day a search party was launched. The police went door to door, set roadblocks on the highways in and out of town, cleared, the hobo camp ran bloodhounds through the woods. Within a week, they'd dredged the river. We made up posters with her picture, offering a reward for any information. There wasn't a window door or telephone pole in town without my baby's face on it, and nothing happened. A runaway, they called her. I knew my girl would never run away. But even if that was true,

where had she gone. Weeks passed, the rains cleared, the posters yellowed and tore, and still I truly believed that I would see her again, that no one could hurt something so beautiful and sweet. And yet I knew I could feel it, something was hiding in plain sight. I kept my thoughts waking and sleeping on nothing but her, and with every ounce of strength, I embraced that feeling. What is that? You don't know, well, let me tell you. The next fall, the reins returned. All through October. It

stormed and stormed again. The basements flooded again, the river overran and again. The earth everywhere was turned to mud. The pattern, the repetition, it was all too much to bear. And Halloween was the worst of all. I was alone, cooped up in my house, listening to the rain pound the window, thinking the last thing I wanted to do was live through this night again. In that moment, I was ready to end it all. And then outside my

window I heard something. It wasn't clear, maybe more a agend than real, and yet I didn't dare deny it. A tone in the air like that of a ringing bell. I can't imagine why, on that night, of all nights, I would venture out into that storm, and yet that is exactly what I did. I walked calmly forward, certain I had lost my mind, but since I had already lost everything else, what did it matter. I followed the sound with ears I could not trust, but where I

felt it get louder. I went through the neighborhood into town, behind the church and passed the cemetery gate. There I heard a cacapa me like the chiming of a thousand clock towers. Everyone in different tambre and time, some so shrill they pierced the sky, others so deep they shook the earth below. But in the midst of all of it, one voice rang true, like a bell, soft and simple, yet insistent. I trained my senses on that single note

and walked toward it. It led me to the center of the cemetery, away from all the other headstones, to this very spot. My boots sunk into the mud, and there the ringing stopped. You mean right here, right here, m I realized then where I stood the ground had been disturbed, a depression in the earth where no grass groop. It looked like it could have been a grave, only big enough for a child. But there was something wrong about it. It looked shallow, like it hadn't been properly filled,

and the rain had been eating it away. I plunged my bare hands into that sodden ground, and I dug into the black mud, wrist elbow, shoulder deep. The earth was soft and giving and stuck to my skin like tar. It got into my hair, my mouth, and nose. But I just kept digging, and before I knew it, I was crouched at the bottom of a hole. And then my hand found something cold, hard. It was her. Yes, she had led me write to her, But you already

knew that, didn't you. If I had had the chance to bury her, to give her a funeral and have her embalmed, her beautiful little body, her bright countenance, might have stood a chance. But with no casket between her and the wet earth, the elements got the better of her. She was not quite a skeleton yet, but not much more. I promised right there that I would restore her to her former beauty. No, nothing like that was possible now, but we would do the best with what we had.

I began that very morning, carried her home in my arms in the pre dawn light, and got to work. Where she still had skin. I washed and dried and sewed the cracks together where she was only bone. I scrubbed until perfectly white, her eyes, once so blue, now modeled gray. I replaced with jewels, blue moonstones that glitter in the night. For her nose, long eaten away, a button from her favorite dress, onto which I hand painted each of her freckles. For her mouth, the porcelain lips

from her favorite doll. The fit isn't quite right, but they'll do for now. And what wisps of hair as she had left, I washed and curled and tied up in ribbon. Some days I wonder what would happen if I gave her blood a fresh heart. Would she live again? Would you like to see her? No? No, no no, she's lonely after all this time, still so beautiful, Yes, am s S. I had the grave filled in, and above it, I built this mausoleum where nothing could ever hurt her again,

not even time itself. Did you ever find out what happened to her? Funny that you should ask. For the longest time, it remained a mystery. I feared I would never know. And then one came forward, a boy just a little older than she would have been. Couldn't handle the guilt, he said. He certainly waited long enough. And you know what happened. The reason he gave for the murder of my daughter. You do, don't you. It was a joke, a prank. And when I heard him say it,

everything became clear. That's something hiding in plain sight, that uncanny feeling I could not deny. A child buried alive on Halloween. He's more than just a coincidence. It's a story, a tale children tell. They told it long ago. I suspect they tell it now. I believe it was told to me as a girl, that I had heard it before I lived it, and that it was all but forgotten until I heard it again. As the story goes, some time a century ago, there was a banker's daughter

who fell ill. The banker sent for the best doctors, with the finest medicines, the most modern techniques. They did everything they could, but Halloween night she was declared dead in her bed, and to stop the spread of infection, they dragged her body out that very night and buried her in the earth. But the next morning, when they returned, the grave had caved in, and the whole where she had been laid to rest was empty. Now this might

have happened, might have not. But regardless of what was true, a legend was born that every Halloween, that poor forgotten child would arise once more from that unhallowed ground and walk the streets looking for some one, some one else lonely to spend eternity with. Now I don't know where or when, but somehow this boy and his accomplices had gotten to my little girl. They had told her the story of the banker's daughter and given her the idea that because she was so utterly alone, she would be

the perfect bait. And this Halloween, even if she was locked up tight in her room, the banker's daughter would come and get her. Unless they took the steps to prevent it, and the only way to ward off this wandering spirit was to go out Halloween night and leap over an open grave. Knowing my baby, with her simple heart and trusting nature, she probably believed it. Really, they just thought it would be funny that she would be an easy target, and so they dug the grave that

night in the rain. Can you imagine going to such lengths? Well? Can you? And then they came to my house, lured my baby out of her bed, opened her window, and led her into the cemetery. I can't imagine it all. My little girl more nervous than she'd ever been, but I suspect more excited, too exuberant even the chance to have friends play their games be one of the gang, But of course that was hardly their intention. By the time they reached the cemetery, the storm had gotten worse.

The makeshift grave was filled with water and mud, and the edges were slippery and crumbling. One by one, the boys leapt over, ensuring my darling girl that this would keep her safe from the evil spirit, and then, just as she was about to jump, the last boy pushed her in. She hit the bottom and sunk in the mud. She tried to climb out, but the more she struggled,

the deeper the whole got. She cried out for someone to help her, but these boys laughed at her, at her fear, at their successful prank, and they left her there beneath the earth, the storm worsening, the whole filling with water, with no one to hear her scream. The boy who confessed, I swears it wasn't he who pushed her in. He claimed they never thought she'd actually die, that it was all a harmless prank that went too far.

But she did die, suffocating on mud until it filled her mouth, her nose, her lungs, a child entombed in the earth, all alone for a joke. I'm so sorry. That's horrible. There it is again, that little tremor in your voice. You remind me of him, you know of who, the one that confessed. Why did you come here? Boy? I'm sorry, but I really need to leave, to vandalize this tomb, to see her own handiwork to defile her corpse. No, no, which one were you? Did you tell her the story?

Did you open her window? Did you push her into the grave? No? I didn't. It was maybe you were the mastermind behind all of it. Get that stay await. Why should a worm like you live while she lies dead? Stop? Let go of me. I don't know what you were thinking coming back here, boy, but it's time you, atone hell join my daughter in her tomb right here forever,

so she is never lonely again. Experience the fate. You condemned her to feel what it's like to be buried alive now they in there is that I can never sir, uh mazie nothing. Greez line with me. This boys burry has done nothing to me. Greez right there. I have missed you so of course, of course, darling, Missilo, quiet, you vile thing, leave us be your head, girl, my love, my angel, my world. Oh I've missed you so and I because the lead anything anything, baby, it's a well

h okay, Max, this way, Oh my god. The church wedn't. I could not kill the police, so I needed a distraction. I made sure all the kids got out. No one died, but the leading crip. I assure you, Max, she is alive and very very happy. You can't didn't she suffered himing there. Eventually, I suppose you should get her out if you wish I just thought, maybe give her tonight, Needy in this moment, we have more urgent problems. Hey, you there so much redistraction. PSI, well that's a well

where do you freeze? Thirteen Days of Halloween Devil's Night, starring Carter Rockwood and Clancy Brown. Episode nine, The Mausoleum Written by Annie Reese, Nicholas Takowski, and Alexander Williams. Editing and sound designed by rema Il Kali, featuring the voices of Clayton Ferris, Laura Shine, Nicholas Takowski, f Frey Kennedy, and Angel Masters. Directed by Alexander Williams. Script supervision by Nicholas Takowski. Casting by Sunday Bowling c s A and

Meg Mormon c s A. Production coordinator Wayna Calderon. Production assistants Zoe Shay and Amber Ferris. Animal recording by Ben James, closing theme by Rose Azerti. Loyalty Freak Music dot Com recorded at d G Entertainment in Los Angeles, California, Engineered by Gary Forbes and Jody Abbott. Additional recording by SoundBite Inc. In Atlanta, Georgia. Engineered by Chase Nixon Studio manager Kathy

Roberts and Burnt Orange Sound in Sara Sota, Florida. Engineered by Matt de Seer, Executive producers Aaron Manky, Noah Finberg, Chris Dicky, Matt Frederick and Alexander Williams. Supervising producers Trevor Young and Josh Than. Producers Jesse Funk and rima Ill Kali. Thirteen Days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and Alexander Williams and is a production of I Heeart three D Audio, Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mackey.

Learn more about the show at Grimm and Mild dot com, slash thirteen Days and find more podcasts from I heart Radio by visiting the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.