Ep 5 - Peeking

Welcome to Ghost Wax, a Far and Tall Tales production. The following story may contain graphic content. Listener discretion is advised.

Episode 5, Peking. This doesn't seem like a significant case. No, I get that. But to operate effectively, we need to upkeep certain relationships, so... So here we are, looking at a girl who fell out of a dormitory window. i knew you'd be hesitant to look at this police have it as an accident everyone secretly thinks it might be a suicide but won't say it because of who her father is i know it's thin even as a favor so i did some preliminary

And? It's something. It took some effort, a bit of elbow grease, and some slight risking of life and limb hanging out a window. but this showed up after being dusted with oxidized silver flakes and hit with a uv light after midnight i see handprints not hers outside a fourth floor window Six fingers. Someone pulled her out. I'll go. Where is she? Connecticut, near Hartford. Funeral is tomorrow, but there's a red eye. The hell? What?

Not a fam? Nothing like that. I've never been in person. Well, shall we? We shall.

this evening's interview is of christine talbot the subject's skull was badly fractured in a fall from a fourth-floor window and a significant repair will be required in the case of such severe cranial trauma the subject will usually be disoriented and memory can be an issue repairing a damaged brain is difficult but not impossible a shattered mind is far harder madness is the most difficult reclaiming to master and the most dangerous and the last skill i perfected recovery beginning now

Oh, holy shit. Are things seeming clearer, Christine? Tell us what happened. I have to go. I have to hide. follows me. It's going to find no one believes. I do, Christine. I do believe you. What does it want? Why won't it leave me alone? Remain calm, please. Nothing can ever hurt you again. That's... Well, at least there's that.

Now, tell us about your fall. Fall. Fall. I remember fall. I took fall. I took... fall off I took the fall semester off right right I took the fall semester off my dad said I should celebrate graduating travel a bit I never figured out why he really wanted me out of the country But who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? So I did. It was great. I visited Greta. She'd gone abroad the year before, and we did this whole Europe thing for like three months. It was amazing.

Dad had to basically drag me back to the States. I seriously considered going AWOL. You are not running off into Europe. For God's sakes, Chrissy, you'll get human trafficked. He didn't mention anything about how bad it would make him look or that it was an election coming up or anything about him. Kept it all to how college was a rite of passage and how I'd love it once I got there.

He kept all the selfish bullshit that I knew was actually driving him to himself. So I had to give him some credit for that at least. So I came home, packed up, and Triniti College. You know it's located in Gallows Hill. I don't have to tell you that this part of the world and hanging hills are pretty well acquainted. Hell, I am exactly the kind of unruly and willful young woman the old pilgrim psychos would have made a case against. I drove through the cold.

Past the gnarled old trees that I might have been sent swinging in, what, 200 years ago? 250? The patriarchy is weird. You'd think you'd change the names of incredibly evil things that happened in the past. But hey, the evil's still not gone, so I guess I would be dishonest. Well, more dishonest. Moved my stuff into McLean Hall, fourth floor. Met my roommate, Angie.

Realized she was a complete drag, but guess that might be for the best in a roommate. I did a tour of our floor, met everyone. It was kind of fun. High school, everything is so worn out by the time you graduate. Everyone knows everyone, knows everything about everyone. Here I was new. I got to be brand new. Not only because we were all away from home and got to be whoever we wanted now.

But they'd all been together a whole semester, got to know one another, and then I appear, all fresh and new. I got to be the star of the show. Can't complain, really. I don't hate attention.

It was the third night I was there when things got wrong. I remember I went to sleep at like 11. It was early for me, but classes started next week and I was... going to be dragging if I didn't get my sleep schedule together. So I went to sleep early, pried myself away from the sitting circle and bins. That was a popular hangout. Popped a sleeping pill and actually fell asleep despite a million things running through my head.

So when I popped awake with this weird feeling and saw it was just after midnight, I was pretty surprised. It was dead quiet. Angie was an unmoving lump in her bed. The room was dark.

Just a slice of light under the door from the hall. It's the weirdest thing. People always say I could feel their eyes on me, and I never got that before that night. It's a... pressure like a wave of pressure pushing on you the watching your hairs go up shivers go so my eyes are scanning the dark back and forth but even as my eyes adjust i can't see anything there's nothing to see

But I just can't get the feeling of these eyes off me. It's sticking to my skin, this panicky, sick, icky feeling pushing in and in and in. So I turn my lamp on, but there's still nothing. I actually pick up my table lamp. I'm basically aiming it around the room like a torch. And then I see the window is open. There's something there, like something hooked on the window.

They're kind of fleshy and red, and I don't know what I'm looking at until they wiggle. Then I can see the knuckles and the fingernails at the same moment the lamplight catches with the eyes. Two huge round- eyes peering over the windowsill it's peeking i make eye contact with it and it freezes then it giggles i babysat when i was younger

Dad said it would teach me responsibility. And we played hide and seek. And the kid, Maddie, she giggled just like that when I found her. But the voice, it wasn't a person. I know it wasn't a prank. I screamed and I threw the lamp at it. The cord ripped out of the wall. It pulled everything off my bedside table. The lamp smashed into the window. I got to the door screaming for Angie to wake up, for her to get out. I turned the lights on, but I didn't see it now.

and people were coming out of the rooms security showed up there were discussions of if i had a really bad nightmare or if it was a night terror and what the difference was or if it was sleep paralysis and the ra telling me i shouldn't take sleep aids anymore and had i tried homeopathic sleep

And it all is just glossing over the fact that I never stopped feeling like I was being watched. I never got my sleep schedule right. Classes started and I was almost too exhausted to go. That creepy sick- pressure never quite left but on the first day of class it came back with a vengeance class was packed one of those uh big lecture hall spaces you know like in the movies uh students were packed in pretty tight

I was running late, so I wound up having to sit basically in the front row. So when that feeling starts ramping up, everybody notices. And I get that I keep looking behind me, you know, glancing over my shoulder. And it gets worse. And worse, till the professor notices too. Is there something back there we should direct our attention to? I try to apologize, try to make myself not turn around, but I can't...

shake it, and it's not long before I look over my shoulder again. This time, though, I see it. At the back of the room, there's a door. It goes into an office or a closet. I don't know what it is, but it's open, and there it is. Peaking. Out through a crack in the door, a huge, yellowy, watery eye. It's all I can do not to scream. But instead, I pretend not to see it. I pretend I don't notice. I tug at the shirt of the guy next to me, and as quiet as I can, I was just like, there's a door.

I don't know what's happening, but I have to know if he can see it too. I don't know if I need a cat scan or an exorcist, you know? He seemed sketched out, but he agreed. I don't know what I was expecting, but I... Definitely didn't expect what happened. There's this crash next to me as he jumps up from his seat, knocks all of his stuff on the floor. And then it giggled. And the giggle spread.

The people in the back of the room start laughing, and then more people are laughing. They are all looking at this kid who jumped up, but they are giggling this weird sound. It's rolling through the room. I don't know where the bravery came from, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but I rushed it. I charged up those steps as fast as I could towards it. It slipped backwards.

The door shut slowly on one of those pressure hinges, and I caught it before it closed. I pulled the door open and saw this gangly pinkish red thing disappear up into an air duct. I screamed at it as I heard it crawling away. Leave me alone! But it didn't. That kid in my class, I never got to talk to him. The professor insisted I explain myself. And by the time I got out of there, asked around and found out who he was, Charles something.

uh found out where he lived he'd moved out gone home smart bastard turns out don't know how he explained that one mom dad i saw a monster on campus can i come home please

But he was right to run. It got worse after that. I realized that week, that feeling I had had after that first night, that feeling of someone always watching me. That it had been. I started to see it all of the time. I'd probably been seeing it in the last week too, but I wasn't really looking, so I didn't realize what I was looking at. I saw it peeking out a window at me as I went into it.

administration building to explain my behavior. I saw it peering around a dumpster at me as I went to get food. I saw it peeking up over the counter at me as I tried to keep my food down. I tried asking a few other people if they saw it, but I think it had gotten wise to me. It would duck down or slink away if I started talking to other people. So I tried to never be alone.

I went where people were, found parties and late night hangouts, whatever it took. The few times I was by myself, I knew I wasn't. I knew it was there somewhere. I saw it watching me from a vent. A sewer grate through the branches of trees. I tried asking what it wanted. I tried screaming obscenities at it. I tried begging it to leave me alone. It would just giggle at me and stare.

I went to yet another frat party. I was so tired, I could hardly fake conversation with anyone. It was watching me through an open doorway, across the street while I was on the porch. I don't know where it was while I was inside. Probably a window. It was just so... tired this guy i was talking to john anderson i remember because i remember thinking he could have been named guy manderson which is stupid but he was talking to me about photography he had this new

telephoto whatever and a new something lens and how real cameras really are still better and everyone thinks that their phone photos are so great but if they just sell outlook on the blah blah blah I don't I don't know I don't know how it took me so long to think of taking a picture of it. I don't think I really believed it was real. Not even with that other kid seeing it. Seeing isn't really always believing, I guess.

So that night, I laid in bed waiting, my phone camera primed and ready. My new bedside light was set up under the window so that if it took up its usual peeking spot there, it would just be slightly illuminated. I didn't feel it watching yet, but it never left me alone for long.

I practiced pulling my phone out from under my covers and snapping a picture. The out of focus sucked. It took forever. It was never going to work. But eventually I got pretty quick. I had a chance. I waited. Sure enough.

Just after midnight, I heard it giggle. But it was weird. It sounded kind of far away. The laugh didn't sound like it was getting any closer, either. So I kept my phone down at my side and slipped out of bed. And I crawled across the floor, keeping low. Suddenly, I imagined that this must be how it felt sneaking around to watch me. The tension, the anticipation. There was a weird kind of excitement in watching people who don't know you are watching.

I got to the window. The laughter was still far away. Was it down on the street? I peered up over the edge and looked down. And it was standing on the street. A streetlight framing it in a yellow pool. It was like a shot from one of those... old detective movies. So I was looking up at my window, but it was far away. I felt a moment of safety, so I peeked up a bit more, brought my phone up.

Fiddled with the focus. Got it in frame. How the fuck do you like someone peeking at you? But then I really... Oh. Oh no. I never thought there might be two of them. The window was open so fast, those long, snaky fingers wrapped around my shoulders, and there was a yank, and I was in the air. I was falling. Falling headfirst into the air. The air that was... Full of weird little giggles. Peace now. Safe journey as you travel afar.

oh god i think i'm going to be sick i'm sorry i should have warned you that repairs to the victim do not last long after the recalling ends if you must vomit please use the sink

reclaimer's notes luca and i are currently en route to the home of a charles baybridge his rushed withdrawal from school may have taken him out of harm's way but i am not willing to risk it he lives only a few hours from campus which will make reaching him quick for us but unfortunately quick for the entities should they follow him now that he has seen them Something tells me they will. If he is alive, he will make excellent bait for a trap I'm afraid we will need to set.

peaking creatures, as they were described. I cannot be certain, but they definitely fit the description made by some of the venerum of advanced scouts. Further files on this line of inquiry will be marked Peekers. Thank you for listening to Ghost Wax, a production of Far and Tall Tales. Find us at farandtalltales.squarespace.com. Ghost Wax is an independent podcast, so if you liked the show,

Please rate and review, and consider joining us on Patreon at patreon.com slash farandtalltales. Also give a listen to our fantasy roleplay show, Could Have Been Heroes, for something completely different. Ghost Wax is written and directed by Robert Knutson. Production and editing by Aaron Schoenrock. Our theme song is by Bo Hoover. This episode features Robert Knutson as Von Sid. Aaron Schonrock as Luca, and Kathy Wood as Christine.