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Hello everyone, Happy Halloween. That was Chuck there.
Not the wind, no, but it's it as windy outside as you can tell, and rainy, and it's like kind of spooky.
Yes, but fortunately, Chuck, we have a nice fire going here in our study.
It is very nice in here.
We're both wearing our best smoking jacket.
Yep, felt like the oak would work. You've done it with the place. It's very nice. I feel very comfortable and it feels like a room to read scary things in.
Well, that's precisely what we're about to do, Chuck.
Then we waited for a stormy night too, which I think we've been waiting for like two weeks.
Has been really lovely weather.
Yeah. The timing could not be better.
It's perfect.
And I don't have to tell everyone this, but you all know it's midnight.
Oh, yes, so we if you hear the clock strike, it is, Oh, there it goes. We're a little late. I thought I wanted to start reading right at midnight, but it's okay.
We're still within the witching hour okay, which I don't think is necessarily midnight, but it's still scary.
Yeah, well, now we have to wait for this thing to ding twelve times a noo. So are we gonna do the one by Gertrude Atherton first?
I think we should. This is originally published by Old Gertrude, Yeah, as The Twins Old Gertrude. Yeah, they called her, you kind of have to.
She was nineteen when she wrote that, right, what her name.
Is Gertrude, so everybody called her Old Gert.
Yeah.
She published a thing called The Twins. That was the original name of this story, and I guess it didn't take off because about ten years later she renamed it The Striding Place.
I like the Twins?
Do you sure? I did too, until I found out that there is such a thing as an actual striding Place. Yeah. It's a real part in a real river in real life. Yeah, the War River right in Yorkshire.
Yeah, this is uh, the waterfall kind of takes center stage here at the end of the story.
Yeah, it's like boilet, it's a it's a we won't but I just want to explain because I did a little extra research, even on the Halloween story episode. Yeah, this river comes to a point where it's about as wide as a large stride. So apparently it beckons people just go ahead and jump. No reason to go walk to the bridge above or the bridge below, just jump over. Yeah, but it's also a very treacherous spot in the river. So Chuck, you want to start reading this one or
do you want me to? It's up to you. I say we trade off because we have two stories this year. We didn't we didn't tell everybody yet. Oh yeah, we're doing two stories this year. Yeah, these are great.
They were a little.
Shorter, so we thought we'd double it up. I've had a little kangnac. I think I feel primed and ready to go.
We've had a lot of kangyac.
That's right, all right, So shall we set go in here? Has everyone dim the lights at home?
Yes?
If you're like I'm subway or something, then you.
Should close your eyes safe.
That's for another time.
Close your eyes very tightly.
Okay.
The Striding Place by Gertrude Atherton. Weagle continental and detached, tired of early grouse shooting, to stand propped against the side fence while his host workmen routed up the birds and long poles and drove them towards the waiting guns made him feel himself a parody on the ancestors who had roamed the moors and forests of this west, riding of Yorkshire, and hot pursuit of game worth the killing.
But when in England and August, he always accepted whatever proffered for the season, and invited his host to shoot pheasants on his estates in the south. The amusements of life, he argued, should be accepted with the same philosophy as its ills.
It had been a bad day.
A heavy rain had made them more so spongy that it fairly sprang beneath the feet.
Whether or not the.
Grouse had haunts of their own, wherein they were immune from rheumatism, the bag had been small. The women, too, were an unusual dull lot, the exception of a new minded debutante who bothered Weagle at dinner by demanding the verbal restoration of the vague paintings on the vaulted roof above them. But it was no one of these things that sat on Miagal's mind, as when the other men went up to bed, he let himself out of the
castle and sauntered down to the river. His intimate friend, the companion of his boyhood, the chum of his college days, his fellow traveler in many Lands, the man for whom he possessed stronger affection than for all men, had mysteriously disappeared two days ago, and his track might have sprung to the upper air for all trace he had left
behind him. He had been a guest on the adjoining estate during the past week, shooting with fervor of the true sportsman, making love in the intervals to Adeline Cavan, and apparently in the best of spirits. As far as was known, there was nothing to lower his mental mercury, for his rent roll was a large one. Miss Cavan blushed whenever he looked at her, and being one of the best shots in England, he was never happier than in August. The suicide theory was preposterous, all agreed, and
there was this little reason to believe him murdered. Nevertheless, he had walked out of the march Abbey two nights ago without hat or overcoat, and had not been seen since the country was being patrolled night and day. One hundred keepers and workmen were beating the woods and poking the bogs on the moors, but as yet not so much as a handkerchief had been found. So this guy's best buddy is missing.
Yeah, and it's really kind of weighing on his mind.
It's bestie and he's he's hunting grouse and he's bored out of his mind.
Yeah. It sounds like, yeah, well his mind is elsewhere.
Well, lady Geez going on and on about the painting, the debute hunt. Yeah, do you blame him?
Yeah? Okay, you're ready for more. Yeah. Weigel did not believe for a moment that Wyatt Gifford was dead, and although it was impossible not to be affected by the general uneasiness, he was disposed to be more angry than frightened. At Cambridge, Gifford had been an incorrigible, practical joker, and by no means had outgrown the habit. It would be like him to cut across the country in his evening clothes, boreed a cattle train and amuse himself touching up the
picture of the sensation and west riding. However, Weagle's affection for his friend was too deep to companion with tranquility in the present state of doubt, and instead of going to bed early with the other men, he determined to walk until ready for sleep. He went down to the
river and followed the path through the woods. There was no moon, but the stars sprinkled their cold light upon the pretty belt of water flowing placidly past wood in ruin between green masses of overhanging rocks, where sloping banks tangled with tree and shrub leaping occasionally over stones with the harsh notes of an angry scold to recover its equanimity. The moment the way was clear again, it was very
dark in the depths where Weagle trod. He smiled as he recalled a remark of Gifford's in English.
Wood is like a good many other things in life, very promising a distance, but a hollow mockery. When you get within, you see daylight on both sides, and the sun freckles the very bracken. Our woods need the light to make them seem what they ought to be, what they once were before our ancestors descendants demanded so much more money in these so much more various days.
Weigel strolled along, smoking and thinking of his friend, his pranks, many of which had done more credit to his imagination than this, and recalling conversations that had lasted the night through, just before the end of the London season, they had walked the streets one hot night after a party discussing the various theories of the soul's destiny. That afternoon they had met at the coffin of a college friend whose
mind had been blank for the past three years. Some months previously they had called at the asylum to see him. His expression had been senile, his face imprinted with the record of debauchery. In death. The face was placid, intelligent, without ignoble a lineation the face of the man they
had known at college. Weigel and Gifford had had no time to comment there, and the afternoon and evening were full, But coming forth from the House of Festivity together they had reverted almost at once to the topic I cherish the theory.
Gifford had said that the soul sometimes lingers in the body after death during madness. Of course, it is an impotent prisoner, albeit a conscious one. Fancy its agony and its horror. What more natural than that, when the life's spark goes out, the tortured souls should take possession of the vacant skull and triumph once more. For a few hours,
while old friends look their last. It has had time to repent, while compelled to crouch and behold the result of its work, and it has shrived itself into a state of comparative purity. If I had my way, I should stay inside my bones until the coffin had gone into its niche, that I might obviate for my poor comrade,
the tragic impersonality of death. And I should like to see justice done to it as it were, to see lowered among its ancestors, with the ceremony and solemnity that are its do I'm afraid that if I dissevered myself too quickly, I should yield to curiosity and hasten to investigate the mysteries of space.
You believe in the soul is an independent entity, then that it and the vital principle are not one and the same.
Is that a lady, No, that's a legal that's legal.
Absolutely. The body and soul are twins.
Life comrades, sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, but always loyal. In the last instance, Someday, when I am tired of the world, I shall go to India and become a Mahatma, solely for the pleasure of receiving proof during life of this independent relationship.
Suppose you are not sealed up properly and returned after one of your astral flights to find your earthly part unfit for habitation. It is an experiment. I don't think I should care to try, unless even juggling with soul and fleshead.
Paul, that would not be an uninteresting predicament. I should rather enjoy experimenting with broken machine. The high, wild roar of water smoked suddenly upon Weagle's ear, and checked his memories. He left the wood and walked out on the huge slippery stones which nearly closed the river wharf at this point, and watched the waters boil down into the narrow paths with their furious, untiring energy. The black quiet of the woods rose high on either side. The stars seemed colder
and whiter just above. On either hand, the perspective of the river might have run into a rayless cavern. There was no lonelier spot in England, nor one which had the right to claim so many ghosts if ghosts there were, all right, man, So he basically was like, I can't sleep, I'm going to go look for my friend.
Yeah, he's thinking a lot. He's thinking about his good friend Wyatt Gifford.
Yeah, he's thinking of walking along the river. He's thinking about why God tortured him with that voice.
Yeah, he didn't like his voice, but it's not he's.
Not in the best of way right now. No, all right, are you ready to continue, sir?
I'm prepared? You ready?
Yeah?
Weigel was not a coward, but he recalled uncomfortably the tales of those that had been done to death in the strid. Wordsworth's boy of Egremond had been disposed of by the practical Whittaker, but countless others, more venturesome than wise, had gone down into that narrow, boiling course, never to appear in the still pool a few yards beyond below the great rocks which formed the walls of the strid, was believed to be a natural vault, unto whose shelves
the dead were drawn. The spot had an ugly fascination. Weigel stood, visioning skeletons, uncoffined and green, the home of the eyeless things that had devoured all that had covered and filled that rattling symbol of man's mortality. Then fell to wondering if anyone had attempted to leap the strid of late. It was covered with slime. He had never seen it look so treacherous. He shuddered and turned away,
impelled despite his manhood to flee the spot. As he did so, something tossing in the foam below the fall, something as white yet independent of it, caught his eye and arrested his step. Then he saw that it was describing a contrary motion to the rushing water, an upward backward motion. Weigel stood rigid, breathless. He fancied he heard
the crackling of his hair. Was that a hand? It thrust itself higher above the boiling foam, turned sideways, and four frantic fingers were distinctly visible against the black rock beyond. Weegle's superstitious terror left him. A man was there, struggling to free himself from the suction beneath the strid swept down, doubtless but a moment before his arrival. Perhaps as he stood with him back to the current. He stepped as
close to the edge as he dared. The hand doubled, as if in eprocation, shaking savagely in the face that force which leads its creatures to a mutable low, then spread wide again clutching, expanding, crying for help as audibly as the human voice. Weigle dashed to the nearest street, dragged and twisted off a branch with his strong arms, and returned as swiftly to the strip. The hand was
in the same place, still gesticulating as wildly. The body was undoubtedly caught in the rocks below, perhaps already halfway along one of those hideous shelves. Weegel let himself down upon a lower rock, braced his shoulder against the mask beside him, and then, leaning out over the water, thrust the branch into the hand. The fingers clutched it convulsively. Weegel tugged powerfully, his own feet dragged perilously near the edge.
For a moment he produced no impression. Then an arm shot above the waters.
The blood sprang to Eagle's head.
He was choked with the impression that the striad had him in a roaring hold, and he saw nothing. Then the mist cleared, the hand and arm were nearer, although the rest of the body was still concealed by the foam. Eagle peered out with distended eyes. The meager light revealed in the cuff SLINKs of a peculiar device. The fingers clutching the branch were as familiar. Weagle forgot the slippery stones,
the terrible death if he stepped too far. He pulled with pass will, and muscle muscles flung themselves into the hot light of his brain, trooping rapidly upon each other's heels, as if in the thought of the drowning. Most of the pleasures of his life, good and bad, were identified in some way with this friend. Scenes of college, days of travel where they had deliberately sought adventure and stood between one another and death upon more occasions than one.
Of hours of delightful companionship, among the treasures of art and others in the pursuit of pleasure flashed like the changing particles of a kaleidoscope. Weagle had loved several women, but he would have flouted in these moments the thought that he ever had loved any woman as he loved Wyatt Gifford. There were so many charming women in the world, and in the thirty two years of his life, he had never known another man to whom he had cared to give his intimate friendship.
So, Chuck, it sounds like he's pretty certain this is Wyatt. Yeah, his long lost buddy. He's in the foamy waterfall and he's trying to save him. Yeah, so this is getting intent.
It's getting super intense, and it sounds like he really likes this guy in es, like he really wants to save his friend.
Sure.
He threw himself on his face. His wrist were cracking, the skin was torn from his hands. The fingers still gripped the stick. There was life in them. Yet suddenly something gave way. The hand swung about, tearing the branch from Eagle's grasp. The body had been liberated and flung outward, though still submerged by the foam and spray. Eagle scrambled to his feet and sprang along the rocks, knowing that the danger from suction was over and that Gifford must
be carried straight to the quiet pool. Gifford was a fish in the water and could live under it longer than most men. If he survived this, it would not be the first time that his pluck and science had saved them from drowning.
Weigel reached the pool, a man in his evening clothes floated on it. His face turned towards a projecting rock over which his arm had fallen upholding the body. The hand that had held the branch hung limply over the rock, its white reflection visible in the black water. Weigle plunged into the shallow pool, lifted Gifford in his arms, and returned to the bank. He laid the body down and threw off his coat, that he might be the freer
to practice the methods of resuscitation. He was glad of the moment's respite, the valiant life, and the man might have been exhausted in that last struggle, he had not dared to look at his face, to put his ear to the heart. The hesitation lasted but a moment. There was no time to lose. He turned to his prostrate friend. As he did so, something strange and disagreeable smote his senses. For a half moment, he did not appreciate its nature.
Then his teeth clacked together, his feet, his outstretched arms pointed towards the woods. But he sprang to the side of the man and bent down and peered into his face.
There was no face, man, that was scary stuff.
That's creepy. No face.
Yeah, and the guy was struggling helping himself up. Yeah, clearly dead. Yeah, like they had spoken about previously in the short story. Yeah.
And also you know he I think he was talking about the soul and the twins, like maybe this was his soul or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean these guys were clearly related. Yeah, Gertrude said at least so that was the striving Place by Gertrude Atherton, and that was one of two. Yeah.
She said that that was her favorite one she ever wrote. And so I can't disagree.
Nice going, Gert, the old Gert, So chuck with's her. What's the next selection in our cozy, scary, creepy study the next.
By the way, I appreciate the Halloween candy put out. That's a nice touch.
I know. I sprung for the full size once. Forget that fun size crud.
It's a little weird to eat Reese's pieces while I'm all.
Creeped out, but they're still delicious.
It's still delicious.
So this one's called The Pale Man by Julius Long and it is from Weird Tales, Volume twenty four, issue number three. Weird Tales was a pulp rag a Chicago started in nineteen twenty three and has had several iterations over the years, including a modern one. You can still I think by it's something called weird Tales.
You know, it's been shut down here and there over the years.
Well, I know, I don't know if that's where he got to start, but he definitely supplied a lot of stories. HP Lovecraft, Yeah, weird tales. Totally love weird tales.
Yeah, I kind of missed the old days like this. I mean, I know you have stuff like this on.
The internet now, but it's kind of neat to be able to buy a little pulp thing for ten cents, you know, back in the nineteen twenties.
Like I did. Alrighty, So this is The Pale.
Man by Julius Long, with the subtitle A queer little tale about the eccentric behavior of a strange guest in a country hotel.
Nice kind of describes it perfectly. There.
All right, ready, has everyone got the lights? Do very important?
Remember close your eyes on the subway.
And get your brandy and your Resi's pieces up.
And chuff Juffy Reese's pieces India Brandy.
That might be nice. All right, here we go.
I have not yet met the man in number two twelve. I do not even know his name. He never patronizes the hotel restaurant, and he does not use the lobby. On the three occasions when we passed each other by, we did not speak, although we nodded in a semi cordial, non committal way. I should like very much to make his acquaintance. It is lonesome in this dreary place. With the exception of the age lady down the corridor, the only permanent guests are the man in number two twelve
and myself. However, I should not complain for this utter quiet. It is precisely what the doctor prescribed. I wonder if the man in number two twelve, too, has come.
Here for a rest. He is so very pale.
Yet I cannot believe that he is ill, for his paleness is not of a sickly cast, but rather wholesome in its ivory clarity. His carriage is that of a man enjoying the best of health. He is tall and straight. He walks erectly with a brisk, athletic stride. His pallor is no doubt conj else he would quickly tan under this burning summer sun. He must have traveled here by otto, for he certainly was not a passenger on the train that brought me, and he checked in only a short
time after my arrival. I had briefly rested in my room and was walking down the stairs when I encountered him ascending with his bag. It is odd that our venerable bell boy did not show him to his room. It is odd, too, that, with so many vacant rooms in the hotel, he should have chosen number two twelve At the extreme rear. The building is a long, narrow affair three stories high. The rooms are all on the east side, as the west wall is flushed with a
decrepit business building. The corridor is long in drab, and its stiff bloated paper exudes a musty and pleasant odor. The feeble electric bulbs that light it shine dimly, as from a tomb. Revolted by this corridor. I insisted upon being given number two oh one, which is at the front and blessed with southern exposure. The room clerk, a disagreeable fellow with a Hitler mustache, was very reluctant to let me have it, as it was ordinarily reserved for
his more profitable transient trade. Wink wink, I fear my stubborn insistence has made him an enemy. If only I had been as self assertive thirty years ago, I should now be a full fledged professor instead of a broken down assistant. I still smart from the cavalier manner in which the president of the university summarily recommended my vacation. No doubt he acted for my best interests. The people who have dominated my poor life invariably have. Oh well,
the summer's rest will probably do me considerable good. It is pleasant to be away from the university. There's something positively gratifying about the absence of the graduate student faiths. If only it were not so lonely. I must devise a way of meeting the pale man in number two twelve. Perhaps the room clerk can arrange matters.
So this guy, he's a bit of a whiner.
Yeah, he's like a little whiny assistant professor who was kind of.
Told to go on vacation.
It sounds like pretty much.
And he took the room, the nicest room. Even though it sounds like that was saved for prostitutes.
It was being saved by the man with the Hitler mustache for prostitutes.
I get one of the transient trade, and that what he means.
Yeah, but I think he's also saying here immense possible interpretation.
Sure, but he appears to have settled.
In for a very long stay.
Yeah that's true.
It might rather than like a traveling salesman.
The brandy is getting to me. My mind's in the gutter.
The Reese's pieces are getting to you.
All right, So he wants to meet the man in two twelve. He something about this guy.
He's also just pretty content to whine. It sounds like, yeah, that's true. May I please? Okay, I've been here exactly a week, and if there is a friendly soul in this miserable little town, he has escaped my notice. Although the trades people accept my money with flattering eagerness, they studiously avoid even the most casual conversation. I am afraid I can never cultivate their society unless I can arrange
to have my ancestors recognized as local residents. For the last one hundred and fifty years, despite the coolness of my reception, I have been frequently venturing abroad. In the back of my mind, I have cherished hopes that I might encounter the pale man in number two eleven. Incidentally, I wonder why he has moved from number two twelve. There is certainly little advantage in coming only one room nearer to the front. I noticed the change yesterday when
I saw him coming out of his new room. We nodded again, and this time I thought I detected a certain malign satisfaction in his somber black eyes. He must know that I am eager to make his acquaintance. Yet his manner forbids overtures. If he wants me to go all the way, he can go to the devil. I am not the sort to run after anybody. Indeed, the surly diffidence of the room clerk has been enough to prevent me from questioning him about his mysterious guest. I
wonder where the pale man takes his meals. I have been absenting myself from the hotel restaurant and patronizing the restaurants outside. At each I have ventured inquiries about the man in number two ten. No one at any restaurant remembered his having been there. Perhaps he is entree into the brahm and homes of this town, and again he may have found a boarding house. I shall have to learn if there be one, the pale man must be difficult to please, for he has again changed his room.
I am baffled by his conduct. If he is so desirous of locating himself more conveniently in the hotel, why does he not move to number two oh two, which is the nearest available room to the front. Perhaps I can make his inability to locate himself permanently as an excuse for starting a conversation. I see we are close neighbors. Now, I might say casually, but that is to banal. I must have waited a better opportunity.
This guy is whinny. Yeah, he's like, well, I'm not gonna go chase this guy down. And then he's like, I wonder where he eats. He's just like sitting around thinking about him, and he's getting closer.
And I don't think that's a good thing.
No, I don't either. It's a peculiar behavior for a short story. Yeah, things like that kind of stand out.
You know. This guy's like, oh, he's moving closer. How delightful. Yeah, what a dummy. He has done it again.
He's now occupying number two O nine. I'm intrigued by his little game. I waste hours trying to fathom its point. What possible motive could he have? I should think he would get on the hotel people's nerves. I wonder what our combination bell hop chambermaid thinks of having to prepare four rooms for a single guest.
If he were not stone deaf, I would ask him.
At present, I feel too exhausted to attempt such an enervating conversation. I am tremendously interested in the pale man's next move. He must either skip a room or remain where he is for a permanent guest. The very old lady occupies number two O eight. She has not budged from her room since I've been there, and I imagine that she does not intend to.
I wonder what the pale man will do.
I await his decision with the nervous excitement of a devote of the track on the eve of a big race. After all, I have so little diversion. Well, the mysterious guest was not forced to remain where he was, nor did he have to skip a room. The lady in number two O eight simplified matters by conveniently dying.
That ain't good.
No, no one knows the cause of her death, but it is generally attributed to old age. She was buried this morning. I was among the curious few who attended her funeral. When I return home from the mortuary, I was in time to see the pale man leaving her room. Already he has moved in. He favored me with a smile whose meaning I have tried in vain to decipher. I cannot but believe that he meant it to have some significance. He acted as if there were between us
some secret that I failed to appreciate. But then perhaps his smile was meaningless after all, and only ambiguous by chance, like that of the Mona Lisa. My man of mystery now resides in number two O seven, and I am not the least surprised. I would have been astonished if he had not made his scheduled move. I've almost given up trying to understand his eccentric conduct. I do not know a single thing more about him than I knew the day he arrived. I wonder whence he came. There's
something indefinably foreign about his manner. I'm curious to hear his voice. I'd like to imagine that he speaks the exotic tongue of some far away country. If only I could somehow inveigle him into a conversation. I wish that I were possessed of the glib assurance of a college boy who can address himself to the most distinguished celebrity without batting an eye. It is no wonder that I am only an assistant professor. Man, this guy's really hung up on that.
He showed the kind of moxy at work as he shows in this Man.
Oh he shows in his head.
Really yeah, maybe he'd be a professor by now. Jeseu. This guy hope somebody kills him. My money's on the tail man.
It could. I was guessing it was the old lady in the other room, but she died. She got a chance. He knows what will happen.
Maybe the chambermaid.
Everybody wants to kill this guy, I do. I am worried. This morning, I awoke to find myself lying prone upon the floor, was fully clothed. I must have fallen exhausted there after I returned to my room last night. I wonder if my condition is more serious than I had suspected. Until now, I have been inclined to discount the fears of those who have pulled the long face about me. For the first time, I recall the prolonged hand clasp
of the President when he bade me goodbye from the university. Obviously, he never expected to see me alive again. Of course I am not that unwell. Nevertheless, I must be more careful, Thank Heaven, I have no dependence to worry about. I have not even a wife, for I was never willing to exchange the loneliness of a bachelor for the loneliness of a husband. Burne, I can say in all sincerity that the prospect of death does not frighten me. Speculation
about life beyond the grave has always bored me. Whatever it is or is not, I'll try to get along. I have been so preoccupied about the sudden turn of my own affairs that I have neglected to make note of a most extraordinary incident. The pale maid has done an astounding thing. He has skipped three rooms and moved all the way to number two zero three. We are now very close neighbors. We shall meet oftener, and my
chances for making his acquaintance are now greater. I have confined myself to my bed during the last few days, and have had my food brought to me. I even called the local doctor, whom I suspect to be a quack. He looked me over with professional indifference and told me not to leave my room. For some reason, he does not want me to climb stairs. For this bit of information, he received a ten dollar bill, which, as I directed him, he fished out of my coat pocket. A pickpocket could
not have done better. He had not been gone long when I was visited by the room clerk that worthy suggested, with a great show of kindly concern, that I used the facilities of the local hospital. It was so modern in all that, with more firmness than I have been able to muster in a long time. I gave him to understand that I intended to remain where I am, frowning sullenly, still retired. The doctor must have paused long
enough downstairs to tell him a pretty story. It is obvious that he is afraid I shall die in his best room. The pale man is up to his old tricks. Last night, when I tottered down the hall, the door of number two zero two is a jar. Without thinking, I looked inside. The pale man sat in a rocking chair, idly smoking a cigarette. He looked up into my eyes and smiled that peculiar, ambiguous smile that has so deeply puzzled me. I moved on down the corridor, not so
much mystified as annoyed. The whole mystery of the man's conduct is beginning to irk me. It is all so inane, so utterly lacking and motive. I feel that I shall never meet the pale man. But at least I am going to learn his identity. Tomorrow I shall ask the room clerk and deliberately interrogate him.
So sounds like this guy's really relaxing. Oh it's a forced leave from work.
He gets found up about stuff.
All right, I'm ready for this to uh to happen one way or the other, bringing on home chuck hard to hearing this guy.
Everybody's tired of hearing this guy.
I know now, I know the identity of the pale man, and I know the meaning of a smile. Early this afternoon, I summoned the room clerk to my bedside. Please tell me, I asked, abruptly, who is the man in number two oh two?
The clerk stared wearily and uncomprehendingly.
M M, you must be mistaken that room is unoccupied.
Oh but it is, I snapped in irritation. I myself saw the man there only two nights ago. He is a tall, handsome fellow with dark eyes and hair. He's unusually pale. He checked in the day I arrived. The hotel man regarded me dubiously, as if I were trying to impose upon him.
But I assure you there is no such person in the house. As for his checking in when you did, you were the only guest we registered that day.
But why I've seen him twenty times. First he had number two twelve at the end of the corridor, then he kept moving toward the front. Now he's next door number two O two.
The room clerk threw up his hands. You're crazy, he exclaimed, and I saw that he meant what he said. I shut up at once and dismissed him. After he had gone, I heard him rattling the knob of the pale man's door. There's no doubt that he believes a room to be empty. Thus it is that I can now understand the events of the past few weeks. I now comprehend the significance of the death in number two O seven. I even
feel partly responsible for the old lady's passing. After all, I brought the man with me, But it was not I who fixed his path. Why he chose to approach me room after room through the length of this dreary hotel. Why his path crossed the threshold of the woman in number two O seven, Those mysteries I cannot explain. I suppose I should have guessed his identity when he skipped the three rooms the night I fell unconscious upon the floor, in a single night of triumph, he advanced until he
was almost to my door. He will be coming by and by to inhabit this room, his ultimate goal. When he comes, I shall at least be able to return his smile of grim recognition. Meanwhile, I have only to wait beyond my bolted door.
The door swings slowly open.
WHOA, that's got his Yeah, I have a feeling the pale man now resides in room to A one.
I think he resides inside mister Julius long. Yeah, if that was autobiographical.
He kind of sounds like the Slender Man.
A little bit, you know, Yeah, I did know.
Uh So that's it. Happy Halloween.
Ever, let's have some more brandy, Chuck.
I know, I feel like reading like six more of these.
We don't have to not slur any longer.
That's right, pour it up.
All right, here you go, and some Reces pieces.
Thank you, sir, very nice, All right, Joey Chuck Halloween tradition.
Happy Halloween to you, Chuck.
Happy Halloween to you. Happy Halloween to.
Jerry, Happy Halloween, Jerry.
While our listeners out there, be safe, be careful.
And have a spectacular night.
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