Sonic Society #872- Town Tellers

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The following audio drama is rated PG-13, suggesting that all children under the age of 13 should listen accompanied with an adult. We've been looking for whatever made that noise for what seems like forever. Well, that's a little distressing. What? Well, it looks like we've walked so far, we're actually connected to another audio drama. What? Are you sure?

As certain as I'm David Ault, and you're Jack Ward, and together we make the world's largest and longest-running showcase of modern audio drama... The Sonic Society. That's the ticket. Well then, how did we get here? It seems... When we began, we were solidly in September, but... Now we've crossed over into the Audiodramatist's favorite month. You can't mean. That's right. Your book, the one you wrote with Barry M. Putt Jr., the Audiodramatist Resource Guide 2026-2027 edition, is out. Really?

Yes, that's true as well. Links at sonicsociety.org. But the real issue is being October, and we're connected to spooky shows all through the month. thanks to transcontinental terror boosting us last year. The excess power of the tortoise created a crease like a zip across the RSS feeds of the audioverse.

Where are we now? The Town Whispers, a weekly folk horror anthology podcast written and performed by Cole Weavers. Not exactly full audio drama, but performance enough to pull us into the outskirts of the horror nebula. Chapters one and two appear to be underfoot. It all begins right here. On the Sonic Society.

Hi, Cole here, creator and narrator of The Town Whispers. It's been a long summer, but the leaves once again fall. And with autumn comes longer nights that beg for darker tales. And to fill those long, cold evenings, I've launched a brand new podcast called Tiny Terrors.

Tiny Terrors is a nostalgic horror anthology series that is as fun as it is dark. Join three friends as they delve into a forgotten corner of storytelling history and bring to light the darker depths yet still hidden in those often untraveled The Town Whispers is a horror podcast that will tell the many stories hidden behind the trees and the rain.

And in the case of Mildred's story behind the fog, are you ready, neighbor? Because I'm about ready to start. Listener discretion is advised. It's unfair. He's already Mildred walked under a peerless sky that evening, peerless in its beauty and enormity. The entirety of the Black threatened to swallow the young woman whole as she walked barefoot into the night.

and away from the safety of her home, and into the mire. Her toes sunk as she moved forward into wet, loamy earth, and there was a bounce to the peat moss that sat on dirt. suspended on an ancient network of roots that lifted her world above, well, only God knows what below. Now, in this town and the surrounding area, a person would do best to stick to the roads and worn paths. The edge of a town is as good as the edge of the world. What lays beyond may as well be unknown, undiscovered.

Mildred had never dared to tread so far from the light of other people. She was a creature of comfort and routine. But that night... Mildred was about to find out firsthand... That the stories her mother told her were the same reasons her father drank, were the same reasons she married young, and the same reasons she spat when she screamed. with unbridled fury for her children to stay close to her at all times. Miss chomped with cold teeth at her ankles,

And then her calves, in fact, the haze seemed to be enveloping her like quicksand from the bottom up. No longer than it took to blink. And she was submerged in a cataract of swirling phantasms and fog. with only distant waning moonlight to guide her white, ghastly way. Her feet were cold.

So very cold and wet, and Mildred couldn't tell if leeches sucked at her toes or if it was the pins and pricks of sleep, because Mildred wasn't entirely sure if she was awake or... stuck in some loathsome landscape of her own imagining, and her feet, which may or may not be covered in leeches, were a mystery to her as she pressed forward, compelled by nightmarish thoughts of never turning back.

never seeing her children again, never making dinner for her husband again, and certainly never going back to that damn church again.

As Mildred was deep in thought, walking for an unknown time in what seemed to be a straight line to nowhere, she became painfully and acutely aware of the smile etched into the sore... rigid and contorted corners of her mouth. She knew this smile wasn't hers just as she knew her feet were not her own. She was a marionette but she felt assured. that her strings were being pulled and plucked by greater things than her own whims, and she felt comforted knowing that the master of her strings

was cut of a different cloth from the wrathful god she'd grown up trying to please and praying to. It spoke no words to her and demanded that she speak none in return. It only pulled the tops of her feet up, forward, and then down, over and over as it walked her away from all that existed. There was a language in the movement.

a sensual pleasure of being driven like a horse. There were no choices to be made, no responsibilities. So her pigeon heart suddenly turned to a steel cask holding grim delight and a childlike sense of wonder. She even closed her eyes and felt her being rest in her own body. Like she had many long days, sitting on the porch, feeling the tensions and pressures lift from her soul.

Mildred heard what sounded like wooden thunder and her feet stopped moving. She felt the weight of her flesh rest on her heels and she reluctantly opened her eyes, wishing to be weightless for just a moment longer. The sky was gone. Mildred craned her head back as her eyes followed the monstrous trunk of an oak tree up and up and up. Only leaves and thick boughs that reached outwards from the breathing behemoth at its center, covered in dark green leaves, were visible. Around her sat...

Tiny puddles reflecting the light of a moon that was nothing but a distant memory in a place such as this. She knew. Without words. Without wisdom, through primal instinct, that she stood beneath the last oaken god. Mildred didn't even hesitate or think twice. She could hear it breathe. She could hear it groan and move uncomfortably in the earth beneath it.

And she dug her toes in as well, whether for comfort or like a child trying to copy a mother or father out of admiration for their stature, she wasn't sure. And then...

It spoke to her. Little thing, you've come a long way. Its voice boomed and rattled within her head. She replied as the spell that bound her mouth in a grisly grin eased and fell away. Above her, or behind her, or all around her, the sound of snapping tree limbs echoed and nothing more. Mildred waited, but still nothing. The air was viscous, and her clothes, wet from sweat, clung to her body.

In uncomfortable silence, too afraid to speak but too anxious to stand still, Mildred looked like a child as she picked and pulled at her nightdress. slowly backing away from the trunk of the tree which she assumed, through her knowledge of the world, would be where the body of the thing that spoke with words she knew, but knew more than she had words for.

Her heel struck a tiny root that at some point in the past had dug its way out of the soft, wet earth for a breath of air before diving back into its world of worms and rot. Mildred tried to catch herself as she fell backwards. Placing her hand down behind her, she felt the rock or branch or something cut into her palm. She panicked and frantically tried to jump back to her feet, but...

as she did was yanked back into the muck and mire. Her hand was in the clutch of a root. What on earth? Mildred yelled and whispered at the same time if such a thing is possible. as she tried to pry the vine from around her wrist and felt her fingernails start to peel back from their beds with the strain. She heard, or thought she heard, the tree say. Mildred wasn't sure if it was the wind or not. What the hell? What is this?

She sent through short, terrified breaths as she watched the vine grow and begin to send tendrils into her cut palm. The pain was gone. She looked down to see the grip which had held her fast. loosen and let go, falling and retreating into the ground limp. And Mildred's palm was sewn shut, with fine sinew-like threads of root.

And then the haunting, echoing voice returned. Mildred didn't want to answer at first. She felt as if something so fearsome would not or could not be speaking to her. Yes, but what... Mildred's eyes welled with tears. She was a good mother. She knew she was, or at least she thought she was. She'd done all she could to teach them right from wrong.

Fed them as much as she could so they could grow as big and as tall and as strong as they needed to be to push back against the world. But there were times when they'd been hungry. When she'd... failed to feed them. There were times when they'd been cold, and she'd been too exhausted or resentful to hold them. She was like any other mother.

afraid that what she was was not enough, and she knew whatever spoke to her now, a thing beyond the clutch of disease, beyond the laws that send a person into a hole six feet deep. A dreaded god that peered through the bud on each leaf and each eye flitting from inch to inch of her, seeing the dirty sins that she held tight to. What do I do? Is it like a baptism or do I...

Mildred stood rooted in place, unsure of what to do, hoping the tree, which clearly was not a tree but instead the body of something more, hoping it hadn't just asked her to get naked. That wasn't decent or respectful at all, and she felt her chest tighten as she wrestled with the moral dilemma. A woman's body is sacred and hidden from the world.

It's her gift to her husband, and that's what she'd been taught. That's why when she'd worn her brother's summer clothes as a child, thinking, well, if the boys can, then so should I. She'd been hit with a switch over and over until she cried. But why is it that a woman must hide herself? She felt like she had as a young girl and muttered under her breath as she was lost in thought.

Why should I have to wear dresses? What evil am I hiding? I'm not... It's not fair. It's not fair. She felt the pluck and pull. of ethereal strings again tugging at the backs of her hands and at her elbows and her shoulders. They weren't like they'd been before controlling and consuming, but more a subtle push. A suggestion this time. And it was all she needed. Her hands lifted as she slipped her shoulders through the dress as it fell to her feet.

And she breathed in deeply, feeling as if shackles had been lifted from her. She felt unencumbered. She felt loose from the prisons of domestic life. Mildred eased herself onto the ground, feeling the cool touch against her bare skin. Skin which was never bare. Skin which had only been bare when absolutely necessary, it seemed, and it was sensitive. Soft skin that bubbled up with goosebumps as she lay her head back. Quiet at first. It sounded like a distant, cheering crowd.

Then louder and louder, the leaves above her began to rustle and then danced in a frenzy as a violent wind blew through the arthritic fingers of a god of the forest, the ancient oaken behemoth. and then drops of dew that had collected for an age began to fall in sheets, washing over her and into the fetid soil beneath which swelled and contracted like lungs of rotting undergrowth. And she laughed.

Mildred laughed, and she couldn't stop laughing. The ageless dew rain that fell on her was warm and made her skin drunk, and she was filled with a joy that could compare to nothing, not even the first time she'd held each of her children. Her mouth was wide, tongue out, collecting the rain. It was sweet like nectar, and when her mouth was full of it, she swallowed deeply and felt it send buzzing bees through her body. And then... Nothing. Mildred lay naked.

a few steps from her front porch, laughing and crying with joy. Above her at the top steps of the porch was her husband looking down, partly disgusted and partly horrified watching his wife clearly losing her mind. Mildred sat up and looked behind her and met his gaze before he stormed back into the house. She looked into the windows and saw a couple of the younger children crying with ugly scrunched chins. Mildred

covered herself, suddenly embarrassed and very confused and sat there for a moment trying to hold tight to the memories of what had just happened. She would tell her husband and they could explain it to the children and it would be fine and they'd... understand what had happened, but what had happened. Mildred stared off into the night, trying with oily hands to grab at the memory, but... It was lost. So she sat up, doing the best she could to cover herself and walked into the house, ashamed.

Today's episode was written and performed by Cole Weavers. Sound production and editing by Matt Black. Our theme song is by the ever-wonderful Charlie P.S. on secrets and shadows, on unspoken truths and the designs of the long shadows, whoever they may be. But it's also built on the support of its townsfolk. Would you like to support our tiny little monstrosity of a town by mending the roof of the church? Or keeping the doors of the sanatorium for the lost and unwanted open?

Or perhaps you'd rather help build the mausoleum for the ones who will never die. In thanks for your support, and for only a few dollars a month, you'll receive episodes of The Town Whispers released early and forever ad-free. as well as exclusive short stories and one-shots to expand your knowledge of what lays dormant and watching under the earth. Would you like to see...

with your own frail eyes that can only see what can be imagined by the goodness of a heart drenched in humanity by receiving digital rewards of the visual variety? All this and more will be revealed on our Patreon. please consider joining us at www.patreon.com slash the town whispers. If you would like to support us in other ways, Please consider following us on Facebook and Instagram and on Twitter at The Town Whispers, or by leaving a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts.

I got the gold. He's been shed. He got a dark past in a soul that's unfair. Hi, Cole here, creator and narrator of The Town Whispers. It's been a long summer, but the leaves once again fall, and with autumn comes longer nights that beg for darker tales, and to fill those long, cold evenings, I've launched a brand new podcast called Tiny Terrors. Tiny Terrors is a nostalgic horror anthology series that is as fun as it is dark.

Join three friends as they delve into a forgotten corner of storytelling history and bring to late the darker depths yet still hidden in those often untraveled corners. Subscribe, listen, and review Tiny Terrors wherever you listen to podcasts. The Town Whispers is a horror podcast that will tell the many stories hidden behind the trees and the rain and the fog of the Pacific Northwest. Those whispers which are secrets.

are also keys to unlock doors which should otherwise stay shut. Those whispers which are ideas can infest your mind and make you do things without ever thinking why. And those whispers which can be poison are why listener discretion is advised. In a town as small as the fort, with his mouths as big as those on the sneering faces of less understanding neighbors. Like those that learnt of, or thought they learnt of, Mildred LaPont's scandalous moonlit insanity. Well, it doesn't take long.

until everyone is knowingly nodding at each other about, well, you know what. And of course, Mildred's husband, who doesn't really deserve a name, so will not receive one just yet, did not support her. Instead, his worries lay on minimizing the embarrassment suffered by his once-prominent family and Peggy LaPont. Mildred's youngest child, an only daughter who had seen her mother acting crazy and cackling in the moments before dawn, was left speechless.

In the most literal sense, she would not speak. Not to her self-serving father. And not to her brothers. Even at the best of times, she only ever whispered in her mother's ear.

Mildred, of course, thought it was cute, like all of Peggy's love was just for her. Peggy would come up and hug her leg, and Mildred would bend down. Peggy would... cup her tiny soft hands around her ear, and whisper so gently that it would tickle Mildred's earlobe, and Mildred would laugh and get Peggy whatever she wanted because... While her daughter was the most precious thing in the world to her. But after that night, Peggy felt afraid of her mother. Afraid to see her.

afraid she'd still be covered in wet cobwebs and dirt. She was afraid she'd see her mom laughing hysterically in bed to the point where there was no noise but the clicking of her airless, suffocating throat. And... Of course, Peggy's father had pushed her away from the room any time he saw her mustering the strength to go see her mother, who had not left her room since that morning.

You would see Peggy hovering and give her a gruff, leave her alone, and push her in the opposite direction. What would be so terrible that she wasn't able to see her mother and whisper in her ear? That's all she wanted to do. Peggy just wanted to tell her mother she loved her and have her mother smile and touch the tip of Peggy's nose to hers before whispering back,

the most. Even if Peggy hadn't been stopped by her father, and even if the door hadn't been locked, she wasn't sure if she could walk through. She wasn't sure she could open her eyes and see her mother because She was afraid that what she'd see would not be her mom, but someone else. Someone different. And so Peggy went to bed, silently having said nothing to her father. who'd given up on trying to speak to her ages ago and having no one to tell her fears to as they festered in her mind.

Inside of my head What I'm supposed to do The blood has been shed He got a dark past And a soul that's unfair

Peggy sat on her bed. The springs in her mattress had a particular way of sticking and making an awful groan as they tore at the inside of the mattress, startling her as it struck her in the back. But she hadn't woken to the stinging pain of an unstuck spring in her back tonight. Something else had woken her. Peggy had slept with her window open. The damp air that rested along the ground outside her home had crept up the porch, along the gutter, over the eaves and into her room. Her hot breath.

cast a cloud in front of her mouth that obscured her blurry, sleepy-eyed vision of the room. And there was something in the room with her. Piggy opened her eyes as wide as they would go, trying to see what was in her room. But nothing moved. Piggy hoped she'd hear nothing back, but ordering whatever might be trying to scare her to reveal itself all the same. But still nothing. The room remained silent.

There it was again. Her eyes slowly drifted over to the door. Her mother had made a habit of not quite closing it, letting a little light from the hallway filter in so that Peggy wouldn't be afraid, but... Her mother was locked in her room, and so was Peggy, completely in the dark and alone. Piggy threw her ratty worn blanket over her head. She held her breath for a moment before the thump, thump, thump of her heart pushed her breath out.

And she inhaled again sharply, feeling the sting of the damp cold in the room hit the back of her teeth. Peggy tilted her head. slightly angling her ear to the door. The hairs raised on the back of her neck as a cold sweat fell across her forehead. Piggy dared not move. She dared not breathe. Her joints felt tense and aching, and she felt her heart booming in her chest with fear.

She tried to hold her breath so that she could hear just a little bit better, but she could hear her heart beating against the inside of her skull. Peggy's eyes closed tight and tears welled in the corners trickling down her cheeks. She should scream for her mom. She should scream now and her mom would come, but her mom wouldn't come. Her mother was locked in her room. Her mother was ill.

Peggy was alone. Peggy should scream for her father then, but he'd be mad. He was always mad at her, mad that she wouldn't speak, mad that she wouldn't play, mad that...

She was born, he hated her, and she felt it. Peggy was alone, with no one to protect her. What is a whisper? Peggy asked. Knowing what a whisper was, but not knowing how a whisper could be a thing that spoke to her without being spoken by someone or something else. Thank you. You are a wizard. The whisper did not speak to Peggy. Not at first. She sat under the covers.

and began to wonder if she had dreamt it all. And it wouldn't be the first time. She'd often had weird dreams, and even when she was awake, she'd heard bumping in the night and creaking walls in the day. It unsettled her father when she'd stare down an empty hallway or suddenly jump and look out the window. But her mother had found it adorable like everything else about her. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe it was just a silly dream and she should go to bed and she should shut her...

This was not a dream. The silent room was filled with the skittering and scampering of tiny dust bunnies in the night. A legion of nightcrawlers that filled Peggy's room in the hall outside. She could feel the buzzing of them. They grew and multiplied. They swarmed and fluttered all around her like moths drunk on light, flapping and colliding with one another.

The blanket over her head fluttered back and forth like leaves in the wind, and she grasped the beaten and well-loved blanket in her tiny hands and tucked it under her feet and pressed the edges behind her down with her hands. The buzzing became a drone that shook her teeth, and her eyes burst into tears out of fear. What was happening? Peggy had no idea, but...

She knew she'd done something. She knew her friend which was most definitely not a friend and absolutely not a dream. She knew this nightmare was not a nightmare but actually happening and it had done something. It had tricked her somehow. And then the calamity of the darkness and the night-crawling dust bunnies that flooded her room outside her blanket rose in a crescendo and what sounded like crashing cymbals or...

The body of a man, hitting the floor, knocking chairs over, settled the house into its usual nightly silence once more. Peggy's face was wet with tears she was too afraid to move too afraid to see what had happened too afraid to see what she had done but what had she done? Slowly, Peggy pulled the blankets off her face, consumed by the curiosity of the noise downstairs. She listened, angling her ear to the door. She could hear the soft...

Padding of feet. Familiar padding. Padding of her mother's feet. He jumped off her bed, smiling ear to ear, and ran out in the hallway. And she saw her mother walking down the hallway and then past Peggy and down the stairs. She wasn't excited to see Peggy. She hadn't hugged her. or bent down to listen to Peggy whisper in her ear that she loved her the most. No, Mildred, Peggy's mother, quietly walked down the stairs. Peggy...

Determined to get her mother's attention, forgetting all about what had just happened and about the noise, ran up behind her mother and pulled at her nightgown. But instead of pulling her back, instead of Mildred turning around and hugging her daughter, she pulled... Peggy along with her, down the creaking and groaning stairs and into the living room. Her mother stopped abruptly. Finally, Peggy thought as she hugged her mother's leg and cried.

And she cried a good long while, too, long enough to soak the nightdress in a large patch around her face. Piggy was so happy to have her mother back, so happy to hug her and touch her, she'd missed her mother. She'd been so afraid. But she knew now that she had nothing to be afraid of. Her mother was the same. She'd always been the same. Mildred reached down and grabbed Peggy by the hair.

Twisting her wrist and wrapping the fine, long hair that fell from Peggy's head around her fingers, she balled her hand and tore Peggy's face away from her and held her at arm's length. ripping Peggy's arms from embracing her leg. Peggy threw her hands up and grabbed her mother's hand, her face contorted in pain, and then Mildred threw her forward.

Peggy put her hands in front of her face to brace against the stiff wooden floor, but instead of cracking her elbows against wood, she fell onto something warm and soft. Peggy jumped back. Her eyes wouldn't focus at first. The tears and darkness obscuring what it was she'd fallen on. But as her eyes adjusted... Peggy stood frozen in place. She saw his toes first, broken and bent out of shape, and stuck in place.

Her father lay on the floor, bent and twisted like a wilted leaf. His eyes were red and dark and lifeless. And from his mouth flowed a foul-smelling puddle of dark... brown pus. His hair was ripped violently from the scalp, but still half-hanging, clinging to skin that had come with the hair like a hangnail torn too low. And his body... God, oh, God, his body was covered in hundreds, no, thousands of little teeth marks.

Good evening, neighbors. How was it? Are you feeling less assured that your homes will keep you safe? That your dreams are really dreams and not the spells of immortal beings who aim to push and pull you like a paper doll being tossed in the wind? It's an important lesson to learn, but I'm sure you're safe, right? Next episode, we will be taking a break from the LaPont family, because there are...

other townsfolk I want to introduce you to. So, you'll have to sit tight for a while to find out what terrible grand designs the long shadows have for the LaPont family. You didn't think their suffering was over just yet, did you? Trust me when I say, there are many players moving chess pieces around the quaint and quiet little chess board known as the fort. And next week...

you'll learn the name of another sacrificial pawn. Today's episode was written and performed by Cole Weavers. Sound production and editing by Matt Black. Our theme song is by Charlie Pierce Smith. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram and on Twitter at the town whispers. And if you'd like to help the town council, perhaps patch the church roof.

or condemn the old LaPont Manor, or perhaps build a mausoleum for the ones who will never die. Consider supporting our wonderful little town, which is nothing but pleasant. even when you are unable to sleep because of the screams echoing from the bog. You can do so by visiting our town hall at patreon.com slash the town whispers for a few dollars a month.

You'll gain the knowledge that has been nibbled from your mind by the worms whispered by sleep, and find records written by the founders of our humble, little monstrosity of a town. You might even find a relic or two in your mailbox on occasion. The ghost of you inside of my head What I'm supposed to do The blood has been shed He got a dark past In a soul that's unfair I suppose to do. I'm the one. is already there.

Well, walking through the seemingly endless ruins of an old castle through the Horror Nebula in the Audioverse isn't easy on the nerves. Have you located the tortoise yet? I'm afraid not.

We're not alone. Oh, I know that. Sonic Society is legion. And you already have the best seat in the house. Yes, I've been listening to the old episodes, but no, I don't mean your season one description of the podcast, Jack. Yes, there are many listeners out there who only need to go to sonicsociety.org to find... in this week's show notes and links to the Audio Dramatist resource guide. Then what do you mean? Well, something else followed us from the last show to this one.