Episode 13: The Baptism

The Miniwauk Caves is intended for mature audiences. It contains strong language and depictions of bullying, violence, and sexual assault that some may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Also, this is an extremely immersive experience, and headphones are recommended. You're listening to The Maniwac Caves, a production of iHeartRadio, Blumhouse Television, and Psycopia Pictures.

The fog is rolling and thick in the valley. It whips by my windows and gusts, moving fast, faster than I could run, faster than my soul could hope to fly up to the holy Sun. And it keeps coming in endless gloom at one hundred miles an hour. I could hardly see my own face in the side, and merrits so goddamn thick, and I wouldn't recognize myself anymore even then, because my eyes don't seem.

Like my own anymore. There's something else in there.

In the reflection watching me.

I'm scared.

The closer I come to the truth, the more frequently the blackouts happen, because the caves don't want me to know the truth. But I'm close now, closer than ever, despite the fog and the noise. Despite the blackouts, the memories are getting sharper. Bits and pieces of my path that were completely blank have crystallized, And I have my tape.

For the rest.

A ghost and a mirror and the hounds of hell dancing in your, dancing in you.

The mouse sings tar river of el who climbed inside and tells these lanes, tells these lanes.

Somebody screaming for help and no answer, a feedback.

Loop gone wrong.

Does it fight when you're all.

It was my idea.

Look them down in the case, get them lost, watch them fall apart like the cowards we knew they were. We weren't gonna make them ship their pants and videotapeic get footage of them crying and freaking out. I couldn't let those spoils ship let's get away with it anymore. It had gone too far. It was time they got theirs, you know. It was time for revenge.

To be tilanside.

Nice.

If you were driving, I need you to pull over.

So I'm not trying.

James Fincher just confessed killing Thncoln and Thomas Handley.

Thanks for joining us tonight.

We are avoarding one of bizarre turn of events and the.

Attorney General's office that Fincher has now drin double I'm not brood, only hours after the Governor had intervened on his behalf with an older that the Governor has relearsed in decision and Fincher's execution is still set for ABM tonight.

Many unknowns now well, we don't even know the circumstances of this supposed confession.

No one from James Fincher's legal team was present.

Now, look, we are on the verge of murdering a man without allowing him or the state or Tennessee the opportunity to Governor of Justice.

That there was new evidence in the case, wrongly, evidence that could prove that Governor was preparing to commute fin Your's sentence entirely, when in these final hours before his scheduled execution, Fincher himself released a sworn statement confessing to the crime.

If there is any chance of saving your soul, now is the time time to give the family what they need, the peace they deserve.

James, go ahead, now, James Fincher.

Confessed to the crimes for which I have been convicted and for which I have been sentenced.

I hope that this will bring both families to peace they deserve.

Julian Julian Julian Julian.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

The reverend had brobbed him, said a Finch confessed to the murders. He would make sure Dina and Jimmy were well cared for. He would bring them into his flock, set up a church fund, and make them an example of how the Lord's goodness is mightier than the devil's eavol.

I guess Finn should taken the bride.

Lined with rage and tears, I staggered back to my car, clutching the video camera that Tyler sent me.

H h, it's yours. It's your truth, it's your decision about what to do with it.

This has all the answers you're looking for.

Okay, Okay, okay, Tyler.

Yeah, get back here with that light.

Pha.

I swear to God, I'm going to fuck that motherfucker up when I see him.

Do you hear me? Pitch, We're can go back that queer man?

Will you tried that.

Ship?

What the fuck up?

Said you?

Dina?

Hello?

Well?

Fuck else? Could it be? She's gotta be right up Okay, we'll.

Just keep going.

Hello, Thomas, there no one here, dna.

Da dude. I don't know, man, it don't sound like her. What the fuck she's moving?

Man?

Where is?

Where is?

What the fuck is that she's moving?

I can't say it where It doesn't matter?

Just too man, what fucking life?

What?

What is he?

What?

Something?

God?

Such?

Just something trippy.

I'm bleeding Jesus homing.

So I'm fucking no.

No, no, that's that's just I just walk.

No, man, I'm fucking bleeding comic.

I'm down here.

I'm down here.

Toddy fucking pushed me.

Man, Oh my b I'm not.

I can't get up and.

Stay there, stay there, don't move, honey, help I'm play Okay, Wait, I can't. I can't reach you. Come on, my god, I see I see it.

There's a tone. I can see it to the entrance. I can see like Thomas gets through here. I can see it.

What I suck?

I suck?

Oh, God, fucking stuff.

No promise all this.

I'm stuck with it. But I've got a signal.

Nine one.

Yeah, yeah, Hello.

When when you help I'm in the cave, and when you help us, please please send someone.

To help us.

Okay, run that one more time.

Okay, my my brother, my my brother, Thomas.

He felt.

He's bleeding real bad.

Please, sir, I need.

You to calm down. I need your address.

We're here off of highway for two.

Fushing's properly?

Who sucks? Who's sucking a cave?

Sure? Hello, let's shuck way anger.

Ship shut me way out of the highway force two.

Hello should you hear me?

Sure?

Hello? Hello?

Hello, I can hear you?

Hello?

Hello, Hello?

All right?

Ms Thomas Thomas hm hm dom hell somebody hell you help me?

Oh man?

Why are you just standing there?

The fuck are you doing?

Wait?

Wait wait wait wait wait I'm I'm I'm sorry, I'm just I'm please pla. I'll never I'll never message see you again.

I just want to go.

Looking.

Non't know I got him up.

Up help help.

Okay, Hey, man over here, I think got say.

Julie, jeez, Julie, chase man, my hands, my hands hurts, so baggsy, managed.

Go easy.

Play everywhere? So much poor Julian Julian. No, Julie, Julie no, no, oh no, had.

Julie Julian.

Julian Julian h she told you that don't come.

Do you get it now?

My heart's all swollen like a balloon in my chest, and there was no room for my lungs.

We each have our own part.

I couldn't breathe.

The air was hot and wet, with my own dress, fog in the windows.

I was holding on to the hope maybe you know, maybe I was crazy.

It wasn't my car anymore, but that it was just a metal box.

I was trapped inside off and I tried to reach for the door, but my hand weighed a hundred pounds fence. He can see things, whether the ghost of Tyler Wilson was actually sitting beside me.

I had to accept it things other people can.

It was happening, whether it was real or not.

So he knew what he had to do.

Me.

All I had was my five senses in the caves, trying to hide the truth, m trying to hide from me, try to trick my mind. So I ran a few experiments. I charted it on the patterns, and the only thing I could figure for certain. If I cut off the case from the rest of the world, then nobody else would have to suffer. Problem solved.

So I did what I had to do.

Finched on his part, I done mine. Now you've got to do yours. Buddy, buckstops with you, because it's going to happen again if you don't stop it.

What's gonna happen?

Murder?

I didn't kill those points.

Apes weren't never gonna let us go.

I didn't kill those boys.

Finch told you the time would come tough for to remove yourself from the situation before it gets in your head again, before anyone else gets hurt.

You want me to run.

My whole life.

No, you can't run, So you have to end it. You're the only one who can. You have to take yourself out of the situation before it's too late. Hell huh, you still have the detective's gun.

Don't.

It's right here in the glove box. You say, remove yourself from the situation.

My fingers groped for the door and slipped on the wetness. Somehow I managed to pull the handle and open the door. I could barely see through the rain and fall. I couldn't feel my body, but I forced one foot in front of the other and made my way back up the wet, fern covered hill back to my mother's grave.

I shut my eyes, and everything stopped. The rain stopped, the crow stopped, the wind stopped. Like I was suspended and avoid a vacuum of time and space. Then now I felt the damp rocks beneath my body.

And now I heard the low, dull wind bending and howling through the hollow space, heard water dripping from the still attites, the fluttering and chirping of a thousand bats in the distance.

But I keep my eyes shut tight for fear. I might confirm by sight, but my heart already knew that I was now deep inside the case. Then I felt her fingers in my hair, soft but strong. I looked up and saw her face above me, her sweet cheeks and beautiful dark eyes.

My mother.

It's okay, baby, Mom. Yeah, baby, I'm here.

But I don't understand.

How could I have done those things?

Yeah? I know, I know.

Baby.

There comes a time, though, when you got to accept the truth.

Julian, There comes a time when you got to accept who you are.

What you are.

That's what I hid me, my mother's fingers plying gently upon my hair like a warm summer breathe. All I'd ever wanted was to get away as far away as possible, away from my mother and father, away from the bullies, away from the racist and backward sheriffs, away from the shadow of my mother's death, away from myself, away from myself. All I wanted was to belong to something for once, And I.

Felt so warm in my mother's laugh. I realized that this was the only sanctuary I'd ever known.

Oh, it's been only your breath, all your heart beats, and just running, never knowing what real love is.

And you run out of potsman, you run away from meniwalk, and you run away from your family, You run from the truth.

But you can't, baby, you can't run away from.

Yourself and who you are?

Who a my mom?

A crowd?

You are the last of us.

And then I saw them, all of them, the entire unholy horde, All of my ancestors were standing behind my mother, all gathered in the matrix of your caves.

My father, the gray Man, stood behind my mother, his blue eyes gleaming, his hair parted on the side. He wears a blue suit.

He was buried.

Then a few behind him there was Matthew sweet Sir, a distant cousin who committed suicide in the case two decades before.

Half his head blown off.

Richard ride down too, the leather straps from his electric chair still dangling from his wrists and cinched around his forehead. And behind him a family dressed in woolen rags, the Leary's, I assumed, father Seamus, mother Eleanor, and two daughters.

Milicent and Nadine.

Young Nadine O'Leary dressed in rags, missing fingers and parts of her face from frostbite, looking just as she did the knight.

Solomon's house went up in flames.

Others were there too.

Hundreds of them, spread deep throughout the caves, all standing before me.

Eventually he.

Comes for each one of us, and some have and some have a blige, others others. Others well, they refused, and they suffered it, and they suffered.

The consequences some and some have taken their own lives before he could.

Make them take others.

We are your family, Julia said, this is your family.

Never give up, never give up on.

We've been watching you. I'm waiting calling come back home ever since you run off.

Had fuddenly heard the calling.

He finally came back to us.

You know, I came home for Finch. Finch was my friend Finch loved me, and I came back to make things right. I came back to save him, and now he's gonna die.

He made his own deal, and you still want.

To save him.

Then all the spirits of the dead, all of my ancestors, moved to the sides of the caves, parting like the red sea, and a shape came up from the bottomless depths, a figure made only of sorrow and hunger.

A shadow of no beginning and no end. It swallowed any light bleeding down from the world above.

It took form behind my mother and looked at me through her eyes, And as I stared back, I saw myself reflected in.

Her endless black pupils.

Who are you?

You know?

The dark wrapped around my mother, and her face fell away, along with all the other faces of my ancestors, until there was no face at all, but only a feeling of indescribable emptiness. And when she spoke again, my mother's voice was haunted, mercurial and shifting, at once, male and female and old, a chorus of a thousand souls with a thousand tongues, all folded into one ancient voice. You know.

It was? It made you maybe do.

No, you were simply given license and opportunity.

No.

I may have guided you, but it was by your own hatred and rage that you took their lives. But it didn't take my chance. Oh it's very near end. And then you paid your dad. You are free.

I'll never be free.

I have tried to make this easier for you to clear your press guilty died, your memory of it.

My but you're only human.

That's the real curses, and it's your humanity, your conscience.

You can't take that away, right, It's how.

You were made.

All lie.

You're guilty has nothing to do with killing those boys. They deserved it, didn't. They let you get to.

Live while your friend will die for your crimes. I mean you could turn yourself in converse to your students, reveal yourself for the world, take his place, take Venture's place on death throne.

But let's be honest, you never will. So looking for you as uh another way?

Wh why if you really want to free James Fincher, I could make that.

I could without anyone ever knowing the truth. But I don't need you to do more.

For you want me to kill again?

Right to give you more into sell lives.

Here's the deal.

You can spare the life of your innocent friend in exchange for others, those who.

Have wronged you, those who you all already hate. A feel riding apples be doing the world of service, seems fam, do we have a deal?

Breaking news this evening, Tennessee Governor Travis Cox has granted a temporary reprieve to death prisoner James.

Only moments ago, Governor Cox said mister Fincher's execution must be delayed in light a long women appeals in court rulings, and the governor's decision comes despite an apparent confession made by mister Fincher only hours ago to the crimes for which he has been convicted.

Julian, it's Jill. I just got a call from the book.

We did it.

James Fincher isn't gonna die, at least not today. The governor stepped up and LeBlanc was able to get a federal appeals paneled to grant him in a definite stay. They were shaving James's head when the chaplain told him said, he just cried goes to show never give up, never lose hope. I know I almost did, but for you Julian, and I know this was not easy, but you do the right thing. Courage isn't just doing the right thing when it's easy. Courage is doing the right thing even when you're scared.

Sheitless.

Just know that I am grateful, And just like that, I found myself back here in my car, like I've never left it, except I have no idea how long I've been here.

The day has become night, a closer dry, the storm has passed.

The fog is so thick now I can't see any goddamn thing clearly. Soon nothing will be visible anymore ahead or behind, present or past.

Soon I will remember my name. I'll look in the mirror and I will recognize my face. I'll speak and I won't hear my own voice.

And soon the darkness will take me again. Don't panic. This recording is to help you, Julian. Because of your hair and this it means you've had another spell. Know you expected this, you plan it for it. This tape is to help you determine what's real from what's not. The blackouts are more frequent now, they last longer, leaving gaps in your memory.

That's why you left this message for yourself. Julian, to help you remember, first thing I need you to do is to start the car.

You need to drive.

Never mind the fog.

Visibility is going to be shipped for a while, doesn't matter, and it doesn't.

Matter which road would you take? Just heading north and don't stop, no matter what.

You should have at least a half tank, so just drive, drive until the fog breaks.

No matter what, you should have at least a half tank. Drive, drive until the fog breaks.

And hopefully you will do what must be done while you're still able to. In the meantime, hit rwind, go all the way back to the beginning of this tape and then play it, all of it.

That should do it.

Now.

All I can do is hope for the best.

That's all.

Stap until you saw us. Damn, you just can't seem to stay out of trouble, can't you, Julian. I need to confess doing back here it caves for I need to turn myself, come back to slay. Prayer for your friend, Tyler.

I need to confess the property.

You know you are trash at least once.

That sis for radio.

You are not listening.

It's backlo. I got a coach twenty four. Hello, piece of shit, I'm gonna need you step out of your vehicle.

Out of the car now, you should walk away.

What about step out of your vehicle? Do you not understand?

God damn it, step out now, motherfucker.

Dina, Reverend.

Jimmy, you can call me James. Well, okay, James, Dina.

I don't know if you formerly met Bobby. Yes we met?

Yep.

Oh, good, good, that's that's a real good well James, if you are ready, yes, sir, that's good.

That's fine.

How's the water? Is it cold?

It's like a warmth you've never felt.

Okay, it'll all be over before you know it, but you will feel it forever, son, trust me, Yes, sir?

All right, then let's get this going.

Follow me, okay, I'm happy, decided to do this. The Lord really does work in mysterious ways. Yeah, well, you look lovely. That's a real preddress. Thank you.

It was going to be Michael by address, but.

Things have changed.

Thank you all for joining us today.

Let me begin with a few observations.

This is a special occasion.

The baptism is always a special occasion, but the circumstances here are not normal. I'll be the first to admit it, but these circumstances nonetheless deserve addressing. I invite you all to join me here today to look upon this young woman, Dina Fincher, and her son Jimmy, as unique souls who themselves have done nothing to offend the Lord. The Bible teaches us forgive, and that is in fact our duty.

We have an opportunity to make right a great wrong, to heal a deep wound in the heart of this community. If we do not embrace this family here and.

Now, we will be equally guilty.

Not if, but when the pattern of sin repeats itself and the matrix of evil manifests itself.

No, please.

Say all, Satan is waiting, waiting in the wings.

He lurks in the shadows.

Of man's walk out.

And so it is up to us to protect and shelter this poor family from the silver tongue and evil.

Grip of the beast, and deliver him to the glory of God that was joy.

God.

We are here to witness as this young man follows Christ examp.

Sorry, so here we go.

Upon your public.

Profession of your faith in Him and obedience to his command. I baptize you, Jimmy Fincher, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of his death, ray in the likeness of his resurrection.

I'm sorry, visit though, mm hmm.

Amen, m.

A ghost and a mirror.

And the hands of Hell, Dancing in.

Your Dancing in.

The Manilock Keys stars Jonathan Tucker as Juliet Sallace, Eddie Getheggy as James Fincher, Clark Peters as Detective Solomon Smith, Nick Cercy as Sheriff Kirby Hooper, Justin Welborn as Tyler Wilson, Jill Jane Clements as Jill Campbell, Brad Carter as Doodlee Tappern, Scott Poythus as Reverend Perkins, Samantha Ashley as Dena Fincher, Justin Matthews Smith as Paul Sallace, Ta Oakes as Laura Sallace, Jonathan Horn as Deacon Hadley, Alden Karanovich as Thomas Hadley,

Lynn.

Our executive producers are Matt Frederick, Alexander Williams, Michael Monty, and Courtney du Frees. Our executive producers at Blumhouse Television are Jeremy Gold, Chris Dickey, and Noah Feinberg. Produced by Dan Bush, music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez, edited by Dan Bush, Chris Childs, Stephen Perez and David Chen. Sound design by Benjamin Malcolm. Additional sound designed by Alexander Rodriguez.

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