Stuff You Should Know - SYSK's 2017 Super Spooktacular!

Episode Date: October 31, 2017

In this year's super scary Halloween episode, Chuck and Josh read two great works of horror fiction: Gifts, by our very own Ed Grabianowski, and the classic The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. We need to come up with those spooky Simpsons names, you know, what they do for Treehouse of Horror every year. Oh, right. We just have never done that, but so I guess this year, again, still, I'm just Josh Clark and you're just Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry the Murderous, Ghoul Roland. No, you're Josh, spooky Clark, and I'm Chuck. He's right behind you, Bryant.

Nice. That's good stuff, man. Thanks for swooping in there. Sure. So this is our Halloween special, which we do every year these days for those of you who aren't familiar, but who like horror fiction, prepare to be delighted. Yeah, what we do is we get together every year, and we should point out this is one of two ad-free episodes we do every year along with the Christmas holiday spectacular, and

we fight for this every year because it would really ruin the vibe of a good spooky story if we took a commercial break, right? Yep, but it's our gift to you, that's right. So what we do is reread, it used to be one story, sometimes we've fansourced stories, which was... Yeah, we had a whole horror fiction contest. Which we'll never do again. No, it was a lot of work, but it yielded some pretty great stuff.

Yeah, and I think last year we did the little two sentence fan-submitted things, and that was kind of neat, but this year we're going old school and just reading two straight-up horror fiction stories. One of which was written expressly for us for this episode by our favorite writer, Ed Grabinowski. That's right, the Grabster. The Grabster, yes. And we have a little update to last year's story.

So Ed wrote us a story last year called Extraneous Invocat, which was great and terrifying. It was so terrifying in fact, Chuck, that over in the UK, a producer of films got in touch with Ed and said, hey, mate, I want to turn that story into a movie. What do you say? And he said, I'm not your mate, but sure. Yeah, and it's happening. That's... I mean, how about that?

Yeah, they set up a website for it called TheBetween.film, that's the name of the movie, is TheBetween. And now in the post.com bubble days, you can call your website.anything. So again, it's TheBetween.film, and it'll give you some information on the story. There's even a link to last year's Halloween episode, so if you want to go listen to it, go to that site and find it. And they set up a crowdfunding project to help fund the project. And if you kick in, you can get things like obviously the movie when they complete it. You can get signed scripts, even a credit in the movie.

There's a lot of stuff you can get that they're offering, and the movie's slated to come out February 14th, 2018, as it stands, right? Wow, man, that's great. Like, it's really on track to go. So things are coming up for the Grabster, and he gave us another great story that I would be surprised if it doesn't get turned into a movie eventually as well. Yeah, I guess that producer said, I love the story, but that title's got to go. Yeah, no one knows how to say that.

We're just going to call it TheBetween. No, cool title, but TheBetween is definitely a little more marketable, I think, in today's modern world. Then Latin? Yeah. We ought to get a kickback on that, huh? You know, I didn't bring it up. I was hoping he would, but he hasn't so far.

No, we're happy to be de facto executive producers. Yeah, we could also be facto, though, if they give us credits in the film. Maybe a special thanks at the end. Yeah, and money. Like I owe my life to these guys, don't I think? Right. Yeah. All right.

Well, you ready to read his newest one? The Grabster's newest story? That's right. It is called GIFs, not G-I-F-F-S. G-I-F-T-S. Right. That was a good creepy T-S. Thank you. So we're going to start, and Jerry, as ever, is going to pull out all the stops and add

all the bells and whistles to scare the bejesus out of you while we're reading this. So without further ado, here's GIFs by the Grabster. I'm here about the housekeeping job. I'm Marissa. I called earlier. I reached out to shake the man's hand, but he kept his face on the paperwork he was shuffling. He was pulling out an upraised index finger in my direction.

I returned my hand to my side. Finally, he stacked the papers and looked up at me. You'll want to speak to my wife then. She's handling those arrangements. She's gone to the market, but should be back any moment if you'd like to wait. There's a sitting room at the top of the stairs. He nodded briskly and moved on to some other tasks. A wide staircase of dark, varnished wood led to an upstairs hallway running to my left

and right. The ornate wallpaper was striped by alternating shafts of shadow and sunlight coming through open doors, except at one end of the hall. There the doors were closed and the hallway unfolded in shadow. Directly ahead of me was an open archway leading to the sitting room, a sunlit chamber with a fireplace, a number of well-crafted but time-worn leather chairs, a row of bookshelves stacked with volumes, and a small table set up for a game of chess. A young boy roughly six years old was sitting in one of the chairs.

A large book spread out in his lap. He looked up as I entered. Hello, he said. Are you a guest? No, I told him. I've come about the housekeeping job. You mind a little company? I've got to wait for your mother.

Okay. His smile brightened. It'll be good to have someone to help again. Mom gets stressed when she has to do it all herself, along with the shopping and everything. My name is Robert, but everyone calls me Bobby. My name is Marissa. What's that you're reading, Bobby? He tilted the book up so I could see the title, the sign on Rosie's door.

What's it about? A girl who becomes someone else and takes her friends on adventures. I had an adventure this week. Do you want to see what I found? Without waiting for me to answer, he hopped off the chair, setting the book down behind him, and ran past me through the archway into the hall on his short legs. Don't follow him. I turned to follow, seeing him head off down the brighter half of the corridor.

It's in my room, he called out, and disappeared into one of the open doorways. By the time I got there, he was crawling underneath the bed. It was clearly his room, decorated with racing cars and cartoon characters. He emerged clutching what appeared to be a pillow. I had a dream the other night that I was in the dark, and no matter where I crawled around, I couldn't get out of the dark. It was cool inside wherever I was, but so dark, so black, I couldn't see anything. When I woke up, I was holding this.

He held the pillow out to me. It was oddly shaped, more narrow than the usual pillow, and it was made of white satin with a satin ruffle around the edge. I took it and held it up, humoring the child's tall tail. But I noticed the pillow was stained in the center, a yellowish-brown mark in a rough oval shape. That's when I realized what it was. It was a pillow from a burial casket.

Bobby, where did you get this? I tried to keep from sounding alarmed. When I woke from my dream, I was lying on top of it, holding it with both arms. He gave it to me. I heard footsteps coming down the hall behind me and turned to see a small-framed woman with graying black hair striding toward me. I handed the pillow back to Bobby. Miss Leventus, she said.

Yes, I stuck out my hand again, this time getting a soft handshake in return. Bobby's been showing me around. I looked back at the child who sat on the edge of his bed smiling, the pillow nowhere to be seen. All right, I don't like the sounds of Bobby. No, not with this little burial casket stained pillow. No, or his short, stubby legs, which is creepy all by itself. I got the job.

That's great. My husband didn't exactly sound joyful at the news. To be honest, neither did I. Working at Shipton Grange Hotel for the summer was a necessity and something of a hardship. The hotel was 200 miles away from our home, and I'd only be able to afford the train back to visit once or twice a week in the four months I'd be working there. But times were hard for everyone, and most had it harder than us. Still, knowing this meant I'd be apart from John for the entire summer, tempered my enthusiasm,

I could hear in his voice, even over the phone line, more relief and weariness than glee. We sure needed. It's a nice place, old, kind of fussy. Mrs. Taggart is nice, and the young boy Bobby is— I paused about to say, he's a bit odd, but it felt like gossiping about a child, so I told John, he's very inquisitive, but it wasn't what I meant. It's a lot for you to do this, John said, it will help in the long run, it's hard to be apart, though.

I love you, Mayor. I smiled, looking out the window, at the tidy gardens in front of Shipton Grange, dissolving into shadows as twilight set in. I love you too, John. I'm glad you got that sappy part. Don't worry about Bobby, Mrs. Taggart was walking me through the hotel, showing me what my duties would include and which room I'd be staying in, on the ground floor near the kitchen.

She stopped awkwardly, placing a hand at my elbow. His imagination is unusual at times, but he's a kind boy, he really is. Which was true, I think. He never showed me the funeral pillow again and Bobby would often appear around a corner or at the doorway of a room I was cleaning, clutching something odd. He was so eager to show me and didn't seem to have other friends, so I let him linger around while I worked. In truth, he was more pleasant company than either of his parents, whom I found stiff and

formal. They rarely spoke to me at all about anything not directly related to my job. This was under my hat when I took it off this morning, Bobby said one afternoon. He held out a small pile of coins, worn and blackened with age, Latin writing barely legible on the faces. Those must be terribly valuable, I said, oh I can't sell them, his face was very serious. Mr. Sorrow says they're mine to keep. Children have their flights of fancy and imaginary friends, especially a child free to roam an

old estate like shipped in Grange, but when Bobby said that name, I felt something on the back of my neck, like a kiss that barely grazes the skin. Mr. Sorrow? My voice was just a whisper. Yes, Bobby Grin, he's very tall. We were in room 33, which was named the uttermost end, being the last room at the end of the longest third floor corridor. The light was always bad in that room, the whole section of corridor had a dim greenish

quality to it. It wasn't simply that the light was insufficient, but rather that it felt incorrect. The shadows fell at the wrong angles, and the sun, when seen reflecting on a windowpane or a crystal decanter, appeared as a dull orange hole bored into the sky. As we spoke, Bobby's shadow seemed to stretch, to reach across the room as if to unfold me. He closed a small fist around the coins and ran off. The deep disconcerting shadows remained. I remade the bed covers quickly and hurried to leave.

No one had stayed in the uttermost end in the time I'd been working at Shifting Grange. Maybe it's because they called it the uttermost end. It's not the best name for a room. They're like, you'll like it. The lighting is incorrect. Even Mary and Joseph would have been like, that's okay, we'll go out into the manger. You just keep that room yourself. I don't like the sounds of Mr. Sorrow either, by the way.

I woke up with hands on my throat this morning, John said. Ice cold. What? Did someone break in? There was no one there. It must have been a nightmare. My heart was racing, though. I'd imagine so.

Check the windows around the house before bed tonight, then. Just to humor me. I will. I think I'll sleep like a stone tonight. We've fallen behind on orders at the plant, and Machine Four went down again. I'm pulling my hair out. John hung up the phone on his end, and I listened to the silence on the line for a while, the hum and whisper of currents, and the echoes of a thousand voices.

Later that week, I was cleaning the main dining room. Bobby playing at the table behind me with some wooden army men he'd found in the attic. The clatter of his toys had fallen silent, but I didn't notice until Mrs. Tegger walked in. She looked at me, then her gaze moved behind me, her eyes widening. Bobby! She hissed quietly. I turned to see Bobby standing very close behind me, clutching in his hand a gleaming

steel blade. Is that from the kitchen, Mrs. Tegger said? Bobby's face turned sullen. No. He dropped a knife clanging to the floor and ran from the room. Mrs. Tegger collected the blade, turning it over in her hands. It appeared to be finely made, though it bore a dark stain. She carried it straight out to the trash bins in the rear yard.

That boy ain't right. No. You know? That's the turning point right there. In mid-summer the weather grew hot and close, but shade trees and thick walls kept the old estate quite cool. John and I still spoke on the phone every night, and I planned to return home for a weekend in just two weeks.

It was nearly all I could think about. At night I would lie in bed waiting for sleep, trying to slow my breathing, taking in the sugar-sweet smell from the elder shrubs growing all around the open window. I'd often awaken hours later, staring into the blind darkness of a strange room in a strange town, and feel the weight of loneliness settle on my chest like a stone. In those moments, soft fingers of shadow would trace my jawline and collarbone with the familiarity of a lover, and I spoke to voices I could barely hear. One evening, after completing my work for the day, I found Bobby rolling a small rubber

ball slowly up and down the upstairs hallway. Would you like to play catch, I said? His face lit up with delight, and he took up a position ten meters down the hall from me. Ed's Canadian. We rolled and bounced the ball back and forth for some time, Bobby letting out the first really genuine laughter I'd heard from him. My back was to the long, dim expanse of the corridor leading to the uttermost end, but

I hadn't really thought about it until the door to one of the other rooms just behind me slowly opened. I saw it swing open from the corner of my eye, room twenty-seven, the prince's chamber. I watched the gaping doorway for a moment. When no one emerged, I called out, Mrs. Taggart? There was no reply, but Bobby giggled behind me, and the ball rolled slowly past me, coming to a stop in front of room twenty-seven. I crept forward to retrieve it, crouching to pick up the ball.

As I stooped in front of the empty, darkened room, I was engulfed in a frigid chill. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and returned to Bobby. With my right hand, I tossed the ball. When I pulled my left hand from my pocket, I realized I was holding something. It was a pair of scissors. The orange plastic handle had been melted and blackened by a fire, but the blades were clean and sharp. I'd never seen them before.

Man, oh man. The next day I was cleaning the dust from beneath one of the guestbeds. I like how Ed brings us along on the cleaning. Oh yeah, just to keep us up to date. The next day I was cleaning the dust from beneath one of the guestbeds, and as I reached for the rag I'd set down, something else materialized in my hand. I don't mean to say that I reached out and grasped an object. I mean that my empty hand suddenly and inexplicably had something in it.

It had a dry, papery feel. In drawing my hand out from under the bed, I saw that it was an old scrap of newspaper. There was no date on it, as the top edge was torn, and nothing on it seemed to be of any significance. Advertisements for a furniture shop and an article about a winter storm. In the center of the paper, a hole had been torn through. Looking more closely, I could see that it was actually a bite mark. Someone had chewed through the center of a piece of old newspaper.

Mr. Sorrow's giving gifts to you now, Ms. Marissa. There was Bobby in the doorway, dark circles under his eyes. He stood and watched me for an uncomfortably long time. I threw the newspaper away. Oh boy, I'm getting creeped out here. Just one more week until I can see you again. I know, I really can't wait. I've got a nice dinner plan, and we can walk down by the sarset like we used to.

The water is so green this time of year. There was the joy that had been missing from John's voice earlier in the summer. And I'll confess, it made my heart swell to hear it. That sounds wonderful. Are things getting better at the factory? A bit. I'm not sleeping well, though, John said. I guess it's just that the house feels empty without you here.

I'm consistently awakened in the middle of the night by the feeling of someone lying in the bed beside me. But of course there's no one there. Someone will be there soon enough. I was trying to be reassuring, but it came out wrong. Me, I mean. John laughed. Well, of course you.

Uh, yeah, you better hope it's her, right, John? Of course it's you. All right. He sounds fully convinced. All right, you want me to bring it home? I was awakened by a scream. Mrs. Taggart was wailing, and I ran toward the sound, groggy from sleep, and stumbling over furniture in the darkness.

She was in Bobby's room. The bed was empty, and she was crouched halfway out the open window. Bobby! She cried out into the night. I stood there halfway through the door, stunned. The window opened via a hand crank, the handle detached for safety, and the socket was too high for Bobby to reach in any case. Mr. Taggart ran past me, down the corridor, and I followed him downstairs into the cool

night air. Bobby was crumpled on the lawn. His right leg folded unruly. His face bloody. But he was alive. He'll be all right, Mr. Taggart called up to his wife, who was still sobbing in the window. Call for the doctor. Then Mrs. Taggart shrieked, glaring at me across the wide lawn.

At that moment I noticed something in my hand, the hand crank for the window. I stammered and dropped it. I was sound asleep. I swear. I ran back into the house with a phone, not thinking clearly, not knowing what to do, so I rang John. I needed to hear his voice. Mayor?

He sounded sleepy. John! Something horrible happened. Bobby fell out the window, but I had the crank to open it in my hand. I don't know how it got there, but I was asleep, John. I was asleep. Calm down, love. Take a breath, and explain it again.

I don't really under... John's voice was cut off by a sharp hitch in his breath. A sort of short cough. John? Are you there? The only sound over the phone line was a soft, wet whistling, repeated in a slow rhythmic pattern. I felt something in my hand just then.

Something warm, like my fingers were wrapped in hair, a heavy weight dangling below. On the phone the whistling sound faded to a low gurgle, and I screamed and I screamed while something hot and wet splashed onto my legs and ran down my feet, but I refused to look down. I refused to see what it was in my hand, and the voice on the phone was familiar and cold. It was not John, and I just screamed. Wow! Boom.

Holy cow. That is how it's done if you're a horror writer. Somewhere in Canada a microphone was just dropped. Nice. Way to go, Grabster. That was good stuff. Wooo, Daddy! That's a good one.

I think that would make, at the very least, a wonderful short film. Agreed. That's going to be a tough one to follow. It's going to take a literal horror classic to follow that one, and we'll get to that right after our eight-minute commercial break. Hey, we're back. Yes, we should set this one up a little bit. It's called The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and it is one of our classic

old stories that we used to do some of these. In 1892, published first in New England Magazine, and this can only be considered early work of feminist literature, and what it really is, clearly, is a statement on the treatment of women at the time, you know? Oh, yeah, for sure, clearly. It must have been, when was it originally published? 1892. This is very brave to publish this because...

Super brave. The author Charlotte Perkins Gilman is definitely almost poking fun at the status quo between men and women at the time by making her character just so fully bought into it that she's not even really questioning it while she's questioning it, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, for sure. She's questioning the details, but not the structure that is giving rise to the details. Yeah, and she's clearly not too shy about making her statement. You don't have to read between too many lines, you know?

Right, yeah. I like it. At it, too. Good story. And I believe this one's been made into a movie on Netflix, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, really? I'm pretty sure I saw the yellow wallpaper on Netflix, yeah. Huh.

All right, the yellow wallpaper. Here we go. It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reached the height of romantic felicity, that would be asking too much of fate. Still, I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply, and why have stood so long, untenanted?

That's sort of a mouthful, huh? It really is. It's a late 19th century mouthful for no one rints this place. Right. John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical and the extreme. He has no patience and faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and perhaps—I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind—perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see, he does not believe I am sick. And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing to matter with one, but temporary nervous depression, a slight hysterical tendency, what is one to do?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phosphites, whichever it is, in tonics and journeys and air and exercise, and I am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again. By the way, she put work in quotation marks, which I think was quite ballsy for the time. Scarecrow. Yeah, a little cynical for 1892. Personally I disagree with their ideas. Personally I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them, but it does exhaust me a good deal, having to be so sly about it, or else be met with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus, but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad, so I will let it alone and talk about the house. The most beautiful place, it is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village, it makes me think of English places that you read about, for

there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people. There is a delicious garden, I never saw such a garden, large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long, grape-covered arbors with seats under them. There were greenhouses too, but they're all broken now. There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co-heirs. Anyhow, the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care.

There's something strange about the house, I can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlit evening, but he said what I felt was a draft and shut the window. I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to the nervous condition, but John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control, so I take pains to control myself, before him, at least. And that makes me very tired.

I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza, and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings. But John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window, and not room for two beds. Nice touch. And no near room for him if he took another. He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour and the day. He takes all care for me, so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more. He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear, he said. Good one. You like that? And your food somewhat on your appetite, but air you can absorb all the time.

So we took the nursery at the top of the house. It was a big airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look always, and air and sunshine galore. It was a nursery first, and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge, for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boy's school had used it. It is stripped off, the paper, and great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room, low down.

I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye and following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame, uncertain curves, for a little distance, they suddenly commit suicide, plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions. The color is repellent, almost revolting, a smoldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull, yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly, sulfur-tent in others.

No wonder the children hated it. I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long. There comes John. I must put this away. He hates to have me write a word. All right. Not bad. It sounds to me, early on, like this lady is already a prisoner in this room.

A prisoner in her life, maybe even Chuck, you could say. I think so. John strikes me as one of those doctors. It's like, you know, just breathe into this bag for a bit and you'll be fine. Don't question me, or I'll have you surgically murdered. All right. Take it away. We've been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before since that first

day. I'm sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there's nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength. John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I'm glad my case is not serious, but these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course, it is only nervousness.

It does weigh on me. So not to do my duty in any way. I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already. Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able to dress and entertain and order things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby, such a dear baby, and yet I cannot be with him.

It makes me so nervous. I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wallpaper. At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. He said that after the wallpaper was changed, it would be the heavy bedstead, and in the barred windows, and then the gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.

You know this place is doing you good, he said, and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for three months rental. Then let us go downstairs, I said, there's such pretty rooms there. Then he took me in his arms and he called me a blessed little goose, and he said he would go down to the cellar if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room as anyone need wish, and of course I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.

I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper. Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep shaded arbors, the riotous old fashioned flowers and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I was fancy that I see people walking in those numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least.

He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and restmates, but I find I get pretty tired when I try. It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well John says we will ask cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit,

but he says he would assume put fireworks in my pillowcases to let me have those stimulating people about now. I wish I would get well faster, but I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had. There is a recurrent spot where the patterned lulls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes that stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere.

There is one place where two breaths didn't match and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have. I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store. I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.

He used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce, I could always hop into that chair and be safe. The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom, they had to take the nursery things out and no wonder. I never saw such ravages as the children have made here. The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it's sticketh closer than

a brother. They must have had perseverance as well as hatred. Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered. The plaster itself is dug out here or there, and this great heavy bed, which is all we found in the room, looks as if it has been through the wars. But I don't mind it a bit. See the paper. There comes John's sister, such a dear girl as she is and so careful of me, I must not

let her find me writing. She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick. But I can write when she is out and see her a long way off from these windows. There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that just looks off over the country, a lovely country too full of alms and velvet meadows. This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights and not clearly then.

But in the places where it isn't faded, where the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. There is sister on the stairs. You ever call Yumi a blessed little goose? Yeah. Every day, I couldn't believe the lady took the words right out of my mouth. How does that go over?

It doesn't go over well. I have shin splints from her. All right, so the lady is here. We now have learned that her sister-in-law is the housekeeper and nanny of her baby that she doesn't see, and she's in this room going a little nuts. Was she well to begin with? Who knows? Well, I don't know.

I think the fact that she's saying like, I've always considered furniture capable of moving and possessing a personality. Yeah. I don't know if you'd call that nuts, but... Maybe she has an imagination. The groundwork is there. All right, here we go. Well, the 4th of July is over, the people are gone, and I am tired out.

John did put fireworks in my pillowcase. I'm just kidding. The people are gone, and I am tired out. John thought it might do me some good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nelly and the children down for a week. Of course, I didn't do a thing. Ginny sees to everything now. But it tired me all the same.

John says if I don't pick up faster, he shall send me over to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so. That is to say, a 19th century man. Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far. I don't feel as if it was worthwhile to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.

I cry at nothing, and cry most at the time. Of course, I don't when John is here or anybody else, but when I am alone, and I'm alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Ginny is good and lets me alone when I want her to. So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal. I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper, perhaps because of the wallpaper.

It dwells in my mind so. I lie here on this great immovable bed, it is nailed down, I believe, and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of conclusion. I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on

any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I've ever heard of. It is repeated, of course, by the breaths, but not otherwise. Just add, in one way, each breath sands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes, a kind of debased Romanesque with delirium trimmons, gawaddling up and down in isolated columns of patuity. But on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting ways of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.

The whole thing goes horizontally, too. At least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction. They have used a horizontal breath for a freeze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion. There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all. The interminable grotesques seem to form around a common center, and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.

It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap, I guess. I don't know why I should write this. I don't want to. I don't feel able. And I know John would think it's absurd. But I must say what I feel, and think in some way, it is such a relief. But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much. John says I mustn't lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil, and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat. Dear John, he loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest, reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go, and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there. And I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.

It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness, I suppose. And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs, and laid me on the bed, and sat by me, and read to me, till it tired my poor little goose head. Sorry. I feel terrible for this lady. I do. She clearly is suffering from, like, massive depression.

Yeah, for sure. And Anne, on top of that, she's being locked in her room, it's driving her nuts by her husband. Yeah, I think that's the problem here. He said I was his darling, and his comfort, and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well. He says, yeah, because it's all about John, right? Right.

Get better for me. Why can't you just get better? He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me. There's one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with that horrid wallpaper. If we had not used it, that blessed child would have. What a fortunate escape, why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little

thing, live in such a room for worlds. I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here, after all. I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see. Of course, I never mention it to them anymore, I am too wise, but I keep watch of it all the same. There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern, the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous.

And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern, I don't like it a bit. I wonder, I begin to think, I wish John would take me away from here, it is so hard to talk to John about my case, because he is so wise, because he loves me so, but I tried last night. It was moonlight, the moon shines in all around just as the sun does. I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly and always comes in by one window or another. John was asleep and I hated to wake in him, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy.

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, when I came back John was awake. What is it little girl, he said, don't go walking about like that, you'll get cold. I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I was really not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away. Why darling, said he, our lease will be up in three weeks and I can't see how to leave before.

The repairs are not done at home and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you're in any danger I could and would, but you really are better dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor dear and I know, you are. Being flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you. I don't weigh a bit more, said I, nor as much, and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away, unless her little heart said he with a big hug.

She shall be as sick as she pleases, but now let's improve the shining hours by going to sleep and talk about it in the morning. And you won't go away, I asked gloomily. How can I dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jeannie is getting the house ready. Really dear, you are better. Better in body perhaps I began and then stopped short, where he sat up straight and looked

at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word. My darling, I beg of you for my sake and for our child's sake as well as of your own, that you will never, for one instant, let that idea enter your mind. There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating to a temperament like yours is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so? So of course I said no more on that score and we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't lay there for hours trying to decide whether

that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately. On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, the defiance of law that is constant irritant to a normal mind. Color is hideous enough and unreliable enough and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway and following, it turns back a somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down and tramples you, it is like a bad dream.

The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools budding and sprouting and endless convolutions, why that is something like it. That is, sometimes there is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes. When the sun shoots in through the east window, I always watch for that first long straight ray. It changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it.

That is why I always watch it. By moonlight, the moon shines in all night when there is a moon. I wouldn't know it was the same paper. At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamp light, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars. The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be. I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman.

By daylight, she is subdued, quiet, I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling, it keeps me quiet by the hour. I lie down ever so much now, John says it is good for me and to sleep all I can. Indeed, he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal. It is a very bad habit I am convinced for, you see, I don't sleep. And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I am awake, oh no. The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jenny has an inexplicable look.

It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis, that perhaps it is the paper. Alright, at least she is coming to her senses, right? I don't know if you would call that a scientific hypothesis, but yeah, she seems to be like- Oh, I mean about John. Right. Yeah. Okay, yes, I agree. This, quote, physician, unquote.

Alright. I have watched John when he did not know I was looking and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I have called him several times looking at the paper. And Jenny, too. I caught Jenny with her hand on it once. She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper, she turned around as if she had been caught stealing and looked quite angry and asked me why I

should frighten her so. Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, and she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and johns, and she wished we would be more careful. Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself. Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see, I have something more to expect to look forward to, to watch.

I really do eat better, and more quiet than I was. John is so pleased to see me improved. He laughed a little the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wallpaper. I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wallpaper. He would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.

I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I think that will be enough. I'm feeling ever so much better. I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch the developments, but I sleep a good deal in the daytime. In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing. There are always new shoots on the fungus and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.

It is the strangest yellow that wallpaper. It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw. Not the beautiful ones like buttercups, but old, foul, bad yellow things. There is something else about that paper, the smell. I noticed it the moment we came in the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here. It creeps all over the house.

Find it hovering in the dining room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. It gets into my hair. Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it, there is that smell. Such a peculiar odor, too. I spent hours in trying to analyze it to find what it smelled like. It is not bad at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me. It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house, to reach the smell. But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper, a yellow smell. There's a very funny mark on the wall, low down near the mop board, a streak that runs around the room.

It goes behind every piece of furniture except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch. What are these smooches? I think she means smear or smudge. Okay. Smudge, I think. It's an old-timey smudge. I'm going to bring that back. It goes behind every piece of furniture except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch, as

if it had been rubbed over and over. I wonder how it was done and who did it and what they did it for. Round and round and round, round and round and round. It makes me dizzy. I really have discovered something at last. Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out the front pattern does move and no wonder the woman behind shakes it. Sometimes I think there are great many women behind and sometimes only one and she crawls

around fast and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright spots she keeps still and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard and she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern. It strangles so. I think that is why it has so many heads. They get through and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down and makes their eyes white.

If those heads were covered or taken off, it would not be half so bad. I think that woman gets out in the daytime and I'll tell you why privately. I've seen her. I can see her out of every one of my windows. It is the same woman I know for she is always creeping and most women do not creep by daylight. That is very true except little gooses. I see her on that long road under the tree creeping along. When a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be creeping by daylight. I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night for I know John suspects something at once. And John is so queer now that I don't want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room besides I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself. Often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once but turn as fast as I

can. I can only see out of one at a time. And though I always see her she may be able to creep faster than I can turn. I've watched her sometimes away off in the open country creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind. If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one I mean to try it little by little. I've found out another funny thing but I shan't tell it this time.

Does not do to trust people so much. There are only two more days to get this paper off and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don't like the look in his eyes and I heard him ask Jenny a lot of professional questions about me. Jenny had a very good report to give. She said I slept a good deal in the daytime. John knows I don't sleep very well at night. For all I'm so quiet.

He asked me all sorts of questions too and pretended to be very loving and kind as if I couldn't see through him. Still I don't wonder he acts so. Sleeping under this paper for three months. It only interests me but I feel sure John and Jenny are secretly affected by it. Alright take us home brother. Taking it home. Come on poor lady let's go.

Hurrah this is the last day but it is enough. John to stay in town overnight and won't be out until this evening. Jenny wanted to sleep with me this sly thing but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone. That was clever for really I wasn't alone a bit. As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook I shook and she pulled and before morning we had peeled off yards

of that paper. A strip about as high as my head and half around the room. And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me I declared I would finish it two day. We go away tomorrow and they are moving all of my furniture down again to leave things as they were before. Jenny looked at the wall in amazement but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing.

She laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself but I must not get tired. How she betrayed herself that time. But I am here and no person touches the paper but me not alive. She tried to get me out of the room it was too patented but I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could and not to wake me even for dinner I would call when I woke. So now she is gone and the servants are gone and the things are gone and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down with the canvas mattress we found on it.

We shall sleep downstairs tonight and take the boat home tomorrow. I quite enjoy the room now but it is bare again how those children did tear about here the bedstead is fairly gnawed but I must get to work. I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path. I don't want to go out and I don't want to have anybody come in till John comes. I want to astonish him. I've got a rope up here and that even Jenny did not find. If that woman does get out and tries to get away I can tie her but I forgot I could not

reach far without anything to stand on. This bed will not move. I tried to lift it and push it until I was lame and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner but it hurt my teeth. Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it. All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision.

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out the window would be an admirable exercise but the bars are too strong to even try. Besides I wouldn't do it, of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued. I don't like to look out the windows even. There are so many of those creeping women and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?

But I am securely fastened now by my well hidden rope. You don't get me out into the road there. I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes at night and that is hard. It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please. I don't want to go outside. I won't even if Jenny asks me to. Where outside you have to creep on the ground and everything is green instead of yellow.

But here I can creep smoothly on the floor and my shoulder just fits in that long smoocher on the wall so I cannot lose my way. Why there's John at the door? It is no use young man you can't open it. How he does call and pound. Now he's crying for an axe. It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door. John, dear, said I in the gentlest voice, the key is down by the front steps under a

plantain leaf, that silenced him for a few moments. Then he said very quietly indeed, open the door my darling. I can't, said I, the key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf. And then I said it again several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see. And he got it of course and he came in. He stopped short by the door. What is the matter he cried for God's sake?

What are you doing? I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. I've got out at last, said I, in spite of you and Jane, and I've pulled off most of the paper so you can't put me back. Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time. Alrighty, that was a good story.

Everything, she became part of the wallpaper. Yeah, and I love how Madam Perkins just switched suddenly where your brain's like wait, what happened? And then it starts to sink in. It's great stuff. Yeah, very creepy and quite a feminist statement. Like I said, you don't have to read between many lines on that one. No, no.

Yeah, being held behind bars. Yeah. Yeah. Well, happy Halloween everybody. Thanks for joining us. I hope you like this one. Yeah, and this one is released right on Halloween, which is always nice. It is perfect as they say.

So until the next episode, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at Josh M. Clark and at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know and slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us a spooky email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com and as always join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.