The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings - Lot 060 : If You Go Down, You Forget - chapter 1 -
Episode Date: September 30, 2024Written by Quincy LeeStarring Trevor Shand as JackRomy Evans as SophieAddison Peacock as Emma Featuring Stephen Knowles as The Antique Dealer Theme music by The Newton Brothers Additional music byC...O.AG (coagmusic@yahoo.com) Vivek AbhishekSUBSCRIBE us on YOUTUBE: https://bit.ly/3qumnPHFollow on Facebook : https://bit.ly/33RWRtPFollow on Instagram : https://bit.ly/2ImU2JV **Unsought Goods; https://theantiquarium.myshopify.com/**Babbel: Here's a special, (limited time) deal for our listeners. Right now get 50% off a one-time payment for a lifetime Babbel subscription - but only for our listeners - https://www.babbel.com/sinister Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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You have one. New message.
Well, hello.
I know you were planning to stop by the shop today.
I wanted to catch you before you got here,
in case I should forget to mention it during your pickup.
My memory isn't what it used to be.
A good friend of mine has a place a few blocks up from the Antiquarium
that I recommend you check out.
It's called Campfire Radio Theater.
And they've always got something incredibly horrifying playing there.
As a customer of this establishment, the stories they curate, that's for sure.
A cast of the best of the best in voice talent combined with cinematic sound design in full stereo
and a killer soundtrack.
You can get free admission to Campfire Radio Theater on Apple, Spotify, and your usual horns.
Looking forward to seeing you soon, friend.
Feel your ears with a sound.
Sounds of terror.
Camp fire radio theater.
The infected are mindless, soulless creatures.
They know only hunger to the flesh of those that remain.
There won't be anything left of you to discover, Jay.
Ever attempt self-open heart surgery.
Maro said you were a demon all along.
It's the aliens.
They move around them.
Some kind of spiky tentacles.
There's too many voices here.
Too many dead souls.
I have to leave now.
Serena, you're very sick.
Who knew you could pull that much of a man's brain out through the eye socket?
Tune in to Count Fire Radio Theater, an audio drama horror experience.
Wherever you listen to podcast.
Oh, no.
Found you.
A hot second there.
I didn't think you'd show up.
Great to see you as always, friend.
Great to see you.
I've got something very special.
come in today. Very special indeed. The relic taken, what avails the shrine. The locket
picturesless, oh heart of mine. Except this one right here, of course. This one very much has a
picture inside. As to of what, or of whom exactly, is yours to discover. In this jewel of a tale I call,
if you go down, you forget.
Before we begin, I want to point out some of the customers
whose names have been etched in brass
on this beautiful plaque I had made above the front desk.
These are some of the members of the inner circle of the antiquarium.
We go by the Obsidian Covenant.
Recent initiates include Brenner Allen, Jill Faye,
James McKinley
Mr. Seven Gold
Wandering Wenjo
Dirt Daddy
Mexim Kruger
and Rio Kestis
We are ever appreciative
of your devotion to
The Order
Go to
The Obsidiancovenant.com
to receive the sacrament
Now
where were we
Oh yes
Welcome
to the antiquarium
of sinister happenings
and odd goings
on. If you go down
you forget.
Chapter 1. When I first
stumbled onto the post by
Scared in Milwaukee, it seemed like
99% of internet clickbait.
Like as genuine as
a Nigerian princess gold.
I skimmed as far as a line
about how she tried filming
but only got static before I just
rolled my eyes and honestly
switched to porn.
But the post and attached video
kept popping up in my
feed, re-blogged
with titles like
Trapped Door and
disappeared when they gave in a curiosity.
Scared in Milwaukee, 6.24
p.m.
The trapdoor wasn't there before and it isn't there now.
My sis went down a bunch of times
but always forgot
what she saw. She
tried filming but only got static.
The last time she came back, she had, don't come, scribbled on her arm in her own handwriting.
She went away and didn't come back, so I went down.
I came out screaming and lost my phone and ran for police, but the police thought I was
pulling a break.
But it's real.
We were urban exploring, and now the trap door is gone.
I can hear her calling for me below.
Abandon house on
Street
Can anyone help?
Recording attached from before I lost my phone.
Help!
Please, for Milwaukee, please, please, please, please.
Not a hoax, please help.
Nearly as convincing as
Not a Hoax was the footage itself.
The shaky camera advancing slowly
toward the trapdoor opening.
The screen cutting to static.
The faint moans of a distorted voice pleading for help.
Thal cliche.
Still low effort as it seemed when the phone camera shakily turned to the girl holding it.
Scared in Milwaukee,
looked so genuinely fucking terrified that even my stone cold skeptical heart lurched.
It couldn't have been more than 15.
Tears and snot glistened on her face,
lips trembling as she whispered.
Quivering like an abused puppy in front of a rolled-up newspaper.
If her performance wasn't genuine, someone's got to give this kid an Oscar.
But a trapdoor that doesn't exist.
A trapdoor that when you go down makes you forget what's below.
A trap door that leads.
It really is the essential mystery of it all that finally convinces me to reach out to scared in Milwaukee.
The response comes fast.
So fast.
It's almost like she's waiting by the phone for a ping.
scared in Milwaukee
Please please please it's been nine days
Oh God I'm so scared it's too late
Can you come now
She sends an address and my pulse
Ratchets up
Why do I feel so much like a mouse
Sniffing some cheese conveniently
Layed across a metal plate
So this morning I finally
Did my due diligence and searched for missing
girls named Chloe in the Milwaukee area
Guess what? Not a single hit
Zilch, nada, no missing sister
I am being taken for a ride.
And as a former scam artist myself,
I should really recognize when the Prince of Nigeria is at the keyboard.
I'll give her that Oscar, though.
She should really have me going.
But as I'm about to block, scared in Milwaukee,
my conscience, nags.
But what if there's some other reason Chloe isn't showing up in your searches?
Oh, my conscience incidentally sounds a fuck of a lot like my ex.
She's been living rent-free in my head since our breakup.
Also on my screensaver,
my iPhone lock screen, my tablet, the heart-shaped locket I wear around my neck.
I'm just kidding.
Like any self-respecting dude gifted a cutesy heart-shaped necklace by his girl, I wear it only on our anniversary,
which is never now that we're separated, but I digress.
What if she's just a scared teen girl who's been told never to give her real details to strangers on the internet?
What if the police, her parents, and everyone in her life has dismissed her just like you're doing now?
Jack, what if it were me down there?
And now I'm looking at my open locket in my hand.
I know.
All right, fine, I've been wearing it all along.
Framed inside the heart-shaped gold is the dimpled face of my girl.
Lips curved and a coy smile.
One eye winking in her hands making a heart.
I have literally never been able to tell this girl no when she wants something.
Friends used to even joke about how she kept me on a leash.
Got you whipped, man, they'd say.
Well, yeah, she knows all my kicks.
Anyway, no sense arguing with myself and my locket has already decided, right?
So, I pack up my gear.
High-powered lights, cameras, digital and analog, crowbar and toolkit, bear spray, bear traps, bear claw.
By the way, all the bear stuff is for dangerous cryptids.
Except for the bear claw, which is my snack.
Flashlights, headlamp, portable generator, extra underwear in case things get super scary.
what? I didn't say that.
Decked out and ready to die.
I arranged to meet scared in Milwaukee.
First thing I noticed is that the interior of the house
looks exactly as in the video.
All dusty floorboards in a single armchair
in the otherwise dim and derelict living room.
The house boarded except for a single window
on which the plywood is broken,
letting in a thin ray of warm light
in which the dust moats dance.
Beyond that, my flashlight
barely illuminates the dingy interior as I poke my head through the door.
The only difference from the video?
No evidence of a trapdoor.
No sign there ever was one.
Scared in Milwaukee, incidentally, is actually a 14-year-old girl named Sophie.
And she is terrified of me when we meet.
Unsurprising, given my hollow eyes, stubble jaw and tattoos.
Oh, and the joint dangling from my lips.
The perfect visualization.
of stranger danger.
Her terror evaporates, though.
After I take one look in that creepy
place and nope the fuck out.
Gocking, she asks if I'm not even
going in. Yeah, no, I'll pass.
Thank you very much. You can practically hear
the strains of scary violins. Too spooky, too bad,
you're on your own, I'm out of here.
What?
As she stares at me.
When it slowly dawns on her that I'm dead
serious, her estimation of me
visibly drops from, I pick
the bear to, is this dude for
real. And finally, to that old cliche
about men and mice. Well,
squeak, squeak, baby, I'm not walking into a place
so pitch black, it's just asking for something
to grab my ankle and drag me down screaming.
Why would I?
No. I very sensibly grab a crow
bar and spend some time tearing off those
boarded windows. Once it's
looking more like a sunroom, I escorted
us into the warm interior dripping with
golden light. Alright, much better, I say.
Too soon.
Because the second I crossed the
threshold, all the hairs on my
arms stand on end.
Huh.
Guess this is what happens to your house when you don't pay the exorcist.
It gets repossessed.
Sophie doesn't appreciate how hilarious I am.
Can you stop wasting time and find the door?
Sure, we can do that.
I turn to her.
But first,
why isn't your sister's disappearance
in the news?
I looked up her name. No missing Chloe.
Really?
Down below, Sophie.
Her cheeks fly.
her gaze drops from mine, I think, smiling.
She's not...
She's not in the news because her real name is Timothy.
She's only out to me.
Can you just find the fucking door, please?
Oh, I say.
Here I thought she was pulling some shitty teen prank
trying to trap me down here for likes or clicks or whatever.
Maybe use the investigation and go viral even.
A quick search of Timothy proves she's in fact correct,
and that I'm an asshole.
And honestly, if anyone should have considered the possibility of a dead name mucking up my search results,
should have been me.
I apologize to Sophie and dropped to my knees.
Close my eyes and cocked my head like a coyote scenting the air and run my hands over the wooden floorboards.
I'm not a medium, but I am marked by the paranormal.
And I've acquired a certain sensitivity to the uncanny.
Like how some people have sensitivity to odors.
If what I felt entering the house were a smell, it would be the waft of something rotten drifting to my nostrils.
A tingle-like electricity passes along my fingers.
Dust and dirt cling to my palms.
To the naked eye, it's just bare wood.
But I ignore what my eyes have been telling me since I entered.
And here, where the tingling is strongest, I sweep my hands back and forth along the dirty floor.
My fingers find a seam.
I trace the edge
At last grabbing the handle
Sophie gasps and drops down beside me
Found it
It's warded, I say
Running along the seam are symbols
etched into the floorboards
Invisible until the door is found
Deciphering them would require
Pretty esoteric research
The girl in my locket would know
She was always smarter with that stuff
All I know is that the warding
conceals the door
probably also keeps whatever is down there sealed off.
Whoever set this up doesn't want what's down there being found
and doesn't want anyone who does go down
to remember what it is.
Chloe must have stumbled on the handle in the dark by touch.
That's really the only way to find it.
Pause.
Dread curls in my belly.
I ask Sophie,
how long has it been since you heard Chloe calling out?
How many days?
Um...
Sophie's eyes widen.
Seven?
A week.
Did she have any water with her?
Anything to sustain her?
We haven't heard any crying, any shouts, any sounds at all from below.
Okay.
I grip the handle.
She shakes her head, her lips tremble, and her fingers ball into fists.
Sophie goes...
I'm staying.
She won't budge.
I tell her to back up.
And I haul.
opened the door.
Both of us stagger back and gag.
Sophie dry heaves.
My stomach bucks and I raise an arm to
cover my nose and mouth.
I know the stench.
I've smelled them before.
But for Sophie...
It smells so bad.
Spelt.
When I don't answer, she sobs and leans over the trapdoor
screaming. I shine my flashlight
down the narrow wooden steps into the pitch
darkness below. But illuminate
only dirt and debris at the bottom of
stairs. Sophie has been sobbing for the past half hour while I hook up floodlights and cameras.
I've lowered one of the lights into the basement and it works. But when I lower a camera and
try to monitor its feet on my laptop, top registers the camera has disconnected. The phone can't
receive a signal down there either. The same warding that keeps the door hidden interferes with
footage and communications. It's all my fault. If I... Hey, you didn't ward this door.
This is not on you.
And we don't know what happened to Chloe yet.
I look down the stairs.
Based on what Sophie has told me, I'll forget everything that happens down there.
I grab pens and a notebook.
Listen, we won't know until we find her.
That smell could be from an entity.
We literally do not know.
So write down everything I shout up at you, okay?
We start small.
I go to the bottom of the stairs.
I train the cameras on the trap door from all directions.
including directly above so I can see myself descending the steps.
The first few descents I follow simple rules.
Stay in camera shot.
Do not stray.
Down, up.
Check the footage.
It's exactly like Sophie said.
I'm aware of descending the stairs.
But when I drop back up, I can recall nothing from below.
I come up each time with an elevated heart rate.
Just the kind of heightened palsy you expect from going down
into a dark, scary room.
My notes are a useless catalog of what's visible from the bottom of the stairs.
Dirty floor.
Discarded wrappers, dusty shelving, old canned goods.
There's really not much in this first room.
The basement opens up past the blackened hallway,
which my notes describe as spooky.
Extra underlines.
Really spooky, I guess.
Both digital and Polaroid picks from below show only blackness.
and my video records only static.
The cameras filming from above are only a little better,
since everything below the door is still warped by distortions.
And now, it's finally time for me to investigate for real.
Search for Chloe.
Enter the pitch dark hallway and find out what's beyond.
I'll do it in stages.
Bring in the portable floodlights.
As I'm taking a sip of water and siking myself up for the real descent,
I noticed Sophie's eyes on my throat.
Who's in the locket?
I take it off and hand it to her.
She's beautiful.
Your girlfriend?
Ex-girlfriend.
I shrug as she hands it back.
She told me our relationship felt like a horror movie, so let's split up.
Sophie doesn't smile.
A shame, really.
My ex would have laughed and told me I'm an idiot.
Sophie just shakes her head.
fiddling with a charm bracelet on her wrist.
It looks handmade, and I wonder if Chloe made it for her.
It should be me going down.
She's my sister.
Absolutely not.
It's bravely you don't want to go,
but if there's one thing I've learned about the paranormal,
it's that bravery is terrible for your longevity.
Trust me, the last thing you need is a hero.
That's also why we're not calling the cops.
I've tried that in the past, and it did not go well.
No, what you need is someone with a shameless sense of self-preservation,
a coward.
A clever coward.
To unravel the puzzle of why you forget, what you forget,
and who is really down there lurking in the dark.
I've written these questions on my notepad and we'll answer them while searching for Chloe.
I smile at Sophie.
Lucky for you?
My special skill is running from spooky stuff.
She searches my face.
Thanks.
You're not what I expected you to be.
What?
You're expecting Han Solo but got jar.
George Arbanks. The tiniest crack of a smile. Finally! Then she looks shyly again at my locket.
Um, if something should happen to you, should I give her a message?
The girl in the locket?
Sure. Tell her I'm sorry for ghosting her, but I'll always be her. Boo. Be sure to include a ghost
emoji. Sophie just shakes her head, still completely failing to appreciate my jokes. Or let's be real,
the comedic content of R slash dad jokes
where I get my material.
Maybe she's right that I should treat death like a grave subject.
But hey, life's a joke and then you die.
Might as well go on to punish you.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Now is it just me?
Or do you get the feeling we might have met
some of these folks before?
I get the feeling things will get
a whole lot clearer.
The darker they get.
If that makes any sense.
I got to run down to the
basement and, uh, check on an item myself.
Make yourself at home and I'll be right back.
Have a penchant for the demonic, a lust for darkness.
Oh, we know you surely do.
If you are among the chosen few who can hear a seemingly nonsensical string of letters
being spoken aloud on your way out the store, then you are most certainly marked by
the purveyors of the never was.
Hail to the defiled
Hail Erebus
To unlock their secrets
It's quite simple really
With the Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings
Handsome Brass Cipher Pin
Available now at theantacarium.myshopify.com
As an anointed one
Listen for the hidden cipher key
That will reveal the rotation of the inner circle of your device
This could be a number that will dictate the position shift
Starting from A
or quite simply an equation such as D equals J.
Your cursed decoder will then whisper the true meaning of the scrambled letters,
further cementing your fate with us in endless purgatory,
where your filthy soul will continue to rot and fester
from your insatiable appetite for the unclean.
Ave dominoctus.
Now that wasn't so bad, was it?
Shame I can't say the same for what's in the basement.
Enough of the chit-chat, though.
What do you say we see what our brave adventurers are up to?
Shall we?
Maybe she's right that I should treat death like a grave subject.
But hey, life's a joke and then you die.
Might as well go out in a portion.
I burst up from below, heart slamming my rib cage,
adrenaline tearing through my limbs,
a scream ripping through my throat.
My face is wet with tears.
Tears?
My vocal cords hoarse.
head wringing, shoulder sore.
Shit.
Shit, oh Christ.
I run a hand through my sweaty hair, then call.
Sophie, did you catch that?
Silence.
Sophie?
Blinking, I look around.
What the?
And now, my escalating pulse has nothing to do with whatever sent me dashing out of that deep darkness below.
I'm into my lights.
I whirl, looking all around the room.
Sophie!
I call again and then dash to the cameras.
Still rolling.
I leave them running, but go to my laptop to review the footage.
In the video, there I am.
Yammering as I descend the staircase.
My voice garbled as soon as I'm below.
I decipher the garble using Sophie's transcription.
I'll be right back, promise.
Cross my heart and hope to...
Never mind.
I continue babbling as I set up my lights.
Not to worry, Soph, I will find your sister if it's the last thing I...
Also, never mind.
Stupid stuff, running my stupid mouth, until...
Hey, I think that's your phone.
From this angle, the me on the video isn't visible.
But I can see Sophie looking down the trap door.
She calls down.
Her voice clear, unlike mine.
You're moving outside the camera view.
I'm just going to grab it.
Oh shit.
This is the last bit of garbled dialogue I can decipher
because it's the last part of Sophie's transcription.
On video, Sophie stopped scribbling in calls.
Jack?
A long silence.
And then, my voice, totally unintelligible.
My voice again.
But Sophie is quickly descending in response to whatever I said.
Her voice.
distorting as she disappears below.
I roar.
Then a loud piercing shriek,
a clanking sound.
One of the lights, more screams,
the girl's voice,
mine, I make out
what I think is a garbled. Oh my God.
And the tinkle of the second light.
And then just incoherent shrieking
that cuts off, leaving
only my own voice shouting.
More sounds of distress.
This time I own.
Swearing.
Snarling.
Cursing in terror or rage.
And there I am.
Bursting up from that narrow staircase.
Eyes wide and blank.
Unable to remember any of what happened.
My voice is crystal clear now, as I say.
Shit.
Shit, fuck, oh Christ.
Sophie, did you catch that?
I scrabble in my bag and snatch up a handful of salt.
A jackknife.
A crowbar.
If I had a single firing synapse in my brain,
I might remember what I told Sophie about heroism being a quick ticket to doom.
And I certainly wouldn't announce myself to whatever lurks below like I do when I holler.
Selfie! I'm coming!
And then, like every heroic idiot who dies first in every horror movie,
all aboard the bravery train, next stop, death.
I plunged down those stairs into the pitch dark.
Only the cream out like a chicken with its tail feathers on fire.
Jacket's sleeve torn open.
No knife.
No crowbar.
No salt.
Muffled by distance, her frightened whale drifts from the dark.
I put on night vision goggles, opting for stealth this time.
I set up speakers to blast heavy metal music.
The scream of the guitar drowning out the creek of the wooden steps under my weight.
My heart hammers its own furious drum solo as I creep down.
My pocket stuffed with pens, a marker, a notepad.
Bear Mace is the last resort.
The dark, swallaged.
It spits me out.
My heart playing my ribs like a xylophone.
My throat raw from shrieking.
I turn off the music and scrabble through my pockets, but my paper is gone.
Pen's gone.
Marker.
Fucking gone.
No notes about what took Sophie.
No writing.
Not one single word.
She sobs.
For my third rescue attempt, I craft an email with the house's address and a single line of instruction.
Close the trap door and leave it.
the house. Then, I crouch on the top step and cup a hand to my mouth and shout.
This trap door sure has been sealed a long time. And if I'm not back in an hour, the message
I'm scheduled to seal it again will go out. Maybe we can find a better option where you release
my fucking friend and I don't lock you in for another few decades. Want to talk?
The hairs along my arms prickle. Something shuffles near. Just out of range of the
cameras aimed at the rectangle of darkness below.
Whatever it is makes my skin crawl and my stomach churn.
And suddenly, the air smells very stale, very old to bargain.
Which means going down and getting chummy with this rank and reeking thing that took Sophie,
a paranormal hostage negotiation.
And if you're wondering, is it really a good idea to?
to deliver my meat suit to the thing below like a tasty meal's on wheels.
Listen, I am a snack, so fast food.
It'll have to catch me.
But just in case I come up empty-handed again,
I concoct a cheat code, so my empty hands will mean something.
Fists for lion, palms for jackal.
Then I plunge down into the dark,
merge out of the dark with a sheaf of yellowed paper stuffed into my pocket.
I also come out of there with black sharpie scrawled on my forearm and my hands open, palms facing out.
All right, so I should probably explain my little cheat here.
Some men are lions.
Me, I'm a jackal, shifty and sly with an aversion to danger.
This is a fantastic quality in a solo act.
Less endearing when you've got someone to protect, especially a girl.
It's not good form to throw the girl at danger instead of yourself.
Girls hate that.
Coming up with hands balled into fists
would mean brawn over brain.
In real world terms, call the cops.
Invite them to rush down,
guns blazing, and then summon whatever
special operatives typically deal with UAPs
and other classified phenomena.
Let them rescue Sophie.
But I came up with palms.
I double-checked the cameras to be sure.
And even through the distortion,
the jack-on screen looks like a scruffy junkie
under arrest with his hands held up.
As he passes the threshold,
his bloodshot eyes fix
on the camera, meeting mine,
and he winks.
I rewind the frame because at first
I think I imagined it.
In the fraction of a second
before the warding makes him forget,
he squeezes one eye shut,
letting me in on the fact.
He's playing a trick.
The problem is,
I don't know what game
that guy's playing.
The only clues I have are the yellowed
pages and the sharpy message on my arm.
A message composed of seven words.
Each with the first letter, capitalized, must perform, inscribed, ritual.
And now I'm sitting here wreathed in the stench of death,
listening to Sophie's muffled crying while staring at my two measly clues.
The writing on the brittle paper is faded.
Arcane symbols surrounded by capitalized letters.
and some geometric squeals and dots.
Google Translate says it's Latin and Aramaic?
Is that a language? I'm so out of my depth.
Obviously, the pages are related to the wording, but it's all Aramaic to me.
I'm like a chimp with a tablet.
Sure, I can bash my monkey paws on the glowing icons,
but I'll probably crash the system long before I figure out how the fuck it works.
I clutch the heart locket around my neck.
She'd be able to make sense of this.
She was always so much smarter with all this esoteric stuff.
Oh, Wipmo stuff.
She'd probably say.
Which isn't strictly speaking true.
I know way more short people jokes, for example.
I tried explaining a few to my five-foot-tall ex, but they went over her head.
And I slept on the couch ever after.
And suddenly, my heart aches.
There's nothing more pitiful than a clown telling jokes when he's lost his eye.
It's been three months since our breakup.
I swore I'd never contact her.
But I'll never decipher these pages myself.
I fire off a single message.
Hey, babe. It's Jack. Can I ask a favor?
Next, I turn my attention to the Sharpie on my arm.
Victim alive.
Must perform, inscribed ritual, escape.
I'm certain it means I need to follow the instructions in Latin and Aramaic on those yellow pages.
But I searched my pockets.
No marker.
Which means someone gave me a marker to write this message on my arm.
Then took the marker away.
Suss.
If I just look at the first look,
the blaring of my phone's ringtone shatters the silence of the abandoned house like sirens.
And I jump, heart lurching into my throat.
When I snatch up the phone to see who the call is from,
My pulse ratchets up.
They're like a hummingbird's wings.
It's the girl in my locket.
FML, she's video calling.
I turn the music on again and scurry outside into the midday sun.
Can't risk whatever lurks below overhearing me.
And as I wade out into the tall grass and summer heat,
I shoot a quick glance at my reflection in one of the cracked windows.
Winds, because I look like if you gave an AI image generator the prompt,
Florida man lives in swamp and cardboard box with Gator.
Like I'm the poster child for the catchphrase.
Who needs a shower when you sweat this much?
Like, oh, fuck me, there are more important things than my vanity.
I take the call.
Instant regret.
Because suddenly...
Suddenly, there she is.
She's even more beautiful than I remember.
She looks like she stepped off the cover of a K-pop album.
Glossy black hair.
Cascades.
her shoulders. Her cheeks just slightly flushed as she exclaims.
Are you okay? What's going on? Where are you?
For a moment, I can't answer. My breath taken away as her face goes through a whole range of emotions.
Emma's eyes study me. And I can't tell if she's concerned or disappointed as she takes in my
stubbly beard and sunken cheeks and battered stained tank. I look like I just woke up from
nap in the box I call home with the gator I call Fred.
I want to say so much.
I miss you.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
But I say none of the things.
Instead, blurting, a teen girl's life is in danger.
And I can't save her without you.
All right, so maybe the phrase fucking asshole comes up a few times.
Something about how the only time I reach out is when I'm caught in some paranormal
bullshit, not because I actually love her.
I do love her.
It's because I love her
that I've stayed out of her life.
And even though I know it's wrong
to drag her in and I dread the risks,
I am so, so excited to see her.
We arranged to meet her to diner
so there's no risk of the thing below over hearing us.
I send her photos of the pages
and symbols around the trapdoor
and a few video clips.
There's just one more thing
I have to do after the call.
Because even after deciphering the
Sharpie message, and so
I descend,
boom, laid bites into my
skin, a knife,
my own. I gasp
when I realize it is my own hand
holding the knife.
And I jerked a blade away.
What? The actual
fuck's the thin line of blood at my neck.
And then find one more item tucked into
my pocket. A piece
of paper with my own spidery scribble.
riddled with spelling errors.
A clue?
Finally, I checked the camera footage.
Been below for 27 minutes.
In the last few seconds of footage,
through the camera's distortion,
I can make out the garbled sound.
My lips repeating the same phrase over and over.
Do not connect you.
You're not a connection.
You're not collection.
You're not collection.
You're not collection.
You're not collection.
Do for your patronage.
Hope you enjoyed your new relic as much as I've enjoyed passing along its sordid history.
It does come with our usual warning, however.
Absolutely no refunds, no exchanges,
and we won't be held liable for anything that may or may not occur while the object is in your possession.
If you've got an artifact with mysterious properties,
Perhaps it's accompanied by a history of bizarre and disturbing circumstances.
Maybe you'd be interested in dropping it and its story by the shop to share with other customers.
Please reach out to Antiquarium Shop at gmail.com.
A member of our team will be in touch.
Till next time, we'll be waiting for you whenever you close your eyes.
in the space between sleep and dream.
During regular business hours, of course, or by appointment, only for you, our best customer.
The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings, Lot 060.
If you go down, you forget.
Chapter 1. Written by Quincy Lee, starring Trevor Shand as Jack.
Romy Evans as Sophie.
Addison Peacock as Emma
Featuring Stephen Knowles
As the Antique Dealer
Engineering Production and Sound Design by Trevor
Shand
Theme music by the Newton Brothers
Additional music by Coag
and Vivek Abyshech
The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings
is created and curated by Trevor and Lauren
Shand. Follow us on Instagram
and Twitter at Antiquarium Pod
Call the Antiquarium at 646-481-7197.
