The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings - Lot 146 : Listen Closely // Sender {NULL}

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

Lot 146 : Listen Closely // Sender {NULL} Listen CloselyConsigned by Chris HicksStarring Romy EvansHolly SeidcheckJarret GriffisChloe Mei-Lei Bundt Sender {NULL}Consigned by Chris HicksStarring Trevor ShandJeffrey Allen SneedKirsty Campbell**Many thanks for patronizing our curious little establishment through the Rocket Money and Shopify links below. Your continued support helps keep the lamps lit and the shelves full of peculiar treasures. We are most grateful.🥗 Factor: https://www.factormeals.com Use Code: Sinister50off📱 Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/SINISTER💚 Antiquarium shop: https://theantiquarium.myshopify.com Featuring Stephen Knowles as The Antique Dealer Theme music by The Newton Brothers Produced by Kevin Seaman Additional music byCO.AG ([e-mail]) Clement Panchout Vivek Abhishek SUBSCRIBE to them on YOUTUBE: / vivekhsihba  LIKE them on FACEBOOK:  https://rb.gy/nhgn0iFollow them on Spotify/ iTunes/ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/rxdcjqt Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

G equals R. Hello, friend. Welcome back. Tonight's acquisition consists of two lots. Quite different from one another. Though both come with a rather curious lesson. We spend an extraordinary amount of our lives being told where to direct our attention. Look here.

Click this. Use caution. Most of it is harmless enough. The trouble begins when something desperately wants your attention. And you can't quite determine why. We begin with a mesh trucker hat, bearing the logo of a true crime podcast called Cupcakes and Crime Seams. Charming.

Why don't we like and subscribe to this new and note word? tale I call. Listen closely. 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 A. Rodco.

Brooke 0696, Matt Dogg, 007, Jeremy Hunt, and Avery Morose. We are ever appreciative of your devotion to The Order. Go to the obsidian covenant.com to receive the sacrament. Now, where were we? Oh yes Welcome To the Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings And odd goings on

Welcome back to your crime crumpets I'm Bree And I'm Janelle And today We've got a double scoop of death And a delicious new pastry to devour So don't go anywhere Because it's time for another episode

Of cupcakes and crime scenes In today's episode We will be a exploring the grisly unsolved murders of Dirk Langmore and his wife, Trudy. This story takes place in Sydney, Ohio, back in 1987. Before we get started, here's a quick content warning for a squamish listeners. This one's going to get messy. It's messy as this is really fitting that we pair it with a pastry with an equally

messy reputation. In fact, if you translate this pastry's name from Italian to English, it means dirty mouth. Ooh, I like this one already. They're delicious, and you can't eat one without also wearing it. Challenge accepted. Bring it on. Before we dig in, this week's episode has been brought to you by... Sleep number system will provide you with hours of restful, uninterrupted sleep.

Can you hear me? Are you hearing me? Please focus on my voice. And we're so confident that it will be your best night's sleep that you'll actually have 90 days to try it out and still return it for the full refund. Are we in? They can hear me.

Okay, good. Hello. My name is Colonel Jacob Wayne of the United States Air Force. If you're hearing me right now, it's extremely important that you continue listening until I've finished. Now... Has the hosting plan

that's perfect for your small business. Now this is very important. You need to focus on the sound of my voice. It will be crucial that you pay close attention and follow all of the instructions I'm about to give you.

Please try to stay calm. Any increase in your stress levels will draw their attention. Think back over your last few days. I bet nothing felt that. of the ordinary did it. You went about your regular daily activities with nothing unusual to report. Might have even been boring. It might come as a shock, but nothing you have experienced these past few days has been real. It's fake. A simulation. They have you. But don't worry, we're here to get you out.

We found a way then to communicate by hiding our signal in your daily media consumption. You might be listening to music, a podcast, an audiobook. Hell, you might even be on a conference call at work. We don't fully understand their technology, so we can't rightly say how you're receiving this, only that you are receiving it. As you listen to my voice, we're uploading a code into your brain.

Think of it as a computer virus, or in this case, an antivirus. Your brain is an organic computer, and these things hacked into your subconscious mind and overwrote it with their simulation code. That's why everything appears normal. You might think you're going about your day-to-day life, but in reality, you're strapped to a table with tubes sticking out of your body. Now that the code is uploading you, may begin to feel some sensations. For example, one ear might feel slightly warmer than the other. You might even

feel an itch or tickle on your body. Don't scratch. Just let it be. Ignore the dull background home you might hear as well. That's their program. If they catch on before our code has time to lock onto you, they'll abort the simulation. If that happens, you'll be lost to us forever. By now, they realize there's a glitch in their system, and we'll try to remove our code. You may notice some small changes in your body, specifically a slight shortness of breath. We know from our other communication attempts that whenever they discover a code glitch, the first they power down is the one controlling your breathing. Thankfully, even in the simulation, you are capable of breathing manually.

Okay, just try it. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale? Exhale. See? You're doing just fine. As our code begins to work, it will disable their ability to do a hard reboot of the simulation. Now listen close.

because this is important. If they distract you, it will abort the upload and delete our code from the system. So it is very, very important that you stay focused on the sound of my voice. Those sounds you hear, the voices? They aren't family, friends, or coworkers.

Nothing that happens in there is real. They'll even try to use your pets or anything to get you to break your focus. Now... We're sorry. It seems to our experience and see technical issues with our audio feed. Yeah, there's like some old guy talking.

He sounds super weird and paranoid, right? Yeah, we're very sorry about that. But our sound tech says that if you pause the podcast here and take a little break, all of our murder macarons will be with you. Still with me? Good. The next thing you'll notice is an overwhelming urge to swallow. You don't realize it, but there's a feeding tube down your throat.

You'll only know it's there because your tongue won't wrap. comfortably in your mouth. You might also become hyper-aware of the amount of saliva being produced. Don't overreact. If you have to swallow, just swallow. It's only weird if you make it weird. Pizza's here.

Don't just sit there. Hit pause and go answer your door. Now. The code upload is moving along nicely. You're doing great. We've locked onto your location, but you're really going to need to focus now. Okay?

Once the upload is complete, there will be instructions, you need to follow to exit the simulation. If you act now, our sponsors will send you a $100 gift card towards a brand new mattress if you stop listening. By now, they've realized that their attempts to divert your attention through the simulation hasn't worked, so they're going to use your own body against you.

Remember, they are in your brain. They want you to blink. Don't blink. Your life depends on keeping your eyes open. Blink. Do it. Blink. Almost there.

Just a little longer. Stay with me. He's lying to you. Don't listen to him. Everyone is going to think you're crazy. Please, stay with me. Listen to my voice. I need you to focus.

Everyone is going to think you're crazy. Are you crazy? You'd have to be crazy to believe this. Well, are you? Are you? Are you? See, this is why no one likes you. But we do.

We really do. Just blink for us and this will all go away. Focus! I can't lose you. I've lost so many already. Ignore it. Block them out. Forget that tickle on your scalp and the itch in your arm. That's them. You've made it this far. Don't give up. Fight it. You're almost there. Do we got them? Do we? Yes. Yes, we got you. We've got you. In a minute you're going to hear a woman's voice counting down from 10. I need you to count out loud with her until you hit zero.

That's the final step to initiate the extraction sequence, and then you're going to wake up. Good luck. I'll see you on the other side. Simulation extraction in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, One. Zero. How worry, wasn't it? It really was.

Of all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, but everything worked out in the end. Well, except for Dirk and Trudy Langmore. I suppose getting murdered and chopped pieces wasn't a great day for them. Yeah, but we got to enjoy some delicious porka moose, so it goes to show you. There are silver linings to everything. Special thanks to La Dolce Pane for providing the pastries this week they were to die for. this has been Cupcakes and Crime Scenes.

As always, I'm Bree and I'm Janelle. We'll be back next week with an all-new show. And so will you. Suppose that's one way to keep an audience. Though I find threatening

one's listeners rather poor for retention. Speaking of interruptions, I have a delivery that requires my attention. One moment. Thanks for waiting. Next up,

A ceramic workplace safety mug, broken into several pieces, then carefully glued back together. The inscription is still legible. 365 days accident-free. Rather ironic, isn't it? The account accompanying it is entitled, Sender Null. It seems someone scheduled a meeting, and I'd have. for us to be late, shall we? I've heard stories about my workplace being haunted,

but never had any experiences myself. Most of what I heard came from the night shift crew. It was the typical spooky stuff, disembodied voices, tools mysteriously disappearing, loud clanging sounds from empty rooms and shit being knocked over. When it kept happening, the guys started calling the ghost, Reggie.

Now, Reggie wasn't the name of a long-dead former employee. No, Reggie worked in maintenance and was still very much alive, but there was a running joke that no one ever saw Reggie actually doing any work. So those phantom sounds must be him getting his work done. Whenever something was out of place, or they heard a loud banging in the back of the shop by the boilers, one one would say, Sounds like old Reggie's getting after it.

If it happened on the day shift, the non-spector Reggie would greet this news with an indignant. Fuck you! I worked in the office, but my job as health and safety coordinator required frequent trips to the shop floor for inspections, training, and investigations whenever there was an injury or we put the wrong thing down the drain. Due to the ghost's notoriety, Reggie did it was typically one of the first root cause findings I'd have to rule out. And rule it out, we did. Because up until then, if there was a ghost in the building, his antics had been harmless. The day the notifications began was just like any other, with no signs or warnings that things were about to turn sour.

I returned to my desk from my monthly briefing on trip and fall hazards when I heard the chime for a meeting request on my computer. New meeting request. Subject, skull emoji. Location. Your office. Date. Tomorrow. Time. 5 p.m.

I was so drawn to the odd meeting topic, I overlooked something important about the invite. At first, I wasn't at all creeped out by it. I figured one of the guys found a computer still logged in and sent an invite to everyone in the company as a prank. That's when I noticed what was off about the invite. It didn't have a sender. Rather than send a reply-all to start a company-wide trolling email thread, I clicked decline. Instead of deleting the meeting invite, it really. returned an error message.

Unable to send. Sender, null. I tried again and received the same sender null error. A third try. Same result. So I just deleted it. I went to get coffee and ended up getting sidetracked into a convo about the previous night's basketball game

with some of the second shift crew waiting the clock in. I was gone for maybe like 15 minutes. When I returned, My inbox was flooded with meeting invites. I shared an office wall with Eugene, the resident IT guy, so I called them over to have a look. Did you get any weird emails or click on any links? No? We get fishing test emails once a month, so I knew not to click anything weird.

Eugene used as admin privileges to run diagnostics just to make sure. Weird. Server log shows the origin of the invites are internal. Eugene said. then lean back slightly. The calls are coming from inside the house. Funny. Does it show who sent him?

Eugene scrolled to his data and shook his head. Nope. It doesn't say. Not even in the header data. No timestamps either. Did you try declining the meeting? I tried, but just gives an error message. Whether he didn't believe me or just wanted to see for himself,

he tried declining one of the many invites. and receive the unable to send. Sender null message. Dude, sender no. What is that? Nol is the absence of data. It expects a value in that field, but there isn't one. Does this work?

He highlighted all the meeting invites and clicked delete. And poof, they were gone. There you go. Then clicked on another menu header and started typing. I set up an inbox filter to move all those to a folder so they don't clog up your inbox. I also set it to auto-delete everything in the folder when you close the program.

You might have to reset something on the server. Probably some bullshit code, the previous guy, forgot to clear out. There. Well said. When he got up from my computer, the invites were gone. But now I had an extra folder in the sidebar

below the rest of my mailbox folders. He named it Reggie. I gave him a look. What? You're getting ghost emails. Maybe it's him. Eugene shrugged. He ducked out of the office as I whipped a pen at his head.

That's not very safe. He yelled through the office wall. The rest of the day passed without incident. Before I closed my computer down that night, I checked the Reggie folder to see how many invites were there. It was over a thousand in a little over three hours. I closed the program, then reopened it just to check that Eugene's fix worked, and they were all gone. When I returned to work the next day, I checked the Reggie folder expecting it to be overflowing with notifications.

To my surprise, it was empty. I figured that meant Eugene did a server magic and cleared out whatever error was sending me phantom meeting invites. Problem solved. I put it out of my mind, and it was business as usual. Most of the office was cleared out by 4.30. Normally I'd be gone as well, but that day I had a meeting at 6 with the off-shift supervisor about closing out action items from a forklift incident. I closed my office door, put my headphones in, and worked on reports while I waited for him to get in. At 455, my computer chimed, and a notification popped up.

Meeting reminder, skull, in five minutes. I'd be lying if I said my heart. didn't skip a beat when I saw it. I rechecked the Reggie folder. It had refilled with thousands of new meeting invitations. But with one small change, unlike yesterday,

they were all flagged, high importance. I scrolled down the folder, highlighting all the messages to delete them. No sooner had I highlighted them all and hit delete did a new batch of invites, show up.

All for 5 p.m. All flagged as high importance. The meeting subject, however, had changed from one skull to three. The skulls were red. What the fuck is this? I got up to check if Eugene was still here when my desktop chimed, popping up a new notification. Meeting reminder.

Three skulls. Now. I froze. Looking up at my office door, below the doorway, I could see the shadow of legs standing outside. I turned off the music. The office was quiet except for the faint sound of breathing. Just outside my office door, breathing.

Door shook as whoever was outside that door pounded on it. Non-stop. On cue. Meeting notification. Hopped up again. Meeting reminder. Three skulls. One minute ago.

Eugene, stop fucking around. Is this you? It had to be. He was the only one with the know-how and access to pull off a prank like this. The knocking stopped. I waited. Holding my breath. The shadow shifted at the bottom of the doorframe.

The breathing outside the door continued. as wet and as ragged as before. Like the sound of someone who needs to clear their throat, but never does. I crawled under my desk, moving closer to the door for a better look. When I looked under the doorframe, I saw nothing. Just the standard short pile carpeting I had installed two years ago because the previous carpet tiles were peeling up and becoming a trip hazard.

Even though I saw nothing, I still heard the ragged, wet. breathing above me. Hounding began anew. Jarring the door so hard I thought it was going to break off the hinge and slam down on top of me. I crawled back under my desk like a puppy experiencing lightning for the first time. Hounding grew louder, and the door handle rattled as whatever was outside the door was very eager to get in. Go away! Please fucking go away!

A reminder. Three skulls. Four minutes ago. The skulls appear to be bleeding, with tiny red lines dripping from the subject line. The meeting invitations flooded the screen, burying everything else. Outside the office, the breathing was replaced by a high-pitched whale. It's the most awful sound I'd ever heard. Both mournful and frightening as fuck. I cut my hands over my ears, pressing my index finger into him. Block out that horrid sound, fogged on its hinges.

The lights in my office pulsed, dimming to near darkness and shining so bright I could hear the hum of the fluorescent bulbs vibrating to the point that it sounded like a furious swarm of bees. I picked up the phone instead of a dial tone. The sound coming from the receiver was the whale. The door was going to shatter into pieces, and the only thing between me and whatever was outside that fucking door was my monitor screen. Still displaying a cascade of bloody skull meeting invites from an unknown entity. I opened up one of the invitations trying to find anything to help me. I hit cancel. Unable to send.

Sender, no. Unable to send. Sender, no. Hans were shaking by 365 days. His accident-free coffee cup vibrated so violently that shattered on my desk. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't delete it. I couldn't cancel it.

My cursor hovered over one last option. Propose new time. I clicked it. Instead of an error message, my calendar opened up. I didn't even look at the date or time. I picked one at random and hit send. Or it fell silent. The knocking stopped.

As did the wailing. I sat there for what felt like ages. Staring. at the door and the shadow outside the frame. I jumped when I heard the chime from my computer. Your meeting invitation was accepted. The shadow disappeared as the lights in my office returned to normal. The ominous, overwhelming feeling of dread that hung over the room subsided.

It wasn't until the off-shift supervisor wrapped his knuckles on my door at 6 o'clock that I got up from my chair. I must have been a sight too Because he asked if we should reschedule I nodded emphatically and got the fuck out of there Driving home There's a formula We're using safety Emotional response decreases with time

And distance from the event By the time I got home I was already talking myself out of what I'd seen When I returned to work the next day I was convinced that it was just a dream I dozed off at my desk. It's the only rational explanation. The meeting invites were gone.

Eugene informed me that he did run a server update to clear out any old code that may have caused the invite glitch. The Reggie folder was still there, but it was empty. I even checked my calendar for the alternate meeting time I'd created. Nothing. Maybe I did imagine the whole thing. The only thing was, left to explain was my shattered coffee mug, but it's not uncommon for your brain to process outside

stimuli, sounds, changes in temperature, voices, and fold them into the dream narrative. Besides, what was more rational? Me knocking a mug over while in the midst of a hyper-realistic scary dream? We're old Reggie. Getting after it. I put it behind me. certain it was all a creation of my own subconscious. As with all of my other root cause investigations, Reggie was the first suggestion, and I ruled it out almost immediately. As time passed, I was able to put the incident aside.

This morning, when I opened my email, the first message that popped up was a meeting reminder. Subject, three skulls. Your Office. Date today. Time 2 p.m. I tried the previous trick of proposing a new time, but each meeting proposal returned.

The feeling of dread returned. As red lines of blood seeped down the monitor from the skulls. I left work, wanting to be far from my office when the meeting time arrived. As I got in my car, I received a message on my phone. indicating that the meeting location... ...changed. Location, your car.

Didn't matter where I choose to go. The meeting location updated as fast as I could think of a new place. Location, your home. Out of options, I returned to work. I'm back in my office right now. Waiting for sender null to reveal themselves. I don't know what's going to be. going to happen. I type this out just in case things don't go well for me. I wanted to leave a record

of everything that led up to today so whoever does the investigation can do a thorough root cause analysis. It's the least I can do. No, no, no, no, no, get out. X, P, T, D, E, H, T. Thank you 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. You have a good night now. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings, Lot 146, Listen Closely. Consigned by Chris Hicks, starring Romy Evans, Holly Sidecheck, Jared Griffiths, and Chloe Maley-Bunt. Sender Null.

Consigned by Chris Hicks Starring Trevor Shand Jeffrey Allen Sneed and Kirstie Campbell Featuring Stephen Knowles As the Antique Dealer Production and sound design by Kevin Seaman Theme music by the Newton Brothers Additional music by Coag

Vivek Abyshech, Clement Panchout Nicholas Redding and Conan Freeman The Antiquarium of Sinister Happen 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.