The Magnus Archives - MAG 84 - Possessive

Episode Date: December 14, 2017

#9900112Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 9900112, statement of Adrian Weiss, given December 1st 1990.Thanks to this week's Patrons: Renske S, Ryan McWilliams, Thomas Feeley, James Flinders, Leslie Weir, Joy Lindeen, Cam B, Jackie C, Stephanie Henrichs Welch, Ry, Natasha HerbertIf you'd like to support us, head to www.patreon.com/rustyquillEdited by Elizabeth Moffatt, Brock Winstead & Alexander J Newall.Sound effects for this episode provided by Dasgoat and previously credited artists via freesound.org.Check out our merchandise at https://www.redbubble.com/people/rustyquill/collections/708982-the-magnus-archives-s1You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast software of choice, or by visiting www.rustyquill.com/subscribe.Please rate and review on your software of choice, it really helps us to spread the podcast to new listeners, so share the fear. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hi everyone, Ben here. I'd just like to take a moment to thank some of our patrons. Renskay S, Ryan McWilliams, Thomas Feely, James Flinders, Leslie Weir, to thank some of our patrons. Thank you all. We really appreciate your support. If you'd like to join them,

go to www.patreon.com forward slash Rusty Quill and take a look at our rewards. Rusty Quill Presents The Magnus Archives Episode 84 Possessive To be continued... 9900112 Statement of Adrian Weiss given December 1st, 1990 Statement begins When I was about ten or eleven

my parents moved us from Ipswich out to a small village in Suffolk called Cratfield. I'd tell you what the nearest notable town was but there really wasn't one. Nothing much near us at all. It was open and rural, and the way I saw it, absolutely filthy. I was used to the dirt and grime of a city, so all that manure and rot that gave the countryside its particular odour made me feel like I could never quite get clean. Still, I was happy enough to be living there. My school in Ipswich had been very difficult for reasons I'd rather not discuss, and I had no friends to speak of that I was happy enough to be living there. My school in Ipswich had been very difficult for reasons I'd rather not discuss, and I had no friends to speak of that I was leaving behind.

For all the isolation and muck out there, I still felt like I appreciated the fresh start. The village kids were an inchil a lot, but they accepted me much quicker than I had expected. I guess they couldn't really be picky, a place that small you end up hanging out with all sorts of kids that you wouldn't normally look twice at. That's how I met Gordon. Gordon Goodman. He never really fit the name. He was about 14, a bit older than most of the other kids by a couple of years, but still one of the smallest. Barely 5 foot 2 and scrawny as anything. His hair fell over his eyes and you always had to ask him to reprise himself,

because whenever he started talking it was so quiet that you'd miss the first part. I liked him though. He wasn't someone who'd judge you, he just took everything in stride. Now, near the edge of Crapfield, at least as much as it had a clear edge, was a field of about three acres that pretty much everyone avoided. It wasn't the sort of place that gets named on a map, so everyone just called it the dump, or occasionally Maggie's dump, on account of an old woman called Margaret Carnegie who owned

the place and lived in a small bungalow right in the middle of it. Now Maggie was a classic recluse, hardly anyone had seen her for years and those that had would only spot her in and around her little house, carefully piling up newspapers or stacking bottles. Maggie was a hoarder, you see. No one really knew where she got most of it, and you didn't get much home delivery in those days, but she seemed to have a never-ending supply of food wrappers and magazines and old clothes. At some point she'd clearly run out of space in her bungalow and started to store stuff outside. She never weighed it down or tied it up or anything,

so when the wind picked up it got spread all over the place, and so gradually the area became Maggie's dump. Cratfield was a good ways away from the nearest actual rubbish tip, so it wasn't long before local families started to use it as well. Anything too big for normal collection got thrown out there. Fridges, sofas, broken electrics. By the time I moved there, the area around old Maggie's house was covered in junk, with stained, white, broken appliances dotted all over like blisters on grimy skin. I learned all this from the other kids when they made fun of Gordon, who they called Maggie's little pet, or sometimes her rat butler. You see, he was the one who delivered her food. I have no idea why his

parents had taken on the responsibility of providing for her. She was probably a distant relation of some sort. But it was Gordon's job to bring her groceries every few days, winding his way through the filth that surrounded her isolated home. Now old Maggie fascinated me. Or rather, the stories about her did, because obviously there were stories. The two most common were that she was a witch, or that she'd killed her husband and chopped him up, keeping the land as messy as possible so nobody would think to dig him up. I never met anyone in town who remembered her actually having a husband, of course, but there were plenty of kids who claimed to have seen her creeping past their houses at night or

staring into their windows. Davy Morgan even said that she'd chased him through the woods with her knife, but we all knew he was a liar. Even so, the stories terrified me, and I loved them. I never wanted to actually meet Maggie. I was far too scared of her for that. But I used to love walking with Gordon while he took groceries to her. I'd see how close to her house I could get before I got spooked and ran home. I used the bigger bits of rubbish as markers.

After a few weeks, I could always make it past the broken red sofa, and the bravest I got was the washing machine without a drum, all the while picking my way past sodden newspaper and rusted cans. Gordon, for his part, never seemed to mind. I reckon he was thankful for the company, as he would chat away softly to me as we walked, either ignoring or oblivious to my fear. Whenever I ran back to the fence post that marked the start of Maggie's dump

and was therefore, in my mind, safe, I would turn back to watch as Gordon reached the bungalow. He'd press the little doorbell and stand there, waiting, until the door swung open. I could see a figure stood there, long white hair and a dressing gown the colour of rust. They would lead Gordon inside and the door would shut behind them. I would never see him come back out. I tried to convince myself he just needed to help her with chores, but deep down I knew she was doing something dreadful to him. My mind would conjure grotesque images of knives and bubbling cauldrons full of rotting food, and I'd generally scare myself so badly that I never ended up waiting for more than ten minutes,

which, thinking about it now, is probably why I didn't see him come out. But he was always at school the next day, alive and unharmed. He'd just smile when I asked him what he did in there. He'd shrug and say she just wanted to ask him to stack stuff, but on those days I would notice that his fingernails were always stained and slightly caked in dirt. Then, one day in early October, Gordon didn't show up at school the next day. I'd walked with him the evening before, but I hadn't even made it to the washing machine. I'd seen him go inside, and now he was gone. Nobody seemed bothered, and one teacher said his parents had called him in sick, but I was

certain this time old Maggie hadn't let him go. I ran over to his house as soon as school finished and knocked on the door. His dad answered, and when I asked him where Gordon was, he told me he was up in his room with a fever. I asked to see him, but was told very firmly that he was asleep. I looked Gordon's dad in the eyes as he said this, and I knew that he was lying to me. If anyone was going to save him from Maggie's knife, it was going to have to be me. The sun had almost set by the time I reached the dump, and the bungalow seemed much taller, silhouetted as it was, against the darkening purple sky, surrounded by the filthy white corpses of unwanted electricals. But that wasn't right. Maggie wanted them. Maggie didn't want anything to be lost. She wanted them to stay and rot.

You know, for all the fear Maggie inspired in me, I was completely unprepared to be right about her. Not the knife. I got the knife wrong. But I do think that she was a witch. In the years since then, I've tried very hard to convince myself that what I saw that night was a dream, or a false memory or something, but it wasn't. I was past the washing machine before I'd even registered what I was doing, and when I realised where I was, I felt my legs begin to seize up. The lights in the house were on, dim through the filthy windows,

and they cast a diseased yellow glow that reflected off a pile of clear glass bottles stacked outside. I don't know how I'd never noticed the smell of that place before, but now the stench of it hit me like a wave. I gagged and fell to my knees, not wanting to put my hands anywhere on the litter-covered ground. As I looked around desperately for a patch of actual grass which I could use to support myself, my eyes fell on something that seemed out of place. A pristine, unopened can of baked beans. The absurdity of it overcame my fear for just a second, and I steadied myself enough to get a closer look. It stood upright, about two feet from a fallen grocery bag, one of the bags that Gordon always brought when he went to see

old Maggie. Behind it was another bag, and another, and another, until I saw, propped up against the back of the house, dozens, if not hundreds, of shopping bags. Some seemed to be almost new, while others had clearly been there for months, and all of them were full to the brim with unopened food. I found myself reaching for the tin. I just wanted to touch it to feel something clean and real to make sure I was still in the world. But as my fingers brushed against it, the can began to shake violently. The metal bent and warped like something inside was growing rapidly, bursting to be free. I fell backwards, now fully panicked, and started to crawl away as quickly as I could. The throbbing tin was nowhere to be seen now, but as I tried to get away, I felt the ground give way beneath my hand, and it was sucked down, up to the elbow in clinging muck. Somehow, I managed to

choke down a scream and pulled my arm free, ripping soil and dead grass out in clumps. scream and pulled my arm free, ripping soil and dead grass out in clumps. It was covered in a wriggling mass of earthworms, squeezing and pressing their slimy bodies against my skin. Still, I didn't scream as I shook my arm wildly, flinging them away from me. My head was swimming, searching for something I could focus on, something normal, if only for a second. searching for something I could focus on, something normal, if only for a second. What I saw instead was Gordon's face, staring at me from the mud, from the hole I had torn in the ground. His eyes were vacant and his skin was marked and discoloured. Then I realised with a start that it was a mask.

Old newspaper and wet cardboard formed into a perfect recreation of my friend. A fleshy knot of worms slithered through the hole of its mouth, and then, all at once, my mind snapped back to Gordon's plight, to why I was there in that awful place. The light was still shining through the grime of the bungalow windows as I gingerly placed my foot on a pile of old newspapers and lifted myself up to get a look inside. My fingers gripped the edges of a windowpane slick with some sort of dark oil. It took a moment for my eyes to focus on the figures inside, and even then they were blurred

by the slime-encrusted glass. I could see Gordon sat in a thick, threadbare armchair motionless. I could see Gordon sat in a thick, threadbare armchair, motionless. Bent over him was the thin, hunched form of old Maggie. Tiny shapes moved over my friend's still form as her thin hands smoothed pieces of ancient, yellowed paper over his face. Her dressing gown was wet, and her wrinkled skin glistened with a pale fluid that dripped from her fingers as she smoothed the strips in place. I could hear her singing a soft, crooning song, and as her voice got louder, the things crawling over Gordon got faster and more agitated. Then my foot slipped, and a glass bottle fell from its pile. It wasn't loud. It didn't even break. But that was all the excuse I needed to run.

I don't know if she heard it. The mere idea that she might see me was enough to send me sprinting all the way back home to safety. When my mum saw the state of my clothes, she sent me to bed without dinner, which was fine by me. I crawled under the covers and lay there until sleep finally came. Gordon was fine. He was in school the next day like nothing had happened, and we never spoke about it. He stopped delivering to old Maggie, though, at least I think he did. I lost touch with him about a year later when my family moved again, this time to Liverpool, and I tried to convince myself

that it had all been a dream. I'd almost managed it as well, until I found myself in Ipswich last month on business. My drive home took me near to Crapfield, so I decided to pass through for old time's sake. I stopped at the White Hart for a coffee and ended up chatting with some locals. We talked about nothing for an hour or so, until someone mentioned offhand about having to swing by the dump with their old mattress. I asked him when Crapfield had gotten a dump, and he explained it was actually just a patch of old waste ground where folk tossed their rubbish. Did it have a name? I asked, and he nodded casually, like he had no idea that what he was saying mattered in the least. Sure, he told me.

It was named for the weird recluse who owned the place. They called it Gordie's Dump. Statement ends. Well, I think that was okay. Yeah. Oh, to anyone listening, sorry about the change of tone. John, the head archivist, is absent, so I'll be trying to fill in as best as I can. Maybe Tim as well, if he feels like it.

It doesn't matter, I suppose, just as long as it gets done. We followed up on the address provided by Adrian Weiss, and it is a pretty unpleasant piece of land owned by Gordon Goodman. Records show he was bequeathed it by the last owner, Miss Margaret Carnegie, upon her death in 1982. In fact, he was her sole beneficiary, it looks like. Miss Carnegie's death was listed as natural causes, most likely pneumonia, but it was apparently hard to be sure given the state of her body. Her lungs

seemed to be full of newspaper pulp, and her back and sides were covered in... You see, well, the report lists them as cancerous growths, but the description... I mean, they sound more like insect legs. It also describes them as having significant post-mortem autonomous motor function, which I'm guessing means they were somehow still moving? Which I'm guessing means they were somehow still moving? Gordon Goodman is on record as the one who actually identified her body, and the corpse went missing the following night. Which leads me to wonder if maybe he didn't want to let her go either. I mean, maybe he... Oh, hold on.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Oh, yes. Hello. This is... The archives aren't actually open to the public. I know. There wasn't anyone on the door, though.

I'm looking for the archivist. You're Miss Richardson? King. King, yes. Right. Melanie is fine. Is he here? No. King, yes. Right. Melanie is fine. Is he here? No, you were right.

Oh, um, no. Not really. Got shot, sort of. In India. What? Oh, it's mostly fine now. I can walk on it at least. It's what I wanted to talk to John about.

That's not really... I mean, I guess I could take your statement. Oh. Uh, I suppose. You mean... you mean now? Right. Um, well, I... I flew out. And I've been... well, that is...

Before that, I was... I was looking at some books. Uh, there were history books that were talking... Look, are you sure I can't just talk to John? You know, Jonathan Sims? He still works here, right? That's actually quite a good question. Okay, look, I'm sorry. I've obviously missed something here.

What's going on? John's missing. They think he killed someone. What, he finally snapped, did he? Or did he accidentally bore them to death? I'm serious. Oh. Oh, right. So who'd he kill? He didn't! it's just everyone Look, it was an old man No one here knows him

And the police still can't actually identify the body So So, what, he's supposed to have suddenly just murdered some stranger? With a pipe What, like burned him to death? A metal pipe Oh Sorry, I just pictured him with like a

smoking... you know. I mean, that doesn't sound like him, does it? I've only met him a couple of times, but beating an old man to death with a pipe seems kind of out of character. Right? But everyone just seems totally convinced he did it. I mean, they think he did

something to Sasha, too. Jesus, which one? Oh, er, she was another one of the research something to Sasha, too. Jesus, which one? Uh, she was another one of the research assistants, like me and Tim. Yes, I know that. She vanished around the same time of the murder, I think. Oh, you know what? I am not doing this again. Are you sure you're alright? Yes.

I just got... God! I'm kind of at the end, you know? The end of what? Everything. Friends, clues, savings. Everything. Options. There's nowhere left for me to go.

I don't know why, but I just felt that perhaps coming here might help. Talking things out with John. I mean, he's awful. But at least he listens, you know? Yeah. I'm sorry. Is there anything that I could, like, maybe do for you? A friend of yours?

Oh, it's okay. She's giving a statement. I see. Well, good to meet you. Elias Bouchard. I run the Institute. Melanie King. Ah, you're not the Melanie King who runs Ghost Hunt UK, surely? Used to. Of course. My apologies. You used to watch it.

I'm sorry to hear it's no longer running. Your techniques were rudimentary, but you showed surprising promise on occasion. Thank you, I think. I mean, Melanie was actually just leaving. I think we were done. Er, yes. Yes. One moment, Miss King. Martin has filled you in on recent events, I believe. I mean, a bit. Not everything.

Then you are aware there is currently a vacancy for an archival assistant. Yes, and an archivist. I don't think we need to worry about that just yet, but the assistant role... Hang on. Are you offering me a job? What? You have some experience in the field, I believe. Well, yes, but... I mean, that doesn't actually make her qualified.

Formal qualifications aren't everything, Martin. Do you want the job, Melanie? Oh. Um, I... It's rather sudden, but... I mean, sure, I... Yes. Yes, I do. Melanie, I'm really not sure that you actually...

Problems, Martin? No. No, no, I guess not. Good. Well, if you want, come on up to my office and we'll have a proper interview. Hopefully get all the paperwork signed. Lead the way. Great!

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