The Magnus Archives - MAG 93 - Contaminant

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

#9950503Statement of Lester Chang regarding the cleaning habits of his father-in-law. Original statement given March 5th 1995.Content Warnings for this episode are at the end of the show notes.Thanks to this week's Patrons: Jonathan Walters, Shad Bolling, Anna Malczyk, Olivia Tysoe, Margaret (Peggy) Whitfield, April Kluever, Marie-Anne Dupont, Kristina Kirkland, Isaac M & Kazimier StineIf you'd like to support us, head to www.patreon.com/rustyquillEdited by James Austin, Brock Winstead & Alexander J Newall.Sound effects for this episode provided by Reitanna, sgrowe & 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.Content Warning for:Mould/MoldSudden HospitalisationOCDBereavement 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 with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. Hi everyone, Ben here. I'd just like to take a

moment to thank some of our patrons. Jonathan Walters, Shad Bolling, Anna Malsik, Oliver Taiso, Margaret Peggy Whitfield, April Kluver, Marianne Dupont, Christina Kirkland, Isaac M, Thank you all. We really appreciate your support. If you'd like to join them, go to www.patreon.com forward slash rustyquill and take a look at our rewards. The Magnus Archives Episode 93 Contaminant The End I'm trying to find you on a belly rub. Ah, wrong hand, cat, wrong hand. Ah, ah, just... Sorry, Admiral, it's been a hard few days. Hope I haven't upset Georgie too much. How can she be mad? She's got you. Yep, that's your arse.

Thanks for that. Look, I know I love you too, but can I have my lapper back? I kind of... Can I need to... Ah, oh, okay, okay. Belly rubs. You don't have to worry about all this stuff, do you? Bit over your head, I guess.

Bet the world ends and you do just fine. Oh, right. You done? Okay. Okay. Statement of Lester Chang regarding the cleaning habits of his father-in-law. Original statement given March 5th, 1995. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.

My father-in-law was always a fastidious man. When we first met, I made some jokes about OCD, but a few warning looks from Danny shut me right up. Greg Russell was very tidy and very clean, but balanced out, I always thought, by his wife Sandra, my mother-in-law. I know I'm meant to hate my mother-in-law, but honestly, Sandra and I got on fantastically. Both of us were kind of messy and found the chaos comforting and homely, and we had very similar senses of humour. I never figured out whether she and Greg complimented each other, or drove each other up the wall. When I first met them, I was horrified by the way they talked to each other,

convinced I was about to witness the messy divorce of my girlfriend's parents. But twelve years later, they were still together, and I found myself privy to their more tender moments. To be honest, I'm still not sure how healthy their relationship was, but it seemed to work for them, and Danielle, my wife, didn't seem to have inherited any of their more confrontational habits when it came to our relationship. All in all, I enjoyed seeing them two or three times a year on holidays, but was kind of glad they lived all the way up in Newcastle. Danny would talk to them on the phone for hours, and I'd get all the updates, but crucially I didn't have to do much of the interaction myself.

And that was more than enough for me. Then, last year, the unthinkable happened. Hereditary conditions, right? They, uh, they can really ruin everything. The doctors told us the chances of it happening were astronomical, like we should be proud of having something so unlikely march in and ruin our lives. But within ten months, both myself and Greg were widowers. I think I must have spent more nights that year in hospital chairs than I did in my own bed, but November rolled around and I had it all to myself.

You don't realise how big a bed can be until something like that happens. I don't really know what I expected it to do to my relationship with my father-in-law I mean, I didn't really expect anything at all If you'd asked me at the time, I probably would have said that it should have brought us closer together That we'd probably end up leaning on each other for support But that never really happened Instead, he stopped contacting me completely. He still answered the phone when I called, but was polite when I went to check up on him. Every bit of communication had to be instigated by me, and he had gotten cleaner. I didn't think it was possible, but every

time I went over there, the smell of bleach was almost overwhelming. More often than not, he was wearing rubber cleaning gloves when he opened the door, and as I walked around, I could feel his eyes, making note of everywhere I walked, everything I touched. I tried to talk to him about it, suggest he get help, but whenever I mention it, he would try to change the subject and talk about television or the news, He would try to change the subject and talk about television or the news, though if I tried, it became clear he didn't actually follow either. Finally, I decided I just couldn't stand it anymore. I sat him down and told him that if he didn't talk to someone about his compulsions, I was going to have to set something up for him.

I told him that whatever he was doing, it wasn't the right way to deal with Sandra and Danny's death. I told him that whatever he was doing, it wasn't the right way to deal with Sandra and Danny's death. I didn't handle it well. I was still deep in grief myself, and I almost broke down, pleading with him, telling him it wasn't healthy. When I said that, he laughed. He actually threw his head back and laughed. It was one of the most unnerving sounds I'd ever heard. It was one of the most unnerving sounds I'd ever heard. Greg stood up, walked over to a small cabinet in his kitchen and opened it to reveal, row upon row, individually packaged miniatures of gin. He picked one of them up and inspected it, checking the top and bottom and examining

the seal to make sure it was unbroken. Then in one swift motion he opened the tiny bottle and make sure it was unbroken. Then, in one swift motion, he opened the tiny bottle and emptied it down his throat. He did this three times before he finally looked back at me. His gaze was softened by the alcohol, but it still looked like it was almost a physical effort for him to force out the words, There is molard in my drain. out the words, there is mould in my drain. That's all he said. Not all that strange a sentence, all things considered, especially in that context, but something in his face, something in the way he pressed those words out through his lips, made me suddenly feel cold all over. I made my excuses and left. He didn't look up as I closed the front door behind me.

I tried to forget, tried to just move on and ignore it. If he didn't want my help, then I had no business trying to force it on him. But I couldn't do it. He was Danny's father, my last connection to her. I don't believe in ghosts or the afterlife or anything like that, but I knew she would have wanted me to do something. Danny never gave up on anyone. Work wasn't expecting me back for another few weeks, and Danny had had a solid life insurance policy, so there wasn't any problem booking a decent hotel room for a week in Newcastle. I knew that my father-in-law would never allow me to stay in his home, not at that point. But he couldn't stop me being nearby.

So I started to check in on him every day. I brought him hot meals and talked to him for hours, even when he didn't want to talk back. But none of it seemed to weaken the cleaning compulsion that had taken hold of him. If anything, after a few days, I noticed that I had adopted the habit of cleaning my hands a second time before leaving the hotel bathroom. Greg wouldn't let me use his. On the fifth day, I did see inside his bathroom, though. I won't go into details, but suffice to say my use of it was over his protests.

It was just as clean as the rest of the house, beyond clean, really, as I could see some of the enamel fittings had been worn down and the tile grouting and sealant around the sink were starting to corrode. I shook my head and turned to leave, but as I did so, I saw a small flash of colour in the bath. I pulled back the white curtain and looked down. Surrounding the edges of the plug's pristine chrome was a small halo of purple. I leaned over to get a closer look. It appeared to be some sort of fungus, scrubbed away so only the faintest traces remained.

There was a spongy, fibrous look to it, and I had the sudden image of long, soft tendrils stretching away down through the pipes. It was the colour of a fresh bruise, and smelled sour like old milk. I don't know how long I stood staring at it, but when I looked up, my father-in-law stood in the bathroom door with a look on his face that was a mixture of anger and embarrassment. He started screaming at me about privacy and respect, about how he was a clean man and knew how to keep his house pure. He had a lump of wire wool in his hands, and I left quickly because I was somehow sure that if I didn't he was going to start scrubbing me with it. I didn't go back the next day, both to let him cool off and because I needed to spend some time

convincing myself that I shouldn't just head home and leave him to whatever the hell he thought was going on. I couldn't get that mould out of my head, though. When I went out to eat, I kept thinking I could smell that awful sour odour, and I ended up just sitting there, watching my burger as it cooled down, searching its surface for any signs of... something. At one point a fly landed on it, and I just found myself nodding Like everything was exactly as it should be

I don't know I wasn't sleeping well My sheets felt odd Slimy somehow Though whenever I turned the lights on to look There was nothing out of the ordinary I did go back Of course I did, He wasn't well.

I know I should have done something, forced some help on him somehow, but even now I'm not sure how I could have done it. Greg didn't answer the door, but it wasn't locked. The house was still spotless, but the cleanliness didn't look quite as fresh as it had before. Like it'd been cleaned earlier and just hadn't been used since then. My father-in-law was sat on the sofa in the same clothes he'd had on the last time I'd seen him. His skin was slick with sweat, and his face was blank. I called out to him, and he looked up, but there was no recognition in his eyes. I glanced behind him

and saw the bathroom door was closed. Not just closed, though, but sealed. All the edges and the cracks had been packed through with sealant. He'd even nailed extra wood to the bottom of the door and sealed all the crevices of that. It didn't do anything to stop that sour smell, though, which seemed to pulse and ooze from the doorway, and as I stared at the edges of it, I noticed the sealant was laced through with thin tendrils of purple. I turned to Greg to say something, to ask a question. But then I noticed something. I began to realise that, aside from his head, every inch of skin was covered with clothes, with gloves or a scarf.

to be sterile. Now it seemed like he was dressing to keep covered. And then I looked into his face. I saw the thin crust of purple around his eyelids, the corner of his mouth, and the colour of veins in his bloodshot eyes. He started to move to open his mouth, but I didn't give him the chance. I didn't even stop to consider alternatives. I just turned on my heel and ran. Some people might call me a coward, but I am absolutely sure those people would not have made it out of that house alive. I know I should have called someone, told the police or the ambulance service, but I was in shock. I didn't know what I'd just witnessed. I still don't, not really. I went back one more time, but I didn't

even get past the front gate before the smell hit me, and I turned back. It looked like my father-in-law was moving, though. I remember it was Breakin' and Hope doing it. They had a depot a ways down the street, and I recall thinking how odd it was, using a couple of local lads with such a small van, given how much furniture they were having to load up from Greg's house. I asked them about it, about where he was, but they just looked at each other and mumbled something in Polish or Russian, and then they completely ignored me. I was going to press the issue, but I got another wave of that dreadful,

rotten smell from the house, and realised I had to leave before I was sick. The next time I went back, the place was empty, the smell was gone, and I never saw my father-in-law again. Statement ends. Elias gave me this before I left, said it might help me clarify my next move.

I should really have waited, got some rest before I recorded it, or until I'd had a chance to move out of Georgie's. I've already stayed here too long. It's not fair putting her in danger like this. Or the Admiral. God, if Daisy had come while I was here. I wasn't sure what Elias meant by my next move until the end of this statement. Horrible as whatever it was that overtook Greg Russell must have been, it seems less than entirely relevant to the current situation. Fabrican and Hope, speaking Russian and helping transport a victim of whatever dark power rules over disease and rot,

and insects, maybe. power, rules over disease and rot. And insects, maybe. I was just about convinced that they served the stranger, and their speaking Russian might well support that, if it ties them to the circus, but this is not the first time they've been delivering things that seem to be tied to other beings. Are they a neutral party, carting around whatever horror needs delivering, just a piece of otherworldly infrastructure? Or are they fully part of the stranger, just serving as allies of convenience for other things that need to be moved? More importantly, though, it mentions a depot in Newcastle. Sasha checked on the Nottingham depot when they first came up. Almost two years ago now.

A different time. But that had long been gentrified into luxury flats. Sasha never mentioned that there might have been other depots, and I never asked. I need to do some digging because if the place is still there, if the building is still standing, I might just have an idea where to... So what, you were just packing this away? Georgie, I just, I needed to do one more.

I asked you not to record them here. I'm sorry, I honestly forgot. It's been a hell of a week. Yeah, not just for you. What, you think you just disappear for five days and turn up looking like the end of Die Hard and I'll just write it off? Classic John, what an interesting life he must lead. No, I... Where have you been? And what happened to your hand? I don't want to talk about it. Tough. Look, I'm moving out anyway, so just forget it. I'm out of your life, all right? No.

No... No what? You leave, you don't get your tapes back. What? When you disappeared, I took the tapes you recorded and locked them away. Honestly, I thought I might need them as evidence. You want them back, you tell me what's happening. Georgie, please, you'll think I'm...

You'll think I'm delusional. I really hope so, John. Because right now now I just think you're a dickhead. All right. Okay, it started when I got that job at the Magnus Institute, you remember? Yeah, they do studies on ghosts and psychics and that, right? More or less. Well, I was hired as a researcher, and that was fine. I enjoyed it. Nothing really paranormal,

but life was fine. It was good. Then, a couple of years ago, the head of the archives, Gertrude Robinson, she disappeared. And Elias, my boss, chose me as her replacement.

Why? What? Why would he give you that job? He thought I could do it. You were a researcher, John. I mean, that's a long way from an archivist. And I know you don't just have a library science degree hanging around. I mean, it's all the same data and papers and stuff.

Isn't it? Not really. Well, I was given some assistance. Tim, Sasha and Martin, they helped. Were any of them trained in information science? I don't know. I mean, I haven't even got to the weird bit yet. Now, I know you talk a good game, John, but hiring you out of the blue as an archivist is pretty weird. Head archivist. Well, that does make sense, actually, in context. I'm not sure I follow. What I mean is, if there's no one above you, there's no one to point out you're doing everything wrong.

Look, can we put my professional competence to one side, please? Because I'm trying to tell you monsters are real. Okay. Okay. Okay... Okay what? Okay. I know monsters are real, and I... Assume there's more?

I... You know? Yeah. You just believe me? Yeah, I mean, it's not belief. I've seen them. You've seen monsters? Not the time, John.

Right. It's just, I think I'm turning into one. Really? That's not great. Yeah. Ever since I took this job, I've felt a compulsion to read out some of the statements, the ones that really touched the supernatural. And when I do, I feel them. I feel their confusion and fear. I tried to write it off, but...

And I can make people tell me their stories. Any time I ask a question, people just... answer. Okay, well, that bit will need some proof. Fine. Uh... What is something you would never choose to tell me? When we first met, I thought you were putting on that accent to sound more impressive. Oh.

Oh, John, I'm so sorry. Oh, no, it's all right. I mean, I guess I did exaggerate it. It's a long time ago, anyway. Proof? Yeah, yeah, I guess I did exaggerate it. It's a long time ago, anyway. Proof? Yeah, I guess so. The Institute is... There are beings, like weird gods or powers or something.

They're outside our universe somewhere, but they push through sometimes in the form of these monsters. And sometimes they choose people to be servants or conduits. Avatars? Avatars. But they end up getting these abilities. And they lose a lot of their self. Sometimes all of it.

And you think that's what's happening to you? Yes. Yes. The Institute serves one of these beings. At least Elias, who runs the place, does. Since accepting the archivist job, I've been different. And I can't quit or apparently do any violence to him. I'm bound, somehow. That does at least explain why he picked you. Er... If your job was asking questions, I mean.

You were always the one who pushed too far and asked smart-ass, awkward questions. I always was surprised you never got punched. Well, I think that bit of luck's run out. So, you've discovered your boss is evil, making you kind of evil. And you can't quit, so you fled here? And there were some murders. Oh. I assume that's why I had the police asking after you. Oh, they came here? It's fine, you were asleep. What? Anyway, that makes sense, but it doesn't explain the hand. Oh was that was one of the other avatars of your guy or no no my uh my patron is focused on knowledge and observation elias calls it the eye but i've i've also heard it

called beholding or ceaseless watcher a lot of names this one was the lightless flame or i think she called it the desolation it's's burning, destruction, pain, all the bad bits of fire without any of the light or joy. Sounds lovely. And you were meeting them because... One of the powers, the stranger, is... Its beings are trying to perform a ritual they call the unknowing. Apparently it's meant to remake the world, to bring it closer to their master. I don't know exactly what that means or where it is, but I need to stop it. Jonathan Sims, are you trying to save the world?

Yeah, I guess I am. But I need information, so I've been trying to find as many like me as possible. I've got a lot of leads, a weird Russian circus run by Gregor or Nikola or Sinov, and these weird van drives that seem to turn up everywhere, and mannequins and taxidermy and skin and all sorts, but nothing solid. Elias has been sending me statements apparently to prepare me, whatever that means, but some of the people I've been talking to have been

very dangerous. I'm starting to feel like a bit of a punching bag, to be honest. It would be nice to meet a monster and not have a scar to show for it. Well, shit. So, you believe me?

Yeah. Yeah, I do. Thank God. John, these things you're talking about, is one of them, like, death? Uh... Yes. I think so. There's one I've heard called The End.

Why? I'll make us a cup of tea. license. Today's episode was written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newell. To subscribe, view associated material, or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. Rate and review us online, tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us at mail at RustyQuill.com. Join our communities on the forum via the website or on Reddit at r slash the Magnus Archives. Thanks for listening.

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