The SCP Experience - The Wraith of Mary Talish | SCP-1337

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

SCP Foundation EUCLID class object, SCP-1337: The wraith of Mary Talish This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1337, and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Victoria Snaith DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #drscp #scp #scpfoundation #doctorscp #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories #scpexplained #whatisscp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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50 tours on $1 million to $10 dollars. Veigh and I'm of a way responsible. The conditions apply. Why is it that city folk have the tendency to believe that those living in small towns and backwater communities are full of superstitious nonsense?

When cities are the places that hold the most secrets. The brick and concrete holds echoes of the past, like warm paving slabs hold the heat of the sun on a summer evening. All those buildings, all those people, no one knows each other like they do in a small. town. There's an anonymity that comes from living in a city. In a town, rumors are rife, and rumors lead to stories, and stories lead to legends. But in a city, stories stay hidden. The legends are buried and lost with each new building developed. With every new foundation

laid, history is erased. Muncie, Indiana emerged as a factory city, at the turn of the 20th century, becoming home to a number of iron and steel mills, glass manufacturers, and automotive parts makers. Wealthy families, such as the Ball family, generously invested into Muncie during the early 1900s, helping to establish Ball State University, a YMCA, the Ball Memorial Hospital, and a Masonic Temple. By the 1920s, at least 70% of Muncie's population belonged to the working class. But labor unions had been driven out because the city's business elite saw them as anti-capitalist. If you were unemployed in Muncie, it was a personal problem. Your problem. The disparity between the business elite and working class was large.

But there was a way to close that gap. A way to rub shoulders with your boss, get that promotion, upgrade from a Ford to Buick and send your kids to college. Just join the Ku Klux Klan. They were already running the local government, funding businesses, employing your aunt and uncle, and hosting weekend cookouts with your church group. It would be rude not to, right? By the end of the decade,

the Indiana clan was all but dismantled following the conviction of Grand Dragon Stevenson. But just because an institution has been knocked down doesn't mean it's gone. If you check the Muncie Library newspaper archives from May 1952, you'll find an article about a one, Mary Tallish. At age 17, she'd left school and taken up work as a secretary at the Marhofer Packing Company. The wages were not extraordinary.

But there were perks to the job. She could continue to live at home with her parents where she paid no rent, walked to to work rather than learn to drive. And at the end of the day, she was allowed to take home a package or two of meat from the packing plant. The article goes on to explain that Miss Mary Talish was a tease. It describes in great detail that when her dead body was found, brutally beaten and raped before being dumped in the park, that she deserved it. She deserved it because she was young and pretty and flirted about town.

What the article will not tell you is that Mary was in love with a young black man called Elijah. The article will not tell you how they planned to elope once Mary turned 18. It will fail to mention the remaining underground clan members of Muncie, Indiana. It will exclude the fact that six grown men wearing white hoods abducted Mary and Elijah from Mayflower Road on May 19, 1952. It will omit the horrifying acts performed on Mary by the hooded figures and disregard the noose that was slung around Elijah's neck.

The article will, however, tell you that the black male perpetrator hung himself after abusing Mary. The Tallish family never fully recovered from the events of May 19, 1952. Mrs. Tallish became a recluse, sending the youngest and only surviving daughter out for errands. Mr. Tallish took up drinking as a new hobby, stumbling home late after work from the bars near the factory where he worked. The eldest Tallish child, Michael, aged 18 when Mary died, defended her honor as best he could. He had known about Mary and Elijah, and fully supported their relationship. Mr. and Mrs. Tallish, fearful that their son's marriage and work prospects

may suffer if he came out in support of interracial marriage, urged him to keep quiet. On the day of Mary's funeral, it was unseasonably warm. The twelve people who were brave enough to attend hid their shamed faces behind black parasols and large-brimmed sun hats. Michael thought he saw Mary's best friend crying, but she could have been mopping the beads of sweat from her brow. Elijah's family were not allowed on sight. This was a whites-only cemetery.

A man at the gate spat at Elijah's mother as she was. was turned away. Michael made a promise to himself that he would always defend those like Mary and Elijah. On December 19, 1953, 19 months after Mary's death, the Tallish family received a knock at the door. It was late. The sun had long since set over the industrial town and the smokestack chimneys had ceased their thick, gray expulsions for the day. A man stood patiently on the doorstep, with a lady's red sweater in his hands. He could hear the murmur of a family inside and see the flickering lights of a television screen

through the white net curtains. It was getting cold. The late December chill had finally settled in Indiana, and he had places to be. He left the lady's red sweater on a chair on the porch. Before bed, Mrs. Tollish ventured out onto the porch for a solitary smoke. As she lit the cigarette, she noticed her late daughter's sweater hanging over the arm of the chair. She picked it up, held it to her face, and inhaled the familiar scent of Mary deep into her lungs.

In the morning, the sweater was gone, and she cried when she failed to find it. In January 1954, on the night of the 19th, another man arrived on the Tallish family's porch. This one knocked louder. Mr. Talish opened the door, the smell of whiskey undeniable on his breath. The man explained he had met Mary on Mayflower Road, and she had asked for a ride home. Mr. Talish explained his daughter was dead, and the man must be mistaken. The man was adamant he was not mistaken. Mary had flagged him down, climbed into the front passenger seat, and had given him directions to the house.

If that was indeed the case, inquired Mr. Talish, then why wasn't Mary with him now? The man didn't have an answer, but he did have her sweater. Before Mr. Talish could tell the young man to leave, Mrs. Talish came to the door, and on seeing the red sweater in the man's hands, assuming he must have stolen it from the porch back in December. The young man, of course, denied such a thing, as he had only seen Mary five minutes earlier. Mrs. Tollish began to scream obscenities at the man, clawing at him, whilst Mr. Tollish and Michael held her back. The man apologized for any inconvenience, as he didn't want any trouble. He left the sweater on the porch and returned to his vehicle.

Mrs. Tallish spent the night curled up on the sofa with the sweater. It smelled as though Mary had only just taken it off. In the morning, it was gone. Mrs. Tollish spent the night. Tollish asked her doctor for a larger prescription of Iproniasid. One month later, on the evening of February 19th, a third man arrived at the Talish household. He pulled up outside the house, picked up the lady's red sweater from the passenger seat, and exited the vehicle.

He stood for a moment on the pavement, checking the number on the door of the house. Before he could take a step, two men in black suits, wearing Trilby hats, swiftly scooped him up, and silently marched him up the street. A third man, dressed identically, climbed into the driver's seat and the car pulled away.

If Michael had not been sneaking home from his girlfriend's house, he would have had no idea it had happened at all. He decided not to mention the red sweater to his mother. The following month, Michael was ready. He sat on the porch after dinner and waited for the next man to arrive with the sweater. No one came to the house, but Michael did see a car drive past. A black-suited man at the wheel, the person in the passenger seat had a brown burlap sack over their head. Whoever these men in black were, they had intercepted the delivery of the sweater earlier than Michael had anticipated.

Michael recalled the man from January, the one his mother had lashed out at. He recalled the man saying something about picking up Mary on Mayflower Road. He couldn't be sure, but if one of these mysterious sweatermen had seen Mary on Mayflower, then there was a chance they all had. April 19th couldn't come fast enough. Each day seemed like a week in it of itself. The final few days leading up to it were the worst, each second seemingly an eternity. Michael arrived on Mayflower Road at 5.02 p.m., April 19th.

The road was long, but he knew exactly where to be. wait, the spot where Mary and Elijah were abducted. He dragged a log into the bushes across the street, sat down on it, and waited. For the first hour, nothing much happened. A few cars drove by a lorry headed to one of the factories to make a nighttime delivery, but then Michael noticed a Chevrolet, a nondescript black Chevrolet driving up and down the street again and again, much slower than you'd expect on this carriageway. And behind the the wheel was a man in a black suit and Trilby. Michael waited for the Chevy to turn and drive back his way. Once it was a few yards away, he jumped out of the bush and into the street.

The driver hit the brakes, swerved, and missed Michael only by a few inches. The driver, furious, jumped out of the car and started shouting at Michael. What the hell are you doing, kid? Trying to get yourself killed? Before Michael could ask about Mary, another car pulled up on the other side of the road. The driver rolled down his window to speak with the young blonde woman standing on the curb. She explained she needed a ride home. The driver obliged and the woman, Mary, climbed in. Their car pulled away.

The man in the black suit jumped back in his Chevy, slammed the door, and switched on the ignition. Michael climbed into the backseat. Kid, I'm serious. You're going to get yourself killed tagging along with me. me, get the heck out of my car. I can't, protested Michael. Mary Tallish is my sister. The man in the black suit swore loudly, told Michael to buckle up, and took off after the first car. After a short while, they arrived at the Beach Grove Cemetery, the same one at which Mary's funeral took place. Michael and the man in the black suit watched Mary Talish exit the car in front

and vanish, her red sweater falling to the floor. Cities are full of secrets, remember, and Michael had just become privy to a very big one. Over the next few months, Michael quit his factory job in Muncie and started working for an organization called The Foundation. He was employed as a Class E agent. Employees with this title are usually assigned to the capture and containment of dangerous anomalies. In Michael's case, he was assigned to case S.C. C.P. 1337. The case of Mary Talish. His job, on the 19th of every month, was to drive a plane and unassuming Chevrolet up and down Mayflower Road. The ultimate aim was to be flagged down by the wraith of Mary Talish and give her a lift home. Every month her ghost would appear.

Every month, she would be picked up by her brother Michael, who would try to drive her home, and every time she would disappear. leaving only her red sweater. He would fill out a report, file it, and do the same thing again next month. The first few times he picked up Mary, she had no idea who he was, no concept that this man was her brother at all.

Over time, month after month, Michael would tell her stories. He'd recall that time when she fell out of a tree and broke her arm. He'd laugh remembering that one Christmas when they misplaced their mother's gift. Mary would listen. She'd laugh along with him, but he was always a complete stranger to her. Over the years, he told Mary's stories about his life, the woman he'd met, how they were getting married, how he wished his sister could be at the wedding, the names he'd picked

out for his firstborn child. Michael completed his assignment in this way every month, without fail, for 20 years. If you check the Muncie Library newspaper archives from June 18, 1973, you'll find an article about the Talish family. The article describes how Mr. and Mrs. Talish met in high school and moved to Muncie after getting married. It recounts how the couple fell pregnant after only six months of marriage. It recalls the births of Michael, Mary, and Little Louise. It goes on to list all the family's accomplishments in the community, and by describing in great detail the house fire that killed them.

that killed them. What the article will not tell you is that their throats were slit at the dinner table. The article will omit the part where their blood spilled and mixed with the gravy so lovingly prepared by Mrs. Tawlish. It will fail to mention that a member of the Foundation ordered this kill.

It will leave out the part where the fire was intended to hide evidence of this grievous murder scene. The article will, however, tell you that the family didn't suffer during the smoke asphyxiation and passed away peacefully. The staff member who sanctioned the assassination of the Talish family was Dr. Lawson. An examination of Dr. Lawson's journals

revealed that he believed that if Mary had no one to return to, she'd stop coming back. Dr. Lawson was demoted to a junior position for his unsanctioned actions, but not fired. His superiors believed that if the ghost of Mary Talish were to form a new attachment, it would most likely be to him. On June 19, 1976, the case of Mary Talish's ghost was no longer of interest to the foundation.

Since the death of her family three years prior, her apparition was no longer seen on Mayflower Road or anywhere else in Muncie. It was believed by experts at the foundation that without her family home, without her brother to pick her up, there was no reason for her wraith to materialize. For reasons not recorded on June 19. 19, 1983. Dr. Lawson was sent to Muncie, Indiana to investigate another case. It was evening. The sun was setting over the Muncie skyline, and Dr. Lawson was headed back to his car, parked on Mayflower Road. His last transmission back to the foundation consisted only of the words when security arrived unseen. Dr. Lawson was found deceased. His body was mutilated, his eyes

gouged from their sockets. His clothing ripped. and stained with blood, and is backside bleeding and raw from repeated physical and sexual torture. It has been noted that these wounds are in line with how Mary Talish's body was found in 1952. Since this event, on the 19th of every month, the wraith of Mary Talish has returned. She is no longer considered a harmless and wandering spirit. Recordings by the foundation have shown that her physical appearance has altered. She still manifests as a young blonde woman in a red sweater, but now shows wounds associated with the death. Her eyes gouged out, her chest ripped open, blood running down her legs. She still flags down passing cars, but God help the ones who stop.

SCP 1337 was initially logged by the foundation as a level two humanoid apparition, location bound, non-violent, and corporeal. It appears to be the wraith of one Mary Talish, who was abducted, ritually tortured, and executed on May 19, 1952 in Muncie, Indiana. After her death, SEP 1337 began to appear on the 19th of every month, walking down Mayflower Road, attempting to flag down any passing vehicle. It would tell anyone who picked it up that it had gotten lost, and was in need of a ride back to its home. SCP 1337 would give directions in such a way as to ensure passing the graveyard where Mary Talish was buried

and then encouraged the driver to stop at the cemetery. Once out of the vehicle, SCP 1337 would vanish, leaving the driver with her sweater. After an incident involving a member of the foundation in the 1980s, SCP 1337 was escalated to a level 3rd, 5, humanoid apparition, free-roaming, corporeal, and actively aggressive. An internal paper has since been written examining the situation.

It is entitled Apparition Escalation, Preliminary Research into Human Triggered Escalation of Apparition Hostility.