Cold Relics

The following is a copy of a post made on a small lost media focused Discord server, and the transcription that was passed around for about a week before the server was mysteriously shut down. Though a cliché, it may have been a governmental department that took notice of the server and two of the files it had hosted for only a few days. It feels like they went out of their way in targeting our obscure community of just about a dozen individuals, but several of the former members I’ve talked to seem to agree that doing so just goes to show how much they’re monitoring similar information, and what they’ll do to continue a barely-known coverup. If nothing else, the shutdown only further gives credence to this story, or at least aspects of it.

This story isn’t mine. I’m just one of the people trying to preserve it. I do not know the original poster, or where they are now. Our small group enjoyed tracking down the darkest and deepest of lost media; the kind of material not covered by trendy YouTube videos or the most esoteric of iceberg compilations. During our short existence, we were able to find three of the rarest pieces of media in the world and digitize them. The kinds of things so deeply buried and out there, that perhaps only one or two people can remember seeing them. They were harmless; two commercials from small countries and a minute-long bizarre radio advertisement from the 1980s. They aren’t really worth talking about. It’s not like anyone reading this would’ve ever known they existed.

Our fourth find, however, is worthy of preservation.

[Originally posted on December 25th, 2024]

Hey, everyone. I’ve been sitting on this finished transcript for a few days now, itching to share it, but I figured I’d wait and give you guys a Christmas present. This relates to my personal search for a strange and nightmarish radio show that played on WSYR in Syracuse, New York, starting at midnight, on August 12th, 1978. I was only seven at the time. Old enough to know that I liked staying up later than I was supposed to so that I could listen to something that felt rebellious, but too young to understand everything I was hearing, or to have every childhood memory be solid and coherent. You remember being a kid, and having an experience that stuck with you as you grow up, but you realized that it’s fuzzy and unclear, sort of dreamlike? And the more you try to explain it, the more you find out you just can’t, because details have been lost to time and it’s impossible to make perfect sense out of something you lived through?

Yeah, this is like that. I spent my late Saturday nights as a kid listening to a radio show hosted by Manny Willem. Who? My point exactly. I brought this up in the server before, and just one of you even heard of the guy, only because they also grew up in Central New York. So, some context is going to be needed before I can get into his lost, and last episode.

My family was poor, and we couldn’t afford cable TV, so radio was one of my main sources of entertainment. While other kids were going to movies on the weekends or watching Saturday morning cartoons, I was scouring the airwaves for new songs, or talk shows with topics that piqued my interest. And in a time when I was too young to watch SNL, I settled onto one of the few pieces of programing I actually made a conscious effort to listen to every time it aired. While my folks enjoyed their golden era Saturday Night Live, I kept my room’s lights off and listened to Manny in the dark, which really set the mood.

Manny had one of the voices for radio. A dulcet, clear, yet slightly deep and scratchy voice. Like a version of Casey Kasem that smoked a pack a day. He had a quick wit, kept up to date on every offbeat news story and latest urban legend, and traded friendly barbs with his guests as he audibly puffed on his cigs at his booth. His topics included aliens, ghosts, cults, conspiracies, history’s mysteries, and all things unexplainable. In other words, he ran a localized version of Coast to Coast AM a decade before Art Bell went live with his show. Only, he didn’t take calls, instead relying on his ability to read the fringes of society that wanted on his show, so that he could curate his own brand and quality of content. He’d answer fan mail, sure, but he was always clear that he didn’t have time for nonsense on his show, nor was he going to pursue every wild claim that would’ve otherwise come in through his speakers.

Sadly for me, I only managed to catch the very tail end of his career that began as a typical daytime rock DJ and briefly morphed into one of the providers of early metal in the New York area. In 1975, he found his “dream job,” albeit at a very late hour. Just three years later, he announced his retirement as he knew it was only a matter of time before his lung cancer would make it too difficult to host a talk show. Still, for the year that I felt like I had a friend who shared in my taste for the weird and scary, I was one of the coolest kids at my school. Well, at least in my mind. None of the other elementary school students knew who I was talking about. If I had been born a little earlier, though, I probably could’ve been a part of some “insider crowd” at my middle or high school.

I was barely old enough to understand the concept of a “series finale” when Manny’s last show, announced in advance, played out on that hot August night. It ended so abruptly and oddly, that I think I must’ve believed it was some sort of joke. I remember staying up a week later, waiting for him to come back on the air and give his listeners a proper goodbye… only to hear some BBC news story about the selection process for a new pope. Nothing about Manny. And, in my young mind where everything was a book with an ending that resulted in a closed book, that was that. Like a switch clicking off, it was the conclusion of one small part of my life and I moved on, rarely thinking about the show. Yet it still lingered, as a blurry, poorly understood moment, like something insidious that hovered on the border of childhood memory and dream.

Being in this community for a few months inspired me to pursue this on my own, and luckily, I never left the area and still had some old friends who helped me search. We started with broad strokes like these hunts always do, calling the radio station and asking about archives, or more information if nothing else. The furthest we got through official channels was in talking to one of the older managers who remembered the show, though he only listened infrequently. He pulled this number out about there being maybe only a couple thousand people max that tuned in for Manny. No idea how true that might be or where he would’ve gotten the statistic, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

I won’t bore all of you with details about the search unless you want them later. A few weeks in, we find this local guy’s post on Facebook about what to do with his late father’s tape collection, and he’s already responded to a question about what’s on them. The reply: talk radio shows from the 70s through the 90s. We wonder why the dad wanted to archive them. I get in contact, and it’s surprisingly just that easy this time; the next day I’m at the son’s place, in a room full of shelves holding old cassette tapes.

He tells me he never really listened to any of them, but knew that his dad had built a library of shows he found interesting to go back to and pop in at his leisure. He was never much of a “music guy,” so this is what he had instead. The collection is well categorized, and I find the shelf packed full of Manny Willem tapes in minutes. It looks like he had every show recorded, and at the very end is, of course, the final episode. I’ll note that most of the tape cases I saw in this room were dusty, with scratches in their cheap plastic.

The August 12^th Manny Willem Show, however, had a particularly scratched and scuffed case, and less dust than the others. I took that as an indication that it had been listened to frequently. I ask if the dad ever might’ve made notes on the shows, or was known to look deeper into things. Or if he remembered him talking about this tape more than the others, after I plucked it out. Nah, he answers. His dad was a private person and kept busy with work, so he probably wouldn’t have had time to compile theories or whatever else. I think that also explained the multiple old, worn-out Walkmans in a bin in the room.

I’m gracious that he lets me borrow the tape, and I treat it like precious cargo on the way home, with it very possibly being the only known recording of the episode. In which case, the collection may be one of a kind, too. When I get home, I break out my old hardware and make a duplicate right away, and then I digitize the duplicate onto my computer. I run some basic filters and other audio enhancements on the file, because why not—not like the sound quality from an analog AM station in 1978 is going to be that great—and I get to listening. Doing so returns me to my childhood room from so long ago, and sends a few shivers down my spine. Damn, it really came back to me all at once.

After my first listen, I start over and get to transcribing. Meticulously. I rewind and play it at a slower speed often, so that I can get every word, hear something I might’ve missed. And with the volume way up and the applied filters… I do notice some disturbing tiny moments and audio that no one would pick up on throughout a first listen.

Something wasn’t right in the recording booth during this show. I can’t explain it exactly, but I will mention a few anomalies I picked up on during my transcription. Other than the things that are objectively there, maybe it’s more of a personal feeling about the whole show. Like… there’s a tension coming in through the audio. An oppressive darkness, for lack of a better word.

[I’ve excluded the breaks and the lead-ins to them, to focus solely on the show. As always, it opens with several seconds of Brain Damage playing. You know, the “central” song on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.]

“And there it is, Syracuse,” Manny comes in over the fadeout. “The last time I ever get to play that for you. Bittersweet, our last show. Sorry that I have to leave you folks to explore and talk about the world’s curios on your own, but just because my dream didn’t last long or get a prime-time slot, doesn’t mean I have regrets. Let’s make them too few to mention tonight, won’t we? I’ve been saving this one for a while, waiting for the perfect time. Didn’t expect it’d be for the end, but I couldn’t find a guest to outdo this one as our grand finale storyteller. You’ve never heard of this tale, and heck, I stopped him from telling me the whole thing, because I wanted to keep some of the surprise for myself. Moving right along. Every minute of this hour needs to be a good one.

“How are you all doing tonight? Another rough week, like all the others? For old time’s sake, I’m still going to open with a little throwaway news story and get my opinion in on world events, even for our last show. Now, I didn’t really want to talk about this, or give these… lunatics any credence, but have you heard this controversy coming out of the science world? Last month in Manchester, a healthy boy was born. Nothing special about that, right? Well, this one, people are calling a ‘test tube baby.’ Like he was grown in a vat, something you’d see in a 50s B-movie, I don’t know. And you got these knuckleheads and holier-than-thou types talking about how he wasn’t born with a soul. And on the other side, we find conspiracy nuts saying he’s been genetically engineered or some nonsense, as if he’s going to grow up to be a super soldier or have psychic powers. Who knows, man, these insane ideas are getting harder and harder to keep up with. It’s artificial fertilization, that’s all. Taking a few of the more fun steps of the whole thing out of the process. It’s going to be commonplace in a few years, you’ll see. Well. Unless, you know, humanity just created an empty vessel that Satan can use to enter into our world. No, no, I’m not serious. The Omen was playing on HBO last night, and I watched it drunk.

“Okay, with that out of the way, let’s welcome our guest waiting patiently in the other booth. His name is Stanislaw Kozak, and if you guessed that he was born in Poland, you’d be right. Mr. Kozak is probably the oldest guest I’ve had on. Do you mind if I tell them your age? Yes, he’s 82 years old. Born in the 19th century. Imagine the things and places this man has seen. And that beard is magnificent. Now, Mr. Kozak, why don’t you share with us, your, ah, hook.”

“Remind me, what that means?” Stanislaw asks.

“What you said when we first got in touch. The crux of your story that got me to listen.”

“Ah. I told you of the time I reported on the summoning of a demon.”

Mr. Kozak’s accent is subtle, and he speaks clearly and succinctly for a man his age. We will soon find out that he’s been in the country for many years.

“How do you like that, folks?” Manny hypes the audience. “If that doesn’t glue you to your seat, I don’t know what you’ve been waiting for these last three years. ‘Summoning a demon.’ Of course, that isn’t exactly true, is it?”

“No. It is not,” Kozak replies. “But the truth is more complicated. This is, as you say, just the ‘hook.’ Begin with something easily understood. Get the other party to listen. Give them a chance to become invested.”

“Okay, friend, so if it’s not a demon, what did you bring into the world?”

“The next closest thing. And this happened in 1929.”

“Wow. That feels like ancient history.”

“It is not as long ago as you may ‘feel’ it is, Mr. Willem. A short jump backward, in the grand scheme. But a very different time, yes. No television, no computers. Cars were simple and slow. Few people had ever flown.”

“And the Great Depression was about to kick off. Your ‘demon’ didn’t have anything to do with that, did it?”

“I doubt it. This took place in November, a month after the crash.”

“So, tell us. Who were these summoners, and is this even what they set out to do originally? Or did they draw a pentagram, chant, use black magic?”

“They were, mostly, closer to scientists than believers in the occult. These were intellectuals of the time, out to try and prove things as they saw the world changing, too quickly to keep up. They knew the old world of mysticism and ancient spiritual beliefs was dying. If magic were ever real, it was fading.”

“All right, so, what kind of people were in this group? How many?”

“There were twelve on our team, and several other groups just like ours. All over the world. Visiting places that claimed to have been haunted, and other holy sites or hallowed ground. We looked for the beasts and beings of folklore going back centuries. Ghosts, spirits, demons. We sought everything from fairies and skinwalkers to goblins and selkies. Met people claiming to be witches, tried to prove hexes were real. If we were in transit, on a train or ship with nothing else to do, we’d try to speak with the dead, talk to one another through telepathy, or on occasion, even attempt to conjure a tulpa.”

“An entity given life through the, ah… will of a human mind.”

“Yes. But, we never saw anything in this world to prove that there were more layers to reality, or creatures lost to time. We had mentalists, a spiritual healer, a proclaimed medium who had growing doubts in the sincerity of her own ability. A psychic who assured us he was once able to move objects from a distance as a child. Even a former exorcist of the Catholic church. Two experts in the esoteric and folklore, and three skeptics who kept us grounded in truth and acted as a counterbalance to any observations skewed by idealism.”

“You say ‘we.’ Weren’t you only reporting on others’ efforts?”

“Several of these people were old friends, and I was ingrained within the group. Officially, my role was to report any findings we made to the others. And to newspapers, perhaps, should we witness or find anything substantial and verifiable. Failing that, I also had plans to turn my mountains of notes into a book, chronicling our attempts. Our well-funded, academic journey… to prove that anything other than science and observable truth had merit, or ever did. We followed a comprehensive process wherever we went, improved upon it. After four years of traveling, we were tired and ready to return home, having proven nothing. The skeptics were winning.”

“Speaking as one myself, you can’t exactly prove that a mystical element didn’t at some point exist throughout history.”

“Perhaps not. But what we had seen were nothing more than empty traditions, fear of unknowns that were no longer relevant in a modern age. The old ways, scattered among small villages in the places of the world that did not yet have electricity or indoor plumbing, futilely maintained by old men whose parents drilled into them concepts of cruel gods, fate, and sins. Shadows lurk, waiting for weakness to exploit, as frightful creatures in the woods look for the foolish to spirit away and ghosts with unfinished desires haunt the night. No. We saw nothing that couldn’t be disproven with logic, medicine, and light brought into darkness. They’d still make idols to false or dead deities, believing a greater mind continued to watch over them and dictated their rewards or punishments.”

“I take it all of you were, or became, atheists.”

“We seldom spoke on personal beliefs. Though I know there were several agnostics among us, at least near the end of our travels. Religion and belief in any higher power is easier when you let it come to you. Go looking for it, make demands that evidence reveals itself, and you may find it slipping away. I watched some of the others grow increasingly disillusioned as a result of our not seeing something other than nature and humanity. I personally never really believed in anything other than random chance, so it didn’t bother me. But not everybody is able to bow down to the noise and the nothingness. I saw it more than once among the group. Accepting that there is no plan, no magic, no spirits or gods… It can crush those that want to—need to believe in something more.”

“Hm. Well, I admit, this isn’t how I expected this story to open. However, my listening audience, we still have a demon waiting to come into this retelling, and I’m sure that it reignited a few sparks in the group. Ah, unless you’d like to talk faith for a bit longer, Mr. Kozak.”

“No, I’m ready to move onto what your listeners have been waiting patiently for. We were ready to leave America, by boat out of New York City. However, the markets had crashed only a couple of weeks ago by that point. People were still in a panic, and transit was disrupted. Not that it would have made much of a difference if the trains still ran on time, as we found ourselves stranded in this very city when a blizzard descended upon it. We were lucky to find enough rooms at one of the hotels, given that many people had already lost their homes and also needed places to stay. This hotel was…”

“Hold on, Mr. Kozak, my producer’s telling me that our other guest has arrived and is heading in to join us. I wasn’t sure if she would make it in time.”

“Oh, yes. Very good.”

[The second guest audibly enters the booth, not offering a greeting at first. There is a brief but uncomfortable pause where she may be sizing up Mr. Kozak in some way. Notably, during this silence we also have our first anomaly, though it’s nothing more than a couple seconds of static and buzzing that no one seems to pick up on. It is not the sound of poor signal reception.]

“I have not met our second guest before,” Manny tells the audience. “But Mr. Kozak asked for her to join us tonight. Actually, it was one of his conditions. She wasn’t the easiest person to get a hold of, and I don’t know enough about her to really offer a proper introduction. So, if you’d please…”

She lets out a slightly agitated sigh and replies, “I’m Moira Burke.”

“Hello, Moira. Can you face the microphone when you speak so we can all hear you? Tell everyone at home what it is that you do.”

“I write books about personal spiritualism, and practice Wicca myself.”

“With your black shawl and a name like Moira, that seems… appropriate. Would you say that you’re part of the New Age… mind-body kind of thing… uh, movement?”

“Something like that, I suppose. But there’s nothing new about it to me.”

“Now, I’m not sure if Mr. Kozak asked for you to either refute or support his claims of some manner of ‘summoning,’ but do you know him at all? Is there any history between the two of you?”

“I know of him, and the group he was a part of, though I was born twenty years after they disbanded. It’s all nonsense, and their premise was as flawed as their process. His people were never going to ‘prove’ or even ‘find’ anything. Approaching the realm of the supernatural from a scientific angle will never give a positive result. And bundling together ethereal beliefs with silly things like fairies or leprechauns is actually rather insulting. If they stayed with one village in the old country and truly learned to understand the people and their customs, while opening their hearts and minds to the possibility of other forms and interpretations of mysticism, then, just maybe, they would’ve had the transformative experience they were desperately seeking.”

“Ms. Burke, please spare me your neopaganistic prattle,” Kozak huffs. “I asked for you because you have the degree of conviction that I wanted to see, in someone who could confidently debate with me about my experience. Our host is here to guide a story and entertain his audience, but I also wanted an honest conversation with a worthy opponent.”

“Why do you need me to provide that for you? Do you think I have experience, making summoning circles out in the woods, and chanting until some ghoul emerges from a fire?”

“No, not at all. But before I die, I have to know if what we all saw and felt that night was real. If there is even a possibility. I’m the only one left. I was the youngest by a number of years, yes, but my colleagues… They all met untimely ends, one after the next, after only a couple decades or so. My questions, doubts, and fears have lingered with me for so long. Now, to be honest, you aren’t the first, and maybe not the last person I’ve asked to tear apart my story. Only the latest. I’ve realized that my time is running out, and I may not find the affirmations in my lifetime. But through radio, the story can persist. Should we find no answers tonight, then… someone else could, one day.”

“Hm. I take it you’ve spoken with a variety of people, then. Fine.”

“Yes, please proceed, Mr. Kozak,” Manny urges him. “Though against my nature as a talk radio host, I’ll try to keep any interruptions at a minimum.”

“I will do the same,” Moira adds. “I’ll listen, so long as you don’t insult my intelligence, or ideology.”

“I’ll try not to.” Kozak clears his throat, and breathes in heavily. “We were in Clinton Square, surrounded by beautiful 20th century modern architecture and on a quest to find a place for the night before we all froze to death. The Hotel Syracuse, unfortunately, was fully booked.”

“Built in 1924, nearly 800 rooms. Charles Lindbergh visited it,” Manny shows off his knowledge of local history. “Not in the greatest shape at the moment, but Hilton is restoring it, so we’ll see how that works out. Sorry, Mr. Kozak, just trying to set the stage a bit here. Golden era of hotels, the 1920s.”

“That’s quite all right. I was about to paint a picture, as well, even if it was not where we ended up. No, that would be a few blocks away on the edge of Clinton Square. Right on Erie Canal. A forgotten hotel, having opened in 1925 and small in comparison, at just five stories. But its lobby—no less glamorous. They were trying their hardest to compete, I believe. We did get to see the Syracuse’s lobby, where we were informed of the no vacancy.”

“What was this other hotel called?”

“Hotel Erie Canal.”

“Oh. Original. Hadn’t heard of that one.”

“Few have. With good reason.”

“You didn’t, ya know, burn it down or something, did you? Sorry, no—don’t spoil it. Please, go on.”

“Our original idea was to treat ourselves to the Plaza Hotel in New York City, but the weather ruined those plans. After traveling across this country and often staying at the most ramshackle of lodgings, we wanted to see the best America could offer before departing. And while we couldn’t secure any rooms at the Syracuse, the Erie Canal seemed just as lovely. Quieter, as well. No expense was spared on its lobby, and its marble tile… so clean and polished that it was almost like walking on a mirror. Even its smoking lounge, the kind of room in which we had our most relaxed yet stimulating conversations, was like a place only royalty would get to see only a few decades prior. I’m still surprised they let us and our ragged old suits into the building.”

“Okay, I have to know—did anything seem… off right away? Did anyone in your group sense, well, a presence?”

“Not right away. But, then again… we were just trying to get out of the cold that first night. We wouldn’t have been looking, or ‘paying attention.’”

“I only ask because I just read this new book, The Shining, and… phew, it makes me look at these fancy lodgings in a different way, like they could be hiding horrifying secrets and histories. So, nice place, then?”

“Aesthetically. But its… let’s call them quirks, began to show by the second day of our stay. While warming myself by the fire in the lobby, I noticed how some potential guests—not many, but a few—would either turn away at the building entrance, or make it to the desk only to decide not to stay. Like they were… attuned to something most people were not, and the hotel was giving them a bad feeling. I thought little of it at the time, seeing as how…”

“If anyone was picking up bad vibes from this building, it should’ve been those in your group.”

“Yes. But for us, it felt welcoming. Almost beckoning. A well-lit and warm place to stay on a cold night. And there was more. Things that couldn’t be overlooked by our grateful and rested minds. The electrical issues, for one. The lights in the hallways flickered constantly. And the radio in the smoking lounge… Poor reception on all stations. Except for one. I might be misremembering this, and it sounds like a horror story embellishment, but… the only station that came in clearly played nothing but old ballroom music. That was it—never even an announcer, as far as I could tell. No identification. Other lodgers would find the music, let it play for several minutes just to hear something come in clearly, and then seemed to become annoyed or perturbed enough to shut it off.”

“Okay… That’s a little strange. Anything else?”

“The lights and radio, we could ascribe to the building being new and in need of fixing. But then there was… Well, I, and a few others in our group, had bizarre nightmares that resulted in poor sleep. Floorboards creaked on their own while we were in our beds. I’d wake up to the sound of the lobby’s phone ringing off its hook, ignored by the night manager. I got up twice and went downstairs, only to have it fall silent when I reached the lobby. And though our lodgings felt warm, we would wake up to find cold frost on the room’s side of the windows.”

“Uh… huh, so… It must’ve occurred to everyone that after all of your searching, maybe a haunted place had found you.”

“Yes, but it took us three days to really even realize it. We’d been so exhausted from our travels, that we had sort of shut down by then. We only wanted rest. No more intellectual debates, no more searching. But on the third morning, at the height of the blizzard, when we were trapped inside… it dawned on our rejuvenated psyches that we may have stumbled onto something.”

“I find all this very hard to believe,” Moira speaks up. “All these flourishes and clichés. Should I assume that you eventually try an exorcism?”

“I’m doubtful that a priest would’ve come out in such weather,” Kozak replies with a subtle scoff. “I haven’t gotten to the strangest of the building’s anomalies. There was a… kind of attraction to a certain location. A pull on small, light objects throughout the hotel. It’s something our mentalists picked up on within a day of our visit. At first, we thought perhaps the structure was tilted, had a bad foundation. The staff was already aware, and considered it little more than a nuisance. They assured us that they had used a level tool in various areas and determined that there was no tilt.

“We considered magnetism, but the effect was seen in objects with no metal. Pens would roll, papers would drift, abandoned luggage carts would move on their own in the hallways. Given enough hours in a day, even the blankets in our rooms would form ripple-shaped waves in their fabric. One of us, who had sensitive… ah, senses, sometimes lost her balance while walking in certain directions. Whether in the lobby or on the floors above, anything that could be easily moved was tugged towards an invisible focal point inside the hotel. We centered our investigation around this peculiarity, and while our compasses were useless—their needles merely spun around while inside—we used other very light items to find the… the gravitational phenomenon, I guess you could call it.

“It was one of the corners of the lobby’s lounge. Not a guest or utility room behind the corner, or some place in the ceiling or floor, but the corner itself, a forgettable spot where two walls met and in plain view of anyone in the nearby chairs. In hindsight, it should’ve been more obvious. The flames from the fireplace all bent towards that corner as well, as if there were a draft.

“We studied the corner—and I imagine appeared to be out of our minds to the other guests as we did so. It was covered in off-white wallpaper with a faint brocade pattern, above a walnut baseboard. I can still see it today, the memory sharper than the rest of the hotel. There was… gloom in that corner. There wasn’t something alive there in any sense of the word; no ghost anchored to the spot, no emanating strange energy. Rather, it held a lack of anything. A negative space. The others offered up theories and words like ‘doorway,’ ‘void,’ or ‘forgotten emptiness.’ The most scientifically studied of us suggested an area of ‘frozen entropy’ and, potentially, a portion of non-Euclidian space from a higher dimension leaking into our reality. I can see how you might say we were desperate to find anything at all before we went home, and were experiencing some sort of collective folly, but I did genuinely feel… something.”

“Well?” Manny asks after a few seconds. “What was it?”

“I wish I were smart enough to tell you, or had some big observation to share about the corner. Hm, well, actually… there is one thing. If you looked at the space for, I’m not sure, more than a minute or so… your eyes would start to hurt. I’d compared it to… being out for too long on a beach, on a sunny day. It’s not so much the burning on your retinas, but that dull ache that feels like it’s coming from behind, or around your eyes.”

“The eye needs something to focus on,” Moira explains. “It will stress or tire out if you’re looking at a wall for too long. Do you really expect anyone to believe this? Some strange corner in Syracuse. Honestly…”

“Please go on. I want to see where this is going,” Manny assures Kozak.

“I’m coming up on the end, actually,” he claims. “I’ve already talked about the anomalies, and we recorded them all. Well, there’s one last major one, but I’ll get to that. The only thing really left to talk about, is what we did. We don’t have a standard ‘ritual,’ but when we’re truly investigate something as deeply as we can together and are each giving it our everything, a ritual does usually seem to take shape, organically. We look at all aspects of an anomaly, feel it, talk about it, theorize, open our minds to the possibilities of the universe. We’d absorb every detail of a place, sense its very nature. It’s not much different than traditional rites performed by any religious or pagan group throughout history, but whereas they may have a structure—sheet music, if you will—we flowed like jazz, making it up as we went along. Adapting, bouncing off each other.”

“Maybe that’s why you had yet to ‘discover’ anything,” Moira grumbles.

“There was no plan, no set schedule. The incident was impromptu, and it began with… me. I awake to the distant but piercing sound of the lobby phone ringing once again. Dim moonlight is coming into my room through the window frost. I take out my pocket watch and check the time in the darkness. Ms. Burke, you may appreciate this—what time do you think I had?”

She groans. “I’m going to guess 3:33 AM. The witching hour. Naturally.”

“You’re overdoing it with the cynicism, but yes, that’s correct. I am determined to answer the phone this time, knowing it may be my last chance to do so. I throw on my slippers, race downstairs to avoid the slow elevator, and manage to put the receiver of the lobby desk’s old candlestick phone to my ear. It’s nearly dead silent on the other end. Nearly. When I listen closely, I can just hear the sound of a faint wind. Then, nothing.

“Well, I think… I’m already up, and wide awake. I might as well see what the ground floor is like in the middle of the night. No manager appears to be on duty. I can explore the dark stillness all by myself. It’s not entirely quiet, though.

“I hear the radio playing softly from the smoking lounge. I make my way there, feeling the walls for guidance. The windowless room would be pitch-black if not for the soft warm glow of the radio’s vacuum tubes. I can hear the music a little better, but I can’t identify the song. It’s like nothing I’d ever heard before. I shuffle up to the large, elegant cabinet and turn the volume knob to the right, being careful not to bump the finicky unit and lose the station.”

For close to ten seconds, Kozak hums a delightful little tune. Then he moves onto the lyrics, which are simple and direct, like most songs were back then. But… back when, exactly? Hearing this after all these years and with an adult’s ears, sent a small shiver down my body. It also made me remember something else about the night of the broadcast. Around this point, a heavy fog began to roll in across Syracuse, and I could suddenly no longer see more than a few feet out of my second-floor bedroom window as I listened to the song.

“There’s just one place for me, near you… It’s like heaven to be, near you. Time when we’re apart, I can’t face my heart… Say you’ll never stray… Hmm, mm, hm… Tried as I might, I couldn’t recall most of those lyrics after that night. At least, not until I heard the song again. Years later.”

“That’s… impossible,” Moira can be heard murmuring.

[Another anomaly here: with the audio turned up, several seconds of the piano tune at the beginning of the actual song can be heard in the broadcast. No one at the studio acknowledges this, as usual.]

“Uh, hm… That’s, ah, wow, Mr. Kozak.” Manny tries to find the words. “That was a popular song. In 1947. I’m going to give you the benefit here and assume you’re not pulling my leg, or misremembered what you heard later in life, and ask you how you think that might be possible?”

“To be frank, I’m still not entirely sure. I told the others, of course, once they were all awake and down in the lobby, but the radio had long gone quiet by then. It never should have been on in the first place, since no one was normally broadcasting at that hour. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, though. I just assumed it was some new American song I was unfamiliar with. It wasn’t until nearly twenty years later, when the rest of the world had a chance to hear it, did I get in contact with the few surviving members of our group and tell them… that was the song I heard back then. All we could really say about it, was that if some part of that lobby could warp space and reality the way it did, then maybe it was not such a stretch to say that it also distorted time. Pulled in, if nothing else, signals from another period. It’s confounding… but I assure you, true.”

“And why was everyone in the group suddenly awake and downstairs?”

“Oh, none of us could sleep. I was already awake before this happened, but the others all began to suffer intense headaches that woke them, yet cleared shortly thereafter. And then they felt… some sort of calling, to go into the lobby. In a way, they had all been invited. Something wanted to meet us.”

“Something…”

“It knew we had been looking for it, sensing it. Now it was making its presence felt. To meet. To study us. The lobby was as cold as the weather outside, and the shadows of the dark room intensified, twisted, coalesced. An expert on folklore gave us the name of an obscure, nearly forgotten entity once said to dwell in the abandoned castles and manors in eastern Europe. The Girük.”

“The… what now? Could you spell that out, for the audio record? We wouldn’t want our demon to be forgotten entirely, right?”

“The entity wasn’t actually some mythical, fictional creature, but we started calling it as such, and the name stuck. Beasts in old folklore seem so… tame, in comparison to the horrors our minds have dreamed up in the modern age. Sure, maybe they lure away your child, give you bad luck, burn down your house. But concepts like ‘corrupt the fabric of reality’ didn’t exist yet. Girük. G-I-R-U-K, with a dieresis over the U. A vile demon that stalked its victim at night and invaded their dreams, while ‘enchanting’ the objects of the residence with foul magic. A fitting name from the old world, if ever there was one.”

“Interesting. Always a new fantastical creature to learn about. So… You’re all in the lobby, middle of the night. How did you—”

“I’ll tell you,” Kozak interrupts, and there’s a subtle shift in his tone that makes it sound like he’s suddenly the one in control. “But, Mr. Willem, first I’d like us all to start being honest. You aren’t sick. You’ve only coughed a half dozen times during this entire show. A typical smoker’s cough. You’re ‘retiring’ for different reasons. I didn’t know why when I first arrived… but I’ve been scouring your office—and your vehicle parked out front, as well.”

“W-what?” Manny has been thrown off kilter. “What are you talking about?” He chuckles nervously. “Scouring? Like, searching? You mean… what, you have some hired goons tearing apart my office right now?”

“No, Mr. Willem. I did say I was the one who has been looking around this decrepit old radio station. And I’d like to tell you how. You see, I wanted Ms. Burke here for a specific reason. She and I share a very rare talent. Don’t we, Moira? Come now, don’t look at me like you’ve no idea what I’m talking about. You sensed there was something strange about me since you first stepped into the booth. You couldn’t see me, but I can see you. I can hide my inner self.”

“Ms. Burke, what’s he going on about?” Manny pushes through his own confusion. “Moira, are you okay? Stanislaw, what the hell did you do to her?”

“N-no… No…” Moira stammers. “Oh, God, what is that?!”

“Moira, what do you see? There’s nothing there… Folks at home, there is something happening here that I can’t explain. Ms. Burke looks deeply afraid, and she’s staring at the space above and behind Mr. Kozak. But I don’t know what…”

“I revealed myself,” Kozak ‘explains.’ “She has been studying me all night. Thinking that I couldn’t see her staring. She knew we shared a talent… or else, why would she have spent the night projecting part of herself, waiting for me to do the same? Only, my other half has been here all along.”

“That… that thing isn’t human! Unholy abomination!” Moira screams, and can be heard scrambling to her feet and running to the door—and then struggling with it. “Let me out! Unlock it and let me the hell out of here!”

“Moira, those doors don’t have locks!” Manny shouts. “What is going on in there? Would one of you just explain it to me?”

“Astral projection, Mr. Willem,” Kozak replies, his voice menacing by this point. “She and I both have a rare ability. Perhaps among the only truly mystical, supernatural gifts in this otherwise cold, dead, and lonely world. Surely, a man such as yourself doesn’t need a lecture on the concept.”

“No, it’s a load of bull. Come on. Of all the possibilities—aliens, ghosts, demons, even telekinesis—I’m open to all of that, but some living power to leave your own body, float around, and return to it… Nah. No way. And you want… you both want me to believe, that you can do it while awake? While having a conversation? Christ, Moira, calm down! I don’t know what’s wrong with the door, but you aren’t trapped in there. I’ll break the glass if I have to.”

“Yes, Ms. Burke. Settle down. Don’t be intimidated by the appearance of my projected self. It is fully under my control.”

“What do you mean, under your control?” she asks after calming down somewhat. “Is that not your spirit? That dark, haggard monstrous shadow? No healthy person’s consciousness would look like that.”

“It’s complicated, my dear. Now, please, return to your seat. I don’t mean you any harm. I had to reveal myself, so that you could understand the rest of my story. And, I believe, before you’d start taking it seriously to begin with.”

“I… don’t know what to do believe,” Manny speaks up after some silence. “But maybe I should apologize to both of you, for my biases. There are a few things I’ve always just laughed off. Tarot cards, astrology, astral projection…”

“And yet, you must want to hear how the story ends even more now, don’t you?” Kozak replies, his tone suddenly not quite as snide.

“Y-yes. Continue. Please. You said you were almost at the end?”

“I need to apologize as well, Mr. Willem. You see, while it’s true that I was reporting on the group and its activities, it wasn’t an imbedded position for some independent agency. I’d always been one of them. I’d write puff pieces and exaggerate findings to keep management and the other groups in good spirits. And they were all aware of my ability. I never sought a leadership position, but as the only one able to astral project in our organization, at least that we knew of, I was seen as something of an ace in the hole, so to say. If I couldn’t see a spirit or some other layer of reality while we visited a place, then what we were looking for did not exist, and we knew to stop wasting our time and move on.”

“But, how do you… do that while talking to me?”

It’s Moira that answers, “We learn how to. It’s like sending twenty, maybe thirty percent of yourself out into the world, but keeping it tethered to you. The physical self responds a little slower, needs more time to think, but it’s not too noticeable. I just… never knew there were others like me. I’ve been searching for so long. I was born with the gift, and never really questioned it.”

“And Mr. Kozak, did you use your gift to see ‘another layer of reality,’ as you call it, in that hotel lobby? Was there more happening in that building, that only you were aware of?”

“Much more. I felt something the moment we stepped into the building; no projection necessary. Once I had a chance to explore the lobby while I slept and could see it through a psychic lens, unconstrained by my physical self… Some minds may call the room a portal to hell, or a gateway to a realm of chaos, but in my eyes, it was closer to a place where the walls of our reality had been breached, allowing the domain of the divine to merge with it. I can’t say how long the hotel had been that way, or why it happened, but at some point, a tear in our world opened in the corner, and a weed invisible to most people began to spread throughout the lobby. Eventually… the growth was substantial enough to support a being from another plane. If only barely.”

“Our demon, right? What do you mean by ‘barely?’”

“I believe its existence was so slight and tenuous, that it came to rely on the objects in the lobby; it anchored to the walls and ceiling, too weak to move freely through the air. The Girük dreamed, and its unwieldly power caused the poltergeist-like mischief noticed by guests and staff. I sensed it, but the others could not. At first, I didn’t interfere—I wanted to give the others their chance to discover and study the entity. And yet…” he sighs, “though they were my friends, and intelligent, I always knew their actual supernatural potential was negligible. We had finally found a truly anomalous location, and they had no ability to investigate or prove it.

“That night, I chose to give them what they had earnestly been searching for, if just to return to them some feeling of wonder for the world. If I could show them their miracle, they’d have belief again. A conviction to continue their pursuits. So… I lit the lounge fireplace and persuaded everyone to perform a séance, which was a rarity, as we never really considered the ritual… effective in any way. I saw my intentions as good, but we know how that often turns out.”

“Then it was you alone that brought out this ‘Girük,’” Moira says. “While everyone was in some meditative trance and trying to talk to a ghost, you left your body, and… then what? Did you see it?”

“I didn’t know what I was doing at first. But I could see the spots and objects that the entity was chained to. Solid… somethings that could house its weak, scattered parts of a whole. The lobby telephone, a trash can, a lounge chair and a potted plant. The base of a marble pillar, several of the letters in the boxes behind the desk, crystals in the chandelier… They all glowed in a soft, warm… and inviting light. I’d seen all this on the previous nights, but resisted the urge to touch the little embers of… let’s call them spectral energy.

“So, I did. I felt one of those embers with my invisible fingers, and it leapt into my out-of-body self. Danced around, explored my consciousness like a curious firefly. Embarrassing as it is to admit, it rather tickled… but also gave off a sense of euphoria, a high I’d never felt before. And the more bits and pieces of that shattered soul I collected, the better it felt. They converged and grew, and I could soon hear soothing whispers. Indistinct words of comfort and happiness that uplifted my worn and jaded spirits. I felt alive again… hopeful, in ways I hadn’t since before I fought in and saw the horrors of the first World War.”

“You just went and gathered them up?” Moira replies in a scolding tone. “You already admitted you had no idea what you were doing. No concern for the danger. Did you even take a moment to think it over, or were you too curious about what it’d feel like to become a vessel for some eldritch nightmare?”

“You couldn’t understand. That elation, that bliss it made me feel… I know, you want to say that it manipulated me into servitude, but perhaps not. I may have merely experienced the same excitement it felt, towards its sudden chance to escape a prison and become whole. Of all the places in the world, it beat the odds when someone with our kind of gift stepped into its den.”

“Or, it could be that it was coaxing you towards it your entire life. You helped a being that is beyond us, some unknowable thing with evil intent.”

“Do you call anything that you cannot understand, evil?”

“It’s obvious where this story is headed, and I already feel its presence in this room. Some part of it either remains in your being… or follows you all these years later. I can see you for who you are, Mr. Kozak. You bathed deeply in a well of the profane. What you let loose into this world doesn’t need a name, or to be defined. Now, I don’t know how you’re doing it, but open the god damn door.”

“Ms. Burke, my producer is working on that right now, from the other side,” Manny informs her. “If you listen, you can hear him. He’ll use a power drill and remove the hinges if it comes to it. And regardless of what Mr. Kozak did fifty years ago, this may be his last and only chance to get his story out into the world. I feel obligated to let him finish… So long as he isn’t a threat.”

“Defensive, aren’t you, Mr. Willem?” Kozak replies stoically. “I know you have a revolver in your desk. Like I said, I’ve looked through the entire building. Tell me, have you threatened to shoot one of your guests before? Or are you so worried about something, you feel like you need self-defense wherever you go?”

For the first time that night, Manny sounds agitated. “Look, Stanislaw, enough with the parlor tricks. Do you want to tell us how this ends, or not?”

“I do. But the details are rather… grisly.”

“This is a late-night, poorly rated radio show, and I’m retiring minutes from now. I doubt the FCC gives a damn.”

“Very well, then… Once I had absorbed enough of the spots of light, the rest came to me on their own, no matter the distance. For a brief instant, I felt an indescribable surge of pain, and my projected self changed. My arms, which by all means did not exist outside of my body, suddenly became visible. I looked at them, in abject terror. They appeared as twisted ghostly limbs, with gnarled fingers and monstrous claws. Hardly a moment later, I was forced back into my body. I broke out of my trance, so startled that I screamed—waking the others from the séance. But… then I felt numb. Empty. My essence was still out of my body, and yet I was somehow conscious, in an empty vessel of muscle and bone.

“My friends would have wondered why I screamed the way I did. Would have asked me about it, out of concern. But my reasons didn’t matter, because what they immediately saw made everyone react in a similar way. The lobby was now home to a translucent creature, visible to us all. It howled in agony, its body twitching as its gaunt legs tried to find steady footing. Like it had been birthed into our world, fully grown, within seconds. I can’t tell you what was new to it, what caused it such pain and confusion. Sound, light, gravity…

“For a moment, we gawked at it. A barely defined bipedal shape, glowing in a blinding light. It stumbled about, thrashing as its existence was formed, or… translated into something our world could recognize. A single wild slash of its claws cut so deeply, swiftly, and cleanly into a marble pillar, that it was as if stone had been erased entirely. The others believed this was our doing, that it was us who actually let in a creature. They were so dumbfounded, and myself shocked at what I’d done, that we didn’t seem to acknowledge the peril. As it shrieked loudly enough to wake the entire building, a single errant swipe nearly cut one of our skeptics in two. Oh, the blood… it covered everything.

“The sight was enough to get us on our feet, but we had no plan for anything like this. As the entity took on a proper, defined shape, I believe most of us felt a divine fear and a primal urge to look away. Like our unconscious minds knew our lives were in great danger. I’m unsure whether to call it a morbid irony or coincidence, or if they simply didn’t perceive the fear the rest of us did, but it was our remaining two skeptics that also died that night. Everyone else had scattered before they hit the floor, and when we returned for them later, blood covered their frozen faces. We attributed their cause of death, to looking at the being’s visage, for several seconds too long. Or… for any time at all. The coroner had no answers, other than ‘massive cerebral hemorrhage.’ The man nearly cut in half, they could not explain. But we were cleared, given the nature of the attack. ‘No person could do this.’ So… a violent, yet unexplained end.”

“Jesus,” Manny pipes. “And where did the Girük go after that massacre?”

“I haven’t seen it take physical form since that night. What I can tell you, is that I believe it is unable to sustain a coherent, singular body in our world. I saw its full self for only an instant, in a burst of light that filled the room. It then split in two, like an unstable isotope that only exists for a fraction of a second. Half of the creature remains in that lobby, still bound to it… The other half…”

“You carry it with you. Is that right?”

“So, you believe the story?”

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to keep up on what you’ve said.”

“The power went out after the flash of light. Everything stopped working, somehow even the boiler in the basement. In such cold, and with a gruesome triple homicide to be investigated, the building was evacuated. Our colleagues laid there, covered by blankets in the dark as people fled. Guests were transported to other hotels, the hospital, fire stations, wherever had space. Hotel Erie Canal never reopened. And the survivors of my group returned to our homelands, with little appetite for seeking out further mysteries.

“News of the incident was suppressed, and a gas leak was the official cause of the hotel’s closure. In 1937, I left Europe and immigrated to America. I returned to Syracuse to find the building demolished; a vacant lot, leaving no trace. What became of the lobby and the creature chained to it, I never found out for certain. But I did speak with some people who remembered those days after the blizzard. They described government vehicles, always parked outside. No entry for anyone. And, weeks later, a constant flow of military trucks, each filled with covered pallets. I think they gutted the lobby, took it away piece by piece… To bury it, burn it… Maybe even rebuild it elsewhere. Who can say.”

“B-but, just be clear, one half of the thing we’re calling a Girük is still… a part of you? Like a parasite? Something attached to your very consciousness?”

“The relationship became symbiotic over time, once the life-threatening fevers and indescribable nightmares ended. The being I share my body with understands that I’m a vessel it can use to interact with our physical world, and when I sleep, it ventures out to do… whatever it is it wants to. I don’t ask many questions concerning its motivations. In return, it amplifies by power to project. And, perhaps, has given me my longevity. Though I can’t prove that.”

“Absurd…” Moira can be heard grumbling, just as the muffled sound of a power drill working on the unmovable door’s hinges becomes audible. “All of it.”

“Well,” Manny exhales mightily, “that was quite a tale to end on. Folks, as always, you choose what to believe. Try to research Hotel Erie Canal, if it was even real, and come to your own conclusions. Okay… We still have some show left, so let’s give Ms. Burke time to respond, maybe ask Mr. Kozak a few questions, share a few theories on just what the hell the Girük could’ve—”

Kozak interrupts, “Mr. Willem, you’re forgetting something. Or stalling until one in morning, I can’t tell which. You wouldn’t want to leave your show with a dangling thread. Don’t you want to know what else I saw, while exploring this station? There are some interesting… things hidden about your office.”

“Respectfully, no—we’re done with that, Mr. Kozak. You tell a fine story and even had me going for a bit there, but I don’t personally believe that a part of you has been flying around here like a ghost all night. The revolver was a lucky guess, or someone told you about it. Everyone at the building knows I own one, including my producer… who should be joining us any second now.”

“Mr. Willem, this man is dangerous,” Moira tries to convince the host. “As soon as that door comes down, I’m leaving—and you should, too.”

Manny laughs. “Come on, Ms. Burke. What’s he going to do to me from the booth? Sic his invisible pet on me, take me out like the other skeptics?”

“You don’t want to talk about what I saw, hidden in your desk,” Kozak says calmly as he retakes control of the show. “I get it. I’m not out to destroy your reputation, and I won’t tell your listeners what I found. But it was hardly a surprise, when I saw your ticket for a flight that leaves for Europe, first thing in the morning. In a hurry to get out of the country, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea what you’re…”

“The truth is, Mr. Willem, I don’t care about your vices and possible crimes. I’ve hidden my secret for so long, I only wanted the satisfaction of getting someone to believe in my ability. And my distant past. I really came here tonight for one main reason. I’m getting on in age. My body is frail, and before I die, I’d like to be able to dream again… I had you bring Ms. Burke to me, so that I could pass on the Girük to another, to someone who can give it a home. If not to keep it from wandering about alone and wreaking untold havoc, then just to… preserve the only miraculous thing left in this world.”

“Stay away from me!” Moira snaps and moves away from her microphone. “That demonic leech of yours is going to die with you, old man.”

“All right, enough!” Manny shouts, and can be heard banging on the glass that separates the booths. “Pete! Pete—get that door off already! You need a crowbar or something, man? What’s taking so long? Just hold on, Moira, we’ll have you… out of…” His tone suddenly shifts to one of horror and confusion as his focus must have returned to his guests. “Oh… God, what the hell is that? What the hell is that thing?! Pete! The door! NOW!”

Kozak gets out one last remark, though his voice is strained and nothing about what is happening is explained. “You still don’t understand… Ah… You were never tonight’s host… L-look at that… Isn’t it… a sight to behold?”

What transpires next does so over the course of just nine seconds. The three, briefly four, characters in our story shout over each other, and along with the bizarre and distorted sounds from inside the booth that are blowing out the audio levels, it is difficult to put into text exactly everything that is said. But I’ve given it my best shot, and have tried to piece it together visually.

Whatever it is that Manny sees, it is scaring Moira half to death, as she can be heard shrieking and banging on the door for freedom. It sounds like it is pulled open a moment later, and the sound of some solid metal—likely the aforementioned crowbar—can barely be made out when it hits the floor.

Pete, the show’s manager, is heard shouting a few panicked expletives of his own upon realizing he’s just feet away from an unnatural, monstrous being. Somehow, the lights in the building all go out at the same time, even while the broadcast continues. This can be timed via another scream from Moira, and both Manny and Pete yelling out, “What happened to the lights?!” followed by, “All across the damn station!” and “Backups aren’t working!”

A second later, the glass between the two booths shatters. Manny shouts in pain. It’s unclear who or what broke it. And then, nothing. Silence.

I don’t remember hearing it as a kid, but with modern audio enhancers, I was able to bring out some formerly inaudible manic whispers. The words are indecipherable and might be in another language, but it’s clearly a chant of some kind. They don’t sound like they’re coming from anyone we’ve heard all night. A steady electric hum fills the studio’s otherwise dead air.

After several minutes, I stopped listening. Or rather, I did as a kid. Among all the other things my younger self had to have been thinking about, I must’ve figured that the show had ended early. Part of me wishes I could go back and tell that kid to keep listening, but it’s probably better that I didn’t.

Out of curiosity, and seeing that the audio waveform would grow again, I kept listening this time. Six minutes and eleven seconds of dead air. Did no one else notice? Did any of the listeners call the station to check on Manny? Surely many of them thought it was all some elaborate prank; Mr. Willem going out in style. But, still, someone would’ve noticed that shit wasn’t right. Since the lights went off, though, it’s easy to assume the phone lines were down, as well.

After those six minutes of nothing, I hear someone stir. Then a few coughs out of Mr. Kozak. Had everyone at the station been knocked out, put to sleep? Were some of them dead? If only there were some visual recordings of what happened. The audio leaves much to the imagination.

“Wake up… Wake up, girl…” growls a slow, deformed version of his voice, like something else deep inside of him is pushing boiling air through his throat. “Your gift… awaits.”

Moira can be heard murmuring. Desperate, weak pleas, perhaps. All of these years, and I never even knew if anyone had survived whatever darkness befell the station, until now.

And this is why I’m glad I didn’t have to grow up with the following sounds haunting my childhood nights. Because the next thing I hear, after a few guttural groans and pained huffs from Kozak, are bones, breaking. Muscle, ripped apart. It’s sickeningly moist, akin to a cantaloupe gradually being torn open.

“Oh God! No!” Mr. Kozak’s normal and human, if not terrified and tortured voice shouts. “You told me… it wouldn’t hurt! Stop! Please, stop!”

It isn’t seen often, even in horror media, but one of the things that really disgusts me to the point of almost skipping a scene is when a creature burrows its way out of a person, or somehow breaks out of their skin like it’s wearing a suit. It’s vile. The pain would be unimaginable. The thought that some squirming parasitic life form has been living inside your flesh all along is bad enough.

“Y-you aren’t supposed to be… alive… like that…” Kozak’s weak voice still comes through in chokes, likely originating from the floor by this point.

He lets out several grunts, each more pathetic than the last, and then all falls quiet… other than the repulsive sounds of something fleshy emerging from his body. It can be heard crawling on the floor, scraping about as it tries to find its footing. I can’t tell how big it is, or what it looks like. Is it soaked in blood, are its muscles exposed, or is it skeletal? Whatever it is, it’s my opinion that it can’t last for long in a physical form. Maybe only for the few moments it needs one.

The abomination lets out a guttural growl, then a gasping sound, seems to mutter something in its incomprehensible language, and then… it too goes silent. The moment its body “dies,” the signal devolves into a chaotic, noisy mess of static and electrical interference that wanes and grows in intensity like ocean waves, over the course of several minutes. A spectrogram readout of this interference is mostly a solid color, though ominously, there are a few… rather claw-shaped readings at certain frequencies. Nothing the ear could discern.

Once the interference finally clears, there is another minute of silence before Moira can be heard, groaning listlessly. She seems to stand herself up and shuffle off without a word, despite being surrounded by carnage that we have no description of. She might still feel like herself, albeit delirious… or if what Mr. Kozak said about his “parasite” is true, she may be asleep or unconscious and the Girük is in full control. If she is still alive, she dropped off the face of the Earth following that night’s events. If she isn’t, and this is all real and not the greatest radio play ever concocted, I’m worried she passed on the demon to someone else out there, and we have no idea who the victim might be.

Silence again. In the last seconds, with the door removed and the glass shattered, we hear distant sirens. Then, without anyone to give a proper signoff, we hard transition right into a switchover to BBC News. The tape ends shortly afterwards. While listening to the last moments of the show that I didn’t know existed for over forty years, I was frozen by a mix of emotions. Fear, the primary one. Even for something that was separated from the present by so much time.

There is a cover story I looked up before I searched for the tape, just so that I could confirm I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. Officially, Pete the producer had a heart attack during the show after reacting to a “horrific electrical accident” that killed one guest and left another in a “state of shock.” Not my words. Blame newspaper headlines from the 1970s.

And Manny? Still missing, to this day. He could’ve gotten out of there and on his flight to a new life, whether or not he was injured by breaking glass. Or maybe he did die that night as well, and we aren’t allowed to know it. We also have no clue what his nefarious secret was, and I doubt we ever will.

So, again, I see two possibilities here. It was either a live hoax gone wrong that resulted in a gruesome accident, or… this disturbing show was genuine. I don’t think there’s a happy ending, where we were both pranked and everyone lived to laugh about it later. So, no good truths to be found in this story.

And if the Girük (or whatever it was) is real, then there might be two halves out there, somewhere. Maybe they can’t combine into one, or don’t want to. But if they reunited, and found a way to exist in a stable state… What sort of creature would we be dealing with? Would it even have need for a host?

Sorry, I’m probably jumping the gun here. I only wanted to share some lost media on Christmas. Not give you all existential dread about an otherworldly horror that probably doesn’t exist. I still lean more towards Team Skeptic myself, like the ones from about a century ago. Even so… I’m also not totally onboard with there being nothing in this world beyond what we can measure. Make your own decisions. If you think it’s all real, though, maybe don’t go looking. Seems like the government would be aware of its existence and you could get yourself disappeared.

Anyway, I’ll find a place to upload the audio file and share it with everyone in a few days. Maybe see if I can borrow the other tapes and digitize the rest of the show. I don’t think there are any hints to be found about the truth across the episodes. Still, they shouldn’t fade into total obscurity.

Thanks for the late-night entertainment, Manny Willem. Signing off.

[The server and all of its contents were taken down only hours after the episode’s audio was uploaded. The file has not been shared since, and no other copies of the show are currently confirmed to exist.]