EPISODE 5: THE SORDID SHADOW WITHIN

[Dice roll.]

Cyril Bridgewater [Out of Character]:

I roll a 44 again for Medicine, which I have 6. 

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

I rolled a 7 out of my 5 percent. 

Keeper: 

That’s pretty close. And it’s really not all that hard to see, but the older woman definitely looks disturbed. You don’t—you don’t have a real good read on it, but Deloras, that old lady, that old bat, she has seen better days, even in this picture. Outside of that, though, I mean, this—the woman that you see, the woman that’s Hannah, your housemate, she definitely looks younger, happier, also a little more ragged. Like, inasmuch as she looks like she’s on a farm or something. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

I’m going to take the picture out of the frame—

Keeper:

Okay. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

—check the back, see if there’s anything written on it. 

Keeper:

Nothing written on it. As you’re looking at the picture, kind of looking around, you notice kind of off to the side, not too far from where you saw that, you find a battered journal as well—

[SFX: Dramatic stinger.]

Keeper:

—half-hidden under some of the other filthy bedsheets. Looking it over, you pick it up, flip it open, and this is not—this doesn’t look like Hannah’s handwriting at all. This is all clumsily scrawled and looks like a mess. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

What do you make of this, Deloras? Looks like somebody else wrote this. Another person’s journal. 

Deloras Delaney:

I’ll take a look at it. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

I’m going to pocket the photo—

Keeper:

Okay. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

—in case I need to show it to anybody. 

Deloras Delaney:

Excerpts from Miriam Hetfield’s Diary:

“Miriam was a bad girl. If I was a good girl, it never would have happened. God have mercy. Growing in my belly and whispering to me in dreams that I’ve been bad, debaser, debasement, roll like a dog in offal to cover my own stench. It hurt me. It did the bad thing Momma always told me boys wanted to do to me.”

[Cast laughs.]

“Dear God, it hurt me. God, there’s an itch between my legs I can’t stop, a fire I can’t put out. Hannah doesn’t know what I do with our body when she’s asleep. Feel and never forget the pain when I’m with another man. Can’t drive it out, can’t forget the memory even with another man after man. 

It wasn’t a man, wasn’t human. I ran, had to get away from Dunwich, had to not be me, to forget, had to be Hannah, but Hannah doesn’t know about Miriam, and when Hannah is pregnant, she has to let Miriam take over because she can’t know, or she’ll fall into the darkness and remember, and Hannah’s not real, and isn’t afraid of the dark, but she has no pain. 

God, oh God, oh God! It was part of me, this evil, and I cannot burn it out or cut it off. Cut it off me when I was born, but it came back because it knew it was part of me, and Hannah is a part of me, but I’m not part of Hannah. And when I’m Hannah, I’m not me. I’m someone else inside me, God, growing and rotting me inside, inside Dunwich…” 

Cyril Bridgewater:

I was reading over her shoulder. 

[Cast laughs.]

Cyril Bridgewater:

Jesus! Our little Hannah’s a—

Keeper:

Yeah, it’s Sanity roll time, after reading that. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

—crazy mess! 

[Dice roll.]

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

89 out of 76. 

Keeper:

You lose a point. 

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

Womp-womp!

Cyril Bridgewater [Out of Character]:

76 out of 52. 

Keeper:

You lose a point. It’s a little unsettling, but not terribly so. The town—or, the place she mentions—

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

Dunwich? 

Keeper:

—is a town that you guys are both familiar with. It’s a small farming community west of Arkham, real backwater place. Dunwich is just rural farmers that have lived there for generations. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

Looks like—I don’t know, maybe she should’ve checked herself into an institution. This—I have no idea what to make of this. Maybe we better look into going to Dunwich. 

Deloras Delaney:

Sounds like a good idea. Can we give one good sleep—sweep over the rest of the place to see if we spot anything else? 

Keeper:

Okay, yeah. I mean, you guys look around through the place. By and large, it is a pretty nasty mess. And this place almost looks like it’s kind of a reverse of Hannah’s place. Where Hannah, like, you know, looked like she maybe ate some food there occasionally, did a couple things, dressed, put on clothes and stuff, this place just looks like it was a place for sleeping and soiling bedsheets. 

Cyril Bridgewater [Out of Character]:

I have a Psychology of 55, and I don’t know that schizophrenia was in any way defined at this time period—

Keeper:

Go ahead and take the roll.

[Dice roll.]

Cyril Bridgewater [Out of Character]:

I rolled a 23. 

Keeper:

Okay, to you, it sounds like some kind of—yeah, not so much like a schizophrenia thing, but more of a split-personality. Like a fugue. Like something terrible happened and that’s her way of repressing it is she becomes this other person that doesn’t have these problems. And so whatever it was, it was pretty bad to split her up and basically that other personality just dominates her during large periods of time, probably. From everything you’ve seen, that’s what it looks like. 

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

That’s the only handwriting that’s in that journal, is the one that looks like Miriam? 

Keeper:

Yeah. It’s just messy. 

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

Does it mention anybody else? 

Keeper:

No, you guys look through it, you guys see—there’s a lot of stuff—that hand—or, that diary, rather, it definitely gets worse over time whereas the other one was just kind of really bland and “blah, blah, blah,” you know, daily stuff. This one starts out—there’s some information about leaving Dunwich. From there, it starts drifting into that. And then from—after what you read, it gets even less coherent. 

Cyril Bridgewater [Out of Character]:

So we’re walking downstairs, we’ve got the photo, we’ve got the diary—

Landlord:

Praise Jesus! 

Cyril Bridgewater:

Jesus Christ! They came up the stairs? 

Landlord:

So you boys—I didn’t know you came—boys, ladies, whatever—I didn’t know you came with such a fine gentleman. What can I do to help you serve the Lord better? 

Cyril Bridgewater:

What can you tell us about Ms. Miriam Hetfield? 

Landlord:

A sinner and a degenerate. 

Father Grandfather:

Amen!

Cyril Bridgewater:

Why, yes, we—it’s—

Landlord:

Coming and going all hours of the night. 

Father Grandfather:

Literally. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

She seemed like she was a troubled young lady. 

Landlord: 

Troubled with sin, my friend. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

She troubled with anything else? 

Landlord:

No, mostly sin. 

[Cast laughs.]

Cyril Bridgewater:

She was filled to the brim with sin! 

Landlord:

Yes, sin and the base desires that come from sin. Leaving, coming all hours of the night, strange men, terrible things. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

Strange men. Any really, really strange men lately? 

Deloras Delaney:

And by “terrible,” how terrible do you mean? 

Landlord:

Dirty Micks. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

“Dirty Micks?”

Landlord:

You know, like that—like them—

Deloras Delaney:

The Irish? 

Father Grandfather:

Like an Irish—

Landlord:

Like that family—like that family up on the fourth floor. 

Deloras Delaney:

So the guy that we talked to?

Landlord:

Probably not him, but you know, his kind. 

Deloras Delaney:

Irish? 

Landlords:

Catholics. 

Deloras Delaney:

Oh. 

Landlord:

Damn papists, the lot of them! Giving their loyalty to that false idolator! 

Deloras Delaney:

Yes, that one that predates yours. Okay, let’s go. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

Heavens to Betsy! Yeah, thank you for the information. We will—we’ll be—

Landlord:

Thank you, my son! Listen, even thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach. I know a nighttime service. We can go and have ourselves cleaned. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

I had my pipes cleaned just the other day, Doctor, so I—Sir—so…

[Cast laughs.]

Cyril Bridgewater:

But just official business, got to skedaddle, but thank you. We might be back to ask you some official questions, yeah. [To Deloras] Come on, let’s get down the stairs real quick!

Deloras Delaney:

Let’s get to scooting!

Landlord:

Father, thank you for coming. It has been so good. I never get this chance to speak with a proper believer like you. 

Father Grandfather:

Oh, likewise. Likewise. But, see, I’ve come with these fine folks and I must, unfortunately, leave with them now. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

Oh, you can stay! You can have a good time with your new friend. 

Father Grandfather:

Oh, no, no, no. I insist. See, my and all my Bibles must come with you. 

Cyril Bridgewater [whispering to Deloras]:

Let’s run out the door!

Deloras Delaney:

Already in the car, trying to start it up. 

Hank O’Brien Jr. [Out of Character]:

I don’t know if you can beat that guy running anyway. 

Father Grandfather:

Told y’all that girl’s filled with evil! Y’all didn’t believe me. 

Keeper:

As you guys leave—

[SFX: Doors slam.]

Keeper:

—he waves at the door.

Landlord:

Farewell, my friends! Remember, hate the sin and the sinner! 

[Cast laughs.]

Father Grandfather:

Amen! Amen! 

Keeper:

Yeah, by now, you guys are loading up in the car—

Deloras Delaney [Out of Character]:

He somehow wormed his way in.

Father Grandfather:

I’m just sitting there. 

Keeper:

—like, you guys have spent all day driving around town and everything—

Father Grandfather:

I’m just sitting in the car. 

[SFX: Car door slams.]

Keeper:

—it’s getting late by now. Pretty much, like, it’s getting dark out now. 

[SFX: Car engine starts up.]

Deloras Delany:

Yeah, we’re not going to drive all the way to Dunwich right now. 

Cyril Bridgewater:

Let’s go back to the boardinghouse! Tell Sam what we found, maybe get some answers. 

[Outro Music: Jaunty big band jazz: “I’ve Found a New Baby.”]
 
Narrator:
Mmm-MM! Nice to have some thrills and spills after all those chills, that was The Dingo Doo-Dah Band with “I’ve Found a New Baby.”

Here on The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program, all our uncanny adventures are funded by listeners just like yourself. If our auditory entertainment tickles your ears and your fancy, why not head to Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia and let us know by joining our ranks. You’ll get access to Patron-only channels on our Discord, behind-the-scenes updates on our latest projects, and exclusive podcasts like Cthulhu Cthommentary, where you’ll hear fascinating insights into this very episode, such as:

[SFX: Radio static]

Cat Blackard - Showrunner:
Cyril mentions that he wasn’t sure about what he was supposed to glean from the journal and how there was clearly a dissociative identity disorder thing happening there but he said, like, “you know - I don’t know, did people know about schizophrenia in the 1920s?” So I looked it up, ‘cause I didn’t know!

The term started coming into use in the 1890s and by the 1930s lobotomies were being experimented with as a treatment so… Obviously dissociative identity disorder is previously known as multiple personality disorder. Starting in about 1927, which is a year before this episode takes place, there was a large increase in the number of reported cases of schizophrenia, which was matched by an equally large decrease in the number of multiple personality reports. It was argued in the 1980s that dissociative identity disorder patients were often misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia during that time.

Colin Peterson - Sound Designer:
Wow.

Cat Blackard:
So I guess Cyril would’ve definitely said “schizophrenia”.

[SFX: Radio static]

Learn more about the history behind Mystery Program, again at Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia

Now, next up, I’ve got just the thing to put a bow on this sordid story: here’s a haunting little tune by a troupe of young a capella performers who call themselves Geekapella. This is, I believe, an old spiritual from the Miskatonic Valley. It’s called “Cry, Little Sister.”
 
[Geekapella: “Cry, Little Sister.”]
 

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Episode 5: “The Sordid Shadow Within”  - was written and performed by Luke Stram, Cat Blackard, Doug Banks, Kay, Brandon Gerson, and Ruel Knudson - and is based on the Call of Cthulhu module “Behold the Mother” from Dead Reckonings, published by Chaosium Incorporated. 

The series is edited and produced by Colin Peterson and Cat Blackard and the original score is composed and performed by Ryan McQuinn and Mike McQuinn of Neon Dolphin - home for all your custom music needs and more. Neondolphinmusic.com.

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All characters appearing are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. 

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This has been The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program… Goodnight

[Music fades]

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