Haunted, A Love Story Part 2 of 4

0:09 Impala Films presents Haunted the Audio Drama Season 3 Episode 9 Haunted A Love Story Part 2 of 4 Written by Jamie Evans.

0:29 It's dark in here. Don't suppose you brought some torches, did you?

0:38 Don't worry. We rigged some lighting through the house. One second.

0:44 Thanks. Wow.

0:46 What?

0:48 Finally, a proper haunted house.

0:51 A proper one?

0:53 I mean, we've seen plenty of places that had ghosts in them, so technically those places are haunted houses. But this one, this one just has that vibe, you know?

1:03 The vibe?

1:04 You know, like a movie. Like, look at these wooden shutters.

1:09 And this!

1:09 Part of the wall is rotted with damp. Oh, and a creaking floorboard. Who doesn't love a creaking floorboard?

1:17 You know, sometimes I think we have very different ideas of fun, Abs.

1:22 Well, you know what they say. Opposites attract.

1:25 You two are together?

1:27 We are indeed.

1:29 That's lovely. In the Order, we're forbidden from the distractions of a romantic relationship.

1:36 Oh, really?

1:36 That's so sad.

1:39 Relationships cause distraction, and ours is a cause too serious to tolerate distraction. I've read about romantic love, though, in books.

1:48 It seems.

1:49 complicated.

1:50 Nope, not really.

1:51 In the books, people always have complications. They keep secrets from one another, or cannot be with the person they truly love.

2:00 That's just authors manufacturing drama for their plotlines. Not all relationships are like that.

2:05 But some are?

2:07 Uh, I guess, yeah. I mean, not healthy ones, though.

2:11 You know, it's different for everyone, and.

2:13 I'm sorry to be a pain and interrupt what I'm sure would be a thrilling conversation. I wonder if we might get on with.

2:19 Why we're here.

2:21 Oh, right. Yes, of course. Sorry, John. So, as far as we can tell, this house was built sometime in the mid-1800s and has been abandoned since around 1920.

2:31 Over a hundred years? That's a long time to be abandoned. Especially a nice house like this.

2:37 Did nobody ever want to buy it?

2:40 As far as we can tell from records, there have been a few attempted purchases over the years, but no deal has ever gone through. The buyers always back out at the last moment, following... Events.

2:52 Events?

2:53 Hauntings.

2:55 Ah.

2:56 You mean the spirits at the house aren't welcoming to visitors.

2:59 Great.

3:00 Glad we're here, then.

3:02 Can you tell us more about the hauntings?

3:04 Well, people often report strange noises, such as hearing your basic rattles and thumps. Some have mentioned hearing the cries of a baby coming from upstairs, a smell of burning, and a few even report seeing a crying woman. Though nothing has ever been proven.

3:22 There is a great sadness in this house.

3:24 Our instruments indicate high levels of paraphysical activity present here.

3:28 Fascinating. I would love to take a look at these instruments.

3:33 I'm sorry, I'm not authorized to let you do that. They're all set up in base camp, and like I said, men aren't allowed in base camp generally.

3:43 That is... that is a shame.

3:45 So if you're not part of the Order, John... What is your role in this?

3:50 I am a psychic and somewhat of an expert on ghosts in this particular region of the country.

3:55 So you're like an outside expert brought in to assist?

3:59 Much like yourselves, as I understand it.

4:01 Well, it's nice to meet you.

4:03 If you can sense ghosts and things, why would you need to take a look at their instruments?

4:08 It's not so much a question of need as it is a question of curiosity. I'm sure it won't surprise you to know that being blessed with.

4:16 The gift can be difficult. Isolating.

4:20 I've been an outcast most of my life. The idea that there are now machines that can measure what I've been seeing... Well, I just find it fascinating.

4:31 Lauren, what exactly is it we're here to do?

4:34 We're here to identify what spirits are haunting this house and see if we can help them move on. Oh.

4:41 I didn't think that was the sort of thing your organization concerned itself with. No? I mean, that's just the impression I got from Eliza.

4:48 Not that she ever gives you much information.

4:51 True.

4:52 Well, the others are set up in base camp with lots of instruments monitoring the house. It's above my pay grade, but this is some sort of research opportunity for them. Shall we start through here?

5:03 That doesn't sound good.

5:06 No.

5:07 The phrase lab rats springs to mind.

5:18 Good results, Joan.

5:19 Let's try upping the voltage and see if that makes a difference. Can somebody get.

5:27 Well, I don't.

5:29 Believe my eyes.

5:31 Eliza, bringing a man down into the base camp?

5:35 Not just any man. This is James Hunter.

5:38 Did she say Hunter? From Project Indigo.

5:41 Hello, ladies. Pleased to meet you all.

5:43 Shut it, Hunter. This is Cassandra D'Angelo. Two of the last three remaining indigo children. I'm putting them in the cells.

5:53 I'd just like to point out that we did nothing wrong.

5:56 I said shut it.

5:58 Does Minerva know you're bringing them in?

6:01 Who do you think asked me to bring them here, Elaine? Go back to tuning your instruments.

6:06 Don't take it out on me because you're on thin ice, Eliza.

6:13 Through here.

6:15 Trouble with your colleagues?

6:16 Yes.

6:17 We've never seen eye to eye. Around this corner.

6:20 She said you were on thin ice.

6:22 You really don't listen to people when they tell you to shut up, do you?

6:26 No.

6:27 Abigail says it's one of my most endearing qualities. Wait, no. Infuriating. That was the word.

6:33 This cell here. Open the door. I'm going to put you both in the same cell. Don't make me regret it, okay?

6:41 Wouldn't dream of it, would we, Cassandra?

6:44 Look, just Don't make this any harder than it has to be, okay?

6:49 You know we could help you, don't you?

6:52 I have my orders. Malverna thinks you're dangerous. She wants you locked away.

6:58 Malvina's the boss.

6:59 Just hang tight. I'll be back shortly.

7:02 Eliza, wait. One more thing, please. What? Abigail and Dan. Are they okay? Will they be okay? Yes.

7:13 You have my word. I have no interest in hurting Dan or Abigail.

7:18 You're very quiet, Cassandra. Are you okay?

7:22 Oh, yeah.

7:23 I'm absolutely fine. Just locked in a prison cell by a group of psycho warriors who hate our guts.

7:30 Sarcasm's usually my thing.

7:32 For God's sake, James! Can you just not, for once?

7:36 The quiffy bullshit isn't cute. Being flippant isn't cute. We're in serious trouble here. Trouble, by the way, that I've warned about countless times when it comes to Eliza, but nobody listens to me.

7:52 Cassandra, what is it? Don't.

7:54 Don't take that tone with me, James. I'm not in the mood to hear it.

7:59 I am tired.

8:00 I am fed up.

8:02 And there is something down here that is really bad.

8:06 You can feel something.

8:08 It's like there's ice.

8:09 In my spine.

8:11 My teeth are on edge.

8:13 Whatever they're doing down here, I don't like it.

8:16 I'm sorry. Cassandra, listen. I'm sorry. No more jokes or quips. It looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while. There's a cot over there. Why don't you try and get some sleep? I'll wake you up if Eliza comes back.

8:30 I can't sleep, James.

8:34 Why not?

8:36 I'm afraid.

8:38 Of what?

8:40 Karan's on.

8:43 Have you been dreaming about.

8:44 Him a lot?

8:45 Yeah.

8:48 Every night since Connerstown.

8:53 Something happened down in that mineshaft, Cassandra. But I can't help you if you don't tell me what.

9:01 Actually, there's something I need to show you.

9:06 What?

9:15 Look at this.

9:16 What do you think that is?

9:18 It looks like a scorch mark.

9:21 In a perfect straight line?

9:23 It stops perfectly at the point where the wall meets the ceiling.

9:27 I've never seen anything like that before.

9:31 Hey, look.

9:32 It continues along the floor as well. Right through the middle of the room. Passing under this rug. Look. The floorboards are scorched in a perfect line. But the rug on top doesn't have a single singe.

9:47 Could it have been put down afterwards?

9:50 Perhaps.

9:52 There's no record of the home ever having a fire, though. Not that I could find in the public records anyway.

9:58 The line disappears under this.

10:00 wall.

10:00 Do you know what's on the other side of this?

10:03 A utility room, if I remember. We can access it through the kitchen.

10:14 Wow, Dan, look at this.

10:15 What?

10:16 The scorch mark is on this floor as well. It emerges from the wall right where the other one ended.

10:22 Looks like it goes up the opposite wall and disappears under the ceiling.

10:26 Does it definitely line up with the one in the other room?

10:29 I'm fairly certain.

10:31 If that's the case, then what's the likelihood that if we went to the room above this one, we'd see the same line moving up the wall right from this spot?

10:41 Well, what are we waiting for?

10:43 Uh.

10:49 What just happened?

10:51 That's Abigail. She really likes haunted houses.

11:01 I'm going to show you something, but I don't want to share it with the others yet.

11:08 Of course. Whatever you want.

11:10 I noticed this while we were recovering in Connerstown.

11:16 Cassandra held open the shirt she was wearing Her torso, like my own, was covered in scars from the many tortures and experiments we had been subjected to during our time as candidates in Project Indigo. I felt the familiar sting of sadness, like an icicle in my heart, that I felt whenever I looked at my own scars, whenever I thought about what they did to us, to children.

11:43 The most prominent of these scars, as it was with every victim of the Church of Unity's mad experiments, was the monus hieroglyphica, etched over the left side of the chest where the heart was. This particular scarification was used to hide the surgical scar from where a shard of the cursed meteorite from Silverpit Island had been implanted into each of us. And it was to this particular scar that Cassandra gestured now.

12:12 Can you see it?

12:13 Of course.

12:15 What is it? Some sort of bruise? Does it hurt?

12:21 No. Which, in a way, is worrying me even more. The flesh is discoloured, but there's no pain, even if I press on it.

12:30 And this first appeared in Connerstown?

12:33 When Abigail and I went down into the mineshaft, yeah. There was a crypt down there, where the church had just... Buried all of the people it used to excavate the tunnels when it didn't need them anymore. My, uh. My parents were there. I couldn't leave them there. Their souls trapped forever. So I made contact and used myself as a bridge to let them escape and move on.

13:09 But I stayed connected too long. Kept the path open too long. He found me.

13:17 Karan's on.

13:19 Yes. You told me once that a part of him came to Earth on that meteorite. Well, the rest of him is trapped in a place called the Abyss. An empty space. Those souls were trapped there with him, hunting them down. And if he caught them.

13:38 Well.

13:42 They called him the Unmaker James. Apparently, if he gets your soul, he erases it from existence.

13:52 He must have sensed the fragment of meteor inside you. It would have been like a lighthouse for him, guiding him.

14:00 And he's been on me ever since. Whenever I sleep, I can hear him. Whenever I use my power to contact a spirit on the other side. I noticed after I contacted the ghost of the captain on the McClintock. This dark mark got bigger. Whatever he's doing to me, it gets worse every time I use my indigo power.

14:26 Then, first order of business, we need to make sure you don't use that power anymore. Then we can start working on- James.

14:33 What?

14:35 I think you might be missing the bigger picture here. My power- It's much more than just raising the dead. I can connect to the abyss and serve as a pathway from the abyss to this world.

14:51 A pathway.

14:53 Or a bridge.

14:55 Or a road.

14:56 Or.

14:57 A conduit. Don't you see, James? I'm the conduit named in their doomsday prophecy. Well.

15:08 That is useful information indeed.

15:10 Don't you know it's rude to sneak up on people? Who are you?

15:15 James.

15:15 Cassandra.

15:17 This is Malverna, the head of our order.

15:26 We were right! Look, over here!

15:28 Well, I'll be.

15:29 The same scorch mark. Another perfect line.

15:32 And we're directly above the room we were just in, right?

15:35 Right.

15:37 Abigail, are you going to tell us what you're thinking? Guess not.

15:41 It's in this room too, connecting again. The scorch mark runs around the entire outer wall of the house.

15:47 Right in the middle of the building.

15:49 What does that mean?

15:51 I have no idea. Are you picking up on anything, John?

15:53 No.

15:54 I'm afraid not at the moment.

15:56 Okay.

15:57 Well, we're not going to find anything out if we don't start looking for clues, are we? Shall we split up?

16:03 Since when has that ever helped anybody?

16:04 I think it's a good idea. Dan and I can look upstairs, and why don't you and John look downstairs?

16:10 Okay.

16:12 Call her if you find anything.

16:13 Any ideas what's going on here, Abs?

16:15 No, not at the moment. But I'm glad they didn't protest us leaving on our own for a bit. I'm not sure if they can be trusted.

16:22 What makes you say that?

16:23 Well, Lauren works for the same organisation Eliza works for. That's a red flag enough.

16:28 Eliza has helped us a lot in the past.

16:31 Has she? Or has it just so happened that helping us leads to helping herself?

16:36 What about John? He doesn't work for them.

16:38 He's a.

16:39 what did he say? An outside consultant?

16:43 Didn't you pick up a creepy vibe from him?

16:45 No. You did?

16:47 Yeah.

16:48 I mean, I can't quite put my finger on it exactly, but something is telling me he cannot be trusted.

16:54 It's not your, you know, sensitivity thingy?

16:58 My sensitivity thingy?

17:00 You know, like, since you were cured of the signal, you've had a sense about ghosts and things.

17:05 Oh, yeah, no.

17:07 Well, I mean, I don't think so. Truth be told, that's sort of quietened down lately.

17:12 Oh, really? Yeah.

17:15 With this, I think it's just good old woman's intuition, you know? I can tell when someone's lying to me, Dan.

17:21 You can? Yes.

17:24 I'm an excellent judge of character. And I get the vibe he's hiding something from us. Then again, maybe I could be wrong. I mean, that's not exactly scientific evidence, is it? And, I mean, just lately I think my judgement's been completely off.

17:40 Oh?

17:42 Yeah.

17:43 I mean, I feel like I'm going a bit crazy to tell you the truth. Just, you know, unsettled.

17:49 Yeah.

17:50 Yeah, I understand. Hey, come here. You're not crazy, Abigail.

17:57 No.

17:58 There's been so much shit going on in the last year.

18:01 It's just.

18:03 I can't shake this feeling that I'm missing something, Dan. Like people are keeping something from me.

18:09 Like what?

18:11 I don't know, but.

18:13 James has been strange ever since he came back. Like he's treating me with kid gloves on.

18:18 And.

18:21 Even you.

18:21 I mean.

18:23 You and me.

18:23 We're not.

18:26 Since Connerstown, it's... It's different.

18:32 Abigail? I'm sorry. I need to tell you- What the hell is a baby doing here?

18:42 I have no idea, but we need to find it. Oh, you should check in there.

18:48 Hello?

18:53 Dan!

18:54 Up here!

18:55 On my way!

18:59 What the hell? There's a working radio in this place.

19:03 No, look, the wire's cut.

19:05 Oh, great.

19:06 Radio ghosts.

19:08 Baby radio ghosts.

19:11 Do you.

19:12 I mean, that must mean... Did a baby die here?

19:16 Yeah, I guess that is what it means. What happened here?

19:23 Was that you?

19:24 No.

19:25 Lauren? John, is that you?

19:29 Sounds like it's going back down the way we came.

19:32 It sounds like they're moving away from us. We should follow them. It could just be a rat or something, perhaps.

19:38 It sounds like a pretty big rat, Dan.

19:42 It's a bedroom. Hey, the knocking stopped.

19:47 Something wants us to see something in this room specifically.

19:51 So it's a helpful ghost?

19:54 Maybe.

19:58 There's some broken glass here.

20:00 Hey, I found something.

20:02 It's an old picture. I wonder if this is the family who lived here.

20:07 Husband, wife and baby makes three.

20:12 Look.

20:13 The faces on the man and the woman are scratched out. That doesn't look like it's just age damage.

20:19 No, it looks deliberate, doesn't it?

20:21 I wonder what happened to them.

20:27 Lauren?

20:28 John? It wasn't us.

20:31 We thought it was you.

20:32 No, not us.

20:34 You should come down here. We think we've found something.

20:37 I wonder if the gunshot was like an echo. You told me about it once before. when buildings hold on to a memory and replay it.

20:45 Stone tape theory?

20:47 Yeah. Well remembered.

20:49 Thank you.

20:51 Through this way, guys!

20:52 Hurry!

20:57 Oh, bloody hell, it's cold down here.

20:59 Oh, some sort of basement.

21:02 We could feel a draft coming from the door, so we came down here to see what was here and look what we found.

21:07 Oh my god, is that.

21:08 Yes, it is. It's a grave. In the basement?

21:11 In the basement?

21:13 Adelaide Harris, 1883 to 1919.

21:17 She was only 36 years old when she died.

21:20 There is an eerie feeling in here.

21:22 I'm not even a psychic and I could have told you that.

21:24 The gravestone looks rough. I mean, maybe due to age, but I don't think it's professionally made. There's something else carved here. It's a bit faded. May God forgive us for our sins and reunite us in heaven.

21:41 Not a generic inscription.

21:43 So what sins are being referred to?

21:48 I think we just found our first lead.

21:56 Are you really the conduit told us in the prophecy? For certain?

22:02 I'm not a hundred percent, but.

22:04 We're not telling you anything else until you tell us why we're locked in here and who you are.

22:10 We are the Order of Babylon, the sworn enemies of Corazon. Vowed to stop him from ever coming to this realm.

22:20 Then in that case you can let us out. We're on the same side.

22:25 Oh, that is a funny notion. No, Mr. Hunter. I don't think I'll be letting you out. You may think that you're on our side, but you are tainted. Both of you.

22:36 We're people just like you.

22:39 You?

22:41 Our filth. Malverna. Are you getting soft, Eliza? You know we must stay resolute in our mission. One hundred percent. The demon will take advantage of any weakness.

22:52 It's just that they've been working against the church. Perhaps compassion wouldn't be the worst thing.

22:59 Compassion is weakness. I'm sorry, Mr. Hunter and Mr.

23:04 Angelo.

23:05 Truly I am. But the bottom line is you are both compromised. You are both indigo children, are you not? You have a piece of the abomination inside of you. That makes both of you valuable to their cause. So even if I were to assume you honestly do wish to help, the best way for you to do that is to remain here, where they can't get to you.

23:28 You're very sure of yourselves.

23:31 We have had a lot of practice dealing with the Church of Unity. Lingard's pack of fools aren't up to a fight with us.

23:38 Fine. We can stay with you. But do we have to be locked up like this? We could be doing something useful.

23:46 As it happens, I think you might be right.

23:49 Mr.

23:49 Angelo, you say you're the conduit. I hear you can temporarily raise the dead.

23:54 Yes. Why?

23:58 Because I've got somebody I want you to raise.

24:14 Starring Jamie Evans as James Hunter, Isabella Barbieri as Abigail Corbin, Luke Hunter as Dan Cowell, and Cherie Hendry as Cassandra D'Angelo. Also featuring... David Jervis Green. Thank you for listening to this audio presentation. Haunted is a production of Impala Films and is directed by Jamie Evans and Benton Hodges, with audio engineering by Benton Hodges and Jamie Evans. Haunted theme by James Crow. Haunted is recorded at Free Sprite Media Studios, with special thanks to Duncan Newell for equipment support. Come back next week for the next exciting chapter of Haunted, the audio drama.