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#
The Magnus Archives Season One
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Main | Season One | Season Two | Season Three | Season Four | Season Five

Recap pages are Spoilers Off. Each folder may contain unmarked spoilers pertaining to that or previous episodes. You have been warned.

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Trailers
Jonathan Sims starts a tape, explaining to his boss Elias Bouchard that his attempts to record some statements digitally weren't working, so he tried an old magnetic tape recorder out of desperation. As part of the test, he reads out a fragmentary statement given by someone only referred to as Jacob:

"It'll get you too. You can stare all you want. Make your notes and your enquiries. But all your beholding will come to nothing. When the time arrives, and all is darkness and butchery, you'll wish you had stopped listening and run."

Later, as Jon prepares to record the first statement, a sudden sound startles him. He goes off to check, leaving the tape running, and a whispering voice can be heard, reciting the words, "Vigilo. Audio. Opperior." The voice fades as Jon comes back muttering about cheap shelving, and he shuts down the tape recorder to start again.

1: Angler Fish

Case #0122204. Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given 22nd April 2012.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan Sims starts a tape and explains to the listener that he is the new Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute in London, a group dedicated to scholarly research of the paranormal. He was brought in after the disappearance of the previous Head Archivist, Gertrude Robinson, and is dismayed by the disarray in which she left the Archives. Part of his duties organizing the Archives involves making audio recordings of people's statements about their encounters with the supernatural, most of which are recorded to computers, but there are some statements which if recorded digitally turn out distorted and useless, forcing him to use magnetic tape in those cases. In addition to the recordings, the Archivist and his assistants, Sasha James, Tim Stoker, and Martin Blackwood, also perform small follow-up investigations of statements to see if there are additional details that will provide context. After finishing his explanation, Jon begins recording the first of the odd statements.

## Story

Nathan leaves a student party after midnight after drinking too much. On the way home, a figure in an alley asks him for a cigarette but neither it nor Nathan move when Nathan holds it out. The figure is drawn back into the darkness by the waist when Nathan shines a light at it. The next day Nathan finds an unsmoked Marlboro Red cigarette where the figure was and hears of another student from the party, John Fellowes, who has gone missing. Nathan looks at a picture of John and sees a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes in his pocket.

## Post-Statement

Sasha looks through police reports and learns of six disappearances in the area the story took place in from 2005 to 2010: Jessica McEwan in November 2005, Sarah Baldwin in August 2006, Daniel Rawlings in December 2006, Ashley Dobson in May 2008, Megan Shaw in June 2008, and John Fellowes in March 2010. Of the six missing persons, Baldwin and Shaw were known to smoke. Dobson sent her sister a photo shortly before disappearing, captioned "check out this drunk creeper LOL" and depicting the alleyway described in the story. By brightening the image, Sasha discovers a shape in the darkness resembling a long, beckoning arm.

- Ambiguously Human: The figure in the alleyway asks for a cigarette without moving its lips, and its feet never touched the ground. As if it were hanging in midair. When Nathan tries to record it, they fold up like a piece of paper and are pulled away as if on a string... or a lure.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: After taking a tumble on a steep road, Nathan decides to have a cigarette to calm his nerves.
- Infodump: After testing his recorder, Jon starts the episode by describing his goals: to digitize the Institute's atrociously-organized archives. He also introduces his assistants (Sasha, Tim and Martin); as well as describing his animosity for his predecessor, Gertrude Robinson.
- Luring in Prey: Something uses a lure in the form of a man asking for a cigarette in an attempt to ensnare Nathan.
- Too Dumb to Live: Averted with Nathan, who decides that if the creepy stranger really wants a cigarette he can darn well come out of the dark alley to get it. The six people who disappeared around that area probably weren't so quick on their feet.

2: Do Not Open

Case #9982211. Statement of Joshua Gellespie, regarding his time in the possession of an apparently empty wooden casket. Original statement given 22nd November 1998.

## Story

Joshua meets a man named John while on vacation in Amsterdam and accepts £10,000 to watch a package for him, but cannot find John again to return the money when he changes his mind. A year later, when John has not shown up, Joshua uses the money to rent a flat. A week after moving in, a large package is delivered to him from John, without a return address. The package contains a coffin which seems to be empty, but is held shut with a chain and padlock with a carved instruction: DO NOT OPEN.
Over the months Joshua spends with the coffin in his home, he notices sounds from inside, namely scratching when he sets items on top of it and a melodic moaning when it rains. Joshua begins having nightmares he can't remember and sleepwalks, waking up standing over the coffin with the padlock's key in his hand. Joshua eliminates the risk of opening the coffin in his sleep by freezing the key in a bowl of water.
After Joshua has had the coffin for eighteen months, John and the delivery men return to collect it, seemingly surprised to see Joshua in good health. Joshua doesn't accompany them to take the coffin out, and after they enter the living room Joshua hears screaming, though he doesn't know who or why. When the screaming stops, the delivery drivers load the coffin into their van marked 'Breekon and Hope Deliveries', and Joshua notices that John seems to have vanished.

## Post-Statement

Tim learns that Breekon and Hope Deliveries did indeed exist but was liquidated in 2009, eliminating its records in the process. The records of the association that owned Joshua's flat show that he was the only resident during the time the story took place and no one ever moved in afterwards, leading to the building eventually being demolished.

- Beardness Protection Program: Joshua hopes the beard he has grown in the months since meeting "John" will prevent the latter from finding or recognising him. It doesn't.
- Calming Tea: Joshua tries to calm himself down by drinking tea when the casket starts to disturb him.
- Coffin Contraband: Joshua finds himself looking after a strange coffin containing… something.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Over time, Joshua sort of gets used to the creepy coffin in his living room that makes noises and compels him to try and open it while sleepwalking. It's still immensely creepy, and he's more than happy when John and the movers arrive to get rid of it.
- Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: The coffin in "Do Not Open" has those three words scratched on its lid. Thankfully, the protagonist isn't Too Dumb to Live and was smart enough not to do so. Though it's not for lack of trying on the part of the coffin.
- Freestate Amsterdam: The statement begins with Joshua and his friends (all recent graduates) going on holiday to Amsterdam, for exactly the reasons you'd expect (though he also takes time to admire the architecture).
- Nothing Is Scarier: Joshua does not want to know what's in the box, so he doesn't look when the delivery men and John come back for it, meaning the listener never learns either. Except that it does something to John, or John does something to it, that results in horrible screams and John vanishing.
- Schmuck Bait: Averted, as Joshua is smart enough not to open the package from Breekon And Hope. John seems surprised and impressed that he's still alive, which suggests this has happened before and other people were not so smart.
- Shout-Out: Joshua reads The Lost World (1995) at one point, and mentions having seen Dawn of the Dead (1978).
- Sleepwalking: Whatever is in the casket makes Joshua start doing this—he refuses to open it while he's awake, but he keeps waking up with the key in hand, headed for the lock. Luckily, cold wakes him up, so he's able to stop it by keeping the key in a block of ice. .
- The Nondescript: Joshua has tried to recall details about John's appearance over the years, but can only vaguely recall a short man with brownish hair.
- Villain Respect: John seems genuinely impressed when he sees how Joshua was able to prevent himself from opening the coffin.
- Wham Line: Jonathan manages to follow up the story with a twist ending of which Joshua was unaware: when Joshua was living in the flat in which he looked after the casket for nearly two years, he was the only tenant in the building.

3: Across the Street

Case #0070107. Statement of Amy Patel, regarding the alleged disappearance of her acquaintance Graham Folger. Original statement given 1st July 2007.

## Story

Amy becomes acquainted with Graham Folger in September 2005 during a criminology course they took together. His parents died in a car crash in 2001 and left him an inheritance, and he often writes vigorously in notebooks. In late 2005 they take the same bus home and get off at the same stop, though Graham is nervous. Amy falls or is pushed and has a concussion, so Graham takes her to his flat, which is across the street from hers, to take care of her. She notices his bookshelves filled with hundreds of identical notebooks and a strange table he owns with a square socket, and he claims to not have or know what goes in it.
Unnerved by the table, she goes home and over the next few months feels compelled to spy on Graham from her flat, and notices his strange mannerisms such as frequently reorganizing and writing in the completed notebooks, and even eating one. At 10:30PM on April 7th, 2006, Amy sees a creature with multi-jointed limbs crawl into Graham's window, after which his flat goes dark. Amy calls the police and when they arrive they are met by a person wearing Graham's clothes, but isn't Graham. The police search the flat, finding Graham's passport and seemingly not seeing a difference between the picture and the man in Graham's place.
After the police leave, Not-Graham looks straight at Amy and shuts the curtains. Over the next few days Not-Graham disposes of Graham's notebooks and redecorates the flat, while Amy discovers that all the photos of Graham she can find have changed to have Not-Graham in his place. Not-Graham catches Amy on the street to say "Isn't it funny, Amy, how you can live so near and never notice? I'll need to return the visit someday." Amy moves away soon thereafter.

## Post-Statement

Tim looks through Amy's medical history and finds no mention of lasting effects from the concussion. All photos found of Graham match the description Amy gave of Not-Graham, except for a few Polaroids from the 1980s. Sasha tracks Amy down and offers to further interview her but is turned down, even after Sasha tells Amy that what seemed to be one of Graham's notebooks was recovered. The notebook is filled with the same phrase repeated: "Keep Watching".

- Changeling Tale: The creature in this episode replaces its victim, and makes everyone believe that it's the person it replaced.
- Fate Worse than Death: Whatever happened to Graham.
- Hypocrite: Amy describes herself as a very private person, and took great pains to ensure Graham didn't know where she lived, but felt no compunction about spying on Graham in his own home for months on end.
- Innocuously Important Episode: While this is the case with a lot of early episodes, this is a particular example. What at first listen sounds like just another Statement Of The Week is actually the first appearance of Not!Them, the primary antagonist of season two and a major presence for the rest of the podcast.
- Noodle Incident: During the post-statement summary, Jon remarks that Tim "better not be using Institute funds to woo filing clerks again."
- Paranoia Fuel: Applies to Graham at first, and Amy by the end of the episode.
- Perception Filter: The creature in this episode has the ability to make everyone (except Amy) see it as its victim. Curiously, although it makes itself look human, it doesn't look like its victim, but everyone who sees it thinks that's what its victim has always looked like. Specifically, Graham has short dark hair, whereas Not-Graham has blonde curly hair, is shorter, and has a completely different face, but aside from Amy, nobody notices any difference: a police officer compares Not-Graham to Graham's passport and notices nothing amiss, while Jonathan reports that most photos they were able to find of Graham match Amy's description of Not-Graham.
- Window Watcher: Amy confesses that this is her hobby; she goes out of her way to clarify that there was nothing sexual in her interest in 'people watching,' as she insists on calling it, but she does at least lampshade how creepy her interest must sound. She does not enjoy being on the receiving end of it from Not-Graham.

4: Page Turner

Case #0132806. Statement of Dominic Swain, regarding a book briefly in his possession in the winter of 2012. Original statement given 28th June 2013.

## Story

Dominic visits a charity shop to kill time before going to see an ex-girlfriend's play on November 10th, 2012, and becomes enthralled by a book written in Latin and bound in what looks like calf leather titled Ex Altiora whose bookplate reveals it to be "from the library of Jurgen Leitner". Dominic buys the book for £4 and later begins to smell ozone while watching the play. Dominic researches Ex Altiora and Leitner on the internet but can only find an eBay auction from 2007 for another book Leitner had owned, The Key of Solomon, which was sold for £1,200 to a user named grbookworm1818. Graham tries to sell Ex Altiora so he can learn more from those who would want to buy it, and learns that Leitner was a big name in the 1990s who custom-bound books, had authors write books for him, and had contact with a shop called Pinhole Books before disappearing around 1995.
After a play, Dominic wanders and finds Pinhole Books. He meets its manager, Mary Keay, who has a shaved head and tattoos of words all over her body. In the shop Dominic sees a painting of an eye which Mary says was created by her son Gerard; it has the caption "Grant us the sight that we may not know, grant us the scent that we may not catch, grant us the sound that we may not call".
Mary shows Dominic another Leitner book that she owns, and Dominic notices the illustrations in Ex Altiora have become clearer and he can now see a Lichtenberg figure in one. Dominic remembers a childhood friend who was struck by lighting after Dominic made him play out in the rain, and was permanently scarred with a Lichtenberg figure afterwards. Dominic becomes frightened and runs home.
Soon thereafter Dominic is visited by Gerard Keay who offers to buy Ex Altiora from him for £5,000, which Dominic agreed to since he wanted to get rid of the book but felt only a legal transaction would do it properly. While Gerard goes to get the money, Dominic researches the Keays and discovers that Mary Keay died of a painkiller overdose in 2008 but the death was ruled a murder as her body was skinned and the skins hung to dry. Dominic notes from the pictures that Mary had a full head of hair and no tattoos. He also reads that Gerard was suspected but acquitted since a key piece of evidence was deemed inadmissible. Gerard returns and pays Dominic for Ex Altiora, then immediately burns it in a trash bin, after which Dominic stops smelling ozone. Gerard tells Dominic "My mother doesn't always know what's best for our family." He then takes the burning trash bin and leaves.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan expresses displeasure that there are still books from Jurgen Leitner's collection in existence, having thought that they were all taken care of in an incident in 1994, and mentions that Leitner was known to have custom versions of books about demonology and the arcane. Martin and Sasha try to find records of Ex Altiora to no avail.
Gerard Keay is unable to be tracked down, having disappeared after his trial. Jonathan mentions that Pinhole Books closed down in 2008 due to Mary's murder, so Dominic shouldn't have been able to visit it. Tim finds police reports of Mary's murder case, and discovers that her flesh had been covered with Sanskrit writing similar to what was in her Leitner book.

- Deadly Book: Ex Altiora, the first of many Leitner books in the series. Dominic only has it in his possession for a couple of days, so it doesn't have much time to do much other than send him into fugue states and afflict him with ever increasing vertigo and scents of ozone, but it's implied things would have gone very badly for him indeed if Gerard Kaey hadn't found him.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The antiques dealer Dominic talks to mentions that Leitner sometimes commissioned books to be written, implying that he was making new Deadly Books. The series never goes into how, exactly, the books come unto existence, but later episodes make it very clear that Leitner was concerned solely with acquiring and locking away the tomes, so even if he did know how to make new ones, it would have been out of character for him to do so. Though given that the antiques dealer had never done business with Leitner, and was even unaware of Mary Kaey's murder years before, it's entirely possible she was repeating or making up unfounded rumors.
- Foreshadowing: Several examples.
  - Dominic mentions that one of the woodcut images had a Lichtenberg figure sprawled across it that looked exactly like the scars his childhood friend Michael Crew got from being struck by lightning. This incident and the connection to the book is explained later in the series.
  - When Gerard burns Ex Altiora and goes to pick up the still smoldering trash can, Dominic warns him it will still be hot; Gerard just shrugs and says he's had worse. This references the events in future episode 'First Aid', which happened the previous year.
  - This episode introduces Mary Kaey and her strange relationship with death thanks to a different Leitner.
- Kill It with Fire: Gerard Kaey disposed of Ex Altiora by burning it in Dominic's trash can.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Dominic pays a visit to Mary Kaey and her bookstore Pinhole Books; this is despite the fact that Mary had died and the store had been closed years before.
- Noodle Incident: Jonathan mentions an incident in 1994 in which seemingly the last of Jurgen Leitner's library was "dealt with".
- Spooky Painting: One of the woodcuts in the book Ex Altiora, of a starry sky, is strangely compelling. Dominic spends nearly an hour looking at it without realising it.

5: Thrown Away

Case #0092302. Statement of Keiran Woodward, regarding items recovered from the refuse of 93 Lancaster Road, Walthamstowe. Original statement given 23rd February 2009.

## Story

Keiran and his team of garbage collectors find a bag of doll heads that look like they were dragged across concrete outside 93 Lancaster Road. One of the team, Alan Parfitt, is amused and the whole team decides to pay closer attention to what is left outside 93 Lancaster Road in the future. A few months later they get a bag filled with an unusually long strip of slightly burned paper with the Lord's Prayer written on it in Latin. Two weeks after this, they find a bag containing thousands of teeth in various stages of decay.
Keiran and the others decide to call the police, but the elderly residents of 93 Lancaster Road don't know anything about the bags. Alan becomes troubled and begins staking out 93 Lancaster Road at night, to try to catch whoever is leaving the bags, something Keiran secretly wanted to do as well. The stakeouts affect Alan's ability to work; Alan gets fired from the team after he falls asleep while driving the garbage truck and hits a car. He is replaced by Guy Wardman.
At 2:09AM on August 8th, 2008, Keiran gets a text from Alan reading "Found him". When Alan doesn't reply to Keiran's texts back, Keiran decides to go to 93 Lancaster Road, where he finds another bag with a dark green bow. The bag is filled with packing peanuts, among which is an anatomical heart made of bronze or copper with Alan's name carved on it. It feels like it just came out of a freezer. Keiran never sees Alan again and has a friend destroy the heart in a medical waste incinerator.

## Post-Statement

Martin successfully gets an interview with Keiran but he doesn't have any new information regarding the story. Sasha looks through police records and finds a missing person report for Alan filed by by his brother on August 20th, 2008, but Alan was never found. She also finds that the officers who investigated the bag of teeth were named Officer Suresh and Officer Altman, and learns that there were 2,780 teeth in total and that they were the exact same tooth in various stages of decay.

- Creepy Doll: Disembodied doll heads are the first items to be found in the trash bags.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: It's not readily apparent what is going on in this particular statement, or how it relates to the larger metaplot.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: As Alan loses sleep, Keiran notices the bags under Alan's eyes getting deeper, and sees him drink multiple energy drinks to get through his shift.
- Mysterious Note: Late one night Keiran receives a text from Alan that says "FOUND HIM." Alan doesn't respond to any of Keiran's texts, and Keiran never sees or hears from him again.
- Sleep Deprivation: Alan becomes obsessed with discovering whoever is leaving the trash bags at number 93, so he begins watching the house at night. The lack of sleep takes its toll, until eventually he falls asleep at work, causes an accident, and is fired.
- Stress Vomit: Keiran's coworker David vomits after the teeth spill out of the trash bag.

6: Squirm

Case #0140912. Statement of Timothy Hodge, regarding his sexual encounter with Harriet Lee and her subsequent death. Original statement given 9th December 2014.

## Story

Timothy decides to go to a bar on the evening of November 20th, 2014, where he meets Harriet Lee, who seems nervous but ends up going home with him. On the way to his apartment she looks around fearfully and scratches her arms, but calms down once they're inside. She tells him that she was recently mugged. A woman with matted black hair and a red dress had been lying on the ground, pretending to be incapacitated. When Harriet got close, the woman jumped on her. Harriet describes feeling a sharp pain in her stomach before blacking out and waking up alone. She tried to go to the police station before becoming violently sick and going to the hospital instead, where the doctors found nothing seriously wrong with her. Harriet started seeing her attacker everywhere and so stayed in crowded places to feel safer.
Timothy and Harriet kiss and have sex, after which he feels something moving underneath the skin on her shoulder. Harriet suddenly convulses and screams in pain. Timothy runs to get her painkillers, but suddenly hears a sound like an egg being dropped onto a stone floor, and Harriet stops screaming. Timothy returns to the bedroom to find that Harriet is now a mass of unrecognizable flesh covered in a black liquid, and there are now worms everywhere in the room. Without even getting dressed first, Timothy sets the place on fire and runs.

## Post-Statement

Sasha looks through police reports and learns that Timothy's apartment did indeed burn down but there was no evidence of arson or human remains, although there was non-human organic matter found in the bedroom. She also finds a missing person report for Harriet filed shortly after Timothy's report to the archive. Jonathan notes that Harriet's description of her mugging matches the appearance and last known whereabouts of Jane Prentiss. He reports Timothy to the ECDC in hopes of tracking him down.

- Kill It with Fire: Timothy's response to seeing what happened to Harriet is to set his flat on fire. Given the circumstances, it was more than reasonable.
- Nausea Fuel: When Timothy returns to the room, he finds that all that is left of Harriet is a warped mass of flesh covered in black liquid, and the walls and bed covered in a layer of writhing worms.
- Sex Signals Death: Downplayed. Harriet dies almost immediately after having sex with Timothy by rather spectacularly exploding all over the room in a mass of gore and worms. The sex didn't seem to have anything to do with triggering her death, however, as she had been infected by Jane Prentiss days before. It does have a gender inverted example in Timothy Hodge, as he later shows up as a flesh hive himself, and having sex with Harriet is almost certainly what infected him.
- The Worm That Walks: Our first introduction to Jane Prentiss, via one of her victims.

7: The Piper

Case #9220611. Statement of Staff Sgt. Clarence Berry, regarding his time serving with Wilfred Owen in the Great War. Original statement given 6th November 1922.

## Story

Clarence is a sergeant in World War I and is given an assistant in the form of second lieutenant Wilfred Owen. Wilfred is a poet, though not a good one in Clarence's opinion. Clarence notices that when Wilfred recites his poems, he often moves his head as though trying to hear a far-off melody.
In a battle, Clarence gets stuck in barbed wire and sees Wilfred swaying quietly, and Clarence thinks he hears distant music before Wilfred is shot and then hit by a mortar. Clarence escapes back to his trench. A week and a half later, some scouts find Wilfred still alive in a crater with the remains of a man named Joseph Rayner. Wilfred tells Clarence that he "met the war", describing a man-sized being with three faces and many limbs, playing pipes, screaming, saluting, and waving weapons all at once. Wilfred begged it to spare him and it gave him a pen, and Wilfred knew it would come back for him.
Over time, more soldiers follow the sound of distant music and don't return, reminding Clarence of the story of the Pied Piper. Wilfred's poetry gets better and darker, and he fights harder on the battlefield. Wilfred later tells Clarence "Almost over now" before dying in another battle, a gunshot wound opening his head despite him not appearing to have actually been shot. A week later the armistice is signed, and Clarence believes that the peace began the moment Wilfred died.

## Post-Statement

No investigation was conducted due to the story being nearly a hundred years old, but Jonathan thinks he's heard of Joseph Rayner somewhere before.

- Anthropomorphic Personification: Wilfred claims to have met "The War" on the battlefield, which he describes as a man-sized being with three faces and multiple hands holding various weapons, wearing an olive green wool coat with burned and scarred skin visible beneath.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Wilfred Owen, best known for his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, made a deal with the manifestation of War in order to survive, only to die upon the eve of the armistice.
- Blood from the Mouth: Wilfred describes The War as having three faces, one of which did not open its mouth, for when it did, blood and soil would come gushing out.
- Magical Flutist: The War plays scrimshawed pipes of bone with one of its three faces
- The Problem with Fighting Death: Wilfred learns this lesson the hard way.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: The doctor who treats Wilfred says that Wilfred has the worst case of shell-shock he's ever seen.
- Shown Their Work: Pretty much all of the information regarding Wilfred Owen is accurate, down to him being found in a shell hole after several days.

8: Burned Out

Case #0071304. Statement of Ivo Lensik, regarding his experiences during the construction of a house on Hill Top Road, Oxford. Original statement given 13th March 2007.

## Story

Ivo works in construction on a house on Hill Top Road as a second job to finance his wedding. On his first day, a man named Raymond Fielding arrives, claiming to be the owner and showing the deed as proof. Raymond looks at a huge tree in the garden before disappearing, leaving a burned section of floor and the smell of burning hair.
Ivo slips and falls while cleaning the floor and blacks out, then calls an ambulance when he awakes to take him to the John Radcliffe Hospital. There he explains to the doctors that schizophrenia runs in the men in his family and he's concerned that he too is starting to develop it. Ivo's father had started developing schizophrenia shortly before his divorce and began devoting hours to studying fractals and worrying over someone coming to stop his research, telling Ivo that he would know when he met this person because "all the bones are in his hands". Ivo's father died later, apparently having committed suicide by wounding himself, although the tool he used was never identified and the coroner mentioned that he had a look of fear on his face.
The doctor tells Ivo that he's not developing schizophrenia and discharges him. Before leaving, Ivo speaks to a nurse, a Malaysian woman in her fifties who had been listening to Ivo's conversation, and tells him about the house he's working on. Raymond Fielding had set it up as a halfway house for troubled teens in the 1960s, supported by the local Catholic church. At some point an eleven-year-old girl named Agnes moved into the house, with some believing her to be Fielding's daughter. The other kids in the house became less prominent over time and disappeared, with Fielding claiming that they just moved away.
Eventually Agnes was the only one left, now at age eighteen or nineteen. Soon Fielding himself vanished, and neighborhood pets began to disappear. In 1974, a five-year-old child named Henry White went missing. A week afterwords, the Hill Top Road house burned down and locals were slow to call the fire department out of resentment towards Agnes. The only human remains found in the house belonged to Fielding, though his right hand was missing.
Ivo goes back to work on the house, making sure to never be alone there, until he gets distracted and stays late. Ivo starts to feel heat from within himself until a Catholic priest arrives. The priest, Edwin Burroughs, tells him that the nurse, whose name is Anna Kasuma, sent him to exorcise the house. Ivo goes outside to let Father Burroughs do his work, and becomes consumed with hatred for the tree there. Ivo strikes the tree with a crowbar and blood spills from it. Ivo then connects the tree to his car with a chain and tears it out of the ground, after which he finds an intricate box in the space where the tree was.
Inside, he finds a fresh green apple, which rots as he takes it out before thousands of spiders burst out of it. Ivo drops the apple and it turns to dust. He destroys the box and throws the remains in a ditch. Father Burroughs reports to Ivo that he's done what he could and leaves him with a business card. Ivo finishes his work at the house with no more incidents.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan is doubtful about this story but a note in its file mentions that Father Burroughs gave a report of his own including his perspective of the events. Martin can't figure out when the Hill Top Road house burned down but discovers it was first bought by Walter Fielding in 1891 who passed it to his son Alfred Fielding in 1923 and then to his son Raymond in 1957, and although there are no records of it being used as a halfway house it's still a possibility due to the Catholic church that supported it having poor record-keeping. The people of Hill Top Road confirm the history given by Anna Kasuma, who is also interviewed by Tim though she had nothing new to add. Raymond Fielding is found to have died in a house fire, and his obituary mentions his work with troubled youth. Martin also finds record of an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her home in Sheffield at the age of 26 on November 23rd, 2006, the day Ivo destroyed the tree. She hanged herself and had a severed human hand chained to her waist, though the analysis reported that its owner died at the same time as Agnes Montague. Additionally, Agnes Montague is too young to have been the same Agnes from the story. There have also been no reports of supernatural events at the Hill Top Road house following the story.

- Bloody Horror: When Ivo hits the tree with the crowbar, it bleeds.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: While working at the house one night, Ivo realizes he's alone, and then feels heat radiating from his bones that increases until he feels like he's cooking inside.
- Foreshadowing: Gertrude's notes reveal that Father Burroughs gave his perspective of the story's events in another statement, foreshadowing to episodes 19 and 20. Additionally, this statement contains details of several factions, characters, and plots that wouldn't become clear until a hundred or so statements later, including, all converging on Hilltop Road.
- Never Suicide: Ivo's father's death was ruled a suicide, as he was in a locked room, there was no sign of another person, and he was suffering from advancing and untreated schizophrenia. The coroner does note that there was no sign of anything he could have used to make the killing wounds, however, and comments he made and later episodes make it pretty clear he was murdered.
- Room Full of Crazy: Ivo describes the walls of his father's study as being covered with drawings of fractals.
- Spider Swarm: When Ivo takes the apple out of the box, it immediately shrivels and splits open, and hundreds of spiders come pouring out.

9: A Father's Love

Case #0020312. Statement of Julia Montauk, regarding the actions and motivations of her father, the serial killer Robert Montauk. Original statement given 3rd December 2002.

## Story

Julia is the daughter of infamous serial killer Robert Montauk, who is known to have killed at least forty people in the five years he was active.
At age 7, Julia hears sounds in the night and finds the back door left open and her mother's pendant, which has an abstract hand and closed eye design, left on the kitchen table. Julia wakes up her father, who becomes concerned and turns on the water, which flows dark and brackish. The kitchen light burns out and Robert sends Julia back to bed before leaving.
In the morning, Robert tells Julia that her mother is gone. Although it wasn't discovered until later, Robert never filed a missing person report for his wife despite being a police officer. Julia also notes that she doesn't think her father killed her mother because of how distraught he was by her disappearance. Robert starts spending a lot of time in the shed in the back yard, which starts to smell like canned meat.
One night Robert comes into Julia's room while he thinks she is sleeping, wearing stained clothes and smelling of blood and brackish water, and he promises to always protect Julia. Robert becomes perpetually injured and bloodstains often appear around the house, but Julia assumes they're her father's and becomes adept at cleaning them out. Robert tells Julia that he's been moved to the night shift, though he actually quit the police force.
At age 10, Julia, now having been given permission to answer the phone and taught how to talk to someone on it, takes a call from someone calling themselves Detective Rayner, sounding old and possibly German and wanting to speak to Robert. Robert tells him "no" "not already" and "do it yourself" before saying he would do something soon, before spending the rest of the day in the shed.
In the present, Julia mentions that she doesn't know what her father did with the bodies, which were never recovered, but admits she hadn't told the police about her father's photographs.
In the past Julia notices film canisters starting to pile up, and Robert tells her that he's learning photography but doesn't trust anyone to develop the photos. Julia suggests he set up his own dark room to develop them himself, an idea which he loves and carries out. Robert always keeps the dark room locked until one day leaving the key in the lock. Julia enters and sees photographs of faces of people she doesn't know, with symbols drawn on the faces. Julia later asks Robert about the photographs, and he hugs her and apologizes.
At 2:47AM that night, Julia gets up for water but gets brackish water from the tap, then she sees the streetlights outside burning out one by one. She hears knocking at the door which gradually changes to sound like wet meat slapping against the door. Julia calls the police just before the door breaks and she hears growling. Julia flees outside towards the shed, which now glows with blue light. She goes inside and sees Robert with a cut open corpse, holding a knife and the dead person's heart, as well as many hearts in jars on shelves. Robert chants and all the hearts beat in time with him as whatever broke through the door gets closer. Robert stabs the heart and the entity disappears along with the blue light. The police arrive; Robert apologizes to Julia and runs. Julia notices that the corpse has a pendant matching her mother's. Robert is soon captured by the police.

## Post-Statement

The last victim of Robert Montauk, whose body was seen by Julia, is confirmed to be Christopher Lorne. In total there were forty-one hearts including Lorne's. The pendant is of the People's Church of the Divine Host, founded by a former Pentecostal minister, Maxwell Rayner. Jonathan notes that he has the same surname as Joseph Rayner, whose name he recognized from the story of The Piper, though he thinks it's coincidental. Lorne was a member of Rayner's cult and hadn't had contact with his family for six years preceding his death. Rayner disappeared in 1994 and the cult disbanded thereafter. Robert died in Wakefield Prison on November 1st, 2002, having suffered forty-seven stab wounds to the chest. The weapon wasn't identified and Robert was in a locked cell with the light burned out.

- Arc Number: 2:47 was when Julia discovered Robert's killings, as well as when the ritual finished, and he was later killed with 47 stab wounds.
- Call-Back: To Episode 7, wherein the name of the body that was found with Wilfred Owen is the same name as the defrocked minister who founded the Peoples' Church of the Divine Host - Maxwell Rayner.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Julia tells that her father, although a serial killer (who committed his murders during her childhood), always seemed to love her, and she believes his love was genuine. And unlike everyone else, she doesn't think her mother was one of his victims.
- Killer Cop: Robert Montauk was a policeman and a serial killer.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The streetlights in Julia's neighborhood go out in succession, moving toward her house. Then there's a knock at the door, and then another, and another, with each one sounding less like a human, and more like wet meat slapping against the door.
- The Power of Love: It's implied that Robert did what he did in order to protect Julia, though how or why or what from isn't clear.
- Religion of Evil: Whatever the hell Robert Montauk is a part of, it's nothing good.
- Shout-Out: The day her mother disappeared, Julia mentions going to see The Witches (1990).
- Signature Item Clue: Julia and her father find her mother's pendant on the table before the lights go out, which sends her father out to search for her and clues them both in that something has gone wrong.

10: Vampire Killer

Case #0100710. Statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding his life as a self-proclaimed vampire hunter. Original statement given 10th July 2010.

## Story

Trevor is a homeless man in Manchester.
His father kills his mother while drunk in 1956, which was ruled an accident. His father dies of his alcoholism four months later. Trevor and his brother Nigel spend some time in the system but since they keep getting separated they run away to live on the streets.
In the present, Trevor explains that vampires are more like animals than humans. They don't speak since there's no room in their mouth and throat for anything but their tongue, but can clearly communicate in some psychic way. Contrary to popular belief, they can go out in sunlight and don't convert their prey to vampires as there's too few of them for that to be the case. Trevor mentions that he doesn't know how vampires dispose of their victims' bodies.
In the autumn of 1959, Trevor and Nigel meet a creature calling itself Sylvia McDonald, which offers them a place to stay. The brothers are put in separate rooms but Trevor becomes uneasy and goes to Nigel's room where the two agree to sneak out. Their plan is interrupted by McDonald, which attacks Nigel as Trevor hides under the bed. Revealing shark-like teeth, McDonald tears out Nigel's throat and uses its proboscis-like tongue to drain his blood. Once finished, it lies on the floor to digest and Trevor stabs it with Nigel's penknife, bursting its belly before setting it on fire with a candle, noting that it must have been quite dry as it burned quickly. Trevor runs away as the house burns.
In June 1968, Trevor has convinced himself that his brother's death had nothing to do with the supernatural, but the trauma and grief made it seem that way. Trevor learns otherwise when begging for money and a man named Robert Arden communicates nonverbally with him, and Trevor realizes that it's a vampire. Trevor follows it and its victim to its lair and attacks it before it can kill her. Arden bites into Trevor's neck but recoils, something Trevor credits to heroin in his body, as he has been addicted for some time. Arden's would-be victim attacks it with a kitchen knife before Trevor impales it with an improvised stake. The woman flees and Trevor burns the vampire.
In 1982, Trevor kills a man named Alard Dupont, but he turns out to be a real human and not a vampire, although Trevor doesn't feel too bad because Dupont was a violent criminal.
In the present, Trevor tells the Institute employee overseeing the recording that he needs some sleep before continuing. He is sent to the breakroom where he dies of the lung cancer he knew would take him soon.

## Post-Statement

News reports of a house fire in 1959 are found, with confirmation that the remains of an eighteen-year-old boy were present. Police records also confirm the disappearance of Robert Arden as well as the death of Alard Dupont, who was found burned in his home on August 2nd, 1982. According to the Institute's records, Trevor had brought a bag of what looked to be shark's teeth, though analysis could not identify them as belonging to any known species. The teeth have since been lost, though they have been asked for by various law enforcement agencies and governments.

- Accidental Murder: Self-proclaimed vampire-hunter Trevor Herbert admits to having killed two people he's not sure were vampires and one who he since realised definitely wasn't, but he adds the latter was a violent criminal, so he doesn't lose much sleep over it.
- Disability Immunity: He believes his heroin habit served as this once, as a vampire that was attacking him shortly after shooting up recoiled in pain after tasting his blood.
- Extremely Dusty Home: The house of Sylvia McDonald, who Trevor claims was the first vampire he killed, is covered in dust and mould except for a narrow strip along the floor where she walks, as if she has lived there for years but done absolutely nothing except walk through the place.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Trevor only calls the vampires "it" or by their full names ("Sylvia McDonald" instead of just "Sylvia" every time), nailing how they're really beasts that have taken human-sounding names.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They cannot speak due to their throats not having room for anything but their tubular tongues, and instead communicate via hypnosis. They can also go out in sunlight.
- Shout-Out: Possibly; a vampire hunter named Trevor features in an episode called Vampire Killer.
- Unreliable Narrator: Trevor's sanity is called into question throughout the episode, due to being a former heroin abuser.

11: Dreamer

Case #0151403. Statement of Antonio Blake, regarding his recent dreams about Gertrude Robinson, previous head archivist of the Magnus Institute. Original statement given 14th March 2015.

## Story

Antonio starts by saying that he lied his way into telling his story to the archive, since they typically don't take stories about dreams, but he believes it to be critical that the person who reviews the stories reads his story.
Around 2006, shortly after a nervous breakdown that resulted in him breaking up with his boyfriend, Graham and moving out Antonio begins having a recurring dream. The dream is of a hellscape London filled with black tendrils that grow into people in various ways. Antonio follows some tendrils into his old workplace where he sees his former line manager suspended from the neck by the tendrils. Antonio contacts his former colleagues after this and learns that the manager hanged himself after losing a custody battle.
As Antonio continues to have the dream he realizes he is seeing how people have died or will die. He tries reading books on esoteric dreaming while working in a magic shop but can't figure anything out. Antonio starts to see his father in his dream with the tendrils going into his chest. Antonio makes lots of efforts to keep his father alive and healthy but he dies of a heart attack on December 31st, 2014, ten days after Antonio saw him in the dream.
Later, on March 12th, 2015, Antonio sees a dark red light flowing through the tendrils and thinks he can see faces and shadows as well. He follows the veins to a building called The Magnus Institute where the veins go into a room labelled 'Archive'. He sees a woman behind a desk wrapped in the tendrils with an expression of fear as the light pours into her. Two days later, he goes to the real Magnus Institute to give his story in the hopes that the woman who works there will be warned of her coming death and can possibly avoid it.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan thinks that this story could be a hazing joke from other Magnus Institute employees and is unsure whether to talk to Elias about it, since all he's said about Jonathan's predecessor Gertrude is that she "died in the line of duty". Tim's research shows that 'Antonio Blake' is a pseudonym if not a nonexistent person entirely, and all the contact information with his name is false. Still, Jonathan decides to have Rosie pass any similar reports to him, since if someone starts having dreams about his death, he definitely wants to know about it.

- All Just a Dream: This episode reveals that the Magnus Institute rejects statements that can be attributed to dreams or hallucinations because they cannot be corroborated.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Antonio's statement, addressed directly to Gertrude, tells of the strange dreams he has had of various people's futures, including hers. Specifically, of their deaths.
- Never Found the Body: A variant: "Antonio Blake" gave his statement under a pseudonym, making following up on it impossible for the Institute.

12: First Aid

Case #01201102. Statement of Lesere Saraki, regarding a recent night shift at St. Thomas Hospital, London. Original statement given 11th February 2012.

## Story

Lesere works at St. Thomas Hospital near Waterloo. At 1:30AM on December 23rd, 2011, two burn victims are brought in for treatment by Lesere's superior, Dr. Kayleigh Grice. Lesere notices that the A&E room is totally silent as the two men are brought in, despite still being full of people.
One victim is completely covered in second degree burns, although his clothing is strangely intact. The second is similarly burned up to a line on his neck, and he has tattoos of eyes on his joints and over his heart which seem unaffected by the burns. The second man also has a zippo lighter and a passport identifying him as Gerard Keay. The two men were found in a churchyard by a fire brigade who had been called to a fire at a nearby building site. Although there was no fire at the churchyard, the ground had burn marks and a nearby metal bar was bent as if it was slightly melted by heat.
Later in the night, Lesere hears the unidentified man chanting in his sleep sounding like "Asah, veepalach, the lightless flame" and his skin is warm. Lesere goes to the waiting room to find it unusually empty. She then hears growling and sees a vending machine's drinks boil and explode. Running towards the exit, she finds the door handles deforming under extreme heat. She returns to the ward to find the unidentified man chanting loudly with his eyes open. Lesere reaches for his mouth to silence him but Keay, not in any apparent pain from his own burns, appears and stops her, telling her that it's not a good idea to touch the other man. Keay asks Lesere if a book bound in red leather and a brass pendant, possibly with an eye emblem, were recovered and brought to the hospital with them. She answers that there were no such items brought in.
Keay goes to a storage room, somehow knowing the access code, and selects a scalpel before coming back into the ward. Knowing that Keay intends to kill the other burn victim, Lesere decides to stand aside and let him do it, for which he nods to her and says "Yes, for you better Beholding than the Lightless Flame". A nearby container of saline begins to boil. Keay mutters inaudibly before stabbing the other burn victim in the throat. The burn victim's body turns to ash along with the scapel that killed him. Lesere begins cleaning up the ashes and sees Dr. Grice in the hallway, before running to the waiting room to see it filled again. Relieved, Lesere goes back to work.
Keay remains in the hospital for four more days during which he remains unconscious, before being discharged to his mother's care. Lesere continues to feel as though she's being watched at work, especially near the storeroom.

## Post-Statement

Sasha looks through police reports and finds records of Gerard Keay and another man arriving at the hospital and Keay later being released while the other victim disappeared, though there was no evidence of foul play and no missing person report. Jonathan analyzes the chanting the unnamed victim did in the story: 'Asag' is the name of a demon in Sumerian mythology who was associated with disease and corruption and was said to cause rivers to boil due to its ugliness. 'Veepalach' may be a mispronounciation of the Polish word 'wypalać', meaning 'to cauterize or brand'.
Gerard Keay is found to have died of a brain tumor in late 2014. Lesere is offered an interview which she declines, but says that she still gets the feeling of being watched. Sasha accesses the hospital's CCTV which shows that at 03:11:22 all the people in the waiting room calmly stood up and walked out, before Lesere is seen entering and leaving three times. The people return to the waiting room at 03:27:12. But at 03:22:52, the feed cuts out to a single frame of a human eye.

- Lesser of Two Evils: When Lesere realizes Gerard is going to kill the unnamed man whose chanting is seemingly causing the strangeness in her statement, she hesitates but ultimately allows him to pass. Gerard even says, "Yes, for you, better beholding than the lightless flame."
- Man on Fire: Two patients are brought into the hospital completely covered in burns, but with their clothes somehow unharmed.
- No Body Left Behind: The body of the man stabbed by Gerard Keay instantly cremates itself.
- Nominal Hero: Although Gerard Kaey does save Lesere from being trapped in the abandoned hospital, his motivations are incredibly obscure at best. And given how many different opposing factions there are, it's difficult to say what side he's really on...
- Power Tattoo: One of the strange burned patients has tattoos of eyes on various parts of his body. Those are the only unburned bits of skin below his neck.

13: Alone

Case #0161301. Statement of Naomi Herne, regarding the events following the funeral of her fiancé, Evan Lukas. Statement recorded direct from subject, 13th January 2016.

## Story

Naomi meets Evan Lukas when they both interviewed for a lab technician job, after which they date and move in together. Two years later, Naomi proposes to Evan and he accepts, but he dies of heart problems on March 22nd, 2015. A week after his death, his funeral is held at his family's home, though Evan wasn't close with them due to religious differences.
Evan's father lets Naomi in, only saying "My son is in there. He is dead." Naomi sees that all of the Lukas family have miserable faces and lifeless eyes. After Naomi has a moment to see Evan's body in the casket, an old man tells her "It's time for you to leave. The burial is a family affair. I'm sure you want to be alone." Naomi can't reply and leaves.
She crashes her car at 11:12PM, about 6 hours after leaving the funeral. She continues on foot in the rain, which eventually stops to be replaced by thick fog which Naomi feels to want something from her. Naomi wanders away from the road and gets lost. She finds her way to a cemetery, at the center of which is a chapel with stained glass windows and the doors chained. After calling out for help, Naomi picks up a piece of stone that had broken off one of the gravestones, before seeing that the grave is open and empty.
The fog pulls Naomi towards the grave but she manages to escape and sees that the chapel has opened. Inside she sees a large field filled with moonlight and the same fog as outside. Behind her is the same sight but without moonlight. Naomi decides to run away from the chapel, but the fog thickens and she loses her way again. Naomi hears Evan's voice tell her to turn left and she obeys, then gets hit by a car. She wakes up in the hospital.

## Post-Statement

Since Naomi arrived to give her statement after Jonathan started converting reports to audio files, he has her record hers but the digital recording corrupts so she has to use a tape recorder instead. After finishing her story, Jonathan suggests that Naomi see a psychiatrist, which angers her. It is found that the driver who hit Naomi was Michael Getty. There are no cemeteries in the area she was hit, and a storm at the time would have dissipated any fog. The Lukas family refuses to share information. Jonathan wants to dismiss Naomi's story as a grief-induced hallucination, but cannot as she still had the piece of gravestone in her hand when she was found, which has the word "forgotten" carved on it. Jonathan cannot find where the piece of stone came from.

- The Four Loves: Seemingly what saved Ms. Herne from her impending death.
- Irony: Jon goes to leave Naomi alone as she makes her statement, but Naomi insists she wants the company. It's understandable considering what she just went through, but neither of them are aware that if she'd let Jon leave she wouldn't have become the first victim of his Dream Walker powers.
- Mysterious Mist: Naomi gets lost in thick fog that, given the high winds, simply shouldn't be there. Her day doesn't get any less weird.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Naomi isn't sure her experience wasn't merely in her imagination…except for a carved fragment of stone that she retrieved.
- You Are Not Alone: Just as Naomi feels hopelessly lost, she seems to hear the voice of her dead fiancé Evan pointing her way.

14: Piecemeal

Case #0112905. Statement of Lee Rentoul, on the murder of his associate, Paul Noriega. Original statement given 29th May 2011.

## Story

Lee wants revenge on Paul Noriega, a former colleague of his, because Paul beat up a man named Toby McMullen but Toby blamed Lee, causing him to spend five years in prison. Toby tells Lee that he blamed him because Paul bribed him with the promise of drugs which he never followed through on, so Toby wants revenge, too.
Toby suggests they hire a killer he knows of who uses magic. Lee decides to go along and they to go to see the killer, a stereotypical old woman named Angela. Angela asks Lee if he wants Paul dead, and Lee says that he does, and that he wants Paul to suffer on the way to his death. For payment, Angela asks for something of Paul's that wasn't a gift, and Lee gives her a lighter that belonged to Paul before Lee borrowed it and ended up not giving it back.
After three weeks nothing has happened to Paul, so Lee decides to do it himself. Lee waits outside a business deal Paul has with a Samoan art dealer named Salesa. After Salesa and his men leave, Lee pounces on Paul and kills him with a knife. After Paul is dead, Lee sees that he has a glass eye and is missing some fingers and teeth, which is new to Lee. Lee disposes of Paul's body in an unspecified way and decides to lay low to avoid Paul's lackeys.
Five days later, Lee finds a box wrapped in brown paper at a bridge, upon which is written his name and "for immediate consideration". Lee finds a finger inside the box. He hurries home but trips on the way, severing one of his fingers. Lee can't find his finger, and the stump has somehow healed over already. After getting home, Lee finds another box with two toes inside. He later loses two toes when his TV falls off the wall. Over the next two weeks, Lee finds more boxes with body parts shortly before losing the same body part, including four fingers, most of his toes, an eye, and several teeth. Nothing prevents the loss, even when he stays inside an empty room as a toe apparently disappeared while he slept. Lee goes back to see Angela and asks her to remove the curse that he seemingly inherited by killing Paul, and she only says "Some hungers are too strong to be denied." Lee tries to attack Angela, but ends up chewing one of his hands off. Later he gets a box containing a tongue, prompting him to go to the Institute that very day.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan reveals that Lee became more violet after telling his story and after some unclear events was hospitalized, likely without his tongue. Lee had mentioned before that he knew about the Institute because a friend of his, Hester, had given them a story involving ghosts. Sasha looks through police records and confirms that Lee told the truth about his relationship with Paul, and that the police last had contact with Paul two months before Lee came to the Institute. Martin tries to track down Angela but can't find her even after three days of research. Tim tries to track down Lee but he disappeared in April 2011. When Lee's landlord went to clean out his apartment, they found nothing but hundreds of cardboard boxes.

- Asshole Victim: Lee is a violent criminal and all-around unpleasant person. His victim wasn't exactly a saint, either.
- Autocannibalism: How Lee winds up losing his hand. He tries to threaten Angela into stopping her curse, but when he goes to attack her he winds up biting off his own hand.
- Body Horror: Imagine your body being pulled apart, bit by bit, and mailed to you in cardboard boxes. This happened to the Victim of the Week: when his landlord went to clear his flat, they didn't find him... only 206 boxes scattered about.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Jon is annoyed with Martin, whose search for Angela led him to some interesting conversations about jigsaw puzzles. Jon thinks this information is useless, despite jigsaw puzzles being a prominent feature of Angela's portion of the story.
- Dramatic Deadpan: Lee is taken aback when Angela, a perfectly ordinary and harmless-looking old lady, talks calmly and matter-of-factly about having someone killed.
- Early-Bird Cameo: This statement contains our first mention of Mikaele Salesa, though he's not particularly important to the statement. It's implied but never outright stated that Paul was trying to acquire something to break his curse.
- Evil Old Folks: Angela seems like a harmless little old lady at first, but Lee, himself a hardened, violent criminal, recognises in her eyes the look of someone extremely nasty.
- Healing Factor: The body parts Lee loses don't come back, but the wounds they leave behind heal instantly.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Lee hires Angela to kill Noriega, but gets impatient when he thinks nothing is happening and murders Noriega himself. Unfortunately for Lee, that meant whatever ritual Angela was performing was left unfinished... so she started targeting Lee instead.
- London Gangster: Lee seeks revenge on a fellow criminal who double-crossed him.
- Never Mess with Granny: Angela is a friendly old lady whom even Lee recognises as someone very nasty and who offers to kill someone for him. When he gets angry with her and lunges at her, it somehow ends with him chewing off his own hand.
- Sympathetic Magic: Angela can arrange someone's death as long as she has an object taken from the victim – not a gift, it has to have been taken.
- Tongue Trauma: Implied. The box Lee received before giving his statement contained a tongue, and Jon, rather than stating it outright, makes a quip implying he lost his tongue as scheduled shortly after giving his statement, during his physical altercation with the Institute workers.

15: Lost Johns' Cave

Case #0149011. Statement of Laura Popham, regarding her experience exploring the Three Counties System of caves with her sister, Alena Sanderson. Original statement given 9th November 2014.

## Story

Laura loves caving, and, after her sister, Alena Sanderson loses her home and job, begins to go on caving trips together to cheer her up. They often go on one trip per year. In June 2014, the sisters decide to explore Lost Johns' Cave, part of the Three Counties cave system, and part of the exploration in the cave will involve diving.
The sisters tell the CNCC (Council of Northen Caving Clubs) as well as Laura's husband Alistair of their plans in case things go wrong. Arriving at the cave, the sisters find no one else at the cave despite perfect conditions. They go in at noon and follow the map of the cave, but some spaces are tighter than they expect. When they stop for lunch, Alena explains to Laura that most people misspell the cave's name by writing "John's" instead of "Johns'", as the cave is named after a legend where two men named John got lost in the cave when their candles went out. Alena jokes that she would be okay being lost in a cave if she was with Laura, but Laura secretly disagrees.
The sisters reach the dive and get through it, the only issue being a prank Alena pulls on Laura, prompting her to insist that they leave the cave to which Alena agrees. Laura hears a low, rough voice ask her how lost she is and she answers that she isn't, confusing Alena, who heard no voice. Laura goes back through the dive and seemingly finds her way into an uncharted space, and doesn't hear Alena come out of the water. Laura looks for a place large enough to turn herself around but can't, so tries to slide backwards but immediately hits a wall. Realizing she is trapped, Laura screams and her light burns out. Laura soon sees a far off light and follows it, and discovers it to be a candle held by a pale hand. Hearing Alena scream in the distance, Laura closes her eyes and wishes it all away.
Laura opens her eyes and sees the light is now daylight, and she makes it to the surface. Laura screams until she is found by Alistair and a rescue team, from whom she learns that she was in the cave for twenty-four hours. No trace of Alena is ever found.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan doesn't think that this story is true for the most part, as Laura and Alena were never given permits by the CNCC to go to Lost Johns' Cave although other people were. Sasha cannot find any possible way in the cave that matches Laura's story. Tim discovers that Alistair did in fact call the CNCC on June 15th about his wife and sister-in-law. Laura, when rescued, was not at the surface but near the bottom of Death's Head Hole, the first cave the sisters would have gone through on their expedition, where she knelt beside a pile of burnt-out candles which, according to Alistair, she didn't bring into the cave. Laura also brought a video camera into the cave, which she didn't mention in the story. Tim secured copies of videos taken during the event. The early recordings corroborate Laura's account of the early stage of the expedition. The last recording, starting at 2AM on June 15th, has no video (either because it was too dark in the cave or the lens was covered), and the audio has someone whispering "Take her, not me." over and over with sounds of water and scraping rocks for two hours and forty-three minutes.

- Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear which of the two sisters was giving the Madness Mantra below. Alena was apparently saying something some distance behind Laura in the minutes before she was rescued, and her earlier behavior was rather callous. On the other hand, Laura's testimony is extremely contradictory to what the rescue workers discovered, indicating that her perception of events was rather warped. The voice in the recording is soft enough that it could easily be Alena some distance off or Laura simply whispering.
- Claustrophobia: Laura tries to make her way through a tunnel that gets tighter and tighter until she can no longer go forward. When she tries to go back, she finds a solid wall of rock behind her.
- Dirty Coward: The Madness Mantra below is not one you'd want to hear from your loving sister.
- Hearing Voices: At one point Laura hears Alena ask her in a low, grating voice how lost she was. Laura snaps that they aren't lost at all, but when she looks at Alena, she sees that her sister has a confused look on her face.
- Madness Mantra: From the addendum:
  Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me.
- Never Found the Body: Alena was never found.
- Pet the Dog: In a rare moment of compassion for a statement giver, Jon decides against contacting Mrs. Popham about the video recording.
- Unreliable Narrator: That something traumatic and terrifying befell Laura and her sister in the caves is not in dispute, but her account is contradicted by that of her rescuers at almost every turn. It's implied that Laura may be intentionally misremembering the details as a coping mechanism against the guilt of selling Alena out to whatever it was that had them trapped.

16: Arachnophobia

Case #0150409. Statement of Carlos Vittery, regarding his arachnophobia and its manifestations. Original statement given 9th April 2015.

## Story

Carlos has arachnophobia, a deep fear of spiders. He decides to move to a city flat after realizing that there are probably hundreds or thousands of spiders in his garden which will likely try to get into his house in the colder weather. After moving, Carlos adopts an old cat named Major Tom to help get rid of spiders. Carlos' apartment building becomes infested with small, silvery worms which results in an increased spider population in the building.
One night in early 2015, Carlos finds a spider in his kitchen that scares him more than other spiders have. He leaves Major Tom alone with the spider for a few hours, but Major Tom doesn't kill the spider. After an hour of panicking, Carlos kills the spider by throwing a mug of coffee at it, then waits until the morning to clean up and finds the spider's remains. Major Tom starts spending most of his time away from the flat.
A week later, Carlos sees a spider on his TV's screen, and believes that it's somehow the same spider he encountered in the kitchen. After another hour of panicking, Carlos finds himself involuntarily moving towards the spider before stomping it, killing it and destroying the TV in the process. Carlos burns the shoe he stomped the spider with.
Two weeks later, Carlos sees the spider back again, now on the wall over his bed. Carlos remembers the traumatizing event that caused him to develop arachnophobia, a day in 1991 when he, at six years old, accidentally crushed a spider and broke open its egg sac, causing thousands of underdeveloped spiders to crawl all over him. Carlos believes that the spider haunting him is the same spider from that incident. Again finding himself moving against his will, Carlos kills the spider with his bare hand before spending hours washing it. Carlos decides to move again, gives Major Tom to a family on the ground floor of the building who he had already starting living with, and decides to visit a doctor as he suspects he may have psychosis.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan thinks that Carlos really is psychotic, or something similar, and just needs proper treatment to get over his idea of a "ghost spider". Although Martin finds proof that Carlos lived at the places he mentioned in his story, Jonathan decides that they don't know enough to conduct investigations there. Tim tried to find and reach out to Carlos, but Carlos was found dead in his flat soon after telling his story. The coroner's report mentions that Carlos asphyxiated, but names the substance that caused it only as "foreign organic material". Jonathan also mentions that Carlos' corpse was found totally covered in spiderwebs.

- Arbitrary Skepticism: Jon casually dismisses Martin's concerns surrounding Carlos' death, despite the fact that Carlos was found with unidentified organic matter blocking his throat and his corpse wrapped in spider's silk.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Carlos is found dead, covered in webs. He had choked to death on a "foreign biological object", heavily implied to be spiders or their webbing.
- Foreshadowing: As Carlos's 'haunting' progresses there are several points where he feels like he is being controlled by some outside force making him attack the spider. This eventually turns out to be a central tenet of the Web's domain.
- Irrational Hatred: Carlos already hates spiders to begin with, even opening his statement as such, but the spider in this story inspires an intense rage beyond his usual distaste. Unfortunately for Carlos, the spider hates him right back.
- Kung-Shui: Carlos kicks and smashes his television to kill the spider sitting on the screen.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "I. Hate. Spiders."
- Spiders Are Scary: Carlos is plagued by one particular spider. Even though it's not particularly big, there's something horrible about it. He eventually realises that it's somehow the same spider that started his arachnophobia when he was a child.
- Spider Swarm: Carlos' encounter with this as a child is the origin of his fear of spiders.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Carlos' spider defense cat, Major Tom, outright refuses to go near the spider that's stalking Carlos. Over time he just straight up leaves the house, and eventually Carlos gives him over to a neighboring family.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Carlos is terrified of spiders, though his phobia is unusual – he has no problem with pictures or videos of spiders or even spider horror films, but seeing an actual spider, or knowing it's there, absolutely terrifies him.

17: The Boneturner's Tale

Case #9991006. Statement of Sebastian Adekoya, regarding a new acquisition at Chiswick Library. Original statement given 10th June 1999.

## Story

Sebastian is a librarian at the Chiswick Library. In September 1996, a book is checked in that shows up in the library's database as Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, but was actually titled The Boneturner's Tale with no author named. Ruth Weaver, the head librarian, doesn't remember the book despite it having a bookplate with stamps going back many years. Sebastian researches the man who checked in the book, Michael Crew, but all he can find is that he had checked out four other books three weeks earlier, which he had returned alongside The Boneturner's Tale.
Jared Hopworth, an old friend of Sebastian's who had become a crook and a bully while Sebastian was at college, arrives at the library. After bullying Sebastian, Jared takes The Boneturner's Tale with a fearful look. On his way home, Sebastian sees a pet rat with a flat back and bent neck outside the Hopworth residence. By late October, Sebastian hasn't seen or heard from Jared. One day, Jared's mother comes to the library with her arm in a sling and wearing a bulky coat. She throws The Boneturner's Tale at Sebastian and shouts at him to keep himself and his books away from her son. Sebastian is careful to not touch his skin to the book as he picks it up and puts it away, and can't stop thinking of Jared's mother's mangled arm.
That night, Sebastian can't sleep as the book concerns him. At 2AM, he decides to go back to the library where he finds that all the books on the cart with The Boneturner's Tale are bleeding. Sebastian puts on gloves and looks through The Boneturner's Tale and reads a creepy story about some of Chaucer's pilgrims. Sebastian pulls off the book's lending label and finds another label from a Scandinavian library.
Sebastian is interrupted by a tall figure breaking in, resembling a larger, deformed Jared. It demands the book and Sebastian punches it, and feels as though his arm is being pulled into the thing's body by its sharp ribs. Sebastian screams and drops the book, causing the thing to release him and flee with the book. Sebastian notices it has many more limbs than Jared originally had before it disappears. The police arrive, responding to Sebastian's screams. Sebastian never sees Jared or The Boneturner's Tale again.

## Post-Statement

Elias interrupts the recording to tell Jonathan that Naomi Herne (13: Alone) has lodged a complaint against him, and warns him against getting on the nerves of her or anyone else associated with the Lukas family since they are patrons of the Institute. Jonathan also tells Elias that Martin is ill. As for the story, Jonathan is displeased that now two books from Jurgen Leitner's collection have been mentioned in stories, which he will report to Elias. Tim and Sasha look through police records and find that the break in of the library was reported, but Jared and The Boneturner's Tale were never found. Martin tries to track down Sebastian but discovered that he was killed in a hit-and-run on April 17th, 2006, and although there was no blunt trauma injuries recorded, Sebastian's body was badly mangled.

- Arbitrary Skepticism: As before, Jon is entirely willing to dismiss the account as unreliable... up until the magic words 'Jurgen Leitner' are mentioned, at which point he admits to believing every word.
- Asshole Victim: Sebastian's childhood friend Jared is now a hoodlum who alternates between engaging in petty crime and stopping into the library to bully Sebastian. The Bone Turner's Tale takes control of him almost instantly and then slowly transforms him into a Humanoid Abomination.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Geoffrey Chaucer is brought up here in a similar manner to Wilfred Owen above, though here it's far more vague if he actually wrote The Bone Turner's Tale. The incomplete nature of The Canterbury Tales is mentioned, and a character muses that Chaucer's begging for forgiveness at the end of the book for writing it may not be as sarcastic as it is usually interpreted to be; however the story is not written in Middle English and the quality of the writing is mentioned as being poor. Unlike Owen, it's never answered one way or another if Chaucer or some unknown third party was responsible for this particular Artifact of Doom.
- Bloody Horror: All the books on the cart near The Bone Turner's Tale start bleeding. Sebastian was sort of expecting something like that.
- Body Horror:
  - When Jared's mother returns to the library, Sebastian notices that her arm is strangely twisted in its sling.
  - In the Bone Turner's story, he yanks out one of the Miller's ribs to make a flute, killing him.
  - When Jared Hopworth proper returns to the library (or at least, something that has Jared's voice), Sebastian describes him as looking longer, and standing at an odd angle, as if his legs were stiff, and having sharp, pointed fingers. When Sebastian punches Jared, he feels Jared's ribcage shut tight around his hand, as if it were trying to bite him, and when Jared flees Sebastian notices that Jared had... added some limbs.
- Deadly Book: The Bone Turner's Tale. As the name might suggest, it's a work of fiction that's presented as a story from the point of view of a pilgrim in The Canterbury Tales, but without any sign that it was ever written in Middle English. Reading it gave Jared the ability to manipulate bone and flesh to the point where he was able to attach extra limbs. Naturally, it's from Leitner's library.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: A minor one, but Elias' voice is noticeably deeper in this episode than it is in later episodes.
- Genre Savvy: A reader of horror novels, Sebastian knows better than to directly touch the pages of the mysterious book that showed up out of nowhere and had a peculiar effect on the last guy who laid hands on it, as well as the guy's mother.
- Human Resources: The Boneturner makes a flute out of the Miller's rib.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Sebastian initially gives chase when Jared steals the book but then he remembers the book isn't actually his problem or his responsibility. It doesn't even really belong to the library where he works. Noticing that Jared had 'added some limbs' helped him come to the conclusion. So he just lets it go and focuses on calling the police and making sure he keeps his own job, which he does. Unfortunately it is implied that this didn't stop Jared from tracking down and twisting him to death anyway years later.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Jared gives himself a few modifications.
- Public Domain Character: In the titular book, the Bone Turner turns out to be one of the pilgrims in Geoffery Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. And the Bone Turner does... something to the Miller.

18: The Man Upstairs

Case #0081212. Statement of Christof Rudenko, regarding his interactions with a first floor resident of Welbeck House, Wandsworth. Original statement given 12th December 2008.

## Story

Christof buys a ground-floor flat in Welbeck House, Wandsworth. While moving in he sees a strange man smoking on the balcony above his flat and detects a strange smell. Over the first year of living there he gets to know all his neighbors except for this man, who he never sees but occasionally smells, chalking it up to poor hygiene.
On July 5th, 2004, banging sounds start to come from the man's apartment, like hammering on the walls and floor, for about an hour at a time. After six months of this, Christof gets a package meant for his upstairs neighbor, whose name the package reveals to be Toby Carlisle. Christof takes the package up and intends to ask about the banging, but he is stunned by the strong smell when Carlisle answers the door, allowing Carlisle to swipe the package and shut the door without a word. Christof notices that Carlilse's hand is thin and pale with yellowed nails, as well as the strange stains on the doorframe and floor outside.
In 2007, Christof decides to move to Sheffield to be with his dying mother, but is unable to sell the flat due to the smell of the apartment above and a wet stain slowly spreading over the ceiling. Thinking a pipe is leaking, Christof knocks on Carlisle's door but gets no answer. Christof schedules a plumber to come the next week. The plumber tells Christof that it's not the pipes causing the stain, but still investigates. The stained ceiling instantly crumbles under the plumber's touch, causing a thick yellow liquid with white lumps to spill out. The plumber runs away as Christof vomits.
Mad at Carlisle, Christof knocks on his apartment door again, which opens as he does so. Christof goes inside and upon turning on the light sees that every surface apart from the windows has had layers of various meats nailed to it, even the lights, which are in various states of decay the deeper they are, with the oldest having liquified. Christof sees Carlisle's rotting corpse in the hall, and can't tell where his eye sockets are due to the lesions on his face. Inside the kitchen, Christof finds a pile of fresher meat that seemed to move on its own before opening many eyes. The next thing Christof knows, the police are there and the pile of meat is gone. Christof tells the police everything but they don't seem to believe about the pile of meat. Christof is eventually successful in selling the flat and moves in with friends in Clapham. Christof also decides to follow a vegetarian diet.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan says that although much of the records they can find are conflicting, they all concede that there was indeed a biohazard incident at the flat on October 22nd, 2007, and that Toby Carlisle's corpse was taken out, with the cause of death reported to be gangrene. Sasha looks through Carlisle's financial records and learns that he owned his flat but only had enough money to pay taxes. Tim investigates local butchers and markets as well as online shops and cannot find any evidence or record of Carlisle purchasing meat, leaving Jonathan concerned as to how he acquired it. Christof is contacted and still stands by his story as a true account of what happened. Jonathan mentions that Martin is still sick.

- Ceiling Banger: Cristof hears the man upstairs banging on the walls and floor upstairs for an hour on multiple occasions. However, he's always reluctant to confront him over it.
- Loners Are Freaks: Christof says that while he came to recognize his other neighbors by passing them in the hall, other than the day he moved in, he never saw the man who lived above him.
- Nausea Fuel: The descriptions of the state of the upstairs apartment. Rotting meat stapled to the walls, the floor, to every available surface.
- Signature Scent: Christof describes his upstairs neighbor as having a smell halfway between "pavement after rain on a hot day" and "chicken that's starting to turn."

19: Confession (I)

Case #0113005. Statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding his claimed demonic possession. Original statement given 30th May 2011.

## Story

Edwin is a Catholic priest who claims to be possessed. He was arrested in 2009 for killing and cannibalizing two students, can't tell if his interviewer is even real, and is unable to say "Lord" or "Jesus" and cannot pray, but manages to say "God" albeit with difficulty. From 2005 to 2009, Edwin trains as an exorcist with Father Harrogate. Edwin claims to have done over a hundred exorcisms but admits that many of them probably had no supernatural or demonic activities to begin with. He mentions that he had once been cursed at in Sumerian by an illiterate young man and an old Jamaican man had recited the names of Edwin's childhood pets to him.
Edwin learns of a student, Bethany O'Connor, who has requested an exorcism due to losing control of her mind and feelings, though her will remains intact. During one meeting with her, she almost eats a stone before Edwin stops her. Edwin learns that Bethany's problems started when she moved into 89 Bullingdon Road. In her bedroom, Edwin finds a spot where the wallpaper has been torn away to reveal the word 'Mentis' ('mind' in Latin) written on the brickwork. Bethany doesn't appear to be able to see the writing. Edwin gives a small blessing and arranges to return later to perform a full exorcism, getting permission from his friend and superior Father Singh. Edwin gets a call from John Radcliffe Hospital where Bethany was admitted with cuts to the face after attacking one of her roommates with a kitchen knife and falling into a mirror.
Edwin goes to visit Bethany and tries to exorcise her, but her only reaction is to say "I'm so sorry. It wants your faith." Bethany suddenly convulses, biting into her tongue, and dies, with the doctors explain as a brain hemorrhage from hitting her head, which they failed to diagnose earlier. Edwin gets in trouble with the clergy and Annie Willett, the nurse who called Edwin, is almost fired but keeps her job on the technicality that she had only done what Bethany asked of her. Over the years, Edwin drinks more though he claims to not have become an alcoholic.
One day he gets a call from Annie again, telling him that a builder at the house on Hill Top Road had seen things. Annie convinces Edwin to look into the place and possibly exorcise it. At the house, he meets the builder and explains why he's there. The builder allows him to go about before going into the back garden. Edwin begins to bless the place but begins to feel intense heat and smell smoke, although there is no fire. Edwin prays for protection and is answered by something that he knows isn't God. Edwin feels his lips form the words "I am not for you. I am marked." The burning feeling vanished. Edwin tells the builder that he's done all he could, noticing that he's torn down a tree, and leaves.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan says that this isn't the end of Edwin's story, and the rest of it must be in the archive somewhere. He also confirms that the details match up with Ivo Lensik's story (8: Burned Out).

- Call-Back: This is the same priest Ivo Lensik got in contact with back in episode 8, and he gives his own side on some of the events from that case.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: As with Ivo in "Burned Out," Father Burroughs also feels intense heat with no apparent source when he visits the house on Hill Top Road.
- Gagging on Your Words: Played for Horror. Father Burroughs is physically unable to profess his faith, speak Jesus's name, and just barely chokes out speaking of God. He mentions he can no longer pray as well.
- Hollywood Exorcism: Averted. Catholic exorcism and the problems that prompt it are presented as being much less dramatic and horrific than the Hollywood version. Most of the time.

20: Desecrated Host (II)

Case #0113005-B. Continuation of the statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding his claimed demonic possession.

## Story

After leaving the house at Hill Top Road, Edwin fears whatever has come into him from Bethany. He tries to pray but finds his throat constricted when he does so. He tries to read his Bible but finds a verse from Genesis in the gospel of Luke: "Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the Earth. And from thy face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. It shall come to pass that everyone that finding me shall slay me." Other verses are blacked out, and it takes all his willpower to put the Bible in his pocket instead of throwing it away.
Edwin talks to Father Singh who requests that they do it in the form of a confessional for spiritual pride. Edwin does so and tells Singh the story of what's happened, but Singh tells him that his "sins were deeper than that" and lists off every sin Edwin ever committed, which he couldn't possibly have known. Edwin also notices that Singh's accent has changed from Indian to RP (English). Edwin runs away, and notices Singh somewhere else in the church.
The whole layout of Oxford seems to have transformed, and soon Edwin reaches the Oratory. A man brings Edwin into the Oratory, telling him it's time for mass. Edwin notices an inordinate amount of candles in the church as well as an absence of all the crucifixes and other images of religious figures. There are no people in the chapel. Edwin puts on a pale yellow stole and goes back into the chapel, now full of people with yellowish skin, blank eyes, and wide smiles. As the other man speaks to the people, all Edwin can hear from him is the sound of the church's bell, which unnerves him. Edwin begins the Eucharist and the people start to disappear until the chapel is empty. Edwin goes to get the communion but has to force off the curtain covering it. Upon eating the wafer, Edwin feels a different taste and texture, realizing that he is consuming real human flesh.
When Edwin realizes where he is and what he's doing, he decides to stop and wait for the police to arrive and take him away. Edwin pleads guilty to every charge brought against him. Whenever the clergy come to visit Edwin in prison, instead of their voices he still hears the bell.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan announces that this second part of Edwin's story had been misplaced in the next box over from its correct location, meaning that someone had been reading it and put it away hurriedly. Martin is still out and can't be questioned, but Tim and Sasha deny having even seen the record before. Jonathan doesn't think it's likely that Gertrude would have read it.
As for the story itself, Jonathan doesn't know what to make of it considering Edwin's gradual loss of his sense of reality. Sasha finds records proving the existence of Bethany O'Connor and her status as an archaeology student at St. Hugh's College, with her personal history and death matching up with Edwin's story, with the exception that during her time as a student she lived in student housing and the person she attacked was housing staff, not a roommate. The house of 89 Bullingdon Road was actually uninhabited at the time, so if Bethany spent time there she didn't do so legally.
Edwin's former colleagues are interviewed and corroborate Edwin's mental decline following Bethany's death, and were trying to arrange help for him before his arrest. Regarding the arrest, Edwin was found at 89 Bullingdon Road, wearing a butcher's apron with two dead students, Christopher Bilham and James Mann. The students bled to death from multiple cuts and their faces had been removed. Edwin had partially eaten Mann's face.
Edwin remains incarcerated at Wakefield Prison serving two life sentences, and as such further interviews are impossible. Jonathan mentions some peculiarities from the end of Edwin's story, namely that nothing in his hallucination could correspond to the actions of capturing and killing the students, and that the other man at the church in Edwin's hallucination was unusual in that he seemed to act for himself. Combined with the fact that no tools found at the crime scene could have been used to kill or mutilate the students, Jonathan suspects that there could have been a second murderer with Edwin who wasn't caught, although it's unlikely for the case to reopen as Edwin fully accepted all charges. Tim finds one other interesting detail, which is that although Edwin wasn't really at the Oratory, there was a delivery to it of one pale yellow stole, which disappeared less than a day later, and one of the deacons remembered that it was delivered by Breekon and Hope Deliveries.

- Break the Haughty: Why Father Burroughs thinks the "demon" targeted him. He had intense pride in his faith, believing he could exorcise any evil with the strength of it, so the demon decided to take it from him. Since this is coming from his own shame, it's quite possible that the demon was simply targeting him because he believed himself to deserve punishment for it.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: When the altar server in the weird mass opens his mouth, instead of words he makes the sound of a tolling bell. When Father Burroughs tries to speak there, the same thing happens. Later, when his former fellow priests visit him in prison, it's all he can hear when they speak to him.
- Genius Bonus: When you look up the gospel reading, Mark 9:14-19, it is about Jesus healing a demon-possessed boy who cannot speak or control his movements due to the possession...
- Twisted Eucharist: Father Borroughs takes part in a creepy, hallucinatory mass that ends with him taking communion. He notes that the texture of the wafer is wrong, only to realize that he's eating human flesh.

21: Freefall

Case #0022010. Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert. Original statement given 20th October 2002.

## Story

Moira's son Robert was always adventurous and gets a job as a skydiving instructor with a company called Open Skydiving after leaving university. Moira doesn't see much of her son, but he unexpectedly comes to her house in June 2002, looking like a mess and telling her that he quit his job. After Moira gets him cleaned up and calmed, he tells her that he had been assisting with a skydive of a man named Simon, who was eighty-five years old and doing the dive for charity. Harriet Fairchild, who had been assigned to Simon, had asked Robert to come with them. Just before Simon and Harriet jumped from the plane, Simon said something like "enjoy sky blue" to Robert. Robert started to feel dizzy but shook it off and jumped.
Robert soon saw that there was no ground, just endless blue sky. He fell for what seemed like hours. At some point he closed his eyes and upon reopening saw the ground and had a safe landing. Robert met Harriet, who told him that Simon and his team had already left and that he had been falling for fifteen minutes. In shock, Robert resigned immediately and went straight to see his mother. The next day, Moira and Robert climb a nearby hill for a picnic, but Robert suddenly goes into a panic and pushes Moira away before running to the top of the hill. The only way Moira can describe what happens next is that "the sky ate him", not that he flew away or something picked him up, but that the sky wrapped around and ate Robert.

## Post-Statement

Sasha finds that Open Skydiving never existed as a corporate entity, although the name "Open Skydiving" and "Open Skydiving School" were mentioned in a couple of articles from late 2000, but since they weren't an officially licensed business either Robert lied to Moira about his work, or Robert was the one being lied to. Tim finds an incident report from Doncaster in June 2002, in which a man by the name of Joseph Puce heard something fall in a nearby field and found an undeployed parachute embedded in the ground, although there was no trace of a user or any identifying labels. Puce had confirmed that there were no planes or skydiving around his home. Police reports showed that Moira attempted to file a missing person report for Robert on June 7th, 2002, but couldn't as she didn't know much about his friends or residences. Jonathan suspects that Robert may not have existed at all given that he's not in any records from 1998 to 2002. Moira declines an offer for another interview, saying that she doesn't want to revisit it. Jonathan also mentions that the names of Harriet Fairchild and Simon remind him of the pseudonym "Simon Fairchild", but before he can elaborate, Martin bursts into the room with something strange.

- Cliffhanger: Jon's follow-up at the end of the episode is interrupted by Martin bursting in, with Jon crying out "What are those things?!"
- I Fell for Hours: Robert Kelly had something happen to him on a skydive that caused him to fall for what seemed like hours through an endless, cloudless and sunless blue sky.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Downplayed. Robert feels as if he's trapped in the featureless blue void for certainly many hours, perhaps even days, as he finds himself getting hungry. When he finally sees earth again, he learns that only fifteen minutes have passed since he jumped. Downplayed because fifteen minutes is still exponentially longer than it actually takes to reach the ground after jumping out of a plane, so Robert's colleague Harriet on the ground is well aware that something very strange has happened.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Moira Kelly cannot bear to think about what she saw happen to her son Robert, let alone find the words to describe it. The least inadequate description she can manage is "the sky ate him".

22: Colony

Case #0161203. Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a close encounter with something he believes to have once been Jane Prentiss. Statement recorded direct from subject, 12th March 2016.

## Story

Martin goes to investigate the flat of Carlos Vittery following the digitalization of case #0150409 (16: Arachnophobia). Receiving no answer at the buzzers, he snoops around and finds an open basement window, beside which is a small silver worm with a black head. It suddenly moves towards Martin and he squashes it underfoot. Entering the basement, Martin finds it to have a musty smell and and thinks he sees his shadow move. Martin goes up to the building proper and knocks on the door formerly occupied by Vittery, but its current occupant doesn't speak English. She points Martin to the building's owner, Yassir Kundi, who tells Martin that Carlos didn't talk to many people while he lived there and his old cat is now owned by the Sanderson couple.
When Martin is going home after dark, he decides to go back to the apartment building since he remembered seeing lots of spiderwebs in the basement. Entering through the basement window again, he finds that the cobwebs aren't fresh enough to be connected to the Vittery case, but comes across a woman facing away from him with long black hair and an overcoat. She coughs up a silver worm which prompts Martin to scream out loud, alerting the woman who turns around and smiles at him with black and broken teeth. She takes off her overcoat and Martin sees that her skin is full of holes that hundreds of silver worms are crawling through, and they spill out as she begins to walk toward Martin. Martin tries to photograph her with his phone but drops it when a worm jumps at him. Martin runs away home and collapses into bed from exhaustion.
The next morning or the morning after, he hears a knock at the door but doesn't answer, thinking it could be the woman. Martin then sees a silver worm crawl in under the door and he kills it before hurriedly blocking up any space a worm could get through. Martin stays home for the next two weeks, rationing his food and hardly sleeping, unable to contact anyone due to the loss of his phone and the power being out. He remembers hearing Jonathan mentioning Jane Prentiss in his digitalization of case #0140912 (6: Squirm), and thinks that this woman could be her. He remembers that Prentiss professed to be a witch and believed that an unknown parasite had infected her. The knocking continues for the two weeks, as well as the musty smell Martin detected in the basement. One day the knocking and smell ceases, and after making sure that Prentiss was gone, Martin rushes to the Institute to inform Jonathan.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan decides to have Martin stay in a sealed room at the Institute and resolves to request an increase in security, then tells Martin that he's been getting texts from Martin's phone during the last two weeks saying he was ill and may have caught a parasite. That moment, Jonathan gets another text from Martin's phone: "Keep him, we have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist's crimson fate arrives". Jonathan restates his determination to have security increased and decides to tell Tim and Sasha about the happenings.

- Genre Savvy: Martin, following up an earlier statement, is looking around a Creepy Basement and hears a noise, and remarks that he's read enough of the archive's statements to know that following the noise is always a bad idea. He then defies the trope and investigates it anyway, because it's his job.
- Evil Phone: Martin dropped his phone in the basement while running away. Two weeks ago. But "Martin" has been texting Jon saying he has a stomach bug and can't come in. At the end of the episode Jane texts them using his phone again, saying "we've had our fun" and the Archives can keep Martin.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After spending the entire season dismissing basically every statement he's recorded and ragging on Martin, Jon not only does not immediately poke holes in his story, but offers to let Martin sleep in the Archives and says he will ask Elias to look into some extra security. This is because he takes Jane Prentiss very seriously.
- Royal "We": The way Jane Prentiss talks (well, texts), probably because the thing that was once Jane is essentially an ambulatory bipedal worms' nest.
- The Voiceless: Martin notes that the entity he encountered did not speak aloud because given what it was made of, there was no more room for a windpipe.

23: Schwartzwald

Case #8163103. Statement of Albrecht von Closen, regarding a discovered tomb near his estate in the Black Forest. Original statement given 21st March 1816.

## Story

Albrecht writes to his friend, Jonah Magnus, to tell him this story. In the winter of 1815, Albrecht and his wife Clara decide to go look after their nephew Wilhelm after he fell ill. Wilhelm lives in the family estate in the Schwartzwald (Black Forest) as he had inherited it from his late father, Albrecht's brother Hendrik, at the age of fourteen. Albrecht and Clara decide to spend the winter with Wilhelm after arriving. Albrecht likes to go out for long walks, and one day comes across an old graveyard with a mausoleum inscribed with the name "Johann von Württemberg". Albrecht doesn't recognize the name and thinks that it's an odd place for a graveyard since the nearest town is six miles away.
Albrecht brings up his discovery over dinner, and Wilhelm says that he hadn't known of the graveyard or of Johann von Württemberg. The next day, Albrecht goes back to the graveyard to investigate and meets a man with a frock coat and wide brimmed hat, who asks Albrecht if he intends to explore the mausoleum. Albrecht confirms this, asking the man what he has to fear from the dead. The man answers that there's nothing at all to fear from the dead, before disappearing when Albrecht looks away. Albrecht enters the mausoleum and finds a hidden staircase leading to a chamber with old and damp books on marble shelves, each engraved with a small eye. Albrecht finds a coin and book on the floor. The coin has an image of a long-haired man with the letters "JW" and number 1279 on one side, and the words "Für die Stille" ("for the silence" in German) on the other. Albrecht opens the book but finds it to be written in what he believes to be Arabic.
Back at the estate that evening, a servant named Hilda or Helga asks Albrecht if he went back to the graveyard. When he confirms, she tells him a story that she had heard from Tobias Kohler, an eighty-year-old man from Schramberg. As a child, Tobias would play a game with his friends called "Johann's Steps", in which you would sneak down the mausoleum stairs until you were seen, then run back, though Tobias wouldn't say who or what was supposed to see you. The game was ended when the mother of Tobias' friend Hans Winkler tried to stop Hans from going down and ran after him down the stairs. There was screaming, and the children ran back to town where the local priest rallied six other men to go to the mausoleum. They never spoke about what they found, and Hans went to live with another family, the Beckers. Tobias also mentioned that his uncle called Johann von Württemberg "Ulrich's bastard", which based on the coin's date of 1279 could refer to either Ulrich I or Ulrich II.
A week before Albrecht and Clara mean to return home, Albrecht goes on a walk and is jumped by the man from the cemetery, now without his hat, which allows Albrecht to see his hairless head and eyeless sockets. The man reaches toward Albrecht before looking suddenly at something and disappearing. Albrecht and Clara leave Schwartzwald the next morning, and Albrecht realizes that he lost the coin.

## Post-Statement

During the story, Martin interrupts as he didn't realize Jonathan had come in early, and the quick talk reveals that it's been about a week since he started staying in the Institute, with no sign of Jane Prentiss. The only mention of Johann von Württemberg that Jonathan can find is in Cradle of Germany - Württemberg through the Centuries by Jan Moira, which details a rumor that Count Ulrich I of Württemberg had a second son out of wedlock in 1255. 1279 was the year that Ulrich II died and was succeeded by his half-brother, Eberhard I. It's also found in Grim Tales by H. T. Moncreef that Wilhelm was suspected for the murder of Rudolf Ziegler, but was acquitted when doctors decided that the man's wounds were too severe for a human to have done it, and so ruled it an animal attack rather than a murder. Jonathan also researches Wilhelm's genealogy, which shows that he eventually married and had children, and some of his descendants moved to England in 1908, and one daughter, Elsa, married Michael Keay in 1920 and they had a daughter, Mary Keay, in 1924.

- Eyeless Face: The second time Albrecht encounters him, he realizes that the stranger's eye sockets are empty.
- Snowed-In: Albrecht is obliged by heavy snow (hardly surprising in the Black Forest in the early 19th century) to extend a visit to his nephew.

24: Strange Music

Case #0051701. Statement of Leanne Denikin, regarding an antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004. Original statement given 17th January 2005.

## Story

Leanne's grandfather, a carnie named Nikolai, dies and she inherits his house. Leanne finds that none of the keys she received open the padlock sealing the attic door, which had always been so, and she decides to break the lock with bolt cutters to see what's inside the attic. She finds a bright red calliope organ and a steamer trunk containing twenty-three dolls, all but one with their jaws torn away. The one undamaged doll is a clown doll with a pointed hat and painted eyes and a red smile. The calliope has a plaque reading "The Calliophone" and on the keyboard cover are carved the words "Be still, for there is strange music".
Leanne plays a circus song that she had learned from Nikolai, increasing speed until misplaying a note. Leanne sees that the steamer trunk is open even though she had closed it, with the clown doll on top of the pile of dolls. Later, Leanne discovers that a calliope has to have its blower set up to be playable, which she hadn't done. Leanne brings her partner, Josh, to the attic where he is creeped out by the dolls. He insists that they leave after Leanne begins to play the calliope again. A few weeks later Leanne and Josh break up, shortly before which he tells her that he can still hear the calliope music which seems to gradually be getting closer.
One day when Leanne is clearing out items from the attic, she sees the streamer trunk opened and the clown doll on the floor. It is reaching for another doll which bears an uncanny resemblance to Josh. Leanne puts the dolls in the trunk and uses a padlock to keep it shut. The next week, Leanne discovers that the house has been broken into, and the calliope and trunk had been taken. In the police report provided by Leanne, a neighbor testifies that she saw two men taking the calliope out piece by piece, but she had assumed that they were professionals hired by Leanne. The calliope is never found, and four days later Josh is discovered dead in his bedroom, his throat crushed and his jaw torn away, which is never recovered. Leanne promises that she wasn't involved in Josh's death.

## Post-Statement

The police report mentioned in the story is still possessed by the archives, proving that Leanne did indeed own the calliope and the steamer trunk before their theft. Evidence found in the police investigation into Josh's death indicates that a thick woolen rope was used to crush his throat, but there was no signs of a struggle or even a break-in, and no DNA found aside from Josh's own. No arrest was made.
Tim mentions to Jonathan that some of the story's elements remind him of articles he's read about travelling circuses in the early 20th century, and after some research Jonathan finds a photograph in Freaks and Followers: Circuses in the 1940s by Gregory Petry of a group of carnies: a contortionist, a fire-eater, two strongmen, a ringmaster, and an organist at a calliope. The photograph's details reveal it to have been taken in Minsk, Russia in 1948. The details identify the ringmaster as Gregor Osinov and the organist as Nikolai Denikin, with the other performers remaining unidentified. The circus' name was the Circus of the Other, which Jonathan finds familiar but can't figure out where from.
Leanne is unable to do another interview as she had moved to Southeast Asia in 2014. Jonathan reveals that the Institute has in its storage a calliope that quite possibly is the very same one from the story, indicated by its bright red color and the inscription on the keyboard cover. Jonathan only knows that the calliope came into the possession of the Institute sometime in 2007, and Elias had said that the record surrounding the event was probably in the archive.

- Circus of Fear: The Circus of the Other discussed in the follow-up by Jon, to which he believes the calliope has some sort of connection.
- Creepy Doll: Leanne finds many in the attic of her grandfather's house, all but one with their lower jaws removed. Another is later discovered in the shape of her ex-boyfriend. Said ex is found dead the next day, his lower jaw torn off.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:Josh is found with his throat having been crushed by a thick woolen rope and his lower jaw torn off, though it's not clear which happened first.
- Early-Bird Cameo: A minor one, but Sasha mentions having succeeded at getting the police reports for the Harold Silvana case, which is the name of the statement giver in Episode 35.
- Magic Music: Comes from a calliope with purportedly-supernatural properties.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: Leanne finds one in her grandfather's loft, unusually a calliope rather than a church-style organ.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: A very rare example of comic relief concerning the pronunciation of "calliope."

25: Growing Dark

Case #0151904. Statement of Mark Bilham, regarding events culminating in his visit to Hither Green Chapel. Original statement given 19th April 2015.

## Story

Mark doesn't believe in the supernatural and has only come to tell his story because his girlfriend, Katherine, told him to. Kathy graduates from university in 2014 and moves in with her friend Natalie Ennis, who is very religious. Mark doesn't get along with Natalie since they have nothing in common.
In late October of 2014, Natalie's mother dies and as a result Natalie loses her faith for a few months until she finds a new congregation, with whom she spends most of her time, including nights. On nights she is home, she sings in a foreign language all night. Kathy starts to hear things move in Natalie's room when Natalie isn't home. The lightbulbs start going out, and Mark discovers that they're not broken, but rather Natalie had been slightly unscrewing them so they wouldn't turn on.
One evening, Kathy comes to Mark's home in a panic, and tells her that Natalie had given her a dinner of what seemed to be overcooked spinach, before they both expressed a desire to move out. Natalie told her that she was going to a new home and family, who had been waiting for 300 years and would soon be collected by Mr. Pitch, and invited Kathy to join her. Realizing that Natalie was talking about her church, Kathy declined saying that she wasn't interested in Christianity, but Natalie replied "No, but you're a natural for Them. You're worshipping as we speak." This scared Kathy enough to run to Mark.
Mark decides to tell Natalie to back off, and upon entering her bedroom finds that the furniture, wallpaper, and carpets had all been moved over the window. Mark finds a piece of paper with the name "Hither Green Dissenters" and a symbol resembling a closed eye. Mark looks up the name and finds a Hither Green Chapel in a graveyard in Lewisham.
Mark goes to the chapel and finds it to be abandoned, with boarded windows but the doors open. Looking inside, Mark sees broken pews and other debris. Mark's flashlight dies and he loses the batteries when he takes them out to adjust them. Feeling around in the darkness for the batteries, Mark notices the floor seems smooth and clean, without the debris he had seen before. Mark hears singing from many voices, seeming to say "Ny-Ålesund". Mark tries to feel for a wall and finds a rusted metal grate. Feeling over it, Mark feels leathery fingers grab him, causing him to leap backwards. Mark feels his phone in his pocket, having forgotten he had it, and turns on its light as the singing becomes louder, finding himself back in the same wrecked chapel. Mark files a missing person report for Natalie.

## Post-Statement

Sasha finds confirmation of the missing person report, and that Mark had filed it on March 11th, 2015. No trace of her or her congregation were found at the chapel. Mark and Kathy are contacted but haven't heard from Natalie at all since Mark gave his report. The eye symbol and other descriptions of Natalie's congregation match up with elements from Case 0020312 (9: A Father's Love), leading Jonathan to suspect that the People's Church of the Divine Host may still be active. Tim finds that the sung words "Ny-Ålesund" are also the name of a Norweigian town which is the northenmost human settlement in the world, discounting research outposts, being at latitude North 78°55′30″, though it's unclear what it could have to do with Mark's story. Martin finds a police report from May 15th, 2015, about a month after Mark gave his report, where people living near the chapel reported screaming from inside it at the middle of the night, but nothing was found. Jonathan finds this interesting as May 15th, 2015 was the day Gertrude died.

- Bigger on the Inside: Hither Green Dissenters' Chapel.
- Electromagnetic Ghosts: Originally believed to be the cause of the lights constantly going out in the narrator's girlfriend's flat. Subverted when it turns out not to be supernatural, merely bizarre - his girlfriend's strange flatmate keeps unscrewing all the bulbs just enough to break the connections.
- Evil Is Not Well-Lit: A recurring theme. First, the lights keep going out in Kathy and Natalie's house. Then Mark discovers, after Kathy flees the house and he goes back, that Natalie has used everything to hand to board up the window and keep all light out. Later, when the narrator Mark is driving to the chapel he believes is at the centre of the weirdness, the street lamps and his car headlights seem strangely dim. When he enters the chapel it's pitch dark except for the light of torch, and seems to become Bigger on the Inside when the torch goes out and revert when he lights another. The cult seems to worship darkness, or at least an entity associated with it called "Mr. Pitch".
- Foreshadowing: The episode provides a very early connection between a cult and supernatural force of darkness to the town Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard, Norway.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Although it's not in Latin: what the voices are saying is Ny-Ålesund.
- The Scully: Mark openly states he doesn't believe in the supernatural.

26: A Distortion

Case #0160204. Statement of Sasha James, assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a series of paranormal sightings. Statement recorded direct from subject, 2nd April 2016.

## Story

Sasha doubts the threat level of Jane Prentiss due to Martin surviving his encounter with her, though she knows that Prentiss is haunting the Institute as her silver worms frequently appear outside. Sasha makes a point to kill the worms whenever she sees them. When leaving for work one day, Sasha looks through a distorted glass window and sees a figure that looks lanky and boneless with large hands, though through a regular window she sees them as a man with long blond hair.
Later on her trip to work she sees the man in a café but decides to not talk to him. After work she notices him still in the café despite it usually being closed by then, and he motions for her to come inside and sit with him. She does so and asks what he is. He tells her that it doesn't matter but she may call him Michael, which Sasha doubts is his real name since she doesn't think he's a human. Sasha asks what he wants, and he says he wants to help, though he doesn't specify what he wants to help with. She asks if it's about Prentiss, and he laughs and tells her that she doesn't really know what's going on. Michael tells Sasha he wants to be friends and holds her hand, and she notes it feels heavier than it looks and sharp.
Sasha leaves as Michael tells her that she should meet him at Hanwell Cemetery if she wants to save her coworkers at the Institute, calling them by name. The next day after work, Sasha decides to go to the cemetery where Michael is waiting for her. Michael takes Sasha to an abandoned pub, and inside she finds a man covered in silver worms, and realizes that the floor is covered in them too. Sasha gasps, alerting the worms which dart toward her. Sasha grabs a nearby fire extinguisher and sprays the worms, which are instantly killed by the carbon dioxide gas. Sasha sprays the infested man with the extinguisher as well, killing the worms inside him. After the body stops moving, Sasha searches it and finds the man's driver's license, identifying him as Timothy Hodge(6: Squirm). Michael comes to Sasha's side and extracts a worm from her shoulder, which she hadn't noticed begin to burrow. The next thing Sasha knows, Michael and Hodge's corpse have both vanished, and she hurries back to the Institute.

## Post-Statement

Believing Sasha to be level-headed and credible, Jonathan takes her story at face value. He wonders how Hodge and Harriet Lee were affected differently by the infestation, and notes that while most supernatural entities and forces described in the stories were of a malevolent nature, Michael's desire to befriend and help Sasha contrasted greatly. Jonathan gives Sasha a few days off work and requests that Elias purchase more fire extinguishers for the Institute.

- Call-Back: To Episode 6, with the infested corpse being that of Timothy Hodge.
- Cryptic Conversation: Sasha and "Michael," full stop.
- Glamour Failure: While "Michael" looks human, the glamour fails if you look at it through warped glass (at which point it looks humanoid but stretched-out and boneless), and it definitely doesn't feel human.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Sasha is confident enough in Michael's inhumanity that she instantly feels wrong using he/him pronouns and firmly switches over to using "it".
- Mysterious Stranger: "Michael's" true motivations are very indeterminate: although it protects Sasha by removing a worm from burrowing into her shoulder, it doesn't call itself an ally; and it states outright that it doesn't care if the Institute's employees died, although it wants to be "friends". The only thing determined about its allegiances is that it stands opposed to the Flesh Hive, calling it "always rash."
- Pet the Dog: In contrast to his rather prickly demeanor towards his other colleagues (especially Martin), Jon is perfectly friendly and respectful towards Sasha.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: When Sasha asks what it is, "Michael" says it actually can't explain itself.

27: A Sturdy Lock
Case #0032408. Statement of Paul McKenzie, regarding repeated nocturnal intrusions into his home. Original statement given 24th August 2003.

## Story

Paul lives alone in his house as his son Marcus moved away to live with his fiancée, and Paul's wife, Diane, died in May 2003. One night, Paul wakes up to hear a prescence at the top of the staircase. Thinking it could be a burglar, he decides to let them go about their crime and call the police once they've left, but rather than the prescence moving around the house, he hears it slowly approach his bedroom door and soon sees the doorknob start to turn. Paul runs to the door and holds it shut, and though his hands become slick with what he thinks is sweat, he manages to keep the door shut until the prescence leaves.
Paul calls the police, but not before noticing that his hands are covered not with sweat but with blood. The police can't find any evidence of an intruder. The following day, Paul scours the house for the key to the lock on his bedroom door. In the night the presence returns and tries to open the door, but the lock holds fast despite the presence becoming increasingly violent in its attempt to enter. Paul calls the police again, but the presence is gone by the time they arrive and they imply that they would put him in a nursing home if he kept calling.
For the next month's worth of nights, the prescence tries to enter Paul's bedroom but can't break the lock, and the only nights it doesn't come are those when Paul has Marcus stay over to try to catch it. Paul sets up a camera to try to record the prescence but it doesn't appear on the recording, even at the time when Paul heard it outside his door. Paul sees for a few frames what appears to be a screaming face in the shadows, but it scares him so badly he erases the footage. Paul admits that he has no proof that the presence really exists, and even Marcus doesn't believe it, but he refuses to abandon his home.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan wants to believe the story, having sympathy for the elderly Paul, but he thinks that it's more likely that Paul was developing dementia in his old age. Jonathan notes that Paul had died of a stroke two months after telling his story. Sasha finds police records of Paul's reports to the police. Martin is able to contact Marcus, but he declines an interview as he had already given a statement. Jonathan goes over records of the Institute's initial investigation, and while their researcher decided to stay a night at Paul's home, she found no evidence of the supernatural. Jonathan notices that in the photographs she took, there appeared to be no lock on the bedroom door.

- Bloody Horror: The narrator struggles to keep a door closed as something on the other side tries to open it. When it finally gives up and he takes his hand away, it's covered in blood, though he has no injuries and the door handle is clean.
- Living Shadow: Paul sets up a camera to record whatever is tormenting him at night. He sees nothing in the footage, except for a brief moment from one night when the shadows seem to form a leering face.
- Police Are Useless: Paul calls the police after something tries to open his bedroom door. Because there's no sign of a break-in and he's an old man living alone, they assume nothing happened and he's just going senile.
- Sequel Hook: Jon remarks at the end that Paul's son claims to have already made a statement to the institute when asked for a follow-up, and that it's probably lying around in the archive somewhere waiting to be found.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: In this case, it's things that rattle your doorknob in the night.

28: Skintight

Case #0161704. Statement of Melanie King, regarding events at the abandoned Cambridge Military Hospital during filming in January 2015. Statement recorded direct from subject, 17th April 2016.

## Story

Melanie runs a YouTube channel called "Ghost Hunt UK" along with her co-host Andy, sound engineer Peter, and camera operator Tony, for which they enter reputably haunted locations, occasionally illegally, with scientific eqiupment to look for evidence. The team plans to break into Cambridge Military Hospital, which is reported to be haunted by a ghost called the Grey Lady. Peter backs out of the project, citing concern over asbestos as his reasoning, so Melanie contacts various colleagues to find a temporary replacement. Georgie Barker, host of a podcast titled What the Ghost, gives Melanie the contact of Sarah Baldwin, a sound engineer she had previously worked with. Melanie arranges to pick up Sarah for the project.
When the team arrives at her address to collect her, Sarah doesn't come out. Melanie calls her number but receives no answer. Melanie then receives a call from an unknown number which turns out to be Sarah, who suddenly appears outside the van. Sarah chainsmokes during the entire two hour drive, and Melanie thinks she can smell some kind of floral perfume through the stench of the cigarettes. Upon arrival at the hospital, Sarah expresses displeasure and claims that Melanie hadn't told her about the location despite Melanie having given thorough details on the project. The team begins to collect footage. Melanie takes note of a graffittied phrase she finds: "Silk will not stitch the butcher's meat".
The team sets up a camp to stay overnight in the hospital's main ward and set up shifts for a night watch. Sarah volunteers for the 2AM-4AM shift, which she gets as it's the least desired among the rest of the team. When Melanie goes to wake Sarah for her shift, she instantly gets up as if she hadn't been sleeping at all. Melanie wakes up around 3AM and notices that Sarah is gone, so takes a night vision camera to search for her. Melanie detects a strong smell of copper mixed with a faint smell of ammonia.
Melanie goes upstairs and hears a voice, and finds Sarah gesturing and apologizing for trespassing before being flung back into the wall. Sarah shouts something in a language Melanie doesn't recognize, then removes her jacket to uncover a mangled arm. Melanie watches in horror as Sarah peels off the skin of her arm, then pulls it back on tightly and begins to staple it on with a staple gun. Melanie rushes back to the campsite shortly before Sarah returns. Melanie doesn't share what she saw with the others, and after they drop Sarah off, Tony requests that they not work with her again as she got "bad vibes" from her. Shortly before telling her story to the Institute, Melanie gives them a copy of the recording she took though admits that it was distorted and unclear, and Jonathan suggests she could have been dreaming or even made up the story.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan finds that Cambridge Military Hospital is being turned into a housing development. He notes that Melanie's story doesn't match any report of a Grey Lady ghost. Georgie is contacted and confirms that she had indeed worked with Sarah Baldwin, but Sarah can not be found by the Institute and the address she had been picked up from in the story wasn't occupied when the story took place and did not list Sarah as a past tenant. Jonathan recognizes Sarah's name but can't remember where from. In Melanie's recording, Jonathan notes that he can see two figures, one kneeling that must be Sarah, and a strangely tall man pointing and floating above the ground.

- Abandoned Hospital: This episode takes place in a Real Life one, the Cambridge Military Hospital, where a team of ghost-hunters go to investigate an alleged haunting (whose rumours are indeed old and well documented in Real Life) but find...something else.
- Ambiguously Human: Sarah Baldwin on the surface resembles a normal person, but she has a number of subtle uncanny features about her, including appearing suddenly without opening the door to her home, a strange smell, and most notably the incident where she peels back her skin and staples it back in place.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite her and most of her colleagues believing in and devoting their lives to investigating ghosts, Melanie believes her crewmates won't belive her story, and turns to the Magnus Institute instead.
- Body Horror: Sarah Baldwin peeling back the skin of her arm and stapling it back into place.
- Call-Back: To Episode 1, with the reappearance of Sarah Baldwin.
- Humanoid Abomination: A man that is all too tall was seen in the video recordings that Jon watched of the investigation, although the figure wasn't present at the time of recording.
- Occult Detective: Melanie King and her team.
- Paranormal Investigation: "Ghost Hunt UK", a YouTube channel co-hosted by Melanie and her friend Andy.
- The Rival: Melanie sees herself as something of the sort to the Magnus Institute, squabbling with Jon at the beginning of the episode over the latter's practices.
- Sneaky Departure: Sarah Baldwin sneaks away from the party in the middle of the night, only to get into a conflict with a supernatural being. Once Melanie notices Sarah is gone, she similarly sneaks away to follow her rather than alert the rest of the crew.

29: Cheating Death
Case #9720406. Statement of Nathaniel Thorp, regarding his own mortality. Original statement given 4th June 1972.

## Story

Being illiterate, Nathaniel has his statement transcribed by assisstant researcher Fiona Law.
He begins by telling a folk tale of a bold soldier who fought in The American Revolution. The soldier participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill after a night of drinking and Faro, a gambling card game. Due to the resulting weariness, he is quickly shot and gets himself into the cellar of a house for shelter. In the cellar, he sees a figure in monastic robes that he quickly realizes is Death.
Fearing for his life, the soldier asks Death to play a game of Faro with his life at stake. Death agrees and they play the game for hours until eventually the soldier cheats by sneakily changing his bet, allowing him to win the game. Initially overjoyed, the soldier becomes horrified as Death laughs and grows blood and tissue over its ancient bones, becoming the monk it once was, while the soldier's flesh falls away, as he has now traded places with Death.
In the present, Nathaniel explains to Fiona that he is the soldier from the story, cutting off his own finger to prove it. Nathaniel acted as Death for nearly two centuries before being freed by losing a game of roulette. Nathaniel reveals that there were other Deaths at the same time as him, and though they went to claim the dying they would also go after those who were perfectly healthy. Despite having returned to his body, Nathaniel cannot eat, drink, or sleep anymore, yet he craves something he cannot discern and believes that he's not the only one.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan finds that the information Nathaniel provided about his living arrangements were correct at the time but is currently unable to be found. Fiona died of complications from a liver transplant in 2003, and the only other person who worked at the Institute then who still remains is Elias, who worked as a filing clerk and confirmed that there was a commotion on the day in question and that he heard of someone hurting themselves during a statement. One artifact was included with the original statement, a Faro token made out of bone, which crumbled to dust when Jonathan touched it.

- The Ageless: Nathaniel says he doesn't seem to age but hasn't regained human form long enough to really tell.
- Chess with Death: According to Nathaniel, Death offers a choice of games, including chess. It's impossible to win if you choose a game of skill. You're better off playing Roulette or another purely luck-based game instead. If you win you will not die, but Be Careful What You Wish For. There are actually multiple Deaths, each of whom was once a mortal who, upon winning a game against a previous Death, was doomed to take over from them. Oh, and it's not just a folk tale - that narrator was one of them.
- Exact Words: Nathaniel starts off by telling a story of a soldier who challenged Death to a game in an attempt to save his life. He fails to notice that Death said "if you win you shall not die" - it didn't say "you will live".
- Immortality: Nathaniel if his word is to be believed, is over 200 years old.
- Mortality Phobia: The soldier in the folk story told by Nathaniel had a dread of death that went beyond ordinary fear, which is why he took care to position himself at the rear during battles, and why he desperately challenged Death to a game. It turns out it wasn't just a folk story.
- The Needless: Nathaniel says food and drink make him sick.
- Never Learned to Read: Nathaniel says he keeps meaning to get around to learning his letters but never did.
- The Sleepless: Nathaniel doesn't sleep.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Nathaniel becomes immortal after beating Death at a game to escape dying - which dooms him to become a new Death until he can pass on the role to someone who beats him in turn. Even then he doesn't fully escape the curse - he cannot die, age, eat, drink or sleep, and constantly craves something unknown.

30: Killing Floor
Case #0130111. Statement of David Laylow, regarding his time working at an industrial abattoir near Dalston. Original statement given 1st November 2013.

## Story

David used to work at an Aver Meats processing plant. He started as a driver but eventually was moved to work on the killing floor. As he kills living creatures over and over, he begins to see less of a difference between them and humans. David soon asks to be removed from the killing floor due to the trauma and since policy states that all such requests must be fulfilled, he is reassigned.
On David's last day before transferring, he is accosted by Tom Haan, a coworker who David had never spoken to before, who cryptically says "You cannot stop slaughter by closing the door" before going back to his job. David later zones out while using the bolt gun on cows, and when he snaps out of it all of his coworkers and the animals are gone, and there's no blood or other evidence of slaughter anywhere.
David tries to leave and finds that the layout of the plant has changed. Eventually he finds an exit door but on the other side he finds himself on a conveyor belt headed for a meat grinder, and escapes back through the door. David begins to smell blood and follows the smell to a catwalk over a giant meat grinder which multiple conveyor belts pour meat into. David sees what he thinks could be human meat among the animal meat. David hears the sound of the bolt gun and decides against following it, but somehow finds the source anyway: Tom Haan, firing the gun against different parts of himself. As David draws near, Tom puts the gun into his hand and holds it to his own forehead, after which David pulls the trigger without coercion. Hoping that Tom had been killed by this final blow, David is finally able to leave the plant. He never hears anything about Tom again.

## Post-Statement

Sasha finds that David was indeed employed at Aver Meats from April 2010 until July 12th, 2013, the day his story took place. On that day, he and Tom left together in the middle of the shift and Tom was never seen again. David agrees to an interview but doesn't have any more relavent information. Tim and Martin try and fail to track Tom down. Jonathan notes that although Aver Meats is trying to expand the plant, construction workers keep leaving the project as they were bothered too much by the smell of blood and thought that the plant was too big already.

- Alien Geometries: The layout of the abattoir follows very few laws of physics or mathematics.
- Creepy Cleanliness: One of the first signs that something strange is going on in "Killing Floor" is when the narrator notices that the slaughterhouse is far cleaner than it should be.
- Endless Corridor: The hallways are far longer than they should be, and twist and turn weirdly in ways that make no sense.
- Foreshadowing: The vast room with conveyors feeding carcasses into a pit containing a consuming (mechanical) maw reappears later in a different form.
- Self-Harm: David finds one of the his colleagues at the slaughterhouse shooting himself with a bolt gun in various parts of his body.
- Sickening Slaughterhouse: The setting for this episode.

31: First Hunt

Case #0100912. Statement of Lawrence Mortimer, regarding his hunting trip to Blue Ridge, Virginia. Original statement given 9th December 2010.

## Story

Lawrence decides to go hunting for the first time after his fiftieth birthday, since he thinks it's an adventurous and manly thing to do. He arranges a hunting trip in the Appalachians with Arden Neeli, an online acquaintance who lives in Richmond, Virginia. After not getting any kills their first day, they set up camp for the night and Lawrence hears whistling in the distance to the tune of 'A-Hunting We Shall Go'. Soon thereafter a man who seems to be the source of the whistling comes through their camp, declining the help they offer him as he looks ill-prepared for hiking in the woods.
As he leaves, Lawrence thinks he notices the man sniff him and Arden and saying something like "Tomorrow will be a good day for a run". In the night, Lawrence thinks he hears laughter outside. At the end of the next day, Lawrence sees an elk and feels compelled to go after it. He hears a gunshot from elsewhere and discovers that Arden has vanished. After searching around, Lawrence finds Arden dead with bloody hole in his throat. Lawrence hears the whistiling again just before the same man arrives on the scene, his right arm covered in what Lawrence knows is Arden's blood.
The man chases Lawrence through the woods until after dark when he hears the whistling and finds himself back near Arden's corpse. The man returns and Lawrence notices that everything about him looks sharper, from his teeth to his fingers. Lawrence recalls The Duchess of Malfi, in which the titular Duchess' brother believes himself to be a werewolf. Lawrence predicts that the thing will attack more casually in its triumph, which it does, allowing Lawrence to dodge and gain the upper hand by getting the thing at gunpoint. Lawrence completely unloads both his and Arden's guns into the thing, but it isn't killed despite having several bullets in both its head and heart. The thing starts to dig into its wounds to remove the bullets and Lawrence takes the chance to escape, soon encountering some park rangers which take him to safety. Lawrence never sees the thing again, and Arden's corpse is recovered from the woods some time later. Lawrence decides to not go hunting again now that he knows how it feels to be the hunted.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan finds records confirming the recovery of Arden's corpse, with his death ruled an animal attack. Since the story took place in the United States, Jonathan decides not to conduct further investigation. Jonathan mentions that he too knows what it's like to be hunted thanks to Jane Prentiss, who has now been haunting the Institute for two months. Martin is still living in the Institute and Jonathan finds himself leaving less. Jonathan wonders what Prentiss is waiting for.

- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: While he was definitely panicked, exhausted and at a disadvantage, Lawrence deliberately pretends to be helpless and no kind of threat, in the hope that the hunter will get sloppy and make mistakes. It pays off; when the hunter gets close enough and makes a very telegraphed move to strike, Lawrence unleashes his RAF training to throw him to the ground, and shoot him several times before he can get back up.
- Gun Nut: Lawrence is keen on guns and shooting but is limited in pursuing his interest by the UK's restrictive gun laws. When he visits America to hunt with his internet-friend Arden Neally he is excited by Arden's gun collection.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: A very literal example of this.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The mysterious hunter in "First Hunt".
- Manly Men Can Hunt: This is very much the attitude of Lawrence's American friend Arden Neally in "First Hunt".
- Misplaced Wildlife: Several American listeners have pointed out that you're not going to find elk in Virginia; the closest thing would be white tailed deer.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Lawrence finds one in the United States. He looks like a normal human. A very sharp, drooling human capable of tracking and running through a forest with ease and surviving two rifles' worth of gunshot wounds.
- Slasher Smile: The strange hunter's smile seems to have "far too many teeth to it".

32: Hive
Case #0142302. Statement of Jane Prentiss, regarding a wasp's nest in her attic. Original statement given 23rd February 2014.

## Story

Jane describes an itching within her, as deep as her bones, like something inside her that wants to be free. She describes something that "wants [her] for its own" that hates the Institute, which is what prompted her to go to them to deliver a statement and see if she can get help, though she no longer believes she can be helped. Jane mentions that she can't sleep anymore because her dreams are filled with insects, and feels that there will be violence at the Institute, specifically mentioning the person who is facilitating her statement at the Institute, Gertrude Robinson.
Jane then moves to the topic of the wasps' nest in her attic, which she is often entranced by and and feels it sing to her that it loves her. Jane mentions her landlord, who she used to fear before learning of the wasps' nest, which he doesn't know about. Jane recalls her life before she started itching and hearing the singing from the nest, when she worked at a store selling crystals. She mentions a coworker named Oliver, who always looked at her with sadness. Jane left this job after people complained about her telling them about ants living underneath the store. Jane recalls that around this time is when she professed to be a witch, as she wanted to have something bigger than herself but couldn't stand any mainstream religions.
Jane returns to the topic of the nest but becomes confused on the details. She talks about being drawn to the attic before knowing about the nest and spending a day cutting through the padlock with a hacksaw. Jane describes the nest as the "face" of an infinite hive of flesh. She also notes the prescence of spiders in the attic, whose webs also have a song distinct from that of the hive. Jane wonders when she started to hear the song, mentioning an old habit of picking at her skin, a time as a child when she heard that blackheads would cause decay if she didn't clean them out, and a time when she saw worms emerge from the ground after rain. Jane thinks she may have had friends once, and remembers them leaving her after calling her "toxic" and afterwards feeling lonely and hungry for love. Jane realizes that the Institute cannot help because there is no way to put into words what she feels, and the hive hates the Institute because through learning about it they make it less threatening. Jane ends with a chilling remark:
I do not know why the hive chose me, but it did. And I think that it always had. The song is loud and beautiful and I am so very afraid. There is a wasps' nest in my attic. Perhaps it can soothe my itching soul.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan is disturbed by the story, and at the same time is disappointed that it didn't answer many questions about Jane Prentiss. He mentions Jane's former job, at a store called Good Energies, from which she was fired after having a breakdown over an ant infestation. Sometime after Jane gave her story, police were called to respond to screaming in her flat, and found her passed out in the attic with her arm in "pulped organic matter" which could be the wasps' nest, though no one in the area reported seeing wasps.
Later that night, the flat burned to the ground with the landlord, Arthur Nolan, inside. The cause of the fire was recorded to be Nolan falling asleep with a lit cigarette, as his remains were found seated in a chair with no evidence of distress on his part. Jane was taken the the ER at Whittington Hospital, already with signs of being infested. Six staff were killed when worms were suddenly expelled from her body and burrowed through their soft tissue into their brains. Jane ended up calmly walking out of the hospital, scaring a nurse who tried running but fell and broke his neck on stairs. The Institute was consulted on the incident but was dropped after her condition was determied to be solely medical in nature. Jonathan states that it's possible that there's nothing supernatural about Jane Prentiss and it's just an unknown type of parasite, but he knows within himself that's not the case.

- And I Must Scream: Jane Prentiss becomes host of a sentient colony of demonic worms slowly enough to record her experience in the Magnus Archive.
- Arc Words: Jane repeatedly says "There is a wasp nest in my attic" and "I itch" throughout her deposition, sometimes the placement is not quite fitting, bordering on Madness Mantra.
- Foreshadowing: Jon's reluctance to start reading, and his reaction after he's done, shows that there's something more to recording statements than simple transcription.
- Heroic BSoD: Jon suffers one when recording his comments at the end of Jane Prentiss's statement. By this time Prentiss has already put two of his assistants through traumatic danger and appears to be indirectly and slowly attacking the Institute, so his distress is hardly surprising.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Jane has always wanted this. Part of the way the worms take her over is by telling her every single component of it loves her. How much she likes this goes back and forth over the course of her statement.
- Mad Oracle: This appears to have been a side effect of the infestation of Jane Prentiss. Jane's statement is a mad, rambling, stream-of-consciousness rant that includes premonitions about the future of Gertrude and the Institute.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Invoked. The Flesh Hive hates the Archives because the job of the Archives is to learn about and understand things—and if people understand the Flesh Hive, they won't be as scared of it.
- Not So Stoic: Jon's voice is shaky while reporting he's reading a statement of Jane Prentiss herself; he makes it through actually reading the statement with his usual decorum, but in the post-statement follow-up, he loses his nerve once again.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jon is hesitant when reading the intro and needs a minute to compose himself after reading the statement, making clear the status of Jane Prentis as The Dreaded.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: There is a wasp's hive in Jane's attic. Or at least, something like a wasp's hive.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Jon's tone when beginning the statement makes it clear he is not looking forward to it. Justified as he knows how dangerous Jane is, and is very, very scared of what he's going to learn.
- Villain Episode: We hear first hand from resident Big Bad Jane Prentiss, on what life being slowly taken over by a horde of flesh eating demonic worms is like. Even Jon Sims is extremely disturbed.
- Word-Salad Horror: The Victim of the Week has very obviously lost much of her mind at the time of the statement.
- The Worm That Walks: The Flesh Hive.

33: Boatswain's Call

Case #0110201. Statement of Carlita Sloane, regarding her work on a container ship travelling from Southampton to Porto do Itaqui. Original statement given 9th December 2010.

## Pre-Statement

Tim asks Jonathan to rerecord some cases due to errors, but he refuses and mentions that audio recordings are only done for cases "too stubborn to work on anything else".

## Story

Carlita loses her job working on a ship whose crew was dissolved, leaving her stuck in Porto do Itaqui, Brazil, until she can temporarily join the crew of a ship headed to England, which she finds to be difficult as she doesn't speak Spanish. She eventually finds such a ship, the Tundra. She meets the captain, Peter Lukas, who tells her that his ship has one open position and that they are leaving at dawn the next day.
Carlita goes to the Tundra in the morning and meets the ship's first mate, Tadeas Dahl, who wears a brass boatswain's call. He gives Carlita the vacant position, that of an ordinary seaman, and they set sail. After spending time on the ship, Carlita begins to notice the rest of the crew's strange behavior. They avoid each other as much as possible, almost never speaking or making eye contact, with the exception of Tadeas, who always gave directions to the crew. Carlita notices that Tadeas never uses his boatswain's call.
Carlita also notices that she never sees Captain Lukas on the ship, though she knows he's there since she sees his meals being delivered. Carlita mentions one of the crew members, a Scottish man named Sean Kelly, who seems friendlier but more on edge than the others.
Carlita later discovers that, underneath the bright paint, all of the shipping containers are rusted in place, which confuses her as the cargo was supposed to be changed at the port. She makes a plan to break into one of the containers to see what's inside. Choosing one whose padlock is weakened the most by rust, Carlita kicks it off in the middle of the night under the cover of high winds. Entering the container, Carlita is surprised to find it totally empty, with no indication that anything had been stored inside. Carlita checks two more containers and finds them empty as well. Wondering why the ship would be transporting empty containers without ever unloading them, Carlita sees crew members emerge from the ship.
Thinking she could be in trouble, Carlita tries to act inconspicuously but Tadeas just asks her to come with them. She obeys and follows as they gather up the rest of the crew before going to the lifeboat where Captain Lukas is waiting. Carlita notices that it's an old-fashioned rowboat with a winch system to lower it rather than the modern inflatable life rafts. The crew boards the boat, Carlita with them, and they quietly row away from the Tundra. Carlita looks over the crew and realizes that Sean isn't with them. Tadeas blows the boatswain's call, producing a high whistling that also sounds distant somehow. Before Carlita realizes it, the lifeboat is wrapped in fog despite not being in the right ocean climate for it.
Eventually the fog clears and Tadeas blows the call one last time. The crew rows the lifeboat back to the Tundra and get back aboard, stowing the lifeboat as it was before. Carlita doesn't see Sean again. After this event, the crew begins to socialize and engage in conversation once more, though they all seem unhappy whenever Carlita brings up Sean. Eventually the third mate, Kim Duong, tells her to stop talking about Sean because "it hadn't been an easy choice". Soon they reach Southampton and Carlita leaves the ship. A couple of days later she gets her paycheck, amounting to £25,000, which she thinks is fantastic, but decides not to return to the Tundra.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan finds that the Tundra is still active under Solus Shipping PLC, owned by Nathaniel Lukas. Due to the Lukas' family's connection to the case, Jonathan can't do any investigation into the case where they are concerned despite the similarities to case 0161301 (13: Alone). Jonathan still mentions that the crew of the Tundra has been unchanging for the last ten years and there are no records of it loading or unloading cargo anywhere in the UK. As for Sean Kelly, he had disappeared in October 2010 from Felixstowe and was found dead and washed up on the coast of Morocco in April 2011, though evidence showed he had been in the water for only five days.

- Bald Head of Toughness: Exploited and invoked by Carlita, who shaved her head in order to fit in better on the ship due to the generally sexist attitudes regarding women working on ships.
- Good Old Ways: Inverted by the ship Tundra - the mate's eponymous whistle and the old-fashioned wooden lifeboat with oars belie (or perhaps portend) the evil that is aboard.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: The crew of the ship strenuously avoid talking to each other, until after one of them disappears, seemingly having been chosen to be thrown overboard.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The recording begins with Tim discussing various continuity errors in prior statements supposedly reported by students listening to the statements.
- Meaningful Name: The name of the Tundra's owner company, Solus Shipping, means "alone" in Latin; the company is owned by the Lukas family, who previously appeared in the episode titled "Alone".
- Nothing Is Scarier: Carlita wonders with dread what she will find inside the container she examines on the ship. It turns out to be completely empty. This does not reassure her.

34: Anatomy Class

Case #0161207. Statement of Dr. Lionel Elliott, regarding a series of events that took place during his class Introduction to Human Anatomy and Physiology, at Kings College, London. Statement recorded direct from subject, 12th July 2016.

## Story

Lionel is pulled in last second to help teach tutorials in an Introduction to Human Anatomy and Physiology class at King's College after a system error allows too many students to enroll. During his first time meeting his seven students, he notices that they are similarly dressed in white shirts and blue jeans, and are extremely quiet. During the class, they ask questions that Lionel finds to be relatively basic for university students.
After a discussion about the respiratory system, Lionel realizes that he can hear the students' breathing. This makes Lionel uncomfortable and he is relieved when the class ends. The next time Lionel is scheduled to teach, he calls in sick due to a migraine, though it is as much his dread for teaching the students again.
When he eventually has to go in to teach again, Lionel is further disconcerted by the students sitting in all the same places as before and their synchronized "good morning"s. Lionel also notices that despite the students' apparent diversity, they don't have differing accents. Lionel tries and fails to get someone else to teach the class but eventually becomes used to the students' odd questions and general creepiness, until the time comes for the class to begin using the dissection lab. As nervous as he is, Lionel refuses to leave the students alone with human remains.
In the lab, Lionel sees that the students seem more enthusiastic, though their eyes are still as blank as ever. Lionel begins to hear the cracking of bones breaking from any table he turns his back to, but whenever he looks back the bones on the table are still intact. Lionel figures out a way to view a table through a reflection so he can see what's going on, and sees one of the students there hold a radius bone up to his own arm, at which point Lionel thinks he sees the students arm shift and rearrange internally to match the bone.
This sight causes Lionel to collapse, which the students don't react to, and when he squeezes his eyes closed in terror he hears the cracking sounds from all around him. When the class period ends, the students thank the prone Lionel for the lesson before leaving, and Lionel thinks the students have become taller than before. From then on Lionel tries to avoid teaching the class whenever he can, and in class Lionel does nothing but answer any questions that the students ask. Lionel hears from a colleague that on the days he's not there, the students still attend the class and sit silently in the classroom.
On March 21st, Lionel makes himself join the students in their second dissection lab class since he now knows that they're going to be in the lab either way and he doesn't want to risk losing his job for leaving students unsupervised in the lab. When Lionel arrives, he finds that the students have already got their human hearts ready for dissection. Lionel is surprised when the class goes far more normally than usual, but he doesn't try to see if the students do anything strange with the hearts.
One of the students then holds up her heart and asks how it pumps blood, and when Lionel starts to answer she clarifies that she wants to know what it looks like and asks "Is it like this?" at which point the heart in her hand begins throbbing and spraying blood. Other students begin to hold up their hearts which begin beating in different ways. Lionel eventually points at the student whose heart's movements most resemble a normal heartbeat, before he leaves the lab and hides in the staffroom, waiting to hear people panicking about the blood-covered lab. After several hours of hearing nothing, Lionel goes back to the lab to find it empty and spotless, though he knows what he saw was real because his shoes have blood splatter. He even has a fellow doctor look at his shoes to verify that the spots really are there.
Lionel skips the next few classes without excusing himself but soon finds himself compelled to find out where the students live. From the school records he finds that all seven students live together, and when he goes to the house it looks abandoned. Lionel knocks on the front door and one of the students answers right away and asks if Lionel's there to give them more lessons and specifically expresses a desire to learn more about the liver, staring deeply at Lionel's stomach where his liver would be. A muffled scream comes from inside the house but the student takes no notice, frightening Lionel into running away and calling the police, who tell him that the house in question is vacant. Lionel refuses to see the class again, but when he goes into the classroom after the last day of school he finds an apple with a handwritten note thanking him "for teaching us the insides". Lionel burns the note and cuts open the apple to find a set of human teeth arranged in a smile, which he brings to the Institute though they decline to keep it.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan thinks that this story could be an elaborate joke since it's from an educated individual, since many such people look down on the Institute to the point of making a mockery of them with false stories. Additionally, the names of the students are all generic placeholder names from various languages (John Doe, Juan Pérez, etc.). Tim contacts King's College's administration office and finds that while there aren't records of the students, the admissions officer remembers them. As for the teeth in the apple, there's no evidence of supernatural activity related to them, however analysis showed that they came from multiple healthy adults. Sasha also finds that Dr. Rashid Sadana, a teacher of Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology for Complementary Therapies at St. Mary's University committed suicide a year prior to the story's events, with his suicide note only reading "Not to be used for teaching".

- Beat Still, My Heart: The unusual anatomy students attempt to figure out how a human heart is supposed to beat while in the dissection lab. It gets bloody.
- Bloody Horror: The student's attempts to mimic a heart beating ends up coating the room in blood. Creepily, when the professor returns after composing himself, the blood is gone, except for a tiny amount in one of the tiles.
- Creepy University Students
- Driven to Suicide: One professor who may have previously been stuck with these particular students ended up killing himself. He left a note that says his body may not be used for science, and especially not for teaching.
- Mr. Smith: The students' names are all placeholder names for missing persons in various countries, ex. John Doe. While the subject didn't pick up on this at the time, Jon notices it in his post-statement follow up.
- The Nondescript: The students all look so normal that Dr. Elliott, despite having taught them for most of a term, can't remember what they looked like. And they all wear similar clothes: blue jeans or denim skirt and a white shirt. It is hinted that this is a deliberate effort on their part to seem like normal people, or, rather, like people at all.
- Somebody Named "Nobody": Each of the students has the Unidentifiable Person placeholder name for the culture they're supposed to have come from: Erika Mustermann, Jan Novak, Piotr and Pavel Petrov, John Doe, Fulan al-Fulani and Juan Pérez. Jon is a little disappointed that Dr. Elliott did not pick up on this.
- Transformation Horror: When Dr. Elliott shows the students skeletons, he keeps hearing awful cracking noises when he turns his back, but the skeletons are all intact when he looks. Finally he gets a glance at the right (or wrong) moment, and realizes the cracking noises are the students changing the shape of their bones to match.
- The Un-Smile: When Dr. Elliott visits the students at their residence, the one who greets him twists her mouth into something that might have meant to be a smile.

35: Old Passages

Case #0020406. Statement of Harold Silvana, regarding discoveries made during the renovation of the Reform Club, Pall Mall. Original statement given 4th June 2002.

## Story

Harold and his team do renovation work on important buildings. He often finds things of archeological significance on jobs. Harold's team is hired to do work on the basement and ground floor of the Reform Club in Pall Mall, which needs to happen late at night when there's not many people around. One night, Harold and team member Rachel are waiting for another team member, Alf, to get back from a coffee run since they need his expertise in plumbing.
Harold and Rachel notice that a goth teenager has gotten into the worksite. Thinking he could be a club member's kid who wandered in, Harold tells him that the worksite is off-limits and asks if he's lost. The kid asks Harold if they'd found any of "Leitner's pages", which surprises Harold since he and Rachel had just been talking about a time that Jurgen Leitner had a consultation with them in 1987 in the building just next door to the Reform Club. Leitner had asked them to dig a hole under his office but got angry and threw them out when they said they would need to get permission from the building's owner first. Harold asks the kid if he was listening in to his and Rachel's conversation but the kid again asks if they've found anything. Rachel asks what he thinks they could have found, and the kid responds by asking them if they can "smell it". Harold realizes that he can smell damp stone and musty paper.
The kid grabs a hammer and strikes a wall with greater strength than it looks like he has, and there is a scream from an unknown source. Harold takes away the hammer and tries to subdue the kid before Rachel examines the hole in the wall and sees that there's a room on the other side. Alf returns and Harold and Rachel explain what's just happened, and they also get the kid's name: Gerard, who tells them that his mother knows all about "this stuff". Alf decides to knock down the rest of the wall and see inside the room. They all enter the passage, which Rachel estimates to have been built in the mid-19th century. Harold realizes that they are in the space that Jurgen Leitner had wanted them to dig into. They eventually reach a round chamber with thirteen more passages splitting off from it.
In the center of the room is a datestone: Robert Smirke, 1835. Balance and fear". Harold remembers that Smirke was a famous architect, and had built a building on that site which was destroyed during the Blitz. Gerard suddenly runs off down one of the passages and Alf goes after him. Harold decides to follow while Rachel goes back out for help. Harold notices that the tunnel is damp and slimy, and he eventualy slips and falls. As he pushes himself up he sees that doing so leaves a faint red residue on his hand. Harold hears Alf scream in terror and continues on just before Gerard comes running back, holding a book and knocking Harold down again as he passes. Harold thinks he hears something fall in Gerard's wake and as he gets up again he feels something small and smooth, which turns out to be a small animal bone of which there are a few on the ground.
Harold gets to the end of the passage where he enters a small room with ancient bookshelves with only a few rotting pages, one with a mummified hand on it. Harold then sees Alf lying dead on the floor, uninjured but with a look of terror on his face, more tiny bones on his body and around the bookshelves. Harold's memory becomes unclear and he gets lost in the passages before making it back out, remembering seeing a cobweb-covered stack of papers, a menacing figure, and a feeling of heat and choking on smoke on the way.
Harold meets the police, who were called by Rachel, and after taking his statement they go to retrieve Alf's body but are clearly disturbed when they return. Gerard isn't seen again and the staff of the Reform Club order Harold's team to rebuild the wall hiding the passages and finish their original work.

## Post-Statement

Sasha tries to contact many of the people in the story, including Harold, but they all deny the events. Alf's death was ruled a heart attack. Jonathan thinks that Gerard is probably Gerard Keay but he remains impossible to contact. Jonathan would disregard the story if not for details correlating with other statements as well as having found records that Jurgen Leitner did indeed occupy the office when the story said he did, and since some of his books were in that underground chamber there's a good chance he knew about it before renting the office. As for the supposed architect of the passages, Robert Smirke, Tim reports that Smirke's buildings tend to have more reports of the supernatural than others, and after his retirement Smirke would associate with many strange cults and would volunteer to help design church buildings, though he never got the chance to. Since the Institute was denined permission to investigate the locations in the stories, nothing more can be done. As Jonathan tries to conclude the recording, silver worms appear and he runs off to find an extinguisher. Martin is then heard accepting a package for Jonathan from two delivery men.

- Innocuously Important Episode: This episode, a seemingly standard statement with no indication that it's any different from other statements that came before it, contains the first hints of vital plot details; the number of and connection between the Dread Powers, that Jurgen Leitner's books may not have been his creations, and Robert Smirke's involvement with the Powers. It also marks the first onscreen appearance of Breekon and Hope and the introduction of the spiderweb lighter that appears throughout the series.
- Smoky Gentlemen's Club: The use of one by an occult society, and later renovation, are the subject of the episode.
- Teens Are Monsters: Downplayed, but Gerard Keay appears in this episode as a goth teen who sneaks around where he's not supposed to, annoys a construction crew, and leads them into mysterious passageways that lead to the death of one of the workers, all for a book.
- Tunnel Network: In this episode, builders accidentally discover an extensive, ancient tunnel network full of mysterious horrors while rennovating the basement of a historic building.

36: Taken Ill

Case #0121911. Statement of Nicole Baxter, regarding visits culminating in the fire that consumed Ivy Meadows Care Home in Woodley, Greater Manchester. Original statement given November 19th, 2012.

## Story

Nicole is a mortician, and although she's usually not intimidated by corpses, she is unnerved by their decay. One day, Nicole gets a call from Alenka Kozel, a nurse at Ivy Meadows nursing home which Nicole's funeral home (also run by Nicole's uncle, George, and cousin, Josh) often picks up bodies from and specifically cares for those supported by the state. Alenka tells Nicole that a resident named Bertrand Miller has "taken ill" and died but the call cuts off as she starts to give details.
Not thinking much of it, Nicole takes Josh to go collect the body. Upon arrival Nicole notices that Ivy Meadows is a lot quieter and dirtier than before, and smells more "rancid". A man meets them at the receptionist desk and Josh asks to speak with Hannah Ramirez, the director of Ivy Meadows. The man introduces himself as John Amherst and explains that Hannah left and he is the new director. He appears to not notice a fly landing on his face and crawling over his eye. Amherst asks why they came, briefly confusing Nicole before she tells him that they were called to come pick up the body of Bertrand Miller.
Amherst demands to know who called, but Nicole lies and says she never heard the person's name. Amherst takes them to Miller's room and tells them that he wants the body cremated as soon as possible and for the ashes returned to Ivy Meadows in a brass urn for a "private remembrance service". Upon entering the room Nicole almost runs when she sees and smells the body. She can tell he hasn't been dead for long but his body is covered in a wet yellow rash. Amherst assures them that the disease isn't contagious but they still take care to not touch the body.
As they carry it out, Nicole notices that her gloved left hand is touching part of the rash. Nicole panics internally, but stays calm until they get back to the funeral home, where she throws out her gloves and scrubs her hand until it bleeds. Nicole and Josh explain to George what happened when he sees the state of the body, and after making some calls he cremates the body before the end of the day and disposes of the ashes.Over the next few weeks, Nicole often feels the same nasty feeling in her left hand that makes her hurry to scrub it away.
Two weeks after taking care of Miller's body, Nicole takes another call from Ivy Meadows and hears Alenka again, who seems to say "We've taken ill. We've passed away." on a loop. Even though she's off duty, Nicole decides to go to Ivy Meadows alone. When she arrives it's even dirtier, the plants around it are dying, and it has a strong smell. Nicole notices that the only vehicle in the parking lot is a white van. The smell is too overpowering for Nicole to enter the building, and she thinks about leaving before hearing a knocking sound.
Walking around the building, Nicole comes to a large window at the back of the building where she can see the inner walls are stained black and Alenka knocking weakly on the window, covered with the same wet yellow rash that was on Miller's corpse. Alenka sees Nicole and screams, a cloud of flies pouring from her mouth. Horrified, Nicole starts to run back to her car but is stopped by an old man with a long white beard, who tells her to keep quiet before a young woman with a scarred eye tells him to let her go. Nicole thinks she recognizes the man, but the two people make her leave. As Nicole drives away, she sees the nursing home start smoking.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan finds that Ivy Meadows had closed down a month before Nicole's story took place and burned down on September 4th, 2011 due to leaking gas, which Jonathan thinks could explain Nicole's experiences as hallucinations. There's no records of Bertand Miller's body being processed by any funeral home, though his death certificate states that he died a week before Ivy Meadows closed. Sasha finds that the last official count of residents at Ivy Meadows was twenty-nine, but there were only records for seven of them being transfered away when it closed. There's no record of Alenka Kozel working at Ivy Meadows, although it seemed to have some immigrant employees that went undocumented.
Out of all the staff, only Hannah Ramirez could be reached, though she didn't know much as she had moved away shortly before Ivy Meadows closed and never heard from it again. There's no evidence that John Amherst existed. The Baxters were reached and, apart from George, they stood by the events in the story, but didn't have anything new to add except that Nicole lost her left hand in a "workplace accident". Nicole's descriptions of fears remind Jonathan of case 0142302 (#32: Hive), and he would think the man at the end of the story would be Trevor Herbert (#10: Vampire Hunter) if he wasn't dead.
Tim comes to talk to Jonathan on behalf of Elias about the delivery, and they find it contained a zippo lighter with a spiderweb design and a strange table with a square hole. Jonathan goes to see Martin about who sent the delivery.

- Bleak Abyss Retirement Home: Averted initially, but once John Amherst takes over, Ivy Meadows Care Home becomes filthy and run down.
- Conveniently an Orphan: This operates in reverse for most of the residents of Ivy Meadows. The state paid for them to stay in the care home since they had no family, friends or funds to support them in their old age — which means there were no relatives to get suspicious when things started to go wrong, or to question what happened to the twenty-two people for whom there are no transfer records and who apparently 'got lost in the system'. The same goes for many of the care home's employees, as they were undocumented immigrant workers and thus unlikely to be missed.
- Definitely Just a Cold: Nicole reports feeling a tingling in her hand periodically after transporting a diseased body and repeatedly scrubbing whenever it resurfaces. Said hand has later been amputated in what she terms a "workplace-related accident", implying that the disease continued plaguing her until she took drastic measures.
- Flies Equals Evil: Nicole's partner Josh is unnerved when a fly lands on John Amherst's face and crawls over his eye, and he doesn't react. In a subsequent visit, Nicole encounters Alenka, a nurse at Ivy Meadows. She's covered in a rash, and when she screams, a swarm of flies come out of her mouth.
- Kill It with Fire: The statement ends with Ivy Meadows being burned to the ground to destroy the disease within.
- The Plague: The subject of the episode, though its exact nature is unknown. A disgusting, yellowish plaque covers people up and spreads from person to person, killing them quickly.

37: Burnt Offering

Case #0090608. Statement of Jason North, regarding the discovery of an alleged ritual site found near Loch Glass in Scotland. Original statement given August 6th, 2009.

## Pre-Statement

Martin confirms to Jonathan that the delivery men seemed normal but thinks they should destroy the table, but Jonathan opts to study it.

## Story

Jason is an ecologist who searches forests to find where wild animals have settled for the Forestry Commission. Jason often finds strange things that people leave behind, and even found a corpse once. One day, Jason finds a natural-looking clearing and starts sweating as he gets close despite it being winter and he develops a bad taste in his throat. In the center of a clearing is a carved stone that could be an altar.
Even though he has all the information he needs to document it, Jason is curious and enters the clearing. He immediately regrets it and feels hotter. He tries to drink his water to wash away the foul taste but his water has come to a boil and he burns his mouth. He collapses from the pain for thirty minutes before investigating more.
He sees scorch marks on the ground around the altar but no other evidence of a fire. Near the edge of the clearing, Jason finds dead animals with their fur or feathers burned off and their skins red as if scalded. Jason then sees that each tree on the edge of the clearing has an old milk bottle hanging from a nail, containing assortments of twigs and dirt. Some have water in them which bubbles gently. Inside each bottle is a photograph of a late-aged woman and a lock of gray hair, which Jason thinks came from the woman. Jason takes pictures, and to get a better shot he takes down one of the bottles but he drops it and it breaks. Jason takes the photograph of the woman and runs, deciding that he "[couldn't] get any more cursed" and wanted to prove what he saw was real.
Afterwards, everything Jason cares about burns. That same day, his car overheats and catches fire, and later in the week his house burns down due to electrical failure. His wife, Lucy, dies in a way Jason doesn't want to think about again. Jason decides to go to the Magnus Institute for help before his son dies too, and ends his statement by saying that he did nothing to deserve this.

## Post-Statement

Jason's son, Ethan, did not die after his statement, but now lives with a foster family since Jason set himself on fire four days after his statement and died in the hospital three days later. No evidence of the clearing is found and there's no evidence of any supernatural events. When giving the statement, Jason left the photograph of the woman he had, which Jonathan confirms to be Gertrude Robinson, but he doesn't know what it could mean.

- Driven to Suicide: Jason eventually committed suicide by dousing himself in petrol and lit himself on fire. His son Ethan was placed in foster care.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: When Jason enters a mysterious clearing, he suddenly feels extremely hot. He tries to take a drink of water, only to find that it's boiling. He then notices scorch marks and the bodies of burned animals on the ground.
- Foreshadowing: Jason's angry accusations towards the staff of the Magnus Archives for not taking action just so they can watch Jason and his son succumb to their fate. At first this can be brushed off as misplaced anger, but later we learn more about the nature of the Beholding, and his accusations aren't far off the mark.
- Heroic BSoD: Both Jason and Jon have entered one: Jason was terrified of losing Ethan and didn't understand why he had gone through so much hell just for breaking a bottle, while Jon is starting to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unexplainable events he finds himself in the middle of.

38: Lost and Found

Case #0120606. Statement of Andre Ramao, regarding a series of misplaced objects lost over the course of three months. Original statement given June 6th 2012.

## Story

André is an antiques dealer who decides to purchase items from Mikaele Salesa to help keep his business alive, despite Salesa's shady history. While looking through Salesa's warehouse he finds a Chinese vase which entrances him with its intricate patterns. He buys the vase among other things and takes them home.
Some time later, André prepares to go to an auction and can't find his nice shoes. André's husband, David, tells him that he never had those shoes. Later, André receives an invoice from Salesa and finds that he wasn't charged for the vase. André contacts Salesa who denies ever having the vase. André's signed copy of Catch-22 disappears later, and again David claims it never existed which infuriates André.
Over the next few months, more and more of André's belongs disappear and David doesn't remember André ever having such items. When a tunic André bought from Salesa goes missing, he too denies that he sold it to André. André becomes suspicious of the vase after he tries to sell it and every potential buyer forgets their interest in it, even one who André had already shipped it to.
André starts intently staring at the vase overnight for a week until one night he falls asleep while doing so, then wakes up at 2AM. André then watches as all his lost items come out of the vase, and after every item is returned André sees fingers start to poke out. André runs outside and waits until morning where he discovers that both the vase and David are gone. André continues to lose items.

## Post-Statement

Tim finds André's marriage licence which is half blank and only has André's information on it. Jonathan mentions that Salesa's has a track record with the Institute for finding and distributing strange abnormal items, including many things in the Institute's artifact storage.
At this point, Jonathan is distracted by a spider and kills it, bringing down some shelves in the process. Sasha comes to see what happened and they find that there is space behind the wall where the shelves were, which was previously thought to be an outside wall. Wriggling sounds are heard and Jonathan tells Sasha to run.

- Artifact of Doom: After Andre acquires the vase, it starts messing with his life. Judging by the hand that emerges from it near the end of the statement, it's something like a Summoning Artifact as well.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: Late one night, Andre awakens to see everything that had gone missing over the last few months come tumbling out of the vase, one by one (even things that seemed to be too big to fit inside it.) These are followed by a hand with long fingers creeping above the brim of the vase.
- Cassandra Truth: Andre's husband David refuses to believe Andre when Andre tells him about the things that have gone missing, to the point where Andre begins to wonder if David is intentionally gaslighting him.
- Clingy MacGuffin: Although the vase is a valuable antique, Andre is unable to sell it. Something always happens to derail the sale before it can be completed. What's more, the person he bought it from forgets that he ever sold it, and he refuses to take it back, claiming that he can't remember ever having it to begin with. Even when the vase itself disappears Andre knows it's still around, because things are still going missing.
- Run or Die: Jon yells at Sasha to run at the episode when Jane Prentiss launches her attack on the Institute.
- Un-person: After his missing items return, Andre discovers that his husband has disappeared, and that according to his housing association, Andre had always lived alone. When Tim investigates, he finds a copy of Andre's marriage certificate, but the half of it that should contain David's information is blank.

39: Infestation

Case #0160729-A. Original recording of Jane Prentiss' attack upon the Magnus Institute, London, 29th July 2016.

Martin arrives in the office as Jonathan retrieves the tape recorder. The three of them flee to a saferoom where they need to extract a worm from Jonathan using a corkscrew. Jonathan explains to Sasha and Martin that he's recording because if he dies he doesn't want his replacement not knowing what happened to him, the way he doesn't know what happened to Gertrude. Jonathan refers to the statements recorded on tape as "real" since they have more weight to them than others.
Sasha leaves the room to warn Tim when she sees him coming, however they end up fighting and going different ways with Tim entering the office. Martin mentions that he hid fire extinguishers in old case file boxes so the worms wouldn't know they were there, leading Jonathan to insist that the worms are unclassified parasites that can't plan or think. Martin asks Jonathan why he's still so skeptical after everything, and Jonathan reveals that he believes everything he sees and in the "real" statements but acts the way he does because he feels like something will come for him if he admits his fears. Martin sees Prentiss enter the archive and vomit something into a box. Jonathan asks Martin why he still chooses to work at the Institute, to which Martin answers that it doesn't feel right to leave.
Elias tells Sasha that he's had the building's fire suppression system converted to use carbon dioxide instead of water, and Sasha decides to use the manual release on it even though it could harm Jonathan and Martin.
Tim breaks into the saferoom through a secret tunnel which Jonathan didn't know about, having used Martin's hidden fire extinguishers to save himself from the worms. The three of them retreat into the tunnels.
Sasha hides in the artifact storage, telling the recorder she has that Elias has gone to activate the fire system. Sasha finds the table dropped off by the delivery men and starts to become entranced by it before hearing someone coming. She calls out before screaming, then another female voice repeats Sasha's called out words: "Hello? I see you."
Jonathan and Tim reach a trapdoor in the tunnels, having lost track of Martin in a worm encounter. They meet Jane Prentiss on the other side.

- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Institute itself comes under attack.
- Apocalyptic Log: Rather than the usual format for this series, this is instead a haphazard jumble of recordings hastily made while dealing with The Infestation, primarily by Jon and Sasha. Sasha's tape disappeared in the aftermath of the incident.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Martin calls out Jon on the fact that after everything he's seen, he still insists on disregarding obviously supernatural phenomenon, and insisting on more rational explanations even if they don't make sense. Jon admits he's right, and that this is a coping mechanism for all the horror he's been exposed to.
- Badass Normal: Sasha.
- Grand Theft Me: Sasha is killed and replaced by whatever is in the fractal-patterned table from MAG 3.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Rather than the typical format of a single statement, with commentary from Jon, the entire episode is ambient audio of actions in real time as they happened.
- Humanoid Abomination: Whatever is left of Jane Prentiss is far from human.
- Precision F-Strike: After nearly 40 episodes of stoically documenting a terrifying range of paranormal occurences, our narrator finally curses when entering the archive, running head first into Jane Prentiss.
- Wham Episode: Oh boy! The Archive is invaded by a horde of flesh eating worms in the shape of Jane Prentiss, several case files were destroyed (hinted to contain critical information pertaining to the wider mystery arc), and Sasha is likely dead and replaced by something else.

40: Human Remains
Case #0160729-B. Statement of Elias Bouchard, Timothy Stoker, Sasha James and Martin Blackwood, regarding the infestation of the Magnus Institute by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss.

## Elias

Elias begins to evacuate the Institute as the fire alarm goes off when he runs into Sasha, who tells him that she set off the alarm and that Jonathan, Martin and Tim were trapped by Jane Prentiss, and Elias tells her to record the rest of their conversation, though the tape was lost according to Sasha. The two of them head downstairs to activate the carbon dioxide fire suppression system when they encounter a "tidal wave of filth" and separated.
Elias makes his way to the boiler room and activates the system, after which he hears a scream from Prentiss and all the worms dying. Elias calls the fire department and the ECDC before going to the archive where he finds Sasha with Jonathan and Tim, who were in the process of getting infested when the carbon dioxide killed the worms. An hour later, the emergency responders are preparing to dispose of Prentiss' remains when Martin comes running out of the tunnels saying that he found the corpse of Gertrude Robinson, prompting Elias to call the police.
Jonathan demands that Elias tell him what happened to her. Elias reveals that she had disappeared but her desk was covered in her blood, which the police at the time said was too much for a person to survive losing.

## Tim

Tim enters the archive and finds a dropped tape recorder. He hears Sasha yelling before turning and seeing Jane Prentiss. Sasha tackles Tim, crushing some worms in the process, and they run off before Prentiss can react. Tim sees a worm-covered bookshelf about to fall and sends Sasha on to get help, then tries to hide from Prentiss in the office where he finds the hole where she and the worms came from. Tim jumps away into a pile of boxes where he finds fire extinguishers which he uses to kill the worms coming at him. He takes some more extinguishers before heading into the tunnels through the hole.
Tim suspects that the worms were using the tunnels to build up their numbers so they could easily overwhelm the Institute but had to begin early when Jonathan accidentally broke the office wall. He eventually finds a thin wall he can hear Jonathan and Martin through and breaks in to get them out. Tim confirms that he never came across Gertrude's body, but he did find a room where worms were wrapping together in a doorway shape. Tim empties two extinguishers onto the worms, destroying them.

## Sasha

After fleeing to the artifact storage, Sasha waits until the fire suppression system activates at which point she leaves, seeing the worms shrivel and die and hearing Prentiss screaming. Sasha goes to the archive and extracts the dead worms from Jonathan and Tim's unconscious bodies. The emergency crews arrive and talk to Sasha for some time. Elias looks strangely at Sasha before Martin bursts out, having found Gertrude's corpse. Jonathan asks Sasha about the tape she lost, and she answers that the eject button must have gotten hit and the tape is probably somewhere in the Institute.

## Martin

Martin accidentally separates from Jonathan and Tim in the tunnels after encountering some worms. He wanders around for a long time, and finds some stairs that he doesn't dare go down. Eventually he hears a scream and what few worms he sees shrivel up, and Martin knows that Prentiss is dead. Martin tries to find a way out, eventually finding a door that he thinks is the right way. Inside, however, is a small room filled with cardboard boxes of cassette tapes, and the corpse of Gertrude Robinson in a chair. Martin runs away and is soon able to find the way out of the tunnels. Martin doesn't know if he could find the room again. Jonathan asks Martin how Gertrude died, and he answers that he saw three gunshot wounds in her chest.

## Post-Statements

Jonathan is disturbed that Gertrude Robinson died not by any supernatural means but by a human with a gun, meaning that someone in the Institute killed her. Jonathan thinks that Gertrude was murdered because she uncovered a mystery within the statements and the archives. Jonathan mentions that in addition to the tape Sasha lost, the recordings of cases 0051701 (24: Strange Music) and 0160204 (26: A Distortion) are missing. Jonathan doesn't think Prentiss is responsible since she was only destroying the written records. Jonathan can't trust anyone, but he vows to solve the mystery even if it kills him.

- Call-Back: Not!Sasha refers to Michael as "with the bones in his hands", the same wording the father of Ivo Lensik used to describe the being terrorizing him in MAG 8.
- Double-Meaning Title: Referring to the survival of Team Magnus after the events of the previous episode and the discovery of the remains of Gertrude Robinson in the catacombs under the archive.
- Foreshadowing: In Tim's segment, he mentions finding a room full of worms trying to form amassive, circular doorway, which reappears later with great significance.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jon is especially unnerved to learn that despite all the sinister supernatural forces he'd learned of in just the last year with all their terrifying, torturous ways to kill people, Gertrude Robinson was killed by an ordinary handgun.
- Tunnel Network: Parts of this episode take place in the vast network of dark, stone tunnels under the Magnus Institute, where Gertrude Robinson's body was found.
- Verbal Tic: When Jon talks to the... thing posing as Sasha, they begin every response with "Yes", even when the sentences become awkwardly structured:
  Jon:You used to work [in the artifact storage room], didn't you?
  Not!Sasha: Yes. For three months. It was dreadful, I used to think that it was the most dangerous place in the institute.
  Jon: Not anymore...
  Not!Sasha: Yes. Not anymore.

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