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unplacedpodcast · 6 years

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Chapter Eight: Vindication (Transcript)

Sorry for the delayed transcript again! I had houseguests visiting and boy howdy having friends over for six days straight while also constantly doing things is exhausting and will fry your brain!

Here’s the transcript! We will be returning for season two but I’m not sure when - I would like to think March or April but it’s very likely that that is my characteristic overambitiousness showing through. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on progress, and if you have any questions (whether about the story/world or any of our processes behind the scenes), feel free to send them in - Cole, Brendan, and I are gonna do a Q&A episode during the hiatus!

Anyways okay without further ado here we go, spoilers ahead:

(CW for self-harm [not suicidal/depressed self-harm, but intentionally cutting a hand] and homophobic slurs)

(audio dings on, narrator sounds tired but wired - think sleep deprived meets way too much espresso)

I think it’s showtime, y’all.

I’ve been up for almost a day straight…I hope I’m not forgetting anything. I just - I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid if I went to sleep…I don’t know what I was afraid of. That I would lose my nerve, or that I’d have more nightmares about that woman, about not being able to help her.

At any rate, as soon as I finished doing my research, I went out and got supplies. I had to go all over town…I tell you, it’s harder finding iron nails than you’d think. (wry chuckle) Apparently there’s some kind of a market for artisanal blacksmithery, though, so I did find some eventually.

After all the research, my supply list wasn’t that long. Two or three things, really. I think it’s more of a matter of…well, just hoping it’ll work, than anything else. If it doesn’t…I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away. But I also don’t think that I’ll wind up a suicidal husk like that other woman. I could be wrong - but I think if they wanted to do that to me, or could do that to me, that probably would have been their game plan from day one. When I sucker-punched that thing with my hematite-knuckles, I feel like that would have been it for me, if sucking me dry was an option. Granted, given the burns still covering my hand, I’m not sure what the alternative is - but at least it’ll probably be quicker than that.

If this is gonna be it for me, then it’s gonna be it, and I…I’m not really fine with that, but it’s better than continuing to exist like this, not knowing what’s going on, not knowing how long it will last, just…having to watch these things eat people from the inside out and being the only one that knows it’s happening. I can’t do that.

(sound of things rustling in background, metal clinking on glass)

Enough of that talk, though. Like I said, I’ve got my supplies, and I’m setting them up as we speak. I’m on the edge of a park, close to downtown…it’s not a huge park, by any means, but I needed a tree, and this was the best way to have one near a populated area. I need to be able to make it back here quickly once I find someone with a leech, after all.

The trap itself…not that hard to set. I did have to do a whole lot of googling on macrame art, which was not where I expected this journey to take me. Also, the blood was a little difficult. Getting more than a drop or two of blood without seriously injuring yourself is a lot harder than they make it look in the movies. Oh, if only I’d listened to my mom and gone to nursing school.

Anyways…I think that’s it. The trap is set. Obviously, I’m the bait. Now, it’s time to find the prey.

(sounds of movement and walking in background, her breathing pattern changes as she’s walking until otherwise noted)

It’s funny, the stuff that comes to you when you’re sleep deprived and possibly on a suicide mission. I remembered this story - I had completely forgotten it, until something reminded me of it earlier - from when I was young…probably like, eleven or twelve. In that awkward early-middle-school just-hitting puberty stage of life, that spot where you feel like you don’t really know what’s going on with you or with anyone else, but you have this sneaking suspicion that everyone else knows, and they’re never going to let you in on the secret…

There was this girl that was my friend. We weren’t close, but we hung out sometimes. She wasn’t super popular, but she wasn’t unpopular, either. Our lockers were right by each other, though, so we said hi on a pretty regular basis.

I had to make a pit stop at my locker between classes, and she was standing there, but something was off - there were three or four girls standing around her, blocking her in. I didn’t like the way they were looking at her — I knew that at least one of the girls wasn’t very nice. As I walked up, I heard the conversation - they were making fun of her for the holes in her jeans.

This girl - Leanne - her family didn’t have a ton of money, and these other girls had decided to remind her of that. I tried to ignore the conversation for a minute - I didn’t want to get into a whole thing, and I wasn’t super close with her, like I said. Also, I had books to get and a class to go to. But after a minute or two of “seriously, how old are those jeans?” and tittering, I couldn’t hold back any more.

“Weren’t you wearing jeans with huge holes in them the other day, Emily?,” I said, poking my face around my locker door.

She turned to look at me. “Yeah, but they were Hollister jeans, okay? That’s different from miss head to toe Goodwill over here.”

“So…it’s cool to spend tons of money on jeans that are already missing half their fabric, but not okay to spend $10 on the same pair of jeans?”

Emily scrunched her nose up, clearly not having thought this through. “Well, when was the last time you saw her wear anything other than store brand, then?,” she said, jerking her thumb at Leanne, who was standing with her back against the lockers, silent and staring at the floor.

“You know that when you buy something with a huge logo on the front, you’re paying the brand to advertise for them, right? That doesn’t make any sense to me. But as my mom always says, money can buy you everything except for common sense.”

I shrugged and turned back around to my locker to finish getting my books. Behind me, Emily, the mean ringleader, kind of stuttured. It was pretty obvious that she hadn’t been expecting a response at all. Trying to save face, she muttered “whatever” and turned around to stomp off, with her friends following her.

I was so proud - I got rid of a bully with logic! I didn’t have to fight, or even raise my voice. But when I looked at Leanne, the pride evaporated. Her face was bright red and she looked ragingly pissed off. She took a step towards me, getting uncomfortably close, and said, loud enough for everyone around me to hear, “Stay out of my business. I don’t need your help, you fucking dyke.”

I didn’t know what that word meant then, but I knew it was something bad and dirty from the way she said it. My face went hot and I got that pricking sensation in my eyes, the one you get when you can feel the tears coming, but you’re trying hard to fight them off. I barely made it to the bathroom before I burst into tears, and when I got to my next class, it was obvious I’d been crying. I got to hear about that later, of course, from the mean girl and her friends, along with some other choice insults - a little birdie must have told them what it was that made me run to the bathroom crying.

(narrator stops moving for a moment, breathing starts to return to normal)

I’m here, I think. No convenient stairs around this time, but I have a decent vantage spot from this bench…I’m not that far from the park, either. Now, I just have to wait however long it takes to find a person with a hitchhiker, and then…goad it into chasing me, I guess.

(brief pause)

I told the story to my mom later that day, after I got home from school. I just wanted to know why, you know? I was so upset, because all I wanted was to do and say the right thing. I wanted to help…and I thought that was what I had been doing. But maybe I didn’t know what doing the right thing meant, or maybe I did it wrong.

I told her all of this, and she hugged me, and she said, “Rashida, you didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes, the world is just a cruel place. And when it’s like that - when people are like that - the best thing we can do is try to help, and try to do what’s right, the best we know how. And that’s what you did. I’m proud of you.”

And then she kissed me on the head, and told me to go work on my homework, and I did.

I haven’t thought of that story in years. It’s funny - the stuff we do when we’re kids, before the world makes us forget who we can be.

I hope she’d be proud of me now.

(pause, deep breath in and slow exhale)

It’s probably…five in the morning now. Five thirty?

(sound of movement - she’s checking her phone)

Five thirty, exactly. The sun isn’t up yet…sunrise should be at 6:02. Can you imagine what people 200 years ago would say, if you told them that we’d be able to carry around tiny devices in our pockets that could tell us exactly what time the sun will rise and set?

The early morning commute crowd is starting to come out. My thinking was that someone here will have to be…yep. I see one. He’s across the road and half a block down.

(sound of movement)

Definitely showtime now. The only thing I need is… (sound of knife clicking) …more blood, because of course that’s what it takes. After all, why would we want to make it easy on me?

(sharp intake of breath, sound of movement)

I’m a few feet behind him now, with a bloody hand. I’ll tell you what’s going on as it happens - I set it up on my phone so that if I don’t edit and upload these files within a few days, they’ll be automatically uploaded and published anyways. Someone will know what happened, assuming people can even find and listen to this, and they’ll be better able to fight these guys in the future. So I gotta keep talking, keep telling you what’s going on, for the good of science and humanity, or something.

I’m right behind him. I’m going to see if I can flick some blood at the - yeah, that got its attention. It’s rearing up…I have to make it follow me.

(talking like you’d talk to a cat or wild animal) C’mere c’mere c’mere, you awful…

(starts running, you can hear the sound of movement/her breathing) Okay, that worked. It’s in pursuit - it’s following the blood I’m dripping on the sidewalk - I just have to make it back to the park - damn these suckers can move!

(sound of panting and running for a second or two, running sound changes from pavement to dirt, she trips and hits the ground)

Fuck, come on, get up, you can do this

(noises of her getting up and running/fast footsteps again)

Whew. I beat it to the tree, just barely. Now, for more blood, have to trick it… (sound of her fumbling with something, glass and metal clinking together again, then moving and brushing up against the tree)

(whispering) Okay, it followed me - it’s fifteen or twenty feet away. I was worried it would lose interest and go back to the host, but I guess fresh blood…these things must track by smell. I don’t think it can hear me, at any rate. I’m hiding behind the tree, and I set the trap.

I did all that reading on spirit bindings, right? You fill a blue bottle with something to throw it off your scent - hair and blood - and iron nails, I think to damage it.

I don’t know if it will work, it’s still following the blood trail - it’s moving a little slower, maybe because the blood isn’t as fresh. (whispering drops even lower) It’s checking out the bottle. It’s - yes, it’s going inside!

(muffled sound of movement, metal clanging on the ground, hissing in background)

(still whispering, but not as quietly) I think - it’s hard to tell, I think that did it? It went into the bottle - it started to come back out but I think it’s really trapped now.

After doing all that reading, I remembered I’d seen some really cheesy home decor made with iron horseshoes, which apparently has magical origins…when I was looking for the other supplies I hit up every tchotchke shop in town until I found one. I just dropped a circle of iron horseshoes on it - it was starting to climb out of the bottle but I think that extra iron did it in. It drove it back inside the bottle and…

(sound of movement again, sound of glass hitting metal and rattling noises)

THAT BITCH IS CORKED! Take that, you slimy asshole!

Okay, it’s still fighting, but I think it’s in there for good. Now for the bad macrame - a bottle holder made with twine, without any knots in it. That might not have been necessary, but seemed like a good extra step. Better safe than sorry, right?

And now, we hang it on the tree and wait for sunrise. It shouldn’t be long.

That wasn’t…I don’t want to say that wasn’t so bad…but once I knew how to do it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Except that I didn’t know for sure whether it would work and thought I might wind up being evil-leech food.

I’m definitely a little worse for the wear. My hand that was finally healing from the burns has cuts all over it for this stupid blood sacrifice decoy, I bang up my other hand pretty good in that fall, and I’ve got some bruises…but…I’m alive. I didn’t - I honestly didn’t know if I’d get to see this sunrise.

Speaking of, here it comes. The sun is coming up, I can see it peeking over the horizon. It’s hitting the bottle…

(sound in background of rattling/glass on metal, animal shrieking/hissing noise that gets incredibly loud and then dies off after a few seconds)

Well, that definitely worked. The bottle… (sound of movement as she moves closer to the bottle and takes it off the tree) it’s empty now. Completely empty. No blood, no iron, no hair, no monster…in fact, it looks good as new.

I’ll be taking this with me…my lucky spirit trap. And now…now, aside from killing as many of these things as I can, I’m going to get some answers. I’m going to find her - the one who could see me. I’ll let you know how that goes.

(sound of audio clicking off)

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