Episode 59: The Katie Clark Experience

The team heads to Crimson Valley Orchards to catch the last Katie Clark concert of the season. Is this the beginning of the end? What happens if the Virulent Muse plays the Final Note? And who else is waiting for us at the apple orchard? Plus, Megan and Mark experience a calling.

Content Warning:  demonic forces, strange music/noises, physical manifestations, physical decay/body horror, strange visions, black magic, evil entities, witchcraft

Host: Chris Estes
Writer: Chris Estes
Senior Investigator: Lucas Knight
Senior Investigator: Tom Wilson
Special Investigator: Megan Meadows
Special Guest: Mark Mercier
Special Guest: Katie Clark
Sound Design: Chris Estes
Producer: Megan Meadows

Transcript

Malevolent Maine

Episode 59: The Katie Clark Experience

Malevolent Maine is a horror podcast, and may contain material not suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

INTRO: 

LUCAS: The stunning finale to our investigation of the King Beyond the Desert is all that’s left this season. And it’s coming in just two weeks. 

Hi everyone. It’s Lucas. What an incredible season it’s been, and we’re not done yet. Don’t forget to follow us on social media for news and updates. Rate and review our show where you listen to help spread the word. And if you’re able and willing, consider joining our Malevolent Mob on Patreon. We’ve got a bunch of Malevolent Morsels - our deleted and extended scenes, plus our side stories, like the recently completed Witch’s Mark and my own Cardinal Sins. Head on over to patreon.com/malevolentmaine today.

The song, if you could call it that, comes at you from all directions. A series of electronic beeps, weird wailing sounds, and an undulating vocal track that doesn’t sound completely human. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and a deep jittery feeling forms in the pit of your stomach, like a spider is crawling over your insides. Suddenly the music changes to a faster pace and for a moment you have to bite back a scream. You look up and for a moment something seems to catch your eye, suspended there in the blue sky. A single line of jet black. It’s floating there, suspended perfectly in the air. And as the song continues you realize with a growing horror…its growing.

This is Malevolent Maine.

TITLE SEQUENCE

Listen carefully, MMers. Before we start the episode, we’d like to take a minute to highly encourage everyone to make sure they’re all caught up on the previous episodes. We’re going to talk a lot about our ongoing investigation into the King Beyond the Desert, Katie Clark, and more. If you’re not up to date yet, we highly suggest you go back and do so. We’ll do our best to summarize important information, but we’re going to run under the assumption that our listeners know what we’re talking about. So if you need a minute to listen to some back episodes, hit pause and get caught up. We’ll be here when you’re ready…hopefully.

Today’s story takes us all the way to the town of Hiram, specifically an apple orchard appropriately named Crimson Valley Orchards. 

The orchard is over 40 acres, and offers far more than just apples. They grow blueberries, peaches, and more. Visitors can buy apple cider, fresh apple donuts, and various clothing options. There are tractor rides and a playground for younger kids. During the summer and early autumn months they also have various musical performances. It’s a fun weekend excursion for families with something for everyone.

It also happens to be the latest place to host Katie Clark for a day of music.

By now, you know who Katie Clark is. We’ve been connected to her since she disappeared after our fifth episode. We believe she has become a thrall for the King Beyond the Desert, an ancient, evil being, set upon conquering our world if he can find a way back from the dimension he was exiled to. What’s more, we have come to suspect that Katie is turning into his final Hierophant, a sort of herald that announces his return. We think her time with the King had transformed her into something very dangerous, the one who unlocks the barrier and ushers in the return of the king.

We also believe that an ancient prophecy that chronicles the King’s return is about to come to pass, and any chance we have of stopping the coming destruction is rapidly spinning away.

We first learned that Katie was becoming interested in music when her mother sent us a strange email. Later, when Tom spoke with Katie one-on-one she confirmed her fascination and told him that she had become a musician. She even invited him to attend one of her shows before things took a turn for the worst.

We’ve been meaning to see one of her shows - mostly at outside, community events, places like Crimson Valley, town celebrations, even farmer’s markets. Not massive shows, but places with lots of foot traffic and new listeners. We’ve also had an incredibly busy summer, and as you also know, we only recently found Mark and brought him home safe. Or, at least safe for now.

So when we saw that Katie was playing her final performance of the season at Crimson Valley, we knew we needed to attend. 

Lucas, Tom, and I packed into a car and made the drive to Crimson Valley Orchards in the hopes of diffusing Katie’s plan somehow.

[in the car]

TOM: So…what’s the plan?

CHRIS: I don’t know. We’re not even sure she’s…

LUCAS: She’s the Virulent Muse. She has to be.

CHRIS: Right. But is it possible that she’s an unwitting participant in all of this? That she doesn’t know what’s really going on?

TOM: Like…like Mark.

CHRIS: Yeah. Like Mark.

LUCAS: If she’s found the right note or key or whatever, she can open the Black Door.

CHRIS: I know, I know. I just…we need to make sure.

LUCAS: You were the one who thought she was the Muse!

CHRIS: Yeah, I know, but…

TOM: But suspecting and knowing what to do about it are two very different things.

CHRIS: Right.

We pulled into the parking lot, a large gravel space, where a high school student directed us to an empty space. There weren’t many left. All around us we saw people smiling and laughing. They had bags full of fresh apples, coffees, bag lunches, all of the kinds of things you’d expect from people prepared to spend the next few hours at the orchard.

It wasn’t the kind of place we at Malevolent Maine are used to investigating, but as we walked towards the orchard proper we could hear the first faint notes of a guitar being strummed and the muffled sound of someone talking through a microphone.

Katie Clark was here. 

[first few notes of a song]

TOM: That’s her.

LUCAS: Where?

TOM: Over there. Under that pavilion. See? Just past that group with the matching hats?

CHRIS: That’s Katie? It doesn’t even look like her.

TOM: I told you she’s changed.

As you walk in from the parking lot, there’s a red building with big plywood apples on the side. It’s the check in area. Where you purchase bags or bushels before heading out to pick your own apples. There’s a map on the wall. It’s hand painted but highly detailed and it shows where each kind of apple or other fruit is grown. There’s also three of those cash registers that are tablets hooked up to a small card scanner and a bunch of teenagers working behind the counter. It’s also the place where you cash out again or add on any extras you forgot to pick on your own.

Just outside the building's exit, roped off from the parking lot, is the beginning or the orchard proper. There are some picnic tables, some under the cover of a pavilion, others on a concrete patio. Still others are set back a way on some crushed stone areas. There’s a second building, much smaller. This is a snack shack, where they sell the fresh donuts, as well as simple hamburgers, hotdogs, and soft drinks. There was also a table under one of those pop up canopies that was labeled as a beer tent, where guests could order some local craft brews.

Not far from that was a pick up area where an extended golf cart would take people out to the farther parts of the orchard if they didn’t want to walk. There was a playground, a big wooden thing with slides and climbing areas, and on the other side of that was a second pavilion. Beneath it, standing in front of a microphone, strumming a guitar was Katie Clark. 

[more instrumental folk guitar]

CHRIS: She looks…

LUCAS: Wrong.

Wrong may have been the only way to describe her. When we first met Katie, even when we interviewed her when she reappeared, she looked nothing like the…thing holding the acoustic guitar and humming into the mic.

Katie was short. Maybe five two or three. She had blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She looked just a few years removed from her college soccer days, and that maybe every now and then she still played pick up games at the local gym. When we first met her she was bright, almost bubbly. When she returned from wherever she had gone, she was more stoic, quiet, but she still looked the same.

The woman singing to a growing audience looked nothing like the woman we remembered.

For one thing, she was taller. This woman was closer to six feet tall and had lost any muscle tone she had once had. She was waif thin, nearly skeletal. You could see her cheekbones through the skin on her face and her collar bones protruded out of the neck of the black shirt she wore. 

Her blonde hair was gone, and in its place was a thick shock of spiky black hair. Where once she had favored simple braids or ponytails, it was now sticking up in different directions. Her blue eyes, once the color of summer sky, had now darkened to a deep navy that was almost black.

Her skin was waxy, pale, nearly translucent in the fall sunlight. You could see her veins just beneath her skin, but it was more than that. It felt like you could almost look beneath the surface of her skin and see whatever lay beneath.

[on location]

KATIE: Thanks everyone. My name is Katie Clark and I’d like to play a song for you that I wrote. It’s called, “Haunting Stars.” I hope you’ll like it.

[crowd cheers, music begins]

As she started to play, the small crowd gathered closer together. More people drifted in from the various other activities they had been doing. This wasn’t a concert, by any means. There weren’t people standing shoulder to shoulder, swept up in her performance, singing along and what not. But there were people interested. And as we listened to her song, we couldn’t help but make connections to the King Beyond the Desert.

[chorus of Haunting Stars]

LUCAS: It’s about him, isn’t it? The King?

CHRIS: It sounds like it. 

LUCAS: Convinced now?

CHRIS: Yeah, okay.

TOM: This doesn’t sound like the stuff she was playing for me at her house. This is…like a real song, or whatever. Not just notes or whatever.

LUCAS: It’s the opening act, then. She’s building towards something. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do.

TOM: Hey. Isn’t that…that’s Cole Harrington!

Cole Harrington was the young man we interviewed for Episode 46, about the Heart Beggar, the being we believe is one of the King Beyond the Desert’s Hierophants known as the Ravenous Supplicant.

[On Location]

CHRIS: He’s a long way from Ashland. That’s like 300 miles or something.

TOM: Maybe he’s a fan.

LUCAS: Maybe he’s a servant.

We had begun to suspect that the true role of the Hierophants, the high priests of the King Beyond the Desert, was to amass an army of followers for the King, so that upon his return he would have servants to help ensnare the world. 

We believe the people who have passed the Hierophants’ tests, so to speak, whether it be the Gray Fool’s dreams of the desert, the Portly Man’s twisted history lessons, or the Heart Beggar’s offering of the child’s heart, had been deemed “worthy” by the King, and were targeted to be his followers.

Cole Harrington’s presence here didn’t prove our theory, but it went a long way towards that. If the hunter who had willingly taken a bite of the offered heart had driven all the way down to an apple orchard in Hiram to listen to a relatively unknown singer, then there had to be some sort of connection, right? And that wasn’t the last of our surprises.

But before we continue, we need to head back to the Malevolent Maine offices, where we had left Megan behind to watch on Mark as he dealt with the Mother Witch’s infection inside of him.

MEGAN: While the guys went off to confront Katie, I stayed behind to babysit Mark. We’d been keeping him in the office, in a makeshift room we kept charged with white magic spells of protection and healing, as well as about a hundred charms, crystals, sigils, lucky rabbits feet, and whatever else we could think of to keep him safe. We… we locked him in this room, to make sure that if the Mother Witch took over… It sounds terrible - and I mean it is sorta - but we didn’t know what else to do.

While we were settling in at the orchard, Megan and Mark were talking through the door between his room and the office. She also just happened to be recording.

MEGAN: You doing okay?

MARK: Yeah. I guess. It’s funny. I can hear…her inside my head. Like this second voice. She’s just whispering now. But she wants out. She’s biding her time, I think.

MEGAN: Like Gollum.

MARK: What?

MEGAN: You know, Gollum, in Lord of the Rings?

MARK: Yeah, I know who Gollum is. I never - ow!

MEGAN: What? What is it? Is she coming?

MARK: No. No, I don’t think so. It’s just…I felt a burning pain on my chest. It’s the… Oh.

MEGAN: Mark? Mark what is it? What’s happening? Are you alright?

MARK: It’s the compass. It’s…getting warmer. And I think it’s starting to glow.

We’ll come back to Megan and Mark in a minute, but first we have to go back to the orchard and the scene that was playing there.

As Katie launched into another song. A sort of folksy, acoustic thing, the kind anyone with a guitar might sing in a coffee shop or at an open mic night, the crowd grew even larger.

It’s entirely possible that this was a coincidence. As the day went on more and more people were getting out, heading to the orchard, and starting their weekend plans. That makes perfect sense. And yet…the presence of Cole Harrington unnerved us. 

Something didn’t feel right about the whole thing. There was a strange electricity in the air, the threat of a powerful storm just over the horizon, ready to break at any moment.

We were on edge. Katie kept singing her veiled songs about the King Beyond the Desert, and now the crowd did appear to be captured up in her performance. People swayed to the music, and we saw at least one person mouthing the words to the songs we had never even heard of before now.

As we watched, out of the corner of our eye we saw Cole Harrington spit something onto the ground.

[on location]

TOM: That was a tooth! He just spit a tooth out.

LUCAS: Are you sure?

TOM: Look, you can see it right there!

CHRIS: He doesn’t look good either.

It was a tooth. A molar from the look of it. There didn’t seem to be any blood and Cole wasn’t the least bit bothered by his impromptu dental work.

The more we studied the hunter, the more we could see just how unhealthy he looked. His skin was too pale. Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes, giving him a slightly cadaverous look. He looked thin and his clothes hung off him. His fingers were dark, almost black with dirt or perhaps oil.

The crowd was over a hundred people now. People were stopping their apple picking to come and listen to Katie. They turned their faces to her and smiled as she sang her dark songs, her eyes closed as she leaned into the mic. Impossibly, it seemed we could almost see her eyes beneath her closed lids, moving hungrily back and forth, studying the growing crowd.

LUCAS: Look!

TOM: Where?

LUCAS: Right there. Right above the old truck. Do you see it?

TOM: I don’t…oh! Oh shit! That’s…that’s

Off to one side was an old farm truck. It looked like it was from the 1940s, and had been painted apple red. The truck didn’t run, but it made for a nice backdrop, a place for families to take pictures or for the Orchard to hang signs.

Floating just above the truck’s roof was the gray form of a man. 

He was tall, almost impossibly tall and thin. Like a stick figure given shape. It was still mostly translucent, barely visible there, shimmering in the air. The man wore pathwork clothes, mottled in different shades of gray. His head hung down an impossible angle, as if there were no bones to support it, and on his head he wore the multi-pointed hat of a jester.

The Gray Fool had arrived. 

LUCAS: “First comes Discord Weaver flitting through dreams.”

TOM: What’s he doing here? We’re not dreaming…are we?

CHRIS: It’s happening. The final tone is going to be played. The King-

At that exact moment, Katie Clark finished her song. She looked up from the microphone and her eyes landed on us. A slight smile played out on her lips for a brief second before retreating behind the thin dark lines that had once been her lips.

KATIE: Thank you. Thank you. He’s listening, you know? He hears us all. He’s waiting, but he’s listening. I’m going to take a short break, then I have something special for you.

[crowd noises, Katie walks through it]

KATIE: Hello boys. 

Katie looked unusual from a distance, but up close she was down right intimidating. She seemed to tower over us and her almost black eyes studied us the way someone might look at ants in one of those plastic ant farms. She was nearly unrecognizable, but her old features seemed to swim just beneath the surface of her skin. There was just enough of the old Katie there that we knew we were actually speaking to her and not someone else completely.

LUCAS: Katie. We -

KATIE: I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t know you had heard His call, but I thought you might.

CHRIS: What are you talking about?

KATIE: The King. He calls to his loyal followers and we gather. That’s why we’re here! Why we’re all here.

TOM: So the King is real? Because the last time we spoke you said he was more like a metaphor or -

KATIE [growing a little concerned]: You have heard his call, haven’t you, Thomas? That is why you’re here isn’t it?

LUCAS: Is this it? Are you going to unlock the Black Door?

KATIE: You…haven’t heard the call. Enemies of the King. Do not interfere or we will stop you. There is still time for you. Still time to acknowledge the King. But it is running out. Make the right choice.

And with that, Katie turned and strode back to the small stage where she had left her equipment. It was clear to us that Katie was completely in the thrall of the King Beyond the Desert. It also meant we might be in quite a bit of danger if we were surrounded by those loyal to the King.

Back at the office, things were beginning to heat up.

Mark, safely locked in his room, had just told Megan that the silver compass, the one we had sent to him with the help of Talbot’s magic, was beginning to glow.

MEGAN: Glow? What do you mean it’s glowing?

MARK: The compass. It’s… I think I need to go.

MEGAN: What?

MARK: I need to get out of here. We need to get out of here.

MEGAN: Mark, you know you can’t.

MARK: Megan, I have to! It’s calling to me. 

MEGAN: What is? The Mother Witch?

MARK: No. Not her. The Other. The… the … [aside] mustn’t say it yet. No, not yet … We have to go. The guys need us. I think…I think I know what to do.

MEGAN: This is insane. I can’t let you -

MARK: I think if you don’t…the whole world will end.

MEGAN: Are you sure? This… this isn’t some trick, right?

MARK: We have to go now. We have to go save them.

At this point, Mark grew quite agitated and began pounding on the door to his room, urging Megan to let him out. She checked our schedule of magical protections and saw that he should be at the height of his safety, that the Mother Witch should be at her weakest. She knew she shouldn’t, that it broke every protocol they had all agreed to, but in the end, she unlocked the door and let Mark out.

MARK: We have to go. We have to go right now. They need us. 

MEGAN: What? How?

MARK: There’s no time! Let’s go!

They jumped in Megan’s car and began the drive to Crimson Valley Orchard. Mark’s compass was clearly glowing now. Pulsing with a bright white light with just a hint of green to it, like an overcharged glow in the dark object.

All of this was happening while we were being confronted by Katie. Megan drove frantically along backroads, pushing her car to unsafe speeds. Whatever good luck we’ve built up over the years must have been working in our favor because they didn’t even see a police officer the entire drive, and her car managed to stay in one piece. 

The entire time Mark was mumbling to himself. Saying over and over again that it was almost time. That they might be too late. That he wasn’t sure he could hold it for long enough. Whatever assurance Megan had about letting Mark out began to evaporate on their panicked drive. One look at him and it was clear he wasn’t doing well. Sweat had broken out on his face and he was pale. His hands were shaking and that sunken, hollow look had returned to his eyes. As they raced towards us, both of them prayed it wouldn’t be too late. 

In the Orchard, it was almost noon. The sun was high and the day had warmed up considerably. Still, the three of us felt a cold chill as Katie took the stage again.

Katie had an electronic keyboard plugged into her sound system setup behind the stool where she sat with her guitar. She went behind it now and fiddled with a few knobs and switches. She looked up, directly at us, and began to play.

[strange electronic music begins]

TOM: What is this?

CHRIS: I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like music. 

LUCAS: It’s the King’s song. The final song. Look!

Around us the entire crowd seemed caught up in the strange tones that came from Katie’s keyboard. They stared, slightly slack-jawed, eyes vacant and dreaming. They all swayed together, in time. A quick look around revealed we were perhaps the only ones not caught up in Katie’s final song.

TOM: It’s true then. They really are all the King’s followers. Everyone of them.

CHRIS: Worse. Look!

Across the field, in the shadow of an apple tree, we could make out a woman. She was wearing a faded brown dress. Or perhaps it had once been another color and now faded to that stained color. Her long black hair hung over her face. Her hands were extended out from her, cupping something. They were stained dark with some thick liquid. Her feet, we all saw, were the deadly black of frostbite.

LUCAS: The Heart Beggar!

TOM: And she’s not alone.

Sitting at one of the many red picnic tables was an older man. He was round in the way that old people often become. He wore a short sleeved button up shirt with a cardigan over it, and tan slacks. His mostly bald head was covered in light wisps of silver hair. A wry smile played across his face as he listened to Katie’s music.

CHRIS: It’s the Portly Man, the Enigma Scribe.

TOM: Yep. And the Fool is more…here, I guess. He’s more solid.

It was true. The Discord Weaver, the Gray Fool, floated above everything, a sardonic look on his broken face.

TOM: They’re all here. The Three Hierophants.

LUCAS: Four. 

CHRIS: What?

LUCAS: Katie is the fourth. They’re all here now.

TOM: Oh my God! Look!

Floating in the sky behind Katie, maybe ten feet off the ground, a door had begun to form in the air. As she played her music, now accompanied by strange warbling sounds that issued from her mouth, the door seemed to draw itself in the air, starting at its arched peak. And moving downwards. The door was ancient-looking, the kind of thing you’d find in a dungeon or haunted castle. The wood was black, not shiny like a fresh coat of paint, but dull, a deep, dark stain that had permeated the wood over long centuries.

As the final song continued, more and more of the door appeared, like someone was scratching away the autumn sky to reveal this dead door that had always been beneath it. It continued to appear, more and more of it becoming visible, moving towards the bottom of the door.

Megan’s car tore into the gravel parking lot at a high speed, spraying dirt and small rocks and threatening to come up on two wheels like in the movies. After a moment of absolute assurance that they were going to die, the car came to a stop just inches from another vehicle. Leaving the car where it had stopped in the middle of the lot, Megan and Mark jumped out, ignoring the teenaged parking lot attendant who was staring mutely up at the sky.

MEGAN: Come on, we’re almost there!

MARK [in pain]: Got to…hold on. Not yet…not…

MEGAN: Here we go. Here we go. Just have to cross this parking lot. God, what’s that sound?

MARK: It’s the Vespirum. The Final Chorus. The dark crescendo. 

MEGAN: The what? What are you talking about?

MARK: I don’t know. I-

MEGAN: Holy shit!

MARK: What?

MEGAN: That’s…that’s the truck. The Portly Man’s truck.

MARK: I don’t understand.

MEGAN: Yeah, it’s the older model, blue truck. The one the Portly Man uses to pick up people. Or, the Scribe, The Enigma Scribe! Oh shit! He’s here!

As they crossed the parking lot, Megan supporting Mark as best she could, the compass hanging around Mark’s neck flashed brighter and brighter. Even Megan could feel the pull of it now. It was leading them on, closer and closer towards the center of the orchard.

MEGAN [struggling, a little out breath]: Tell me I’m not crazy. You see that black door in the sky, right?”

MARK[weak, out of breath]: Yeah, I see it. 

MEGAN: I think it means… we might be too late.

MARK: The door is still closed. There’s still time.

Megan and Mark made their way through the entrance building. It was empty and deserted. Everyone had come outside to listen to Katie’s last song. The crowd had grown. It’s hard to guess the size of a crowd, especially when you’re in it. It could have been two hundred, maybe as much as five. It was just the start of the King Beyond the Desert’s new army, but if the Black Door opened and the King returned that number would grow. This would only be the beginning.

As they looked for us, Megan and Mark had to push through the crowd. They had become zombified, not in an undead sense, though Cole Harrington’s lost tooth seemed to imply that was only a temporary reprieve. No, the crowd had become captivated, staring up at the door that was nearly complete. They had begun to chant the word “King” softly, but the intensity was growing as Kate’s song reached her crescendo. The people didn’t even seem to notice as Megan and Mark pushed through them.

MEGAN: Whoops. Sorry. Pardon me. Coming through. [bumps into someone] Oof. Sorry. Ava?

MARK: Who?

MEGAN: The woman I interviewed about the Portly Man, Enigma Scribe, whatever. She said she didn’t pass his test. That lying bitch.

MARK: We don’t… have time for this. We have to hurry. It’s coming. She’s coming.

MEGAN: Katie? I know she’s-

MARK: No! Not her. The Mother Witch. She’s coming. And I don’t think I can hold her back any longer.

While all of this was happening, Katie continued her song. The harsh notes and discordant melodies were an affront to our ears, though the rest of the people there didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Instead, they were enraptured.

Is it possible that everyone there was a follower of the King? Had each person passed one of the Hierophants’ tests? It seemed far-fetched that every single one of the employees had fallen under his spell, but I wondered if there was some sort of rotation that had been manipulated to get the followers all here today. Or perhaps it was Katie’s music, seducing a new group of would be loyalists. Either way, the situation was rapidly growing out of hand.

LUCAS: We have to stop her. If she plays the final note.

TOM: I know. But how do we do it?

CHRIS: We’ve got to get up there.

LUCAS: Unplug her equipment. Or smash it. We need to stop her music. Stop her singing.

TOM [mostly to himself]: Just like Mark.

CHRIS: What? Tom, hold on!

LUCAS: Tom!

When faced with the awful conclusion to the Ritual of Blood, Mark had selflessly launched himself into the summoning circle, dislodging the Betrothed, and disrupting the spell. Inspired by his willingness to sacrifice himself, Tom began his own charge towards the stage.

Fortunately for him, we were right behind him. The crowd pressed in tight together, the closer we got to the stage. The going was slow, less a mad dash and more like swimming upstream. We dipped and dodged around people, and even began shoving people out of the way. They didn’t seem to mind. If they even noticed us, it was impossible to tell, they were so caught up in the song.

Across the crowd, things weren’t much better.

MEGAN: Where are they? C’mon guys.

MARK: The time is nearly here. 

MEGAN: No, Mark. Hold on just a little longer. We’ve got to find them.

MARK: Megan…I can’t hold on much longer. I-

MEGAN: There they are! [calling] Tom! Chris! Lucas!

We were nowhere close to the stage and the door was nearly complete in the sky. The Enigma Scribe, the thing that had once been Gary Milo, eagerly rubbed his hands together. The Ravenous Supplicant, holding out the tiny bleeding heart of her dead child had reached the edge of the crowd and was beginning to weave her way towards the center. The Gray Fool, the creature that had started all of this so long ago, drifted, as if he no more substantial than the the breeze itself, closer and closer to the stage, where the Virulent Muse, infected with the King Beyond the Desert’s vile essence, nearly fully transformed into his final harbinger, prepared to play her final note.

LUCAS: We’re not going to make it.

CHRIS: The crowd’s too thick. They-

MEGAN [in the distance]Tom! Chris! Lucas!

TOM: What the hell? Is that???

LUCAS: It’s Megan.

CHRIS: And is that Mark with her?

MEGAN: It’s them. We found them. Thank God. We found them. Come on Mark. Just a few more-

MARK: Too late.

MEGAN: What? No, we’re-

MARK: Too late. Too late. Too late. She’s here. 

MEGAN: You can’t give up, Mark. You - [screams in pain] Ahh!

Mark had fallen to his knees, unable to go any further. Megan bent to pick him up, to help him the last few yards, but he suddenly clamped a strong hand on her shoulder, squeezing with a strength that threatened to crush her bones.

When he rose, his eyes burned an acid green.

MOTHER WITCH MARK: Brainless girl! Did you think you could stop me with your trinkets and your pathetic incantations? I was ancient when they were vomited into this world by those silly little white witches of old. You cannot contain me. You cannot control me. I am everlasting. You are too late. And you shall be the first soul I consume!

The Mother Witch had returned.

Katie Clark’s song had reached its fever pitch and we were still too far away to do anything about it. In the air, the Black Door, the door only the dead could traverse, locked here on our side, was fully formed.

As we struggled in the sea of people, caught halfway between our friends and our intended target, Katie Clark suddenly stopped her foul song. The music died, echoing briefly over the now silent orchard. She opened her eyes, which now shone with a black light that seemed to mirror the ebony door’s evil anti-lustre Two tiny pinpricks of light in the center of each eye locked onto us, singling us out of the crowd.

Even though she didn’t speak into the microphone, didn’t even move her mouth, we all heard her next words clearly, as if they had been delivered right into our brains.

“You’re too late,” she said.

Then Katie did open her mouth and the last vestige of the young woman we had once interviewed melted away completely. She opened her mouth wide, impossibly wide. Her lower jaw seemed to unhinge and fall to her chest. The inside of her mouth was a gaping black hole, impossibly dark and wide.

Then a sound issued from somewhere inside the Virulent Muse. It started deep inside her core and worked its way up. As it came out the sound grew in intensity becoming louder and louder. It filled the air in the silent orchard. We clapped our hands over our ears, trying to block it out, but there was no way. It drilled into our brains. Into our souls. 

The sound - the Final Note - was shattering. It shattered our foolish notions that we could do anything to stop it. It shattered our impressions of not just Katie and the other Hierophants, but of ourselves. Who were we in the great scheme of things? Did we really think we could influence such otherworldly events? We were insignificant in the wider cosmos. It filled us with dread and fear even as it filled our world.

On and on the final note grew.

[pause here to amp up the sound effect]

Then a small crack formed in the Black Door, suspended in the air. It was small, just a thin yellow hairline on the otherwise black surface. But as the note dragged on, the crack grew, spidering into a dozen, no a hundred different jagged lines, and behind each one that hot, pulsing yellow light. Until finally…

The Black Door shattered.

We were too late. 

Stay safe out there, Maine.

MALEVOLENT MORSEL:

The following was recorded at Crimson Valley Orchards before Katie began to play her final song.

TOM: Does that guy look familiar?

LUCAS: You said that already.

TOM: No. This is a different guy. That one over there in the Patriots hat. Do we know that guy?

CHRIS: I don’t know. We meet a lot of people.

TOM: Yeah, but I think we know him. I think…I think we interviewed him. 

LUCAS: For what?

TOM: I don’t know. Portly Man, maybe.

CHRIS: You’re being paranoid.

TOM: Okay, maybe. But I know we talked to that lady! She was one of the people who had the dreams about the Gray Fool. She only used her email or whatever.

LUCAS: Cistus-cat?

TOM: Yeah! That’s her!

LUCAS: Come on. Not everyone here is someone we-

CHRIS: No…I think…I think he’s right. I think that’s cistus_cat.

LUCAS: Isn’t she dead?

CHRIS: No. I mean, we don’t know what happened to her. Her email suddenly stopped working. She disappeared.

TOM: But she’s here now. 

CHRIS: It’s all connected.

TOM: Katie. The King. These people.

LUCAS: It could be a coincidence. Let’s not jump to conclusions.

[chorus to Haunting Stars starts]

LUCAS: It’s about him, isn’t it? The King?

CHRIS: It sounds like it. 

LUCAS: Convinced now?

CHRIS: Yeah, okay.

TOM: This doesn’t sound like the stuff she was playing for me at her house. This is…like a real song, or whatever. Not just notes or whatever.

LUCAS: It’s the opening act, then. She’s building towards something. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do.

TOM: Hey. Isn’t that…that’s Cole Harrington!

Malevolent Maine is Lucas Knight, Tom Wilson, and Chris Estes.

If you’d like to read more about our investigations check out our website at malevolentmaine.com

While there, don’t forget to check our merch store. And, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon at patreon.com/malevolentmaine

Thank you for listening to Malevolent Maine. 

And as always, stay safe out there, Maine.