Halloween Special: Damned in Danvers

The Narrator—Alexander Danner

Welcome, dear listeners, to a highway like no other, a damnable thoroughfare spanning the Greater Boston area. Won’t you join me on the local bus for a nightmarish road trip, through the horrors of history and hell, as we tour the townships beyond the borders of Boston, until we inevitably find ourselves DAMNED IN DANVERS?

Why Danvers, you ask? Well, for the alliteration, obviously.

Oh, also, the witch trials. I know, I know, “But they’re called ‘The Salem Witch Trials,’ not ‘The Danvers Witch Trials.’” And that’s true, they are, but… well, okay, history lesson.

So, back in the day, the day here being the seventeenth century, through right on the cusp of the eighteenth, the year of our Lord 1692 specifically. And just to be clear, I’m doing the whole “year of our Lord” thing to get into the spirit of the religious panic underpinning the witch trials, not because I actually… well, whatever, you get it. Anyway.

So, there were two Salems in Massachusetts. You had Salem Village to the north, and just-plain-Salem right below it. Just-plain-Salem took part in the witch trials, but the real hotbed was Salem Village. That’s where it all started. Now, just-plain-Salem is still called just-plain-Salem today. They really leaned into the opportunity to make a carnival out of one of the ugliest parts of their history, even exaggerating their role in it, and have cornered the Halloween industry in Massachusetts as a result. Which is why none of our horror stories today are set in Salem. Salem’s a fucking poser.

But Salem Village… well, they felt a little more shame about all those people they pointlessly murdered. And like any functioning political body, instead of taking accountability, they completely distanced themselves from reality—in this case, by changing the name of the town. And do you know what they changed it to? Hm? I bet you can guess!

Danvers. It’s…it’s Danvers.

Anyway. Bracket, slash, history lesson, bracket.

Let’s begin our journey, shall we? We’re boarding our damnable bus in Red Line, but not before checking in on a familiar face. Who do we find but that paragon of postal pride, Bernie the mailman, making his rounds, through his least favorite time of year? No, our friend Bernie is not a fan of Halloween. And that was before he even had his little encounter with… Witch Fingers.

WITCH FINGERS

Bernie—Josh Rubino

As a seasoned officer of the United States Postal Service, I pride myself on delivering every parcel that comes into my care promptly and without hesitation. Sure, sometimes I have to get creative: I keep a small packet of beef jerky on my person at all times to ward off every hellhound who’s immediately offset by my postman’s blues. Intimidated, for some strange reason, by my short shorts and the waterproof sun pith helmet that’s been in my family for generations, their jowls snapping at my exposed calves. Satiated momentarily by the teriyaki pepper beef I throw their way just long enough so I can sneak past and drop their person’s mail comfortably through the slot.

I’ve learned to navigate the sprawling train city of Red Line like the back of my hand. Easily accustomed to the rigid schedule maintained by the Dairy Droids, I can still deliver every forlorn love letter, utility bill, and birthday card that enters my pack and be home in time for dinner with my husband, Ernie. It’s an admirable profession, and one I take great joy in. But there are difficult times in the year, where I’m unsure if I’ll be able to actually accomplish my Sisyphian task. 

I know what you’re thinking, but no: it isn’t in December when my faculties are tested to their absolute limit. I’m from a cold-blooded New England family through and through, and seeing the joy on my constituents’ faces when I arrive with their gifts fuels me through the piercing winter wind. So long as I can find a spare moment to run by Dunkin’ and grab my large peppermint hot cocoa, extra marshmallows, extra whipped cream, then I can get through anything those frigid temperatures and icy sidewalks throw at me.

No… the real test of my mettle comes in October. Halloween season breaks out the big guns when it comes to perilous postman obstacles. There are the wily teenagers, of course, decked out head to toe in denim, with little more than a plastic dollar store Frankenstein mask to disguise them, and armed to the teeth with deadly Barbasol. You’ve also got your Halloween adults, be they parents with passionate trick-or-treaters or simply arrested in their own childhood development. Those monsters that bedeck their homes and yards with all kinds of horrifying animatronics. Limbs twisted, or removed outright, dripping food dyed corn syrup for dramatic effect. The kind that sense your motion as you try to simply cross their lawn without having yourself scared half to death.

At any other time of year, my disposition defaults to a friendly one. Happier with nothing more than reminding the people of the greater Boston area that they are remembered by the outside world, junk mail and creepy handwritten screeds from the local Jehovah’s Witness chapter and all. But when October 1st rolls around, I’m turned into a veritable scaredy cat, ready to jump out of my own skin at the drop of a pin. I’m shamed to admit that, during one particularly macabre display last year, I dropped three entire families’ worth of deliveries into a mucky puddle, just after having my life flash before my eyes due to a violently dead-eyed wax statue of Ed Norton from the movie Fight Club.

I’m telling you all of this so that you understand that I know my own limitations when it comes to excelling at my work during this frightful time of year. And so that you can take what I’m about to recount with a proper grain of salt… but truly nothing could ever prepare me for what I experienced last night. The day began like any other: dodging costumed hooligans on their way to school or the annual dress up day in the office. I steeled myself as best I could as I crossed the threshold of far more than one home cosplaying as a haunted manse. And while I’d never say that I’ve ever successfully kept my cool between October 1st and 31st, things dragged on admirably enough.

Until I got to my last delivery of the day. Things were taking a bit longer than usual for me, as I’ll sometimes take the long way in order to avoid the most horrifying displays of Halloween Heretics. This year the thing that did it was a gruesome recreation of that scene from Hereditary. Yeah, you know the one… Look, I know you’re asking yourself right now: this guy has watched an Ari Aster flick? To which I say: I may be jumpy on my route, but when it comes to a spooky movie marathon, I can hold my own. But I digress. I was just pulling up into Alewife station as the streetlights outside were coming on. And my mood was already terrible because I knew I’d have to wade through my ever present nightmares in the dark just in order to get home to make my famous meatloaf. Which is when I saw it. The address scrawled in chicken scratch on my final, suspiciously moist envelope of the day.

Calling it a home would be generous to say the least. As soon as I disembarked the train, I felt that old postman’s pull dragging me beyond its limits. Into the subterranean tunnels that make up its route. And after carrying on blindly, through the muck and the rat droppings, paying careful attention to avoid the third rail, I finally made it to the address: 666 Alewife Station Way. The door was unassuming enough, an old rusted metal joint that likely hadn’t been cleaned in years. But it was the overall aura of the abode that gave me the jitters. Massive cobwebs hung from the ceiling, bats screamed from their perches above me, and the scent of sulfur was overwhelming in the air.

No small part of me wanted anything more than to drop the letter into the slot and make a run for it. But as I pulled it open, touching as little as possible, a gnarled hand shot out from within. Grasping my wrist and making my heart pound a million times a minute in my chest. The being on the other side said nothing at first, just pulled and pulled until it had my entire arm was through the slot, up to my shoulder. I froze in an utter panic, unsure of what they planned to do with me, but determined not to lose my cool. Or my delivery hand.

Eventually, the creature spoke and my blood immediately boiled. Their voice was so old, and gravelly, that I didn’t even think it could possibly be human. They asked: “Are you willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to become the best postman you can be? The Uber-Carrier?”

I was torn asunder. All I wanted to do was rip my arm away from their frightful grasp and run, full speed, back home to my beloveds. But something about the way their fingers played across my inner arm gave me visions of the future they offered: my arm removed, as I feared, but replaced instead by a mass of tentacles, the letters attached to each puckering sucker. Allowing me to sit on a rocking chair in my front porch for the rest of my days, smoking my pipe and reading the morning paper as my new friends did my dirty work.

I’m ashamed to admit that I hesitated for a moment. My vision was like the promise of an early retirement, without ever having to shirk my duties. But it didn’t take long for me to reconsider, as it was missing one thing: Ernie. And who could blame him in this alternate universe? I certainly wouldn’t feel very comfortable sharing a home with someone who’d sold his soul in order to become some kind of eldritch beast. So, with whatever courage I could muster, I finally replied: “No, thank you. I’d just like to go home now, please.”

For a moment, there was utter stillness. I could feel the stink of sulfur emanating deeper and deeper into my core. But finally, the putrid green fingers let go of my arm, quite gingerly in fact. “Too bad,” they said as I freed myself of their grasp. “Maybe next year.”

I muttered, “I don’t think so, but we’ll see!” But before I could fully turn tail and run, I heard them opening the envelope I’d just delivered. And after a moment, a single Butterfinger candybar slid through the slot. And as much as I had no desire to eat this delectable candy, offered to me by none other than the devil themself… something in me knew I had to take it.

“That’s too bad,” they said. “You showed such promise. Please, enjoy this treat for all of your troubles. And do have a Happy Halloween.”

Narrator—Alexander Danner

A, poor Bernie. I hope he likes Butterfingers, at least. Not exactly an A-level Halloween treat, but a solid “B”, I’d say. The real question is: when the Devil gives you a Butterfinger, do you dare to eat it? Seems rather a “damned if you do/damned if you don’t” situation, doesn’t it!

Anyhoo… let’s turn our attention to a cozier location. And what could be cozier than a library? Especially one of those twee little libraries that have been popping up all over. Who can resist an adorable library-shaped cabinet full of books, perched atop a mailbox post at the edge of some random person’s front yard? Take a book, leave a book! What could be better!?

Unless it’s more along the lines of “take a book… leave your soul.”

Let’s find out at our next stop, as we pay a visit to The Little Lending Library of Lincoln.

LITTLE LENDING LIBRARY OF LINCOLN

[The sound of a small cupboard opening revealing a blustery fall. Leaves crunching and falling. A book is pulled from the shelf. This cupboard is actually a lending library. And what the person pulling the book doesn’t know is that—it eats. The cupboard instantly grows teeth and closes on the hand pulling the book. A crunch. A scream. An evil laugh.] Penny—Gabby Hall This is a story about the Little Lending Library on Leonard Lane in Lincoln, Mass. I was sent there by the Underground after a report of several people being injured after trying to lend a book. The library is in front of a well-kept, modestly small, single-family house: blue with white shutters and perfect landscaping, a nice, tall group of shrubbery behind a brown fence guarding a small moat with koi fish swimming on the other side. There’s even a little peek-through in the middle of the fence for children to peer through and wave at the beautiful orange fish. 

The library is about five feet to the building’s right, jutting out from a short pipe next to the sidewalk cement, and about ten minutes from railway tracks for the commuter rail, which on weekdays rolls by every couple of hours, give or take. 

On the front of the library are the words “Little Library”—in deep, rich red. The knob is red, and the door has a red trim and clear surface so you can look through and see the books. Little Women. Lolita. Last of the Mohicans. Live and Let Die. Lord Jim. Lil’ List of Riddles by BB Bosco. The Lost World. Lincoln in the Bardo. 

L titles. All L titles. 

On one side of the library, there’s a painting of books with titles printed on them, like a rendering of the library itself. The books have presumably made-up titles, and many of them seem childlike and strange. The Adventures of Marcus Rathbone. Fish Food for Fido. Elements of Suspense: a Grant Cougar Conspiracy. Food Fight. New Tales of Happy Toads. I’ve tried looking up these books and have come up with nothing. Were they the whim of the creator of the library? Works he hoped to publish? Did his children help out? What were these? 

On the other side of the library, there’s a message carved out of the wood. READ AND BEE HAPPY. The bee is a picture of a bee. The stinger looks especially long. And sharp. 

I started my investigation by knocking on the front door of the house behind the little library. There was no answer. 

And then I notice a man with a bandaged hand shuffling up to the library, looking around desperately. He was carrying a book in his good hand and he had a look of dread on his face. I approached him slowly and he looked at me with wild eyes. He told me he’d been bit by the library the week before after trying to take a book. Ever since then, he’s had to come back every day. 

To do what, I asked.

“To feed it. To feed the beast.” He said this as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Then, with emphasis, he added: “He’s hungry!”

The library? The man nodded. His hair shook with a desperation matching his facial features. He looked thin. Pale. 

“What happens if you don’t feed the library?”

The man shook with a tremor. “He’s hungry,” he repeated in a horse whisper. “One way or another. One way or another.” And he slipped the book inside. 

“What book is that?” I asked as he lurched away. 

“The Lake of Dead Languages,” he said, not turning around.

“That begins with a T, not an L.”

And that’s when the man cackled. Not like a stereotypical creepy-movie cackle. That would have been somehow more familiar and not as off-putting. He sounded legitimately surprised. Amused. And not… well. He entered the home behind the library—a home that didn’t seem to fit him, but a former version of a saner man. A series of locks clicked inside. Blinds were closed tighter. Clearly he wasn’t up for more discussion. 

I faced the lending library, more confused than ever. Was I just going to leave it at that? Let this mystery continue without any follow-up? I was a journalist, damn it, or I wanted to be. I couldn’t be afraid of a modest little structure designed to be annoyingly neighborly. Without thinking, I opened the door and grabbed the first book my hand could find. It looked like an old library book—no dust jacket, no words on the cover other than its title: l’auteur. 

I drove back home, determined to find something about this story and break it open like a fresh paperback. On the drive home on Route 2 I swore I saw something behind me on Route 2—something… odd. Small and stationary. Like a broken-down motorcycle sitting perfectly still behind me. But no, it was nothing. Just what I found when I tried to Google research the library later that night. Bupkis. So instead I looked up the origin of bupkis. It evolved from the Yiddish word bobkes, meaning “nonsense” or “absolutely nothing”. Immigrated along with a lot of European Jews in the early 20th century, and like a lot of their names, the spelling changed with its new home. 

Anyway. I tried reading l’auteur. I say I “tried” not because the book was hard to understand or too complex. There were dozens and dozens of blank pages in between one or two pages of beautifully written prose and ten to twelve pages of different prose with a completely different type-face. For a book called l’auteur, it was definitely written by at least two authors. Everything about it was inconsistent; the tone, the style, the themes. But it did follow the same story. About a man determined to build a library and fill it with his own works. 

At some point I fell asleep reading the book in bed. And that’s when I had the strangest dream. My bedroom door opened up a crack. I was half asleep—only somewhat conscious because of the sound of the door. I thought it was the wind. But then I heard it. A bumping, sliding sound, wood on wood, bulky and awkward. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight. And there it was.

The Little Lending Library from Lincoln. It was… moving. It was moving towards the foot of my bed. Then it slid to the side. Towering right next to me. I was stunned. Breathing hard, clutching my covers ready to toss them over my head just to stop taking in what was surely impossible. 

The cabinet door opened and shut. Opened and shut. Over and over again. He’s hungry, I thought about what the weird man from earlier had repeated. One way or another…

I lifted up l’auteur and shoved it into the library while it was open. It snapped shut and nearly scraped my hand. The library shook a little. And then was gone. Just like that. It was day and I was waking up and—nothing. 

A dream. It must have been a dream. Right? So then where was the book? Where was l’auteur? 

It went on like that for days. Weeks. Every once in a while I’d feel like it was following me. I’d hear the scraping of wood on concrete or hardwood or linoleum, whirl around and see nothing. But at night? At night it would come to me. I would feed it L titles. Whatever I had at home at first. Then I’d buy more books just to… feed it. I started writing down missing sections of l’auteur and had them bound and shoved those in because I was running out of L titles. The library never seemed to run out of room. Sometimes I’d see the books I’d stuffed in the night before. Sometimes I wouldn’t. Whatever I’d remove I’d return. And it kept coming back. Every night. I couldn’t sleep. I called in sick to work. I wrote. I read. I wept. 

One morning I’d had enough and decided to force myself to leave my Red Line apartment. In a daze, I got ready and then checked the schedule for where we were. I needed a cup of coffee and some air. We were pulling up to Charles/MGH. Perfect. Open air station. The front doors of my rail home slid open and—there was the little library. Right outside. Sitting there like it’d always been there. 

A woman was trying to slip a book inside, but the library kept… kept spitting it out. Like—like it wouldn’t accept it. 

The woman picked up the book and held it up with disgust. “It only likes L titles,” I said. “It’s hungry, though.” 

She glared at me with wild eyes. “This is yours?”

I said the only answer that made any kind of sense. “It’s for everyone.”

“Well what gives? Is it some kind of prank? I had this book I read but it won’t go in.” 

I had a thought then. A sick thought. A devious one. But it felt natural. It felt like… relief. 

“Pick that book,” I said, pointing to l’auteur through the clear cover. “It’s really good.”

“What about my book, though?”

“I’ll take it,” I said. 

The woman shrugged, handed me her book, and reached into the library to pull out l’auteur. I wasn’t sure if this would work. But eventually I found out it did. The library stopped following me. Stopped visiting me every night. I slept again. Returned to real life again. Had I passed this curse on to someone else? Yes. Did I feel bad about that? No. I only felt relief. She’ll come to the same conclusion, I thought. Or… she won’t. Okay, I did feel bad. For a time. But it passed more with each restful sleep. 

But the book she gave me? It was Harry Potter and the Curse of the Odious Author. I drop-kicked that trash into the Red Line tracks and instantly felt better. About everything. 

The Narrator—Alexander Danner

Well, I’ve heard of hostile architecture, but to be hunted by a miniature library… could actually be rather convenient, now that I think about it. I could check out new books without even needing to step outside! Yes, the whole “carnivorous entity” thing is a bit of an issue. But to have a well-functioning public library system is worth a little personal sacrifice, don’t you think?

Ah, and speaking of well-functioning public systems… the MBTA isn’t one. And the problems are not exclusive to Red Line. For our next tale, let’s join local college student Frankie in the heart of Boston to visit the nexus where the Green and Orange lines meet the commuter rail and Amtrak in a 100% True and Accurate Representation of North Station at Midnight.

100% TRUE AND ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF NORTH STATION AT MIDNIGHT

Frankie—Sawyer Greene

So I’m in North Station and it’s pushing midnight, and you’d think that would be punishment enough. When they opened the Green Line Extension I was like, great, my partner is living in a four-bed one-bath in Somerville, but at least now when I’m done with my closing shifts I don’t have to walk half an hour from Davis or hope that I catch one of the buses that come every forty minutes. Only, in an incredible act of Massholery, fifty things went wrong with the Extension at once and now I have to take the Orange Line to North Station and switch over to the Green Line. At least I don’t live in Union, or I’d be completely boned, since the trains just… aren’t going to that station for a whole month. 

I’d honestly be kind of impressed if sitting here didn’t fill me with so much seething anger. They announced the extension before I was born, delayed it, almost canceled it, opened one stop, and delayed it some more, and when it finally opens, it works right for just under a year, and then they realize the tracks are too close together or something like that and if the trains go too fast they’ll derail. Some train expert guy from New York City said he’s never seen anything like it before, and I hate to give New York City credit for anything, but the subways there seem to run marginally better than the MBTA, so if they say we’re screwed I’ll take their word for it. 

And that’s not even why they shut it down. It just makes the trip take a million years longer. They’re demolishing an old parking garage near Gov Center, and I think they’re scared the tunnels will cave in if the garage falls too fast, but at least this way there won’t be any trains in the tunnel if it happens. 

So I’m sitting on the platform, waiting for a car to come inching out of the tunnel, trying to decide if I hate being the only person in the station more than I hate trying to cram into the cars with a small army of drunk Bruins fans after the team loses and regretting every decision I’ve ever made that led me to this spot. And then it dawns on me: it stinks in here. Like rotten eggs. Like sulfur. And I look around, trying to figure out where the smell’s coming from, but all I see are abandoned Dunkies cups on top of the trash cans, and I don’t think the iced coffee from there is that bad. 

So I do what any self-respecting twentysomething does, and I pull out my phone and I search north station boston sulfur. I find forum posts from ten years ago asking the exact same question and a few answers that boil down to “that’s just the MBTA for you.” Which, like, yeah, who hasn’t smelled the rankest thing ever on the T at least once? But this is the station, not the train or the tunnel itself, so maybe it’s fixable? 

Then I do what any self-respecting anxious twentysomething does and search is sulfur smell dangerous, and I get a mix of “it’s not dangerous” and “it’s highly toxic, an asphyxiant, you’ll explode and die if you get too close to it”. Which seems pretty bad. And the countdown clocks are all blank, so I’m like, alright, I don’t feel like exploding and dying in North Station tonight, let’s find one of those red-shirt T employees and just absolutely ruin their night by asking them a question. 

[Footsteps.]

The problem is that North Station is huge. It’s got two of the four MBTA lines, plus commuter rail stops, and because Boston city designers hate me it’s also attached to TD Garden. And I’m too busy rehearsing what I’m going to say to the transit ambassador, which is something like I’m so sorry to bother you and I know you don’t get paid enough to deal with any of this but is that smell going to kill me, and I don’t notice that I’m getting myself horrifically lost in the station until it’s too late. And the smell is worse. It’s everywhere now, in this weird white-tile tunnel, clogging up the back of my throat and making me pull the collar of my shirt up over my mouth and my nose. There’s an ad for sneakers on the far wall. Some comedian has drawn a goatee and horns on the celebrity holding the shoes. Right above her is a sign pointing down another hallway to the bathrooms. Well, my phone said that sometimes the sulfur smell is sewer gas, which, yeerg, but maybe if I can find the problem I can be remotely useful. Or at least take a picture to @ the T on social media. So I hang a right and walk towards the bathrooms. 

Not only does the smell get even worse as I get closer, but it’s getting uncomfortably warm, too. My shirt clings to my back with sweat by the time I actually reach the bathrooms. And… they’re both locked. So if a toilet is about to explode with sewer gas, I have no way to get in and verify that. 

But. There’s another door, just to my right, at the end of the hall. It says employees only, but the chain and padlock are hanging loose, and it’s open just a tiny bit. And there’s light spilling out from the gap. Red, flickering light. 

And now it’s like, oh, great, is the station on fire? Not like that’s anything new for the Orange Line, but that incident made national news, so screw it, we ball. At this point my head is spinning from the fumes, and history has proven that only good decisions come while on the verge of passing out, I think. I grit my teeth and try to push the door open, and shit, it’s hot. [Rattle of door] Hot enough that I yank my hands back and the skin on my palms is red. So I shoulder it open instead. 

[Door opens.]

[Weird music.]

The door opens up into a dark, cavernous room. The sulfur smell hits me like a brick to the back of the head. The walls look like stone, natural stone, or just super eroded, which I thought was unique to the Boylston stop, but okay. It’s some sort of storage room, I think. Lots of crates and storage containers that I have to wiggle past. There’s another open door at the other side of the room, which seems to be where the light–the fire–is coming from. I climb and squeeze my way through the containers, and at some point I put my foot in some absolutely vile liquid seeping out of one of the boxes, and I crouch down to investigate, and… oh, ew, it’s on my sock now, ew, my foot is wet but only one foot and that’s worse. I squelch over to the doorframe. 

There’s a metal catwalk. Knowing full well I’m about to get extremely sued for trespassing, I step out onto it. 

The catwalk overlooks a stone floor, and there’s… well, I’m not totally sure what I’m looking at. A yawning, bottomless pit, flames dancing up the side, the air above it rippling with heat and fumes.

[Flames. Whispers. Music getting weirder.]

The room pitches forward, like the earth itself is inching towards the hole. I stumble forward and brace myself against the railing. It’s searing hot, or maybe it’s freezing, and my head is spinning with the smell of the gas, and I’m dimly aware of the sound of footsteps running towards me. Somebody—a lot of somebodies—voices everywhere are whispering but they’re hitting the As real hard, something about giving into my most [Boston accent] wicked desires.  I am just about to topple over the railing when the footsteps reach me. Pain explodes across the back of my head. The room goes black. 

When I come to, I’m back on the Green Line platform. Laying on the platform, actually, but at least I’m behind the yellow line. I pick myself up and press a hand to my face. My head pounds. My shoe is stained red. It still smells like fucking sulfur. 

The train pulls up. The electronic displays are in a script I’ve never seen. I enter through the front door of the train, and the driver tells me the name of the street I grew up on. I collapse into one of the seats. The train lurches forward into a tunnel that glows with that same fiery light. And I’m like yeah, you know what, I’d still rather deal with this than the drunk Bruins fans. 

The Narrator—Alexander Danner

Huh. I’m not really sure how that one ended up in a Halloween special. That’s some pretty day-to-day stuff at North Station. Ah, well.

Perhaps we need to venture a little farther afield for some truly out-of-the-ordinary goings-on. And while we’re riding the highway, it would be a grave error not to keep an eye out for The Blue-Eyed Hitchhiker of Norton.

BLUE-EYED HITCHHIKER OF NORTON

[Driving through the rain. Windshield wipers. Bumpy road. Some people are laughing.]

Noreen of Norton—Amanda McCormack

Alright everybody, shut the fuck up. You want to hear a story? Hang on, I got a good one. 

[Laughter subsides.]

And it’s none of that “my brother’s sister’s cousin’s hairdresser” bullshit. This is me. 

So you’ve heard of the Blue-Eyed Hitchhiker of Norton, right? You drive down 140, which is this long wooded road, late at night and see some guy waiting by the side of the road, thumb out and looking for a ride. If you stop and let him in, he’ll climb in the backseat, and you notice those brilliant blue eyes. He’ll tell you he’s going to Rehoboth or Mansfield or something and you’ll be like, well, what do you know? I’m on my way there right now. But when you get to Mansfield and go to let him out, he’s gone.

A unique story, right? Well, the difference between the Blue-Eyed Hitchhiker of Norton and every other vanishing hitchhiker story out there is that this one is true. I saw him.

So here’s what happened, yeah? I was driving home from my grandmother’s place a few weeks ago. She’s up in Taunton now, and I like to go check in with her a couple times a week. She says she’s fine, but she’s stubborn, you know. So me and a couple cousins always stop by. God forbid any of the others do, but whatever. Basically, I’m on my way home and it’s late and it’s dark. And I’m driving up 140 when I see this guy on the side of the road. And he’s got his thumb out, right? And I can see him clearly in the view of my headlights. He’s solid, he’s real. I’m not picking up strange guys in the middle of the night, my grandmother would fucking kill me for that. So I keep driving, feeling a little guilty. But I’m not risking it in the dark woods with nobody around.

I keep driving and it’s empty out there. No houses, no nothing. Not even those winding driveways that supposedly lead up to some houses, but I don’t buy it. Not even a Cumbys. I got the radio on, and I’m listening to like, late-night Sports Hub. There’s nothing to talk about, so they’re just shooting the shit. And then, swear to God, I see the guy again. And he looks right at me. He’s young, bearded, and has these brilliant blue eyes.

 And that’s when I remember the stories. The Blue-Eyed Hitchhiker of Norton. A local man who was either killed or did the killing or just showed up there or liked walking down that road in life or is looking for his missing dog or kid or wife or a dropped snowcone. I don’t know, my cousins all had different stories that they’d torture me with when I was young. But what all these stories had in common was the guy’s eyes. Icy blue and so beautiful that they’re unmistakable. 

So I fucking floor it. Rush past the guy, probably on two wheels as I round the curve. Not a speed trap on the South Shore is gonna blame me if I get pulled over. My heart’s fucking racing, kid. And I think of every single one of my cousins telling me those stories. He kills the driver. He eats the driver. The driver gets home and there’s a hook on the car door. The driver gets home and the dog is dead in the shower and the note on the mirror says HUMANS CAN LICK TOO. The driver gets home and the phone rings and the clown statue says the call is coming from inside the house. My cousins fucking suck at storytelling. 

I’m flying down that road and I see him again, maybe two miles up. No way he could have gotten here that fast. Again, zoom by, rubber peeling off onto the street. Then I look out the window and see him running. He’s running beside the car, just staring straight in the window and grinning at me. I’m going eighty and this guy is keeping pace and just laughing and laughing, almost like he’s wheezing. I’ve never been so scared in my life. 

And then he’s gone. I nearly went through the guardrail, but I managed to stay on the road. And at this point, all I can think is that I’m nearly home. I’ve got like fifteen minutes left, and about six of them are on 140. Sports Hub is still going—I don’t even remember what the DJs were talking about—it’s just noise at this point. I slow down just to the point of being safe. I don’t want to get in an accident alone out here.

I keep driving and eventually, I can see signs of life up ahead. Just beyond the trees, I can see a sign for Cumbys. The trees still tower over me, but I’m nearly there. I’m almost safe.

And then I look in my rearview mirror and you know what? That motherfucker is in my backseat. Smiling at me, sitting there in the Dunks cups and sweatshirts I tossed back there. And I’m done. I’m not doing this. I’m not fucking dealing with it, not after what just happened and not after listening to my cousin Sandy talking about Bitcoin all day.

[Car screeches to a stop. Sound of a crowbar grabbed from the passenger seat.]

So I grab the crowbar I always keep up front —what, you don’t? Gram made sure I did since I got my learner’s permit—and I pull over and just start beating the everliving shit out of him.

[Driver’s side door opens. Footsteps. Rear door opens. Ghost hitchhiker gets dragged out of the car and dumped on the ground. She proceeds to beat the hell out of him with a crowbar.]

I mean, forget Lizzie Borden and the forty whacks, I probably gave him like a hundred and ten. The Yard Goats are gonna be calling, tell you what. But those brilliant blue eyes look at me with a single tear, and then he vanishes. And I’m alone.

[Back to current moment in car.]

So anyway, yeah. I got home safe, I told the cousins and they all made fun of me. But fuck them. And I still take 140 home from Taunton every week. I’m not dealing with the highway. And I haven’t seen the guy since. But every so often, you know what? Every so often I’m heading home, Sports Hub on. And I hear it over the radio, just for a second. That taunting, wheezing laugh.

[Creepy laugh.]

The Narrator—Alexander Danner

Wow. I feel a little bad for the ghoulish hitchhiker. I guess the moral of that one is “don’t fuck with a townie, even if you’re a ghost.” Woof.

Our next stop brings us back east, heading north, where we’ll take a brief respite from our recent terrors to take in a little bit of romance. Or… no. Perhaps this is something else entirely. One thing is certain—you’ll feel something stirring in your heart once you’ve met The Dove Lady of Lynn.

DOVE LADY OF LYNN

Natalie Daniels—Em Ervolina

[Instrumental music.]

Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin,

You never come out,

The way you went in.

Only sometimes you’ve got nowhere else to go.

There is a pattern in the life of a Daniels. We’ve always been working people—socialists and union members. Story goes that my great-grandpa got offered the job of supervisor at the quarry, and turned it down. “I will not be a traitor to my class!” That’s the story, at least. It sounds crazy to imagine turning down a promotion, but the quarry workers were a tight-knit group back then.

Anyways, it’s always gone like this in my family—fall in love, move south, get a job. A working class trade, of course.

So Grandma fell in love with a woman from Manchester-by-the-Sea, and they saved up for a trawler to fish haddock and flounder out of the bay. Dad met a woman in Peabody and joined the teamsters as a technician and mechanic.

And then… then there was me. I didn’t quite do it right. I didn’t want to do it right. Thought maybe I could break the mold, forge my own path… [Sighs.]

I don’t think Salem really counts as “south” of Peabody. I mean technically, yes, it is south. But really, it’s more east. And I don’t think working part time at an exotic-bird store counts as a working-class trade. Certainly not working class clientele. I swear sometimes when the shop was empty, I could hear Great-Grandpa Daniel’s whispers passing through the vents. “Traitor…” As for the love; well at least… At the time, I thought it was love.

She was beautiful, tall, and very rich. I mean very, very rich. Not just “foreman at the quarry” rich. More like “descended from brahmin” rich. The “Find a poor girl, whisk her away to Salem and put her up in an apartment with a part-time job at the shop where her family buys exotic birds to hide her from daddy” kind of rich. The rich where you get married for politics and family advancement, and abandon your working-class girlfriend without so much as a word. 

Ghosted, as they say today. I read about the wedding in the papers. I tried to call, but the line was dead. The next day, when I went into work, my belongings were already packed in a box. The next week, the power went out. The week after that, the eviction notice was taped to my door.

I couldn’t move back home. Back home was north. Back home was unemployed. That’s just not an option for a Daniels.

So… Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin.

You know Marshmallow Fluff? The stuff you use to make Fluffernutters? No… yeah, I guess you don’t seem like a Fluffernutter couple. Well, it’s a peanut-butter-and-marshmallow-spread sandwich. Kids love it. And adults pretend not to love it. The marshmallow spread, the Fluff, is made in a small factory in Lynn. And hey, no one in my family had worked at a Marshmallow Fluff factory. So I applied. 

Didn’t get the job. But I did get a job at the rival Marshmallow Fluff company on the other side of town. Mallow Floof, they called it. Real original. And really disgusting. The Necco Wafers of the marshmallow-based product world, if you will.

That factory was hell. The AC was always broken, so the marshmallow spread was more of a marshmallow paste. The air was sticky, the floors were sticky, and it all smelled like dog food. The stairs creaked, the walls peeled, and workers got sick all the time. They came in anyways. We didn’t even get paid minimum wage because the bosses opened a small candy store in the front, and employed everyone as wait staff and “kitchen” workers. 

So you come in when you’re sick, when you’re tired, when you’re broken because… what else are you going to do? You work all day. You go home and try to wash the stickiness off. You give up. You fall asleep. You wake up. You do it again. You don’t have time for friends. You don’t have time for a life. Because you only barely make enough to live. And I… I only barely had enough to live for.

You never come out the way you went in.

I don’t know how long I had been working there. It might have been six months. It might have been six years. All I know is that it was the dead of winter, and the second I saw her face, my stomach caught fire. It was her. Here. In my factory. 

It was late. I was working a double and thought I might be delirious or something. But no. She walked in with a group of men who must have been identical triplets. All in suits. All with sunglasses on, despite it being winter and night and indoors. I heard her introduce them as her associates. The bosses and the gentlemen all shook hands, and started up the stairs to the offices above the factory floor. Before she turned to follow, her eyes swept across the factory floor. But there was no hesitation. Either she didn’t see me, or she didn’t recognize me. I couldn’t tell you which would be worse. 

I don’t know what came over me, but when they were out of sight, I followed them. I did my best to creep up the metal grate stairs that creaked and groaned. I kept my hand off the loose rattling railing.

I pressed up close to the door, and heard the triplets begin talking in identical voices, each about the potential that Mallow Floof had as a brand. The one thing that has stuck in my mind to this day is one of those men introducing himself as… as “Human Resources”, and saying, and this is word for word “Gluttony is our ambition. The more the consumer consumes, the more there is for us to take.” Real ‘80s corporate supervillain stuff. 

Unfortunately my curiosity got the better of me, and I pressed too close to the door. The hinges let out a creak and the voices stopped. One of them rushed to the door and pulled it open. I ran as fast as I could. Behind me I heard one of the triplets yell, “Get that rat!” 

And that’s about when it happened. I tripped and hit the railing. It broke in half. I felt myself jerk forward and fall, but my vision remained fixed above, like my spirit and body had come apart. I watched as my body plunged into the vat where the molten hot corn syrup meets the sugar and gelatin. I felt every inch of my body shoot with the pain of hot steel. But I wasn’t just feeling it. I was watching it. Like I had fully dissociated. I watched my body slowly sink into the vat. I watched my skin turn red and blister. I screamed and screamed and screamed. But I heard nothing. My throat and lips were trapped in corn syrup, but my desire to scream was floating ten feet above.

I saw the men—the triplets, and the bosses, and… him—all run up to the edge. The foreman hit the emergency stoppage button and yelled at some of the workers to dredge my body out of my vat. They used these long stirring sticks to poke and pry my body up and out. I felt them pull me out and drop me on the ground. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t recognize myself in this body lying on the concrete floor, covered in Mallow Floof.

The foreman ordered the workers to throw the body in the woods behind the factory, and get back to work. He hit the button, and the factory churned once more. They didn’t even clean the tank. I followed as they threw my body into a small ditch, splayed out, face down. They walked back to the factory, back to work, as if nothing had happened. 

I floated there, sinking slowly to the ground next to me, watching over my corpse, moments ago burning in molten sugar, now freezing slowly as the Massachusetts cold crept up its… my sides. Just then a dove came and landed on a rock nearby. It stared at me. At whatever part of me was able to see. I swear it looked right at me. 

It flitted down to the back of my corpse, pecking at the marshmallow coating. I felt the light tap of its beak against my shoulder blades, the way you might feel the sound of a knock at the door. But it got louder, and louder. And the dove pecked faster and harder. Suddenly a pinch as I felt the folds of my skin between its beak. It kept pecking, pulling away bits of skin, piece by piece, ripping into me. Another dove landed on my lower back and started pecking away. And another, and another, each finding a different part of my body to peck at, through the marshmallow and into my skin. The pain was unbearable, but it was still impossible for me to scream.

I looked at the first bird, its head now full inside of the cavity between my shoulder blades, burrowing its way inside of me. I felt it push its way in, up the space in my neck to the left of my spine, stretching the skin, crawling through the tissues. It finally stopped as its talons dug into the spot where my skull meets my neck. Its wings wrapped around either side, like a crown of feathers inside my head. 

Its talons flexed, and my spirit was yanked back into my body. My eyes shot open. And my scream finally escaped. But it was cut short by another flex of the dove’s talons. The others were crawling through me, attaching themselves to my ligaments and joints, and wrapping their wings around my muscles and organs. As they found their places, I felt the pathways they’d dug seal up behind them, the skin and tissues reforming across my body. As the wounds closed, the searing heat and frigid cold both faded into a glowing warmth. The pain was subsiding. 

Wings pressed around my heart, flapping in and out, creating a new heartbeat, a pulse. Another pair of wings squeezed my diaphragm, pushing air in and out of my lungs. Talons pulled at my ligaments letting me push myself up, and crawl into a sitting position. As I came too, I felt the feathers of the dove perched at the top of my neck send light taps through my skull and into my brain. And I understood at once that I was no longer a singular being. I was a flock. A flutter passed through me, from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head, and for the first time in a long time, I felt alive.

I saw the edge of the sun peak over the horizon, and heard the piercing ring of the factory whistle signaling the shift change. I felt wings spreading inside of me, and we began to run through the forest. I felt the hum of our wings drumming throughout my body. But soon it filled my ears too, as hundreds more doves surrounded us, filling the space between the trees. They had joined our flock. We were growing. We were expanding. We were one. 

When we reached the edge of the parking lot, the workers all stopped in their tracks. Some were getting out of their cars. Others were leaving the building. All of them were frozen in awe. Every branch of the forest in front of them was covered in doves. I took a few steps forward and spoke with a voice that was only partially my own. 

“FLY TOGETHER. AND BE ALIVE.”

At once the doves flew towards the factory, and the workers rushed after them, out of the forest and parking lot and into every nook and cranny of the building. The sound was deafening. Windows shattered. Doors broke from their hinges. A handful of workers overturned one of the corn syrup vats, while others pulled the bosses and foremen from their offices and threw them into the sticky mess, fancy suits and all. They all jeered, watching them struggle to rise from the syrupy floor. The doves above flapped their wings, until feathers rained down on the bosses, and covered them from head to toe. 

I saw the two who had carried my corpse hours ago grab the CEO and drag his feathered body into the woods. The factory erupted in laughter and cheers and coos. The songs of the workers and birds rang through the streets of Lynn.

I looked through the floof and feathers, but I couldn’t find her or the triplets. And I haven’t looked her up since. Which is probably for the better. That was the last part of me to leave behind before I became us. 

Afterwards they cleaned up the mess and formed a worker-owned cooperative. They voted to stop making Mallow Floof, and instead use their marshmallow equipment and expertise to make an alternative to Peeps, called Chirps. They’re… also not good. But the workers are happy, and as far as I know, the A.C. stays on all the time.

So that’s a little bit about me. As for my services, it’ll be $2300 for the dove release at the end of the ceremony. And an additional $1000 if you want them to drop rose petals as they fly off. Oh, and I don’t do train weddings any more. Not after that whole baked-bean debacle. [In an adorable voice, petting the dove sitting next to her] Thank God that young woman was there to save my precious babies.

The Narrator—Alexander Danner

Now that’s what I call a sticky situation! But, it’s like they say—hell hath no fury like a woman tossed into a vat of boiling marshmallow. Oh, I’m so sorry. These jokes are getting worse the longer I go on. I’m… feeling a little punchy. Too much sugar, I think. Fortunately, I do believe that we are approaching the end of the line for our little outing. We have one last stop, inevitably bringing us to… to, uh… [shuffling papers] hang on… [shuffling].

[Off] We’ve got another story, right?… What?… But what about Danvers? The episode is titled “Damned in Danvers”. We can’t just leave off in Lynn… what do you mean “make it mysterious”? How am I supposed to… Uch. Fine, I guess.

[Narrating] [Sigh.] Alright. And that, dear listeners, brings us to the damnable end of our damnable journey! What’s that I hear you say? “But what of Danvers?” Ah, yes. What of Danvers indeed? [Very forced evil laugh—with reverb.]

[Off]

How was that?… Whatever, I did my best. Maybe put some reverb on it in post or something. I’m out.

[Warped version of “Charlie on the MTA” plays.]

Narrator

Greater Boston is created by Alexander Danner and Jeff Van Dreason, with help from T.H. Ponders, Bob Raymonda, and Jordan Stillman. Recording and Technical Assistance from Marck Harmon.

Damned in Danvers was written by Alexander Danner, Amanda McCormack, Bob Raymonda, T.H. Ponders, Jeff Van Dreason and Theo Wolf, and sound designed by Jeff Van Dreason, TH Ponders, and Alexander Danner. Dialogue editing by Bob Raymonda.

This Episode Featured:

• Alexander Danner as The Narrator
• Josh Rubino as Bernie
• Gabby Hall as Penny
• Sawyer Greene as Frankie
• Amanda McCormack as Noreen of Norton
• and Em Ervolina as Nathalie Daniels

MUSIC

• “Charlie on the MTA” recorded by Emily Peterson and Dirk Tiede, then horribly ruined by Alexander Danner
• “To Atlantis” by Dave Fernandez
• “Dove Lady’s Theme” composed by Pigeons, Transcribed and arranged by T.H. Ponders. Yes, real pigeons. Which you know is what doves are, right? They’re just fancy pigeons.

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You can support Greater Boston on Patreon at Patreon.com/Greater Boston.

Greater Boston is a ThirdSight Media Production.

COOKIE

Josh Rubino [Operatic singing]

You’ve got MAILLL!

Youuuu’ve got mail!

Youuu ooo  ooo ooo oo ooo’ve got mai-ai-ail!