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- [00:00]
Narrator
Work management platforms.
- [00:02]
Luke
Ugh.
- [00:03]
Narrator
Endless onboarding. IT bottlenecks admin requests. But what if things were different? Monday.com is different. No lengthy onboarding, beautiful reports in minutes, custom workflows you can build on your own, easy to use prompt, free AI. Huh. Turns out you can love a work management platform. Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use.
- [00:32]
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Shopify. When you think about businesses that have become phenomena in their own right, like Alo or all birds or skims, sure you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret, possibly classified is actually the businesses behind the business making, selling and for shoppers buying. Simple for millions of businesses. That business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not so secret secret with shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout ericast store uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.comredwood all lowercase go to shopify.comredwood to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.comredwood.
- [01:57]
Narrator
Beware the Redwood Bureau, A secret organization which captures and researches creatures and objects that defy explanation. Their reckless procedures have led to countless innocent lives lost.
- [02:10]
Luke
I am Agent Conroy.
- [02:12]
Narrator
I worked for the Redwood Bureau, but I have escaped them to leak their reports to the unsuspecting public. You have the right to know.
- [02:35]
Luke
There.
- [02:35]
Narrator
Are places scattered throughout the world that people pass by every day without a second thought. They sit along highways, tucked away in small towns nestled in forgotten pockets of urban sprawl. Most of them don't end up on Internet blogs or low end TV shows. These are places that were meant to be forgotten. Places that were erased not by time or neglect, but by intent. Sometimes it happens at homes, a house on the outskirts of town that never seems to sell, no matter how many times the price drops. Sometimes it's a hospital that's shut down for seemingly no reason. Records of patients and staff gone as if they never existed. But more often than not, it happens to businesses. Small, unremarkable places. Restaurants, gas stations and motels that once thrived and then, without warning, cease to be. There's a term the Bureau has used internally for decades. Dead spots. Locations that have been sealed away from history, stripped from maps, their records erased, their names unspoken. Some of them were removed because they were a threat, others because they were a mistake. Most people don't question it. They see the boarded up windows, the faded signs, and assume it was just another casualty of bad business. But in certain cases, that's not the truth. There are places that weren't meant to close, but rather were made to disappear. Not because of financial failure, but because something inside them was never meant to be found. Take what happened with RBP0363 glass threads. You won't hear about it on the news. No missing persons report. No official records of a town being evacuated or quarantined. But there was a town. It had a name. It had people. And then in a matter of days, it belonged to the Redwood Bureau. The operation to contain it was immediate. A perimeter was established. The roads were shut down. No one got in or out that wasn't Bureau personnel. And the anomaly inside is still there, under their watch, being studied and observed. The Bureau isn't in the business of destruction. Not when something can be controlled, manipulated, turned into something potentially useful to them. Anomalies like that don't just disappear. Some of them are still out there, waiting for the right conditions to trigger or spread. Some anomalies take longer than others. Decades even. I've been tracking reports, Disappearances, strange sightings, places that didn't exist suddenly showing up. I don't know if the Bureau ever fully understood what they were burying, or if. Or if they just assumed their methods were enough. I do know that some places don't stay dead, and when they return, they bring everything that was left behind.
- [05:48]
Luke
We pulled off the highway, the tires crunching against loose gravel as dust swirled up around us. Lumpkin's Eatery stood ahead, a relic of the past, its once vibrant neon sign now cracked and rusted. The painted figure of a cartoonish chef still grinned down at us, but the years had not been kind, its colors faded, the expression now much more unnerving than inviting. I tapped my fingers against my knee, glancing at the others. Luke cut the engine and leaned back, exhaling through his nose. Cassie, in the passenger seat, adjusted her phone's camera settings. There it is, luke muttered.
- [06:33]
Cassie
Our town's very own ghost story.
- [06:35]
Luke
Cassie snorted. It's not a ghost story. It's just a condemned building. So why are we here? I asked, keeping my voice level. Luke turned toward me with a grin.
- [06:47]
Cassie
Because we have a mission, Kara.
- [06:50]
Luke
Right. The Lumpkins challenge a dumb local dare meant to prove you had the guts to break in and bring something back as proof. An old napkin holder, a menu. Anything with the Lumpkins name on it. Supposedly it had been a rite of passage for years, but in today's world, basically no one even talked about it. Probably because most people had outgrown stupid dares. But Luke? He had something to prove. This place gives me the creeps, cassie admitted, squinting at the building. Looks like it's been sitting here way longer than it actually has. She wasn't wrong. Lumpkins hadn't just aged, it had been forgotten. The way abandoned buildings normally begin to crumble didn't quite apply here. The paint was peeling in places and rust stained the metal framework, but somehow it still stood resolute, as if waiting for idiots like Luke.
- [07:52]
Cassie
Alright, let's do this.
- [07:54]
Luke
Luke pushed open his door and stepped out.
- [07:57]
Cassie
Before someone sees us.
- [07:59]
Luke
I hesitated, my fingers tightening around my phone. The parking lot stretched emptily behind us, the old gas station across the street boarded up tight. No street lights, no cars, just the endless stretch of highway, quiet and still. Come on, Kara. Cassie nudged me. Let's get this over with. I sighed and got out. The warmth of late summer hung heavy around us. The pavement beneath our feet was cracked, weeds stretching through the gaps like fingers clawing their way out. As we approached the diner, I took in the details. The windows were coated in dust too thick to see through. The door was boarded up, jagged remains of condemned signs barely clinging to the wood. A broken lamp dangled from its fixture above the entrance, its bulb shattered. The metal framing of the windows was warped, like the entire building had twisted slightly at some point. Luke ran his hand along the peeling paint of the front door.
- [09:05]
Cassie
I think we can squeeze in through the side window.
- [09:08]
Luke
Cassie frowned. What if we get caught? Luke shot her a look.
- [09:14]
Cassie
By who? No one comes out here.
- [09:16]
Luke
That wasn't exactly true. We'd all heard the stories. A friend of a friend would swear they saw movement inside, a flicker of something in the dark, a figure moving behind the glass. But those were just stories. Most people didn't believe them because no one really came out here. Vehicles passed by, sure, but mostly just truckers on the way to somewhere else. Even if no one comes out here, people still talk, I said. What if someone calls the cops? Luke shrugged.
- [09:49]
Cassie
What's the worst they'll do, give us a ticket? I'll say it was my idea and I made you come with me.
- [09:55]
Luke
Cassie let out a breath, folding her arms. Fine. But if we hear anything weird, I'M out. Luke led the way around the side of the building, where the rear windows looked to have been broken for years. Someone had attempted to board it up, but the planks were loose, warped from weather exposure. He tested one, pried it back, and smirked at us. Ha.
- [10:20]
Cassie
Ladies first.
- [10:21]
Luke
Hold up, I said, looking back toward the road. Something felt strange. Let's just take a minute, luke groaned.
- [10:32]
Cassie
Kara, come on.
- [10:33]
Luke
But I wasn't stalling. I was listening. The night was too quiet, even with the highway nearby. There were no distant hums of engines, no crickets, no wind. Just silence. I swallowed hard. Just. Let's be quick, okay? Cassie pulled out her phone and snapped a few pictures. For proof, she said, though her voice lacked its usual bravado. Luke crouched again, reaching for the gap in the boards.
- [11:07]
Cassie
Alright. Moment of truth.
- [11:10]
Luke
I hesitated a moment longer, eyes lingering on the warped windows, the cracked pavement, the heavy, stagnant air around us. It was just a stupid diner, a forgotten building on the edge of a town no one cared about. Luke pulled the plank back further, revealing the dark void beyond. Cassie clicked her flashlight on and the beam cut through the dust swirling in the air. We had found our way in. After you, luke murmured, smirking slightly, though his voice carried the barest edge of uncertainty. Cassie let out a breath and climbed in first, her sneakers scraping against the tiled floor. Inside, her light wavered slightly as she moved forward. We're actually doing this, she muttered, her tone somewhere between excitement and unease. Luke followed, grunting as he maneuvered through the tight space. As his feet hit the ground, his flashlight flickered to life, illuminating the interior with its pale, sterile glow. Damn, he muttered, sweeping the light across the diner.
- [12:19]
Cassie
It's like a time capsule.
- [12:21]
Luke
A stale, syrupy scent drifted out to meet me as I hovered by the window, my fingers gripping the frame. It was more than just old fryer grease. There was something else underneath it, something deeper, like damp rot and metal, like a memory of something spoiled. My stomach twisted as I exhaled through my nose and climbed inside. The moment my feet hit the greasy tile, a strange stillness settled around me. Lumpkin's Eatery hadn't decayed the way abandoned places should. The counter stools still stood in their neat little rows, their red vinyl cracked but intact, frozen in time as if waiting for customers who would never return. The booth sat beneath a thick layer of dust, yet there was no signs of animals nesting, no graffiti scrawled across the walls, no shattered glass littering the floor. The menu boards remained above the register, though the letters had faded into near illegibility. The Whole place felt suspended, preserved in a way that wasn't natural. Luke ran a hand across the countertop, leaving a stark smear in the dust.
- [13:35]
Cassie
This is creepy as hell.
- [13:37]
Luke
Cassie's light swept over the cracked tiles, her movements slow and deliberate. This should all be worse. The whole building should be sagging, collapsing in on itself. It doesn't make sense. What did they build this place with? I turned toward the kitchen doors, watching as they swayed gently in the still air. My chest tightened. I didn't touch them. None of us had. Then I noticed something that sent a ripple of cold through me. A single plate sat near the register, positioned neatly as if it had only just been left behind. The food on it was rotten, but it was there, blackened with decay, as though someone had been here recently. I swallowed my voice tight. Guys, someone was here. Cassie frowned, stepping closer. What do you mean? I pointed, my pulse pounding against my ribs. The three of us stood in tense silence, staring at the plate. It should have been overtaken by mold, consumed by time, but instead there it sat, untouched. Luke forced a chuckle.
- [14:56]
Cassie
Probably just some squatters who spent the night here.
- [15:00]
Luke
I wanted to believe that, but the idea settled poorly in my mind. Cassie's expression mirrored my unease. Then came the sound, a long, slow creak from the back of the diner. We froze, not daring to even draw breath as we listened intently. The noise had come from the kitchen. Luke turned his flashlight towards the swinging doors, the beam unsteady as the doors settled into stillness. It's probably just the wind, he muttered, though he sounded less sure this time. Cassie's voice was hushed, barely above a whisper. There is no wind. She was right. The air was stagnant, heavy with dust and disuse. Even outside, the highway had been unnervingly quiet. Now the silence inside the diner seemed to press inward. Luke took a step forward.
- [15:57]
Cassie
We should check it out.
- [15:59]
Luke
Cassie grabbed his arm. Why?
- [16:02]
Cassie
Because we came here to prove it's.
- [16:04]
Luke
Just an old diner, he said, pulling free from her grasp.
- [16:07]
Cassie
Nothing more.
- [16:09]
Luke
My fingers curled against my jacket sleeve. Luke, I'll just peek inside, he assured me. He pushed against the kitchen door and it swung inward with a groan, revealing the dark interior beyond. A gust of stale air hit us, thick with something pungent and meaty, like raw meat left too long in the heat. Luke stepped inside, his flashlight dimming slightly as it passed over old stoves and hanging pots, over surfaces covered in grime.
- [16:39]
Cassie
Nothing but old kitchen stuff, he muttered.
- [16:42]
Luke
I followed my steps, slow, deliberate. The kitchen looked as though it had been abandoned mid shift. Pots and pans still sat on the stove, a deep fryer caked in hardened grease. The freezer door was slightly ajar, a thin layer of frost clinging to its edges. But inside it was empty. Cassie ran a finger along a nearby counter, staring at the undisturbed dust. Even squatters would have taken something, she murmured. Luke tapped one of the metal prep tables.
- [17:14]
Cassie
Well, guess what? No squatters. No ghosts.
- [17:19]
Luke
Then, from somewhere in the diner, came a new sound. A slow, deliberate dragging noise. I stiffened, my skin turning ice cold. Did you hear that? Cassie's fingers clutched my wrist with an iron grip. Yeah. Luke turned toward the dining room, his flashlight beam cutting across the empty space, his breath slow and measured. His light flickered again. The dragging sound came once more, closer this time. Luke, we need to go, cassie whispered. He remained still, listening as if trying to pick apart the noise. My pulse thundered in my ears, the silence unbearable. Then the jukebox turned on. A sharp burst of static cut through the diner, followed by the slow, warbling notes of a song too old to recognize. The tune crackled, warped by time, yet it played as if the power was somehow still connected. But there was no power. There hadn't been for decades. I didn't wait for Luke to speak. I grabbed his sleeve, my grip iron tight. We need to go. For a second, he resisted. Then he nodded.
- [18:39]
Cassie
Yeah. Yeah, okay.
- [18:41]
Luke
We turned back toward the way we'd come, and the kitchen door slammed shut. Our flashlight beams jerked wildly as we searched for whatever was in here. The jukebox continued its ghostly warble, the warped melody slipping through the static like a dying breath. It wasn't just the sound that unnerved me. It was the fact that the song felt wrong, like it was being played at the wrong speed, stretched just slightly too thin. The longer I listened, the harder it was to convince myself that the words were English at all. I could feel my pulse in my throat, an uneven, rapid thud that refused to slow. Then, just beyond the counter, reflected in the freezer door's stainless steel surface, something moved. Luke took a slow, measured step backward, his flashlight beam dragging across the counter. The figure in the reflection twitched in a jerking, unnatural convulsion. Luke swore under his breath, gripping my sleeve.
- [19:49]
Cassie
We need to go right now.
- [19:51]
Luke
Neither Cassie nor I hesitated. We turned together, half running toward the window we had crawled through. But in the dim light and confusion, the layout of the diner didn't quite look the same. The booth stretched too far back. The room seemed longer than I remembered. The distance between us and the exit wasn't right. For a second I swore. I saw movement in the far corner of the room, something in the decrepit shadows, unfolding. The shadows shifted, stretching outward with sluggish purposes. It wasn't one shape, but several, bending and breaking over one another, a tangle of confusing and unfamiliar shapes. I couldn't see the details, but my mind filled in the blanks, constructing something surely more horrific than whatever was actually moving back there. The song on the jukebox skipped, cutting out for a second before resuming at a faster speed. The warped melody spiraled into something shrill and discordant. Luke grabbed my wrist and yanked me forward. Move, Kara, move. We sprinted towards the window, my lungs tightening with a growing panic. Cassie reached the window first and scrambled toward it, but she stopped short, her hands pressing against a smooth, unbroken wall. Perfect. Her breath came out in a sharp, panicked cry. What the hell? Running her hands along the spot where the exit should have been, but there was nothing. Just cold, slick tile, the same as the rest of the wall. Luke and I skidded to a stop behind her. My stomach plummeted. We had just come through that window. It had been right there. I know. It's this isn't happening, luke muttered. He turned, his flashlight shaking as he swung it back across the diner, searching for another exit, another way out. This isn't A sound interrupted him, a wet, organic drip. I turned in time to see something pressing against the inside of the kitchen door. From behind it, the wood bowed outward, bulging unnaturally. A deep, wet sucking noise filled the air, a low, gurgling pressure that rattled in my skull, like I was hearing it from inside my own head. The door frame cracked. Cassie screamed. Luke stumbled back, and I could only stare. A limb emerged, long, pale and rubbery. The flesh stretched and sagging like it had been melted. It bent at too many angles, the bones inside snapping wetly as they tried to move forward, then a second limb, then a third, but none seemed to match. They were all different, blended together from things that didn't look like they were part of the same body. One twitched erratically, fingers curling backward, nails jagged and blackened. Another hung limply, the skin splitting open to reveal something glistening beneath, like wet muscle wrapped in plastic. It pushed through the door, the wood splintering as something caved inward, pressing forward like a wet sack of organs trying to shape itself into something recognizable. The features came into focus like a bad signal trying to tune in, a stretched, flickering expression forming and reforming. The eyes were in the wrong places. The mouth opened too wide, then too small, then slid slightly to the side as if it couldn't decide where it belonged. The thing lurched forward, dragging itself free of the doorway. Luke bolted. Cassie and I followed, stumbling over ourselves as we sprinted toward the opposite end of the diner. I couldn't tell if there was anywhere to even run, but we had to get away. Luke. I shouted as he veered left, breaking away from us. My fingers just barely missed his jacket. Cassie and I skidded to a halt, spinning around in confusion. He was gone. One second he had been running with us, the next he had disappeared down a hall that I don't think was there before. Cassie was shaking, her breath ragged. Where? Where the hell did he go? That hallway.
- [24:26]
Cassie
That's.
- [24:26]
Luke
That's not possible. I turned, scanning the diner in horror. The whole place was changing. I couldn't see it happening directly, but every time I turned my head, something looked different. Something gone. Something new.
- [24:42]
Narrator
Warning. Signal interruption detected.
- [24:47]
Sponsor
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- [26:36]
Luke
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- [27:06]
Cassie
Daredevil is born again on Disney plus.
- [27:10]
Narrator
Why did you stop being a vigilante?
- [27:12]
Cassie
The line was crossed.
- [27:13]
Narrator
Sometimes peace needs to be broken. Chaos must reign.
- [27:18]
Cassie
On March 4th, the nine episode event begins. I was raised to believe in grace, but I was also raised to believe in retribution. Marvel television's daredevil born again.
- [27:31]
Narrator
Don't miss the two episode premiere March 4th only on Disney plus signal connection restored.
- [27:40]
Luke
Luke's scream cut through the air, distant, muffled, as if this place had swallowed him whole. Cassie grabbed my hand. We have to find him. I nodded, my whole body numb, my mind screaming at me to wake up from whatever nightmare we had just stepped into. Her grip tightened around my wrist as we stumbled forward, our feet slipping against the slick linoleum. My breath was barely keeping up with the frantic pounding of our hearts. The air had changed, thickening like something unseen was pressing down on us, and every time my foot hit the floor, I swore it felt softer, less like solid ground and more like something waiting to give way beneath us, from behind. Something moved, given away by a wet, mechanical shifting. The sickening noise echoed in my ears, seeming to close in on us. Cassie let out a choked sob as she yanked me forward, her fingers digging into my skin with enough force to leave bruises. We have to get out, she gasped, the words barely coherent between her heaving breaths. We rounded the counter, weaving between booths that no longer seemed fixed in place, their edges blurring at the corners of my vision, distorting into something fluid and unstable. The flashlight in Cassie's swaying arm cast erratic, jagged beams of light that sliced through the darkness, momentarily illuminating reflections in the steel surfaces lining the room. A shape stood at the far end of the counter, tall and hunched, put together with the wrong parts, its skin rippling like something unfinished, something still trying to decide what it was supposed to be. Its head was grotesquely oversized, the features flickering between expressions, unable to set on a single face, its mouth twitching and splitting open in violent spasms that seemed almost painful. The arms, if they could even be called that, were mismatched and asymmetrical, one overlong and spindly, the other thick and malformed, its joints reversing, twisting as though it was still figuring out how they were meant to function. Cassie could only manage a broken sob. I felt her body stiffen beside me, her muscles locking with fear as the thing lurched forward, not Stepping, not running, but falling into movement, its body snapping and realigning with every sickening impact against the floor. Its mouth yawned open, a sound gurgling from the depths of its throat. Not a growl, but something wet and unfinished. The syllables stretched, writhing, as if they were being pulled apart in the thing's desperate attempt to form something intelligible. My stomach dropped into a bottomless void of terror. It could talk and it knew my fucking name. The horror of that realization barely had time to register before it lunged. Cassie broke from her fixation, let go of me and ran, her flashlight flying from her hands as she tripped on an overturned stool, the beam rolling across the floor and casting wildly shifting shadows along the walls. I spun, reaching for her, but before I could grab hold, she was already scrambling backward, gasping, her heels skidding as she pushed herself away from the thing collapsing towards her. Her. She made one last desperate attempt to scramble to her feet as I moved to meet her, but it was already too late. The long arm sank its jagged black nails into her calf as it twisted and pulled. Her scream filled the room as it pulled her. She held onto a table, but it just pulled harder until her bone cracked and flesh tore, blood painting the things mottled gray hand. She couldn't handle the pain any longer and let the table go. I could only stand and watch as Cassie's scream cut off with a wet, sucking sound as her limbs sank into the thing's convulsing body, the flesh around its chest splitting open to accept her like a wound sealing over a knife. She fought, her arms flailing her fingers groan, grasping for anything, her mouth open in a silent, petrified cry that could no longer form into sound as putrid, rotten cordage poured into it and pulled her further in. I grabbed her wrist. I pulled with every ounce of strength I had left, but it was like trying to pull a semi truck. The thing shuddered with its head leaning back, its grotesque, naked body quivering, the bones inside cracking free and finding new positions. I pulled and cried, but she only sank deeper in, the look of fear and pain on her face scaring me almost as much as what caused it. Then the thing's bones and muscles ripped and snapped into place. Cassie was ripped violently inside it, her own body shifting and melting. I watched this as I fell backwards in what felt like slow motion, her silent, screaming face collapsing in on itself as she disappeared inside whatever this abomination was. The only thought I could muster as the shock set in was that I wasn't here. I was going crazy and I'd wake up in a hospital any second now. A sudden realization broke my mind from this train of thought as I tried to understand, my brain processing conflicting information. Cassie still clutched my hand, holding on for dear life, but she was just. Fuck. I screamed. Her hand had a death grip on mine. It looked melted off midway through the forearm. I shook my hand with a panicked scream, but it wouldn't come off. It wasn't until I pried at her still warm fingers that I could loosen the grip and her hand fell to the deteriorated linoleum. I stumbled back, bile rising in my throat and spewing all over the front of me. The flashlight's beam trembled as I turned and ran, my body moving on instinct before my mind could even begin to form the most basic of commands. Somewhere behind me, the thing laughed, a deep and twisted sound that crawled into my ears in a way that had me replaying every second of what happened to Cassie. My legs burned as I ran. My body was nowhere near used to this kind of stress or strain. Every muscle in me was screaming for relief that I couldn't give. I still heard it behind me, the wet slap of shifting limbs, the sickening crack of joints locking and unlocking, the slow, deliberate inhale and exhale that seemed to be just to mock me. I swear I could hear Cassie's voice mixed in within its laughter, fragmented, stretched, overlapping with others who had come before. I hit a door I hadn't seen before, the impact jarring my bones as I fumbled for the handle, twisting it with shaking fingers and throwing myself inside. Without a second thought, I slammed it shut behind me, my back pressing against the cold, slick surface as I tried to steady my breathing, my heartbeat thundering so loud I couldn't hear anything else. The darkness inside the room was absolute, swallowing the weak glow of my flashlight, making it feel as though I had stepped into a space that had never known light at all. Behind my hands, the surface of the door pulsed, the texture shifting and unfamiliar, not exactly as solid, not wood or metal or anything I could place. I snatched my fingers away, swallowing the bile that surged into my throat at the realization. Everything here was wrong. Not just the thing that was trying and succeeding at killing us, but the whole damn place. And now I was alone. Something wet dripped from the ceiling, landing on my shoulder, thick and sluggish, its heat sinking into my skin, skin like it was trying to burrow inside me. The smell followed immediately, a sickly sweet rot, a stench so potent it made my eyes water. I didn't want to look up. I didn't want to See what was in the ceiling, waiting to be noticed. I forced myself not to. My mind was about to fray. I couldn't take this anymore. My eyes scanned the room instead, trying to find a way out, but the space was suffocatingly small, lined with sagging metal shelves, their surfaces streaked with old, congealed fluids. A shape sat slumped against the far wall, a human shape, but I knew before I even stepped closer that it wasn't alive. Not anymore, and clearly not for a long time. The body was ruined, the torso flayed open, the ribcage peeled apart like the husk of a fruit, the exposed cavity glistening with something thick and still moving, pulsing with sluggish residual motion as though a new form of life. The uniform was faded, but the name tag remained, a small, cruel reminder of what this place had once been. Lumpkins. The letters swam in my vision, their meaning dissolving into nonsense as the reality of what I was seeing clicked into place. This had been happening here for years, decades, and we just walked right in. The laughter outside the door became a vibration beneath my feet, rattling the rusted shelving, making the walls pulse with something that wasn't quite sound, wasn't quite real. The door behind me began to shift, stretching outward like a mouth preparing to swallow. The first sound wasn't the door opening. It was the slow, deliberate creak of flesh peeling away from itself, the wet, sucking noise of something unfolding in the darkness before the door simply peeled away. The first thing I saw wasn't its face. It was its hands, long and skeletal fingers, too many knuckles bulging in the wrong places, the nails cracked and jagged. It moved with unbearable patience, like it had already won, like this moment wasn't about the chase anymore but the inevitable conclusion it had all but demanded. My shaking light worked its way up. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop. My arm, and I saw more. Its arm splitting, doubling, spiraling into jagged new configurations as they reached for me, fingers twitching with the eagerness of something that had waited too long. It just kept coming, more pouring into the room behind it like train cars made of others flesh. Its head turned toward the ceiling, and from its neck the thin skin bulged and formed into something else. Cassie. She reached for me with a stump of an arm, her expression frozen in a pleading, broken scream, her eyes wide and rolling around like a doll's as the thing twitched. Her mouth opened wide, filled with things that weren't even teeth. Fingers, bones, clumps of matted hair. The words that came from it were garbled distorted as if she was was being forced to speak through layers of stolen voices. The syllables warped, cracked, stretched thin until they were no longer words at all. Something wrapped around my ankle and my body jerked violently, slamming my head against the hard floor. My vision swam as consciousness pulsed in and out. I held on, stayed awake as I clawed at the floor, my nails tearing and breaking against the surface as I thrashed. But the pull was relentless, like sinking into wet cement, like being swallowed by the earth itself. Then the cold press of too many hands, the pain of them digging into me, the wet slide of skin against mine. The hotel, the unbearable pain of the pulsing mass that absorbed me, folding and breaking my body into its endless, writhing form. The moment stretched into eternity until I was just a thought in a sea of screams.
- [40:46]
Narrator
Warning signal interruption detected.
- [40:51]
Luke
I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more squats anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3 will that be cash or credit? Credit.
- [41:08]
Narrator
4 Galaxy S25 Ultra the AI companion that does the heavy lifting so you can do. You get yours@samsung.com compatible with select apps.
- [41:18]
Luke
Requires Google Gemini account.
- [41:19]
Narrator
Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy.
- [41:21]
Luke
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Narrator
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Cassie
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Luke
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Cassie
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Luke
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Cassie
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- [42:21]
Narrator
Signal connection restored.
- [42:25]
Cassie
The moment I lost sight of Kara and Cassie, I knew something was wrong. It wasn't just the panic of being alone or the way the diner's layout had suddenly twisted itself into something unrecognizable. It was a sinking certainty in my gut that I had already gone too far. The hallway ahead of me stretched long, reaching far into an infinite black my flashlight couldn't pierce. The light from the flickering overhead bulbs was sporadic, pale and sickly, casting shadows that refused to sit still. Behind me, the distant echoes of laughter rippled through the stagnant air, warped and layered, overlapping in ways that made my stomach churn. I moved fast, my footsteps slapping against the peeling linoleum, but the hallway just kept going. It turned back into itself at one point, without seeming to curve. I turned a corner, hoping, praying to find something that resembled a way out. But instead I hit a dead end. The corridor stopped, not in a wall or another door, but in a set of descending stairs. I'd never even heard that this place had a basement, not in any rumor or story. The air that rose from below was thick, damp, and acrid. It clung to my skin like the breath of whatever lurked this place. A loud, wet thump echoed behind me. I twisted around, my hammering pulse the only noise. Now the hallway was empty. Then the laughter started again, a low, catching noise. Maybe it was some other kind of noise, but it felt mocking, menacing. From somewhere down the impossible hallway, a sliding noise neared closer, closer. I had no choice. I turned and dashed down the creaking wooden stairs. The moment I reached the bottom, a door behind me I didn't know was there, slammed shut with a hollow, final thud. The basement was colder than I expected. Not the musty, stagnant cold of a forgotten cellar, but the biting chill of a place that wasn't meant for people to be. The air carried the scent of something decomposing, an organic musk that settled into my lungs like smoke. The space around me was massive, far too large to be needed beneath a diner. Metal shelves lined the walls, their surfaces rusted and slick, bowing under the weight of rotting boxes and equipment I couldn't recognize. The floor was uneven, the concrete bulging in places, as if something beneath had tried to push its way up, but only half succeeding. I took a cautious step forward, my heart dropping as my foot sank into something soft. I froze, my stomach twisting, and forced myself to look down. It was people. No. Pieces of people. A hand curled and stiff, fingers fused together like melted wax. A foot torn at the ankle, its skin smooth and featureless, as though it had never been finished. A torso split down the center, its ribcage cracked open like a discarded husk. Empty inside, and so much more. Bits and pieces I couldn't identify, but somehow it all seemed preserved. The flashlight trembled in my grip as I swept the beam across the room. There were more, dozens of them, strewn across the basement like discarded trash. They looked like they'd been ripped off. Some were malformed faces, missing features, limbs too short or bending too many times. Others were almost normal, except for the excessive amounts of physical damage. I took a slow step backward, my breath coming too fast, my vision tunneling. I don't know what this place was supposed to be, but now it's a fucking graveyard. Something behind me shifted, the wet sound of flesh peeling in a distant corner. I turned just as the darkness stirred, a shape stepping out. I didn't wait. I ran into the black expanse. The farther I went, the more I realized there was no end in sight. The basement should have been small, a storage area no larger than the diner's foundation, but instead it stretched endlessly before me, corridors branching off in all directions, walls that seemed stitched together from different materials and times. The air was dense and wet, clinging to my skin like something deadly and toxic. My footsteps barely made a sound against the warped floor. Floor a mixture of concrete and something that gave slightly beneath my weight, like the carcass of something enormous. Every surface glistened, slick with moisture, and though I told myself it was condensation, the smell told me otherwise. A deep, coppery rot mixed with something bitter and burning filled my lungs. The air itself had weight, like I was pushing through the now unseen remnants of everyone that had died here. The deeper I went, the more it felt like I was stepping out of the world I knew and into a new, far more deadly one. The corridors, twisted ceilings arched too high in places and compressed too low in others. Some walls were tiled like a kitchen, others rough and uneven, pulsing faintly as if there were things inside of them barely contained. The space didn't feel abandoned like the diner upstairs. It felt unfinished, but alive. Then I saw a shape half buried in the floor, curled in on itself like a discarded rag doll. My stomach twisted as I realized it was another body. Or at least it had been. The flesh was pale, waxy, fused to the ground as if it had melted into it. It. One of its arms ended abruptly, the stump smoothed like the limb had been severed with impossible precision. I turned sharply, my breath catching, as I realized there were dozens of them, scattered along the floor, stuffed into alcoves, fused into the walls themselves. Bodies everywhere, twisted, defiled, and somehow preserved. Some were missing limbs, others had too many, malformed and unnatural. A torso had been split open from sternum to stomach. The ribcage spread wide as if everything inside had been taken out and repurposed. Another had no head at all, just a wet, gaping hole where a skull should have been connected. Where had all these people come from? This shouldn't be possible. All the missing persons reports should have brought the police here years ago. Hell, the FBI should have been involved with this many bodies. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, stumbling backward as my boot struck something solid. I didn't want to look, but I did. A severed arm, fingers somehow still twitching, the nails digging into the floor and flexing, trying to pull itself forward. I staggered away, my vision swimming. How? How was any of this possible? My flashlight flickered, and I knew already what that meant before I felt it and then heard it. A shift in the air, a low, wet sound of something peeling itself free. The walls groaned as if something enormous was shifting behind them, the sound of flesh stretching, tearing, reforming. My pulse hammered as I turned rapidly, trying to find a way out, but every corridor looked the same, twisting, endless, lined with pieces of flesh and things I couldn't describe. I moved again, faster now, as quick as I could in the dark confines of this dungeon. The ground beneath me grew softer, every step sinking slightly, trying to swallow me. Inch by inch. I could hear movement behind me, above, beneath, inside the very walls. Something exhaled a deep, resonant sound, like the breath of something vast and buried. The walls shuddered. The floor pulsed. I turned a corner and found myself staring into a hallway that had not been there when I looked a second before. It stretched long and narrow, lined with doors that didn't belong in a diner or its basement. Some were steel, others wood, some sealed shut with thick bands of something organic, pulsing faintly, like veins pumping something radioactive. The voices followed a second later, whispering and layered over each other, and then my light went out. The whispering grew louder, the noises overlapping and fighting for dominance, the voices mismatched in pissed, the wet scrape of something shifting in the dark. I ran again, but not only was I exhausted and shaking, I couldn't see my hands stretched out before me, only the faint pulsing glow of organic material dimly lighting the space. The ground beneath me pulsed soft, like tender flesh, and every step sent ripples through it that made their way back to me in the form of vibrations. I vaguely remember watching a nature documentary that highlighted how spiders hunt by feeling the vibrations in their web. This felt a lot like that, and I couldn't get that thought out of my head. The walls swayed, distorting like heat mirages in the dim, brightening and darkening glow, their surfaces slick and veined. The corridor twisted into endless spirals, doorways appearing and disappearing in my Peripheral vision, some gaping open like mouths, others slammed shut with sounds like snapping bone. The breathing followed a sucking, gurgling inhale, a pause, then a slow, wet exhale, carrying with it the reek of damp rot and burned hair. Something surged behind me, a rush of movement that sent the walls buckling outward like thick lungs expanding. I didn't look. I had to focus on moving forward. The sensation of being chased had morphed into something else. It was closer now. All I could feel was an impending sense of doom, the anticipation of pain and suffering. I hit a wall and didn't realize it at first. The corridor had led me in a spiral, forcing me right into its path. The thing just standing there, its body in a constant state of movement and readjustment, every position looking as if it were unnatural and painful. And each time the thing tried to rectify this by breaking some piece of itself and readjusting it. The new position only seemed worse. One small, deformed limb seemed to get stuck as its body quivered to move it, but failed. It grabbed the misshapen appendage with a newly extended one nearby and ripped it off, dropping it to the floor before the flesh swirled to seal the bleeding hole. It was tall, with many human shapes positioned in the most unhuman way. Faces bulged beneath the surface, pressing outward like hands through latex, mouths opening in silent screams before sinking back into the mass. Its main face wore a stretched out, hate filled smile as it stared into me with eyes far too small and beady for its large, cratered head. The look it gave me was one of resentment and complete loathing, like it hated what I was because it knew what it wanted to be and couldn't. It took a step forward and the whole room breathed with it. The wall stretched, the ceiling sagging downward in soft, wet folds. And then it spoke. A wave of layered voices. Cassie's scream, Kara's cries. My own words distorted and played back at me. I stumbled backward, my foot sinking deep into the soft, wet floor. It moved around my ankle, pulling at me, trying to drag me closer. I threw myself sideways, desperately trying to rip myself free. My palms came away slick with something thick and fibrous. The thing moved like a shadow. It was everywhere I looked, slowly closing the distance. A limb burst from its torso, long fingers tipped in jagged, uneven nails, flexing as they reached up in the air. I barely rolled away as it slammed into the floor where my head had been, sinking into the flesh like surface with a sickening squelch. I crawled, scrambling for a way out, but the corridors had disappeared. There was only the room now. The living, breathing, pulsing room. But that wasn't entirely it. There was a door. I hadn't seen it before, but it was there now. Steel, industrial, massive, entirely out of place. It looked old, rusted in places, built for something like the thing in front of me. The keypad beside it was smashed. Wires hanging loose, melted in places, as if something had forced its way through long ago. The wall around it wasn't the same material as the rest of this place. It was reinforced, solid, untouched by the organic growth that had consumed everything else. I didn't understand what I was looking at. I just knew it was probably my only chance. I lunged forward, but the thing was already moving. Its torso cracked open, splitting like a wound, revealing a churning cavity of shifting, half formed faces. Their teeth gnashing as they moaned and wailed. I reached the door. There was no handle, no anything. I slammed my fist against it, my breath coming fast, ragged. The metal was cold, pristine almost. Hands grasped around my shoulders. Two, five more. They grabbed me everywhere. The fingers with too many joints now, nails tearing in and clamping down. They pulled and my vision blurred as my body creaked and then gave way. My flesh ripped, tendons snapped and bones splintered as it pulled me in and pulled me apart. It chest closed around me, the red hot hell giving way to blissful encroaching numbness. One last thing filled my vision before it all went black. Words on the door. Something stamped into the steel. A symbol. A name. Redwood Bureau clearance level 5.
- [57:52]
Narrator
The Bureau has many failures under its belt, but this one is unique. Most sites that go dark do so because the Bureau cuts them loose. The doldrums became a death trap because its own design betrayed it. A prison meant to hold the impossible that collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance. The facility I found inside that so called storm shelter wasn't just a research lab. It was an experiment in itself. Something the Bureau built to test the limits of reality itself. But Lumpkins, that place wasn't shut down and erased. It wasn't collapsed, burned or bombed to dust like other containment failures. It was left. The first question is why? Why leave it untouched, abandoned but not destroyed? Why let something remain when the Bureau's first instinct is always control or silence? If this had been any other site, the Bureau would have wiped it from the earth. Buried the evidence, rewritten records to ensure it had never existed in the first place. That's what they've done so many times before. That's what they're trying to do. With the doldrums. But not here. Why? Then there's the second question, the one that should be even more concerning. Why haven't the entities still clearly inside, left? Most anomalies don't willingly stay locked in place. The Bureau has struggled for years with certain entities spreading beyond their containment zones, escaping into new locations, adapting to their environments. But here, nothing has left the walls. That tells me a few things, but ultimately, my working theory is that something very powerful is keeping everything tethered there. And it isn't trapped. It's waiting. But there's something else. The deeper I look, the more I start to see patterns forming. Facilities lost, not because of internal failures, not because of deliberate shutdowns, but because they simply stopped reporting. Entire Bureau projects left to rot. Locations left out of their database, not out of secrecy, but because they don't even know where they are anymore. This place, the remains of whatever was built beneath Lumpkin's eatery, it isn't an isolated event. It's another piece of something larger, something that doesn't add up. How many sites like this exist? How many facilities were abandoned? How many projects were quietly forgotten, their records left buried, because there was no one left inside to report what went wrong? The Bureau likes to front like it has total control over its anomalies, that even when they let things fester, even when they observed instead of intervening, they still knew where their problems were. But I don't think that's true at all. If sites like this are still out there, still waiting to be uncovered, then it means something far worse than containment failure. It means the Bureau itself has blind spots that they have actively created. Dangerous, unaccounted for, and uncontrolled anomalies. I don't know how many. I don't know how deep this goes, but what I do know is this case isn't over. If the Bureau lost track of the facility below Lumpkin's eatery, then I guarantee they'll find it soon. Maybe they're watching to see how it develops. Maybe they're waiting for the right moment to step back in. Or maybe they have no idea what's still lurking inside. And that should terrify everyone.
- [62:03]
Luke
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- [62:18]
Cassie
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- [62:20]
Luke
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