Lunatics Radio Hour
Lunatics Library 39 - Dancing Plague Horror Stories
Abby and Alan present two horrifying dancing plague inspired short stories.
The Paino Man was written by Birttany Johnson and narrated by Michael Crosa. Check out Brittany's book Mississippi Blue here. And check out Michael's amazing work here.
A Procession of Skulls was written by JR Santos and narrated by Adam McAlonie. Watch Adam's music video Parking Lots here.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Abby and Alan present two horrifying dancing plague inspired short stories.
The Paino Man was written by Birttany Johnson and narrated by Michael Crosa. Check out Brittany's book Mississippi Blue here. And check out Michael's amazing work here.
A Procession of Skulls was written by JR Santos and narrated by Adam McAlonie. Watch Adam's music video Parking Lots here.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. My name is Abbey Branker and today I am here with Alan Kudan.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:We have for you, as a follow-up to our last episode on the dancing plague of 1518, two custom I'll venture to say custom horror stories written for your enjoyment.
Speaker 2:I mean, this was a hard choice because there are just a plethora of dancing plague from 1518 stories ready to go, so many. So you know you really had to be discerning.
Speaker 1:We did, but we are also so thrilled with the two that we have. They are incredibly haunting. There's so much texture to both of them in their own ways, so I'm very excited to share them. If, for any reason, you have not listened to last week's episode, please do. One of the rare times in the history of this podcast that I presented a really Abby forward theme and Alan was on board for it.
Speaker 2:I mean it was fun. It was a wild concept, it was kind of spooky, it was like a weird little sub kind of spooky Mm-hmm. It was like a weird little sub-genre of history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, certainly not the worst things to ever happen to humanity or the best, just like a weird little glitch in the matrix. I also want to say we only dwelled on this at the end, but I've really been ruminating on the connection between, or just how fascinating to me the sub-genre of horror and dance is like dance horror, which I think in a lot of ways is similar to kind of the little blip in the matrix of a dance plague happening at all, like there's not a ton of dance horror films, but there's more than you would expect and the use of dance in horror. I'm just endlessly fascinated by it.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's that weird.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not weird when you have things that like organically happen, right when you're in Midsommar and people are doing a festival dance, sure, but in the film Us or you know things like that, where it's, it's not as organic. I think it's such an interesting choice and I'm all for it. But it's such an interesting choice.
Speaker 2:I mean Us doesn't really come to mind when I think of pinnacle dance horror.
Speaker 1:What does?
Speaker 2:There's a really cool film that had a pretty big impact on me called Witching Hour.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, I was hoping that you would give me an actual film, alan, not one that you made.
Speaker 2:I didn't make it.
Speaker 1:We made it together. We made it together.
Speaker 2:It was a team effort, but no, it really doesn't surprise me that dance and horror go hand in hand. So dance is sexy Sure, and horror and sexy go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:What's the sexiest horror movie? That's a tough one it is, but what an interesting question. I mean, obviously it really depends on your personal preferences. I think jennifer's body is pretty sexy that's a great answer. I mean, she's a succubus like that what it's meant to be, what a softball answer they succeed at what they set out to do that's exactly it and honestly, that's a great answer.
Speaker 2:I mean, who can say you know it's? It's a? It's a very personal choice. Some people might find the uh stegosaurus in jurassic park to be like their turn on you know, me personally.
Speaker 1:I do not okay, well, that's a hypothesis to return to. I Okay, but what do you?
Speaker 2:think it is about sexuality and horror that are just like peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 1:You're really asking me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, obviously they're kind of opposites but they're put together all the time. I don't think peanut butter and jelly are opposites.
Speaker 1:I think that's an incredibly complex question to answer because I think at the offset, sex sells right and you have b-horror movies like Halloween that center around teenagers. Sex sells and filmmakers want to incorporate that. They figure that people are going to watch these big thrills and they want to see tits, right, that's part of it. However, there's also some sexism, there's female empowerment, there's all kinds of lenses to look at that through. But I think in a lot of ways, when you go back to like hitchcock and those films which really sort of started perhaps some would argue the trope of of combining sexuality and horror, what it's a little bit more problematic in some ways and didn't okay, I mean, I'm thinking, let's talk about psycho right.
Speaker 1:Psycho starts with a couple having sex in the middle of the afternoon at a cheap motel.
Speaker 2:It might not be sexy by today's standards no, it's not but it's sexy by those standards oh, sure they were getting it on, but she's in a black bra.
Speaker 1:All people wearing black bras got killed right, there's a lot of like undertone and like anti-feminism and whatever, however you want to parse it out, that happened I just want to point out that you learned that tidbit when we attended the official talk on psycho. The official talk, the official talk you have seen dance horror films, though, so which? What's one that stands out that you love?
Speaker 2:hands down witching hour okay, but a feature-length film I cannot think of a single one outside of suspiria have you seen the original suspiria? Yes, we watched it together and you liked it. I mean, you were blackout drunk, but yeah, we watched it together.
Speaker 1:All right, and you like suspiria not really yeah, okay it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It's like a haunted ballet studio, right or? Or just like not haunted at all. There's nothing supernatural in Suspiria Right, there's just kind of like malevolence around ballet.
Speaker 1:Sure, I mean, you've seen Black Swan.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You've never seen Black Swan.
Speaker 2:I have not seen Black Swan, but I worked on the Black Swan parody.
Speaker 1:Alan Black Swan is so good.
Speaker 2:So you say Me and the whole world. I only worked on the official college humor.
Speaker 1:Black swan parody okay, well, that doesn't buy you that much when it comes to this conversation that's what I have to offer.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've seen midsummer and they have a little bit of dancing, but I wouldn't see that as a dance horror film. That's a horror film that has a one thing with some people dancing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's certainly a distinction, but I think any film that has a one thing with some people dancing, yeah, I mean, that's certainly a distinction, but I think any film that's entirely dance and entirely horror is probably a very bizarre, borderline, unwatchable film.
Speaker 2:Can you think of a movie that's entirely dance?
Speaker 1:No, but musicals come the closest for sure.
Speaker 2:Sure, but musicals suck.
Speaker 1:Okay, why don't we move on to the stories that we have to talk about today? What are we talking about today? Today, we are presenting two horrifying dancing plague that's right. Dancing plagues, rocks so here we go. We're going to present two stories that take the dancing plague into a modern era I have one dancing horror thing to contribute it's small, it's small it's real small but it was impactful.
Speaker 2:A bunch of friends and I had the pleasure of doing a massive co-op run through of the game elden ring okay, and there's already.
Speaker 1:What'd you say? Nothing. What'd you say? Said I'm bored already, why?
Speaker 2:are you bored? What's gonna happen with elden ring that has to do with dance there is a village that you can stumble upon in elden ring and there's all these women just dancing in a circle, dressed like they're in midsummer white dresses, flower crowns, everything but they're all women.
Speaker 2:This entire village is just women, and if you kind of start poking, around the village and reading all the the like, the like you know there's like little tidbits that you can read start finding out what actually happened in the village and that it's all. The men are not only gone and dead, but the women ate them hell yeah, and so they're all just like celebrating because the men got eaten nice, and what's the name of that village?
Speaker 1:I don't know can you point it out to me on a map?
Speaker 2:um sure great, but yeah, no, it was. It was just kind of cool because, like it's weird, in this game, every time you encounter somebody they fucking attack you, right? Yeah, you're just it's a video game, right? Sure, enemies attack. Well, in this case, you can just go to the village, have a great fucking time, nobody attacks you, you can dance with them. But you know, if you fuck with them, they fuck with you back.
Speaker 1:But you can just have a great time in the village, and if you just enjoy yourself, then that's it.
Speaker 2:it would have been really cool if the game mechanic was like if you picked to play a female character you could dance with them, but if you were not, then you couldn't. That that would be fun, yeah. However, I do also appreciate that the game does not discriminate on gender. Yeah, because you can play as kind of anything and you can have the same interactions no matter what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's certainly more important, for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know To your point. Yeah, that would be like a fun little Easter egg in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where, like you, get attacked as a man or embraced as a woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the game as across the board doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Very cool, all right, right. So that's an option out there for people who are looking for a very organic dancing there's no plague there.
Speaker 2:I mean, actually that's not true. They're infected by the rot but that's perfectly applicable, that's a it's. It's a plague and they're dancing. There's not a dancing plague I understand.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the dancing plague of 1518.
Speaker 2:We already did. It was great.
Speaker 1:Well, in that case, without further ado, shall we present the first story of the evening.
Speaker 2:I think it's time.
Speaker 1:And before we roll the tape on this first story, I just do want to say there are some intense themes in this story, so listen with caution. Certainly not a story that I would recommend for children listeners.
Speaker 2:PG-13.
Speaker 1:I would say R.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Flat out R the Piano man Read by Brittany Johnson.
Speaker 4:Read by Michael Grosso. He came in the dead of summer, when men hung from trees and no roads were paved, only thoroughfare muck and flies. He came with the heat, the sultry kind that made you sweat from head to toe, the kind that made you want to die. That's when God came to town. He appeared like any other man, with average height and features, an anonymous wayfarer. Nothing distinguishable aside from the scar, thin and spider-like, that traced from the corner of his lip down his jaw. Dark eyes, darker hair, uncouth in every possible way, an invisible cloud of stench following him.
Speaker 4:There was a bullet hole in his left pec fresh and burping blood from deep inside his muscle. God had picked the body shortly after it expired. Some piss-poor nobody who got shot in the chest for running his mouth off, the kind of man that had that slipshod way of living, giving nothing of real value to the earth he walked. No one wept for that man when he died. No one cared when he was shot down at the edge of town, bleeding out and gurgling for his life.
Speaker 4:The reverend took the family-less man's body and buried him in a shallow grave outside of town. He said his words and bowed his head, wishing the man's soul an easy ride to heaven. Hands clasped and pulled into his chest. Ride to heaven. Hands clasped and pulled into his chest, eyes gently closed, the whistle of his words lost to the wind. That was where God found him, entered him and rose him from fresh dirt into temporary life.
Speaker 4:No one recognized the man when he walked into town, not even those cowboys who shot him dead, because no one cared. No one cared to remember his face or his reason for being, or the fact that he was the one who had beheaded those two Indians. Brought them justice for killing that Irish family passing on through. He had been a mere faceless rider on a chestnut horse, hooting and hollering and waving the heads of those natives round like they were flags. And the truth was he didn't kill for vengeance, only for the act of killing, because he liked the taste, liked the power it gave him as he watched the life dwindle from something's eyes. God didn't speak to anyone. At first entering the saloon and ordering a drink, he liked listening to the piano player play the ragtime tunes. For nearly fifty years, piano man had collected those songs, notes and rhythms and words that gave him life. The player had sat on a piano bench for nearly thirty of those fifty years, aging into a withered sack filled with water and gas and blood. His hair was more grey than it was black, his foggy, half-lidded eyes emanating little more than the dull light of a man awaiting his end. His ass ached blisters with sores that would need to be released by the town dock roughly every fortnight and his back curved like a weeping willow. But boy could he play the piano, a gift given to him from before. He could remember his toddler fingers drawn to the ebonies and ivories before he was even strong enough to walk. He'd come to Grave Mountain shortly after its beginning, when it was nothing but tents and campfires and a collection of rough men who led rough lives, looking to escape, to build, to be the purveyors of a new fucking land. Piano man could remember the early nights spent staring up at the sky, terrified, wondering why the hell anyone would want to go west. West was a place of nothing but hard land and beasts and savages, of old, old ways of living, ways he couldn't even begin to comprehend. But Piano man had not faltered, he had not succumbed, he had survived when many others hadn't. And when the town began to form and white civilization took hold, he provided song. He was the first that God touched.
Speaker 4:For a while God just sat there at the bar as Piano man played Stars and Stripes, forever and Charleston Rag. God observed him carefully, surrounded by drunkards and gunslingers and whores, businessmen and looters and murderers, gamblers, politicians, jews, blacks, celestials, sinners and saints and preachers and poor men, come one, come all. But it was only the piano man who could carry God's song to the people of that town. So God walked up behind piano man and laid his hands on his sore shoulders, shoulders that pained him every moment of every day. He leaned forward, whispering into his ears. Piano Man's eyes sprung open, glistering a faint gasp escaping his cracked lips. And then Piano man felt the pain flee his muscles, felt his traps loosen and relax, felt the unbelieving smile stretch his mouth. His arthritis fled too. So did his carpal tunnel. Now his hands, which had been numb, stony things, were youthful and totally inexplicably absent of ache. Then God said to the man Play. So Piano man played, played, with that jovial smile, stretching his face and wrinkling the skin around his eyes into deep crow's feet, long, fast fingers and smooth touch of the keys.
Speaker 4:First it was the saloon's patrons who started listening, drunk cowboys who raised their glasses and sputtered out some kind of song. And as the crowd grew, god slipped away unnoticed into the arms and bed of one of the local whores, where she wrote him senseless. After God disappeared, piano men kept playing and playing and folks from every dirty corner of town drew into that little saloon, busting at the brim. They packed around the windows, listening, singing, swaying, crying. The bartenders stopped pouring drinks and the whores stopped fucking and the gunslingers stopped shooting and the preachers stopped preaching, but piano man kept playing, playing with hands that never aged in the spirit, that never ceased. Not once did he feel tired, nor did his hands ever cramp. The only thing he heard was that song, god's song, vibrating through his body.
Speaker 4:Soon word of the clandestine town, with the magic piano man caught wind and travelers from all over came to Grave Mountain, all color and creed, rich, poor, it did not matter, they were welcome, they were one Ravenous. They came as if in pursuit of some great national monument and once there, in the presence of something too great for them to understand, they could not be bothered to leave. It seemed so clear in that moment that nothing else mattered that their entire small lives had been leading to this. A single purpose what mankind had craved in the deepest caverns of their hearts. All matters of life before the music now seemed trivial, useless, erased by the sheer enormity and power of this man's one song.
Speaker 4:For eleven years the community of Grave Mountain waited for God's return. For eleven years, piano man played Sixty-four. He was lively and elastic and clean, cults-like. Those townspeople became One mind, one belief, one song. And then one day, one of those stray travelers, a strange fellow with a darkness that seemed to follow his every step, made his way into town, squeezing between the crowd, bumping roughly into shoulders and backs and asses, until he found Piano man at last. The stranger stood there watching Piano Man's hands dance across those keys, joyously cocking his head to the side. Bizarre resentment hardened the stranger's features, turning him into a vexed-looking caricature. Lips tight, nearly bursting with his unbridled fury, his eyes sharpened into black, glossy stones overtaken suddenly. And in that moment this stranger, this godforsaken low-life vermin of a man, withdrew his pistol from its rugged holster cocked and placed it at the back of Piano Man's head. Piano man played on and on and the stranger pulled the trigger.
Speaker 4:After the concussive boom of his gunshot, silence cut through the saloon, rippling down to every last heathen in that town. The stranger smiled in relief that wretched song finally gone, closing his eyes into slits and tipping his head back. But the sound returned To the stranger's chagrin. The piano man kept on, not quite dead, not quite alive, with his eyes sunk back into his skull in a bullet hole, right above his left temple, wavering in his seat, sunk back into his skull in a bullet hole, right above his left temple, wavering in his seat, his hands still fiddling at the keys.
Speaker 4:The music jagged now an out-of-tune ragtime shitshow. The stranger lunged at Piano man, throttling him, wrapping his hands around the back of his neck, twisting his white, thin hair between his fingers, slamming his skull into the keys. Ragged clangs echoed throughout the saloon. Blood spattered as the stranger pounded harder and harder, heaving his entirety into it, letting the rage flow through him so unrestrained it could hardly be contained by his own vessel. Clang, clang, clang. And even after Piano Man's hands stopped fussing with the keys, the stranger could not help himself from slamming that man's head into his instrument, busting through that paper-thin skin and chunks of flesh nibbling away at his frail bones until he was covered in them, until blood spilled to the floor in a steady stream, pooling on the pine below.
Speaker 4:At the peak of exhaustion, the stranger released his grip and staggered backward, heaving breathlessly. Silence again. The townsfolk watched with large, strained eyes as Piano man hung there, splayed across the keys, mushy head caved in. They watched intently, holding their breath, as he slumped backwards, hands sliding from the keys. One final jagged ring released and the crowd wavered in shock. Anger fissured quickly, primal thought consuming their minds. Frowns grew, so did snarls, transforming their faces into something beastly. Piano Man's killer just stood there, panting as he stared at his victim in righteous glory, unaware of the heaving mob around him.
Speaker 4:He had taken their song away. A man, a stranger, a nothing, a nobody, and they cried at that, cried for their song to return, something they knew could never be, because Piano Man's blood and brain was all over the keys, all over the floor. His fingers, which were now lifeless and decaying, turning bluish-gray, hung limply from the meat of his palms. There was no time for the stranger to escape. They pulled that murdering cocksucker apart, ripped him limb from limb, strung him up in the saloon across the thoroughfare, chanting and raging, and still their piano man was dead, still their song did not play, still God did not return.
Speaker 4:Eleven years, the people waited, eleven years, and they sang and danced and praised and listened to Piano man play. And once he was gone, so were their minds, feverish and starved and outwrought with thoughtless hatred. The town festered, tearing itself apart. The people of Grave Mountain grew sick and greedy, yearning for the next traveler to come, mountain grew sick and greedy. Yearning for the next traveler to come. Perhaps they'd bring god's song back, and with every sojourner who did not return god and his song to them, they were left to do one thing kill. Kill as many as required until they heard the music once again.
Speaker 1:I have so much praise for this story, but I want to hear what you think.
Speaker 2:I think this is one of our best.
Speaker 1:I hands down have said the same thing Hands down.
Speaker 2:So many themes in this story that are just like right up my alley. Yeah, actually, before I start getting into the story, a huge round of applause for both our writer, britney johnson, and our narrator, michael carosa like seconded times a thousand holy fuck, that was great britney actually also has a novel out.
Speaker 1:She has many works out, but she has a novel out that I particularly love called mississippi blue, and we'll link that novel below because it's one that if you enjoyed this short story, you will enjoy that novel.
Speaker 2:And as someone that enjoys such novels, it is fantastic.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for a summer beach, read perfect.
Speaker 2:Or just literally any good book. It's great. I loved it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And also Michael Krosa, who is one of our favorite narrators of all time.
Speaker 1:Our dream boy.
Speaker 2:Absolutely brought the fire on this one. Yeah, so thank you, michael, that was cool.
Speaker 1:Yes, Thank you Michael. It was such a fun pairing and when I read the story I was like, okay, we got to pull out the big guns for this, and I just think it came together so beautifully.
Speaker 2:It really worked out. Also, just the themes, the themes.
Speaker 1:The themes are so good.
Speaker 2:Anyone who has ever read Preacher which? Is one of my favorite comics of all time. Also an AMC series that I've heard is good. I've not watched it.
Speaker 1:I've only read the comics as well.
Speaker 2:It's great. The idea of this is that there is a disenchanted preacher who inherits the word of God, so whatever he says, people have to obey.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that was the theme that I was kind of getting from this, where, in this case, it's more of like a bard, you know.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah.
Speaker 2:Half bard, half warlock, multiclass. Yeah, if you want to get all D&D on this, where he's a musician but he summons his power through a patron in this, being a deity and just, people cannot help but become enthralled with this music and they, they sculpt their whole sense of self-worth around this man yeah and his and what he produces I love also the verbiage, like the actual language that britney chooses, because at the beginning of the story she's like and then god came to town and you're like, okay, god is inhabiting this person.
Speaker 1:And then you know by the end, like, okay, is it God in the way that we, you know, all as Western civilization sort of think of God and culture? Or, you know, is it someone who was a puppet for whatever else and became a God to these people because of the mass hysteria?
Speaker 2:You know what Abby? It's a gosh darn thinker is what this one is but it's cool. You know, it doesn't just like leave you with a puzzle. It leaves you with thoughts which I don't know. For me, that's the best type of writing beautifully written, beautifully narrated. I was really really excited to share this I mean, we can keep going round in circles about how great the story is, but I don't know, maybe, maybe we're just on fire and let's keep going. So what's what? What else we got?
Speaker 1:clear your mind this next story is totally different, a totally different interpretation of the same topic I mean, I the first one.
Speaker 2:We're talking about dancing plague and I did not expect something like that, so I'm excited about what you got.
Speaker 1:Here we go.
Speaker 3:A procession of skulls. Written by JR Sandals. Read by Adam McAlooney.
Speaker 5:Michael had been told by some of the locals that they had among them those who used to dress up for their parades mixing pagan and Christian traditions. The whole city would be celebrating one of its many saints. So every day that week a cacophony of improvised DIY musical instruments would be heard day and night, during the suffocating hot summer days and the oppressive sights of cloudless skies, but also during the cold, windy nights under a purple and mostly starless void buildings and sidewalks tinged by the orange glow of streetlights. Sometimes Michael could spot statues of the saints being carried by processions, but every so often the pagan ritual overtook the processions. On one such occasion, people dressed as devils stopped every few minutes to take pictures with the tourist, such as himself. After 15 years of marriage, it still surprised him sometimes how deeply different they were from each other, but they were still happy.
Speaker 5:One day, having returned from time well spent on the beach, they found the city nearly deserted. Only the occasional fellow tourist would join them in their aimless wandering, perplexed at the closed storefronts, until they all found their way to their respective hotels or rented summer apartments. At the reception, dana asked what happened, only to be politely dismissed by the young woman behind the counter who smiled at them, feigning ignorance. When they reached their room, both the radio and the TV gave them no insights, all news, local or otherwise, showing nothing out of the ordinary. Dana did her best to assure Michael this was likely normal, as any other custom they witnessed so far. At 7pm came the first peal of the bells. It had not even occurred to Michael how odd it was to hear the sound now, but not during the previous days of their stay. He looked out of his window to the source of the noise. It was a small old thing, white stone outside and within, very bare of decorations, aside from some carvings of angels and saints. He remembered with discomfort that there had been some depictions of their remains, especially bones, entire skeletons carved out and laid out for everyone to see. It stuck with him also that outside the church someone had written in English God has abandoned us in big red letters. No one had seemed to care enough to remove the graffiti and it was hard to tell how long it had been there.
Speaker 5:He felt the pull to go out that night and dared Dana to go with him. Everything is closed, darling, where'd we go? Just for a walk, nothing much. It's good for me you never age, but I can't help that I'm getting older and a bit out of shape. She laughed, her sweet laugh, and he held her in his arms and kissed her, loving her more every year and thanking the luck that brought them together. They had dinner and soon after they were ready to leave.
Speaker 5:But while making their way to the main exit they were stopped by the manager at the door. Mr and Mrs Grayson, what a pleasure to find you Enjoying yourselves, I hope Immensely. Thank you for asking. My wife and I are actually going out for a walk. As you can guess, you shouldn't Excuse me. Once you join the parade you might not be able to leave. The couple was perplexed. No one had stopped them before. It would be safer. The hotel manager added if you watched from your room, they're bound to pass by our door. It's safer that way. Michael was going to protest and Dana held him back. Her face did not portray any fear, but she was not about to let them get in harm's way. Thank you, said Dana. We'll watch from our room then. Will the processions take long? It's getting late. You'll hear them. You'll know.
Speaker 5:They waited in their room. Occasionally came another ringing of the bell, but what followed soon and became constant, was a series of thwacks, like clothes being shaken before they were hung to dry. Whack, thwack and smack. First came the first figures, eerily silent, but for their noises of hitting something. They wore skull masks which reflected that faint orange glow from the streetlights. They became better defined as they approached, and as they did so, the Graysons found the source of the sound.
Speaker 5:The revelers were whipping each other and themselves, whipping their backs with thick rope, tightly tied to the end of wooden sticks. From shoulder to waist there were deeply carved canyons of bleeding flesh, open drawn by the acts of flagellation. Blood ran down their emaciated bodies, leaving a trail of blood. Crimson footsteps took form as their bare feet hit the ground again and again, treading on each other's blood as much as their own. They marched through the night streets, led by their bannermen. This was some naked man, massive and holding a tall wooden cross on his own. It looked heavy and roped to it was a human skeleton. This in turn wore a dried wreath held in place by two bulky metal nails, the latter of which was protruding from the otherwise empty eye socket. Look, michael pointed in terror.
Speaker 5:Dana watched a group of teenagers begin to mock the revelers. They must think it's some show. They could not hear what the teens were saying, but from the way they swayed, screamed and laughed they may have been inebriated. One began whipping another mockingly with some towel or shirt. The skulls marched onwards, their aggression rising to a crescendo of distinctly wet thuds and rope snapping from practiced movements. Laughter was drowned by the noises of the processions and soon the young men were frozen in terror. But for the one with the cloth? He kept whipping his friend and kept at it with gusto. The one who had offered his back stopped playing along and turned to be whipped across the face. Michael could not look away and Dana wanted to call someone to help the men but was also transfixed by the sight. The teenager with the cloth had worked himself into some berserk madness. He would not stop and as the great man who held the cross passed them all four teens were drowned by the parade. Blood sprayed like a fine mist, gore-laden ropes traced by mighty arcs to crack the backs of the youngsters, clothes were shredded. Ropes, chains and even mere sticks of every shape were passed around, too far to be stopped, close enough to be witnessed.
Speaker 5:The Graysons watched as the youngsters joined the parade in their act of constriction. No longer were they smiling, all had been drained but a mad look in their eyes, a desperate thing. They had whipped and whipped and walked. They hit themselves and others, and so they were hit in return. They foamed like rabid animals and grew silent. Dana believed she saw terror etched into the madness of one of their faces and those of the others. It became clear many others had joined, no matter the gender or origin.
Speaker 5:Those who had been caught and dragged along by the parade could not stop themselves. Oh God, dana, dana, those aren't masks, those aren't masks Carved down to the bone and stripped of skin, marching like wandering corpses. Perhaps some had been and were still masked, but many skulls in that procession were real, exposed to the air and attracting swarms of flies. Michael saw, the eyes still in their sockets, moving around as if in some REM sleep. Tongues lulled out of lipless mouths, scalps hanged by a thread and had fallen off completely, with ears and noses. The body of the parade had swollen, streets packed in such a way that the parade slowed to a crawl. Michael looked away, unable to take it anymore, while Dana watched until the last soul had moved on. She could not unsee them, backs and chest gouged open, limbs broken and even deadly blows delivered Bodies fell to the ground to be dragged by others in the parade.
Speaker 5:They went on unceasingly across the night and, like Michael, suspected then what may be the origin of the skeletons they had seen decorating the walls of that church? Some ritual that infected all who came across it? A contagious madness? The sound of flailing haunted them long after the last parade had gone by. Everything was smeared, blood, red, and the smell of death, excrement and piss reached their room, even though their window had been closed. Dana retreated to the room, searching the closet, perhaps getting their things ready so they could leave. Why, why, asked Michael. There was no answer that could satisfy Mr Grayson. Only the familiar noise he was reminded of a chance purchase at a local sex shop and the cracking of a small black leathery cat of nine tails made him turn. Dana loomed over him, her eyes wide open, and the instrument of pleasure soon opened the way to a world of pain.
Speaker 2:This was some top tier self-flagellation content there you go we don't have enough of this. Well, what you disagree?
Speaker 1:I loved this story, but I'm not prone to love self-flagellation content you didn't love the scarlet letter listen.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not here to discuss the scarlet love where the guy is just whipping himself left and right and you're like fuck yeah yeah, that sounds like it was very specific to your experience with it I mean he's, he's real into it and it was really confusing at an early age. But in here we have this like I don't know, this addictive self-flagellation in a parade form yeah, and it was like, I'm sorry, not addictive, but like contagious yeah, I love the.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right. And I love how that plays into the history of the dancing plague. Right, it's like, regardless of what the thing is, it's hurting you, just like the dancing plague did, and there's this like sense of you can't escape it. I also love, love, the tone of the towns. People write the people who work at the hotel and they're like, oh, you should stay inside, like everyone knows what's going on.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:And it's this thing that happens, somewhat ritualistically I suppose, and there's tourists there and they're trying to protect the tourists from like randomly being pulled into this like horrific scene.
Speaker 2:But not completely, which is kind of of the thing. Like we know, you're here as a tourist yeah you're gonna see the thing, but just like watch it from your door yeah, you know yeah don't, don't get closer than that, but, like you know, check it out.
Speaker 1:But hey, if you do, then it's your bad, you know I mean it is a spectacle.
Speaker 2:yeah, like if this was happening it was just like you know, going right down 34th street Like yeah, I'd watch. But you know you got to be careful. You don't want to start self-flagellating in front of everybody.
Speaker 1:That's very private.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Self-flagellation should be done in the privacy and under the guidance of you know God.
Speaker 1:That's right. So our dreamy narration comes to us today from our friend adam mccalone, who is one half of the band beach therapy. What a guy, what a band exactly check out if you have not checked out the parking lots.
Speaker 2:Music video it's the goat it's the goat.
Speaker 1:There you go, alan. You've been on reddit, I see, learning the lingo. I know gen z and we will uh, we'll link it in the description of this podcast, as always, but adam is an incredibly talented singer, voice actor, person in general, and it's always a thrill to work with him, and the story itself was written by, at this point, our long-term old friend, jr santos.
Speaker 2:Just softball on that one, and jr santos Santos is the man he has been responsible for some of our sorry, I don't want to speak for everyone. Some of my favorite content on this entire thing there you go.
Speaker 1:That's so nice.
Speaker 2:I don't know I love his stuff. I love his style and the fact that he just like dove in for Dancing Plague is fucking cool fact that he just like dove in for dancing plague is fucking cool, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let me tell you a little bit about jr santos. So he's in the final stages of his first novella, don't cry for santos, which is a cowboy murder mystery with body horror elements I'm so excited so excited, planned to be released in 2024 and we're incredibly excited for that.
Speaker 1:So obviously, once that's released and publicly available for pre-order or order, we will let you know. The other thing is that his work is available in a anthology called escalators to hell shopping mall horrors, which we will also link in the description of this podcast because it sounds incredibly fun on many levels shopping mall horrors do you remember the movie chopping mall? Don't ask stupid questions it's also like even in stranger things right, stranger things has some great shopping mall horror sequences I mean I just love a specific subgenre, I'm so into it.
Speaker 2:Shopping mall horror should be a whole thing like sign me up yeah uh, dawn of the dead there you go in a shopping mall, both that and the remake and like. What a great setting for the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:What's the one? The new one that came out last year. That was really sad. The last of us. Last of us has a shopping mall, a huge shopping mall theme.
Speaker 2:Another zombie esque survival, uh, with just a bit of sexual discovery.
Speaker 1:We love that so much.
Speaker 2:You do? Yes, I do.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I appreciate everybody being on board for the Dancing Plague of 1518. What a weird, freaking topic.
Speaker 2:I know it was a hard sell. Somehow it just stuck the landing. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yay, I'm so glad Again, check out John Waller's book if you haven't already and you're interested in diving even deeper into this world with me, and I'm so happy to talk to anybody about it at length. Join our discord and let's take it from there. But, as always, thank you guys so much for being here. This was a super fun one. We're coming back with some very seasonal thematic topics in the next few months, so we'll talk to you super soon yeah, buckle up stay safe, stay spooky. We'll talk to you next time bye.