EPISODE 9

“The Cosmic Machine”

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

DOV:

And welcome back to Kandel Against the Dark.

Okay, before the break, Jack told us that the house he was holed up in had been surrounded by dozens of these dogs with glowing eyes. Uh, he said he knew he had to do something desperate to get out of the situation, and he didn't seem very confident that it was going to work.

Now, Orson tells me there's still more to hear, so that must mean Jack either survived whatever it was he tried, or that something stopped him before he could execute on whatever that plan was. So, let's go ahead and dive back in and see exactly what did transpire between Jack's recordings.

ORSON:

Uh, Alright.

[TAPE CLICK]

[CAT PURRING AND MEOWING]

JACK:

Well, I'm still here. I made it. I don't know how I did, but I did. It was close, though.

[CAT MEOW]

And not only that, but as you can maybe hear in the background, I also made a new friend in the process.

But I'll get to that, because now that it's worked, I think it's probably safe for me to tell you about my plan. You know, the only reason I didn't tell you about it before is because I was afraid if I actually said it out loud, I'd realize how insane it was and I wouldn't go through with it. But it's worked now. So...Yeah.

Uh, let's see...In my earlier search for weapons, I had come across a few key things: in the garage, I'd found a five-gallon can of petrol. And in the house, I'd also found a box of kitchen matches, a stack of newspapers --and in the broom closet -- a covered access hole in the floor that led to a crawlspace under the house. As it turns out, that access hole was conveniently located in direct proximity to the sliding door leading out to the deck and the backyard. And what I figured out was, if I tied a length of rope to the handle of that sliding door, I could actually pull it open from inside the crawlspace.

So with that, I had all of the ingredients necessary to execute my daring escape. I gathered everything in my shiny briefcase, and I dropped it down into the crawlspace. And once that was all packed away and ready to go, the next step was to douse as much of the house in petrol as I could manage. After that, I needed to attract as many of the dogs to that sliding door as I could. Banging on the bottom of a kitchen pot with a wooden spoon actually did the trick rather nicely. And I have to say, I was really counting on the glass holding up to the blows of those dogs throwing themselves against it, and it was dicey. But in the end, that gamble paid off.

And once I had the dogs attention, all that was left was to give them exactly what they wanted -- to get inside the house. But before I did, I added one last finishing touch. I pulled open a storage freezer full of rotting meat. You know, the hope was that it would attract as many of them as possible, drawing them deeper into the house. And even with the petrol fumes, the stench from that meat was overwhelming. So it was a perfect decoy. Everything was set.

I dropped into the hole. I rested the cover on my back and I pulled on the rope to, well, I guess to release the hounds. And because they couldn't see exactly where I'd gone, as they piled in, they fanned out in every direction. I could hear them bounding around looking for me, but I'd already disappeared into the hole and slid the lid back into place.

And I had to move quickly once I was in there. I crawled until I reached an access grate in the house's foundation wall, and after a quick check to be sure there weren't any dogs in sight, I was able to knock that grate out with a few good kicks. And that dump me out into the backyard.

And once I was out, I used a match to light a twisted-up piece of newspaper, rushed up onto the deck, and tossed my makeshift torch into the house. And then I tried to slide the door closed as quickly as I could. But that last part didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. One of the dogs caught sight of me and managed to wedge its head between the door and its frame, and that kept me from being able to close it all the way. The whole plan hinged on that door closing, and I tried to kick the dog a few times to make it retreat, but instead it got ahold of my foot, and it wasn't letting go. It was tugging at me so hard I nearly lost my balance. And if I'd gone down, that would have been the end of me. But the flames were spreading really fast and they reached that dog just in the nick of time. It released me with this awful yelp, and it was quickly engulfed in the fire. But it worked. The door was closed.

Now all I had to do was make it to the automo, and I was praying that I'd trapped all the dogs inside. But of course, as my luck goes, I hadn't. There were a few stragglers. They spotted me from across the yard and I knew it was time to run. The attack I had just suffered had put a pretty sizable hole in my foot, and that definitely made running from them a lot harder than it would have been otherwise. But I wasn't going to make it that far and then just give up. I pushed through the pain and kind of hobble-skipped my way around to the side of the house and into the driveway. And against all odds, I made it all the way to the automo and managed to dive inside.

But it wasn't over just yet, because I -- again -- found myself struggling to close a door while dodging a mouthful of teeth. This time it was the briefcase that saved me. I managed to use it like a shield to push back until I could get the door secured, and after that I was safe. They had no chance of getting into that automo. And once I realized that, I took a deep breath and just laughed in disbelief. I couldn't believe that it had actually worked -- that I’d made it out alive and in mostly one piece.

But my little celebration didn't really last long, because the reality of what I'd just done was undeniable once I heard the sounds of suffering animals coming from inside the house. I don't feel good about what I had to do to them. I don't. I'm not a cruel man. They were just animals trying to survive, the same as me. But when it came down to it, I really didn't have any choice.

Anyway, it wasn't long before flames erupted from the windows and the house became an inferno. And I just sat there, for a long time, mesmerized by the surrealness of it all. You know, the whole affair just felt sad, like a solemn event. And as I sat there and reflected on everything, the fire took on a whole new meaning for me. You know, in my mind, it wasn't just a burning house anymore. It was a symbol of something greater. It was a funeral pyre -- for the dogs, for the happy couple who lived there, for humanity...and for my wife.

Another step in our long goodbye.

I drove clear to the other side of town before I even considered finding a new place to hole up. And even then, I drove around the neighborhood I ended up in for quite a while, looking for any evidence that there may be another pack of dogs in the area. But what I found instead was a little black cat. I was weaving in between abandoned automos when I caught sight of his eyes reflecting in the headlamps. And it scared me at first, but once I'd gotten a good look at him, he seemed normal. Scrawny, but otherwise he seemed okay. He was just sitting calmly on the front stoop of this old Victorian, like he was waiting to be let inside. And not only did I take his presence as a good sign that there weren't any larger predators in the area, I also couldn't help but feel like he was an opportunity for me, you know, a chance to redeem myself for what I'd just done, if only a little.

You know, he greeted me as I walked up to the door, which -- as it turns out -- was unlocked, and I pushed it open and he ran right in. He was meowing pretty insistently at me, so I followed him down the hallway and into the kitchen. And that's when I realized what he wanted, because when I pulled open the pantry door, I found a ridiculous amount of canned cat food lining the shelves. So this is clearly where he and his owner had lived before The End. And by the looks of it, he was very well-loved.

And as it turns out, cat food isn't nearly as disgusting as you might expect. Or maybe it was just that I didn't realize how hungry I actually was until I smelled the meat and that food. Either way, my new friend and I shared a few cans right there on the floor. You know, it wasn't ideal, but it sure as hell better than Twinkle Cakes. And there's enough here to keep us both fed for at least a little while. And now that I have food in my belly, I'm feeling pretty tired. I think I'll look around later. For now, I think I'm going to try and sleep again. It's been a long day.

[TAPE CLICK]

ORSON:

Okay.

DOV:

Jack makes a friend.

ORSON:

He does indeed.

DOV:

But. But more importantly, this plan of his has worked out after all.

ORSON?

Yes.

DOV:

That said, it sounds like it was a pretty close call.

ORSON:

Uh, yeah. There were some moments in there that, uh, that felt like Jack might have been right after all when he said he felt, uh, he'd been given up on.

DOV:

Yeah. Back when Jack was describing his experience at the Awlmart -- where he found the recorder and the music -- he suggested that the creatures that chased him from that store were probably just there to, you know, push him forward. And I suppose it's possible that these dogs were serving a similar function. But, man, they really seemed to be out for blood.

ORSON:

Oh, uh, quite literally.

DOV:

Exactly. I mean, one even tore a hole in this foot.

ORSON:

Yes, uh, and if it hadn't been for that briefcase, who knows what might have happened, uh, once he was in that automo?

DOV:

Exactly.

ORSON:

During the investigation, as we heard this, we couldn't quite settle on what the purpose of the dogs might have been -- If they, in fact, had a purpose larger than, as Jack said, “animals trying to survive, uh, the same as him.” The best we could come up with was that, uh, perhaps for the Mater System and whatever is behind it, this was all about reigniting -- uh, in an extremely potent way -- that drive for him to survive. Perhaps it was a ploy to reinvigorate him and send him further down the road in this journey he'd embarked upon, uh, this process of fulfilling his function within this plan. Uh, again, we just didn't know.

Uh, but rather than get too far ahead of what's unfolding here, uh, let's stay with our current experience of all of this. Uhh, for the moment, Jack seems to be in a safe place, uh, there's a sense of comfort for the first time in a long time. Um, as you said, he's made a friend. Uh, he's got some food in his belly.

DOV:

Not an ideal meal, but, ya know, it’ll do in a pinch.

ORSON:

Haha, yes. I...I think I'll just, uh, take his word for it when he says, uh, “Cat food isn't as disgusting as, uh, you might think.”

DOV:

Yeah. Yeah, I don't...I don't, uh...I don't think I'll be testing the veracity of that claim anytime soon.

ORSON:

Exactly, exactly.

DOV:

So well, you know, where does...where does Jack go from here? What's, uh, what's next?

ORSON:

Well, as we've said, he seems safe. Things seem calm. So, well, let's see what that means for him.

DOV:

Alright.

[TAPE CLICK]

JACK:

Well, good news: I finally got some meaningful sleep. You know, my new companion here curled up next to me, and I think just having another living, breathing thing lying next to me was a real comfort. Ya know, it's funny, that's a feeling I had only discovered for the first time when I found ‘Scilla. Ya know, I was fine without it before her, but I guess she spoiled me, because it's a feeling I have sorely missed since losing her.

Anyway, I slept like a baby. When I woke up, I figured it was time to start exploring my new house. Even as cold as it is, there was a foul odor coming from somewhere upstairs. So I started there. It turns out it was coming from one of the bedrooms. And that is where I found Evelyn. And I know her name was Evelyn because of a stack of mail I found later. Anyway, she died in her bed, but she clearly didn't go the same way as most. Her body was still something resembling normal. It hadn't been drained by a Node. In fact, there isn't any Node anywhere in this house.

Yeah, it looks to me like poor Evelyn likely died from neglect. If the wheelchair in the corner is any indication, she was probably bedridden. And my best guess is that she had an in-home caretaker who probably just stopped coming when the Nodes took hold. And after that, it was just a matter of time. I feel bad for her. You know, it seems like a shame that she didn't even have the comfort of her precious cat in her final moments. It's a sad way to go -- alone and scared.

Anyway, I covered Evelyn with her bedding and sealed up the room with a sheet of plastic and some duct tape I'd found in the utility closet. So, that should help a little with the smell. And I suppose she could do a lot worse as far as tombs go. Ya know, the house is like a museum. You know, it's filled with antique furniture and a rather impressive collection of very tacky oil paintings. You know, it's a treasure trove of historical artifacts from much better times. And there are a few creature comforts here, too. There's a fireplace I was able to get going, so I have some warmth. And despite there being no electricity, the gas stove still works. I'm currently having a cup of freshly percolated coffee. You know, and I wasn't even a coffee drinker in my previous life, but it reminded me of mornings with ‘Scilla, so I figured I'd give it another try. And still isn't great, but it's something hot in this cold, and the nostalgia feels good. So, I think I'm just going to take this moment. I'll continue exploring later.

[TAPE CLICK]

DOV:

I'm glad he has this. Those creature comforts.

ORSON:

They're a warm blanket --

DOV:

Right.

ORSON:

Uh, a defense against...against the coldness of that, uh...the depression and the grief. And perhaps it's a...it's a chance for him to...to lick his wounds. Uh, both...both physical and mental. But, I think this waiting period is important for Jack's well-being.

DOV:

I wonder if having this peace that he's momentarily discovered...uh, will that distract him from his quest for the “why”?

ORSON:

The question is, what other choice does he have? Uh, he could go in in direction, but he doesn't know, uh...There...there’s no clear sign of...of how he should proceed.

Something else I want to point out here: the fireplace. He gets the fireplace going, so he's got some warmth. Uh, he’s mentioned that he hasn't seen the sun, uh, time is getting weird...We...we wonder sometimes if, uh, physics is...is breaking down. We certainly see it in biology. We've...we've...we've mentioned this, the normal, uh, biological, physiological, metabolic processes, breaking down --

DOV:

I...I...I was just about to ask if the scientist and...and yourself obviously, uh, in...in investigating this, were there theories discussed about how these... are they're rational, uh, physics-based, science-based explanations bantered about -- even if nothing could be settled on?

ORSON:

We were looking for logical explanations. Uh, I can't say that we necessarily landed on anything other than sort of a, uh, a metaphysical -- in the in the true sense of the word...the physics above physics -- uh, those were the areas that we were moving into. And, uh, of course, Bardswell only got so far before he unfortunately, uh...uh left us, uh, for...for whatever reason. Uh, he’ll...he'll...he'll hold those reasons himself, um...

And, uh...but speaking of reasons, we seem to have Jack finding a reason to, uh, get up in the...in the proverbial morning, haha, here. And, uh, he's going exploring. So why don't we find out, uh, what he may have found on his, uh, on this little treasure hunt?

DOV:

I can't wait.

ORSON:

Okay.

[TAPE CLICK]

JACK:

You are not going to believe what I just found in the basement of this house. I was poking around down there, and it is filled with piles and piles of antiques. And that in itself doesn't surprise me at all, given the rest of the house. But there was something in particular, and one of those piles that jumped out at me immediately. I recognized what it was the second I pulled off the sheet covering it. It's an old cabinet style phonograph. And it's crank powered, which means I don't need electricity to use it. And it just so happens I have a whole box set worth of polyvinyl right here, just waiting to be listened to. What are the odds? Nostalgia seems to be a running theme for me here, and I'm more than happy to focus on some good memories for a change. I haven't heard Æ.S.C. since college. This should be interesting.

[TAPE CLICK]

ORSON

Okay, uh, this is by far the shortest tape segment Jack has given us.

DOV:

Right. And it's also the most excited we've heard him.

ORSONL

Yes. It's...it's palpable.

DOV:

Which reminds me of something I...I meant to bring up earlier, uh, in regard to Æ.S.C.: throughout these tapes, Jack has repeatedly stated that ‘Scilla was his first and only experience with desire -- with finally knowing what it really feels like to...to want something.

ORSON:

Right.

DOV:

But...but when we look at his history with Æ.S.C., I mean, he said he was totally obsessed -- that...that he sought out anything and everything he could related to this band. And that certainly seems, at least to me, to be something motivated by a kind of desire.

ORSON:

Exactly.

DOV:

And this band -- you know, his fixation on them -- came long before ‘Scilla entered his life.

ORSON:

Yes, uh, Jack seems to have a bit of a blind spot in this regard.

DOV:

He really does. It's like he's so fixated on this personal narrative in which ‘Scilla was his everything, you know, that she was his end-all-be-all in terms of desire.

ORSON:

Exactly.

DOV:

I mean, I'm sure it does feel very romantic and satisfying for him. And it does lend itself to this kind of idealization that he seems to be prone to, uh, when it comes to her. But it doesn't seem to be entirely accurate. Now...and granted, this fixation he had on Æ.S.C. doesn't seem to have been anywhere near as intense as...as his desire for ‘Scilla, but still, you know, Æ.S.C. definitely occupied a rather significant space in his life all the same.

ORSON:

Yes, in more ways than one. Uh, which...which is actually something we’ll really begin to, uh, understand more fully in this next clip from Jack. Uh, so, why don't we go ahead and, um, and see just how Jack responds to hearing this music for the first time, uh, for the first time in a...in a great many years.

DOV:

Alright!

ORSON:

Okay, here we go.

[TAPE CLICK]

JACK:

Okay, fair warning: If you have been with me so far on this little odyssey of mine, if you've taken me at my word and trusted my accounting of what's happened, this may just be the point where I finally lose you. I am fully aware that what I am about to say might just convince you that I'm a lunatic.

And I wouldn't blame you. Like I said at the beginning of all this, I had doubts myself about my sanity. But I am long past that now. And that may just mean that I have finally completely lost it. But I don't think I have. If anything, I think I am finally seeing things for what they truly are. No more illusions. And trust me, I have been sitting here trying to talk myself down from this, but I can't, because when I look at everything, when I really look at everything, there is only one logical conclusion to draw -- I was wrong before. About all of it.

And that may sound like good news considering, but here's the thing: the reality in front of me, the truth I couldn't see before now, is actually far more horrifying than anything I could have ever imagined. And it started with the album with the Æ.S.C. box set, but it's gone way beyond that now, because the revelations I've had since listening to it again have changed my entire understanding of every aspect of my life. Of ‘Scilla’s life. Of human life.

But I'll start with the music, because I heard things in that music. New things. Things I couldn't have heard before. A truth I couldn't have recognized until now. But those things were always there. I've heard them all a million times. It's just that, until only recently, I had no context for any of them. But I do now. And it is impossible to ignore that Æ.S.C. -- Æ.S.C. and their music, their imagery, their lore -- somehow foretold all of this. Everything. All of their music, every scrap of it, in one way or another, points to exactly what's happening right now. And to be fair, in most cases those connections seem to be more impressionistic than literal, at least as far as I'm aware. Just a similarity in tone and themes. But even those aspects are uncanny. It's like they somehow made the perfect mix tape for experiencing this specific end. This exact apocalypse.

And I guess you could make the argument that any apocalypse is bound to resemble the next to some degree, but there are just too many specific details in the music to ignore its connection to all of this. And there is one song, one particular song, that has sent me reeling with disbelief. A song called “The Cat Alone Will Remember”. It is a song that literally, in detail, describes my time here since escaping the fog. Descriptions of ravenous dogs roaming the crumbling suburban streets of towns robbed of their people, and...the existence of a cat -- a cat who stands as the last bastion for an entire way of life. A human way of life. And here's the thing: all of that description comes from a poem contained in the song. A poem written and published nearly 100 years ago -- long before any of this had come to pass. And I have to wonder, did that poet somehow know what was coming? Had he somehow discovered the underlying truth of our existence a century ago? I mean, he must have, which means that this was always the way this was going to end -- for all of us.

And yeah sure, I mean, I could just be reading into this. I'll grant you that. Everyone has moments where they feel like the music is speaking directly to them. But here's the thing: it isn't just the music in this case. There's more to it. Because I realized before I even pulled that first polyvinyl out of its sleeve that something inexplicable was happening, that this is all connected.

I mean, I guess it was really just a continuation of the realization that started back at the Awlmart where I found the box set -- where it was clearly left for me to find. Let's not forget that fact. It's an extension of the moment in which the glowing orb into Te’in’s hand took on a whole new meaning for me. Like I said, the synchronicity of it was undeniable. But as it turns out, it was deeper than that.

It was more than just that orb. Because there was something else hiding there in plain sight, something just waiting for its chance to reveal itself to me, waiting for me to have the context necessary to truly understand its imagery. In that cover photo, another member of the band, the one they call The Pilgrim, looks exactly like Gar. And I mean exactly. But not the way Gar looked in daily life. The way he was when I shot him -- emaciated and decaying in his basement. The way everybody looked after their descent into the Nodes, really. Ya know, folds of loose skin pale with translucence, empty solid eyes -- all of it hung on a frail, bony frame. But in The Pilgrim’s case, the resemblance extends all the way to a patch covering his right eye. And after what I've seen -- after what I did to Gar -- it isn't hard to imagine what lies beneath that patch. Or more accurately, what doesn't.

I honestly can't believe that I didn't make any of these connections before now, but for whatever reason, I didn't. I guess to be fair, it's been almost 20 years since I've really looked at that photo or listened to a single note of their music, so it shouldn't be that surprising that certain details have faded from my memory. But seeing it all again, now that I have the experience of this fucking end, now that I've seen what I've seen, it is impossible to not recognize it as a glaring portent of everything humanity has suffered since the Mater System came online.

And maybe I really am just stretching. Maybe I'm just seeing connections that aren't actually there. But even if that's the case -- and I don't think it is -- but even if that's the case, that sensation, that recognition triggered something in me. It's set my mind working, and it led me to reconsider my entire life -- every unusual, arcane aspect of my particularly bizarre mode of existence. All of it within the context of The End. The end that it is now clear I am in some way playing a very specific role and fulfilling. I was right about that, at least. But what I've realized is that this plan, this agenda I have been so convinced exists for me, actually goes back much further than I thought. You know, when I look at every defining characteristic of my life, it is obvious I was wrong about one major fact: I wasn't chosen for this -- at least not in the way that I thought. You know, I wasn't singled out after that failed encounter with a Node, because my reaction to it was exactly the reaction I was supposed to have. It wasn't a failure at all. My life wasn't co-opted as an afterthought. Nothing was retooled or improvised on my account. My freakish lack of desire wasn't an accident or a new variable to be accounted for or worked around or exploited. It wasn't a cause. It was an effect. A condition of a greater truth about me: that I was built for this. That this has always been their plan. That this plan was my birthright. My entire existence has always been in service to this end. My life was specifically and intricately designed to lead me to exactly where I am now -- structured to ensure that I would experience exactly what I have experienced and do exactly what I've done at every turn. An imperative.

Everything sockets together like a perfectly engineered machine, each thing seamlessly flowing into the next. Not only did my lack of desire make me immune -- no, not even immune -- repulsed by the Nodes, but it also highlighted a sense of “otherness” in me -- that same sense of otherness that, long before that moment, pointed me straight to Æ.S.C., the occult band steeped in lore that, as it turns out, was an accurate and literal description of exactly the nightmares that have now come to pass.

And it was that same sense of otherness, again, that sent me searching for a comfortably anonymous role inside the first massive corporate behemoth that would hire me. A corporate behemoth like Octavius Marketing -- the very company tasked with introducing the Mater and its Nodes to the world. And it was at Octavius Marketing that I finally met the only person in existence capable of waking my ever-dormant sense of desire -- a desire for her that proved to be singular in nature, profound and all encompassing. It became a fundamental need I would protect at all cost. A need that eventually drove me to murder the man who twice stole her from me -- first with his glut, and then again when he had a Node surreptitiously delivered to our home. And it was my rage and hatred for both him and those Nodes that led me to destroying the one in his basement.

And it was with that act that I unwittingly unleashed the full power of its contents into our world. And it was my realization of that very fact that then kept me from doing the same to the one consuming my wife. It use my fear against me. It scared me into submission. It manipulated me into allowing it to survive long enough to do what it was always meant to do -- to bore down deep inside the woman I loved and destroy her -- this woman who, long before the Nodes even existed, had developed both an insatiable need to be a mother and an unheard of medical condition inside her womb that made having a human child impossible. A medical condition that, it is now clear, wasn't just some random anomaly. It wasn't a fluke.

That mass of webbing inside of her was nothing less than the finishing touches on a room carefully prepared for the monster that would one day inhabit it -- a monster for which I would provide the seed.

And I still don't know the significance of that creature, but it's clear that she and I had always been destined to bring it into this world. This was everyone's destiny. Like I said before, humans have always been on strings, slaves to our desires and servants to the will of whatever or whoever lies at the other end of those strings. This is what we have always been: a means to an end for something we couldn't possibly comprehend. Each of us had our part to play. Some roles were more elaborate than others, but in the end, we were all just cogs in this cosmic machine, and our nature -- human nature -- was the grease that kept the gears turning until the time was right.

[TAPE CLICK]

DOV:

Uhh...uhh...Let's...let's take a quick break, actually. Let's, uh...yeah...yeah, we'll be right back with more --

ORSON:

Understandable.

DOV:

-- Kandel Against the Dark after this.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

END OF EPISODE 9