The Gentleman From Hell |S1| Ep. 38

Rusty Quill presents

Good evening, gentlemen and gentle ladies of hell.

First and foremost, thank you for tuning in.

Your support keeps the flames of the gentleman from hell burning bright.

If you're enjoying your descent into the infernal depths of our world and want to dive even deeper, consider supporting us on Patreon.

There, you'll unlock exclusive content, including original art from Mark Angelon, housed in the legendary Gallery of the Damned, deep lore and world-building treasures within the memorabilia of the House of Sparrows, and coming soon, the Testimonies of the Damned, a Patreon-exclusive audio series that expands the twisted mythology of the gentleman from hell.

Plus, fans of the wider Meltopia universe will uncover a trove of exclusive lore, audio dramas, artwork, behind-the-scenes videos, and much more.

Ready to explore the deeper circles of horror?

Join us at www.patreon.com forward slash Meltopia Meltopia and embrace the darkness.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade-In and MyPlan.

And lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect all the time.

Me too.

I'm Sarah Gibson-Tuttle from Olive and June, and this is exactly why we created the Mani system.

We wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home.

With our tools and our long-lasting polish, each manicure with our Manny system comes out to just $2.

That's right, $2.

No more $30, $40, $50 Mannis that you get at a salon and they take hours.

Now you can paint your nails on your time and love them more than ever.

And by the way, when people ask, who did your nails?

Where did you get them done?

You're going to proudly say, I did them myself.

Get 20% off your first Mani system with code perfectmanny20 at olive and june.com slash perfectmanni20.

That's code perfectmanny20 for 20% off at olive and june.com slash perfectmanny20.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Okay,

the door's shut, and there's no lights visible from the outside.

Listen, we're going to take the tape off.

And if you start screaming again, things are gonna go from bad to worse for you.

You got it?

Alright, let's try this again.

There you go, see?

I knew you could follow directions.

Now,

I'm gonna ask one more time,

and then I'm gonna stop asking and start swinging this hammer at your toes.

What the hell are the Sparrows and their goddamn cult doing in Colt Sparrow?

And,

most importantly,

what do they want with us?

You don't understand.

I don't have any choice.

They make me do it.

If I had a dime every time some dirtbag told me they didn't have a choice to do some shit they got caught doing, I'd be drowning in dimes.

Now,

we didn't ask you if you meant to do anything.

We asked you, why are the sparrows doing what they're doing?

I don't know.

They don't...

they don't explain themselves to me.

They never have.

Oh, that's funny.

Because we've got it on good authority that you're pretty well informed on what goes down around here.

Emphasis on down.

We know all about your little elevator parties, what you do to the people you drive out of their heads.

Even your conversations with people in hell.

But what we want to know, Quinkin in a fucking hurry, is why.

What are you and those freaks looking to accomplish?

If I don't do what they say, they just...

just make me do it.

The share of my life they allow me.

It would...

it would vanish if I told you.

You just don't understand.

I belong to them.

If you don't stop whining and start spilling, so help me, I'll blow your fucking brains all over the wall.

So...

Don't!

From what I can tell, I don't think he's lying.

There's something about his thoughts.

His mind.

What do you mean, Phyllis?

His mind.

It's not alone.

Please.

Oh my god.

What's that smell?

What's going on with the lights?

The carolines.

up.

I already did.

What's happening?

Oh god, it's trying to shut down the units.

Watch out!

What's the matter?

Your little toys failing.

Everybody stay close to the portables.

Oh, Jesus.

Something's really pushing back on the field.

Your Honor, this Parasonic Resonator, despite its polished construction and various bells and whistles, it is nothing but a prop.

A prop and one of the biggest, most elaborate hoaxes ever to be perpetrated against science.

It's

Whittle

Poor, poor Albert Whittle.

He believed himself a champion of progress,

but died a Luddite.

Irony is no respecter of passion.

You killed him, didn't you?

He didn't commit suicide.

You bastards killed him.

Wouldn't you love to believe that?

It would wash the blood off your hands quite nicely.

But the Ingersolls aren't the only ones who enjoy blaming others for their misdeeds, are they?

I don't want to hear about your loyalty to your dead partner.

What about us?

Your actual family.

You're gone weeks, months at a time.

And you just want us to sit here and wait for you?

I didn't sign on for this kind of life, Mace.

We're alone here.

Every goddamn day and night.

And why?

Because you want to run around and play Avenging Cop with your agency buddies?

No way.

Not anymore.

I'm done.

I need a husband, and the kids need a father, and you're not it.

Not anymore.

Now,

get out, Mason.

You've You've already gotten so far under my skin there's barely enough for me.

You're gonna have to do better than that.

And that's the very futility of hell right there.

When the sinner is no longer ashamed of their sins.

Merely weary of the punishment for them.

Thus, the coining of the term

fresh

hell.

Nowhere, not even in heaven, is there a place more in need of novelty than hell.

But luckily, humans are so creative when it comes to shame and punishment.

That's why once you started to hate your family for abandoning you, You couldn't help but imagine them amongst the flames and screams of the women and children you burned to death.

How good it must have felt to hear them crying out to you one

last

time.

That's bullshit!

You hear me?

That's bullshit, and you fucking know it!

It's okay, Mace, he's just...

Shut that spiteful mouth, boy.

Unless you'd like to find yourself a new place to live.

Oh, so now it's my turn in the rotation.

Well, you just go ahead and do your worst.

Just like your mother always tried to keep the peace,

she would have done anything to shield you from the endless quarrels about doctrine and devotion.

Especially after your father would stumble in, full of righteous fury from another late-night man's prayer meeting.

No matter how deeply you burrowed your head into that tear-dampened pillow, you still heard them.

Your father reciting scripture like a cudgel.

Your mother pleading for mercy in whispered rosaries.

That one night when he threatened to send you to boarding school for your own salvation,

You made a silent vow.

When you were grown, you'd rescue her from the weight of his judgments, give her the life of quiet grace she deserved.

Yet, in the end, he abandoned you both, trading his lofty sermons for a new congregation.

in the form of another woman.

You left behind empty pews in your mother's soul.

The shame he sowed took years of gentle counseling before you could name it.

Even after you made your mark at the FBI

and surprised her with that spacious house bordered with lilacs,

You couldn't truly bring her home.

Behind her eyes lingered only the wreckage of unanswered prayers.

The debris of a life.

You can stop pretending to be the priest.

I can feel you in there, staring out at us through that broken old man.

What a heavy burden you bear, sweet Phyllis.

So full of hope and despair.

Smarting from tomorrow's wounds.

Worrying tomorrow's woes.

You may not know how all this ends, but you know it will not end well.

Not well at all.

Leave her alone!

What the hell do you want from us?

Why did you bring us here?

What answers does the cook owe the beast's bout for the oven.

You are here because we willed it.

You belong to us.

Then why can I feel you wincing at the sound of the chime?

Is there a tape of you somewhere in that temple, where they found you floundering in your own hell, begging to be released?

Hell,

you pretend a knowledge you would not dare possess, bold woman.

Here is wisdom if you should want it.

Hell is but a shadow of the blackest truth.

Souls cannot burn,

and there is no God.

There is only the wretched inevitability of living on.

Living through pain and death and yes, even hell, and the inability to flee any of it.

One can only hope to cease being

one

day

and finally

know you this

to seek wisdom from the wicked shall avail you only

death.

No, no, please, please, God, save me.

I had no choice.

Don't no.

I think the phrase is the VCR has eaten the tape.

I guess that's that, then

no.

I think I can just wind the tape back into the cassette.

Your mother used to tell me how fortunate it was that I'd found my calling in academia, as I was practically useless in all other regards.

She was never one to mix words, that's for sure.

But she also didn't live long enough to see how you'd excel at fatherhood.

I'd say you raised an incredible daughter.

If not a humble one.

I did that from my mother, too.

She was a brilliant woman, and she was always happy to illustrate the fact.

Once I came home from a weekend conference to realize she'd rewritten my entire paper on the topic of rejected knowledge,

it remains one of my most celebrated works to date.

Your secret is safe with me,

and that's done it.

Should be all ready.

Hi, Doc.

I just wanted to let you know we've been calling those ex-FBI guys' work number every half hour since this morning.

Still nothing.

Well, all we can do is continue trying.

Sure thing, Doctor.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know.

With every new avenue and approach, we are met with the same dead end.

I've pieced together what we've uncovered in the reading room with my earlier notes, and I believe I'm on the verge of a new way to fight these horrors, but it'll all count for nothing if we can't find these people.

I'm hoping the Ingersoll's lawyer returns my call soon.

I'm counting on her to know where they've gone.

After that grueling trial, I'm sure they've stayed in touch.

Well,

there's no better way to pass the time than watching an old VHS tape on Mephitica.

Did you ever find anything explaining what we might see on this thing?

Yes, there was a letter tucked into the tape jacket.

It's yet another psychiatrist.

Mephitica seems very popular with head shrinkers.

This time, it's one.

Dr.

Amelia Raglan.

It's also one of the older packages, over a decade.

I must have received it shortly after I thought I'd finish with the Mephitica altogether.

I can't help but wonder how many other opportunities I let pass me by on account of my.

my cowardice.

Dad, you can't keep blaming yourself.

You were raising a child.

And after what happened,

well, what other choices you have?

What matters now is that you have a second chance and you're doing something with it.

You also have your mother's boundless optimism.

All right, let's see what there is to see.

We've still got a small mountain of media yet to go through.

My name is Dr.

Amelia Raglan, and I'm sending this recording as a last resort.

My former client, the billionaire Benjamin Veers, was one of the many who went missing in the city of Colt Sparrow.

Prior to his disappearance, we spent much time discussing his strange experiences there.

Ben even sent me baffling recordings and photos in an effort to prove that what was happening to him was real and not the product of mental infirmity.

I believe,

I know, these communications have placed me in mortal danger.

Shortly after the Cold Sparrow mask disappearance, I was visited by what I thought were FBI agents coming to question me about Ben.

What I did not know, or couldn't have known, was that these men were part of some clandestine cult, and they had come to kill me.

If not for the speedy intervention of my two Rottweilers, they might have done just that.

After some revelatory experiences concerning the scale and scope of this cult, I have been forced to live on the run.

I know now the only way I might escape this nightmare is to expose these people to the world.

During my investigation, I've learned that the beliefs of this cult are intimately related with what is called nephitica.

As you are a scholar in the area, I hope you find what follows interesting enough to meet with me when the time comes.

I hope to speak with you in person at one of your future speaking engagements, and should you find any validity in what you're about to see, perhaps you will wish to speak with me as well.

I'm just outside the herding company rock quarry in Connecticut.

I'm filming from the nearby woods.

It's about nightfall, and they've come here for some kind of ritual.

I managed to get some information about the event by turning over one of the cultist hotel rooms.

There seem to be about 30 cars in total.

I'm going to try to get closer once they're all settled in.

They're inside a small building near some kind of drilling machine.

It looks like a bulldozer with a large drill bit sticking out in front of it.

I have some idea what's about to happen to the screaming woman.

There's nothing I can do.

They've all gone, and I'm entering the structure where they gathered.

As I expected, there's a large hole, likely made by the drilling machine just outside.

But this one isn't typical.

Generally, these holes, black ladders, as I've heard them called, go straight down and appear bottomless.

But not this one.

It's cut at an angle into the rock, more of a steep path than a hole, and I can see down it.

Seems to be a chamber at the end.

I am going to check it out.

Now, this is new.

It looks like a huge block of stone's been chiseled out and removed.

Now that I think about it, I'm reminded of the Builder's Tale, an account linked with Mephitican lore.

It was about a man who discovered a strange box while digging out a basement for a new church.

When it was opened, they found a woman.

A woman who opened her eyes and quit the box for the hillsides, laughing as she went.

Inside the box was discovered writing that matched certain burial rites mentioned within the Mephitica codex.

I can't help but wonder if something like that just took place.

Okay, lady, 50 bucks only pays for five minutes in debt, and then you gotta bet most.

Got it?

I understand.

Okay, just gotta open her up.

Ian, we use this little ladder to get up to train cars.

I'm a bit too old to be climbing into train cars, so thank you.

Could you hand me my camera once I'm up there?

Sure.

Hey, ya.

Thank you.

I paid a good deal of money to have this shipment tracked from New Mexico to Pennsylvania, and at last I'm going to see what it is.

I can't say I have any idea what I'm looking at.

It's a machine of some kind.

And from my various sources, I know it's likely being mass-produced by a company in New Mexico, but

why?

What does it do?

Pause the tape.

What is it?

What do you see?

That machine.

I'd recognize it from some of the parts.

It must be a completed version of the device, or parts of the device, that was found in an abandoned house in West Virginia.

What does it do?

I don't know.

But Dr.

Raglan said it was being mass-produced.

Which certainly doesn't bode well.

Turn the video back on.

The Gentleman from Hell is a Maltopia production.

Today's episode was written by Mark Ansloan and voiced by Stephen Zivik, Sam Stark, Aubrey Akers, Jesse Van Hove, Kelly Baer, and Stephen Ansloom.

Sound editing was completed by Stephen Ansloan and script editing was conducted by Walker Kornfeld.

Be sure to rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

And follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Meltopia.

If you want unique art and animations of Meltopia's stories, visit our YouTube page or click on the link in the show notes.

And for more exclusive content such as additional lore, stories, and art, be sure to check out our Patreon at www.patreon.com forward slash Meltopia.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze?

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan and lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to them current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

You're juggling a lot.

Full-time job, side hustle, maybe a family.

And now you're thinking about grad school?

That's not crazy.

That's ambitious.

At American Public University, we respect the hustle and we're built for it.

Our flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

Learn more about APU's 40-plus career-relevant master's degrees and certificates at apu.apus.edu.

APU, built for the hustle.

Sucks!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We the man to be hustle!

Winner, best score!

We the man to be seen!

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.