The Gentleman From Hell |S1| Ep. 27

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 And embrace the darkness.

There's the part of me that everyone sees.

I'm Howie Mandel, the comedian.

Apparently, I know what funny is.

Funny bought me a house, but I also know what isn't funny.

OCD.

I've lived with OCD my entire life and people throw the term around like it's no big deal.

But OCD is severe, often debilitating.

It's a mental health condition that involves unrelented, unwanted thoughts that can make you question your character, your beliefs, even your safety.

General therapy can help with some things, but for OCD, it can actually make things worse.

That's why I want to tell you about No CD.

No CD is the world's largest treatment provider for OCD and is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans.

Their licensed therapists specialize in ERP, the most effective treatment for OCD.

If you think you might be struggling with OCD, go to NOCD.com to book a free 15-minute call.

They are here to help.

Monday Sidekick, the AI agent that knows you and your business, thinks ahead and takes action.

Tell it anything.

Seriously.

Monday Sidekick: AI you'll love to use.

Start a free trial today on monday.com.

Here you are, Dr.

Stedman.

The test results you want.

Thanks, Judy.

Uh

excuse me, Mr.

Rhodes?

What the

hell?

I don't understand.

What happened?

The last thing I remember was uh

um you must have all had a long night.

I'm sorry to wake you up, but I thought you'd want to know the results of Miss Chambers' tests.

Yes, uh, yes, we would.

What do they show?

Normally it's not often we're wrong about these sort of things, but in this case, well, it seems Miss Chambers will almost certainly make a full recovery.

All of her tests came back, and they're exceptional.

How is that even possible?

I mean, that's great, but you said she was in some seriously bad shape.

Medical science is not an exact science.

From what we can tell, her heart is as strong, if not stronger, than most women her age.

Our thinking now is that she suffered one doozy of a panic attack, which presented like a pretty convincing heart attack.

Naturally, we're going to do more tests to be absolutely sure, but from everything I can see here, she could be released as soon as today.

Once her meds wear off, she should be up and around in no time.

That's great.

Thanks, Doctor.

You're very welcome.

Am I the only one who remembers coming face to face with that fucking witch?

Or am I going straight out of my fucking mind?

That's how I remember it.

But how could there's no fucking way we dreamed that shit up?

No fucking way.

Wait, where's the resonator?

I had it on before.

Bef before whatever the hell happened to us.

Christ, they must have taken it.

Sounds like she's waking up.

I think you two should be alone with her when she comes to.

Margaret and me are gonna head back to the guest wing.

See if the resonator's there.

We'll be right back.

Alright, but stay where people can see you and get right back.

We will.

Where

am I?

It's okay, Phil.

You're okay.

Mason and me are right here.

How do you feel?

I

feel

fine.

But I thought...

that is I felt

my heart.

We all thought you had a heart attack, but apparently we were wrong.

We...

No.

She did it.

She...

She healed me.

Just relax.

There's a lot going on right now that we don't understand.

But before we deal with any of that, we gotta get you the hell out of here.

Leon, you'll stay with Phil.

I gotta check on something.

Where are you- Just take care of Phil.

I'll be right back.

Promise.

God damn it, we're supposed to stay together.

You of all people should know there's no stopping him once he gets going.

I'm half tempted to leave after we check the room.

This is too much.

Missing time isn't exactly new.

We've met plenty of clients who've experienced it.

And precisely none of these episodes were caused by a towering inhuman witch.

Oh, there's the resonator.

Exactly where I left it before all hell broke loose.

Come on, I want to get it back into the van.

So, are you seriously saying you want to leave?

I don't know what I'm saying.

All I know is that this is beyond anything we seem to be capable of dealing with.

That

thing could have just easily killed us or set us in those chairs.

Phyllis is right.

It wants something from them.

And maybe us too now.

The fact that it didn't kill you and I says as much.

Okay, but that doesn't mean we run.

We've got a much better chance of getting through all this if we stick together.

We don't even know if we can trust them.

You heard what that thing said back in the school.

You know as well as I do that it was probably just trying to turn us against each other.

Remember the Fallsworth case?

The spirit warned us that our client was the arsonist, and it turned out he probably was.

So why couldn't something like that happen here?

Because my gut says different.

It wouldn't be the first time your gut didn't know its otho from its elbow.

Well, the second resonator's still here.

Didn't dream that up.

I don't know about you, but I'm not buying that last night was a dream.

No way, no how.

Could have been a shared dream, somehow projected by the phenomenon.

Many of the early alien abduction cases have the abductees describing lengthy trips to other worlds, even dimensions.

Well, could be, but most of those cases only involved one person.

Tell that to Betty and Barney Hill.

Or Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson.

Okay, okay.

But we very seldom see this kind of missing time in cases revolving around discarnate entities.

Most cases like that are almost all alien in nature.

I think it's pretty clear that this case is an outlier.

We've never encountered something like this.

No one has.

I'd say exceptions can be made.

Still, there must be some way to know, one way or another.

Excuse me, nurse.

Can I help you with something?

Yeah, the chapel over here says it's closed for repairs, but I was here last night and it was fine.

Something happened?

Uh, I can't say.

I can check and see if any of the services have been relocated to another part of the hospital if you'd like.

Oh, no, that's fine.

I was just curious, is all.

Sorry to bother you.

No problem at all.

Enjoy your day.

Thanks.

You too.

Well, let's just see about that.

I don't know.

Place looks fine to me.

Oh,

what do we have here?

Looks like a little carbon scoring under the cross.

Right where that little fire was.

Dream my ass.

Well, it's certainly nice to see you up and around.

It's good to be up and around.

For a while there, I thought this might be my last stop.

Nurse was already here and gone.

Looks like she'll be discharging right after the doctor stops back in.

Did you find the resonator?

Yeah, right where I left it.

That is, before we

all saw what we saw.

Phyllis, do you remember anything from last night?

Indeed, I do.

But let's save that conversation till we're out of here, shall we?

Good idea.

Come in.

Why, hello, doctor.

So, I hear I'm a walking miracle case.

My very first, in fact.

I just wanted to stop by and let you know that all the follow-up tests came back normal.

So, unless you'd like to stick around for more hospital food, you're free to go.

Well, pending some paperwork the nurse will be back with.

Oh, and one more thing.

Obviously, it was inappropriate to bring it up before, but I just wanted to say that I'm very happy to have helped out a genuine hero.

I recognized the three of you shortly after you arrived.

Oh, thank you, Doctor.

That's very kind of you.

Hey there, Doc.

Any more good news?

As a matter of fact, yes.

I was just letting Miss Chambers know she's got a clean bill of health and that she's free to go.

Ah, that's great to hear.

And a huge load off.

I was also just saying what a pleasure it is to help out some genuine American heroes.

Uh-oh, looks like we've been made.

Well, thanks for that, Doctor.

And if you wouldn't mind keeping it under your hat, we're still not very used to the attention.

Of course, certainly.

Hey, well, I got you here, and all, I was wondering, uh, anything odd happened last night?

I thought the power shut down for a bit, and I could have sworn I heard a glass breaking.

Uh, no, not that I'm aware of.

But then I left early last night.

Oh, no problem.

Just thought I'd ask.

Probably just dreamt it anyway, right?

Sure.

Well, like I said, after you sign all the paperwork, Miss Chambers, you're free as a bird.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you, Doctor.

So the guy that got the Sparrows kids into all that devil worshiping shit

That was their own dad unless she was lying to me

Yes, but I've had many visions in my time and they always wore their truth upon their sleeves My sense is that it was all true But why tell you any of it the truth behind who and what they are That's the part which worried me the most It's almost like they're preparing me us for something

horrible tenderizing the meat for the oven more like it.

Very much like that, I think.

It could very well have something to do with whatever they were preparing those children for.

We can learn as much as we want about all this shit.

But if we can't protect ourselves from these things, what the fuck good does it do us?

It puts us to sleep.

It turns the power on and off at will.

It walks around public hospitals.

It's not preparing us for anything.

It's fucking playing with us.

You two managed to figure out a way to enhance the visibility of the paranormal.

Is there any way you could reduce its overall strength?

Well,

since we only just realized that under certain circumstances, the resonator seems to enable the potency of the paranormal, perhaps it can be made to somehow diminish it too.

And that's a big if.

Reversing the effect, in principle, would reduce the coherence of our minds.

Could even even induce something like a fugue state which might have the exact opposite effect leaving us even more open to the influences of this thing like we've been saying we need to research as deeply into mephitica as we can that's where we'll find what we need so we just gonna assume that we can't get the fuck out of here and be done with the whole thing and christ shouldn't we at least try It's followed us everywhere we've gone.

It's even gone so far as to heal me for God's sake.

It's not just going to let us go.

Just get that out of your head, Mace.

About that.

Being healed, I mean.

Do you remember anything else apart from your visions?

I.

Well,

I don't know how much of what happened last night was real.

But when we went into your room, you were covered in blood.

What?

No, I don't recall anything like that at all.

Although I can.

There's something.

I don't know.

I can't.

I can't see it clearly.

Take it easy, Phil.

Don't try to push anything.

Just need a little air, is all.

Is that the place over there?

The Driftwood Inn?

Yeah, only hotel in town.

I booked a room just for the night.

Figured that'd be long enough for us to figure out what the hell we want to do.

I don't know why you think staying here rather than at the mansion is gonna make any difference.

Look, I get it, okay?

We're fucked.

But what the hell does Bitchin do about it?

Christ, we gotta at least try to come up with a plan.

Especially if we got no choice but to see this thing through.

You two need to calm down.

This kind of talk is precisely what that thing wants us to believe.

That it's hopeless.

She's right.

In many of the cases we've dealt with, the entity wanted to isolate and psychically break its intended victim.

I know this all feels hopeless.

I feel it too.

But Pat and I have seen proof that things like this can be overcome.

You said it yourself.

Neither one of you have experienced anything like this.

Nothing at this level, sure, but it's still following patterns.

Patterns we have seen before.

And where there's a pattern, there's the possibility for understanding.

You two should know that better than any of us.

So you really think all this comes down to that Nefitikan stuff?

Well, maybe while we're here, we're free internet, we should all get on the same page with that stuff.

There's a couple online sources that I think might be pretty useful.

It's a place to start, I guess.

Hey, give me a hand with this stuff, will you?

Yeah, sure.

Okay,

this is a lecture from Dr.

Philip Loctrum.

We have access to it through our donations to the Athenaeum of Esoteric Sciences.

Should have a lot of what we're looking for.

We also have access to their online library.

There should be quite a lot of material in there.

That's uh

that's a three-hour lecture.

Ugh, I don't know if I caught something from the hospital or what, but

I don't think I'm gonna be able to stay up that long.

Look, I'm gonna go try and lay down for a while, try and sleep off whatever this is.

Do you want anything for it?

I've got a small pharmacy in my purse.

Nah, I just think I need an old-fashioned nap.

You guys go watch the lecture.

Give me the cliff notes when I wake up.

You got it.

Get some rest.

Hmm, what's that?

Down below the file for the lecture.

That's the image gallery.

Hmm, click on that one.

Yes, that's the stone archway from the basement.

The one with the Latin inscription.

Its official name is Garile's Door.

It says here that it's an ancient archway that serves as the entrance to a vast cavern hidden beneath Erlorne Castle in England's Outer Barrens.

The French occultist and philosopher, Lucien d'Eponnon, once claimed that both the castle and its subterranean depths belonged to damn kind,

hinting that this passage might be one of the elusive exits from hell.

I'll bet my bonnets, that's that's the same castle Veronica McKay said she need it.

What we're taking to,

I think you just might be keeping that bonnet

working late tonight, Doc.

Whoa.

Jesus.

You almost gave me a heart attack, Mr.

Rhodes.

Uh,

yeah.

Late night.

That's the problem with being a doctor.

You never know when you're going to get to go home.

I can certainly relate to that.

Oh,

right.

I suppose it's probably even worse for you folks at the FBI.

So, um...

What are you doing out here?

Is Miss Chambers still feeling all right?

Oh, sure.

She's feeling right as rain, but uh, I came out here to talk to you, as a matter of fact.

Um, sure.

What can I help you with, Mr.

Rhodes?

Well, you see, I just wanted to ask you again about last night.

Last night?

Oh, uh, yeah, right.

You you mean what you asked me about before, about the power going off.

Yeah, I guess, uh, I really shouldn't have asked because I already knew the answer.

The power did go off, and that's not all.

A whole bunch of other stuff happened,

and I'm pretty sure you'll know why.

Me?

I don't know what you mean.

I wasn't even at the hospital last night.

Maybe, maybe not.

But either way, there's a lot you're not telling me, Doc.

See, I may not be psychic or even all that smart, if we're being honest, but what I do know, better than most people, is when someone's lying to me

and you

You're lying to me Look, I don't know what you think I did or didn't do and while I have the utmost respect for you mr.

Rhodes I I really don't appreciate you can tell me right here in this empty parking lot where no one knows nothing about nothing or I can make things awful difficult for you See, I've been looking into what's been going on around here, Dr.

Stedman.

And while I might not be able to pin anything on you, I can sure as hell throw a lot of suspicion your way.

I got tons of friends in law enforcement who are just itching to pay back favors I did for them.

And then there's the fact that I'm a pretty popular guy with the press.

Could do a lot of damage to a fellow's reputation if I were to drop their name in conjunction with some whack job cult I've been investigating.

And you know I swing a lot of clout on that particular topic, don't you?

I look.

I

can't.

You can't?

What?

What can't you do?

Nothing.

I just...

I just can't.

Please.

What can't you talk about, Doc?

What were you gonna say?

They got something on you?

The sparrows?

No, no, no.

Don't say...

Don't say what?

The sparrows?

Jesus, stop saying it.

Then come clean, or I'm gonna call call those fuckers right out of the sky and tell them you put me up to it.

Please, please, please just keep your voice down.

I'll tell you whatever I can.

You sure the fucker?

Because if you don't,

you're not gonna like where this goes next.

The Gentleman from Hell is a Meltopia production.

Today's episode was written by Mark Anzalone and performed by Stephen Zivick, Sam Stark, Aubrey Akers, Jesse Van Hove, Kelly Baer, and Mark Anzalone.

Sound editing was completed by Stephen Anzalone 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.