The Gentleman From Hell |S1| Ep. 19

Rusty Quill presents

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You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, Next next time, check Lyft.

I can still picture the day each of my kids was born, clear as a sun coming up,

when all I needed to do to see the good in life was open my eyes.

Those three days, they kept me from getting flattened by all the rest of them.

I always figured they set me straight on how to see the world, like some kind of lens that gave me the real picture.

But now, I'm wondering if I had it all wrong.

Maybe they were just blinders, keeping keeping me from seeing what was really going on, keeping me from seeing myself for who I really am, what I really am.

Maybe I had a choice after all.

Maybe I was just saving myself.

If we'd have thrown our guns down, he would have killed them for sure.

Am I just trying to duck the truth?

I just don't know, but

I do know one thing:

this

place

It doesn't let you hide anything.

The contents of this particular letter, penned by one Veronica McKay, a woman whose tale is arguably more outlandish than she herself, have given me pause on several accounts.

Chief among these are the illusions that may tie in with the dire warnings of my late father, suggesting that there are enigmas that I must devote a year to unraveling.

This is to say nothing of the other peculiar incidents I have encountered since inheriting my father's estate.

Yet all must be weighed against the tell-tale signs of possible derangement or outright deceit.

Miss McKay, for all her apparent sincerity, has failed to elucidate matters with any real clarity.

Her written account, so far as I can glean, merely reveals that she bore no great love for my family, a sentiment that may well have been mutual, and that she believes she heard chanting,

my...

my father crying out, even screaming.

As for the rest of it, this so-called triphasic meditation, it appears patently unreliable.

If it was intended to lend credibility to her words, I fear it has had precisely the opposite effect.

How am I to reconcile such claims with reality, let alone with common sense?

She should have known, given what she knew of my stance on such esoteric matters, that her presence here was ill-advised, indicating, I must admit, something of a lapse in her overall judgment.

And yet, she did come.

She crossed the ocean, ostensibly to warn me.

If she harbors no hidden agenda, she must hold her convictions very strongly indeed.

While I'm remiss to accept her tale upon faith, I am not, however, averse to investigating its veracity.

The question now is, where to begin?

Ah, the maiden voyage seems to be a success.

A testament to your skill, no doubt.

Thanks.

Did you find a problem with the cameras?

Yeah, drivers just needed to be reinstalled, is all.

Don't know what the problem was, but that seemed to fix it.

Should be all set now.

All right, then.

Let's hit the van and send her over the city.

See what we're dealing with.

I'm sure she won't disappoint.

This sucker's a state-of-the-art commercial drone.

It's got a 50-minute fly time.

Hughes certainly wasn't cutting any corners when he picked it out.

I'm glad you brought him up because I think it's high time we tell him about this cult.

I know Miss McKay is suspect, but what she said was just a little too familiar to be discounted.

And from the sounds of it, this cult isn't small, nor is it a recent development.

We could be dealing with some sort of vast secret society here.

Well, at least it might have been 50 years ago.

Lot can change in half a century.

Yes, it could have grown, but that's neither here nor there.

The fact remains, there's enough to present to Hughes.

Sure, I can tell him, but I don't know what good it'll do us.

I guess he could send us a private security detail, but given the type of shit going on here, who knows how well they hold up.

At the very least, he could dedicate far more resources to the task of researching them.

We have to drive miles outside of the city just to make a phone call.

Yeah, I guess.

I'm just paranoid about handing this off to him.

Any part of it.

We aren't fighting for credit on a bust, Mace.

This shit goes beyond all that.

I'm not seeing what the problem is here.

It's not like that.

It's just...

Well, this whole thing's got me paranoid as hell.

The deeper we get into this shit, the more I feel like we're getting played.

I said you two, I'm not sure I trust anyone.

Not even Hughes.

That's gonna make working for the guy a little difficult, don't you think?

We've got to turn all this over to him at some point if we're gonna get paid.

I know that, smartass.

I'm just saying that Hughes doesn't know what we know.

Who knows how careful he'll be with the shit we give him?

These fuckers snapped pictures of me and Phil, and we didn't have so much as a clue.

And she's fucking psychic.

We need to handle this like we got a mole on the loose.

Everything stays in-house, and everything we turn over is just a bare minimum to keep ourselves on the case.

When you put it like that, I can't say I disagree.

Mr.

Hughes doesn't really know what's going on here.

Not truly.

It is conceivable he'd be careless and allow these people to become fully abreast of our progress and intentions.

To be completely honest, I'm not even sure we figured out anything beyond what it wanted us to figure out.

Just like that Polaroid, this place handed Ben's stash over on a silver platter.

It knew we'd come across most of this shit.

We need to get ahead of it somehow.

We came across the tunnels ourselves, not to mention the brothers.

Let's say we scored some points on our own.

Maybe.

If we can listen to that tape without incurring whatever malice it's almost certainly laced with, that would be a substantial point.

Whoa!

Easy, Mason.

What's the rush?

We're skipping the test flight over the city.

We gotta start treating our little discoveries like crime scenes.

Work them while they're fresh.

Christ, we found that tunnel days ago and we've been doing everything else else but seeing what's in the thing.

I mean, that might have had a little something to do with the possibility of a cave-in,

and a certain monstrous statue that seems to be able to knock people the fuck out whenever they get close to it.

Oh, and then there was the little matter of having to chase down David Harmon.

While I may be no expert, I don't believe crime scenes are generally haunted.

Okay, okay,

so we had some good reasons.

But if we want to get ahead of this thing, we need to work faster.

Like getting our asses down in those tunnels and looking around before they do something to make that impossible.

If they hadn't already.

Yeah, you're the one driving.

Okay,

all the cameras are a go,

and I managed to patch the drone's audio through the van sound system, so we'll be able to hear everything and surround sound.

What's that little window next to the camera feeds for?

That's for the ultrasonic sensors and LIDAR.

This thing comes fully loaded, infrared thermal and motion detection.

It also came with some damn powerful powerful LED spotlights.

If there's anything down there, this thing should let us see it.

You didn't forget my little contribution, did you?

Sure didn't.

Your little chunk of quartz is sitting comfortably in one of the drone's storage compartments.

Perfect.

Now if something untoward were to happen, the crystal might absorb information I could later interpret.

A sort of paranormal camera, huh?

If it works, but yes, you could call it that.

Okay, then.

She's all locked and loaded and ready to go exploring.

Before you take her down there, do a few circles around the area.

Make sure we're alone out of here.

You got it.

Here we go.

Man, this thing really trucks.

I just might have to get me one of these when this is all over.

What's that there?

It's uh

squirrel.

Didn't know the camera had that kind of zooming capacity.

Good to know.

Alright, according to this, we're all alone.

Okay, then.

Send her in.

We're through the door and heading down the stairs.

Activating the spotlights.

And we're in.

Take a look down, see if there's any tracks.

Nothing besides our own tracks from last time.

Other than that, just dirt and rocks.

I'm gonna head to the spot where you saw the statue.

Hmm.

Looks like it didn't come back.

Which tunnel do you want to hit next?

Right or left?

I think that's what the statue might have been there for.

The left-handed king.

So, is this place some kind of maze then?

That or something designed as some sort of sacred specifications.

Into the left tunnel, it is.

Hold on.

There looks to be an open door down that tunnel, right there.

Hit it with the spotlight.

You got it.

Ah, yep.

I think you're right.

I'll check it out.

Well, look at what we have here.

Looks like a huge storeroom.

What could be in all those crates?

I'm gonna snap some 4K pics with the still camera using the flash.

Should make for crisper images than the screen grabs from the video.

Pictures will come up on this monitor here.

They're downloading now.

What's in this pic right here?

Over in the corner?

Hmm, looks like a crate filled with some kind of cylinders.

Ah, shit.

I was afraid of this.

Afraid of what?

All that dirt and stone is screwing with the connection to the drone.

Gotta take it out of the room.

Signal was cleaner outside.

Yeah, that seems to have done the trick.

Just gonna keep going down this tunnel, see where it goes.

What's that?

Looks like light.

Must be glass or something, reflecting the drone's light back at it.

I'll switch over to the thermals.

What's happening?

Some kind of interference.

Come on, you fucker, knock it off.

It's not interference, it's presence.

It's down there.

I can feel it.

Them.

Them

down there, screaming.

By God, what's been done to them?

Don't.

Oh, please, stop.

What the fuck just happened?

God, everything's out.

Even the fucking truck is dead.

Phil?

You good?

Oh, I'm hardly good.

But whatever that was, it stopped.

What were you picking up on?

Pain and suffering like I've never felt before.

Like.

Fuck!

Oh, we got juice.

Feed's coming back, too.

Not getting anything from the thermals.

Gonna switch to the spotlight.

That's not where the drone was before the power was cut.

No.

No, it's not.

Pan the camera around.

On it.

Nah.

That's impossible.

That's fucking impossible.

You gotta be kidding me.

It's on the inside of the Soda compound.

Steal yourselves, gentlemen.

We should know better by now.

Nothing's impossible.

Not here.

It's inside that big communal room.

The one where they all...

where they prayed.

I'm gonna look around.

in the corner.

Something moved.

I saw it heading over there.

What the fuck?

Whatever that was, it ran through a door somewhere.

I see it.

It's the door that led deeper into the compound, where all the bedrooms were.

Ah, fuck it.

I'm sending it through.

Where?

Come on, this is bullshit.

Dang the inside of the compound.

Wherever it is, it's at night and outside.

Those are trees and bushes.

And those

Christ, they're corpses.

They're all over the fucking place.

Look at their clothing.

Colonial.

You

didn't think.

Yeah.

It's Isabel.

Or at least it's supposed to be.

Right after the plague, I'm guessing.

What the hell's even happening here?

Why are we seeing this?

I don't know.

But I can feel it.

Something horrible rising from below.

Some of it feels...

I don't know, unliving.

A kind of wicked refulgence that wanders aimlessly.

The feed's changing again.

Looks like a hallway inside an old abandoned house.

Beat up hardwood floors, peeling wallpaper.

I'm gonna push ahead, see what's down there.

Looks like there's something on the floor up ahead.

Broken teacup, maybe?

Wait a minute.

Could be a bedroom right ahead.

No.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Wait a minute.

Shit, I think someone's in the bed.

Please,

no.

They're sitting up.

Please, please, no.

Philly?

Is that you?

You're not her.

You're not my mother.

Not my mother.

Jesus.

Phil, don't listen.

Leave me on.

Pull the plug on the fucking thing.

I can't.

The goddamn thing's not responding.

Did you finally remember my tea?

You've been gone for so long.

So...

No!

How shut the fucking thing off.

Hold on, just give me a fucking second.

Oh, what the fuck?

Turn off.

Turn the fuck off.

You said it would take more than a dream, Philly.

Is this retro?

No!

Let me out of here!

Let me out!

Keep me shut down.

We need to get her the fuck out of here.

Open the door.

It feels like it's used shut.

Please, let me out.

God, I'm windows won't break.

God damn it!

The Gentleman from Hell is a Meltopia production.

Today's episode was written by Mark Anzalone and performed by Stephen Zivik, Sam Stark, Aubrey Akers, and Mark Anzalone.

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

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