H equals strike.
Welcome back. Come on, come here. Line the step. Now then, lot 112.
A handheld voice recorder.
Plastic housing. Institution issue. Light scuffing along the sides.
“The battery compartment has been taped shut.”
It was recovered from a place called Harmony Care Home. Now what's recorded on it? That's for you to discover. Before we begin, I want to point out some of the customers whose names have been etched in brass on this beautiful plaque I had made above the front desk.
These are some of the members of the inner circle of the antiquarium. We go by the Obsidian Covenant. Recent initiates include Alex Karen. Ed Gazzda. Noel Bander.
Kupo Jimmy. Skill Wallace. Tired Ghost. Jeremy Burnish. And Carrie Brown.
We are ever appreciative of your devotion to the order.
Go to the Obsidian Covenant.com to receive the sacrament. Sounds harmless enough, right? Welcome to the Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. And our goings on. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings.
The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings.
The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings. I'm holding this old voiced recorder. Used by a staff nurse from Harmony Carol.
And I swear I'd never listened to it before.
Her voice notes are mentioned though. In a series of old Reddit posts I made like two years ago. Posts in which I also tacked on a ciphered message.
“Trying to communicate in secret with someone, I guess.”
It was reading them. Anyway, here's the second of my Reddit posts. They didn't November 22, 2023. Though I don't remember writing any of these words. We're living in it.
Here we go. I wake up to a kiss. Now normally I'm not too fussy about who I kiss. Ask me about my preferences and I'll tell you. Generally girls, but hey, I'll point the copy machine if it's warm enough.
On this occasion, the smooch is a whispering one. Then hey, not my favorite, but if I'm drunk enough, sometimes I'll be surprised who I lock lips with. There's no man in drunkenness, however, that can explain the moist fishy surprise that slithers into my mouth. And I scream. For two reasons.
One. Sharing my bed is a cat. I do not own a cat. Number two. The cat has just french kiss me.
From the way he yells like a jilted lover when I fling him, this cat clearly thinks I own a fiction, which is weird. Since I repeat, I do not own a fucking cat. The weirdness is compounded by the bowl of kibble I kick over as I stumbled at the bathroom to scrub out my mouth. Fuck.
“Only to find the grit of cat litter under my bare souls. What the fuck did someone break into my shitty little apartment to give me?”
Checks name tag. Prometheus? Here? Along with those cat, a kutramons. He rolls his big furry head into my palm while I'm checking his collar.
His whole body vibrating. Okay, buddy, cute, but how did... This is the moment I noticed I've got messages on my phone from someone named Darlene. Darlene's from my old life. Back when I was pulling every scam imaginable from stealing cars to stealing identities.
In Darlene's case, I convinced her to send me a bunch of money to help me rescue cats who didn't exist. And based on these texts, Darlene reached out three days ago asking me for help getting Prometheus here to the vet.
Apparently I, Jack the Cat Fisher, decided to actually become Jack the Cat Re...
Yep, conman with a heart of gold.
That's me.
“Okay, looks like I didn't plate the vet bill.”
It'll turn a profit on the reimbursement. Told to have it to my right. Anyway, I'm not sure why I kept her cat for three days, but this fluffy guy is clearly catching feeling. So it's time to take him back to her at Harmony Care Home. It's not until I crest a hill and come and view the massive brick building covered in vines that a tingle of deja vu creeps into my bones.
Prometheus and the carrier next to me has gone quiet. Dead quiet. When I look in, there is no cat.
I squint, angling to pure through the grated door. He has crouched himself as flat as he possibly can.
A pancake cat. Nothing but an orange rug into wide and utterly terrified eyes. I step out of a car. Weird how in my memory this place is a warm and happy glow.
“Pastels and floral patterns and a smiling darling in a hokey sequence sweater, like on a cat rescue instagram.”
But now that I'm actually here beneath the faded sign, Harmony Care Home. Carrying, compassionate, harmonious, senior living. Painted yellow days he stopped the border, the paint peeling and curling like dead skin, while streaks of black grime render the slogan nearly illegible. The massive brick institution looming just beyond. Looks more haunted mansion that senior living center.
With vines strangling the crumbling walls, and one wing at the brink of collapse,
it's bricks charred and window shattered. I check my GPS. Below the Google map, the reviews rave. Five stars. 11 at a tent.
Bingo night. Were the reviewers writing about the same place? A chill sinks into my marrow. As I know, the address.
“Checking the mileage reveals, I've done the long drive out here multiple times.”
When I open the notes app on my phone. I discover that I have little wounds of research about Harmony Care Home. Very disconcerting research about abused patients. Body is improperly disposed of, and stranger, more disturbing claims. Most of these originate from a voice recorder apparently swiped.
With notes recorded during her rounds by a nurse named Kendra Jones. 1201. Burned it's life. To feast. 831.
Death expected given her terminal condition. But... Staff insist. She is alive. I have been instructed to continue administering medication.
The pale's pile up in her throat. Or a 306. Sobs and fees for help behind the door. Have knocked and inquired if anyone leaves hope. No response.
But the cries persist. Checked records. There is no residence in Cerido City. Room 358. Jacob wrote a verse.
So, whatever, when vocabulary works as arrived to claim body. Body when missing. Body has since reappeared into criminal cases. bathroom. Common areas.
Checked records. Jacob ordered her listed as living. Whereabouts. Currently on. According to my notes, Kendra
was dismissed from a position on October 19th, due to unprofessional behavior. October 20th, she checked into room 306 as a resident.
As of the past several weeks, she's been listed as a missing person.
Okay.
“Between my amnesia and the research, this is all sounding fishier than Prometheus's morning breath.”
The kind of fishy that past experience has taught me better than the mess with.
And yet, here I am. Clearly messing. Given a series of personal instructions I've written to myself. Stuff like. Check.
Write everything before you forget. Alright, don't bother with photos. Camera only records a lot of you. If Darlene's family and the cops are affected by whatever muck with my memory, no one to this place is still running despite the egregious violations.
I see from my call history that I've contacted the police twice in the past three days. My last set of instructions, underlined and bolted and dated for today, reads. One. Keep your phone recording. Two.
Find a way to break the illusion.
Three. Get Darlene. The fuck out. I'm sorry, only family may visit. Says Lolita.
“The pretty blond staff are at the check-in desk.”
I tried to tell her I'm here with Darlene's cat. Hoisting up the carrier with its terrified occupant. But she interrupts to inform me I'm not welcome after my previous visits. Claiming I went poking into residents' rooms and that items have gone missing. Her fingers stray toward the phone.
Doctor, please. Okay. I raised a hand in surrender. But can I at least use the restroom? Since was such a long drive.
Lolita looks dubious, but points me down the hallway. Thanks Lolita. As I start down the hall with Prometheus, I glance back over my shoulder to the wide open common area. Packed with old folks milling around.
The air thick with that stale nursing home smell. Everything. From the clatter of coffee cups to the inaudible chatter. Seems pretty ordinary. But I can't shake the dread, curdling in my belly.
Like spoiled food. A deep, soul-shaking sense of... Wrongness. As I pass a bookcase for the vase full of dusty silk flowers,
“I can remember the color of the flowers,”
but I'm struggling to bring to mind the actual events of my earlier visits. Lolita's probably not lying about things going missing. I've been known to have sticky fingers. But why can't I fucking remember? I debate trying to sneak up to staircase to Darleens room.
But since I feel Lolita's blue eyes on me, I duck into the mensra. The moment I push open the door, a horrific stink rolls over me. It's this ghastly weak of shit and piss and febries.
All mingling with the buzzing of flies, and a whiff, something fed it. Did someone forget to clean the toilet? There's a urinal and a single handy cap stall. I gag.
And hold my nose as I set for me, this is carrier down by the sink. When I push the stall door, it's locked. Riska glanced down, and someone's in there with trousers around their legs. Only a chill crawls from the roots of my scalp
to the pace of my spine. At the bottom of the filth splattered porcelain throne, flies, buzz around bare feet. It looks as if all the blood is pulled down there and on the ankles, the skin bloated and split it like an over-right fruit.
The toenails, black, and it's like Gerard all over again. The memories come tumbling back. It seems as if the toilet's occupant died in there. And it's been left decomposing for several days.
For a second, my thoughts spin on the fight,
flight, and freeze dial. It takes a few moments from my racing heart to settle. I take a picture before remembering it's pointless. Yeah, it comes out black. Are the residents actually alive?
Should I investigate this guy in the toilet? Um, no. Yeah, I'm not sure where that thought came from. I turned the leaf. Hey.
The hairs on my nape stand on end. Uh, yeah. I glance over my shoulder. You, um, you were, uh, you okay in there? Can you hand me a fresh roll?
Come out.
There's a toilet paper roll in a shelf, which I grab.
“Squat down and look at the space beneath the stall.”
The legs have not moved. Nothing has moved. There's no hand dropping down by those legs to reach for the paper.
And I've never seen legs that shade a purple.
That's splotchy. On any living human being. Can you hand me the TV? I mean, prop. I narrow my eyes at the stall.
And then roll the paper so it bounces across the floor and perfectly bumps into those purple legs. What you're going to do now, dead guy, maybe ghost. Nothing happens. The man on the toilet seems 100% dead.
No sounds at all. Except for the buzzing flies. I move to leave. There's a figure looming behind me. I scream.
But it's just an old man.
“One of the residents who ignores me and walks right by and goes to the urinal.”
Then there's the sound of a toilet flushing from inside the stall. Rustling. And the slap of bare feet. Why is the dead guy barefoot? The metallic bang of the lock sliding open.
I scurry up before the owner of those blotchy legs can bang me for the TV. Well, lead is no longer at the front desk.
So I swing around to the staircase to head up to Darlene on the second floor.
Should be so glad to see. Ah, fuck. I forgot the motherfucking cat. Hmm, excuse me. That would be the intake line.
It'll tend to stop ringing on their own. Just a moment. I won't be long. [BEEP] Why hello there.
You've reached the end query. If you wish to leave a message.
“Please do so with the tone and have a great day.”
Hey, Trevor. I look going, man. I got some for you that made me real careful about saying anything out loud. It's a bone bead rosary. Old.
To move from use. The crucifix is oversized. Like it was made that way on purpose. Here's the trick. Every time someone praises with it, the cross gets a little smaller.
Not fast. It's enough you'd swear you're imagining it. Meanwhile, the bead get heavier. Total at first.
By the third prayer, your wrists know's the difference.
I dug up some notes on the last owner. Deviled guy. Said the prayer is helped him with his anxiety. That the weight was grounding. After a while, the crucifix fit comfortably in his mouth.
He thought that meant something. Though he kept praying. He found a kneeling. Hands folded. Throat distended like he was mid-swallow.
X-rays showed the beads arranged perfectly down as a top against. One by one. In order. Tho tearing. No choking.
Like the body knew what to do. Rosary was still looped around his wrist. Cross was gone, though. Try to lift in the damn thing. Nearly dropped it.
Wait, more than it should. Look, you know I'm not religious, so I didn't pray. I didn't even whisper. But I still felt it tug when I closed the case. I get one at a turn.
If you take it, I keep it sealed and off the floor. Maybe both to sign about filing contemplation only. This one doesn't care what you believe in. Just that you've finished. Anyway, well you depreciated.
Talk soon, brother. End of messages. You're still with me. Good. One does grow a custom to the language of care.
It's remarkable how much can be said without ever mentioning a person at all. Shall we? Well, lead is no longer at the front desk, so I swing around to the staircase to head up to Darlene on the second floor. Should we so glad to see? Ah, fuck.
I forgot the mother fucking cat. Of course he's gone when I returned to the men's room. Of fucking course. Now before you barade me over such a rookie mistake.
Listen, I'd like to see you access the higher functions of your brain.
When only a wobbly stall door separates you from a future fine corpse that had just clicked the lock open
“and is shambling on its rotting bare feet towards you.”
Which I actually believe now is a trick. Because when I play back the recording from that encounter on my phone, there is no voice. No renee flushing toilet. Or clicking lock.
And when I look in there for Prometheus,
the corpse is still on the porcelain throne as if having never shambled.
God damn it. Losing Prometheus feels like the worst mistake of my life. And not saying a lot because I have made so many mistakes in my life. There was that time during COVID. When I sold reusable and 95 masks that were neither reusable nor in 95,
or that other time I collected donations for disaster relief. You know what, you probably don't need a whole list. It's enough for you to know that, I'm likely to return as a cockroach. And it's because of all these mistakes
that at the time seem to make a quick buck. Among other things I scammed an innocent sweet older lady named Arlene at her savings to rescue fake cats. But I also help rescue her real cat. And I'm hoping to rescue her.
And on some level it's like, "If I can make up for the bad shit, I've done a one person. If I could do this one good thing. Maybe I won't come back a couple of times." Irrational?
I mean, yeah, obviously.
But however badly you think of me now,
and that list of mistakes was pretty incomplete, not gonna lie. You're about to think a whole lot worse. See, none of my previous mistakes hold a candle to the one I'm about to make. Ooh, telling a lie here would be so much better.
Heck with the amnesia, I might even believe it myself. How about a jack? Wanna wake up tomorrow and like yourself?
“Wanna look in the mirror and see if guys made good choices?”
Ah, oh, my kid. I never fall for that. Besides, if I'm gonna go making some big fuck up the least I can do is own it. So, what is this mistake you ask?
Well, it all starts out when one of us, Lolita or me, I can't remember which, calls the police. This happens after I've escalated by threatening Lolita that I will burn this shithole to the ground if she doesn't return my cat.
She replies with big scared eyes
that if I don't calm down, she'll have to summon the nurse to escort me to a quiet room to lie down until I feel better. Her comment sends my heart ratatating like a machine gun, and even though I know
that I'm just one set out of a way from having my name shuffled from a visitor to the resident list. Oh man, I'm a mess. I'm not even on anything, but I feel like I'm all cracked out. I cannot bring myself down.
Fortunately for me, the cops show up before the nurses do. Lolita, tearfully tells the police
“I'm harassing the residents, and I tell them,”
there's a guy in the toilet who is unresponsive. The unresponsive part peaks their concern, and I lead him to the men's room. All the while explaining the research I've collected about Harmony Care Home,
including Kendra's voice recordings and the missing person report. As before, the smell, just about knocks me over. I cover my nose,
and the two officers, a man and a woman, wrinkle up their faces, fly his bus, wings worrying,
the air, leaking of methane, the male cop, whose name is Fitzroy, clears his throat and says,
"Eh, uh, sir, you all right in there?" Flies, purple legs,
it's all there. Even the toilet paper is still the exact same position rolled against those legs. "Sir?" Officer Fitzroy knocks on the stall door.
It swings inward. Apparently it wasn't locked very well. He pokes his head in, then quickly ducks out. "Sorry, sir.
We had reports you might be in some trouble. You okay in there?" Cox is head, listening, and I checked my phone to make sure I'm recording.
Officer Fitzroy's head knocks and he says, "You got it, sir. Sorry for the disturbance." "Gives me a hard look, and motions me to follow him out.
Repremands me while his partner goes to speak with Lulida. I play the recording back for him. Pointing out how there's only his own voice, and nothing from the unresponsive guy, but he just says the microphone didn't pick it up,
because the guy in the toilet was too far away. Only I'm not even listening anymore, because right there on the recording, just after Officer Fitzroy says, "Sorry for the disturbance.
There comes a soft, pitiful view. Almost inaudible." "You got it, sir.
Sorry for the disturbance.
My gaze drifts to the front desk to Lulida,
babbling to the female officer, and her eyes meet mine, and her lips curl up in a smile. "No. I fucking lose it.
All terror washes away. And in that void, with a fear used to be only a desire to blow everything the fuck up,
“even if I come a cosy myself in the process,”
and while normally, I'm both hopelessly self-centered and shamelessly prone to self-preservation, read cowardly. It doesn't matter anymore how reckless I'm being,
because I'm gonna make them fucking pay. Now, right now,
I'm gonna break the illusion.
I've only got a few minutes while the police finish up their conversation with Lulida, and once they're gone, so is my chance to turn a spotlight on the horrors of harmony, Carol.
Back in the men's room, I pushed the stall door, but it jingles. Futally. Locked.
I dropped down to pier under the stall. Body still there. Tangling was something like this without really knowing how it operates, as an easy way to end up dead,
or in my previous case in a coma.
“And I haven't made a complete study of this place”
and in order to have confidence that I know it's rules, even so, I can think of two plausible ways to break the illusion. One, is to have the resident attack me in the police intervene.
My hunch is that touch, much more than cider sound, reveals the truth, that the illusion is mostly for our eyes and ears. The cops already reacted to the smell after all.
And if officer Fitzroy grabs a rotting corpse during a physical altercation, a probably noticed the rotting. The other option is, Harmony Carrom's influence has a limited range.
The interference with my cell phone, for example, only extends about a thousand feet from the building. So, what happens if I bring a resident, or a piece of one,
outside the bounds of the carol? I bet if I sent the toe from dead legs here to the cops for forensic analysis, the results would be interesting. My trout attention to Harmony Carrom,
“it'd be hard for it to stay running that wouldn't it?”
The only reason it's still operating is because it's in the authorities' blind spot. My slip and knife out of my pocket and reach out to the stall, hard slamming my ribs like a sledgehammer as I growl. Give me back my fucking cracked.
The skin is cold and slick like a slab of meat under my grip. Oh my god, this smell. Gagging through the sleeve held over my nose. I slide my knife across that splitting purple foot.
Press the blade into the toe, and its squalches and congealed liquid spurts. I hand chutes out and grabs my wrist. And even knowing this would happen, duh,
inevitable right? Still, I shriek and drop my knife. No! Grabbing that arm and trying to pry myself loose.
And pen to my horror. It kicks me under the stall. No! No! No!
What's going on in here? Boom's a voice.
And I'll have never been more grateful for the popos.
I'm slammed up against the tile. The thing on the toilet reaching with its other hand from my neck. Could God its face? The eyes and lips are gone.
It's so good. It's all flies and maggots and liquefying flesh. On its wrist is a bracelet and alphabet letters like the sword and give the grandchild might make for their aging relative. Spelling J. A. C. O. B. I'm pretty sure it's Jacob Mortimer who has me choking under the grip of his rotting fingers. And then, officer Fitzroy is barking. Let him go. Let him go now. And then I'm being lifted. My vision blackening. I don't even feel myself fly through the air. Just the impact as I hit the wall. In my head rings with a bank.
Cut shots. I'm not even certain. But on the officer's face is horror. Share horror. And he's shouting. What the fuck? And unloading the entire clip into that body on the toilet because the illusion is broken. He sees it now. He sees it. And then Jacob Mortimer lunges forward, grabbing him and jamming fingers into his eyes. And all my fucking God. I'm screaming and screaming and then I'm scrambling out of the toilet into the hall.
The pounding down the hallway to the lobby. The second officer of the woman draws her weapons and radios for backup and then rushes to the toilet. Lowly to stands at the front desk with her lips in an "oh" of shock. Hand to her mouth.
I think I'm crying.
Breathe. And then it's finally catching my breath.
“Completing comes out in her face is serene. Like she's relieved. And even laughing a little.”
She radios and tells the others to forget it. Jimmy. Is fine. False alarm. It's that same guy in his pranks again. Ran in there and screamed apparently and Jimmy thought it was an emergency and rushed into save him. And my store recording record everything. She comes over and gives me a stern talking too.
Warning me about how pulling any further stunts like this will be risking a rest and then I need to
leave these old folks alone. I don't answer. Just stare, gasping. And finally, a last ditch effort.
I ask, can I speak with officer Fitzroy? I tell her I want to make a statement too. She smurks. And shakes her head and it goes back and enters the men's room again. And I hear her call out to Fitzroy. Keep recording, Jack. That Jack I want to speak with you again. I'll be in the car.
And then she leaves. She goes out to her squad car.
When my heart finally stops racing. A sing-song voice calls out to me from the front desk.
Which one do you want? Huh? The horror and my soul deepens. The dread suffusing my body so I can scare sleeper Heath.
“Scaresly hear her impossible next words. Which one do you want back?”
The cat? Where the cop? Which do I? Oh no. Oh god. I stare at her. And can feel myself dissociating. My brain can't process. How can I make a choice like that? How can there be a choice like that? The cat? I whisper. I can't explain, but he's the one thing darling loves and I brought him into danger and the police, they're sworn to serve but the cat's just a cat. Now he's responsible for him.
Hope caught him such a bad person. Such a fucking awful terrible person. Outside, the cop car pulls out of the parking lot and drives away. She just left. Not a partner.
“Lolita beams at me. And I scrubbed the tears from my face and get up and stumbled into the”
men's room to see what has become of officer Fitzroy. Jacob Mortimer's body is gone. There's no one in the stall. My knife is gone from the floor. I find it when my eyes sweep the bathroom. It's there. In officer Fitzroy. His body flies against the wall. mouth open in the screen of horror. Face contorted in fear.
The knife handle sticking out of his mouth and through his throat. I clap a hand across my lips. Step back from the door. But then that inner voice was first jacked. But the knife has your prints. So I grab it by the handle and have to hold this skull to bridge it out. Excuse me officer. And here's someone giggling nearby. And he'll ever use. He sounds really unhinged. For behind me. A faint. Meow.
I snatch up for me thesis carrier. Back at the car opened the carrier to check him over. Big guy is fine. Traumatized but fine. Squirms when I hug him too hard. He'll lock you a little shit. By any moral measure the choice I've made is the wrong one. And you know I don't even like cats. But I'm just so relieved to have him back. Him is terrible fishy French kisses. I laugh hysterically. And the fluffy guy.
The fluffy guy throws back his whiskery face and howls. We're both here. Howling. And I laugh so hard. I'm crying. Can't stop. I can't tell which anymore crying or
Fucking laughing.
and at least until I read this not know what a fucking asshole I am.
“Thank you for your patronage. Hope you enjoyed your new relic as much as I've enjoyed passing along”
its sorted history. It does come with our usual warning. However, absolutely no refunds,
no exchanges. And we won't be held liable for anything that may or may not occur while the
“object is in your possession. If you've got an artifact with mysterious properties,”
perhaps it's a company by a history of bizarre and disturbing circumstances.
Maybe you'd be interested in dropping it and it's story by the shop to share with other customers.
“Please reach out to [email protected]. A member of our team will be in touch.”
Till next time, we'll be waiting for you whenever you close your eyes. In the space between sleep and dream. During regular business hours, of course, or by appointment, only for you, our best customer. You have a good night now. The antiquarium of sinister happenings. Lot one-one-two, harmony-care-home chapter-two, consigned by Quincy Lee, starring Trevor Shand, Magda Appanovic, De Quintero, Mike Tomms,
and Shelby Novak, featuring Stephen Knowles as the antique dealer, engineering production and sound designed by Trevor Shand and Lauren Chan, theme music by the Newton Brothers. Additional music by Coag, Vivek Abashek, Clement Panchau, Nicholas Reading, and Conan Freeman. The antiquarium of sinister happenings is created and curated by Trevor Moore and Chan. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @ antiquariumpod. Call the antiquarium at 646-41-71-97.
