Lot 116 : Harmony Care Home IV

Set in the summer of '85, Blood Barn follows Josie and her six closest friends, as

a gather for one last weekend that her family secluded barn before college.

“But when a long buried family secret is disturbed, a malevolent spirit awakens, possessing”

them one by one, in a brutal quest for revenge. Critic Jesse Hopps and of Citidum calls it, a splattery love letter to '80s DIY horror. Once it gets going, it works. Blending the cabin in the woods paranoia of the evil dead with the possession fueled chaos of the exercise.

Blood Barn delivers practical gaur, escalating dread, and a race to survive until sunrise.

Don't miss, Blood Barn. Watch the trailer and learn more now. For an ad-free experience visit the Obsidian Covenant.com. Come in! Yes, mine the step!

“You've been here often enough to know the floor doesn't always agree with newcomers.”

Now then, Blood 160, a thin volume, pages of dense with notes and symbols and multiple hands. Some ink, some graphite.

Some impressions that are made without pigment at all.

The paper is dry, unusually dry. And when you hold it for too long, you'll notice a faint sensation, like static, on the skin. This is Harmony Care Home, chapter 4. 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 King-sized Tongue, Sadangri Krabman, Skibbi, let's get it Bruce. Use-e-still, Jake Manney, Black Cat 23, and Rebecca Wadsworth. 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 odd goings on. I'm digging through these old relics from Harmony Care Home, and there's one item that even I'm reluctant to touch. The atmosphere around it is cold, and I feel a faint buzzing, kind of like static.

It stands my hair on end when I reach for it. It's a book. A thin volume inscribed with arcane rituals, and its very pages are flashes of the dark in hidden history of the carolment itself. The book is mentioned in my fourth Reddit post, dated November 25th 2023.

It reads as follows, "Insert terrifying music here." Harmony Care Home was constructed in 1907, originally as an asylum, before being converted to a carolment in the 1960s. By the late 70s, it was at the brink of closure. Their allegations of abuse made national headlines.

The original director, Rodrick Crane, had an obsessive interest in the occult. One of the advantages of running such an institution he wrote in his notes is that he could observe death in all its permutations, about he who's a fucking blast of parties. Sometimes you'd perform rituals around the dying residents. Many of them participated voluntarily, you see there was a popular movement at the time

related to witchcraft, Ouija boards, sayons' spiritualism, the whole nine yards, but rumors

There were even whispers of a secret room, accessible only by the elevator, or through

“a hidden staircase in Rodrick's office, going down to a sub-basement, where rituals were”

reportedly held, and from which patients only emerged in, body-packs. Rodrick's activities came to an end when a disastrous fire in 1981 killed many of the residents and staff, Rodrick himself, disappeared, along with funds he embezzled, of course, and the

carer home closed permanently. It has never been officially, we opened.

Emma threatens me literally every fucking time we meet. We always start in the visitor a lot of harmony carer home where she warns me about exposing my past scams. I've now taken to filming her ants and showing her preemptively just so we can fucking get on with things. It usually takes about an hour before she finally remembers me, and even then, the shade of skepticism always lingers. Kind of like the way the stench of death always lingers

“at harmony carer home. We spend most of our time looking over our notes at a local coffee”

shop, and it's where we are when Emma squints at her own handwriting and throws her hands up.

Christ, what else have I forgotten? Well, we hooked up.

What's kidding? I smile. Oh, she's so mad. Probably going to punch my eye. I don't even trust working with a guy like you. I'm generally speaking, you really, really shouldn't. Yeah, so why are you even helping grams if you only know her through scamming her? You ask that every fucking time. And I point your two-row notes, switch read. Jack acts like a total jackhole, but you can trust him. He was a bad person, but now he is in his own

words trying to be a less worse person. Also, you've agreed to not expose all his past scams if he helps you. And if you can help you get grams out, you've also agreed to pay him $10,000. She's wins. Isn't this last line in your handwriting? Yeah, but only because I haven't been able to convince you to. The arm is sure getting sore from all the time she smacks it. I lean

“forward. Okay. Let's see what we got here. What have we got here? And what haven't we got?”

Property taxes, permits, city and county records, internet and utility records, insurance and vendor contracts, blueprints, missing persons report, checked against how many cares own records of staff, we even visited the local historical society and library to read crumbling yellowing letters and manuscripts. That's actually how we found out about Roger Crane, including an unpublished book he wrote about his activities. It's made for fascinating and disturbing,

reading, by the way. Probably not going to find it at Barnes and Noble, but definitely number one best seller at your local occult store. Parodrics account, most of his rituals were conducted with the aim of reaching the afterlife, or what he called, the other side. Really fucking original rodrick. He's not the usual sorts of things, power eternal life, wealth, but all of his rituals well they failed. My speculation is that Rodrick went bigger, and the fire in 1981 that destroyed

Harmony Care Home was not an accident. But a final grand attempt that at last successfully made contact with the other side. But after escaping the fire, Rodrick fled with his imbezzled funds. There's not even any evidence he further dabbled in the occult or gained any benefit from it. He passed away on June 19th, 2002. The place of his demise? You guessed it, Harmony Care Home. It would seem whatever he invited from that other side found him and made him a resident.

Instead of gaining awesome power, he just became a meal for it. Emma has been contacting experts who might help us decipher the ritual. Incidentally, God, I admit, all of this research is Emma. When she asked me where I'd look so far and I replied, Google, she told me I have the academic skills of a fifth grader, which I would have taken offense to if she hadn't immediately started gathering all this stuff. First time I've sincerely regretted my gift education. Anyway, I'm sure Emma

will rock the hell out of that master's in public policy she's going for. We are now drowning in data. And due to the amnesia, it takes us half a day just to know what we

already fucking know. The problem is, we still haven't figured out the exact nature of the ritual,

and whether or not we can reverse it. And we're running out of time. Just this morning, Emma. Got a text from a grandmother. Her eyes well up as she shows me. I love you. I message them friends of mine. Luke is an errand. They're big guys. They're

sign her out, fight anyone who tries to stop us. Come up with the better one. You're the plan guy. I gave you all this stuff. Gramps can't wait anymore, Jack. She said goodbye. So come up with a plan or I will. So I come up with a plan. Giving that you already know where I'm writing from. Room 313 at Harmony Care Home. I don't think I need to tell ya, it all goes to hell. For the record, I say for the

“upteeth time as we wait in the parking lot, huddled against the autumn chill. I think this is a”

really, really bad idea. Ask one of the big guys. Luke is an errand are both muscle-bound tanks. Clearly have it bad for Emma and are way too interested in impressing her to care about any warings of mine. I might as well be a mosquito whining in their ears. I just have to hope my plan is as good as I promised Emma that is. She just made the call. The one on which are entire plan hinges. Sharing with police the recording of Fitzroy's death, which she claimed

was taken by a grandmother, a witness, and who also found the knife that was used to stab him. But because Gramps is afraid of retaliation, she will only speak at the station. The cops are on their way, currently to come collect her and the knife and bring her out of Harmony Care Home. And not a small contingent either. Emma has warned them that her grandmother was afraid of retaliation from Fitzroy's murderer, whom she believes is still at the care home.

I'm genuinely curious how Lolita is going to react to an entire escort of authorities removing

one of the residents. And the answer at first is, well, it's cooperatively.

“When Emma and the rest of us enter with the officers, Lolita points them all at the staircase,”

as well as to the men's room where the alleged incident took place. From the behavior of both police and Emma's two friends, everyone sees a perfectly happy care home full of perfectly happy seniors. As Aaron and Lucas help Emma collect Darlene, islander in the lobby, keeping an eye on Lolita.

So far she's just sitting at the desk and answering questions from the police. When they leave her to speak with other residents, she smiles at me, working at something under her desk. She pulls it up to show me, a stuffed toy parrot, thick yarn sewn over its eyes and around its beak.

Cute huh? Lolita what is that?

“It's a parrot, but this one talks too much so I close its eyes.”

They do that to birds to tame them. Sometimes with hoods, but I didn't have a hood. It's funny, going to think it kind of looks like you. Suttled Lolita. I don't get it, I say, just because I'm not going to give her the satisfaction. Also come on, no way I'd ever be a parrot, I'm a jack dog obviously.

Wait a minute, Mr. Mark Lolita, cheese. It's, well I'm talking with Lolita that Aaron or visit Lucas, I don't know, comes trotting down the stairs, grabbing a wheelchair from an alcove and wheeling it down the hallway. I almost don't notice because Lolita is paddling to me about how.

I'd offer you a room. It's someone else who already has a claim to you and it would be rude for me to take you. Then I hear it. The sound of elevator doors.

Funny I've never noticed an elevator before.

Of course there must be one given it's a carer home and some patients are wheelchair bound. Not to mention that M&I read the history about how they'd use the elevator to bring residents down to the sub-basement where Rodrick performed his f*cking rich shoe. F*ck, Lolita elevator. I springed to my feet, dashing down the hallway to where the janky doors are closing.

Lolita's Prattle was the distraction. I reached the doors just in time to shove my arm through and grasp it, I'm as friend. I hand shubs me and I stumble in, collapsing into the wheelchair as Lucas or Aaron cries out. I jumped to my feet as it doors are closing on a snarling. You're kicking my fingers back as a steel nearly shuts on them.

The last thing I glimps through the closing doors is Lolita's wide blue eyes above a pearly toothed grand. The elevator creeks and swatys. I slam my palms against the doors as I'm as friend blinks at me in confusion. The elevator goes down. I feel so stupid falling for this.

Do I have a weapon? No.

I might have to be trapped in the basement of this building to never ever leave and become the next

Gerard? Sure is shit, hope not. F*ck it. My intestines winding into knots is every muscle taught as we go down, down, down.

Oh no no no no no no no no the tingles like ice chips rolling down my spine. Like a million skittering synopids.

“Whatever is down here is tripping my senses so so bad.”

I spam that second floor button while I'm as friend says. They bro. Two locks. The elevator shutters. To a stop.

As the doors jerk open. Even him as body goes silent. The corridor beyond sits swayeth in blackness. The kind of blackness so thick you can't breathe. A handful of dusty ceiling lights offer puddles of illumination that barely got through the dark.

At the very far end of the hall. Stands a door. A wide door. With strange sigils on its surface.

A door that I will never ever be going through down a dark and hallway that I have no

“intentions of ever setting foot in no matter how long I have to wait in this fucking elevator.”

Because behind that door is the reason for the hairs on my entire body standing on end. The skyrocketing of my throwing heart. And every cell screaming no no no no no no. The elevator belatedly dings. As if to say your floor serves.

Nope no no fucking way. There is a lower level door in this shop that should remain closed unless it's me actively watched. And it has just been opened. One moment. Why hello there you've reached the end to query up.

If you wish to leave a message please do so with the tone and have a great day. Hey Trevor. I'll go a man. I've got something that looks harmless enough until you give it a minute to settle. Frame family photographs.

“To bourbon backdrop, front yard, two parents, couple of kids.”

Real estate, flyer energy. So one state is scratched out. Not torn, deliberately removed. I hung it up in a spare room just to see what it do. That was a mistake. First night closed changed.

Second night, the house in the photo matched the one it was hanging in. And sighting, and pork flight the flippers. By the third day, I recognized the dog. Except, I don't have a dog. Now here's the part that gets under your skin.

There's always one space missing.

Doesn't matter how many people live in the house. The photo update anyways. Smile shift, pops your change. But somebody always ends up unnecessary. Both who lived with it said start small.

You forget who locked the door, who took the trash out, who was supposed to be home. But conversations just seemed to route around someone. I tracked the last place it was displayed. Family still was there.

Neighbors swear there needs to be another kid. No name, no photos, no room that looks empty. The picture they found in the house is complete. It took the frame down and wrapped it, but it keeps getting heavier. Like it's holding on to a decision it already made.

If you take it, keep it out of shared spaces and never hang it where people eat.

And whatever you do, don't try to figure out who's missing. That's how it starts choosing. Anyways, thought you'd want to talk some brother. End of messages. You're still with me, good.

Institutions have a talent for building downward, and for calling what they keep below maintenance. What do you say? Shall we? A door that I will never ever be going through down a dark and hallway that I have no

intentions of ever sending foot in, no matter how long I have to wait in this fucking elevator. Because behind that door is the reason for the hairs on my entire body standing on end. The skyrocketing of my thrumbing heart. And every cell screaming, no, no, no, no! The elevator belatedly dings.

As if to say, your floor serves. Nope, not on no fucking way. Relax, dude. Someone probably call it down here, then took the stairs. She says the guy I decide is named Lucas.

He claps a hand on my shoulder and pushes a second floor button.

Huh? He looks around. I think it's stuck.

“There's a small hysterical part of me that wants to scream.”

Oh, do you? Do you think it's stuck?

But I keep that part hushed as I raise my eyes to the ceiling. One of the odds we can bust the panels open and climb back up. Judging by how long it took to descend that be a long climb. And I'm not confident we'd be able to pry the doors open and an upper floor if this place doesn't want us to.

The cops could probably force them open if they knew we were in here, but I try to message Emma. The wifi doesn't work down here, of course. Show Lucas my phone. He frowns and checks his own phone, but it's it's no better.

Shouldn't there be a stairwell somewhere? He wonders. Yeah, I say reluctantly, recalling the blue prints in my mind. You know what, there's a hidden stairwell up to the basement if we go to the door there. But it's at the end of that pitch black corridor.

Through Roderick's ritual rule.

“I eyeball Lucas and say, 10 bucks one of us gets sacrificed.”

Lucas steps into the corridor. When I don't immediately follow, he taunts. Maybe it'll hold your hand. Oh, would you? That'd be great.

I actually go forward, he pulls his hand back. Bro, don't offer if you don't mean it. Much as I definitely rather wait in the elevator, Emma would kill me if I did. So, mutually assured doom it is. RIP jack.

I flick through my notes quickly for anything that might tell me what we might meet in there. Even though I know there's nothing in Roderick's manuscript.

I skim my early notes from the first couple days when I barely knew anything.

And freeze. Heart, stopping. That's it. Jack, whatever you do, don't use the elevator. There's something in the sub-basement.

Little leader calls him the custodian.

“Says he doesn't like the light, so he only works in night shift.”

If you do wind up in the elevator, do not leave. I swivel my head to peer back. Behind us, the elevator remains open. The pit of the overhead lights showing the path back to safety. A couple steps ahead of me, Lucas shines his phone light on the door and reads.

Custodian's closet. Nope. I lunch and catch his wrist. Nope. I can open it.

We both turn at the same moment as the elevator doors close. And it departs with the janky clay. Lucas tells me to take a chill pill and yanks his wrist free and knocks on the door while I'm mourning our imminent deaths. The door says custodians' closet in Lucas's eyes, but that's not what I see.

What I see is a series of strange symbols that swim before my watery gaze. And now, that horrific sensation returns. Like insects marching all along my skin, buzzing from the base of my skull and causing every hair to stand upright as if I've been electrocuted. I barely hear Lucas's sigh.

As he says, my eyes will try the elevator against and it's working now. And then we both hear it. The creaking has the elevator once again comes down. The lights in the hallway overhead flickering. The soft as the doors slide open.

The light closes to the elevator flickers out, plunging the end of the corridor and blackness, but just for an instant. Before it's extinguished, I glips a figure emerging from the doors. Something to tall to be human, elongated, and stretched like taffy his and emerges in the buzzing in my mind gets louder.

The fog whispered Lucas flickering.

That again, the second light is gone.

We can't see any figure at all now, but there's only one light remaining between us and the pitch dark that extends seemingly forever. Whatever that thing is, it's not like Gerard or any of the corpses, it's not even remotely human. There's nowhere to flee, but into the fucking custodians closet. I ram the door open, dragging Lucas with me barking, hurry!

As we squeeze through, the last light in the hall flickers out behind us, plunging the corridor and perfect pitch. I slam the door, leaving my back against it and we in our lights around the ritual room, Lucas and Hale sharply. There are no illusions here. He sees what I see.

Symbols carved into the ceiling and walls, inscribed with a script that seems to be forever flickering and changing under our beams. It's no familiar language, and something about those squiggles is obscene, burning into our eyes and yet impossible to look away from. There's also the smell, a stink of old blood and must eat death.

In the center of the room, sits a marble table.

“Skulls and remains from all manner of humans and animals decorate the shelves.”

Some knitted, and strange figures hanging from the ceiling. And if it weren't clear enough, what all this is for. A thin volume inscribed with notes and symbols sits open on the table, describing a ritual. The hell kind of places this?

Lucas whispers, peaking up a skull. "Get something to parakeet the door!" I'm still holding a shut. Lucas obliged us grabbing a bookcase and hauling it over with impressives, but even as he blockades the door,

the hairs on my neck stand on end again. Run, shrieks my lizard brain. I whirl, and my beam catches on something.

Something like I've never seen, like shadow, like hollowed skin,

stretched, indescribable. I don't know why I thought it looked like I figured it's more like, it's more like the squiggles on the wall, and impossible shape and possible for the eye to really see.

“I can't tell you what it looked like, only that it made my mind screen,”

and the whole words face should be swallowed me into my blood. When I regain consciousness, I cannot see. And my thoughts are sticky and swirling together, and I smell blood. Underneath me is a padded, creaky chair, a wheelchair. I realize, grogally, as I try to move.

My whole face is numb. I don't know why it's numb, everything is completely black. I fumble, trying to catch my bearings, him. I'm still in the sub-business. Try to feel my way around only to stop my knee against a table leg.

I swear, or would.

If I could speak, but for some reason,

all that comes out are in articulate nasal sounds. There's no noise being on my own labored panicky breathing. Lucas? Lucas? I don't hear of... my nasal grunts don't get any response. The fact that I can't feel my face is disconcerting when I touch my cheeks, my nose is my whole body numb.

I'm definitely unsteady like I've been drugged.

“I fumble along the table's edge following the peeling wood,”

curving edge, round table. So I'm not in that room anymore. The table in the ritual room is square. My shoes scuff across cheap carpet. The common room? And then my fingers brush against a hand.

Hand? A hand? Yes, it's... but it's cold. Withered.

Like it all dead, and I jerk back,

then shagally reach forward again. The withered hand. Knit fabric of a sleeve. Loose around the thin forearm. A sweater.

I trace the arm up the bony frame. Wisp's of hair on a cold skull. I'm feeling a dead body. A long dead body. Still clothed.

Mumified. Where? I says so dark. Is it night time? Pitch black out?

Is it not even moonlight of a curtain's drawn? I follow the circumference of the table. Find another body. Light. Flimsy shawl of Berlin in shirt.

A skeleton shrink wrapped in dried skin. This is really fucking gross. I move further along and find another table. Low and square. An end table.

This time. An old plush chair that when I push on the cushion sends up a puff of mildew-scented air. Okay, definitely the codeners. Where the fuck is everybody?

What time is it? Trying to shout does no good. My mouth still is not working. I stumble through the dark, hoping for a wall so I can orient myself.

When I bump into a large poted plant, I cuss inwardly. Rubbing my knee, the plant is fake. And the leaves stiff dusty fabric. filthy. I picture the carolum.

With a poted plant by the entrance or on the opposite wall. Hey! Emma's voice calls out, along with the creek of a door swinging and rapid footsteps. She grabs my arm.

What are you doing? Where's Lucas? I try to respond but can't. I can't see Emma.

My face, my numb face, the can't make words.

“I should have figured it out by now but my brain is sludge.”

And I'm trying to tell Emma about the custodian, but I can't. Jack, I don't have time for your games. Would you quit goofing off? The cops didn't find anything. They'll take grams of statement after she's seen at the hospital.

Look, fine Lucas, I'm going to drive grams. I grunt as their footsteps walk away. And I try to follow but my legs won't cooperate and I trip and stumble to my knees. After the door's close, it's quiet again. Dead quiet.

No chatter from the common room. Without my eyes working, the illusion isn't manifesting. Or maybe it's because of whatever's been done to me.

In any case, there's only mumified dead at those tables.

And that's all that's ever been there. Every time I just didn't know until now, I kneel on the ground, weeping because I'm so frustrated and scared. I can't find my way and I don't know what's happening or Lucas' or if Emma was real, did she sleep here?

I crawl towards the doors.

“Hoping I haven't gotten myself turned around but even if I make my way out, how will I leave?”

I have my keys but I can't drive. Now without my eyesight, I can't speak. How will I communicate what's happening? The Wush of the doors. Emma's footsteps again and she exclaims. Jack, what's going on? Where the fuck is Lucas?

Am I or are you acting like this? And suddenly it strikes me. She's seeing an illusion. She's seeing the chicken soup, dust jacket version of me just as she is the rest of this place. She can't see that it's dark in here. That there are only corpses at the tables in the common room and she responds to someone.

I can't even hear. It's all right, thanks. He doesn't want to ram. I'll take him home. Did Lolita just offer to get me a room? Fuck you Lolita.

I flip off the general direction of where I think Lolita's desk is and Emma tells me to stop and drags me out the doors and says in a tone that suggests she has figured out something is wrong. What are they doing to him? Where's Lucas? Jack, can you talk?

Talk to him? I can't respond and I can't see where we're going and stumble off the curb and slam it in the hood of a car. Emma don't ever be a guide for the blind. When you fucking suck at it, the impact rings my skull. I'm still groaning and clutching in my faces.

Emma gasps and helps me up. I hear her say to somebody. They did something to him. I don't know what. Let's get into the hospital too.

Help me get him in the car. Then I'm hauled into the back of what must be him as car. Next to me, I hear distress mumbling that has got to be darkening. And I definitely smell her.

Well, I don't think she's showered since they first brought her in.

Or maybe it's her dead cat and make holes. I smell, I don't know. It sounds like she's still stroking that tiny rotting body.

“Do I gotta sit here, trying to prefer the mummified old ladies at the table?”

I'm kidding, don't kick me out. Jack, Jack. My hand patting my cheek and Emma says. We're going to take you to the hospital and we'll figure out what they gave you. I'm just going to run in and find Lucas.

I see her wrist. No, no, no, no, do not look for Lucas, do not. Shake my head vehemently. Jack, I have to find him. I shake my head hard.

Why aren't you talking? What's wrong with you? But I know what's wrong with me now. And I put her hands on my face so she could feel the stitches holding shut my lips. My eyes.

And a moment later, I know the illusion is broken because Emma is screaming and screaming and screaming. And I would be two of my mouthworns sewn tightly fucking shut. Okay, Max. 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.

You have a good night now.

The antiquarium of sinister happenings.

“Lot one-one-six, harmony-care-home chapter four,”

consigned by Quincy Lee, starring Trevor Shand,

Addison Peacock, Magda Appanovic, Fiona Threll, and Conan Freeman,

“featuring Stephen Knowles as the antique dealer,”

engineering production and sound design by Trevor Shand and Lauren Shand,

theme music by the new brothers.

“Additional music by coag, Vivek Appashek, Clement Panchau, Nicholas Redding,”

and Conan Freeman. The antiquarium of sinister happenings is created and curated by Trevor Mourn Shand. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @Antiquariumpod. Call the antiquarium@646-41-7197. [Music]