What is going on my friend, my name is Trevor, and I'm from the Acquisitions ...
When we had the idea to build a site for our Antiquarium merch,
“could he shared scandals, blankets, even secret to coders? I had no idea what I was doing.”
I've got zero web design know how, even at its most basic. Then I remembered something I would see whenever I would order stuff from some of my favorite vendors, and that was Shopify. I signed up real quick just to play around with it for a bit. I was shocked that all the tools I was looking for were right there. Within an hour, the Antiquarium shop dot in my Shopify.com was alive. I'm not exaggerating.
I couldn't believe how simple, fast, and honestly rewarding it was to use.
They've got hundreds of ready-to-use templates, so you can build a store that actually matches your brand, looks pro, guide your personality without needing to be a designer, what's so ever. They've even automated and calculated shipping, which I thought was going to be a nightmare. They don't even need to stand in long lines to post office to wait things in. That's all done with. Go in, drop it off, get on with your day, run discounts,
“promo codes, email campaigns, Shopify gives you everything you need to grow.”
If you've been sitting on an idea and asking yourself what if,
listen, don't let anything stand in your way. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. They've given us a special opportunity to pass along to you, the Antiquarium guest. It's a $1 per month trial. Get it by typing shopify.com/tash. That shopify.com/tash. I wish we had access to this when we launched ours. Shopify.com/tash. We use it. We love it. We are so excited to see it empower you to make your
dreams a reality. Send us a link, show us what you do with it so we can buy some of your stuff. Shopify rules.
“For an ad-free experience, visit the Obsidian Covenant.com.”
I knew it. Call it a hunt, show or call it what you will. But I just knew you would be here, and right on schedule. I've got something fascinating for you today. Yes, a section of ladder. Recovered from open water. No vessel claims it. No structure is missing it. And yet, he continues. The metal is dull. Pitted. Barnacles fused into it like old scars.
Be careful where you place your hands. You see it? The marking cut directly into the run. Not scratched, deliberate. We've compared it against known languages, archived symbology. Nothing aligns. You are about to descend into… there is a ladder in the middle of the ocean. 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 Robert Powell, Chelsea Carroll, Shayan, Dominic Hernandez, Andy Monroe and Devon Cantrivas. 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.
. There's a ladder in the middle of the ocean. It was discovered 25 miles off the coast of Maine by a lobster fisherman. The tip of a rusted rung ladder detonated and crusted with barnacles, jutting up through the ocean's glassy skin. You haven't heard about it on the news. You wouldn't have. The navy butted down faster than you can say, Simper Foodis. Some of our scans showed the ladder descended in a vertical line for eight
Miles.
made Mariana look like the shallow end of a pool. Okay, I'm being facetious, but it goes without
“saying that the higher-ups were concerned. Who the fuck had built the ladder in the middle of the”
ocean? Where did this trench come from? Aliens? Russia? That's where I came in. I was a meat talk officer in the Navy's oceanography program, working on experimental
never mind. Not that it doesn't matter, it does. But if I talk about what I did, who I am and why I'm here,
had no doubt wake up on a trapped door with a noose around my neck and trees and charges being read to me by a guy and a starched uniform. I figured there's a damn good chance that might happen anyway. Still, I'm compelled to document this, because people deserve to know what I saw. The things that haunt the back of my eyelids were not close in the night. I'm in a military hospital right now, laid up in my own private suite. I'm trying to heal, but without rest, it's proving
impossible. I figured you're getting this out of my system might help. I hope it will, at least.
But what do they say in Shawshank? Hope is a dangerous thing. Anyway, I was never
graded beginnings, but I guess I should start with the dive. We called it a submersible, but it was really a suit. This was no jules of iron, clunky, cumbersome, sink like a rock diving suit. It was a lightweight, pressure resistant, and equipped with all the bells and whistles that lent it. It's not unfamiliar nickname. Iron Man. That's not to say it was one of those skin-type job you see this scuba dive is wearing. It looked more like those suit's guys, diffusing bombs and was on
to wear. That aside, I was thankful there wasn't going to be a 60-pound oxygen tank misaligning my spine. The Iron Man was equipped with an electrolysis filter, which converted ocean water into a breathable oxygen. A whole shabang was invisible on enemy radar, and could supposedly withstand a descent of this stature. Not that it had been tested, of course. Basically, I'd be crawling down an ominous 8-mile ocean ladder in an experimental suit that had only been
tried in navy swimming pools. My colleagues seized on this predicament, jokingly calling me like up in the hours leading up to the dive. In case you're not familiar, Lyco was the dog soviet shot up into space in the 50s. The dog who died. So as I stood on the hem of a small navy vessel, also experimented on bananas. Looking at the first few rungs of the ocean ladder, which sat 20 feet off the starboard. I wonder if this was my last taste of fresh air. I hope your launch
wasn't too risky. I called it Matilda, joked through the smirk. Lowing gas in that thing, you know, probably suffocate. I smiled, but behind my smile were nerves, raw, tingling nerves.
“I think she saw because her hand landed on my shoulder. You'll define, Jones. This time I smiled”
for real, hoping she was right. A nearby tech asked me if I was ready. I nodded and the bulky submersibles helmet descended me like a meteor. Was I a man? The big window visor on the front of the helmet doubled as a screen with oxygen and depth readings, as well as direct comms to and from my people above the surface. There was a POV camera which fed them my perspective as well, so they could monitor and record my descent. Which had started an hour ago.
I climbed down. Wrong after route. Daylight fading as I descended into the murky depths. Fish darted past. A little twist of seaweed rolled by. It was all very pastoral and oddly
existential. The ocean, I'm talking the vast naked depths of it. He's huge and never ending.
Look both ways and you see nothing but bluest rainwater and swirling walls of sediment. A reminder of how incredibly small and inconsequential you are. It never much bothered me
“until the climb. Now I'll never touch ocean water again. You good, Jones?”
What till does voice in my dear? Yeah, I'm honky fucking dory. I dealt with just screaming.
Should have put in those hours at the gym.
If you don't look good on a recruitment poster. I felt a smile creasing my face.
“The budget we got, they used models for that kind of thing.”
Why do you're telling me that strapping young stud, saying forged by the sea, isn't a real seaman? What the hell did I join up for? I laughed. If I'd known I'd get this much one-on-one with you, I'd have been on Iron Man a long time ago. Hey to break up the party, but I'm here too, guys. Radly's voice. I imagine a drone operator, a gangly, pimply kid raised on Call of Duty. Now that's Bradley.
What do they say about three being a crowd?
They say you're closing in on 500 meters. Jesus, already.
I looked around and hadn't gotten darker. The ocean around me fading into a deep, dark blue that bled into a murky cloud. I double-checked my tether. It was a thick steel cable feeding through a pulley. A thing on rollers about the size of a break, which ran along the right out of bar of the ladder. The tether was there, in case for some reason I lost my grip on the narrow, rusted rungs. Because of that happened. Well, anyone seen gravity? I shuddered at the thought
“of sinking down and down with nothing and no one to save me. How's breathing?”
I smiled at the concern in her voice. Looked up with a little black eye on the top right of the visor. A camera pointed down at me. They could see my face. I could, in theory, see them too. Had they decided to beam some footage onto my visor screen. But this was no time for screwing around. And my visor was filled with the numerical readings. On the left side, set a little map detailing the ladder and my position. I read dot on it. I had barely made it tint. Just find out.
The reason we weren't using a pod submersible, a single man coffin connected to the above by a steel cable was because I was on the lookout for any markings that might be etched into the ladder's metal skin. Anything to denote its origin. So far, there'd been nothing but barnacles, a crabbeck, so skeleton, and a thick, Athena of algae. And can I ladder slide? Or can you throw a movie up on my screen? Let's just get tedious. I was half joking, but not really.
It was boring as hell. One wrong after the next. To make the descent faster, I was going to ladder slide. Hands cupped around the outside rails, feet on the outside of brakes. But I couldn't do that unless I hit a certain water pressure. Some geeky nonsense about how would be easier to control the descent. The tether would be a problem here. The pulley was built to eat through rocks, and had been satisfyingly crunching through barnacles the whole way down. Once you hit a thousand
meters, you guys picked that number out of a hat. The deeper you go, the greater the pressure bearing down you is. Makes it easier to control. Shit, you must have skipped that day in school. I joked, partly. Except for the fact it was in the orientation.
“Radly said, not trying to hide his irritation. I think you must have been jealous of my rapport with”
Matilda. I skipped that too. I smiled again, even though I hadn't been joking. Closing in on 750 meters like a. Matilda said, calling me that god damn dog. Better hope I've got a little more luck in my bones than Rusky K9's. Secretly hoping I was right. I'd hate for you guys to fish me up and just find my naked skeleton. You got charm. That's got to be worth something.
Is it worth dinner next week? God, you guys make me sick. Oh, don't get blue, kiddo. You can carry rings at the wedding. Dinner first. Where? I know a great place called the base cafeteria. In a clock for a day? It's a date. Continuing down into the abyss, I'd worked up a killer sweat by the time I'd reached the midnight zone, which sat just past a thousand meters. Merky blackness crushed in. It was suffocating.
Here he. I clicked on my shoulder mounted floodlights. Two powerful beams of light blasted
forward and while an ugly deep sea fish with a mouth of fangs went whizzing right by my head. I barked a pathetic yelp and jerk back nearly losing my grip on the ladder. What's wrong? You okay? Fine. Satan's spawn just caught me off guard.
Deep sea life?
not sure how I felt about plunging down its speeds unknown into the deep,
inky blackness beneath me. Wish me luck, kids. I sucked a deep breath. Move my hands and feet off the wrongs and to the outer rails. And then I slid. It wasn't as exciting as I thought, but it was considerably faster and less draining than climbing down. My eyes watched the ladder blur by, still on the lookout for any markings. Once or twice, I skidded to a stop thinking I'd spotted something. Only to discover,
it was nothing but deep sea gunk, caked to the metal. By the time I did see any markings, I was too far gone for anyone to care. I stopped. Not sure what I was looking at. A strange
symbol, it's directly into the middle of the rung in front of me. It looked like a weird
“cross between Arabic and Chinese. Guys, you see in this? No decline. Hello?”
No reply. Oh, I'm so excited. John, I'm just freaking out for a half. All right, I'm fine. Is this getting through? Silence. No reply. John, you there? What are you getting us? I said I'm cool. Buddy, you get us. Just fine. Can you hear me? I felt panic squeezing at my lungs. Was the calm system fucking up? My screen began to flicker.
glitching out. What do you get us? I was growing consuled. I rushed up to my visor and gave it a smile. The readings on the screen momentarily only align. Before spazzing out beyond. Oh, my colleague's voices were horrible. Words were lost. Full of static. Guys, I can't hear you. Fear in my voice. A low home built in my years and in silence.
There, that's the moment you felt it, didn't you? The urge to lean in a little closer
“to go further. I think it's time we gave pause just to give a little space. That's all.”
What is going on, my friend? My name is Trevor. I'm from the Acquisitions Department here at the Antiquarium. When we had the idea to build a site for our Antiquarium merch. hoodie shirts, candles, blankets, even secret to coders. I had no idea what I was doing. I've got zero web design know how, even at its most basic. Then I remembered something I would see whenever I would order stuff from some of my favorite vendors and that will shopify. I signed up real
quick just to play around with it for a bit. I was shocked that all the tools I was looking for were right there. Within an hour, the Antiquarium shop dot my shopify.com was live. I'm not exaggerating. I couldn't believe how simple, fast and honestly rewarding it was to use. They've got hundreds of ready to use templates. So you can build a store that actually matches your brand, looks pro, got your personality without needing to be a designer whatsoever. It even automated and calculated
shipping, which I thought was going to be a nightmare. You don't even need to stand in long lines at the post office to weigh things in. That's all done with. Go in, drop it off, get on with your
“day. Run discounts, promo codes, email campaigns, Shopify gives you everything you need to grow.”
If you've been sitting on an idea and asking yourself what if, listen, don't let anything stand in your way. It's time to turn those what ifs into, with Shopify today. They've given us a special opportunity to pass along to you the Antiquarium guest. It's a $1 per month trial. Get it by typing shopify.com/tash. That shopify.com/tas. I wish we had access to this when we launched ours. Shopify.com/tas. We use it. We love it. We're so excited to see it empower you to make your dreams
a reality. Send us a link, show us what you do with it so we can buy some of your stuff. Shopify rules. Decind into the unexplained and unimaginable. Mom said to them, "What are you here for? What do you want?" "What are you doing? What are you doing?" "True accounts of crimes and anomaly's so strange,
they defy reasoning. You know as extreme violence." I've never seen anything like that. She was forced
to eat human flesh and survive the unthinkable. "Welcome to the Antiquarium of sinister inhabitants and documented atrocities." And at that moment, feeling to survive, kicked in, almost like an animal instinct. "I told her to run. I knew that minute something terrible had
Had happened.
Search the Antiquarium of documented atrocities on Apple Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.
“"Good. Good. You stayed back." "He didn't." "Let's continue." "Show him." "Why are you getting us?"”
"I said I'm cool." "But you get it." "Just fine. Can you hear me?" "I felt panic squeezing at my lungs. Was the calm system fucking up?" "My screen began to flicker." "Glitching out." "Why do you get us?" "I was growing concerned. I rushed up to my visor and gave it a smile. The readings on the screen momentarily on the alight before spashing out beyond." "No, my colleagues voices were
quite garbled. Words were lost. Full of static." "Guys, I can't hear you." "Fear in my voice.
A low home built in my ears and in silence." "No voices. Nothing." "My helmet passed in the glow of the flickering screen. I'd lost contact with the world above." "I froze. Not sure what to do." "Split between this symbol on the wrong and the disconnect from my safety net."
“"Well, that's not completely true." "Remember the tether connecting me to the wrong ladder. There was”
a little button on the pulley box beneath the other side case. Hunch that button and the pulley box would sit me back up to the surface." "Okay. Fuck it. I was going back up. None of this was worth a damn if I didn't have my crew watch in my bag." "I fumbled out and underwater camera stashed in the pouch of my chest. Stapped the photo of the symbol and began the 10-foot climb back up to the pulley box." "That's when I saw the mermaid. It flitted out of you. The silhouette
of a man-sized fish." "I froze. Not sure what I'd seen. It had only been there for an instant.
“Echt in the beam of my floodlights. And it was gone. Had I really seen anything. My breath was shallow,”
cold in my helmet. And looked to my right. The water was black and murky. Out to my left. And at first I didn't realize what I was seeing. A wall of bodies, hundreds of mermaids surrounded me. Their eyes glowing pinquicks and light. Their needle sharp teeth, jagged and yellow. They were awful. Deep. See things. Their tails yellow and scaly. Their torso's pale and emaciated. Instead of arms, they had straw thin appendages with hooked tips. When my light hit them,
they broke apart. Darding off into the darkness in a cacophony of shrill chitters.
"She's a croist. I whispered. My voice always. My throat like sandpaper. I looked up and saw the
pulley box. I've rung's away. The button taunting me. The button would save me." Or maybe I was already past the point of saving. I didn't wait. I climbed. Fast. Fast as I could go. One wrong after the next. Four wrongs. Three. Two. A shrill chittering slipped at a water. I looked to my left as a mermaids shot towards me. It hooked a pindigus pouring at my suit. I grunted and threw up a defensive arm. A raised, shredded, through my flesh.
Blood cloned out of my ruined arm. I cried out. My suit beat, screaming warnings in my ear. The family instantly sucked together, automatically sealing the breeches, the mermaid flew off. And in came another. I threw the button box on the pulley open about to slam it down when a freight train barrel through my midsection. The horrible twisted face of the mermaid filled my visor. It hurt to me off the ladder. My float is entangled with this awful creature.
It skills undulated as it chittered in my face. A great ear shredding sound that could cut a bolt of fear through my stomach like an icy dagger. I grunted and jammed my fingers into its
Gills, hating the way it's flesh crackled as I twisted.
I was winning. And then I wasn't. Something pounded into the ladder, jarring the pulley box
“and something else hammered into my back. It was like being caught on a trash compact.”
A dozen of these things crushing you in on me. I screamed, flailed, fought from my life. And suddenly, the mermaid's dispersed. Tails flickering as they flew off into the depths. I was alone. Completely alone. Floating through the water. 10. 15 feet from the ladder. I assessed the damage. My suit was mostly okay, except for my arm. Blood plume through the fabric, funneled out into the ocean. Each section of Iron Man was isolated.
So, if one part got damaged, it wouldn't compromise the integrity of the whole outfit. So water wasn't flooding my helmet yet. It very well could be soon. There was a crack in my
“visor. I quickly reeled myself in, closing in on the ladder and the pulley box, which was my last”
and final hope. Then I saw it. My heart sank. My stomach dropped. The pulley was nearly hanging off the ladder's rail. It was close to breaking off. If that happened, I'd simply drift. Fall. Die in this oppressive darkness. I moved slowly, surely, reeling myself in on the cable, which rattled the box with each pull. I was lassowing the excess cable around my elbow as I went. My hands reached out.
fingertips skimming the wrong ladder. That's when I saw the shark.
At first, I thought it may have been a mountain that slid off the land some long years ago,
“left a float with these murdered depths, eternally. But no, it was a shark. The biggest”
living thing I'd ever seen in my whole life. It must have been twice the size of a Boeing 747. A great pale monster outlined in my floodlight. I was as big as swimming pools. It's mouth. I couldn't bear to think what might be in its mouth. Oh my god. But that didn't seem to be enough. Oh my fucking god. It filled my horizon moving closer. I was paralyzed by fear. My heart jack hammering my rib cage like a manic construction worker. My hands reached out for the ladder.
Grabbed the wrong, started to clean myself up. When the pulley box broke free of the outer rail, I looked up and slipped. My hands slipped. My other hand shot out grass bladder and then a rush of water blew me away. The shark was passing and I was sinking. Repeled downward by the force of the shark's movement, displacing impossible tons of liquid as a swim. I flailed, grunted, screamed, the readings on my visor still flashing morning.
Then it was being sucked down into the depths. The shark continued on. I drifted down. The ladder slowly, painfully pulling away from me until it faded from view. I tried calling to my people above, screaming into my helmet. At some point I stopped, realizing they were long gone. And to them, so was I. I sunk for years. I felt that way at least. Left to die, a prisoner of the ocean, stranded in a world of pertinent.
After a while, still sinking. I blocked down. I jolted awake at the bottom of the trench in the ruins of a great city.
Hillers of rock, spires of stone. The husks of incredible mausoleum's end to Coliseum's rose
around me, greenish in there, yon old patina. The city filled the trench as far as I could see, which was oddly far, seeing as a strange glowing orb filled my horizon. It was an impossible sun. A green ball of light pulsing and bubbling with heat, hovering off in the
Distance, bathing these alien depths and ethereal light.
trailed up through the fabric from the gash on my forearm. I knew it wasn't a mortal cut,
“but it was nasty, and left me feeling woezy. I sensed it tight with a velcro strap and looked around.”
There was nothing but dead building stretched endlessly. Ugly, deep sea fish cut through vacant windows and doorways. I wondered the city for a while, looking for signs of life for any vestiges of the latter that had brought me here. I found neither. I walked for a while. Hours. Days, maybe. I slept some. I woke and walked more. Time must have worked differently down there. The atmosphere felt languid and disorienting. I'm not sure how long I spent wondering.
I found sprawling pictographs on the inside of a domed building. They depicted an aquatic
people that once ruled this underwater world. I saw a hundred foot effigies of a multi-headed
“dragon-like beast with a multitude of claws, legs, and a variety of gills spread out across its form.”
Among them were other, smaller statues of the beast rolled into a ball. Sometimes, during my interminable sentence, spent in that psychic kingdom, I realized the ball statues were depicting the beast's likeness as an infant. Curled up in an egg. I gave new meaning to the glowing green orb on the horizon. Sometimes, after staring at the green sun for hours, I thought I could decipher the outline of the fetal beast racked in on itself,
pulsing with life, waiting to be born. Eventually, my mind slipped away from me. My heard voices. Matilda's. Radly's. A barking dog, I thought I'd have been like it. Sometimes, I spoke to them. By the times I didn't, just grateful for the company. And then, after a long, long while, I died. I was brought back to life on a lobster boat. Two grizzled manors, with accents like molasses,
found me floating lifelessly. They scraped off my suit and resuscitated me on the fish-cut strong deck of their little lobster tug. They thought I was dead. My skin was cold, pale as a fish belly. Then, I blinked to life. I took a rattling breath of fresh air, savoring the salty taste on my tongue. I looked up at the real world. At the two men around me. Oh, I could do was cry. I was brought to a hospital. Then, air lifted to the one I'm in now.
Matilda came to visit me immediately. She asked me what had happened. I told her, I could see in her eyes that she didn't believe me. I wouldn't believe me. I was gaunt. My hair long, my beard, scraggly. I looked like I'd survived a lifetime on a desert island. Except for the fact that I was ghostly pale and not sunburned to a cracking brown. But it was good to see her. Until she looked me in the eyes and told me I'd been missing for eight months.
Military man, after military man, came to visit me. High rubs and crisp uniforms, weighed down by metals. I was interviewed until my head spun.
My story never changed. I told them to check my handheld camera. My learned it was never recovered.
Whether they didn't believe me or didn't want to, wasn't entirely clear. I had my scar to back up my story and my time spent missing. I told them to send another man down, but they gave me some bureaucratic word vomit about how the risk assessment la blam blam blam.
“Apparently that suit I'd taken down wasn't cheap. Who would have thought?”
In the end, none of what I said seemed a matter. Perhaps they figured me for a deserter, who took their top secret tech and defected to God knows where. Trafflamoodooer, maybe. All I know is that at some point were another. I was declared in saying in order to a stint of convalescence where I remain. I've tried to make sense of it all,
I can't.
underwater place or as an escape. Since I've gotten back there's been a hollow ache in the centre
“of my chest, a low home and a pit of my soul. It's constant. It's dread, dread at what I've seen.”
Dread at what might be growing in that green sun. Dread at what might become of the world if that
they never rises to reclaim its kingdom. I've come to the end of my tale and I still don't feel
any better. Every time I close my eyes I see a green sun. I see it pulsing and flickering with life. And now I know for certain. It's an egg. H V S M Z S T H G Z A S H V W B U W B G W R S V W A
“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-to-one. There's a ladder in the middle of the ocean, consigned by the crooked boy, starring Jared Griffiths, Dequintero, and Trevor Shand, featuring Stephen Knowles as the antique dealer, produced and engineered by Kevin Seaman,
theme music by the new brothers. Additional music by Coag, Vivek Abashek, Clement Panchau, Nicholas Redding, and Conan Freeman. The antiquarium of sinister happenings is created and curated by Trevor Moore and Shand. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @Antiquariumpod, call the antiquarium @646-41-7197. Imagine a city unlike any other, simmering 300 years in a rock and scum bow of debauchery versus
“devotion, Catholicism, confession is anonymous versus voodoo. I think I've then made a deal with”
the devil. What's you call life and what I call death? It's a mysterious crossroads where the denizens of this world and others. He is a trickster and I'm sure whatever he brought back on the world of the dead was a one-way trip. All right, daily, and for the detective Frank Duprode. We'll see you in there. And Nicky Goodluck, this will be a dark ride. Welcome to New Orleans's Babies. Listen to something wicked on Spotify, Apple Podcast or wherever you enjoy listening.
