THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES #58 - Trail Rations
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- Опубліковано 17 кві 2018
- MAG058 - Case #8450512 - Mrs. Carlisle
Statement regarding potential cannibalism while attempting to travel the Oregon Trail.
The Magnus Archives tells the tale of a pioneer couple who encountered a number of trials of body and faith while trying to brave the Oregon Trail during the winter of 1845.
Starring: The Archivist - Jonathan Sims; Tim Stoker - Mike LeBeau; Martin Blackwood - Alexander J Newall
Writer: Jonathan Sims
Director: Alexander J Newall
Editors: Alexander J Newall, Mike LeBeau, Ian Hayles
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The Magnus Archives is distributed by RustyQuill.com and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. - Розваги
"We were caught between the devil and the sea, and Benjamin has determined that we were going to try and swim. The poor fool had no idea the devil was the one leading us into the water."
POETIC GENIUS
The writing is so good
Shouldn't have tried to ford the river, bro.
Sometimes the writing in this series is on a whole different level lol
Jon's coworkers: *are worried about him*
Jon: SUSPICIOUS
Man's needs therapy big time
I like how this has just under half as many likes as the actual video
2-3episodes ago
Jon : Hm Martin takes care of me like he actually cares about me mmmm
HE MUST'VE KILLED GERTRUDE
/spoilers
it reminds me of how he can't believe that his co-workers would genuinely want to throw him a birthday party, because why would they? he falsely assumes that people don't care about him which, ouch, but same
i like how the cannibal guy was waiting for them to mention that they forgot food and got so happy when they did, i imagine his internal dialogue was just hyping himself up like "ok i just gotta wait until they mention the food and then i'll say it, i'll say we have all the food we needed and it'll be so creepy and menacing and badass it'll be great they'll be so scare- YES HE SAID IT" and pat himself on the back after he said it
Aww
How.... creepily cute
imagine he got so exited that he got the words mixed like "WE HAVE FOOD ALL OVER" And people think he means the berrys and nuts and he silently scowls himself XDD
We've all been there.
Jon is playing a constant game show called “Are my friends trying to kill me or do I just need to go to sleep?”
Sound like something that a 120,000$ collegue would put you through
and he is losing
But instead of winning money you lose your bloody soul
j. j. jon mulaney
Normally I'm very pro survival cannabalism but the moment that corpse started taking I'm like 'nah this is some demonic shit, I'd rather starve'
Nah. Fuck surviving. Talking meat is not my gourmet menu
you do not start a sentence ike that
@@marcusviniciusalvesmedrame3373 i think the horrors of cannibalism are overrated. There're some practical concerns but if I died and someone was alive and without food I would be glad to share my meat with them ^^
@@TIGGYQUE I agree with you, I just found the sentence funny hahah. Plus I didn't notice the survival part, I guess that's what struck me as weird
@@marcusviniciusalvesmedrame3373 SERIOUSLY HAHAHAHAHA
"I wept for my beautiful, stupid, Benjamin."
Wow I'm sad.
She lost her himbo husband.
@@Ghostrecall_Mthat she did 😭😭😭
@@Ghostrecall_MXD
Is everybody going to ignore the fact that Mrs. Carlisle shares the same surname as our mysterious Toby Carlisle, also known as "The Man Upstairs"? The same guy who covered his entire apartment in meat?
I knew the name sounded familiar! No idea if it's a coincidence or relevant though...
ooh! and both episodes have to do with meat... (toby carilse w/ covering his apartment w/ meat and mrs. carlisle avoiding meat entierly.....inch resting,)
So sad this never went anywhere, was hoping that the Carlisle were a hint at a family of patrons for the Flesh weree forming. But alas.
I knew that name sounded familiar!
In fairness a lot of names were intentionally repeated to throw people off the scent, so it's harder to pick out which repeated names are actually relevant
sometimes, a himbo leads you to your doom, and that's valid.
This podcast has the best comment section ever. Also I almost just choked on an olive.
That's just a Jerma stream.
@@zypalitra8080 a random jerma reference, crazy to meet you in the wild lol
damn this lady did not deserve this bs, she was a badass
Picked the wrong man to hitch her wagon to
Aww well,
Well given what we heard in Episode 18 with Toby Carlisle, she prolly survived to leave descendants that then emigrated to England.
IKR? You left us to soon queen
Amen, exactly what I was thinking
@@AshGreytreeCould be a coincidence.
tim: *is concerned because jon is literally stalking his coworkers*
jon: hmmm kinda sus
god imagine dying in Idaho, that’s the true tragedy of the magnus archives
I've lived in Idaho, and that's entirely correct, I hate it there so much
*Wheeze*
God damn right
"The Magnus Archives has an episode for every fear you might have"
Indeed, dying in Idaho is my greatest fear
@@ethanlivemere1162 I think LIVING in Idaho might be a greater fear tho!
I am truly impressed with how much this woman wrote considering the circumstances she claimed. Not discrediting it, I’m just saying that I would’ve written like 1 page and been done.
*writes a paragraph* 'a'ight imma head out and freeze to death''
Pyrodoxic that’d be my paragraph.
I get the sense that she was stalling. Writing that letter would be her last act and she knew it. I can see her subconsciously cramming in as much detail and emotion as she could just because every second she spent writing was a second she wasn't freezing or starving to death or facing her situation at all.
Truce Truce that’s a good point. Didn’t think about it that way.
Lol I thought she was a man and got happy when I heard husband and colonial gays😹
The fact that Eustace Wick had a full set of teeth and *that* made him suspicious is such a “count a mans fingers lest ye be dealing with the fae” kind of thought
Be note of the date, though. Back then, people didn't have the best dental records. Wick's teeth were perfect. That was the cause for alarm.
@@sajh_hope_arts Very much this. Contrast a guy stepping in from the pouring rain and being bone dry.
And, thinking about it, I should have noted, usually, rotten teeth were pulled out, iirc. The skinnier people were often thought as poor and larger people had money.
Whereas, if we have perfect teeth now, there really isn't alarm because it's natural.
Our lifespans are longer while then, during the Oregon trail days, they were shorter. Natives, diseases, the weather, everything was against these people.
Though, this was just me going into more depth with what I remember from classes and could be more or less inaccurate.
maybe this is a hint towards his diet? cause I know dogs can keep their teeth clean by eating raw meat....
What does that phrase mean? I tried looking it up, but I don’t think the results I found were relevant.
Maybe the preacher that "violently fell out with his colleagues over the sacrament of the Eucharist" decided that bread and wine weren't good enough for the ritual, and decided to acquire real flesh and blood instead?
according to some doctrine it is meant to literally be transformed into the flesh and blood of christ as it is eaten, and the Romans once misunderstood/propagandized that early Christians were actual cannibals. I'm guessing that's where the writers got the inspiration?
@@emersonpage5384 Yes that is the Catholic teaching, though the belief varies in other denominations.
I’ve not been in a fandom this intense since gravity falls
Ahhh yes gravity falls and TMA. I'm not the only one.
Gravity Falls, tma AND welcome to night vale.
@@a.b.6689 The Holy Trinity of my adolescence
@@a.b.6689 i've gotten into gravity falls, tma, welcome to night vale and camp here and there. the four horsemen of Weird Shit Happens
@@broblerone413 your comment made me laugh. "The four Horseman of Weird Shit Happens" 😂
No one:
Me: *oH My goD thE oReGoN tRaiL*
Poor tim can't help but feel extra bad for him after hearing him talk with martin. when martin says " how he's been since prentis" and tims like "oh how **he's** been" i'm reminded that he also went through dozens/hundreds of worms burrowing into him at the end of the prentis attack. But no ones (seemingly) paying attention to him because their focused on jons paranoia.
This is also the first time we've heard him sound angry, he's normally so cheerfull and friendly. also also while jon watching tims house is a funny mental image that must have been really unnerving for tim. he really needs a hug to. they all do tbh
If she didn't freeze to death, Mrs. Carlisle would have had a while before she starved. She was only holed up five days, and it usually takes a few weeks to die of starvation. The amount of time it takes is dependent on fat reserves in the body, and women have more than men. I like to think she could hold out long enough to find a town :)
Maybe she was eating for two and just didn’t know it yet, having gotten intimate with Benjamin on the trail before they got to the fort and met Eustace, and she managed to survive and leave descendants leading all the way down to Toby Carlisle in Ep 18…
To be fair, she didn't have anything to drink either so she'd die of dehydration soon enough. I suppose she survived tho
There WERE no towns in the area then!
Freezing burns a lot of calories though because you are constantly shivering. Her fat resources would have been rapidly decreased so she would have had considerably less time than under normal circumstances. Also when the body runs out of fat it starts to break down muscle so if she didn’t move she would have been trapped there too weak to trudge through the snow let alone mountain climb. Unfortunately, she was a dead the second the started up that mountain.
The Donner Party ate lots of meat, but because they were starving, it was all lean. You need fat to survive extreme cold.
Paranoic Jon is so funny, like, he overhears his co-workers saying that they worry he is stalking them, and gets it on tape, and then goes on saying they are suspicious and could have done something bad in this nervous and rushed voice, like a rat man. If he knew how he sounded like he would be horrified.
Do the world a favour and get a good night sleep man.
“paranoic” and “like a rat man” were the best parts of this comment
addendum : paranoic is just an amusing word for me because it looks like a mispelling, reads like a mispelling, in every way it appears to be a mispelling of the word “paranoid”, and yet it isn’t… who decided on this word. I’m convinced it was a mispelling after someone forgot the line on the letter d and tried to pass it off as a new word
Me: "I think I've built up a tolerance to The Magnus Archives. It's kind of disappointing, but it just doesn't unsettle me as much anymore"
This episode: "Heard you was talkin' shit"
I gotta say, this ep never fails to be hilarious to me. I mean, the lead up was proper creepy and but the moment the husband started telling her how delicious he'd be, I fucking lost it. And how he suggested methods! Like, roast me over the fire like a fucking hot dog, hunny! ...I'm a terrible person.
No no, she has a point.
You made me cackle xD
So. We've already heard the name Carlisle, right? I googled.
MAG018 "The Man Upstairs"
Putting it more simply, the dude who was nailing meat to the walls, was named Toby Carlisle.
Coincidence? I think we all know the answer to that.
My theory is that Mrs. Carlisle, forced by her hunger, turned around and did eat her late husband and became a part of whatever cannibal cult to which her guide belonged. She survived the winter by dining on human flesh, and afterward she passed her cannibalistic ways to her children and her children's children and so on.
@@cocoTr33 I like to believe that she didn't do it consciously. The evil spirit thing reanimated Wick and he fed her pieces of her husband while she was dying of starvation. This is similar to what happened to Hannibal the Cannibal. They fed him his little sister and told him afterwards.
Bro for characters who only appeared for one episode I am way to attached to these guys. I just want this badass settler woman and her useless himbo husband to be happy! 😭😭😭
Me too!
_"Unsigned statement regarding potential cannibalism while attempting to travel the Oregon Trail."_
me: The donner party?
My first thought too
what was the donner party again
@@hiddenace1953 a group of travelers from the 1800s who got stuck in the mountains over the winter and ended up canibalizing each other; Ask a Mortician has a pretty good video on the incident if you're interested in learning more.
@@tearez13
Was going to mention her. Love her content
@@tearez13 The worst thing about the Donner Party story is the guy who hunted down the guides. He sounds like the bad guy to me.
Was the supplemental recorded in the bathroom? XD
John: *lifts his feet up*
can you imagine how awkward it would’ve been if he got caught tho? “why the hell do you have your tape recorder? why is it ON???”
@@charliem.1368 at this point that wouldn't even surprise me anymore
Charlie M.
martin: i- jon- no
I honestly thought it was recorded through the vents, simple as that 😅
WE ARE GONE TO OREGON ITS THE GREATEST FAMILY VACATION
ITLL BRING US TOGETHER COULDNT THINK OF NOTHING BETTER HEY! TIME FOR SOME FAMILY FUN
this seems like the type of content jeff would be in to tbh
Oh my god I'm cackling
𝙊𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙏𝙍𝘼𝙄𝙇 𝙏𝙊 𝙊𝙍𝙀𝙂𝙊𝙉
𝙒𝙀𝙍𝙀 𝘽𝙍𝙊𝘿𝘼𝙒𝙔 𝘽𝙊𝙐𝙉𝘿 𝙄𝙉 𝙊𝙍𝙀𝙂𝙊𝙒𝙉
OHOHOHOHOHO! OXE LIKE ME!
15:57 isnt "something greater than myself" a thing that jane prentiss said in her statement
Ooooh...
Oh, shit. A hive mind
"I wept for my beautiful stupid Benjamin"
:(
Jon, are you taking ur recorder with you to the restroom???
I think he takes it everywhere at this point XD
@@Companion92 ah, yes. Me, my boyfriend and his 2 028 tape recorders hidden in his underwear.
Don’t worry! It takes itself :)
he was taking a spooky shit
Women really have to do everything huh
It breaks my heart we don’t know Mrs. Carlisle’s first name…she was so brave. I hope she managed to survive somehow
So, I took the liberty to look up the name "Blackwood". I thought it sounded odd, so I wanted to find out what I could about it. Turned out to be a Scottish locational name. Not that odd, but I did find a fun character related to the name. Lord Henry Blackwood, a Sherlock Holmes villain, who's a cult leader. He is also a sort of magician, producing miracles of supernatural extent. But like most magicians, all of his tricks are just tricks, and are eventually debunked. I just found this interesting.
Remember the Schwarzwald from episode 23? What does it translate to? Black Forest. Or you could say, the Blackwood.
It could be nothing, but it being this series...
Algernon Blackwood is what comes to mind for me
Thank you John
I think of Lord Theodore Thomas Blackwood; explorer, gentleman, sapient sea slug
@@TheNotoriousLARGE Funnily enough, I just looked up his wiki page and found this: "On July 3rd, 1857 however, he landed in Seattle, Oregon in the United States of America"
Jon: I need to be more careful
Also Jon: *proceeds to be not careful*
Jonathan, GO TO THERAPY!!
Martin even told him to :(
Tbf though, what kind of therapist would be equipped to deal with this??? Would they just think he was experiencing delusions/psychosis?
@@-S.L. I mean, I think it'd be mostly for the paranoia rather than the supernatural.
@@mackenziedillon295 Tricky tho, since his paranoia is kinda the thing most likely to keep him alive. :( Dude's in a tricky spot.
@@-S.L. dude really is in a tricky spot, it's so sad
Rusty Quill: *gets half way through a season* Time for cannibalism!
Every episode that I've heard till now...I wasn't much concerned with Jon's portrayal of the charecters but this episode surely emphasizes over the fact that how beautifully Jon impersonated Mrs. carlisle.....which makes me think wether he does it just to get into charecter or there is something more to these statements.
Check out the talk between Jon and Martin in MAG-39 Infestation. They have a talk heart to heart and we have a hint of what happens with Jon and this statements. The ones recorded with tape.
You know a series is good when after every episode i genuinely and sincerely feel the need to say "get some fucking help god" out loud to the protagonist
My data dropped out near the end and i was shooketh but I am finally back because i
Holy shit the data killed them
f
Rest in peace
ok this was pretty good
F
This really makes me think about whether Wendigos exist in their world
Everything else does so why not
Heh
For sure they do
Unrelated, I like your pfp
This made me think of Until Dawn's version of Wendigos. If she had given in to her husband's taunting, would she become like the guide...?
UNTIL DAWN!!!!!!!!!!!
SO SORRY THIS IS SO OFFTOPIC BUT HYLICS PFP!!!??!?? IN CRYINGGGG/POS
Oh that's delightful. The video that UA-cam glitched on and insists I've already watched, despite my having not, is the one with content matter that disturbs me pretty much worse than anything else :^)
Great episode as always though. I've been binging these as I'm absolutely hooked. Everything about this series is fantastic
UA-cam was trying to warn you
Huh. I've been having the opposite problem: UA-cam keeps forgetting that I've watched something and sometimes recommends me videos I watched to completion, like, yesterday. Without that red progress bar and everything.
This is 100% Slippery When Wet and Jack Bauer if the musical was a horror.
That's all i could think of through this episode lol.
Oh, absolutely
If oregon trail was written after tgwdlm and/or black friday
I have never watched this Musical but now i want to
This comment is so weird out of context
I'm seriously becoming worried that he's simply gone bonkers insane...
Tim and Martin sounded so concern, I feel so bad for everyone. Everyone needs a vacation.
Can we just appreciate how brave and competent Mrs. Carlisle is? What a fool Benjamin was.
Don't know if it's coincidence or not, but I really liked having the couple's last name be Carlyle, as he's the actor who played the cannibal in the movie Ravenous. It's my favorite movie and if it's a reference to it then I'm happy!
I love that movie too! Its the inappropriately peppy music! Speaking of...I recommend checking out musical comedian CW McCall's song about infamous cannibal guide, Alfred Packer, "Coming Back For More". 😄
Ok can we talk about how badass the writer of the statement is?
Wendigo, that is the monster pictured in the story I believe. It is said that in the dead of winter, near the Rocky Mountains among other places, if one is trapped and starving the spirit of the Windigo will reach out to them, compelling them to resort to cannibalism. Once they do, the Windigo spirit will enter the victim, they will begin to change until they are some thing fully inhuman. They will stalk around the snowed mountains and woods, desperately, hungrily searching for human flesh from then onwards.
I think it’s really really cool that this creature was so heavily alluded to despite never being mentioned.
Traditionally, the wendigo looks ice zombie-ish, with no feet, if not completely human. There is unfortunate bastardization recently, where the wendigo is given the appearance of an East European nature spirit.
"I need to be more careful" no you need to stop stalking your coworkers
Oregon trail! That was a brutal video game.
Not as brutal as the real thing was, exspecially the donner party
This still better then dying of dysentery.
I'm not American (nor British, for that matter) so sorry if I got it wrong but cannibalism, the Oregon Trail and the 1840s give me Donner Party vibes? which makes this one even scarier because that actually happened.
Anyway, I'm loving this podcast, even though I'm late to the party ♥
Nope you didn't get it wrong but I'm very interested in how someone not from America learned about it?
@@bmann0843 There is a musical project called American Murder Song and they release albums and make videos and shows based on traditional murder ballads or original ones based on historical figures or folkloric figures, they have an entire album called The Donner Party in which all the songs are related to it. I looked up the story and did my own research to understand what it was all about, English isn't my native language but I managed to get enough info to get the proper context! :D
@@starberrycupcake that sounds really cool!
@@bmann0843 personally i really like spooky historical stuff, so i'll gladly watch any documentary or youtube video about it. I for myself learned about the Donner party from Ask a Mortician's channel :)
Happened a lot in that era.
One Eustace Wick disliked this video. Shame on him
reading the title: sounds like some cannibalism shit
reading the description: EYYY
Why do I get the feeling the real Jonny Sims played Oregan Trail 2?
I love the lady in this one, she's the best.
I've just recently gotten into TMA and I just gotta say, I'm usually good with horror but hearing the changed version of the prayer really got to me, I was raised in a very religious household and we said that prayer before dinner, hearing it changed like that really gave me the shudders, especially relating to eating... man I love TMA :D
Time to make dinner :>
"statement ends. certainly a grotesque tale." yeah jon you don't fucking say
Those supplemental tapes went from secret information he didn't say in the official tape to Jon being an absolute chaos gremlin living in the walls
Did people back then ever say "natives" instead of "indians"? I am genuinely interested.
yes, they were just rare as it was typically people of higher educations- therefore informed of their proper title 'native' rather than 'indian'- but also people who. well. weren't racist. so they weren't that common :/
@@kiwialberts8455 I was sure that the term ""Indian" was not considered racist back then. There was all sorts of official "Indian" stuff like the Indian police, but idk
@@PyramidXSlender it wasn't that the term "indian" was considered racist at the time, it was moreso that only people who tended to actually care about native american history would actually know the correct term and go out of their way to use them
Many people living on reservations today actually prefer the name “Indian” or “American Indian” over “Native American”. CGP Grey has a great video on it.
@@jasonschuler2256 it doesn’t really matter considering America is nowhere near india and Native Americans aren’t Indian at all.
Discredited no dysentery.
I really enjoyed this one
This Benjamin Carlisle seems susly related to Toby Carlisle, our favourite upstairs neighbor and meat wallpaper boy 👀
One of the best so far! Gave me the chills.
I read the title and the ad playing was for locally sourced meat. Jon hasn’t even spoken yet and I’m already on edge
😄
Why does it sound like Jon is hiding in echo-y vents while recording his coworkers 🤣
Seriously, it sounds like he's squeezed in an air conditioning vent.
As an Oregonian, I love hearing how Jon says it. Absolute joy
This is probably old at this point, as I'm on my first listen through. There was a Toby Carlisle in 'The Man Upstairs' that coated his apartment in meat. Meat madness runs in the family, perhaps?
hmm, it almost sounds like the credits were voiced by two people. has it been like that or am I crazy?
Ohhhhhhh "Eustace Wick" "Eucharist". I rewatched this after a couple years and only just got it. And he changed his first name to make that pun. Creepy!
Holy shit. I keep finding vague puns in names in the Magnus Archives that may be just my imagination, like the person who liked to explore unknown places being named 'Nunez' but the transcript renders it 'Newness', which makes me wonder. This is another one!
5:55 One might say "a lifetime of grief and misery"
Modern protagonists: I was so petrified with fear, I couldn't defend myself.
19th century protagonists: So anyway, I drew my pieces.
As they say in Missouri, “I AIN’T GOIN’ BACK TO MISSOURI”
17:54 bro sounds like hes listening in on parents arguing im CRYING 😭
Himbo rights for Benjamin
It's Will-AM-ate!!!!!!! Not Will-a-MET!!!! I live here I should know!!
Ah the Oregonian curse. It's not quite as bad as when Americans from other states get it wrong but...yeah.
oh man this is me whenever he pronounces Ny-Ålesund as Ni-Alesund
You now feel the pain when people say Appalachian wrong, FEEL THE PAIN!
Go look up some Welsh place names and try pronouncing them. So much worse
YOOO BURKE COUNTY NC REPRESENT
I have a horrible memory and don't remember Burke county being mentioned, I live their so I'm fairly interested if it is mentioned. Could you give me a time stamp?
@@bmann0843 17:03
This truly is the best podcast ever! I almost screamed whenever I heard my rinky-dink town of St Joseph mentioned
I can't enjoy Jon being paranoid anymore, it... Not scares me, it's feels kind of... I don't know. Uncomforting, is that the word?
loved this one, absolutely chilling
Hearing Jon say "Oregon" and "Willamette Valley" is so uncanny XD
As a Missourian, hearing Missouri had me SHOOK.
While yes, I am aware that the Oregon Trail started in Independence, Missouri, it's just hearing the word Missouri litterally had me shaking.
I guess I had taken comfort in knowing any of the events being far home. The closest it had been was Virginia. I know that Missouri was barely in the episode, but still... It was disorienting go hear Jon say Missouri.
Besides this, I enjoyed this episode. I've always enjoyed the discomfort this podcast has given me. I've always loved the Oregon Trail, and hearing a story about it here made me much more fond of it.
An odd thing I did notice is that I often feel like I'm being watched while listening to these. It's definitely just my anxiety, but I still found it amusing.
@Is me ? hi. What
@@scarcovy2607 "Where you SURE it was just your anxiety?" I believe that's what they meant. But yeah I hear you on the "oh no it's close to home, that's unnerving"
@@-S.L. Ha, I live in North Carolina, and when I heard thats where dumb Benjamin was from there, I couldn't stop picturing some spoiled dumbass who messed with so many women whole clans were gunning for him, so he hied out as far as he could go.
Alice in Wonderland; Magnus Archive edition
*Donner* *Party* vibes from this one... Sad how poor planning can have such devastating consequences.
Also, the description of Eustace Wick (short, cunning eyes, weirdly perfect small teeth) reminds me of book Hannibal Lecter.
And what happened to the horses ?
Right!!! I was screaming what about eating the horses??!!!
@@lablabs2613
They went horsin around
They used oxen.
Jon baby I'm sorry to say it but out of the two of you Tim is the grounded one here.
was that supplimental recorded from the fucking vents?!
Weirdly enough, i'm hungry lol
👀
Yo we got the same pfp!
@@freedomsavage2668 Yo, same pfp!!! Hell yeah!!
Mrs Carlisle? Is this a relative of Toby Carlisle (from episode 18)?
I'm just at the beginning of this episode so it's probably mentioned 😂
Honestly it says something about Jon's mental state that he didn't put the two cases together.
ARCHIVIST
Unsigned statement regarding potential cannibalism while attempting to travel the Oregon Trail. Original letter dated November the 10th, 1845. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
I have accepted I shall not survive this. The cold bites through my skin and feels as though it cuts into my very soul, and I am so hungry that I can barely stand. But I shall not give in. I can hear him taunting me still. Tempting me. But I shall choose to die rather than take part in such an unholy meal. Nor shall I take my own life, whatever extremity my suffering may reach. I am certain my final reward will come soon, and I shall face my savior with a clear conscience and a heart full of faith. Pastor Lawrence once told me that there are no empty bellies in heaven, and I am sure that he is right.
I wonder if I shall see Benjamin there. I should hope so, for all his faults and his incessant chatter. And together with all those we have lost, I am sure we shall look down upon perdition, and watch Eustace Wick writhing in agony among the well-earned flames.
Speaking of flames, I must apologize about the state of the paper to whoever may be discovering this message. I’m having to write this close to what fire there is, both for light and to stop the ink from freezing. There will likely be some scorching but I should hope it remains legible.
We should never have attempted the Oregon Trail. I see that now. I should have stayed in Savannah and built what life I could, maybe accepted the proposal of Adam Hawthorne. He was a decade my senior, but I heard no complaints from his previous wife while she lived, and it would have been a better fate than to freeze to death in these mountains, listening to Benjamin’s incessant taunting.
But my life before had been hardship and travel, and there was a part of my soul that felt that such a thing was simply my lot. So when my father joined my mother in Heaven not three years after moving us to the small town of Savannah, Missouri, it felt as though moving again was what the good Lord intended for me.
It was then, as I had to choose between trying to scrape a living from 20 acres of Missouri soil that my father had left me, or forge out on my own, that Benjamin Carlisle kindly asked permission to repair his wagon on my land. I will not deny he was a handsome man. Even now, the cold has preserved that pleasing cast of his face, gaunt though he may be. I was somewhat taken with him, but had no further thoughts about it, being somewhat plain in my own appearance. It took me quite aback when I brought a jug of water to his fire that evening, and he asked me directly if there was anywhere in the town of Savannah where he might find a wife.
Well, this seemed to me something of a strange request, though I myself knew little of courting. Benjamin explained that he was set to be travelling up out of some joseph along the Oregon trail towards Willamette Valley, a lush paradise of the frontier. The settlers of Oregon country, he said, had offered land to those who might follow. 320 acres of land for the unmarried, he said, but a married settler could claim 640 acres. That, and the prospect of another pair of hands to help with the work of farming, was a great incentive.
All told, he said, if he was able to find himself a wife before he reached Oregon country, he very much intended to do so. Well, after he told me this, I explained my situation to him, and we were married by Pastor Lawrence the following day. Even now I can’t fully bring myself to regret that part of the events that led me here, and had we reached the Willamette Valley as planned, I believe we would have been far happier than most.
I had few real possessions to pack and little food left, but I took what I could into Benjamin’s wagon. It was late May when we began our trip, and had I known more about the route we were to take, I might have known that this was dangerously late to be starting such an expedition. But I did not.
In many ways, Benjamin was as impulsive in his travel plans as he was in choosing a wife, and it was only after we had been on the road for some time that I realized how ill-prepared he for many of the hardships of the trail. I never asked him exactly where he was from, or why he wished to settle in Oregon. Those few times I broached the subject, he would talk all sorts of circles around it, and I had some inkling that he might have been fleeing trouble back east. I never pressed the matter. I had a lot of gratitude to him for taking me along, sharing his food and his bed with me, and rescuing me, as I saw it, from a life of grief and Missouri dirt.
It became apparent as we traveled the blessings were not entirely one-sided. It turned out I was far more suited to the hardships of the trail than him, and far more skilled at keeping the wagon moving than he was. I nursed him through a fever as we crossed through Colorado, and more than once I even managed to avoid an attack by natives, securing the wagon in small ravine until the war party had passed by. All told, I feel I more than earned my bacon.
I still remember the first time Benjamin saw skulls near our campsite, those travelers before us who had not fared as well as we had. Poor man almost fainted. And I could not help but reflect that, were it not for me, he would likely have joined those poor departed souls. I decided not to share that particular reflection.
We reached the Laramie River and Fort John in October. It was a squalid little fur trading post in Wyoming, with thick wooden walls that were solid enough to keep out any war-minded natives, and there were all the signs that a great many people had recently passed through the place.
The manager, an officious man, who introduced himself as Bruce, told us that we had missed the chance to safely cross the Rockies, that the passes would be snowed up within the month. He said we could winter at Fort John if we had the food and money for it or we could turn round and leave. From his tone of voice, it sounded like he had not much care for which of the options we chose.
We were of course devastated and spent several days discussing our options and trying to make a decision as to the wisest course of action, though we knew that for every hour we spent in such conference our choices became fewer and the consequences sharper.
It was at that point we were approached by a man who introduced himself as Eustace Wick. He was a short, squat figure, broad of shoulder and with the rough, dark skin of one who has spent most of his life under the sun’s unforgiving glare. His long, shaggy beard was shot through with gray, but his eyes sparkled with a cunning and intelligence I would not have expected to see from such an unkempt face. He also possessed one other attribute which surprised me, though in hindsight it takes on a somewhat sinister light - he had in his mouth a full and healthy set of teeth.
Now, Mr. Eustace Wick inquired as to our purpose in Fort John and, speaking far more candidly than I was truly comfortable with, Benjamin explained to him our journey and our dilemma. But at the mention of the words Willamette Valley, the short man’s eyes lit up and a smile practically split his face in two for he was, so he said, the best guide since Sacagawea and could get us through the Rockies long before the snows hit with any force… for a price.
When he said this, he smiled and all the square and shining teeth in his mouth seemed to catch the light.
I was hesitant as I’d met plenty of hucksters and bandits who were keen to pass themselves off as guides and as Benjamin haggled the price my misgivings grew, for Eustace Wick seemed offer little in the way of resistance and we secured his services for only twenty dollars. Plenty of money to be sure, but for the services he was offering and the dangers involved it was practically nothing.
Unfortunately for all my consternation it soon became clear that Benjamin had made up his mind to hire the man. To be fair to him, we did not have the resources to winter in Fort John, and were we to try and make our way back, there was every possibility the weather would still turn deadly on us. We were caught between the devil and the sea, and Benjamin had determined that, guided by Eustace Wick, we were going to try and swim. The poor fool had no idea the devil was the one leading us into the water.
Nobody tried to stop us leaving, though it was clear from the looks upon them they believed us to be dead already. My own hopes were scarce higher, but the little man who now rode with the scaffold and joked as we traveled, keeping Benjamin in higher spirits than I had seen him in months. This began to fade as the cold air began to hit us and the paths through the rockies became steeper and narrower. The journey was hard but we pushed on for almost a week.
Eustace Wick seemed to be as good as his word, keeping us on those trails that the wagon could use without too much danger. The cold robbed us of sleep, though, and after those first days, the once beautiful vistas and rolling peaks of the mountains seemed to become jagged and vile ribs jutting from the carcass of the world and picked clean by vultures.
Benjamin became quiet. I became sullen. Eustace Wick became more aggravatingly jovial than before, and by the time the first snowflakes began to fall he was practically hooting with joy. My suspicions about his motives had begun to freeze into an icicle within my chest, hard and focused.
When we woke up one morning a week and a half into the journey to find one of our wagons wheels smashed and destroyed beyond repair, I could not find it in myself to be surprised. The snow was falling thickly by this point. We had already used all our replacement wheels over the many months of the journey. We were trapped there and we would surely die.
It was then that Eustace Wick appeared standing on a nearby rock that same big grin on his face. He told us that there looked to be a snowstorm coming but he had found a nearby cave where we could wait it out. He didn’t even pretend dismay of the state of the wagon. Benjamin and I followed him, and sure enough, there in the side of the mountain was a shallow but well hidden cave.
It’s hard to say at exactly what point I realized specifically that Eustace Wick was planning to eat us. It may have been that he made no mention of retrieving any food from the wagon when he led us to his den. It could have been the piles of firewood already neatly stacked up against the far wall cut into logs. It might just have been the way he looked at Benjamin with his square white teeth bared an unearthly smile.
But somewhere between the wagon and the cave I became convinced that our so-called guide but lured us up here with no intention short of killing us and eating our flesh. I had no time to communicate this thought to my husband however who still seemed woefully oblivious of the situation, and once we were inside the small cave there was no privacy in which to discuss it.
So I just had to sit there, watching Eustace Wick building a fire as Benjamin tried to suppress his shivers and make conversation with the man who he still did not realize had turned from our guide into our captor. I simply watched and waited as the storm began to descend outside, and the warmth of the fire was quickly overcome by the icy chill of the wind.
Night began to fall. The fire was the only light casting along dancing shadows upon the walls behind us. I could feel hunger gnawing at me and was sure that I was not the only one, but I had a strange thought that the bearded man squatting on the other side of the flames was waiting for someone to mention it, so I refused to do so. My husband of course had no such reservations, and began to bemoan our forgetfulness at leaving what little food we still had in the wagon.
Of this Eustace Wick’s smile, if it were even possible, got wider and he said that we had all the food we needed. He stared into the fire and began to mutter something. It sounded like a prayer. I think he was in his own demented way saying grace.
I remember the words exactly. He locked eyes with Benjamin and said, “Come, meat. Be my guest. And let thy gifts to me be blessed.”
As he said this, a silence fell across the cave. The wind died and the shadows on the wall stopped moving, as though they were watching the scene in rapt attention. Eustace Wick withdrew a long, sharp knife and stalked over to Benjamin, who made no move to defend himself. His eyes were wide, staring at the mad cannibal approaching him with a look of both fear and rapture. The whole scene was so utterly unreal that it took me almost a full second to remember and draw my gun.
All through this journey I had kept my father’s camp locked pistol hidden tucked inside my crinoline. Benjamin knew about it of course, but had obviously never mentioned it to Eustace. Had I had a possibility of reloading it I might have drawn it earlier but with only a single shot, and I a barely passable shooter, I knew that I needed to be sure of my moment.
As it turned out, I left it too late, for even as I placed the barrel to the temple of the foul murderer and pulled the trigger he drew the blade across my husband’s throat. There was a terrific bang, a splash of brain, and a spray of blood. The two men fell dead upon the floor and I found myself alone in the silence of the icy night. I’m sure I need not tell you the tears that I shed that night. Tears that were ice even before they touched the ground. I wept for my beautiful, stupid Benjamin and I wept for my own life, now most certainly lost at the cold and snow, and to hunger.
It was as this last thought passed unbidden through my mind that I heard it. Very faint, calling softly. The sound of Benjamin’s voice.
I called over to him, for a second overjoyed that he might be alive, but as soon as I touched his ice-cold skin already beginning to turn blue I knew that it could not be so. Despite this, his head began to turn towards me and his frozen eyes opened. His lips parted above the gaping red slash across his throat and he spoke.
“Eat me,” he said.
I leapt back, shaking my head, praying the Lord to rid me of these terrible visions, but his voice came again clearer and louder, this time begging me attend to eat him. He told me how good he would taste, better than any salted pork. I could cook him over the fire, he said, and the cold would keep him fresh for as long as I needed. I yelled at him, screamed at him to be quiet, for whatever devil had taken up inside to go back to hell, but it made no difference. Still he pleaded to be eaten.
It has been five days now and Benjamin still entreats me. He taunts and curses me by turns, calls me a coward who would rather die than be part of something greater than myself. The entrance to the cave has all but blocked with snow and even if I were to dig my way out there is nowhere for me to go. I don’t even know where whatever’s left of the wagon would be. I think I might try, though, now I have finished this account of the events that led up to my fate.
I hope whoever finds this does not judge us too harshly. We were simply seeking a better life. I leave this here in the oilskins of Eustace Wick in the hopes it may be protected from the depredations of winter. As for myself, I will try to dig my way out and get as far as I can.
I will not survive, but I hope the Lord understands it is not suicide. It is simply that I can no longer stand to be trapped here, where the corpse of my husband begs me to make it meat.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
Certainly a grotesque tale, but I don’t have access to the sort of information required to verify any of the details provided by the unnamed Mrs. Carlisle. There is no record of any Eustace Wick that I could find. There is a Benjamin Carlisle mentioned in the 1838 census of Burke County, North Carolina, but that’s about it.
The prayer apparently spoken by Mr. Wick is a perversion of the old Lutheran grace: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let thy gifts to us be blessed”. There was a noted Lutheran preacher by the name of Horatio Wick that is mentioned briefly in several histories of Massachusetts as rather violently falling out with his colleagues in the church, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, but he apparently drowned in 1832.
What interests me most is how this unsigned letter, if it is to be believed, made its way from an icebound cave in Wyoming or Idaho all the way to the personal collection of Jonah Magnus.
End recording.
[MUFFLED VOICES FROM A HALLWAY]
TIM
Look, I tried talking to Elias about it. It doesn’t seem to be doing good.
MARTIN
He’s under a lot of pressure. You know how messed up he’s been since Prentiss.
TIM
How messed up he’s been!?
MARTIN
[quickly] Of course, I’m sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that you weren’t, just
TIM
No! Because I didn’t start stalking my coworkers.
MARTIN
Maybe try talking to him.
TIM
Sure, like he doesn’t already look at me like I’m a murderer.
MARTIN
Look, we just gotta let him work through this. I suggested therapy but he just says no.
TIM
Well, we need to do something.
MARTIN
Yeah, maybe.
The preceding conversation was overheard on the 19th of November, 2016. It reaffirms my current worries about Tim, though does go some way to reassure me that Martin is unlikely to be the culprit, especially following our earlier conversation.
[sigh] I need to be more careful.
at the start I thought it was funny that the woman was thinking about how she and her husband were going to heaven and stare down at this asshole guy who FOR SURE was going to HELL. reminded me a bit of Dante, assigning ppl he liked to heaven and people he didn't to hell. as I listened to the episode though, fuck me, sorry, my bad. I did think it was interesting how there are two cannibals now with religious connotations. does anyone remember if in the priest episode there was anything to do with fire, as well?
Yeah he got all hot and burn-ey in the unfinished house he was sent to bless
Reminder that some older beliefs were that you absorbed the traits of what you ate. Eating the heart of a powerful animal, etc.
This reminds me a lot of the Donner Party, especially with the cold and travel along the Oregon trail
I knew the name Carlisle was familiar somehow. I’m only a few minutes in but it’s the last name of the guy who covered his entire flat in meat
Jon: **insert don’t be suspicious parks and rec gif here**
Archive assistants: this is Jon. He's a bit loony this days
stop and see fort laramie, theres nothing to see but youll have to pee.
do you understand cs you look confused
oh I read a book about the donner party a few years ago and it was genuinely scary, also the lost expedition for the northwest passage. both freaked me out big time
Wow Jon really went off on the voice acting for this one, specifically 15:20 onward
Also, DID JON BRING THE TAPE RECORDER INTO THE BATHROOM 💀
It is . . . Very strange to hear, at the end of the statement, Jon stating what the old man’s twisted prayer was similar to, as for once I was already well familiar with something that the closing follow up work might be related to.
Only in the 19th century can a full row of teeth be considered a red flag 😂
When you live in Oregon: O-O
I laughed when he said “eat me”. 🤤🤤🤤😅😅😅😅😅