Sticky mustaches, abandoned Fireball warnings, slushie beers made of melted Sour Patch Kids, and $180 in trash squashes - it must be the 2026 Halloween Special! This week, the gang digs into "The Levels" by Livia Llewellyn from the brand-new anthology All Hallows' Eve (edited by Ellen Datlow). Join Jess, Ryan, and Damien as they wander through a shifting mid-century house chock full o' weirdos and white wine. Grab a dram (or a seasonal Berliner Weisse), open your own doors, and whisper your way through our very bonusy episode of Whiskey and the Weird!
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt; drinking Troegs Master of Pumpkins.
Damien is watching Buffet Infinity (2025; dir. Simon Glassman); drinking Trillium's Daily Serving: Apple Cider Berliner Weisse.
Ryan is reading 13 Horrors of Halloween, edited by Isaac Asimov; drinking the Glenlivet 12 Double Oak.
If you liked this week’s story, watch "No-End House," Season 2 of the horror anthology TV series Channel Zero.
Up next: Season 10 kicks off with The Face in The Wind by Carl Jacobi, out of Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird, edited by Katy Soar.
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Jess: [00:00:00] Yeah. Hey, ladies, open your own doors.
Pour your own Fireball. Don't take Fireball that's just sitting poured out on a table.
Damien: Don't take abandoned Fireball, ladies. Folks.
Ryan: Or indeed anyone.
Jess: Don't take guns from an old lady.
Damien: If there's a token next to it, let it be.
Jess: Let it be, folks. It's not
Ryan: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird, and it's our 2026 Halloween special. Ooh.
Jess: Oh, that was so good.
Damien: Excellent ghost noises, y'all That was a good, that was a good choral- That was harmonizing ghost noises.
Jess: Oh.
Ryan: Totally.
Damien: We are boy
Ryan: scouts.
Happy Halloween, guys. Are you guys excited for the holiday?
Damien: I am what I am, and I am very excited for the [00:01:00] holiday. What about you, Jess?
Jess: Yeah.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: Heck yeah.
Damien: Because this is an audio experience we have to point out the fact that Jess is wearing her annual mustache.
Ryan: She is wearing- Yeah ... her annual Halloween mustache.
It's, it's an excellent mustache. It's a good one,
Damien: too. Yeah. It's really
Jess: adhering. The q- the quality of this one, it's a slightly oversized, but it's not quite as sticky as some have been in the past. So I feel like we're- That's okay ... flailing ab- about
Damien: a bit. But that gives, that gives a more natural hang- Sure
especially over the corners of the mouth. She's rocking a handlebar, I would say. Mm-hmm. Yeah. , It's looking, it's looking righteous.
Jess: Thanks.
Ryan: Are your kids looking forward to Halloween? Mine are very excited.
Damien: What are yours gonna be?
Ryan: Caroline has three options, and I'm not even clear what all of them are. But one of them is Fancy Nancy- Mm-hmm ... which is one of her childhood favorite, like, kids books characters.
She's a precocious little girl who uses obnoxiously large vocabulary words.
Oh.
Jess: Okay.
Ryan: She also got- So does Jessica ... joy, the emotion from- Oh, okay ... from that emotions movie. F- what was it called? Inside Out? Inside Out, yeah. That's cute. Yeah, the girl character. She's [00:02:00] Joy. Yeah, she's got that costume. So she's got a couple things lined up.
I'm not sure Jackson's participating in dressing up this year, but he will certainly go try to collect candy.
Damien: Too cool.
Ryan: I don't think, I don't think either of them are gonna participate in Halloween with us.
Damien: Really?
Ryan: So that's sad. Mm. Yeah. We're gonna- Aw,
Damien: too cool. We're doing our own thing. We're go-
Ryan: we're going to a party and do our own thing.
That's right.
Damien: Why don't you come home with more candy than either of them, and Jackson- Right ... will be ticked off. What about the baby? What's the baby gonna be, Jess?
Jess: The baby is going to be a little, tiny ye olde strong man, so- Nice ... unicorn tattoos. This is why we've re-upped our mustache collection. Um, he's got an inflatable 1,000-pound barbell that he's been using to hit the dog.
That's no joke. Um, and he-
Ryan: Michael Chiklis from American Horror Story in the carnival episode.
Jess: Yeah, like that kind of like- Yeah ... carnival. Yeah. So he's got some funny little tattoos. But he's not looking forward to it because he doesn't really know what anything is yet, which is very fine. But he is really enjoying the Halloween [00:03:00] decorations that we have out.
We have got a, a skeleton that sits on a bench that he goes and talks to every morning. He also can't talk, so it's a lot of just, like- ... "blah, blah, blah" to a skeleton. That's his best friend. That's why he
Damien: likes him. He's a good listener, you know? It's just one- Uh ... of those things.
Jess: And at daycare today, they had a, they brought in a bunch of pumpkins and, like, staged around the playground.
So they did a little, like, trick- pumpkin patch, pumpkin hunt, so he brought a pumpkin home and was very excited- Oh, nice ... about that. But like, you know, he doesn't know what that is, so this is our last year to like probably dress him up as the thing that we want him to be.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: So next year it'll be like- Probably, yeah
the thing he wants to be, so.
Ryan: Next year it's gonna be Axle Rose. Although I, I, I'd warn you, like I wouldn't send him out to that bench much anymore because pretty soon you're gonna get a bill from Bare Bones Therapy. Damien, what are your kids doing?
Damien: Jeez. Well, in, in the wake of what I think is arguably one of the best costumes I've ever seen on any child ever, my, my daughter, who last year was both Gene Simmons and a pickle, [00:04:00] uh- At the same
Ryan: time?
Damien: No, she, she agreed to be- Oh, those are separate costumes ... Gene Simmons if we could dress her up as a pickle. And the Gene Simmons was absolutely legendary. She w- went to her school's like little costume parade. Mm-hmm. And it, and there's all these like, oh, princesses, and, uh, this and that.
You know, like... And then there's Gene Simmons, like with the full Batman attire, whatever, freak. I can't remember- Oh my goodness ... what his persona was for Kiss. But the whole reason she got into this is because she prides herself on having the longest tongue in the family. And- Sure ... so we said, "Well, if you're gonna, if you're gonna sit here and like glom onto that, then you gotta be Gene Simmons."
Jess: Right. Here's what you're up against.
Damien: Yeah. And she absolutely pulled it off. I got some great pics I'll show you. Um-
Jess: That's cute ...
Damien: so, so this year she's, she's actually doing another musical artist, if we could call Gene Simmons that. And in, in, in an homage to recently passed Dolly Parton, she's dressing up as Dolly Parton, so that's pretty cute.
Cute. And then my son is
Ryan: going as a- For the first half of that entire description, I thought you were talking about Richard Simmons. Which also would be an epic costume, I think. For
Damien: a little girl, yeah. How about Richard [00:05:00] Simmons as Gene Simmons? That's really- As a
Ryan: pickle.
Damien: Eating a pickle. As a pickle . Oh, there's always next year, Ryan.
Uh, we will try not to let you down. That
Ryan: one's gonna take some planning, yeah.
Damien: And then my son being weird, I thought for sure he pulled this character out of some meme or some, you know, Minecraft world that he's in. I don't know. But it's called Three Chin Chud, and he is a Western sheriff akin to, like, Woody.
Hmm. So his costume looks very Woody-ish. He's got a horse. And he has three- ... fabricated chins. So he is Three Chin Chud, the Western sheriff. Of course.
Ryan: Oh, man.
Damien: We're gonna need- There you go ...
Ryan: pictures of all of these.
Damien: Yeah. Ha.
Jess: That's great. That's great. Three Chin Chud.
Damien: I'm just, I'm
just
Ryan: picturing these, like, prosthetic chins dangling at the end- That's pretty-
of the night, where they're, like- It's- ... sort of loosely attached.
Damien: It was... That's, that's it. I was like, "There's no way these things are gonna stay on you. Let's
Ryan: just- Right ... draw
Damien: three chins." He's like, "Dad, that's not real." I
Ryan: was like, "
Jess: Right." I mean, you guys are creative
Ryan: guys. But this rubber cemented plastic. [00:06:00] Yeah.
Yeah, gotta be real here. You
Jess: understand.
Ryan: Oh, gosh. Well, as you can all tell, we are very excited for the Halloween holiday, and we are excited to bring you this Halloween special. Before we get into our story, we've got a little bit more bar talk to do. Jessica, what are you drinking tonight?
Jess: I am having my annual pumpkin beer, where I remember that pumpkin beer is only good when you are at a pumpkin patch.
This one is the Troegs Master of Pumpkins.
Damien: Oh.
Jess: Nice can. Oh, that's
Damien: a sleigh can. Nice can. Yeah.
Jess: Yeah, seasonal. A little boozier than I normally go. And, uh, like honestly,
Damien: this little- Is it an imperial? Is there, are we talking eight or nine points?
Jess: It's ... I wanna say it's like a seven and a half.
Damien: All right.
Jess: I'm usually a like 5% gal.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: But yeah, I mean, it's fine, but it is like I've already gone to the pumpkin patch this fall, and I had my pump- my pumpkin brown ale that they made at the patch, and it was not good. Ooh. But I was wandering around a pumpkin patch- ... so it was delightful. [00:07:00] Right. Best day of my life.
And so this is- One of these
Ryan: days Jessica's- It's promising ... going to announce that she's decided she doesn't care for beer.
Damien: Yeah, pretty much. I, I think of all the 37 seasons- And that's gonna be okay ... of the show that we've done- We're all gonna be here for you. Yeah ... she's had two beers- I- ... and she's like, "I would buy this again."
Jess: I think the difference is, is that I'm trying more very random things than you guys are. I'm more adventurous. That, that- You guys like- Ooh ...
Damien: that is fair.
Jess: Yes. I- Well,
Damien: we tend to stick more to the spirit side of things. Uh, and, and you know, I'll, I'll counteract myself. But even when I do that,
Jess: like I'm buying a bottle 'cause it's got a frog on it or whatever, and it's like-
Damien: Like a short
Okay. That- So ... that's kind of fair- It's just weird ... but I can always say that you have like the Hudson River Whiskey. We do always have that one. That's like, that, that comes up a lot in the show.
Jess: Well, I'm not gonna drink that every episode. That's boring. That's
Ryan: also why she
Damien: ends up with
Ryan: like marshmallow Reese's Pieces whiskey- Yep
which I will never buy no matter how cute the bottle is.
Jess: Love a deal. Love to try new things. Often gets me in trouble because if they're [00:08:00] on sale, sometimes it's because it's bad.
Damien: Oh, my God. Oh, speaking of bad, I went to Montreal recently with some friends, and we went to a beer hall. And they had a couple sours, and one of the sours was turned into a slushie.
I guess they just poured in- Oh ... a lot of like, uh, simple syrup and then froze it, right? And so I ordered it 'cause it was hot and I wanted to be refreshed, and it was gross. And I said- ... "What is the sour element? Like, what is the fruit?" And she laughed at me and she was like, "Oh, we just melted a bunch of Sour Patch Kids and-" Oh, gosh
poured it into the beer. Oh. And I was like- Oh, no ... "That's not how that works." I need to, I need to leave establishment. Yeah.
Jess: And even like a f- a frosty sour beer sounds bad. That sounds worse.
Damien: ... image- Imagined it as a beer, it was terrible. If you imagined it as like a slightly off, like someone poured a little bit- A popsicle
of Windex into the Slurpee machine- Ugh ... then maybe it would've passed. But that's because that's exactly what it tasted like- Yeah ... a little bit of Windex in a Slurpee.
Jess: That's rough. Okay. Anyway, I also read a book I liked. Uh- Oh, good. Yeah. Heck yeah. It was [00:09:00] Darker Days, which is the newest- Ooh, I've heard that
novel by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Thomas Olde Heuvelt.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Jess: And I think it came out last year, but I just picked it up very recently. And so it is probably more similar to Hex, which was the one- Mm-hmm ... he was most famous for, in that it is kind of like a n- a neighborhood where everyone is sort of in on this conspiracy where they're, like, all very, very lucky, like 11 months out of the year.
But then one month out of the year, they have to, like- The darker
Damien: days ...
Jess: they have to kind of make a sacrifice and figure out what they're doing. Wait, is it the
Ryan: same month every year, or is it a random one and they have to figure it
Jess: out? No, it's ... And it's always, like, November or it's- Okay ... always October or whatever.
So it's, it's seasonally appropriate if you're looking for a spooky Halloween read. 'Cause there could be, like, a
Ryan: tough year where it was December one year and then January the next year. Yeah, that would be- That's, that's a rough way to go.
Damien: Yeah, when, when the crops get pushed out because of climate patterns, it's just
It becomes a little bit-
Jess: Uh, but generally the book is good and spooky, and it has a, like, an ending that's rewarding enough [00:10:00] that you're just like, "Yeah, all right. Nice."
Damien: Satisfied. Satisfied.
Jess: I'm satisfied.
Damien: Story told.
Jess: Damien, what are you drinking?
Damien: Yo. So me and trying to shame you for drinking a beer, I'm drinking a beer.
But it's seasonal. I also, in the past couple weeks, have done all the fall things. Yeah. So we went apple picking last weekend and, you know, traipsed through a pumpkin patch, and cider donuts, and got caught in a corn maze- Mm ... and all the stuff. Once a year, a local brewery, Trillium... Well, throughout the year, they make a series called Daily Serving, and it's a fruited beer.
And around this time of year, they do a very limited batch of apple cider Berliner Weisse in their Daily Serving line. Mm. So this is an apple cider Berliner Weisse. Look how cloudy that is. Oh, that looks good. It's very cloudy. It's got a t- I mean, it's a four-pointer, so it's very little beer and very lot of cider.
Yeah. There's the proof. Lovely can ... so it, , it's basically like a Michelada with apple juice. And it's, it's good. It's seasonal. It's baller. It's not gonna put you on your butt but it is gonna give you a, a cavity, [00:11:00] because it's very, very sweet- ... even with the cidery spices, but it's delicious.
So this, for me, is a one and done. I wanted to save it for the episode. And to that, I say cheers. Cheers. And, and happy autumn, and happy, happy spooky season. I recently watched, I guess it was just sort of spoon-fed to me. I can't remember where it was. Um, I think it was on Tubi, actually, and it's called Buffet Infinity.
And, uh, it's essentially- I've never
Jess: heard these words together. Yeah. I'm thrilled to find out what that could be.
Damien: Oh, have you- Me neither ... never been
Ryan: to a Golden Corral?
Damien: Ooh. Which that's the amount of patience you need is- ... Buffet Infinity because... No, but this was basically... It, it initially struck me as, as a short sketch from maybe, or I say s- a sketch, like a-
a filmella. I don't know how you would call it. In, in the VHS days- Oh, a f- a filmella ... you know how they do, like, four- Yeah ... four stories and-
Ryan: Uh-huh ...
Damien: so it's, because it's shot in a way that presents as a series of strung-together old school commercials- Like on a VHS. Yeah. Um, [00:12:00] and it'll be like, "Oh, hey, you know, th- this is the insurance you need, and it's important.
Just listen to me." And then there's someone who has a pawn shop, and they're doing like a pawn shop rap and stuff. And- ... anyway, the wh- the whole point of it, you're like, "All right, where is this going? What is this doing?" And then it, it ties together that there's this entity that comes out of a hole in the ground, and it turns the local businesses into a Buffet Infinity, which is just a, a kind of an established brand where they're like, "Hey, um, all you can eat all the time."
And then the Buffet Infinity starts taking over nearby shops, and a woman who owns her, you know, long-standing sandwich place and who's got, who features her family's Italian secret sauce, and it's like, nothing about it is Italian. Like- Hmm ... it gets consumed up, and Buffet Infinity keeps spreading and spreading, and then it starts opening up in people's houses.
And then weird things start happening, and then it ends up really weird, like, like literarily weird. Uh, it gets to a cosmic horror level towards the end. I'm not going to read
Ryan: this
Damien: novel. But there's some... There's some... This is a movie. This is... It's r- it's [00:13:00] really... It, it's... I, I, you know, I asked the same question because I was like, "There's no way they can continue this, you know, like bit for an hour and 50 minutes."
But it actually is about an hour and 45 minutes- Ah ... and it works. And it was really enjoyable. It's got like 100% Rotten Tomato score right now. It was based on a short YouTube sketch, so it grew into a full-length feature film, and people love it. It's a little bit of an underground satirical horror consumerism lambasting in, in cinematic form, and I would strongly suggest to anyone, even if you're not a horror fan, to go and check this movie out 'cause it's so weird and quirky, but it's, it's truly, truly like obnoxiously addictive.
So, uh, it's Buffet Infinity. It was directed, uh, by Simon Glassman. It came out last year, and it's definitely streaming on Tubi.
Jess: Sometimes I forget that we're doing a podcast because you just said like, "Even if you're not a horror fan," and I was just like, "Damien, you know that we're horror fans." What are we doing here?
Jesus. [00:14:00]
Damien: I'm talking to- Oh ... the them
Ryan: behind the screen.
Jess: Apparently.
Ryan: Oof. What about you, Ry? Well, I guess I'm holding down the whiskey front tonight. Uh-
Jess: Thanks. Someone's gotta.
Ryan: Yeah, it, it's... I mean, it's not exciting though, guys, I gotta say. It's, it's the standard, it's the Glenlivet Double Oaked, so it is a- ... it is a variation of the Glenlivet.
But it is- Well, it's not- It is a bit of a snoozer of a whiskey.
Damien: We got the
Ryan: Susan
Damien: Stache- It's not- ... showing you how she feels about that call.
Jess: Gosh
Ryan: dang. There's not much to say about it. I mean, it's a, it's, it's a passable whiskey. It's fine. It's a, it's... You know, if somebody- You having a good
Jess: time?
Ryan: I'm having a good time.
If somebody handed me a, a glass of this or a bottle of this, I wouldn't turn it down. Is it something I'm gonna reach for my shelf for very often? Probably not, but I reached for this bottle tonight because it's almost empty. There you go. Perfect, yep. So I'm going to, uh- Make some space ... I'm gonna take-
take care of that this evening. As for what I've been doing, you know, we're, we, we, we've, we've buried the lead a little bit and we haven't announced the story that we're discussing tonight yet. But it is in a new horror anthology that was just released, [00:15:00] and so I've been going back to some of the older horror anthologies that I have, uh, for Halloween.
And I, I, I picked up this one a couple years ago and I read a couple stories in it and, and I just read, uh, a bunch more, and it's called 13 Horrors of Halloween, edited by Isaac Asimov. It's this little thin- Mm ... thin, thin paperback. That
Damien: guy.
Ryan: You can, uh, find it on eBay pretty easy. It's published by Avon Books, uh, published in 1983.
These stories are, are... These stories are short and punchy and mean. That's the, that's the, the- Mm. Ooh, mean ... big characterization of these stories. Like, these are not feel-good, autumn, Halloween, horror, cozy, ghosty stories. These are... These have an edge to 'em. And, you know, a lot of people are not writing stories quite like that anymore.
So check out, um, if you can find it, 13 Horrors of Halloween from 1983, edited by Isaac Asimov. Well, now, we've teased it, but let's get [00:16:00] to what we are- We didn't tease it ... talking about. Jessica,
Jess: what- We haven't even teased it. We just forgot to tell
Damien: them. Yeah. We just, we just 100% went into, "Hey-
Ryan: We
Damien: don't
Ryan: know
Damien: what
Ryan: podcast you thought you were listening to."
have either
Damien: of you ever heard of Spin?"
Ryan: Jessica, what, what in the world are we, are we talking about tonight?
Jess: Okay. So we are reading The Levels by Livia Llewellyn, and it is in the collection All Hallows' Eve, which is edited by Ellen Datlow, which is- Ellen Datlow ... very new, very recently published.
Ryan: Very new.
Very, very hot off the presses.
Jess: Hot
Ryan: off
Jess: the presses.
Ryan: Um, so Livia Llewellyn was originally born- ... in Anchorage, Alaska, although she now lives in New York. For two decades, she graced the stage as a theater actress, and now she works a day job. At night, though, she says- ... "I write about lonely girls who sing to colossal sentient engines born of Tesla's secret journals- Ooh, wow
and myriad other horrors." [00:17:00] Oh. She has two collections published, Engines of Desire in 2011 and Furnace- Furnace ... in 2016. Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: Which we all read for our book club.
Damien: Which we read.
Ryan: We, we did. We did. Uh, after- We haven't
Damien: tasted Livia before tonight, y'all, just so you know.
Jess: We're
Ryan: burned. The writing. Oh, yeah.
Damien: Yeah. Okay, fine.
Ryan: After, after Furnace was published, she took a break from writing for quite a while, I think. But I recently heard her say in an interview that she has once again taken up the pen, so we're looking forward- Good ... to more Livia Llewellyn stories in the future. She's been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award several times and has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for her story, One of These Nights.
Now, as Damien and Jessica both alluded to, our book club did read her collection Furnace, uh, several years ago. Guys, a- anything particular you remember from that collection? Any particular stories stand out, or writing style? Any impressions that you were left with?
Damien: I'll, I'll say this, that as soon... 'Cause, all right, so when I was reading the story, the name didn't click [00:18:00] initially, 'cause I was kind of breezing through the collection, uh, for All Hallows' Eve, and then as soon as I started reading the story, I heard Livia Llewellyn's voice and it took me back to Furnace- Mm-hmm
and I distinctly remember that there is this characteristic string of, of, of players in her stories that are distinct. And I think on the surface you wouldn't realize it, but if you s- if you, you know, expose yourself to 15 of her stories, you start to find that thread that sort of weaves them- Hmm ... all together.
And I instantly said, "Is this Olivia Llewellyn?" And then I went back to the p- and I was like, "Yes, it is Livia Llewellyn." There it is. Right. Okay, yeah. So I can't explain what it is about it, but her writing, while it seems sort of innocuous and a little bit general at first, she's still a great storyteller, it is distinctly hers, and you can tell if you've given yourself enough of her stories in a diet.
Ryan: I, I remember, like- A lot of weirdnesses in her stories. Yeah. Um, the, the thing that I, I latched onto in this story that I tied back to her other stories were, uh, [00:19:00] themes of isolation and loneliness and, and s- feeling like you're by yourself. What, what I missed, and what I remember from other Lil Whelan stories that we've read, but, but I missed here, was sort of the sense of sensuality that she puts into a lot of her stories.
I mean, some of her stories were almost, were almost erotic and- Yeah ... and in a horror kinda way. Um- ... and, and that, that's not present in this one. Not that every one of her stories has to be the same, but, uh, that was one thing I definitely remembered from some of the stories in, In Furnace.
Damien: Yeah. Jess, anything jump out at you?
Jess: I, I don't have any clear memories of, like, a story that was like, "Yes, this is the one I loved," but it was just like the feeling of being, like, on a bus by yourself looking out a window.
Damien: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jess: Like, that's kind of the vibe, and it's kinda like gritty and you're, like, in somewhere you probably shouldn't be.
And so the, yeah, the, the vibe is very similar in this one to kind of what I, I recollect from that collection [00:20:00]
Ryan: Well, our story tonight is called The Levels, as Jessica said, a Halloween, Halloween-themed story. All the stories in this collection, All Hallows' Eve, are Halloween-themed, but some of them come from different cultures, so it's not always- Yeah
called Halloween, or even a fall festival isn't named, but they all sort of all k- have that autumnal, that autumnal vibe going on. Some of them come from, uh, Latin America, some of them come from Africa, some of them come from, uh, I think there's a, there's a Scandinavian story in here. Uh, so they, they come from different cultures.
Um, this one is set in America, though, and it, it is about a couple of young girls who get invited to a creepy Halloween party. All Hallows' Eve is edited by Ellen Datlow. This one is brand new, as we said, published by Titan Books, and is filled with stories by some of the best writers in the field that you and I both have come to love.
Uh, some of those names include Nathan Ballingrud, John Langan, Lee Murray, Stephen Graham Jones, Jeffrey Ford, and of [00:21:00] course, Livia Llewellyn herself, as well as many more. Uh, Jess has got our summary for tonight, so without further ado, let's hear it.
Jess: Let's hear it. To set the scene, we're in college. It's Halloween, and we're named Beryl.
Damien: Don't knock on Beryl.
Jess: Beryl is in her dorm room drinking tea, listening to lo-fi chill study beats in a cozy little window nook, pretending to study. There's a flyer for an off-campus Halloween party sitting next to her for a party they're going to later, but for now she's falling asleep. Her book falls and wakes her up, and she takes a closer look at what's happening outside her window.
She can see, like, the cloudy visions of other students in their dorm studying, jack-o'-lanterns being lit up, which definitely would not be allowed if they're living in dorms, and the rain is starting to fall. [00:22:00] But there's no one in the quad, and that's kind of eerie. Has everyone disappeared? Has she been left behind?
I just want to point out that she's thinking this while hearing people in the stairwell, and she can see people in windows, but this is the energy that we are bringing to the story.
Damien: Oh, yeah. Right.
Jess: When her roommate-
Damien: Rain- rainy empty quad. Mm. Cloudy day
Jess: When her roommate bursts in, like literally one second later, Beryl is muttering, "You are not alone," to herself.
Anyway, whatever. Gloria is back, and she has a flyer- Yes ... for a different party that was left on her stack of books while she was studying. Something to come back to. Do college parties have flyers? Like, actual parties and not, like, a campus-sponsored club event. Again, whatever. Beryl doesn't care. Only I care.
They have a flyer now for a different party, and Gloria's [00:23:00] like, "But look at where this one is." Beryl is suddenly psyched because she knows this house. It's off-campus, and they used to walk by it all the time, specifically to look at it because it's so weird. They call it The Levels. The
Ryan: Levels. Take a
Jess: drink.
The flyer says they do not need a costume, but they do need $20, and they have to have at least one drink in three rooms of the house to get a token. And then when you have three tokens, they'll let you into the actual party. Slightly convoluted, but sure, it's college and it's $20.
Damien: Side quest. Okay.
Jess: So we're getting ready for our party.
Gloria is gonna be a slutty librarian, and Beryl is just wearing jeans and a T-shirt because- Come on, Beryl ... technically no costumes are required, and she's allergic to fun.
Damien: It's, like, a Black Flag T-shirt, and she's wearing, like, Doc Martens or army boots or something. She's, she's [00:24:00] Goth-ish.
Jess: Sh- but I think that's her vibe every day.
Okay, so they leave the dorm room, and they start walking to The Levels. Which is a house that they first noticed during their sophomore year when they were both lonely and on campus over break, avoiding weird family situations by walking around and not going home. The house itself is a mid-century spaceship hodgepodge, going up and back and out, with so many levels that they decide to call the house The Levels.
Damien: The Levels.
Jess: The first time they saw it, Gloria said they could be detectives to try to figure out why the house was like that. But Beryl, a barrel of fun, doesn't like mysteries or not knowing or not understanding.
Damien: Lord.
Jess: They asked around, but it's an off-campus house, so, like, obviously none of the other students knew anything, and they couldn't find anything online or by asking [00:25:00] professors or by just staring at the same images on Google Maps.
So instead, they just walked by it every week, sometimes with friends, never seeing anyone in it or around it, and there were ever, there were never any cars in the driveway. But that was last year, and now they're juniors, and their habits have changed, and their wanderings have changed, so they don't go by as much.
Until tonight.
Damien: Until tonight.
Jess: Beryl is nervous and nauseous. Gloria is a little more excited. She wants to wander around and take some pictures. They bicker and call each other whores, which is still a fun college thing to do, apparently. When they arrive at the house, every window is glowing, and their friends Kate and Aidan are there, also standing in the driveway.
They weren't gonna do anything for Halloween, but they each also got the invite, so here they are. But wait, now Beryl is worried [00:26:00] again. She didn't get an invite. She thought it was just a flyer. But she doesn't check her mail, actually, so it's probably fine. She's sure she got one. They watch people go in the house, and Aiden says, "It looks like the house is eating them, ha ha ha."
Damien: Okay, so
Jess: they head in, and they're met at the door by a guy in a cheap skeleton onesie and a white mask asking for $20 and their invites. The three with flyers get in fine, but the man tells Beryl to just, like, wait here a second. He's gonna sort it out. The friends leave their weird, nervous friend alone with a skeleton man on Halloween in a strange location.
But then the skeleton man also goes inside to ask the host. He tells Beryl, "Don't move." So now no one is outside or coming up the driveway or walking down the street. She tries to text the friends that have abandoned her, but there's no service. It's fine. They're probably just having one of their [00:27:00] three required drinks.
While she's waiting out on the porch, the door cracks open, and she stares at it for a while before letting herself into the party. She's enter- she enters a small room that is empty. The music is fading, and she can hear it moving into a different part of the house There is a table with a fishbowl of 20s, a bunch of empty shot glasses, and one full one with one of the tokens besides it.
Ah. She drops her money in, takes a shot, and is of course annoyed that it's cinnamon whiskey, which is a very reasonable response.
Damien: Fireball.
Jess: Disgusting. A door opens behind her, so she grabs her token and walks in. There are small groups of partygoers kind of staged around the room, but she does not see her friends.
This room is like a rundown rec room with vintage Halloween decorations, a staticky old TV on, like [00:28:00] grimy carpet. She's beckoned over to the drink station by a teen who gives her the choice for her next drink. "Red or blue?" She means Solo cup, and she picks blue, which she of course fills with white wine.
Damien: Hey.
Jess: She gets a half-full glass and grimaces again, but the girl helpfully says, like, "You don't have to drink all of it. It's, it's the ritual of taking that counts", and hands over- Oh, geez ... a token. Beryl texts her friends again, but there's still no service, so she eats some chips and examines the rec room.
It's kind of cozy. It reminds her of her childhood friends' homes, and she looks out a, a curtain, but can't see anything. She chugs her white wine. Whoo. And when she looks around, everyone is gone. Another door creaks open, and she sees a hallway, and at the end of the hallway, there's another room, and she can see people in that room.
[00:29:00] She thinks she hears Gloria's laugh, so she heads up, literally, because the hallway is a ramp up to the next room The levels, remember?
Damien: The levels.
Jess: The next room reminds her of a Lutheran church basement from her youth, a little sparse and institutional and beige. There are people there, but the clusters are getting, like, tighter, and it doesn't feel very festive.
Oh, but wait, there's Kate and Aiden over by the lounge area. Phew. They were waiting for her forever. Ah. She tries to explain, but also the room is feeling smaller, and her friends feel a little off. She describes her journey, but they're just like, "I think you're drunk." They came in through the dining room, not the den, and they had a lot of pizza and garlic knots.
Ryan: That was when I got hungry. Yeah. That's when I
Jess: got hungry too. Beryl... Honestly, I could go [00:30:00] for a garlic knot. Beryl realizes she hasn't had a drink in this room, so she goes back to get one. She also grabs some old cheese as an old woman ladles punch into her glass. She tries to make small talk with the punch woman to get any info about the house, but she doesn't get anything, and her friends get impatient, and they call to her as they go through the next door.
But now Gloria is there, and they're leaving her again. She knew they had problems with her. Anyway, she tries to follow, ends up in this low-ceiling, cramped, dusty, gross room, and then realizes she didn't grab her token at the punch table.
Damien: Oh,
Jess: Beryl. She thinks she hears Aiden and starts climbing to the next room.
It's at this point that she finally realizes she's not having fun. She's being ignored by her friends. These rooms keep bringing up kind of weird and bad childhood memories, and [00:31:00] she's climbing around this weird house. The next room is just a bunch of platforms and levels and is huge. The levels. All the way across the room, she sees three figures making their way to the next door.
She screams at Gloria to stay with her and don't leave, but they all go through the door. Beryl makes her way across the room, but now the skeleton man from the front door is here. He needs her three tokens to let her through that next door. Remember? Oops. Like it said on the invitation. But she doesn't have the third token.
College kids are never
Ryan: reading the rules. Ugh.
Jess: College kids are never reading. But she doesn't have her third token. It's not her fault. The punch lady naver- never gave it to her. And he's just like, "Well, did you ask her?" "No. Ugh." "Well, sorry, you made your choice." So she can't go with them. Maybe she could come back next Halloween.
Her friends were [00:32:00] moving through the levels without her. And Skeleton Man just says, "Well, the future's unknowable. Where do you wanna go?" And she answers, "Her dorm." And he pushes her through the door back to her dorm room. She likes her dorm room. It's all one level. When she sits back- Uh-oh ... in the window seat and there's no movement outside, she lets out a howling scream, and finally realize it's where she wants to be.
Damien: Oh, boy.
Jess: The end.
Damien: The end. Nice.
Ryan: Well done, Jess
Jess: Thanks. That was a lot of levels.
Ryan: Levels. It was a lot of levels.
Damien: Levels.
Ryan: So I'd like to start at the base level, if you will, with character.
Jess: Got it.
Ryan: Uh, Beryl is our charming main character- ... a young college student who desperately wants to be included. Did, did anybody else identify with her in that?
Do you remember what you were like your freshman year of college?
Damien: Oh, [00:33:00] yeah.
Jess: I, I want- And no, I don't identify with her at all ... now, also, this is not her freshman year of college. She's a junior. She's a
Ryan: college freshman. Yeah, she's a
Jess: junior, right?
Ryan: She's- Yeah,
Damien: she's up there, right
Jess: So get it together, Beryl.
Ryan: I, I, I'm, I'm gonna disagree with both of you.
You guys are obviously cooler than I was, but-
Jess: Yes,
Ryan: obviously ... I, I remember- ... waiting for invitations to cool parties- ... which, which did not come as a, as a flyer or a mailer, right? But particularly my freshman year, and I know she's not a freshman, particularly my freshman year, I, I was sort of desperate to hang out with whoever was, was hanging out somewhere or doing something.
So that, that part of it kinda resonated with me.
Damien: Um- Well, you also did your undergrad in a place that brought you where I anticipate not a lot of your friends went, so you weren't in Portage. No, that's true.
Ryan: I
Damien: went, I went to a state college, you know. Right. You, you, you went well out, out of state, and so- I did
in a, in a very niche field of practice. So it
Ryan: seems as though- Yeah, I knew two people at, at college when I first started.
Damien: Amazing.
Ryan: That was, that was hard the first year. Yeah. I totally identified with Beryl's, [00:34:00] like, angsty loneliness.
Damien: I mean, I think I, I could, I could understand it. I couldn't identify with it, but that's, you know, two different things.
So I, I got it, and it instantly set the tone. But again, it instantly reminded me that this is, like, Libby Llewellyn because it was- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... it, that somber initial atmosphere. That was what did it right there.
Ryan: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien: And then even when it goes into and it's like friends show up, "Hey, girl, let's go out.
Let's party." "Okay, I'm gonna be a slutty librarian. Ha ha ha." "I'm gonna be a, I'm gonna be just a, a brooding college junior. Ha ha ha. I don't need to drink, but I will.
Ryan: Flyers." Well, even that sense of like, oh, the quad is empty, and no one's around- Yeah ... and it's raining, and no one's here.
Damien: It's still this pervasive emptiness, right.
Ryan: But, but people are around.
Damien: Like- Right. People were around ... but it's still like it's self-inflicted. It felt, it still felt
Ryan: gray. Yeah. And
Damien: I
Ryan: think that
Damien: that's- Yeah ... a challenge that was done really well by Llewellyn is, is creating this atmosphere where there is vibrance, but you would never know it if you only had the perspective of the main character.
And so- Right, right ... I think that's [00:35:00] cool. And it, it, it's, it's unsettling. It's, it's well done, yeah. It's an unsettling effect.
Ryan: Absolutely. I, I think the other character that stands out in this story is, of course, the house, the levels. Uh, how does- The levels ... Llewellyn succeed- ... at making the house a character, in your opinion?
Jess: It, I mean, I feel like I've lived in a lot of different places. We moved all the time for a lot of years. And there is often that, like, one house in either your neighborhood or your town where you're just like, "How did this thing get built?" Right. "How is this thing being-" Yeah ... "built together?" You know, like, it's, it was somebody's dream house that their child built something, uh-
Damien: Right
Jess: attached to it, and their grandkid built another wing. And so, like, that was interesting because you could just kind of see those houses kind of wherever you go. But there was also this like, ooh, it's a mystery. And I feel like the mystery is just sort of like, [00:36:00] well, rich people make weird decisions. But Why?
I guess may- maybe I don't have that inquisitive spirit of like, "Well, why does this house look like that?" Yeah. When the answer is just like, "Oh, money. People have weird money." Right. Uh-
Ryan: But I thought Llewellyn did a good job of giving us enough detail about the house to let our own minds fill in the gaps where we wanted it to be or what we wanted it to look like.
Jess: Well, and it's set in the Pacific Northwest where I lived- Mm-hmm ... for a while, and, and so you do kind of see these houses that are like, they're set into a hill, up a hill- Mm-hmm ... down a hill. They have trees growing on top and below and behind them. They've got kind of like driveways that you have to go up and over to get to.
So it was very, like, recognizable as, like, a house that you would wanna walk by and, and look at.
Ryan: And wonder about,
Damien: yeah. It's... I always, like, when I think of Pacific Northwest weird houses and, like, [00:37:00] castles, I think j- I think I read, like, Chuck Palahniuk's nonfiction where he talked about that and how it was really, like, interesting and how it informed a few of his characters.
Like, there was a character in one of his books, I can't remember which one, but he built a castle. He just decided he was gonna build a castle, so he kept, like, sourcing big rocks and, like- ... bringing them to the spot and he... Uh, anyway, I... And it's, th- this is, I think, one of my Achilles' tendons when it comes to...
or Achilles' heels when it comes to- No, just the tendon ... enjoying a lot of, like- Ouch. Just the tendon. When it comes to enjoying a lot of, like, haunted house is that I don't... It's really difficult to get me to a point where I look at the setting, especially when it's, like, single location, like the haunted house, and I genuinely get a little, like, unnerved by it.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And I'll tell you what actually did it is... Well, there, there were two points that I remember. One, when she was like, she goes to this party and she's like, "You know, I, I was thinking about it and I, I could have [00:38:00] just went down to, like, City Hall and got the records- Yes ... and see what the house looked like."
And it was like, "Oh, well- There are answers for this ... way to take the piss out of the story." Yeah. Right. Uh, but then, but then the other piece was, that actually worked and was effective for me is not so much the different levels, the levels. It was when she noticed that there were parts of the house that were not the right size.
Yeah. It's like how she was perceiving it- Yeah ... and how she was physically experiencing it were two different things. Experiencing the
Ryan: space, right.
Damien: And I thought, I thought that was cool, and it's a little bit of the liminal space trend with, like, back rooms and stuff like that that is- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
becoming really popular now, when you get this, like, odd perspective, and she conveyed it really well through the storytelling in very few words. And so I... That was one piece that actually hit me hard. As anything else, though, the descriptions of the rooms, the descriptions of, and, you know, Jess mentioned this in the recap how the path that n- the attendees took was different and- Was
Ryan: different from hers, yeah
Damien: and yeah, and, and that she saw- Right, but it's like, you've been eating pizza, man ... a lot of, like, historical [00:39:00] locations and that sort of thing. I mean, again, like, this ties to the, to, to the, to the symbolism that was really rife and, and omnipresent through this entire story. But it didn't, it didn't do anything for me with regards to purporting that sense of unease, just the, just the fact that there were, like, the weird- measurements and the weird, like, liminal space references, I think that were- Mm-hmm
that was pretty kind of unnerving.
Ryan: Well, Damien, you, you bring something up. I, I, I got the sense that the house could be exactly what these kids expected it to be. Right. And that's why that these two groups- Mm-hmm ... had different experiences. The group of kids that were there to, to have fun and to, and to have, have it be a, a Halloween party of, of, of great renown, and, and they experienced that.
They went off together. She was left by herself.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: And she's so of- I mean, this is obviously a character that is so often by herself, that the house became for her what she expected it to be, which was this weird, empty [00:40:00] place maybe that sort of was reminiscent of places she'd visited in her youth, staffed by not college-age partygoers, but-
Jess: No
Ryan: like, weird, old aunts and- Yeah ... and- Tweens ... and, and tweens who are, who are giving red or blue Solo cups out. I mean, that... It's bizarre. Of
Jess: white wine.
Ryan: Yeah, of white wine, right? I
Jess: think also maybe just like-
Ryan: When was the last time you went to a college party and white wine was what was on offer?
Jess: I think also just you have a shot of Fireball, a full Solo cup of white wine, and a glass of punch.
Like, you don't know where you are. That's horrible.
Ryan: Yeah. Like,
Jess: every floor-
That's
Ryan: a pretty soon in the bathroom. That's,
Jess: that's a pretty bad soup ... every floor is gonna feel uneven. Yeah.
Damien: That's true.
Ryan: There,
Damien: there's, there's a quote- I mean, that's, that's, that, that's assuming that all those drinks in all those places were real, but we'll get to that.
Jess: Whoa.
Ryan: Or any of it was real indeed. There's a quote on page 78 of, of the volume that, that I thought highlighted this well. I just wanna read this to you. "Standing at the [00:41:00] sidelines, watching the actors move through the brilliance of the stage lights, hearing their words spoken before an enchanted audience, hearing the thunderous applause, and then even more torturous to see them huddling together during intermission, hearing their secret language as they spoke amongst each other, smelling their sweat and perfume as they vanished together into the night to some foul diner where they'd drink coffee and smoke until the mascara and glitter-" Those jerks
ran down their faces and the stars vanished from the night sky, traveling to places she could never go." Here, Beryl is remembering her attempt, uh, to be a, a- an actress. But- ... man, does that set the scene for me about where we are- Right ... in the mental space of this character. Right. This character has never felt like a part of anything.
No. She's never been included. She's never- Wit-
Damien: witnessing the huddle, witnessing the camaraderie- No, I- ... witnessing the, the- The
Ryan: secret language. Yeah.
Damien: Right. Yeah.
Jess: Yeah. But, like- I [00:42:00] think that's all internal, right? Like, you said she's- Sure ... never been a part of anything. Her roommate's inviting her to this thing.
They're obviously friends. Oh, it's self-inflicted- They've been wandering around ... no doubt, but how often is
Damien: that self-inflicted? Yeah, and the s- the, the, the point is, is you can feel completely lonely and isolated while surrounded by people, you know? And I
Jess: think that that's- I understand that. Yeah. I'm just...
I wanted to clarify that- I know you do ... she's not living a life of isolation. She's living in a dorm with her best friend, walking around with a bunch of other people.
Ryan: So- While being mopey.
Jess: While kind of moping about the whole situa- Yeah ... which is fine. Be mopey. But they're definitely, like, it's... I don't think it's...
She's not being excluded, or she's not- No ... like, you know,
Ryan: living a life- But
Jess: that's different
Ryan: from feeling like you're being excluded.
Jess: Sure. Right. But she's not being- Yeah. Yeah ... intentionally isolated by circumstances or the people around her. She, she may feel like it, but I don't think we get the vibe that her friends, other than at this point where they, like, leave her, like, they leave her on the porch to go in the house.
[00:43:00] But even then, they're just like, "Well, why don't you just come in the house? Like, we thought- Right ... you'd be in in one second. Just come in the house."
Ryan: She, she, she waited a half an hour.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. She's just, like, waiting out there for the skeleton man to grant her permission.
Damien: Well, that's- Well, let's dig into what- I, I think, I, I think that's a underlying theme though, is the sense of permission.
It's, it's- Hmm ... the inability to act without, without acceptance, without an invitation- The doors have to
Jess: crack
Damien: open first ... without following the r- Exactly.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody else has to open the door for her.
Damien: Right. Exactly. She could walk through it.
Jess: Open your
Damien: own
Jess: door, man. Yeah. Hey, ladies, open your own doors.
Pour your own Fireball. Don't take Fireball that's just sitting poured out on a table.
Damien: Don't take abandoned Fireball, ladies. Folks.
Ryan: Or indeed anyone.
Jess: Don't take guns from an old lady.
Damien: If there's a token next to it, let it be.
Jess: Let it be, folks. It's not
Ryan: worth it. Well, that brings us to our first commercial break.
This year's- ... Halloween episode is brought to you by [00:44:00] Fireball.
Jess: Oh,
Ryan: God. Fireball. It's terrible. Stay spicy.
Well, let's, let's dig into something that both of you have, have alluded to. Uh, I know, I know you're dying to talk about the, the symbolism in the story, but,
Jess: uh- Every day.
Ryan: So- Yeah ... so do, do you guys think... What do you guys think of the idea of the uncanny? How is the uncanny present in this story? Where is the symbolism that you're, that you're itching to talk about?
Damien: There was... So I obviously already talked about things like the descriptions of the odd rooms, that that stood out as being slightly incan- unc- uncanny. Again, just reading this story, especially if it's the first Livy Llewellyn, you will, without being able to place your finger on it, feel icky.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Damien: Um, and it's- Mm-hmm
the, the best part is that it's typically during scenes where you're like, "Oh, these are just a couple of, you know, college kids getting together, figuring out how they're gonna have fun, meeting up with their friends and doing something weird." You will still feel unnaturally and unshakingly icky. [00:45:00] And so that- She's so
Ryan: good at that
Damien: that, that is, that is really great, and it's one of the reasons I'm always, you know, hip to reading another Livy Llewellyn story I, th- as, as far as some of the other, like, points of un- uncanniness, I think one of the, one of the things, and this might be a bit of writing style, but it, it's also very... well, not very unique, but at least partially unique to this individual story, to the levels, is that-
Jess: The levels
Damien: in, in the exchange... Thank you You are welcome. Is that in the exchange of what seems to be typical dialogue, there will be a line that's said, uh, d- I think first by the skeleton man, like something like-
Ryan: Yeah ... "
Damien: Well, you have to have a flyer to get into the party." Right. Right. Or something like that. And the way it's written, it's just like, okay, you could hear it as normal dialogue, but if you read it in a way that I tend to read these things, I'm just like, the way that this was said was odd.
Yeah. It was out of place. It was [00:46:00] very uncanny to say the
Ryan: very least. You know what it made me think of? It, it made me think of playing a video game where you run up against an invisible wall, where like the game says you can't go that way anymore, even though visually you should be able to go that way.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: It, it's like this guy is directing this scene- Sure ... in the way that it has to go, even though- logically it could, it could, it could go the way Beryl's suggesting.
Damien: But just, just the way, it's not like, "Oh, sorry, you can't go in without a- Right.
Ryan: No ... you can't go in without a
Damien: flyer." It's like, "This is the
Ryan: rule.
You've
Damien: run up against a rule." You must have a flyer. Yeah. Yeah. And th- those little elements particularly- And that repeats at the end
Ryan: with the tokens.
Damien: Exactly. That- Yeah ... those little elements had me wondering, you know, had me questioning the reality of the story through the whole thing because I was like, no, this is, this is an obvious flag that there's something more nefarious, more subversive going on throughout the, throughout the entire arc.
Jess: Or is it? And it's just that- Or is it? ... Beryl's such a bummer that she's just like someone saying like- ... "Oh, you don't have an invite? Let me go check with the host." And she's just like, "Oh, the skeleton man, I'm [00:47:00] cursed." You know, like- ... she's just reacting so nuts to what's, like, not unreasonable. Like, "Oh, yeah, we did send out invitations.
I think it's fine, but let me go check."
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: And she's just like, "
Damien: Oh." But I don't know. Especially later, like, "You don't have your token? You should've gotten your token." It was like, "Oh, I had the drink, I just forgot the token." "No, you need three tokens to go through." And it's just like, what is- There's a,
Ryan: there's, there's an internal logic that we're not privy to.
There's something happening. Yeah.
Damien: Yes. Yeah.
Jess: Yeah. But it's also just like-
Ryan: I,
Jess: I liked how- ... did you get the token? Go get the token, man. Like- Go get
Ryan: the token. But the door locks behind her and she can't open it. The door locks behind,
Jess: yeah. But does it? Yeah. You know, like- And
Ryan: then it's a different room, possibly.
Jess: Yeah. It's also like- The house ... the uncanny shows up only for her. Like, her friends are just like-
Ryan: Right. Right. Right. But
Damien: we don't know. But we don't know that.
Jess: Well, we don't know. No,
Ryan: because the others are following the rules. They're doing what they're supposed to do, and they're doing it naturally, right?
Yeah. They're not doing it to follow the rules. Kind of think that's fair. They're just doing it because they're, that's how they're built as people. Yeah.
Jess: They're just like- And so- ... "We went through the dining room and we ate pizza." Right. Like, "What are
Ryan: you talking about?" We got the pizza and the garlic knots.
What are you talking about? [00:48:00] Yeah. You lunatic. Like, like for them, the, the party unfolds in the way that they expect it. When the garlic knots are there, you know
Damien: you're doing the right thing.
Ryan: Right. Yeah. You know?
Jess: You're, you're following the right path. You're at a good party. The flyer
Ryan: was right. They, they get the party they expected, but, but Beryl, every room she gets into unseats her expectations.
It, it, it, it changes, it morphs. It, it's, it's odd. And,
Jess: yeah, maybe- It's a Lutheran church basement.
Ryan: Right? Maybe that's the vibe she's gonna bring to it, but maybe she's having a totally different experience. Well, speaking of, of wildly different experiences, how does this house compare to other literary haunted houses that you can call to mind?
Hmm. Hmm.
Damien: Okay, so I just recently read You Should Have Left. I think it's Da- Daniel Kellerman. I could be wrong. But the same elements of like... Oh, it was made into a movie with, with Kevin Bacon.
Jess: Um- Okay. I've seen the movie, but I did not read the book.
Damien: Yeah, the, the, the, the book's better. It's a novel. It's like 90 pages or something.
It's a pretty easy read. It's a good, tight story, but one of [00:49:00] the key elements was, uh, that this guy's an ar- He's an, he's a author, but he- Mm-hmm ... like becomes fixated with architectural elements of this house, and so he keeps measuring the rooms, and they're changing shape.
Ryan: Mm-hmm,
Damien: mm-hmm. And he can't explain it, and no one else can see it, and it looks okay from the outside, but it's just when he goes inside.
Mm-hmm. So malleable space. That, that's what I thought of immediately. It's not a very prominent, like, literary haunted house, but it was a unique element in this story that I also saw in a recently read story. Yeah, fair enough. So those are the ones that jump out. Yeah. Good one. And as I mentioned earlier, just I'm not one who sits there and gloms onto the thought of a house, you know, and, and a house being a central character.
It happens a very few times. I think there was an Allison Rumfitt book where a house was pretty, was pretty pivotal. Uh, Our Share of Night. Yes. Uh, there was a house- Yep ... that was pretty pivotal. I had that
Ryan: one written down.
Damien: Yeah. Uh, but I think,
Ryan: yeah. Especially as the kids are exploring it- ... and experiencing different things.
Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah.
Damien: Yeah. So, so those, the... I, I would say that those are the ones that jumped out for me.
Ryan: The other, the other one I thought of was, was o- it was obvious to me, was House of [00:50:00] Leaves. I don't know if you guys have read House of Leaves. Yeah, that's- I've never, I've never read it. Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's another liminal space type, type story. Right. But I also thought of the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's version of The Shining, and, and how everything was u- the, every expectation was unseated for the characters as they went, as they went through that space. Okay.
Jess: Yeah,
Ryan: I- That's a, that's a creepy hotel.
Probably
Damien: more white wine in a blue cup in this one, though.
Ryan: Right.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: Yeah, that one I think was whiskey at the bar.
Ryan: With a ghost bartender.
Jess: With a ghost bartender. Spoiler alert. I was also thinking hotel. I think just the nature of, like, all the rooms being different. Hmm. All the rooms, all the
Ryan: levels.
Jess: Yeah.
Levels. Levels. The... One of my favorite books, like, of all time is The Return by Rachel Harrison, and this was her f- I think it was her first book. She's had a lot more that are fine, but they're a little cheesier. But this one is, is very similar to this one in that it's about kind of a woman and her friend group, and [00:51:00] she's worried about being left behind by this group, but she's having a very different experience- Yeah
at a kind of haunted hotel than her friends are, where, like, she walks into a room and it's very different and very weird, and her friends walk in and they're just like, "What is your problem?" But she's also the friend who is having the most anxiety, is kind of- Right. Mm-hmm ... the least secure in where- That's a good comp
she's going in her life. And her other friends have, like, jobs and prospects and, and things, and her life is reflected kind of in, in how this hotel is nuts.
Damien: Yeah, it's, it's... And that, the carryover as well is it's partially the location, right? The, the hotel that's, like, lost in time and doesn't wanna change.
Yeah, and, and you're- And then it's, it's also partially the fact that she's, like, she's afraid that her friend group is separating and doesn't want that to happen. Yeah, you're amplifying- Feels like she's forcing them to stay together, yeah ...
Jess: everything weird because you're so amped up about-
Damien: Mm-hmm ...
Jess: you know.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Your friends are successful, and they know what they're doing. And, [00:52:00] you know, I think this character in The Return is, like, having an affair with one of her old college professors, and, like, has moved back home and is just kind of, like, not, not going where she wanted to. And-
Damien: And if you think you know where the story goes from there, you're wrong.
Jess: You're wrong! It's great. It's honestly, like-
Damien: You're dead wrong ... one
Jess: of my favorite
Damien: novels. It, it, it is, it, it is, it is one of the best R- Rachel Harrison books. And I do think that she went a little kind of chick-litty, you know- Yeah, it's like this one's a vampire ... campy, campy horror after that. And every- This one's a werewolf.
Yeah, and this one's a werewolf. And this one's a werewolf. And this one's a witch. Yeah. And this one's a ghost, yeah. But the-
Jess: And this one is just, like, a good monster haunting hotel. The
Ryan: Return
Jess: was a good one,
Ryan: yeah. So what- Let's
Jess: talk about that one instead ...
Ryan: exactly happened in the end of the story? All right.
I, I have a thought.
Damien: I have a thought on a few
Ryan: things.
Damien: All right. I'd love to. Let's hear it. Uh, my first thought is the whole, uh, is the [00:53:00] whole uh, use of tokens- Mm-hmm ... and the last token that she was missing that her friends had, I instantly placed as, like, the token for, what's his name, Charon, in the River Styx.
Sure. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Sure, over, over the
Damien: eyes. You know, passing on- Yeah ... and going on. Yeah. Well, yeah, and just paying for the ferry, the ferryman- Yep ... to take you across the River Styx into, uh, i- into Hades, right, into, into the afterlife. And so that, when that happened and when the guy was like, "Can't tell you about future Halloweens.
All I know is this Halloween, and where do you wanna go?" And she's like, "Well, I wanna go back to my dorm." And so she goes back to her dorm, and then she's there and she lets out that primal scream. I, like, I thought that this was somebody who feels so isolated and alone because she actually lost these friends.
She's replaying a fan- uh, like, a fantastic engagement with her. They died somehow. Hmm. Hmm. The, the, the- That's fun ... the mandate to have a drink in every room before you go on- Mm-hmm ... to the next room- Mm-hmm ... to me painted, like, a night of excess that ended horribly for them. [00:54:00] Um, the fact that- I'm curious
there were specific people, the fact that she went through other memory locations in her life while she was
Ryan: in the house- Well, maybe some of the other people in the ho- in the, in the house are characters that occurred in that nightmare scenario.
Damien: Yeah, v- very easily.
Ryan: Between the old woman- Yeah. Between. The skeleton man.
Damien: Yeah. Um-
Jess: Common horror villain, between.
Damien: Yes. Between. The, a- a- and the punch crone. Right. Uh, yeah, so that, that's what I thought because the tokens were coming out-
But
Ryan: that could totally be, like, some old lady at a hospital, right? "Have a drink, dearie. You're dehydrated."
Damien: Yeah. And it, it, like, puffs a little fume that turns into a skull and crossbones over the top of the cup, and you're like, "Oh, this is kinda weird."
So that's, that's what I- I like that,
Ryan: Damien. I like
Damien: that interpretation ... that's what I thought happened, and that's what I thought happened, is that someone facing her own traumatic loss, uh, the feelings of isolation at the beginning and then all of a sudden she hears her friends come in and the story takes place was all completely fabricated, uh, and that she's just someone who's going through this, this very difficult period of her [00:55:00] life and kind of mentally reliving it every time Halloween comes around.
Ryan: Hmm. Like it. Jess, what do you think
Jess: ending- I think Damien's version is a better story, but I think my interpretation is more accurate in that she's just kind of a gal who's worried about missing out, realizes she is, and just, like, takes the bus home.
Damien: Yeah, but it's, it's very clear she says, "I wanna go back to my dorm."
Are, are you saying that... 'Cause there was an accusation, "Oh, you drank all three of those drinks," and to what was mentioned earlier, that's a pretty toxic cocktail, that maybe she did just get so intoxicated she has no idea how she got back to her dorm- Yeah, I think she just- ...
Jess: but
Damien: all she
Jess: knows is she ended up making it
wakes up back in her dorm. Hmm. All right. And, you know, I think she, like, keeps seeing her friends in all these other friend groups going through doors, and she's interpreting that as, like, "They're leaving me behind," when in reality- Or that's her, that's her
Ryan: blackout coming on.
Jess: Well, but more in reality it's just that- Like we said earlier, like you, well you just have to go through the door.
Like- Right ... your friends can't wait- Mm ... for you to make [00:56:00] every decision, and she's just waiting for them to wait for her. And so eventually she's just like, "Screw this," and goes home. But is interpreting it as this like, "Oh, this mysterious thing. How did I end up here?" And really it's just like, eh, it was like a 10-minute walk.
Damien: But, I mean, is, isn't it a little too convenient that every time she needs to progress, she needs to go somewhere else, every time she doesn't have what's necessary to go through on her own, and she relies on someone else to help m- move her through? That to me was just like the dripping overlying symbolism, is every single time- So many people operate that way
she didn't have the flyer. She didn't have the flyer. She didn't have the token. She f- she forgot the thing that she drew and she- The door was
Jess: locked. Right. The
Damien: window was locked. The door was locked, and he... Right. All these, all these things. Like, there's something that prevents her from just doing it herself, and that's why it, it, it like kicked me in the tushy as an allegory-
from almost the get-go.
Ryan: Mm. I think both of these possible explanations are, are, are very good. It will surprise no one that, that I bit on the, on the cosmic horror elements [00:57:00] of the ending. Yeah. And, and, and to be honest, like it reminded me of another Lilia Llewellyn story, which was Stabilementum, where this, this woman is having a, a spider problem in her apartment in New York and, and she calls maintenance and, and, and they come- Oh, yeah
and they keep trying to address the spider problem, and it keeps getting worse and the spiders are getting bigger, and it's like, "Oh, you have to go up to this, the 610th floor," or some absurd number- ... like that. And then there's like this spider god in the sky. Mm-hmm. I, I love that story. But this story reminded me, it reminded me of that.
You know what else it reminded me of? Have either of you seen Hellraiser II?
Damien: No.
Jess: Probably.
Damien: Oh. I mean, I, I've definitely seen it- It's super weird ... but it's one of those that I watched, like, at a babysitter's when I was- Right ... too young to
Ryan: really- Uh-huh ... be into. It's so weird. It's got this, like, cosmic labyrinth, like dream labyrinth thing at the end, and that's what these, all these platforms reminded me of.
And, like, the friends were going on because they were so into the like, "We have such sights to show you." Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, and she just wasn't, she just wasn't taking the bait. She, [00:58:00] she... Or she didn't have the gumption to take the bait, and so she was left behind- ... and never got to experience the- Yeah, they, they did have that one, uh-
pleasures of the outer space demons ... one of the hallway- the cenobites. One of the hallways- The cenobites, yeah ...
Damien: one of the hallways, like, it was actually a ramp and it walked up, so they're like, they walked up the
Ryan: hallway.
Damien: Yeah, yeah. But they literally walked up the hallway because it went to the next...
Ryan: Yeah.
I, I... The ending was, the ending was strange to me, so I just, I just went whole hog on the cosmic horror of it. D- I think I know what Jessica's gonna say here.
Damien: No. It's,
Ryan: it's, it's, it's all of- It's capitalism. It's capitalism. Stupid people doing stupid things. Is all... Are all of Beryl's vulnerabilities her fault?
Jess: Listen, I'm not blaming her Oh,
Ryan: you surprise me, Jess. You surprise me.
Damien: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a surprising answer- I think- ... because everything to, to, to this moment- Yeah ... has been- Here's the thing ... look at this crappy person making- Yeah ... horrible decisions.
Jess: Does Beryl suck? Is it all her
Damien: fault? You didn't like her the first time you [00:59:00] read her name,
Jess: basically.
No. Listen, sorry, Beryls. Sorry to all the Beryls out there. But I think that, like, I didn't identify with Beryl as the like, "Oh my gosh, I'm being left behind." 'Cause like I'm not n- like naturally an extrovert. Mm-hmm. But I'm personable. I can make a human conversation with people. That's what
Damien: you think. But
Jess: I do identify with the like being in college and being like, "Oh my God, what's next?"
Right. Mm. Like, everything is so weird and expensive, and I've spent so much money on this, and I don't know what... You know, like, so that's not mystifying to me. Like, I understand being in this position of being like, "Oh my God, I'm kind of frozen because here's where I am." But I don't, I don't know that the story supports that.
The story makes it seem like she's so frozen because she's just terrified of being left behind by her friends. Whereas, I think if you're a [01:00:00] 21-ish-year-old, you know, like, that's part of your concern, but I also think you're gonna be a little bit worried about like, what are you gonna do when you graduate?
Are you gonna have a job? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Do you have any money? Where's your health insurance? Like, does this translate to this? Where are your... You know, sh- there's like a couple throwaway lines about she doesn't have a, you know, a great relationship with her like helicopter parents or something. Yeah. But like what do you do after school?
Where do you live? She lives in the dorms at, you know, in her third- Right ... year of school. Like, that stuff wasn't as supported as the like, "Oh, she's just terrified because she's worried about her friends leaving her behind." But I think if I were in this situation, as someone who went to college, I think it is understandable to be feeling like this.
It's just it wouldn't necessarily be the friends part. It would be the, you know, the cosmic horror of being 21 in an economy- Mm-hmm ... where [01:01:00] you are $100,000 in debt and no one is hiring you, and you don't have insurance.
Ryan: Well-
Jess: Like, that's much scarier than this girl I've known for two years might not like me as much.
Ryan: A- as, as possible support- Having, having- ... for Damian's interpretation here- ... uh, I, I, I wonder if like all of her vulnerabilities, and she has a lot of them it seems, if all of her vulnerabilities led her to a point where things, events became overwhelming for her and out of control, and, and forces acted on her that she was- far too weak or immature to handle, like a, a giant tragedy that occurs with her friends on Halloween night.
Sure. Um, and those forces overtake her. So- And that would explain like- So the vulnerabilities lead her to that place, but then something, something overtakes her that's not her fault.
Jess: And I, like, I like that idea, like maybe something happened in this house, and that's why she's obsessed with it. Right. Or something like that.
I don't [01:02:00] necessarily know that I see it in the story, but I- Mm-hmm ... I mean, I like the idea. I think it-
Damien: But also, are we gonna talk at all about the red or blue, and then- The Matrix? ... Solo cups. Do you
Jess: think she's in-
Damien: Yeah ... the
Jess: Matrix?
Damien: Yeah. A little bit of the what you see is not what's reality. I, I thought that was the hat tip- But this was already-
when it came to- She's already multiple proofs in I, I thought of the exact exchange was, "Red or blue?" And she's like, "What?" And she goes, "Your Solo cup, red or blue?" And it was like- No one cares ... okay, that's- Yeah ... that's a, but that's too deliberate. There's just-
Ryan: Yeah. It's very deliberate, but I, I kept thinking like if that's a Matrix reference, it's-
Jess: it's
Ryan: out, it's out of place, and it's ham-fisted. And I-
Jess: But it's also just like- Fair, but- ... it could be over interpreted. Like-
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: It's fair ... someone just like, "Oh, do you want this cup?" And she's just like, "Red or blue? What do I pick?" And it's just like- But it's ... who cares? It
Damien: has- No one, not even the girl
Jess: asking
Damien: it ha- it has made its way into a little bit of, you know, m- meme-driven zeitgeist- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... which, you [01:03:00] know, people talk about red pilling, blue pilling, and it, it, it could be the millennial like or, you know, Gen, Gen Z- I
Ryan: still get 'em mixed up ... head
Damien: nod. What was the one where you
Ryan: could forget?
Damien: I don't know, man.
Jess: Red pill- I think this is a problem
Damien: with- Red, red pill
Jess: is the wake up. Okay. So red pill is your waking up in a difficult situation. So that's where you're waking up because that's where if you're like- To the
Damien: reality.
Jess: Yeah, exactly. The blue pill
Ryan: is
Jess: pulling- It's women ... a slug
Ryan: out of your neck.
Damien: Blu- blue pill is when you're, you know, staying in the Matrix and eating
Jess: your
Damien: steak and- Yeah.
Yeah.
Jess: Red pill is when you learn that women are terrible.
Ryan: Well, Beryl is. Right? You know, Damian, I don't know if this is a Matrix thing or not. It, it, that feels a little- No, I mean, I, I don't wanna say- ... heavy to me ...
Damien: again, and I don't wanna say it's a direct Matrix reference, but I think in modern vernacular, when you talk about red pill, blue pill, it is- Yeah
a little bit about do you wanna face your reality or do you wanna stay in this haze? And so it could contribute to the- Which
Jess: one did she pick? Right, right. I know which is which, but I don't know which one she picks.
Damien: I don't know either. She picks blue.
Jess: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. She wants
Damien: to stay in her [01:04:00] thought. So, so blue is you stay in your fantasy, right?
Jess: I think so.
Damien: I just think it's too hard to, especially if you're familiar with Livy Llewellyn and her current themes and her typical genre, and I would say this is a little genre bent or blended, but it's really, really hard to think that this story just reads a- as it is on the surface. Like, it's really hard to take the Jessica approach- Yeah, no, I, I agree.
I agree with that ... and just say there's this, there's this girl who has- Who's a bummer ... zero confidence and who's a bummer. And she's out with some friends that wanna have a good time, and all she does is sit there and mope, and get... She gets too drunk and starts painting historical pictures from her memory into the rooms that she's in, and sees weird things that aren't even a part of her reality, and then ends up taking a bus home and wakes up in her dorm room and screams.
Jess: She does scream. 'Cause
Damien: that would be sad. There's too much. There's too much at stake- Yeah ... for it to be that simple and that plain. Well, what did you think of the writing? There's something about Liv Leellen's writing that is... can, in [01:05:00] any circumstance, whether it's three 20-something girls just ch- chittering with each other, that can still, on occasion, make you feel really icky, and that's- Yeah
that's a gift. The
Ryan: writing drew me into the story- Yeah ... in a way that, that wasn't true of some of the other stories in this collection. I, I, I- Yeah, that's fair ... read this thing from, from cover to cover. I didn't look up. I didn't, I didn't get distracted. I was riveted. I was taken into the story, and I think that the writing is a good part of that.
Jess: I think it reads a little bit like someone's googling what college is like now. And so some of... Which I understand. She's not in college. She's an adult woman with a... I- with a real job. And so when, like, one of the first lines is like- ... "I'm listening to my lo-fi chill beats," it does read a little bit like-
Damien: That's a legit playlist.
I think I've actually asked for lo-fi chill beats, usually when we're walking the dog
Jess: at home alone. And are... Oh, that's crazy. Are you currently in [01:06:00] college? How old are you? Are you 21 years old, or are you a
Ryan: 40-something? These college kids are, are searching up playlists that we don't know about.
Jess: Yes.
That's- 21 and a
Ryan: half ...
Jess: that's kind of it. There's a few things in there where it's just, like, it took me out of it a little bit in that, like- Some of the things were l- like, you don't get a flyer to go to a party. You, you don't Google lo-fi chill beats. And so
Ryan: two of the- So I'll, I'll push back a little bit on the flyer thing 'cause there were flyers for parties all the time at my college.
All the time. That was how you knew about stuff. He went to caveman U. It was great.
Damien: He went to ye
Ryan: olde school of stuff. So, but again, but again, this was, this was 20-plus years ago. Right. And, and so maybe that's also Llewellyn's experience of college-
Jess: Yeah ... 20-plus years ago. And, and I think that's not unreasonable except it's written as though it's current day.
Damien: Sure. Sure.
Jess: You know, they're, they're Google Maps-ing things. They're... If we can't find it online, it doesn't exist. But [01:07:00] then
Damien: als- Well, I mean, there's gotta... You know that you, when you're finding, like, the cool underground parties, that there probably are parties that are passed around by flyer, and so it makes it extra exclusive, like...
Jess: Sure. But I just, I got the vibe of this that it was like if I was writing about my college experience and trying to make it seem as though it was a contemporary college experience.
Damien: Okay.
Jess: Yeah.
Ryan: All right. Out of 10 jack-o'-lanterns, this is in a Halloween anthology, how Halloween-y is this story?
Jess: Um... Ugh. I'm gonna say,
Ryan: five sh- Five jack-o'-lanterns?
Jess: No, five sh- Five
Ryan: shots of fireball?
Jess: Five shots of fireball. Five glasses of white wine. No, five solo cups of white wine. Because, like, it takes place on Halloween. It's a Halloween- Yeah ... party. They reference a few- Mm ... Halloween costumes. Yeah. Aiden and Hayden, whoever the friends [01:08:00] are, like, they have a costume But I, I- I'm with you,
Ryan: Jess.
I had five. I had five too- Yeah, I think the- ... for the same reasons.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: I think this story could have gone a lot more Halloweeny, even if it was like Beryl was wearing a costume that was mentioned twice, you know? Right. Like, going to a Halloween party and- Or some
Ryan: of the weird rooms had a, had a Halloween decoration
Jess: or two.
Right. Like, I think- Yeah ... the first one had, had some paper or Halloween decorations or something. But it just... It didn't read as Halloweeny as I wanted in my Halloween anthology. Five solo cups of white wine.
Damien: Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll join the party and say five. I was, I was torn between four and five for all the reasons that you said.
I- if there were any more costumes, costumes weren't optional, and Beryl was just a bummer who showed up.
Jess: Costumes mandatory, man.
Damien: It was Halloween. Costumes mandatory. Yeah, exactly. So- Correct. Correct. I feel the same, I feel the same about this. Um, and with the exception of y- who, who could have very possibly been Death, Death anthropomorphized [01:09:00] with weird skeleton growth- Skeleton onesie
yeah, that there wasn't, there weren't too many references to anything Halloweeny. Uh, so I'll come in at, I'll come in at five as well. All right. Well, here's a question we haven't asked
Jess: in a while. Is this the first time we've ever agreed on anything in the world in 20 years of this podcast?
Damien: I think
Jess: it
Damien: was the Catalan bell- No
one where we all said, like, the same number of bells.
Jess: Medium, this is five bells.
Damien: We, we haven't, we haven't had the chance to ask this in a while, but was this scary? I, I, and I've overused this word, so I might as well use it again, I was unnerved by this story, but I wasn't scared. Yeah. I was a little creeped out.
I found it- I w- I found it dreadful.
Jess: Yeah, there's a little dread as she's, like, creeping from room to room and, like-
Damien: Yeah ...
Jess: the hallway suddenly starts going up. Those were good bits, but I couldn't quite tell, like, if we were leading to anything good, right? Yeah. Like, [01:10:00] each room didn't necessarily get scarier.
Damien: Right. It di- and then as the story ends, how's the story end? She's just screaming, and I actually think that the st- the scream took me out of it and made the whole thing just an emotional catharsis or something. Yeah, I think
Jess: she should've just been- Mm ... quietly sitting in her window seat. Right.
Damien: Right.
Jess: Frozen like her quad. They also call it the square and not a quad, which to me is- It should be a
Ryan: quad. You're right. It's gotta be the quad. All right, well, we've come to the end- I haven't been to this- ... of the questions ...
Jess: this, this school. Maybe it's a square.
Ryan: That I have for, for this story, but this is our Halloween special, so I do have a Halloween-themed question for you guys.
Yay. So it's a two-parter. Oh. What's one Halloween trope or trend that you wish would just go away, and what's one Halloween trope or trend that you wish would take off more?
Jess: Okay, one I wish would go away, I do not understand the, the yard [01:11:00] inflatables that are just, like-
Ryan: Yes, I know.
Jess: Like, some of them are, like, a skeleton or whatever, and that's fun.
But some of them are just a SpongeBob, or some- Right ... of them are just a cactus. I need a little more theming in my yard inflatables, and I also know that the technology to make yard inflatables must be, like, the only thing that's currently affordable in America because everyone has yard inflatables.
Everyone has them. And it's-
Ryan: I was just gonna say, I wish yard inflatables would go away,
Jess: period. Yeah, I w- I, like, I've got a toddler. You guys are such Scrooges. I imagine that he's gonna like them as we walk around. He l- we've got neighbors who've got some ghosts hanging from trees. He loves the ghosts from trees.
But, like, I don't, I don't need a Patrick the Star from SpongeBob just in someone's yard. That's not Halloween. That's just a cartoon guy. I- The thing I want more of is- [01:12:00] Okay, this one's gets complicated and we have to, again, yell about capitalism, is I want TV series to be one episodes at a time, and I want them to air-
you know, like, weekly, and I want there to be more Halloween episodes of things.
Damien: So like a, so like a Simpsons- I was wondering where the Halloween connection was ... yeah, so like a Simpsons Halloween-
Jess: Yes, I
Damien: want more of those And
Jess: a
Damien: tree house.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: Did you guys ever watch Community, which was the best show?
Damien: No.
No, but it's- Oh my God ... it's in the to watch once I can dedicate myself to nine seasons- Yes ... of a new sitcom or whatever.
Jess: They just had, like, good Halloween episodes. Like, I just, I wanna sit down and watch a good Halloween episode. All right. That's
Ryan: fair. More Halloween episodes.
Jess: Yeah.
Damien: Yeah. I can't
Jess: say I blame you.
And again, this is capitalism's problem, not mine.
Damien: Well, well Ryan, you already said that you want inflatables to go by the wayside, so what's your- No, but I have a- ... thing that you need to take off?
Ryan: No, I have a... I, I also had that, but I had a different one. The other thing- Oh, okay ... I want to go by the wayside is kids trick-or-treating with, like, garbage cans or any other overly large [01:13:00] receptacle for candy.
In the neighborhood where we trick-or-treat, there are literally kids that come through with trash cans to collect the candy because they collect that much. Mm. That's absurd.
Jess: That's crazy.
Ryan: That could go away. The thing I want to happen more- That's entrepreneurialism. That's capitalism.
Jess: That's capitalism.
Ryan: The thing... That's late-stage capitalism, even. The thing I wish would, would erupt into more popularity is people showing, I mean, with or without sound, I don't care, but people showing Halloween or scary movies, like, on their lawn on a, on a pop-up screen- Yeah ... for trick-or-treating. I think that's fun. Oh, that's fun.
I, I would- I actually,
Damien: in
Ryan: my- I
Damien: wish we had more of that ... in my last neighborhood, we had a person who set up a full, like, movie theater and would show like- Right ... cool campy stuff like Ernest Scared Stupid and-
Ryan: Yeah, it doesn't- Yeah ... it, and to me- Beetlejuice ... it doesn't even have to have the, have the audio track plugged in, right?
Like- Yeah ... if you're show- if you're showing Dracula, it doesn't matter. You know what's going on.
Jess: That's funner.
Damien: That is a good one. Um-
Jess: I got a big side of my house. I could make that happen.
Damien: I think the, the thing that I wish would go by the wayside [01:14:00] are just any sort of, like, full head masks. I think they've kinda run their course.
Oh, okay. Um, if you get the ones that are, like, you know, rubber and hyper-realistic and hyper-gross, like, no one's gonna buy them anymore. Where you're just, like, breathing in
them.
They're so gross. Yeah. And you imagine wearing them, and it smells like you're on the inside of a tire, and it smells- Yeah, we can't do
Ryan: that in Florida.
Damien: No. Yeah. You'll die. And you have no peripheral vision. Yeah. And people are just insane and so easily distracted that it's, it's nothing but a death trap. You're walking around in a death trap. So I think, I think that full head masks, like, just need to go. Something that my current neighborhood does that I love, and I wish that this would build some camaraderie and make more of the event than just walking around door to door with candy, is that they do a jack-o'-lantern carving block party.
That's cute. Yeah. So everyone brings their own pumpkin, and you carve it, and you just have a good excuse to hang out with your neighbors and do something fun that literally anyone can do or not do. It doesn't matter. And so I think that that's, that's pretty cool. I, I do want to remove... Another thing that I wanna remove, though, aside from full head mask and, and thinking of pumpkins.
We [01:15:00] went and bought pumpkins from a local farm, and it cost $180. Oh my
Jess: God. We went to the pumpkin patch- For pumpkins ... and didn't buy any pumpkins.
Damien: For pumpkins. I spent all my money on a pumpkin beer. It is a trash squash. It is a trash squash. We all know it, and we still spent money out the wazoo, and if you go and buy, like, a mixed bag of decent candy, it's, like, 35 bucks.
Halloween has just gotten too expensive. Capitalism. Capitalism. So that needs to go. But first- Glad we're all on the same page ... full face masks and more neighborhood, uh, pumpkin carving.
Ryan: You heard it
Damien: here first, folks.
Jess: Shin digs.
Ryan: All right. Finally, that's gonna take us to our whiskey rating. That's how we rate our stories here on Whiskey and the Weird, from the empty glass to the coveted full fist of whiskey.
Jessica, what are you giving The Levels by Lilivia Llewellyn?
Jess: I went with a two and a half. It was a fine story That I think I kept making better in my head when I was just like, "Well, maybe it's this. Maybe this means this." [01:16:00] And I don't think that all of those ideas were supported by what was actually written.
I didn't hate reading it, but I did want it to be more Halloweeny, which I was gonna say, like- ... shouldn't be docked for this- You said weenie ... for this, this episode, but it should be docked 'cause it's in a Halloween edition of a book. And I wanted it to be, like, I don't even need firmer answers, just, like- ... I need it to be something.
Damien: Hmm. So are you asking to what extent-
Jess: No ...
Damien: an author owes- ... his reader an answer?
Jess: No. But it's just like, if you don't, if you don't give me-
Damien: Inside joke. Inside joke.
Jess: If you don't write it in a way that I feel like my fun ideas are supported by what you've written Then I think my fun ideas are better, and so I'm gonna dock the story a little.
Ryan: I respect your response, but I am a little surprised.
Damien: Yeah, I'm a little shocked too.
Jess: Mm.
Damien: Damien? [01:17:00] Uh, I committed a three and a half, and it was... I, I have to be honest, it's largely driven by just, again, that creepy, icky feeling that I get from reading Livy Llewellyn stuff. Not to say that I haven't read stinkers that she's written, because I do remember a few in Furnace that I was just like, "Uh- Eh
I do not like this story whatsoever." But this one was a simple enough premise. It was fun. It was appropriately, like, um, skin crawling, but not to the point where it scared me. It wasn't very Halloweeny, but I didn't factor that in for this particular thing because, um, I was just doing the story alone. And-
Jess: Because you hate Halloween?
Damien: Because I hate capitalism. Yeah. Yeah. Get him. And also, I had fun, like, getting inundated- ... and overwhelmed by the symbolism in the story and just trying to, you know, choose- Yeah ... my own adventure with regards to what it meant and how it went there. It, it was real easy to read a couple times. And- Agreed ... I think that, I think that there is a [01:18:00] magnetism to Livy Llewellyn's...
I mean, just with Ryan reading the passage that he read, it was like describing such a whatever, but it, the way that the words wove together- Yeah ... was really strong. Yeah. So I probably... It's probably higher than I would rate a similar story told by an average storyteller, so she got a little bump for that, so three and a half.
What about you, Ryan?
Ryan: You know, I, I orig- I read the story twice. I read it maybe a month ago, and then I read it just yesterday, and it, it, it gained a half a point for me. So I rated it- Ooh ... three and a half originally, and I bumped it up to a four for today because- Oh, good for you ... I, I really enjoyed this story.
I found the multiple possibilities of what it could mean or what it could symbolize to be tantalizingly fun, as Damien did.
Jess: Tantalizing.
Ryan: Um, I, I, I, I found that... I mean, the stuff that Jessica- Tantalizing ... seemingly both liked and was frustrated by, I also enjoyed, you know, Beryl as a character, her mopiness.
I re- I remember feeling the angst of like- That's true ... gosh, what if I don't get invited to this party? [01:19:00] I remember what that was like. So yeah, I r- I really enjoyed this, this story. I- Do you
Damien: think that empathy you had towards Beryl contributed to
Ryan: you- That may have, that may have influenced me, yeah. Yeah.
May have influenced me. Mm.
Jess: Do you think it's because Jessica has no empathy towards Beryl?
Ryan: Because
Damien: her- I mean, that's, that's a question for Jessica Jessica has nothing but, like, hostility towards Beryl. Beryl. Even when I say Beryl, she's, like, sneering. She's like, "Beryl,
Jess: you son of a bitch." I think it's mostly because she didn't put a- a costume on.
Just put a costume on, man. All right. Get in the party. I don't know.
Damien: I- It's
Ryan: Ryan's time ... and I
Damien: know,
Ryan: I know both of you guys said like it wasn't super Halloween-y, and I know I even said 5 out of 10 jack-o'-lanterns, but even, like while reading it, I feel like I have to say I, I felt like this was a Halloween story.
I definitely did.
Damien: Sure.
Ryan: Uh, I, I don't know that I'm gonna go back and give it another jack-o'-lantern for all the reasons that we've already discussed, but yeah, I, I thought it belonged in the volume. I thought it was a, a fair addition.
Damien: Oh, I gotta point out, mine weren't jack-o'-lanterns. Mine were five ladles of old punch by a crone.
Ryan: Crone punch.
Damien: Crone punch. [01:20:00]
Ryan: Which is different than punching the crone.
Damien: Totally different. Don't get mistaken- Yeah ... you'll spend the night in jail.
Ryan: You will. You will. Yeah. If you enjoyed The Levels, Damien has a suggestion for you.
Damien: Um- So the very first thing I thought of when I read this story was, uh, se- The very first
Ryan: thing we all thought of.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah, it's, it was consensus. Yeah. We, we discussed this and I was ... And it was, it was, it was true. But it was, uh, season two of Channel Zero, which was The No-End House. Uh, based on the creepypasta but then went in a vastly different and unique direction, I think, after the first episode or two. Uh, and the basic setup is that a house pops up out of nowhere in the middle of a neighborhood.
Everyone wants to go to it. People line up to go through. They go through a series. People who walk in- Like a, it's like being billed as a haunted
Ryan: house e-
Damien: excursion.
Jess: Like a
Damien: pop-up
Jess: experience
Damien: but- Exactly Yeah. Oh. The whole thing you have to do is you have to make it to the end, and you have to go through five rooms, I think, of increasing, like- Ugh
terror-ness. Yeah. Yeah. And if you do, whatever. If you don't, nobody knows because then it just goes off [01:21:00] on an absolutely bat-crazy, um- ... different like side story and narrative. But anyone who's familiar with the series, it was excellent. It probably had too short of a run. It is a little bit of an underground cult favorite.
Uh, the Channel Zero series I think had four seasons, and The No-End House was the second. It jumped out to all of us when we read this story. Is it on any streaming services
Ryan: now?
Jess: We instantly thought of it and- I think it's currently on Shutter.
Ryan: On Shutter, okay. If...
Damien: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. 'Cause it was a, wasn't it a Syfy original?
It was a Syfy. Like the Syfy Channel? Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: That's right. That's right. Yeah. Okay. All right, so Channel Zero: No-End House, if you liked The Levels. Uh, I would also say if you liked The Levels, I mean, just go ahead and pick up this, this whole anthology. I mean, if you read The Levels, you already did, but read the rest of the book.
There's some good stories in there too.
Damien: Gotcha. Sucker.
Jess: Yeah. Get 'em.
Damien: That's gonna do it for
Ryan: us
Damien: here- I will say- Yep ... I will say this actually before we wrap up, 'cause we're going super long- No ... anyway, so why not? I will say that this was also, I think, one of probably three or four stories that stood out for this collection.
Mm. Mm-hmm. I [01:22:00] wasn't as crazy about this collection as I am about a lot of Ellen Datlow's... I, I think she's got a great eye for these stories, but I feel like this was a little bit of a hat tip towards contemporary horror authors and just saying, "Give me whatever you want and I'm gonna put it in this pack."
And I think that Olivia Llewellyn's story stood out, um, as one of the better ones in this anthology. I will agree with that,
Ryan: and I'll even go one step further, Damien, and say I think this was Ellen Datlow sending a email to all of her favorite writers and saying, "Give me a Halloween story and- Yeah ... no matter what you send me, I'm putting it in."
Damien: Right. I
Ryan: don't think you would have included
Damien: that- Oh, for sure. Yeah ... 'cause that's exactly what I said.
Ryan: Fair enough, then I equaled you. Yeah. There, there's some, there's some in the collection that are like, eh. But there's some- Yeah Or, or- There's some that I, that I really liked. Yeah. There's some that are like- I really, I mean, the Stephen Graham Jones story, we've all talked, we've talked about b- uh, before that we started recording.
Yeah, that was solid. We enjoyed that. The Brian Evenson story is particularly interesting. The Lee Murray story is one that I'll remember for a while, and it's not particularly Halloween-y, but it's... I mean, Lee Murray's a great writer, and it's a story that I'll recall.
Jess: The, The Hungry Grass one, [01:23:00] I, I did really like that one.
I just- Yeah ... didn't know that we had enough fortitude to talk about it in a- ... in a way that would be entertaining. Maybe
Damien: in a future Halloween. But there is a future Halloween.
Ryan: Was that the- Maybe ... that was the Siobhan Carroll story- There's only this Halloween ... wasn't it?
Damien: Yeah,
Ryan: Siobhan. Yeah. Yeah. I really liked that story.
That was a vampire story without ever using the word vampire.
Jess: Yep.
Ryan: It was great. All right. Well, that really is gonna do it for us- I guess ... here on this Halloween special edition of Whiskey and the Weird. Thank you so much for joining us this year. We hope that you enjoyed it, and if you did, tell your friends.
Uh, tell your friends in a public manner if you'd like. Uh, you could drop us a rating or review wherever you catch your podcasts. We'd be grateful. We always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music for Whiskey and the Weird. And Damien, if they'd like to tell us about which Halloween trends or tropes they'd like to see stay or go, where can they do that?
Damien: Hit us up on them socials, y'all, @whiskeyandtheweird, @whiskeyandtheweird on all the meta properties. We spell our whiskeys with an E, and we hope you [01:24:00] do, too. If not, may ye find your way through a house of
Ryan: odd repute with no tokens in sight. No tokens in sight at all. And Jess, this is very likely going to release before we release the first- Yeah
episode of season 10, so do you wanna tease for our friends what season 10 is about?
Jess: Is it teasing if I just say that we're gonna do Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird?
Ryan: We're getting mythological- Mythological weird,
Jess: yes ... It's about dang time. Edited by Peter Shore.
Ryan: We are, we are well into production of season 10, and we're excited for it, and we're excited to get it into your ears.
So that's coming soon. In the meantime, I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I am Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together- We are Whiskey and the Weird. Somebody send us home.
Jess: Hey, as always, keep your friends to the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Ryan: Bye-bye. [01:25:00]