The Way We Haunt Now
- Episode Six – The Rules
- Music:
- You Haint Seen Nothin’ Yet theme by Courtney Floyd
- Link to PDF transcript
- For more information: www.hauntnowpod.com
- Twitter: @HauntNowPod
- Instagram: @HauntNowPod
Episode Six – The Rules
SCENE 33
SFX: Sounds of Frankie panicking (phonograph crackling, dishes breaking, apartment rattling, pipes groaning, faucets turning on and off etc.) along with the sound of hospital monitors beeping as scene progresses…
MARY: Why don’t you tell us what you’ve managed to piece together and we’ll start there?
FRANKIE: Of course. My name is Frances Matilda Summerson. I’ve been dead for…what year is it?
LOTA: 2019
FRANKIE: (mutters under breath, counting) 120 years, then. My spirit was trapped or hibernating or something in a phonograph cylinder, and when this…when Eulalie…managed to fix the phonograph and play the cylinder she sort of woke me up.
MARY: (humming in approval) What happened then?
FRANKIE: I (PAUSE) I haunted her?
FRANKIE: Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? I haunted her, and she got hurt, and she’s in the hospital, and…
SFX: Hospital monitor and poltergeist sounds amp up, along with distorted heartbeat and Frankie hyperventilating.
JOSIE: Whoa, there. Take a breath. Or, remember what it felt like to take a breath. I’d really rather not be made into poltergeist hummus today.
LOTA: Or ever. Never would be good.
MARY: (clears throat) It’s okay, Frances.
FRANKIE: Frankie, please.
MARY: It’s okay, Frankie. We’re here to help.
FRANKIE: But I haunted her to death.
SFX: Hospital monitor and poltergeist sounds amp up again, along with distorted heartbeat and Frankie hyperventilating.
MARY: She’s dead?
FRANKIE: The doctors say she’s in a coma. So, she’s as good as dead. And it’s my fault. My fault. All my fault.
SFX: Hospital monitors poltergeist sounds amp super up, fade into theme music (simple guitar with spectral oohs and ohs and occasional cymbal crashes)
COURTNEY: (V.O.) This is The Way We Haunt Now, Episode Six: The Rules
MARY: Frankie, I’m going to need you to calm down. You’re in danger, and you’re putting us in danger, if you can’t stop.
FRANKIE: (breathing hard)
MARY: Like I said, my friends and I are here to help. You aren’t the first ghost to haunt harmfully, and you won’t be the last. If you’re as strong a person as I think you are, you can take some deep breaths and listen to us.
FRANKIE: (still breathing hard) You can help. How can you help?
JOSIE: We can help you make amends.
LOTA: We can help you find a purpose.
MARY: We can help you keep from binding to this house for the rest of your existence.
SFX: Poltergeist apartment rattling sounds continue then start to slowly calm down, just enough to be noticeable.
FRANKIE: Alright. I’m listening.
SCENE 34
SFX: A ghostly soundscape of crows cawing, cicadas and frogs singing, and an occasional thunderclap fades in...
NARRATOR: This is where I should tell you that it’s not your fault, that Eulalie’s going to be fine, that everything’s going to be puppy dogs and pancakes from now on. But listen, I don’t get paid enough for that shit. This is a platitude free zone. Not like that bullshit shiny happy people crap they’ve got going on “upstairs.” Downstairs too, for that matter.
Hmm. Look. From here on out, if you want to make something of your afterlife, you’re going to have to be honest with yourself. And anyone who claims to be your friend is going to do likewise. Do you understand me?
SFX: Pause. Then hospital monitor beeping fades in slowly with poltergeist sounds as ghostly ethereal soundscape fades out…
FRANKIE: Yes.
SCENE 35
SFX: Frankie’s poltergeist sounds continue (though somewhat more subdued) in the background throughout the scene…
MARY: You made a mistake. We all do, eventually. In fact, we made a mistake, too. We try to keep an eye out for these things.
LOTA: New manifestations, she means.
SFX: Poltergeist sounds intensify as Frankie’s distress grows.
MARY: Now, cut that out. It doesn’t do any good. Not for Eulalie and not for you.
SFX: Poltergeist sounds fade as Frankie slowly calms down.
MARY: As I was saying. We try to keep an eye out for these things, but you’re a special case. Your death wasn’t recent, so you weren’t on our radar, so to speak.
FRANKIE: Radar?
LOTA: It’s a way of tracking things, like ships, by sort of bouncing radio waves off of them.
FRANKIE: Ahh. I… I believe I remember reading about some sort of Italian experiment called radio. Does it have something to do with the telegraph?
LOTA: Maybe? It’s a way of sharing sounds.
FRANKIE: Oh, like my phonograph?
LOTA: Sort of, but it works across long distances.
JOSIE: I think we’re getting off track, here.
MARY: We didn’t notice you manifesting, because we weren’t looking. Which we would’ve, if your death had been recent.
FRANKIE: And if you had noticed, things would’ve gone differently?
MARY: Yes. We would’ve found you sooner.
JOSIE: We would’ve been able to tell you about the rules.
LOTA: But don’t worry, we’re going to do that now.
SFX: Frankie’s panic spikes at the mention of the rules
FRANKIE: (hesitant) The… the rules?
MARY: We don’t haunt the same way ghosts might’ve in your time, Frankie. At least, most of us don’t. We try our best to help each other, and to help the living beings we’re drawn to––when they need it. Ghosts might’ve done the same back in the 1800s. I don’t know. But we certainly don’t follow the rules you’ve read about in books and heard in stories.
LOTA: I rescue the specters of animals when I’m not helping Mary keep tabs on local manifestations.
JOSIE: And I make new garments for haints who died wearing things they’d rather not wear forever. Especially folks who never got to really express themselves through their clothing during life.
FRANKIE: You don’t have to…punish people?
MARY: Not often. Sometimes… Sometimes it’s our responsibility to step in. And I don’t just mean for people. For other ghosts, too. But only after we’ve taken counsel and come to a collective decision.
FRANKIE: The three of you?
MARY: Us. And others.
JOSIE: Mostly, we mind our own business. Take care of our own.
FRANKIE: If you don’t have to haunt like I did, then what are the rules? Why am I in danger? Why is it so important for me to stay calm?
MARY: There are many different kinds of ghosts. Well, that’s not true. There’s pretty much only the one kind, but we have different purposes. Different jobs, as it were. There are road ghosts and hearth ghosts, omen ghosts and vengeance ghosts. Ghosts who made a deal to stick around and ghosts who just happened to be stuck.
LOTA: And so, so many more.
MARY: Each comes with its own powers, its own limitations. Poltergeists are… Something of a special case. Any of us can become a poltergeist, given the right circumstances. From what we know, those circumstances usually involve trauma. Panic. Pain. Despair. When these things overwhelm us, it’s easy to get lost in them. To burrow so deep into ourselves that we can’t come back out again. Sometimes, in the process of that happening, a ghost binds with its habitation.
JOSIE: They become part of the place they’re in when it happens.
LOTA: (whispering) And they get stuck there. Forever.
SFX: Scary sound.
MARY: That’s not even the worst part. Ghosts have lead fulfilling existences as poltergeists. Usually because they were homebodies to begin with, but they have and they do. After a long process of therapy and self-reflection. The danger is that when you’re in the process of binding, you’re a sitting duck. You’re easier, in some ways, to destroy.
FRANKIE: Destroy? But I’m already dead. Surely…
JOSIE: These days, we have something called ghost hunters.
LOTA: Nasty people who track down ghosts and either capture them or exorcise them. Most of them don’t know how to do more than temporarily dissipate our energies. But some of them…
MARY: Some of them know how to truly destroy us. And the energy involved in the creation of a poltergeist is like a beacon, shining right at them. We don’t really know what happens when a poltergeist is…born. It might make you more vulnerable, or it might make you harder to destroy. But even if the binding shields you from the exorcism, their presence is a danger to the rest of us.
SCENE 36
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: Whoa, you guys, these poltergeist readings are off the charts.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: Ehhhhheeeeeeemmmmm.
SFX: phone vibrates repeatedly as incoming texts are received
DANNY AND NICK: And non-binary comrades.
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: Sorry Myrtle.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: Thank you for apologizing. So, the hunt’s still on?
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: On like Donkey Kong.
SFX: phone vibrates repeatedly as incoming texts are received
NICK AND DANNY AND MYRTLE: *GROAN*
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: If this keeps up, we’re in for the hunt of a lifetime.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
NICK: Like I said, I’ll bring the weaponry.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: Haven’t you ever stopped to think maybe these ghosts just need to be listened to and reasoned with? Maybe they just need a kind person to realize that they were..are…Idk…people, too?
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
NICK: Nah. Could be, but I’d rather not take the chance.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
DANNY: The poltergeist who took my granddad couldn’t be reasoned with.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: How do you know?
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
DANNY: I just…
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
I know, okay?
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: Okay, well that doesn’t mean none of them can be reasoned with.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
DANNY: Doesn’t mean they should be reasoned with, either.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
NICK: Anyway…You still on snack duty, Myrtle?
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: *sigh* Yes.
SCENE 37
FRANKIE: Are these… Ghost hunters…coming for me, then? Am I safe, here?
JOSIE: If they’ve noticed you, your sudden calmness will probably throw them off your scent.
FRANKIE: My…scent? (Sniffs, offended)
JOSIE: Figuratively speaking. They’ll be confused. They might decide not to investigate. If they’ve noticed you at all. Which they might not have.
MARY: Just to be safe, you should stay with us for the time being.
FRANKIE: I couldn’t impose.
MARY: You can, and you will. Unless you’ll be rejecting our help?
SFX: Poltergeist sounds intensify.
FRANKIE: No. (panic pause) Please. I need your help.
LOTA: And you have it. Don’t mind Mary, she can be a bit imperious sometimes. (To Mary) You know it’s hard for someone this close to binding to leave the house.
MARY: You’re right. I’m sorry, Frankie. I do think it would be best if you stayed with us, but we will do all we can to help in either case.
FRANKIE: (deep meditative breaths) I… Accept…your…hospitality. (Groans or pants with effort).
SFX: Poltergeist sounds decrease as Frankie calms herself down.
FRANKIE: Now, please, tell me about the rules.
LOTA: (cheerfully) Of course! There are only three. The first is do no harm.
JOSIE: We stole that one from the medical profession. The second is leave no trace.
MARY: We stole that from campers. The third is if you smell rosemary, RUN.
SCENE 38
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: It’s gone quiet.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: What has?
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: The poltergeist. It’s crickets. Like it was never there at all.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
DANNY: Weird. What do we do?
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
NICK: I say we still go poke around.
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: We stock up on rosemary and keep monitoring. There are a few small cases for us to look into around here, and it would be a shame to drive all that way for nothing.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
NICK: Boo.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
MYRTLE: Fine. I have TV to catch up on this weekend, anyway.
SFX: phone vibrates as an incoming text is received
DANNY: Same. Let us know if things change, boss.
SFX: Typing and outgoing text message sound.
CAS: Will do. Believe me, I want to take down a poltergeist as much as the rest of you.
CREDITS
SFX: Theme music (simple guitar with spectral oohs and ohs and occasional cymbal crashes) fades in
COURTNEY: (V.O.) This episode of The Way We Haunt Now is written, directed, and produced by Courtney Floyd with voice acting (in order of appearance) by:
KIRA: Kira Apple as the Mary Bangs
ELEANOR: Eleanor Grey as Frankie
BECCA: Becca Marcus as Lota
GEORGIA: Georgia Mckenzie as Josie
KIRA: Kira Apple as the Narrator
BRAD: Brad Colbroock as Cas Bromley
TAL: Tal Minear as Myrtle
LINDSAY: Lindsay Zana as Danny
PAUL: Paul H. Rollins as Nick
COURTNEY: Whether you’re new to the spirit world or simply a ghost in need of some entertainment, you can visit www.hauntnowpod.com for more episodes as well as information about our cast and crew, content warnings, transcripts, and links to our social media.
SFX: Theme music fades out
COURTNEY: Remember to haunt responsibly!
RESOURCE: Oh, hey, remember that thing I said about sharing Death Positivity resources way back at the beginning of the season? I have a few of those to share!
First, since I’m posting this the day after Trans Day of Remembrance in 2020, let me share this article on Trans Death Rights. TL;DR – “A lot of people say “We’re all equal in death” but the fact is, the disparities we experience in life often follow us into death … Just as trans rights are human rights, so must our rights in death extend to us all.“
And here’s a great article on diversity and ghosts titled “Why Are Ghosts So White?”