The Last Broadcast from Blackwood Forest (Ep. 75)

Some recordings become frightening only after you know how they end.

Elliot Mercer is spending a stormy night alone at Blackwood Forest Station, covering an overnight shift after another worker calls in sick. 

The Last Broadcast from Blackwood Forest is an original supernatural mystery from The Storytelling Podcast, exploring memory, identity, mysterious recordings and the unsettling possibility that some warnings are actually invitations.

Listen carefully.

Because by the end of the recording, the story may no longer be speaking only to Elliot.

It may be speaking to you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There are some recordings that become frightening only after you know what happened to the person who made them. A birthday recording, for example, can sound completely ordinary until you learn that the person laughing in the background died a few days later, and suddenly every little detail in their voice seems important. The same thing can happen with all radio programs, family tapes, answering machine messages, and even recordings made from completely practical reasons, because once we know the ending, we begin listening differently. We notice pauses that probably meant nothing at the time, sounds that might have been ignored, and words that seemed ordinary when they were spoken, but become deeply unsettling when we hear them with the benefit of hindsight. The recording of tonight's story was supposedly made for one of the most boring reasons imaginable. A man working alone at a remote forestry station decided to record a problem with the station's radio equipment because he expected a technician to investigate it later. He was not making a documentary, he was not trying to communicate with anyone, and he had certainly no idea that the tape would eventually become the only record of what happened to him during one particular night in November. What makes this recording disturbing is that at first there is almost nothing unusual about it. The man talks about the weather, complains, and describes a few problems with the radio, and occasionally makes jokes about how miserable the night is going to be. If you listen for the first 20 minutes without knowing anything else, you would probably assume that the tape was simply the private recording of someone who was bored and looking for something to occupy himself. This is an original story from me, your host Alejandra, to the storytelling podcast. So imagine that you are sitting somewhere quiet with an old cassette player in front of you while rain is falling against the windows outside. And imagine that you just found a tape with almost nothing written on it, except a surname and the words night shift. The story begins when the tape begins to play. The recording opened with the sound of rain, and according to the description that came with the tape, when it was supposedly discovered, the first few seconds were so badly damaged that it was difficult to tell whether the recording had started normally or it was part of something that it was already lost. What could be heard clearly was the steady roar of water striking the roof of a building, with the occasional heavier gust of wind caused by something loose outside to rattle against the wall. Beneath all of it there was a low electrical hum, the sort of sound produced by old fluorescent lights or a generator working somewhere nearby. And after only nearly a minute of nothing but weather and machinery, a chair scraped across the wooden floor, followed by the sound of someone sitting down. And the man who spoke next introduced himself as Elliot Mercer. He explained that he was working the overnight shift at the Blackwood Forest Station, because the man who had originally been scheduled to work had called in sick that afternoon. Elliot had apparently been asked whether he could cover the shift, and although he had exitated because of the weather, he had eventually agreed. He sounded tired but relaxed, and there was something almost reassuring about his voice because he spoke in the way people often do when they are alone, and nobody's listening to them, allowing himself to complain about the cold coffee, the uncomfortable chair, and the fact that the weather forecast had been completely wrong. He explained that the storm had arrived earlier than expected and that the road leading to the station has already becoming difficult to see through the rain. The building itself was old but solid, and he had no reason to believe that there was an immediate danger, particularly because the generator was functioning normally and there was enough fuel to keep the heating and the lights working through the night. The only thing that concerned him was the radio. According to Elliot, the station's radio has been producing interference since shortly after he arrived. Every so often a burst of static would appear on one of the emergency frequencies, sometimes following for what sounded like a distant voice, although he could never understand what was saying. He had already checked the cables and restarted equipment several times, but the problem continued, so he decided to leave the recorder running for a while in case the technical department needed to hear the interference themselves. For the next several minutes, nothing happened. Elliot talked about the storm, about the station, about the forest surrounding it, and at one point he mentioned that the area was normally full of wildlife at night. He said that deer sometimes came close to the building and that foxes were common enough that the workers had learned not to leave food outside. Even during bad weather, he said the forest usually sounded alive. That night it did not. He mentioned this almost casually at first, saying that the silence between the gusts of wind seemed strange. And then he laughed and suggested that perhaps every animal in the forest had much more common sense than he did and had found somewhere dry to hide. And a few moments later, something struck the outside wall. And Elliot stopped speaking. The sound was dull and heavy, enough to suggest that a branch had fallen against the building. And he initially treated it exactly as that. He waited for the wind to move it again, but when the sound came for a second time, it seemed different. And instead of scraping along the wall, it sounded like something had stuck the wood from the other side. Elliot stood up and walked towards the nearest window. He explained that he could see almost nothing because of the rain, but he turned on his torch anyway and moved towards the front entrance. When he opened the door, the storm became much louder on the recording, and for several seconds his voice disappeared beneath the wind. Eventually he called out, asking whether somebody was outside, and nobody answered. He shone the torch towards the trees and called again, this time telling whoever might be there that they should come inside if they needed help. Still nothing. Elliot closed the door, locked it, and walked back towards his desk. That was when the first voice appeared. It was very quiet, almost completely buried beneath the rain, and Elliot did not seem to notice it when he was making the recording. The voice said his name. It said Elliot. When the recording was later listened carefully, the voice could be heard clearly enough to establish that it did not belong to Elliot, and it did not sound like someone speaking through the radio. It seemed to be coming from somewhere inside the room. Elliot continued walking towards the desk for several seconds before suddenly stopping. He said that he thought he had heard someone. Then he asked whether anybody was there, and there was no answer. He stood quietly for a while before laughing and saying that he was probably imagining things because he has been sitting alone in that station for too long. He returned to the desk, and the recording continued. Around half an hour later, Elliot began talking about the radio again. He said that the interference had become worse and that the equipment was now producing a low hiss, even when it was switched off. He was clearly becoming irritated by it, but there was still nothing in his voice that suggested genuine fear. While he was explaining how old the equipment was, a faint tapping could be heard somewhere behind him. Elliot stopped speaking and listened. The tapping continued for several seconds and then disappeared. He suggested that it was probably one of the pipes in the wall, although he admitted that the sound was unusual, because it seemed to have a rhythm. Three taps, then a pause, then three more. He stood up and walked towards the back room, apparently intending to check whether there was a loose pipe or a piece of equipment making the noise. The door opened, and Elliot described what he could see inside, mentioning several shelves filled with old boxes, spare electrical parts, and equipment that had not been used in years. He said that there was nothing there he could explain the sound. And then the tapping began again. This time it came from behind him. Elliot turned around so quickly that the microphone knocked against something, producing a loud burst of static. He said that the sound had moved. He walked back into the main room and closed the door. The tapping continued from the other side. He stood listening for several seconds before saying that it sounded as though someone was knocking from inside the wall. He placed the microphone against the wood, and for a moment there was only the sound of rain. Then something tapped again on the other side. Elliot pulled the microphone away, and he did not speak for a while. And when he finally did, he said that he was going to leave it alone. And the radio came back to life almost immediately, and the sudden burst of static was loud enough to make him swear, and he moved towards the equipment while asking who was transmitting. And a voice came through. It was distorted, but it was definitely a man's voice. The man repeated four numbers slowly enough that Elliot could understand them.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Seven, four, one, nine.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Elliot repeated the numbers aloud and asked whether this was another forestry station, and the voice disappeared. He tried again, and nothing. Then the radio produced another burst of static, and the same voice said that Elliot should not open the front door. Elliot looked towards the door and he asked why, and the transmission ended. For several seconds there was only rain, and then somebody knocked. The sound was unmistakably coming from the front entrance. Elliot remained at his desk and asked who was outside. There was no response. He asked again, this time louder, and a man's voice answered. The voice sounded calm, almost amused, and it told Elliot that there had been an accident in the forest and that he needed to open the door. Elliot asked the person to identify himself, and the answer came immediately. Elliot. There was something about the way the voice said his name that made him stop. He asked again who was outside, and the voice replied that it was him. Elliot laughed nervously and said that this is not funny. And the person outside laughed too. It was exactly the same laugh. Elliot's laugh. He moved away from the door. And the radio suddenly cracked, and the other voice told him not to listen to the person outside. Elliot asked who was speaking. The voice said that it was trying to help him. Then it said something that Elliot did not understand. It told him that the person outside had been waiting for him to come back. And Elliot asked what it meant by come back. And the radio went silent. For the next 2 minutes, Elliot stayed away from the door. He kept the recorder running while he checked his mobile phone, although there was no signal inside the station. He walked from one side of the room to the other, holding the phone above his head and occasionally checking the windows, but every attempt to contact the outside world failed. Eventually he admitted that he was frightened. It was the first time in the recording that he said the word. He explained that the reason was not the storm, because storms were part of the job, and it was not even the possibility that somebody might be outside because people got lost in forests and sometimes needed help. What frightened him was the voice. He said that he knew the voice outside, and it was his own. He could hear the exact rhythm of his speech, the slight hesitation he had when he was nervous, even the way he pronounced enter words. And then the person outside began talking again. This time it mentioned his father. Elliot immediately stopped moving. The voice asked whether he remembered Thomas. Thomas Mercer had been Elliot's father. He had dined fourteen years earlier. Elliot said that nobody at the station should know his father's name because he had never mentioned him to anyone there. The voice outside told him that Thomas has been in the forest. Elliot asked whether he was claiming to be his father, and the voice answered that it was not claiming anything. It simply told Elliot that his father was still waiting. And then the radio came live. A recording began playing through the speaker. It was a man's voice, older and slightly distorted by the poor quality of the tape, but Elliot recognized it immediately. It was Thomas. His father was speaking. Elliot did not say anything for several seconds. Then he whispered that he had not heard that voice in fourteen years. The recording continued. Thomas explained that he was working at the same station and that something strange has been happening during storms. He said that several workers had reported hearing voices outside the building and that some had claimed to see people they knew standing among the trees. He said that he had initially believed the stories were caused by exhaustion, but the recordings had convinced him otherwise. He said that the voices sometimes appear on tapes before the people they belonged to had spoken the words. Elliot stopped the recording. He said that this was impossible. And then he restarted it again. His father's voice continued. Thomas said that he had found several older recordings in the station, and that some of them containing conversations that had not yet happened. That he said that one recording contained Elliot's voice. But Elliot was three years old when Thomas disappeared. Elliot sat down. He explained that he remembered very little about his father's final year, but he remembered the night his family was told that Thomas had died. He remembered his mother crying, the police coming to the house, and his father's coat hanging behind the front door for weeks afterwards because nobody could bring themselves to move it. What he did not remember was ever visiting Blackwood Forest with his father. Yet as he listened to the recording, a memory began to return. He remembered being very young and standing beside a stream. He remembered rain, he remembered a large tree, and he remember his father telling him not to go near it. Elliot said that he was always assumed the memory was from somewhere else. Now he was not so sure. He went into the backroom and began searching through the old cabinets. The microphone recorded the sound of drawers being opened and papers being moved aside. Eventually Elliot found a metal filing cabinet containing dozens of cassette tapes. Some were labeled with dates, some had names. Several had only the words night shift. He picked one and examined the handwriting. He said that it was his father's. He put the tape into the older recorder, and Thomas' voice appeared again. But this time he sounded frightened. He said that he had found something behind the storage wall. He described a narrow corridor that did not appear on any building plan. He said that the corridor was filled with photographs, and the photographs show people who had worked at the station other several decades ago. Thomas said that some of the people in the photographs had disappeared and he had checked the records. And their names were not listed as missing. They had simply stopped appearing in the Forestry Service records, and if they had left without telling anyone. Thomas said that he believed that the photographs were connected to the recordings. Then he said he had found a photograph of himself. The photograph had taken inside the hidden corridor. The problem was that the photograph was dated two weeks before he discovered the corridor. Thomas said that he could not explain how somebody had photographed him in a place he had not yet entered. And then his voice became quieter. He said that there was another person in the photograph. And it was Elliot. Elliot stopped the tape. He sat quietly for a while, and then he said that he remembered the photograph. He remembered seeing it when he was a child. And he remembered his father standing beside him. He also remembered the rain outside. But he had always believed that the photograph had been taken somewhere else. He could not remember the corridor. He could not remember the station or the night. Elliot walked back towards the storage wall. He said that there was something different about the wood behind the cabinet. He moved the cabinet away from the wall and a narrow Door appeared. He stared at it for several seconds before saying that he had never seen it before. The door had no ordinary handle. There was this small metal plate, and Elliot touched it, and the door opened. The sound of the hinges was long and heavy, and for the first time since the beginning of the recording, the rain outside seemed strangely distant. Elliot stepped inside. The corridor beyond the door was much longer than the station could possibly contain. He described photographs covering both walls, hundreds of them, perhaps more, arranged without any obvious order. Some were old and faded. Others looked almost new. They all showed the station, and some showed people standing outside, others working on sitting at the desk, and others showed the forest during storms. Elliot began reading names from the photographs, and several of them matched the names written in the cassette tapes he had found. Then he saw Thomas. His father was standing in the corridor, and the photograph had been taken from behind him. Elliot moved closer. There was a child standing beside Thomas. Elliot said that the child was him. He looked at the date. It was fourteen years earlier. He said that he was three years old, and then he noticed the figure standing beside him. The face was impossible to see. The person appeared to be wearing Elliot's clothes, and he backed away from the photograph. The floor creaked somewhere behind him. Elliot turned. Nobody was there. He started walking back towards the door. As he moved, he became aware of another set of footsteps following him. At first he thought that they were simply his own footsteps echoing through the corridor, but the timing was wrong. His own footsteps stopped whenever he stopped, while the other footsteps continued for another second or two before stopping as well. Elliot walked faster. The footsteps followed. He said that he was not going to turn around, and then his father's voice spoke behind him. Thomas told him that he should not leave the corridor. Elliot asked why. And Thomas said that the thing outside had already learned his voice. Elliot asked whether he was really his father, and there was a long pause. Then Thomas said that it did not matter anymore because Elliot was already listening to something that had learned how to sound like him. Elliot reached the door and returned to the station. He pushed the cabinet back into place and stood with his back against it, trying to catch his breath. For several seconds he said nothing. Then he noticed that the rain had stopped. The change was so sudden that it was almost more frightening than the storm itself. The building had been summoned by the sounds of rain for hours, and now there was nothing outside except the silence. The figure was still there. Only now it was standing much closer. And he could see the face. Thomas answered that he had been listening. The figure outside leaned closer to the glass. It said that Thomas was lying. Then it told Elliot that he should ask himself a much more important question. It asked him why he could remember his father's funeral if he could not remember the last day he had ever seen him. Elliot became completely silent because he suddenly realized that his memory of the funeral was strange. He remember the church and he remembered the flowers. He also remembered his mother crying, and he remembered the coffin. But he could not remember seeing his father's face. He could not remember the burial, and he could not remember leaving the cemetery. It was as though the memory had been built from photographs and not lived. Elliot returned to the cabinet and he opened the hidden door again. But this time there was no corridor. There was only a small room. And inside the room were cassette recorders. Dozens of them. Each one was leveled with a date. Elliot picked up the nearest tape. The date was november seventeenth. There was no year. He placed it on the recorder, and the tape began with the sound of rain. And then Elliot heard his own voice. It was describing everything that had happened during the night. The strange knocking, the radio, the figure outside, the hidden corridor, the photographs, and his father's voice. And Elliot listened to all of this in disbelief. The recording was describing events that had happened only a few hours earlier. Then the voice of the tape continued into events that had not happened yet. It said that Elliot was standing in a room filled with cassette recorders, and also said he was holding the tape he was currently listening to. It said that he was about to walk towards the front door, and Elliot immediately stepped backwards. But the voice continued. It said that Elliot would open the door because he would hear his father's voice outside. Elliot said that he would not. And the recording continued. It said that Elliot would ask his father a question. It said that the question would be about the oak tree. Elliot looked down at the tape and his hands were shaking. Then the voice said that Thomas would tell him the truth. It said that Elliot had never survived the night fourteen years earlier. It said that the person who grew up after Thomas disappeared was a copy. Elliot stopped the tape. He stared at the recorder, and then he heard the voice behind him, his father's voice. Thomas said that the tape was lying. Elliot turned. Nobody was there. The recorder continued playing. His own voice said that Thomas was lying. Then another voice appeared underneath it.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

It whispered that Elliot needed to decide which one of them he believed.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

The final section of the recording is difficult to reconstruct because the tape is badly damaged, but the main events can still be understood. Elliot leaves the station, he walks into the forest carrying the recorder. He says that he is following a light between the trees, and he believes it's his father. He reached the stream, and the rain has caused the water to rise over the banks, and on the opposite sides he can see the old oak tree from his childhood memory. The mark his father carved into the bark is still there. It is not a forestry symbol, it is a date, November seventeen. Beneath it are four words Do not bring him back. Elliot says that he understands what it means. Then his father's voice speaks behind him. Thomas tells him that he made a mistake fourteen years ago. He tells Elliot that he found the recordings and believed they were warnings, but he eventually realized that the voices were not warnings at all. They were invitations. Every person who heard them was eventually drawn into the forest, and every person who entered the corridor became part of the recordings. Thomas said that he tried to protect Elliot when he was a child, but he failed. Elliot asks whether he's trying that the child who came home fourteen years ago was not really him. And Thomas says that he does not know. Elliot asks what happened to the real Elliot. And Thomas tells him that the original child is still somewhere in the forest. Then Elliot asks where? And Thomas says that he is standing behind him. And Elliot turns. The recording becomes overwhelmed by static. Several voices can be heard speaking at once. Some sound like Elliot, some sound like Thomas, others are impossible to identify. Then there is the sound of someone running through the wet leaves, following by a scream and the crash of the recorder hitting the ground. And for a long time the microphone records nothing except rain. Then someone picks it up. A man's voice speaks. It sounds exactly like Elliot. And he says that everything is fine. He says that the storm is ending, and that he is going home. The voice pauses. Then another voice speaks quietly in the background. It asks him which Elliot he is. And the first voice laughs. The second voice asks again. And this time the first voice does not answer. The recording continues for several seconds, with rain falling heavily around the microphone, and then the voice what sounds like Elliot says something that is almost impossible to hear.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

He says I cannot remember.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

And the tape ends. The tape was supposedly found inside the abandoned station, inside an old metal cabinet, and when it was discovered the cassette was already inside the recorder. Nobody knows who placed it there, and nobody knows why the words night shift were written on the label. But if you have been listening carefully, you might have noticed something rather strange about the story we just heard. Elliot was never supposed to know that anyone will listen to his recording. He was alone when he made it. And everything he said was intended for himself. Or perhaps for whoever might eventually investigate the radio problem after he was gone. Yet towards the end of the tape, the voice speaking through the recorder seems to know that someone will eventually find it. And it knows that someone will press play. And it knows that someone will sit somewhere else, perhaps many years later, and listen to Elliot describing the night. And that brings us back to the beginning. Because if the recordings inside Blackwood Forest really contains events before they happen, and if the people in those recordings are somehow able to hear the people who will eventually listen to them, then perhaps the tape we just heard was never only a record of Elliot's night. And perhaps it was a recording made for the next person, for the person who would eventually find it, for the person who would take it home, put it on a player, and sit quietly while Elliot's voice began speaking through the static. For the person who would listen all the way to the end. For you. And there is something else that I cannot explain. According to the story, when the cassette was originally discovered, there was no second tape beside it. There was only the recording we just heard. But when the person who found it finished listening, they apparently noticed something written on the inside of the cassette case that was not visible before. It had four words written in handwriting that did not belong to Elliot. It says Thank you for listening. And underneath those words is today's date. So if you made it this far, there is only one question I really want you to think about before you move on to the next episode. If this recording was waiting for someone to listen to it why did it have to be you? And if you hear three knocks somewhere in your house tonight, I would probably leave the door exactly where it is. Because after everything we have heard from Blackfoot Forest, I am not entirely sure that whatever is outside is trying to get in. Perhaps it's only checking to see whether if you are still listening to the