Work Text:
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST:
Um ... Right. My name is William Wisp, and I am the new head Archivist at the Hendrix Institute, in London. We - We are dedicated to collecting accounts of and evidence for the paranormal. I have been appointed Head Archivist by the head of the Hendrix Institute, Niklaus Hendrix.
While most of the investigation occurs in the rest of the Institute, when investigation has reached its end, the case is transferred to here, The Archives.
Most of the accounts I see are handwritten or typed on a typewriter, and most have no audio version at all. That's my job, to organise, and the job of my 3 Archival Assistants; Rolan Deep, Chip James, and Jay Longhorn.
[SIGH]
Most of these cases will be recorded digitally, some seem to have, uhm, some audio distortions when being recorded on a laptop which make them ... Un-listenable. Which brings in the need for these tape recorders.
We - Rolan, Chip, Jay and I - will be doing some supplementary investigation to find any details that may have been missed the first time around and add them onto the end of each statement. Hopefully - I'll try my best to make it comprehensive.
Now, uhm, time for my first statement, I guess.
[NERVOUS LAUGHTER]
Statement of Theo Collins, regarding the violence and subsequent disappearance of Emizel Tucker. Original statement given September 19 th , 2023. Audio recording by William Wisp, Head Archivist of the Hendrix Institute, London.
Statement Begins.
ARCHIVIST, STATEMENT:
I guess I should start by talking about Emizel Tucker. Me and Emizel, we’ve been friends for ages. He gave me my nickname, we joined the Demons together, we went everywhere together. We’re a team. We were a team. It’s why this is all so confusing, and why I’m here. I need you to help me find him. You investigate this stuff, the paranormal, weird shit, innit? I think that’s what’s happening. You’ve gotta help me.
It all started with a knock on the door of the hideout. The boys all tensed up; I’d tell you their full names, but I don’t know them. We never really asked. It was Emizel who broke the silence, pushing Richie toward the door and asking if one of us had ordered takeaway. It was like he didn’t feel it, the fizzing tension in the air, the temporary calm before the storm. As he spoke so casually, I felt the tension leave me. Emizel had that effect on everyone, because Dom and Ted kept on with their game, and I cracked open my drink, and Richie let out a nervous chuckle and swung open the door to a boy about our age – so, 19 or 20. Poor Richie was a new member of ours. He never really had that fighting heart, he was too meek, but we didn’t mind, not really. He was our new brother now. I watched as our new brother sank to the grimy floor, lifeless. All it took was a second, and he was down. I couldn’t even tell what did it, other than it was the fault of that boy at the door.
Once again, like it was all we knew how to do, like we weren’t a room full of kids itching for a fight, we froze. Then Ted ran forward, with a strangled cry, then it was cut off as the boy shot his hand out and straight through his chest. He wasn’t holding any knife, or a shard of glass, but his hand was sharp, ending in long, unnatural claws, yellow like old teeth.
The boy at the door was short, with messy brown hair and pale skin. He could’ve been one of us, and I was struck by the look in his eyes. It was pure bloodlust. I didn’t have time to think on it before he ran in, digging his claws into Dom’s neck. He had been Ted’s best friend and just a week ago they dyed their hair together in the small, messy bathroom we had in the next room. Now, his badly bleached blonde hair was splayed along the ground, yellow and red and yellow again. We had been shocked out of our silence now, and 3 people ran forward, holding a metal pipe, or a knife. Someone hit him hard over the head with a resounding crack, and someone else whooped. Another ran up from behind and grappled him, leaping onto his back like a spider monkey.
It all bled together for me. The hits and blows and slashes become a big blurry lump in my mind. I think I had been throwing soda cans at his head when he turned to me, eyes wide. It might have been bloodlust in there. It might have been ecstasy. Either way, he ran at me, and then I knew what it was to be a deer in headlights, frozen while an unknown machine of death charged toward me. He brushed off the grip of the rest of the Demons like it was nothing at all. I wish I had done something more. I wish Emizel had stayed out of it.
The only thing next to me was a guitar, and my fumbling hands made their way round the neck of it and swung it, hard, towards him. It knocked him down but before I could regain my balance he was up again. It wasn’t human. Nothing about him was human. I saw a flash of sickly yellow and I knew I was dead, but before his claws reached my throat my face was splattered with something cold and red. It shouldn’t have been cold. Why was it cold?
The boy was dead, if he had been alive, properly, to begin with. Instead of him before my face it was Emizel. I could feel his warm breath on my face as the blood dripped down it, and he was smiling, like he had just been let in on the world's greatest inside joke. He pulled out the knife he had stuck into the boy and let him flop to the ground, dead. I should have been thanking God it was over, but I was stuck in Emizel’s eyes. Just for a second, I saw something in them I recognized. Something I had seen when Richie’s guts tumbled to the floor and saw again when Ted ran towards him and slipped to his death. Then it was gone, and he grabbed my face in the way he had always done.
He asked me if I was ok, pushing my head upwards to see if I had any wounds. I hadn’t, he had saved me. I looked past him to see the rest of the room.
The boy, whoever he was, had gotten through almost 5 people before Emizel took him down. It was hard to count whose limbs were who’s and who was still breathing in that moment, but in the aftermath we counted seven alive. It was Emizel who took charge. I didn’t notice the moment he let go of my face, but he was facing everyone else, now, who’s wide eyes were staring all at him, or at the body on the ground, like they were scared it might stand back up with another spurt of life. It didn’t. Emizel has his hand on my shoulder now and his sturdy warmth helped relax me. He told us we needed to hide out illegal shit before we call the police.
There were a few noises of protest but Emizel threw a hand up. None of us had any idea how to get rid of so many bodies, so we went silent.
One boy said he wanted to go home. Another choked back a sob. We didn’t feel like the Demons; we felt like a bunch of scared kids.
Emizel brought us to the next room, to talk about it, away from everyone. I have no idea how he stayed so level-headed. He’s amazing like that. We sat on an old sofa, or on the floor, and wiped off the blood with kitchen roll or wrapped up our wounds. Someone decided to count the dead and headed through the corridor.
It wasn’t long before they ran back, the panicked thuds of his legs on the wood of the floor along the corridor alerting us all that something was wrong.
They were gone. All the bodies.
I shot up, pushing him aside to investigate. He was right: where there had once been corpses there were now only bloodstains to tell us that anything even had happened at all. Emizel ran past me and stared at where the attacker had fallen and was now gone. I could practically hear his teeth grinding together.
Everyone who could stand had all trickled in eventually. We all stared with bewilderment at the scene, or rather the lack of a scene.
Someone commented that at least we didn’t have to get rid of them. There were murmurs of agreement, but we all felt a pit in our stomach. If they weren’t here, someone had taken them.
We cleaned it up, all in silence, feeling like something had shifted between us. I didn’t notice it at the time, but looking back at it now, there was a thick tension around Emizel. Not one that he felt, but one that everyone else did. He tapped Dave on the shoulder and he dropped the spray bottle he was holding. It’d be funny, if it weren’t for … Well.
It sounds stupid, but after that, things went on. We didn’t forget about it or ignore it; a few people actually hid behind the table when someone ordered takeaway out of the fear the knock at the door might be another visit from the brown-haired boy. We certainly stocked up on weapons, although we never said out loud what it was for. To me, it seemed like the person who was changed the least was Emizel, but I was so wrong. I didn’t notice his disappearances at first – it’s not like we saw each other every day. He has a dad, and I have a family, so sometimes we get busy. I noticed when he started to come back changed.
I was staying at the hideout that night, when Emizel came back. I hadn’t seen him the day before, and he had bailed on our plans, so I was kind of pissed. When he stumbled into the spare room, I stood up, ready to give him a shove. I didn’t have to touch him for him to fall down, though, as he collapsed against the wall. Instead, I caught him, stopping his head from hitting it and pushed him onto the shitty spare bed as he let out a grunt. I only realised he was bleeding when my hand pulled away wet with warm, red blood and I yelled. He told me to calm down, it was just a scratch, to just go get him some bandages and he’d be fine. I did, of course, running off to go find some. While I patched him up, he told me he was fine, and not to worry. I did worry, but I trusted him, too. He told me it was an encounter with the Fangs – that’s our rival gang – and that they ended up worse off than him. He was vague on the details, but that didn’t seem weird to me, at the time. I could imagine it, or so I thought.
That kept happening, and he kept dodging my questions. I did get worried about him, I’m not thick, but I knew he could handle himself. It just kept getting worse, though.
He disappeared on me for two weeks. Two weeks! I was fuming, but underneath that, I was terrified he’d finally gotten himself killed. You can imagine my relief when he walked back into the hideout, late at night, and my anger when he brushed off my questions. He just held up a hand and walked away.
I started swearing at him, ‘course I did, and he just scowled at the wall, never once even making eye contact with me. I told him I had a right to know what he was up to and he told me he had a right to his own privacy. I told him whatever shit was going on with the Fangs wasn’t worth it. I must’ve sounded pathetic, then, begging him to know what was happening. I felt it, too. That’s why when he laughed at me, actually laughed, I shoved him.
I didn’t expect it to do anything. He was always stronger than me, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just wanted to show him I was pissed off. I didn’t want –
[SIGH]
His arm just came right off. There was a tear, not quite like paper but like ripping two halves of a bloody steak apart with your fork, and a grinding noise. I think it must’ve been bone on bone. Then it fell, slipping out of his t-shirt, and his arm landed on the floor with a wet slap.
We both froze, staring at his detached arm as it lay there on the floor, oozing blood, too little blood for what had happened. I started screaming. I think that’s when he made his choice. He grabbed me by the hand with the arm that was still attached and looked me in the eye for the first time that night. I know his eyes were different. I think- I think they were slits. His pupils, I mean.
He said sorry to me. I was still screaming, so I couldn’t hear it, but I could see it in the shape of his mouth. Sorry.
Then he picked up his arm, his whole arm, and left. Just walked out the door with it. That was the last time I saw him.
So- So please, you guys cover this stuff, right? Freaky shit? Have you heard anything about him, anything at all? Fit blonde dude, white, young, with weird eyes. Anything?
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
This one wasn’t the easiest to follow up on, at the time or now, since he gives us basically no details. The only two names we were given, Theo Collins and Emizel Tucker, we weren’t able to reach; Theo hasn’t answered any of our attempts to reach out, and Emizel is similarly elusive, although he does have a trace through police reports. His father, Jeffery Tucker, died not long after this statement was given, on January 12 th , 2024. The lead suspect was his own son, Emizel. The police were unable to locate him and the case went cold due to lack of evidence.
While we haven’t been able to find Theo, he hasn’t been reported missing. According to his family, he still reaches out often to them and has just been a bit more distant. I can’t help but be concerned he’s gotten caught up in this, somehow.
As for the slaughter of his fellow gang members, well, that’s pretty hard to verify too. He gives us no full names, but Jay was able to find missing person reports for a Richard Carroll and a Dominic Riley, who were both mentioned by their families as members of a gang and seem to line up with the right age and profile. While both cases went cold, Chip was able to discover – and I don’t want to know how – that the DNA of Dominic Riley was found in another crime scene in April of 2024, a rather well known one at that; the disappearance – and some say, kidnapping – of Kian Stone, the up-and-coming rockstar who suffered a public breakdown before disappearing soon after.
Finally, as for our mysterious brown-haired boy, despite the vagueness of the description given, Jay managed to find something that could be relevant. During January of 2024, a concerned member of the public called the police to report a fight taking place across the street. One of the boys was chasing the other down the empty street, as the other ran, at one point hiding in an alleyway. When the police arrived, they had both gone, although they did find a puddle of blood in the alleyway the woman described.
She described the two boys as both pale and young, looking to be about 19. The hunter had short blonde hair and the other had short brown hair. What alarmed her the most, however, was how both of them seemed to have oddly sharp hands.
End recording.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
[MUFFLED CONVERSATION CAN BE HEARD]
[DOOR OPENS, CONVERSATION BECOMES AUDIBLE]
CHIP JAMES
Sure, black works, but have you considered dyeing it hot pink?
JAY LONGHORN
Oh, shut up, Chip.
[CHAIR CREAKS AS SOMEONE SITS IN IT]
CHIP
Oh, Dakota moved out.
[ANOTHER CHAIR CREAKS]
JAY
Really? She was still living with your dad?
CHIP
Yeah, well, now she's living in a van with her friends.
JAY
[STIFLED LAUGHTER] Thats awesome, actually. Who with? Vyncent? I always liked Vyncent.
CHIP
Yeah, and some guy called Soda? I mean, theres no way his name is Soda.
JAY
Well, your name is Chip.
CHIP
Oh, shut up, you're named after a bird.
JAY
Well, at least she's not living on her own. That must be lonely, I bet, to have no friends ... or wife ... Reminds me of someone ...
CHIP
Hey- I have friends!
JAY
Who, Rolan?
CHIP
[LAUGHTER]
I'm convinced he's in witness protection. No one is that miserable or lonely because they want to be.
JAY
You think everyones in witness protection.
CHIP
No, no, listen; he was apart of the Italian mafia-
JAY
[INCREDULOUS LAUGHTER] He's American!
CHIP
And, listen, they chopped off his hand for stealing from the boss. What'd he steal?
[PAUSE]
JAY
Uh, I dunno, a painting?
CHIP
Wrong. He stole his heart. Him and the head of an Italian crime family had a whirlwind summer romance that ended in tragedy-
[LAUGHTER]
[DOOR OPENS AND LAUGHTER CUTS OFF]
NIKLAUS HENDRIX
I'm not interrupting anything, am I?
[PAUSE]
CHIP
Oh, hey, boss! We were just talking about a statement-
NIKLAUS
Don't worry, I'm not here to reprimand you. I just wanted to see how you were all settling in to your new job.
JAY
Pretty well, I think. I mean, it's weird, but so was the library.
NIKLAUS
I'm glad to hear it. Well, if you have any issues, my office is open.
CHIP
Of course it is.
[VOICES BECOME MUFFLED]
See ya, boss!
[DOOR SHUTS]
[MUFFLED VOICES BEHIND THE DOOR]
[ONE PAIR OF FOOTSTEPS WALKING AWAY]
[CLICK]