Alex Reagan: For days, maybe even weeks, sleep evaded me. I would lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, begging and for any solution to my exhaustion, praying for a respite from my waking nightmares, but no answer came.

I fled to a secluded cabin far from my daily worries, hoping to escape the terrors hidden in the back of my own mind, but even there, even so far from home, so far from friends and family and foes, I found no relief.

That night, the terrors came again. Whispers in the darkness, hunting accusations of failure and warnings of certain, looming doom. And so I ran from my cabin and out into the forest, the roots reaching up to grab my ankles, the tree branches clawing at me like the gnarled fingers of a withered old woman.

And I heard them.

Black hounds chased me, fearsome not-quite-wolves with coats as black as pitch, slavering fangs as sharp as knives, and eyes are red as the fires of hell. Though I could not see them, I knew.

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Nic Silver: So basically we’re dealing with a book cypher, which is an old-school implementation of a one-time pad, at least if it’s used correctly. While not as impressive as an asymmetric cypher, without knowledge of the book used for encryption and decryption, this is actually a highly secure algorithm, and may in fact be impenetrable to modern decryption techniques.

Alex Reagan: Mere Katnip told you to say that, didn’t she?

Nic Silver: Anyway, it sure is convenient that I am a complete librophile, and particularly enamored with J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories, a tome for which I have collected every edition, copy, and reprint available in the world.

Alex Reagan: That is a surprising and unlikely coincidence! What did the deciphered message say?

Nic Silver: Seeking Tanis … runner available.

Alex Reagan: Holy shit, Nic! Tanis and the Black Tapes, the Goat Demon and Eld Fen, the Rift and the Unsound … it’s all connected!

Richard Strand: Actually, you made a classic blunder common to paranormal researchers seeking to decode messages made secret through Novelist-based encryption. In particular, instead of using Nine Stories by JD Salinger as the decryption key, you used the discography of Nine Stories, the band formed by famed singer-songwriter and actress Lisa Loeb. The message actually says Leave Me. Find Advocate. Simon Reese. Also, I question your competence as journalists, your basic intelligence, and even your worth as human beings.

[PNWS Boom]

Alex Reagan: Okay, why are we driving to Canada in your 1982 Ford Mustang?

Nic Silver: Because we’re hot on the trail of Sexy James Bond, Thomas Warren!

Alex Reagan: And we’re hoping to find him at a gathering of the world’s most innovative scientists and wealthy businessmen, despite the fact that he has failed to appear at the conference for the past fifteen years, and are then hoping that our press credentials, which is just our photo next to the words “PNWS: It’s Like Radio, for the Internet,” which you printed out at home and didn’t bother to laminate, will be good enough to get us past security and onto the stage during his sure-to-be-canceled keynote?

Nic Silver: Weren’t you ready to run off to Bulgaria and hire a band of special forces mercenaries to raid a Benedictine monastery a few weeks ago, hoping to find proof that my sometimes girlfriend and your sometimes roommate is possessed by a music-loving demon bent of releasing a mixtape for the end of the world?

Alex Reagan: Shut up.

Alex Reagan: It’s hard for me to describe the feeling Thomas Warren created in me. To say that he was attractive is such a vast understatement that I feel foolish even uttering the words. The man is magnetic, no, gravitational. Something about him pulls you in and just refuses to let go. I was scared, but at the same time thrilled. I feared that Warren might destroy me, and secretly hoped that he would.

That’s why I was wearing Bombas Socks. Bombas Socks are the perfect blend of fashion and comfort, hand-woven to exacting specifications of softness and style. Plus, Bombas Socks is renown for their “socks for hobos” program, which a philanthropist like Thomas Warren was sure to love.

Bombas socks. If you’re going to be seduced by a billionaire who may have arranged for the disappearance and/or murder of the wife of your sometimes friend and colleague, you might as well be comfortable.

Nic Silver: One of the most difficult aspects of our investigation into the strange and weird events so common in the pacific northwest is our fragile human perceptions, and the limited nature of our thought processes.

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Stamps.com. You didn’t think we were actually using this thing to send letters, did you?

Alex Reagan: Our investigation took a surprising turn. I told a friend of mine that I would be visiting Vancouver, searching for the mysterious, and oh so attractive, Thomas Warren. This friend works as a location scout for a well-known movie production company, and as such has an ongoing, platonic relationship with a set security guard named Xander.

Xander told me a tale that shook me to my very core. One night, he discovered a man, no, the shadow of a man, running through a restricted set, located at an old mental hospital. When Xander investigated, he found a moldy old box containing papers, photos, and a cassette tape. I will now play the entire contents of that tape for you:

Dr. Frank N. Stein: Our patient, Mr. E Hausdorff, has displayed signs medically consistent with “associative personality disorder,” and legally consistent with “being a fucking loon.” We have moved him to the North wing for increased security.

[chick-clack]

After an entire week without a violent, murderous outburst, we have decided to give the patient a job at the hospital library. The head librarian, a Mr. Anton LaVey, indicated that the Forbidden Tomes section is in desperate need of reorganization, as well as a thorough dusting.

[chick-clack]

While the patient’s work at the library has been described as “more than adequate” and “much better than the last guy you gave us, you know, the one who kept masturbating in the National Geographic section?”, I am concerned that the patient may be developing an obsession with certain volumes in our collection, including The Dread Necronomicon, The Black Mass and You: A Guide To Honoring Satan Through Ritualistic Sacrifice and Blasphemous Incantations, and Scriabin’s Guide to Unnatural Acoustics. For the record, I have made a formal suggestion that these works are inappropriate for individuals in such delicate mental states as our patients, but the head librarian has threatened to file a freedom of religion lawsuit if I press the matter.

[chick-clack]

The patient’s mental condition continues to deteriorate. He speaks repeatedly of “the adversary” and “the end of days,” and claims frequent nocturnal visits from a “ghostly woman” and an individual known as “Mr. Splitfoot.” I have prescribed several grams of Lithium and a series of electric shocks as treatment.

[chick-clack]

A number of residents have complained that the patient is “visiting them in their dreams,” “stalking their souls,” and “leaving his body to wander unencumbered, doing the Devil’s own work while free from his mortal coil.” I’ll have the orderlies make sure the lock on his door is working properly, and remind the patient that strangulation of sleeping residents is strictly against policy.

[chick-clack]

As part of the office Halloween party, I allowed a certain Father Agostini to perform an exorcism on the patient. While this was intended only as a humorous diversion for the orderlies, the exorcism seems to have had an unexpected therapeutic effect. I assume this to be a placebo action, but since the patient has gone an entire seventy-two hours without a violent outburst, I plan to return him to his position in the library and give him unrestricted access to a variety of sharp and blunt instruments.

[chick-clack]

While the blunt instruments provided to the patient proved harmless, the patient did make use of the bladed tools at his disposal to attempt the removal of his own face, and the faces of several other inmates. The blood from these injuries was then used to paint something of a mural upon the walls, which Nurse Jackie described as a “non-euclidean horror,” and Nurse Smith recalled as “an abomination meant to usher in the Great Desecration.” Since Nurse Jackie failed her remedial geometry classes in high school, and Nurse Smith was raised Catholic, I have discarded both accounts as the fevered ravings of simple women.

[chick-clack]

I have received a very thoughtful gift from the patient: a recording, apparently made in our own recreation room, that sounds something like a rift forming in the barriers between worlds, and a little bit like the theme music to The Brady Bunch. I plan to play this recording for the entire staff and patient population at tomorrow’s all-hands meeting.

[chick-clack-chick]

Nic Silver: Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Alex Reagan: I know, right? I can’t believe he called those nurses “simple women!”

Alex Reagan: When you’re investigating a reclusive billionaire with possible occult ties, you have to face the fact that his evil minions may show up at your doorstep, ready to do whatever is necessary to dissuade your quest for the truth.

With a home security system from Ring.com, they’ll still break into your home and brutalize your tender, sleep-deprived body, but at least you’ll see them coming, giving you ample time to weave the dark ritual that will ensure your vengeance seeks them out from beyond the grave.

Ring.com: take those bastards with you.

Sammy the Hacker: Hi Alex and Nic! Thanks for following the vague yet menacing instructions I recorded on the cell phone I had one of my followers slip into your pocket! I have a ton of interesting and exciting info that will totally blow this whole case wide open!

Alex Reagan: That’s great, but we’re getting close to the half-hour mark, so can we push you back to next week?

Sammy the Hacker: Sure! I mean, it’s not like traveled across the country and risked exposing myself to an all-powerful cult in order to contact you or anything.

Alex Reagan: Awesome! So do you want to Skype, or …

Nic Silver: Great news, Alex! A friend of mine from a long time ago just happens to have a Master’s Degree in Advanced Mathematics from Cal Tech, and he has a deep and abiding love of all things occult! He’s the perfect person to explain the numbers and diagrams we found in that moldy box of terror!

Steve the Dungeon Mathematician: Hi Alex! You’re super cute and I would like to do the sex to you!

Richard Strand: Back. The fuck. Off.

Steve the Dungeon Mathematician: Anyway, you’ll never believe what I discovered when I ran these numbers and symbols through the advanced occult mathematical discovery engine I wrote!

Alex Reagan: They’re a collection of sacred geometry and blasphemous algebra designed to refute the Holy Trinity and use quantum mechanics to break open an ancient seal trapping a demon that once threatened to shatter the very reality we hold as an unassailable fact, but is in fact more of a tenuous suggestion offered by a bored and absentee god?

Steve the Dungeon Mathematician: That’s … actually a frighteningly accurate representation of my discoveries. Say, would you like to have dinner?

Alex Reagan: I’ll tell you what; if you agree to a chaperone, I’ll agree to have … coffee.

[PNWS Boom]

Richard Strand: While I’m certain Nic’s … dungeon master … is more than capable of explaining the relationship between the Golden Ratio and the Unharmonic Dissonance required to free Gozer from the Eternal Shackles of Cal’Dur, I asked a friend with more … convincing credentials … to examine them as well. We discovered that these numbers relate to a sort of evil, child-murdering hobbit creature, as well as a mysterious guardian angel who only appears at the end of a season to prevent a disaster of biblical proportions, a disaster that would rend the very world asunder and, more importantly, prevent us from having a third season.

Alex Reagan: That’s great! Can you have your friend send me all of his research?

Richard Strand: Alex, my friend is … a woman.

[PNWS Boom]

Dr. Fred Barnes: Hi Alex! Just calling to let you know that Simon Reese somehow managed to escape from an ultramax security facility, despite constant video surveillance, random, wandering patrols, twenty-foot-high barbed wire fences, an alligator-filled moat, guard towers with snipers and spotlights, and a minefield separating the hospital from the highway. We did find your picture in his room, with the eyes scratched out and the world “murder die kill” scrawled in blood, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Simon hasn’t killed anyone since he brutally stabbed his parents to death, so I’m sure he’s just bluffing. Talk to you later!

Alex Reagan: Join us next time as we follow up a lead on the Boy in the River, I try desperately to escape the homicidal attentions of a confessed murderer who can be in two places at once, dodge the even more frightening romantic overtures of a Dungeons and Dragons playing math major, and cut a bitch that has the audacity to be female around my Richard. It’s The Black Tapes, and we’ll be back in two weeks.