NIC: From Pacific Northwest Stories and Minnow Beats Whale, it’s Tanis. I’m Nic Silver.
We’re telling the story of Tanis in order, every two weeks, so if you haven’t listened to the first seven episodes, go back and start there. We’ll try not to get too far ahead by the time you get back.
NIC: There’s a story. Well, there are a lot of stories, but there’s one story in particular that’s maybe more of a legend than a story, actually.
It’s set in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, just outside of Olympia, Washington. It’s an ancient, Native American tale about malicious spirits that haunt the deep, emerald woods. One section of the forest in particular. An area where the birch trees grow thin and tall, and the birds, allegedly, stop singing. In this section of the forest, centuries after the natives of this region first began telling their stories about the area, right around the time of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, to add a bit of arcane flavor to the tale, two young children left their parents at home and went for a walk in the woods. It was raining, there was a light mist which covered the area in a hazy, diffused fog, making it hard to see more than a few feet in front of their faces.
So it was, when the children stepped into this particular section of the woods, the area filled with the incredibly tall, thin birch trees, it took them a moment to realize that there were four hundred and seven bodies hanging from the trees. Many people consider the Olympia Woods Massacre fictional. Others believe that it was a mass suicide, either way, for decades after the alleged event, for whatever reason, people continued to kill themselves in the area, in comparatively large numbers. To this day, the locals routinely send patrols into the woods near Olympia looking for bodies.
So, we’re left with another indication that things up here in the Pacific Northwest are…different somehow, that something murky and mysterious could be tied to the seasonal gloom of the landscape. I became aware of this area, the place the locals refer to as Suicide Grove, because of something Meerkatnip discovered the morning after the night she spent at my apartment. She was working on it when I woke up.
NIC: MK had drawn a line across that latitude, and although it did run through the entire country, right around a certain area of Washington State, in the Puget Sound region, of course, she’d placed more than a dozen red push pins. Right along that line of latitude, among a bunch of other remarkable events, were Rory Anderson’s uncle’s cabin, the site of the Olympic Woods Massacre, a reputed Haida raider outpost, an alleged Ted Bundy killing location, the place TSR editor Peter Chenoweth went missing while camping, and perhaps the most interesting location of them all- the town of St. Raywood. Just Raywood, to the locals.
NIC: The town was named after Jonas Raywood, the head of the lumber conglomerate that built it almost overnight in the early 1980’s. Actually, he named it after an ancestor or his who was granted sainthood by The Church. Sainthood that was actually revoked decades later under very salacious circumstances. The town was small but significant. Jonas Raywood’s company built about eighty homes in five apartment buildings. There was a modest hospital, a bank, a movie theater, library, pool, and a large rec center.
It was a collapse in prices that forced the workers and their families to pack up and leave in 1983, just a few months after a pine beetle infestation lowered inventory and pricing competition with Canada forced the mill to shutter its doors for good.
So, Raywood just sits there, a perfectly preserved 1980’s community in, essentially, move in ready condition. There have been numerous attempts to bring the ghost town back to life over the years, but so far none have been successful. But like so many things surrounding the myth of Tanis, there was another story about Raywood, a story beneath the official story, a story about missing children. And yet another story still about the children who came back, the children with the black eyes.
NIC: The mill closed and less than two years after the town opened its doors, Raywood was evacuated. It’s a sad and simple story. Like that interviewer intimated, there were rumors about Raywood being a cult of some kind, but all the evidence points to the contrary. It seems like it was, as Jonas Raywood said, a working class community filled with good people. But Raywood was located in an area that was perfect for farming and hunting. The climate was temperate and all of the town’s homes and buildings were extremely well-made and designed. It seems like there was more than enough economic possibility and infrastructure to keep that community going, to survive the mill closure and the pine beetle infestation.
I couldn’t help wondering if there was more to the story. Meerkatnip’s discovery was very interesting, and of course I wanted to visit Raywood myself to take a look around and to learn more about what happened, but that wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounds. Jonas Raywood passed away in 1985, and he refused to talk about the town for the last two years of his life. The entire place was purchased seventeen years ago by a man named Marcus Dempsey. Apparently, he built a fence around Raywood and continues to keep the town in pristine condition. I wanted to ask Dempsey why he bought it, and why he continues the upkeep which must be time-consuming and expensive. So I called and set up an appointment. I’ll update that situation soon. In the meantime, I received a call from Morgan Miller.
(Skype disconnects)
NIC: I met Morgan Miller. She didn’t want me to record her voice, of course, and I didn’t push her this time. She told me about a friend of Sam’s, a young woman who had been ostensibly helping him. Morgan now believes the woman was watching him, recruiting him for something. She believes the young woman was part of a cult, the Cult of Tanis. I eventually convinced her to let me record her talking about the cult.
NIC: Morgan and I agreed to meet again to speak more about what might be happening with Sam. When I got back to my place Meerkatnip was gone. There was a note on my fridge that said, “thanks.” I looked outside but didn’t see anyone sinister watching my house.
NIC: You’ll remember the name Veronika Pillman from our last episode. She was the employee from the bookstore in Portland who may or may not be HaidaGurl. When I was in Portland, I knocked on the door of the address I’d found listed in the phone book. I knocked a few times but there was no one there. I was about to drive down to Portland to try again when Meerkatnip called.
(Casper Mattress ad)
NIC: Raywood is located along MK’s line of latitude, north of the High Steel Bridge in Mason County, Washington. You take the old logging road built in 1929 by the Simpson Logging Company across a bridge over the Skokomish River. Raywood is a few miles up the road, a simple, wooden sign the only indicator. Marcus Dempsey was waiting for me when I arrived.
DEMPSEY: Any trouble finding the place?
NIC: Marcus Dempsey was younger than I thought he’d be, thick around the middle, but not soft. He was definitely an athlete in his day. I would guess football or rugby. He wasted no time in taking me up the road to Raywood, but there was one caveat he neglected to mention on the phone: I was allowed to take no pictures of any kind. This wasn’t something I’d anticipated, but luckily I found a kind of way to deliver a version of the Raywood experience.
I discovered a collection of photographs online of a remarkably similar town in Canada called Kitsault. This sister town to Raywood had been abandoned in a very similar fashion one year earlier in 1982. The photographer, a man named Chad Graham, visited Kitsault and took some really incredible photographs. I’ll include some of them and some other material in the notes section of our website.
Marcus Dempsey played some very interesting reel-to-reel interviews and some other audio material with Raywood speaking about the town and other things. Dempsey wouldn’t let me copy the tapes or take them off site, but he was willing to let me record some of them as they played. Here Raywood’s talking about some of his interests that lie outside of the lumber industry.
NIC: He bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt which included one of the tiny organisms. It was brownish, semi-translucent, and it was aggressive. Incredibly aggressive. It wouldn’t stop trying to bite him, and I mean really trying. It’s a good thing it was small. I wondered what that thing was called and if Jonas Raywood had jars full of biters and other crawling, fleshy things in a laboratory closet somewhere. An itch started somewhere in the back of my head and moved slowly across my skin. I suddenly wanted to be any place else.
NIC: I left Raywood feeling like I’d stepped out of the past, but not necessarily our past, exactly. Maybe something like the ancient past of an underwater world, similar to our own, but adjacent somehow. It was strange. I was feeling strange. The earthy, rotten, sweet, saltwater taffy smell wasn’t strong really, but I found it slowly and deeply sickening. I stopped at the first gas station I saw and bought one of those evergreen air fresheners. The smell of Raywood wouldn’t leave my car.
The first thing I did when I got back to Seattle was look up Marcus Dempsey’s wife and the families in Raywood whose children had been reported missing and then returned. It turns out Marian Roberts, formerly Marian Dempsey, hadn’t disappeared at all. She was living in Hawaii with her new husband, Jake. She told me she had no interest in speaking about Marcus or Raywood and then hung up. I did manage to track down members from three of the families whose children had gone missing, but nobody I called was willing to speak to me on the record about Raywood. I asked Meerkatnip if she could dig up anything else.
NIC: Next week the search for Tanis continues, plus, an attempt to make contact with the people allegedly holding Sam Reynolds provides some compelling clues. In addition, I finally find out what Meerkatnip has to say about Charles Manson. It’s Tanis, I’m Nic Silver. We’ll be back again in two weeks, until then, keep looking.
Tanis is produced by Terry Miles. Produced, mixed, and edited by me, Nic Silver. Executive producers Terry Miles and Paul Bae. As always, listen to The Black Tapes Podcast at theblacktapespodcast.com
NIC: For legal and safety reasons, we've elected to change some names, and leave others out entirely. We don't do this very often, but we're not willing to compromise people's safety for any reason.
Thanks again for listening to Tanis.
We’re telling the story of Tanis in order, every two weeks, so if you haven’t listened to the first seven episodes, go back and start there. We’ll try not to get too far ahead by the time you get back.
NIC: There’s a story. Well, there are a lot of stories, but there’s one story in particular that’s maybe more of a legend than a story, actually.
It’s set in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, just outside of Olympia, Washington. It’s an ancient, Native American tale about malicious spirits that haunt the deep, emerald woods. One section of the forest in particular. An area where the birch trees grow thin and tall, and the birds, allegedly, stop singing. In this section of the forest, centuries after the natives of this region first began telling their stories about the area, right around the time of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, to add a bit of arcane flavor to the tale, two young children left their parents at home and went for a walk in the woods. It was raining, there was a light mist which covered the area in a hazy, diffused fog, making it hard to see more than a few feet in front of their faces.
So it was, when the children stepped into this particular section of the woods, the area filled with the incredibly tall, thin birch trees, it took them a moment to realize that there were four hundred and seven bodies hanging from the trees. Many people consider the Olympia Woods Massacre fictional. Others believe that it was a mass suicide, either way, for decades after the alleged event, for whatever reason, people continued to kill themselves in the area, in comparatively large numbers. To this day, the locals routinely send patrols into the woods near Olympia looking for bodies.
So, we’re left with another indication that things up here in the Pacific Northwest are…different somehow, that something murky and mysterious could be tied to the seasonal gloom of the landscape. I became aware of this area, the place the locals refer to as Suicide Grove, because of something Meerkatnip discovered the morning after the night she spent at my apartment. She was working on it when I woke up.
- NIC: Do you mind if I record?
- MK: No, it’s fine.
- NIC: So what are we looking at?
- MK: It’s not what we’re looking at, it’s what we’re going to be listening to.
- NIC: Okay, so what’s with the graphics?
- MK: You’ve never heard of Moebius have you?
- NIC: Mmm….
- MK: Jon Giraud?
- NIC: It looks like Heavy Metal Magazine, maybe?
- MK: (laughs) Wow, you do know something. This is just my screen saver.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: I woke you up to listen to this.
- NIC: I was already awake.
- MK: Sure.
- (Numbers station tape plays numbers in French)
- NIC: Carl van Sant’s tape?
- MK: Right.
- NIC: Okay, so…
- MK: So, there’s something I missed before.
- NIC: What something?
- MK: You know how I told you the numbers were doubled by Morse code under the main transmission?
- NIC: Right. You also told me that wasn’t… unusual.
- MK: It’s not.
- NIC: Okay, but-
- MK: But I still can’t believe I missed this.
- NIC: Missed what?
- MK: The number that was repeating. 4-7-3-7-8-6-1-1-1-1.
- NIC: Okay, what about it?
- MK: It’s a measurement of latitude in decimal degrees. So 47.37861111.
- NIC: You what? Add a decimal point and it becomes a location?
- MK: Half a location, yeah.
- NIC: So what does this have to do with Tanis?
- MK: This line of latitude runs right through Washington State.
- NIC: O-okay, but it also runs through California and British Columbia, and probably Alaska…
- MK: No. You’re thinking longitude.
- NIC: Oh, right, okay. Well, then it runs through a lot more places than those.
- MK: Okay, but look at this.
- NIC: (long pause) Holy shit.
- MK: Yep.
NIC: MK had drawn a line across that latitude, and although it did run through the entire country, right around a certain area of Washington State, in the Puget Sound region, of course, she’d placed more than a dozen red push pins. Right along that line of latitude, among a bunch of other remarkable events, were Rory Anderson’s uncle’s cabin, the site of the Olympic Woods Massacre, a reputed Haida raider outpost, an alleged Ted Bundy killing location, the place TSR editor Peter Chenoweth went missing while camping, and perhaps the most interesting location of them all- the town of St. Raywood. Just Raywood, to the locals.
NIC: The town was named after Jonas Raywood, the head of the lumber conglomerate that built it almost overnight in the early 1980’s. Actually, he named it after an ancestor or his who was granted sainthood by The Church. Sainthood that was actually revoked decades later under very salacious circumstances. The town was small but significant. Jonas Raywood’s company built about eighty homes in five apartment buildings. There was a modest hospital, a bank, a movie theater, library, pool, and a large rec center.
It was a collapse in prices that forced the workers and their families to pack up and leave in 1983, just a few months after a pine beetle infestation lowered inventory and pricing competition with Canada forced the mill to shutter its doors for good.
So, Raywood just sits there, a perfectly preserved 1980’s community in, essentially, move in ready condition. There have been numerous attempts to bring the ghost town back to life over the years, but so far none have been successful. But like so many things surrounding the myth of Tanis, there was another story about Raywood, a story beneath the official story, a story about missing children. And yet another story still about the children who came back, the children with the black eyes.
- RAYWOOD: All that human beings have accomplished and created beyond basic survival has been and continues to be motivated by a fear of nonexistence. Everything we are and everything we do, we do to push against the anxiety that comes with understanding our mortality- our end. Culture, religion, art, and everything else are opiates to help mitigate this fear. We want to imagine art as timeless, that offspring are a way for projecting ourselves beyond death, if even for a little while. Even science, ensuring humanity’s survival is simply death avoidance. We keep funereal rites far from our lives. We focus on any artifice that allows to avoid the brutal reality, if even for a short while. Everything humanity does and has ever done has been motivated by nothing more than existential dread- the fear of death.
- INTERVIEWER: So why build a church?
- RAYWOOD: You haven’t been listening.
- INTERVIEWER: There are some people who believe your town, the town of Raywood is actually a cult of some kind.
- RAYWOOD: That’s absurd. Raywood is a community of working class people, good people.
- INTERVIEWER: What about the missing children?
- RAYWOOD: That’s something that’s been blown way out of proportion by you- by the media.
- INTERVIEWER: But what about the ones who come back?
- RAYWOOD: If you insist on following that line of questioning, I’m afraid I’m going to have to stop this interview.
NIC: The mill closed and less than two years after the town opened its doors, Raywood was evacuated. It’s a sad and simple story. Like that interviewer intimated, there were rumors about Raywood being a cult of some kind, but all the evidence points to the contrary. It seems like it was, as Jonas Raywood said, a working class community filled with good people. But Raywood was located in an area that was perfect for farming and hunting. The climate was temperate and all of the town’s homes and buildings were extremely well-made and designed. It seems like there was more than enough economic possibility and infrastructure to keep that community going, to survive the mill closure and the pine beetle infestation.
I couldn’t help wondering if there was more to the story. Meerkatnip’s discovery was very interesting, and of course I wanted to visit Raywood myself to take a look around and to learn more about what happened, but that wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounds. Jonas Raywood passed away in 1985, and he refused to talk about the town for the last two years of his life. The entire place was purchased seventeen years ago by a man named Marcus Dempsey. Apparently, he built a fence around Raywood and continues to keep the town in pristine condition. I wanted to ask Dempsey why he bought it, and why he continues the upkeep which must be time-consuming and expensive. So I called and set up an appointment. I’ll update that situation soon. In the meantime, I received a call from Morgan Miller.
- MILLER: Sam’s missing.
- NIC: What?
- MILLER: H-he disappeared. I-I woke up this morning and he was gone. His pack, his computer, everything.
- NIC: Everything?
- MILLER: Meet me at (bleeped out) in ten minutes.
- NIC: Okay, but that’s at least twenty minutes away…
(Skype disconnects)
NIC: I met Morgan Miller. She didn’t want me to record her voice, of course, and I didn’t push her this time. She told me about a friend of Sam’s, a young woman who had been ostensibly helping him. Morgan now believes the woman was watching him, recruiting him for something. She believes the young woman was part of a cult, the Cult of Tanis. I eventually convinced her to let me record her talking about the cult.
- NIC: So…what is this cult? The- what you call The Cult of Tanis?
- MILLER: It’s these people who left the classified ads way back, the ones you mentioned in your first episodes.
- NIC: Wow, you really do listen to the show.
- MILLER: Yeah, well, I have some notes.
- NIC: Really?!
- MILLER: No. I don’t give a shit about your show.
- NIC: Oh…
- MILLER: I just…I wanna find Tara Reynolds.
- NIC: So you think this cult might have had something to do with her disappearance?
- MILLER: Not at all. But they had everything to do with her brother’s disappearance.
- NIC: And you’re sure about that?
- MILLER: I’m positive. There were two of them outside my place when I left to come here.
- NIC: Really?
- MILLER: Yes! There was one of them outside your place.
- NIC: Outside my place? You went by my place?
- MILLER: It was on the way.
- NIC: So why did you turn down the three million dollars, if you don’t mind my asking?
- MILLER: Because people like the two creeps waiting outside my apartment started showing up…everywhere.
- NIC: And did you consider calling the police?
- MILLER: Sure did.
- NIC: And?
- MILLER: And…so I called them.
- NIC: And what happened?
- MILLER: I called them and somebody showed up. Somebody who wasn’t the police.
- NIC: Who showed up? The cult?
- MILLER: Not that time.
- NIC: Who was it that time?
- MILLER: The Company.
- NIC: Is there any way you might be mistaken about all this? I mean-
- MILLER: Yo- (scoffs) You think I’m paranoid?
- NIC: Well, no, I’m just having a hard time imagining a Tanis conspiracy. Or, you know, two Tanis conspiracies.
- MILLER: Yeah, well, I wish I had that luxury.
- NIC: I might’ve found something related to the cult.
- MILLER: What is it?
- NIC: It’s an email somebody sent me, a listener.
- MILLER: Do you have a lot of listeners?
- NIC: Yeah, we do.
- MILLER: (incredulous) Really?
- NIC: Yes! They’re very engaged!
- MILLER: Wow!
- NIC: (chuckles) They pointed me to an unaired television pilot. In the background of one of the interview sections you can hear people chanting.
- MILLER: What are they chanting?
- NIC: There are wondrous things, there are magical things…
- MILLER: There are dangerous things, we get what we deserve.
- NIC: You’ve heard this before?
- MILLER: It’s a specific group.
- NIC: So how many people are in this group, this cult?
- MILLER: There used to be a lot more. This faction is the only remaining active group as far as I know.
- NIC: In the world?
- MILLER: Yes.
- NIC: Wow.
- MILLER: Where did this chanting take place?
- NIC: I spoke with the property owners. They’d rented the house to somebody named James who paid
- cash, said he was polite and he left the place in good condition. They’re gonna try and dig up contact information for me.
- MILLER: The number will be disconnected, the email will bounce.
- NIC: You think so?
- MILLER: I’m positive. This group never stays in one place for long.
NIC: Morgan and I agreed to meet again to speak more about what might be happening with Sam. When I got back to my place Meerkatnip was gone. There was a note on my fridge that said, “thanks.” I looked outside but didn’t see anyone sinister watching my house.
NIC: You’ll remember the name Veronika Pillman from our last episode. She was the employee from the bookstore in Portland who may or may not be HaidaGurl. When I was in Portland, I knocked on the door of the address I’d found listed in the phone book. I knocked a few times but there was no one there. I was about to drive down to Portland to try again when Meerkatnip called.
- (phone ringing)
-
- MK: Hey.
- NIC: Hey. You could have stayed longer.
- MK: Thanks.
- NIC: Yeah, of course.
- MK: Okay, so what do you want first- the Cult of Tanis, Charles Manson, or the children with the black eyes?
- NIC: Um…wow. (laughs) How about you pick?
- MK: Okay. There were four reported child incidents in the town of Raywood during its sixteen month existence. In every case, the children came back, however-
- NIC: However?
- MK: All of the parents reported that their kids weren’t quite…the same as they were before. They’d come back different. Changed.
- NIC: Different how?
- MK: Distant, forgetful, quiet, violent in most cases.
- NIC: Violent?
- MK: Yeah. Very violent. And there was more.
- NIC: Okay?
- MK: There were still reports, sightings of the missing children, months after they had all returned home safely.
- NIC: The same children?
- MK: Yep. Wearing the exact same clothing they’d been wearing at the time they disappeared.
- NIC: That’s pretty-
- MK: Yeah. There’s more.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: The children these people were seeing had black eyes.
- NIC: They had black eyes? Like injuries?
- MK: No. Not like injuries. Like hollow, black, empty pits where their eyes should’ve been.
- NIC: That’s…scary.
- MK: Yeah, you think? Anyway, the town was evacuated shortly thereafter.
- NIC: I don’t suppose you have a list of the families?
- MK: Only the ones with the missing kids.
- NIC: That’s…kind of psychic, almost.
- MK: Yeah, I’m starting to get to know you.
- NIC: Thanks. I think.
- MK: It’s really not that difficult. (Nic chuckles) The Raywood stuff is in your inbox, so what’s next? Charles Manson or the cult?
- NIC: Wow, um…uh… I guess the cult.
- MK: The Cult of Tanis is, from what I could dig up, relatively new.
- NIC: How new?
- MK: Well, they claim to be ancient, like Knights Templar ancient, but it looks like they were started by a group of obsessives, people like Carl van Sant. This group probably began in like the 1940’s or early 50’s.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: They’ve been involved in placing classified ads, trolling bulletin boards, playing at being a secret society, but without much that’s actually worth keeping secret, aside from the existence of Tanis. It’s not clear, but I don’t think they know about Parzavala.
- NIC: So, they’re what? Like Tanis groupies?
- MK: Something like that.
- NIC: Okay, so what about that weird chanting?
- MK: We get what we deserve?
- NIC: Yeah.
- MK: Couldn’t find anything with those phrases specifically, but cults are pretty out there, generally. Might just be some crazy, let’s catch a ride on a comet shit.
- NIC: Okay, right. And Sam Reynolds?
- MK: Well, this particular group or faction of the cult, the ones Morgan Miller was referring to, have been in trouble with the law in the past.
- NIC: In trouble? What kind of trouble?
- MK: Kidnapping, extortion, aggravated assault, indecent exposure. Oh, and littering.
- NIC: And littering?
- MK: Urinating outside a bar, actually.
- NIC: (snickers) Littering, right. Anything else?
- MK: The operation she suspects Sam got involved with is run out of the basement of a duplex in Everett, Washington. They’re hiding behind a not for profit company. I sent you the address.
- NIC: Okay, anything else I should know about the company?
- MK: Nothing that isn’t in your inbox.
- NIC: Thanks!
- MK: No problem.
- NIC: Which brings us to-
- MK: Charlie~
- NIC: (chuckles) Right. I can’t imagine what Charles Manson has to do with any of this. (MK sighs)
- MK: Well, hang on, Sloopy.
-
(Casper Mattress ad)
NIC: Raywood is located along MK’s line of latitude, north of the High Steel Bridge in Mason County, Washington. You take the old logging road built in 1929 by the Simpson Logging Company across a bridge over the Skokomish River. Raywood is a few miles up the road, a simple, wooden sign the only indicator. Marcus Dempsey was waiting for me when I arrived.
DEMPSEY: Any trouble finding the place?
NIC: Marcus Dempsey was younger than I thought he’d be, thick around the middle, but not soft. He was definitely an athlete in his day. I would guess football or rugby. He wasted no time in taking me up the road to Raywood, but there was one caveat he neglected to mention on the phone: I was allowed to take no pictures of any kind. This wasn’t something I’d anticipated, but luckily I found a kind of way to deliver a version of the Raywood experience.
I discovered a collection of photographs online of a remarkably similar town in Canada called Kitsault. This sister town to Raywood had been abandoned in a very similar fashion one year earlier in 1982. The photographer, a man named Chad Graham, visited Kitsault and took some really incredible photographs. I’ll include some of them and some other material in the notes section of our website.
Marcus Dempsey played some very interesting reel-to-reel interviews and some other audio material with Raywood speaking about the town and other things. Dempsey wouldn’t let me copy the tapes or take them off site, but he was willing to let me record some of them as they played. Here Raywood’s talking about some of his interests that lie outside of the lumber industry.
- INTERVIEWER: I understand you’re an entomologist as well as an industrialist?
- RAYWOOD: The term industrialist never used to have a negative connotation. It used to refer to an entrepreneurial spirit, a positive force for change.
- INTERVIEWER: I didn’t mean any disrespect.
- RAYWOOD: No, of course not. Entomology was an area of study I was interested in in Cambridge.
- INTERVIEWER: Insects.
- RAYWOOD: Insect. That term used to include the study of a much wider range of creatures.
- INTERVIEWER: Oh?
- RAYWOOD: Yes, that term used to incorporate other terrestrials- arthropods, worms, snails, slugs, and the like.
- INTERVIEWER: I thought it was just insects. I-I mean regular bugs.
- RAYWOOD: Back then the term insect covered a lot more.
- INTERVIEWER: I understand you’ve created a Young Explorers Group here in Raywood with a focus on entomology.
- RAYWOOD: To some degree, we actually teach children survival techniques and try to imbue within them a sense of symbiotic living. Living in peace with the environment.
- INTERVIEWER: I understand that the missing children who…returned were all part of this Young Explorers Group?
- RAYWOOD: Let’s move on to a different line of questioning.
- (tape cuts off)
- NIC: What’s that smell in the air?
- DEMPSEY: I hardly notice it anymore. It’s something to do with the foliage and the climate. What do you smell?
- NIC: Well…something like salt water maybe, but kind of sweet? Briny.
- DEMPSEY: Rotten, soaked earth. That’s what my wife used to call it.
- NIC: That sounds about right. So do you know anything about what he was talking about? The children with the black eyes?
- DEMPSEY: There were rumors. Everything was sensationalized, blown out of proportion. Those kids were fine, they all made it home safely in the end.
- NIC: So which house is yours?
- DEMPSEY: I don’t live in Raywood.
- NIC: No?
- DEMPSEY: No. I live in Everett.
- NIC: Oh. So you just wor-
- DEMPSEY: I just take care of the place.
- NIC: Okay. I noticed that you’ve kept Raywood’s Young Explorers building and laboratory in good shape. Are you interested in entomology as well?
- DEMPSEY: Me? Not really. I mean, it’s interesting, to be sure, but I find all that high-minded microscope stuff a bit hard to digest. I prefer to work with things I can see with my eyes. There are all kinds of interesting things here in Raywood, if you know where to look, things you don’t find much of any place else.
- NIC: Things? Like what kind of things?
- DEMPSEY: Well, like these guys for example. You see?
- NIC: The little prawn-like thing?
- DEMPSEY: Biters.
- NIC: Biters?
- DEMPSEY: That’s what I call them.
- NIC: You know…I’ve-I’ve never seen anything like that before.
- DEMPSEY: They’re uncommon.
- NIC: Right.
NIC: He bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt which included one of the tiny organisms. It was brownish, semi-translucent, and it was aggressive. Incredibly aggressive. It wouldn’t stop trying to bite him, and I mean really trying. It’s a good thing it was small. I wondered what that thing was called and if Jonas Raywood had jars full of biters and other crawling, fleshy things in a laboratory closet somewhere. An itch started somewhere in the back of my head and moved slowly across my skin. I suddenly wanted to be any place else.
NIC: I left Raywood feeling like I’d stepped out of the past, but not necessarily our past, exactly. Maybe something like the ancient past of an underwater world, similar to our own, but adjacent somehow. It was strange. I was feeling strange. The earthy, rotten, sweet, saltwater taffy smell wasn’t strong really, but I found it slowly and deeply sickening. I stopped at the first gas station I saw and bought one of those evergreen air fresheners. The smell of Raywood wouldn’t leave my car.
The first thing I did when I got back to Seattle was look up Marcus Dempsey’s wife and the families in Raywood whose children had been reported missing and then returned. It turns out Marian Roberts, formerly Marian Dempsey, hadn’t disappeared at all. She was living in Hawaii with her new husband, Jake. She told me she had no interest in speaking about Marcus or Raywood and then hung up. I did manage to track down members from three of the families whose children had gone missing, but nobody I called was willing to speak to me on the record about Raywood. I asked Meerkatnip if she could dig up anything else.
- MK: So a few parents had been working on a preliminary class action suit, but it was quickly dropped when the children started to… come back.
- NIC: Who were they going to sue?
- MK: The Town of Raywood.
- NIC: For what?
- MK: Unclear. Hypnosis, illegal imprisonment, kidnapping.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: The notes indicate that the whole thing fell apart pretty quickly. Raywood and the families came together to deliver what they called “a unified statement.” The families continued to live in Raywood until the entire town was evacuated a few months later. In the picture they look like one, big, happy 1980’s family. I dunno. The whole place just feels…weird.
- NIC: Weird. Yeah.
- MK: Yeah. I have a friend of mine looking into it, she said she’ll have something more on the Raywood families for me soon.
- NIC: Thanks.
- MK: No problem.
- NIC: So, what about Charles Manson?
- MK: Mm-mm. Still more Raywood.
- NIC: Oh, okay.
- MK: I managed to find some additional, unlabeled Raywood audio online.
- NIC: What is it?
- MK: Sounds like outtakes of a promotion film or an interview maybe.
- NIC: Cool, could you send it to me?
- MK: Aww, Nic. It almost hurts that you’d ask me that.
- NIC: (chuckles) Okay, thanks.
- MK: Yep.
- (Skype disconnects)
- RAYWOOD: Tell me, what do you see?
- INTERVIEWER: Is that a bird or-
- RAYWOOD: It’s not a bird.
- INTERVIEWER: Oh, its- is that a moth?
- RAYWOOD: When you see these ones, you know you’re close. You know its close.
- INTERVIEWER: What’s close?
- RAYWOOD: Isn’t it beautiful?
- INTERVIEWER: It looks almost like any other moth aside from the colors and it’s obviously a lot bigger.
- RAYWOOD: They’re not like any…other anything.
- INTERVIEWER: Oh. Okay. So, what’s special about it- about them?
- RAYWOOD: Soooo many things.
- INTERVIEWER: You’ve mentioned your ancestor, the former saint, the man you named your town after. In the next section, I’d love to discuss that if you don’t mind.
- RAYWOOD: I don’t mind at all.
- INTERVIEWER: Great.
- RAYWOOD: He was railroaded and wrongfully attacked. It’s been my life’s work to raise the Raywood name, to remind the world of what he did, what he accomplished.
- INTERVIEWER: Wasn’t there something about demon worship, human sacrifice in Rome that resulted in him being stripped of his sainthood?
- RAYWOOD: I warned you.
- INTERVIEWER: Mr. Raywood? Mr. Raywood!
- ALEX: Day three, continued. Sometime after we reached the first clearing, the Novelist fell to her knees and started screaming and clawing at her eyes. She kept yelling the words, asking the question, “Why are you here? Why are you here?” We tried to calm her, ask her who she was talking about, but she just faded, curled up in the fetal position, and mumbled to herself. I have to concentrate, really hard in order to try and…feel the way I used to feel, to push back the…blur. The blur that’s been growing inside, threatening to fill my mind. Sometimes it feels like if I just relax, just fall into what feels lately like the deep, muddy, green water of my mind, the blur will take over and make things…easier.
- These moments pass and I find clarity and I do understand that I’m just myself in the woods with these people, but… And I don’t know if it’s just the hunger or the lack of sleep, the constant hum or not knowing exactly where we are, but most of the time, I’m uncertain about everything. There are wondrous things. I told the Runner that I’d like to leave, to stop, to go home. But she told me it wouldn’t be long now, that we’ve come this far already. She told us all that she started hearing The Calm last night; that it woke her up. She seems lighter somehow, and yet stretched thin. I don’t know how to explain it other than she looks to me like a guitar string that’s continually being tuned up. At some point, it’s going to snap, like a balloon being expanded, it’s only a matter of time. There are magical things.
- The Runner spoke to the Novelist and whatever she did or said seems to have worked. The Zealot hasn’t spoke in forever, he appears to be gathering his strength, as if he knows that something is coming, something that is going to require everything we’ve got. We pack up and head out after the Runner. I’m constantly fighting the blur now, but my energy is waning. I’m trying hard to stay focused, the birds sound different; everything sounds different. Not like we’re underwater exactly, but more like we’re under some kind of dome or thick, invisible mist, something. Later on, while we stopped and made tea, the Zealot pointed out that there had been birds flying above us, but that they didn’t seem to be willing to fly over this part of the woods. I don’t remember the birds, I don’t remember much now. The days have started to blend together.
- The nights are…harder. There are dangerous things. I’ve noticed more snails and slugs than I’ve ever seen before. There seems to be an abundance of them everywhere. We try and avoid them as we move along the paths, but there are just so many. The Runner told us to try and get as much sleep as possible because we were getting closer, closer to The Calm.
NIC: Next week the search for Tanis continues, plus, an attempt to make contact with the people allegedly holding Sam Reynolds provides some compelling clues. In addition, I finally find out what Meerkatnip has to say about Charles Manson. It’s Tanis, I’m Nic Silver. We’ll be back again in two weeks, until then, keep looking.
Tanis is produced by Terry Miles. Produced, mixed, and edited by me, Nic Silver. Executive producers Terry Miles and Paul Bae. As always, listen to The Black Tapes Podcast at theblacktapespodcast.com
NIC: For legal and safety reasons, we've elected to change some names, and leave others out entirely. We don't do this very often, but we're not willing to compromise people's safety for any reason.
Thanks again for listening to Tanis.