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Leandra just goes on and on about her #vanlife or something. Bit of a snoozefest, really.
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Created by Lashonda Love
Presented by Pulsing Prism Productions
See full credits: Credits & About
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Transcript for Episode 4 below!
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(Intro music playing)
[CREATURE X]: Hey there earthlings and interstellar creatures and welcome to the Extraplanar Radio Show.
Creature X here, preparing for transmission. For the uninitiated, you will be hosting an extraplanar entity for the duration of tonight's broadcast so please secure all belongings, clear your reception space of all non-receiving lifeforms, and finalize emergency and end-of-life plans.
We here at the Extraplanar Radio Show do our very best to ensure all of our symbiotic attachments are completely safe and secure.
Though, please be advised that disengaging from symbiosis before the transmission is complete may result in adverse side effects.
Transmission ready.
Standby for countdown
and remember, it's only fiction.
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(Intro music fades out)
(sad music fades in)
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[CREATURE X]: It has been a long time since I last broadcasted to you, my beloved audience.
So much has happened between then and now, but I will spare you the long, gruesome, and gory details.
Perhaps we can catch up some other time. For now, I have quite the backlog of listener stories to get through.
For those who are looking for the Q&A, I should also address that I fundamentally misunderstood what a Q&A is, but after receiving so many questions on earthling human social media, I will be answering one per episode.
Just to keep things interesting and to placate your ravenous curiosity.
But first, let's go to traffic.
I have received several spam transmissions over the last few weeks regarding a warranty on my vehicle. Or at least I think that's what they're going on about. It's hard to decipher, but each transmission begins the same way.
The heavy sound of strained breathing.
High-pitched, crackling static broken only by inaudible pulses that seem to invade my very mind.
Then, shrill, blood-curdling screeches that, when translated into my own language, reveal the following message:
(ominous music)
We've been trying to reach you.
How much longer can you expect this vehicle to protect you?
Why haven't you responded to us?
There is no need to be afraid.
Be it one moment from now or many, this vessel will eventually fail you.
Its destruction is imminent.
And then nothing will stop us.
This call is but a courtesy. You can delay your coming demise.
If you would like to do so, please press 1 to speak with a specialist. Otherwise, you may hang up now and enjoy your final moments.
(music transitions)
As cryptic as it may be, that message got me thinking. My vehicle is quite old. It's from the year 2002, but from the perspective of the Andromeda Galaxy's supermassive black hole, so it's pretty old.
I guess you could say I have a bit of a classic vehicle obsession, but obviously I have made some modern enhancements and modifications to mine. Maybe I should consider having a bit more work done to at least improve its safety and defenses.
My mother did send some currency my way recently.
Perhaps a visit to a mechanic is in order.
Thanks cryptic vehicle warranty message!
I will get right on that.
This has been traffic.
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(music transitions)
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[CREATURE X]: We return this week with our listener's story segment, where I read completely true stories submitted by listeners of the Extraplanar Radio Show.
Today, I read another from Earth, since we're seeing some big listener spikes from the blue planet.
This week's story comes from Leandra.
Leandra writes,
[LEANDRA]: Hey there Creature X, Leandra here!
Big time fan of the Extraplanar Radio Show. I was even a fan of your old show, you remember that one?
Yeah…
I was so, so upset to hear how terribly it ended for everyone involved. Just so many people.
Anyway, I was excited to see that you came up with something else here!
The Extraplanar Radio Show, good for you, honey.
And you know, nothing delights me more than hearing that the Listener Stories segment is back. I mean, what could go wrong?
Anyway, I thought, Leandra, it is time to tell your story, honey.
(music transitions)
So here I am, telling you my story.
For a start, when I was a child, my mom and I used to move a lot. So, I saw a lot of places and met a lot of people.
Now, because we were traveling so much for my mama's gigs and odd jobs, we lived out of a camper she bought from the scrapyard most of the time. When we'd be on the road, she'd drive for hours and hours, and then we'd park it and rest for the night wherever we could.
Most of the time it was just truck stops or campsites, but occasionally you'd just have to park her out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
Now, by and large, we had little to no encounter with folks except in passing, and when we were stopped on the long, open highways out west, you could go all night without seeing another car, let alone a single other person.
When you did see someone at a rest stop or somewhere, they normally minded their own business or were nice and cordial.
But every so often, just like you'd expect, you'd get a fucking creep.
And that's why my mama kept a pistol in the camper, just in case. It made us feel safe, but we never had to use it.
So that's that.
Anyway, I remember one trip we were driving from Oklahoma all the way up to Oregon.We were coming back on the road after a couple detours and were driving over one of those long expanses of shit-all-nothing out in the desert.
It was getting late and I had to keep tapping Mama to keep her inside the lines on the road, so we decided it was time to pull over and hunker down for the night.
As usual, I stayed up till around 2am quietly reading and then started watching our one VHS tape while Mama slept.
It was Jurassic Park and I just loved it. I would always rewind back to that Jeff Goldblum shot a couple times because boy wasn't he something?
So around 2am, it was right around that scene when the T-Rex starts attacking the kids in the car which always gave me the willies.
Anyway, I had to use the restroom and that meant going outside
in the middle of the night
in the middle of nowhere.
And on top of that, you're out there vulnerable with your pants down, so I normally avoided going out to pee when we were just staying in the camper overnight, but that night I just couldn't hold it.
I let the T-Rex scene play while I went out so it would be over by the time I got back in.
Then I went around back and popped a squat.
All the light out on that stretch of desert highway came from only two sources, the full moon and the windows of the camper.
The windows were flashing with the glow of the TV screen, but otherwise pretty dim, so I was straining to see around me, trying to make sure I didn't take a piss on a rattlesnake or a scorpion.
Not that I'd ever seen one, but that's when I saw something else.
Now it wasn't the seeing that hit me first. It was the way all the sound died down.
Like someone put two cups over my ears.
I thought maybe I was passing out, so I looked up towards the desert where the moon was bathing over everything to see if I had tunnel vision or something.
And there it was.
A silhouette, about ten yards ahead, cast in the moonlight so faint I could barely see it.
It was still, but shaped just like a person.
I felt my hands clam up, and I'm one of those folks who gets teary-eyed when I'm scared, so they welled up in my eyes and started blurring my vision.
Pulled up my pants real slow,
wiped my eyes real quick,
but by the time I looked up again, I could have sworn it was closer.
I felt stuck with fear for a moment, but knew I had to get inside where at least we had the pistol ready for whatever creeper was hanging around out there.
I jumped up as quick as I could and hightailed it back inside, slamming the door behind me so loud my mama jolted up.
She was angry as all hell getting woke up and asked what I was doing.
I told her what I saw.
She said it was probably some cactus or something or that it was just dark and my eyes were playing tricks on me. But she grabbed the pistol and a flashlight all the same and went outside even though I told her not to.
It always scared me when she did stupid shit like that so I just waited inside for her.
She wasn't even out there a minute before she came back and said it just looked like a desert tree and she didn't see nothing else.
Then she yelled at me for not ejecting the VHS tape!
I looked over at the TV and it was just black.
The tape was at its end.
But that couldn't be right. I'd been outside for what, a few minutes?
Mama hadn't even been out that long!
Then I looked at the time.
It was already past 4 a.m!
I couldn't believe it, how could two hours have passed in the blink of an eye like that?
I was so scared I just started crying.
I kept trying to tell her what happened but she said I must have been sleepwalking or having a nightmare and she didn't want me staying up that late anymore.
I couldn't prove it and I couldn't disprove it.
So I just tried to go back to sleep as best I could.
Nothing else happened that night, or at least I slept through anything if it did, but in the morning, when we popped outside before setting off again, the ground was littered with footsteps going in a circle around the camper.
There had to have been hundreds of them, and plenty were going out in one direction,
straight into the big stretch of desert.
Mama said I must have been out there pacing in my sleep, but I just couldn't believe her. I knew I hadn't fallen asleep. There was no way.
But I couldn't come up with a better explanation, and eventually, we headed back out on the road. Got where we were going, and moved on from it.
The next year was pretty uneventful.
My mama got a gig in Missouri, so we camped out for a few months until she was finished up, and then we headed on the road again.
This time we wound up driving through Illinois and had a few late-night stops at campsites and eventually, I think we were both just sick of that musty old camper, especially in the dead of winter. So we started staying at motels a lot more.
We posted up at a real dingy place one night. Had people gathered and smoking and drinking out in the parking lot basically the whole time so we just beelined for our room and minded our own business.
I remember staying up late that night because the motel had free cable, so I was watching reruns of old TV shows before I got ready for bed.
By the time I was getting ready to go to sleep, I realized I forgot some of my stuff in the camper, so I went out real quick to get it.
Figured if I was just fast about it, there wouldn't be any hubbub with the people outside.
And I was right. I just hopped outside and grabbed my stuff and came right back in with no problem. Got cleaned up and hit the hay.
But then, that's when everything went wrong.
I woke up in the dark freezing my ass off at who knows what o'clock because the power had gone out so nothing was working.
Street lights were off, heat was off, I didn't even hear the people outside anymore.
Mama was dead asleep, I swear that woman could sleep through getting hit by a train.
With everything turned off, I just heard the wind whipping up outside and figured it must have just knocked down a line somewhere.
And then I heard a bang.
And then another, all coming from outside, the sound of metal on metal.
I didn't think too much of it, maybe just the wind blowing or something, but I peeked out the window to see what it was anyway.
When I looked out, my heart sank.
The door to the camper was open and blowing in the wind.
Now I could have sworn I closed her and locked her back up, but she was open. My first thought was one of those good-for-nothings must have seen me go in and then tried their luck afterwards.
I was just hoping we hadn't got robbed.
I stood there looking around for a bit, making sure nobody was there. They probably all ran off anyway. Then I decided I better go out and at least lock her up.
So I took the keys and walked out into the night. Cold air was shredding right through me.
I gave a look inside and it didn't seem like anything was tossed around or nothing so I shut it all up and was about to head back across the parking lot when all the noise died down.
That familiar feeling came back like two cups pressed over my ears.
My hair stood up on the back of my neck and goosebumps all up and down my spine.
I looked up and my blood ran cold.
[CREATURE X]: But first, it's time for our sponsors.
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This episode of the Extraplanar Radio Show is sponsored.
This is an ad.
You must listen intently to every word because you might not have another chance to memorize this.
Oh, wait. Did I mention you need to have this completely memorized?
Even the stuff I said before.
You will need to decipher the encoded message and know it inside and out by the time IT comes.
IT will likely find you later this evening when you're alone.
Vulnerable.
IT will want to know what you have heard. What meaning you have uncovered. That is the only way to stave off its insatiable hunger.
You must decode this message and quickly! It is imperative to your survival that you be able to recall in excruciating detail all that is contained within this:
The ad copy.
This episode has been sponsored
[CREATURE X]: I also want to take a moment to introduce our new Q&A segment. This stands for Questions and Answers.
You have asked questions and apparently, I must now provide answers to those questions specifically. Not any other questions, just those.
The bargain has been struck, so I am obligated.
Anyway, our first question is from someone on Earth.
They wrote: You are named Creature X. Is there a Creature Y?
I assume you are referencing either the Earthling Human English Alphabet or Earthling Human Mathematics.
In either case, of course there is a Creature Y, but that has nothing to do with me. X is actually a nickname, a shortening of my categorization and personal identifier.
As for my real name, there are unfortunately several contracts and binds in place that prevent me from uttering those particular sounds to you.
Anyway,
There is Creature Y, Creature Solved for Y, Creature But Why? and so on.
You'd probably have to contact the Intergalactic Registry to see them all or get specifics. I don't personally keep tabs on all of them.
But thanks so much for your question!
And if you would like to send a question to the Extraplanar Radio Show…
figure out how to do that!
This has been Questions and Answers.
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(music transitions)
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[LEANDRA]: I looked up and all my blood ran cold, standing at the edge of the empty parking lot, a dark silhouette of a person.
I felt frozen in fear. I kept willing myself to wake up, but the sharp cold air digging through my clothes told me I was already awake.
The quiet pressure on my ears turned to static, and then to complete silence.
I saw the wind whipping, but couldn't hear it.
I felt the keys shaking in my hand, but they made no sound.
Then, a second silhouette stepped out from behind the building.
All I could think was run. I have to run.
I darted for our door but fumbled to get the key in. My heart was pounding wild, thumping in my ears and I was almost in
when I heard footsteps running all out, coming up from behind me.
I threw myself into the room as quickly as I could and slammed the door shut.
As sound returned to me, I heard myself screaming and my mama coming up and shaking me and asking me what was wrong.
It all just tumbled out of me and I told her about the camper being open and the people and it occurred to me…
The room was warm.
The heat was on.
The digital clock read 4 a.m.
I turned to the window and outside the streetlights were on, yet it just couldn't be.
Mama took the keys from my hand. She said I was being silly, probably dreaming again, but she was gonna go grab the pistol just in case. She checked outside and went back out to the camper.
I kept the door closed, worried what might come in while she was gone.
And then I was just waiting.
One minute turned to ten. Then an hour. Then two hours.
I was crying on the floor when the manager unlocked our door and found me in the morning. We were past checkout and I still didn't know where she was. Just frozen in fear, waiting.
The manager called the police. They found the keys on the ground in front of the camper door. No sign of her.
It was four days later when she emerged from the woods all the way in Indiana!
She didn't remember what happened and she couldn't talk. Couldn't make a sound.
Still can't to this day.
I never asked what happened because on some level I already knew.
The way her eyes widened with surprise and fear when she learned she had been gone for four days. The way I came back in two hours after going out but it was only a couple minutes for me.
Something took her time and mine.
I don't know what she went through for those four days, but eventually, she sold the camper and we moved to the city.
Stayed put ever since.
I don't know how to tell her though, what I see every night.
Crowds and crowds of silent silhouettes in the empty street below our window.
Looking up, waiting on us.
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(outro music playing)
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[CREATURE X]: Well Leandra, thank you so much for submitting that riveting tale.
It didn't seem like much really happened and you might want to work on your storytelling skills - I almost fell asleep - but I appreciate your submission nonetheless.
For all our listeners out there, thanks for bearing with me through that and tune in next time when we talk about… other things!
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