Bat

References

• Ape Canyon Incident
• Cryptids
  • Sasquatch
  • Crabsquatch
  • Mothman
  • Squonk
• Batman
  • Man-Bat
• Man Bat of Chicago
• The Backrooms
• Access All Areas

Transcript

EVIDENCE ITEM #2026-1020-B // CASE #26-█████ // RECOVERED: 20 OCT 2026
DESCRIPTION: Audio recording, digital file (incident: 26-█████)
RELATED INCIDENTS: 10-WA-22-964B00; ████████████████; 10-WA-24-615B00; 2025-1021-A
STATUS: PATTERN CONFIRMED — ESCALATION PENDING — SEE ATTACHED MEMO
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

[BROWN]
Okay, Shep, can you give me a sound test, please?

[EMILY]
How come you never asked me for the sound test?

[BROWN]
Okay, fine, you give me the sound test then.

[EMILY]
(Singing) Oh, we’re sitting in a cold wet cave. (clap clap)

[BROWN]
Well-

[EMILY]
(Singing) Oh, we’re sitting in a cold wet cave. (clap clap)

[BROWN]
And that would be why I don’t ask you. Shep, a mic check, please.

[SHEPARD]
This is a test of my regular speaking voice, and (shouting) this is a test of my excited speaking voice.

[BROWN]
Okay.

[SHEPARD]
Bah bah bah-

[BROWN]
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[EMILY]
Yeah, was that better?

[BROWN]
No-

[EMILY]
Was that really better?

[BROWN]
No, you’re both the worst. But no, yeah, that’s fine. We got it. It’s all set up. Thank you.

[SHEPARD]
All right, are you sure that we have permission to be in the- in here at night?

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[SHEPARD]
I mean, I thought the park closed at dusk.

[EMILY]
Yeah, totally. I got permission and signed a liability waiver and everything.

[BROWN]
Shouldn’t we have signed that too?

[EMILY]
Nah, it’s all good. The guy said I could sign for the group.

[SHEPARD]
What guy?

[EMILY]
The forest stranger, um, Steve. He had a table set up when I got here and said I could sign for everyone. And that he hope we enjoyed our time.

[BROWN]
Oh, well, that sounds totally above board.

[EMILY]
Come on, we can trust Ranger Steve. He’s a cool guy! Anyway-

[BROWN]
Maybe if I’d met him-

[EMILY]
You’ll meet him eventually.

[BROWN]
When I’m dead.

[EMILY]
I got his number. It’s fine.

[BROWN]
Oh, okay. Now, okay, now it’s all falling into place.

[EMILY]
You know, I wanted to come here because Mount St. Helens is home to one of the earliest recorded Bigfoot interactions. The Ape Canyon Incident of 1924.

[SHEPARD]
The what?

[BROWN]
Yeah, yeah, wait.

[SHEPARD]
The Ape Canyon incident?

[EMILY]
Yes.

[BROWN]
Yeah, that sounds ominous.

[EMILY]
The Ape Canyon Incident of 1924. There were five prospectors that got trapped in this log cabin while they were out here. And a big group, like a group of Bigfoot came and pelted the cabin with, like, rocks and, like, boulders. They were just, like, chucking shit at it, trying to get at them because they were pissed.

[SHEPARD]
A group of Bigfoot?

[EMILY]
Bigfoots. I’m sorry.

[BROWN]
Yeah, surely you mean Bigfeet.

[SHEPARD]
No, no, no, no, no, no! The proper pluralization of Bigfoot is Bigfoots.

[BROWN]
What?

[EMILY]
Yeah. Only newbies called them Bigfeet. Anyway, this area is supposed to be swarming with Sasquatch.

[BROWN]
Uh-huh, and next thing you’re tell me they were driven away by Batsquatch.

[EMILY]
Batsquatch isn’t a real cryptid.

[BROWN]
Well-

[EMILY]
That’s some made up bullshit. There’s Sasquatch-

[BROWN]
Uh-huh.

[EMILY]
Crabsquatch, Mothman, the Squonk, and-

[BROWN]
The Squonk?

[EMILY]
Man Bat.

[SHEPARD]
Wait a minute, Man Bat? Man Bat, like from Batman?

[EMILY]
No! Not that Man Bat. The Man Bat of Chicago.

[BROWN]
What?

[EMILY]
Sometimes called the Phantom of Chicago.

[BROWN]
This is just getting weirder and weirder.

[EMILY]
The Man Bat of Chicago! He’s been around Chicago since, like, 2011. I’ve him with my own eyes. He’s a real thing.

[SHEPARD]
What are you talking about?

[EMILY]
So, a few years ago, when I was working for one of the biggest insurance agencies in the country, I got to take a business trip to Chicago. It was the first and most likely the only time I got to go there. I have always wanted to go to Chicago; I had a childhood friend who moved there when I was in 8th grade. I never visited her before she moved to another state, so I kind of missed out on that opportunity. I was prepared to spend all of my free time just being a the most touristy tourist in the city. I wanted to see Sears Tower (which is now called the Willis Tower for some dumb reason)-

[SHEPARD]
“What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”

[EMILY]
I want to see the Bean, and, um, if I have a chance I want to go and watch Chad the Bird. But unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a chance to do that. My days were pretty much occupied by the meetings and trainings I was actually sent to the city to do, and the nights, well, they kind of got weird.

[BROWN]
Hmm.

[EMILY]
It was a different experience. You’ve been to Chicago, right, Thomas?

[BROWN]
No, I haven’t. I really want to go.

[EMILY]
Why did I think you went? What about you, Shep? Have you ever been?

[SHEPARD]
No.

[EMILY]
Well, O’Hare was an experience for sure.

[BROWN]
Well, I’ve been there, but that doesn’t really count.

[EMILY]
Oh yeah, so you, so you know, like, I knew it was going to be busy-

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[EMILY]
Because it’s one of the largest airports in the world, but it was so much more overwhelming than I imagined. I was exhausted when I got on the train from the airport. I ended up leaning against the window, just absent mindedly watching the night sky. At one point I thought I saw something up there. It looked like a bat, but it was way too big to be a real bat anyway. It flew by so fast I just assumed it was some kind of bird; I have heard that Chicago is in the migration path for Sandhill Cranes, they have a big population there.

[BROWN]
Hmm.

[EMILY]
And they’re really big birds. But the migrations take place in the spring and fall, and this was, like, middle of summer, so I don’t know. It would have been unusual to see one. Not impossible, but certainly unusual.

[EMILY – CONT]
So, that first night, super uneventful. I took the later flight so I could make it to the department meeting first thing in the morning, but I still had my regular hours the day of the flight, because I had all those clients I had to work in. So, when I got to the hotel I just kind of passed out. I slept really hard too. The next day was just a slew of meetings, some client phone calls, deep dish pizza for lunch, and cocktails after work. Very very typical insurance agent stuff. As I walked back to my hotel room that night, I heard a weird, like, rhythmic squeaking, kind of like a car alarm but a much higher pitch and more animal-like. I could tell I was walking in the direction the sound was coming from because it got louder and I started to feel it in my head. The closer I got the more it made me feel awful; I was getting dizzy and started feeling really nauseated. I barely made it to the hotel without puking. I wasn’t going to be that person, walking the streets of Chicago, puking their guts out like some drunk hippy. You know, Chicago’s famous for their drunk hippies.

[BROWN]
Right.

[EMILY]
Once I got inside and up to my room, I started to feel better. I did have trouble sleeping that night though, the sound kept kind of invading my dreams.

[BROWN]
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that Kraftwerk album.

[EMILY]
The next day, at the office, I told one of the Chicago colleagues what had happened that night before. I asked what kinds of birds they have in the area that could have made that noise. I thought there might be something in Chicago like the Peregrine Falcons at the Chrysler Building in New York. You know, like, fast flying, high screeching birds of prey. He looked me dead in the eyes, lowered his voice, and very seriously told me it was probably the Man Bat of Chicago. I had no idea what to say to that. As I was processing the comment he started laughing hard, and I realized he was messing with me, of course. But I did have a lot of questions. My first thought was “Man Bat? Like from Batman?”

[SHEPARD]
That was my question!

[EMILY]
That was your question! Then I thought maybe Bat Boy had grown up and moved to Chicago, but I have since learned at that point in time he was a politician and running for president. When I was finally out of meetings for the day and left to work alone, I started to do a little research on the Man Bat of Chicago.

[EMILY – CONT]
So, apparently, it’s a local urban legend and as I mentioned sightings started around 2011. Most of them occurring at O’Hare and the Lincoln Park neighborhood, which wasn’t too far from the office and where I was staying. It’s been seen, like, hundreds of times. Like 147 times or something ridiculous like that. A lot of people think it’s just a Sandhill Crane, like I thought at first, or a Blue Heron maybe, they have a big population by the lake there. But most of the eyewitnesses are adamant that it is a large humanoid bat. They don’t see any feathers, just smooth leathery wings. What I found was interesting but also completely absurd. The Reddit posts I read were clearly written by a crazy person or just someone trolling the internet. Or both. I decided the most likely explanation was I saw a Sandhill Crane when I arrived in town, and I must have heard some kind of noise deterrent businesses use to keep people from loitering in front of their doors. That’s gotta be what I heard. I would just make sure to find a different way to the hotel that night.

[EMILY – CONT]
Since this was my last night in Chicago, I did make sure to do one very touristy thing, and I went to the Field Museum after work. I love museums and this one did not disappoint. I got to see so many dinosaur fossils! SUE, the T. rex, is there. They have a Spinosaurus, and it’s just, it’s amazing. There are so many things to see there. It’s so cool. And for my last dinner, I found a nice little steak house right by the hotel. I had a couple of Old Fashioneds. Did you know Old Fashioneds were created in Chicago?

[BROWN]
No, I didn’t.

[EMILY]
Yeah! So, there’s no way I’m leaving the city without having one, right? I did kind of feel off on my walk home. The Old Fashioneds hit me a little harder than I expected, but it’s important you two understand I was in no way wasted. Okay? I was tipsy, I was buzzed, not wasted. I was a couple of blocks away when I heard that noise again. It felt like it was echoing through my head even more this time. I looked around for the speakers in the doorways of the businesses, I couldn’t see anything. I was going to try and avoid them, but I didn’t see any speakers. I didn’t even see any cameras or anything. And it just got more intense the further I walked, and it became deafening when I crossed this alleyway. I had to stop and cover my ears. I felt like I was going to drop to my knees. I was close to the source of the sound, and then it stopped suddenly. I peered down the alley and that’s when I saw him.

[EMILY – CONT]
A very large man draped in a leather cloak. Only it wasn’t a man, and it wasn’t wearing a cloak. It was the Man Bat! It was well over six feet tall, probably close to 7, I think. It had very broad shoulders and, like, huge wings. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was standing in the middle of the alley, eating something. I couldn’t see exactly what it was eating because it had its back to me, but I could hear the noises of, like, a wounded animal and then bones crunching. And I felt so sick to my stomach I gagged and that startled the creature. It turned towards me and I saw it had a raccoon in each hand, one was missing its head, and the other was, like, barely alive and just whimpering and making dying noises. And the creature’s face was just covered in blood. It shrieked at me. It was so deafening I did fall to my knees at that point. I covered my ears and I closed my eyes until the noise stopped, it couldn’t have been more than 20 seconds, but oh my god it felt so much longer than that. When I opened my eyes, the alley was empty and there were no sign of the Man Bat or his raccoon snacks. And I just booked it to the hotel.

[EMILY – CONT]
I barely slept that night. I just couldn’t get the image of the decapitated raccoon, and the blood dripping from the Man Bat’s face, out of my mind. And the sound of the shriek still was echoing, like ugh, it was awful. I was so happy to get on the plane and go home. Honestly, I don’t think I will ever go back to Chicago.

[BROWN]
Well, that was interesting.

[EMILY]
Look, I don’t care if you believe me or not. It happened. And I’m never going back to Chicago!

[RUMBLE]

[EMILY]
Uh…

[SHEPARD]
Convenient sound effects.

[EMILY]
Yeah, that’s funny. Talk about sounds of a giant Man Bat, and then the cave bats start talking shit about my story, too.

[SHEPARD]
I am not okay with cave bats.

[EMILY]
Ranger Steve says they mainly stick to the other entrance at the other end of the cave, so we don’t have to worry about them swarming or anything over here.

[BROWN]
Oh, that reminds me of a story. Do you guys know what urban exploration is?

[SHEPARD]
Yes?

[EMILY]
Kinda.

[BROWN]
Sok, basically, it’s exploring abandoned and closed-off places, usually in the urban environment. It’s a bit like The Backrooms, but the floorplans make sense, and it’s usually not as creepy. Usually not as creepy.

[BROWN – CONT]
Anyway, I used to do a lot of “urbex” — that’s the slang name for it — especially right after college. I loved exploring areas that I never knew existed, and seeing the history of a place by actually being there, and I really liked the feeling of seeing something most people never get to see. Feels special, you know? There was always a sort of charge that came with it as well. The excitement of being in a liminal space that’s completely still, no one’s around, just dust hanging in the air. Often the hair on the back of my neck would stand up, back when I had hair. It was like in-person ASMR, or something. I miss that. I haven’t done it in… Well, it’s been a while.

[BROWN – CONT]
There’s a great book called Access All Areas that goes into the philosophy of urbex and gives some practical tips on how to do it. Most of it’s common-sense stuff, like: You generally don’t want to go alone, but you also don’t want a big group. And then things like, doing research on the place ahead of time, having first aid kits, having fresh batteries in your flashlights, having flashlights at all.

[BROWN – CONT]
I bring that last one up because of what happened in the story that I was just reminded of. This was… A little over a decade ago, now? Yeah. There’s an old brick-making factory that’s about a forty-five-minute drive outside of town. You know how we had that Great Fire in, I don’t know, like, the late 1800s or something? The whole city burned down-

[SHEPARD]
Yeah, remember that.

[EMILY]
Mm, yeah.

[BROWN]
Yeah, we were all alive then, right?

[NOTE — possible admission, flagged for follow-up]

[EMILY]
Yeah.

[BROWN]
But the whole city burned down because, like, everything was made out of wood. Well in the wake of that fire, this factory was built and supplied most of the bricks they used to rebuild the city.

[BROWN – CONT]
Now, the original factory closed in the late 1950s, and they moved production to a larger, more modern facility nearby, but the old beehive kilns are still there. By the way, they’re called “beehive kilns” because of their round, domed shape, not because they’re full of bees.

[EMILY]
Disappointing.

[BROWN]
Well, I had heard that one of them had a bat colony living in it, and I thought that might be interesting to see.

[BROWN – CONT]
Now because there’s an active brickworks right next door, and because it’s in kind of a rural area, if we wanted to explore the old factory, we would have to go at night. That’s not uncommon in urbex, especially for abandoned buildings. The tradeoff is safety. Abandoned buildings are dangerous places anyway, and then add near-total darkness to the mix…

[BROWN – CONT]
So, I invited two people to go with me. The first was Sam. He and I had been exploring together for years, and he was someone I knew I could trust. We had been in some… Let’s call them tricky situations before, and we always had each other’s backs.

[BROWN – CONT]
The other person I invited was Eric. I had taken him with me on a couple of low-risk, daytime runs, and he was always asking “When are we going to go on the next one?” I had told him to read Access All Areas and even leant him my copy. I did my best to prep him for this mission and told him Sam would be joining us. I guess he misunderstood and thought that meant he could invite someone as well, because when we met up in the parking lot behind the brick factory, Amy got out of the car with him.

[BROWN – CONT]
Now, Eric was acting kind of cocky and nonchalant, and it was clear he was trying to impress her. I was definitely not impressed by this, and it was a HUGE red flag. I probably should have shut it all down right there, although, I don’t know. Maybe ultimately it wouldn’t have made a difference.

[BROWN – CONT]
Anyway, I pulled Eric aside and told him he was responsible for Amy. Not that that meant I wasn’t also going to be looking out for her; I’m not an idiot. She wasn’t dressed at all properly for what we were about to do. She had on shorts, and like, yeah it was August and it was warm, but we’re at an abandoned brick factory. At least she was wearing covered shoes, although they were white.

[BROWN – CONT]
And, she didn’t have a flashlight. Eric brought one, and obviously Sam and I had ours, but who shows up at an abandoned building at night without a light source?! Sorry, anyway.

[BROWN – CONT]
I established some rules: Be quiet, stick together, watch where you’re stepping, don’t touch anything, don’t take anything, that’s a big one in urbex. Actually, I think Amy not having a flashlight probably ended up working in our favor, because it meant she couldn’t wander off on her own. It also meant we moved slower though. That was good for Amy, but kinda sucked for me, because this place was awesome.

[BROWN – CONT]
What seemed to be the main administrative building was nothing but a husk with a crumbling roof. There were other random buildings whose purpose we couldn’t figure out. Off to one side was a huge chimney — just a chimney. It was probably forty or fifty feet tall. It looked like it was wrapped with these steel cables, or something, so we didn’t want to get too close in case it wasn’t stable.

[BROWN – CONT]
Every once in a while, as we were looking around, I would notice movement out of the corner of my eye. Bats were definitely flitting around in that erratic way that they do, which I took as a good sign, although I couldn’t tell where they were coming from.

[BROWN – CONT]
Three of the beehive kilns were grouped together about twenty yards from the big chimney. The dome had collapsed on one of them. The other two were intact, but were overgrown and looking pretty rough. They had these wide metal bands on them that were slipping off.

[BROWN – CONT]
One of the two kilns had all of its entrances but one bricked up. The open entrance looked like it had also been bricked up at one time, until someone smashed through it.

[EMILY]
Like the Kool-Aid man.

[BROWN]
Oh yeah! We couldn’t get inside safely, though, as there was a large and unstable pile of bricks in that one open entrance. I didn’t see or hear any bats anyway, so I assumed this was not the kiln the colony was living in.

[BROWN – CONT]
We did manage to get into the other kiln, although the entrance was narrow and short. We had to go in single-file, and even Amy, who was probably not much taller than five feet, had to duck down so as to not hit her head. Once inside, though, the domed ceiling vaulted surprisingly high. I wouldn’t have come close to touching the highest point even if I jumped.

[BROWN – CONT]
The kilns were made of bricks of various colors, but the inside was pitch black, probably ash from the firing process. There wasn’t a lot of room to move around in this one, since it was filled with boxes of bricks stacked on each other in a large pile, probably stored there by the brickworks next door.

[BROWN – CONT]
While we were in there, Eric’s flashlight suddenly went out. Amy let out a short, surprised scream and admonished him to turn it back on, but it turns out he had brought a rechargeable flashlight, and the battery had died. Strike two for Eric on this trip.

[BROWN – CONT]
There was another group of four kilns across the yard, so we made our way over there to see if we could find the bats. We smelled them before we saw them. Faint whiffs of ammonia gave way to a sustained odor. Amy asked what the smell was. Sam said it was the bat droppings.

[BROWN – CONT]
“Yuck,” Amy said out loud.

[BROWN – CONT]
As we got closer, the noise coming from the roost let us know which kiln it was in. We could hear the bats squeaking and chittering, and just watching for a minute, we saw dozens of them flying in and out of a hole in the roof of the dome. I had goosebumps and felt that familiar tingle on the back of my neck. I looked over at Sam, and we exchanged a look. I could tell he was feeling it too.

[BROWN – CONT]
Sam and I were eager to get closer and look inside, but Amy (and even Eric) seemed hesitant. So much for wanting to look macho. I’ll admit, I wanted him to feel a little uncomfortable after the headache he had brought to this excursion, so I cajoled him a little. He caved quickly, and we all got in line to enter the kiln.

[BROWN – CONT]
Sam led the way with his flashlight, followed by Eric and then Amy. I took the back, like always. Some habits from home never really leave you. We quietly shuffled in and huddled together, squatting low with the lights pointed at the ground so we didn’t spook the bats. I clicked mine off as soon as I got into place.

[BROWN – CONT]
The smell was awful, and it was clear we weren’t going to be able to spend much time in there. Amy was already coughing into her elbow, and my eyes were starting to sting.

[BROWN – CONT]
Sam whispered to “get ready,” and we all followed the beam of his flashlight as he slowly moved it across the room and up the far wall. Bats flew back and forth, crossing through the beam, and soon we saw bats hanging from the black bricks. As the light reached the highest point, we could see what looked like a rippling brown carpet. Tiny points of light glinted off the eyes of hundreds of bats.

[BROWN – CONT]
I was in awe. This was exactly what we had come to see, and it was… So cool. Also, breathtaking. Literally breathtaking on account of the guano, and Amy had reached her limit. She started coughing loudly, and tried to push Eric and I out of the way. There was nowhere for us to go, though, and I think she started to panic.

[BROWN – CONT]
Now, this part of my memory is a bit of a blur, because a few things happened, like, all at once. Amy yelled something that I can’t remember, and that startled the bats, causing quite a lot of commotion in the kiln. Sam’s light quickly tilted back down, and it actually took me a moment to realize he had dropped the flashlight.

[BROWN – CONT]
I fell backward into the entryway, and Amy clambered over me, screaming and stepping on my arm as she went. Eric was pushing against me, and I flipped onto my hands and knees and scrambled out. When I got into the open yard, I noticed that despite it being a warm August night, the air outside the kiln was noticeably cooler. I guess the heat of hundreds of bats and a mound of fermenting guano will do that.

[BROWN – CONT]
Amy was staggering around, flailing her arms about her head, and screaming that there was a bat in her hair. Eric tumbled out and just took off running toward the other group of kilns, presumably on his way back to the parking lot. As I looked back into the kiln, I could see Sam’s light still glowing within, illuminating the back wall.

[BROWN – CONT]
I could see movement, but I couldn’t be sure if it was Sam or just the flurry of bats. Right at that moment, Amy bumped into me. She was shaking out her hair and still screaming, so I took her arm and told her to calm down. There wasn’t a bat in her hair, and both of us worked to catch our breaths, coughing from the ammonia that was still stinging our lungs.

[BROWN – CONT]
I peered in through the small opening again, and this time I couldn’t see Sam’s flashlight. I looked around me, but I didn’t see him. I called his name, got no response. I flicked on my light and shined it into the kiln, calling Sam’s name again. I waited, but didn’t hear anything other than the bats settling back into place. I turned my light off and strained to see if I could see Sam’s light inside the kiln. Nothing.

[BROWN – CONT]
Amy wanted to go back to the car, and at that point I was just confused. It would be unlike Sam to leave without me, but maybe he saw Eric run off and wanted to make sure someone experienced was with him? Or someone with a working flashlight, at any rate. That was the thought that made the most sense in the moment, although I still couldn’t square it in my head.

[BROWN – CONT]
I was right by the entrance the whole time. He couldn’t have gotten out without me noticing. I mean, I did turn my attention to Amy for a moment, but I just couldn’t understand how he could have gotten out and left my field of view that fast. It was dark, but not that dark.

[BROWN – CONT]
But no other explanation made sense, so we went back to the car.

[BROWN – CONT]
Eric was bent over dry heaving, supporting himself by a hand on his car. As soon as we approached, I asked where Sam was. Eric said he didn’t know. I shined the light into my car, which was stupid, because I had the keys. Sam wouldn’t have been able to get into my car. Still.

[BROWN – CONT]
He wasn’t there, of course. I told the two of them to stay put; I was going to go and look for Sam.

[BROWN – CONT]
I hurried back, and as I got close, I turned off my light. I peeked into the tiny, arched entrance to see if Sam’s flashlight was still on in the kiln. I was met with a darkness that left no doubt the light wasn’t there. Or if it was, it wasn’t on anymore.

[BROWN – CONT]
I shined my light into the kiln, and I could see the pile of guano, but nothing else. I called out for Sam a couple times. Each time all I heard was the squeaking and rustling of the bats. My lungs still ached from the last time I went in there, but I had to check. I took a deep breath of fresh air before ducking in.

[BROWN – CONT]
I stayed low and shined my light around the perimeter of the kiln. I could feel my heart beating hard and fast, and my lungs and eyes were pleading with me to get out. I had to check the guano first. I shined my light across it as thoroughly as I could before my body forced me back out into the night air.

[BROWN – CONT]
He wasn’t there.

[BROWN – CONT]
I looked all around the outside of the kiln, calling for him and finding nothing. When I got back to the parking lot, I asked Eric if there had been any sign of Sam. He said no, and asked what we should do. Fuck, I wasn’t sure. Sam and I had come together, so he couldn’t have left without me.

[BROWN – CONT]
I tried to think of any possible explanation, but nothing I could think of made sense. Sam seemed to just be gone. Which also didn’t make sense, of course. Anyway, the only responsible thing I could think to do was call 911.

[BROWN – CONT]
I told Eric to leave with Amy and not tell anyone about this. There was no reason for them to get tangled up in whatever legal repercussions were about to unfold.

[BROWN – CONT]
I called and explained a simplified version of what happened. Some police showed up first and started searching the brick yard. A couple of fire trucks showed up soon after, as well as a bunch more cops. Must have been a slow night. Somehow they got the lights on in the yard, and eventually a couple dozen people were looking.

[BROWN – CONT]
They searched the brick yard, the factory, and the abandoned buildings. They searched all the kilns, of course. They found the bat colony, but they didn’t find Sam, or his flashlight. No one ever found Sam.

[BROWN – CONT]
The cops took a statement from me and, to my surprise, let me go.

[BROWN – CONT]
And that’s kind of it. Sam never resurfaced, and he was never found. I thought about trying to reach out to his family, but I didn’t have any way to contact them.

[BROWN – CONT]
Eric and I hung out a few times after that, but then the pandemic happened, and… I don’t know. I haven’t reached out.

[BROWN – CONT]
As for Amy, I never saw her again, and Eric didn’t mention her. I wonder if she ever thinks about that night. Thinks about Sam.

[BROWN – CONT]
I haven’t done any kind of urban exploration since that incident. There have been people who asked why I stopped, and I guess I usually just say I don’t know. You know, sometimes you just… Drift away from a hobby. But that’s not what happened. I know exactly why I stopped.

[BROWN – CONT]
That tingle I used to get, the one that I liked, I still feel it sometimes. Walking past some boarded-up building downtown, or whatever. Except now I know it’s not excitement — it’s a warning. It’s my body telling me to stay away.

[BROWN – CONT]
See, something in that kiln took Sam. That is the only conclusion I’ve been able to come to after all this time. I know how that sounds. I know what people would think if I told them that; what you’re probably thinking right now. I don’t know, maybe it’s just what I need to tell myself.

[EMILY]
Thomas, do you blame yourself for what happened to Sam?

[BROWN]
I mean, it was my idea to go see the colony. I invited him. If I hadn’t, maybe he’d still be here.

[SHEPARD]
And maybe not. I’m with Emily. Sam was an adult. He made a choice.

[BROWN]
Yeah, maybe. Ugh. I’ve been feeling tingles again just telling this story.

[EMILY]
Probably because you’re reliving what you felt that night.

[BROWN]
Hm. Yeah, that makes sense.

[SHEPARD]
Thomas, you can’t carry that weight of guilt forever. Let me tell you a story. This is a true story. Or, everything in it, happened, is what I mean. I’ve had 30-some years to decide what to make of the parts that don’t add up, and I still haven’t landed anywhere solid, so I’m just going to tell it to you the way that it happened, and let you sit with it the way I’ve had to.

[BROWN]
Okay.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
So, it was 1991. I was 17, living at my dad’s place in San Jose, going to the same private school he’d gone to, and my stepmom… I’ll just say she was messed up in the head, and leave it there-

[BROWN]
Hmm.

[SHEPARD]
Because that’s not really what this story is about. What matters is that one day I’d had enough, and I packed up what I could fit into my car, and I left.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
My car, at that time, was a 1974 Honda Civic, orange, with rust holes in the floorboard big enough that I could watch the road passing underneath my feet while I drove.

[BROWN]
Oh, my gosh.

[EMILY]
Ah!

[SHEPARD]
Top speed of maybe 45 miles per hour if I really pushed it?

[SHEPARD]
My mom had already moved up to Washington state, too far to reach on a tank of gas and teenage impulsiveness, so instead I pointed that little orange car toward the farm in the woods, my stepdad’s place, near Valley Springs. I’d grown up there for seven years, and it felt like one of the only places that was still “mine”.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I bring up the drive, because it’s one of the parts I’ve turned over the most. It was getting on toward dusk by the time I hit the wooded roads outside of town, and a bat started flying alongside the car. Not darting around the way you’re used to seeing bats move. This one flew level and steady, like it was pacing the road on purpose, keeping time with me.

[BROWN]
Hmm.

[SHEPARD]
And it was BIG. Like, I know 1974 Civics are small cars, but I swear to you its wingspan was as wide as my hood. I told myself it was nothing. Central California’s got all kinds of things living in those hills.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
Anyway, the house at the farm was locked when I got there, which threw me, because that place was never locked. Like, the ONLY other time I can remember it being locked was when my family left me behind to go on vacation in Reno when I was 12. So, I walked up the hill to the only other property up there, which belonged to an older gentleman, Al. I’ve probably mentioned Al before; my brother’s actually named after him.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
It had only been two years since the last time I saw Al, but he was looking more haggard and stressed than I remembered. Or maybe he always looked like that, but I was too young to notice earlier. I let Al know I planned to be in the area at least for a little while.

[SHEPARD]
I didn’t have much of a plan yet, as running away from my dad’s had been kind of spur of the moment. And it was getting late, and I was far from town, and I knew Al had a small camping trailer parked on his property, so I thought I might see if I could stay in that. Well, unfortunately for me, Al already had friends coming in from out of state, and they would be occupying the camping trailer, BUT, he did have the keys to the farm house, since my stepdad had left him a spare years ago. And, if I could help him out, he’d give me the key, and I could go in and stay in my old bedroom.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
What he needed help with was: bats had gotten into the peak of his A-frame roof, and were fouling the siding, and he wanted them cleared out. So we stood in his yard with a pellet gun between us, taking turns. I got lucky on my first shot and dropped one clean, but after that neither of us hit another. Al eventually called it off, as now we were shooting little divots into his siding, which was not ideal. But he gave me the key anyway.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
The house, when I let myself in, was the quietest I had ever heard it. I’d grown up there with more siblings and half-siblings and step-siblings and foster siblings coming and going than I could keep count of, and it had never ONCE, in seven years, been silent. There was no electricity or running water (except an old hand pump out by the barn left over from our very early days), so I couldn’t clean up much before it got too dark. But, I didn’t need much. I mostly just needed to sleep.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
There were cats on the property too, I should mention that. We’d had house cats, growing up, and a few generations of their descendants had gone feral and stayed on, living wild around the barn and the tree line. They started carrying on as the sun went down, that low, ragged yowling feral cats do at dusk, and I’d barely registered it, the way you stop hearing a sound once it’s been going long enough.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
Somewhere around then, I could hear a party starting on the hill. Al’s friends had arrived. Music and voices drifting down faint through the trees. I lay in bed half-tempted to walk up and see what it was about, but it had been a long day, and tired won out, so I turned over and tried to sleep.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
Then there was a knock at the door.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I remember opening it and thinking, for just a second, that this was the best-looking man I had ever seen up close. He had on a long leather trench coat that was probably wrong for the season, which was: California, so, hot, and a black fedora with the widest brim I’d ever seen on a hat. Five inches, easy. He looked like he just stepped out of an old film. He said he was with Al’s group up the hill, and he gave me his name, which I have never once been able to remember since, not even in the moment right after he said it, like it slid right off whatever part of the brain is supposed to hold onto things like that. He said they were about to open something special, a bottle they’d carried a long way, and would I like to come up and join them before they had to leave in the morning.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
And then he smiled.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I’ve been trying to describe that smile to people, and I’ve never once landed it right, so I’ll just tell you what it did to me: every good feeling I’d had about him in the two seconds before, evaporated, all at once. Replaced with something closer to the feeling you get standing too near the edge of something high up. It wasn’t a bad smile, exactly. It was a correct smile. Every part of it was in the right place. But it was like watching someone perform a smile that they’d only ever read a description of, and never once actually felt.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
He didn’t blink. I noticed that while he was standing there. He hadn’t blinked once since I opened the door. And his eyes, they weren’t looking at my face. They were looking just past my ear, at something over my shoulder, inside the house behind me. Like maybe he was checking to see if I were alone, or if I’d brought someone with me.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
Also, it was only afterward (YEARS afterward, really), turning this whole night over in my head, that I realized the cats had gone quiet. Not faded out, not wound down the way they usually did toward midnight. Silent, all at once, sometime around when he knocked on the door. And I never heard them again that night.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I told him no thank you. I was teetotal at the time, for reasons I won’t get into. Or maybe I became teetotal because of this night? Memory is unreliable. Anyway, I don’t remember exactly what I said past that, probably something about being tired, or not drinking anymore, I honestly don’t know. And he didn’t push it, he just nodded, unhurried, like it made no difference to him one way or the other, and walked off back up the hill into the dark.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I tried to sleep again. I didn’t get far.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
There was something in the air ducts. I heard it first through the vent in my older sister’s old room, to the left of mine. A scraping, dragging kind of movement, low and searching, like something working its way along the ductwork inch by inch. I lay there a long time telling myself it was squirrels, but I had bats on the brain from Al’s roof, so that’s what I was imagining: bats, in the air ducts, crawling around and scratching at the vent covers, trying to get into the house.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I was still under the blankets. A braver person might have banged on the vent cover to scare it off, but not me. I don’t remember falling asleep, because I don’t think I ever did. I do remember laying still, counting my breaths, trying to match them to the rhythm of the scratching. It would stop, and I’d hold my breath. And then it would start. Stop. Start. Like it was testing the vents, learning which rooms had people in them.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
It would go quiet in my older sister’s room, and a few minutes later I’d hear it start up again through the vent in my younger sister’s room, to the right of my room. There was still no electricity, so no lights, and the moonlight through the window wasn’t enough to see anything by, so I never once laid eyes on it. I only ever heard it, moving room to room, patient, like it was checking each one and not finding what it wanted.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
At some point (an hour? Two?) it stopped in my younger sister’s room, the one on my right. And then I heard the vent cover itself shift. A metallic scrape. Not claws on metal anymore. Something prying. I remember thinking: if it gets that cover off, it’s in the hallway. And if it’s in the hallway, my door doesn’t have a lock.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I don’t know how long I stared at that door in the dark. Long enough that my eyes started playing tricks, imagining the doorknob turning. Long enough that when a floorboard squeaked in the hall, I actually bit my hand to stop myself from screaming.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
But morning came, eventually. And the door was still closed. And the vent cover was still on. And I have never, in thirty years, been able to tell whether that thing chose not to come in, or whether it just didn’t find me. Or maybe scaring me, alone and shivering in the dark, was its goal.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I changed plans from staying in the area to heading north, so I walked up to Al’s to return the spare key. I passed the camping trailer on the way. Nobody was around. The camping trailer sat quiet, and near it the ashy remains of a bonfire, ringed with empty bottles catching the early light. Al’s own door was unlocked, same as always, so I let myself in.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I could see he was on the couch. I set the key down quiet, not wanting to disturb him. I didn’t want to wake him up, because he looked so peaceful lying there. More peaceful than I’d ever seen him, honestly, given everything he usually had weighing on him. And then, something made me go over and gently shake his shoulder anyway, and that’s when I understood. He wasn’t sleeping. He was cold.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I called 911 right there from his kitchen phone. The rest of that day disappeared into deputies, then a coroner, then questions about how exactly a 17-year-old runaway had come to be up on that hill in the first place. And, who were these friends of Al’s? And why were they partying here? Was it drugs? You better tell us if it was drugs.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I didn’t think about the vents then. I was too busy with the deputies, with trying to explain who I was and why I was there. But later, days later, I remembered that Al’s house didn’t have air ducts (it was an old A-frame with baseboard heating). There were no vents in his walls at all. So whatever I had heard that night, crawling through the ductwork of the farm house, it couldn’t have done the same at Al’s. And Al’s door was never locked.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I ended up staying with a friend I had lost touch with, since it was too late to make much headway, and I did not want to go back to the house on the farm to sleep, not that night, not ever again.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
I think about it every once in a while. That bat that paced my car like it already had me clocked, the man whose name slipped out of my head before he’d even finished saying it, and how right he looked until that smile changed my mind for me. I think about the cats, and how long it took me to understand what their silence had actually meant. And I think about Al, at peace on his couch in a way I never once saw him look while he was alive.

[SHEPARD – CONT]
And I think that maybe, whatever was in those vents was looking for something. And when it couldn’t find me, it settled for Al. And I’ve had 30-some years to carry that weight.

[EMILY]
Wow.

[BROWN]
All of your childhood stories are really freaky.

[EMILY]
Yeah.

[BROWN]
Are you okay?

[SHEPARD]
I mean, I think I’m fine.

[BROWN]
Oh, hang on. That’s picky microphone’s picking up that sound, so let’s just let that finish.

[EMILY]
Don’t we want it as ambience?

[SHEPARD]
What sound? What is that? Is that, like, the wind going through the tunnel? Like, what makes that sound?

[BROWN]
Oh, could be.

[EMILY]
Um, that probably is what it is. I mean, uh, Ranger Steve did say that was a possibility. It goes straight through.

[SHEPARD]
Ranger Steve said that sound was a possibility?

[EMILY]
No, that the wind would make a rumbling noise.

[SHEPARD]
You knew that there was going to be weird sounds-

[EMILY]
I didn’t-

[SHEPARD]
And you’re like “This is a great spot for a podcast. Let’s record in the weird sound cave!”

[EMILY]
Ambiance. Ambience! I thought-

[BROWN]
Guys-

[EMILY]
That ambiance-

[BROWN]
Guys-

[EMILY]
Would be great.

[BROWN]
Guys!

[BATS]

[EMILY]
I don’t like this! I don’t like it! Oh my god there’s one in my hair!

[BROWN]
There’s no bat in your hair, Emily.

[SHEPARD]
I’m out! Emily, you’re not allowed to plan our podcast outings anymore.

[BROWN]
Whoa! Look at that bat. It’s huge!

[SHEPARD]
It’s the size of a man!

[EMILY]
I told you so!

[██████]
(Screeching)

[SOUNDS OF ██████ – ██ MINUTES; OMITTED AT REQUEST OF THE FAMILIES]

[END OF RECORDING]

---

TRANSFER MEMORANDUM // CASE #26-█████
FROM: [OFFICE OF PATTERN INTEGRITY]
TO: [CAIN OFFICE]
RE: INTERNAL ESCALATION — PATTERN-CLASS INCIDENTS
THREAT LEVEL: REVENANT

Pursuant to ████████████, custody of the above-referenced incident and all related materials is escalated to the Cain Office effective ██ NOV 2026. Threat classification is hereby set at REVENANT. Pattern classification is hereby CONFIRMED. The ██████████████████████████ prior to ███████████████ is not to be reopened. Subjects BROWN, EMILY, SHEPARD are to be treated as ███████████████ under ███████████████████.

DO NOT ███████████████████████████████████.

Archive copies of the 2023 incident remain ███████████████ and are not available within OPI.

[END OF FILE]