Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween Penance, a co production of iHeart
Speaker 1: three D Audio Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Nankey. Headphones recommended, Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: What is there to say about prison life that hasn't
Speaker 2: been said a million times before? It is so boring,
Speaker 2: likes up on your feet, the same shit every.
Speaker 3: Day you again, move along.
Speaker 2: I imagine some people thrive on that routine.
Speaker 3: Checkmate.
Speaker 1: Not if I move here, checkmate, still know.
Speaker 2: And that it beats down those who fight back.
Speaker 4: Checkmate.
Speaker 5: No, that's oh dark.
Speaker 2: They say. The pen gets everyone eventually, either by force
Speaker 2: or attrition. What's nuke all? My question is what are
Speaker 2: they after?
Speaker 1: It's your turn to share today, sireen.
Speaker 2: But I don't have anything to say.
Speaker 4: How does that make you feel?
Speaker 2: If they can keep us physically detained, I'm going if
Speaker 2: they have ways to enter our minds. Any side effects
Speaker 2: from the medication makes me sick to my stomach.
Speaker 1: Maybe time to up your dosage.
Speaker 2: What's left but the soul?
Speaker 6: Take and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding,
Speaker 6: and my entire will. All I have and all my
Speaker 6: own you have given all to me.
Speaker 2: I swear no matter what, I refuse to submit choice.
Speaker 2: But I also wonder how long can I hold out?
Speaker 2: Already I'm starting to lose track of time, identical days
Speaker 2: turning into identical weeks, filling identical months against a clock
Speaker 2: and calendar that I have no reason to trust. I
Speaker 2: wonder what is all this time doing to me? How
Speaker 2: is it changing me?
Speaker 4: Has something changed about you?
Speaker 2: Well, I've practically quit smoking.
Speaker 4: Good for you.
Speaker 2: I've started going to church at least more regularly. I noticed,
Speaker 2: and well, I was just so angry when I got here.
Speaker 2: I'm still angry, furious. Actually, if I could, I'd trample
Speaker 2: those guards, break straight through the wall, burn this whole
Speaker 2: place of the ground, and never look back.
Speaker 4: But something's changed.
Speaker 2: Well, that kind of rage was hurting more than it
Speaker 2: was helping me specifically, And if the anger isn't gone,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a little more contained.
Speaker 6: If you were to give it a word, would it
Speaker 6: be fair to say patience?
Speaker 2: I hate to think that I'm just waiting around. That
Speaker 2: makes me feel so weak.
Speaker 6: I would say it demonstrates tremendous strength. Whoever is patient
Speaker 6: has great understanding, But one who is quick tempered displays folly.
Speaker 2: But understanding about what how to marchin a line, what
Speaker 2: not to eat in the cafeteria, who to avoid contact
Speaker 2: with if you don't want a knight stick to the gut.
Speaker 6: Maybe a more personal understanding. Humans have an innate desire
Speaker 6: for control over their own lives. It's a fallacy, really,
Speaker 6: but even the sense of control can be powerful. The
Speaker 6: freedom to make your own choices, to set your own
Speaker 6: goals can come to define your very identity. So what
Speaker 6: happens when that illusion of control vanishes?
Speaker 2: You lose your mind or you grow Ah crap, do
Speaker 2: you know what time it is?
Speaker 4: About twelve thirty?
Speaker 2: I think, well, I gotta get to the rec center.
Speaker 4: Exercise can be good for the soul.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe it's just uh, I'm supposed to meet.
Speaker 6: Someone, meet someone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, don't keep them waiting. Thank you, chaplain.
Speaker 4: I hope to see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Why what's tomorrow?
Speaker 4: Christmas? Eve?
Speaker 2: Oh? Snap, I gotta find a gift. Okay. Leaving the
Speaker 2: chapel means libraries on my left, TV rooms on my room.
Speaker 2: Here's a weight room, the art room. I just need
Speaker 2: to go down these stairs. Rodriguez, I'm never gonna get
Speaker 2: used to that.
Speaker 3: What do you think you're doing? Uh?
Speaker 2: Recreation.
Speaker 3: Not like that.
Speaker 2: You're not, but I'm sure this is the right door.
Speaker 3: That hair, my hair.
Speaker 2: What's the last time you had a cut? Hmmm, well
Speaker 2: I came in before Easter.
Speaker 3: Weekend, so right, Captain has strict policies.
Speaker 2: Mm okay, I'll get right on that.
Speaker 3: Now with me, let go, I said I could walk, Lorena.
Speaker 2: You got space for one more.
Speaker 3: This one here has never seen a brush in your life.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry, didn't know I was here to impress Nina.
Speaker 3: Your hair is like a nest birds or spiders. I'm
Speaker 3: afraid to look.
Speaker 2: Then don't go go.
Speaker 3: I'll take care of this one. Don't be afraid to
Speaker 3: use a little force.
Speaker 2: Maybe I do need a trim.
Speaker 3: No, you needed a trim three months ago. Now, Mirena,
Speaker 3: what you need is a miracle good thing. I'm mean. Come,
Speaker 3: I wash first, then we gleam. So what's your style?
Speaker 3: Are you more a pixie cot or maybe a little framing?
Speaker 3: Give some shape to that pretty face.
Speaker 2: No, you're not listening. I don't want you to do anything,
Speaker 2: just a trem.
Speaker 3: Oh, but indulge me. There must be something you want.
Speaker 3: Come on, you can tell me.
Speaker 2: Don't fight it. She'll get it at it.
Speaker 3: You always does do what I wanted before I did.
Speaker 3: She's always right. By the time I'm done, I'll have
Speaker 3: you a feeling all new.
Speaker 2: Look. It's nothing personal. I just don't spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time thinking about how I look.
Speaker 3: Oh, Jerre one of those?
Speaker 2: Aren't you one of those?
Speaker 3: Here? Sit? Lean back?
Speaker 2: What is that supposed to mean?
Speaker 3: I'll change you if you sit, let me guess you
Speaker 3: turn away makeup and hair styling, and she close, saying
Speaker 3: you're not into fashion? But nonina, no service. Is that
Speaker 3: that's a fashion statement in itself?
Speaker 2: No, that's not I don't know.
Speaker 3: Deny, then I deny, but I seen you.
Speaker 2: Oh and what because you cut someone's hair gives you
Speaker 2: license to judge them.
Speaker 3: There's a lot you learn when you shape someone's look.
Speaker 3: I mean, how we present is a mask. No one
Speaker 3: is exactly what they look like. How painfully boring. So
Speaker 3: while they're in my chair letting me chop away at
Speaker 3: little pieces of them, you get to drop the mask
Speaker 3: and I listen. Like a therapist, I use me or
Speaker 3: no therapist. They want to fix you. I prefer to
Speaker 3: enable better dips twenty years at the same overpriced salunge.
Speaker 3: You hear every entitled complaint convertible in a shop AND's
Speaker 3: in the lakehouse. And now I'm as sources out of
Speaker 3: town and my husband is canoodling with the maid. Oh,
Speaker 3: I always hope for something with more substance. Maybe I
Speaker 3: hope too hard. One day I had this woman come
Speaker 3: in sunset of her life, glory, silver hair down.
Speaker 2: To her chest. I loved it.
Speaker 3: I wanted it, oh, to age like that, But she
Speaker 3: said it made her look witchy. Now who could have
Speaker 3: put that idea in her head? Turns out kids were
Speaker 3: shattering her windows with rocks. They riding on their bikes,
Speaker 3: dark of night and no one awake.
Speaker 7: Then crash, kill the witch, they yelled, and then they
Speaker 7: were gone just as fast because acido, poor woman.
Speaker 3: I could hear it in her voice. No not chop
Speaker 3: it off, chop it all off.
Speaker 5: I don't want it anymore.
Speaker 3: How it heard her to lie about, let's get you
Speaker 3: in a chair. Did you cut it off? No, that
Speaker 3: would have been a crime. Instead, I listened to what
Speaker 3: she really wanted here sit?
Speaker 2: What did she say?
Speaker 3: Nothing at first.
Speaker 2: But I pushed.
Speaker 3: I always had that gift, you know, getting people to
Speaker 3: open up. Usually it's a lot of cheesemay. By this
Speaker 3: time this was different. Something in her eyes and how
Speaker 3: her lips scrunched like she was chewing on her words.
Speaker 3: Benures and all lone and all.
Speaker 2: I want to take those rocks.
Speaker 3: I want to find her houses and I want to
Speaker 3: break their bones. Alo rinkled little thing. And then she left,
Speaker 3: Lift your hair, got wrap fist around your neck.
Speaker 2: Do you think she did it?
Speaker 3: How could she? No? That would have been insane. At
Speaker 3: least that's what I thought, And it's what got me
Speaker 3: through the night, because as soon as I got home,
Speaker 3: there was a stamped in my brain. Horrible, horrible headache
Speaker 3: that whole week, actually my last week on the outside
Speaker 3: of horrible.
Speaker 2: Oh careful, what the scalp?
Speaker 3: This is nothing? They after another woman came rolled out
Speaker 3: a magazine and pointed at a model wanted her seventies
Speaker 3: disconneon prom emitra. I'm divine at what I do, but
Speaker 3: my conscience wouldn't let me, so I tried to wear
Speaker 3: her somewhere safe. And you know what she said to me.
Speaker 3: If I wanted safe, I wouldn't put nails in my salad.
Speaker 2: What I can't believe she met that literally.
Speaker 3: I didn't either until she smiled, teas cracked and chipped
Speaker 3: gums blead. She needed a dentist, not a PERM. I
Speaker 3: don't know why she told me, But then the nasia
Speaker 3: hit and I spent the rest of my shift head
Speaker 3: first in a toilet, feeling like there was a hole
Speaker 3: in my gut. I think one of the other girls
Speaker 3: ended up giving her a PERM. I didn't care anymore.
Speaker 3: I'd swear there was something in the air that week,
Speaker 3: but all the crazy seemed to ask for me, And
Speaker 3: the next one was even.
Speaker 2: Worse, worse than eating nails.
Speaker 3: There's always worse, Melinda, and it's never who you expect.
Speaker 3: Tilt your head for me?
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you wait? How about are you taking off?
Speaker 3: Had to get either? Don't you want to know who
Speaker 3: came next?
Speaker 2: Just a trim, got it?
Speaker 3: M now? This girl so thin and twiggy, it was
Speaker 3: like she floated in on a breeze Carolina with her
Speaker 3: heart on the eye. That's how she signed in in
Speaker 3: for a trim, just like Ju. She didn't make so
Speaker 3: much as a sweek. For the full hour, I could
Speaker 3: tell it was something heavy, something ugly, building up. But
Speaker 3: who am I to pry? If a client wants silence.
Speaker 3: I gave them silence. I was nearly done styling her
Speaker 3: before she finally spoke, turned to me with her dull
Speaker 3: eyes and asked if I was married. No, no, no,
Speaker 3: I said, I love myself too much to share. She
Speaker 3: liked that. She was jealous. What about you, I asked,
Speaker 3: and she went quiet again. She jammed me in and whispered,
Speaker 3: I'm going to kill my husband. I just haven't figured
Speaker 3: out how I was frozen. I mean, what do you
Speaker 3: say back? Don't do it? Good luck? I couldn't tell
Speaker 3: if she was kidding, Or maybe I could, and I
Speaker 3: didn't want to admit it. It's not like she waited
Speaker 3: for me to react. She just got up, dropped a
Speaker 3: tip on the counter and left.
Speaker 2: Or was it a good tip?
Speaker 3: Best of my life? But not even close to worth it?
Speaker 3: My fever that night was like a caulduring fluids, boiling skin,
Speaker 3: melting every nerve on fire, or at least it felt
Speaker 3: that way, pinned me down to a bed for two
Speaker 3: days now.
Speaker 2: Still, am I expected to tip? I mean I would, but.
Speaker 3: Ridiculin this is currency enough for once I'm the one talking.
Speaker 3: Take a look, how do you.
Speaker 2: Feel that's not a trim?
Speaker 3: I know, and we're not done yet.
Speaker 2: See you, Rhina, Oh.
Speaker 3: We see you?
Speaker 2: And the girl?
Speaker 3: Will you kin me? Chris? Good luck, Si, you're gonna
Speaker 3: need it.
Speaker 2: How do they know my name?
Speaker 3: Nina? Haven't you been listening? You learn all kinds of
Speaker 3: things in a place like this. Haven't you worked a
Speaker 3: service job? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Actually back before.
Speaker 3: So you know? And I've had dozens. That's why I
Speaker 3: didn't question it at first. How you offer a service
Speaker 3: but they treat you like a product. People think they
Speaker 3: have a right to your time, to your attention, and
Speaker 3: they don't care what you carry home. I'm just happy
Speaker 3: to unload. Even worse when you work for taps.
Speaker 2: Were there more clients like her?
Speaker 3: Carolina gekiets Mass No, she was the last, but that
Speaker 3: wasn't the last time she came. When I finally forced
Speaker 3: myself out of bed after that burning fear, I thought
Speaker 3: enough of this, No more helpful, ear? But what does
Speaker 3: fate care for our plans? My first day back, I
Speaker 3: found her waiting there, almost shivering with fear, cold. I
Speaker 3: don't know. Turns out she'd come every day asking for me.
Speaker 3: What an honor?
Speaker 2: What did she want? Now?
Speaker 3: A manicure? Some pastelic color, and obviously an excuse because
Speaker 3: I'm no technician. Mister Iden is my boss. He knew that.
Speaker 3: But there comes Carolina waiting a stack of fifty, so
Speaker 3: of course he sells me out. Who cares what I want?
Speaker 3: Lorena pisso everybody helps.
Speaker 2: Did you ask if she did it?
Speaker 3: No? Remember, I was done asking questions from now on,
Speaker 3: just smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding. Hole. Still, this
Speaker 3: is for texture.
Speaker 2: So she didn't talk to you.
Speaker 3: Now, where did you get that? All I said was
Speaker 3: that I didn't ask. So while I prepped the manicure,
Speaker 3: she stared at me with those big dough eyes, unblinking, uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: like there was an itch she couldn't scratch. And I
Speaker 3: could tell that heaviness, that ugliness from before it was
Speaker 3: back and she was ready to gossip. So I laid
Speaker 3: out a towel and I asked for her hands, And
Speaker 3: when she spread out her fingers, all I could see
Speaker 3: was blood on her nails, crusty flooded cutoicles hand stand
Speaker 3: up to her wrists. Can you wash it? She asked,
Speaker 3: as if a pink salt exfoliant was enough to scrub
Speaker 3: whatever monstrosity she committed I couldn't speak, I couldn't even
Speaker 3: look up, so instead she leaned in loudina, I so
Speaker 3: appreciated our last session. He was such a weight off
Speaker 3: my shoulders. You're so easy to talk to. You know that.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to be I didn't want to listen
Speaker 3: to another word. She wouldn't stop. I did it, I
Speaker 3: really did. I waited until Rob was asleep. Then I
Speaker 3: grabbed my knitting box, took out my seam ripper, and
Speaker 3: I unsold him. I looked around, but no one else
Speaker 3: in the whole room had even flinched. Was I going insane?
Speaker 3: Or was everyone around me losing their minds? I ran
Speaker 3: out bio coming up in my throat, and the last
Speaker 3: thing I saw was Carolina's face. She looked relieved, like
Speaker 3: that weight was really gone. I quit that very day.
Speaker 3: Let's get you dried up.
Speaker 2: There'd you go?
Speaker 3: Shaped up, real nice with some value?
Speaker 2: Were you sick again?
Speaker 3: Clado ruined my upholstery and pushed the absolute limit on
Speaker 3: how much I'd be broken A person can take. But
Speaker 3: I had to find out if this was awesome twisted job,
Speaker 3: So I did what any irrational person would do. They
Speaker 3: followed her home. I watched her enter a big gated massion,
Speaker 3: you know the fancy sword where the bushes are all
Speaker 3: cut into shapes. And I waited, quiet and in pain
Speaker 3: to catch any glimpse of her husband still alive. It
Speaker 3: was well after dark before I saw her come out again,
Speaker 3: wheeling all the trash. The curiosity ate me a lot.
Speaker 3: I had to know what was in those cans. Now
Speaker 3: I wish with every bone in my body that I
Speaker 3: never looked inside. I jumped in my car and floored
Speaker 3: Ale la Ville and Sata eighty miles an hour, as
Speaker 3: fast as my little clanker could go. That's when I
Speaker 3: saw the cruiser parked at the burger joint cop leaning
Speaker 3: on his food, and I told him everything about Carolina,
Speaker 3: her confession, the gorriness in her trash. I knew I sounded,
Speaker 3: but I pleaded for him to believe me. And you
Speaker 3: know what he did. He said he believed me, but
Speaker 3: that he just didn't care. That punchy mustache man acne
Speaker 3: on his necks, wet on his collar. He said he'd
Speaker 3: seen worse hell, that he'd done worse, chewing on that gristy,
Speaker 3: tripping burger, he told me, bragging.
Speaker 5: Sometimes when there's a body, and I'm supposed to call
Speaker 5: it in. I don't, because for a couple of hours
Speaker 5: after death, there's still warming enough to have fun.
Speaker 3: He just kept going, unloading repulsive details after details. Even
Speaker 3: after I shut myself in my car and blared the horn,
Speaker 3: he was at my window and I could still read
Speaker 3: his lips. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?
Speaker 6: What did you do?
Speaker 3: Nothing? I regret. I just wish they hadn't caught me,
Speaker 3: because that holding seally threw me into. That was my
Speaker 3: own brand of hell, not like the rooms we've got here. Handcuffed,
Speaker 3: I couldn't even cover my ears while everyone else just
Speaker 3: spilled and spilled. There was something wrong with me. I
Speaker 3: knew that, but I couldn't stop it. So instead I
Speaker 3: screamed the back what I heard, because why should I
Speaker 3: suffer alone?
Speaker 2: How long were you there?
Speaker 3: Not long? Grass, sadios. I suppose eventually somebody listened to
Speaker 3: what I had to say, because two doctors.
Speaker 2: Showed up from the Pendleton. What gave it? The way
Speaker 2: they dragged you here too?
Speaker 3: Dragged me? No, they offered the help, said they could
Speaker 3: make the secret stop, and for that I would have
Speaker 3: claimed in their trunk you look like you don't agree.
Speaker 2: Why would you choose to come here? We can't leave?
Speaker 3: What makes you think I want to free meals, free
Speaker 3: roaming and never having to suck up to anyone else
Speaker 3: for tips Nina, But it's not Tahiti. But it'll do.
Speaker 2: Did they help you?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 3: You mean? Though I still hear people's secrets sometimes, but
Speaker 3: at least the pain is gone. They've got me on
Speaker 3: this regimen. Pills and test and prodding and so on
Speaker 3: is meant to contain it altogether. But we'll see.
Speaker 2: So then you have heard things while you've been here.
Speaker 3: Of course, stranger and stranger every day.
Speaker 2: Strange?
Speaker 3: How oh no, no, no, I do what you're doing?
Speaker 3: Do you think knowing more is always better? But you're
Speaker 3: ignoring how it might hurt you?
Speaker 2: What do you mean hurt me?
Speaker 3: What I mean, Sayuri, is how will you handle the
Speaker 3: darkest secrets of this place when you don't even know
Speaker 3: your own?
Speaker 2: Wait? While I was here? Were you? Is she ready yet?
Speaker 3: Almost? There's no Rushian beauty. Take a look in the mirror.
Speaker 2: Do you like who you see? That's not me?
Speaker 3: Clad O? You see? Like I said, when it comes
Speaker 3: to my work, I'm divine don't worry your secrets safe
Speaker 3: with me?
Speaker 2: What do you mean.
Speaker 3: Now? Are you done? Yes? I'm done? But out you
Speaker 3: go now, beauty queen, and don't forget to brush your hair?
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 5: Three far?
Speaker 3: Nighty night? O?
Speaker 2: Leamsa same shit every day? Wait? Did she leave a
Speaker 2: bobby bit in my hair?
Speaker 3: Hey? You?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Hey?
Speaker 2: I thought we had a date. I know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I got caught out for looking up haggard was the implication,
Speaker 2: and they dragged me into what account for the beauty
Speaker 2: salt around here? Lady took her sweet time too. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I tried, but I couldn't get out. It looks nice, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: real nice. I don't quite feel like myself. What is
Speaker 2: that like to feel like you? I don't really know anymore.
Speaker 2: I guess I've never liked to be fussed over, and
Speaker 2: now even that has been taken away. The chaplain said
Speaker 2: something today that I can't stop thinking about. He said
Speaker 2: that losing control over your life forces you to re
Speaker 2: evaluate your identity. Then have you learned a lot about
Speaker 2: yourself since you've been here? To be honest, I have
Speaker 2: learned that I need other people more than I ever
Speaker 2: wanted to admit before. Can I fuss over you for
Speaker 2: a second? Okay, you look beautiful. It's some haircut. I
Speaker 2: like it, but it's not the haircut. I wish we
Speaker 2: didn't always meet like this, these damn bars between us.
Speaker 2: What would happen if we met on the outside, if
Speaker 2: you said something like that to me the way you
Speaker 2: just said it. Yeah, well I might have to reach
Speaker 2: over and kiss you. I Kenleena.
Speaker 5: Oh YEA.
Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween pennance starring Natalie Morales, Episode eight
Speaker 1: care written by Alessandra Hara del Castillo and Alexander Williams.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound designed by Trevor Young, featuring the voices
Speaker 1: of Sandra Viadares, Rachel Rosenbloom, Wayne Bastrup, Raphael Corkil, Jeff Bowser,
Speaker 1: Blair Chandler, Morgan Brown, and Laura Shine. Directed by Alexander Williams.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Noah Feinberg, Chris Dicky, Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: and Alexander Williams. Supervising producers Trevor Young and Josh Thain.
Speaker 1: Producers Jesse funk Rima Ilkali Nowami Griffin, Chandler Mays and
Speaker 1: Casby Bias. Script editing by Lauren Vogelbaum. Story consultants Ben
Speaker 1: Bolan and Matthew Riddle. Casting by Sunday Bowling CSA and
Speaker 1: Meg Mormon CSA. Production coordinator Wayna Calderon. Production assistants Jenna
Speaker 1: Johnson and Winona Lowe. Theme music by Rose Azerti with
Speaker 1: vocals by Anna Hummler, recorded at This Is Sound Design
Speaker 1: Studios in Burbank, California. Engineered by Ross Arnot, Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Romelia Osorio, Nathan Rule, Glen Nishida, and Rob Mosca.
Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and
Speaker 1: Alexander Williams and is a production of iHeart Podcasts, Blumhouse Television,
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Makey. Learn more about
Speaker 1: the show at Grimandmild dot com slash thirteen Days and
Speaker 1: find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween,