LFA Episode 1.3 Transcript - Stinkmonster - A Holiday Special


 * music starts*

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Will: If we don’t record this, no one will believe us. If you don’t help us, we- never mind, this is stupid. Uh, it’s just me- Will- uh, as you can tell. So… it’s been a while… uh *laughs* I don’t know if you guys remember the last episode? Uh, things got a little weird at the end, and Quinn hasn’t really been responding, so I guess it’s just me now. Um, yeah! So, what happened last time, at the end of the episode we got an anonymous, uh, DM telling us to stop looking-- that’s not creepy-- *laughs* and things just kinda kept getting weirder from there. Quinn got really freaked, very nervous-- as he does-- and then, um, it- it got a little weirder. There was a note on Quinn’s door in the dorms saying ‘we see you’. I- I thought it was just like, y’know, a prank or something like that. That wouldn’t be that hard to do, I mean, all students are listed and I‘m sure you could just kind of Google it and figure out where Quinn lives. Uh, but then a note showed up on my door as well, so that was a little weird. I mean, it’s like- I mean I’m not that worried, but like, it is a- it’s kind of a weird invasion of privacy? Y’know? To know that somebody can walk into your dorm and stick a Post-It note on your door? Anyway, Quinn got really freaked, I still thought it was nothing, and then something weird started happening on Quinn’s laptop. You know on laptops they have those little front-facing cameras? And there’s the little light next to it that shows when it’s on? Uh, his started turning on randomly… which is, I’ll admit, a little bit freaky, because I mean you don’t know what’s on the other side of that thing? Like who’s watching? Who’s watching at all times? I mean- so we put duct tape over it, uh, but… I think he was a little uncomfortable and so he hasn’t really wanted to do the podcast thing. I mean, he says it’s just finals but… I mean, I think he’s overreacting, but-

* knock on the door*

Will: Hello?

* door is opened, shuffling sounds*

Quinn: Hey.

Will: Hey.

Quinn: Uh… am I late?

Will: *laughs* Uh, no, I mean- just got started.

Quinn: Can- can I-?

Will: Oh course, yeah, come on in.

* shuffling sounds*

Quinn: I’m sorry I’ve been a little, uh-

Will: It’s- it’s fine.

Quinn: I- I just- I didn’t wanna-

Will: I- I know. I’m glad you’re here.

Quinn: So… *sighs* What have you been up to?

Will: Uh… well, homework.

Quinn: *laugh*

Will: That time of year. Research… *laughs* uh, pissing off the Averno sheriff’s office.

Quinn: I’m shocked. *laughs*

Will: And, uh, there’s a girl.

Quinn: A girl?

Will: Florence.

Quinn: Oooooh. Is it that one from the classics department? She’s got these like, really beautiful boots I had my eyes on.

Will: You- really, you- you were checking out her boots?

Quinn: Oh- okay, come on they were gorgeous, I mean they had these little heels and there was some like, glitter accents on them, like you just can’t go wrong with a powerful heel! And you could tell that she looked powerful in them. I mean-

Will: I-

Quinn: *clears throat* I mean, I think they were… nice.

Will: I… don’t know what any of that means. But yes, she is very pretty and very smart. She’s fluent in Latin, Greek, archaic French, Francien, and middle-high German.

Quinn: Draw me like one of your French boys…

Will: Yes. and she has this tattoo on her-

Quinn: That- that I- I don’t really need to hear. Um… so are you two dating?

Will: Umm… so! The investigation-

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: -has been going great! I went to the police!

Quinn: Wait, whoa whoa whoa whoa-

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: You didn’t- you didn’t-

Will: It was totally undercover.

Quinn: Was it? You didn’t, like, go to the police-

Will: I went to the police, yes, it was- I, uh, walked into the sheriff’s office- okay, by the way, our sheriff’s office, it has literally not been renovated since the 1980s. I- I thought that our school looked kind of weird and old-fashioned, which is weird because it was built last year, BUT. Literally I walk into the sheriff’s office, it is like, really tall, gray-- what are those things, file- file cabinets? I didn’t even know those existed anymore!

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: And, like, this-

Quinn: I mean, what do you expect, I mean, it’s Averno. I don’t think that- does the sheriff actually do anything?

Will: *gasps*

Quinn: Chase down runaway geese?

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: Find stray puppies?

Will: *putting on a voice* ‘Uh, sheriff? My, uh, seventeenth pig has disappeared?’

Quinn: *laughs* *putting on a voice* ‘We’ll be right there, captain.’

Will: *laughs* Yeah. So it was awful, like, these like fluorescent lights, long hallways- it’s a surprisingly big building for the fact that, like, our town only has 3,000 people. But this building-

Quinn: Okay, now- come on, cut to the chase, what happened?

Will: Um, okay-

Quinn: I know it’s creepy, but like, tell me!

Will: I’m- I’m setting the mood! I want you to feel like you’ve been to the sheriff’s office because we all know you would never set foot there.

Quinn: I- no, that terrifies me.

Will: Yeah, exactly, so I’m trying to include you. I’m the-

Quinn: Tell me what happened.

Will: We have roles. I’m the one who goes and does the investigation, and you go and look the things up in the books. I’m trying to make you feel included, and I haven’t been able to tell you about it! This is exciting?

Quinn: This is exciting, okay- what happened?

Will: So, um, it was totally undercover, I was super sneaky, I just pretended that I was like, you know, scared for our safety, I walked in there and I was all like-

Quinn: I am- carry on.

Will: I walked in there, and I was all like, ‘ oh sheriff, hello, how are you doing today, I hope that you’re having a lovely holiday season, I’m not having a lovely holiday season-’

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: ‘I go to A New School and somebody is watching me,’ and she was all like, ‘what do you mean somebody is watching you?’

Quinn: You sound… insane.

Will: I… am not insane. I am a student scared for my safety, thank you very much.

Quinn: Okay, well yeah but like-

Will: ANYWAYS, so I was all like, ‘somebody’s watching me, listen bro it was totally weird, uh, somebody DM’d me’ and she was like ‘what do you mean somebody DM’d you?’ and I was like ‘well somebody slid into my DMs’ and she was like ‘literally what does that mean?’ and I was like ‘okay, it was an instant message’ and she was like ‘oh, got it, like on the computer’ and i was like whaaat is happening. Anyways, so then I was like ‘somebody messaged me’ and she said-

Quinn: I can’t believe you went to the police.

Will: -she said that I should stop looking, and then she was like ‘what are you looking for’ and I was like ‘I don’t know, love, its doesn’t matter’ and then- and then they put a Post-It note on my door-- I left you out of it, don’t worry-- I put a Post-It note on my door-

Quinn: You can’t just-

Will: I mean no, they put a Post-It note on my door and then-

Quinn: Did you put a Post-It- no.

Will: No, I didn’t put a Post-It note on my door-- and, so I was like ‘they put a Post-It note on my door’ and then she was like ‘who is the they’ and I was like ‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m at the police force’ and she was like ‘well what did the Post-It note say?’ It said, I can see you. And they were like, ‘what’. She was just like ‘this is totally just like a prank or whatever’ and then I said the laptop thing-- I said it was my laptop, not your laptop-- and she was like ‘‘you know, that’s probably just like, faulty technology or whatever, this is totally just a prank, you guys have like, sororities and stuff there, and I was like ‘no we don’t have sororities’-

Quinn: Okay, well did she do anything?

Will: ‘We’re a new-age liberal arts college, of course.’ So then she was like ‘this is totally just a prank’-- okay, fine, I’ll slow down. *laughs* Quinn is frantically gesturing at me to slow down, because when I get excited I start talking really quickly-

Quinn: Slow down.

Will: I start talking reeeeaaaally quiiiiickly, and apparently nobody else can understand what I’m saying. Anyways- *exhales*

Quinn: There we go.

Will: So, I told her that i thought somebody was watching us, she thinks that it was just a prank-- she was asking me if we’re like, popular at school, and I was like ‘of course we’re popular at school, we have-’

Quinn: We are not popular. We are so far from popular.

Will: Okay-

Quinn: Name one friend that you have besides me.

Will: Florence!

Quinn: ...friend.

Will: Friend.

Quinn: Mm-hmm.

Will: Friend friend friendly friend…

Quinn: *whispers* You have no friends. *laughs*

Will: So anyways, she really just thought that it was some kind of prank. I was like ‘what, we- we live at a tiny school, nobody’s pranking each other like that, nobody even knows who we are’ so then I was pretty sure at this point she wasn’t going to take me seriously, so I started crying.

Quinn: You started crying?

Will: Yes.

Quinn: Like, like you just started- but you don’t cry.

Will: Well I mean, of course I can make myself cry.

Quinn: You can just make yourself cry?

Will: You can’t?

Quinn: Well- no, I just- I just cry all the time, I try to make myself stop crying, it doesn’t work very well.

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: Wow, that came out really sad.

Will: Mm-hmm. Marshmallow.

Quinn: Sociopath. Plus you know we don’t have marshmallows here, we have ‘pillowy-feel melt-in-the-mouth roasting candy’.

Will: ...what?

Quinn: You haven’t noticed? All of the stuff in the grocery store, it’s like, all generic knock-off-- there’s like, no actual-

Will: I just Amazon Fresh.

Quinn: ...Amazon delivers out here?

Will: Yeah, I actually spent like, 15 minutes on the phone with their delivery dude the other day because he couldn’t figure out where Averno was. I was like ‘95 South, off of, you know-’ whatever.

Both: *laughs*

Will: Anyways, so while she was out of the room, I did some digging.

Quinn: Wait, what?

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: That is so illegal.

Will: Only if they catch me.

Quinn: This is a live broadcast! You can’t just be saying shit on here-

Will: Not inside Averno!

Quinn: -stuff on here.

Will: This isn’t in- this isn’t broadcast in Averno, just to college places. And there are no other college places in Averno.

Quinn: Okay, but there’s a chance that people might actually listen to this, and people might actually care.

Will: Whatever, don’t you want to hear what I found?

Quinn: ...fine.

Will: Nothing.

Quinn: ...wait wait, what?

Will: I tried to go rifling around in her filing cabinets-

Quinn: *sighs* How- how did you not get caught? How do you not get caught?

Will: So I tried to go rifling around in her filing cabinets-

Quinn: In her filing cabinets? Does anyone even still use those things?

Will: Get this: she didn’t even have a computer. Like, at all.

Quinn: Wait, like what?

Will: Like, like, not in- in the head of the sheriff’s office, there was not a computer. Or a laptop. Nothing.

Quinn: I mean… okay yeah, that actually sounds really weird.

Will: And I found the filing cabinet for missing persons folders? It was locked but it felt heavy. Far, far, far too heavy for the fact that there are only 3 missing persons files available online.

Quinn: Oh shit, none of it’s digitized.

Will: Mm-hmm.

Quinn: Oh, they are so old-school here!

Will: And that means that none of it’s digitized, which means that… other sheriff’s offices don’t have access to it.

Quinn: *whispers* Oh no...

Will: So!

Quinn: So no one- no one knows but the sheriff.

Will: No. So this settles it.

Quinn: Settles what? This is- is- is like, just the start.

Will: I mean, it clearly creates more questions, but this means there is officially a government conspiracy at work here.

Quinn: Okay, you’re- *laughs* clearly jumping to conclusions here, I mean we know- what do we know? We know that you broke into the sheriff’s office, we know that you’re a sociopath because-

Will: *snorts*

Quinn: -you can casually make yourself cry like it’s no big deal, um, aaaaand we know the- that the sheriff doesn’t have a computer. Maybe-maybe a desktop, I don’t- like a- like a laptop thing tucked away, I don’t- I don’t know. We know… that you found…

Will: A- like, this file folder, like-

Quinn: But you couldn’t get into it.

Will: I couldn’t get into it. But this cabinet, at minimum, was like-

Quinn: It- it was a cabinet.

Will: It had its own cabinet, and it was heavy enough that I was having trouble lifting it up.

Quinn: I- were you trying to steal the whole cabinet?

Will: *snorts* I mean, no, I was just- I was curious, there was an open window, I mean I didn’t- I didn’t think it out, I-

Quinn: You… did not think anything out.

Will: No, I just sort of sent her away to get me tissues, I was crying a lot, and I did the things where I got all snotty and I was like ‘I just need some tissues, please, this has been so hard on me, I’m new to town and I just *sobs* I miss my mom’ so she went to get me tissues, I was trying to pick up the filing cabinet-- it was heavy! It was heavy! The point is you- you don’t have a heavy filing cabinet from 3 files.

Quinn: ((unintelligible))

Will: Like that is, at minimum- even if they were like, thick files with like, big investigations, that’s still at least like, 30, 40, 50?

Quinn: Okay so, fine, what do we do?

Will: I… think that we need to break into the police office and steal the entire filing cabinet!

Quinn: ...no.

Will: Okay, I think you need to go back to the archives. The government see- they- they could keep all the missing fol- persons folders in this filing cabinet, not digitize them- whatever, it’s illegal, it’s sketchy, but it’s a small town, nobody’s checking in on this. But they couldn’t possibly have gotten rid of every news article. The town newspaper is distributed, people- they’re weirdos that- that keep every newspaper that’s ever existed-- my uncle’s one of those-- when they die, that stuff gets donated back to the archives. There are newspapers there, you have found them-

Quinn: I- I’ve looked through them, I don’t know, I don’t-

Will: You have- you can’t possibly have looked through all of them, you’re an intern, you’ve been there for a month!

Quinn: Okay, I know, it’s the ones that probably weren’t digitized, ‘cuz nothing is-

Will: You- there-

Quinn: -nothing in this town is-

Will: Nothing in this town is digitized.

Quinn: I’ll take a look, I’ll see what I can do.

Will: And there are- there must be like, announcements, like there’s pro- maybe missing persons reports, but even if not… people must have- there must have been announcements, like, especially if they are- I don’t know like, kids or elderly people or even just weird death announcements. If people are dying who don’t seem like they should be dying, then we should know that.

Quinn: Alright.

Will: And… y’know?

Quinn: But-

Will: What?

Quinn: *pause*

Quinn: What if something happens to us?

Will: I don’t- I mean- what’s gonna happen to us?

Quinn: The notes? My computer?

Will: *laughs* We go missing and nobody files a missing persons’ report?

Quinn: Aren’t you worried about that?

Will: I mean, why do you think we’re doing this podcast? People-

Quinn: I don’t know if anyone’s listening. I mean we- we’ve gotten… some messages and stuff but…

Will: I mean- I think that what this is is eventually, hopefully if people are listening-- I don’t know, are there college students out there on different campuses? Then if we go off the air, if we stop talking… then they’ll know. And maybe somebody will look. Besides, y’know, cost-benefit analysis here, there is so much that we could get, like, I mean-

Quinn: Before we go missing?

Will: Before we go missing.

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: But I mean, if you go through the archives and you find other articles, you find the names of these people who have gone missing, I mean- nobody leaves this town, we could find their families, we could try to find out what happened to them. And if we find enough…

Quinn: We might be able to figure out the link between all of them.

Will: Quinn, I think we might actually have something here. I think this might be real.

Quinn: I think it is.

Will: *sighs* And on a… cheerier note, I suppose, it is time to read the town newsletter: holiday edition.

Quinn: Buckle up, folks.

* Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy begins to play*

Quinn: ‘Our annual holiday tree sale is back at the town gas station! Stop by and pick up a tree or an axe if you like DIY’ing your holiday decor this year.’

Will: ‘Remember: if you’re cold, they’re cold. Bring them inside. Dr. Kleinfeld is having a 2-for-1 sale on skunk de-glanding procedures.’

Both: *laughs*

Quinn: I really want a skunk!

Will: *laughs* Of course you want a skunk! Oh my gosh, wait- I need art of Quinn with a skunk-

Quinn: Oh god-

Will: -so that I can hang it on my wall, I just want nothing more than like, a beautiful portrait-

Quinn: I’m gonna start crying-

Will: -of you with a skunk on my wall.

Quinn: I just- I have always- I- okay- I have always had a love of skunks.

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: I just feel like they don’t get enough… attention ever, I mean they’re so cute-

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: -they’re just trying their little darndest, and man if they aren’t just little stinkmonsters!

Will: *laughs* I think that that is the intro quote for this. ‘They’re just trying their darndest,’ *laughs* ‘little stinkmonsters!’

Both: *laugh*

Quinn: Where were we?

Will: Uh…

Quinn: ‘This holiday season, Averno Elementary is having its annual toy drive. Remember that approved donations include Do-It-Yourself Taxidermy Kits, Introduction to Job Community Courses and Operation Dolls. Make sure kids are ready for the workforce this holiday season!’

Will: *laughs* I love all of the like, elementary schoolers who have a future in taxidermy.

Quinn: I mean… I don’t know? It could be cool.

Will: Bates Motel!

Quinn: Just kidding, that sounds terrifying!

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: I just wanna- I- carry on.

Will: *laughs* ‘The Averno Library will be hosting a hot chocolate and talkback session following its annual reading of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. A fun, engaging way to teach your kids about the dangers of consumerism.’

Quinn: ‘Buy one, get one free on all ugly Christmas sweaters at Lenny’s Farm Store and Outfitters’. You buy four, and he’ll throw in a free pair of steel-toed boots.’

Will: ‘Happy holidays town, and don’t forget the true meaning of this time of year: don’t forget. Or else.’

Quinn: ‘This message was sponsored by Krampus Incorporated.’

Will: See you next week, maybe.

Quinn: Hey wait- can we- can we maybe do the- the whole intro thing that we-

Will: *laughs* Yeah, I’m down. If we don’t record this, no one will believe us.

Quinn: If you don’t help us, we don’t know what will happen.

Will: The disappearances keep coming-

Quinn: -and coming, and the forest keeps its secrets.

Will: So as always, dear listeners:

Quinn: Grab some tea-

Will: -and your conspiracy board-

Quinn: -because we were-

Both: Live from Averno.

* music plays out*

Trivia

 * Quinn's line 'paint me like one of your French boys' is a reference from the 1997 film Titanic.
 * Quinn's line about Krampus Incorporated is likely a reference to the creature from European folklore.