Chap60: The Scrog [horror]

Clarence gets a story accepted to one of his favorite horror podcasts, and talks about his new children's book, The Pie Eating Contest (out now!) Shaun has a new western rap out and has recently rejoined TikTok!

At around 29:35, the writers improvise a brand new horror story featuring the Androscoggin Scrog monster. A young woman preparing for an open mic rescues a man with a blue gem from the Androscoggin river. She soon finds the gem holds powers beyond her wildest dreams, but there may still be others that want it...


Brought to you by NerdCore at the Auburn Mall
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And R Card Place, also at the Auburn Mall
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AndAnd Mark Nigro Services @
mnigroservices@gmail.com

Stay up to date with Clarence Carter @
https://www.clarencecarterauthor.com/
And Shaun J. Nigro @
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Nerdcore, a store in the Auburn Mall located in Auburn Maine, the place for all your nerdy needs. You can find Clarence and I's books there, as well as a plethora of other local writers, artists, 3D printed, d in details, taxidermy, you name it. They even have board games and tarot card readings, in addition to regularly hosting local creators. And as if that weren't enough, I like to dig through their used vinyl collection, which are organized into multiple genres I usually go for classical or jazz and are all reasonably priced and tested beforehand. So yeah, check out the Nerdcore store today at the Auburn Maine Mall. And now for our feature presentation.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Another one bites the dust. And another one gone. And another one gone. Another one bites the dust.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Testing one to testing, one to yeah. So you got finally got a story accepted to one of your favorite podcasts. Why don't? You talk about that a little.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Yeah, so big fan, big fan of Chilling Tales for Dark Knights. I haven't listened in a little while, but I used to listen to it quite routinely back in the day and I submitted something to them before and they accepted it and they just never gave me a contract. They never, so I don't know what happened.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Oh, I didn't even think it had been accepted. What story was that?

Speaker 2: 1:50

I don't remember.

Speaker 1: 1:50

This was five years ago maybe, so your writing's gotten a lot better since, so maybe it's a good thing.

Speaker 2: 1:57

So they emailed me and they said hey, we really like the story, we're going to do something with it. And then, like they never sent me a contract they never. As far as I know, they never used it. So I think I just fell between the cracks. But so the story goes as we've talked about before. I had a story called Quiet Desperation that I sold to Claver Mom Fiction. They put it into an anthology called Bad Spirits. Well, the contract ran out for the rights to that story, like a long time ago, and because there was all kinds of complications in the print, if they just emailed us and they were like hey, as long as you're all okay with it, we're going to continue on with publishing it, we're just going to return the rights to you, you can do whatever you want with it after. And as far as I know, everybody said, yeah, that's fine. So I turned that. So I've had the rights to that story for a while. I rewrote the ending because the ending was odd, kind of left field odd.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Yeah it wasn't the greatest ending, so I rewrote that and then I submitted it to Chilling Tales and the response time was really fast.

Speaker 1: 3:18

I think they turned it over in like a week and I got paid for it and yeah, so basically it's a podcast similar to our eight spark stories podcast, with a focus on horror, yeah, although I'm sure they do like sci-fi elements at times. And there's. Gator. I don't know if that'll make it on the microphone.

Speaker 2: 3:41

I'm not sure if they have sci-fi elements or not. Probably yeah, so that that's happened. And then the kids book. My kids book just came out, which I am not blown away with the reception of it.

Speaker 1: 4:00

What do you mean? Getting all kinds of likes. So it's called the pie eating contest, by the way. Yeah, available now on Amazon under Clarence's name. And it's illustrated by Christie D Hatch, which I assume is a friend of yours, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:13

Congratulations, it did. It did not hit well. I got it right here. Yeah, I don't know if it's the fact that Amazon.

Speaker 1: 4:24

That's how it came, by the way, with a little crease in there.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Oh them, sons of bitches. I'm not sure if it's because Amazon is just behind or I just didn't sell any, but it didn't go for great for a launch. Oh, I'm telling you, you kind of launched it out of nowhere. Well, I launch everything out of nowhere, yeah. And there's a reason why too. It's because I'm not consistent with launch dates because of the way that I work. Is so what's the word? I'm looking sporadic, yeah, that I'm never 100% certain that I'm going to make a date.

Speaker 1: 5:03

So I try my best not to Well you could hold on to the story even when it's all done and ready.

Speaker 2: 5:08

But the other part of that is that I don't think it's going to be done by the time that I set the date for, so the only other way to do it is to finish it 100% and then give a date, and that seems ridiculous to me.

Speaker 1: 5:22

I think that's just. I think that's what I need to do.

Speaker 2: 5:25

And I don't want to just sit on work for three months or whatever. It seems weird to me, so I try to give a rundown. As the time gets closer I'm like, oh hey, this is where the stage is at. I've been posting a lot about a girl named Mishka lately. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:43

And I'm saying, hey, we're in the developmental edits right now. I'm trying to get it done by April and that's about the best I can do right now. But I also am under the firm belief that a big portion of the audience does not pre-order books. It's just not a thing. I don't think that's true. I do Because most of the people that I talk to don't do it.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Yeah, Well, I mean, it could just be your audience right now Maybe Because I know other authors that do better with pre-orders If they put more into. Like one of my illustrators, her, his wife, just released a book I think it's out now and it's a local author and I think she's leaning into the local aspect for marketing and she's doing a little book tour where she's doing signings and stuff at local bookshops in Portland and so I think she got that news, that article, in the newspaper. That's why I'm thinking we need like a publicist, but again that's expensive out of budget.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Yeah yeah, it might just be my audience, but a lot of the people that I talked to just don't bother preordering, or if they do, they forget about it.

Speaker 1: 6:52

But your audience. So you said that the book is not doing as well as you thought it would. Post release it's already been released. So either way I just think it because I'm guilty of this too I just think it would benefit us to have more of a stretched out marketing plan as opposed to just trying to throw stuff out there in the ether, because you have so much content already that I don't know that you need to be continually releasing stuff. But I mean, if the stories are there, you might as well.

Speaker 2: 7:25

I could just do better with marketing period, so we all could.

Speaker 1: 7:31

I was going to say so. This will be available at our events and I think it'll do well because we're going to do like a deal if you buy all three kids books maybe.

Speaker 2: 7:43

I haven't figured out how many I'm going to carry on hand. I'm starting to get a little rumbly in the headset. To rumbly, yeah, like a lot of vibration, anyway, psychic vibrations Alfred. Yeah, I'm not sure what to do. I'm also concerned about, like, table space at this point. Yeah, because we're getting wild.

Speaker 1: 8:07

I've been thinking about that too Well, so I've already eliminated a lot of the 3D prints. I'm sort of focusing on that at separate venues and maybe just having a couple of minis here and there, so we don't need to worry about that anymore. But yeah, your side is like too much, no well, no, it's good. It's just that I don't have as much. But I don't know. We'll figure out a way to rearrange the table or get a bigger table, or I mean, at some point I guess we're going to have to separate.

Speaker 2: 8:38

I might stop carrying one of the books.

Speaker 1: 8:42

No honor right.

Speaker 2: 8:43

Yeah, just to save us table space. It already doesn't solve that, well, anyway, yeah. So I figure, if we replace the pie in contest with that I mean replace that with the pie in whatever yeah English words and that might solve the problem for now. But I do think, oh, it's the vacuum cleaner.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Yeah, that's annoying, hold on. Oh, you might be hearing the dryer Sounds, sounds everywhere, there's sounds yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:32

But yeah, we're probably going to end up having separate tables at some point.

Speaker 1: 9:35

But I could write more. So I really wish that we were. I tell you this all the time. But because I've got my albums and I mean I guess I could put out cards so people could go to my Spotify and stuff. But I would really like it if people still bought CDs. I know that I can sell records I think vinyl does a little bit better but I can't sell those cheap and I also. It's expensive just to make them, assuming anybody will buy them. So it's a weird situation I'm in where I want to sell my music because I care about it and I want. I think people would enjoy it. But but that's another thing that I would add to the table if I could. Yeah, on my part.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Well, interestingly enough, I feel the same way about my books. If only people can buy them and read them, oh so, what's the statistic?

Speaker 1: 10:24

I think it's like on David Pakman. He said that something like 46% of Americans read one book, only one, and that includes audio. So that's very sad. Yeah, bill Maher was talking about it too. It was just funny because at the same time he was like joking he was promoting his upcoming book. So, yeah, people aren't reading in America. And then I looked it up by saying this stats, I think it was like China, india, and do you remember the third one for them? I think it was Thailand.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Yeah, for countries that are reading them out, which is would be good for me. I got to find the translator for the koala book. Am I even sounds weird, I think maybe the headphones are just too far up. Yeah, I get a translator for all the books, although I don't know how many people in other countries speak English probably more than people here speak other languages, probably. And then I was also looking at the cities that read the most. New York was in there, I can't remember the other one and then states that read the most. Like these are things that we need to focus on. But come on America, read a freaking book or listen to a book, yeah, but I also wonder, like where they get these numbers sometimes, because I know a lot of people probably listen to like chilling tales types, pod type, podcasts, and I wonder if that counts in something like that, because that counts as consuming literature. I think that's my little tangent about that.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Yeah, it's a tough market to be in, for sure. It seems like there are more books but less readers every year. It sucks, and there's no shortage of talent, which already you know. I grew up against some fantastic writers and I feel that way about every anthology I submit to. I mean, I'm just up against some of the best and it really is, in part, luck, like you can write a great story but it just doesn't fit it. Just you just strike out whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:40

And that's sort of part of the problem, and also the fact that nobody reads anymore and we're in, we're typewriter salesmen in the modern society, I guess.

Speaker 1: 12:54

Interesting analogy or picture. Yeah, so am I. Side of the park, I've been focusing on getting these albums released my non rap album and my rap album. My collaborations are pretty much done. I got one that I could still do, but I'm essentially just waiting for one other guy to send his verse. But I'm still writing every day some lyrics.

Speaker 1: 13:23

And I just recently I released on my SoundCloud SoundCloudcom slash critic the rapper a Western rap called Wild, and that was pretty fun. Just, it's not like a full story, but it's just like it starts with a guy in a gunfight. And then my original idea was that I wanted to write a story, because I always envisioned the man with the sunglasses, that creature that we created on this podcast, and then we have a story about it on eight spark stories. I had like two other stories in mind. One would be maybe the future and then the other would be the past, because presumably this creature never goes away and in the past it would have been a Western story. So I was kind of trying to build up to telling that story in a rap, because I've been doing that more. It didn't turn out that way, but it's still a good song, so check it out. So yeah, and I think that's.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Oh, keith is working on some more artwork for my first rap, official rap single for the next rap album, first song called no Time to Waste, which I've mentioned before, produced by Mandalex, and that's coming up pretty good. I sent that to you yesterday, right? I?

Speaker 2: 14:36

think so. Yep, I've been working on some more screenwriting.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Oh yeah, so you're doing what you're calling it monsters and myths.

Speaker 2: 14:47

Myths and monsters. Yeah, so I want to do a TV show, I want to do 10 episodes, so I do everything in 10s, for whatever reason, I don't know. But and I want to take a handful of my stories and transcribe them into into scripts and have them done. And thus far, the learning curve of of writing screenplays is kind of confusing to me, like specifically turning short stories into scripts, because everything that I've written thus far is still very short. Yeah, yeah, and I'd like them to be a little beefier.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Your, your monster stories work more for scripts, though I feel like that wouldn't be as hard as some of your other stories, because there's a lot of action, mm, hmm, like pretty much when the monsters jump in, there's big fight scenes, so that doesn't seem too hard to scriptify.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Thus far, I've done two, and it's been weird.

Speaker 1: 15:47

Um, I just remembered that I'm also on TikTok now with you. Yeah, I'm back in the TikTok game, baby.

Speaker 2: 15:54

Oh, that reminds me of something else too, and I absolutely hate it.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Yeah, I'm sorry. I just I think some of it might just be like my algorithms are still figuring out what I like. So, I'm seeing a lot of trash.

Speaker 2: 16:08

Yeah, Well that that never goes away. There's a lot of trash.

Speaker 1: 16:12

But the more like. I followed your TikTok live the other day and then I followed all of the writers that were involved in that and they followed me back, so now I'm starting to see them on my feed, which is what I want to see more of. I've got my writer, TikTok if you're interested, Sean J Nigro, and then I've got my music TikTok, which is the critic, the rapper and uh yeah, it is plagued with ads at this point, like it is despicable.

Speaker 1: 16:41

And the ads like sometimes you can't even tell that they're ads. Yeah, that's like evil. Isn't there like laws against that? It's fucking gross. If you're doing Facebook videos, people are commenting because the lady it wasn't at first evident what she was advertising. You're supposed to have some sort of text or something that clarifies that you're selling a product. I think I don't know.

Speaker 2: 17:05

I don't know anything about that part. All I can tell you is it seems to happen with every new social media platform.

Speaker 2: 17:12

Like you get into new anymore, no, it's not, but it just keeps happening every time a new one starts up. For the first you know year, it'll be relatively ad free Not always, but there will be like one out of 50 videos would be an ad. And then you get to a certain point where it's like every fucking thing is an ad. And it's gotten that way with Facebook, youtube, tiktok. It is fucking brutal. And now they want you to man, watch your language. Right, this is a children's podcast. And now it's to the point where, like, they want you to pay money not to see ads, which I think is awful, really, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:53

Oh, and then I saw that I was trying to just like, like your live chat and I had to pay to gift you anything.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Yeah, for like YouTube, you can pay whatever. It is $20 a month to get ad free. I'm like this is fucking crook. It's awful. Anyway, the other thing that's been going on in my circle a friend of mine is going through chemo and she's a fan. She likes my book Damarini And-.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Everyone likes that book. Yeah, they were raving about that on your TikTok thing.

Speaker 2: 18:30

And I told her that I would read her Damarini, and so I've been doing videos for the last two days and I plan on doing a few more to read the story all the way through.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Oh, the ratings that you're doing on TikTok, are you doing it?

Speaker 2: 18:46

on Facebook too. I'm doing it on Facebook and I've been doing it on TikTok live, but you can't post the whole video because it's too big, so they'll let you clip it. So yeah, so what I've been doing is I've been sending her the Facebook videos through email so that she can watch the whole thing whenever she wants, but I've been clipping it on TikTok and we're really hoping that she goes through it and pulls through. That's nice, that is sweet of you.

Speaker 1: 19:19

I'm trying to fix this. It's a good story for that too. Nothing too crazy.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Yeah Well, she thinks that it's funny. She thinks that that is funny. It definitely has moments that it can be and I probably should write more comedy. I just haven't gotten around to it. Speaking of comedy, I'm going to see Tom Segura next week Nice yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Yeah, I was looking at that show, but I just got too much going on. Yeah, have you seen him before?

Speaker 2: 19:50

No, no, I did see Bert, but I have not seen Tom the machine. The machine, yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:57

That should be a good show. Where is he playing?

Speaker 2: 19:59

Portland.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Where in Portland?

Speaker 2: 20:00

The cross insurance arena. Yeah, that's where we're going to be in April.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Yep, yep, used to be the Civic Center yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:09

And that's coming up. We have another show at the Auburn Mall coming up. What? What is it? April? What day is it? Something I don't remember, yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Because I think next week my short story, All Dalled Up, will be in print on Mystic Minds Magazine.

Speaker 2: 20:30

Did they do any art with it too, or just the print?

Speaker 1: 20:32

I know. No no art for the story. I did have the idea because Keith is working on the comic for that story and he's given me some character sketches which are awesome and I thought it would be cool if he could give me some artwork to give to them that could maybe coincide with that story for that release. But I think it might be too late now. They probably already have an artist.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Yeah, they probably already have it.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Interesting. There was a mistake in the story. I guess it's not that big of a mistake. So when Keith was reading it, he was reading it trying to imagine how he would draw the panels out, and there's a part where the doll lunges at the guy and just lunges at his face. But they've been wearing their helmets the whole time, so I never really describe any glass breaking or him breaking through the helmet. A minor thing, but something I just wouldn't have thought of Because I wasn't. I mean, I'm seeing it visually but I'm not trying to tell the story that way. So that was an interesting thing.

Speaker 1: 21:43

So, yeah, that comes out, and I actually signed up for their monthly Patreon thing. Hopefully I get copies of their older magazines. I got to ask them because I would like a print cup, because it's going to be a limited print. What was it? 1,000? I think it was 1,000. And then it'll also be on Kindle and obviously I want the print version. Yeah, kiran Comics, k-i-r-i-n comics on Patreon, facebook, all that, but it's Mystic Minds Magazine and I do plan on submitting more to that.

Speaker 2: 22:19

Yeah, I'll probably get around to it eventually. I have to know what fits with them. In order to so, I'll probably have to read a few stories that are yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:31

Yeah, I mean I need to read their other stuff too, but All Dolled Up worked. And All Dolled Up is a not too serious space horror story. It has a bit of camp feel to it, I think.

Speaker 2: 22:44

I have read it.

Speaker 1: 22:44

It's been a while, but it's not like. My other sci-fi stories are more speculative, so there's more going on under the surface than there is in this story, although I'm sure they'd also take that. But I think there's more action in this story than I normally do. I guess we'll just put it that way.

Speaker 2: 23:05

Oh, we might have a show. We still haven't decided if we're going to do it or not. In May Our friend Christine Acridge wants us to do one of her events all the way up in fucking bum fuck nowhere. Oh.

Speaker 1: 23:19

I didn't know that.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Yeah, I sent you the thing like a month ago. Yeah, you probably forgot, but she wants us to go. I think it's May 11th. Ok. All the way up to wherever it is. She lives in a coffee shop all the way up there. Let's do it, fuck it. I think it's like a four hour drive. Fuck it. Road trip, road trip. It'll be a little warmer out then. We'd have to get up early in the morning. Fuck it, fuck it.

Speaker 1: 23:45

You just reminded me of something else too, and then I forgot Road trip, road trip.

Speaker 2: 23:53

May.

Speaker 1: 23:54

No.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Yes, coffee shop.

Speaker 1: 23:57

We have a wedding date. Oh yeah, september 8th I'm getting married. Yeah, congrats. Right here in Auburn, right here in Auburn, yep, and yeah, that should be.

Speaker 2: 24:08

We're going to get you. Well, I was going to say we're going to get you in the Scrog, but I'm going to put you in the canal. The Scrog, yeah. What does that mean, andrew Scoggin? Oh. The Scrog. I don't know if I've ever heard that. You never heard the legend of the Scrog monster? No, I haven't, oh boy.

Speaker 1: 24:25

Is that one you're going to write for your series Eventually? The Scrog monster?

Speaker 2: 24:28

Yeah, this is like our ghetto generic version of the Loch Ness Monster. I've heard it joking. There's no real legend, it's a joke. But yeah, they call it the Scrog monster.

Speaker 2: 24:43

Is he created from pollutants, probably Three-eyed fish, and Simpsons yeah, now that you mention it, that's not a terrible idea for an episode of myths and monsters. Oh yeah, I wanted to talk about that a little bit longer. So I think I have seven stories picked out and what I wanted to do was I wanted to do cryptid and then something else, and then cryptid, and then something else, and then cryptid, and I think I have enough to get either very close or, you know, I don't think you need 10.

Speaker 1: 25:15

I think you should do eight, eight. Why? Because a lot of big series have, for some reason, they've shortened the series. They just made the episodes longer. So if you make it shorter, you could make the episodes longer, which would be better for your style. Just because I mean, we talked about this the other day, people's attention span is not where it used to be. Yeah. Apparently 10 seconds for an intro of a song. Is you got to hit people right there?

Speaker 2: 25:45

So I've been watching Love, Death and Robots and I still haven't seen that. No, it's bite-sized. So the episodes are literally like 15 minutes, 20 minutes long.

Speaker 1: 25:57

But there's more episodes right.

Speaker 2: 25:58

Yeah, I think the first season has like 12, something like that, and they're good. Some of them are better than others. Obviously that comes with anything, but anyway I don't hold myself very optimistic about the possibility of getting a TV show. I just, I don't know, it's a tough fight. I've never done it before, but I am trying to sharpen my screenwriting ability quite a bit.

Speaker 1: 26:26

I just want eight Sparks stories to be a show. I think that we might need to rename it. Yeah. Because it makes sense. There are stories coming from eight Sparks media but nobody knows who eight Sparks media is and I've never said the name in the episodes unless the narrator says brought to you by eight Sparks media. I did do some ads way back, some fake ads, remember, but I'm thinking maybe we need to rename it to like the infinite Sparks or something, something more yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Hmm, I don't know. Maybe we should definitely push a little further on. We should get it all on YouTube and try to push there too. But we'll get to that.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Oh, and Lou Berger has a story coming up. Yeah, the Melt. Yeah, remember what it's called yeah. And he's actually narrating that, so that's going to be good. Lou Berger was on our episode Double Dale I think it was called about Dale Doow and the Time Machine yeah, so long ago, no. And he's also my editor and your editor on no Honor, and did he edit any of your other? I?

Speaker 2: 27:35

don't think so.

Speaker 1: 27:36

He started to edit some of your short stories on Shadows, didn't he? I think he did one. He did the VAC, or two, the, not the VAC. What was it called the Blut?

Speaker 2: 27:47

Did you know that by the day, it was the Black Hat Society? It was the one of the vaccines. And we at the Writers Block are proud to announce that one of our sponsors is Mark Nagra Services, yeah, based out of Westbrook.

Speaker 1: 27:55

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Speaker 2: 27:56

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Speaker 1: 28:03

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Speaker 1: 28:52

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Speaker 2: 29:45

Thunderheads stood over the canal as a man lowered himself into the empty space where the water would be the empty canal and he dropped his metal detector down into the soft dirt below and he falls down in and he starts looking around. He's kind of shuffling things about his foot and as he's going he's beeping left and right and finding not a whole lot really Some aluminum cans, some coins, nothing of any real significance. And as he's going further and further down this canal, he's losing sight of the ladder that he'd used, the half a ladder he'd used to hoist himself down in. And shortly after it became abundantly clear that he could no longer see the ladder, it began to rain and this was no ordinary rain. This was a fierce, horrendous rain that came down almost in a flash.

Speaker 2: 31:03

And as it's coming down he notices that a little bit of water is beginning to gather and puddles inside this canal and he says, huh, interesting. And he's starting to head back, heading back towards the ladder. And as he's walking he's passing by these discarded bikes and shopping carts and all kinds of other junk that people have thrown into this canal, and then he sees something from the corner of his eye, something glimmering, something shining and he kind of tilts his head, shields his eyes from the rain, and approaches it and he starts to reach down to pick it up and he's not sure exactly what it is, but it's glistening, unlike anything he's ever seen before. And that's when he hears the giant whoosh from his left and he snaps his head and he looks over and he realizes that the doors that have been holding this canal shut are broken and the water is pouring in on the other side and it's coming, and it's coming fast and he doesn't have any time to do anything but drop the metal detector and run.

Speaker 1: 32:21

What do you mean? Doors? Is this like a near a dam? Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Meanwhile, in downtown Auburn, an apartment overlooking the river, kendra was fiddling with her guitar, tuning it, practicing some of the songs she thought she might be playing tonight at the open mic that she had been working herself up she had been preparing for for the last few months. She'd never performed live, but she had always wanted to be a singer. It was just performing in front of people was the only, literally the only thing about the job that she did not like, and it was maybe literally the only thing about the job that you needed to do. So she tried to distract herself practicing the songs, but she just wasn't hitting. The chords sounded crappy. The guitar kept sounding like it was going out of tune. She even snapped a string at one point.

Speaker 1: 33:25

She heard a loud bit of thunder and she saw that the rain was beating hard against a window, the window overlooking the river. She put down the guitar and she walked over to the window. She breathed deep and tried to remember her meditation exercises when suddenly she noticed something in the river. When she looked closer, through the streaks of water coming down the window, she saw that it was a man clutching a tire and he was holding onto something that glinted. When he turned his hand sometimes against the street lights because it was getting dark out she thought holy shit, there's a man in the river, Take it.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Fumbling around for her cell phone. She screams what the fuck, where is it? Where is it? And in her panic, she cannot find the cell phone that she had just placed down ten minutes prior near the window because she wanted to record some thunder for her sound effects for her song. Without her cell phone, she runs down the stairs and towards the canal where the man is clutching on for dear life, holding onto this tire as he's bobbing up and down, and she runs to the edge and she's looking around and she's screaming for somebody to come and help him, for anybody, anybody who's nearby to help, to come to the rescue. But nobody is out in the rain, nobody can be. And she's panicking. She's racing up and down the street and she's calling hold on, guy, hold on. And she's thinking, and she's thinking and she comes up with nothing. She has no way to rescue him.

Speaker 2: 35:05

And that's when, in her moment of heroicism I don't think that's the right word, but in her moment of heroics she dives into the river and she had been a relatively decent swimmer in school and she's paddling out to him Hold still, hold still. And as she gets closer she realizes that what this man is holding onto is an uncut gem, what he's been holding onto this whole time. She can't tell if it's a, what type of gem it is, but it's a gem and it has not been laser cut or used in any shape for a jewelry or anything, and it's still raw. I think it's the term they use. Anyway, she swims up to the man, hoists him under his, under her arm, and she's paddling towards the edge.

Speaker 2: 35:56

But there's no ladder, there's no way out yet, because the water has not risen high enough for her to reach the ledge. So she gets to the edge of the canal and she's just sort of grabbing between two rocks and just kind of holding herself still and holding the man. And the man is panting and he's gone very, very pale and he says thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks for rescuing me. But but we're not alone. What she says and she's confused by the first. She says well, you mean we're not alone, as the rain is just pelting them, just coming down monstrously harsh. And that's when, off in the distance, just barely in sight, she watches as something breaches the water and it's massive and it's ugly and it makes a horrendous screech.

Speaker 1: 36:52

And while this distracts her, the man's grip starts to slip from her hand. But she's still got. She's managed to take the. He's basically given her the gem and he gives her one last cold look and falls into the water and she sees the water like humps on the water, coming over to them and then disappearing altogether. And the man comes up out of the water one last time in pain, and then gets sucked under. She managed, manages to pull herself up to the side of the river, out of the water and she falls back, the rain hitting her face. And she lifts her hand and looks at the gem. It's a bright blue gem. And then she looks out of the water again. Ass, I'm gonna tie that into. But there are no, there are no more humps in the water, there's nothing there.

Speaker 1: 37:52

She looks at her watch and remembers that her show is in 10 minutes. So she, without even thinking, she just puts the gem in her pocket and she runs back to her apartment, passing a lady that's always hanging out by the door asking for change. She throws her some change and she runs up the stairs, grabs her guitar and then basically goes down and the bar is like a couple streets down. So she sets up, she's at the open mic, a couple of acts have gone by and they're pretty shitty. One guy was okay, people are getting a little bit rowdy. And then finally her name is called because she's put herself on the list and she takes her guitar up and she sits on the stool and she looks out at all those people and her heart starts to be really fast and she starts to play.

Speaker 1: 38:49

And then she starts to sing. But she's choking because her throat is like dry. She's just overthinking it and she thinks she sees people smirking in the audience and she started to get really nervous and her chords are starting to sound all out of key again. She bends over to grab a bottle of water that she's brought to clear her throat and as she's doing that, the gem falls out of her pocket and rolls over to the floor in front of the stage. Nobody seems to notice. But when she sits back up again and starts to play, she notices that everyone is dead focused on her all of a sudden and she's sounding pretty good, like nope. Everybody, even like one guy who was like the rowdy guy of the whole crowd has put his beer down and it's just like leaning forward on his arms like mesmerized. For whatever reason, they're all mesmerized by her sound.

Speaker 2: 39:51

With this new confidence. She plays beautifully, earning lots and lots of tips, and she plays the best show ever and everyone is fully intent and she gets a standing ovation when the show is over. And then she bends down, picks up the gem and everything returns to normal when it's back in her possession. Everybody's out of sight. Yeah, everybody sort of just goes on with their lives like they had before, not paying her that much mind. And as she's leaving, packing up her things and leaving, she's walking out of the building and she sees that the rain is still carrying on and she thinks I just left that guy to die. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:43

I just fucking abandoned him. And then she walks over to the canal and she peeks inside and the guy, the guy is still alive. He's clinging on to the rocks right Not far from where she left him. I knew you'd come back. I knew you'd come back, Just played one gig without. And she climbs the fence because that part had a fence around it and drops back in the water and she rescues him and as they're standing on the I don't know what the word is as they're standing near, near the canal, they watch as something breaches the water again and comes closer and closer. And she picks up a giant rock from the ground and shucks it at the monster and misses, and this infuriates this monster and it tries to snap at them, tries to drag them back into the water, but misses by inches and and take it.

Speaker 1: 41:53

And then disappears again. She takes him up to back up to his apartment, passes the lady again, who doesn't seem to remember that she's already been in and out multiple times, gives her change and takes the man up to the living room, gives him a towel and they both start drying off. So what's going on? What the fuck that is going on in the water there Beats me, but it started chasing me as soon as I dug that thing up. He starts checking his pockets. Wait a minute, I think I lost it. She smirks and reaches in her pocket and pulls it out. You mean this thing. His eyes widen and he reaches for it and grab to grab it. But she pulls her arms away because suddenly she feels like it's hers and it belongs to her. He says what are you doing?

Speaker 1: 42:41

Something about this gem made me perform good tonight. People loved me out there. Hmm, the man scratches his chin. Yeah, I felt something weird when I grabbed it, when I found it earlier too. I think that it has something to do with that creature out there. Yeah, about that creature. What's, what is it again? Have you heard of the Scrog? She started laughing. She actually wasn't from Auburn, she had only been there for like a year. So, on top of being just generally nervous about playing out live, she was just nervous about being the new kid in town. Well, let me tell you about the Scrog.

Speaker 2: 43:21

A prehistoric monster that's been hiding in the Andrescagon River for thousands of millions of years and it's awoken by this, the gem. Yeah, that's it and scene. That's an interesting story, anyway. What is your name, by the way? Oh, my name is James. What was our name? I already forgot Kendra.

Speaker 2: 43:47

Kendra, right, james and Kendra 15 minutes into the story 15 minutes and they both stare at this gem and they're both mesmerized by it, but they're not really sure why or what it is that makes it do whatever it is. And then she wonders you know, maybe is it entirely possible that maybe I was just good, maybe the stone had nothing to do with it, maybe I was just good. So she goes down, her and James go down to experiment. They go back into the back, into the bar, and she pulls out her guitar and she puts the stone back down on the on the thing and there aren't nearly as many people as there were before and she begins to play and, sure enough, she's killing it.

Speaker 1: 44:42

James has found himself a seat at the bar and even he was mesmerized until she stopped and put the gem away again. He finished off a bit of his lanky's cold one and he looked back over to her and started to say something when there was a loud rumbling. People by the window were looking out the window at something. It's still raining very heavily, but you can just make out an eye that is receded into the darkness. Then there's another rumbling and a banging at the bar door. Now everybody in the bar is looking over at the door and the bartender has stopped drying his glass.

Speaker 1: 45:26

You can see that the bartender has kind of shot a look at the security guard who's waiting over by the door, and the security guard looks terrified like he did not sign up for this. He's just in college, he's just trying to pay the bills, but it's his job. So slowly he opens the door and he starts to speak his head out and all of a sudden there's a loud screeching sound and when he comes back in from outside, his head is gone. I'm spurting a blood all over the bar, everywhere that people by the window are just staring in shock as their face is covered in red and the door has been left the jar. Kendra looks over to James. Can this thing walk? James just shrugs his shoulder. I don't know, I didn't think it was real. Take it.

Speaker 2: 46:22

Everyone in the bar is in panic. Everybody's screaming and running and there's just a decapitated body sitting on the floor and the bartender has resumed drying the glass because he doesn't know what else to do. Everyone is panicked around him but he's just drying the glass. He's in a state of shock. Yep and Kendra and James carefully go out into the street looking both ways to see what might have gotten the security guard, the bouncer, whatever. And that's when they hear tiles and shingles shaking on the roofs of the buildings and even little bits of stucco and plaster is starting to fall around them and they can hear something moving across from building to building. Oh, that can't be good. Oh, that really can't be good, james says. And sure enough, between two buildings they catch a glimpse of something, something massive and ugly, and it looked like maybe it was made out of seal blubber or something leapt from one building to the next and it had giant.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Did you say seal blubber? Yeah, just a creature that looks like he's made out of a seal blubber yeah, it had giant floppy fins and it looked like it belonged in the water.

Speaker 2: 47:54

Oh shit, why do we gotta do this? And then they begin their pursuit. First on the ground, they're running alongside as this creature is jumping from building to building, and then they get the bright idea to go up one of the fire escapes. So they're going hand over hand, climbing up this fire escape quickly as they can, and by the time they get to the top, the Scrogg monster has moved three buildings down, so they're pretty far behind. But James and Kendra are running and jumping from building to building. Are they chasing it? Yes, take it.

Speaker 1: 48:38

And then the Scrogg monster turns, stops and turns and realizes that he's being chased for some reason and he sees the glint of the blue gem in her hand and he starts. He doesn't quite walk, he slithers like his head is on the ground slithering while his back little feet are walking. He pushes his head. It's like a shark blubber head, so he's slithering like a snake as well as walking. He jumps across the two buildings and then right in front of them and he smells like low tide.

Speaker 1: 49:13

He opens his and when he is not talking he's just standing there and his mouth is just a gape and his breath is awful and it looks like his tongue is like alive as well. It has like a little eye on it and it's just like moving around cleaning his teeth like he's ready for food. Is this what you want? Kendra yells all dramatically in the rain on the top of the roof. Is this what you want? She's been wearing a corduroy jacket with blue buttons and one of the buttons at some point seems to have fallen off. So her coat is slightly open and anyway she puts out her hand and James is like no he'll eat your arm.

Speaker 1: 49:59

No, he just wants this. The fish creature slaps it out of her hand with one of his fins and it bounces down. And it just keeps bouncing and then it bounces into a gutter and starts ting, ting, ting, ting all the way down to the street. Without thinking, he jumps after it and just falls and crashes into the ground below. They go to look over the side of the building expecting mayhem, but it looks as if the river has over flown and the streets down below have like a foot at least of water and this creature has nowhere to be found. But presumably he's taken this gem. James and Kendra look at each other and hug.

Speaker 1: 50:48

Now a month goes by and James is at the bar in another city, in New York City. They're playing Madison Square Garden, and he's gotten a lanky, cold one and he's found a seat and the curtains open and Kendra comes out with his her guitar, all confident now, and everyone's just going crazy. Yeah, kendra, whoo. She sits down and she starts playing, and it's then that James notices that one of her blue buttons is still missing. But on the stage in front of her is that blue gem. She tricked the monster.

Speaker 2: 51:25

The end this has been the Writers Block.

Speaker 1: 51:34

Cool kids, remember to subscribe and tune in next week for the next episode of the Writers Block, the coolest podcast of all time Time. Time, time.