Summary
Direct Sequel to Fools of Us All.
Nic Silver is on a mission, to chase down any and all leads that might connect to the mythical (or not-so-mythical) location of Tanis, a supernatural place which moves around the woods of the Pacific Northwest. Consumed by his quest, he pushes ever forward, but this time he is pushed toward the story of Arcadia Bay and its only two confirmed survivors: Chloe Price and Max Caulfield. Having gone through plenty on their own, they are at first dubious but then make him an offer he can't refuse: the truth. The only catch is that he must come with them on a physical journey while they take him on one through their memories, through the most traumatic moments of their lives. Arcadia Bay has always seemed weird, but it may be weirder than Nic ever dreamed, as might be his guides. Is this town related to Tanis, was its destruction, or is it possible that the similarities are coincidence?
Most importantly, in pursuit of mystery in the modern world does it matter?
(You should not necessarily need to know Tanis to enjoy this story.)
Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment.
Note: I have absolutely no idea how y'all will receive this, but I truly hope you enjoy. Remember that this is a sequel to Fools of Us All and I recommend reading that first. I recommend fans of Tanis consider checking out the Life is Strange game series and that fans of Life is Strange look up the Tanis podcast. It is possible, I think, for fans of Life is Strange to enjoy this story without knowing Tanis. I am a little more dubious about fans of Tanis enjoying this without knowing Life is Strange, but I welcome you all to try. I appreciate hearing your thoughts about my interpretation of Nic, for whom I held a spot in my heart from his time as a supporting character on The Black Tapes Podcast.
Either way, please enjoy, and if you're a reader of Kaukasos, please check the note at the start of the most recent chapter. Thank you!
Aphelion
Aphelion - Noun
The point in a planet or comet's orbit at which it is farthest from the sun.
Chapter One: Seeker
From the Public Radio Alliance and Minnow Beats Whale, it's Tanis. I'm Nic Silver. We're telling the story of Tanis in order every two weeks, so if you're new to Tanis, you should go back and start at the beginning. We'll try not to get too far ahead. We'll be here when you get back.
My long confusing quest for answers about the myth of Tanis began what already feels like a lifetime ago. When beginning this journey, I didn't have a lot of leads to go on. Even with the expert help of a certain acerbic deep web dwelling information specialist, I really didn't know what to do. Even before the investigation began I have to admit, I had a moment where I felt like I was drowning, floundering in all these half thoughts. It cannot be overstated how much MK's work pulled me out of that moment and returned the determination to me that characterized the start of this investigation. Over time, as we got turned onto the idea that Tanis was likely to be localized here, in the Pacific Northwest, I asked MK to cast a wide net over the region and pull up any kind of news stories or reports of abnormal events in the area. At the time, we didn't know things we know now, we didn't know about Tanis and strange environmental and atmospheric phenomena within the borders of what Cameron Ellis calls the Breach.
That caused us to outright discard many, many things in the early days. For the most part, I've had the foresight to look these things over throughout the past few months and decide whether they should remain discarded. One story I didn't, due to its extremely outlandish nature paired with the very real, unquestionable loss of life. While looking over our files for the show, an intern here at the Public Radio Alliance came across that file. She brought it to my attention and, rightfully, berated me for my negligence. Dutiful and actually a little grateful for the distraction from the things I am going through right now, I passed the information to MK to ask her to take a second glance at anything related to the file while I reviewed it. The file was entitled, 'Arcadia Bay.'
By the time the last episode was ready, I had already decided not to include this in it and that it warranted a small special of its own. So, here we are. Arcadia Bay was a small fishing town on the coast of Oregon which, in mid-October 2013, went from a population of around 2,300 to a population of 0 in the space of a couple of hours. Following a series of reported abnormal environmental and astronomical events witnessed in and only in the city limits of Arcadia Bay, a freak storm formed off of the coast just before sunset on October 11th, 2013. The tornado was so severe that it actually resulted in the creation of a new tier in the scale used to measure tornadoes. Of those within a five mile radius of the town at the time it hit, there were only two confirmed survivors.
One was a student at a prestigious private school in the area called Blackwell Academy, the other a lifelong resident of Arcadia Bay. When interviewed about the storm, they were both evasive and in perfect sync, describing the storm in ways that seemed inconsistent with reality. The way they described the storm, the tornado itself was almost the size of the city and by all signs more powerful than any tornado reported to date. The damage to the city was, bizarre, with that in mind. There was a surprising lack of damage to structures where the tornado first made landfall. That is to say, they were damaged, but not as severely as expected. Other parts of the city, as it happened, ended up as little more than piles of rubble. Reports indicate that, stricken by grief and in shock, the survivors, 18-year old Blackwell Academy student Maxine Caulfield and 19-year-old Chloe Price, lifelong friends, left the scene of the devastation shortly after first responders arrived and, presumably, never returned.
At the time, as I said, I took all of this in mind and chalked the strangeness up to freak storm patterns and overactive imaginations. I sat the file aside and never touched it again. Upon review, though, I was struck by the similarities between the events that were reported in the days leading up to the town's destruction and things I have seen, heard and read about in pursuit of understanding Tanis and, what Cameron Ellis calls the Breach, or what others have called 'the Calm'. As I said, this will be a very special episode of Tanis. So if you're here to hear about the Cult of Tanis, my hypnotherapy sessions or anything of the sort, you're going to be disappointed. If you are, though, a fan of genuine mysteries, as I am, and a fan of snarky, if brilliant people and the stories they have to tell, you've come to the right place. Speaking of snarky, if brilliant people, what really pushed me down the rabbit hole on this one was, as I'm sure you're all unsurprised to hear, a call from MK.
Nic twisted the faucet shut and reached out to seize a couple of wads of paper towel. Running the rough surface over his hands, it would have been reasonable for his mind to be miles away. It would have been reasonable for his head to be firmly in the Breach or on the location of his current subject of study. It wasn't, though. He was staring into his own face in contemplation. It was his job to know peoples' behavior, to know what was going on in their minds. If he didn't, he could not ask the right questions. Looking in the mirror though, he wasn't even sure of his own thoughts. Was he searching his face for some evidence that he was not as okay as he thought he was or was he staring regretfully at the dark circles under his eyes? No one could tell him. He couldn't tell himself.
Pushing aside shaggy brown hair, he gave himself a once over in the mirror. Beyond the dark bags under his eyes, he looked like he could use a shave. I always look so much like Terry when I let this shit grow out, Nic thought, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. He and his cousin were mistaken for each other often enough that more than one unappreciated query as to whether they might not be secretly twins had come their way. Seals it, you need a shave, Nic. He was only glad that Alex wasn't around to worry about him. Her plate was stacked high enough as it went and her struggles to maintain a friendly connection with Strand were sure to make a lot more work for her, in the near future.
Nic splashed cold water twice, harshly against his face. The Seattle office was populated and active enough to keep him on his toes and all, but he had been staring at documents for over six hours and the workday was coming to a close. Well, it was coming to a close for everyone else. It was strange, but within the walls of the office he felt the tiniest bit more centered. There were at least ten or eleven pages of research on this town in Oregon and the (relatively) recent developments with the only two survivors of its destruction waiting for him to finish reading and then analyze. It was going to be a late night for him.
Not bothering to do much more but dab the excess water from his face, Nic shut the door behind him, flexing fingers that were aching from what he could not help but imagine was the approach of some future arthritis. Alongside carpal tunnel, this was just one of the risks you took living a lot of your life digitally. Sometimes, this strange quest he found himself lost on limited that part of his life and other times it sent him into overdrive. Certainly, he did not have much of a digital presence beyond a twitter account and Tanis itself, now that MK had had her way with him. As far as he was given to understand there were not a lot of ways to even prove his existence outside of those two sources. At least I haven't had time to game in just about forever.
For a moment he paused in the hall and glanced around at it. Not for the first time, as he hurried to their office space, Nic wondered what listeners imagined when he mentioned the Public Radio Alliance offices in Seattle. Did they imagine a floor in some huge building? Maybe a single story building all to themselves? Maybe just one part of a strip mall? He chuckled at the idea. How would they take it if he one day uploaded a video tour of their office space and dashed their notions of his importance? North of the border their offices were somewhat nicer, but down here, well, it was certainly nothing to write home about. Nic shut their door behind himself a moment later and found himself immediately face to face with one of the interns from the PRA who was only responsible for archival work, but had proven herself to be more motivated than that.
"Nic," she greeted, stopping in her tracks. He apparently had surprised her as much as she him, judging by the way she stood nearly frozen, clutching at a cellphone. For a moment he glanced over the look on her face and watched the echo of shock drain away. His eyes glanced down to the phone clenched in her right hand. It was his own. "I was just going to look for you. You've got a call waiting on line two, I can transfer it to you." He reached out a hand and tried to plaster a grateful smile on his face. Sarah was actually not that much younger than he was. Nic knew that she was frustrated with the grind of internship. The window of time they had her for was closing and the two of them knew it. He just hoped that he expressed his gratitude genuinely and often enough to her while she was working with him. Actually I kind of owe her a gift basket or something for this one. "It's Meerkatnip."
"Oh, shit," he exclaimed. It was hard for him not to be aware of how much he perked up at this announcement. When she placed the phone in his hand, the smile on her face was telling. The brunette was far from the first person to make an assumption about the nature of his connection with MK. She was not going to be the last. The honest truth was, things had never been all too clear on that front but there remained one solid truth about that connection. Simply put: MK worked for him and she was, much like Sarah herself, utterly invaluable to his investigation. "You're too damned good to me," Nic told the woman, pausing just outside of the door to his own, small office. "You know that right?"
"As always," she replied. "I'm just glad that that file is working out."
"Oh it's more than working out," he told her. "I don't know if it's going to come out Tanis related but it's precisely the kind of thing the show was originally meant for." She gave an appreciative nod and, looking relieved that she did not have to go track him down, returned to the desk in the corner. "Right," he said, realizing he was holding things up. "I'm fine to take this whenever."
"Gotcha," was her answer. He shut the door behind himself and flung a hand out in the dark. It took him a moment to find purchase on a lightswitch but the lights overhead buzzed to life soon enough, lighting the small and crowded combination recording-space-and-office perfectly fine. The windowless room used to be rather disconcerting to him. Now he was glad he could shut himself away from the world in such a way and focus on whatever piece of information, whatever lead was in front of him. It was simultaneously a bastion of quiet and the headquarters from which he continued on his little quest for the truth. Nic sat down, shoving his microphone away. Since it was not his usual place for recording (normally, he preferred to return to Vancouver for that) he only had the one microphone. It worked scarily well with his recorders, though and the acoustics were not absolutely horrible in the room. The good news on that front was that the listeners were still being exposed to the first season, to the events leading up to that damned cabin. He had time before recording narration became necessary. The room around him did not do so badly for singing in. One more thing the listeners can never know, he mused to himself. At least this one has less in the way of world-shattering implications. The phone rang and buzzed in his hand.
"Hey," Nic called, answering. "Sorry about the delay."
"No problem," the woman on the other end answered. He kept one ear to the phone and leaned back in his office chair, imagining her face. Meerkatnip was strange to read sometimes. She was acerbic and cutting about the oddest things but whenever she felt like someone might be concerned she was angry, that usual tone, dripping with sarcasm, dulled slightly and she almost treaded carefully into the next stage of the conversation. About the only other time that happened was when she expressed serious, life-or-death concern for someone. It was the closest MK ever got to being the type to coddle a person or sugarcoat things. Originally, her attitude had been jarring. Now it was just refreshing: in a world full of bullshit and ambiguous allies and enemies, MK's blunt attitude was, at least, consistent enough that it was something to grab onto when the hunt for Tanis became momentarily overwhelming and he felt disassociated from his life. "You recording this yet?"
"No," he confessed, leaning forward and scrambling quite suddenly. The phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, Nic grabbed at cables with one hand, jerked his mouse with the other. The screen on the computer opposite of him came to life. His left hand sorted between various cable ends clumsily, despite having done so many times before. MK did not seem to be feeling playful at all, so she did not hurry him up with humming or even mocking him for not being on the ball. Between this and the implication that he should be recording, it meant things were serious. He finally found what he wanted.
"Gonna wanna," she told him, as if it should have been obvious.
"Almost," he shot back at her, almost sensing her exasperation at his floundering. The wire jacked into his phone and he watched a program boot up in mere moments. MK remained silent on the other end. When she was in a particularly hurried mood, she hummed, not as if to amuse herself but as if she was speaking in the bottom of her throat, unable to resist the urge to info dump so she could get away to whatever was calling her. Nic had picked it up himself when he was having long conversations in his mind, finding himself forming the words in his vocal chords, softly, though not moving his lips. It was a habit now and originally, people had been concerned, hearing the noise as grunts and asking if he was in pain. Nic just found himself in tune with MK's forward progress mentality. "Alright, all set," he told her.
"Okay," she said, in the tone that someone else might have said 'excellent' in. MK's ' I've got this' voice.
"What have you got for me?" he asked her, aware that this was no doubt going to air on a future episode and projecting just slightly more. His Tanis voice, she called it.
"Well, you told me to pour over that stuff from the town in Oregon and the confirmed survivors right?"
"Yeah," I told her. I didn't want to tell her I hadn't even caught up with the original file again. She'd given me six hours. "So did you turn something new up?"
"Yes, and it's actually only about half a year old."
"Oh?"
"Strap in, kid, you're gonna love this." I chose to interpret strapping in as leaning forward in anticipation.
"Go on."
"One of the survivors went into a mental institution in mid 2014."
"Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. Who can blame them for being traumatized after watching their whole town go up?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah but get this. This chick, Max Caulfield, she gets out of the loony bin and the first thing she sees is a crowd of reporters outside of her parents' house. Someone leaked that she'd been in and got out."
"That's horrible. Did she say anything?"
"No, but whoever leaked wasn't done yet. A couple months ago, they released an email onto some old conspiracy theory board about her. The board removed it pretty quick but-"
"But you found it because they're no match for you."
"Duh." Meerkatnip is, as we all know, the best and no, I'm not saying that because I lost a bet with her over how quickly she could find all known contact information for Maxine Caulfield and her partner, Chloe Price. Not at all. "When she first came in she was spouting off delusions about seeing a dead girl, about being responsible for her town getting flattened and that her girlfriend was going to die if they didn't let her kill herself."
"That's some heavy stuff."
"No shit. It gets crazier. She mostly chilled out pretty fast but they kept her there for four-and-a half months because they didn't think she was getting better, just pretending to. The email says that they only released her after she broke down and spent four hours in some kind of emergency session with her counselor. The guy who leaked it thinks she's still out of it, but he did say one thing that I think is going to seal the deal about Arcadia Bay."
"What's that?"
"He says she used to tell stories about going and getting lost in the woods with her girlfriend when they were kids. Like, she said they used to do it every weekend." MK was right. That did grab my interest. This was a common story associated with historical figures who were theorized to be connected to Tanis or to some magical place in the woods that might have been Tanis. Even someone as ostensibly removed from magical mysteries as Kurt Cobain was had been said to have been affected by long walks through the woods. If MK thought this was going to hook me enough to actually follow the investigation further, it just meant she knew me by now. "I've got all that and a lot more here."
"Since no one's found an address or phone number, I guess I'll have to reach out to the Caulfield parents."
"You wanna bet?"
"What?"
"You doubt me, even after all this time."
"I just mean, people have been digging at these two for a long time now, trying to find them."
"If I can't find them, I'll do the next job for you half price."
"If you can?"
"Then I want to hear you say, 'MK, you're the best.'"
"Hah. Deal."
"Cool shit. That email, their address and Price's cell phone number are sitting right in front of me."
"Of- of course they are."
"So…."
"You're the best. Can you se- oh never mind."
"Careful, it's learning." Yes. After nearing a year and a half of cooperation, I still haven't learned to stop doubting MK's tendency to do the impossible. Armed with fresh knowledge about the situation I made some calls, shuffled around some appointments decided that tomorrow was going to be a big day. The survivors of the destruction of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, were right here in town, staying with one's parents. The first time I went out and did a cold call on a potential new lead for Tanis I remember being so nervous. At this point in my life it's far from the most awkward thing I have to do. If I had known the reaction I was going to get from one of the women, though, I probably would have second guessed myself. I can safely say that I would have missed one heck of a story if I'd done that.
It wasn't all that common that Nic could go to the office in the morning, talk to Sarah, call his higher ups, compose a couple of emails, have an early lunch in front of the computer and still go chase down a brand new lead in person. As it happened he was barely leaving the city for the suburbs. After looking up the Caulfields' address on Google Maps, Nic knew one thing: the Caulfields were moneyed individuals. This was why he was not entirely unprepared to drive into one of the nicer suburbs just outside of Seattle, not unprepared for the sight of the relatively nice, well maintained homes and lawns of the suburbs. What did throw him off was that as he pulled into the driveway, someone that plenty of people had been trying to find for some time for interviews was sat there on the cement, in broad daylight.
Chloe Price looked almost the same as she had in the interview Nic had rewatched the night before. The biggest difference was slightly longer bright blue hair, though the lack of devastation on her face probably should have rated higher. The woman with the flashy look climbed out from beneath an old, beat up pickup truck with little difficulty, but uncomfortably enough that he saw her wince as she settled onto her ass beside the vehicle for a second and dropped the wrench she was holding. The vehicle's hood was popped and Chloe Price was more or less filthy. Whatever she was up to, Nic thought this poor weather to be doing it in. It was cold. Looking the very definition of lanky in an oil-stained old tee shirt and jeans that were probably a couple sizes large on her, she stood up. Even before he got out of his old Hyundai, Nic swallowed, struck by the impression that the woman in front of him, the one now crossing her arms over her chest and watching him as if she didn't quite trust him already, was going to be trouble at worst and a struggle to reach out to at best.
He unbuckled his belt. It clicked against the inside of his door as it retracted. Nic pushed the door open and turned, stretching his legs as he finally got to his feet. Almost as soon as the driver's door had shut behind him, the woman narrowed her eyes at him as if looking through him. He did not know whether to be concerned or delighted that she looked confused, but he could imagine which of the two she would choose. A first look at this woman was not enough for him to say why he found her slightly imposing. It was going to take more time to come to that conclusion, but she certainly seemed to want to frame herself as imposing.
Okay, so even if this ends up not being Tanis related, this is fucking huge. Maybe not a genuine mystery, but a real curiosity. Nic cleared his throat. The woman in front of him, Chloe Price, did not uncross her arms, did not do anything to obscure her immediate suspicion of him. Nic figured that made sense, given how long he had stalled getting out of the car to begin with. If he wanted to have any chance of not making a horrible first impression, it was time to find his voice. I wonder, he thought as the woman's narrowed eyes focused in on his own, if she knows there are whole communities dedicated to conspiracy theories about her and her girlfriend. He wasn't sure. Both of the girls had notoriously private social media lives.
"Hi there," Nic called, raising his voice both in volume and pitch just enough to give off a friendly, if inquiring, tone. "Ms. Price?" When approaching people about Tanis, he found that honorifics were hit and miss. Some people found it comforting, a gesture of respect and others seemed to think him disingenuous. It didn't help that many people involved in Tanis were secretive, personal people by nature. The quirk in the woman's eyebrow and the slight relaxing of her eyes didn't really give away which of those she was. "My name is Nic Silver, from the Public Radio Alliance and I was wondering if-"
"I'm not interested," she told him. Disheartening, but far from a 'get off my property.' Nic had learned a long time ago to obey 'get off my property' without question but if he had taken 'not interested' as an answer he would have never been able to talk to Avery Ellis, he would have never fallen down a couple of rabbit holes which had led him to making the (sometimes frustratingly minuscule) progress he had so far. "I don't care what you want to ask, what you want to know or how you knew we were here. I'm not interested in telling you anything." For an emphatic 'fuck you', this was almost polite. He was just considering his options, to voice his intent on being there or retreat and try to contact them by phone as he should have started with, when it became clear that she was not alone.
Maxine Caulfield pulled her head from under the hood. He wondered why it was only just now that this was happening as he had been there for close to a minute or two. Despite being the younger of the two, Maxine Caulfield's face had shown more wear and tear during the interview MK had sent him, not through physical signs, really, but through emotional ones. Now it was the other way around. Comparing their faces, Nic was able to pinpoint that Chloe Price slept about as well as he did, while her partner might not have missed an hour of sleep for a month. Strangely enough, despite looking moderately uncomfortable, this woman didn't show signs of hostility. With her appearance, Nic suspected he had a decent enough chance of making his pitch once without ended up on the wrong end of the wrench in Chloe Price's hand.
"I do a show, a podcast called Tanis," he tried, waiting for any sign that one or both of them had reached the end of their patience with him. "It's about a myth about a strange location in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, which might move around geographically. The reports of the things which went on in Arcadia Bay during the week before the tornado have some similarities with the kinds of events that happen in the area around this place." That seemed to be enough. For just a moment, the girl with the vivid, shocking blue hair lifted her left arm, hand still clutching the wrench and pointed it at his car. Nic was waiting to be summarily dismissed when the woman blinked and lowered it again.
"A podcast?" she asked him, looking a bit dubious. Nic hoped that his face didn't light up the way he felt like it was doing.
"Yeah," he confirmed as the brunette standing at the nose of the truck slowly moved around to join her partner. "It's kind of like radio on the internet."
"I know what podcasts are, asshole." For just a second, the way the woman in front of him rolled her eyes and the slight huff of frustration struck him as so familiar that she might as well have shrunken three or four inches, grown long brown hair and started demanding he pay her in coin. This woman even sounded like part of her thought he was an insufferable dumbass. Nic wasn't sure if MK was even in town (he had learned to only make personal inquiries when he had a reason, so as not to spook her too overmuch) but part of him wished he had asked her to come on this trip. Man, what would she have charged me for this. "It's just, what did you say your name was?"
"Nic Silver," he answered, quietly. A small wellspring of hope bubbled up and filled in the pit in his stomach which had formed when she seemed about to dismiss him. Nic pulled at his jacket as if to pull it tighter around himself as a strong gust of wind struck them all. At least it was not raining. Or snowing. "I'm with the Public Radio Alliance and I want to interview you to determine if your story has any connection to a series of strange events spread across the woods of the Pacific Northwest." He swallowed. Last time, he had used the name of the city and it had been then that he first saw Chloe Price's face transform into the dismissive, even angry look she had been wearing moments before. This time he skirted around naming the city of Arcadia Bay. "Is it alright with you if I record this conversation?"
Nic reached into his pocket and slowly pulled the voice recorder from it even while the blue-haired woman in front of him waved the question off, her brow furrowing. That was not a no, but it certainly was not a yes and Nic only pushed that envelope in situations where he felt his life or the investigation were in jeopardy. Frankly, the only time he could remember recording someone after they told him to stop doing so had been the conversation with the combative and elusive Avery Ellis. Something had told him then that that conversation was going to be vital. Now, that same voice was telling him to slow down, to wait. For all he knew, if he pushed too hard, he was as likely to take that wrench to the skull as he was to back toward his car and drive away.
"What is it, Chloe?" This was the first time Maxine Caulfield spoke. Her voice was low and entreating, as if she was afraid to speak or maybe afraid of her partner. Nic dismissed that last idea almost immediately. The brunette was no longer looking at him in nervous curiosity, she was staring at her partner with trust and concern shining in her eyes. That warning part of his brain grew distracted, imagining how he was going to describe the pair of them to listeners.
'Maxine Caulfield is shorter than her partner, but something about the patient way she speaks, suggests someone who is used to being a supportive rock in others' lives.' Awful presumptuous, Nic. First impressions had never been too misleading in Nic's experience, though he had trouble putting into words where the impression came from.
"A couple months back, Steph linked me to a podcast. I've told you how she's gotten really obsessed with Arcadia Bay lately. I listened to like… three episodes, I think? It was about these two people trying to find a lost city or- or something like that. He said he was 'chasing the last great mystery' or some shit." In the days following the events of the cabin, when Nic had really first started piecing together the narrative for the first season, he had fluctuated between out of his mind scared and kind also kind of idealist. The idea that the lasting impression he had made on any listener, however briefly they had listened, was the 'chasing mysteries' line was a little concerning. It wasn't untrue but it gave off an unprofessional image.
"That, uh, that sounds like your friend showed you my podcast alright." Sometimes if it came out that someone had heard of Tanis or even of the Public Radio Alliance, it was a benefit. It gave him something to work from as it had when he went to interview a man who inexplicably had two feet despite a DNA test matching a severed foot which had washed up along a nearby shore to him. This time, though, he felt a little cowed by the idea that he had left that impression on this woman. Not cowed, maybe, but as if he was going to need to be on his back foot for the remainder of his interaction with both of them. However long that's going to be. "Your friend thought it might have something to do with what happened to Arcadia Bay?" The pale woman's face transformed again, frustrated and dismissive, as if she just realized she had been talking to a journalist. He had that effect on people.
"We aren't interested," the taller woman declared, yet again. She did not brandish her wrench about like a magic wand this time, but she did turn as if to walk back over to her truck, as if to say the conversation was over. Nic barely held in a relieved sigh as the shorter brunette reached up and placed her hands on Chloe Price's shoulders. Nic could not hear what Maxine Caulfield was saying over a gust of wind and, as if to make matter worse, by the time the wind had passed, the two were speaking mere inches from one another. Chloe Price really did not want him to hear what they were saying. Occasionally, the taller of the women would gesture to him or shrug or throw her hands up in the air in frustration, her face shifting between exasperated and pissed off. Maxine Caulfield spoke steadily, quietly to her girlfriend and when it was done, the taller woman turned, threw up her hands as if to say she did not care one way or the other and marched toward the front door. Nic heard it slam behind her even as the brunette stepped forward.
"May I call you Maxine?" Nic asked. Honorifics had not gone over well with the other woman, so he was not about to try it with her, especially since it looked as if the brunette wanted to talk whereas her partner seemed vehemently against the idea. Instead of this having the desired effect, a shudder and a look of near revulsion crossed the woman's face. She slid her hands into the pockets of a grey hoodie which hung open and unzipped in the front.
"It's Max," she told him, her voice still low and quiet, "never Maxine, please." Nic nodded. This was perhaps the friendliest interaction he had had with either of them thus far. He was not about to let this moment go without ingratiating himself to her slightly. Whether this was Tanis related or not, it was a story he was becoming more and more interested in hearing told. "Come in out of the cold, it's fucking freezing out here." Nic wondered if that sweatshirt was a little too thin.
"Thank you," he said, "but I have to ask first, do you mind if I record this?" Nic gestured with his right fist, the one still clenching his digital recorder softly. "If I do and you decide you don't want to let me use an interview with you anyway, I promise it won't see the air."
Max let me into her family's home after agreeing to allow me to record what was happening, provisionally. I got the feeling that she had difficulty denying the request. I hope it was because she suspected that I mostly wanted to cover myself in case any kind of… unpleasantness came about. Chloe Price was somewhat intimidating in her own right and the idea of being on the wrong side of her wrench wasn't appealing in the least. She was nowhere to be found when we, that is to say - Max and I, sat down at her kitchen table.
I had already begun to suspect that the Caulfields were well off, but looking around the house I felt that either nothing was more than a couple of years old or they took meticulous care of everything they owned. It even looked like someone dusted more or less on the regular. The kitchen was clean, a pristine white and sleek. It even had a kettle sitting on the stove, as if waiting for afternoon tea. The only thing to suggest people actually lived there was a used ashtray in the center of the table shaped like a hotdog wearing a cape, and a couple of plates in the sink. Someone had just had lunch. When Chloe Price rejoined us, I was sitting rather awkwardly waiting for a sign that it was alright to speak. She came into the room with a joint in one hand and a look on her face as if she was chewing on something bitter. Her face and hands were still covered in oil and grime, but she had apparently hastily changed her clothes.
"Alright, let's get down to this." Chloe took a long drag and, reaching for the ashtray in the center of the table, remarked on how happy she was that 'this shit is legal here.' This is not an uncommon opinion. I mused for a second on what 'this' was we were getting down to, when I realized that I was being given another chance to pitch my interview. Unfortunately, it was about that point that the woman with the bright blue hair looked down and saw my recorder on the table. "You're recording this?"
"You're recording this?" Chloe Price asked him, her voice rising quite suddenly. Nic blinked at her in confusion. The transformation from 'resigned and getting high' to 'preparing to fly off the handle' was almost instantaneous. The taller woman looked from him, to the device on the table and back to Max Caulfield as if trying to get a read on the situation. Nic started to speak but he stumbled over his words and that was all the opening the woman needed to take over the conversation. "What the fuck do you think you're going to get here, seriously?" At this, Max Caulfield lifted one hand and placed it on her partner's arm, the one whose hand wasn't holding a bit of the skunky. Again, something passed quietly between the two of them, but this time Nic could hear at least the placating tone in the shorter woman's voice, before the blonde turned dark blue eyes on him and spoke.
"I'm sorry, Nic," Max Caulfield told him. Okay, we've hit first name basis. That was a good sign. Nic thought back to the stories told in that leaked email, about a crazy woman raving and ranting about her girlfriend's dead ex coming back to life, who would somehow kill her if Max did not kill herself. This woman was softer spoken and more composed than that story had led him to expect, even after her apparent recovery. "I'm not sure we can- actually, I'm pretty sure we can't help you. I don't understand much about what your show is about, but from what Chloe said, it sounds like it's something else entirely."
"Maybe, maybe not," Nic started, trying to appear reasonable as he focused on the shorter woman and leaned forward on his elbows. "But even if not, I really would love to ask you about the abnormal events reported in town during the days leading up to the storm. You're the only confirmed survivors. People are curious. People have always wanted to know what happened." Nic tried to stress this, tried to gauge if they knew that they were the subject of the kinds of speculation reserved for heads of state and historical figures with bizarre legends around them, like Billy the Kid or Grigori Rasputin. Apparently, this had been the wrong angle to take.
"Dude," the taller woman responded, no longer sounding as angry as she did disgusted. "Almost everyone I've ever even liked died that day. I don't give a fuck how curious people are." Chloe Price had gotten upset at him a couple of times during their short interaction in the driveway. This, however, was the first time that her behavior struck him as aggressive. Nic swallowed and considered whether he should just grab the recorder and go. A follow-up phone call might work, but then again, these two had a history of not returning journalist's phone calls. He was in their home. If he had any chance to get the interview, to get the story, it was thisone.
"Is there a reason you might not want the story to come out?" The question was actually kind of innocent, mostly curious. The fact that the wording stood out as accusatory and judgmental didn't strike him until he saw Max Caulfield go almost as pale as her partner. In that moment, he was very much glad that the woman was holding a joint and not a wrench. The brunette took the blunt when the taller girl passed it, eyes sharp and face hard and then put both of her grimey, oil-stained hands flat down on the table, stood and leaned over it so that her face was surprisingly close to his recorder while her eyes remained locked on his.
"Fuck. You." At least she enunciated for the recorder, Nic thought, guiltily.
"L-look," he started, backpedaling. "I totally didn't mean that the way that it came out - it's just that you guys have been so elusive, it's led to a lot of people wondering why you don't want to talk at all about it." Chloe Price lifted her head from where it had just been, hovering inches above his recorder and let loose a tirade.
"Maybe because we don't owe anything to people like you. You're not even here to play reporter, you're just another one of those legend tripping jackass sonsabitches like the fuckers that used to harass us on the fucking daily. " None of this was very good to put on the air. Nic knew he probably should have been thinking more about trying to save face with the woman than that, but the thought struck him immediately and left a sort of absurd amusement behind, even in the face of the dressing down coming his way. "You talk a lot, but you don't know shit about the weird out in the world, the unusual. You're just another 20 somethin' guy with some technology and an ego." Strangely calm, Nic interrupted even Max Caulfield's attempt to calm the woman opposite of him down.
"You're wrong on that last part," he said calmly, resisting the urge to fold his hands in front of him, in defiance of her aggression. She was capable of intimidating him plenty, but he understood her anger. He wanted to address it. He wanted to quell it. "You don't find your way into Tanis without running into a lot of things that can't be explained." Actually, a lot of it is things that most days I don't know if I want to have explained. While she waved a dismissive hand and made a pfft sound, the brunette to Chloe Price's left was now watching him again, her left hand on her partner's right elbow. "Throughout the last couple of hundred years, there have been stories about all kinds of controversial or big name figures from this area going into the woods and coming out changed or inspired or insane, from Charles Manson to Kurt Cobain to some people that are only really big in certain circles, like LeVay." He seized onto the attention she was paying him, the way her mouth hung slightly open as if about to begin repeating after him, processing. The woman, an amateur photographer, looked like she was the one recording what he said.
"Lots of these stories about Tanis, or about the Pacific Northwest, have recurring themes: a cabin, weird sights in the sky, strange plants animals, strange animal behavior, people suddenly going violently insane or coming back so completely changed that they might as well not be the same person." Across from him, as Chloe Price lowered herself into her seat, fuming, Max Caulfield slowly nodded. "Does any of that sound familiar? Does any of this make any sense? My notes say that you two used to go out into the woods every weekend. Have you ever seen anything like this?" Chloe Price tensed up again.
"How would you know that?" she asked him. Nic knew the woman wasn't going to like his answer, so he turned and addressed it to Max. The little red light on the recorder continued to mark that the conversation was being monitored.
"Unfortunately," he sighed, "my information specialist recovered an email leaked by one of the people who worked at the mental health facility you transferred to here in Seattle. I'd be more than happy to share it with you, if that would help." That works, try to establish a two-way connection. He wanted them to know he was not an enemy. Yeah, he was some douchey '20-somethin' guy in a pleather jacket with a bit of an ego. As far as Nic was concerned, his ego was probably the only reason he had been able to keep chasing Tanis during his first few days out of the cabin, out of the calm.
"It still sounds like you're chasing a myth," Max Caulfield - or maybe it was safe to just start thinking of her as Max- told him. This time it was she who put her elbows on the table and leaned in. This time it was she who folded her hands over one another as if completely calm in the face of what was being told to her. Nic understood, but it seemed like his only chance to get through to them was to convince them that he had a chance, however small, of understanding that the world was not as simple as to explain all of this away with one freak storm system. "What we went through was real and actual. Besides, even if your myth was real, it sounds unrelated."
"I told you," he said, feeling desperate. "Tanis isn't just a myth. Or at least, the place that inspired the myth of Tanis, isn't. It's there. It's here, in the Pacific Northwest. I've been there." This was too personal, too much information being given. It was just that quite suddenly this felt like a promising avenue to go down, relation or no relation to Tanis. "We've got evidence that over the last century or two it's moved around this area, and if it's moved around Washington, it might have moved around Oregon, too." Chloe Price looked less aggressive but no less dismissive. Max's face had contorted into pity the minute he started speaking and it remained fixed there as he finished. That desperation did not go away. "The podcast hasn't caught up to it yet, but I spent a week there. The only parts of it I have any recollection of are horrible. I want to know. If this is connected, then that's better. If not, then it might still be an important story to tell. Don't you understand?" Nic looked across the table, this time shifting his gaze between both women. By this point, even Chloe Price looked pityingly at him. Okay, played your hand too soon or too hard. They think you're insane. There was, after all, all the possibility in the world that he was.
"Nic, you're in over your head here." Chloe's answer was blunt and to the point, but it was surprisingly calmly delivered given her earlier outbursts, given that the red was still fading from her face. The taller woman reached toward her girlfriend for what was left of the dwindling blunt. Nic watched her take a drag and then turned to look at Max, who shook her head slowly and a little sadly. "As weird as what you're talking about sounds, what we've experienced would be so much weirder."
"I've heard about a lot of weird shit in the woods around the Pacific Northwest. Even where we are now in the podcast, if you listened you'd get an idea. Either way, this is the next story on the list that might be about the same thing. I have to try."
"Nic," Chloe said again, calling him by his name and then speaking as if she were trying to coax someone small or distressed (or both) out of a hiding spot. "This isn't the same."
"How can you be sure?"
"Duh, because I lived it?" Again, the reaction struck him as so MK-like that he couldn't help it. He grinned at her, shaking his head in frustration. Nic worked his fingers through his hair once and then turned back to the women, to see Chloe looking at him as if worried he was going to grow fangs.
"You're smiling, why?"
"Because you and MK, the friend who works with me on Tanis, would get along really damn well." That was the nicest way he could think to say that Chloe Price had a habit of speaking her mind without regard to anyone's feelings. It was also not inherently something he hated. She was just so damned dismissive and this was so damned important. Nic had yet to be told to get the hell out, so he lined up to take the proverbial last shot at this conversation. First, though, Chloe snorted.
"I kind of remember her. I liked her. No nonsense."
"Listen," Nic started, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. "It's something that's still a ways off from being shared on the broadcast, but I have been through more than you can imagine while chasing this down. Things that I still cannot process, things that keep me up at night. There's nothing that you can tell me that I won't be able to handle, whether I believe it or not." They were putting on an awfully big show about a whale beaching and an astronomical phenomenon being blamed on refraction. The taller woman looked as if she was about to get irritated with him again, but this time Max only raised her hand. The Photographer did not look away from him, not even to see if her girlfriend noticed the response. Her face no longer held any pity. Instead, it had transformed into a grim echo of discontent.
"Don't, Chloe." This time, the short brunette did not speak placatingly. She was trying to impose her will onto the situation, to stand her ground on an issue she seemed to expect her girlfriend to disagree on. Nic watched Chloe's eyebrows knit together and then the taller woman sat back in her chair. He did not know why this stood out to him, but her hands left a trail of grease and oil as it slid across the dark wooden tabletop.
"Why are you so eager to waste your time on this - no offense meant, here - shit? You have to know-" the brunette merely left her hand up in place and eventually her partner's objection died and all that was left was confusion and concern. When he turned back to Max, she was staring him dead in the eyes. Silence, uncomfortable and almost otherworldly reigned over the table for almost two minutes. During that time, Max's eyes never left his and he found he could not look away. This was disturbingly personal, as he watched a myriad of emotions like guilt, anger, frustration and fear play across the woman's face as she stared at him.
"It would be kinda hard to explain right now," Max said finally, turning her head toward her partner. "But I promise to when he's gone." Oh, guess I don't get let into that little loop. "Okay, Nic. I'll answer your questions, here and now. When you're done, if you want, I'll give you an option." The statement was not ominous in and of itself even with its meaning being rather unclear. He found himself again running a hand through his neck length hair, this time to straighten it after his earlier frustrations had left it disarrayed. He wondered what he looked like to her.
"An option to what?"
"An option to hear the whole story, or not."
"All of it?" This time, Chloe was the one who spoke. The woman turned in her chair, looking a little vulnerable, a little exposed. The expression on her sharply angled face was almost enough to make him feel as if he were some sort of illicit voyeur, spying on something intensely private. This was not the first time a conversation in pursuit of a lead on Tanis had made him feel this way. It was the first time that this had been accompanied by both guilt and becoming somewhat endeared to the person wearing that look.
"All of it that's mine to tell," Max told her, her slightly pale lips turning up into a soft smile. "I won't tell the parts that aren't, but I think you should." Chloe seemed put off by this, because she made as if to fold her arms over her chest, remembered she was holding what was left a joint and then turned back toward Nic, but lowered her head toward the table. "Ask away," Max told him, her voice still and steady, louder than he had heard it so far. Nic did not need any notes to remember the questions he and Alex had come up with over their panic skype call the night before. There were so many questions, but really, for a first interview there were only three or four that might open the door properly, so he decided not to push his luck and go any further than that, for the moment.
"First, what was the first strange thing you saw? It was the supposed eclipse, right? Can you describe it to me?"
"No, Nic. The first sign was the snow, in the middle of a sixty degree day." Something about the way Max labeled it a 'sign' was deeply disturbing. Nic felt like looking her in the eyes was a dangerous gamble, so he folded his hands in front of him much as she had done earlier and waited for her to go on. "It started around sundown and went on for half an hour. Nothing stuck, no one had any good explanation other than 'weather is weird. Or 'life is strange sometimes.'" Beside the brunette, the girl taller girl grimaced slightly, as if maybe those had been her words. "The eclipse came next. I was watching it with a boy I went to school with. A friend who was sitting and talking with me because I'd been through a pretty rough day."
"Was that the day of the uh," Nic paused and looked between the two. It was hard to say what might set Chloe Price off. "The suicide attempt?" Max nodded. "And the beaching?"
"Nothing that seemed immediately special except that there were three of them." Max was answering his questions, but she seemed to be doing it as quickly and shortly as possible. This was not quite what he had expected after a long struggle to get an interview at all. I'm the first person they've talked to about this since the interview right after it happened. Or at least, he was fairly certain he was the first journalist. "And before you ask, the double moons were freaky but, by that point I knew that it was nothing compared to what came next." Knew?
"What do you mean?" he asked, unable to stop himself from noting the way Chloe Price's head had just jerked up slightly and her mouth hung open in some surprise. To his surprise, Max shook her head.
"That is part of the whole story. We won't be doing that here or now." Nic sighed.
"Are you done now?" Chloe asked, sounding jarred and somewhat upset.
"Are you done now?" I wasn't sure if she was directing the question at me or at Max Caulfield, so I stayed quiet. I didn't want to piss her off again and get tossed out of the house, not now that they - well, one of them - were talking. In fact, I thought it best I not look at her or her grungy black tee and ragged jeans at all. Judging by the few social media pictures people had managed to dig up of the two of them, this was Chloe Price looking a lot more like she usually did.
"We're not done," Max insisted, lifting her chin and looking first at Chloe and then at me as if I was going to object. I was just happy to have finally gotten somewhere after their earlier stonewalling. I admit that this time, when she leaned toward me as if trying to look into my eyes from even closer than before, I was a little unnerved about the smaller woman's behavior. It stuck in the back of my mind that she had been destructive and suicidal only a few months ago. "If you want the full story, go home, gear up and then call us. To get the story, you're going to have to come to Oregon with us." This was not well received at all by Chloe Price.
"Why in the fuck would we do that?" I let the two of them argue for a few minutes and quietly considered how hard it would be to get time away for a lead of this magnitude. I knew the answer to Chloe's question instinctively and Max confirmed it for me a minute or so later.
"I can't relive this story without seeing Arcadia Bay and- and confirming it, that it's real and besides, you couldn't grasp the scope of it without seeing it. If you want it, you'll come. Next Friday."
"What if I don't want to go out to an abandoned town with two strangers by myself?"
"Then bring that friend of yours that helps with the podcast." Chloe sounded disgusted, so I figured that anymore stalling was going to probably mean a wasted opportunity and this was too good, too big to pass up. I doubted that MK would want to go out in the field like this. She's been a little nervous about being the 'face of Tanis' since her home was compromised by the people who were following me around at the time. There was, however, someone I had called numerous times to go into situations I was not entirely sure of. I decided then and there, looking each of these women in the eyes, that there was no way I was stepping foot in the remains of Arcadia Bay without Geoff van Sant. "I'll give you the specifics when you answer. You've got 72 hours to decide, so that we have enough time to make plans."
With that, even the woman who had been the friendliest to me since I rolled up on the Caulfield's property had apparently finished with me. I was being dismissed. Surprisingly, Chloe did not take any sort of perverse pleasure in escorting me to the door.
"You've got 72 hours to decide, so that we have enough time to make plans." Nic nodded, slowly and realized by the way that Max stood and made for the next room that the conversation was over. Chloe, looking a little out of sorts, seemed to make the connection at the same time. Nic kept his recorder running as he lifted it up, but slowly he stood, looking at Chloe Price and sure that he should say something to her, but unsure what was appropriate. Her cooperation in this seemed to hinge entirely on her girlfriend's. That was not ideal.
The taller girl caught the smaller's hand before Max could get away and pulled her in for a very tight hug which Nic felt again like a voyeur for witnessing. He did his best to stare anywhere else until the two split and Chloe began to lead him toward the front door. At first, he expected to be summarily dismissed without any kind of goodbye at all. However, as he stood just outside on the doorstep, Chloe cleared her throat. The dreary, cool December day sapped some of the warmth Nic had managed to regain during his time within the walls of the Caulfield household.
"Look," the woman started, rubbing at the back of her neck with one hand, anxiously. "It's nothing personal. I'd be pissed by anyone asking about Arcadia Bay. I'm pretty pissed, still, actually, especially considering you convinced my girl to go back there. There are- there are ghosts there for us." That seemed like a reasonable thing to say.
"I understand ghosts of the past," Nic told her. Unbidden, the mental image of a woman, one whose face he only remembered seeing in photos came to mind. In this mental image, Tera Reynolds was holding her own right arm aloft in her left hand. While he had recounted this horrible image under hypnosis, he had no actual memory of such an event. It did not mean that the very idea did not upset him. Chloe Price sized him up briefly before answering.
"I know enough to know that. That's why Max wanted to hear you out. She read it on your face. If I wasn't so pissed off, I would have too." This seemed like the closest thing to approval or a goodbye that he was going to get. Nic turned off his recorder and shoved it into his pocket, keeping his hand there and shoving his left hand into the other pocket to boot. The old blue hyundai waited faithfully in the driveway, with a nice strong working heater ready to come to life. It beckoned to him. Chloe Price wasn't done yet, though. "You know, your fans won't believe this story, no matter how weird your ancient disappearing city or whatever gets."
"If they believe the rest of this season, about the things I've been through, they just might." Nic left the Caulfields' home as abruptly as he had arrived. To him, that seemed fitting.