Episode 95: The Second Death

Well hey there family. If you love old gods of Appalachia, I want to help us keep the home fires burning, but maybe aren't comfortable with the monthly commitment, well you can still support us via the ACAST supporter feature. No gift too large, no gift too small. Just click on the link in the show description and you too can toss your tithe in the collection plate. Feel free to go ahead and do that, right about now. This is an ad from BetterHelp. Some days it feels like you're carrying something no one else can see. Stress, grief, responsibility, the kind of heaviness that doesn't show up in photos but follows you everywhere. You don't have to hold it alone. With BetterHelp, you can talk to someone who helps lighten what you've been carrying for far too long. Take the weight off, start therapy anytime from anywhere online with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy. What if you could feel more confident? Finally go after that promotion and feel great about inspiring other women. It all starts by recognising your worth and talking about your wins with confidence. That's why Galaxy Chocolate has created the Unhumble Project. In partnership with the charity Young Women's Trust. To bring you free confidence training, get the pleasure you deserve from the incredible things you do. Take the training today. Search Galaxy Chocolate, the Unhumble Project. Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material not suitable for all audiences, so listener discretion is advised. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Revelations chapter 20 verses 13 through 14. She had seen ghosts before. Growing up in the company of her mother's contact with spirits hadn't been uncommon. So when the dead of Woodhaven Sanatorium came calling she was not afraid. She knew both from their lessons and her own experiences that most ghosts meant no harm. Usually the very worst of them were simply confused or frustrated with their current state of being. From time to time she had encountered ghosts that got tangled up or turned in on themselves so that they grew into something more dangerous. Once in a blue moon she'd run across one of the dearly departed that had been ensnared by the dark, and that was a whole other situation entirely. Tonight she sensed none of those things. The three hazy figures that emerged from the darkness for a chamber seemed more curious and timid than anything else. For the moment they were merely shifting vaguely people-shaped shadows drifting into visibility. She didn't know that was the best manifestation they could manage so she cleared her throat and spoke warmly and gently to the entities hovering by the foot of her bed. Hail spirits! I see you and thank you kindly for allowing me to share your space. I mean you no harm. I have come only seeking shelter and rest and I am sorry for any disturbance my presence may have caused you. I am happy to speak with you if you wish so long as you speak peaceful and true. That fluttering sorceress came again and she caught the faint scent of iron as the three figures came more clearly into focus. An older man and a middle-aged woman stood at the bottom corners of her narrow bed. The man was natally attired in a suit and his plump gregarious face was framed by bushy sideburns. The hair on his face apparently compensating for its complete absence atop his head. The woman stood straight back in a black funerary gown. Her hands clasped in front of her, a gesture that struck daughter Dooley as a bit nervous. The lines on her face spoke of years of hard work and responsibility. She had the air of somebody who probably raised a whole pack of children while working two jobs and tending a garden besides. She called to mind every eldest daughter the red-haired witch had ever known. The third spirit between the other two took a moment to materialize, eventually resolving into the shape of a young man of perhaps twenty years. His face was stubbly and his head was topped with a thick unruly mop of dark brown hair. His clothing resembled something like fancy silk pajamas, giving him the look of a bachelor on holiday. The letter H had been monogrammed onto a single pocket over his heart. The specter placed a hand over that embroidery and inclined his head politely. A hell-witch? I mean if you are a witch, I mean no offense, but the people Miss Marjorie tooks away behind the laundry room or usually something like that. I am terribly sorry if I have misspoken. Daughter Dooley smiled to herself, almost impressed. A ghost with manners was a pleasant change. You speak true spirit. A witch I am. Was it you that came ratcheted and poking about when Miss Phyllis brought me my water? It was, ma'am. We did not intend to frighten you or raise Miss Phyllis's ire. She is not wanting to be on the bad side of truth be told. She has gone away with the likes of us that it is not always pleasant. The other ghost shifted nervously at his mention of the elderly nurse whose gifts had sent them scurrying on their previous visit to room 16. On any other day we would simply be curious about a new face on the private wing, but there are urgent matters afoot that require us to seek your help. The spirit scratched absently at his stubbly chin, gathering his thoughts. Then winced in mild embarrassment. Oh, where are my manners? Here I am running off at the mouth like a schoolboy and I haven't even introduced myself. My name is William Harrison Havis, but my friends call me Billy. This radiant beauty to my right is Miss Regina Fletcher. She's only just joined our ranks. And this noble gentleman is Marcellus Moss of the Mosses of Greenbrier County. We are but three of the many dead that walk the grounds here at Woodhaven. And you? Daughter Dooley regarded the trio carefully. Speaking with ghosts, what is tricky is dealing with hanks or other sorts of spirits, let alone beings of the inner dark. But it wasn't wise to go around giving out one's whole name willy-nilly. Dooley is my family name. You may call me Miss Dooley. What is it you would have for me on this night? Mr. William Harrison Havis. She entoned the spirit's full name with a tingling sharpness meant to relay in the most polite way possible that she had the upper hand in this interaction. William, my friends call me Billy Havis, merely inclined his head, acknowledging the question whilst bearing the back of his proverbial neck. He knew he was at her mercy, but he didn't seem to mind. Interesting. The late Mr. Havis turned to his two companions for confirmation, and they each nodded in turn. Marcellus Moss with the fatherly jerk of his chin, and Regina Fletcher with a quick, somewhat impatient bob of her head. Charmed to make your acquaintance, Miss Dooley. To get right to the point, we need your help staying. I feel pardoned in the expression. Alive. See, it seems that the door swung wide as Phyllis Moore made her way into the room, bearing a tray laden with a steaming bowl of vegetable beef soup, a stack of saltines, and a small dish of chow-chow. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw the ghosts gathered around the foot of her patient's bed. Soups slumped over the edge of the bowl, spattering the crackers, and the dish of chow-chow rattled against the metal tray. What in the world is going on in here? What did I tell y'all? This woman is a patient in our care, not some side show for y'all to come and gawk at. I said it before, I'll say it again. Phyllis raised her stamping foot. Her eyes alight with all the fury of a disappointed schoolmarm. Phyllis, wait. I told y'all. Get. The nurses' heels smacked the floor, and there was a small burst of power that made daughter Dooley flinch and squeeze her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, the two of them were alone in the room. I'm sorry, dear. The dead around here have no manners. They have a perfectly good graveyard. They could be resting in. I don't know why they're in here bothering you. They weren't bothering me, Phyllis. I wish she hadn't done that. The older woman chattered on as if she hadn't noticed her patient had even spoken. So, daughter Dooley, let the matter drop. The soup smelled delicious. A bright orange tomatoey broth full of onions, celery, carrots, macaroni, and bits of ground beef, her stomach growled, and for a moment the plight of the three apparitions fled from her mind, replaced by sudden hunger. It had been a long time since she'd had a proper supper. Don't you worry about them, dear. Anyway, I heard you talking, figured you might want to bite thee, for you nodded back off. Oh, now that you mentioned it, I could eat. Oh, now that you mentioned it, I could eat. When the fire dies down, and the woods go quiet, and you think you told every tale you know, and old flame blooms to reshape the darkness, so you lock your eyes on the trembling glow. The faces you find are so familiar, they could almost speak. The stories fall where the light won't reach, and you can feed the fire to curse the darkness when the voices call, but in the end long shadows fall. With a full belly, a fluff pillow, and freshly turned linens, daughter Doodly fell back into a deep sleep, and once again the dreams came. She was in bad Shirley's stinking shack out in her Goshen Valley. The shell of an old woman was seated as ever in her ancient rocking chair, a rickety contraption covered with runes and sigils that occasionally pulsed with a dull orange light, depending on its occupants' mood. The sour-faced, fluffy giant glared at her from her tutor's lap while its equally foul-tempered litter mates watched from the shadows. She wondered again if it was the voice of this battle-scarred Maine Coon and its sibling she heard rather than that of the old woman. There's power in the dead, girl, not just in death, but in the dead themselves. That down your little book there. I imagine you've seen the ghost retune your time. Were you scared? I bet you were. Bet you nearly pissed your pantycoat. Pityful little thing like you. Lucky the masters brought you into the fold, yes, y'all. What I wouldn't give to senior face first time some sad old shade dripped it up from the floor wanting you to help define his bloody bones or something such. Daughter Doodly scribbled furiously in her journal, doing her best to ignore the predatory eyes that filled the old shack's dark corners and block out the rank smell of the place. There were twelve cats in Bad Shirley's quarters at all times. The orange beast held the place of honor on the old Crohn's lap. While the other eleven perched on shelves or stacks of old books or lurked beneath the filthy old pallet that passed for Bad Shirley's bed, occasionally springing into the dim light of the lantern to swat at her when the mood struck or when Shirley thought she wasn't listening, it would be easy for a simpleton such as you to overlook what there is to be taken from those who have shed their corral forms. There's powerful magic to be found in the bones of the dead, honey. Both in the hard compact tissue on the outside and in the delicious marrow within. But you must use proper implements and methods. You do it wrong, you'll end up with a cold and rotted mess that's neither useful nor appetizing. Do it right, honey. You'll have materials for working that are potent beyond your imagining, girl. Hope it's just the beginning of what we can take from the dead. Are you listening to me, girl? Are you getting us all down, you stupid little monkey? Daughter duly flinched as a particularly large tom, black as pitch with a notched ear and eyes that shone like murder bounded down from the shadows over the bookcases to knock her notes from her hand. It hissed at her. It's mismatched ears flat against its head. She waited for the beast to withdraw. She had learned early on not to try shooing it away and recovered her journal from the filth stream floor. I am, ma'am. I am, ma'am. Please, please go on. Bones and Mara be one thing. But do you know how to draw power from inspectors themselves? I don't imagine anybody ever taught you how to transform the essence of their pathetic afterlife into something that's useful. Begging your pardon, ma'am. Are you talking about using a human soul to power workens? That surely left. And the cats around her trill mocking like a gang of particularly nasty school children circling their prey on the playground. The human soul. There's no such thing. Not in the way that God bothers when they have you believe. People are made of parts. Living dead don't make no difference. Parts can be repurposed. We worked on that list in last new moon. Or have you forgotten you rich and little ape? A slim tortie with one jet black foreleg growled at her, scoling her for her poor memory. But she had not forgotten. How could she? She had watched in horror as bad Shirley turned an old pile of dog bones mingled with dark earth, tree bark and other detritus from the woods behind her shack into a five legged monstrosity covered in patchy fur the color of dry moss. That poor thing had three eyes, two muscles and two sets of horrible oversized teeth. It was running limping circles about the clearing, growling and yelping before Shirley had withdrawn her power and allowed it to collapse back into the dirt it had been dredged from. It was one of the most unnatural things she'd ever witnessed. Our masters teach us that all things of this world are made to be torn apart and cobbled up to nourish us to serve them. It takes time to acquire the taste, honey, but acquire what we do. Their beast from deeper places whose whole diet consists of the succulent betreflex and spirits who have yet to pass through that old black door. It's a natural order of our kind. Weak and soon but are never filled. We destroy what was and build a new world out of guts and bones. You'll learn. You follow old Shirley's lesson and you'll acquire that taste for yourself. Soon enough, girl, I wish you will. With all due respect, Mum, I pledged my trough to the black stag so that I might keep this land safe and live forever. Now what does stealing from the dead have to do with all that? She knew the words were a mistake from the moment they left her mouth. She expected violent retribution from feline claws and teeth and braced herself for it, but instead, that Shirley just rocked in her chair, murmuring to herself as if she'd not even heard the question. Yes, soon enough, girl, soon enough. There was a soft footstep and an old floorboard creaked behind her. When she turned to seek the source of the sound, the world faded away and she woke in the cozy confines of room 16. Daughter Dooley pushed herself up against the headboard and looked around the room. She found the ghostly form of William Harrison Havis waiting at the foot of her bed. Oh good, you're awake. I hope I didn't startle you and if I did, please don't call from his phyllis. We don't have time for that. The ghost looked worn and haggard. If he'd been able to sweat, she thought he would be. Mr. Havis, are you all right? I'm sorry Phyllis sent you away. That was never my intention, especially since you'd come to ask for my help. Please call me, Billy. Oh, I know you never meant for Ms. Phyllis to do what she did, but that delay had consequences most dire. As I was trying to explain when we were interrupted, there is something on these grounds that is, well, it's killing us. I'm not sure I understand your meaning, sir. The lot of you are already dead. Do you mean something is forcing you to move on? To go through the old black door, as folks call it. No, nothing is forcing us to move on, ma'am. I know Ms. Phyllis wishes she could, but this is far worse. Out by the cemetery where most of us are interred, something has been watching us for some time. At first it was merely unsettling. What did the dead have to fear, right? Dark things pass through all the time. And Woodhaven is a place of healing, but it's also a place of sickness and dying. And bad things are drawn to the scent of death, and the whole countryside is wrought with the stench of it these days. And the grounds proper are protected by the workings of Ms. Marjorie's family. And that's the most of them around the edge of the property. It's not the strongest barrier, but any fence is better than none. Daughter Dooley nodded thoughtfully. She could sense the faint hum of the wards that surrounded the property, though as the ghost had noted, they weren't particularly strong. She could feel the presence of additional protections around the private wing, however, and these were more solid. To her gift, it was like the difference between a freshly painted and carefully maintained fence to one that had been neglected. The outer wards had loose boards and sagging posts and even a couple of spots where lively horses had kicked it down altogether. You can feel it, can't you? The protection is strong in the rooms off this little hallway. The folks who pass through here sometimes feed the wards before they go by way of thanking Ms. Marjorie and her husband. Boundary around the house is a little weaker, and those set out on the outer grounds are weaker still. What of the cemetery? Ah, therein lies the rub. The place they buried us is a very nice plot of well-kept land with lovely greenery and neat tombstones that sits a good 60 feet outside the perimeter. I imagine they didn't think the dead needed such protection, but it has come abundantly clear that we do because something is killing us, ma'am. Something has eaten us to be precise. So far it's been unable to reach us when we're within the building, but if we try to visit our grave or if Ms. Phyllis banishes us out there, then we're fair game. This thing you say has been eaten, ghosts? What does it look like? I haven't seen it myself, ma'am. No, but I've heard the screams, and I know which of us have gone missing. There's a difference in how it feels to the rest of us when somebody moves on compared to the absence of those who've been taken. The former feels much how it feels when someone passes from life to death. It's sad, but natural. The latter is more like a hole torn in the fabric of the veil where that person used to be. It's cold and it's awful. The young ghost in the silk pyjamas had begun to pace in agitation. When Ms. Fletcher joined our number the other night, I believe she saw it. She said when she woke in the cemetery, still on this side of the veil, she heard terrible growls and a child screaming. To hear her tell it, she came across some sort of demon tearing a young boy apart, all teeth and claws, a beast with a vast gaping mall filled with endless void. She said at first she thought she'd woken up in hell, but then she recognized the grounds and she fled to the house on instinct for it to get her too, poor woman. That was the little Timothy she saw, by the way. He was here when I was poor land. His family from New York made their fortune on mill towns out in the peed morn. They sent him here and he never got any better. They just left him here to be buried by strangers. He's the youngest to seven. So I suppose they considered in the run of the litter. At least my mom and daddy came to see me be put in the ground. Mama's superstitious though. She thought the sickness might follow me home if they buried me in the family plot back in Lewiston. She had three other strong healthy sons so wouldn't like I'd be missed. The redheaded woman in the bed furrowed her brow. Don't talk like that for him. I'm sure your mama misses you very much. Your daddy too, Billy Havas snorted a bitter laugh. You don't come for money, do you, Miss Dooley? The first son inherits and the second son works under his elder brother, learning the family business just in case something happens to the oldest, an heir and a spare. That's what's wanted. If the parents are unlucky enough to produce the third son, he'll be expected to marry well. Any more boys beyond that are just extra mouths to feed and God forbid there be daughters. A daughter is an extra mouth to feed with the added trouble of providing a dowry and finding somebody to marry him off to. In my case, daddy was pushing for the seminary or the military. Less trouble than trying to find me a rich wife. The handsome spirit ran his hand through his hair and sighed, I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't mean to burden you with my trials and tribulations. But back to the matter at hand. Do you think you can help us? Daughter Dooley looked at the earnest young dead man and tried her best to be honest without depriving him of hope. I'll be straight with you, Mr. Havas. Please call me Billy. I'll be straight with you, William. I've been very ill of late. I do not know how much help I can be. I sleep the way I do because my body and my gifts have been pushed beyond their limits and I'm desperately trying to recover. Have you tried to let anyone else here know what's going on? The ghost shook his head. Miss Marjorie doesn't have any sense of us. Believe me, we've tried. I think Doc Robinson knows we're here, but he can't see us or talk to us. Miss Phyllis can see us. She's got some axe to grind with the dead. Maybe she's just had a bad experience with some troubled spirits in the past. I don't know, but I don't think she sees us as proper people anymore. Talks to us like we're house cats that ought to know better than to get up on the table or something. There's no reasoning with her. And if we rile her up, then we end up right back out in the deep water. It occurred to the red haired woman that while this shade had returned to speak to her again, there had been three of them when she last spoke with him. What had become of the other two ghosts? Wait, where are your friends tonight? Mr. Moss and Miss Fletcher? Billy paused for a moment frowning. How best to explain this? We don't all rise at the same time after Miss Phyllis sends us to our graves, nor do we haunt the same places. I usually run into Marcellus in the parlor at least twice a week. He likes to sit in the chair where he died and recite dirty limericks in the general direction of the nurses. Old habits die hard, I suppose. I mean, Miss Fletcher's brand new. She hadn't really settled yet. So I have no idea where to find her unless she finds me. And we're not always active, you might say at the same time. We're ghosts who happen to have died in the same place, Miss Dooley. Not old friends. There used to be a fair number of us mooning around the old bone yard, but it's not been safe to linger there for a while now. I think whatever this thing is, it's already done for them. There was a shuffling in the hallway, and both the ghost and the witch cast their eyes toward the door. I think Miss Phyllis is coming to check on you, so I'd best be on my way. If there's any way you can help us, Miss Dooley, please do. You might be our only hope. Daughter Dooley nodded in agreement, and before she could open her mouth to speak, she was alone once again. The shuffling in the hall grew louder and closer, so she snuggled down into her blankets, meaning to faint sleep. But within minutes, there was no reason for her to pretend. Without even trying, she slid beneath the waves of solminolence, and for the first time, since she arrived at Woodhaven Sanatorium, she did not dream. In the deep blue hours of the morning, Dr. David Robinson hiked up the shallow rise on the eastern side of the grounds to the neatly tended collection of graves that housed the dead of Woodhaven. When he and his wife had opened the place, they knew they would have need of a graveyard, so they reserved this plot of land for that purpose. They imagined they would have an odd burial here and there for folks who didn't have family, or perhaps the occasional charity case they'd taken from the county for folks who had no money for a proper burial. They hadn't anticipated so many people, rich folks especially, wouldn't want to bring their loved ones back home after they died. There was a good amount of superstition around tuberculosis, or the white plague as the papers had taken to call on it, but any medical professional knew it was bullshit. Nonetheless, families from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Maryland, and points further west had sent their alien and dying loved ones here, and once those loved ones had passed, had asked them to lay their people to rest beneath the fertile soil of western North Carolina. They'd shipped in headstones or small monuments, and some had come to attend services, or sent representatives to see to it that the deceased's wishes were carried out, and that was that. As a result, what David Robinson and his wife Marjorie had envisioned as a discreet little potter's field of sorts, tucked into a clearing on the eastern edge of the property, had blossomed into a proper cemetery, populated with grave markers ranging from simple plaques to the marble angel that the Moss family had hauled in to mark their patriarch's final rest in place. And there was a little wrought iron fence that wrapped around the space, with an iron gate that he kept oiled and well maintained. David knew there were ghosts walking his property. He couldn't see them or communicate with them, as those were not his gifts. He came from a long line of healers. Men who could blow the heat off a burn or talk a cut into not bleeding, he'd been raised in the church, and he and his daddy and his daddy before him were all respected men of God. But he also knew it wasn't as simple as him being chosen by the Almighty to lay hands on the sick. His mama had kept a garden of medicinal herbs. While his daddy had taught him the doctrine of the church, she had taught him the ways of the green. It was his mama who'd insisted that David study medicine and become a healer, not just walking the path of granny medicine, but that of science and scholarship. Neither of which had anything to do with what he'd come out to do with this ungodly hour. Phyllis Moore, bless her, had been bended Marjorie's ear for the past couple of days complaining about meddlesome spirits troubling the patients. David had felt the cold spots and the occasional rise of the hair on the back of his neck once patients had begun to pass at Woodhaven decades ago. He would have never called those experiences nor the entities behind them troubling her meddlesome. Nonetheless, Phyllis's gifts lay in the matters of the dead, and she had declared that she was tired of having to shoe them off the private wing this week. She'd asked Marjorie to ask him to do something about it. When David had asked the woman why she didn't just go out to the Eastfield and have a chat with the dead herself, she'd quoted 1st Timothy, Chapter 3, at him, and stormed off in the passive-aggressive yet gentle way that only a woman with several grandchildren can do. They'd lost so many staff to the New State Hospital, and he didn't dare run the risk of one of their best and longest-standing employees deciding it was time to retire. Hell, they were pushing the boundaries of their state license running the skeleton crew they had on the payroll at this point. So here he was hauling his meaty frame up the side of the hill to perform a working that his granddaddy had shown him years ago. There were ways to encourage the dead to move on, nothing ugly or disruptive, just something to give him a little push, a polite, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here for the disincarnate. He carried his materials in an old potato sack, and the implements inside rattled against each other as he placed it on the ground facing the cemetery gate. He had just been over to extract the kindling he'd carried from his truck. When he heard something moving in the trees at the edge of the property, startled, David Robinson froze for a moment listening, but heard nothing else. He blew out of breath, he hadn't realized he was holding and chuckled at himself for getting spooked at his age. He'd arranged the kindling according to what he could remember from his papa's lesson when the sound came again. This time it was closer. He closed his eyes and strained to hear. The years he'd spent hunting with his daddy told him it was an animal of some sort. Didn't sound loud enough to be a bear or even a deer. He saw a flash of movement within the cemetery and stepped closer to the gate. He heard what sounded like whimpering. Then came a low growl, the sort of sound that accompanied a hungry mouth tucking into its dinner, and the whimpering stopped. Stepping closer to the gate, David caught a glimpse of a wagon tail from behind the moss monument. It was just a dog, some stray or perhaps somebody's hunting hound from down the mountain and gotten loose and wandered up his way. It must have chased a rabbit or a possum through the fence and took it for supper. Now he'd have to clean up rabbit guts as if he needed one more chore. He left his poke and neatly arranged firewood behind and strode through the gate, letting out a friendly whistle. Hey, boy, it's no place for you, buddy. Come on, let's get you out of there. As he drew closer, he could hear the dog panting and chewing and gulping down whatever unfortunate critter happened across his path that night. Sounded like he might be a big fella. David crept around the side of the marble angel. Come on, buddy, let's go. Let the dog lifted its head to glance over its shoulder at the tall man. Its muzzle wet with some form of viscera that he could not identify. It was unlike any dog David Robinson had ever seen, and even if he'd seen every dog in the world, none of them could have compared to this. Big didn't begin to describe this dog. Its muzzle was the size of a grown man's head, and the body attached it was equally immense. As it turned to face him, fear twisted his gut. There was something wrong about the thing. The dog's coat was a soot black that seemed to drink in what little light that gray pre-dawn sky provided. It was hard to see. He couldn't quite focus on the details as if his eyes were telling his brain what they saw, but his brain simply could not accept the information inside the eaky blackness of its coat. Shapes moved and writhed. It tilted its head and began to growl. Its eyes brimming with smoldering red light. Its massive chest vibrated as the beast bared its teeth. A wall of jagged bone dripping a foul, icker that spattered on the grass. It did not bark. It simply opened its jaws and lunged. The cheese belt coming. Here comes another. Child of God, for your mother. пад oh пад пад пад Well, hey there, family. Oh, my, my, my. Where has this trip back into 1928 taken us? Could be we're facing down a minute that the folks who dwell over in the holler are already familiar with. That outro music should be a clue. For those who may not have heard that particular tale yet, suffice it to say that we are headed into one nasty sum-bitch of a final episode for the first arc of season six of Old Gods of Appalachia. Long shadows. We hope you all will join us to see how that redheaded witch handles things, and if I were a betting man, I bet you will. If you've never been a resident of the holler and are wondering why your neighbors are freaking out about the song that's playing underneath me right now, well, there is no better time to make the move. Come on in. Listen to Black Mouth Dog, along with other favorites like Bill Mama and Coffin, familiar and beloved, grave concerns, and a whole lot more. Head on over and cast your tithe into the collection plate at Old Gods of Appalachia.com slash The Huller today. And this is your The Bark is definitely not worse than the bite reminder that Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of deep nerd media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. 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