Check out Too Lemon for more of their wonderful work.
Discover herein a full transcript of the Strange Tale for any seekers hungry for a full elucidation of its contents. A special thanks to the Bendigan family for their cooperation in the preservation of this medical mystery. Condolences to the Donovan family on their great loss.
ANNOUNCER: It’s American History’s Medical Mysteries with Casey Don–
BENDIGAN: Good evening, children. Casey Donovan has taken ill by an as of yet unidentified malady. I have stepped in to take over his duties.
CASEY: *gurgles*
BENDIGAN: My name is Doctor Benjamin Bendigan. I am an historian of medical peculiarities as well as a doctor of history. There was Meredith Joldt who was allergic to water. The fascinating account of Peter Bainwright of the so-called ‘putrid finger,’ said to have stunk for up to three miles. And then there was Giles Buckley, the Tree-Man. Half-tree… half-man.
All of these cases remind us that our bodies are merely wet strangers to us. For tonight I have selected a personal favorite, pulled from the official report at the medical college of Miskatonic University, as well as diary entries of my own great-grandfather Dr. Dennison Bendigan. All told, it makes up the strange tale of St. Toad’s.
CASEY: Beware the cracked chimes of St. Toad’s!
BENDIGAN: That was the first thing my great-grandfather Dennison heard when he stepped off the train in Frugton, a town situated near a rare swamp Miracle Marsh. He was called at the behest of Father Gabriel Babel.
BABEL: Can you hear the Lord’s voice, wait listen!
BENDIGAN: Priest at the local parish–
BABEL: There it is!
BENDIGAN: –nicknamed St. Toad’s. From the moment he stepped off the train, it was clear that not all was as it seemed. There was the townsfolk, more accurately there wasn’t.
BABEL: The beauty!
BENDIGAN: And then there was the mysterious voice entreating Bendigan to–
CASEY: –Beware the cracked chimes!–
BENDIGAN: –which Bendigan did not understand.
BABEL: Emanating from his formless mind!
BENDIGAN: Father Gabe had sent a telegram to Bendigan informing him of a local child, Tabitha Wertham, who had taken ill by a species of frog never-before-encountered. The pathogen carried by the unknown amphibian had inflicted upon Tabby a most odious skin condition. Discoloration of her keratinocytes led to a brownish-green tinge.
BABEL: You cannot see him if he does not want you to.
BENDIGAN: Tabby struggled to breathe past the warts, resulting in a croaking sound.
BABEL: You cannot think about him if he does not wish!
BENDIGAN: Before she lost her ability to speak, Tabby told Father Gabe that she had been playing in the swamp when she found a cave.
BABEL: Nestled in the bowels–
BENDIGAN: There she found a frog.
BABEL: –a sacred teacher waits for seekers to stumble upon his wisdom.
BENDIGAN: It looked like any other, except for its three purple spots.
CASEY: *mouthes help me*
BABEL: I don’t think so, buster.
BENDIGAN: At this point, the report ends. In his diary, Bendigan writes that Father Gabe offered to give him a tour of the famous church of St. Toad’s.
BABEL: A sacred tome called Black Spire.
CASEY: Cracked chimes.
BABEL: Dark void!
BENDIGAN: Inside that ancient chapel, he came upon an unutterable horror…
BENDIGAN & CASEY: …Frogs!…
CASEY: …in the holy water.
BENDIGAN: Frogs with three purple spots.
CASEY: Frogs! Frogs.
BENDIGAN: For weeks, every Sunday, when he presided over communion–
BABEL: [intermittent] Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
BENDIGAN: –Father Gabe deliberately infected the townspeople with the same symptoms befalling poor little Tabitha.
CASEY: He knew me, and he knew all of them!
BENDIGAN: His motive? Bendigan would never know.
CASEY: Please! I’m sorry!
BABEL: He becomes one with us.
CASEY: *laughs*
BENDIGAN: The church bells chimed three times, and Bendigan blacked out. In that darkness, Bendigan found his heart pounding in his skull. Before he opened his eyes, he heard the chanting:
VOICES: *indistinct chanting*
BENDIGAN: a deep thrum invading his inner ear. Against every iota of willpower, his eyelids peeled open, and he awoke to a sight unfit for mortal eyes.
BABEL: You shall know him by his great girth.
BENDIGAN: The townsfolk, every last one of them, wart-faced and croaking in unison.
BABEL: His black fur!
BENDIGAN: Supplicating themselves at the foot of a gigantic beast!
BABEL: And the look of a drowsy toad.
BENDIGAN: Bendigan’s eyes seemed to deceive him. The creature buzzed like a radio frequency imbued with life. Its gargantuan mouth split open, unleashing a tidal wave of sights, sounds, and smells that washed over Bendigan’s body in a monolithic assault of the senses. The unearthly bellow reverberated, not off the walls around him, but within the folds of Bendigan’s own brain. The thing violated reality by the simple nature of its own existence.
BABEL: [intermittent] Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut your mouth! You don’t understa–
BENDIGAN: Moving without thinking, Bendigan ripped free of his bonds and tore through the crowd of amphibious acolytes.
BABEL: He came from Cykranosh, the planet we know as Saturn.
BENDIGAN: Remaining upon its mossy throne, the great beast spat out a thick black tongue that lashed Bendigan’s arm for only a moment before snapping up back into its abhorrent maw.
BABEL: His saliva contains the primordial code.
BENDIGAN: Bendigan sprinted all the way to the train station and escaped the community of Frugton altogether. Miskatonic University accepted my great-grandfather’s report on the strange condition of Tabitha Wertham. He did not mention the townsfolk or the great beast. Frugton altogether vanished from historical texts and maps. [echoes]
Stark in Dennison’s memory was the sting of that black tongue upon his skin. On some nights, when the moon shone its brightest, he thought he could make out a greenish brown tinge on the spot where the tongue had made contact. An epidermal peculiarity that he actually passed down to my grandfather, who in turn passed it down to his son.
On those bright nights, Dennison could also hear the ringing of cracked bells.
CASEY: Beware!
BABEL: Greatest of all the Outer Ones!
BENDIGAN: And a familiar name, croaked from the belly of a forgotten grotto.
CASEY: Beware!
BABEL: Father of rotting flesh!
BENDIGAN: A name that would haunt him for all his days.
BABEL: Abiding from eldermost aeons, the one named–
BENDIGAN: Tsathoggua.
BABEL: –Tsathoggua!
BENDIGAN: Tsathoggua.
BABEL: Tsathoggua!
CASEY: Tsathoggua.
ALL: Tsathoggua. [chanting continues]
CASEY: It’s okay. It’s okay.
ALL: Tsathoggua! [chanting continues]
END THEME PLAYS
*DISTORTED CHANTING*
Doompunk Dispatch 