Every week here at Haunted Cosmos, we release a special story-driven show called The Dusty Tome just for our monthly supporters over at Supercast.

But while we prepare a brand new season of the main show in the Haunted Cosmos Laboratory, we decided to give all of you a peek behind the paywall.

So, welcome to a special release of the dusty tone. It was the winner of 88 or 89 in Savannah, Georgia.

In that part of the world, the winters are little more than what an early fall day

might feel like in the higher mountains to the west.

The sky was grayed over with clouds riding the wind, off the chilled and tumultuous Atlantic during that day. And though it could not

really be described as cold, the air was cool and breezy enough for the locals to justify

the coats they loved but hardly ever got to wear. To be sure, it was not warm. After all, it was the

dead of winter. In a morning frost here and there painting the barren trees a sort of rosy pink in the morning

sun over the ocean. It was night, and the echoing streets of the historic downtown rattled

with the clinking of boots, the running and laughing of children, and the rumble of cars over

the brick-laden roads. As the night became very dark, with no moon and no stars to retard the darkness,

rain started to fall. Now, adding to the cold air thick with wetness, there was the chilled

drops of southern snow, which is just rain. The previously tranquil streets seemed to churn

under the quickened pace of people rushing home to escape that rain.

Puddles formed in mere minutes, smoothing out the cracks between the cobblestones,

and making the whole town glow orange and yellow, as said puddles reflected and refracted the bright street lamps guiding the running family's home.

It was dark, a wet dark, and a vibrant dark because of that wetness, the evening wetness

of the east. Through the streaming rain, there rode four bikes belonging to four friends.

With backs soaked through from the rear wheels kicking up all the water the rider's shirts

could hold, the teenage friends stopped beneath a general store's overhang and propped

their bikes up against the red brick.

...