Thirteen Days of Halloween Penance, a co production of iHeart three D Audio Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild from Aaron Nankey.

Headphones recommended, Listener discretion advised.

What is there to say about prison life that hasn't been said a million times before?

It is so boring.

Likes up on your feet, the same shit every.

Day you again, move along.

I imagine some people thrive on that routine.

Checkmate.

Not if I move here, checkmate, still.

Know and that it beats down those who fight back.

Checkmate.

No, that's oh darn.

They say.

The pen gets everyone eventually, either by force or attrition.

What's nuke all?

My question is what are they after?

It's your turn to share today, sireen.

But I don't have anything to say.

How does that make you feel?

If they can keep us physically detained, I'm going if they have ways to enter our minds.

Any side effects from the medication.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

Maybe time to up your dosage.

What's left but the soul?

Take and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.

All I have and all my own You have given all to me.

I swear no matter what, I refuse to submit choice.

But I also wonder how long can I hold out?

Already I'm starting to lose track of time, Identical days turning into identical weeks, filling identical months against a clock and calendar that I have no reason to trust.

I wonder what is all this time doing to me?

How is it changing me?

Has something changed about you?

Well, I've practically quit smoking.

Good for you.

I've started going to church at least more regularly.

I noticed, and well, I was just so angry when I got here.

I'm still angry, furious.

Actually, if I could, I'd trample those guards, break straight through the wall, burn this whole place of the ground, and never look back.

But something's changed.

Well, that kind of rage was hurting more than it was helping me specifically, And if the anger isn't gone, maybe it's a little more contained.

If you were to give it a word, would it be fair to say patience?

I hate to think that I'm just waiting around.

That makes me feel so weak.

I would say it demonstrates tremendous strength.

Whoever is patient has great understanding, But one who is quick tempered displays folly.

But understanding about what how to marchin a line, what not to eat in the cafeteria, who to avoid contact with if you don't want a knight stick to the gut.

Maybe a more personal understanding.

Humans have an innate desire for control over their own lives.

It's a fallacy, really, but even the sense of control can be powerful.

The freedom to make your own choices, to set your own goals can come to define your very identity.

So what happens when that illusion of control vanishes?

You lose your mind or you grow Ah crap, do you know what time it is?

About twelve thirty?

I think, well, I gotta get to the rec center.

Exercise can be good for the soul.

Well maybe it's just uh, I'm supposed to.

Meet someone, meet someone.

Yeah, well, don't keep them waiting.

Thank you, chaplain.

I hope to see you tomorrow.

Why what's tomorrow?

Christmas?

Eve?

Oh?

Snap, I gotta find a gift.

Okay.

Leaving the chapel means libraries on my left, TV rooms.

On my room.

Here's a weight room, the art room.

I just need to go down these stairs.

Rodriguez, I'm never gonna get used to that.

What do you think you're doing?

Uh, recreation, not like that.

You're not, but I'm sure this is the right door.

That hair, my hair.

What's the last time you had a cut.

Hmmm, well I came in before Easter.

Weekend, so right, Captain has strict policies.

Mm okay, I'll get right on that.

Now with me, let go, I said I could walk, Lorena, you got space for one more.

This one here has never seen a brush in your life.

Oh, I'm sorry, didn't know.

I was here to impress.

Your hair is like a nest birds or spiders.

I'm afraid to look.

Then don't go.

Go.

I'll take care of this one.

Don't be afraid to use a little force.

Maybe I do need a trim.

No, you needed a trim three months ago.

Now, Mirena, what you need is a miracle good thing.

I'm mean.

Come, I wash first, then we gleam.

So what's your style?

Are you more a pixie cot or maybe a little framing?

Give some shape to that pretty face.

No, you're not listening.

I don't want you to do anything, just a trem.

Oh, but indulge me.

There must be something you want.

Come on, you can tell me.

Don't fight it.

She'll get it at it you always does do.

What I wanted before I did.

She's always right.

By the time I'm done, I'll have you a feeling all new.

Look.

It's nothing personal.

I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about how I look.

Oh, Jerre one of those?

Aren't you one of those?

Here?

Sit lean back?

What is that supposed to mean?

I'll change you if you sit, Let me guess you'll turn away makeup and hair styling.

And she close, saying you're not into fashion?

But nonina, no service.

Is that that's a fashion statement in itself?

No, that's not I don't know.

Deny, then I deny, but I seen you?

Oh and what because you cut someone's hair gives you license to judge them.

There's a lot you learn when you shape someone's look.

I mean, how we present is a mask.

No one is exactly what they look like.

How painfully boring.

So while they're in my chair letting me chop away at little pieces of them, you get to drop the mask and I listen.

Like a therapist, I heals me or no therapist.

They want to fix you.

I prefer to enable better dips twenty years at the same overpriced salunge you hear every entitled complaint.

Convertible in a shop AND's in the lakehouse, and now myn as sources out of town and my husband is canoodling with the maid.

Oh, I always hope for something with more substance.

Maybe I hope too hard.

One day I had this woman come in sunset of her life, glory, silver hair down to her chest.

I loved it.

I wanted it, oh, to age like that, But she said it made her look witchy.

Now who could have put that idea in her head?

Turns out kids were shattering her windows with rocks.

They riding on.

Their bikes, dark of night and no one awake.

Then crash, kill the witch, they yelled, and then they were gone just as fast because acido, poor woman.

I could hear it in her voice.

No not chop it off, chop it all off.

I don't want it anymore.

How it heard her to lie about, let's get you in a chair.

Did you cut it off?

No, that would have been a crime.

Instead, I listened to what she really wanted here sit?

What did she say?

Nothing at first, but I pushed.

I always had that gift, you know, getting people to open up.

Usually it's a lot of cheesemay.

By this time this was different.

Something in her eyes and how her lips scrunched like she was chewing on her words.

Benures and all lone and all.

I want to take those rocks.

I want to find her houses and I want to break their bones.

Al rinkled little thing.

And then she left, Lift your hair, got wrap fist around your neck.

Do you think she did it?

How could she?

No?

That would have been insane.

At least that's what I thought, And it's what got me through the night, because as soon as I got home, there was a stamped in my brain.

Horrible, horrible headache that whole week, actually my last week on the outside of horrible.

Oh careful, what the scalp?

This is nothing?

They after another woman came rolled out a magazine and pointed at a model wanted her seventies disconneon prom emitra.

I'm divine at what I do, but my conscience wouldn't let me, so I tried to wear her somewhere safe.

And you know what she said to me.

If I wanted safe, I wouldn't put nails in my salad.

What I can't believe she met that literally.

I didn't either until she smiled, teas cracked and chipped gums blead.

She needed a dentist, not a perm.

I don't know why she told me, But then the nasia hit and I spent the rest of my shift head first in a toilet, feeling like there was a hole in my got.

I think one of the other girls ended up giving her a PERM.

I didn't care anymore.

I'd swear there was something in the air that week, but all the crazy seemed to ask for me, And the next one was even worse.

Worse than eating nails.

There's always worse, Melina, and it's never who you expect.

Tilt your head for me, wouldn't you wait?

How about are you taking off?

Really had to get either?

Don't you want to know.

Who came next?

Just a trim?

Got it?

Mm?

Now?

This girl so thin and twiggy, it was like she floated in on a breeze Carolina with her heart on the eye.

That's how she signed in in for a trim, just like you.

She didn't make so much as a sweek.

For the full hour, I could tell it was something heavy, something ugly, building up.

But who am I to pry?

If a client wants silence.

I gave them silence.

I was nearly done styling her before she finally spoke, turned to me with her dull eyes and asked if I was married.

No, no, no, I said, I love myself too much to share.

She liked that.

She was jealous.

What about you, I asked, and she went quiet again.

She jamed me in and whispered, I'm going to kill my husband.

I just haven't figured out.

How I was frozen.

I mean, what do you say back?

Don't do it?

Good luck?

I couldn't tell if she was kidding, Or maybe I could, and I didn't want to admit it.

It's not like she waited for me to react.

She just got up, dropped a tip on the counter and left.

Or was it a good tip?

Best of my life?

But not even close to worth it?

My fever that night was like a.

Caulduring fluids, boiling skin, melting every nerve on fire, or at least it felt that way, pinned me down to a bed for two days now.

Still, am I expected to tip?

I mean I would, but ridiculin this is currency enough for once I'm the one talking.

Take a look, how do you.

Feel that's not a trim?

I know, and we're not done yet.

See you, Rhina, Oh, see you and the girl?

Will you kin me?

Chris?

Good luck, Si, you're gonna need it.

How do they know my name?

Ninya?

Haven't you been listening?

You learn all kinds of things in a place like this.

Haven't you worked a service job?

Yeah?

Actually back before.

So you know?

And I've had dozens.

That's why I didn't question it at first.

How you offer a service but they treat you like a product.

People think they have a right to your time, to your attention, and they don't care what you carry home.

I'm just happy to unload.

Even worse when you work for taps.

Were there more clients like her?

Carolina Gegetts Mass No, she was the last, but that wasn't the last time she came.

When I finally forced myself out of bed after that burning fear, I thought enough of this, No more helpful ear?

But what does fate care for our plans?

My first day back, I found her waiting there, almost shivering with fear, cold.

I don't know.

Turns out she'd come every day asking for me.

What an honor?

What did she want?

Now?

A manicure?

Some pastelic color?

And obviously an excuse because I'm no technician.

Mister Iden is my boss.

He knew that.

But there comes Carolina waiting a stack of fifty, so of course he sells me out.

Who cares what I want?

Lorena pisso everybody helps.

Did you ask if she did it?

No?

Remember, I was done asking questions from now on, just smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding.

Hole.

Still, this is for texture.

So she didn't talk to you.

Now, where did you get that?

All I said was that I didn't ask.

So while I prepped the manicure, she stared at me with those big dough eyes, unblinking, uncomfortable, like there was an itch she couldn't scratch.

And I could tell that heaviness, that ugliness from before it was back and she was ready to gossip.

So I laid out a towel and I asked for her hands, And when she spread out her fingers, all I could see was blood on her nails, crusty flooded cutocles, hand stand up to her wrists.

Can you wash it?

She asked, as if a pink salt exfoliant was enough to scrub whatever monstrosity she committed I couldn't speak, I couldn't even look up, so instead she leaned.

In loudina, I so appreciated our last session.

He was such a weight off my shoulders.

You're so easy to talk to.

You know that.

I didn't want to be I didn't want to listen to another word.

She wouldn't stop.

I did it, I really did.

I waited until Rob was asleep.

Then I grabbed my knitting box, took out my seam ripper, and I unsold him.

I looked around, but no one else in the whole room had even flinched.

Was I going insane?

Or was everyone around me losing their minds?

I ran out bio coming up in my throat, and the last thing I saw was Carolina's face.

She looked relieved, like that weight was really gone.

I quit that very day.

Let's get you dried up.

There'd you go?

Shaped up, real nice with some value?

Were you sick again?

Clado ruined my upholstery and pushed the absolute limit on how much I'd be broken A person can take.

But I had to find out if this was awesome twisted job, So I did what any irrational person would do.

They followed her home.

I watched her enter a big gated massion, you know the fancy sword where the bushes are all cut into shapes.

And I waited, quiet and in pain to catch any glimpse of her husband still alive.

It was well after dark before I saw her come out again, wheeling out the trash.

The curiosity ate me a lot.

I had to know what was in those cans.

Now I wish with every bone in my body that I never looked inside.

I jumped in my car and floored La Ville and seat that eighty miles an hour, as fast as my little clanker could go.

That's when I saw the cruiser parked at the burger joint, cop leaning on his hood, and I told him everything about Carolina, her confession, the gorriness in her trash.

I knew I sounded, but I pleaded for him to believe me.

And you know what he did.

He said he believed me, but that he just didn't care.

That punchy mustache man acne on his necks, wet on his collar.

He said he'd seen worse, hell, that he'd done worse chewing on that gristy, tripping burger, he told me, bragging.

Sometimes when there's a body, and I'm supposed to call it in.

I don't, because for a couple of hours after death, there's still warming enough to have fun.

He just kept going, unloading repulsive details after details.

Even after I shut myself in my car and blared the horn, he was at my window and I could still read his lips.

Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?

What did you do?

Nothing?

I regret.

I just wish they hadn't caught me, because that holding seally threw me into.

That was my own brand of hell, not like the rooms we've got here.

Handcuffed, I couldn't even cover my ears while everyone else just spilled and spilled.

There was something wrong with me.

I knew that, but I couldn't stop it.

So instead I screamed the back what I heard, because why should I suffer alone?

How long were you there?

Not long?

Grass, sadios?

I suppose eventually somebody listened to what I had to say, because two doctors showed up from the Pendleton.

What gave it?

The way they dragged you here too?

Dragged me?

No, they offered the help, said they could make the secret stop, and for that I would have claimed in their trunk.

You look like you don't agree.

Why would you choose to come here?

We can't leave?

What makes you think I want to free meals, free roaming and never having to suck up to anyone else for tips, Nina, But it's not Tahiti.

But it'll do.

Did they help you?

Then?

You mean?

Though?

I still hear people's secrets sometimes, but at least the pain is gone.

They've got me on this regimen.

Pills and test and prodding and so on is meant to contain it altogether.

But we'll see.

So then you have heard things while you've been here.

Of course, stranger and stranger every day.

Strange?

How oh no, no, no, I do what you're doing?

Do you think knowing more is always better?

But you're ignoring how it might hurt you?

What do you mean hurt me?

What I mean, Sayuri, is how will you handle the darkest secrets of this place when you don't even know your own?

Wait?

While I was here?

Were you?

Is she ready yet?

Almost?

There's no rushing beauty.

Take a look in the mirror.

Do you like who you see?

That's not me?

Clad o ca see?

Like I said, when it comes to my work, I'm divine, don't worry your secrets safe with me?

What do you mean.

Now?

Are you done?

Yes?

I'm done?

But out you go now, beauty queen, and don't forget to brush your hair?

What's up?

Three far?

Nighty night o?

Damsa same shit every day?

Wait?

Did she leave a bobby bit in my hair?

Hey?

You?

Oh?

Hey?

I thought we had a date.

I know, I'm sorry.

I got caught out for looking up haggard was the implication, and they dragged me into what account for the beauty salt around here?

Lady took her sweet time too.

I'm sorry.

I tried, but I couldn't get out.

It looks nice, yeah, yeah, real nice.

I don't quite feel like myself.

What is that like to feel like you?

I don't really know anymore.

I guess I've never liked to be fussed over, and now even that has been taken away.

The chaplain said something today that I can't stop thinking about.

He said that losing control over your life forces you to re evaluate your identity.

Then have you learned a lot about yourself since you've been here?

To be honest, I have learned that I need other people more than I ever wanted to admit before.

Can I fuss over you for a second.

Okay, you look beautiful.

It's some haircut.

I like it, but it's not the haircut.

I wish we didn't always meet like this, these damn bars between us.

What would happen if we met on the outside, if you said something like that to me the way you just said it.

Yeah, well I might have to reach over and kiss you.

I Kenleena oh YEA.

Thirteen Days of Halloween pennance starring Natalie Morales, Episode eight care written by Alessandra Hara del Castillo and Alexander Williams.

Editing and sound designed by Trevor Young, featuring the voices of Sandra Viadares, Rachel Rosenbloom, Wayne Bastrup, Raphael Corkil, Jeff Bowser, Blair Chandler, Morgan Brown, and Laura Shine.

Directed by Alexander Williams.

Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Noah Feinberg, Chris Dicky, Matt Frederick and Alexander Williams.

Supervising producers Trevor Young and Josh Thain.

Producers Jesse funk Rima Ilkali Nowami Griffin, Chandler Mays, and Casby Bias.

Script Editing by Lauren Vogelbaum, Story consultants Ben Bolan and Matthew Riddle.

Casting by Sunday Bowling CSA and Meg Mormon CSA.

Production coordinator Wayna Calderon.

Production assistants Jenna Johnson and Winona Lowe.

Theme music by Rose Azerti with vocals by Anna Hummler, recorded at This Is Sound Design Studios in Burbank, California.

Engineered by Ross Arnot, Special thanks to Romelia Osorio, Nathan Rule, Glen Nishida, and Rob Mosca.

Thirteen Days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and Alexander Williams and is a production of iHeart Podcasts, Blumhouse Television, and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Makey.

Learn more about the show at Grimandmild dot com slash thirteen Days and find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Happy Halloween,