The Magnus Archives
Statement begins. Make your statement. Face your fear.
The Facts
Text: Do Not Open Author: Jonathan Sims (Rusty Quill)
Genre: Horror, Anthology, Podcast Year: 2016
Available: The Magnus Archives Podcast episode 2
Read Transcript Here
Content warning: Discussions of recreational drug use.
The Fiction
We're getting a little adventurous this week! So far the short stories on this blog have all been text based stories meant to be read. This week I thought it'd be interesting to go outside the text based medium and look at a different way to tell short stories. That's right this week we're looking at a podcast! Specifically one of the most popular of the narrative fiction podcasts: horror anthology series The Magnus Archives.
The Magnus Archives started in March of 2016 and ended after five seasons this past March of 2021. It has 200 episodes, with 40 episodes in each season. The Magnus Archives is a frame narrative, like we saw in The Heptameron or I, Robot in earlier posts on this blog. The Magnus Archives follows Jon Sims head archivist at the Magnus Institute, a research institute in London collecting and investigating stories of paranormal encounters. Jon Sims has recently been promoted to head archivist and is recording the paper statements submitted to the archives over the years to an audio format. Each individual episode features a new short horror story being read by Jon Sims. As the series goes on the individual statements begin to connect as Jon and the other staff in the archives try to unravel a series of mysteries surrounding the institute and the beings it studies.
As the series goes on the over-arching plot becomes more complex and prominent to the point where I would say you absolutely have to listen to this series in order to follow what is happening. But, especially, in the early seasons the short horror stories that make up the bulk of each episode can easily stand alone. This week I look at the second ever episode in the series: Do Not Open.
Do Not Open is a statement from Joshua Gillespie taken in 1998. In it Joshua describes a trip to Amsterdam with friends where he encounters a man named John (different from the protagonist of the series Jon Sims) who offers him 10,000 dollars to look after a package. Joshua agrees to look after the package and takes the money before sobering up and realizing what a bad idea that is. He never sees John for the rest of the trip and returns to London with his friends assuming he just dodged getting involved with drug smuggling. After more than a year has passed Joshua finally spends some of the money, thinking John must have forgotten about him by now. He uses to the money to help pay for new apartment in Bournemouth where he got a new job.
One day while alone in his new apartment there is knock at the door. It is two burley deliverymen who Joshua can't seem to be able to describe. The deliverymen wheel in a package and leave. When Joshua unwraps it he finds a coffin chained shut with the words Do Not Open scratched into the lid. There is also a key for the chains, and a note from John. Joshua realizes this must be the package he agreed to look after in Amsterdam. He tries to smell if there is a body in the coffin but can't detect anything. Too afraid of John he resigns himself to keeping the coffin but never opening it.
Soon Joshua notices strange things about the coffin. When something is paced on top of the lid it triggers something in the coffin that begins to scratch. When it rains a noise can be heard from inside the coffin...a moaning sound that is also melodious and somehow tempting.
Joshua begins to find himself waking up from nightmares he can't remember, and then he starts sleepwalking. He begins to wake up with the key to the chains in his hands, once waking up with the key in the lock moments from being turned. He tries hiding the key but keeps finding it in his sleep. Finally he starts to put the key in a bowl of water that he then places in the freezer. He still sleepwalks but the cold of the ice wakes him up before he can get to the key.
Joshua lives with the coffin for a year and half. One day John and the two deliverymen show up at his door. Joshua notes that they seem surprised to see him. He retrieves the key for them then stays in the kitchen while the three men go to the living room for the coffin. He hears screaming but doesn't interfere. He see's the deliverymen leave with the coffin and no sight of John. He moves out of the apartment soon later.
The statement ends, and Jon Sims gives his opinion. He is skeptical of the truth of the statement, noting that Joshua admitted he was a drug user, and no one else ever saw the coffin. He notes that the delivery company Beacon and Hope did exist around that time, but not in Bournemouth. Finally he drops one final fact: for the year and a half that Joshua lived in the apartment complex in Bournemouth he was the only person in the building who rented a unit. For nearly two years he lived in the building alone, just him, and the coffin.
The Feeling
Out of 200 episodes Do Not Open was the one I chose to write about this week. The first episode (and indeed of all of the episodes) is good. I was intrigued by the first episode, but it was the second episode, this episode, that convinced me I needed to binge this podcast This is the one that hooked me.
Do Not Open serves as a great stand-alone horror story: Joshua has a strange encounter in a foreign country with a mysterious stranger, he ends up babysitting a creepy coffin, he survives the encounter with careful ingenuity, and a bit of luck. On it's own its a gripping scary story. As part of the anthology this episode sets up things that come back in the larger frame narrative of the show even a hundred episodes later (the coffin, and the deliverymen Beacon and Hope come back in later episodes).
Joshua is a great horror story protagonist. He's a normal guy, maybe a bit of a partyer and definitely a coward. But, much to the surprise of John and Deliverymen he survives the temptation of the coffin. His very cowardice, and a little bit of cleverness with the ice means he never opens on the coffin and whatever bad thing was supposed to happen to him never does. There's something very relatable about that. Joshua isn't ridiculously brave, or impossibly smart, but he is just creative enough to get himself out of the situation he kind of put himself into, and that's great to experience as a reader.
The pattern of this episode is emblematic of early Magnus Archives episodes with the short story, or 'statement' taking up the bulk of the episode, and a brief review of the statement by Jon Sims. In this review section Jon tends to tear apart the statements of the week, stating why witnesses are unreliable or evidence is flimsy, but then there is one added detail that gets thrown in to up the creep factor and enhance the story we've just heard even more.
I'm a fan of The Magnus Archives podcast, and I wanted to write about it because it is such an excellent example of modern storytelling. Johnny Sims (ok so to be clear Jonathan 'Johnny' Sims is the writer of all 200 episodes of the podcast and voices the character Jon Sims Head Archivist in the show, presumably just to confuse people) is a master at telling a complex and intricate frame-story that spans the course of the show, while also telling creepy and spine-chilling stand-alone stories every episode.
The show is known for its in-depth lore, talented cast, excellent audio-mixing, and compelling mysteries. Also the violin that plays at beginning of each episode is so creepy, its really so good.
Where is the modern short story? Well in a lot of ways its in audio-drama's in the form of podcasts. And The Magnus Archives is perhaps the best of the best in modern horror/short story telling.
Well I guess that's it.
Statement ends.
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