Work Text:
Branch location: Usher Foundation Boston, 2 Post Office Square, Floor 8.
Instance reported by: Kathryn Rae Sellinger, Idina Sellinger present as chaperone
Reporter initial and date: KS 11/4/96
Witness: Adam Posluszny ID#: 00441
Witness initial and date: A.P. 1996/11/4
Incident summary: Mass killing at the Chesnut Hill shopping center in Newton, Massachusetts.
Description of incident: (attached)
[Transcript begins]
AP: She can stay as long as she doesn’t interrupt. This interview is with you, not with her.
KS: Okay, geez.
[A pause.]
AP: Can you explain why you were at the Chestnut Hill shopping center on October 24th?
KS: You sound like you’re trying to get my—alibi or something. Are you accusing me of something? Because there’s literally no way I could have killed all those people. Just because I’m the only survivor—
AP: No, I’m sorry. The Foundation isn’t accusing you of anything. We just want to get a full picture of what was going on that day.
KS: Okay. If you have to know, me and my… my boyfriend, Alex, we were there going to the comic book store because there were some, um, limited edition Transformers coming out, and we didn’t want to wait to mail order them. He used to… he did these really good sound effects when he read me the comics…
AP: Do you want to take a break, Miss Sellinger?
KS: I’m fine. You’re the ones who asked me to come in here two days after his funeral. If you wanted to let me take a break you should have given me about another month. So let me talk. Me and Alex were going to the mall to get Transformers toys. That was about the only reason I’d ever go to the mall. I hate it there. It’s always so loud and everyone’s voices echo and I can’t tell where anything is. Also, I don’t know, it’s a freaking maze. So, we made it to the line, we didn’t get there early enough so we were standing in line outside the store, then… everyone started screaming. I had no clue why, like it was like everyone got together psychically and decided it was time to scream like they were being… anyway. Alex squeezed my hand tighter and he said in my ear that all the lights just went out. So that was why everyone was freaking out. It took, like, I don’t know, ten minutes for people to stop screaming and start talking normally again, and everyone was kind of sticking to the walls and not moving. I think the power was out, because people were talking about how the people who worked in the stores were trying to call the police but the phones weren’t working. So everyone was kind of trying to figure out how to get to the doors and get out of the mall. Alex was freaking out because he was supposed to know where we were and how to guide me, I don’t know, it was like, a macho thing? He’s not… he wasn’t very macho, but you know how guys are.
But I bring my cane everywhere even if I’m going to be with Alex, because there’s such a thing as having to go to the bathroom, so I telescoped it out and I started trying to navigate us out of there. Like I said, malls are terrible. Everyone was still shouting and people kept running into us and like, falling down the escalators or whatever. But I did manage to get us down to the first floor safe. That was about when we heard someone scream like they were dying. Like this pure, primal terror that got cut off. So we were like, what the shit, what was that? Everyone’s voices suddenly dropped into whispers. And that was even creepier, almost, being in this huge echoing space with thousands of people whispering all together so they sounded like rustling trees or, I don’t know, creepy chanting. It was almost like they weren’t people at all, just voices, like the mall itself whispering all around.
But we kept going. We were kind of deep in the mall, so we weren’t close to an exit yet. And there was another scream, and it got cut off too. So we were kind of bugging out! Like, at the time, we didn’t know what was going on, we literally couldn’t imagine what that was. So we were going along, going along, and the mall was getting quieter and quieter. More of those whispering voices were disappearing. At first I was relieved, because it made it so much easier to navigate, like I could actually hear my own footsteps and what was around me. Then Alex whispered to me, “What’s going on? What’s happening to them?”
Like, I kind of thought they were just shutting up for once in their lives. Maybe that was wishful thinking. But what was actually happening was that not everyone got a chance to scream. And right after he said that, like it heard him and picked him out, that’s when Alex was pulled away from me. We were holding hands really tight so we wouldn’t lose each other, and all of a sudden his hand was slipping out of my hand and he tried to hold me tighter but his hand was kind of sweaty and—I couldn’t hear what happened to him ‘cause too many people were still shouting! I couldn’t hear the thing that took him. I really didn’t start to hear it until… everyone else was gone.
I don’t know if you can possibly imagine how freaky it is to be in a huge space like a mall with like, thousands of other people, and then one by one they all disappear. Some of them screamed as they died. Some of them never got a chance to make a sound. And under all that screaming, when it was too late to save any of them, when all I could hear was my own breathing and my own heartbeat, under those sounds I could finally hear soft footsteps. So quiet. And sometimes they would stop, and I’d wonder if whatever it was had gone away. I stood still listening for it for about ten minutes, just praying that it wasn’t finding people by smell or something, and trying not to think about what just happened to Alex. And I thought, maybe it didn’t notice me. Maybe because I wasn’t screaming, it thought it got everyone and it left.
So, I’ve been learning to echolocate. “Wow, like a dolphin?” Yes, like a dolphin. It was pretty hard at first, but especially smaller rooms you really can navigate that way. I do it like this. [KS clicks her tongue three times.] It’s a good frequency that usually works pretty well. So, when I thought the thing was gone, I clicked my tongue, just once, in that huge empty mall.
And it was standing right in front of me. Like, about ten feet in front of me. It was big, that’s why I could tell it was there at all. Like, I don’t know, the size of a piano. And when I realized it was there it was like, oh, fuck. I’m going to die. So I was having to make this choice: should I stay quiet and try to hear it walking toward me? Or should I try to echolocate it? I decided to echolocate, and I think that’s what saved my life. Because I could tell it was lunging toward me, so I kind of jumped to the side and slashed out at it with my cane. It’s not like it has a sharpened tip or anything, but I felt it, and I heard it, connect. The thing didn’t, like, scream in pain or anything. But I could hear it breathing, between my clicks. And it was a little slower. I don’t know if it just wasn’t expecting to get hurt? But I slashed it again, and I hit it, I think in the head. Like in the face. And then it ran off.
I was pretty sure it was going to come back, so I went for the nearest exit as fast as I could. I’d have to stop and listen the other direction every so often so it couldn’t sneak up on me, but at this point I don’t even think it was following me. Like, I really did scare it off just by hitting it a couple times. It didn’t actually take me that long to get out. And then I was in the parking lot with all these cars of people I was pretty sure were dead and no idea where the nearest phone was. But… I could feel the sun. And that made me feel better, ‘cause I felt like that thing wouldn’t survive in the sun, outside. But I could hear the highway so I waited near the exit and waved every time a car came and finally someone agreed to drive me home. That’s all you need to know I guess.
AP: Thank you, Miss Sellinger. I have a few more questions, if you’re willing to answer them.
KS: Okay.
AP: Is there any chance the attacker in the shopping center was a human?
KS: Are you crazy? No, there’s no chance it could have been a person! You heard what it did to those people, right? And it was way too big.
AP: All right. And can you remember where you had your altercation with the attacker?
KS: I mean… yeah. If you have some clay or something I could try and make a map. I don’t think it would come out that good if I drew it.
AP: We actually had a model made. [Sound of something sliding across the table.]
KS: Woah, seriously? That’s actually really cool. [A pause during which KS is feeling the model.] This is the comic book store, right? And here’s the escalator we took down… So it would have been… around here.
AP: Thank you very much, Miss Sellinger, Mrs. Sellinger. That’s all we need from you today. Is it all right to call you with followup questions?
IS: Yes, but you’ll go through me. Come on, K-Rae.
[Transcript ends]
Followup:
Kathryn Sellinger correctly identified the location where the splatters of an unidentified black substance were found during the police investigation into the attack. Traces of this substance were also found on her cane, as well as being the medium of the graffiti reading ‘ALWAYS BE PREPARED FOR A BLACKOUT! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FLASHLIGHT OR LIGHTER ON YOU AT ALL TIMES.’ The story Sellinger told the police (article from the Globe attached, along with the other supplementary material) was significantly different than the one recorded here, in that she implied the attacker was human.
Recommendation: Keep. This may represent a large-scale attack by some supernatural force, likely related to the one reported in incident report 1995-291 from the root location, given the commonality in the ‘public service announcements’ displayed prominently near the bodies of victims. If the root didn’t expunge their comments we might know more, but, well, the branch locations support them, not the other way around. I have requested the full comments twice now and been denied. The root declines to share their reasons.
H.G. 1996/11/4