Case File 09 — October 13, 1922

ASYLUM ANNOUNCES “REFORM” FOR PATIENTS
Burbank Tales Times — October 13, 1922

WHAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION

This newspaper may explain something that becomes important much later.

The asylum announces what it calls a “reform” for its patients.

They are being dressed in white buttoned work shirts and blue denim trousers and sent outside the institution for labor.

That description seems mundane.

We should remember it anyway.

The rest of the article makes the reform considerably less reassuring.

Residents report rumors of experiments inside the asylum. Electrical equipment is reportedly operating during storms. Restrained patients arrive under armed escort.

Animals behave strangely near the property.

Black birds gather on the roof.

Dogs are found dead near the walls, covered in spider webs.

Those details connect several previously separate threads: the asylum, experiments, electricity, birds and spiders.

Then there is the smaller story.

Three young investigators disappeared while exploring hills near the asylum. Their recording equipment was found abandoned beside wooden totems hanging from trees.

They went looking for answers.

They disappeared instead.

Perhaps the most important detail on this page, however, is the least frightening one:

white shirts and blue denim trousers.

If those clothes appear again, we'll know who once wore them.

FROM THE JOURNAL