Ghost Wax · Far and Tall Tales

Tales From the Vault: Volume 2

January 29, 2024·1 hr 5 min·5 clips

Jay Sterling records a pre-death confession about a bridge that turns off its lights as they pass — the bridge collapses that night and Jay's body is never recovered.

1. Ghost Wax Tales From the Vault Volume 2, produced by Far and Tall Tales, is a listener-contributed anthology episode collecting fiction, poetry, music, and real testimonials from the Ghost Wax community. 2. The episode features contributions from Hannah Brown, Brian Watson-Jones (Ghost Wax writer and actor), Marlo Not Found, Sam Taylor, Nox Corvum, and Christine Wolfram, performed by a cast including Kate Jackson, Gail Estelle, Robert Knuth, and Atlas Gizzy. 3. The anthology's framing device positions each piece as material 'committed to wax' — archived for preservation — a format that elevates even short comedic pieces to the same register as genuine testimonials. 4. 'Depths of the Doldrums' opens the episode with fireboat pilot Ava approaching the crewless cargo ship Leshy, where an oil spill coalesces inward rather than spreading, before a predatory darkness consumes the crew one by one. 5. Ava loses engineer Alex and officer Harvey to the entity within minutes, describes the sensation as 'being beheld by a predator beyond knowing,' and ultimately resolves to pump fuel into the spill herself as a last containment measure. 6. Brian Watson-Jones delivers a first-person non-fiction account set at his step-grandmother's rural house, describing a pulsing cone-shaped light on the horizon and a bush that illuminated from within without sound, which he states he has never been able to categorize even using paranormal literature. 7. Watson-Jones frames the incident as one of only a handful of personal unexplained experiences, alongside a UFO sighting and witnessing a field of ghosts, but distinguishes this as the one that 'absolutely cannot be explained, not even with paranormal stories.' 8. 'The Green Bridge' by Marlo presents Jay Sterling's recorded confession about two years of bridge streetlights extinguishing only when their car passes, recurring drowning dreams, and a compulsion that makes the bridge feel 'inevitable.' 9. The show's narrator reveals that the bridge collapsed on the night of Jay's recording, Jay's car was recovered but their body was not, and the recording was posted to their social media account two weeks after their presumed death. 10. The narrator frames Jay's case as unresolved — 'it's unclear if there were otherworldly entities at play on that bridge, or if the victim just had a latent premonitory ability' — and designates it a cold case. 11. 'Feeding' by Sam Taylor provides a brief comedic interlude in which necromancer Owen eats an offering his black cat Jinx brings him — described as bluish and covered in eyeballs — to the horror of his colleague Philippa. 12. 'Mannequin Memories' by Nox Corvum follows an unnamed narrator who begins to notice their sewing mannequin acquiring limbs, changing position, and developing eyes resembling their own, while simultaneously losing the ability to remember their own name. 13. The narrator's nightmare ends with the mannequin snapping their neck; waking, they open the door to find the stand empty before a figure in galaxy-colored fabric leads them in a waltz and their flesh cools to cloth, their heart stopping as the figure walks out the door wearing the finished garment. 14. 'The Ocean's Lament' by Christine Wolfram retells Jane Eyre as a Gothic horror story in which Bertha Rochester has been physically transformed into a half-snail creature by a giant pearlescent shell discovered during a coastal holiday. 15. Jane discovers Bertha in the manor's cellar praying at a candle-lit altar before Bertha elongates her neck and asks Jane for help; Mr. Rochester confirms his wife's condition and refuses to destroy the shell, stating he cannot bring himself to do so. 16. Jane destroys the shell with a lamp after Adelaide, the ward, brings it to her in the attic; Mr. Rochester's rage at the destruction reveals the shell's influence has partially taken him as well. 17. Jane departs Thornfield and settles in Morton as a seamstress's assistant; three months later Rochester tracks her down, acknowledges the shell 'wore him away piece by piece,' and credits Jane with saving both him and Adelaide from losing their humanity entirely. 18. The episode is performed with full voice-cast differentiation, with multiple performers voicing named characters and distinct narrators for each story, maintaining clear tonal separation between horror, comedy, and testimonial registers. 19. Listeners who enjoy literary horror anthologies with community contributions, Gothic fiction, and a mix of light and genuinely unsettling content will find the episode well-curated. 20. Those seeking a single sustained narrative or episodes without comedic interruption may find the variety format uneven.

As heard by us

A varied, unsettling sampler that turns catastrophe and domestic life uncanny.

Ghost Wax's Tales from the Vault works best as a community built variety show, moving from a fireboat oil spill opening into stranger, more intimate unease: a mirror scene where a narrator loses track of their own name, a mannequin that feels unnervingly familiar, and a sewing…

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Why you'd press play

If you want horror that mutates from industrial dread to uncanny domesticity, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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