The Elephant | Episode 2

September 24, 2019·28 min·2 clips

Linda fires a pistol into the sky on a deserted street, but no one appears.

The episode opens at approximately 4 a.m. on the 4th of July at a hospital ER in Santa Mira. Nurse Linda is finishing a shift and receives a handoff from nurse Brett, who runs through the current patients: a senior with bacterial pneumonia, a middle-aged man with heartburn mistaken for chest pains, and a 16-year-old teenager who burned himself with a firework at a party. The tone is light and darkly comedic. Without warning, the teenager in room one goes into cardiac arrest, then patients in rooms three, five, six, and two follow simultaneously. Doctor Gordon mobilizes the entire staff in a futile resuscitation effort while Linda urges him to evacuate, suspecting a gas leak or chemical agent. Gordon ultimately orders evacuation, leaving patients who are already dead. Outside the hospital, Linda meets Dave, a civilian who had arrived earlier with a friend who died under unexplained circumstances. Linda has quit on the spot and asks Dave for a ride into town. In the car, the two share dark humor about her ER job, her parasomniac sleep disorder, and the sleep pills she uses — xyphrine. As they drive through what should be a bustling holiday morning, they find the streets deserted: shops closed, no pedestrians, no cars. Linda orders Dave to stop in the middle of a main street, fires her pistol into the air, and silence follows. The two don don hazmat suits from Linda's duffel bag and conduct a block-by-block survey of nearby houses, finding all residents dead in their beds or on couches — no struggle, no visible symptoms. Linda systematically rules out a virus (no symptoms, no incubation), a chemical agent (no foaming, no pupil constriction, no struggle), and radiation (no burns or skin damage). The bodies are described as pristine. Linda and Dave attempt to reach the Los Angeles County CDC, the California Department of Public Health, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the California National Guard, but reach only voicemails and automated messages. Dave leaves a private voicemail for someone he appears to have had a falling-out with, confessing he is sorry and says he loves them. As they resume driving, Dave begins to doze off from the xyphrine he took, swerving the car. Linda wakes him urgently and forces him to pull over and vomit up the pills. She then calls Dr. Gordon and asks him to check on her colleague Brittany, who had gone to room four for a nap. Gordon confirms Brittany is unresponsive. Linda immediately connects the dots: sleep is the trigger. The episode ends with her stating that they have to stay awake. The production features a full cast audio drama format with original score, professional sound design, and cinematic production values.

As heard by us

An ordinary ER shift slips into a slow, uneasy drive toward an empty street.

The piece starts with ER banter that feels plain enough to let the listener settle in: fatigue, flirtation, bad sleep, and the dark humor that keeps a shift moving. Then Linda Russo's voice and the holiday stillness push a routine drive into something much less stable.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a quiet holiday night on the ER floor to tip into something deeply wrong, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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