Lights Out - Old Time Radio Horror
Baythysphere (The Dictator) - Lights Out | 06/29/1943 (39)
Hope you enjoy this episode of Lights Out! We offer an old time radio horror and thriller and other OTR radio stations at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple Podcasts | YouTube Music
- Duration:
- 29m
- Broadcast on:
- 15 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Arch Oblers lights out to everybody. [Music] It is later than you think. [Music] This is Arch Obler bringing you another in our series of stories of the unusual. And once again we caution you, these lights out stories are definitely not for the timid soul. But we tell you calmly and very sincerely, if you frighten easily, turn off your radio now. November of 1939, astronomically that isn't even a blink in the eye of the universe, but it's a very long time measured in the length of our own very ephemeral lives. And that day I aired our next story. Remember that date, 1939? A lot of heartbeats before we went to war against the madness of Adolf Hitler and his friend Benito. Listen to "Bavosphere". [Music] The sea is very quiet, yes you're excellency. For it be very quiet under the water, no motion you're excellency. And so it'll all be very amusing. I hope so, sir. The captain ought to have everything ready by now, sir. If you'll excuse me now you're excellency, I'll go see. No, no, just a moment, doctor. Yes, you're excellency. Much too impatient, my dear young friend. One of the great joys of an experience is to savour it before it happens. Yes, stay and talk to me. As you say, you're excellency. How far under will we have to go to break the record? Over half a mile. How far's the bottom? Just over the record mark. Deeper than any man did a gun. It'll all be very amusing. Certainly the wind changed. Always a bit out of the day, you're excellency. It's time to go. I assure you that the sea will wait for it. If I am the source, but don't think so much of my young friend. Thinking of unnecessary pastime. The emotions are much more dependable. My thoughts tell me that this little excursion under the sea will be quite precarious. On the other hand, my emotions tell me that it will be most interesting and amusing. You're excellency. We are ready. Captain, you too are impatient, huh? I don't know what you mean. That is to say. No, no, don't splatter. Now, come ahead, my young and impatient friend. They'll go aboard your diving bell and begin out of the adventure. Come. Attention. You see your excellency. We are quite ready. I'll talk to everything to yours at affection. Did you put in an extra oxygen tank, Captain? Everything, just as you said, Doctor. The telephone communication being tested, 20 times. Third flight? I assure you everything has been tested, Doctor. The winch goes smoothly now. Why? Oh, yes, I believe. I don't want you to believe. I want you to know that I assure you. Go and test it at once. Yes, Doctor. At once, Doctor. All right, then. Test number one. All right, Doctor. Test number one. All right. All right. Test number one. All right. Well, you're all sudden. This is most commendable, Doctor. We are going half a mile below the sea, sir. Nothing can be left to chance. The pressure's down there. Almost the undimagination. Yes, I know. I know. Particularly on this dive, everything must be protection. You mean the record? I mean, your excellency that your life is precious to the state. Yes. The press of the world has known the only of the record breaker in the world of what he so quinchedly termed power politics. By a nightfall, that a head of me is the record breaker in the world in the world of Zion. Say, Doctor, if all goes well, your excellency. That's it. You have doubt? No one can predict the ways of the sea. What are you talking about? There'll be quite a part in the sea inside of the steel ball. This part is there. Oxygen to breathe, telephone to which we communicate. Light to which the sea. Why should there be any question? A question of the human factor of your excellency. As your as cautious as they've said, I like that. I, too, am a cautious man. Oh, yes, indeed. My success has been based upon determining that the unpredictable cannot occur before I, until I say embark upon my bold adventure and talking quite frankly with you. Oh, you don't, sir? I'm not pleased with me to do, sir. For a few hours, we'll be locked up in that steel ball. There's no reason you shouldn't know a little about your leader, isn't it? You'll honor me, sir. For example, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that steel cable, which will drop us down beneath the ocean, has strength enough to hold 50. That steel spheres is the one you'll be in. I know, too, that you have made, let me think. You've made, sir, if that's dissent, thought to solve the ocean without the slightest misadventure. I mean, on this cruise, they're especially trained for the work. And with my life in their hands, I'm sure they'll be particularly careful on this dissent. Hey, doctor? There is no doubt of it, sir. Already now, sir? Shall we go now, you're excellent. Yes, of course, of course. Careful, you're excellent, sir. The deck is quite wet here. Well, thank you, Captain. You're very thoughtful. Thank you, sir. And some? No, no, no formalities. Let the men go about that business so we can get started. Yes, you're excellent, sir. That's your work, men. Would you like to get into the basket, sir, sir, excellent? No, no, after you. It's quite a small doorway, isn't it? Now, fortunately, we both small, lean men, doctor. Lean men. See, the one said something about that, sir. Mm-hmm. I don't know much about that sort of thing, sir. No, I didn't imagine, sir. Get in, doctor. I'll follow you. Yes, sir. Head first into the steel wall. Quite a route, dignity. Hey, Captain. Shall I help you, sir? No, no, I'll make it all right. You ready for me, doctor? Come ahead, sir. And a cap of a bolt, then, sir. Yes, sir. Careful. That's that thing. You're all right, sir? Yes, of course I am. Well, what are we waiting for? Captain? I, sir. Close her up. I, sir. You're here. Come, you're here, sir. Huh? The bolts and wing bolts that hold the door shut. They have to be tightened by hammering with a sledge. What are you here, sir? It's all right now, sir. They've done. Well, what an inferno dent. Open it the other way. Hammering is the only definite guarantee of a watertight seal, sir. My ears. All well in there, sir? What's that? A voice with a telephone, sir. They'll communicate with us from the deck every three minutes. If one of us doesn't answer within half a minute, the orders are to pull us up. And excellent saves, because, yes, indeed. All well in there, doctor? All well? We're moving. Yes. Lifting us out to the end of the boom, and then, down we go. Look, sir, you can see the deck down there through the windows. Glass and clear. Flirthest in the world, quartz glass to stand the pressure. Letting us down in the water, aren't they? Yes, sir, in a moment. Be around there. Yes, sir. I turn the oxygen higher. The light, so green. Yes. Soon it'll be blue. Then a darker blue, until around 2,000 feet will be in the darkness that goes beyond dark. Complete eternal night. Eternal night under the water. How amusing. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ All well down there, sir? All well. How far down are we? About 1,100 feet, sir. It's hard to believe it. There is almost a quarter of a mile of water crushing down upon us. The word "crashing" is most inappropriate at this time, my young friend. My apologies, your excellency. I've been watching the water. You said it would be as night. If it isn't black, it's blue. It's strangest blue. A few more hundred feet, and there will be no more color in the water, sir. The light out there. What? Like, can't quite make it out, sir. Perhaps some sort of a humanist plankton. It's amusing, the fish is carrying along their own electric clams. The dark's alive with them, sir. Well, look, sir. What? That small, flat fish. You see? Even his teeth gleam with these humanist mucus. I caught that sort in the straws. They can eat organisms as large as they are. Wait, I'll turn on the search, like you'll see. No, no, never mind. I didn't come under the sea out of any interest in most bits of fish. As you say, sir. They light up like a train in the dark. Oh, but the portholes of a boat be a more appropriate figure of speech. Oh, seen one, seen them all. Oh, well, down there, sir. Oh, well. How far down there? Ask him. How far? 1350 feet. Right. You make good time, huh? Yes, sir. Very quick, sir. A six-foot ball containing a very honest young man and a meter of the state. Headed, sir. Much be saved, doctor. A new record, sir. Is that as far as your imagination carries you? At the moment, I cannot say your excellency. Perhaps when you reach the end of the cable, we'll discuss life on death very profoundly, ain't my friend? It's the last of the end of the sea. [ Laughs ] ♪♪ ♪♪ All well, down there, sir? All well. 2,200 feet. Right. How much further? We have 4,000 feet of cable. You were right. There's a darkness out there now that's darker than the name of the man has ever seen. It's amusing. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ All well, down there, sir? All well. 2,800 feet, sir. Right. Your excellency. Yeah. In 10 or 11 minutes, we will have broken the record. You keep your eyes so close to that window. Might I ask why? I thought I saw something out there. What, sir? Something huge. It gave off a pale green light and then was gone so quickly. I'm not quite sure. I'll send it on the search. No, no. No, this infernal darkness amuses me. Tell me, doc, when you're up at risk of using anything out there... ...of vague, viewed, you know what I mean. Yes, sir. Several times. Well, shadowy and indistinct. I couldn't say what, sir. Can't you guess? I have no answers. All well, down there. Oh, tell him yes, yes, yes, yes, and stop annoying us. All well, and count on... Compliments, sir, you've reached 3,028 feet, sir. That was Bebe's record. Huh? The old one. 3,030. Broken it. 3,100. That's quite a man. 3,150. Could you hear me? Broken the record on a few feet of spare. Order them to hold us out. 3,200. Doctor, you out of your head, I gave you orders. Have them pull us out, but I don't know for this. I tell you, but I... What? What happened? Happened? We just landed at the bottom of the sea, that's all. Why did you ignore my orders? I said to go up. What are you doing now? What was that leave of the Jew through? Answer me. Yes. Why not, sir? Haven't you forgotten something, Doctor? What? To say, sir, you're excellency. Excellency? Here, at the bottom of the sea... What? What happened to you? All of a sudden, you... I have executives creating a new record a little too much. Are you a my young friend? Well, it's understandable. Nothing in the ship and heaven draws up. Your little adventure is over. Didn't you hear me? I said signal to ship. How? You out of your mind completely telephoned them. At once, you hear me? A telephone consists of a carbon transmitter, a receiver, actuating battery and connecting wire. We have no telephone. Get it one side. Hello. Hello up there. Hello. Hello, answer me. Hello. Hello, blouse, do you answer me? Hello. If they don't, the wire is torn loose. Would you know how to fix it, your excellency? Well, I see it. It happened when we bumped on the bottom, didn't it? Well, can't you fix it? I can, but I won't. Your excellency. What is this? It's taken you a great number of moments longer than I expected to ask that question. You noticed that I've called you your excellency a couple of times, but that was the end of that. From now on, I will call you your infernal excellency. How amusing. Statal amused. Yes. I don't believe it. Do you think it's some kind of madness on my part, but you'll do something about it? Not I, you. I? You have an emergency way of signalling. Yes, I know you have. You flash the search cycle on off three times, and the flow of current tries to do it up on deck, and they know that it's an emergency. I'll go ahead and do it, and perhaps I'll forget your little. Shall we call it joke? I am quite content to sit down here. Tell him a searchlight. All right, I'll do it myself. Why waste your time? You're so little of it left. What do you mean by that? The searchlight, too, is disconnected. Why? There's no need of it. It will be best to die in the dark. Die? Yes. This is impossible. I investigated you, your record, your family, your associates. Clear as record in the state. You have no reason how the world killed me. You killed me. It's fairly funny. A young empty-headed fool killed me. It's very amusing. You'll be afraid, sir. Is it possible that you've forgotten the final emergency signal, you fool? Yes, I said signal. The signal of silence. I'll try the telephone to scare you. The men we don't answer, they'll pull us up. If you've forgotten that. It's been more than three minutes since the last signal. If what you say is true, why aren't we moving? We... We are. For all I know, we... we are. Are we? The darkness who can tell it doesn't have the motion. You know we're motionless. As quiet as in a tool. Appropriate, then. And we'll stay here. I know, there. Huh? Let's leave up on the roof that I pull. Well, it's through the end of steel cable free. Yes, sever the cord between our sails and the ship and the world. No. We are here, your infernal excellency. Down here. To stay. No. You lie. I don't believe you. I'll pull us up. The telephone here. Here, you up there. Listen. Get me up. Get me up. You up there. Hear me. It's your leader. Get me out of here. Get me out of here. You hear me? Get me out of here. Out of here. Unbelievable. Oxygen, let for another hour. And it takes you ten precious minutes of your precious life to believe. You do believe you're going to die now, don't you? I'm sure nothing could happen. Every detail of a machinery. The record of every memory of the crew. And I was one of those who was perfectly harmless. Yes, you're past. Since a boy trained in the schools of the state, your fathers were an official. Why do you do this to me? Why? Your ego is so great that even now, knowing you're going to die here with me, you're less concerned with death than you are with knowing where in your faith. Answer me. Why do you do this? You were trained in my school, who's brought up, I think, I think the way you should think. Who up there made you do this thing and why? It will be a slow death. A slow is the death of my country. Answer me. Who and why? Your mouth will bite for death, and there won't be enough to let you live. Yet there will be enough so that you won't quite die. You'll tell me you will. Your lungs will reach up through your mouth. A breath of air, just another. There won't be another. And if you die, you'll know it. I want to know one thing. Why do you do this? Why, why, why? Yes, I'll give you your advice. You trained me in your school. From morning to night, what went into my head was only what you decreed was right and proper for a good citizen of your eternal state to know. Yes, it grabbed my head full. But there's one place you and your books and your speeches couldn't reach. My heart, your heart. Yes, heart, you hurt me, heart. My head said believe. My heart said no. My head said obey. My heart said no. That's the image of mistake, you devil. You didn't start in young enough with me. For the heart that was born inside of me has brought you here to die. I don't understand. Wait, I'll turn a little more oxygen on. That will give me a little more strength to keep on telling you your files. And cut the breath left for you after I'm finished. What was I saying? Yes, but you didn't condition me quite well enough. Should have started with the embryo for somewhere along the line. A little humanity got inside of me that cried out against what you were doing. It grew and grew until it said you had to die. And you will die. Yes, here in the black under the sea. And there won't roll drums for you, march for you. Ended here. What have you ever said to that? You fool, is that all you answer? Yes, fool. You think I'm a fool that I hear with you? You call me a fool. When I know that ending here I give a new beginning to those up there. Yes, such a fool. Oh, stop saying that. They won't say it back in the cities when they know that they're free. You fool, you think the freedom of me will make them free? Yes, yes, of course it will. I call you fool again. How do you think I became the head of the state? Through my great wisdom? I'm really not too wise. Through my great courage? No man has. To stand up single handed against the bullets and the fairness of the entrenched powers. And how did I do it? With lies and ruthlessness and cruelty I know. You don't know a thing. You saw the end results surrounded by pomp and circumstance and you couldn't see the memes. All right, I know I'm going to die. And a man has expected to die as long as I have the actuality of them quite as frightening as you might think. Since I am going to die, I'll have the one small satisfaction of showing you that you're an empty headed fool. Stop saying that. You too have an ego. Apparently it's lived for weeks on how you'd make me plead and beg and scrun down on my knees. I had a few moments of hysteria didn't I? You like that. You don't like this. Am I sitting in the dark so calm in telling you that you're a fool? I haven't failed. You're here. You fail because if you're killing me and yourself to give them back their freedom, whatever that word means, you're dying quite in vain. You're saying that because you'll think? No, don't talk. Listen to me. I'll tell you where you failed. I came into power not alone through my own strength, but because the conditions of our country were such other men sitting on their wealth. Came to a decision that I alone could keep them there. But it was you. I'll tell you listen. When an ancient rule of privilege is threatened, it seeks to live no matter what the cost. The cost of them was me and they found me worth it. For I flew to the mass none of the wealth had worked to build, but only fighting phrases of prejudice and hate. The cost of them made me nothing but the rent of the halls for the simple to hear my opiates. And so I called you fool. Fool to die and fool to kill me. The conditions that made me will still exist when I'm dead. You'll free them of me. What of hunger? What a ruthless exploitation. These will still be free of that, but hate and desperation in the men. And so the ones who gave me power will find a new leader to stop the running's rebellion with all the tricks that I taught them. A new leader. You hear me fool or a new leader? No, it isn't true. It can't be true. It's so dark. If I could see your face to see the fool discovering you the fool. They will be free. They will. One magic do you think will come into the air when I'm dead? So men forget that greed and say, "Oh, he's quite enough." Not enough for everyone. But each share according to his needs. No fool. With me or without me, the game will be played just as it always has been played. So you'll fool and die like one. What could I have done? I had to do something else every what you could have done. You could have done the one thing that would have in time helped destroy not only me but those who made me. You could have gone to the people. Yes, walked among them, worked among them. And at every chance whispered to them the things I kept from them. A nurse will have been around your neck every time you opened up your mouth. And yet, in that talking of liberty and freedom and common decency and all the rest of that sort of thing, I'd have been far more meaning in this futile murdering of me. I've had them hunted down and shot each of those who dare to whisper among the people. But as they died, I didn't call them fools. Because I knew that they were wise. I'd only feel the will to live and do or the great bludgeoning mess of their people or their hope of making that new world they wanted. Well, that bother talking. They are thicker. I'm tired. Had me something heavy, fool. Why? Why? More explanations? All right, the last one. You think I'm going to sit here and wait and count my every breath until the dark's crawling with horrors and I'm crawling? No. I'll end it now, quickly. Here's Fatul and the bullet shot. Give me something heavy, I tell you. I'll smash the glass. The water, tons of it, smashing in. I'll be dead, dead, dead, faster than the thought and never end it. Give me something to smash the glass or life. Yes, sir. All well down there, sir. Foy, sir. Telephone. All well. Take us up. We're moving. Guess water on the glass. We're moving. Doctor, the cable. I lied. But all this time, why? My orders to the crew were to leave us alone on the bottom as soon as the slackening of the wire showed them we'd hit the bottom. Telephone. I've reconnected it while you've talked. Then, you didn't really mean to kill me. Kill you? Yes, I meant to kill you. Had it all planned out. Tell you what I told you and then you'd go quite crazy with fear. And after that, I'd kill you. 2,900 feet. All well down there, sir. All well. And yet you didn't. The lights of the creatures out there. Drinking of stars and a cold night. Why didn't you kill me? I want to know. What would have been the good of this? A fool and a figure had died together. No good of it. So you believed me. Even a fool can understand futility. Water's getting lighter. Soon we'll be back. Up there. It'll be very strange at first. I don't much care now, yet I'll ask. What happens to me? You? I told you many things down there, didn't I? Yes, too many things. A man, in doubt as I was, talks too much. And since you have necessity heard what I said, when we get there and I will probably have you shot. The victim sentences his murder. It will be most amusing. It is later than you think. [Music]