Someone Dies In This Elevator is a spoiler-driven anthology podcast. We hope you enjoy A Shit Show, in which, Athena won’t go down without a fight.
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Rating: R.
This episode contains a jump scare at 5:34, emotional manipulation, the destructive power of nature, relationship infidelity, and death in an elevator.
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Starring:
Wes Haas (he/they) as Ralie.
Elissa Park (they/she) as Athena.
Written and Directed by Cole Burkhardt (he/him).
Script Editing by Jesse Schuschu (he/him).
Dialogue Editing, Sound Design, and Mastering by Cole Burkhardt.
Music by Anthony Carlos Fuller II (he/him).
Executive Produced by Colin J Kelly (he/him) and Tal Minear (they/them).
Artwork by Tal Minear (they/them).
Marketing by Ali Fuller (they/them)
Someone Dies In This Elevator Series Trailer is their Collective Work under Sound Escape Productions, a profit-sharing podcast collective.
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Transcript for A Shit Show as follows:
(The elevator is glass, located on the outside of the building. It’s quiet, save for a bit of creaking, some muffled rain and thunder. Every so often, we hear a soft beep/boop from some interface. The elevator has stalled, trapping the young couple inside.)
RALIE: What time is it?
ATHENA: (groans) A little past midnight.
RALIE: And how long has it been since we called the fire department?
ATHENA: About three hours ago.
RALIE: They’re not coming for us, are they, Athena?
ATHENA: They will, don’t worry. Their Space Tech Drones will have us out in no time.
RALIE: What is the point of having tax payer funded emergency rescue bots, if it takes them forever to actually show up in an emergency?
ATHENA: We’re low priority, hun. They probably have an actual emergency to take care of first.
(The two fall silent again.)
RALIE: (Ralie humming softly to themselves to fill the silence.)
RALIE: (sighs) What time is it now?
ATHENA: It’s, ugh, It’s almost one in the morning.
RALIE: UUUUGGGGH. I can’t be in here any longer.
(They stand up and start pounding against the glass.)
RALIE: Oh! Athena! There’s people in the parking lot! Hello?! Hey! Up here!
(Pounding harder.)
RALIE: Helllooooo!? Someone!!
ATHENA: (softly) Ralie, please.
RALIE: Can anybody hear us?! Hello!?
ATHENA: Ralie! Please. You’re giving me a headache.
RALIE: Right. Sorry.
(They sit back down. After a bit of silence, we hear Ralie shift uncomfortably.)
RALIE: (taking a deep breath) So… what do you want to do when we finally get out of here?
ATHENA: What do you mean?
RALIE: I mean, we’re so close to the apartment. What do you want to do when we finally get back? I can make that soup you like. Or we could just cuddle or-
ATHENA: I really just want to go to sleep.
RALIE: Oh, come on. We could watch a movie. Oh! Maybe we could finally watch Sharknado 13.
ATHENA: Ralie, no.
RALIE: Oh come on. It’s a cult classic! I hear Gilbert Gottfried really knocks it outta the park, as per usu-
ATHENA: Ralie, I don’t want to watch a movie. I’ve been on a space shuttle for like two days. I just want to get out of this elevator, take a hot shower, and go to bed.
RALIE: Yeah. Okay. Sure.
(Ralie sits back down. There’s a stretch of silence.)
RALIE: Hey, what time is it?
ATHENA: Ralie, you have a phone, don’t you?
RALIE: It just died. I left my charger at the apartment but-
ATHENA: Didn’t I buy you that new iPhone SX12. How the hell is your phone dead already?
RALIE: (thrown off by their attitude) I-I was holo-chatting with my mom all day today.
ATHENA: Ugh. Why? You know she hates me.
RALIE: Okay. What’s the matter? I mean besides all of this, what is the matter with you?
ATHENA: Nothing. I just want to be out of here.
RALIE: No. You’ve been acting moody since you got back. Did I do something wrong? I thought we… (sighs) I thought we worked through everything. Isn’t that why we went to couples-
ATHENA: I really don’t want to talk about it right now.
RALIE: What better time then to talk about it?
ATHENA: When we aren’t trapped in a small box at (pauses) two o’clock in the morning. Now please, let it go.
RALIE: Okay. Yeah. Sure. I get it.
(The elevator creaks ominously in the silence.)
RALIE: Will you at least tell me about your trip? What was it like? How was it?
ATHENA: What do you mean? You’ve been off world before. It’s all the same.
RALIE: Yeah, I’ve been to Proxima Centauri. Athena, you went to Alpha Centauri. They just opened that system up to nonessentials. What was it like? How was the food? The beach? You definitely got a tan.
ATHENA: Well, the conference had me in the hotel most of the time. I didn’t really get a chance to explore.
RALIE: Oh. Gottcha. Well, how was the conference? Did you rub elbows with anyone special?
ATHENA: No.
RALIE: No? No one at all? What about-
(A thunk as a large piece of hail slams against the elevator. Athena cries out in surprise. Ralie isn’t bothered.)
ATHENA: (breathing heavy) Oh boy, it’s okay. We’re okay.
RALIE: I just think it’s weird that you didn’t, like, get out at all.
ATHENA: Ralie-
RALIE: I mean. They have an entire star that’s just for margaritas and hot tubs. You’re telling me your boss didn’t let you have one day off.
(A short pause)
ATHENA: (sighs, giving in) There was this one place we went to. It-
RALIE: We?
ATHENA: Uh, me and a few coworkers.
RALIE: Ah.
ATHENA: Yeah. It was really cool, actually. It overlooked this lava river. (smiling softly) It kind of reminded me of the place we went to for our first date.
RALIE: Which first date? The first ‘first date’, or the one after you dumped me for the first time?
(The creaking in the elevator get louder, more frequent. The storm has kicked up in full force. We hear more hail plunking against the outside of the elevator. )
ATHENA: Okay. What is wrong with you? Besides, you know, all of this.
RALIE: Nothing. I just… (sighs) Never mind. Sorry.
ATHENA: Right. So it’s an issue when I don’t want to talk about it but-
RALIE: I just think it’s just funny that-
ATHENA: (groans)
RALIE: What? (a beat passes) What? First you don’t want to talk, then you do. I haven’t seen you in three weeks. God forbid I miss you when you’re gone. God forbid I want to spend time with you and hear about your amazing elite space vacation.
ATHENA: It wasn’t a vacation. I was working!
RALIE: Oh. Excuse me. You were working for five hundred and four hours straight. My bad.
ATHENA: Okay, first of all, Alpha Centauri doesn’t operate on the Orion calendar system. So, it’s more like seven hundred hours. Second of all, Ralls-
RALIE: You do not get to call me that right now. This, all of this, means you do not get to call me Ralls.
(There’s a tense silence. No thunder. Just steady rain. After a beat, we hear the sound of a suitcase being unzipped and some rustling.)
RALIE: What on Earth are you doing?
ATHENA: I got you a gift.
RALIE: (stunned) You got me something?
ATHENA: Well, I had found a very lovely bottle of wine but customs snatched it up so that’ll be here in a few weeks. In the meantime…
(We hear a box snap open.)
RALIE: Athena! Did you buy me a ri- Oh. You got me a… (struggling to identify it)
What… what is it?
ATHENA: It’s called an Infinity Loop. You’re supposed to like, hang it in the sunlight and it’ll shine forever.
RALIE: It’s… I mean it’s pretty.
ATHENA: I saw it and just knew-
RALIE: How pretty it would look dangling over the mantel?
(Athena moves closer as they talk.)
ATHENA: Or how pretty you would look under the lights. In that cute little red dress, I got you last year. With a nice bottle of Proximan wine. (Athena kisses Ralie.) Hmmmm? What do you think, Ralls?
RALIE: (trying to hide disappointment) Yeah. Of course. Sure.
(A beat passes. Athena pulls away.)
ATHENA: You don’t like it.
RALIE: (lying through their teeth) No, yeah, no. I love it. It’s… it’s… perfect.
(The elevator shutters and strains. The two move apart.)
ATHENA: (sighs, irritated) Ralie. Don’t shut down like you always do. Come on.
RALIE: Athena, how long have we been together?
ATHENA: I don’t know? Four years?
(Thunder crashes. Hails hits the elevator and we hear the glass start to spiderweb.)
RALIE: Four? Four years? Athena, we’ve been together for six years.
ATHENA: Well, I mean. We broke up a couple times.
RALIE: No. You broke up with me, a couple of times. (bitter chuckle) God, I’m such an idiot.
ATHENA: Ralie. Don’t-
RALIE: I keep letting you do this to me. I keep waiting for you to realize you love me but that’s never going to happen.
ATHENA: Ralie, that’s not true. I love –
RALIE: Bullshit. God, that’s such bullshit. Who did you go to dinner with?
ATHENA: What?
RALIE: When you went on your little ‘business trip’. Who. Were you. With?
(The storm outside has kicked up in full force. There’s a tense pause between the two. )
ATHENA: It was one drink. I had one drink with Rebecca.
RALIE: You slept with Rebecca? That bitch from accounting?
ATHENA: We didn’t sleep- (a beat) Okay. It was just a one-time thing!
RALIE: (scoffs in disbelief) Oh, just a one-time thing. A one time, six-hundred-hour long thing.
ATHENA: Well, seven hund-
(Ralie throws the Infinity Loop against the wall, it shatters.)
ATHENA: Jesus Christ Ralie! That cost me-
RALIE: How much, Athena? How much did you buy this piece of shit for at the spaceport gift shop?
ATHENA: I thought you’d like it! I wanted to get you something nice.
RALIE: You got me a goddamn suncatcher, Athena. You got your partner of six- excuse me, four years, a sparkly thing to be displayed in the window. We don’t even have any natural lighting in our apartment for this thing to work.
ATHENA: I can get you something else! As soon as we’re out of here, I’ll take you shopping. What do you want?
RALIE: What do I want? (struggling to find the words) Athena, I want you to want to be with me. I want you to love me. At the very least, I want you to stop cheating on me.
ATHENA: Ralls-Ralie, I do love you.
RALIE: No, you want some pretty little delicate thing you can hang up in a window and come back to whenever you get bored.
ATHENA: It was a stupid mistake! It won’t happen again!
RALIE: No. it won’t. I’m done.
(The storm is deafening, the whole elevator is shaking but neither acknowledges it.)
ATHENA: What are you saying?
RALIE: It’s over.
ATHENA: You’ll come back.
(The wind outside is screeching, the entire elevator car is shaking. The noise is unbearable. Then it stops, abruptly.)
RALIE: No. I won’t
(With a clash of thunder, the elevator shatters completely and the two fall.)
FIN.
