(spooky piano music) (thunder booms) - Hello and welcome to "Expressions: Halloween Tales."

I'm your host, Adara Alston.

Tonight we are featuring three staged readings from Southern Tier Actors Read filmed right here at the Phelps Mansion Museum in Binghamton, New York.

We open the program with Bill Gorman and Chris Nickerson reading Edgar Allen Poe's classic tale of revenge, "The Cask of Amontillado."

- The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.

(dramatic music) You, who so well know the nature of my soul will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.

I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point, this Fortunato.

He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine.

Fortunato, for the most part was a quack.

But in the matter of old wines, he was sincere.

In this respect, I did not differ from him materially.

I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself and bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season that I encountered my friend.

And he had on a tight fitting parti-striped costume and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.

(bells ringing) He accosted me with excessive warmth for he had been drinking much.

I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met.

How remarkably well you're looking today.

But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado and I have my doubts - How?

Amontillado?

A pipe?

Impossible.

And in the middle of the carnival.

- I have my doubts.

And I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter.

You were not to be found and I was fearful of losing a bargain.

- Amontillado?

- I have my doubts.

- Amontillado.

- And I must satisfy them.

- Amontillado.

- As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi.

If anyone has a critical turn, it is he.

He will tell me- - Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.

- And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.

- Come, let us go.

- Whither?

- To your vaults.

- My friend, no, I will not impose upon your good nature.

I perceive you have an engagement.

Luchesi- - I have no engagement.

Come.

- My friend, no.

It is not the engagement but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.

The vaults are insufferably damp.

They are encrusted with nitre.

- Let us go nevertheless.

The cold is merely nothing.

Amontillado.

You have been imposed upon.

And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.

- Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a cloak closely about my person I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home.

I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house.

These orders were sufficient I well knew to ensure their immediate disappearance.

I took from their sconces two torches and gave one to Fortunato.

I passed down a long and winding staircase requesting him to be cautious as he followed.

And we came at length to the foot of the descent and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

- The pipe?

(coughs) - It is farther on but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.

(coughing) A draught of the Medoc will defend us from the damps.

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

Drink, I said, presenting him the wine.

And he raised it to his lips with a leer.

He paused and nodded to me familiarly while his bells jingled.

(bells ringing) - I drink to the buried that repose around us.

- And I to your long life.

He again took my arm and we proceeded.

- These vaults are extensive.

- The Montresors were a great and numerous family.

- I forget your arms.

- A huge human foot of gold in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.

- And the motto?

- Nemo me impune lacessit.

(laughs) - No one provokes me with impunity.

Good.

(laughs) - The wine sparkled in his eyes.

Proceed.

Herein is the Amontillado.

As for Luchesi- - He is an ignoramus.

- He stepped unsteadily forward.

In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche.

A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite.

In its surface were two iron staples.

From one of these depended a short chain.

Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it.

Once more, let me implore you to return.

No?

Then I must positively leave you.

- The Amontillado.

- True, the Amontillado.

As I said these, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off.

(moaning) And then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain.

And I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones that I might hearken to it with more satisfaction.

When at last the clanking subsided, I finished the seventh tier.

The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast.

I again paused.

And holding the torch over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

(cries out) For a brief moment, I hesitated.

I trembled.

And then I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs and was satisfied.

It was now midnight and my task was drawing to a close.

And there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in.

I placed it partially in its destined position.

- A very good joke indeed.

An excellent jest.

We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo over our wine.

- The Amontillado.

- Yes, the Amontillado.

But is it not getting late?

Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest?

Let us be gone.

- Yes, let us be gone.

- For the love of God, Montresor.

- Yes, for the love of God.

But to these words, I hearkened in vain for a reply.

I grew impatient.

Fortunato?

No answer.

Fortunato?

No answer still.

I thrust the torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within.

And there came forth in return only a jingling of the bells.

(bells ringing) My heart grew sick.

It was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so.

I hastened to make an end of my labor.

I forced the last stone into its position.

I plastered it up.

Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones.

For the half of a century, no mortal has disturbed them.

In pace... requiescat.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Ahh.

- When I exchanged my maiden name for better or worse and dearest Frederick and I stepped into the carriage that was to carry us to Guernsey and our honeymoon, we were perfectly well satisfied with ourselves and each other.

We were idiotically blissful for two or three days.

Some old friends of Papa's had lent us an ancient mansion screened behind lofty walls of likened red brick and weather worn wrought iron gates.

Mon Desir, the place was called.

Dear Frederick, whose temperaments and tastes having a decided bias towards the gloomy and mystic had been an enthusiastic spiritualist but our engagement somewhat cooled his passion for psychic research.

I myself am somewhat reserved at this day in my method of dealing with the subject of spooks.

But my silence does not proceed from ignorance.

Knowledge came to me after this fashion.

Waking by my dear Frederick's side somewhere between one and two o'clock towards the break of the fourth day following our marriage, I saw... Katie for the first time.

From the first moment I knew that which I looked upon to be no creature of flesh and blood but the mere apparition of a woman.

- Oh well, hide down again and don't fuss.

It's only Katie.

- Only Katie.

I like that.

- Well, you might not like it but you have got to put up with me.

- How dare you intrude here?

And at such an hour.

- I knew your husband before you did.

We became acquainted at a seance and have seen a great deal of each other.

He was constantly materializing me in order to ask questions about Shakespeare.

We're all expected to know whether Shakespeare wrote his own plays or whether they were written by someone else of the same name.

- Which was it?

- There you go.

- Oh, I wish you would.

It seems to me that you manifest a great lack of refinement in coming here.

- I cannot go until Frederick has finished.

- Don't you see that he has materialized me by dreaming about me?

And as there exists at present, a strong sympathy between you, so it comes that I am visible to you as well.

- I call it detestable.

Wake up.

Wake up.

I cannot and will not endure the presence of this creature for another moment.

- Well, what's the matter, my darling?

- Stop dreaming about that creature or I shall go home to Mama.

- Creature?

- As I sat up, I had the satisfaction of seeing Katie's form fade slowly into nothingness.

You know who I mean.

Katie, your spiritual affinity as she calls herself.

- You don't mean that you have seen her?

- I do mean it.

Oh, if I had only known of you're having an entanglement with any creature of the kind I would never have married you.

Never.

- Hang her.

After all, there's nothing to be jealous of.

- I, jealous?

And of that?

- After all, she's only a disembodied astral entity whom I made an acquaintance in the days when I moved in spiritualistic society.

- Discourage them from this day.

Neither think of her nor dream of her again or I will have a separation.

- I will keep her as much as possible out of my waking thoughts.

But a man can't control his dreams.

However, if she really is, as she has told me, a lady by birth and breeding then she will understand that I'm now a married man.

And from this moment desire to have no further communication with her.

- Then after some more desultory conversation, we fell soundly asleep.

An hour may have passed when... - You see?

It is no use.

He is dreaming of me again.

- Wake up!

(sighs) The more Frederick strove to banish Katie from his dreams, the more persistently she cropped up in them.

Now that Frederick's former regard for her was converted into hatred, he found the thought of her continually invading his waking mind at the most unwelcome seasons.

She had begun to appear to both of us by day as well as by night when our poisoned honeymoon had come to an end.

And we returned to town.

Katie accompanied us.

It was after another one of her appearances that an idea which afterwards I carried into execution occurred to me.

I made the acquaintance of Madame Levante, the renowned professor of spiritualism and theosophy.

I subscribed for a course of 10 private seances at which I made an improved upon acquaintance with Simon.

Simon was a spirit who found me attractive.

He tried in his way to make himself agreeable.

And with my secret motive in mind, I encouraged him.

My purpose was accomplished upon a certain night when... - I want to explain matters to your husband.

He should understand that I am a clergyman and a reputable spirit.

- There.

You hear what he says?

Do let me go to sleep.

- What?

With that intrusive beast sitting beside you?

Never.

- Well think how many months I have put up with the presence of Katie.

After all, it's only tit for tat.

Frederick grunted sulkily and resumed his recumbent position.

By day after that night, she seldom appeared.

My husband's brain was much too occupied with Simon.

And it was now my turn to twit Frederick with unreasonable jealousy.

But at length, an extraordinary conviction dawned on my mind and became stronger with each successive night.

Between Simon and Katie, an acquaintance had sprung up.

Once I started from sleep to find myself enveloped in a kind of mosquito tent of chilly, filmy vapor.

And the conviction rushed upon me that he and she had leaned across our couch and exchanged an intangible embrace.

- We never should have met upon the same plane but for the mediumistic intervention of these people.

Of the man, I can't say that I think very much but the lady is everything a lady should be.

- You are infatuated with her.

It is plain.

And the sooner you are removed from her sphere of influence, the better.

- Her power with me is weakening as Frederick's is with you.

Our outlines are no longer so clear as they once were.

We're still materialized but for how long this will continue.

- Don't let us wait for a formal dismissal then.

Let us throw up our respective situations.

- I still remember enough of the marriage ceremony to make our union if not regular at least respectable.

- And I know quite a fashionable place on the outside edge of things where we can settle down and live on practically nothing.

- When I saw the room again clearly, the chairs beside our respective pillows were empty.

Years have passed and neither Frederick nor myself has ever had a glimpse of the spirits whom we were the means of introducing to one another.

We are quite content to know ourselves forever deprived of their company.

Yet sometimes when I look at our three babies, I wonder whether that establishment of Simon's and Katie's on the outside edge of things includes a nursery.

(baby cries) (dramatic music) - True.

Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am but why would you say that I am mad?

The disease had sharpened my senses.

I heard many things in heaven and the earth.

I heard many things in hell too.

How then am I mad?

Hearken.

And observe how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

I loved the old man.

He had never wronged me.

I think it was his eye.

He had the eye of a vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it.

Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

And so I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point.

You fancy me mad.

But you should have seen me.

You should have seen how wisely I proceeded.

I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

And every night about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it.

And then I put in a dark lantern all closed.

And then I thrust in my head.

It took me an hour to place my head within the opening.

Would a madman have been as wise as this?

And then I undid the lantern cautiously.

I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.

And this I did for seven long nights but I found the eye always closed so it was impossible to do the work for it was not the old man who vexed me but his evil eye.

And every morning I went boldly into the chamber calling him by name in a hearty tone and inquiring how he had spent the night.

Upon the eighth night, I had my head in and was about to open the lantern when my thumb slipped upon the fastening.

And the old man sprang up in his bed crying out, "Who's there?"

I kept quite still.

For a whole hour I did not hear him move.

Presently, I heard a slight groan.

(groan) And I knew it was the groan of mortal terror.

He had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise.

He had been trying to fancy them causeless.

He had been saying to himself, it is nothing but the wind in the chimney.

It is only a mouse crossing the floor.

But he had found all in vain.

All in vain because Death had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.

And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, I opened a little crevice in the lantern, a simple dim ray like the thread of a spider.

It shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.

It was wide, wide open.

I grew furious as I gazed upon it.

I saw it with perfect distinctness all a dull blue with a hideous film over it.

It chilled the very marrow in my bones.

Now there came to my ear a quick dull sound such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

It was the beating of the old man's heart.

It increased my fury.

It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant.

The old man's terror must have been extreme.

I thought the heart must burst.

And now a new anxiety seized me that the sound would be heard by a neighbor.

The old man's hour had come.

With a loud yell I threw open the lantern and I leaped into the room.

He shrieked once, only once.

In an instant I dragged him to the floor and I pulled the heavy bed over him.

The heart beat on with a muffled sound.

At length it ceased.

The old man was dead.

I removed the bed.

I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there for many minutes.

There was no pulsation.

His eye would trouble me no more.

Now if you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.

First of all, I dismembered the corpse.

I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks of the flooring and deposited all.

I replaced the boards so cleverly that no human eye not even his could have discerned anything wrong.

There was nothing to wash out, no blood spot, whatever.

I had been too wary for that.

A tub had caught all.

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock.

As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door.

I went down to open it with a light heart for what had I now to fear?

There entered three men who introduced themselves with perfect suavity as officers of the police.

A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night.

The officers had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled for what had I to fear?

I took my visitors all over the house.

I led them at length to his chamber.

And in the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room and desired them here to rest from their fatigues while I, myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied.

They sat and while I answered cheerily, they chatted about familiar things.

But ere long, my head ached and I fancied a ringing in my ears.

I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling but it continued and gained definiteness until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears.

I grew very pale but I talked more and more fluently and with a heightened voice.

Yet the sound increased.

It was a low, dull, quick sound such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

And yet the officers heard it not.

I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased.

Why would they not be gone?

I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides as if excited to fury by the observations of the men.

But the noise steadily increased.

God, what could I do?

I raved.

I swore.

I swung the chair upon which I'd been sitting and grated it across the boards but the noise arose overall.

It continually increased.

It grew louder and louder.

And still the men chatted pleasantly.

Was it possible they heard not?

Almighty God.

No.

They heard.

They were making a mockery of my horror.

I could bear their hypocritical smiles no longer.

I felt I must scream or die.

Villains!

Dissemble no more!

I admit the deed.

Here, here!

Tear up the planks!

Here, it is the beating of his hideous heart!

- Chris Nickerson reading "The Tell-Tale Heart" from Edgar Alan Poe to close out our special night of "Halloween Tales" here on "Expressions."

Please visit the Southern Tier Actors Read Facebook page for updates on their upcoming projects.

And I want to thank the Phelps Mansion Museum for allowing us to film here.

Until next time, this is Adara Alston.

Thanks for watching and happy Halloween.

(thunder booms) (spooky piano music)