“A night like any other, tending the grounds of the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. But this time I brought my dog Mountain Jim. When we passed the section of old faded out graves of Dutch settlers, Jim let out a sound. Not like any sound he’s made before; kind of a wheeze or a shriek. I tugged on the leash but he wouldn’t budge. He had his nose set on something, as if he were a metal detector. He wasn’t gonna let up, so I cut him loose. When I finally caught up with him, he was at a grave etched with the name Van Croaker.

“Now, let me be clear: I’ve been tending to this cemetery for decades, and I’ve never seen this grave before. Of course I recognized the name from the local pub, but I never saw it on a tombstone. It was weathered just like all the other old Dutch stones. I couldn’t account for its appearance, but that became the least of my problems, because Mountain Jim was digging like he was trying to reach the center of the earth. 

“Now, I’m not one to disrespect a gravesite, no sir, but something came over me. Something heavy, like a fog. And I just couldn’t shake the sense that I needed to see what was down there. I thought it might be some loose bones driving Mountain Jim wild, but all we found was a dirty old square box, which I later learned was holding a reel of audio tape. It had scratchy writing on it: WARNING DO NOT PLAY. And by golly, I did not. Didn’t even know how. But what I did do was hand it off to my buddy Jonah, a recording engineer who lives nearby. I thought if anyone could make sense of all this, he could. He’s much braver than I, I guess, because he brought his tape machine to my house and pressed play right then and there. I was too spooked to stick around for the rest of it when I heard voices introduce themselves as – what do you know – Thaddeus Van Croaker, Ernest Whimsy, and Ramona Love. I admit I was charmed when I heard their old-timey voices, but I didn’t like the pull it had on me. It sounded like something I might’ve heard at my grandma’s back in the day coming out from that big brass horn. I got out of there right quick after that. Jonah listened through, though. Said they sounded like old demos, probably from the 1940s. Anyway, they recorded these old folk tunes, and I guess they must’ve been something special, because old Van Croaker literally took them to his grave. 

“Jonah said these recordings didn’t sound normal, even accounting for their age. And right around the time he started listening, things started to change in old Sleepy Hollow. There’s been a strange chill in the air, and the moon is full every night like we’re in some suspended state. A thick mist covers the Hudson, and I’ve heard tell of strange movements in the woods, sounds like a woman shrieking in the distance. Getting closer. And even Jonah has been acting weird lately, spinning tall tales and looking over his shoulder like there’s someone there. I heard him shout, “HIKE TO EVEN KEEL!” the other day, but he shook his head after like he had something in his ear. Says he wants to give these songs the treatment they deserve. He’s been holed up in his studio with some strange folks for weeks. From where I’m sitting, nothing good can come of all this, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”