Echoes under Ashwood

James Altwies
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Echoes Under Ashwood is a cinematic cosmic horror podcast about memory, friendship, and the quiet dread of returning home. When a group of Gen-X friends reunite to settle a will, they discover their childhood in Ashwood, Ohio wasn’t what they remember. Disappearances. Missing years. A town that seems to shift when no one is looking. Blending an ensemble cast, investigation, and slow-burn psychological horror, Echoes Under Ashwood explores nostalgia, trauma, and the things small towns bury. Episodes begin April 27. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Episode 1

    START HERE! S01 E01 - Welcome to Ashwood || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode - 1 On this premiere episode of Echoes under Ashwood, five former best friends return separately to Ashwood, Ohio, drawn back by the will of their long-lost friend, Amy Caldwell. What should be a simple obligation, a reading, a signature, a quick departure, begins to feel unsettled the moment they arrive. The terms are clear. All five must be present. Together. No explanation is given. Gaathered after 30 years of little contact, things will be interesting. Ashwood does not feel like a place they have returned to. It feels like something they have stepped back inside of. The town has been rotting from teh inside out for decades. The streets are quiet. The town looks...intact. But something in it resists being familiar. Distances feel slightly off. Buildings seem to linger in ways they should not. People look at them just a moment too long, as if trying to place something they cannot quite name. Every interaction carries the sense that their presence is not unexpected. It seems no one can run from Ashwood forever. Each of them experiences this alone. They do not reunite, and there is no shared moment to validate what they are feeling. Left to themselves, they explain it away as nostalgia, stress, or the discomfort of returning to a place tied to a past they thought they had outgrown. Still, the feeling remains that Ashwood has not simply endured. It has been waiting. Amy’s death is the reason they give themselves for coming back. The will is the structure that holds it together. Beneath that, something less certain begins to surface. A sense that their return was not chance, and not entirely their choice. That whatever connects them to Ashwood was never fully broken. As each of them settles into the town again, uneasy and alone, one realization begins to take hold. They did not just come back to Ashwood. They submitted to it. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s analog technology and nostalgia Unresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    START HERE! S01 E01 - Welcome to Ashwood || Gen X Cosmic Horror

  2. Episode 2

    S01 E02 - Ghosts of the Past, Echoes of the Future || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode 2 begins with the five arriving separately at the Tri-County Bank for the reading of Amy Caldwell’s last will and testament, each expecting a routine obligation and none aware that the others have been called as well. The reunion is unplanned and deeply uncomfortable. Thirty years of distance sit between them, and whatever they once were to each other does not easily return. Conversation is strained, polite at best, with long pauses filled by recognition that feels more like intrusion than familiarity. Amy has arranged everything with precision. Each of them is given a sealed envelope addressed in her hand, along with a set of unfamiliar keys and a single personal item. The objects are distinct, clearly chosen for each individual, and carry a weight that makes them feel less like keepsakes and more like instruments. There is no explanation provided for any of it, only the quiet expectation that they will understand in time. When they begin to handle the items, the tone shifts. Each of them experiences a brief but undeniable waking disturbance. A visual inconsistency. A sound that should not exist in the room. A memory that feels imposed rather than recalled. The moments are fleeting, disorienting, and impossible to verify with one another in any meaningful way. Each is left to question whether it happened at all, or whether the strain of returning has begun to affect them. The pattern is clear even if they do not say it out loud. The items are doing something. The will itself offers direction without clarity. The keys suggest locations yet to be discovered. The items suggest purpose without revealing intent. And the fact that all five were brought together without their knowledge begins to feel deliberate in a way that is difficult to ignore. Outside, Ashwood remains unchanged in appearance, but the feeling from their arrival has intensified. The town no longer feels distant or passive. It feels closer, as if their presence has shifted something. As the meeting concludes and they linger in the shared discomfort of being together again, there is a growing sense that this was never about closure. Amy did not gather them to settle her affairs. She gathered them because something is beginning. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s analog technology nostalgia Unresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    S01 E02 - Ghosts of the Past, Echoes of the Future || Gen X Cosmic Horror

  3. Episode 3

    S01 E03 - Confab at the Cuckoo's Nest || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode 3 - “The Cuckoo’s Nest” Amy’s instructions lead them to the Cuckoo’s Nest, a place none of them expected to return to and one that no longer resembles what it once was. In the 1970s it was the center of everything. Music, light, movement, a place where people went to be seen. Now it has settled into something smaller and worn down, a dive that feels like it stayed open out of habit rather than purpose. Still, a table is waiting for them. No one questions how. Inside, the air feels thick with time that never fully passed. The walls are covered in layered collages of Ashwood’s past, photographs stacked and overlapping in no clear order. Generations of faces stare out from dim corners and warped frames. Some are familiar. Many are not. Among the images are moments that never happened. Versions of events that feel close enough to be real, but wrong in ways that are hard to explain. The five of them recognize themselves in a few of the photographs, but not the way they remember. Not where they remember. It is subtle, but unmistakable. Chuck drifts in like he never left town, carrying the same unpredictable energy that used to make him easy to dismiss. He talks too much, laughs at the wrong moments, and drops fragments of insight that feel uncomfortably close to something real. It is hard to tell if he knows more than he should or if he has simply been here long enough to stop questioning what the town does. Tina appears with a different kind of weight. Confident, practiced, and deliberate. She watches more than she speaks, inserting herself only when it matters. There is a familiarity to her that feels curated, as if she is choosing which version of herself they are allowed to see. Neither of them seems surprised that the five of them are together. The Nest holds pieces of the past, but not in a way that clarifies anything. If anything, it deepens the uncertainty.Amy reserved this table for a reason. But whatever she wanted them to find here is not obvious. Not yet. When they finally step back out into Ashwood, the feeling from earlier has changed again. It is no longer distant or observational. It feels engaged. As if something has taken notice of their movement through the town and is beginning to respond. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s analog nostalgiaUnresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    S01 E03 - Confab at the Cuckoo's Nest || Gen X Cosmic Horror

  4. Episode 4

    S01 E04 - No One Gets Nice at 50 || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode 4 - No One Gets Nice at 50 Ashwood has a way of turning reunions into interrogations. Part 2 of the Cuckoo’s Nest meetup picks up after Amy Caldwell’s will reading, with old friendships already starting to fray under the weight of memory, suspicion, and too many unanswered questions. The drinks are cheap, the ashtrays are full, and everyone’s pretending this is still just a bunch of former friends catching up in a dying hometown bar. Then Traci Lathrop-Matthews walks in. Former queen bee. Still perfectly composed. Still somehow knowing everybody’s business before they do. Her arrival shifts the entire room, especially with Tina Geroski already circling the group like a shark with a cigarette and a grudge. The two old frenemies waste no time digging at each other while quietly steering suspicion back toward the people who left Ashwood behind. Meanwhile, strange old photographs and forgotten fragments continue surfacing—little pieces of the past that don’t fit together cleanly anymore. The more the group looks, the less trustworthy their memories start to feel. And around them, the town keeps pressing closer. Chuck is acting unusually rigid, like he’s trying too hard to stay grounded. Matt Russell watches everything from behind the bar with the nervous energy of a man who knows more than he should. Because in Ashwood, nobody really moves on. They just learn how to talk around the things that still live here. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s nostalgia and memory decayUnresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. Episode 5

    S01 E05 - Everybody Brings Baggage || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode 5 - Everybody Brings Baggage The group settles into the Matthews lake house—an expensive slice of manufactured peace sitting just far enough outside Ashwood to pretend the town can’t reach it. It can. While Oz, Bex, and Lance try to reconnect over drinks, old dynamics start resurfacing almost immediately. Time may have passed, but Ashwood has a habit of preserving unfinished business. Especially between people who never really figured out what they were to each other in the first place. Meanwhile, Harry and Dawn make a late stop at Chuck’s garage to grab supplies—and end up getting something else entirely. Beneath the rambling, the smoke, and the half-broken machinery, Chuck quietly lets slip a truth about Ashwood that reframes the town in a way neither of them is prepared for. Because people leave Ashwood all the time. According to Chuck… that doesn’t necessarily mean they escape it. Also in this episode: James steps in for Art as Oz. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s nostalgia and alternate memoriesUnresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  6. Episode 6

    S01 E06 - The House Listens || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirdosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode 6: The House Listens Night falls over the Lake House, but rest proves difficult. As the group tries to regroup and prepare for the next day’s search, old tensions settle in alongside new suspicions.Some moments feel private. Some discoveries suggest they are not. And as Ashwood presses closer, the team begins to understand that the past may not be buried at all. It may simply be waiting for someone to notice it. Oh, and James stands in as Oz again. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s analog technology and surveillance devices Unresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Paranoia and analog horrorAtmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  7. Episode 7

    S01 E07 - What We Leave Behind part 1 || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirdosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Episode 7 – What We Leave Behind part 1 Amy didn't leave answers. She left a trail. In this extended episode, the group begins unlocking the places Amy trusted them to find and old assumptions start to crack. Forced to split up, Lance and Oz lean into their buddy cop energy, Bex attempts penance by taking Harry with her, and Dawn finds herself alone with Traci in Amy's house, and the echoes of someone she thought she knew. An empty house that feels anything but abandoned. Some doors open with keys. Others should have stayed closed. Also, some game mechanics shenanigans. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s analog technology and cassette tapes Unresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home Grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  8. Season 1 Trailer

    Ashwood archives: Absentia: Welcome to Ashwood || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : come hang out on Discord and chat up all of our weirosPatreon: Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook Investigative journalist Evie Ross arrives in Ashwood, a fading Midwestern town with a long history of disappearances, unexplained events, and stories locals still hesitate to tell. Factories have closed. Storefronts sit empty. But beneath the quiet surface, Ashwood carries a reputation that stretches back decades, like missing children, institutions that shut down overnight, and traditions that continue long after the reasons for them have disappeared. Most people outside the county have never heard of Ashwood. But the deeper Evie looks into the town’s past, the clearer it becomes that something about this place has never been fully explained. This is Absentia. Where Silence Becomes Evidence. From the Creator: Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath. About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. In This Episode: 1990s analog technology and cassette tapes Unresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decay Atmospheric sound design and scoring Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies Cast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Ashwood archives: Absentia: Welcome to Ashwood || Gen X Cosmic Horror
See All Season 1 (13)

Trailers

About

Echoes Under Ashwood is a cinematic cosmic horror podcast about memory, friendship, and the quiet dread of returning home. When a group of Gen-X friends reunite to settle a will, they discover their childhood in Ashwood, Ohio wasn’t what they remember. Disappearances. Missing years. A town that seems to shift when no one is looking. Blending an ensemble cast, investigation, and slow-burn psychological horror, Echoes Under Ashwood explores nostalgia, trauma, and the things small towns bury. Episodes begin April 27. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    James Altwies
  • Episodes
    19
  • Seasons
    1
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © James Altwies
  • Show Website
    Echoes under Ashwood

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