 Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. This is my monthly fireside frights episode where it's just you, me, a campfire, and some creepy true stories that you, my Weirdo family, have sent me. All the stories tonight have been written by you, the listeners, and I could certainly use more of them, so if anything paranormal or creepy has happened to you or someone you know, please send it in for a future fireside frights episode. You can email it to Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. If you are new here, welcome to the show, a very interesting podcast episode for you to jump in on because this is only once a month, but I do something similar to this. But hey, if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, take a moment, invite somebody else to listen, recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. In fact, for a fireside frights episode, it's always better if you've got somebody around listening with you, especially if you are around a campfire listening. And while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com where you can find the show on Facebook and Twitter, and you can also join the Weird Darkness Weirdo's Facebook group. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Our first story tonight comes from Wes. Today, I'll be telling you about a dream that I had when I was in high school that still gives me the creeps. I used to be religious in high school. It was a complete and immediate change that stemmed from the fear of going to hell. After going to church for about a year, I had a bone-chilling dream that is still very clear to this day, 11 years after. Here it is. I opened my eyes. Where am I, I thought? I lifted my head to find myself in my high school cafeteria surrounded by all of my classmates. Others began to wake as they lifted their heads off the cafeteria tables. We all looked around in confusion, wondering why we were all there, how we got here, and most surprisingly, why is there a wall missing? My school cafeteria was located behind a massive staircase near the entrance of the school. On the opposite side was the kitchen, and that was sandwiched between two walls with doorways that led to the bus loop. We didn't see any tools, debris, or any breaks in the wall. It was as if the wall had just disappeared. The bus loop was the marching band field, and as I rubbed my eyes to focus, I could see massive trucks demolishing the field. Before I could wrap my head around it, the school PA system kicks on, and our principal has an announcement. Attention all students. The announcement cracked the silence and shot through our cores. Attention all students. We have a mandatory meeting with the San Antonio Water Systems on Water Conservation for Planet Earth. Please make your way to the auditorium for the presentation. The PA system cut off, and we all stared at each other in chilling silence. We all got our phones out to see what was going on, and we were shocked to see news announcements and articles that confirmed what we had just heard. Fear set in across us all, and students began to rush to the auditorium. I pulled my phone out and stood in fear to see our local news station announcing a state of emergency. I quickly followed the crowd to the auditorium. A principal stood in the foyer of the auditorium and let us know that we'd be watching a presentation on how to best conserve water for survival. Madness ignited as we all were shouting out our concerns. How did we get here? One person shouted. Where are my parents? Do they know I'm here? Another cried. That's when it hit me. My mom. I have to call her, I thought. I made my way to the back of the crowd and looped around to one of the auditorium doors. I noticed all the administration was busy with the crowd, so I snuck into the auditorium as I dialed my mother. As the phone rang, I walked through the auditorium and I set my eyes on the screen. I could see they were playing the slides of the presentation on repeat. After watching, my confusion changed to fear for what I saw was a diagram of a hole 50 feet wide, 50 feet deep, shapes of people were being thrown into it. Was this what they were doing to the marching band field? Before I could even think, I realized there was a message repeating continuously over the slideshow. I removed the phone from my ear to focus on it. All for Lucifer. All for Lucifer chanted through the auditorium at such a low volume that with all the commotion you could barely hear it. But I did. And I fell to my knees, just as my mother answered the call. Hello, sweetie. Are you okay? She nervously asked. No. Have you seen the news? Did you know I was at school? Did you bring me here? Before I could say any more, she interrupted me. Honey, calm down. Yes, we know. The world is running out of water and we don't have much time. They're going to kill us, mom. They're going to bury us alive. I know. I lost my breath. She knew she sent me here to die. The world is going to be in chaos and I don't want you to go through this. I'm so sorry, honey. We love you. Click. She hung up. I started to hyperventilate. I ran towards the door to tell everyone that is when he came through the door. A large man in a black suit walked through the door and shut it behind him. I stopped and before I could say anything, he shot me with a teaser when I passed out. I woke to see a man in a chair in front of me. He was a massive, older man and was wearing a pinstripe suit. He stared at me with these small blue eyes like he was annoyed with me. His hair was white and was so thin you could see liver spots through them. The man that shot me stood behind him with another man in a black suit. I looked beside me and saw the projector streaming the diagram of the hole to the screen. I was in the projector room. I knew it. I tried to move and that's when I looked down to see that I was tied up. Don't bother trying to get out, he said with a soft voice. He stood up and towered over me. I noticed a gun hiding beneath his blazer. Just shoot me, I shouted. I'd rather be shot than to be tossed in a hole to die, I yelled. He spurred at me and started to walk over to me. He kneeled down right in front of my face and continued to stare. Just shoot me, I pleaded as I lowered my head. I'll not make it that easy for you, he said quietly. I lifted my head in surprise. I could see the evil in his eyes. He hated me. I could feel it. You think you can get away that easy? He asked, just call your mom and you can get out of this. You're all meant to die this way. It's what he wants. That's when I heard it again. All for Lucifer. He took a step back as if he was in a daze. I could see his eyes grow. They seemed different, less hateful. I shot my daughter this morning, he quivered. Tears filled his eyes. She deserved better. I was so confused. Did he want to do this or not? He suddenly snapped back to his stare, and his eyes began to shrink into a black pupil. He got closer to me and looked me in the eyes, and the fear grew inside of me. You deserve to die last. You'll be thrown in the hole after everyone else. The fall will not kill you. You'll starve to death on the bodies of your friends. I was frozen in fear. I could not believe this was happening to me. He stood up, walked towards the door, and the man behind him rushed me and tased me again. This time I woke up back in the cafeteria. I sat in a small, fold-open chair with a few other students. I looked around and saw all of us were separated into groups. I looked around to see that some of the groups were even outside, close to the hole. I could still hear the message over the speakers repeating, all for Lucifer. I looked up to the person next to me and whispered, Don't you hear that? All for Lucifer, we have to do something. He just stared at me with sadness in his eyes. He had already given up. I stood up and started going over to the closest group that was next to me. I saw that instead of a black-and-white TV, they had a plasma TV with an Xbox, mini-fridge and recliner chairs. I announced, Don't you hear this? We have to do something. That's when they paused the game and stared at me. My own friend stood up, looked me in the eye and said, Get back to your section, man. We're getting tossed in before you, so just let us enjoy this. I stepped back disgusted. They have all given up, I thought. I looked around and that's when I noticed it. Each section was based off of who was getting tossed in first. I walked outside and saw the group that was right outside the hole. They had a cabana, alcohol, weed, gadgets and TVs, whatever they wanted. I went back to my group, the last group and accepted my fate. I had the overwhelming urge to throw up, so I ran to the bathroom and puked. I washed myself off and looked at myself in the mirror. That is when I woke up. I could still see all the clothes everyone was wearing. I could still remember every detail of that dream. It felt so real. Wow. I don't normally share stories here on fireside frights that are not true, but this one seemed to fit pretty well because it was a dream he really did have. It's not a creepypasta that he wrote. And honestly, that is some terrifying stuff. If I dreamed that, yeah, I would be trying to get myself straight with God too. Definitely. I can understand why you got religious in high school. Wow. This next story comes from Carol Hearn. When I was approximately five years old, I'd wake up nightly. I can't remember what had been so scared, but the result was me banging on the bedroom wall until one of my parents came into my room. My son did the same to me for years too, so I can understand my dad's reaction after a while. After a few nights of this, I was told to not hit the wall any longer. Of course, the next night I woke up again. I knew I couldn't call for my parents, so I just lay there trying to go back to sleep. My bed was the long way against the wall, and it was directly in front of my door. When I looked at the door, hoping to see my dad, instead, there was a dark figure of a man standing in the left corner of my doorway. There was nothing to identify the figure, just the figure. No hair, couldn't see any facial features. It was just as if it was an actual shadow. If I close my eyes, I can still see the figure. Just the thought of it gives me the creeps. Knowing I was forbidden to call my parents made it even worse. I couldn't even run to their room or my brother's room because it was blocking the doorway. The only thing I could do was to hide under my covers. I never heard anything, but it felt as if it was next to my bed for the longest time. I had no idea how long it took me to go back to sleep, but eventually I did. Yes, I know a blanket can't keep something dangerous away, but heck, I was little. For weeks after that night, my parents were beside themselves with frustration because I would try to sleep anywhere but my room. I even tried to hide under my bed to sleep. Eventually, whatever caused me to wake up nightly stopped. I don't know what it was, but I don't want to see it ever again. I'm now married with three grown children, 29, 24, and 18 years old. For the past 23 years, we've lived in a house that definitely has issues. Since it's a 23-year ordeal, I'll have to write that all in another email. What we have dealt with, though, is just a few things for you to ponder. A furnace whose alarm went off three nights in a row, the details are crazy. My children seeing the same woman in our home but relaying the story to different parents on different days, dresser poles banging against the door when no one's near it and they cannot get stuck in the upwards direction. A dark figure walking across the basement so much more. It'll take me a while to pin that, so it may be a bit before I send it out. Well, thank you, Carol, and if it's going to take you a while, that's fine, but I definitely want to hear those stories. Ben sent this next story and she's entitled the story Ben. I'm a highly skeptical person, but I am somewhat sensitive to spirit activity. While I rarely talk about my experiences, I'd like to share this experience just to exemplify that not all spirit activity is terrifying. 13 years ago in August, we lost our friend Ben very unexpectedly to an overdose. He was only in his early 20s when he left us. He was so funny, a budding musician and a very sweet person who I always loved to have conversations with. I received the news of his passing as I was flying home from a work trip and as soon as we landed, I sprung into action trying to help out wherever I could. Most of this time is a complete blur of intense emotion and intense responsibility, but this part I remember like it was yesterday. The night after I got home, I had a dream or a vision while sleeping. I don't really know what to call it, but in this dream I was surrounded by a bright grayish white mist and Ben was standing in front of me. He was calm but desperately trying to tell me something. I was straining to listen, but I just couldn't hear him. I tried to tell him that I couldn't hear him, but I couldn't make a sound. I was so upset that I couldn't understand my friend and he kept mouthing words that sounded hushed, echoed, and far away. All of a sudden, I woke up. I just started crying. The next day I was at Ben's best friend's house, a place that I had been hundreds of times before. We decided to burn CDs of Ben's last musical recordings for his family members and close friends. I was working in the music industry, so I took on the responsibility of creating the CD covers and putting things together. I was so meticulous about the whole process and did everything myself because I wanted it to be perfect for my friend, as he never got a chance to put this album out himself. Everyone left the house, so I could get things typed out, organized, and put together. A few hours later, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, sweating from the lack of AC and staring down at the contents of the CD I'd created. I was continuously reading and re-reading every word just to be certain that it was perfect. I was so hell-bent on making sure it did Ben justice, and I was so filled with grief-fueled worry that he wouldn't have liked it. It's probably around 3pm by now on a typical hot, muggy, August afternoon, as I was sitting there, sweltering and mentally ringing my hands, the room and the summer insect noises outside the screen door fell dead silent. I sat there thinking how odd that was when the humid air around me began to cool, and suddenly the top half of my body was enveloped in what I quickly realized was an ice cold, but loving and appreciative embrace. I had a sense of calm for the first time in days. Then about 30 seconds later, the noise returned and the hot August humidity was back. I finished my work with much less anxiety and waited for the rest of our friends to get back, although I never did tell anyone else what had happened. Well, I'm glad you told us, Stephanie. That is, from somebody who actually used to be in the music industry, that would mean the world to me if somebody was to do that. I got a bunch of songs in my computer now that I've never actually put into an album, because they were all recorded at home, stuff like that, nothing real professional, but if somebody were to find those after my death, if I was still pursuing a music career, if that was my goal and my dream in life, if I had passed away and somebody found those and decided to put it together in an album to release to friends and family, that'd be very touching. I think maybe if it was possible for me to come back as a ghost or whatever and hug the person doing it, I definitely would. So it would not surprise me at all if that was been. This one comes from Mallory. I had an older sister named Molly Ann Schmidt. She died back in 2005 by drowning in the river next to our house. I remember every moment that happened to this day. We were swimming in the river on a hot summer day. My sister Montana was in the house because she was sick. My younger sister Monica was on the beach playing with the sand and rocks. My mom and my two cousins, Hannah and Austin, were swimming with me and Molly when all of a sudden, BAM! Her and I were drowning at the same time. I'd go under the water just as she was coming up and it went back and forth for what seemed like forever. I could hear my mother screaming from Molly and I could see her swimming toward her as I got pulled down under the water again. Then as quickly as it happened, everything stopped. I was standing on a rock and I could see my two cousins standing on the beach crying. I couldn't figure out why. A bit later, this guy came down and picked me up out of the water and I noticed an ambulance and they were putting Molly in it. My mom came up to me and said that they were going to take her to the hospital. I assumed she was going to be fine for how young I was because I didn't know death. We stayed at a family's friend's house for a couple of days. Next thing I know, I'm in a funeral and everyone's crying, even my dad. No one told me what had happened. The last time I'd seen her was she was laying in the coffin. I asked my parents why she was sleeping and they just looked at me and teared up. About a month after she died, I heard her voice call to me in our old bedroom that we shared. It undoubtedly scared the life out of me because I knew it was her. I ran downstairs and I didn't say a thing for years to anyone about what had happened. Now that I'm in my 20s, I'm a little upset with myself that I didn't try to communicate with her. I'd love to talk to her one more time. We did everything together when she was alive. She was two years older than me, but we were like twins. We thought alike. We had the same red hair color and a good amount of freckles on both our faces. I miss her every day. I'd like to think she's still with me because I notice a few random things missing or I hear a strange sound from time to time or a disembodied voice. That also could be by grandma that passed a couple of years ago from oberian cancer. Who knows? Thank you for taking the time to read this. The meeting to send this to you for a while now, I'm glad I finally got to it. I feel a little better now that I've told someone this. Well, as a fellow redhead Mallory, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm impartial to redheads, so not that that has anything to do with your story. You just mentioned that you have red hair and freckles on the media. It's like, oh, that sounds cute. But wow, yeah, to a Talusha sister that way and not know what was happening to suddenly be at a funeral for somebody that you didn't even know was dead. I don't understand. How do you do that? How do you deal with that type of situation? It's bad enough that your sister is gone. You thought she was going to the hospital. You thought she was going to be okay that she was just going to the hospital to be taken care of because you thought that she sort of drowned, but was okay. And then to find out later, the very first thing you see about your sister, she's in a coffin. Oh, man. I know being that young, it'd be hard to understand. And so it'd probably be tough for your parents to explain to you what was happening and why it was happening. But what a thing to be stuck in your head now for the rest of your life, man. Um, this next story comes from Shantal. Now, I heard this from a friend of a friend of mine, but she swore that it was true. Disclaimer, it involves those porcelain dolls that aren't very popular with the current generation, probably because we know how truly creepy they are. Okay, here goes nothing. This friend's friend has an aunt. Her and her husband have been married forever and they had their rough patches, so it was not frequently that she would sleep at her sister's house, but often enough that she knew her way around in the dark. One night, after a long, exhaustive fight with her husband, she decided to cool down and reboot at her sister's house. She had a key, so she didn't wake up her sister. She always made her bed on the couch. Her sister was obsessed with all types of dolls. Since childhood, her sister had been perfecting her dolls' hair or outfits and proudly placing them side by side. Now as an adult, she had them on her mantle in her room on big china cabinets. She was meticulous on where they were placed, not one out of place. Her sister, after settling in, fell asleep. In the middle of the night, she woke up feeling uneasy. Felt like something or someone was watching her. She didn't want to open her eyes, but could not shake that creeped-out feeling. She convinced herself to open her eyes, and there, out of all of their assigned places on mantles were the dolls. Every single one of them sitting in rows and semicircles, facing her. Her sister does not have a sense of humor for scaring people, especially in the middle of the night with her prized possessions, and no one else lived there. She got up to courage to get the blank out of there, shut the door, drove home and always slept in her marriage bed no matter how big the fight was thereafter. She spoke to her sister about it, and what do you know? She thought she was joking. All of her dolls were found in their assigned places before she woke up. She knew that she had been there, but thought nothing had been moved. Freaky. See, that's why I don't have dolls. I'll have action figures, but I won't have dolls. Oh man, I don't understand how you girls do it. I used to have a long time, this just reminds me of something. I used to have a marionette. It was Pinocchio, like the Disney version of Pinocchio, and I would place the marionette or the puppet on my desk, and when the lights would go out, for some, just the way it was painted, you could just barely see the eyes of Pinocchio because they were painted white, and so there was just enough light that you could kind of see his eyes, but nothing else creeped me out. There was a time that I wanted to be like a marionette. It was my very first marionette, my very first puppet, and I've never had one since, but when it was given to me, I thought, oh, this is really cool. I want to do this for a career, and that lasted about three days until Pinocchio was in the middle of the night staring at me like that. I was like, no, I don't want to have anything to do with puppets. No, thank you. I don't know what happened. I wish I had that because I'm sure it'd be worth something nowadays because it really was a real marionette made of wood and everything, just like Pinocchio in the movie. Okay, anyway, moving on. Okay, this one comes to us from Joseph Morton. I was 14 years old and a bit of a horror fan as well, so being invited to a Halloween party, given an actual haunted house, what can I say? Exciting. My girlfriend at the time was also in attendance. Everyone at the party told me about the basement, dark and uninviting, lit by a dim 40-watt bulb and dark corners that the limited wattage failed to extend to. But we were all dared to venture through the corners of the whole basement, so I, of course, did so without any scary incidents. Well, imagination, of course, for everyone that was brave enough, the party expected ghostly scares without incidents throughout the party, so we just told stories. Those would listen. It never dawned on me that very few, if anybody, ventured upstairs. I should say that this house had three stories, the narrow staircase leading upwards into an attic. I don't think anyone went up there, but I didn't, but no one dared me either. If you were to imagine a haunted house, this gothic, all-wood house would be it. I think it was a 1920s or 30s model, wood, creaky floors and staircase, a very beautiful house. I've always loved those gothic houses. They build character as they age. I can ramble on about this house, but I digress. The party went well. I got to kiss my girlfriend. She went home and I stayed. When the party ended, everyone went home except me, who was still waiting for my mom to pick me up. She was a couple hours late. She assumed the Halloween party was the last past midnight, so I sat outside on the steps without a porch light. Lights through the house turned off, so it was pitch black outside, but the front door was unlocked because the girl who threw the party asked me to lock the door when I left. She had also asked me to accompany her as we turned off all the lights. When she left, impatiently, I stepped toward the mailbox to view traffic for my late arriving mother. This is when I noticed the attic light was on. Cliché, yes, but true, I know, because I ventured up and pulled the chain to extinguish the light. It was off. So I climbed both staircases toward the attic. As I did so, I turned on the lights that I needed to venture forth. The house in itself felt lonely, if not cold and unwelcoming. When I approached the attic light and pulled the chain, the whole atmosphere in the house changed. Something demonic was with me. And all the lights that I had previously switched on were now completely dark. Even at the age of 14, I knew that cascading down blindly at full fright was dangerously stupid. Even so, standing alone in a demonic presence was equally dangerous, so it took every bit of nerve and mental strength to exit calmly down the two flights of stairs. As it felt as though this evil entity was looming over my shoulders, waiting for me to panic, I knew if I did panic, it was all that it needed. And it followed me all the way down and right up to the front door. But I should emphasize that the last 10 feet were the longest distance to safety, because I seriously believe that there were other demonic spirits downstairs that were alerted to my being there. Thankfully, the moonlight paved the way to the door, and I made it outside. I have never felt such putrid hate as had from all those demons in that house. The house itself has been torn down since. I have always wondered if anybody else felt from that house what I did, what experiences they went through. I should also say that as I was walking out toward the mailbox again, the attic light was on. I told my mom about it, and she playfully dared me to turn off the attic light again. Interestingly enough, it always kind of bothered me that I didn't. Wait, I'm not going to go back in that. I wouldn't go back in that house. No way! Now, a portion of that, a good portion of that could be your imagination, because you're in a house that supposedly haunted, it's dark outside, you all were just telling ghost stories to each other and trying to scare each other. But when you're by yourself and you know that all the lights are off and you see the attic light on, yes, you're right, it is cliche, but when you turn on the lights to get back into the house to go up to the attic, and then suddenly all those lights go off, yeah, that would freak me out. At my age now, I'd probably be thinking that a fuse was blown or something, but at the time, if I was like 14 years old or something, you had a lot more bravery than I would, because I don't think I would have been able to stand there calmly and slowly make my way down the stairs. I would have panicked and probably broke my neck down those stairs, which of course would make the house definitely haunted at that point, but anyway, those gothic houses, they are gorgeous until it's night time and there's no lights and they're scary as heck. Alright, so moving on, this one comes from Cresta. I wanted to tell you a story that happened to me a few years back. I was on the phone with my mom. We were both using our cell phones. We were chatting away when suddenly I can't hear her anymore. All I could hear on the line was white noise. I kept saying, Mom, Mom, hello, are you still there? And then I heard a long drawn out whisper of a man on the line saying, Help me. I started screaming into the phone from my mom to answer me. The line went dead. In a panic, I called her back and with a sigh of relief, she answered. She was in a complete panic herself. She had heard the same voice say, Help me that I heard, but we were unable to hear each other, just that voice. All along, she was screaming for me to answer her. She said that she even pulled over to the side of the road and was turning the car around to come to my house and check on me. It was the weirdest thing ever. You never know with technology, Cresta. You never know. It could have just been a crossed line, but then again, if you're on the phone with somebody, even if it is a crossed line, who's going to say, Help me like that? No, you're right. You have a haunted cell phone. Here, rid of it. This one comes from anonymous. When I was a kid, maybe only nine or 10 years old, I woke up in the middle of the night. My bedroom window was open and I remember it being very quiet for having a window open and I laid in bed a good minute before mustering up the courage to sneak out of the bed in the middle of the night. I could feel the breeze, but there was no sound. I got out of bed and slowly began to walk towards my door to go to my parents' bedroom. I looked to my left out the window and saw a group of people all gathered on the street below my window. There were people all the way down our block and the next block over, all standing there looking down with candles in their hands. I saw some moving their arms gently or fixing their hair with one hand while holding the candle in the other, all facing my house. I got low toward the ground, arching my back, hoping none of them saw me and snuck to my door and opened it and ran into my parents' room. I woke up my mom and dad and my dad looked out the window, but no one was there. They reassured me and told me I was probably just half asleep, though I saw something. I was awake and I know what I saw. They all wore different clothing and had different characteristics and even held the candles in their own ways. The silence was so eerie and I knew that I was awake. Something that I just can't explain. I don't know, anonymous. Stuff like that happens in your half asleep and it seems so real. I'm not saying that it wasn't real, but I understand where your parents would say that maybe it wasn't. You were just half asleep. Almost like that sleep paralysis thing. That wasn't the case with you, though, because you were moving around. But man, what the mind can do to you sometimes is worse than anything paranormal. This next story comes from JBO. This is kind of likened to the scene from Ghosts, just a little less dramatic. My husband passed away in a small home that we had just moved into in the town where I had gotten my first therapy job. One particular day after he had passed, I was thinking about a more frustrated or something and all of a sudden a gold crown that he had removed from one of his teeth came flying out of nowhere and pinged against me. I had absolutely no idea where this crown was and I really believe Tom had thrown it at me to let me know he was there. Found it so amazing. I'd seen him around the first Christmas after his death, and then this was a further affirmation. Wow. Since JBO did mention Christmas, this might be actually a good time for me to stop for just a moment and let you know about one of my sponsors that recently came on board, Solo Stove. According to the Christmas song, Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Maybe that's just me, but it kind of sounds like you're spending Christmas outside around a campfire. Am I right? Chestnuts roasting your cold nose like that. And then there's the song, It's the most wonderful time of the year that has that line. There'll be scary ghost stories. I mean, well, what better place to tell ghost stories than again around a campfire. But now, well, you don't have to live in the boonies to have your own campfire in your own backyard, thanks to this new sponsor of mine, Solo Stove. Now, if you're not familiar with a Solo Stove, it's really cool. I didn't know about them until just recently, but it's a smokeless fire pit and it can make any outdoor activity you're doing that much more memorable, be it during the winter or any time of the year. But here it is, we're headering the holidays, I'm talking about winter, but you can sit back with your family and friends and enjoy a fire. But the cool thing about the Solo Stove is you don't have to worry about the campfire fumes or the smoke that follows you around no matter where you go. You don't like it a campfire and you'll walk around the campfire to get away from the smoke, and then suddenly the smoke will change direction and start chasing you to the other side. Why does it do that? It's like the smoke has its own personality, doesn't it? You don't have to worry about that with a Solo Stove because essentially it is smokeless without fumes. The way it's built, it burns so efficiently that the smoke doesn't come out. You still get the gorgeous fire, of course, and you get the heat, but you don't get the smoke and fumes. In fact, not only did we have one ourselves, one of our neighbors came by a few days ago and apparently she has one too. She said, hey, I have one of those, don't you love it? Oh, yes, Susan, we do love it. I didn't realize they had one too. They've been having campfires in their backyard for however long they've had their Solo Stove. Well, if you would like to get one or learn more about it, there's actually a Black Friday sale that is going on for Solo Stove just for weird darkness listeners. That's the reason I'm bringing it to you now. It is the perfect time to grab a Solo Stove of any size for yourself. You can also get one for a family member or friend for Christmas or heck, you can do what we're doing and you can get one for yourself and for somebody else for Christmas. It's portable too, so you can take it anywhere. It doesn't have to stay in your backyard. You can take it with you on a camp out somewhere or take it to a soccer game. If your kids are playing soccer, you need a little bit of heat or something that day, or a football game actually would probably be a better situation like that. I'm bringing it with you. Anyway, you can get $10 off of this Black Friday deal if you visit solostove.com and then use the promo code WEIRD. That's solostove.com. Use the promo code WEIRD and you can get $10 off during their Black Friday sale. Okay, moving back on to our stories. This one came from Taylor. She said, my story or he said, my story may not be scary, but it was definitely creepy. My sister, age five and I, age eight, we were raised by our grandparents. And when we first moved in, we were terrified of the dark. So naturally, we had a clock that was a nightlight. We had bunk beds, I on top and my sister on the bottom bunk. When we couldn't sleep, we would lay in the blue lit light room and listen to the clock ticking. One night, as we were falling asleep, I turned facing our closet and saw shadows walking across our closet. I saw a woman and several other people walking. That happened in 2009. And then five or six years later, my sister and I had gotten our own rooms and we didn't see any more shadows, but we did hear and experience paranormal. I always got in trouble for playing with electronics, and my sister was the little angel. One night, as we were falling asleep, I heard the house creak and then I heard voices. Loud enough to hear her through closed doors, I thought, oh, Hannah's in trouble because I thought my grandmother had gotten upset and woke her up, as my grandmother usually did whenever she discovered something was wrong. And then the voices died down. In the morning, I'd asked my sister if she heard the voices the previous night. She said that she'd heard the voices as well and thought the exact same thing for me, assuming I had gotten in trouble and my grandmother had gotten up and was talking to me. And then we asked our grandmother if she heard the voices. She said that she didn't, but she did see that our doors were ajar. My door was wide open when she came upstairs from falling asleep on the couch. Then she went back downstairs about 40 minutes later and found that my door had closed. I have no history of sleepwalking. This next one comes from Adam. I wanted to share a few strange, possibly paranormal occurrences that have happened randomly over the four years my family and I have been in our current home. The first event I remember was on a Saturday when my wife, our two children and I, were sitting in the family room talking and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we heard the sound of the busy signal from a telephone. Honest part is that we did not have a landline and nobody was using a phone or a television or anything. We all just froze and stared at each other like, what was that? It lasted for at least 10 seconds and then abruptly stopped. It's not happened ever again, so it was just so weird. Another weird thing happened almost a year ago. I woke up a few hours earlier than everybody else to get some work done on my laptop. I've been using my mouse and I thought I heard somebody upstairs, so I went to see if somebody had woken up. When I went upstairs, everyone was still asleep. Upon returning to my laptop, I noticed that my mouse was not working, so I turned it off and back on again. Still, nothing. I even went as far as to change the battery in it, just in case. Still wouldn't work. I decided to see if it was the mouse itself, so I grabbed my wife's mouse and adapter out of her laptop and tried them. Still, nothing. Some reason I left her adapter in my laptop and started using my mouse and it worked. Somehow, in my travels from going up and down the stairs, our laptop mouses had been switched. Like, somebody took my mouse and put it in her bag and then took her mouse out of her bag and put it in mine's place. And I know nobody here did it because they were all still sleeping. That gave me goosebumps, but made me laugh at the same time. One final occasion I'll share happened just a few months ago. I'd woken up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. As I was walking back to the hallway to go to the bedroom, I saw a shadowy figure. It was like somebody was literally standing there. I thought that it was my wife who may have awoken when I woke up to get a drink, so I moved over to let her pass, except the figure did not move, so I continued down the hall. Finding it weird that my wife was just standing there, I reached out to touch her to see if everything was okay. As I reached out, the shadowy presence went away. It kind of just disappeared. That was kind of freaky. I went back into the bedroom and asked my wife if she was in the hall a few moments ago. She muttered, no, she'd been asleep the whole time. It wasn't until morning that I told her the full story of the night before. Pretty spooky encounter. Yeah, I'd be leaving that house, Adam. Just telling you, the shadowy thing right there, that would have been enough for me to start wanting to move. But the whole mouse switch that's like poltergeist. A smart poltergeist. A poltergeist will take something and move it so you can't find it, but yours or whatever it is that's in your house, they have a great sense of humor too. Flipping the mouses so it looks like you still have your mouse but it's not working. I can understand why it creeped you out and you laughed at the same time, because that's kind of what I was doing when I first read your story. I was like, how does that happen? That is so weird. And I don't think you'll ever see that in a scary movie because it's just a little too humorous, but man, that's freaky. Okay, moving on. This story comes from Valerie in South Carolina. Before I do that, let me get a sip of my drink real quick. Just drinking just water this time. No, no carbonation this time. Last time I did a lot of burping. Okay. Alright, so from Valerie in South Carolina. Last night I had two dreams. Both had a black shadow person with a wide brim hat on them. In each dream that is. I don't remember too much about the first dream except that it was a black shadow shaped like a person and the only noticeable trait was the wide brim hat. The second dream was more vivid but short. In the dream it started off like someone pulled me to the back seat like I was hooked to a bungee cord. The car reminded me of a 1950s gray sedan. When I looked over my shoulder out the window near the back bumper, I saw a dark shadow person with a wide brim hat and even though the only distinguishing feature was that the dream that the brim of the hat was wide and round. It seemed like it had a trench coat on too. It went through the back of the car from the outside like a ghost and when it got beside me inside the car, I woke up. In my dream I didn't feel scared, anxious, or any feelings of evil or harmful intent like a nightmare would cause. Besides it being vivid, I didn't think too much of it until tonight after I listened to that same podcast about shadow people and when it got to the part where the guy described his shadow person like the Marlboro man and it reminded me of how mine looked. I googled wide brim fedora and it looked like the shape of the hat that the shadow person in my dreams had on. This isn't the first time a supernatural experience has happened to me, but either way, real or dream, it was interesting enough to write to you about it. It would be interesting to see what you think. Thanks for giving your weirdo family the chance to tell their experiences. Well, thank you for your experience, Valerie. I have received a lot of emails from people talking about shadow people. I've never had one myself, not a traditional shadow person. And I don't know what to tell you about this. Because you had it while you were dreaming, I can't tell you if it was real or not. I know that's happened to people when the sleep paralysis thing happens when somebody will wake up and they can't move and they'll feel a presence in the room and they'll often see a shadow person. And often it is what's called the hat man. And some people believe the hat man is a shadow person. Other people say it's not kind of looks like a shadow person, but it's a different entity. I don't know. I've not gone into that enough to be able to give you a full, you know, a real opinion one way or the other. But that that type of experience, though, the shadow person with the hat, the hat man does get reported a lot when people are having sleep paralysis experiences. So I have no idea. It could have been. There's nothing to say that a shadow person can't enter your dreams. Who knows? That's the paranormal. It's outside of normal. So who knows what they can do. I wish I had a more, more solid answer for you. I don't. Amy in Sparks, Nevada sent us this next one. This first story is about my brother. He had called and made a doctor appointment. The day came for said appointment and he got there and the nurse at the desk said that he had canceled it. He spoke with her a bit and said that he had not canceled it. The nurse said that he has a unique voice and said that she was sure it was him. So weird. My second story. So when I was a lot younger I had severe asthma and I still do. I just have a lot more control over it now, thank goodness. So I'd come home from the roller rink. I was a speed skater and when I got home I was already in an asthma attack. Long story short, I begged my grandma to take me to the ER but she didn't listen. I ended up passing out and here's where it gets odd. I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I saw Anubis, the protector and god of the afterlife standing there. He was up on an altar. Behind him the altar with a scale on it. My heart on one side, the feather on the other. Both weighed the same. He stood proud and regal. He spoke and said, it isn't your time. You have work to still do. And after that I woke up. I spent a week in a medically induced coma in ICU and one week in a normal hospital room. Thankfully I'm still here. I do have some said damage from it but hey, I'm thankful for being alive. Wow. Yeah, Amy, you know what? I don't doubt that that actually happened to you. I know all these stories are supposed to be true and I don't normally question them. I just take people at their word but the reason I say that I think yours is true is because I believe that the spirit of death really is an actual entity. The reason I say that is because my dad, when he was on his, what we thought at the time was his deathbed, he's still alive and doing well but at the time we thought we were going to lose him and he was in the hospital room and he did see death and he described it exactly as what we'd normally think of. You know, the sort of the skeleton and the dark cloak with the scythe, that kind of look. No scythe, no skeleton but the dark hood with just complete blackness in it, that's what he saw and he just knew when he saw it that that was death waiting for him. He just knew it. So the idea that you would be in a medically induced coma probably very well could have died for a moment and that you would come up to Anubis with this whole thing, it doesn't surprise me at all. Scary as all get out and hopefully you took that as an opportunity to look at your life and say, okay, what do I need to change so that I am that I am assured of eternal life later on. So you might want to look into that but yeah, I believe that actually did happen to you. This one comes from Armand. Hello, Darren. I write you to share an experience that occurred to me when I was a child, maybe around eight to ten years old. I'm not certain about when it happened. My family is from Puerto Rico and we lived in a fairly large apartment complex on the first floor. I used to share a room with my brother who's three years younger than me for most of our childhood. One early Sunday morning, we were just laying in bed awake, playing around with toys and talking to each other since our mother had not woken up just quite yet and we were trying to be quiet to let her sleep. We were doing this for around 15 minutes when something made me lift my head up and look towards our bedroom door and there was the dark outline of a small girl with pigtails on each side of her head just peeking into our room from the left side of the door frame. My brother saw me looking in that direction and turned his head to also see what I was looking at. By the time he saw it, her, whatever, we turned our heads to look at each other and then back and it was gone. The shadow was as dark as night. My doorway led into the hallway and the kitchen door was right across it, meaning this shadow was directly in front of the only light source entering the room which also tells me that light did not go through it and that this thing did have matter. It wasn't a shadow. After seeing this apparition, we were mortified. We quickly jumped out of bed calling my mother who was fast asleep in the other room of the apartment. We woke her up and asked over and over frantically, where is the little girl? Did you see the little girl? Is someone here? To which she had no idea what we were yelling and screaming about. My mother resorted to blaming our imagination for what happened and, we like young kids, did away with it and removed it from our immediate thoughts. My brother and I still talk about what we saw that early morning in our childhood home. I still get goosebumps all over my body when I think about it. I've done some research on shadow beings, but I've never heard any accounts of small girls with pigtails. At least not yet. I'm with you. We were just talking about shadow people a couple of minutes ago, but Armand, I've never heard of a shadow person that was a girl with pigtails. Pippi Longstocking as a shadow person. Never seen that one before. And who knows if shadow people even have genders? I really don't know. We call that that other shadow like being the hat man, only because we don't know what else to call it. It's kind of in the shape of a man. Usually it's a man that's wearing that style of hat, so we call it the hat man. But who knows? Maybe we have the pigtail girl now. The hat man and the pigtail girl. They could both be shadow creatures. From James, this one comes saying, My story happened in the 90s when I was in the Air Force. Before I continue on, James, thank you for your service. Appreciate it. He continues on. I will preface by saying I've never told anyone what happened to me except my first priest. I recognized the first part involves alcohol, so it could have been a hallucination, but the remainder all happened while I was sober. In 1997, my friends and I had a party at my friend's dorm room, and one of my friends brought a Ouija board. I started drinking a few hours before everyone showed up, so I was highly intoxicated by the time everybody else started drinking. What can I say? I was 18 and stupid. Someone decided to play with the highest board and said all the normal things. Is anyone there? What is your name? And so on. This went on for an hour, with somebody writing down all the messages. The messages started getting very dark. The one I remember most clearly was, You will die tonight. Everybody assumed that one or more of the partygoers was moving the pointer. At that point, I hit a level of intoxication where things got blurry and I got sick. I remember to clear things while I was in the bathroom vomiting a glowing white woman appeared and told me that I had to make my friends stop with the Ouija board. Yes, I know that's hard to believe with the amount of alcohol I consumed. The second thing was, as I staggered out of the bathroom, I felt a hard shove in my back and everything went black. Again, it very well could have been the alcohol. My next memory was waking up the next morning at 5am on my friend's floor and everybody who stayed was coming back from the 24-hour Taco Bell. I got up and went two stories up to my dorm room. My friend was on the first floor and I was on the third. At this point, I was hungover but sober. I lay down in my bed to try to go back to sleep when I heard three loud knocks on my door. Rather than door keys, all the dorm doors had cipher locks that required a three-digit code. As all my friends had the code to my room, I yelled, Come in! No answer. Then three more loud knocks. I got up and answered the door, but no one was there. I assumed this was my drunk friends messing with me, so I went back to bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, there were three more knocks. I ignored it and the three knocks came every few seconds. I yelled something that I can't type. Let's just say it started with an F and ended with an off. At that point, the knocks started along the wall that adjoined the external wall next to the door. It was three knocks, a few seconds, then three more knocks, but the sound would move about a foot further down the wall. I still assumed this was my friends having fun at my expense and continued to ignore it. Then the sound turned and started on the wall that I shared with my neighbor. This got my attention, but I rationalized that they had somehow gotten into my neighbor's room to continue their fun. The three knocks moved steadily down the wall and closer to the wall next to my bed. After a few minutes, the knocks were on the wall right behind my head. That scared me, but the next three knocks were on the nightstand next to my bed. Needless to say, I got up and left the room immediately. The knocks began on a regular basis to eventually escalate every night, always at night. I eventually moved in with my girlfriend, who was also in the Air Force and lived in the barracks next door. The knocking started in early November. I don't remember the exact date, and I stopped sleeping in my room in early December of 1997. In February 1998, my girlfriend and I broke up and I was forced to move back into my room. The knocks started again the first night, or maybe they never stopped, I don't know. I started taking sleeping pills at night to sleep through the noise. The knocks would always start at the door, move around the walls, eventually move inside the room. In March, I started waking up with bruises on my body. Usually, they'd be on my legs or arms, not on a few occasions. They were on my chest, and one time I woke up with a large bruise under my eye, as if I'd been hit across the face. I'd never remember anything the next day. At some point, toward the end of March, I started having a vivid, recurring dream. The dream was always the same, too. I was laying in a dark room on red and black sheets. The blanket looked like velvet. In my dreams, I'd always turn my head to my right and see a decomposed body laying next to me. The head would turn, open its mouth, and scream, at which point I would wake up. It'd be between 2 and 5 a.m. every night, regardless of what time I went to bed. I was raised as a Southern Baptist, but after age 12, I only went to church when my parents made me. By the age of 19, when this would happen, I was probably at best in agnostic. Having seen movies like The Exorcist, I made the jump of logic that what I was dealing with was something demonic. I decided on the first day of April to speak with the base Catholic priest, Father Diaz. I told him a greatly edited version of the above story and asked him for help. Father Diaz suggested that if I believe in God, to consider being baptized a Catholic and enter R CIA. R CIA is the preparation to become a Catholic. I followed his advice and was baptized later that month and entered a one-on-one R CIA with Father Diaz, as the next class was not scheduled until later that year. This only escalated the problem. In addition to the knocks and the dreams, I started hearing my name screamed right as I started to go to sleep. I told Father Diaz what was happening, and he told me to stop taking sleeping pills and gave me a prayer to say before bed. He also advised that I say the Our Father anytime I felt afraid. This helped, but did not solve the problem. It was the night after my first confession that everything finally stopped. After my confession, I felt light and free. When I went to bed that night, I followed my normal prayer routine. As I started to fall asleep, the knocking began. This time it started inside my room on the wall facing my bed. The knocks were also louder like someone was punching the wall. I said an Our Father and yelled, Stop! Surprisingly, the knocking stopped, and eventually I was able to go to sleep. That night, the dream also changed. I was in the same bed, but the decomposed corpse was on top of me screaming in my face, and I couldn't wake up. In my dream, I started to pray the Our Father. I was able to get out Our Father full of grace, and then I woke up. When I woke up, the room felt different. It was lighter, if that makes any sense. It was the last time it happened, and I had been free of whatever that was ever since. Wow, James. This is so screw tape letters. If you've never read the screw tape letters, what you've just described is almost exactly how a demon would go after you. This isn't going to come across as religious, and I apologize for those who don't like the Christian religious stuff that I throw out once in a while, but this is how it works. If a demon is going after you, which this is obviously a demon trying to scare the crap out of you, and it was working, but then when you give your life to Christ, when you went to the Catholic Church, got baptized, started trying to put your life on that track, and it got even worse, and the knocks continued, that is totally the enemy. That is so much what a demon would do, because now here's the reason, because at the beginning, they're trying to keep you from Christ. Whatever the reason was for the demon doing this to you, I don't know. Obviously, I'm not a demon, so I'm not going to think like a demon. But once you give your life to Christ, then you are a danger to the demons. You are their enemy at that point because you are on the side of God rather than the side of the devil. You are on the enemy's side in their terms, so they're going to make things even worse for you. I know people will sometimes say that life gets better if you give your life to Christ and you get saved. For some, yes, but for others, it gets even worse, because the devil now sees you as his enemy. You are in his way in getting whatever he wants to do, and he will make your life a living hell until he finally gives up. It sounds like that's exactly what happened to you, James, that once you went to the Catholic Church, once you got baptized and started putting your life on track on the path to God, he saw that as an offense. He got angry with you. He tried to turn you away from it by continuing and even making it worse, especially with that decomposed corpse on top of you in your dreams, screaming in your face. It's almost like that's his one last opportunity, his one last effort to say, no, James, I'm going to get you back. I'm going to make you turn away from God. You didn't. You went with your father. Essentially, you were calling upon God to help you. At that point, I think you finally broke his chains on you, his will over you or whatever. If you've never read The Screwtape Letters, it's my favorite book of all time by C.S. Lewis, and it's actually written by a, well, the storyline. It's written by a demon to a lesser demon trying to school him on how to become a better demon. The smaller demon, which is named Screwtape, I'll take it back. No, Wormwood is the Screwtape is the guy writing the letters. Wormwood is the minor demon, and he's talking to Wormwood about how to make a Christian stumble. They call him the client. I think it's what they call him. The client or the patient or client, I believe it is. And he's telling the client, telling him, treat your client this way because when you do that, they're going to think this other way, and that'll take them away from God's path. They'll start thinking of themselves or start thinking selfishly or something. They won't even realize that it's happening, but you just throw that little thought in there, and it'll mess them up. And when the character, when Wormwood's client does find Christ, which is like in the first chapter or two, Wormwood gets punished because you're a demon. And if the person that you're assigned to ends up going to God, that's bad for you as a demon. Totally. You've got to be in the right mindset to read it. But, man, the Screwtape letters, your story, James, is just so Screwtape letters. Okay. I'm sorry, I went off on a tangent there. I apologize. But that story just, wow. I do have one more story. I always save a long story for the last because usually those are the really good ones. Although they've all been good tonight. I gotta tell you people, you've really upped your game on sending the stories in. Some great stuff this month. And again, please send your stuff to me. I am looking for more stories. I think I have enough for maybe one more Fireside Frights episode, but that might be about it. So if you've got stories, please send them my way. You can send them Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Again, Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Okay, final story. This comes from Bob Hopkins and is called Strange Things on Cherry Street. My story began after my divorce back in 1991 in Wetherford, Texas. In 1988, my wife and I built a small, 1200 square foot starter home just off of the old Bankhead Highway in a new subdivision in an area that was once an old farm. The house was built on Cherry Street and was a modest, three-bedroom, two-bath, veneer brick house for the one-car garage. I grown up quite poor and moved around a lot, so to me this house was the first real place of ownership I had ever experienced. I was 26 years old and we had just had a son. Life finally had some direction and I was happy until my wife informed me she was unhappy and wanted a divorce. She wanted more out of life than my meager wages could offer, but told me that I could keep the house and our son and she would be glad to see him from time to time. She was gone and life was, once again, turned upside down. I was under a great deal of stress and couldn't afford the house, so I moved into a rental and rented my house out to some friends until I could afford to move back. That took just over a year and in the spring of 1992, my toddler son and I were able to move back into the house we owned, and that's when strange things began to take place. In late summer of that year, I came home from work early one day as I was not feeling well and I thought that I'd kick back in my living room recliner and get a little rest before I picked up my son at daycare. It's about two in the afternoon on one of those typical hot Texas days. As I began to fall off to sleep, I was awakened by a loud bang coming from the living room wall just opposite of my recliner. It sounded as if somebody banged on the wall from the inside with a sledgehammer. I immediately went outside from where the sound came from but found nothing out of the ordinary. When I returned to the living room, I heard it again but not as loud and not exactly in the same location. And then the sound seemed to move and muffle as it echoed away into the next room, which was my son's bedroom, and then it died away, leaving me completely perplexed as to its origins or cause. It was shortly thereafter, as I was just going to bed one night, that I heard a rumbling sound coming from above my bedroom ceiling. It sounded as if a person was rolling their body around in the attic but that would have been impossible as there was no flooring in the attic, only joists. I then took a flashlight and went to the garage where the opening to the attic was. The opening was a two-by-two-foot opening covered by a piece of sheetrock. I grabbed my ladder, removed the sheetrock and slowly peeked up into the attic to find nothing. From that vantage point, I could view the entire attic of the small home and found nothing out of the ordinary. I went to bed and the event never happened again. About a month later, my watch went missing from atop my chest of drawers in my bedroom. I searched everywhere for it but to no avail and finally figured my son had most likely got his little hands on it and that was that. He, even as a toddler, denied touching the watch. About two weeks later, we returned home from work and daycare. I always entered the house from the garage which opened into the dining and kitchen area. The first thing I noticed, right there on the kitchen bar, was my watch. I picked it up and immediately noticed that the time was two hours ahead which was odd. I quickly placed the watch in my bedroom and got things ready for supper. Upon preparing my son's dinner, I realized the clock on the stove was two hours ahead of the proper time. I then found the clock on the wall in my dining room which was battery operated was two hours behind. I had two other clocks in the house and they too were off the proper time by two hours. I'll admit I was a bit spooked about the matter but went on with life. The event never happened again. In the fall of 1993, I had to attend a week-long conference in Denver. I had plans to meet up with a couple of buddies at a popular watering hole in downtown Fort Worth upon my return to DFW that Friday night but an early snowstorm in Denver had me marooned at the airport for the entire day. It was Halloween, 1993. I didn't get back to my house in Weatherford until after midnight. The early cold front had dropped the temperature to near freezing. As I was walking into my house, I found all the windows wide open. Every window in every room was opened. I was safety conscious and would never have walked out of my house especially if I were to be on the road for a few days with my house unsecure. I walked through the house with a baseball bat to ensure no one was hiding in a closet or something, turned on the heater and closed and locked all the windows. Once again, the event left me a bit uneasy and confused as to who could have done this to my house as I was the only one with a key. I never found out and the event never happened again. Another very strange event took place in the spring of 1994. My son and I attended an event in the park in downtown Fort Worth where I bought my son a metallic-like balloon on a string, the typical helium balloon you see at hundreds of events or in stores. We got home late that night and he wanted to sleep with his balloon. He was about four years old at this time, so I told him that I'd tie it to the end of his bed so that he could look at it. I firmly remember tying the string into a double knot so it would not come loose during the night. I had a fear of the string getting wrapped around his neck while he slept. I then pulled his door almost shut as he dozed off to sleep. At about 3.30 in the morning, I was awakened by a loud shrill. I bounded from my bed to turn on the light only to find the noise was from the string and the balloon wrapped around the motor of the ceiling fan in my room. I immediately turned the ceiling fan off as I could smell the burning string in the turning motor. I then noticed the door to my room was shut. I then checked on my son to find him asleep under his covers in his room. There was no evidence he had moved from that place since he fell asleep hours ago. And like the other strange events, this one never happened again. But honestly, it freaked me completely out. It was the winter of 94-95 that another strange and unexplained thing occurred. I awoke at 3.30 in the morning to feel a chill in my room. My first thought was that my heater had quit working but I could hear it running. I got out of bed and walked to my bedroom door to check out my son in his bedroom just next to mine. As I walked into the hallway and peered toward the living room, I saw that the front door was wide open. I immediately checked on my son who I found sound asleep as usual. I then grabbed a baseball bat and slowly inspected the house. As I approached the living room door, I passed the kitchen where I had a view to the back door. It too was wide open. I quickly shut and locked it and noticed the door to the garage was also wide open. I quickly shut and locked all three doors and stayed awake the rest of the night pondering how those doors were opened on such a cold winter's night. Like I said, I am very safety conscious and would never leave my door unlocked before going to bed. And certainly not all three. I don't sleepwalk and never have. I have no evidence that my son did either and my mind kept going back to the night that I returned from a week-long trip and found all my windows open. This perplexing night left me very uneasy, but I still wasn't ready to convince myself that strange things were happening in my home. I just wrote it off to something that had an answer, I just didn't know what it was, and went on with my life. The event like the others never happened again. It was shortly after that a friend of mine gave my son a black Persian cat. It was a beautiful animal with a fluffy black coat and dark green eyes. We called him Kitty. One day Kitty went missing. Months had gone by and we figured Kitty must have run away or the coyotes got him. And then one morning as I was leaving for work I stepped into the garage to get into my vehicle. With there sat Kitty meowing at me. I have no explanation how he got into the garage as it was shut and locked. There was no way for that animal to enter without the back door open or the garage door open, yet there he was after being gone for months. I know he wasn't in there the night before because I had to do laundry and the washer and dryer are in the garage. I would have seen him, but Kitty strangely returned to us as if he just materialized. The following year I began dating a young lady who told me that she felt uncomfortable in my home. She went on to say that she felt like the house was haunted by a child. I can't remember why she thought it was a child, but that's what she said. One day shortly thereafter she and I attended an event in Fort Worth and were returning home. It was a Saturday afternoon in 1995 and as we entered the house we heard what appeared to be the large bathroom mirror in the hall bathroom fall and shatter into a thousand pieces. The sound of shattering glass was clear and unquestionable and it was very loud. We both immediately arrived in the bathroom to investigate only to find nothing out of the ordinary. She was as perplexed as I was because we were both certain this is where the sound of shattering glass came from. We then searched the remainder of the house to find no origin of the sound, but for the first time I had a witness to the strange things that I was just beginning to admit were occurring at my house on Cherry Street. About a week later I awoke around 5 am one morning as I felt my son sneaking into bed with me. I had been trying to break him of this habit as most parents can relate. I felt the bed shake and felt the pressure of his little body slowly sink into the mattress beside me. I quickly turned on the light and rolled over, only to find nothing. There was nothing there, but I know something had crawled into that bed with me. I felt it. I experienced it, but nothing was there. The following weekend my son was with his mother as my girlfriend and I once again returned home mid-afternoon from an event. She said she wanted to take a nap, so I stretched out on the couch in the living room to watch some of the Texas Rangers game. About 10 minutes went by when I was alarmed by a blood curdling scream coming from my bedroom. Before I could get up to investigate, my girlfriend jumps headfirst over the arm of the couch and right on top of me, scared half to death. She'd composed herself and then she said, Something just crawled into bed with me. I didn't see it, but I could feel it. I thought it was you, but then I realized it wasn't. That's what I screamed. She looked me straight in the face and said, This house is haunted. I think it's a child, but it's haunted. She was visibly shaken. We went out to a restaurant so she could deal with the event, and frankly it had me feeling pretty spooked, because I was to the point that I could no longer ignore that something strange was taking place in my house, and now someone other than me experienced it. The nail in the coffin, though, had yet to happen. The event that would solidify my belief in some paranormal event took place one night about a year later. My girlfriend and I had gone our separate ways some months before. This particular night my son was at his mother's house. It was a Wednesday night sometime in early 1996. I just laid down to bed. I always read myself to sleep, and this night was no exception. I was getting sleepy and decided to turn out the light. I did so, and while laying on my back, closed my eyes in the dark, when suddenly, and without warning, some unseen hand grabbed me at my right ankle and pulled my body about a foot toward the end of the bed. The fear I experienced at that moment shot my blood throughout my body with such pressure, I could actually feel the blood rush through my aorta. I know this sounds insane, but it's just how it happened. I instinctively shook my foot loose and fell toward the left side of the bed where my feet hit the floor, and I ran into the nearby bathroom. That's when I realized I had trapped myself between whatever that was and the way out. I then took off running through my bedroom, down the hall, and out into the front yard, finally stopping at the curb. I turned out of breath and looked at the darkened little house, shaking out of control and finding it hard to catch my breath. I was asking myself if what had just happened really happened. I even tried to convince myself that I must have fallen asleep, but just dreamt it all. But in reality, I knew I was wide awake, as I had not the time to fall asleep. It was about eleven in the evening, and just about that time I realized I was standing in my front yard, with nothing on but a pair of underwear. I slowly mess up enough courage to open the glass door, reach around and turn on the living room light and enter the house, looking around nervously for any would-be-ghost, and I was sure no one else but me was in the house. Within the hour, I was able to run into my bedroom, grab my shorts and a shirt from the floor and run back to the living room without experiencing anything. I turned on every light in the house and stayed up most of the night, falling asleep for short naps in my living room recliner close to the door in the event I had to make a hasty exit. I sat there imagining what the heck it could have been in the dark that physically grabbed me with enough pressure and strength to pull my 160-pound body from my bed. It terrified me then and now to think of such a thing. The events psychologically and emotionally affected me for quite some time. I called in sick at work the following morning and spent half the day just riding around in an attempt to come to some kind of meaning and understanding to it all. I didn't tell anyone. I just carried the fear and burden because I didn't think anybody would believe me, and even if they did, what could be done about it? I didn't sleep back in that bedroom for over two months. Did I imagine it all? Was it a dream? Everything in me, unfortunately, tells me it really happened. At that time in my life I was under quite a bit of emotional and financial pressure. My experience with my ex-wife left me with a pretty negative view in relationships with women. I had some real trust issues and I wonder if the weight of trauma in my own life may have been the catalyst that created the paranormal experiences around me. In the spring of 1996, I met a woman who changed all that. She was unlike anyone I'd ever known, and all my trust issues melted away as I came to know and trust in her kind and noble soul. Once I met her, all the strange things just stopped. They never happened again to me in that house. She would become my wife and we have been happily married now for 23 years. She restored my belief in mankind and in myself to the point that there was no more room for the parasites that cling to our mishaps and tragedies. She ought me to start living in the future and forget the pains of the past. We sold the house on Cherry Street a year after we got married, and I became a firefighter. I have since retired and have had a wonderful life and looked forward to so much more, but I'll always wonder about those seven years on Cherry Street that were as perplexing a thing as anyone could imagine. That deserves to be a movie. Well, first, thank you for your service as a firefighter, and I know that you're retired now, but thank you for braving the dangers of that. Bob, that is an amazing story, and you've got some skills here when it comes to writing, too. You did a great job on this. I could see every single moment in that. You could just as easily have called your story, it never happened again. That's so weird that those things would happen to you, but then never again. And yet something brand new would take place and then never happen again. It's like a poltergeist who just got bored easily with what they were doing and decided to come up with something new to do. And if it was a child, maybe that's it. Child, you know what children do get bored pretty easily. Maybe that's it. Wow, what a story. That's definitely, though, that's definitely worthy of somebody writing a script for and putting that into like a short story novel or something. That's amazing stuff. Thanks for listening, everybody. If you like what you've seen, what you heard that is, and you want to send me your own story for a future Fireside Frights episode, I would really love to see your stories. Just click on TellYourStory at WeirdDarkness.com or you can just drop me an email at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Again, Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. And if you do like the show, please, share it with somebody you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can find the show on Facebook and Twitter, including the show's Weirdo's Facebook group, on the Contact social page at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Psalm 27 verse 13. I am still confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And a final thought from Max Locado. Your existence is not accidental. Your skills are not incidental. God shaped your destiny, so don't settle for someone else's story. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.