 ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third-party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. On the morning of December 22, 1987, everything took a turn for the worse. He bludgeoned and shot his son Gene and Becky. Then he strangled his three-year-old granddaughter Barbara. He sat down and drank a beer, all before dumping their bodies into a cesspit he had made the children dig. He sat back and waited, knowing the rest of the family would soon return. When they arrived, he told them that he had presents for them, but wanted to give them to them one at a time. Loretta was first to receive her gift. Ronald strangled her and held her under the water in a rain barrel. Eddie, Mary Ann and Rebecca were all killed in a similar manner. Midday, on December 26, the rest of the family arrived for their Christmas visit. Ronald's son William and daughter-in-law Renata were both shot dead. Then his grandson Trey, one-year-old, was strangled and drowned. Sheila and her husband Dennis were shot and his daughter-slash-granddaughter Sylvia Gale, six, was strangled. Last, his 20-month-old grandson Michael also was strangled. All their corpses were covered with coats with the exception of Sheila, who was laid and covered by Becky's best tablecloth. The two grandsons, Trey and Michael, were wrapped in plastic sheeting and placed in abandoned cars at the end of the lane. He left and went out to the local bar for a beer before returning home and spending the next two nights and Sunday drinking beer and watching TV with his dead family all around him. But he wasn't done killing yet. 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. Coming up in this episode. Long before the disastrous Philadelphia experiment, partially based on Nikola Tesla's technology, Tesla is rumored to have discovered by accident the secrets of traveling through time and the inherent dangers of tampering with the cosmic framework that governs the laws of time and space. Four friends get lost on a country dirt road and try to find their way back following what turns out to be a phantom vehicle. In the 1800s, seven nuns set up a school for girls, and when they added a chapel to that school, what many thought was a miracle occurred in the construction of the chapel stairs. Police officers and first responders share their own experiences with the supernatural. I'll share a very dark and classic creepypasta called Holes by S.R. Underschultz. But first, the story of serial killer Ronald G. Simmons from the book Murderous Minds Volume 2 by Ryan Becker, which I had the privilege of narrating the audiobook for. We began there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, to enter contests, to connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. 47-year-old Ronald G. Simmons sat in his home in Dover, Arkansas. His home consisted of two old motorhomes joined together, sitting on a 13-acre tract of land known as Mockingbird Hill. Simmons was off the grid, no telephone, no running water, and the property surrounded by a primitive 10-foot fence made of scrap material. Within the perimeter of the fence was a graveyard of old rusted vehicles whose interiors had become storage space for buckets of firewood, old clothing, and other junk. The yard was littered with discarded beer bottles. The interior of the home was no better, especially true for Simmons' favorite room. Ronald's family thought his private room was dark, smelly, and felt sinister. However, there was no place he would rather be than in his room. He always seemed to have his hand wrapped around a beer bottle, his beverage of choice. In 1986, after Simmons discovered the law was looking for him, he moved the family to Arkansas from Cloudcroft, New Mexico. The Department of Human Services in Cloudcroft was investigating Simmons regarding a claim he had impregnated Sheila, his 17-year-old daughter. The investigation against him was dropped when authorities discovered he had fled. Simmons' fear of being discovered continued to haunt him. That lingering fear would lead Simmons to embark on a killing spree that would claim the lives of 16 victims, including his entire family. Born July 15, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois, Simmons was the child of Loretta and William Simmons. His father died from a stroke when Ron was only three years old. Within a year of her husband's death, Loretta remarried. Her new husband was a civil engineer working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Because Loretta's husband was in the military, the family moved often, eventually settling in Central Arkansas. At the age of 17, Simmons dropped out of school to join the service. He enlisted with the U.S. Navy. When stationed at Washington's Naval Station, Bremerton, Simmons met Bersabie Rebecca Hulibari. The couple got married when Simmons turned 20. He left the Navy after three years of service and joined the U.S. Air Force. Simmons started to get recognized for his service and was awarded the Bronze Star, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross, and a ribbon for excellence in marksmanship. Simmons left the service as a master sergeant, November 30, 1979. At the time, he had seven children with Bersabie. Two years later, he was accused of sexually abusing his daughter and getting her pregnant. When he moved his family to Arkansas, Simmons supported his family by working a series of dead-end jobs in the closest town of Russellville. While working as an accounts receivable clerk for Woodline Motor Freight, he was accused of sexual harassment by a female co-worker. He quit that job and went to work for a convenience store, working there less than two years before quitting December 18, 1987. Simmons was both a tyrant and a control freak with his family. His wife was not allowed to leave the house without him, nor was she allowed to drive. It was her job to keep the kids quiet when he was home. It was his job to drink beer and watch television. Unbeknownst to him, she had been saving money to get a divorce. His children were not allowed to socialize with others or to go to church. Upon returning home from school, the children were required to do chores including moving piles of firewood, or clearing the road of earth and rocks. They had to perform chores until it became too dark for them to see. The following is a letter Simmons' wife wrote to her son William, daughter-in-law Renata, and grandson William Trey Simmons Jr. It reveals Bursa Bies' unhappiness in her marriage. Dear Bill, Renata, and Trey, Loretta may be staying in town Friday night, so I'll have her mail this. I've been thinking of all you said, Bill, and I know you're right. I don't want to live the rest of my life with Dad, but I'm still trying to figure out how to start. What if I couldn't find a job for some time? You have to remember I've never had a job since I've been married, or before that either. I know I have to start somewhere. It would all be so much easier if it was just me, but I have three kids, apparently not counting 17-year-old Loretta, also by then. So if you want to do any checking by telephone, go ahead and check, and we can talk about it when you come. I've decided if I borrow from Mom that I would have her send it to you. I'm still all very confused, but like I said, I do know I don't want to stay with Dad, but don't want him getting more than he deserves. Yet sometimes I feel God is telling me to be more patient. Right now I'll just say do some checking, and then it'll help make my decision. I would like for Loretta to move with you after she turns 18. She wants to go to college, and she can get a job too. I don't think San Antonio is the place for her. L. Jean, apparently referring to son Ronald Jean Simmons Jr. of San Antonio, Texas, who died in the massacre, and Wilma are back together, but they want to try it out and try to come get Barbara. I'm sure enjoying Barbara, she is a sweet, lovable, polite little girl. She's a good girl, and we all love her and enjoy her so much. She always has us laughing. I'm so proud of Trey. The last time you came, Dad wanted to know how come you didn't stay long enough to see him too. Now that L. Jean and Wilma are back together, I wish they could move from San Antonio. Barbara needs both her parents. They both been through so much, I hope it works out. I love them both. Wilma wrote me a letter telling me she loves L. Jean very much, and she must. She went back to him, and I'm sure she has been hurt deeply. I want to see all my children happy. I've remembered a lot what you said, Bill. I'm a prisoner here, and the kids too. I know when I get out, I might need help. Dad has had me like a prisoner that the freedom might be hard for me to take, yet I know it would be great having my children visit me anytime, having a telephone, going shopping if I want, going to church. Every time I think of freedom, I want out as soon as possible. I don't want to put any burden on my children, and I think it's best while or before I get out too old. I want out, but it's the beginning. Once I get a job and place, then I can handle it with the mental support of my children. I can do it. It was hard to talk in front of L. Jean. He'd been having it so hard, and his problems were deeply in my mind. I felt sorry for him. I was so afraid what he might go back and do. You were lucky, Bill. You have a very good wife. She had led you the right way, and that is toward God. She's very pretty too. I've always thanked God for sending you a good wife. I'm thankful for Dennis too. Give my darling Trey a lot of hugs and kisses for me. I love you all very much. Barbara gets bored if I take too long to write, so I hope I made sense in this letter. Hope Loretta can mail this Friday or Saturday on her way home. Love you very much, Mom. P.S., you all look so nice when you came. Loretta had a great time. Renata, she talked a lot about it. It was approaching Christmas time, and the Simmons clan would be visiting for the holidays. Simmons was out of work, had the pressure of cloudcraft investigation on his mind, and trying to keep control of his family with all of its dark secrets. As he did so often in the military, Simmons switched to survival mode, though in this case he was not defending his country or comrades. No, he was only concerned with doing what he had to do to save himself, even if it meant paying the ultimate price. In the early morning of December 22nd, Simmons' 46-year-old wife, Persabee, woke up and headed to the woods in the backyard for her regular bath in the river. She began to dry herself off when she had a gut feeling someone was watching her. She looked up and there was her husband, pointing his .22 caliber pistol ladder his face devoid of any emotion. He fired two shots, hitting her in the temple and killing her. Simmons eliminated Persabee first so she would not get in his way. Then, Simmons headed to his 29-year-old son, Jean's bedroom. Being a sound sleeper, he did not even wake as Simmons approached and shot him in the head. Simmons thought Jean had died, but this was not the case. Jean regained consciousness and tried to crawl out of bed, his hands leaving bloody prints on whatever he touched. He died moments later in a pool of his own blood. Simmons went to the bedroom of his three-year-old granddaughter. Entering Barbara's room, Simmons removed his belt. He did not feel shooting her was appropriate given that she was so small. Simmons wrapped his belt around the child's neck and strangled her. Barbara's small body became motionless. Simmons then removed the belt and left for his favorite room. Leaving behind the bodies of three family members, Simmons was devoid of emotion. Months earlier, Simmons had forced his sons to dig pits in the backyard for cesspools. After having a beer, Simmons dumped the three bodies into one of the pits. As his family's bodies sank in the liquid waste, Simmons returned to the motor home, watched television, drank another beer and waited for his other children. They would be getting home soon. The bus arrived in the early afternoon and pulled to the side of the road next to Simmons' home. 17-year-old Loretta Simmons helped her brother, 14-year-old Eddie, and her younger sisters, 11-year-old Marianne and 8-year-old Rebecca, to dismount the bus. They headed up the muddy road. The four were making their way to the motor home when Ronald exited and greeted his children. He told them he had Christmas gifts for each of them but wanted to make it a special surprise so he would take each of them in one at a time to receive their gifts. Loretta was first. She headed to the door, not remembering a time when her father showed so much interest in her. First, Simmons told his daughter to step inside. Her mind froze when she caught a glimpse of a dark object in her field of vision, then felt something constricting her throat. Everything turned black and her legs gave out from under her. Simmons released his grip on the belt and let Loretta's body collapse to the barren floor. He dragged her body to one of the bedrooms, then exited the home to get the next child. He would use the same technique with each of the remaining three. When he had eliminated his four children, Simmons sat down on the couch and watched television and had another beer. He would need to wait a few days to complete his mission. 23-year-old Dennis McNulty drove along the highway with his wife, 24-year-old Sheila Simmons McNulty, in the passenger seat. For Sheila and her husband, visiting her old home was always uncomfortable. They chose to visit on the day after Christmas to avoid ruining their holiday. Sheila's father, Ronald, had abused her sexually since her early teens. Sheila's daughter, six-year-old Sylvia Gale Simmons, was both daughter and granddaughter to Ronald. They were three hours from Mockingbird Hill. When 23-year-old William Simmons II was only 15 minutes away, his wife, 22-year-old Renata Simmons, was holding their one-year-old son, William H. Simmons III. Like the McNaltes, William and his wife planned to spend the day visiting, only out of a sense of obligation. They did not want to deprive their children of contact with the rest of the family. For both families, this decision would be tragic. When William and his family arrived at the motorhome, Ronald greeted them cordially. He invited them in and told them to make themselves comfortable while he headed to his bedroom. The couple removed their coats and were about to sit down at the dinner table when a loud blast went off. Both William and Renata were hit in the head. Renata received five bullets to the head and two more in the neck. The couple fell to the ground as the blood spilled out. They never saw Ronald, who had been standing in the hallway with his gun drawn. Ronald grabbed his screaming grandson, William III, and carried him to the back of the motorhome. There was a large barrel filled with water. He held the child's head underwater until the thrashing stopped. The McNaltes pulled into the parking lot of the motorhome. Sheila grabbed Sylvia and approached the motorhome. Dennis began to unload the gifts they had brought from the car. When they got to the door of the motorhome, they noticed it was ajar. When no one responded to their calls, Sheila entered the home. She saw the Christmas tree in the corner of the dining room and pointed it out to Sylvia. As they were looking at the tree, Ronald shot Sheila in the back, killing her instantly. Dennis, who heard the shots, came running into the home. Ronald shot him dead as he appeared in the doorway. Sylvia screamed and started running to one of the bedrooms. Ronald grabbed her, threw her on the bed, turned her over so she was face down and strangled her. After the carnage, Simmons grabbed the coats of his guests and used them to cover the bodies. When he ran out of coats, he used his wife's favorite tablecloth to cover Sheila's body. Then he got plastic tarps, wrapping up the bodies of his grandchildren. Simmons hid the grandchildren's bodies in the abandoned cars that sat, rusting at the end of his street. When he was done, he went to a local bar for a drink. He spent several hours at the bar before returning home, grabbed another beer and watched television. He spent two days in his home, drinking beer and watching television, surrounded by the decomposing bodies of his family members. On the morning of December 28, Simmons drove his son's brown Toyota Corolla to Russellville, population of 27,920 and largest city in Pope County, Arkansas. 24-year-old Kathy Kendrick worked as a secretary for a Russellville law office. Before the law office, she had worked at Woodline Motorfreight Company and Simmons had been her co-worker there. He had been infatuated with her and frequently made advances toward her. Kendrick had no interest in him and repeatedly rejected him. She eventually reported Simmons to her supervisor. He quit the job. Kendrick was working at her desk when she heard the front door open. Looking up, she saw Simmons in the doorway. Wearing a straw cowboy hat and a black jacket, he had a cold look in his eyes and a menacing look on his face. He also had a gun pointed at her. Before Kendrick could do or say anything, Simmons pulled the trigger. The bullet penetrated her heart, killing her instantly. Simmons retreated to his car and took off. He drove further into town. He had another score to settle. Once the killings had started, Simmons may have been the most dangerous man in America. It was not just the killings that made him dangerous, it was something even more existential. Simmons was a man who was fully resigned to his fate. He was no longer concerned about neither his own welfare nor that of others. Whatever may happen to him was of no importance. In his mind, he just needed to complete the mission. Just as had been in the military, yet a singular focus, and if he was killed in the process, so be it. Simmons continued his rampage by driving to Taylor Oil Company. The owner, 38-year-old Rusty Taylor, was also the owner of Sinclair Mini Mart. Simmons had been a part-time clerk at Sinclair, but had quit his job a few days before the shootings over what he felt was long hours and low pay. Simmons pulled into the parking lot, got out of his vehicle, and entered the office with his gun drawn. As he entered, Taylor was talking to fellow co-worker, 34-year-old JD Chaffin. Simmons' approach to killing Taylor was no different than any of his previous victims. No words were uttered, no show of emotion, just Simmons pulling the trigger. Taylor took a shot in the chest. However, it was not fatal. As he lay in a pool of blood, Simmons believed they had killed him. Chaffin was fatally shot as well. Bookkeeper Julie Money in the back office heard the shots, but thought she was hearing kids lighting firecrackers in the parking lot. When she went to investigate, she saw Chaffin and Taylor lying in a pool of blood. She also saw Simmons pointing his gun at her head. Money could feel the bullet whisk through her blonde hair. Uninjured, she screamed, no. Then she fell backward, losing her balance. She remained motionless. Believing he had killed her, he took off for his next target. The shootings at Taylor Oil only lasted 45 seconds. By the time the police arrived at Taylor Oil, Simmons was driving along US-64 and making his way to Sinclair, just three miles from Taylor Oil. He arrived at Sinclair at 10.39 am. 38-year-old David Slayer was drinking coffee in the employee room at the back of the store, while 46-year-old Roberta Woolery was binding the register. She was surprised to see Simmons walk into the store. Simmons walked toward her and without uttering a word, he drew his gun and fired. Slayer had just walked to the front counter and saw what was happening. To defend his co-worker, Slayer threw a chair at Simmons, while a customer who was hiding behind one of the aisles threw a can of coke at him. Simmons shot Slayer, then left the store. Slayer received non-life-threatening injuries. The resistance he and the customer had posed were enough to motivate Simmons to take off. Simmons drove to Woodline Motor Freight Company. He was seeking justice against Kendrick's supervisor, 35-year-old Joyce Butts. Butts had confronted him on his advances toward Kendrick. There was something about women that struck a cord in his tormented soul. He was hungry for female attention, but held a paralyzing belief that women were against him. Just as in wartime, the only way he knew of getting what he wanted was through force and control, hence his relationship with his wife and his incestuous relationship with his daughter. His wife had entered into marriage with him because she was desperate. Once they were married, she realized the mistake she had made. Theirs was not a marriage of two souls, rather she became Simmons' slave. When he lost all desire for his wife, he turned to his daughter. He could use force to keep women in his life, but he could never win their love. When Simmons arrived at Woodline Motor, it was lunchtime. He entered Butts' office. She became fearfully instant she saw him. Without saying a word, Simmons shot her. In an adjacent office, another woman was working. She had heard the shot and was about to investigate when she saw Simmons heading for her office. The woman hid behind a large filing cabinet. He entered the office and locked the door behind him. Spotting the employee, he recognized her, pointed his gun at her head, grabbed her by the arm and told her not to worry because he was not going to hurt her. Simmons lifted her up by the arm, walked her over to a chair and told her to sit down. He offered the woman a cigarette. Shaking, the woman accepted it. Simmons lit it and she took a puff. Placing his gun next to her, he told her to take it. The woman refused. Simmons asked her why she had never visited him at the mini-mart when he worked there. She stated that she had, but he had never been there when she had gone to shop. Simmons took the gun and placed it on a table next to them. I've done what I wanted to do and now it's all over. I've gotten everybody who hurt me, he told her, then instructed her to call the police. As the two sat by each other, there was a moment of transcendence unlike anything Simmons had ever experienced in his life and the woman sitting terrified next to him was the only witness to it. The man who had taken the lives of 16 people, the man who had ruled his family without any compassion, the man who had never felt good enough, the man who had finally relinquished all control, was at peace as the sirens approached. Within minutes, police surrounded the building. Without flinching, Simmons walked away from where he had placed his gun and allowed police to apprehend him. Upon searching him, they discovered he also had a Ruger 22. Police went to Simmons' home to investigate. Not only did they find the mayhem inside the home, they found a macabre scene outside as well. Approximately 40 feet from the home, they found a shallow grave containing seven bodies. In two of the abandoned cars, they found the bodies of two of his grandchildren. During his crime spree, Simmons had taken the lives of 16 people and wounded four others. He was sentenced to Arkansas death row. He was adamant about not wanting to appeal his sentence and was executed June 25, 1990 by lethal injection. When Weird Darkness returns, I'll share a very dark and classic creepypasta entitled, Holes by S. R. Undershultz. That story is up next. Our next Weirdo Watch Party is Saturday, April 13th. We'll be treated to a Roger Corman crap fest from 1958. Teenage caveman starring Robert Vaughn. Did he just say dirt that eats men? Yep, I guess so. Mistress Malicious and her Mistress Peace Theater will keep us entertained throughout the film as we watch this caveman teenager with great hair go into the jungle to fight prehistoric monsters like, um, dogs and an armadillo. Whatever, they're prehistoric creatures. Our Weirdo Watch Party is always free to watch online, so grab your popcorn, candy and soda and jump into the fun and even get involved in the live chat as we watch the movie. Plus, during this Weirdo Watch Party, I'll be giving away a creepycrate to one lucky winner, full of scary surprises like horror collectibles, true crime-themed accessories, books, terrifying trinkets and more, with some Weird Darkness swag added in. You won't know what's in the creepycrate until you open it. I'll be giving instructions on how to win the creepycrate inside the chat during the movie, so you have to tune in to win. It's Teenage Caveman, Saturday, April 13th, hosted by Mistress Peace Theater. The show begins at 10pm Eastern, 9pm Central, 8pm Mountain and 7pm Pacific. You can watch a trailer for the film and watch horror hosts and schlocky B-movies anytime, day or night on the Monster Channel page at WeirdDarkness.com. Hope to see you on Saturday, April 13th. Scratching an itch on my back, I found a hollow the size of a tack head. At my bathroom mirror, I rolled my shoulder forward. Next to my shoulder blade, on my upper middle back was a tiny hole. No plug like a normal blackhead, but a deep hole. I watched my finger in the mirror prodding it. I dug my fingernail in, but could only force the tip. As I massaged the cavity, yellow mucus discharged onto my finger. From the top shelf of the hallway closet, I took a small flashlight. Watching the mirror, I shone light into the hole. It went deep. Hopping onto the edge of the sink, I twisted my body and tried to see if there was a bottom, but inside the hole, as far as I could tell, there was only darkness. Later, walking down the hall of my apartment, something stopped me. A faint buzzing. I scanned up and down the hall there. There, walking along the top of the wall, it was a wasp. The wasp was alone, walking serpentine, seemingly in no direction in particular. I considered whether to kill it. I had bug spray in the hall closet, but hated the smell, especially when I was about to eat. I decided to deal with it later and went to the kitchen. As I finished my meal, the itch on my back worsened. Scratching it only strengthened the burning, making my shoulder twitch. I went to the bathroom mirror, removed my t-shirt, and rolled my shoulder forward. I gasped. Holes. Five of them. They were perfectly circular and of equal size, clustered together at the edge of my shoulder blade. I prodded the center and it crumbled inward like paper. When I pressed harder, I felt resistance. I stared at the holes for a long time, waiting for them to do something, but nothing happened. I considered splashing on some water, but the burning had subsided. A rash, I thought. Maybe the shirt pissed it off. I couldn't sleep. Splayed on my front, drool pasted my mouth to the sheets. My shoulder throbbed. I couldn't help but reach around and scratch. My fingers dug into skin that felt deeply cracked and flaky. My hand recoiled. I swung off the sheets and went to the bathroom mirror. A grey mound had formed across my back, riddled with holes. I suddenly found it difficult to breathe. I sat on the sink, body twisted, staring at the holes. Each one was well defined. At the edges of the shapeless growth, my skin was puffy and red. I poked it. It was tender. Puss must have been pooling underneath. Then I felt something move. The thing small and black covered in red mucus emerged from a hole in the center cluster. I froze. It was an insect's head twitching. As it wriggled out, blood seeped from the hole and drew a red line down my back. A wasp blood soaked. It fanned its wings. Using its front legs, it cleared the mucus from its head. Then the wasp walked across the holes, paused, and scurried into one, disappearing. My heart hammered. My hands were moist. I got off the sink and stood before the mirror. My chest rose and fell. I cupped cold water in my hands and splashed my face. My back itched so badly. Bearing my teeth like an animal, I scratched the nest, digging with my nails and shaved paper from the holes. Gray flecks floated to the floor. A sharp sting jerked my whole body. It came from inside me. Another sting deep inside my abdomen, somewhere amid vital organs. It stole my breath. I doubled over. I gripped the edge of the sink. Eyes pushed out, weeping. Breathe, I thought. Don't panic. With effort, gradually I filled my lungs, rose, and looked in the mirror. Half a dozen wasps hovered around me as if patrolling their territory they circled me. I covered my ears against the biting hum. I met my twin sister at a local cafe. Acutely aware of the nest, I leaned forward in the booth and held that posture so as not to cause more stinging. I wore a light black cotton shirt. The wasps seemed to accept it, only having stung my insides once so far. As I sipped my coffee, she arrived, wearing a long white collared shirt and black tights. Her hair was jet black like mine. We had the same pallid skin and were both thin and small framed. She gave me a half smile and went for a hug. No, I guarded with a hand. I can't. Slighting her eyes to the side, she withdrew and sat down. Sighing, she rested one hand over the other and examined them. Then started picking at a nail. How are you holding up? She said. Fine. She sighed again. Dad said you're not answering his calls or his emails. She finally looked up. Her hands covered her mouth. Oh, God! I glanced at my shoulder. Then, downturned my eyes. You look awful, she said. I didn't respond. Have you been eating? I nodded and sipped my coffee, considering whether or not to tell her about the wasps. They were moving throughout my chest cavity, navigating between organs, reinforcing the walls of their nest with more regurgitated pulp. Some inched their way to the surface of my back, annoyed I sensed it being closed off by the shirt. I need you to do something for me, I said in a weak voice. My sister shook her head. No way. What, I said, I'm not talking to Dad for you. A wasp nudged to the inside of my shirt. Over my shoulder, I saw a moving lump. What's wrong, she asked? Nothing. We clasped a hand over the bump. A sharp sting made me wince my eyes shut. Nothing. I'm fine. I've just got a rash on my back. It itches. Let me see. No. Just in time, the waiter arrived with her coffee. Really, I'm fine. When I glanced over my shoulder again, there were at least 10 bumps across my back. Son of a—what? Will you tell Dad I'm fine? Tell him you saw me. I said no. Are you still seeing the psychologist? I didn't reply. You need to talk to someone. It's been over a month. My sister went to sip her coffee, and as the cup met her mouth, her entire body jolted. The cup clattered onto the saucer, breaking in half. In all directions, brown liquid spread across the table. A wasp floated up. Jesus, a wasp! She stood, brushing herself off. I stood, too. You okay? God, that hurts! She rubbed a spot on her leg. I'm sorry. For what? I have to go. Right, no. She was cut off by another jolt. Her arm, rasping curses, she swatted at the bug. Everyone in the cafe had turned towards us. I cut through their stairs and left, piled into my Volvo, removed my shirt, and drove home. By the time I got there, the car was full of wasps. They had stung several times during the drive. Entering the house, I paced my living room. Staring at the ceiling, I shut my eyes, dug my fingernails in, clenched my teeth, and ripped open the nest. Inside my ribcage, the wasps stirred into a wild frenzy. They stung me mercilessly. I screamed. The pain was excruciating. In a rage, I ripped and tore at the nest. Chunks of outer crust broke off. The wasps attacked my hand, jutting their stingers in like needles again and again. Nerves hot, my mind swam in pain. At the end of the living room stood a partitioning wall of exposed brown brick. I sprinted, headlong into it. My twin sister and I stood beneath the enormous gnarled face tree. That's what we used to call it. It was long dead, well before we were kids etching our names into it with a Swiss army knife. The hollowed-out center yawned open like a shrieking mouth, and above were two thin gashes for eyes where the bark had rotted away, leaving smooth, discolored wood. Deep in the forest, in the sky overcast, the air cold, she tended to the pile of sticks and logs, averting her gaze from my body. Severely hunched, I was angled against the tree, taking protracted, strained intakes of air. But I could view what she was doing through one weeping eye. Cluster of egg-filled holes closed over the other. Thousands of wasps droned over me, climbed over me, into me and threw me. Quick, I said to my sister, weakly. She scrunched the newspaper into balls and shoved them beneath the kindling. This can't be the only way, she said, rubbing a tear with her wrist. You need to see a doctor. I didn't have the energy to answer, but I had looked it up online and knew this was the only method to displace the colony without angering them. My body was a raw husk of throbbing pain, my skin a seeping landscape of welts. Another round of stinging would kill me. She lit the fire. When it grew strong enough, she piled on the dry leaves and grass that she'd collected and smoke began to billow. Using a picnic blanket, she fanned the smoke towards me. The wasps stirred. As they scurry to the surface of my body, I wondered whether I could survive without them. Some must have dislodged from deep within my viscara because they emerged from the holes sticky with pink mucus. As my body emptied of the bugs, like fluid aspirated from a painful cyst, I felt tremendous relief. I was suddenly lighter. A crack echoed through the woods as I straightened my back. It was the nest, breaking. I could breathe normally again. I'm alive, I thought. Now all I have to do is get this dead nest removed. A scream severed my thoughts and sent my flesh crawling. I turned toward the noise. No, my sister! She was running from a flying mass. The wasps were descending upon her. I ran toward her, yelling. The black mass enveloped her. She stopped running, beating at them, screaming maniacally, Get away from her! I cried. But my voice was lost at a deafening hum so loud it seemed to vibrate the earth. Every trace of my sister was gone. In her place an oblong vortex of black swirled viciously. As I approached, I beaded them with my hands crying for my sister. Oddly they weren't stinging me. No matter how hard I swatted, forcing myself toward the center of the vortex, the wasps wouldn't attack me. When I reached into the center of the flurry, I felt something hard. A shoulder, then an arm, Get away from her! I screamed. The volume of the buzzing weakened. The wasps were gradually dissipating and the shape of my sister was revealed. She lay in my arms. The last few bugs rose from her body, and what they left behind sent me into shock. They had gorged on her. Her clothes, her hair, her skin, the wasps had devoured it all. Shunks of flesh were gouged out. The sockets of her eyes had been hollowed through. Wailing, I held my face against the wreckage. My tears leaped into her. My mind split to pieces. Now, a safe distance from the smoke, the wasps returned to their nest, landing on me and wriggling into their holes. No, I said, whimpering. Oh, please, God, no. In different, the colony regurgitated her soft tissue and used it to repair cracks in the nest. I'm working on. You can share your own opinions on ideas to help me decide upon Weird Darkness Contests and Events. You can hear audiobooks I'm narrating before even the publishers or authors get to hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects I'm working on outside of Weird Darkness. You get all these benefits and more, starting at only $5 per month. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com Slash Syndicate. That's WeirdDarkness.com Slash Syndicate. Former EMT firefighter here. One night we got a call to do a wellness check on someone who dialed 911 but didn't respond to the operator. We pull up to the address and the house looks perfectly quaint and a little old lady greets us at the door. We asked her if she knew who placed the call but she told us that she lived alone since her husband died. We barely got back to the station before a call comes in again. Same address as before. So we drive back out, talk to the old lady again, then leave again. And just as we get back to the station, same call, same address, no response. We drive out there again, believing the old lady must have been confused. But this time, when we pulled into the driveway, the old lady wasn't at the door to greet us. There was no reply at the door, but it was unlocked. We take a peek inside to find the old lady was on the floor and not breathing. We rushed in to help and got her to a hospital in stable condition. When she woke up in the ambulance, she still claimed that she never called us and that we arrived almost immediately after she had fallen. It was a 15-minute drive to her house from the station. Before she was admitted to the hospital, she asked me and another EMT if we could bring her knitting needles and bag of clothes to her in the hospital. I offered to pick up her stuff because I had a friend who lived in that area and we were going to hang out anyway. I pick up my friend and drive to the lady's house. I ran inside to grab the bag and knitting stuff while my buddy sat in the car. But just as I was leaving, I swear, I felt a hand on my back and I heard a voice say, thank you. When I get back in the car, my friend asked me, why couldn't the lady's husband bring her stuff to the hospital? I explained her husband was dead, but when I said that, my friend said, but I saw an old guy in the window. He smiled and waved at me. At first, I refused to believe in anything supernatural, so I called the police and asked them to do a sweep at the house and I thought it maybe was a squatter. Nothing was out of the ordinary and no one was inside. I later brought my friend to visit the lady. He started describing the old dude who was in the window. The old lady almost immediately started tearing up and said, that's my Herald. I'm a detective and spent some time as an expert on sex crimes and crimes against children. It was the best slash worst assignment I've had. One case I had came in at midnight. A young woman with a toddler comes into one of the precincts to report her ex-boyfriend raped her during a custody argument. Long story short, it was legit and one of the most violent and sadistic cases I've ever had, so I will spare the gruesome details. I still have no idea how this woman made her own way to a precinct with a toddler. Part of the investigation requires me to talk to the toddler. Victim said toddler was present for everything that happened. I'm a child forensic interviewer as well and during the interview, the toddler recalls their father becoming angry and hitting the mom and then the toddler said that the nice woman showed up and she couldn't see past the nice woman. The nice woman held her and told her that they were both going to be safe and sang her a song in a different language. The toddler said the nice woman went over to the front door and knocked on the door then the nice woman helped them and their mom to the car before flying away. In the victim's interview she said that her ex-boyfriend had a knife to her throat and put it to the skin to cut her throat open but he got distracted for some reason and ran out of the apartment. She had no explanation as to why. The suspect was caught about eight hours later. He confessed to absolutely everything. When I asked him about the knife to the throat, he said and I will paraphrase, I swear to God I was going to cut the witch's throat open but I thought I heard a knock at the door and thought it was the police once I saw it was clear I ran outside. He's now serving life in prison and the mom and the toddler are safe and doing well. I'd love to know more about the nice woman. I was an EMT for a while. We got a call about someone who was riding their bike at a breakneck speed when they hit a car, head first, without a helmet. We went over immediately. Despite the fact that it was broad daylight and we were in the middle of suburbia on a Saturday, nobody even came to check on this poor guy. Seriously, the streets were empty. Usually a massive crowd gathers around violent accidents like this. So his skull was pretty much smashed and he was unresponsive. It was the worst head injury I'd ever seen. We assessed that he had a major skull fracture, a concussion and he was bleeding profusely. He was also missing teeth and had a minor road rash but fortunately he wasn't missing much skin. To give you an idea of how bad it was, this was the kind of injury that most people don't survive. If you do survive, you're basically a crippled vegetable the rest of your life. Normally we would have moved him off the road but when someone has a neck or head injury, that's not very safe. My partner who was also training me as I was still kind of new, went to check his pulse while I began to unload our gear. He crouched down, felt for a pulse for a while and then stood up and opened his mouth to say something. Suddenly the guy jumped up. He didn't use his arms to pick himself up, he just freaking jumped to his feet. It startled the two of us. He looked at us, smiled and attempted to grab his bike. We tried to stop him but we didn't exactly want to wrestle him to the ground given his condition. He gets away from us and bolts into the woods without his bike. My partner was an even more disbelief than I was. He just stared at where the man had run off, mouth agape. Then he turned to me and muttered, he had no pulse man. I asked him if he was sure and he swore up and down the biker was clinically dead. We contacted the authorities for assistance and they sent a search and rescue team into the forest. I don't know if he was ever found or not because we normally don't get much information about patients after they go to the professionals. My best guess is that you went to a loved one's house out of confusion. What I found odd about that is head injuries bleed like hell so you'd think the guy would leave a long red trail of blood for the cops to follow. There wasn't one. Worked as a police officer in a small town in Burl, Nebraska. Back in the 90s, I was patrolling through town in winter. We had several abandoned houses in town, but one seemed to have the attraction of copper thieves so we were told to keep an eye on it. Drove by it around 7pm. Since it sat on a corner lot, I had a clear view of all four sides of the house. As I drove around the corner, nothing looked out of the ordinary. About two hours later I drive by again and the back door is wide open. I know that the back door was not open when I drove by it earlier. Looking at the snow on the ground around the house, there were no footprints so I think, what the hell? Call dispatch, tell them I'm investigating an open door at the address, and ask for a county sheriff to start my way. I walk to the open door, pull out my flashlight and shine it inside. The house has obviously been gutted for the most part. The plaster walls have been torn down, debris piled everywhere. Since there was no footprints in the snow around the door, other than mine, and with all the dust on the floor not showing any footprints, I chalk it up to maybe the wind or maybe the door just opening on its own. I was about to secure the door when I heard a loud thump come from upstairs and what sounded like kids laughing. So I entered the house and yell out, police department, come downstairs! More of what sounds like kids playing. I tell dispatch that it sounds like there are kids in the house and I start making my way through the kitchen into the living room where the stairs are, all the while cautiously checking the main floor. Two more times I hear something upstairs, but since I've had no response I start thinking maybe it's an animal. Still, I hear what I would swear was kids laughing. I head upstairs and it all gets quiet. The upstairs is relatively small, with a hallway at the top of the stairs that has one bedroom on the right, one straight ahead at the end of the hall and a bedroom on the left. As I get to the top of the stairs, I hear a thump in the bedroom to the left. I carefully peek around the door and it's an empty room with a small pile of plaster and wood debris in the middle. No kidding, sitting on top of the pile of debris was a page torn out of a child's book with a picture of a police officer on it. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I got out of that room, quickly cleared the other rooms upstairs and got out of there. I told dispatch nobody was in the house, locked to the back door and never went back in there again. I remember my father telling me a story of when he was a police officer in New Hampshire. One night, dispatch gets a call from someone reporting to have seen a little girl wandering around a lake by herself. That night, my father was on duty and every available police officer responded to try and find this little girl. My father was the first to arrive with his partner. As they exit their car, they slowly start to walk toward the lake. As they near the water, my father's partner hits him on the shoulder and points toward the lake and there stands this little girl. My father said that when he turned to see her standing in the water, every hair on the back of his neck stood up once he saw her. It was two in the morning and in November, so it was very cold outside. He said that she was in a white nightgown with no shoes standing in the water. They both look at each other knowing something is not right about this situation. They report it to dispatch that they found the girl. They walk a little closer and my father kneels down and holds his arms out and calls for the girl to come to him. The little girl then turns her attention to my father and slowly starts to walk towards him from out of the water. And as this is happening, another unit pulls up to witness this girl walking up to my father. Just as the little girl is within eight feet of my dad, she disappears and there was nothing left but tiny little footprints in the dirt. They all stand there in disbelief trying to figure out what just happened. One of the police officers turns and says, How the hell are we going to explain this? I'm a 911 dispatcher. I will always remember Mr. Blue. That's what we'll call him. The nicest old man living kind of out in the middle of the desert. He was tagged in our system as having dementia. We used to take calls from him nearly every night about how his wife's dolls would come to life and torment him or how his wife was kidnapped by the dolls. Might I mind you, she had passed away. So it seemed that every time he would call was right around my shift and I just so happened to be the one to take his calls most of the time. It was a little creepy being on the phone with him at times. He would randomly shush me and you could actually hear footsteps in the background or he'd explain that there was somebody living in his couch and that he could hear laughing. Nicest old man and you'd never want to deny him so I'd stay on 911 with him and talk to him about his life until the deputies arrived. Mr. Blue doesn't call in anymore. I have no idea what happened. My father was a Boston cop. He told me about a memorable call back in the early 90s. He got a domestic call, cops hate those, where when he showed up the man who called was outside, covered in blankets shivering to death on a hot day in the middle of August. Apparently he angered this woman and she responded by making a voodoo doll and chained and padlocked it in the freezer. The man wanted the cops to break the fridge open but they weren't going to destroy property over this so they sent him to the hospital. My father said the guy's teeth were chattering, his lips were turning blue, but it was sunny and 80 degrees out. I had a call to a residence for a mental evaluation or a 5150. Anyway, I get there and speak to a 50-something-year-old woman who states that her 20-something-year-old son is under the influence of an unknown drug and kept repeating that he can't go in his bedroom because there was an old man hanging in his room. She stated that she was too scared to go in his room and investigate it for herself because he constantly brings over friends that are drug addicts and she's unsure if his claims are true or not. I then go speak to the son who is clearly under the influence of some kind of stimulant. He goes on to tell me that he was told by a female spirit to not enter the bedroom because her father, dressed in his military class aid uniform, was hanging in the boy's bedroom. I check the room out and, of course, nobody was hanging in the room. As I'm in the middle of explaining to the mother that there was nobody in the bedroom, a veteran officer arrives on the scene to assist me. He pulled me aside and stated earlier in his career he responded to this residence and that same bedroom he had to investigate a suicide by hanging of an older male subject. He didn't remember all the details so I looked it up in our report management system in my patrol car and sure enough the officer was correct. The subject who died was a World War II veteran and he addressed in his military uniform and hung himself. In my mind I always thought that when they purchased the home possibly this incident was disclosed to them. However, I thought the mother would have mentioned it to me if it had been disclosed to her. She was genuinely concerned about her son and the allegations. More true paranormal encounters reported by police officers and first responders are coming up when Weird Darkness returns. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, dark thoughts, or addiction, please visit the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There, I've gathered numerous resources to find hope and solutions. For those suffering from thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, as well as the Crisis Text Line. Both have trained counselors at all hours to help those in need, and the page even includes text numbers for those in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Ireland. Those struggling with depression can get help through the Seven Cups website and app, and there's information for anyone to read more about what depression truly is and how to identify it through our friends at ifred.org. There are resources for those who battle addictions, be it drugs, alcohol, or self-destructive behavior, along with help for those related to addicts. The page has links to help you find a therapist or counselor, to find help for those who have a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia, help for those in a crisis pregnancy, and more. These resources are always there when you or someone you love needs them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. We had one old woman who would call every time it rained. When it was raining, she said that a little girl about seven years old would run through her house laughing. I figured this was more about senility than paranormal activity. This went on three or four years before the old woman died. A young couple bought the house and they did some extensive renovations. They claimed the house was haunted and that spirits liked to watch them having sex. They were convinced that the country club next door had hired the spirits to scare the couple away because the country club wanted to tear down the house and expand their parking lot. A friend's father is a police officer in one of the larger villages of Illinois. He and his partner were working night shift when they were called to investigate a suspected break-in at the local morgue. They arrived to find the custodian waiting for them out front. The custodian said that he had been mopping one of the corridors and had seen something move in his peripheral vision. He looked up and saw a person quickly cross from one side of the hallway to the other. He couldn't tell much about the person, as he had been turning the lights off as he worked his way through the building, just a dim outline, but enough to be sure of what he had seen. He was unarmed, so he called the police and stepped outside to wait. My friend's dad and his partner entered the morgue. They started off by calling out to anyone who might be inside. No answer. And then they began to do a sweep, walking down the central corridor with hands on their guns, checking each room to the side, occasionally calling out for any intruder to show themselves. My friend's dad came upon a room with the light off, pitch black inside. He fumbled for the switch and flicked it on. The room lit up. Nothing but an empty waiting room for relatives of the dead. He heard his partner then call out, hey stop, turn around. My friend's dad swung back out into the corridor and his partner had unholstered his gun and was pointing it at the end of the long corridor. He said she went around that corner. The custodian said, she's trapped, no exits that way. They had the custodian lock himself in the waiting room for safety and then they advanced down the corridor, calling out to the woman to show herself that they wouldn't hurt her. This time my friend's dad reached the end first and with his back to the wall peered around the corner. The woman was standing by a big grey door. Lights were off here too so it was hard to see her clearly, but he could see that she was not holding a gun and she had long, fair hair. He stepped out from behind the corner to talk to her, but she opened the door and disappeared into the dark inside and shut it firmly behind her. He sprinted up to the door and pulled at the handle, locked, banged on it for a while, called out to her but no answer. The door had a deadlock on it so his partner brought over the custodian to unlock it and they turned on their flashlights to see better. The custodian rounded the corner and faltered a little. This door? You sure this door doesn't lock from the inside? He said. The custodian found the right key and carefully turned it in the lock. Click. We're coming, have your hands up. They entered the room, flashlights illuminating every corner. The custodian hit the light switch and the room lit up. He was empty except for some equipment against the wall and two gurneys in the middle of the room. One was empty, one was covered in a sheet with what appeared to be a body underneath it. Nice hiding spot. My friend's dad approached and it was the smell that first spooked him. It smelled like a corpse. He pulled the sheet down and there the woman lay, straggly light brown hair all around her face. The tag on her toe said that she had died four days ago. French father is a devout Christian and he doesn't believe in ghosts or the supernatural even now. So he doesn't know what to make of this event. I'm a second generation firefighter. My father spent the latter days of his career as a fire safety director at a massive mental asylum. Our state version of OSHA has to come and do inspections at all facilities. He was no exception, so the OSHA inspectors make their way to an abandoned part of the facility that used to house the criminally insane, the absolute worst of the worst, serial killers, rapists, cannibals, etc. My father left them with the keys and a flashlight because the electricity didn't work. The inspectors were radioing back to my father that they kept hearing talking and footsteps which was impossible. Not even squatters could move around because each section is isolated with locked doors to prevent escape. Eventually the inspectors give up and actually flee without finishing. My dad decides to stick around and check the alarm boxes that they didn't. As he's checking one of the alarms he feels as if somebody is watching him from down the hall. As he looks, a shadow forms with a head, shoulders, torso, but no legs and just two holes where there should be eyes. My dad not the hell on out of there. Since the hospital was shut down, it's been on ghost adventurers, ghost hunters and a myriad of other shows and movies. My dad has been in some of them. Jason from Ghost Hunters called it the scariest place he's ever investigated. I've been in law enforcement for nearly six years and I've had a few supernatural things occur during my shifts. The most recent one came from a 911 hang-up call. I was riding two men on a summer night and it was probably around 2 or 3 am when we get a call for a 911 hang-up. The only call comments were there was a call placed to 911 and upon answering it the person hung up. When dispatch attempted to call the number back, no one answered. The area in which I was working this night I have basically spent my whole career in. There aren't a whole lot of streets I had yet to respond to. However, the address that this call came in from, they used GPS coordinates to find the closest location since the call are hung up, I'd never been to it. I'd driven past this road many times but never actually received a call from it. We pull up to this old dirt road and it has a metal chain going across the entrance with a sign that says no trespassing. Because we have to figure out what's going on, me and my partner continue on foot up this long dirt gravel road. The road was maybe about 100 yards long. The crappy part was that on each side of the road was a tall chain-link fence. Why this was crappy was because now me and my partner were now walking down a fatal funnel. If there happened to be a guy waiting for us at the end of this road with, let's say, an assault rifle, we would have no place to take cover. Thankfully this did not happen. We eventually reached the end of the road and there are two houses on each side. At first we believe one of these houses is where the 911 call came from. As I'm shining my flashlight at one of the houses I see a figure move on the inside. Instantly I'm like, oh crap, people actually live back here as I thought for sure the houses were going to be vacant. Shortly after a man and a woman walk outside and ask what's going on and we tell them that we received a 911 hang-up from the address and level to say it's 123 Main Street and I asked if they had called. The man tells us his address is 124 Main and one across the street is 125 Main which he says is vacant. He proceeds to tell us that there is a 123 Main which is basically in the middle of these tall weeds or forest looking area just to the north of his house. He says the house is vacant and run down and can only be reached on foot. I asked him how far away it is from his house and he says probably a couple of football fields away. Now while all of this walking investigating was going on we'd received I think two more 911 hang-up calls. Same address, same result. Before we made this trek out into the middle of the woods we called for another car and eventually another two-man unit responded. The four of us now wandered out into the woods, two of us with our assault rifles out and followed a barely beaten path to where we assumed we would find a house. Fighting spiderwebs and low-hanging tree branches we eventually reached our destination. Not terrible at describing things but this house was straight out of any horror movie you want to imagine. It was run down. It had a tree that had fallen through the middle and it now become incorporated with the house throughout the years. The house was nearly falling apart and was completely overgrown by greenery. Having come this far we decided to go ahead and continue on even though we were pretty sure the house would have to be vacant. After fighting through some thick brush we find the entrance. We each have to climb over some fallen brick walls and other wooden stuff before we actually make entry. My biggest fear at this point is the stupid rotten house collapsing on itself and me being trapped inside with no one being able to find us. We searched the entire house and, like we thought, no one inside. And when I say we searched the entire house I mean the entire house. Nothing was left unchecked. Feeling satisfied we all climb our way back out and start heading towards where the two original houses were. As we walk back Dispatch radios us and tells us they received another 911 hang-up call coming from the same address. This time Dispatch tells us they were able to make a call back and when the person answered they could hear what sounded like a child playing on the phone. The four of us looked at each other and decided we were done with this call. We had done everything we could up to that point and we were not about to get called back into possibly a demon's house because a quote unquote child was on the phone. We clear the call and don't receive any more 911 hang-up calls for the rest of the night. Fast forward maybe six months and it is dead-ass cold winter. 911 hang-up, the same address. This time it's me and three guys who were not there previously. I tell them the story of what had happened. All three are super psyched and they want to go check it out. So the four of us we walk back out to this house, now a lot easier to get to since the cold had killed off a lot of the green and the three of them decided to go into the house. I wait outside because I already had my fun last time. They don't make it too far once they realize the house is about to collapse on itself. We all leave again. No call back from a child this time. Cop here. Burglary alarm reported to dispatch from a private company. A motion sensor went off in a local business. Usually the alarms don't send an alert requiring police response unless three sensors pick up movement. Usually we don't respond to these kinds of calls unless a person calls us. Sometimes we don't even respond to 911 hang-ups. So we go since now two other alarms for motion get tripped. Another unit and I set up a canvas on the building. Nothing strange from the outside. Doesn't appear to have any forced entry. Other units and I get permission to enter from the building owner. We go in through a side door on this thrift shop. We announce ourselves, no response. We clear the entire two stories of a standard thrift shop size, not too big, and we don't find anything. Store owner meets us outside with an iPad to show us camera footage. The three alarms that get tripped show a faint gust of wind that moves clothes on the racks. We just assumed it was a draft because it happened to three consecutive clothing racks. So the owner resets the alarms and we leave. Fifteen minutes later, the store owner calls us and wants to meet again to show us something. Clear as frickin' day as my partner and I were leaving the side door after clearing the building, there's a shadow like a figure appearing to wave at us saying goodbye. Chills hit me. I didn't want to accept or deny it. We occasionally get tripped alarms and anytime we don't respond to the place, more alarms get tripped until we finally show up. If we show up, we have like a six to eight week streak without any activity. We think there's something just wanting police friends. We did research and we can't find anything regarding death or dying in this building. So who knows? As long as it's friendly, it can trip whatever alarm it wants. I still won't go in without a partner though. My uncle was the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico. He was the most hardcore person in our family, super straight laced, never really BS'd and wasn't at all a joker. So when he told this story, backed up by my aunt, we all believed it without question. A local reporter named Bob D would always show up at any major police activity from the police scanner. Big car wrecks, fires, anything worth maybe reporting in the local paper. Everybody on the force knew Bob D. He was around at least once or twice a week at various police activities. Bob was a bit of a joker himself, he would mess with people by flicking behind their ears. People would react to the flicks thinking it was a bug only to turn around and see that it was Bob jerking them around. Everybody liked Bob. Unfortunately, Bob had bad lung cancer and he died pretty suddenly. His wife buried him against his wishes, he wanted to be cremated. For the next couple weeks after his funeral, people kept talking about seeing Bob at car wrecks, fires, all the same stuff he used to report on. There were 20 or 30 reports like this from civilians and members of the force, but my uncle didn't buy it. Until the night, he and my aunt showed up at our house, gun drawn, pale as paper. We asked him what the heck happened and he had to sit down, take his breath, compose himself and start to outline what had happened. Now note, this is a guy that I never saw get rattled by anything. He said my aunt and he was sitting on the couch in their house watching TV. My uncle kept scratching at his ear, over and over. Finally, my aunt asked him what the problem was and he turned around just in time to see their bedroom door open. Bob D. standing there in the doorway, clear as day. My uncle jumped up, cussed or something, got my aunt's attention who turned to see him there as well. As soon as they both made eye contact with him, Bob smiled, turned, walked across the living room and out their front door, closed the door behind himself and was gone. My uncle got control of himself and ran outside, gun drawn, looking for Bob, but Bob was gone. At that point, they ran over to our place. We went over there and didn't see anything, but my aunt and uncle stayed at our place that night. At work the next day, all the guys on the force were giving my uncle lots of we told you so. People around town said they saw Bob D show up at the police scenes for at least another two to three months. My dad saw him in our dark room in our basement with a friend. He was flicking their ears in the dark. During the third month, people that saw him kept saying he was looking worse and worse. My uncle saw him two more times, each time confirming he was looking more and more worn. My dad had concluded that he was decomposing and his ghost was reflecting that process. Every time my ear itches, I get goosebumps. I got sent to a business once for a 911 hang-up. This batch was able to get an exact extension for us, so we knew where we needed to go inside the building to check and make sure that everything was good. When we got there, the building was locked up tight, middle of the night, so we had this batch get the key holder to meet us so we could go inside and verify everything was good on the inside. Once the key holder arrived, we asked about where in the building extension XXX was located and she turned white as a sheet. It would seem the holder of said extension died of a heart attack the previous week in his office and the number had not been recycled to another office yet. Well, needless to say, we didn't find anything in the building out of place and the office in question was empty except for the basic furnishings. And a phone. I was a deputy sheriff for 13 years and the majority of that time, I worked in a large jail with a big population. I was a team leader of the tactical response team that roamed the hallways and responded to all the emergencies that would arise. Not just fights, but medical emergencies too. We had a set of cells in the admissions area that were isolated cells for the inmates who just got there and were problems, either mentally or physically. I responded one night to a guy who took his pants off and tried hanging himself in the cell. He had a really good attempt and had to be rushed to the hospital. When we review the camera footage to assist with our report, all you notice was him standing quietly in the cell for a few minutes looking at the camera, the camera glitches out, and when it comes back up, he's hanging himself. The next three days in the same cell, there were similar incidents. One guy was successful in bashing his head into the wall so hard it killed him. Every time we watched the tapes, the guy would be standing there, watching the camera minutes before the attempt and then the camera would glitch. To this day, cell 3 still freaks me out. Makes me think that there is an entity in that cell causing people to kill themselves. EMT here, once at a call at our local mall, show up and 8 year old was having breathing problems. Her mother, aunt and cousin had just been caught stealing and it was late at night. We assumed the breathing problem was stress induced. Once we got into the back of our unit, the girl looked by partner and myself in the eyes and said that she lived in a bad place. She said that she lived with demons and I kid you not as she described the demons her heart rate plummeted to 90 beats per minute to 45 beats per minute in a matter of seconds. My partner and I looked at each other and immediately started trying to lighten the mood and prepare for a code. She ended up being okay. I will never forget that experience. Once we had her stable, police were definitely involved. My medic contacted CPS as well. Not law enforcement, but am paramedic fire. Late summer night responding to a call in a rural area. My partner and I were driving down a winding two lane highway in the middle of nowhere. No light of any kind other than the headlights and moon. We are coming up on a sharp right turn when I see a man traveling across the grass from an area of brush. He is moving very quickly and smoothly as if hauling ass on a bicycle. No up and down motion like running. Obviously I am pretty confused about a hillbilly on a bike in the middle of the night, but not surprised. He comes to a tree and stops. It is about this time that we are driving by him. We look out the window, see a man standing next to this tree with no bike or anything in sight, just standing there, staring at the truck passing by. My hair is now standing up. We continue towards the call and I ask my partner if he had seen that guy and his response was, man I thought I was crazy. Cop here. Partner and I were dispatched to a welfare check. Elderly guy, nobody had seen him in a few days. Mail overflowing in the mailbox, missed a doctor's appointment, car hadn't moved, etc. We both know that we are about to find a body. We arrive on the scene and we can't get anybody to the door. We look through the window and sure enough we can see his foot on the floor in the living room. My partner is a corporal, pulls rank and makes me go first. The door is unlocked and as soon as we open it, we smell a mostly fresh dead body. Almost relieved, we both enter and he tells me to check vitals on the dead dude. He is obviously dead with levidity, dried feces on him and dried saliva around his mouth. So I go to stand over him and see if I can get a pulse, at which point he takes a deep breath, rolls over and asks why we are in his house. At this point, we both start screaming and as we both run out of the house, we call EMS and they transport the man to the hospital. They said that they couldn't get a blood pressure or pulse on him. I think he died a week later in the hospital and I still get jokes about raising the dead. I am a CNA in a local hospital. One of my patients just had a quad bypass open heart surgery and I went to check her vitals. The room was dim and the hall was quiet. I am looking at her and in the corner of my eye I see something drop from the ceiling out of nowhere. It makes a big clunk sound and I turn to see what it could be. There is nothing there. At that moment my patient looks up at me and says, my dad is here and then passes back out. I finish my job and leave. When I would go to that floor again as a floater, I would hate to go into that room. I am a CNA and I was working the night shifts in an Alzheimer's unit. All the residents were in and out with their lucidity but one lady seemed to be having hallucinations which were pretty common for those residents. She insisted her husband was there and she was talking to him and she scooted over so he could sit next to her. You know that kind of thing. Just generally acted like there was another person there when there really wasn't. Her husband Jim had been dead for a couple of years. She seemed happy and there is no point arguing with someone with dementia anyway so we left them, her and her husband, to visit. After a while she quieted down and says that Jim left. Across the hall the lady in that room turns on her call light. Her complaint, this man won't get out of my room but we don't see anything and we ask what man who is it? She turns to the nothingness beside her bed and says who are you? She then turns back to us and says, he says his name is Jim. Coming up next, long before the disastrous Philadelphia experiment, partially based on Nikola Tesla's technology, Tesla is rumored to have discovered by accident the secrets of traveling through time and the inherent dangers of tampering with the cosmic framework that governs the laws of time and space. We'll look at the possibility of Nikola Tesla's secret time travel experiments. Up next on Weird Darkness. ***Nothing goes better with chocolate than vanilla and nothing goes better with the darkness than vampires. So we've combined all of them into a new blend of weird dark roast coffee called very vampilla. This bloody good blend combines a medium dark roast coffee with hints of chocolate, vanilla and just a tad bit of dried cherry too. So good, you'll want to sink your fangs into the fresh roasted bag itself. Weird dark roast very vampilla, the only thing at steak, sorry, not bad pun, is your dissatisfaction with your old coffee. Sip it while the sun is down if you're one of the undead. Or when the sun is up if you just feel dead and need a bit of a boost, get your Weird Dark Roast very vampilla at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. I have long been an admirer of the great inventor Nikola Tesla. That should come to no surprise to anyone who has read some of my previous books. Here was a man whose genius was far beyond the great minds of his day. He had an intellect that at times seemed almost unearthly. I suppose this is why some have speculated that such a remarkable individual could not have sprung from the bosom of Mother Earth but instead was the product of extraterrestrial intervention. I must admit that for a while the idea that Nikola Tesla was not of this planet held a certain appeal to me. It would certainly answer a lot of questions about this enigmatic man, but of course it would also create even more questions that would be impossible to answer in my lifetime. So I was finally left with the simplest explanation on the true origins of Nikola Tesla. I have concluded he was an extraordinary human, but likes we so rarely see. My primary schooling was bereft of any education of Tesla or his great achievements. His name, in its absence, spoke of dark conspiracies and downright fevery. In public only the Tesla coil stands out in honor of its namesake, but few know of the person for whom it has christened. Textbooks held no place between its pages for this great man and teachers rarely uttered his name. Thankfully some have come to recognize the great injustice that has been to Tesla and have found a place in some classrooms to teach his history. I think it would be safe to say that Nikola Tesla was the man who invented the 20th century. But a mystery remains. A mystery that has been diabolical in its treachery, not only to Nikola Tesla but to humanity as a whole. We know that the United States Patent Office granted patents to many of Tesla's inventions. These were inventions that Tesla and his investors saw as potentially profitable. The AC motor is an excellent example of one of Tesla's inventions that changed the world. However, Tesla also invented an unknown number of other items that were never patented for one reason or another. Tesla had a keen sense of what would garner financial interest, but he also worked on and developed technology that was simply for his own curiosity. Of these inventions we know practically nothing. Remarkable by any standard, Tesla's patents illuminate only his most purposive, practical work. As he often lamented, there just wasn't enough time to tame the racing of ideas in his head. So much had to be left incomplete. Some of the projects, achieving an ultra-high vacuum, a rocket engine design, experiments and directed beams and solar power simply don't fit into the early 20th century. Frequently he was content to publish his findings without regard to priority or patentability. He introduced in this way the therapeutic method now called diethymie. Other ideas were simply written down with no attempt to patent or even publicize them. We now know that Tesla was interested and experimented in such wild ideas as free energy, anti-gravity, invisibility and even time travel. It's no surprise that Tesla in his day was loathed to speak of these kinds of interests. After all, even today these areas of study still come under fire by some mainstream scientists who refuse to use their imaginations and intellect and scorn such interests with terms such as bad science and quackery. In my years as a military intelligence operative, I came into contact with a number of top secret programs that were either investigating or shockingly enough actively using technology based on some of Tesla's wild ideas. Both the United States and Russia have active particle beam and RF radio frequency weaponry that have been in operation since the early 1970s, all as a result of Tesla's early 19th and 20th century experiments. To say that there are other black budget projects involving Tesla-based research would wildly underestimate the total amount of research and development being conducted right now by many countries worldwide. And these are the projects that we know about. Who knows how many deep, dark, secret projects are being conducted right now with science that could be decades, even hundreds of years beyond what civilian science knows today. In 1895, while conducting research with his step up transformer, Nikola Tesla had his first indications that time and space could be influenced by using highly charged rotating magnetic fields. Part of this revelation came about from Tesla's experimentation with radio frequencies and the transmission of electrical energy through the atmosphere. Tesla's simple discovery would, years later, lead to the infamous Philadelphia experiment and the Montauk time travel projects. But even before these highly top secret military programs came about, Tesla made some fascinating discoveries on the nature of time and the real possibilities of time travel. With these experiments in high voltage electricity and magnetic fields, Tesla discovered that time and space could be breached or warped, creating a doorway that could lead to other time frames. But with this monumental discovery, Tesla also discovered, through personal experience, the very real dangers inherent with time travel. Tesla's first brush with time travel came in March 1895. A reporter for the New York Herald wrote on March 13 that he came across the inventor in a small cafe looking shaken after being hit by 3.5 million volts. I am afraid, said Tesla, that you won't find me a pleasant companion tonight. The fact is, I was almost killed today. The spark jumped three feet through the air and struck me here on the right shoulder. If my assistant had not turned off the current instantly, it might have been the end of me. Tesla, on contact with the resonating electromagnetic charge, found himself outside his time frame reference. He reported that he could see the immediate past, present and future all at once. But he was paralyzed within the electromagnetic field, unable to help himself. His assistant, by turning off the current, released Tesla before any permanent damage was done. A repeat of this very incident would occur years later during the Philadelphia experiment. Unfortunately, the sailors involved were left outside their time frame reference for too long with disastrous results. Tesla's secret time travel experiments would continue on in the hands of others who were not as concerned with humanity as Tesla. We are left with rumors and speculations on who may have become the heirs of Tesla's research. Hopefully, someday these secrets will be revealed once and for all. When Weird Darkness returns, four friends get lost on a country dirt road and try to find their way back following what turns out to be a phantom vehicle. Plus, in the 1800s, seven nuns set up a school for girls and when they added a chapel to that school, what many thought was a miracle occurred in the construction of the chapel stairs. These stories are coming up. A creature, part of the darkness before God created the heavens and earth, has awakened. It had slumbered, hibernating from the light. Now it's hungry and wanting to feed. Bobby, a local kid and the police chief have gone missing. Everyone in the small town of Standard, Illinois, is turning to former Chicago cop Rob Aletto to find them. But as he starts his search, more people disappear. Rob is quickly overwhelmed. The night itself seems to come alive, taking these people. Aletto must find out why and discover a way to stop it before the entire town slips into darkness. Into Darkness by Jason R. Davis, narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar, the greatly anticipated sequel to Inside the Mirrors. Here a free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. This happened to me back in 2011 when I was 19. I live in Sydney, Australia and this happened on a country back road on the outskirts of the city at a place called Picton. Myself and four of my high school buddies decided to go for a drive with no particular destination in mind. We jumped on a highway at about 8 p.m. It was summer, so the sun was beginning to set. We took an exit off the highway and began driving down a few rural roads, being that we had no destination in mind and that we were more focused on the music blasting out of the speakers. We eventually got lost. There was a full moon that night and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. After a while, we saw a car pull out from a side road about a hundred meters in front of us from the height of its red taillights that looked to be a sedan. Being lost, we decided to follow the car. We did have a signal on our phones and we could have easily charted a route on Google Maps but decided against it to see if we could find our way back by following this car. Dumb, I know. We maintained the 100 meter gap between us and the car and followed at the 80 km per hour speed limit. We eventually came to a straight, long dirt road with large treeless fields on both sides. We then saw the car's taillights make a left turn up ahead and we thought finally we can get off of this straight stretch of road and that's when things got really creepy. We arrived to the turnoff about 10 seconds after the car in front of us but there was no turnoff, just a dead end. There was an old rusty metal gate that was clearly locked with an equally rusty chain and padlock leading to an overgrown driveway with no clear tire tracks. There was no way that the driver could have unlocked the gate and driven down the driveway in the 10 seconds it took us to reach it. Even if they did, we would have seen the headlights and taillights going down the driveway and if for some reason they decided to switch them off, we would still have seen the car as the terrain was very flat and it was a full moon. We all confirmed what we witnessed with each other and to this day I still can't explain what happened. Did the car somehow evade our vision or was this a lost soul returning to their earthly home after a tragic event? I'll never know. Even today, a few years later, all my friends remember the event. Deep in the southwestern United States is Santa Fe, the city of holy faith. It was here that in the 1800s seven nuns set up a school for girls and when it was time they built a chapel. This is where the legend of the Loretto Chapel staircase began. And ever since, faithful visitors have been flocking to the church to get a peek at the subject of the Santa Fe miracle, the chapel stairs. During 1872, the bishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese was Jean-Baptiste LeMay. French by birth, he was elected as the very first bishop of the diocese and commissioned and oversaw the construction of a chapel named Our Lady of Light in 1873. A religious order called the Sisters of Loretto would maintain the chapel. Constructed in the popular Gothic revival style, the whole chapel was designed by renowned French architect Antoine Mowley. Unfortunately, Mowley never lived to see the work completed. The structure was sound and almost finished by 1878. The only thing lacking was a means to ascend to the choir loft. The chapel was not the largest sanctuary in the world, so a standard staircase was ruled to be too large to be practical. Other churches and chapels of the same period had used ladders as opposed to stairs. However, the Sisters quickly dismissed the ladder idea because of their attire. Without a way to reach the loft, the chapel would not be able to function properly. While the likely proposals, suggestions and ideas were being debated by members of the construction industry, the Sisters considered this to be nothing more than a test of their faith. Sometime around 1880, the entire order began to pray to Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, to help with a solution for the chapel stairs. On the ninth day of prayer, a visitor arrived at their door with his mule and some tools. The first thing the man revealed to the Sisters was that he was a carpenter by trade. He was invited in and discovered the dilemma left behind with the untimely passing of the original architect. The solo workman, unlike many tradesmen that had a look prior to him, said that it was possible to construct a useful staircase to the loft without becoming an eyesore in the available space. The only condition he placed upon the Sisters was that he would have to work in private. The Sisters were only too pleased to agree to these terms if it meant getting their staircase done. While they used the chapel for their own activities, the carpenter retreated, returning only when the chapel was empty. Some of the Sisters did state they saw wood soaking in tubs that they provided for him. Reports made at the time do contradict one another. Some insist that construction was completed quickly. Other reports say it took longer than might have been necessary. When the spiral staircase was finished, the Sisters were delighted with how it turned out, so much so that they organized a banquet in honor of the carpenter. And this was when he was discovered missing. At no time during his work did he ever identify himself. He never asked for nor received payment for his labor or even supplies. Exactly who this man was is just one of the many mysteries surrounding the Loretto Chapel staircase. Another mystery is the construction of the staircase itself. There are no central column or support beams and it appears that all the weight is self-supported at the base. The craftsman did not use nails or glue. He only used wooden pegs to secure the steps. Additionally, there were no railings. The legend says that some of the nuns were so afraid to descend the 22-foot drop that they would crawl down on their hands and knees. There are only 33 steps. However, the staircase wraps around 360 degrees twice. The number 33 is a significant number, being the age of Jesus at his crucifixion. The Sisters were adamant that it was Joseph himself that came to their rescue. Thus, people have given the stairs the nickname St. Joseph's Staircase. When local trade suppliers were contacted in an effort to track this craftsman down, none of them could help inquiries in any way at all. No bill of sales could be retrieved, and the lumber that was used was discovered to be of an unknown type. Whatever the wood that was used, it was not indigenous to the Santa Fe area. A modern analysis revealed the wood to be spruce, but a variety that nobody was familiar with. It was concluded that the closest possible locale for wood of this type would have been somewhere like Alaska. But why would a Victorian carpenter transport scores of lumber with nothing more than a mule just on the off chance that it might be needed to build a staircase thousands of miles away? As with all legends, there is some truth and some fiction to the story about the Loretto Chapel staircase. Mary J. Straw Cook, a historian, researched the Santa Fe stairs for seven years. She compiled enough evidence about the mysterious carpenter she was able to write a book called Loretto, The Seven Sisters and Their Santa Fe Chapel, in 1984. Cook says that she found an entry in the Nun's Day book dated 1881 which indicated that they had paid a man named Rokas for wood. Cook also found an old newspaper article in the New Mexican that said Mr. Rokas had been shot in the chest in his dog canyon home and that he had been a skilled woodworker who built the impressive Loretto Chapel staircase. According to Cook, François Jean Rokas was a member of a French secret society of highly skilled craftsmen and artisans called the Compenions, which has existed since the Middle Ages. Cook says that Rokas came to the U.S. specifically to build the Santa Fe staircase and that he had the wood shipped from France. Mr. Rokas is buried at the hour lady of the light Catholic Cemetery. The inspirational legend resulted in the creation of books and a 1998 movie called The Staircase starring Barbara Hershey and William Peterson. While some of the legends may have been demystified with information about its supposed builder, many people who have seen the stairs claim this makes it no less of a miracle. Where do the inspiration and knowledge come from to build a stunning staircase that still impresses even the best craftsman around today? What cannot be debated is the marvelous work of art that was left behind. It can still be seen today, but the chapel is more of a corporate venue and museum these days. Significant events of a religious nature such as weddings can still be conducted there. Most visitors do actually come just to see the Loretto Chapel staircase that some have dubbed as miraculous. Thanks for listening! If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, visit the store for Weird Darkness t-shirts, booties, mugs, phone cases, and more merchandise. Find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, then you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The story of Ronald G. Simmons is from the book Murderous Minds Volume 2 by Ryan Becker, the audiobook version narrated by yours truly. You can get the audiobook on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com or click the link in the show description to take you to the Amazon and Audible listing. Paranormal 911 is by Jessica M. Thomas for Rankers Paranormal Activity. Nikola Tesla's Secret Time Travel Experiments is by Commander X for UFO Review. Ghost Car of Picton was written by James in Sydney, Australia for Ghost Attic. And Legend of the Loretto Chapel Staircase is by Les Hewitt for Historic Mysteries. The short story of fiction, The Creepypasta, Holes, was written by S. R. undershults, posted at Creepypasta.com. 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. First John 4, verse 20, if anyone says, I love God yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. In a final thought from C.S. Lewis, education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.