 adds heard during the podcast that are not in my voice or 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. 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, it's the Riller Thursday where I bring you tales of fictional horror and suspense. This week I have classic author Ambrose Bierce on the agenda. Bierce was a journalist, satirist and of course a prolific writer of short stories. Bierce disappeared in Mexico in 1913 and although there has been much speculation about what happened to him, it's unlikely that anyone will ever learn the truth and his fate remains a mystery to this day. Something eerily appropriate for an author known for writing things of horror and the macabre. His story, A Holy Terror, was first published in the December 23, 1882 issue of The Wasp in San Francisco. We'll share that story later on, but first we begin with a creepypasta simply titled Hospitality by Eric Peabody. If you're new here, welcome to the show. And while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, Twitter 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, fold your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The snow had stopped about an hour ago, but man, it was still a treacherous road. Mark turned up the radio, have to keep himself awake and have to try to hear the music through the interfering static. The mountains weren't good for the signal, and even though all he could pick up was contrary, anything was better than listening to the rattling heater trying in vain to keep the car warm. It was dark, he was tired, and it'd be all too easy for the lullaby of the road noise to sneak up on him. His 72 Datsun station wagon, now 15 years old and in dire need of a tune-up or a replacement, wasn't going to win him any awards, but he didn't want to wake up with it smashed up in a ditch or down the side of a mountain. He shifted in his seat trying in vain to find some new configuration for his large body that would be a bit more comfortable and brought his cold thermos from between his legs up to his lips. Still empty, just like it had been for the last two hours. Mark cursed under his breath and tossed it into the back seat so he wouldn't keep trying it. It landed among the accumulated papers and food wrappers and began to roll around as the Datsun inexperently navigated the twisting road. Steering wheel goes clockwise, thermos rolls to the left. Steering wheel goes counterclockwise, thermos rolls to the right. Trash crinkled, adding another layer of competing noise to the radio. Mark gritted his teeth and stared forward into the night. The snow-covered road bordered by tall trees on both sides. He should have been in Boulder an hour ago. The motel would have a night clerk, so he wasn't concerned about not getting into his room, but after 12 hours of driving, he was ready to get some sleep. The interview was at 8am sharp and he was already going to be getting less than 8 hours in the sack. He needed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed if he wanted to make a good impression. He knew that he was under-qualified for the job, and coming in with a smile on his face and a sparkle in his eye was the only thing that was going to edge him ahead of the self-important college grads that he was competing with. Then his next chapter could begin. New job, new town, peck, new state, new life. Most importantly, new freedom. Despite of his fatigue, he grinned a little, showing a spiteful glimpse of his teeth in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. He knew a lot more about alimony payments and child support than he did a year ago, but he was still not an expert. He didn't know how much harder it was going to make it for that witch to find him in Colorado, but he did know that she'd have to jump through some hoops to do it. That might take a few months or even a few years if he was lucky. It's not too easy to find extra time for anything when you're working and trying to raise a kid. That was just fine by him. That was just dandy. The whole thing had been crap from the beginning. Never meant to last. Never meant to be anything at all when you got right down to it, but mistakes happened, and one night a good sex had his family pressuring him to do the right thing. He never wanted to be a father, and especially not with Amber Bailey. He'd known her all through high school, back home, and flagstaff, which was more than enough time to peg her for what she was. A loser. He hadn't been unaware of her glances and how she'd blush when they ended up exchanging words in the halls. So what if she had a crush on him? Lots of girls did. Mark had heard the word charisma before in various English and history classes that he spent grab-assing with his football buddies, but he wouldn't have thought to apply the word to himself. He understood his place in the world in a more instinctual sense. He was good-looking, he had a way of making people laugh usually at the expense of others, and people tended to like him. He was aware of his limitations, and he figured that he could make something of himself if he knew when to charm and when to intimidate. Amber had been a mistake. Just one stupid decision on a November evening. He didn't even know when she ended up at the party, but he was well beyond drunk when he first saw her. He'd already struck out with Brittany Christensen, who was much more attractive than Amber, and rumored to be an easy lay, but she apparently didn't like having it said to her face. Mark knew better than to try something so overt anyway, but he was riding high on a winning touchdown in a six-pack of Budweiser. So now, instead of nailing Brittany upstairs in Johnny Sklodowski's bed, he was sitting on a couch in the living room, Billy Idol's white wedding thumping through the house, a throng of teenage revelry surrounding him, and his face still mildly stinging from Brittany's rejection. Not getting laid was bad, but the constant snickering glances he was getting from the party goers was worse. Mark had switched from beer to whisky after Brittany left, and he was now blackly drunk, head throbbing from the noise, from the alcohol, and from his own anger. His memory of the rest of the evening was understandably easy, but he remembered the main points, Amber sitting down next to him on the couch, Mark handing her the bottle jack against her diminishing declarations, Mark sobering up, just enough to shelve his anger and turn up the charm, taking Amber upstairs, half leading and half carrying her since she apparently can't hold her liquor. At that point, Mark wasn't even focused on getting off, he just wanted to make sure that no one thought he was too much of a loser to get some action after the game. Mark knew he wasn't a loser, his parents knew it, and always told him or always used to. His coaches knew it, and he got the praise he deserved for carrying his team to win after win. His teachers might not know it, but screwed them what they mattered. Sure, they had good words for some kids like Amber Bailey, but Mark knew better. Amber got good grades, but she was a bore, plain forgettable, she'd stay and flagstaff her whole life. Sure, she'd go to college, but she was too polite and complacent to make anything of herself. As it turned out, she didn't even go to college. She was a little too busy caring for an infant and trying to set up a home with her semi-willing husband. Mark didn't go to college either, put all scholarship or no, but it was further down on his list of life complaints at that point, definitely below having a new kid and being forced to marry Amber Bailey. He supposed it wasn't a surprise to anyone that the next five years went the way they did. Mark got a blue collar job in a factory, spent too much time at the bar instead of home, and wasn't discreet with his indiscretions. Amber knew. She had to know, and he sometimes caught her crying, but she never said anything. Maybe she was trying to keep the marriage together, or maybe she was just scared of what he'd do if she could run at him. Frankly, he didn't care. Amber was a loser, and rolling over and taking the lot that life dealt her was her place in things. It didn't surprise him. What did surprise him was when Amber filed for divorce. He might have found it amusing, after all, it was an easy ticket out for him, but what he didn't find amusing was when she filed for alimony and when the judge granted it. Their home hadn't been much, but it was a piece better than the one bedroom apartment he ended up in. That was three months ago, and things weren't showing any sign of improving. He picked up extra shifts where he could, but the constant thought of working his hands to the bone just to give more money to the ex drove him crazy. He could work 70 hours a week, and all he had to show for it was his stupid apartment and his crappy car. Heck, it had even been her fault that he was where he was now, driving down some awful back road in Colorado instead of lying peacefully in the motel room bed. He'd been packing his bag to hit the road that morning when she had knocked on the door. What should have been a quick trip out the door turned into an hour-long shouting match about why he hadn't sent the check last month. Well, he'd been shouting and she'd been crying. Things finally ended when Mark grabbed his bag and walked out the door, leaving her sitting and blubbering on the floor of his front room. But he hadn't had the time to make sure everything was packed, and, wouldn't you know it, Colorado Roadmap was left sitting on his kitchen table. Mark didn't notice until well into the drive, and his anger and pride had kept him from pulling over to ask directions. He could say that it had actually been his fault that he got lost, but it didn't really matter, did it? Here he was, trying to find his way through the dark and the snow with only his memory of the route that he traced last night. His mood had not improved with the road signs that he'd encountered over the last 40 miles or so. Signs with uplifting messages like winding road and beware of falling rocks and don't stop for hitchhikers. He shifted in his seat and shivered in his denim jacket. The cramp was developing in his lower back, and it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open. He kept expecting the trees to thin out, the lanes to widen and to see some sign of civilization in the distance. But the road droned on, unchanging. The thought of having a sleep in the car was looming in the back of his mind, but he knew that meant he would likely miss the interview in the morning, so he kept pushing it back. If he could go 10 more miles, he was sure he'd find something, some gas station or truck stop, and then he could find out where the hell he was. We'll continue with our story Hospitality by Eric Peabody in just a moment. What goes on in the mind of a murderous killer? What is it about some people that lead them to commit murder? Is there something that is different, or is it simply a switch that gets turned on? Murderous minds, stories of real-life murderers that escaped the headlines, offers a look into the lives of individuals who didn't just become killers, but who managed to avoid the media storm that usually accompanies them. Inside, you will hear about people like Sante Kheims, a 65-year-old mother who was driven by greed and who committed multiple murders with her son. Robert James Akramant, the MBA graduate who murdered three people in order to continue getting lap dances from a stripper that he became infatuated with. Larry Gene Ashbrook, who became deluded into thinking that strangers were accusing him of murder. When he could not take it anymore, he carried out a massacre at the Wedgwood Baptist Church and more. Each story harbors its own distinct narrative and reasoning for the perpetrators of these heinous crimes, along with the background to the case, their lives, and the aftermath of their actions. Sometimes, the truth is more appalling than anything fiction can provide, and murderous minds proves it once again. Murderous Minds Volume 1 Stories of Real-Life Murderers That Escaped the Headlines by Ryan Becker Narrated by Weird Darkness Host Darren Marlar Hear a free sample or purchase the title on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com As it turned out, Mark only had four more miles until he found the silver line. He was at the point of shaking his head violently from side to side to stay awake when he saw the first phantom glimpses of light through the trees. The snow had started up again, and Mark initially mistook the stuttered illumination to be his eyes playing tricks on him as the wipers pushed the snow off the windshield. However, as he continued down the twisting road, the light became more visible, and he knew that there was something real ahead. Mark's fatigue lifted a little, and his body seemed to ache even more that thought of finally being able to get out of the car and stretch. He couldn't tell how far away the source of light was, but he knew it was close. After a few more minutes, he entered a straight stretch of road, and the trees on the right-hand side fell away. He slowed, and saw that the ground spilled down from the snow-covered roadway into the parking lot of what looked like a diner. It was a squat, long building with a neon sign above that read, The Silver Line. Welcoming light was pouring out of the windows, which stretched the length of the front of the building. Mark stopped the car for a moment to make sure that he could see where to drive down from the road. The snow was covering everything, and it'd be easy to mistake a ditch for a driveway. As he did so, the lights inside the Silver Line suddenly turned off, and he caught some brief movement near the front that might have been the door opening. Ah, crap, he said, and made a gamble as to where the driveway was. His car tilted to the right as his passenger-side tires briefly left the paved roadway, but then found purchase. He drove down into the parking lot, the Datsun sliding briefly as he brought it to a stop midway between the road and the building. There were a few other cars in the lot, covered in snow, but they were on the far side, and Mark had been in no danger of hitting them. It was very dark now, with only his headlights and the dull red glow thrown by the neon sign above. Through the falling snow, he could see a figure moving under the front awning just outside the door. Mark tapped quickly on his horn twice, and a figure stopped. He turned off the Datsun, and the engine died, shuttering, and then Mark was out into the snow, legs and back complaining at his exertion after so many hours in the car. Hey, hi! Mark called the figure, who was now standing still and apparently looking back at him. Mark couldn't make out anything about the person. It was so dark, but he appeared to be very big over six feet. The figure didn't respond. Mark waved and then stuck his hands into his pockets against the cold. He shrugged his shoulders, pulling his jacket further up around his neck and walked towards the overhang. He had underestimated how much the Datsun's heater had been doing. It was freezing outside. As he trudged through the snow, socks getting wet through his sneakers, he called out again to the stranger. Hi, are you closing up? Still, no response. When he was about ten yards away, the figure turned and went back through the front door into the diner. Shortly after, the lights flashed back on, causing Mark to shut his eyes against the sudden illumination. When he opened them again, he saw a very large, very bald man standing inside, smiling broadly at him through the window. The man opened the door outward with one heavily muscled arm and beckoned Mark to come in. The man was wearing a plain white t-shirt that must have done nothing to protect him from the cold. Mark hurried in, glad to put the night and the chill behind him. He shivered and stamped the snow off his shoes just inside the entrance as the stranger let the door close behind him. Thanks, he said to the man as he looked around the diner. Linolium floor, wood paneling, booths lining the walls under the windows, and a bar running down the middle of the room with a series of grills, stovetops, and various appliances behind. A door led to some back area at one end of the bar. He realized that only some of the lights were on, shining down on the bar and cooking area. The booths and the front of the diner were still partially covered in shadow. Mark was still looking around as he heard a click from behind him. He turned to see that the large man had just engaged a deadbolt on the front door. The man saw the look on Mark's face and said, I hope that doesn't bother you. We sometimes get strange people trying to wander in late at night. The man's voice was strangely high, almost feminine, which was an odd juxtaposition to his intimidating frame. Mark was no wealth himself, but this man was at least six inches taller and probably outweighed him by fifty pounds. Not that you're strange. The man continued, I didn't mean to imply that. You get lost in the storm, huh? Mark was taken off guard by the man's voice and demeanor, stammering a bit from both the cold and from his confusion, he replied, sort of. I'm trying to get to Boulder and must have taken a wrong turn a while back. I was hoping to get directions and a cup of… But he stopped when the man threw his head back and started laughing. It was high, like his speaking voice with a little squeak in it. After about ten seconds, he got control of himself and said, Boulder, how friend, you are quite a ways from Boulder. It's about sixty miles north of here, but you had the good fortune for God to bring you to me, so you're not bad off. Well, where am I? Mark asked. A stranger smiled broadly and said, Not in Boulder. Mark's expression darkened, and he opened his mouth to say no duh, but then stopped himself. This man was the only person he'd seen in hours and was the one way he was going to get directions and some coffee. On top of that, his usual intimidation routine wasn't going to work on someone that had such an obvious physical advantage over him. It's hard to bully a giant. He saw that the man's smile had faded, and a frown was forming on his brow. Mark closed his mouth and mentally regrouped. Hey, uh, I'm sorry. I've been on the road since Flagstaff and I'm pretty lost. It looks like you're closing up, but I'd really appreciate maybe a cup of coffee and being pointed in the right direction. He tried a smile which probably looked ghastly on his face after so long on the road. The stranger looked at him for several seconds, his frown unchanging. Mark noticed that the man had exceptionally blue eyes. Then the frown vanished and was replaced by the previous bright smile. It happened so quickly that it startled Mark. Sure, buddy. The stranger said affably. He held out his huge hand. The name is Roger. Mark took it and internally winced at the strength of Roger's grip. Mark, he said. Roger disengaged, just as Mark was about to try to pull his own hand back and then walked down the length of the diner and stepped through the partition to the cooking area behind the bar. Mark saw him lean down and start rustling through various drawers and cabinets. After a minute of this, Mark walked up and swung his leg over one of the bar stools, turning his back to the bar and looking out the windows. It was very dark outside. The lights barely reaching out to the few snow-covered cars in the parking lot. Snow continued to drift down from above. There you are, you bastard! Roger said with good humor in his voice, and Mark turned to see him straightening up with a can of Folgers in one giant hand. He put it on the counter and started to fill a coffee pot with water from a nearby sink. His back to Mark and light from the fluorescence overhead gleaming on his bald scalp. Mark was again struck by how huge the man was. He could see muscles rippling along Roger's broad back as he leaned forward to work the sink. Mark also noticed something that he hadn't caught earlier. The man's clothing was dirty. There was a general griminess to the white shirt with a few streaks of brown here and there. The neckline was uneven and loose around Roger's neck, unlike the rest of the garment which fits snugly across his torso. The shirt was partially tucked into non-descript brown pants with a tattered belt and one belt loop ripped, hanging freely by its lower portion. Roger shut off the sink and poured the water into the coffee maker. As he did so, he looked back at Mark over his shoulder and said, So, Boulder? Yeah, you know the quickest way I can get there? Roger chuggled a bit and replied, I sure do, but you're not getting there at night, not with the weather like this. Mark felt his jaw tightening and made an effort to ease off on it. Well, I've really got to be there for a job interview in the morning. How about you give me directions and I'll figure out if I can get there or not? As he spoke, he couldn't keep a slight note of irritation out of his voice. He got family back and flagstaff? Um, yeah, life and kid. He was having a bit of trouble following as sudden changes in conversation. Roger turned to him, wiping his hands on his shirt. A smile was still on his face as he said, I bet you that wife and kid of yours would love to have you back there one day. All things said and done. Family's all we got, isn't it? Family and God. Mark was silent for a moment, hands slowly clenching on the bar and then said, How about you just tell me how to get to Boulder? Roger stood for a minute, seeming to look Mark over and then stepped forward, somehow making the three-foot journey into a relaxed stroll. He leaned forward with his elbows on the bar, right in front of Mark. How about you just calm down there, friend? Mark recoiled a bit. What did you say to me? Roger pointed forward over Mark's shoulder and toward the parking lot. You see that out there? That is a winter snowstorm in Colorado, buddy. I know you don't get much of that in Arizona, but it's a real son of a bitch out here. You drive through that when you're tired and don't know the roads? He trailed off and then made a motion with his hand, mimicking a car falling off a cliff. His grin seemed to brighten as he did so. Bye-bye job interview. Bye-bye wife and kid back in Arizona. Mark sat, staring at him, unsure of how to respond. He didn't bother bringing up that Flagstaff had about as much snow as anywhere. This man was clearly impressed with himself and arguing with him wasn't going to accomplish anything. Well, he said eventually, what do you suggest? Roger waited a bit, looked down at Mark's clenched hands and then pushed back from the bar, standing up straight and looking down at Mark. Ten hours, eh? Ten hours! I figure you've been driving from Flagstaff. That's about ten hours on the road, isn't it? 12. Roger whistled and raised his eyebrows. I got just the thing for you! He said with a hint of a laugh and then turned to walk towards the door to the back. As he went, he called back to Mark. I bet that coffee'd go down even better with some food, wouldn't it? And then opened the door into a pitch-black room beyond, stepped in and let the door swing slowly shut behind him. Mark called out, I really don't have time for… But then the door latched shut and Mark was alone in the diner. He sighed and closed his eyes, slowly lowering his head until it rested on the cool veneer bar top. 60 miles. Like it or not, the guy's right. There was no way that Mark was getting to boulder tonight. His best bet was to try and find someplace nearby to get three or four hours of shut-eye and then drive the rest of the way in the morning. There'd still be snow but at least it wouldn't be quite so dark and… Man, he really was tired. He felt his body slowly relaxing now that he was out of the car. The sound of the diner was soothing, actually. Sort of familiar. The buzz of the overhead lights, the sound of the coffee percolating, some muffled crackling sound that was probably a tree branch giving way under the weight of the snow. Roger would probably know if some place he could crash out for a few hours. Didn't have to be much. Just a warm bed that he could stretch out in, close his eyes, let his body unwind. The conclusion to this week's Thriller Thursday story Hospitality by Eric Peabody is up next on Weird Darkness. Do you keep a journal or diary? If not, maybe you should consider it. It's been shown that journaling can help you reduce stress, help relieve depression, builds self-confidence, it boosts your emotional intelligence, helps with achieving goals, inspires creativity, and more. In fact, my friend, S. N. Lenees has created a Weird Darkness-themed journal just for you. Full of blank pages for you to use as a diary, make notes for class or office meetings, jot down ideas for that novel you want to write. Use it for keeping a mileage log if you travel for business, whatever you want. In fact, she has numerous styles of journals to choose from. Along with the Weird Darkness journal, there's one for dealing with grief or teachers' notes for medical residencies, keeping track of your meds or health routine, and several others. Journals make a great gift for others, but it's also a great gift for yourself and your own mental health. No matter what you might want a journal for, my friend Anne has it. And you can see all of her journals, including the one for Weird Darkness, on the sponsors and friends page at WeirdDarkness.com. Consciousness came back to him slowly. It was first aware of the new smells. Coffee, cooking oil that was slightly burnt, and meat. Mark opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but his lower back screamed out, cramped, and painful from his posture. His forehead landed back on the bar, making a dull thud. He ground and closed his eyes again. Well, look who's back! Mark rolled his head to the side, facing the voice. Everything felt very puffy, the way that it only does after you've been awake for far too long and gotten far too little sleep. He managed to open one eye a slit and saw Roger behind the bar, his back to the stovetop and hands propped on his hips grinning down at him. Mark didn't notice the tongs that the man was holding, nor did he immediately notice that Roger had, for some reason, removed his pants, his stained underwear showing below the bottom of his t-shirt. All Mark noticed was the shirt itself, and he was suddenly up and backpedaling off the bar stool, unaware of his body protesting at the sudden movement. His feet tangled together and he sat down hard on the floor, biting his tongue. He didn't notice this either. Roger was around the bar and coming up to him quickly, holding his hands forward in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. Mark was not comforted. All Mark could see was that the white t-shirt previously only grimy was now covered with blood. There were splattered drops all over the front and several wide streaks angling across it as if someone had dipped a paintbrush in a bucket of the stuff and haphazardly gone to town on the shirt. Mark was scuttling back on his hands and feet like a crab, whispering, What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? He knew he had to get up, that something was very wrong and that this giant of a man was coming towards him, but he couldn't get his body to cooperate. Hey, buddy, calm down. It's okay. It's okay. Roger said. Mark got a bit of control over his legs and managed to push back into a half-crouch on his way to a full stance. He also found a bit more of his voice. What the hell? He yelled. What the hell you do, man? At that point, he noticed that Roger was only half-dressed. He stopped, staring at the dirty briefs. Where the hell are your pants? It's fine. Everything's okay, Roger said, stopping as well and dropping his hands to his side. The smile was still plastered on his face, just had a bit of trouble with the meat. A bit of trouble with the meat? Mark half asked, half yelled. You look like you just murdered somebody. Roger's smile faltered a degree and he was silent for a moment. That's not a nice thing to say, friend. After everything I'm doing to help you out, help you get back safe to your family, you go and say something like that, you're covered in blood and your pants are gone. Roger looked down on himself and didn't move for a beat. He then tilted his head back up and Mark could see that the smile had returned to full strength. I guess they are, aren't they? He said and uttered a quick bark of laughter. Without he turned around and strolled back around the bar to the stovetop where smoke was starting to rise from a pan. Mark pulled himself the rest of the way up and stood, slowly returning to himself. He became aware that his tongue was in serious pain and his balance was off. He steadied himself against a nearby booth and but his heart rate and breathing come back to something resembling normalcy. His eyes were fixed on Roger, who was whistling with his back turned, bare-assed at the range. Roger, Mark called out. Roger continued to whistle and cook. Roger, Mark said again, louder. Roger stopped whistling and called back over his shoulder. Yes, then. What do you mean trouble with the meat? Roger briefly looked back towards Mark and favored him with his perpetual smile. Ah, it had just thought out a bit more than I expected. Lots of juices loosened the packaging and I had a bit of a spill. He turned back and resumed his whistling. Mark leaned against the booth and blinked, trying to clear the fogginess from his head. This couldn't make sense. Did this make sense? He wasn't much of a cook, but he knew how to fry up a steak or a burger. How much blood could there be in one of those? Enough to drench a shirt? Enough to ruin a pair of pants? Maybe not for a bachelor like himself to cook at home, but if he was stocking enough for a diner? Just then, Roger lifted the pan off the range and transferred something from inside to a nearby plate. He sat on the bar alongside a coffee cup and then leaned forward on his hands to picture a pride. Soup's on, he said cheerily, and raised his eyebrows at Mark. Mark stayed where he was, assessing. He could now feel the ache in his back and legs, and his head was throbbing. He looked across the diner to the plate and he could see strips of meat on it. The smell reached him, and in spite of his various aches and pains, his stomach grumbled. The desire to sit down and the desire to have food, the first in probably six hours, were now omnipresent in his mind. Was he overreacting? Today had been a horrible day and he spent 12 hours in the car driving. Besides, he was still ticked at that stunt that Amber had pulled earlier. Wasn't it possible that he was just jumping at shadows? Just a little. He hesitated a moment longer and then his eyes landed on the coffee mug. That cinched it. Screw it, he said, under his breath, and stumbled over to the bar, collapsing onto the stool. There you go, Roger said merrily, and turned around to start cleaning up. Mark took a long drink of coffee. It was strong and black, and it felt amazing going down. As it reached his stomach and he turned his attention to the dish, he almost forgot about Roger. It had been a long day and he needed this. The meat appeared to be strips of pork, not chops, or at least not cut like chops usually were. Mark didn't care. It smelled great, and after cutting off a piece and biting down on it, he realized it tasted better than it smelled. The pounding in his head was already starting to ease back, and he felt the fog in his brain clearing. Man, this was just what he needed. And then Roger had to ruin his brightening mood. So what's your wife's name? Mark stopped chewing for a moment, displeased by the sudden reminder. Amber, he said briskly, and resumed eating. Boy or a girl? Huh? Your kid? Boy. Back to chewing. How old? Mark looked up and saw that Roger still had his back to him as he continued to clean the small mess from the food prep. He couldn't see Roger's face, but he was sure that he was still grinning. Mark suddenly became aware again of Roger's partial nudity, and that realization paired poorly with the taste of the meat in his mouth. He didn't want to stare at the man's butt crack while eating. He turned his gaze aside and responded curtly. Five. Ah, that's great, Roger said. Ah, I remember being five. That was a great time. Mark lowered his head, facing his food and trying to not encourage for their conversation. The food tasted good, and he didn't want to taint it with thoughts of his family. All he needed right now is to eat and get more coffee into him. After that, get directions, and then leave this weirdo in the dust. As the food and caffeine were hitting his bloodstream, his upper brain functions were creeping back towards normal levels, and he was realizing with renewed clarity that this was a strange situation. He was hundreds of miles from anywhere he'd ever been. It was who knows how late at night, and he was sitting in a diner talking to a man with blood on his t-shirt and no pants. Best to wrap this up and get back on track. That would be just dandy with Mark. Yes, sir, five was mighty fine. I didn't know it then, but it was the best time now that I think about it. Mark closed his eyes and silently willed Roger to shut up. His tongue hurt from where he bit it, and his headache was coming back. All he wanted was to eat in peace. It was only a year later that he left us, you know? My dad, I mean. Mark looked up. Roger was facing him, leaning back against the range, grin in its rightful place on his face. The thumbs were hooked into the top of his jockey shorts like a cowboy would hook them into his belt. The weight had pushed him down slightly, and Mark saw the uppermost tufts of dark pubic hair creeping out from behind the elastic, he stopped chewing. A real son-of-a-bitch thing to do if you ask me, Roger said, still smiling. Mark froze. Something here was wrong. Very wrong. He choked back the half-chewed meat that was in his mouth and looked up at Roger's face. The grin brightened, showing the man's teeth. Mark hadn't noticed before, but they were stained yellow. He straightened and put down his silverware, still looking at Roger in the eyes. There was a glimmer of something in there that unsettled him deeply. All of a sudden, he thought, cars. There are cars in the parking lot, more than one. Where are the people that drove those cars? As that clicked into place in his mind, two other things followed. The first was the sound of the deadbolt on the front door clicking into place, and Roger saying, we sometimes get strange people trying to wander in late at night. The other was a brief glimpse of a road sign that read, don't stop for hitchhikers. He pushed the plate away across the bar. It was time to leave. Screw the directions, screw the coffee, screw Roger. Thanks for the food, but I really need to get back to it. He placed his palms on the bar top and started to push himself up. He didn't see Roger remove his right hand from the elastic of his briefs and reach behind him to the stovetop. No need for that, Roger said. Leaned forward, the muscles in his arm bunching and drove a butter knife through the top of Mark's right hand, sinking it through the veneer top of the bar to its hilt in the plywood underneath. Mark stared down at the knife, his eyes as wide as tea cups, completely unable to understand why, even though he was pulling his hand back towards him, it wasn't moving. A moment later, the pain hit his brain and he started screaming. He grabbed the remaining few inches of protruding handle with his left hand, meaning to pull it out. He'd barely gotten a grip on it. It was already slick with blood when Roger reached forward with both of his monstrous hands and wrapped them around Mark's firmly but gently. Mark was now trapped. Right hand pinned to the bar by the knife and left hand enveloped in Roger's gorilla-like hold. Roger stared directly into his eyes, still smiling, but Mark could see that the muscle at the edge of his jaw was now twitching rapidly. Roger winked and said, check this out, and then slowly began to squeeze his hands together around Mark's closed left fist. The first thing to give way to the increasing force of Roger's grip was Mark's middle finger, which dislocated at the knuckle. Then his hand turned into a chorus of agony as bones shifted, realigned, and snapped. Roger kept going, pressing harder and harder, and Mark saw with terror that there was now fresh blood seeping through Roger's fingers, not from the knife wound, but from the increasing damage being done to his left hand. He looked back to Roger's face and saw that blood was dripping from his grin, oozing out of his gums and around his yellow teeth as his jaw clenched into its maniac rictus. Mark pushed with his legs, panicking, trying desperately to do something, anything to get away from the pain. He pressed hard against the bottom of the bar and wrenched back with his shoulders, trying in vain to pull his hands away. Roger's grasp was too tight, and Mark was distantly aware that the man was now laughing, high and loud as he continued to squeeze, continued to crush Mark's left hand. Mark shifted his feet to get a better angle, leaned forward and then shoved back again, putting everything he had into it. At the same moment, Roger released his grasp, throwing his arms wide like a magician releasing a dove. Mark's momentum, suddenly unimpeded, threw him back across the bar stool. The knife driven too deeply into the bar to move, ripped through Mark's right hand, separating tissue all the way through and out the webbing between his index and middle finger. Mark continued backward, pivoting on his butt over the stool and landed hard on the back of his head. Lights exploded across his field of vision and his view of the ceiling unmoored from its proper perspective, spinning and stuttering. Mercifully for a moment, the pain in his hands subsided. He realized that Roger was talking. He couldn't make out the words at first, his ears were ringing from the blow to his head and he was disoriented. So he shouldn't feel too bad, it's not like he could have done anything to prevent it. I did four before he even got here, so one more isn't much of a thing. Mark's vision swam, but he was aware of Roger walking towards him from behind the bar. He knew that he should be doing something to try to get away, but he couldn't quite understand why. He rolled halfway over and tried to prop himself up with his ruined left hand. That cleared his mind in a hurry and he screamed, feeling the shattered bones grind and shift under the weight. He dropped back to the floor, crying out as Roger continued towards him. The rest were already here when I came along. God told me that they would be, and that I should stop by and say hello. Nothing too special, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Made it as quick as I could. Not really there, Falk, you know. Just the wrong place at the wrong time. He was now just a few feet away from Mark. He strode casually and easily, like a man enjoying a walk in the garden. Mark was breathing in fast, shallow whimpers, tears running down his face. But then you showed up and I thought, well, one more would be fine, just fine. And friend, you were my lucky one. He stood over Mark, bloody hands on his hips and legs in a wide stance. He grinned down at him, illuminated from behind by the lights, face in partial shadow. You're the proof, after all. I do what he wants me to, and God throws me a gift. My mom always taught me to have faith in God. As soon as I saw that finger of yours, I knew I had something special. Roger stepped over Mark and outside of his field of vision. He heard him say, man with a knife and a kid shouldn't be this far from home with a 10 line on his ring finger. I mean, my mom raised me right, but I saw what it did to her, him leaving. My dad, I mean, got me thinking maybe I could give you a piece of what my old man deserved. That's the gift right there. That's how God lets me know that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm making him proud. Both of his hands were on fire and his head felt like someone had hit it with a bowling ball. As enormous as the pain was, it was eclipsed by his fear. Hyperventilating now, he struggled to prop himself upright, to turn as he could see what Roger was doing behind him. He was still too dizzy and succeeded only, and stilted thrashing. But still, my mom taught me about hospitality, right? Right. He could fog laughter. At least I could do was give you a hot meal before we got down to the rework. Nothing proper, of course. After all, you're not a proper man, and you don't deserve to eat what a proper man would eat. But we had some fresh meat lying around, didn't we? Something fit for someone like you. A moment later, the lights clicked off, leaving him in complete darkness, and he heard the sound of the big man walking back towards it. Thriller Thursday continues with our next story, the classic Ambrose Beerstale, A Holy Terror When Weird Darkness Returns. Sometimes you feel a bit nutty, especially if you're a weirdo. If that feeling transfers to your taste buds as well, I've got some great news for you. Weird Dark Roast Nutty Mummy Coffee. Wrap your taste buds around this medium dark roast blend with shrouds of almond, honey, and chocolate. Each bag of nutty mummy is exclusive to Weird Darkness and is roasted to order, then bandaged, I mean, bagged specifically for you to ensure a maximum freshness for you, your mummy, and anyone else you share it with. Entomb your old coffee and bring your taste buds back from the dead with Weird Dark Roast Nutty Mummy at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. There was an entire lack of interest in the latest arrival at Herdy Gertie. He was not even christened with the picturesquely descriptive nickname, which is so frequently a mining camp's word of welcome to the newcomer. In almost any other camp thereabout, this circumstance would have itself have secured him some such appellation as the white-headed conundrum or no-sarvy, an expression naively supposed to suggest to quick intelligences the Spanish Quiansabe. He came without provoking a ripple of concern upon the social surface of Herdy Gertie, a place which to the general Californian contempt of men's personal history super-added a local indifference of its own. The time was long past when it was of any importance who came there, or if anybody came. No one was living at Herdy Gertie. Two years before, the camp had boasted a stirring population of two or three thousand males and not fewer than a dozen females. A majority of the former had done a few weeks earnest work in demonstrating, to the disgust of the latter, the singularly mendacious character of the person whose ingenious tales of rich gold deposits had lured them thither. Work, by the way, in which there was as little mental satisfaction as pecuniary profit, for a bullet from the pistol of a public spirited citizen had put that imaginative gentleman beyond the reach of aspersion on the third day of the camp's existence. Still, his fiction had a certain foundation, in fact, and many had lingered a considerable time in and about Herdy Gertie, though now all had been long gone. But they left ample evidence of their sojourn, from the point where Ingin Creek falls into the Rio San Juan Smith, up along both banks of the former, into the canyon whence it emerges, extended a double row of forlorn shanties that seemed about to fall upon one another's neck to bewail their desolation, while about an equal number appeared to have straggled up the slope on either hand and perched themselves upon commanding eminences, whence they craned forward to get a good view of the affecting scene. Most of these habitations were emaciated, as by famine, to the condition of mere skeletons, about which clung unlovely tatters of what might have been skinned but was really canvas. The little valley itself, torn and gashed by pick and shovel, was unhandsome, with long bending lines of decaying flume resting here and there upon the summits of sharp ridges and stilting awkwardly across the intervals upon unhewn poles. The whole place presented that raw and forbidding aspect of arrested development, which is a new country's substitute for the solemn grace of ruin wrought by time. Wherever there remained a patch of the original soil, a rank overgrowth of weeds and brambles had spread upon the scene, and from its dank, unwholesome shades, the visitor curious in such matters might have obtained numbless souvenirs of the camp's former glory, fellowless boots mantled with green mold and plethora of rotting leaves, an occasional old felt hat, desolatory remnants of a flannel shirt, sardine boxes inhumanly mutilated and a surprising profusion of black bottles distributed with a truly catholic impartiality everywhere. The man who had now rediscovered Hurdy-Gurdy was evidently not curious as to its archaeology, nor, as he looked about him upon the dismal evidences of wasted work and broken hopes, their dispiriting significance accentuated by the ironical pomp of a cheap gliding by the rising sun did he supplement his sigh of weariness by one of sensibility. He simply removed from the back of his tired burrow a miner's outfit, a trifle larger than the animal itself, picketed that creature and, selecting a hatchet from his kit, moved off it once across the dry bed of Injun Creek to the top of a low, gravelly hill below. Stepping across a prostrate fence of brush and boards, he picked up one of the ladder, split it into five parts, and sharpened them at one end. He then began a kind of search, occasionally stooping to examine something with close attention. At last, his patient scrutiny appeared to be rewarded with success, for he suddenly erupted this figure to its full height, made a gesture of satisfaction, pronounced the word scurry, and at once strode away with long equal steps which he counted. Then he stopped and drove one of his stakes into the earth. He then looked carefully about him, measured off a number of paces over a singularly uneven ground, and hammered in another. Pacing off twice the distance at a right angle to his former course, he drove down a third and, repeating the process, sank home the fourth and then a fifth. This, he split at the top and in the cleft inserted an old ladder envelope covered with an intricate system of pencil tracks. In short, he staked off a hill claim in strict accordance with the local mining laws of Herdy Gertie and put up the customary notice. It is necessary to explain that one of the adjuncts to Herdy Gertie, one to which that metropolis became afterward itself an adjunct, was a cemetery. In the first week of the camp's existence, this had been thoughtfully laid out by a committee of citizens. The day after had been signalized by a debate between two members of the committee, with reference to a more eligible site, and on the third day, the necropolis was inaugurated by a double funeral. As the camp had waned, the cemetery had waxed, and long before the ultimate inhabitant, victorious alike over the insidious malaria and the forthright revolver, had turned the tail of his pack-ass upon Injun Creek. The outlying settlement had become a populous, if not popular, suburb. And now, when the town was fallen into a sear and yellow leaf of unlovely senility, the graveyard, though somewhat marred by time and circumstance, and not altogether exempt from innovations and grammar and experiments and orthography, to say nothing of the devastating coyote, answered the humble needs of its denizens with reasonable completeness. It comprised a generous two acres of ground, with which commendable thrift but needless care had been selected for its mineral unworth, contained two or three skeleton trees, one of which had a stout lateral branch from which a weathered wasted rope still significantly dangled, half a hundred gravelly mounds, a score of rude headboards displaying the literary peculiarities above mentioned, and a struggling colony of prickly pears. Altogether, God's location, as with characteristic reverence that had been called, could justly boast of an indubitably superior quality of desolation. It was in the most thickly settled part of this interesting domestic that Mr. Jefferson Doleman staked off his claim. If in the prosecution of his design, he should deem it expedient to remove any of the dead, they would have the right to be suitably reinterred. When Weird Darkness returns, we'll continue with our story A Holy Terror by Ambrose Beers. When Salem Roanoke took a job near his family's new home as a hired hand in the Texas Hill Country, he anticipated learning the rancher's trade, but a series of strange events, shocking murders, and unholy revelations divert him down another path. This terrifying trajectory puts him directly into the middle of a struggle between monsters, magic, and men. Armed and backed by a militia of ranchers, Salem attempts to combat the creeping tide of evil that threatens to engulf his new home and destroy the people most important to him. Will Salem manage to save his home, or have his actions condemn everyone he hopes to save? The Witch Trials, A Summer of Wolves and Season of the Witch by SR Roanoke, available in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. Look for The Witch Trials by SR Roanoke on Amazon, or find it on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash audiobooks. This Mr. Jefferson Doman was from Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where six years before, he had left his heart in the keeping of a golden-haired, demure-mannered young woman named Mary Matthews as collateral security for his return to claim her hand. I just know you'll never get back alive. You never do succeed in anything, was the remark which illustrated Miss Matthews' notion of what constituted success and, inferentially, her view of the nature of encouragement. She added, If you don't, I'll go to California, too. I can put the coins in little bags as you dig them out. His characteristically feminine theory of oriferous deposits did not commend itself to the masculine intelligence. It was Mr. Doman's belief that gold was found in a liquid state. He deprecated her intent with considerable enthusiasm, suppressed her sobs with a light hand upon her mouth, laughed in her eyes as he kissed away her tears and with a cheerful, ta-ta, went to California to labor for her through the long, loveless years with a strong heart, an alert hope, and a steadfast fidelity that never for a moment forgot what it was about. In the meantime, Miss Matthews had granted a monopoly of her humble talent for sacking up coins to Mr. Joe Seaman of New York, gambler by whom it was better appreciated than her commanding genius for unsacking and bestowing them upon his local rivals. Of this latter aptitude, indeed, he manifested his disapproval by an act which secured him the position of clerk of the laundry in the state prison and for her sobriquette of split-faced maul. At about this time, she wrote to Mr. Doman a touching letter of renunciation, enclosing her photograph to prove that she had no longer had a right to indulge the dream of becoming Mrs. Doman and recounting so graphically her fall from a horse that he stayed plug upon which Mr. Doman had ridden into red dog to get the letter made vicarious atonement under the spur all the way back to camp. The letter failed in a signal way to accomplish its object. The fidelity which had before been to Mr. Doman a matter of love and duty was, henceforth, a matter of honor also, and the photograph showing the once pretty face sadly disfigured as by the slash of a knife was duly instated in his affections and its more comely predecessor treated with contamellious neglect. On being informed of this, Ms. Matthews, it is only fair to say, appeared less surprised than from the apparently low estimate of Mr. Doman's generosity which the tone of her former letter attested one would naturally have expected her to be. Soon after, however, her letters grew infrequent and then ceased altogether. But Mr. Doman had another correspondent, Mr. Barney Bree of Hurdy-Gurdy, formerly of Red Dog. This gentleman, although a notable figure among miners, was not a miner. His knowledge of mining consisted mainly in a marvelous command of its slang, to which he made copious contributions, enriching its vocabulary with a wealth of uncommon phrases more remarkable for their aptness than their refinement and which impressed the unlearned tenderfoot with a lively sense of the profundity of their inventor's acquirements. When not entertaining a circle of admiring auditors from San Francisco or the East, he could commonly be found pursuing the comparatively obscure industry of sweeping out the various dance houses and purifying the cuspidores. Barney had apparently but two passions in life, love of Jefferson Doman, who had once been of some service to him, and love of whiskey, which certainly had not. He had been among the first in the rush to Hurdy-Gurdy, but had not prospered and had sunk by degrees to the position of Gravedigger. This was not a vocation, but Barney in a desultery way turned his trembling hand to it whenever some local misunderstanding at the card table and his own partial recovery from a prolonged debauch occurred coincidentally in point of time. One day Mr. Doman received at Red Dog a letter with the simple postmark, Hurdy, California, and being occupied with another matter carelessly thrusted into a chink of his cabin for future perusal. Some two years later it was accidentally dislodged and he read it. It ran as follows, Hurdy, June 6, Friend Jeff, I've hit her hard in the boneyard. She's blind and lousy. I'm on the divvy. That's me and mom's my lay till you toot. Yours, Barney. B.S., I've clayed her with Scari. With some knowledge of the general mining camp Argot and of Mr. Brees' private system for the communication of ideas, Mr. Doman had no difficulty in understanding by this uncommon epistle that Barney, while performing his duty as Gravedigger, had uncovered a court's ledge with no outcroppings that it was visibly rich in free gold. That moved by considerations of friendship he was willing to accept Mr. Doman as a partner and awaiting that gentleman's declaration of his will in the matter would discreetly keep the discovery a secret. From the post script, it was plainly inferrable that in order to conceal the treasure he had buried above it the mortal part of a person named Scari. From subsequent events, as related to Mr. Doman and Red Dog, it would appear that before taking this precaution, Mr. Brees must have had the thrift to remove a modest competency of the gold. At any rate, it was at about that time that he entered upon that memorable series of potations and treatings which is still one of the cherished traditions of the San Juan-Smith country and is spoken of with respect as far away as Ghost Rock and Lone Hand. At its conclusion, some former citizens of Hurdy-Gurdy, for whom he had performed the last kindly office at the cemetery, made room for him among them and he rested well. Having finished staking off his claim, Mr. Doman walked back to the center of it and stood again at the spot where his search among the graves had expired in the exclamation, Scari. He bent again over the headboard that bore that name as, if to reinforce the senses of sight and hearing, ran his forefinger along the rudely carved letters. Re-erecting himself, he appended orally to the simple inscription the shockingly forthright epitaph, She Was a Holy Terror. Had Mr. Doman been required to make these words good with proof, as, considering their somewhat censorious character he doubtless should have been, he would have found himself embarrassed by the absence of reputable witnesses and hearsay evidence would have been the best he could command. At the time when Scari had been prevalent in the mining camps thereabout, when, as the editor of the Hurdy Herald would have phrased it, she was, in the plentitude of her power, Mr. Doman's fortunes had been at a low ebb and he had led the vaguely laborious life of a prospector. His time had been mostly spent in the mountains, now with one companion, now with another. It was from the admiring recitals of these casual partners, fresh from the various camps that his judgment of Scari had been made up. He himself had never had the doubtful advantage for acquaintance and the precarious distinction of her favor. And when finally on the termination of her perverse career at Hurdy Gurdy, he had read in a chance copy of the Herald her column-long obituary, written by the local humorist of that lively sheet in the highest style of his art. Doman had paid to her memory and to her historiographers genius the tribute of a smile and chivalrously forgotten her. Standing now at the graveside of this mountain Messalina, he recalled the leading events of her turbulent career as he heard them celebrated at his several campfires and perhaps with an unconscious attempt at self-justification repeated that she was a holy terror and sank his pick into her grave up to the handle. At that moment a raven, which had silently settled upon a branch of the blasted tree above his head, solemnly snapped its beak and uttered its mind about the matter with an unapproving croak. Pursuing his discovery of free gold with great zeal, which he probably credited to his conscience as a grave-digger, Mr. Barney Brie had made an unusually deep sepulcher, and it was near sunset before Mr. Doman, laboring with the leisurely deliberation of one who had a dead sure thing and no fear of an adverse claimant's enforcement of a prior right, reached the coffin and uncovered it. When he had done so, he was confronted by a difficulty for which he had made no provision. The coffin, a mere flat shell of not very well preserved redwood boards apparently, had no handles, and it filled the entire bottom of the excavation. The best he could do without violating the decent sanctities of the situation was to make the excavation sufficiently longer to enable him to stand at the head of the casket and, getting his powerful hands underneath, erect it upon its narrower end, and this he proceeded to do. The approach of night weakened his efforts. He had no thought of abandoning his task at this stage to resume it on the morrow under more advantageous conditions. The feverish stimulation of cupidity and the fascination of terror held him to his dismal work with an iron authority. He no longer idled, but wrought with a terrible zeal. His head uncovered, his outer garments discarded, his shirt opened at the neck and thrown back from his breast, down which ran sinuous rills of perspiration, his hearty and impetant gold-getter and grave robber toiled with a giant energy that almost dignified the character of his horrible purpose, and when the sun fringes had burned themselves out along the crestline of the western hills and the full moon had climbed out of the shadows that lay along the purple plain, he had erected the coffin upon its foot, where it stood, propped against the end of the open grave. Then, standing up to his neck in the earth at the opposite extreme of the excavation, as he looked at the coffin upon which the moonlight now fell with a full illumination, he was thrilled with a sudden terror to observe upon it the startling apparition of a dark human head, the shadow of his own. For a moment, this simple and natural circumstance unnerved him. The noise of his labored breathing brightened him, and he tried to still it, but his bursting lungs would not be denied. Then, laughing half audibly and wholly without spirit, he began making movements of his head from side to side in order to compel the apparition to repeat them. He found a comforting reassurance in his asserting his command over his own shadow. He was temporizing, making with unconscious prudence a dilatory opposition to an impending catastrophe. He felt that invisible forces of evil were closing in upon him, and he parlayed for time with the inevitable. He now observed in succession several unusual circumstances. The surface of the coffin upon which his eyes were fastened was not flat. It presented two distinct ridges, one longitudinal and the other transverse. Where these intersected, at the widest part, there was a corroded metallic plate that reflected the moonlight with a dismal luster. Along the outer edges of the coffin at long intervals were rust-eaten heads of nails. This frail product of the Carpenters are, to have been put into the grave, the wrong side up. Perhaps it was one of the humors of the camp, a practical manifestation of the facetious spirit that had found literary expression in the topsy-turvy obituary notice from the pen of Herdy Gertie's great humorist. Perhaps it had some occult personal signification impenetrable to understandings uninstructed in local traditions. A more charitable hypothesis is that it was owing to a misadventure on the part of Mr. Barney Brey, who, making the internment unassisted, either by choice for the conservation of his golden secret, or through public apathy, had committed a blunder which he was afterward unable or unconcerned to rectify. However it had come about, poor Scari had undubitably been put into the earth base downward. When terror and absurdity make alliance, the effect is frightful. This strong-hearted and daring man, this hearty night-worker among the dead, this defiant antagonist of darkness and desolation succumbed to a ridiculous surprise. He was smitten with a thrilling chill, shivered and shook his massive shoulders as if to throw off an icy hand. He no longer breathed, and the blood in his veins unable to abate its impetus surged hotly beneath his cold skin. Unleavened with oxygen, it mounted to its head and congested his brain. His physical functions had gone over to the enemy. His very heart was arrayed against him. He did not move. He could not have cried out. He needed but a coffin to be dead, as dead as the death that confronted him with only the length of an open grave and the thickness of a rotting plank between. Then, one by one, his senses returned. The tide of terror that had overwhelmed his faculties began to recede. But with the return of his senses, he became singularly unconscious of the object of his fear. He saw the moonlight gilding the coffin, but no longer the coffin that it gilded. Raising his eyes and turning his head, he noted curiously and with a surprise the black branches of the dead tree and trying to estimate the length of the weather-worn rope that dangled from its ghostly hand. The monotonous barking of distant coyotes affected him as something he had heard years ago in a dream. An owl flapped awkwardly above him on noiseless wings and he tried to forecast the direction of its flight when it should encounter the cliff that reared its illuminated front a mile away. His hearing took account of a gopher's stealthy tread in the shadow of the cactus. He was intensely observant. His senses were all alert, but he saw not the coffin. As one can gaze at the sun until it looks black and then vanishes, so his mind, having exhausted its capacities of dread, was no longer conscious of the separate existence of anything dreadful. The assassin was cloaking the sword. It was during this lull in the battle that he became sensible of a faint, sickening odor. At first, he thought it was that of a rattlesnake and involuntarily tried to look about his feet. They were nearly invisible in the gloom of the grave. A horse gurgling sound like the death rattle in a human throat seemed to come out of the sky, and a moment later a great, black angular shadow, like the same sound made visible, dropped curving from the topmost branch of the spectral tree, fluttered for an instant before his face and sailed fiercely away into the mist along the creek. It was the raven. The incident recalled him to a sense of the situation, and again his eyes sought the upright coffin now illuminated by the moon for half its length. He saw the gleam of the metallic plate and tried without moving to decipher the inscription. Then he fell to speculating upon what was behind it. His creative imagination presented him a vivid picture. The planks no longer seemed an obstacle to his vision, and he saw the livid corpse of the dead woman standing in grave clothes and staring vacantly at him with lidless, shrunken eyes. The lower jaw was fallen, the upper lip drawn away from the uncovered teeth. He could make out a mottled pattern on the hollow cheeks, the maculations of decay. By some mysterious process, his mind reverted for the first time that day to the photograph of Mary Matthews. He contrasted its blonde beauty with the forbidding aspect of this dead face, the most beloved object that he knew with the most hideous that he could conceive. The assassin now advanced and displaying the blade laid it against the victim's throat. That is to say, the man became at first dimly then definitely aware of an impressive coincidence, a relation, a parallel between the face on the card and the name on the headboard. The one was disfigured, the other described a disfiguration. The thought took hold of him and shook him. It transformed the face that his imagination had created behind the coffin lid. The contrast became a resemblance, the resemblance grew to identity. Remembering the many descriptions of Scarry's personal appearance that he had heard from the gossips of his campfire, he tried with imperfect success to recall the exact nature of the disfiguration that had given the woman her ugly name and what was lacking in his memory fancy supplied stamping it with the validity of conviction. In the maddening attempt to recall such scraps of the woman's history as he had heard, the muscles of his arms and hands were strained to a painful tension as by an effort to lift a great weight. His body writhed and twisted with the exertion. The tendons of his neck stood out as tense as whip cords and his breath came in short, sharp gasps. The catastrophe could not be much longer delayed or the agony of anticipation would leave nothing to be done by the coup de gras of verification. The scarred face behind the lid would slay him through the wood. A movement of the coffin diverted his thought. It came forward to within a foot of his face, growing visibly larger as it approached. The rusted metallic plate with an inscription illegible in the moonlight looked him steadily in the eye. Determined not to shrink, he tried to brace his shoulders more firmly against the end of the excavation and nearly fell backward in the attempt. There was nothing to support him. He had unconsciously moved upon his enemy, clutching the heavy knife that he had drawn from his belt. The coffin had not advanced and he smiled to think it could not retreat. Lifting his knife, he struck the heavy hilt against the metal plate with all his power. It was a sharp, ringing percussion and with a dull clatter, the whole decayed coffin lid broke in pieces and came away falling about his feet. The quick and the dead were face to face. The frenzied, shrieking man, the woman standing tranquil in her silences. She was a holy terror. Our story A Holy Terror by Ambrose Beers concludes in just a moment when Weird Darkness returns. My doc agrees that I need to lose a few pounds. I knew that going in, but he also told me that the meds I'm taking for my type 2 diabetes aren't going to do me much good if I finish each meal with ice cream or cheesecake. I kind of knew that in advance, too. But cutting back on carbs and sugars is a lot easier said than done. I've tried a lot of protein bars while on the road, but I swear it's like eating non-sweetened chocolate-dusted particle board. But now, I travel with built bars. Built bars taste like candy bars. In fact, I'm now using them for my dessert. And in about 150 calories per bar, less than 3 grams of sugar, up to 19 grams of protein, I can satisfy my sweet cravings guilt-free. Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Built and Try A Box. You can go for a variety pack of several flavors to try, or pick and choose to build a box of your own. Use the promo code WeirdDarkness at checkout and get 10% off your entire purchase. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Built. Some months later, a party of men and women belonging to the highest social circles of San Francisco passed through Herdy Gertie on their way to the Yosemite Valley by a new trail. They halted for dinner, and during its preparation explored the desolate camp. One of the party had been at Herdy Gertie in the days of its glory. He had indeed been one of its prominent citizens, and it used to be said that more money passed over his pharaoh table in any one night than over those of all his competitors in a week. But being now a millionaire engaged in greater enterprises, he did not deem these early successes of sufficient importance to merit the distinction of remark. His invalid wife, a lady famous in San Francisco for the costly nature of her entertainments and her exacting rigor with regard to the social position and antecedents of those who attended them, accompanied the expedition. During a stroll among the shanties of the abandoned camp, Mr. Porfer directed the attention of his wife and friends to a dead tree on a low hill beyond Incheon Creek. As I told you, he said, I passed through this camp in 1852, and was told that no fewer than five men had been hanged here by vigilantes at different times, and all on that tree. If I'm not mistaken, a rope is dangling from it yet. Let us go over and see the place. Mr. Porfer did not add that the rope in question was perhaps the very one from whose fatal embrace his own neck had once had an escape so narrow that an hour's delay in taking himself out of that region would have spanned it. Proceeding leisurely down the creek to a convenient crossing, the party came upon the cleanly picked skeleton of an animal, which Mr. Porfer, after due examination, pronounced to be that of an ass. The distinguishing ears were gone, but much of the inedible head had been spared by the beasts and birds, and the stout bridle of horsehair was intact, as was the briata of similar material, connecting it with a picket pin still firmly sunken in the earth. The wooden and metallic elements of a miner's kit lay nearby. The customary remarks were made, cynical on the part of the men, sentimental and refined by the lady. A little later, they stood by the tree in a cemetery, and Mr. Porfer sufficiently unbent from his dignity to place himself beneath the rotten rope and confidently lay a coil of it about his neck. Somewhat, it appeared to his own satisfaction, but greatly to the horror of his wife, to whose sensibilities the performance gave a smart shock. An exclamation from one of the party gathered them all about an open grave, at the bottom of which they saw a confused mass of human bones and the broken remnants of a coffin. Poyotes and buzzards had performed the last sad rites for pretty much all else. Two skulls were visible, and in order to investigate this somewhat unusual redundancy, one of the younger men had the hardy hood to spring into the grave and hand them up to another before Mrs. Porfer could indicate her marked disapproval of so shocking an act, which nevertheless she did, with considerable feeling and in very choice words. Pursuing his search among the dismal debris at the bottom of the grave, the young man next handed up a rusted coffin plate with a rudely cut inscription, which with difficulty Mr. Porfer deciphered and read aloud with an earnest and not altogether unsuccessful attempt at the dramatic effect which he deemed benefiting to the occasion and his rhetorical abilities. Manuelita Murphy, born at the Mission San Pedro, died in Herdy Gurdy, aged 47. Hell's full of such. In deferrence to the piety of the reader and the nerves of Mrs. Porfer's fastidious sisterhood of both sexes, let us not touch upon the painful impression produced by this uncommon inscription further than to say that the elocutionary powers of Mr. Porfer had never before met with so spontaneous and overwhelming recognition. The next morsel that rewarded the ghoul in the grave was a long tangle of black hair defiled with clay, but this was such an anti-climax that it received little attention. Suddenly, with a short exclamation and a gesture of excitement, the young man unearthed a fragment of grayish rock, and after a hurried inspection, handed it up to Mr. Porfer. As the sunlight fell upon it, it glittered with a yellow luster. It was thickly studded with gleaming points. Mr. Porfer snatched it, bent his head over at a moment, and threw it lightly away with a simple remark, Iron Pirates, fool's gold. The young man in the discovery shaft was a trifle disconcerted, apparently. Meanwhile, Mrs. Porfer, unable longer to endure the disagreeable business, had walked back to the tree and seated herself at its root. While rearranging a tress of golden hair which had slipped from its confinement, she was attracted by what appeared to be and really was the fragment of an old coat. Looking about to assure herself that so un-ladylike an act was not observed, she thrust her jeweled hand into the exposed breast pocket and drew out a moldy pocketbook, its contents or as follows. One bundle of letters postmarked Elizabethtown, New Jersey. One circle of blonde hair tied with a ribbon. One photograph of a beautiful girl. One ditto of same, singularly disfigured. One name on back a photograph, Jefferson Doman. A few moments later, a group of anxious gentlemen surrounded Mrs. Porfer as she sat motionless at the foot of the tree. Her head dropped forward, her fingers clutching a crushed photograph. Her husband raised her head, exposing a face ghastly white except the long-deforming cicatris familiar to all her friends, which no art could ever hide and which now traversed the pallor of her countenance like a visible curse. Mary Matthews Porfer had the bad luck to be dead. 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. And please leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. Doing so helps the show to get noticed. You can also email me anytime with your questions or comments through the website at WeirdDarkness.com. It's also where you can find all of my social media, listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for the email newsletter to win monthly prizes, 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. Plus, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. All stories on Thriller Thursdays are works of fiction, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The fictional tale A Holy Terror was written by Ambrose Beers and is in the public domain. And The Creepypasta Hospitality was written by Eric Peabody. 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. John 8, verse 12. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And a final thought. Stop wasting time getting upset at those who criticize your life. It's always someone who has no idea of the price you paid to get where you are today. Stay calm and walk away. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.