 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. 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 Thriller Thursday and this week I'm bringing you a tale of horror fiction from one of our Weirdo family members. It's a story from Rob Funkhauser called The Daemon Wood. 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. Part 1 I've lived in the current area for roughly the past 10 years. It's in eastern Baltimore County, straddling the salt-pepper tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. The community I live within is private. Not even the police can come within its bounds without being called. There are no fences around it, only a quarter mile stretch of road that leads into its center and carries the residences to their various courts. It's pretty much your average suburban scene, with most of the people there being your average Joe's. I've never had any problems living there. However, behind our neighborhood is an entirely different story altogether. Directly across the street from the back of my house is a parcel of land that stretches for 140 acres to the north, east and south, surrounding the outer edges of the community. Being here a decade and being no more than a 35-year-old sucker for exploring woods, especially those which I haven't recently seen, I'd gone into the forest only a mere year after I'd gotten settled into the home. For the most part, there's not much to the woods, not until you get into the deep areas which I won't venture into myself. Every time I've even gotten close to these seemingly forbidden parts, I would turn back after several dozen cautious footsteps. Then I would stare at the area I wanted to see, but wouldn't dare step foot on it, as if I were trying to see something which would eventually reveal its otherwise hidden form. After I would stare for what seemed maybe a couple of minutes, I would receive that all-too-familiar sensation of being watched. I wouldn't bolt just yet. I wanted to let whatever thing I had imagined to get to notice me that I wasn't deeply afraid of it, that I noticed its presence and that I wasn't going to be intimidated, even if I was all alone. Just around the time I felt like something was getting pissed off and ramped up enough to cause harm, I would tease it with leaving, kind of like a F-U whatever you are, that I'd make it back home where everything felt normal, safe and sound. I make no mistake about the presence I felt viewing me, had I stayed there any longer, I felt as though it would have attached itself to me, and I wasn't about to have that. To sidetrack for a short moment, I had always believed in the paranormal slash predator supernatural. It wasn't that I was actively looking for ghosts, demons and poltergeists on any kind of basis, but I knew better than to not believe and then be sorry later on. Of course, I had seen and experienced my fair share of odd happenings on canny events, inexplicable actions. All of this peeled in comparison to what would later years down the line I would see with my own two eyes, and yet my brain would try to neglect any and all of what had happened. Part 2 The action I would ultimately come to regret more than any other stupid action in the long line of stupid actions that is my life happened about two years ago, or about seven years after I'd moved to the house. Back in my formative years of late teens and early 20s, I would hold these amazing parties in my basement which would attract all kinds of young people from several neighborhoods in the vicinity. I'd hold them every two or three weeks, just enough time for our bodies to detox from the hundreds of beers and dozens of liquor bottles we'd consumed from the prior party. It was during one of these reverie moments when I suddenly had an epiphany. Have one of these parties in the woods. The teenagers in the area supposedly did it a lot on certain weekends. I know this to be true, because I've seen the blue plastic trash can filled to the very brim with beer bottles and cans, liquor bottles, cigarette packs, blunt wrappers and even needles. Fortunately, about a year ago, somebody had cleaned up that area, which was a small peninsula that reached out into the Salt Peter Creek, a beautiful spot on those not-so-hot summer days. And so, for the first time in nearly 15 years, I put out the idea to my friends on social media and whatnot. Dozens of comments flooded my page about what an excellent idea it would be to have a party in the woods. So I set the date, May 7, 2016, and told everyone to not get too drunk on Cinca de Mayo, which was, of course, two days earlier. As time seems to do to all of us as we get beyond that certain age, where it suddenly speeds up at least 15%, those 10 days went by in a relative flurry of no time at all. Being the one throwing a party, I had to make sure the area was going to be set up and ready for who knows how many people. Even though it was private property, the owning company was based in Florida, so there wasn't any real danger of us getting caught, locked up or having the cops called on us, as long as we kept the noise limit to a minimum and the bonfire below 2-3 feet. May 7, 2016, that night will forever haunt the hell out of me. By this time, years after I had first taunted whatever that thing was in the wood, I had casually forgotten about it all. I knew there was something not quite right about whatever dwelt there, but I had set up the party in a different area from the deep wooded places, so I was confident that there would be no trouble at all. It wasn't that the party had gone wrong. Quite the opposite. The party started off great with everyone in attendance performing a waterfall drink of a tall-boy beer, you know, at the buzz going for the night. Then those who hadn't spilled their beer all over themselves puked up and trying to chug the big can all at once, or simply whisked out and went on to take a shot of various liquors. For the first four hours, everyone was having a blast. Someone had brought an amp and hooked up their phone and played great tunes all night long. The next few hours after that, however, were a pure nightmare. Sometime around 2.30 in the morning, about 60% of the crowd had gone home, which left my closest friends still partying with me, even though not too many people were still drinking at that point. I was walking around the site making sure there wasn't too much trash to be cleaned up the next day when my foot caught on an unseen root. Down I went into a tangle of thorn vines that just so happened to grow everywhere in this forest. Fortunately, I had had enough to drink that the half-inch-long thorns hadn't caused too much agony as I thrashed around trying to get out of the mess and back onto my feet. A split second later, there was an explosion from the dying fire. The flames had suddenly leapt into the night sky as if someone had tossed in a propane tank, but none of us had anything like that. We had lit the fire with paper kindling in some lighter fluid and the lighter fluid had run out two hours ago, so there was nothing to explode in that fire and yet it did explode all the same. I remember covering my eyes from the brightness of the 12-foot pillar of fire, felt the heat as it radiated outward and upward and then was rolled over by the shock wave of the blast. I was out of the bush, but I stumbled as I tried to find my footing and fell down a slightly slanted hill. I kept rolling for a few seconds, then nothing. Apparently, I had struck my head on a rock that was in a shallow dip in the land and was found ten minutes later, unconscious. Those last few sentences I had been told about after the fact. I remembered none of it except the fire erupting into the early morning sky. Other than that, I woke up in the hospital with a three-and-a-half inch gash on the back of my head. What I was told next chilled my soul and heart to their chorus. Part 3 In the presence of my family, some friends and the police who had questions for me about what had happened with the fire, I had been filled in about what had taken place during my ill-timed head meeting the rock. Supposedly, most of those in attendance had seen some kind of form of substance within the flames. It had rushed upward from the fireplace so quickly a mushroom-shaped form of fire spread across the tops of the smaller trees that then morphed into what appeared to be wings. These flame-licked appendages opened up to reveal an entire body of flames, no apparent facial features with the exception of horns that could be seen against the night. Then the real horror began. The cops present began to tell me what happened, at least what they gathered had happened from my party guests. As this demon of fire rose from the pit, those of my friends who hadn't fled in terror were struck dumb at the awesome site, unable to move. They just watched as one by one of these staring bystanders were lifted into the air by an unseen force which obviously the flaming form was controlling that incinerated their bodies to char within seconds. Altogether, four of my closest friends had died that night from what the police termed as a freak happenstance of unknown origins. My mind reeled with what I had just been told. If I hadn't been in a thorn bush a few seconds before, more than likely, I would have been counted among the deceased. But I knew it wasn't an accident or a freak occurrence. That demon thing took my friends because I had goaded it years before, and now it had an enemy until I died or I sent it back to hell. The Daemon Wood by Rob Funkhouser continues in just a moment. Are you a member of the Darkness Syndicate? The Darkness Syndicate is a private membership where you receive commercial free episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast and radio show behind the scenes video updates about future projects and events 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 of 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. I became obsessed with getting back at whatever the hell took for my friends. Those who knew of what happened, which happened to be everyone in attendance who had survived, or those fortunate enough to have left earlier in the night, the latter through the grapevine that is the online community. My email was inundated with people asking me if I had really seen a demon made of flames or was it all crap. I replied to as many choice emails as I could until my reserve and my resolve crumbled and I had to find the strength to fight on anew. I doubt that most, if any, I had responded to had believed my story of hitting my head on a rock and going unconscious, but that doesn't matter. I have the actual scar to prove that story. With answering the emails out of the way, I took a walk back to the site in blinding daylight, lest any untoward being tried to test my resolve. The yellow police tape was still up, but everything else had been cleaned up by some of my friends who had come back the next day. Sitting against a larger oak tree was already some candles, a cross, pictures of my four friends who had passed, and a carved piece of wood that read, Rest in Peace, about three feet above the makeshift altar of remembrance. I looked at their pictures and silently apologized for their deaths one by one. By the time I was on my last friend, my face was streaming with uncontrollable tears. I couldn't let them die in vain, not without them being avenged for their lives being taken under my watch. Grief and heartbreak were soon replaced by anger, an unquenchable anger that threatened to spill over into doing something violent. But that's what the thing wanted. It wanted me to act out in a flurry and fury of emotions, to not think clearly and go off half-cocked like some hormone-ravaged teenager. Oh no, not this time. I left the forest shrine, walked back to my house, and began researching any and everything on demons, elementals, and pretty much anything that dwelt in dark forested areas. Most of these things seemed to be either held back or weakened by salt, iron, silver, holy water, etc. I would pack a little goodie backpack full of nasty stuff for the demon, if that's what it was. I would come out victorious against this thing, till I had beaten it to its weakest form and sent it back to hell, whatever messed up place it had come from. I wouldn't let it shake my perseverance. Every day I would go into those woods and scream and curse while whipping around a mixed cocktail of holy water, black salt, and iron filings. This behavior went on for nearly two weeks after the incident, with nothing really reacting to what I was doing. Had I gotten rid of whatever had killed my friends? I doubted it, even though I very badly wanted to believe it. I think it was just something from afar in order to bide its time to attack at the exact right moment. It wanted me out of sorts, remember? A demon can play the long game, wait for years to get revenge, if that's what it took. But I doubt it wanted to wait long at all. On my last planned visit to the deep woods, I did my thing with the previously mentioned items and had finished up. I was about to leave when suddenly the worst grip of fear I'd ever had seized my body, stopping me in my tracks cold. I could at first feel my body go cold, then completely numb, but not from the cold. This was an even pressure against all surfaces of my body, simultaneously. It happened so quickly that my breath caught in my throat and my eyes were wide. Looking at my feet, I willed them to move, but they didn't. I silently cursed at them for not working, for failing me when I needed them, and lastly for bringing me back to that location of recent demise. All for naught, it had me in its invisible grasp and wasn't letting go. From somewhere off to my left and behind me came a very low, throaty grumble that seemed to vibrate my chest cavity. The grumble was closely followed by the sensation of being licked by a very long, slimy tongue against my left ear. That's when my paralysis broke. My feet suddenly worked, and I was gone out of there as quickly as my feet could carry me. As I ran, I could have sworn, I heard it laughing at me, mocking my gestures to my murdered friends with a laugh barely audible above the light breeze blowing at the time. As I looked back one last time before being out of eye-shot, I saw the cross, pictures, candles and flowers all go up in flames. That's when I knew I was nearly ready. Part 5 To be honest, I had taken a reprieve from dealing with the thing in the woods. I had realized that I was becoming dangerously close to being obsessed, which had begun to affect many aspects of my life. I had become detached from the outside world, only going to work and then home, barely taking the care of myself I needed. I'd skip eating a couple of days at a time, the same with bathing and other personal care subjects. I wanted nothing but to get back at that coward, that murdering, thieving demon. But I had hit a dead end. There were no more things to learn about symbols, blessed holy relics, salts, herbs, oils, etc. I had tried them all in every combination imaginable, but nothing was effective. Nothing got rid of my newest enemy, and this fact alone is what inspired me to keep going. It had been a week after I had begun searching when one of the emails I had sent out had come back with a hit. It was the first glimmer of hope I'd felt in weeks. A friend of my mother's boyfriend, being a professor of ancient Israeli studies in Israel, had contacted me, explaining that he might have something that could help with my problem. He said that, biblically, King Solomon was supposedly given a ring which could control demons. He had received this ring from God himself and it was adorned with nine stones of certain type. Skipping over most of the blather that I couldn't keep my eyes on long enough to care, I finally found the meat and potatoes of the email. He said he believed that he'd found one of the second generation rings, of which there were twelve for each tribe of Israel. And according to this professor, these rings were all made from a small portion of the original King Solomon ring. What I read next kick-started my heart with happiness as I read that he would loan it to me for a week in order to help me with my problem. I was ecstatic to say the least. I could barely wait the two days it took to get from Israel. The professor had expressed it to me. When I opened up the solid wooden container that was inside of the large cardboard box, the ring sat beautifully in a velvet holster. Its gold content was unquestioned as I felt its heft when I picked it up to give it some scrutiny. In the ring center was a green stone that almost seemed to glow with an inner light. The longer I held the ring, the better I felt about the next confrontation. The better I felt about myself and my friends' deaths didn't seem like such a big concern. That's when I realized I was being affected by whatever positive energy this ring held and would soon care about nothing but the ring and its sensation. Quickly I set the ring in its container and closed it. I had my atomic bomb equivalent of a mystical artifact and I was more than ready to use it. I can't exactly say why my mother's boyfriend wanted to help me out so graciously by allowing me to use such a rare and archaeological gem like he did. Maybe he had once had a similar problem? Or maybe he simply could relate to my hopelessness. I suppose the reasoning behind the loan was to use it for what it was made for, banishing and controlling demons. But would it be enough? What if all nine stones had to be on the ring in order for it to work? Would I die and be dragged to hell for trying to stop the abomination in the woods? Of course there was always a possibility, but that was a chance I had to take. If I didn't take the stand now, this thing would keep doing whatever it had been doing for what I suspect had been a very long time on the order of thousands of years. Well, if there's one thing I could never stand, it was a bully and this bully was going down. It was the day after I had received the ring when I decided to take this demon down. I had my bag of tricks, the various other avenues I had tried against the thing without much success. Why? Simply put, everyone needs a backup plan when stuff goes sideways. I still doubted the ring's ability to affect the demon as greatly as it would if all the stones were on it, but I had no other choice. I had come up against this thing several times and each time it won. Not this day. I could feel the ring's aura, ambience, whatever it was. The sensation was growing stronger the closer I got to the spot where my friends had died. Maybe this ring would work and I could pack this demon to hell with a big ol' middle finger. Suddenly, I was there at the spot. My nerves were on edge, my senses were turned up to 11 and everything around me seemed to emanate its own inner light. I looked around at the area with new eyes for the first time in nearly a decade and I could feel the inherent goodness of nature all around me. Think of it as pins and needles being gently electrified but a hundred times stronger. My body felt like it was vibrating, humming with some unknowable energy that coarsed stronger with every breath I took and I had yet to put on the ring. I knelt down, opened the bag, brought out the ring and put it on. The sensation I had been feeling grew exponentially as soon as it was on my hand. That's when I saw it. A black blemish on the glowing vibrance of the wood's life force and it was growing bigger by the second. So that's how you arrive. I spat venomously at the thing while its hole was growing. I clenched my hand tighter feeling the ring's power working in me as I watched a crimson shade grow in the inky blemish of reality. Then it stepped through from its world into mine. There was definitely a humanoid outline to the thing where as before I had never seen it, only felt its presence. It was massive, a good 10 or 12 feet tall. Its wings were equally just as massive as it stretched them out to let me know what I was dealing with. When it was entirely out of its jet black portal, I suddenly raised my hand without really knowing why I had done it. Some things just feel more right when you let your actions speak. The demon had been taken a few steps toward me when it paused immediately, then quickly turned toward its portal which had just vanished into nothing. Your door is closed until I keep you there with this. I raised my right hand letting the ring shine its supernatural light. The swirling dark gray almost nearly invisible physicality visibly stilled at seeing the ring. Then came the thing's voice. It was low, guttural and barely audible due to its inhuman nature. The demon roared, wings opening wide as he made a defensive posture. Shut up! My voice was suddenly filled with authority that was beyond me. The demon complied immediately. His mouth was suddenly shut. But not only that, the mouth had disappeared entirely. The thing's eyes narrowed at me, staring daggers dipped with venom. Time to pay up. I said evenly without much emotion. I'd gone cold, numb to everything but the mission at hand and I was going to wax the floor with his mother. With no more words left to be spoken, we charged at one another simultaneously. I remember thinking that I wasn't sure what I was going to do once if we locked up in a physical fight. But that was an unfounded concern. The ring was controlling my actions through a combination of knowing the beast's weaknesses and knowing and enhancing my strengths. The demon swung at me with a huge clawed hand, what had missed as I dodged the attempt and slid between its open legs. I stood up just in time to be whipped at with the tail but no blow fell on me. I realized the ring had stopped its action instantly. I liked this ring. I leapt into the air to attempt to steam at the thing's vulnerable back, but I was battled aside by a wing. I collided with a large tree but sustained no injuries. The ring was playing defense and offense for my body during the fight. By the time I landed on the ground, I was set upon again by the fiend. He slammed both huge fists on top of me, burying me below ground level and knocking over the tree in one swoop. I raised the ring again and a powerful green hue to light erupted from the gem. It forced back all the debris and the attacking foe long enough for me to recover. I stood there, staring at the horrid hellspawn. It seemed to be waiting for me to make the next move, but before I could I heard a voice, a still small voice speaking to me, to inside of me to my soul. The demon knew it immediately, narrowing its sulfurous eyes at me while I stood there with my head tilted to one side, listening. What did the voice say? It told me to not use anger because anger alone wouldn't defeat it. Use the love for your friends, of your friends you've lost to battle the enemy. That sweet voice said as we felt each other intermingled for the first time. It was the greatest sense of peace I had ever felt. It was as if everything would be okay. Nothing would touch me, let alone hurt me. I reveled in this sensation and then embraced it, and that's when things got interesting. My turn. Those were the only two words I spoke before what came next. I let my guard down because the ring protected me, enclosed my eyes and did exactly what the small voice told me to do, embrace the love of my late friends. In an instant, so quickly gone and yet somehow it stretched on for an eternity, I relived every memory I had ever had with my friends. The sensation of the ring grew even more powerful, lifting my body from the ground while the eyes were still closed. I could hear the demon in my head screaming every negative abomination it could think of, but it was muted and seemed far off. Then I heard other voices, my friends. I could perceive each of their voices individually and simultaneously. They were thanking me for remembering them and going out of my way to slay the demon. Let us finish this then. My mouth moved, but it wasn't my choice. It was a combination of all the voices the demon had ever stolen or cheated. I lifted my arm into the sky, still hanging in the air and the ring led off a spear of green energy into the sky. What came back, however, was not from the blue sky. A portal so intensely white, opened seemingly between the clouds and immediately shot down to the earth like a sentient laser beam. The intense white ray of light immediately disintegrated the demon's physical body, burst through the ground beneath what remained of the demon, its essence I suppose, and opened a hole into a very hot and dark place. The near invisible demon's essence was powerfully forced into the hole, which immediately collapsed and the ray of light from the sky receded. Epilogue, three days after I had battled the demon and won, I called my mother's boyfriend to thank him for getting me in touch with the Israeli professors who had loaned me the ring. He had the oddest reaction ever when I told him this. Uh, I don't know anyone in Israel. I'd never known him to be a practical joker, but I had laughed then. That's a good one, Paul, I said, exhaling after having laughed, but his voice hadn't changed a bit. I'm serious, I've never known anyone in Israel. Wait, then what about the email from you and the professor? I only received them last week. I'm sorry, Greg, he said. I really don't have any idea what you're talking about. In an email, I had the internet service cut off a year ago at my house, and I've never had an email address. My mind reeled at what he told me. If he hadn't sent an email or received one, then how on earth did I receive them? And where did the ring come from? If not sent by a professor somewhere in Israel, I looked at the black box that contained the ring which was sitting on my desk ready to be sent back. I could see a little sliver of its green light seeping out of the cracks of the box, and then it faded. I hung up without another word to my mother's boyfriend. My life just became infinitely more interesting. 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. 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 audiobooks I've narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for monthly contests, 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 WeirdDarkness.com, 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 on the website. The fictional story The Daemon Wood was written by Rob Funkhouser. 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. Proverbs 8, verse 13, To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. And a final thought. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. Nelson Mandela. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.