 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, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode of Weird Darkness, it's another episode of 100% stories from Weirdo family members like you. If you have a true, scary, bizarre or dark story to tell about something that happened to you or someone you know, you can send it to me by visiting the Tell Your Story page at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The Demons of Eleven E. Hunters Crescent by Graham Sillers I was born in November 1986 in Perth, Scotland. I spent my first four years living with my mum and dad in a top floor flat of a block of six. The housing estate we lived in was called Fairfield and was just a little run down and rough around the edges, but it was home. From the time I was born, my maternal grandmother, who had the gift, always insisted that I also had it. All throughout my life I've had visions of things that have passed and things that are still to happen. This gift has gotten stronger since my grandmother passed away a couple of years ago. This story, however, centers on my first four years living in Eleven E. Hunters Crescent. This flat was haunted to say the very least. My first memory, and it's a vivid one, is seeing a demonic, monk-like face staring at me through the wooden bars of my cot. I couldn't have been older than a year and a half, but the memory has always stuck with me and has left me with a slight fear of the dark. So many scary things happened in this flat over such a short period of time. One day my auntie Angie, not my auntie by blood, but my mom's best friend and my godmother, was walking along the street and she looked up at the living room window, which looked on to Crescent. The window was open and my mom looking out. They caught sight of each other and my mom called down to ask Angie up for a coffee in a chat. The door entry on the block was controlled by a buzzer system. Each flat had its own button and a corresponding handset which was situated just inside the front door of each flat. My auntie Angie pressed the button for Eleven E and my mom's voice came over the intercom. Up you come, doll. The kettle's on. The door opened and Angie climbed the stairs to the top of the building. She expected my mom to be waiting at the top with the door open, but she was nowhere in sight and the door was locked. She started to knock and call my mom's name. Jean, it's Angie. Let me in, doll. Just at that moment, Angie heard my mom's voice from the bottom of the stairs. Angie, is that you, Petal? Come and give me a hand with Graham's pram and all these shopping bags. I'm shattered, hand. My auntie Angie ran down the stairs in complete shock. My mom had been out all morning shopping with me beside her in the pram. There was nobody else in the house as my dad was out at work. Who then had called down to the street offering Angie a coffee in my mom's voice and then proceeded to let her in at the intercom? Another incident took place one night when my uncle Jammie, my mom's brother James, who was the spitting image of Patrick Swayze in his youth and was very bit, the Casanova, had just broken up with one of his many girlfriends and needed a place to stay. He was put to bed a little worse for wear in the back bedroom. He fell asleep and then my parents went back to bed too. A couple hours later my mom was awoken by what she thought was me crying. I was just under a month old by this point and was apparently not the most vocal of babies, so my mom really paid attention to the sounds. She soon realized that the noise sounded like whispering and giggling. She thought that Jammie invited some girl into the house and she stormed through to the back bedroom opening the door wide only to discover that Jammie was still sound asleep. The lights were off and the windows were closed. This was mid-December and the height of winter in Scotland, so it was pretty chilly outside. Anyway, what my mom saw was stick with her for the rest of her life. The thin muslin curtains were billowing as if in a breeze from an open window and my uncle Jammie, who lay on the bed of sleep and bare chested, had been badly scratched and bloody to cross his torso. My mom has never been so terrified. Every time she retells this particular tale, she visibly begins to shake. Across Jammie's chest and tummy was a bloody inverted cross. Needless to say, my uncle never stayed overnight in that flat again if he had a lover's tiff with one of his lady friends. While there are many more tales I could share regarding this flat, I will tell only one more. My mom and auntie Angie both had pet dogs. My mom had a three-legged female mongrel called Lady. Oh, the irony. Angie had a pure-bred West Highland terrier called Snowy. While both dogs never particularly liked each other, they never fought. Measures were always taken though should the need arise to stop them getting into a fight. My mom and Angie were having girly chat and coffees, my dad had taken me out for the day to see his parents, and I would have been around two years old by this point. They had both been out earlier in the day walking the dogs, and they decided to go to some afternoon bingo, how very 1980s. They'd obviously need to leave the dogs alone in the house for a while, but didn't want them fighting when nobody was around to stop it. They decided that Lady should be put in the front bedroom, my parents' room, and Snowy should be put in the back bedroom, my bedroom by this time and the place I'd seen the evil-looking monk-like face staring at me through the bars of my cot. Both dogs were left with water and some dog-kibble to keep them happy. Both women would only be gone a few hours, and my dad and I would be away all day, so off they went, safe in the knowledge that no harm would come to either of their dogs. When they arrived back from their girly bingo game a while later, both they tad tipsy and happy that they won some money. They each went to let their dogs out of the rooms that they'd been kept in. My mom opened the door to her bedroom hoping to see her faithful lady hop out on her three legs to greet her mistress. She was very surprised to see Snowy, who bolted past her, ran into the living room and dove behind the sofa. My auntie Angie was equally speechless when she opened the back bedroom door and outplotted Lady, who similarly, if a little more unstable on her paws, also dove behind the sofa. Both dogs, from that point on, never had a single grumble at one another. Both my mom and Angie were at a loss as to how they could explain to each other what had gone on. Neither of them had had alcohol before going out to their bingo game, and both, to this day, are adamant that the dogs that they'd left in each room were not the dogs that they let out later in the day. The house had been empty for that few hours except for Lady and Snowy. Both bedroom doors had been firmly closed, and it was later found that my dad had forgotten his house keys and the only other set were in my mom's possession in her handbag. It's a mystery we still discuss thirty years later. So many spooky things happened at this address. The ones I've mentioned here are the most interesting to my mind. Other things that would happen included poltergeist activity. Items would be hurled across the room. Ornaments would be smashed. Every electrical item in the house would be found either switched on or entirely unplugged. Items would go missing, and when not found, would be replaced only for the lost item to turn up exactly where it had last been seen. Weird sounds, voices, laughs, blowing winds, growls and snarls would be heard from all over the flat when nobody else was around. We eventually moved out to a similarly laid out flat three streets along in the same estate. Nothing of notes ever really happened in 4C Leslie Court, but I've always heard strange voices, seeing creepy visions, been more open and perceptive to the strange and unusual side of things. My maternal grandmother did always say I'd inherited her gift of second sight. My parents too have always said that the spooky things in 11E Hunter's Crescent were few and far between before I was born and only really increased in severity after November 1986. All I can say is I'm so glad the house I now live in with my husband Duncan and our three corgis isn't haunted, and whatever resided alongside my family and I in my first four years on earth in 11E Hunter's Crescent didn't attach itself to me. I do often wonder if anything has ever happened to the family that moved in after we left. Apparently they still live there to this very day. Who Goes There by Christina Hale I have a story when I was about 14 years old, around 1999, 34 years old now. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and our house was haunted. One night I was walking down the hallway to go to my bedroom and I saw a full black shadow figure run across the wall. I remember freaking out and running while grabbing my sisters. I was babysitting at the time as my parents had went out that night. The kids were four and five. We ran up our driveway terrified, knees shaking, trying not to cry out of fear. I remember it having a large brimmed hat and dark. I got the courage to go back and try to recreate it, but I couldn't. Same night I'm still watching my two little sisters. It was getting late so we went to bed, a bunk bed, my sisters on bottom and I'm on the top bunk. We had a two bedroom home and one bathroom. My sisters are both fast asleep. I suffer from insomnia so I was up. I'm just staring at the door that was half closed and all of a sudden the whole light comes on and the bathroom light, footsteps and the sound of the medicine cabinet opening and closing. Footsteps and light goes off. I didn't see a shadow indicating that someone was physically there nor did I see anyone. While the home was laid out I'm able to see anybody going into the bathroom. My parents still aren't home so it wasn't them and my little sisters are fast asleep by now. I'm in full blown panic fear. What happened next I tried to recreate the next day but failed. Window is closed. Heater vent is on the opposite side of the room. The door that's half closed all of a sudden closes right before the latch and opens half way. This repeats four or five times before it just stopped open a little wider than it originally was. I tried physically moving the door but couldn't get the impossible speed the door was doing. We had carpet in the room so there's resistance when closing and opening the door. Needless to say I was terrified that night. I've had other experiences in the house I might share at a later time. Unexplained Sighting at RAF Base by Scott McAllum. A few weeks ago I was asked if I had ever seen a ghost. I've never actually put the experience down on paper, so to speak. I spent quite a few years with the Royal Air Force. My first posting was to RAF Buckin, situated in a small village called Bottom, around 30 miles north of Aberdeen. This would have been in the middle of July 1996. My billet was a small room we didn't have to share and was based at the back of the building. Being on the top floor I was afforded a fantastic view of the North Sea. Bleak in the winter but stunning in summer. To give you a rough idea of the layout of the room my bed was next to the window. Between the bed and the window was a table with a digital alarm clock and above it a light attached to the wall with a cord to switch it on and off. The door was on the other side along with some cupboards and a wash basin. Fast forward to December of that same year, the Sunday directly before Christmas Day on the 22nd. I'd been reading before deciding to get my head down. This would have been 2320 or 2321. I placed my book on the table, turned over onto my left side, pulled the cord to switch the light off and closed my eyes. Immediately I had an overwhelming feeling of fear that someone was in the room with me. I turned my head over my right shoulder and clearly saw a white figure stood facing me between the storage units in the door. By this point I was scrambling with my right hand to find the cord to switch the light back on. I watched this figure turn away from me and as I managed to finally grasp the cord and pull I saw this shape move towards the door before finally fading away. I knew I hadn't been sleeping as the bedside clock only showed 2322 or 2323 so only two minutes had passed. I was pretty shaken by the whole experience. So much so that I eventually moved to another part of the building and for the remainder of the time I spent in that room I'd never try to sleep in darkness again. I'd always leave the television on. In the days after I remember that three or four times in the months preceding that night I'd actually woken with a start convinced I'd seen someone in the room with me. However I'd put these down to waking suddenly and having images from a dream still in my mind or my eyes were adjusting to the dark. I also debated whether I'd imagined the whole thing but the room itself was always bathed in some ambient light. The curtains were RAF standard issue that is very thin and the lighthouse from the village was also visible. My door was also locked. To this day I'm convinced that what I saw was real. I'd never saw anything remotely scary like this before and haven't since. As a closing note I never told anyone about this at the time, not a soul. However the guy who was in the room directly below mine had asked to be moved to a different building. I asked him one night when we'd all had a few beers why he wanted to move. He wouldn't go into any great detail but said that a few times he thought he'd seen something in his room. I didn't press him for any further details and certainly kept my mouth shut about my own experience. Prior to what happened I would have described myself as an unbeliever. However after that night I've learned to keep a very open mind. If you like what you're hearing in Weird Darkness please tell somebody about the podcast, someone you know who loves creepy, strange stuff like you do. Also please leave a rating and review of the podcast in the podcast app you listen from. Doing so helps the show to get noticed. In fact, we've set it up now so that if you listen to the podcast in the Spreaker podcast player you can comment on individual episodes and I'll be notified so I can see your comments and respond to them. That's something I can't do in other podcast apps. You can find the free Spreaker podcast player in your mobile app store and thanks for helping to spread the Weird Darkness. Zeth's Phantom Friends by Wolf I want to share something that happened this past Sunday. I have a 15 month old boy named Zeth, yes with a Z, and since his birth now and then interesting things have happened. When he was a few months old he would look at the corner of the ceiling smiling and laughing at nothing. He'd do it at his daycare too. About three months ago my wife was home with him and he fell asleep on the floor by her side. She started taking pictures of him sleeping and in one a ball of light is next to him. It was the middle of a sunny day and only that one photo. So fast forward to last Sunday and my wife had left to go shopping in the morning while I stayed with Zeth. We were in the living room which has a small bathroom in one corner and then his toy chest is by that. I was on the couch in the middle of the room while he played near the toy chest. A quick note here, when he's shy or unsure of someone he comes and hides between or behind my legs. So he's playing when he suddenly stands up and looking at the corner of the bathroom is in, starts to walk sideways to me and pushes himself between my legs. All the while he's waving at the corner and saying bye-bye, pap. Now my father-in-law is pap-pap and Zeth will call him pap-pap, not pap. My father is grandpa but my grandfather is pap. So I ask him, Zeth, who do you see, who are you saying bye to? He just stays in my legs waving at the corner saying bye-bye, pap. I'm unsure but not worried as I get up and walk into the corner and look at Zeth urging him to come but he stays by the couch. He's not acting scared or crying but rather seems unsure. I come back and try to get him to play with his toys and he starts to do so. Now he has a rather large red and yellow dump truck that was a hand me down from a relative. If you press its roof the truck will talk and move around. Well the first day we turned it on for him he freaked out like crying and running from it even though he has other toys that do similar things. So we leave it off and he doesn't mind it then he'll push it around. While I get him to play with his toys but he keeps looking at the corner now and then. He's holding this dump truck and pushing it around when suddenly he stands up and quickly walks away from it while whining. I'm like, okay it's off. What's wrong Zeth? I ask as I push the roof of the truck to show it's not on. Zeth walked to the far side of the living room and looked at me. I picked the truck up and standing halfway held it out to him. It's okay Zeth it's off I say. He steps back more till he's against the wall and whining. I look at the truck. Okay this is strange I think as I hold it out. I didn't feel uneasy or anything but this truck is scaring my son. Nope not letting that happen. Okay Zeth Mr. dump truck is going to go bye bye okay I said as I open the back door but also in the living room and I set the truck on the back deck. No sooner had I closed the door Zeth ran up and started hitting the door with his hand and saying bye bye. He then ran into our kitchen to the window overlooking the deck and hit his hand against it while pointing out the window and saying that. Bye bye that. I watched him do this for a minute before taking him back into the living room. He looked at his toys and gave the area a wide berth as he walked around it. I couldn't get him to play with him again or go in the corner where the bathroom door was. He didn't cry or anything he just would stand and stare at me as I moved his toys around. Well I was unsettled because my son was bothered by something so I finally turned on the TV and sat him on the couch with me. He was fine after that and I was about to call my wife and ask her to come home soon but she got back a few minutes later. Once she was home, Zeth was fine. He walked to the bathroom door, he played with his toys, I told her what had happened and it was agreed. Screw the dump truck. I tossed it in the trash, still not sure what happened. We were worried something may have happened to my grandfather Pap but nothing has. We both believe children can see things we can't. I have my own feelings about it. I think he saw his guardian angel that day in the corner. He wasn't scared but shy and unsure. Why this angel may have been there, well my mother-in-law put it best. Maybe something was trying to come through that truck and Zeth's angel had to come to keep him safe. I don't really know and that's okay. Strange things have surrounded Zeth now and then even before my wife was pregnant with him. Two years before Zeth came we were at my cousin's house visiting with him and his wife. There was a storm rolling in as we were talking about names for our future kids. I said we picked out Serenity and Akidia for girls. When my cousin asked about the boy names I said, Zeth, as soon as I said that, a huge clap of thunder shook the house. Coincidence? The Recurring Nightmare of My Dad by Freddie. So to set this story as simple. I am 28 years old, a truck driver and I have some problems sleeping sometimes. But anyway, moving on, I have this weird Recurring Nightmare and while it's not all the time, it usually comes in one or two weeks spurts. My dad passed back in 2007 which is a part of this story but it actually begins in 2013. I left and went to Colorado to get my CDL commercial driver's license. This nightmare always starts the same way and feels so real. I wake up and start my morning routine. Wake up, get up and pull the curtain back over my windshield, sit down, light a cigarette and crack a monster. But something catches my eye. It's my dad sitting in the passenger seat. We talk, catch up and it's awesome. But it doesn't last long. He tells me that it's okay to be tired and be done. I always reply with something along the lines of, nah, okay, you taught me to keep working. And he always replies with, that's not what I mean. I can tell you're tired and ready to give up. That's where it turns. This thing is my dad or at least wearing him well and basically telling me to walk away from my family. I'll leave certain details out just because it could trigger some people fighting depression. I'm hoping that by typing this out and maybe putting it out there, it'll give me some type of relief. If you've ever dealt with recurring nightmares, I'd appreciate some input on how to stop it. Forest Perve by Ava Temple. This is a story my friend told me. It gave me chills and I wanted to share it here. So my friend Axel was out with some boys in the woods. They set up a tent and everything. So around two or three AM, the friends wanted to take a picture. So as Axel was sitting by the fireplace, he says that all the boys' faces, they turn white and one says, what the hell is that? So Axel turns around and sees what he thinks to be a skinwalker. I can't describe it, but he says it screeched at him and then left. That's all, it's weird. One Minute UFO by John G. My close encounter with a UFO took place in rural Iowa back in 1992. I can confidently categorize this object as a UFO because this object was definitely flying and I was then and remain to this day at a complete loss as to how to identify it. The object I observed was not one of those far away lights in the sky engaged in seemingly impossible maneuvers. No, this object passed slowly over my head at a height not much higher than nearby treetops. I stared directly at it for close to a minute. To sum, one short minute may not seem long enough to lend credibility to an eyewitness account of a UFO. I totally get it because I am as skeptical as anyone. But I'm also not prone to exaggeration. A single minute is about the amount of time that transpired from the instant this object entered my peripheral vision, arrested my full attention, floated directly overhead and flew steadily and silently out of sight toward the opposite horizon. I just moved my family to a rented farmhouse in rural Maxwell, Iowa. It was one of those old houses built in the latter part of the 19th century. The house was still standing thanks to a series of patchwork renovations made over the past century. Also, thanks to the fact the landowner decided to keep it as a rental property, we were its newest tenants. The yard at our new rural home was large enough to justify the purchase of a riding lawnmower. I made arrangements with a man in nearby Altoona, Iowa to purchase one that he had posted for sale. It was late afternoon, almost evening, a typical early autumn day. My four-year-old son was excited to go with his daddy to pick up our new lawnmower. We buckled ourselves into my little silver Mazda pickup, having a bed barely large enough to accommodate a riding lawnmower, and we made the 20-mile trip to the seller's house in Altoona, mostly barren country roads the whole way. The transaction went quickly, but by now the sun had dipped below the horizon. Darkness was settling upon us and a clear starry sky was taking shape overhead. We blocked the mower into the back and returned to the farmhouse, traveling the same country roads as before. I enjoyed spending time with my young son. I was one of those dads who encouraged imagination and creative thought in his kids. I had a way of turning even the most mundane things into some kind of memorable adventure, like purchasing a lawnmower. So, on this dark, starry night, he and I traveled these country roads singing and teasing and doing all those silly dad things that silly dads do, when suddenly the engine in my little Mazda pickup just died. I coasted slowly to the edge of the road and stopped. Like anyone would do, I made several attempts to restart the vehicle, but there was nothing. Not even that hopeful cranking noise, just the dreaded clicks. Even the headlights were going dim. I instructed my son to stay in the cab while I got out to open the hood and pretend to know what I was looking for. That's when I saw it, or should I say, felt it. While peering into the dark engine cavity of that mini-truck with the flimsy hood overhead, I felt an odd sensation that something was in the starry sky above me. I pulled my head out from under the hood and looked up and around. I thought I saw movement toward the northern horizon, just movement. No lights, no sound, just a black shadow moving in the black sky. I stared intently at the spot, not believing anything was really there. But something was there, and it was moving slowly and intentionally right toward us. My son was still pumped up with all the artificial childhood excitement silly dads are known to ignite in their kids just before bed time. He was chatting at me through the rolled down window still in silly mode. Meanwhile, dear old dad was not feeling silly anymore. I was secretly frightened of what was happening overhead and on the ground. I did not want to pass fear onto my son, so I said nothing to him about the mysterious object closing in on us. I placated his innocent silliness the best I could, at the same time praying to Jesus Christ to protect us and get us out of here. I stared helplessly at the approaching shadow, bracing myself for anything weird that might happen, but praying with all the faith and determination I could muster that nothing was going to harm my son. I was standing my ground, damn that thing whatever it is. I watched it approach. It took notice of my brain function attempting to ascribe familiarity to this thing. I remember thinking this must be some guy flying a hang glider. Yeah, I would explain it, but do hang glide pilots fly over barren Iowa cornfields in total darkness without lights? I don't know, do they? As it drew closer, my hope for it being a hang glider evaporated. I could not tell what it was, even though it drifted directly above me and I stared at it the entire time. It had no definite shape. It seemed to shift. I imagined seeing the familiar shape of a flying craft, but I can't be sure. The only thing I am certain of is black shadow. The same uncertainty applies to the sound that it made. If it made any sound at all, the sensation was barely evident. The sound was so discreet, I can't say with certainty that I actually heard a sound or just felt the soft whisper of a low steady breeze that seemed to synchronize with its movement. The object traveled in a straight line, barely above the height of nearby treetops. I continued to watch it as it continued its slow, silent, straight line flight toward the south horizon until it exceeded the limits of my vision. Puzzled but relieved, I closed the hood of my pickup and rejoined my son inside the cab. We prayed in Jesus' name to help our car start and it started right up as if nothing had happened. We drove home and continued our silly dad-son banter. Not until he was grown did I tell him about that unidentified, dark, silent shadow that floated directly over our heads. Of course he remembers that night but he just remembers how fun it was. He remembers thinking how cool it was. The Jesus fixed the truck. Psychic Teenager by Kess Ronan Ever since I was little, i.e. since I was about nine, I was able to get a sense of energies, see some versions of the future, and know when people are going to die. I know most stories are about one experience in particular but I want to tell several without going too far into detail. I'm 15 now and after many sleepless pondering nights I've still not made sense of it all. My first account was fairly mundane. I saw a regular day in my life three days before it happened. I could recall the conversations, what I had for lunch, etc. It was weird because whenever this happens on the day I predicted I feel, for lack of a better word, weird. Everything that happened that day scared me. I was extremely jumpy, nervous, and downright anxious. That was the first time. A mystifying experience. The next few times followed the same patterns. Sometimes the visions, I guess I can call them that, happened the next day. Sometimes it was a week. Sometimes they have yet to be lived out by yours truly. The two most memorable accounts are as follows. I was 11 and in my bedroom when 2 a.m. rolled around. I woke with a start and I swear to God I could feel something in my room. It was dark. It was evil but it didn't want to hurt me. For some reason I just sort of hovered above me with no particular shape. The thing seemed satisfied as if it knew whatever it asked I'd obey. I was young, I was alone, and I was terrified. After a few minutes although they seemed like hours, it left. It took three days of crying, hiding from the world and a ton of comforting music until I was able to sleep again. I was 13 and hanging out with my older sister, 16 at the time, and I remember we were listening to music, in particular a song by John Bellion, I believe. I'm pretty sure it's called Beautiful Now. When the song builds up to its beat drop, the tempo of the music increases until it's just one beat going faster and faster. Well, all of a sudden, according to my sister, I took a deep breath in and my eyes darted back and forth as if watching something. She told me that she watched as a single tear rolled down my cheek, although it did not leave a wet mark, she swears it was there. Then when I came out of the vision I started panting hard, my heart feeling as if it was about to explode. My muscles, my bones, my very nerves were screaming with a need, the need to help, to save, to fight. What I saw still terrifies me to this day. I was on the inside of a huge, and I mean friggin huge, four-foot thick cement wall. There were people trying to climb from the outside to get in, and every time a new face appeared at the top of the wall, a sniper shot them down. I felt as though I were in a scene from a movie. I couldn't move. My mouth was open to scream, but no sound emanated from my lips, and my feet were stuck in this deep mire. I call it mire because mud or muck does not do this substance justice. I remember seeing that a boy somehow had dug under the wall. He was around six or seven years old and was carrying his three-year-old sister. Just as he pulled them out from under the wall he looked up and now my head was forced to turn as well. Standing there on top of some sort of machine in a perfectly tailored black and dark blue striped suit was a white man. It was average height, but his smile, his smile was the feral grin of a deranged lunatic about to torture and kill. I watched in horror as he looked over and nodded at one of the snipers. Only a few seconds later that little boy lay dead, a single bullet hole in his forehead. His little sister sat by his fallen body, and she looked up right into my own sad eyes. I watched as she cried a single tear of blood that ran down her cheek and hit the ground before I was pulled back into the waking world. Yep, you heard me, a single tear drop composed of blood. I didn't tell my sister all these gory details, but I did tell her most of it. That night I didn't sleep. I cried, and at one point I basically howled in agony. I know that one day this horrible, horrible, horrible event will occur and to the little girl that loses her brother, please, for the love of all things, please, I beg you, stay safe and stay strong. You shut yourself in. The lights are out, and you're listening to weird darkness, but suddenly you get that feeling you're not alone. You don't know what might be under the bed or in the closet or in the attic or in the room with you. You don't dare try to sleep now. You're too scared to. If you doze off, you might be vulnerable to the creatures who haunt your dreams. That's just one more reason to have weird dark roast coffee in the cupboard because you just never know when you might need it. Weird dark roast coffee contains deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness. Each bag is fresh roasted to order by Evansville Coffee and delivery is free for your first order. Just use the promo code Weird, you can find a link to it at WeirdDarkness.com. Grab a bag before something else grabs you from the dark. The Sevens by DD Lee. Some backstory, I used to be a nanny and was popular throughout my town in terms of who to call. At my church, I'd work in the nursery with kids three years old and younger. There was a new family attending my church. Let's call them the Smiths with two younger daughters, three-year-old Sally and one-year-old Sarah, fake names for privacy. I got along great with these little girls and their mom eventually asked me to start babysitting them. Same old, same old, so I agreed. Up on a hill sat their beautiful large farmhouse with old stone walls lining the property. Out back past the wall was a long field with a colonial cemetery tucked in the corner. The day I visited, their dad was talking me through the house and showing me the ropes, and I noticed that there were no TVs, no computers, no landlines, but I chalked it up to mean that they were just old-fashioned. Finally, their dad's about to leave when he turns to me and says, oh, I almost forgot, if Sally mentions the Sevens at nap time, disregard. I remember laughing a little and asking, what are the Sevens? But he's dead serious when he looks at me and repeats, like I said, just disregard. Kind of weird, but whatever. We have a fine morning playing games and enjoying a lovely day outside. Too quickly, 2pm rolls around and it's time to put the girls down for a nap. Before we head upstairs, Sally hugs me tight while I'm cradling Sarah and says, I won't sleep, I won't sleep. I just thought it was a kid not wanting a nap, so I said, it's okay, I'll stay with you until you fall asleep. So she listened and followed me to Sarah's room first, who was already fast asleep in my arms. I put her in her cradle, turned off the light, and closed the shades as instructed and closed the door. I then turned to Sally, who was just staring at her dark room. Waiting a minute to see what she'd do, I finally tapped the top of her head. Hello, anybody in there? She giggles and runs off into her room. I follow and sit next to her under a canopy with a book. About half way through, she inhales sharp, freezes and whispers, the sevens are here. I stop reading, stunned and slightly creeped out to then say, what? The sevens, Sally whispers, eyes on her closet, they're here. I sit a minute, hearing and seeing nothing. Sally? She doesn't respond or look away from her closet. Can you tell me who the sevens are? The sevens, still whispering, are orange and skinny. They have deer horns. Quiet! I freeze, terrified out of my mind, sitting in a dark kid's room, hugging a scared little girl. She begins to cry, oh my gosh, Sally, what's wrong? They're crawling on the walls. She stands and looks around the room. They don't like us, Dee. She picks up all of her toys and pillows and begins chucking them at the wall, screaming, get out, get out, get out. I pick Sally up and run out of the bedroom, down the stairs and into the living room. Wait, we have to go get Sarah too. As soon as I put her down, she bolts back up the stairs and just stands, facing Sarah's door around the corner. I run back up and my mouth drops. Her door is now wide open and she is sitting in the middle of her floor in a dark room unharmed. She can't stand, let alone walk, and the crib is a good three and a half feet off the ground. I run in and scoop her up, checking for bumps and scratches. When I turn, Sally's just standing in the doorway. The sevens are here. Okay, I exclaim, nap time's over, let's go. I grab Sally's hand and she clings tight when halfway down the stairs, the dog starts howling. We all scream, startled. Sarah begins to cry. I yell, ginger, hush, it's just us. But the dog doesn't stop barking. She's a large golden retriever jumping wildly at the back door. Looking out the window, I think to myself, we weren't supposed to have bad weather today. She wants to go out, Sally says, and she runs over and lets ginger run off without a leash. Oh no, Sally! Good thinking, but we gotta put her on a leash first, I say, running outside, chasing down the dog. Dee, don't, she's fighting the sevens. I freeze, still holding Sarah and we all watch their dog jump the stone wall and run into the field, disappearing into the fog toward the old cemetery. We sit on the swings in their backyard and wait, listening. After what feels like forever, the fog starts to clear up and we see ginger trotting back, covered head to toe in dirt. I look at Sally. What should we do now? Her gaze is distant and clouded. Both girls look exhausted. We get the hose. So we spray ginger down and the sun finally reappears. Is it safe to go back in the house? I'm totally submitting to her rules now. Not typical of a trained nanny, but I don't want to make anything worse. Yeah, it's good now. So we head back in and make mac and cheese. During dinner I ask a few questions. Sally, when did you first meet the sevens? When we moved here, she said, with a mouth full of food. Do they ever touch you? They try, but they just say mean things and jump on all the beds. What do they say? They say, she takes another bite, this is our house, this is our house, leave. She picks up her fork as she explains and shakes it in her tiny fist. I nod, do they talk to Sarah too or just you? Yeah, silly. They can only touch her. That's why she wasn't in her bed, but they don't hurt her because they used to have a Sarah too. I'm baffled and extremely confused. What does that mean they used to have a Sarah? Sally just shrugs and keeps eating. Probably like they used to have a baby too. Do they come every day? Yeah, only at nap time though, at night they stay outside. So they're here all the time, I ask, trying to understand. I guess, I don't know, but mommy and daddy can't see them. Eating her last bite, she then asks, do you believe me? Take a minute to answer, but remembering her dad's response earlier, her parents probably tried to ignore it. Kids can't fake being scared the way she was, and there's no explaining what happened to Sarah either. I believe you, kiddo. I remember Sally's sweet smile after that and her saying, can I have dessert? I went on to nanny them for about a year and a half until I babysat their dog alone when they all went on vacation. Sally had left a picture for me. She drew of Ginger and I sitting in the field behind her house. It was cute, except later on that day, that's exactly where we were when the fog rolled in and I watched Ginger collapse. I ran out and she wouldn't stop puking. I called their grandmother for help, who took Ginger to the vet hospital. The following week, I got a call from Sally and Sarah's mom saying that Ginger died. I only babysat one last time for the Smiths after that. It was a month after their dog died that Sally told me Ginger ate one of the sevens. She then took my hand to show me the spot I'd seen Ginger fall on. Grass no longer grows in that spot of the field. After high school, I went on to join the military and couldn't nanny anymore. They have since moved, and what's strange is that I see the new family that occupies their old house when I drive by. A young couple, with a toddler and a baby, and a brand new chocolate lab, attending my church. If you made it this far, welcome to the Weirdo family. If you like the podcast, please tell your friends and family about it however you can, and maybe ask them to become Weirdos too. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Click on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode. Also on the website you can find the Weirdo's Facebook group, Paranormal and Horror Audio Books that I've narrated, the Weird Darkness store, my contact info and social media links, plus you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, anxiety, or thoughts of suicide. All stories in this episode are purported to be true and all were written by Weirdos like you, listeners to the podcast. If you'd like to send your true scary story, you can send it to me by visiting the Tell Your Story page at WeirdDarkness.com Weird Darkness is a registered trademark of Marlar House Productions, and now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Romans 5, verse 8, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And a final thought by Vince Lombardi. It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up. I'm Darren Marlar. 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