 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, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. While listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website. At WeirdDarkness.com you can sign up for the newsletter to win monthly prizes, find paranormal and horror audiobooks I've narrated, watch old horror movies for free, listen to my other podcast, The Church of the Undead. 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. Coming up in this episode, I'm going back to a previous creepypasta episode with three stories, two of which were written by Weirdo family members. So, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The angel statue stole my soul by Weirdo family member Kat Hall. I live in a relatively boring town in England. I'm sure everybody says that about their town, but nothing interesting ever happens here. However, we do have many myths and legends, just like any town. Some are official and have roots in real life events. The Priory and Convent, for example, have tunnels that connect them where a few years back, excavations found many, many small skeletons. They were baby skeletons, and while some weren't fully formed, the vast majority were, and it was theorized that the nuns, and especially the monks, were not so pious after all. One of my favorite legends is that the four horsemen of the apocalypse will ride through this town when the end of times comes. All I can say is that I hope I get to see them ride because what a sight that would be. Some other myths and urban legends are not so easy to track down the origins of, but are passed around by word of mouth, and everybody in town knows about them. One of the most well-known is the angel statue in the graveyard behind Northumberland Avenue. You can laugh and make Dr. Who jokes about not blinking, but where do you think they got the idea from? I was originally told this legend when I was only seven or eight, and then it was brought up again when I was ten. We moved a few years previous into a house that backed onto the largest cemetery in my town. I was asked a lot about if anything weird happened in that house. I didn't understand what they meant and had to ask my mum who had lived in the town her entire life. Year after year she'd say, when you're older. That happened to be when I was ten, and wanted to know why other kids at school thought those houses were haunted and if I'd ever seen a ghost. There's a haunted angel statue in the cemetery behind us. Every year at midnight on Halloween she moves and then sixty seconds later resumes her original position. I laughed and said I wanted to watch her move or I wouldn't believe it. Even at ten years old I was a little mad. Some things just don't change. My mum got worried and looked at me deadly serious. You can't. Anyone who watches her move is cursed to be called to the cemetery and become a statue themselves. Most people who try fall asleep seconds before the clock hits midnight as if there's something trying to protect anyone stupid enough to give it a go. I remember huffing and crossing my arms in defiance. I would stay up and watch her stay still because as much as I loved our town's stories this is one I couldn't believe. Many years have passed since and it was only recently I thought of the story again. I was walking through the cemetery on a cliche bright sunny day. As much as anywhere remotely religious makes me feel uneasy this cemetery has always brought me peace. I wasn't walking any particular route and also wasn't taking any notice of where I was going. I almost walked into the caretaker of the church and its grounds who stood right in front of the angel statue. This is the first time I actually looked at the statue up close in person. I had only seen it from afar or through my bedroom window before we moved to another house. It's much more imposing close up and much taller. I'm tall at almost six feet but this thing towers over me. Its face doesn't have lots of details just enough for you to tell where its features are and while everything around it has been kept clean and tidy the area around the statue is a mess of thorny vines, fallen leaves and mulch. The statue has fared relatively well under the circumstances with no cracks or chips out of it but one of her hands is missing. The stone was weathered but doesn't let on that it stood there for as long as anyone can remember. My face must have shown how uncomfortable it was making me because the groundskeeper spoke up. She'll do that to you. Don't stare in her eyes for too long. I quickly look away having not realized I even had been looking in her eyes. Why is that? She'll take your soul and drag you to hell. It's why her hand was removed. That isn't due to age then? No. In the 1900s angry mob mentality they managed to break off her hand after hours of trying. Oh. I blink and looked at the jagged cut. Does she actually move? I kind of just blurted out the question. She doesn't like people watching her move, turns them into statues themselves. I've come in a few times and found new statues that I knew hadn't been there the night before. I frown. But wouldn't people notice a missing person? The groundskeeper shakes his head. They get written out of the universe as if they'd never existed in the first place. Those who remember a name will ask about it and be met with blank expressions. Soon after they'll forget the name themselves or they'll hear it and know it sounds familiar. They just won't know why. I laugh a little. Somewhere between nervous and feeling like I was being messed with. It's a joke, right? He shakes his head again. No. It's no joke. I keep a tally of new statues. I've worked here for nearly 50 years and I've counted 10 new statues. The keeper before me, he disappeared. Disappeared? I frown, but somehow know where this is going before he speaks. The church claims I'm the first keeper they've had since 1934, but I found paperwork and records that begged to differ. I didn't start here until 1968. There was another before me, but one day he just stopped coming to work. He stopped making records of his work. He stopped counting new statues and then people forgot his name. I shiver and look around the area of the cemetery I'm stood in. Why don't you destroy it? He laughs, which turns into a cough. People have tried. They really have. Lucky ones end up in a hospital with broken bones, burns and no memory of how they got their injuries. And the unlucky ones? I'm unsure if I want to know at this point, but it's too late to take the question back. They end up being buried. Mysterious heart attacks, brain hemorrhages, internal bleeding. I visibly shudder and take another glance over at the statue. You'll hear her now. She'll start calling to you. What? You're curious about her. She'll know and she won't like it. She'll like it even less that you think it's all a joke. She doesn't have much of a sense of humor. Okay, but what do you mean she'll call to me? You'll start hearing whispers. She'll know your name. You'll think it's nothing, but they'll get louder. They'll become so loud that you won't be able to ignore them and the only way to quiet them is to come here and watch her. And become a statue? If you're lucky, you'll be protected. There's something here, nothing to do with God or the devil as such religion and beliefs don't matter, just good and evil. I swallow thickly and rub my face, but what happens if I'm protected? You'll fall asleep. He answered simply but then corrected himself, actually you'll pass out. You'll probably be woken up by me. If not, I'll find a new statue. I nod and thank him and I offer my hand to shake his, which he politely declines with a smile, nothing personal. I haven't slept properly since that day. I haven't had a night where I haven't woken in a cold sweat hearing whispers. At first they were too quiet for me to hear what was being said, but now it's October and it's heading towards Halloween. The whispers are louder and more constant. Some of them aren't even whispers anymore, they're just incoherent screams, but those whispers send chills down my spine. Ready own your soul, it will be most useful. Coming Home by J.R.T. McMahon Before I start, I should mention that the names of the crew who worked on the movie have either changed or omitted. That being said, in 2016 an up-and-coming film director started work on a film that he thought would get his name out there. He was already gaining steam with a number of projects he helped on, but he wanted something his name came first on, so he came up with a story and then began work on Coming Home. The story was to center around a man who was honorably discharged from active service and the struggles that he endured re-assimilating to civilian life. The director, who I will call Alan, he wanted the film to be as authentic as possible. He knew the narrative beats had been done before, so he focused on making the film as genuine as he could. This also made the process a much more frugal endeavor. Alan scouted all over for the actors he would employ and was elated when he found a man recently discharged from active service. The man, who we will call Marcus, was virtually unknown as well. Alan had the idea that anyone on camera should be someone who had never been on film before. That way there was no chance of recognizing the actor and experiencing any disconnect. When it came to location scouting, Alan was incredibly specific with his choices. The most important piece was the apartment Marcus would live in. Alan stated it would need to be a character of its own. After about a week of looking around, Alan eventually stumbled on a dingy back alley set of apartments. It was the type of place where you were likely to find plywood doors and abandoned needles. The tenants ranged from coked out couples to the elderly with no means of supporting themselves, and Alan felt the location was perfect. It didn't hurt that Alan had to give the landlord a surprisingly little amount of money in order to film there. Judging by the state of things, the landlord didn't really care what happened in the building if it kept making him money. The filming was fairly uneventful. There were the expected hiccups, but nothing like unexplained injuries or spectral intervention occurred. In fact, everyone on board thought the shoot went better than planned. With the apartment, the idea was always that the walls were paper thin, and with Alan's search for realism, any noise picked up by the microphone was the ambience. During the shoot, Alan got plenty of ambience. Crying babies, arguing couples, and the war of vacuums, they all inserted themselves into the film. Coming home was wrapped, and the process of editing and vetting for a spot in film festivals began. Alan already had a small following, so grabbing a time slot and a few underground festivals wasn't too challenging. And with that, a month or so later, the film was screened. The audience reception was a bit confusing at first glance. While the film deals with some downer themes, it's ultimately an uplifting experience. Yet when approaching anyone who watched the film, they described experiencing a sorrow that they couldn't quite put their finger on. Like a distant memory you couldn't picture but the feelings still lingered. This reaction was consistent through all of the movie's screenings. Alan became troubled and watched the film over and over. It wasn't until a few weeks later that the pieces started to connect. It all started in the apartment. There was a couple in the apartment that had been living there for a year or so and were raising a child together. They were, unfortunately, one of the tenants that were the cause of the discarded needles. I was with Alan as he read through the newspaper article. He would jitter between reading it and checking a scene and coming home. Alan was looking for realism. The reality he found affected everyone involved. The couple had been hiding their stash of drugs behind their vent, so all the screws were already loose. On the day of filming, they got so hopped up on whatever that they neglected to tighten the screws on the vent. The child crawled out of the playpen that it was far too large for and ventured over to the vent. The nice cool air was like a siren call in the 80-degree apartment. The child was just small enough to squeeze into the vent. The sweat on his body made navigating the large ventilation system a bit easier. That is, until all of it wiped off on the metal walls, after which the child had difficulty moving around until he got stuck. Unable to use proper words yet and without a developed sense of reasoning, the child simply began to cry. The sound bounced off the vents walls and through the apartment building. When the child did its best to struggle through, it continued to cry for help, pulling inch by inch through the vents. The child full of panic and desperation would pass away in the ventilation system of that building while his parents were zombified in the other room. When the audience, editors and Alan listened to Coming Home, they were hearing the final cries of that poor kid. I wish I could say that was the worst of it, that horrible situation. In the scene where the child can be heard crying, Alan tried to mimic a dolly-like camera swing to create some dramatic tension. As the camera swings by the characters, for just a moment, you can catch a glimpse of the vent. The artificial light, very briefly, maybe just two frames, catches the small glint of the child's eyes. The whole crew was just inches away, but due to the thin walls and the cries bouncing off the metal, the child sounded like it was in another apartment. I'm sure you've heard of film shoots that carry a curse with them, movies like The Crow or The Exorcist. Well, Coming Home has a similar weight, except it was a wave of mournful regret that ate away the crew. The lead actor, Marcus, he was in contact with Alan for a while after the discovery and he said he couldn't stop dreaming about the crying, that it was all he could hear anymore, it's all his mind would focus on. A week after, he stopped making contact. He was found in his house, sprawled out on the floor next to an empty pill bottle and a broken bottle of Jack. Other actors involved in the film just vanished. None of them seemed to want to make it as an actor after being part of Coming Home. The individual that was filming at the time was said to have been admitted into a psychiatric ward. His family feared he'd end up like Marcus. Alan has the only copy of the film left and all recorded footage of it has been scrubbed from the crevices of the internet. Now, all Alan does is sit in his room and watch the scene on loop until he passes out. He is so hypnotically drawn into it that I can barely get him to eat or drink. I don't think he's coming back from whatever he's dealing with. I can't imagine what all this must have done to him. Since he's always playing the footage, I've had to get used to the noise bouncing through the vents on quiet nights. Some nights I hear Alan whispering back to the footage. I think it's driving me a bit mad too. One night when he was whispering, I got up to go check on him and when I opened his door, the room was dark. The laptop was off and Alan was laying still in bed, but I still heard the baby's cries, but they weren't coming from the room. I knew where they were coming from. I quickly left the room that night making damn sure not to look in the vent. When Weird Darkness returns, I have one more creepypasta story to share. If you have a weird darkness coffee mug and maybe some weird dark roast coffee to pour into it, now might be a good time to do that because the next story will be very appropriate for it. 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. I have a coffee addiction by Weirdo family member Ashley Ingram. Let me start off by saying that this addiction is new. I didn't always have it. It actually started a few days ago. I've been awake for 86 hours now and I have no intention of ever sleeping again. You see, I can't sleep. It's not that I can't sleep, it's that I won't. I refuse. This all started a few weeks ago. I'm a night owl, so a lot of times I'll stay up until the wee hours of the morning trying to get things done that normal people would do when the sun is up. This means that about 80% of my day I'm running on caffeine because of the sleep deprivation I get from forcing myself to stay up until 4am. I know, I know, not exactly the best way to live your life, but as long as I'm productive and get stuff done, there's no harm in it. So I thought. It started taking a big tool on me. So much so that I started having some pretty bizarre dreams, to say the least. The first night seemed like any other night of insomnia. I stayed up, got my work done, and crashed around 4.45am. Normally when I'm this exhausted, my brain just skips the dreaming phase, but that night was different. The dream started off pretty normal. I was sitting with my mother at our kitchen table, chatting brightly over a cup of tea, but her face was turning red. No, purple. Blue, maybe? A shade much darker than her normal peachy face. And her words were slurring. Were they even words at all? It sounded more like a breathy chatter than anything. And then it stopped completely. She fell forward and slumped onto the table, a choking gasp leaving her mouth. Immediately when I felt the thud, I woke up, sweat pouring down my back and forehead. I looked around the room expecting to see her, but all I was met with was my dark bedroom, with light barely breaking into my window as my clock read 5.56am. I reluctantly fell back into a deep slumber, luckily without dreaming of a single image this time. I awoke around noon, got around as fast as I could these days, which mainly just consists of changing the sweatpants I wore to bed into a new fresh pair and poured myself a bowl of cereal. The day went on as normal. I shuffled around the house, probably took a cat nap or two, and as soon as it turned to dusk, my busy night got started. I cleaned my whole downstairs, scrubbed every toilet and dusted every shelf. Meal prepped for the week at two o'clock in the morning and finished that paper I'd been pushing off for days. I fell asleep a little earlier that night. I'm not even sure I made it to four, like I normally do. Again, I passed out and was in such a deep slumber that I had no images to recollect from my dreams, or lack thereof the next morning. I was startled awake early in the morning to a phone call. It was my brother sobbing into the phone informing me that our mother had hung herself earlier in the night. Her neighbor found her body when he went to bring her mail over to her and she was old and frail and couldn't get around much anymore. When the dispatchers arrived at her house, it was too late. She died of asphyxiation, surprisingly. The rope hadn't managed to snap her neck, so I'm assuming she died a slower, more agonizing death than she had planned. My mother's funeral was a few days after her death. I know she was getting up there in age, but I still hadn't expected her to go so soon. And for what reason? Last time I had spoken to her, she seemed happy, delighted even. So what would have caused her to take her own life? The insomnia had gotten worse after that. I could hardly close my eyes without gruesome pictures flashing through my mind. I had to wait for utter exhaustion to take over before I could even think of sleep. I had another dream a few days after the funeral. I was sitting with my friend Carter on a bench beside the old baseball fields where we used to play in Senior High. It was good seeing him and reminiscing over long forgotten memories about scuffing our knees and getting nailed in the head with a rogue baseball every once in a while. It's no wonder we turned out the way we did. We laughed and joked, and everything seemed to be so peaceful until I noticed the pinhole-sized dot on his shirt in the middle of his torso, and it seemed to be growing larger. The crimson color started to seep through, dripping down to his pants. I looked up into his lifeless eyes as the same thick substance started pouring out of his mouth. I screamed as his body hit the dusty ground and immediately shot up in my bed, just as I had done when I dreamed about mother. This time the dream seemed so much more realistic. I could smell the iron as his shirt was drenched in the red liquid. I could hear it bubbling up into his throat. I immediately called him, not bothering to check the time, and to my surprise, he answered on the second ring. Hey, buddy, everything okay? You know what time it is? Yeah, man, I'm sorry. I just haven't heard from you in a while, and I was making sure that you were doing well. Sorry, sometimes I don't realize that the rest of the world sleeps during this hour. That's okay, bud. You get some rest now, okay? I'll talk to you tomorrow when I'm not so drowsy. Yeah, that sounds good. Sorry again. You have a good rest of your night. Click. I tossed and turned and realized the sleep was not coming for the rest of this night, what little was left of it, so I got up and started my day at 7am. I did all of my work that I would usually do at night in the morning and was surprised to see all the downtime I had when nightfall actually did come around. I turned on the TV and once realizing that there were no good programs on, mainly the reason why I don't watch TV, I turned to the news channel. To my utter horror, I saw a breaking news broadcast. A man had walked into an appliance store, took the nearest sharpest knife he could find, and plunged it right into his stomach. I gasped. It was Carter. I turned the volume up as loud as I could as the news broadcaster told the viewers what had happened. Carter was rushed to the hospital, but died a few hours later, despite the doctor's best efforts to stop the bleeding. I was wide awake. I don't remember what time I had fallen asleep after that, probably around three in the afternoon the next day, but what I do remember was the dream I had immediately afterwards. I was with my brother, down by the lake, watching him poke around the fire he had so meticulously made. He was always great at outdoorsy things, always managed to impress everyone around him with his grilling skills and his balance while waterboarding. It was a beautiful autumn night, and the fire was the perfect temperature to keep us warm with the chilling breeze that constantly blowed. We talked and, very poorly, sang campfire songs and smelled the sweet scent of roasting marshmallows. The scent didn't last long, however, and slowly turned into the smell of burning flesh. I looked over and watched as my brother's skin started to bubble. He screamed as the fire engulfed him, melting away his skin cells until nothing was left but charred flesh. He died, and this time I was there for the whole thing. I went to his house the next day, just to make sure he was all right. He invited me in for dinner where he was frying his famous chicken and baking potatoes in the oven. I, of course, agreed. I could smell the food before I even opened the door, and it always smelled delicious. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I came back he stood there, no expression on his face as he held the pan of hot, boiling oil in his hand. He didn't say a word as he doused himself with the liquid, and I don't even want to get into the sight or the smell of his skin when it poured onto him. I have an addiction to coffee. Well, I'm trying to train myself into having an addiction. I haven't slept in three days. I can however remember the last time I dreamed. I was alone, standing in front of a mirror. As I gazed into the shiny surface, I noticed a hole forming in the middle of my forehead. Just like Carter, blood started gushing from the wound, spraying the wall behind me as I realized there were two holes, one in the front of my skull and one in the back. I woke up and poured myself a cup of coffee. That's all I've been drinking these days. I refuse to go back to sleep. I refuse to know what might happen when I lose consciousness and no longer have control over my body. I don't like coffee, but I drink it. It might be giving me side effects, though, or maybe it's the lack of sleep, but I don't own any weapons, no knives, no firearms, no archery equipment, nothing of the sort. But maybe my mind is playing a trick on me, because I swear I saw a gun lying on the endstand of my favorite chair. I have a coffee addiction, or maybe I just don't want to sleep. Thanks for listening. If you liked the podcast, please tell someone about it. Recommend Weird Darkness to your friends, family and co-workers who love the paranormal, horror stories or a true crime like you do. Every time you share the podcast with someone new, it helps spread the word about the show and a growing audience makes it possible for me to keep doing the podcast. Plus, telling others about Weird Darkness also helps get the word out about resources that are available for those who suffer from depression, so please share the podcast with someone today. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. Stories in creepypasta episodes are works of fiction and links to the stories or the authors can be found in the show notes. The Angel Statue Stole My Soul was written by Weirdo family member Cat Hall. Coming home was by JRT McMahon. And I have a coffee addiction is by Weirdo family member Ashley Ingram. Weird Darkness Theme by Alibiamusic. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark and now that we are coming out of the dark, I will leave you with a little light. Joshua 24 verse 15. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods or ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And a final thought, don't focus on regrets. Find your inspiration in what you can do now. I'm Darren Marlar. 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