(Bonus Episode) “AMATEUR IN CHANCERY” by George O. Smith (Short Sci-Fi Story) #WeirdDarkness

Edgar Logan lives at 21 South 72nd, and 2172 is the number on the taxi that sideswipes his car, on the lunch check his nephew adds up for him, and on the pink telephone in the apartment he's just gotten for a girl who reads destiny in numbers. CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = Show Open 00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “No Way Out” (December 27, 1978) ***WD 00:46:19.059 = Ellery Queen, “World Series of Crime” (October 02, 1943) ***WD 01:17:07.604 = Quiet Please, “In The House Where I Was Born” (May 28, 1949) 01:47:23.500 = Radio City Playhouse, “Whistle Daughter, Whistle” (July 31, 1948) ***WD 02:14:58.191 = Sam Spade, “Vafio Cup Caper” (August 22, 1948) 02:45:12.315 = The Sealed Book, “Till Death Do Us Part” (July 08, 1945) ***WD 03:14:36.434 = The Shadow, “The Destroyer” (March 25, 1945) ***WD 03:44:07.078 = Sleep No More, “Three O’Clock” (December 12, 1956) = SONG: “Three O’Clock” by Static Wax 04:16:52.114 = BBC Radio 4 Spine Chillers, “Inner Critic” (April 2006) 04:32:45.322 = The Strange Dr. Weird, “Ghost Ship” (April 24, 1945) ***WD 04:44:47.003 = Strange, “Greenwood Acres” (October 10, 1955) ***WD 04:57:19.846 = Incredible But True, “The Woman Upstairs” (1950-1951) 05:00:51.525 = Show Close (ADU) = Air Date Unknown (LQ) = Low Quality ***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing. More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com. CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0802

Curtis Richards' 1979 novelization of John Carpenter's Halloween opens on the eve of Samhain in ancient Ireland, where a druid king's shaman curses a murderer's soul to roam the earth until the end of time. Centuries later, in Haddonfield, Illinois, six-year-old Michael Myers has started hearing voices that tell him to say he hates people. A NOTE FROM DARREN: This is the full novelization of the 1978 horror film classic, John Carpenter's Halloween. The novel I'm sharing here has been out of print since the n1980s, and I had to pay a pretty penny just to get a used paperback version just so I could bring this to you. Well worth every penny! It's very true to the film, but has a lot of added elements that make it even more disturbing and exciting. This novelization, written by Curtis Richards, is so good, in fact, that John Carpenter took elements of this novel and used them in the script for the film's sequel, Halloween 2. Richards tweaks the film's story with a few minor but crucial changes to the original screenplay, which was written by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill. In this novelization, Michael Myers is given a supernatural reason for his actions as a child and as an adult, and it ties in directly to the dark paranormal origins of Samhain, the Druid Festival of the Dead, which eventually evolved into what we now celebrate as Halloween. This isn't really a spoiler, as it's all laid out in the prologue before getting into the main story, but it is an excellent addition by Richards. As we all know, the film Halloween begins with eight-year-old Michael Myers stabbing his older sister to death, which leads to his being admitted to a mental hospital for the next 15 years. He breaks out to terrorize a bunch of teen babysitters before he's finally brought down, or, so it seems, by the determined Dr. Loomis. The movie was very risque with explicit scenes of sex and nudity. If you've read the novelization, you know that Richards takes it to an even more erotic, edgy, and borderline pornographic direction in these scenes. But I prefer to keep things as PG-13 as possible here, so I've edited those sections to make them less edgy or indecent, or just removed them entirely if they didn't impact the story.  CHAPTER TIME STAMPS===== 00:00:00.000 = Prologue 00:10:42.089 = Chapter 01 00:21:11.768 = Chapter 02 00:33:20.063 = Chapter 03 00:42:12.102 = Chapter 04 01:02:56.503 = Chapter 05 01:15:46.155 = Chapter 06 01:31:00.280 = Chapter 07 01:37:36.115 = Chapter 08 02:12:07.275 = Chapter 09 02:17:23.504 = Chapter 10 02:48:21.477 = Chapter 11 03:06:21.683 = Chapter 12 03:25:12.231 = Chapter 13 03:49:45.829 = Chapter 14 04:11:25.242 = Chapter 15 EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HalloweenNovel SOURCES and RESOURCES: BOOK: “Halloween” the movie novelization by Curtis Richards: https://amzn.to/3NM2TCR, https://amzn.to/3UTkP2D MUSIC: “The Shape” by White Bat Audio: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/WhiteBatAudio WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: October 17, 2026 More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

In 1946, Louisiana strapped seventeen-year-old Willie Francis into its portable electric chair, and from under the hood he cried out for them to take it off. He walked away alive, lost at the Supreme Court by one vote, and went back to the chair a year later. From the book “BOTCHED EXECUTIONS: Four Centuries Of Failed Hangings, Electrocutions, Gassings, Injections And Firing Squads” by Darren Marlar at https://weirddarkness.com/botchedexecutions WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Originally aired: October 17, 2026 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HM3LZM9M/

In the cramped bedroom of her Culver City home, Doris Bither yelled at the spirits, and the investigators with her watched a green mist form into the upper body of a muscular man. Her eldest son watched something invisible throw his mother around the room, and when he tried to step in, it threw him across the room too. Dr. Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor doubted Doris Bither's story of three invisible attackers until they saw the bruises across her body. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/DorisBither READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yrrtrmda FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: The investigation on August 22, 1974, in Culver City California was to be like any other one Dr. Barry Taff had done. Believing that this would be an open and shut case they showed up at Doris Bither’s house. Not expecting much. Little did they know this would be one of the biggest cases in the annals of paranormal history. (“The Entity Haunting: The True Story of Doris Bither”) *** One of the most mysterious disappearances of the American twentieth century took place when a man named Bruce Nelson Campbell stumbled out of his Jacksonville motel room one night, dressed only in a pair of green pajamas, and was never seen again. (“The Man In The Green Pajamas”) *** A woman moves into a flat by herself and immediately begins to feel an uncomfortable presence around her. (“Tiny Apartment, Big Presence”) *** On a cold January morning, John Hoskins slaughtered three members of his family. (“A Day That Began with Death: The Hoskins Family Murders of 1919”) CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:01:22.328 = Show Open 00:03:14.954 = A Day That Began With Death: The Hoskins Family Murders of 1919 00:10:16.101 = The Man In The Green Pajamas 00:18:31.258 = Tiny Apartment, Big Presence 00:25:00.264 = The Entity Haunting: The True Story of Doris Bither *** 00:39:09.693 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Man In The Green Pajamas” written by Troy Taylor & Lisa Taylor Horton: https://tinyurl.com/y4a68c3p “Tiny Apartment, Big Presence” written by KatsWhiskers: https://tinyurl.com/yxmb9d67 “A Day That Began with Death: The Hoskins Family Murders of 1919”, written by John Brassard Jr.: https://tinyurl.com/weq3ytl “The Entity Haunting: The True Story of Doris Bither” written by Xavier Ortega: https://tinyurl.com/y8fv25w(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.) WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Originally aired: February 10, 2019 More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com. This episode of Weird Darkness runs from a 1919...

On the afternoon of September 23rd, 1880, David Lang waved to two men in a buggy, took another step across his open pasture near Gallatin, Tennessee, and disappeared in the middle of that step. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/DavidLang READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p93efjf FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: What if your thoughts, your self, your very awareness… weren’t inside your brain at all, but woven into the universe itself? (What If Consciousness Is Everything?) *** Across centuries and continents, there are eerie tales of tiny, otherworldly creatures captured by humans — only for terror, curses, or vanishing acts to follow. (Bagged, Bottled, and Bewitched: True Tales of Captured Fairies) *** On a deserted Scottish road in 1992, two men's terrifying close encounter with a hovering UFO led to missing time, haunting nightmares, and disturbing memories of alien beings. (The A70 Abduction Case) *** When Jake Bird was sentenced to die, he warned the court they’d perish before him — then one by one, they did. (The Hex of Jake Bird) *** One bright afternoon in 1880, David Lang took a step across his field — and vanished forever in front of witnesses who saw it happen. (Portal In The Pasture: The Strange Disappearance of David Lang) CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:01:28.802 = Show Open 00:03:13.646 = Portal In The Pasture: The Strange Disappearance of David Lang 00:17:39.952 = Bagged, Bottled and Bewitched: True Tales of Captured Fairies *** 00:30:14.552 = The Hex of Jake Bird 00:38:59.953 = The A70 Abduction Case *** 00:52:57.434 = What If Consciousness Is Everything? 01:04:53.042 = Show Close 01:06:08.761 = Bloopers *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The A70 Abduction Case”: https://www.thenightskyii.org/a70.html “The Hex of Jake Bird”: https://weirddarkness.com/jakebird/ “Bagged, Bottled, and Bewitched: True Tales of Captured Fairies”: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2024/08/Strange-Tales-of-Captured-Fairies-Gnomes-and-Other-Mysterious-Little-People/, “Portal In The Pasture: The Strange Disappearance of David Lang”: https://weirddarkness.com/thevanishingfarmer/ “What If Consciousness Is Everything?”: https://weirddarkness.com/what-if-consciousness-is-everything/(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.) WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Originally aired: May 07, 2025 More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at