December 11, 2025 • 25 mins
The advent calendar arrived nine days ago. No sender. No explanation. Just twenty-four numbered doors and a carved face with empty eyes that seemed to know exactly who Matthew Klein used to be.Since then, Marshport has become a graveyard.Three people are dead. A teenage boy has been twisted into a puppet for murder. A phantom child wrapped in ash and embers stalks the shadows, demanding obedience. And Matthew Klein — the man who ran while his family burned thirty years ago — has been branded with a wound that will not let him forget.He tried to destroy the calendar. The ocean spat it back. He refused to open a door. His youngest son woke screaming, wrapped in the coils of a python that should not exist.Now a mysterious hooded figure haunts the edges of Matthew's world. A bearded man who appears at funerals and vanishes into crowds. Someone who knows the rules of this game — perhaps even someone who wrote them.Pastor Russell Hart has offered to help – but has made a caveat… don’t open the next door until he’s in the room with the calendar to see it for himself.
Get the print version of the novel: https://weirddarkness.com/AdventOfEvil
#WeirdDarkness #ChristmasHorror #HolidayHorror #SupernaturalThriller #HauntedCalendar #DarkChristmas #HorrorStory #DemonicEvil #CreepyTales #YuletideTerror
Get the print version of the novel: https://weirddarkness.com/AdventOfEvil
#WeirdDarkness #ChristmasHorror #HolidayHorror #SupernaturalThriller #HauntedCalendar #DarkChristmas #HorrorStory #DemonicEvil #CreepyTales #YuletideTerror
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Matthew Kleine has been stripped of everything that once defined him.
His badge sits on Lieutenant Sear's desk. His gun is
locked away. Detective Davenport circles closer, connecting dots that all
lead back to one man, a man who now looks
less like a grieving friend and more like a suspect
at the center of a killing spree. The Advent Calendar
(00:25):
cannot be destroyed. Matthew hurled it into the frozen Atlantic
at Gull's Rest, and it returned, dripping with salt water,
mocking his defiance from its place beside the fireplace. He
refused to open a door, and his son paid the price,
waking to a Burmese python coiled around his small body.
He sought help from a man of God and Pastor
(00:47):
Heart fled his home, drenched in blood, screaming that he
could not help. Ten doors have been opened, ten days
of death, manipulation, and impossible horrors. Bridget Carr lies in
a grave with a star embedded in her skull. Gwen
Martin was stabbed to death with a metal cross. Rennuen
(01:10):
drowned in the exact spot where Matthew tried to end
the nightmare. Zach Welch wants a good kid with a
bright future now sits in a cell, claiming a boy
named Stephen told him to reveal Matthew's secrets. The calendar's
latest message offers no trinket, no token of death, only
(01:30):
a single word carved inside the door. Yes Decided cryptic
markings twenty three l. M. Logan and Mason December twenty third.
What kind of threat is this? Matthew finally confessed everything
to Anika, his real name, the Fire, the brother he
(01:51):
abandoned to the flames, but truth is not brought safety.
A hooded figure with a gray beard continues to lurk
at the edge of his nightmare, his purpose still unknown.
Fourteen doors remain sealed, fourteen days until Christmas, and Stephen
(02:12):
is far from finished. Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and
(02:52):
this is Weird Darkness's Advent of Evil, a holiday horror
novel written by Scott Donnelly based on a concept from
Darren Marler. Twenty four doors, twenty four days, twenty four
secrets waiting in the darkness, just like an advent calendar
counting down to Christmas. We'll unlock one chapter each day,
(03:13):
but what we find behind these doors may not be
the gift you're expecting. You can find all available chapters,
as well as the print version in paperback, hardback, or
kindle at Weird Darkness dot com slash Advent of Evil.
The Calendar is waiting. Let's see what awaits us behind
today's door. Thursday, December eleventh, Anakain and I had spent
(03:44):
the rest of our Wednesday and early Thursday morning trying
to research anything and everything we could regarding the cryptic
clues that codd the inside of door number ten, as
well as the thick vial fluid that covered Pastor Heart's
entire body. It looked like blood. It smelled like blood,
but without having a lab test it, there was no
(04:04):
way to know for sure. All we did know was
that it violently showered past Her Heart, a religious figure
who himself accused the calendar of being surrounded by negative energy.
If this wasn't proof of his accusation, I didn't know
what was. I tried calling and texting Russell a few
times since he left our house, but there was never
(04:26):
an answer or response. I could understand his hesitancy though
he left our home scared and drenched in blood, claiming
that he couldn't help us. Was that because he truly
didn't know how to help or what he was up against?
Or did he know and just refused to face it?
And if that was the case, I feared for us
(04:48):
even more and put some serious merit into Anika's curious
word choice of demonic. We pulled out some old rugs
from the basement and used them to tell iporarily cover
the crimson stains on the carpet and floor. Anaka and
I tried our best to clean it up, but it
was impossible to get it all. If Logan or Mason
(05:10):
had seen the stains, we weren't even sure how we'd
try to explain it away. Literally covering it up seemed
like the best course of action for the time being.
Once the boys were on the bus to school, that's
when Anaka and I really started our deep dive. We
had a few things on our checklist to explore. What
could the blood mean, Why did it choose to shoot
(05:32):
out at the pastor but not us, What was the
significance of the word yes, the number twenty three, and
the letters L and M. As far as the letters went,
Anika couldn't remove herself from the belief they were the
initials of our children, Logan and Mason. I too was
concerned about that. After pulling out a photo of the
(05:54):
two of them several days ago, I already feared that
they were potentially going to be used as taunts by
the calendar, and after Mason's snake attack, that fear was confirmed.
Now to have a situation where both of their initials
were in use, it wasn't sitting comfortably with either of us.
I had no reason not to think it could stand
(06:16):
for Logan and Mason, but I also wanted to entertain
that it could be something else. After all, the calendar
had proven itself to be tricky that way and was
always one or two steps ahead at all times. I
thought back to the star trinket as a prime example
of its deceit, and how I was seeing stars everywhere
that day, from the State Troopers vehicle to Mike Campbell's
(06:40):
Starfield address. The dismay eventually came from a place I
hadn't considered or expected. So, as far as I was
concerned with l M, nothing was off the table just yet.
But what about twenty three? Anika asked as We sat
together on our bed, each with our own laptops open
and doing our own research. I know that's a Jim
(07:02):
Carrey movie, right, like a thriller or something. I wasn't
sure about what twenty three meant for us in our situation.
I felt like it could be a number connected with
strange things, kind of like thirteen or six sixty six.
I dove into those possibilities, first, searching twenty three and
evil in the search bar. The first result that came
(07:25):
up was already interesting, the twenty three enigma, I said
out loud. Anika closed her laptop and leaned over to
look at mine. I continued to scan the overview of
the twenty three enigma and spout off the most interesting parts.
It's the idea that the number twenty three frequently appears
in unusual contexts and may have some sort of unknown significance.
(07:50):
It's been popularized over the years by countless conspiracy theories,
as well as its frequent inclusion in books and movies.
I turned to Anika to validate the movie she'd mentioned.
Does it have anything to do with advent calendars? She asked.
I continued to peruse the information in front of me,
but couldn't see anything that mentioned Advent calendars. Truthfully, I'm
(08:13):
starting to think the Advent calendar was just a vessel
for the ungodly things happening to us and in Marshport.
I was growing leery of the idea that the calendar
itself had any specific importance. But again, until I had
facts or concrete evidence one way or the other, nothing
was off the table. The next thing in the search
(08:33):
results sparked my curiosity Biblical contexts. I read, squinting my
eyes and bringing the laptop closer Psalm twenty three, verse four. Yay,
though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for you are with me, I continued.
(08:55):
Judges nine, verse twenty three. It described that odd sends
an evil spirit between two warring parties, springing about their downfall.
I read one more Exodus twenty three, verse two, once
against a multitude to do evil or pervert justice. Anika
(09:16):
sat back against the headboard, frustrated. I don't understand what
any of that could mean, aside from the blood sprang
on pastor heart. I guess we don't even know if
it has a religious motive behind it. I closed my
laptop and sat right up beside her. Now we don't,
I said, but we have to look into all of this,
explore every option. You don't think it's a coincidence that
(09:38):
it happened to be a pastor that the blood sprayed onto.
I don't know exactly what that would mean, but it
seemed intentional. All three of us were looking in there.
We can't completely write off the religious angle, I said.
A strange, random detail cropped back into my mind right
before I got the call about Bridget Carr's death. Are
(10:00):
the top of our manger decor fell and knocked over
the baby? Jesus? I think it's seriously worth pursuing, I added,
at least until we hit a dead end. Annak acrossed
her arms. Frustration oozed from her. It was mixed with fear, discomfort,
and dare I say, ignorance? I felt it too. We
(10:22):
were out of our element and things all around us
were starting to fall apart. Tell me about your uncle,
Annika said, unexpectedly, my uncle. I was confused by how
quickly the subject had changed. You said that he was
a serial killer, Annika said, looking up at me, That
little nugget seemed to be buried under a lifetime of revelations.
(10:44):
When you were spilling your guts yesterday, I took a
deep breath. Well, it's never something you want to be true,
someone that heinous, possibly being a part of your family,
I said, Uncle David was a good guy. At least
he was to my brother and I when we were young.
He'd always come by and show us all the cool
(11:04):
stuff that he found. He was a thrifter. He'd go
to thrift stores, garage sales, estate sales, and he'd finds
such cool, unique gifts. Then he'd clean them up, fix
them if necessary, and sell them for a profit. Then
one day Uncle David was just gone. No one spoke
about him. When I found out later what he had done,
(11:26):
it didn't really make sense. Uncle David was kind, loving,
He wasn't a monster, but he did kill people, right,
Annika softly asked, I could tell by the tone in
her voice that the way I described him wasn't what
she imagined or expected me to say. Like anyone else would,
she would have assumed to hear stories about a strange,
(11:49):
creepy man with a hot temper or violent past, But
that just wasn't the case with my uncle. Yeah, I said,
he did kill people, But for the life of me,
I could never figure out. Why did your foster parents
know about all of this. I'm sure they did, they
would have had to, but they also never spoke of it.
(12:11):
How how many people did he kill? Anika asked, with
a nervous stutter. I don't know, I said, I know
he strangled his victims and removed. I stopped myself from
the gory detail I was about to expose, but Anika
was intrigued removed what. She encouraged me to continue. She
(12:33):
was curious, but also afraid of what was coming next
their eyes. I reluctantly said. He was given the Moniker,
the Demon of Bayville by the media. He was eventually caught, arrested,
and died in prison of a broken neck. I think
I could tell Anika wasn't sure what to say next.
(12:54):
I told her about his horrific crimes, but leading up
to it, I made sure to express to her my
memories of him, because they were vastly different, and I
guess to some degree by me trying to explain Uncle
David in a positive light first, that might have been
my subconscious still, after all of these years, refusing to
(13:14):
believe that he was capable of such brutality. My grandmother
gave Stephen and I a spirit board that Uncle David
had found while out thrifting, I continued. She said it
was one of the last things he acquired before, well
before his darkness took over. Looking back, I feel as
if she had also refused to accept what he'd done.
(13:37):
She knew Stephen and I missed him, and we were
confused by his sudden absence. I think that's why she
gave us the spirit board. It was something of his
for us to remember him by, and the spirit board
that's what caused the fire, right, Annika asked. I shook
my head. Now the candles were knocked over. I could
(13:58):
feel myself getting anxiou at the mention of the spirit board.
My words began to come out quicker and louder. We
had everything set the way it was supposed to be.
The candles were lit, the lights were dim. Everything was right.
Stephen had a hand on the plan chet and mine
was over top of his. Then he asked, Uncle David,
can you hear us? I stopped talking and was once
(14:21):
again thrust back into the nightmare that I was forced
to keep reliving over and over. With my hand rested
upon Steven's. I felt him move it across the spirit board,
back and forth in swooping motions, as if he were
creating a figure eight. Then he said his famous last words,
Uncle David, can you hear us? Our hands shot toward
(14:43):
the upper left corner of the board. Then it happened.
There was an ungodly howl, a single scream that sounded
as if it were constructed by hundreds of wretched souls. I
pulled my hand off Stephen's and pushed away from the table.
Stephen released his hand from the plan chet stood up,
bumping the table between him knocking into it and me
(15:03):
pushing away. It created an unstable surface for the candles
we'd lit. They toppled over, and the fire instantly began
to spread. I ran, what's happening? I heard my father's voice,
but I didn't respond. As I ran from the room,
I heard Stephen screaming. I heard my dad shout, and
then my mom. I felt the heat behind me, a
red and orange glow rising and illuminating the interior of
(15:27):
the house, casting my shadow out in front of me
as it were my own personal escorts out of the
rapidly spreading inferno. Then I heard the ungodly scream again,
the one that sounded like eternal torture itself. I fled
out into the night, through the snow, to the neighbor's house,
the Wards House. My caf began to throb, and I
opened my eyes. Anako was still there, her arms around
(15:51):
me in a loving, comforting embrace. My body was heaving
from the intense memories. It felt so real, like I
was right back there again. I don't know a lot
about spirit boards, Annika said, rubbing her hand over my
chest and circles in motions that reminded me of Steven's
figure eight on the board. But do you think when
(16:12):
your brother called out for your uncle it was him
who responded. Maybe his darkness, his evil side, is what
came out. No, I said, I don't believe that at all.
Uncle David was not evil. I knew him. He wouldn't
have hurt a soul, but he did, Matt, Annika reminded me,
(16:33):
he killed people. The two of us sat in silence
for a moment. My Bonnie began to regulate, and Annika
never once took her arms off of me. Well, Annika said,
something responded, and that something has been with you ever since,
eating away at your subconscious and blaming you for what
(16:53):
happened that night. None of it was your fault, Matt.
Annika turned my face to her and repeated her words,
none of it was your fault. We'd taken a break
from our research and put on Christmas vacation. While I
calmed down with a hot tea and settled my brain,
(17:15):
Annaka took the time to finish sewing Mason's bear back
together as I watched the Griswolds suffer through their own
brand of holiday misery. Ironically, the movie shared something in
common with us. Certain transition scenes used an advent calendar
to show the passing of the days throughout the movie.
I looked off to my right, where our calendar sat
by the fireplace. I just glared at it, annoyed and
(17:38):
disgusted by the depravity that it had brought into our home.
The engraved bearded face in the middle of it was
looking back at me, ironically without eyes of its own,
now seeming to suspiciously mirror Uncle David's victims. The more
I thought about it, it mocked me. It sheltered secrets
lots of secrets. I thought of the number two twenty
(18:00):
three again and wondered if it could even be a
prelude to the twenty third door. If that was the case,
was there now something currently in motion that wouldn't play
out for another thirteen days? As focused as I was,
I reminded myself that twenty three wasn't the only thing
behind door Number ten. L and M were also there,
(18:24):
as was the word yes. I strained my brain to
try and connect them all. Yes, Logan and Mason twenty three.
Now that didn't make sense, was it math related? Two
plus three was five? Neither Logan nor Mason or five
years old anymore? However, both of their names were composed
(18:48):
of five letters each, but if the calendar wanted me
to focus on five, it would have given me a
five and not a twenty three. I pinched my nose
and exhaled heavily through my nostrils, catching an his attention.
Are you okay, she asked, Yes, I replied, I just
can't piece it all together. I stood up and approached
(19:08):
the calendar. Twenty three, L, M, and yes, I said,
hoping that repeating them out loud would conjure up some
sort of revelation, or at least open any doorway to
other possibilities. Two three, Annika said. Then she stood up
and joined my side. L M, she added, what are
(19:29):
you doing? I asked the numbers and letters? She said,
they're in sequence, numerical and alphabetical. She was right, but
that still didn't mean a whole lot. Why would it
want us to count or recite the alphabet? Well, what
about yes? I asked. Anika almost spoke, but stopped herself Instead.
(19:52):
She shrugged. I leaned in closer into the calendar and
looked at the word yes. Then I shined my phone
light into the knook and studied the LM and the
twenty three. And I supposed to know what this means?
I quietly questioned the calendar. Was this what things had
come to? Talking to an inanimate object and hoping it
(20:13):
would respond. Now, I imagine the calendar saying back to
me in Stephen's mangled voice, you aren't supposed to know.
On the other side of the inquiry, playing devil's advocate,
I imagined the calendar saying, yes, you should know. Isn't
it obvious? Now it wasn't obvious, and it was driving
me crazy. Then something hit me out of the blue,
(20:37):
a sudden revelation. It was the second conceptualized answer. I
imagined the calendar responding with, yes, you should know, isn't
it obvious? Yes? You should know? Isn't it obvious? Yes?
The word itself was an answer, and possibly an answer
(20:59):
to a question that had been plaguing my mind like
disease for the past eleven days. I looked over at
Anika and shock what she asked, you might be right
about what about my uncle? Answering Stephen's question on my phone,
I quickly searched for pictures of spirit boards. One of
(21:21):
the first clear images I found. I enlarged it and
looked at it closely. In the top left corner, just
underneath a mystical depiction of the sun, was the word yes.
On the other, respectively, was no. I pointed to the
top corner where yes appeared. When Stephen asked to Uncle
David if he could hear us, our hands shot up
(21:43):
to this corner right before everything happened, he did respond,
he could hear us. Annika snatched the photo from my
grip and looked closely at the image. Matt look She
pointed to the two rows of the alphabet that arched
across the center of the board. The last two lets
in the top row in sequence were L and M.
(22:04):
Then her finger slowly drifted down to the single line
of numbers one through zero beneath the alphabet. Her shaky
finger hovered over the second and third numbers two and three.
She whispered. Door number ten was a reminder of the
spirit board, I said, it's so obvious now. I turned
to the calendar and locked my attention on door number eleven.
(22:28):
I pinched the black heart shaped handle and opened it. Inside,
laying flat was a small piece of fabric. I pulled
it out and let it rest in the palm of
my hand. Anika leaned over and looked at it as well.
Is that a flag, she asked, Yes, I said, looking
at the small cloth article in my hand. It was
(22:50):
a flag, and one that I remembered as clear as day.
There was a maroon bar across the top, a white
one through the middle, and a mustard yellow one across
the bottom. In the dead center was an insignia that
depicted the sun cresting a hilly terrain. It's the Bayville flag,
I told Annika. A spirit board clue one day and
(23:12):
a Bayville one the next. The calendar was pointing me
in the direction of where it all started. I thought
of the conversation passed her heart and I had at
the funeral home. Have you been back there since? He asked,
It never crossed my mind. I responded, Maybe you should
visit the scene again. You might be surprised with the
sense of peace you'll feel. Start by making peace with
(23:35):
your past, clear your mind of the burden for yourself
and those closest to you. At that point, the rest
might become easier to deal with. I returned to Annika,
I need to go to Bayville, I said, I need
to face this. Maybe there's a way to understand all
of it better. What do you think that'll accomplish, she wondered,
(23:55):
not completely writing off my idea, but also unsure of
how it could help. Honest, I don't know, but Pastor
Hart suggested the same thing the other day, and now
with these last two doors pointing me in that direction,
I feel like it's a hard sign to ignore. Annika
stood back. She seemed skeptical at first, but then a
(24:16):
single tear began to travel down her cheek. If you
think it'll help, then go, she said. She looked at me,
her eyes now welling with tears. We just need to
find a way to stop this. We need to protect
our family, Matt. I held her close and she cried
into my chest. Bayville was where the horror started. It's
(24:40):
where my innocence was corrupted by an unrelenting malevolence. I
wasn't sure what I would find there. I wasn't sure
where I would go or who I would talk to.
But the indication that I needed to go back was immense.
I scowled at the advent calendar and wondered, why did
(25:01):
it want me to go back there? Thanks for listening.
If you like what you're hearing, please share it with
someone you know who loves scary stories at Christmas time.
If you'd like to read the full novel for yourself
in print, it's available in paperback, hardback and kindle versions
at Weird Darkness dot com slash Advent of Evil. That's
(25:23):
also where you can go to hear each of the
twenty four chapters as they're posted. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks
for celebrating Advent with me in the Weird Darkness
Matthew Kleine has been stripped of everything that once defined him.
His badge sits on Lieutenant Sear's desk. His gun is
locked away. Detective Davenport circles closer, connecting dots that all
lead back to one man, a man who now looks
less like a grieving friend and more like a suspect
at the center of a killing spree. The Advent Calendar
(00:25):
cannot be destroyed. Matthew hurled it into the frozen Atlantic
at Gull's Rest, and it returned, dripping with salt water,
mocking his defiance from its place beside the fireplace. He
refused to open a door, and his son paid the price,
waking to a Burmese python coiled around his small body.
He sought help from a man of God and Pastor
(00:47):
Heart fled his home, drenched in blood, screaming that he
could not help. Ten doors have been opened, ten days
of death, manipulation, and impossible horrors. Bridget Carr lies in
a grave with a star embedded in her skull. Gwen
Martin was stabbed to death with a metal cross. Rennuen
(01:10):
drowned in the exact spot where Matthew tried to end
the nightmare. Zach Welch wants a good kid with a
bright future now sits in a cell, claiming a boy
named Stephen told him to reveal Matthew's secrets. The calendar's
latest message offers no trinket, no token of death, only
(01:30):
a single word carved inside the door. Yes Decided cryptic
markings twenty three l. M. Logan and Mason December twenty third.
What kind of threat is this? Matthew finally confessed everything
to Anika, his real name, the Fire, the brother he
(01:51):
abandoned to the flames, but truth is not brought safety.
A hooded figure with a gray beard continues to lurk
at the edge of his nightmare, his purpose still unknown.
Fourteen doors remain sealed, fourteen days until Christmas, and Stephen
(02:12):
is far from finished. Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and
(02:52):
this is Weird Darkness's Advent of Evil, a holiday horror
novel written by Scott Donnelly based on a concept from
Darren Marler. Twenty four doors, twenty four days, twenty four
secrets waiting in the darkness, just like an advent calendar
counting down to Christmas. We'll unlock one chapter each day,
(03:13):
but what we find behind these doors may not be
the gift you're expecting. You can find all available chapters,
as well as the print version in paperback, hardback, or
kindle at Weird Darkness dot com slash Advent of Evil.
The Calendar is waiting. Let's see what awaits us behind
today's door. Thursday, December eleventh, Anakain and I had spent
(03:44):
the rest of our Wednesday and early Thursday morning trying
to research anything and everything we could regarding the cryptic
clues that codd the inside of door number ten, as
well as the thick vial fluid that covered Pastor Heart's
entire body. It looked like blood. It smelled like blood,
but without having a lab test it, there was no
(04:04):
way to know for sure. All we did know was
that it violently showered past Her Heart, a religious figure
who himself accused the calendar of being surrounded by negative energy.
If this wasn't proof of his accusation, I didn't know
what was. I tried calling and texting Russell a few
times since he left our house, but there was never
(04:26):
an answer or response. I could understand his hesitancy though
he left our home scared and drenched in blood, claiming
that he couldn't help us. Was that because he truly
didn't know how to help or what he was up against?
Or did he know and just refused to face it?
And if that was the case, I feared for us
(04:48):
even more and put some serious merit into Anika's curious
word choice of demonic. We pulled out some old rugs
from the basement and used them to tell iporarily cover
the crimson stains on the carpet and floor. Anaka and
I tried our best to clean it up, but it
was impossible to get it all. If Logan or Mason
(05:10):
had seen the stains, we weren't even sure how we'd
try to explain it away. Literally covering it up seemed
like the best course of action for the time being.
Once the boys were on the bus to school, that's
when Anaka and I really started our deep dive. We
had a few things on our checklist to explore. What
could the blood mean, Why did it choose to shoot
(05:32):
out at the pastor but not us, What was the
significance of the word yes, the number twenty three, and
the letters L and M. As far as the letters went,
Anika couldn't remove herself from the belief they were the
initials of our children, Logan and Mason. I too was
concerned about that. After pulling out a photo of the
(05:54):
two of them several days ago, I already feared that
they were potentially going to be used as taunts by
the calendar, and after Mason's snake attack, that fear was confirmed.
Now to have a situation where both of their initials
were in use, it wasn't sitting comfortably with either of us.
I had no reason not to think it could stand
(06:16):
for Logan and Mason, but I also wanted to entertain
that it could be something else. After all, the calendar
had proven itself to be tricky that way and was
always one or two steps ahead at all times. I
thought back to the star trinket as a prime example
of its deceit, and how I was seeing stars everywhere
that day, from the State Troopers vehicle to Mike Campbell's
(06:40):
Starfield address. The dismay eventually came from a place I
hadn't considered or expected. So, as far as I was
concerned with l M, nothing was off the table just yet.
But what about twenty three? Anika asked as We sat
together on our bed, each with our own laptops open
and doing our own research. I know that's a Jim
(07:02):
Carrey movie, right, like a thriller or something. I wasn't
sure about what twenty three meant for us in our situation.
I felt like it could be a number connected with
strange things, kind of like thirteen or six sixty six.
I dove into those possibilities, first, searching twenty three and
evil in the search bar. The first result that came
(07:25):
up was already interesting, the twenty three enigma, I said
out loud. Anika closed her laptop and leaned over to
look at mine. I continued to scan the overview of
the twenty three enigma and spout off the most interesting parts.
It's the idea that the number twenty three frequently appears
in unusual contexts and may have some sort of unknown significance.
(07:50):
It's been popularized over the years by countless conspiracy theories,
as well as its frequent inclusion in books and movies.
I turned to Anika to validate the movie she'd mentioned.
Does it have anything to do with advent calendars? She asked.
I continued to peruse the information in front of me,
but couldn't see anything that mentioned Advent calendars. Truthfully, I'm
(08:13):
starting to think the Advent calendar was just a vessel
for the ungodly things happening to us and in Marshport.
I was growing leery of the idea that the calendar
itself had any specific importance. But again, until I had
facts or concrete evidence one way or the other, nothing
was off the table. The next thing in the search
(08:33):
results sparked my curiosity Biblical contexts. I read, squinting my
eyes and bringing the laptop closer Psalm twenty three, verse four. Yay,
though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for you are with me, I continued.
(08:55):
Judges nine, verse twenty three. It described that odd sends
an evil spirit between two warring parties, springing about their downfall.
I read one more Exodus twenty three, verse two, once
against a multitude to do evil or pervert justice. Anika
(09:16):
sat back against the headboard, frustrated. I don't understand what
any of that could mean, aside from the blood sprang
on pastor heart. I guess we don't even know if
it has a religious motive behind it. I closed my
laptop and sat right up beside her. Now we don't,
I said, but we have to look into all of this,
explore every option. You don't think it's a coincidence that
(09:38):
it happened to be a pastor that the blood sprayed onto.
I don't know exactly what that would mean, but it
seemed intentional. All three of us were looking in there.
We can't completely write off the religious angle, I said.
A strange, random detail cropped back into my mind right
before I got the call about Bridget Carr's death. Are
(10:00):
the top of our manger decor fell and knocked over
the baby? Jesus? I think it's seriously worth pursuing, I added,
at least until we hit a dead end. Annak acrossed
her arms. Frustration oozed from her. It was mixed with fear, discomfort,
and dare I say, ignorance? I felt it too. We
(10:22):
were out of our element and things all around us
were starting to fall apart. Tell me about your uncle,
Annika said, unexpectedly, my uncle. I was confused by how
quickly the subject had changed. You said that he was
a serial killer, Annika said, looking up at me, That
little nugget seemed to be buried under a lifetime of revelations.
(10:44):
When you were spilling your guts yesterday, I took a
deep breath. Well, it's never something you want to be true,
someone that heinous, possibly being a part of your family,
I said, Uncle David was a good guy. At least
he was to my brother and I when we were young.
He'd always come by and show us all the cool
(11:04):
stuff that he found. He was a thrifter. He'd go
to thrift stores, garage sales, estate sales, and he'd finds
such cool, unique gifts. Then he'd clean them up, fix
them if necessary, and sell them for a profit. Then
one day Uncle David was just gone. No one spoke
about him. When I found out later what he had done,
(11:26):
it didn't really make sense. Uncle David was kind, loving,
He wasn't a monster, but he did kill people, right,
Annika softly asked, I could tell by the tone in
her voice that the way I described him wasn't what
she imagined or expected me to say. Like anyone else would,
she would have assumed to hear stories about a strange,
(11:49):
creepy man with a hot temper or violent past, But
that just wasn't the case with my uncle. Yeah, I said,
he did kill people, But for the life of me,
I could never figure out. Why did your foster parents
know about all of this. I'm sure they did, they
would have had to, but they also never spoke of it.
(12:11):
How how many people did he kill? Anika asked, with
a nervous stutter. I don't know, I said, I know
he strangled his victims and removed. I stopped myself from
the gory detail I was about to expose, but Anika
was intrigued removed what. She encouraged me to continue. She
(12:33):
was curious, but also afraid of what was coming next
their eyes. I reluctantly said. He was given the Moniker,
the Demon of Bayville by the media. He was eventually caught, arrested,
and died in prison of a broken neck. I think
I could tell Anika wasn't sure what to say next.
(12:54):
I told her about his horrific crimes, but leading up
to it, I made sure to express to her my
memories of him, because they were vastly different, and I
guess to some degree by me trying to explain Uncle
David in a positive light first, that might have been
my subconscious still, after all of these years, refusing to
(13:14):
believe that he was capable of such brutality. My grandmother
gave Stephen and I a spirit board that Uncle David
had found while out thrifting, I continued. She said it
was one of the last things he acquired before, well
before his darkness took over. Looking back, I feel as
if she had also refused to accept what he'd done.
(13:37):
She knew Stephen and I missed him, and we were
confused by his sudden absence. I think that's why she
gave us the spirit board. It was something of his
for us to remember him by, and the spirit board
that's what caused the fire, right, Annika asked. I shook
my head. Now the candles were knocked over. I could
(13:58):
feel myself getting anxiou at the mention of the spirit board.
My words began to come out quicker and louder. We
had everything set the way it was supposed to be.
The candles were lit, the lights were dim. Everything was right.
Stephen had a hand on the plan chet and mine
was over top of his. Then he asked, Uncle David,
can you hear us? I stopped talking and was once
(14:21):
again thrust back into the nightmare that I was forced
to keep reliving over and over. With my hand rested
upon Steven's. I felt him move it across the spirit board,
back and forth in swooping motions, as if he were
creating a figure eight. Then he said his famous last words,
Uncle David, can you hear us? Our hands shot toward
(14:43):
the upper left corner of the board. Then it happened.
There was an ungodly howl, a single scream that sounded
as if it were constructed by hundreds of wretched souls. I
pulled my hand off Stephen's and pushed away from the table.
Stephen released his hand from the plan chet stood up,
bumping the table between him knocking into it and me
(15:03):
pushing away. It created an unstable surface for the candles
we'd lit. They toppled over, and the fire instantly began
to spread. I ran, what's happening? I heard my father's voice,
but I didn't respond. As I ran from the room,
I heard Stephen screaming. I heard my dad shout, and
then my mom. I felt the heat behind me, a
red and orange glow rising and illuminating the interior of
(15:27):
the house, casting my shadow out in front of me
as it were my own personal escorts out of the
rapidly spreading inferno. Then I heard the ungodly scream again,
the one that sounded like eternal torture itself. I fled
out into the night, through the snow, to the neighbor's house,
the Wards House. My caf began to throb, and I
opened my eyes. Anako was still there, her arms around
(15:51):
me in a loving, comforting embrace. My body was heaving
from the intense memories. It felt so real, like I
was right back there again. I don't know a lot
about spirit boards, Annika said, rubbing her hand over my
chest and circles in motions that reminded me of Steven's
figure eight on the board. But do you think when
(16:12):
your brother called out for your uncle it was him
who responded. Maybe his darkness, his evil side, is what
came out. No, I said, I don't believe that at all.
Uncle David was not evil. I knew him. He wouldn't
have hurt a soul, but he did, Matt, Annika reminded me,
(16:33):
he killed people. The two of us sat in silence
for a moment. My Bonnie began to regulate, and Annika
never once took her arms off of me. Well, Annika said,
something responded, and that something has been with you ever since,
eating away at your subconscious and blaming you for what
(16:53):
happened that night. None of it was your fault, Matt.
Annika turned my face to her and repeated her words,
none of it was your fault. We'd taken a break
from our research and put on Christmas vacation. While I
calmed down with a hot tea and settled my brain,
(17:15):
Annaka took the time to finish sewing Mason's bear back
together as I watched the Griswolds suffer through their own
brand of holiday misery. Ironically, the movie shared something in
common with us. Certain transition scenes used an advent calendar
to show the passing of the days throughout the movie.
I looked off to my right, where our calendar sat
by the fireplace. I just glared at it, annoyed and
(17:38):
disgusted by the depravity that it had brought into our home.
The engraved bearded face in the middle of it was
looking back at me, ironically without eyes of its own,
now seeming to suspiciously mirror Uncle David's victims. The more
I thought about it, it mocked me. It sheltered secrets
lots of secrets. I thought of the number two twenty
(18:00):
three again and wondered if it could even be a
prelude to the twenty third door. If that was the case,
was there now something currently in motion that wouldn't play
out for another thirteen days? As focused as I was,
I reminded myself that twenty three wasn't the only thing
behind door Number ten. L and M were also there,
(18:24):
as was the word yes. I strained my brain to
try and connect them all. Yes, Logan and Mason twenty three.
Now that didn't make sense, was it math related? Two
plus three was five? Neither Logan nor Mason or five
years old anymore? However, both of their names were composed
(18:48):
of five letters each, but if the calendar wanted me
to focus on five, it would have given me a
five and not a twenty three. I pinched my nose
and exhaled heavily through my nostrils, catching an his attention.
Are you okay, she asked, Yes, I replied, I just
can't piece it all together. I stood up and approached
(19:08):
the calendar. Twenty three, L, M, and yes, I said,
hoping that repeating them out loud would conjure up some
sort of revelation, or at least open any doorway to
other possibilities. Two three, Annika said. Then she stood up
and joined my side. L M, she added, what are
(19:29):
you doing? I asked the numbers and letters? She said,
they're in sequence, numerical and alphabetical. She was right, but
that still didn't mean a whole lot. Why would it
want us to count or recite the alphabet? Well, what
about yes? I asked. Anika almost spoke, but stopped herself Instead.
(19:52):
She shrugged. I leaned in closer into the calendar and
looked at the word yes. Then I shined my phone
light into the knook and studied the LM and the
twenty three. And I supposed to know what this means?
I quietly questioned the calendar. Was this what things had
come to? Talking to an inanimate object and hoping it
(20:13):
would respond. Now, I imagine the calendar saying back to
me in Stephen's mangled voice, you aren't supposed to know.
On the other side of the inquiry, playing devil's advocate,
I imagined the calendar saying, yes, you should know. Isn't
it obvious? Now it wasn't obvious, and it was driving
me crazy. Then something hit me out of the blue,
(20:37):
a sudden revelation. It was the second conceptualized answer. I
imagined the calendar responding with, yes, you should know, isn't
it obvious? Yes? You should know? Isn't it obvious? Yes?
The word itself was an answer, and possibly an answer
(20:59):
to a question that had been plaguing my mind like
disease for the past eleven days. I looked over at
Anika and shock what she asked, you might be right
about what about my uncle? Answering Stephen's question on my phone,
I quickly searched for pictures of spirit boards. One of
(21:21):
the first clear images I found. I enlarged it and
looked at it closely. In the top left corner, just
underneath a mystical depiction of the sun, was the word yes.
On the other, respectively, was no. I pointed to the
top corner where yes appeared. When Stephen asked to Uncle
David if he could hear us, our hands shot up
(21:43):
to this corner right before everything happened, he did respond,
he could hear us. Annika snatched the photo from my
grip and looked closely at the image. Matt look She
pointed to the two rows of the alphabet that arched
across the center of the board. The last two lets
in the top row in sequence were L and M.
(22:04):
Then her finger slowly drifted down to the single line
of numbers one through zero beneath the alphabet. Her shaky
finger hovered over the second and third numbers two and three.
She whispered. Door number ten was a reminder of the
spirit board, I said, it's so obvious now. I turned
to the calendar and locked my attention on door number eleven.
(22:28):
I pinched the black heart shaped handle and opened it. Inside,
laying flat was a small piece of fabric. I pulled
it out and let it rest in the palm of
my hand. Anika leaned over and looked at it as well.
Is that a flag, she asked, Yes, I said, looking
at the small cloth article in my hand. It was
(22:50):
a flag, and one that I remembered as clear as day.
There was a maroon bar across the top, a white
one through the middle, and a mustard yellow one across
the bottom. In the dead center was an insignia that
depicted the sun cresting a hilly terrain. It's the Bayville flag,
I told Annika. A spirit board clue one day and
(23:12):
a Bayville one the next. The calendar was pointing me
in the direction of where it all started. I thought
of the conversation passed her heart and I had at
the funeral home. Have you been back there since? He asked,
It never crossed my mind. I responded, Maybe you should
visit the scene again. You might be surprised with the
sense of peace you'll feel. Start by making peace with
(23:35):
your past, clear your mind of the burden for yourself
and those closest to you. At that point, the rest
might become easier to deal with. I returned to Annika,
I need to go to Bayville, I said, I need
to face this. Maybe there's a way to understand all
of it better. What do you think that'll accomplish, she wondered,
(23:55):
not completely writing off my idea, but also unsure of
how it could help. Honest, I don't know, but Pastor
Hart suggested the same thing the other day, and now
with these last two doors pointing me in that direction,
I feel like it's a hard sign to ignore. Annika
stood back. She seemed skeptical at first, but then a
(24:16):
single tear began to travel down her cheek. If you
think it'll help, then go, she said. She looked at me,
her eyes now welling with tears. We just need to
find a way to stop this. We need to protect
our family, Matt. I held her close and she cried
into my chest. Bayville was where the horror started. It's
(24:40):
where my innocence was corrupted by an unrelenting malevolence. I
wasn't sure what I would find there. I wasn't sure
where I would go or who I would talk to.
But the indication that I needed to go back was immense.
I scowled at the advent calendar and wondered, why did
(25:01):
it want me to go back there? Thanks for listening.
If you like what you're hearing, please share it with
someone you know who loves scary stories at Christmas time.
If you'd like to read the full novel for yourself
in print, it's available in paperback, hardback and kindle versions
at Weird Darkness dot com slash Advent of Evil. That's
(25:23):
also where you can go to hear each of the
twenty four chapters as they're posted. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks
for celebrating Advent with me in the Weird Darkness
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