THE OUIJA BOARD REFUSED TO SAY GOODBYE: We Should’ve Listened When It Warned Us

When five teenagers used a Ouija board in an abandoned house, the message they received should have sent them running — instead, they foolishly asked for more.

SOURCES AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE…
“Weird Things” by Gene Stewart: https://genestewart.com

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NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.
EPISODE PAGE at WeirdDarkness.com (includes list of sources): https://weirddarkness.com/weirdthings

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore,
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.
Coming up in this episode, It's Thriller Thursday, where I

(00:29):
bring you stories of fiction, and this week it's an
original story from Jean Stewart entitled Weird Things Now. Bult
your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and
come with me into the weird Darkness. Weird things happen.

(01:01):
I know that they happen to people while they're going
about their everyday business trying to live on weird lives.
You know how it goes. You'll see a glass hurl
off a flat shelf when no truck rumbled by on
the street outside, or hear footsteps where no one can
possibly walk. Someone walking in front of you turns a

(01:22):
corner and an instant later so to you, only they're
not anywhere in sight, with nowhere they could have gone.
So yeah, weird things happen even when no one's there.
You'll come back a few seconds later and all the
dishes are stacked on the floor or the chairs balanced.
Like in that movie you glance outside and see a

(01:44):
cat rising into the air before it bursts into a
dusty cloud and it's gone. Knowing weird things happen doesn't help,
let me tell you, in my experience, they're usually best ignored.
If I see or hear strange things, I try hard
to keep doing what I'm doing and let the weird

(02:04):
stuff go. I mind my own business. It seems to
me people poking into weird things is what makes them,
I don't know, swarm us. It feels like a swarm
of poisonous, biting, invisible butterflies or beetles or something. Never
see those beetles with the metallic colors on them. They're pretty,

(02:25):
But what if about a thousand of them ganged up
on you, and what if they could bite only you
couldn't see them anyway. Something like that is what I felt.
Soon after Peter and Mary got out the Wisa board,
we called it a spirit board. We were fools. I
should never have gone ghost hunting with them. The thing is,

(02:49):
I wanted to fit in, have some friends for once
who didn't hang with me out of pity going after
ghosts in an abandoned house on the edge of town
seemed brave, the kind of thing a true friend might do.
Be with the group contribute something. Imagine me sneaking through
dark rooms. Oh sure, I had one of those led

(03:10):
flashlights like you get in your Christmas stocking, or buying
five packs off the impulse racks of the registers. They
look useful, and they are. They were great until the
battery gets frail and feeble and fails. Leading away to
a couple of the rooms off the downstairs hallway thrilled me.
Jen and Mary's hands on my back, Pete and Jeff

(03:33):
bringing up the rear with their gizmos that supposedly sensed spirits.
Those things gave me bravery I'd never dreamed of having.
My light revealed a parlor with a spinning wheel and
a treadle singer sewing machine. Dust all over everything. We
left footsteps in dust on the floor. Next, I found
a pantry with shelves holding a few rusty cans of

(03:55):
lima beans and corn for scotash. Spiderwebs in the corners
seemed to brace the shelves, holding them up in case
gravity got any ideas. Now and then the boys toys
blinked or dinged or buzzed. They'd wave them around, gasping
and laughing. Jeff had a little digital record or too,

(04:16):
and he kept asking questions. We had to be quiet.
When he did this, He'd played backstatic and tell us
he heard words and distant voices. All I knew was
I was having fun. For once I was part of
a group, not singled out for pity or help. I
pitched in and no one treated me like a rabbit

(04:37):
that had been hit by a car. Who cared if
I was the youngest. Let's see if we can make contact,
find out who haunts this place. Jeff led us to
a dining table in the big room at the front
of the hall. Light, but not much sneaked in through
grimy front windows and gauzy curtains. It came from a
street lamp, and now and then a car drove by,

(04:59):
making flare shapes on the sagging, cracked ceiling above us.
Opposite the street side windows, another set showed dark shapes
of trees in the backyard. They swayed with gestures of menace.
Pete and Jeff set up their equipment. Then Jeff pulled
Louisia board from his backpack. Pete pulled out a fat
candle and lit it with his zippo. This required some gymnastics,

(05:23):
turning the candle upside down, wax dripping onto his hand.
As Jeff dug for the planchette, Mary announced we could
count her out. Those things are bad news. You get
one of those a catchment. Jenny blurted the word like
a burp. Come on, Jeff went into his disgusted act.
He did this often because so many people rejected his

(05:43):
ghost obsession and its attendant ideas. This is just fiber
board with a paper sticker on it. He slapped the board,
making his digital recorder fall over. Pete right at it.
Jeff waved the pointer. This plant sheet's plastic with a
hole in it. So I tell what letters being indicated?
There's nothing inherently cursed or bad about any of his stuff,

(06:06):
then how come people get possessed from using it? Everyone
looked at Merry eyebrows raised in surprise. I looked at Jenny,
whose eyes stayed open but whose mouth showed half a
smile like she might laugh. Heate looked outraged on Jeff's behalf,
while Jeff looked kind of outraged on his own ticket.

(06:27):
Shock short circuited anger for an instant. It wasn't my idea,
but I heard my mouth saying something. Whoever got possessed
from playing Wisha name one. Mary turned to me, took
a step back. It happens. There are stories about it
all the time. Stories. They stopped my foot, just stories.
If it really happened, it'd be on real news and

(06:49):
we'd have announcements from hospitals passed around at school. Churches
would be using them, saving souls in that. Jeff glanced
at me, smiled and nodded. That's right. Those stories are
meant to scare us. That's all to keep us from
contact and spirits on our own, like Martin Luther and
the Catholics hating on the Protestants because Gutenberg gave the

(07:09):
Book of Spells to the people and knocked off the doorkeeper, priests,
the gate guards. It's like evangelical preachers and their flocks.
It's about control. They want to keep their monopoly. Silence fell.
We were kind of stunned. Monopoly boardwalk. Pete said this,
and we all laughed. Tension drained, and we set up

(07:30):
the board between us, boys facing girls. We ready. Jeff
chomped at the bit eager to start. Mary stood back
from the table, but I joined Jenny, Pete and Jeff
in touching the pointer. We did three deep breaths and
closed our eyes for a few seconds, like Jeff suggested.
Then we opened up our eyes and ourselves to spirits.

(07:52):
Jeff looked at Mary, if you're cool with it, you
could write down what letters we get like an impartial observer. Right,
I could tell he was giving her a way to
let herself be involved without feeling threatened. That struck me
as a nice gesture, and Jeff's off putting obsessiveness smelted
a little for me. He was a brain, and brains

(08:12):
tended to be quirky and yeah, weird, didn't make them
bad people. Later I learned Jeff's older brother had died
in college in what he sarcastically called a drinking accident.
Too much booze stopped his heart, apparently alcohol poisoning they'd
been close. Instead of drinking, Jeff had begun gloaming onto

(08:34):
ghost shows, reading books about spirits. That seemed better than
what his parents did, which was to dive into church activities.
So they were hardly ever home with each other. They
started making bitter remarks about each other as they drifted apart.
At least Jeff's pursuit offered positive potential while destroying nothing.
Our seance, if that's what it's called, started when the

(08:57):
pointer started moving. I was sure someone was messing around.
Everyone else thought so too. We all denied it. What
convinced me was the moment when we all pulled our
hands off to giggle or gasp, and the pointer quivered
then spun counterclockwise like a clock's second hand, taking back
the time it had measured. After that, we had to

(09:19):
tease each other into touching it again. As the planchet slid,
sweeping and darting, Mary wrote letters as Pete or Jeff
called them out. Jenny and I sort of hung on
for the ride. No one was tracking what the letters meant.
Even Mary wrote them in lines without spaces, not breaking
the chain into different words. When the pointer slid to

(09:42):
one side, lifted up with our fingers still on top
of it, and flew off to one side to clatter
on the floor, we sat back with a feeling of wow.
We looked at each other and the flickering candlelight. Shocked
or maybe just impressed in a way. We couldn't put
into words. Jeff recovered first, did I see that? He

(10:03):
curled his fingers like a dying spider toward the notepad
Mary had written on block letters in three rows. Pete
handed Jeff the pen, leaning into point there and there
they broke the string of letters into words, revealing the
message burn, displace fire, burn before escape. Hurry it is near,

(10:24):
hurry burn Great we reach out and all we get
as a pyro. Pete's joke prompted a titter of nervous laughter,
but our eyes remained somber as we thought about things.
Jeff looked for the flung pointer, got onto his hands
and knees to reach under a slanting side table. He grunted,
bumped his head, then stood, displaying the planchette. It's okay,

(10:48):
I'll call off the surge party. Pete smirked, but no
one laughed. Mary asked if it really said that Pete
shoved the pad toward her. Let her see for herself
how the slashes separated the work. It's from the stream
of letters. Maybe we should leave. Jenny whispered this to me,
replacing the pointer on the board and sitting again. Jeff

(11:08):
waggled his fingers like a magician. Come on, let's see
if we can get to the bot. Not sure we should.
Jenny's tone didn't challenge him so much as question the
wisdom of his suggestion. Why not, it's working great so
far we got through. I frowned. Something did Pete and
Jeff looked at me, startled once again. I spoke without thinking.

(11:30):
We don't know who or what we contacted. Might even
be part of ourselves, you know, subconscious. Jenny nodded, Yeah,
A point is we don't know. Jeff waved my point away.
Doesn't matter, we don't take it at face value. But
we gathered data. Right. It all adds up, even if
it's lying or trying to get us to do something stupid. Faintly,

(11:53):
Mary's voice came to us, almost spectral itself. What if
it's already in us? What if our thoughts aren't our own?
Jeff shook his head in a strong negative, while Pete
put his hands to his temples and pushed a gesture
he used in the cafeteria to keep his head from
exploding as he put it beside me. Jenny led out
a long sigh. Standing I leaned over, moved the pointer

(12:17):
to goodbye, then blew out the candle. We need to go.
As I said this, a thump came from above us,
followed by distinct footsteps. A thud preceded a sound of
something heavy being dragged. It reminded me of hearing a
murder and the body being pulled across a wooden floor,
maybe into a closet. A door shut. Then upstairs, goose

(12:40):
pimples covered me. We gaped at each other. Jeff stood first.
I thought he was going to get away, but instead
he ran to the staircase and went up two steps
at a time. Ah Man Pete jumped up and followed,
switching on his flashlight. Jenny and I looked at each other.
We said nothing, but debated whether to follow Mary and
get out of the house, or go after the boys

(13:01):
to show them we were up to the challenge of
ghost hunting. I could see in her face an expression
that said I willed if you will. So I turned
and went to the stairs. We didn't run up, but
we didn't pause either. At the top, we came to
a landing with one room cock guyed to the right,
its door shut, three small stairs leading up to it.

(13:23):
We'd later find out it was the attic door, but
we ignored it, then going down the dark, silent hall, Hey,
where are you guys? I called this out, intending to
sound curious, but my voice croaked from my throat being
so dry. Jenny took my left hand in her right.
We shined our flashlights along the baseboards, to the ceiling

(13:45):
and across the walls. Three doors down a door stood. Ajar,
they must have gone in there, my voice still wavered.
How come they aren't answering us? I gave Jenny a
stern look, trying to freak us out, would be my bet.
She smiled, but just a little, and nodded, but just once,

(14:06):
maybe only half. Both of us were scared, and we
knew it. We also knew we were going to see
it through to finding the boys and dragging them and
their toys out of that dark, dusty place. I pushed
the door open with the toe of my foot. Darkness clotted,
and I knew that room had no windows, storage room.
I thought, oh, you guys, knaw it off, no more

(14:28):
scooby doo crap. No response, and our flashlights showed only boxes,
stacks of yellowed, curling newspapers and magazines, and various pieces
of what looked like broken furniture clogging the room. I
don't think they came in here. I knew they had
because I'd followed their footprints in the dust on the

(14:48):
hall's floor. I shined my light down and pointed out
the marks to Jenny, who whimpered. The footprints led into
the room toward a set of bed springs popped against
boxes and a wall with peeling paint. Wait here. I
pulled my hand out of Jenny's death grip and stepped
into the room, following the boy's footprints. A sensation of

(15:09):
velvet wrapping around my head muffled sounds. I couldn't tear
my own breathing. Some of the spring coils had unwound
and fallen to dangle, but most of the box springs remain.
It resembled the kind of sculpture you'd see it a
modern art exhibit, almost patterned random spirals framed by rusty metal.

(15:30):
As I neared it, I saw a shiny rectangle on
the floor. When I bent to pick up Jeff's Zippo lighter,
I thought I heard a humming standing. I reached my
empty hand toward the box springs. A ripple happened in
the air around me. I gasped my hand, tingling electricity
shooting up my forearm to burst in my elbow joint.
As has happened. A flurry of shapes I could sense

(15:51):
but not see, rushed at me from the bed springs,
A gush of thoughts, maybe those invisible fairal butterflies I
mentioned earlier. For an instant, I wobbled on my feet,
about to fall backwards, pushed by a psychic fire hose.
Impacts happened inside me, not on my body, but in
my mind. My feet left the floor and I hovered
a few inches up. It felt like falling. When Jenny shrieked,

(16:14):
I dropped to the floor again, my feet catching me.
As I caught my balance, all sensory overload evaporated like
a burst steam pipe, like a pipe bomb, like I
was a tube full of explosives, even then, pulling me
to shreds and smithereens. Running from the room, I followed
Jenny along the hall, down the stairs, across the front room,
and out the front door onto the wide porch. We

(16:35):
vaulted off that, landing in grass, both of us falling
and rolling until we skidded to a stop. Mary rushed
to us and asked about Pete and Jeff. Where are they? Panting?
Laying on my back, geezing up the cloud scudded stars.
I let my arms sprawl on my sides, palms up.
I think they're out there, somewhere out where. Mary looked

(16:55):
around as if I had meant outdoors. Jenny pointed up
up there. I saw the stars past you. She told
me this in a sad tone. You almost got sucked through.
Could a swarm of invisible things use an old bed
spring set as a kind of antenna? Could such beings
flood through to grab anyone who got too close? Were

(17:18):
Pete and Jeff being changed into energy? Or consumed by
an extraterrestrial cosmic horde. Glancing at Mary, I opened my
right palm and showed her what I picked up from
the upstairs storage room floor from the portal room. We
need to use this. Both Jenny and Mary nodded, and
we splashed the emergency five gallons of gas from the

(17:40):
trunk of Mary's car all over the ground floor to
make sure the place would burn. Flicking Jeff's zippo, I
waited for its blue flame to rise strong, then toss
the lighter through the front door. I turned to run,
joining the others near Mary's car. A wush, a flicker,
a roar, and soon smoke and crackling wood, sounds of collapse,

(18:01):
distant sirens. A breath of strangely cool air wafted to
us when the porch's roof caved in, and I thought
I heard a breathy thank you. We should get out
of dodge. I'm not sure which of us said this,
but Mary drove us away and police found Jeff's car,
is lighter and a gas can, but no sign of

(18:22):
Jeff or Pete. It was decided they had burned to
death accidentally while performing arson as a typical teenage prank.
Well that's what I know about weird things happening, except
for one extra bit. Jenny, Mary and I all saw
Jeff and Pete after the night of the fire, each

(18:42):
in our own rooms. They are ghosts even now, and
then they show up from the dark sky and beg
us to help them, but none of us knows how.
So we moved past the weird things that happen, trying
to live on weird lives. I doubt its possible for anyone.

(19:14):
Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share
it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or
strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do.
All stories on Thriller Thursday episodes are works of fiction,
and you can find links to the stories or the
authors in the episode description, as well as on the
website at Weirddarkness dot com. Weird Things was written by

(19:36):
Jean Stewart. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark copyright Weird Darkness.
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light first, Peter five, verses
eight and nine. Stay alert, Watch out for your great enemy,
the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking
for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be

(19:59):
strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers
all over the world is going through the same kind
of suffering you are. And a final thought, he who
plants kindness gathers love, Saint Basil. I'm Daryn Marler. Thanks
for joining me in the Weird Darkness.