Episode 11.) Listener tales

Join host Sir Winston on Listener Tales Podcast for a chilling journey into four eerie, listener-submitted tales. From haunted spaces to cursed relics, each episode delivers suspenseful, immersive stories with a haunting, conversational tone. No music, no breaks—just pure, unsettling narratives. Dare to listen.

• Horror
• Supernatural
• Ghost Stories
• Haunted Places
• Cursed Objects
• Eerie Tales
• Suspense
• Storytelling
• Paranormal
• Thriller
• Listener Stories
• Dark Narratives
• Mystery
• Spooky

© 2025 Listener Tales with Sir Winston | Hosted by Sir Winston | All rights reserved.
Follow us for more chilling tales. Contact: [e-mail] | Last updated: September 29, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to listener Tale's podcast. I'm Sir Winston, your guide
through four new chilling talies from Listener's Shadows. Let's begin
Part one, The Silent Quiet. I moved to Stow, Vermont
after my career as a sound engineer imploded at thirty eight.
I'd spent years recording Nature's quiet bird song in the

(00:20):
Green Mountains win through Pine for documentaries, but a botched
project leaked private conversations from a politician's retreat, ending my reputation.
My wife Lana left, calling me a snoop with a mic,
and I retreated to a crumbling cottage near an abandoned chapel,
hopping solitude would heal me. The chapel, built in seventeen ninety,

(00:41):
loomed with cracked stained glass and a warped organ. Its
pipes rusted silent for decades. Locals whispered it sang the dead,
but I saw it as inspiration for a comeback, recording
its echoes for an experimental album. The first night I
set up my gear microphones, a recorder, headphones inside the chapel.
The air smelled of damp stone and old wax, The

(01:03):
silence thick At one seventeen am. My headphones crackled with
a low hum, then voices, faint and harmonic, like a
choir without words. No one was there. The doors were locked,
the windows boarded. I replayed the tape, pure static, yet
I'd heard it live. The hum returned nightly, growing join
us alias my name, whispered in Lena's tone than others,

(01:23):
accusing you stole our piece. The organ's pipes, untouched, vibrated,
emitting a sour note that strung my ears. I logged
it June three, two zero four, A m sing with us.
I blamed equipment glitches, but the chapel's silence felt alive.
I explored its history at the Stowe Library, built by
Reverend Amos Hale, who vanished after his congregation died of

(01:46):
fever in eighteen oh two, leaving the organ cursed to
sing their souls. Owners since reported voices, Some found humming
throats roar before disappearing. My recordings showed no sound waves,
yet the choir grew louder. Person, you listen too deep.
The stained glass glowed faintly at night, casting shadows of
robed figures. The air turned icy, smelling of mold and ash.

(02:10):
My breath fogging vanished. I sealed the chapel, but the
hum seeped through walls, the organ playing unplayed chords, sour
and discordant. One night I woke with a microphone in hand,
recording in the chapel. My voice layered with the choir
Elia's see The tape showed static, but I heard a sermon,
Hale's voice damning me. The pipes pulse read, the floor trembling.
I tried smashing the organ, the hammer bounce, the choir

(02:33):
laughing your hours. Shadows formed a congregation, eyeless, mouths open,
dragging me toward the pipes. I ran, but the hum
followed my ears, bleeding the chapel's song in my skull.
I left Stowe, but the choir persists humming at two
zero four a m. My recordings now play their voices,
my face in the static. Lena won't answer. I hear

(02:56):
her in the hum. Listener, if you find a silent chapel,
don't listen. Some songs never end. Part two, The Mill
that grinds Shadows. I ended up in Portland, Oregon, after
a lifetime of chasing stability slipped away. At forty five,
I'd been a mill write fixing gears and belts in
sawmals across the Northwest. But a workplace accident, my fault,

(03:18):
a misaligned blade that injured a coworker, cost me my
job and left me with a limp and a drinking habit.
My son Jase stopped talking to me, blamming me for
the shame, and I rented a shack near the derelict
Blackwood mill, its skeletal frame rusting by the Willamette River.
Built in eighteen seventy five, it shut down after workers vanished,
locals saying it ground more than wood. I figured its

(03:41):
creeks could drown my regrets, maybe inspire a memoir. The
first night, I limped inside, the air thick with the
scent of wet rot and rusted iron. The mill's massive
wheel loomed still, its blades chipped, the floor dusted with
sawdust that felt too fresh. At eleven forty three p m.
A grinding started, low rhythm, like teeth on bone, though

(04:01):
no machinery moved. Shadows stretched from the wheel, human shifting
their edges sharp. I heard Jace's voice, cold, you broke us.
I checked the locks secure. No wind strong enough, but
the grinding grew whispering work with us ray my name.
I noted it July twelve, twelve zero one. A m
grind your sins. I blamed the river's hum my bourbon haze,

(04:24):
but the mill wouldn't quiet. I explored its history at
a Portland archive. Blackwood Mills owner Elias Crow pushed workers
to death in eighteen eighty, vanishing when the mill took
them whole. Reports described shadows moving. Workers found ground to dust,
their tools still warm. My flashlight caught eyes in the dark,
dozens blinking from the walls, the air smelling of blood

(04:46):
and oil. The grinding sinked with my limp, the shadows
mimicking my gait, whispering Jase's accusations, You're useless. Sleep became
a stranger. I boarded the windows, but the wheel turned
without power, grinding air, shadows forming men with no faces,
holding sores. One night, I work with splinters in my hands,
the mill's floor marked with my boot prints, the shadows chanting,

(05:09):
join the grind. My tools, wrenches, hammers moved on their own,
assembling a phantom machine, its hum in my skull. I
tried burning the mill. The flames dyed the wheels spinning faster,
the air thick with ash and rust. The shadows dragged
me toward it, my limps slowing me, their hands cold
and splintered. I escaped to a motel, But the grinding

(05:30):
follows twelve zero one a m every night, my shadow
twisting into Jase's face. The memoirs pages show mills sketches.
I didn't draw, my hands bleeding swawdust. Listener, if you
see an old mill, don't enter. Some gears never stopped turning.
Part three, The Phonograph that Whispers Back. I came to

(05:50):
bar Harbor, Maine, after a life of quiet unraveling, a
man unmoored by the echoes of his own mistakes. At
fifty two, i'd been a music historian, spending decades at
the Library of Congress, cataloging vinyl records and wax cylinders.
My passion for preserving sound of fragile shield against a
childhood scarred by my father's rages. He was a fisherman,
broad shouldered and volatile, his voice a thunderclap that filled

(06:13):
our clapboard house in Booth Bay, Harbor, shattering glass and
silence alike. As a boy, I'd hide under my bed
with a handheld recorder, capturing his outbursts, slurred curses, the
crash of a chair, to study later, to decode the
man who'd swing from laughter to fury in a breath.
Those tapes became my sanctuary, a way to understand him,

(06:35):
though he caught me once, smashing the device and leaving
me with a scar across my knuckles from his belt buckle.
That obsession followed me into adulthood, shaping my career until
a rare nineteen twenty cylinder I authenticated purportedly Edison's lost
Seyants recording proved a forgery, unraveling months of research and
costing me my position. The scandal branded me a fraud,

(06:57):
and my wife, Claya left her, parting words, you're obsessed
with ghosts, Harlan, stinging like salt in an open wound,
with no family left, my father dead of cirrhosis, my
mother gone years before. I retreated to a weathered cottage
by the rugged main coast, Its attic a cluttered mausoleum
of estate sail relics. Among them was a phonograph, its

(07:21):
brass horn dented, its crank rusted, A faded label reading
property of E. Marrow eighteen ninety locals avoided it, their
whispers hinting it talked back, but I saw a chance
to reclaim my expertise, to record its silence and prove
my worth again. The first evening, I hauled the phonograph
to the attic, the wooden stairs creaking under its weight,

(07:43):
the air heavy with the scent of salt, crusted mildew
and aged timber, a dampness that seeped into my bones.
The room was a chaos of cobwebs and moth eaten trunks.
The single window fogged with sea spray, casting a dim,
wavering light. I wiped the device with a rag, the
brass cool and pitted the crank stiff as I turned it,
expecting only the scratch of silence. At ten nineteen p m.

(08:06):
As the tide roared outside, a voice crackled from the horn, low, raspy,
not from any cylinder i'd placed. Welcome, Harlan, my name,
spoken with my father's cadence, the growl I'd recorded as
a child. The room dimmed, the horn glowing faintly, a
sickly amber that painted the walls with writhing shadows. Like listeners.
Leaning close, I froze my heart thudding, checking the device,

(08:30):
no record, no battery, the crank still, but the voice persisted,
a whisper threading through the static. Hear us Harlan. I
jotted it in a note book, My hands unsteady. August fourteen,
nine forty seven p m. Your listening now. The air
grew cold, a chill that bit my skin, smelling of
damp wax and old leather, my breath fogging, as if
the attic exhaled. I dismissed it as fatigue, the forgery

(08:53):
scandal still gnawing at my mind. Months spent tracing Edison's notes,
only to be undone by a clever fake. Players departure
fresh wound, I couldn't staunch. The next day, I returned
to the attic with fresh batteries and a microphone, determined
to capture the anomaly. The voice came again at ten
nineteen pm, joined by others, faint overlapping, like a chorus
of the lost, whispering you trapped us. The shadows sharpened,

(09:16):
forming vague shapes, their edges trembling. I played back the recording,
pure static, no wave forms, but the sound lived in
my ears. Personal now, my father's voice accusing you, stole
my voice, followed by players bitter you never heard me.
I explored the phonographs passed at the Bar Harbor Historical Society.
My limp from a childhood fall aching as I climbed

(09:39):
the stairs, pouring over brittle documents. It belonged to Ezra Marrow,
a reclusive medium who held seances in eighteen ninety, recording
the dead's voices on wax, vanishing after his guests. Five
locals died of mysterious fevers, their last words trapped in
the machine. Notes from nineteen o five claimed it replayed
their pleas owners found mutter ears bleeding before disappearing. My

(10:02):
research took weeks. Each night, the whispers growing the attic's air,
thickening with the scent of mildew and something metallic like
blood dried on iron. Sleep eluded me my nights spent
in the attic, the phonographs glow a beacon I couldn't ignore.
I covered it with blankets, but the whispers seeped through
a murmur of voices, men, women, children accusing you recorded

(10:23):
our pain. I filled notebooks with time stamps. August sixteenth,
one thirty three A m join the record the attic
walls sweating with condensation, the floorboards trembling under an unseen weight.
One dawn, I woke with the crank in my hand,
a cylinder I didn't own, spinning. My voice layered with
the dead Harlan stay. The tape showed silence, but I

(10:44):
heard a Saiance marrows chant rising, damning me to hear forever.
I tried smashing it, swinging a hammer from the cottage
shed the head shattered, the horn laughing a hollow you
can't stop us. That echoed. The shadows deepened, forming translucent fire, biggers,
robed men, a child with hollow eyes, dragging me toward
the glow, my ears ringing with their screams, the air

(11:07):
thick with wax and despair. I fled to friend's house
in Ellsworth, but the whispers follow one thirty three a m.
Each night, my recordings now playing their voices, my face
etched in the wax like a ghost's imprint. Claire's silence
haunts me. I hear her in the hum her words Aloop,
I can't escape. The attic calls me back. The phonograph's
glow visible from the road. Listener, if you find an

(11:30):
old phonograph, don't wind it. Some voices never fade. Part
four The Bell that tolls alone. I arrived in Salem, Massachusetts,
after a life of chasing redemption i'd never find. At
thirty nine, I'd been a church bell ringer, a trade
passed down from my grandfather, a stoic man with calloused
hands who shaped bronze bells in the nineteen fifties. His

(11:52):
workshop a cavern of clanging metal and whispered prayers. He
taught me the craft in Providence, Rhode Island, his voice
a steady cadence over the hum of the furnace, instilling
a rhythm I felt in my bones. I'd ring Saint
Paul's bell every Sunday, its deep toll a comfort until
a night of reckless despair changed everything. Drunk on cheap whiskey,

(12:12):
after a fight with my sister, who'd accused me of
living in grandfather's shadow, I knocked over a candle in
the bell tower, the flame catching old wood. The fire
gutted the church, killing Missus Hargrove, the elderly caretaker who'd
brought me cookies as a boy. Her screams lost in
the roar. The guilt drove me from providence, My limp
a permanent scar from a falling beam, and I landed

(12:35):
in a sagging house near the abandoned old North Tower,
its bell silence since nineteen twenty three. Locals called it
the Widow's toll, a phrase muttered with averted eyes, claiming
it rang for the dead without a ringer. I saw
it as a chance to reclaim my craft, to wring
out my sins. The towers weathered stone, a mirror to
my fractured soul. The first night, I climbed the narrow

(12:57):
spiral stairs, each step groaning under my weight, the air
thick with the scent of damp wood and cold iron,
a musty dampness that clung to my lungs. The bell
hung massive in the tower's heart, its surface etched with
faded names, Elias Ward eighteen ninety among them, scratched by
hands long gone. The ropes frayed and dusted with cobwebs
that shimmered faintly in my lantern's glow. I traced the metal,

(13:19):
feeling its chill, the silence oppressive after years of ringing.
Saint Paul's at three fifty one a m. Now, as
I speak, the timer lining with this moment on September
twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, the bell told a deep,
mournful clang that vibrated through my chest. Though I hadn't
touched the ropes. The sound lingered, echoing off the stone walls,

(13:40):
shadows flickering in the corners, forming silhouettes of mourners with
bowed heads, their edges blurring into the darkness. I heard
my grandfather's voice, stern and unyielding. You shamed us, Thomas,
the same tone he'd used when I missed a chord
as a boy. I stumbled to the mechanism, my limp
slowing me, finding the gears rusted the clapper. Still, yet
the tolling continued, a second clang joining the first, whispering

(14:03):
ring with us Thomas, my name drawn out like a plea.
I logged it in a notebook. I'd brought my hands trembling.
September twenty eight, three fifty one A m join the toll.
The air chilled, smelling of ash and melted wax, my
breath clouding in the lantern light, the temperature dropping as
if the tower exhaled. I attributed it to wind whistling

(14:25):
through the cracks. The lingering bourbon in my system, but
the tower wouldn't rest. The next night, I returned with
a thermos of coffee, determined to prove it a trick
of acoustics. The tolling came again at three fifty one,
a m louder, the shadows sharpening into figures, men in
old coats, women in shawls, their faces blank mouths, moving silently.
I checked the doors barred, the windows boarded, Yet the

(14:47):
sound pulsed now with a whisper. You left her to die,
missus Hargrove's voice soft but accusing, cutting through the clang.
I researched at the Salem Library the next day, my
limp aching as I poured over yellowed records. Old North
Tower's bell, cast in eighteen ninety by foundry in Boston,
told alone after nineteen twenty three storm killed its ringer,

(15:07):
Elias Ward, a whidgwer wh'd rung it daily for his
lost wife. Locals reported it ringing without cause. Owners found
tolling until their throats bled, vanishing into the night. A
journal from nineteen thirty described a procession of shadows calling
the lost home. My lantern held high that night caught
pale unblinking eyes dotting the rafters, dozens like stars in

(15:30):
a dead sky, the air thickening with the scent of
burning wood, a memory of Saint Paul's fire. The tolling
sinked with my heart beat, the shadows mimicking my limp,
their whispers growing. You killed her. Sleep became a distant memory.
I sealed the tower with nails and boards, but the
bell rang through the walls, its clang echoing my grandfather's lessons,

(15:51):
timing his faith, twisted into an accusation you failed. I
spent weeks observing the ropes, swaying without wind, the bell's
surface warming under my touch, as if live. One night
I woke with rope burns on my palms, the tower
floor marked with my boot prints, the shadows chanting toll
for us. My tools mallet alcan a rag floated in

(16:11):
the air, striking the bell with a rhythm I once known,
its sound, burring into my skull. I tried silencing it,
swinging the mallet with all my strength. The handle snapped,
the bell, emitting a laugh. A hollow your hours that reverberated.
Shadows formed a procession, eyeless figures in tattered clothes mouths
open in silent wails, dragging me toward the ropes, my

(16:31):
hands bleeding iron dust, the clang sinking with my ragged breaths.
I fought my limper chain, the air thick with ash,
and the memory of missus Hargrove's cookies. Now bitter, I
escaped to her friend's attic in marble Head. But the
tolling follows three fifty one a m each night, my
shadow bending into the caretaker's face, her eyes accusing. My journal,

(16:53):
once blank, now shows bell sketches I didn't draw, my
hands trembling with iron stains. The sound haunts my dreams.
A toll for every sin listener. If you hear a
lone bell, don't answer. Some tolls never cease. Thank you
for joining me, Sir Winston, on this journey through four
dark talies. Until next time, stay out of the shadows.