Old Gods of Appalachia - Episode 94: Phantoms in the Early Dark

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Ghosts of the past and the present manifest around the occupant of room sixteen.CW: Historical hospital settings, loss of bodily autonomy/control, death by mutilation, decapitation, and monster; sounds of screeching birds and breaking glass, endangerment of children, description of the aftermath of a mass killing, elements of a haunting.Written by Steve ShellProduced and edited by Cam Collins and Steve ShellNarrated and performed by Steve ShellSound design by Steve ShellIntro music: “The Land Unknown (The Where the Light Don’t Reach Verses)” written and performed by Landon BloodOutro music: “Sick and Alone” by Those Poor BastardsSpecial equipment consideration provided by Lauten Audio.LEARN MORE ABOUT OLD GODS OF APPALACHIA: www.oldgodsofappalachia.comCOMPLETE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA RITUAL:FacebookInstagramBlueskySUPPORT THE SHOW:Join us over at THE HOLLER to enjoy ad-free episodes, access exclusive storylines and more.Buy t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and other Old Gods merch.CLASSIC MERCH: merch.oldgodsofappalachia.comTOUR MERCH & SPECIALTY ITEMS: oldgodsmerch.com.Transcripts available on our website at www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/episodes.© 2026 DeepNerd Media. All rights reserved. No part of this audio production or its written transcript may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/old-gods-of-appalachia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, hey there, family, if you love Old Gods of Appalachia, I want to help us keep the home fires burning, but maybe aren't comfortable with the monthly commitment. Well, you can still support us via the ACAS supporter feature. No gift too large, no gift too small. Just click on the link in the show description, and you too can toss your tithe in the collection plate. Feel free to go ahead and do that.

Right about now. Old gods of Appalachia is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material not suitable for all audiences. So listener discretion is advised. Overnight shifts at Woodhaven Sanatorium tended to be peaceful.

The quiet of the deep hours after midnight broken only by the coffin of one patient or the labored breathing of another. With the diminished population, of the facility in the wake of the opening of the new state hospital, it was even quieter than usual. Phyllis Moore had pulled the graveyard ship this week and she didn't mind at all. Since her husband had passed a couple of years before, she didn't sleep so well. In any ways, she liked taking care of folks. Her babies and grandbabies had all grown up and moved across the

mountain to work at the paper mill in Beaufort, about 25 miles west of Asheville. She found the silence of an empty nest didn't much agree with her, so she just kept on working well into her mid-70s. Phyllis liked Doc Robinson, and she and Ms. Marjorie belonged to the same sewing circle, so to speak. So Woodhaven had been a good fit. Phyllis was also one of only three people on staff who could care for patients on the private wing,

no questions asked. She'd seen things down that narrow hallway that would curl a coal miner's toenails, Happily, however, as she stood surveying the only occupied room on the wing, there didn't seem to be anything dramatic on tonight's schedule. The nurse watched as the red-headed woman drank the water she had brought greedily, first one cup, then a second. Then she paused as if pondering a third before handing the cup back to Phyllis. She gave a weak smile, nodded gratefully, and fell back on the pillows, panting softly. There you go, darling.

Oh my, you were thirsty. Can it get you anything else? The woman covered her eyes with her arm, shaking her head weakly. Phyllis was about to excuse herself when a floorboard and an icy breeze moved through the room like gossip through Sunday school. The air buzzed with the cold tingle of an impending lightning strike and the hairs rose on the back of her neck. She had the sudden sensation. of being watched and resisted the urge to turn and see if someone stood behind her.

The woman in the bed shifted restlessly as if she felt it too. Phyllis scowled and breathed out an irritated sigh, then called quietly into the shadows. That's enough of that. This here ain't none of y'all's beeswacked, so just move along, please. I mean it now.

A floorboard creaked. In. Louder this time, the brass plate clattering against the wood, the bedside lamp flickered. I don't care if y'all's bored. I said, get! Phyllis stamped her foot as she spoke, as if to startle a stray off her front porch and her last word carried a ringing note. After a long moment, the floorboard creaked again, somehow managing to sound pouty.

She raised her left foot again, and the presence that had annoyed the gentle heart of Phyllis Moore into using the edge of her gift, fled from room 16. I swear, some folks don't listen for nothing, do they? Anyway, never you mind all that. I'll be just outside, should you need anything else. You just give that little bell on your nightstand a jingle, and I'll be right in. The woman muttered something unintelligible and nestled into her pillow. You get some rest now.

No sooner had Phyllis backed out of the room. the room, taking the pitcher and cup with her, and the hungry mauve sleep closed its jaws over the woman in room 16, swallowing her down into dark and unpleasant dreams once again. When the fire dies down, in the woods go quiet, and you think you told every tale you know, And the old flame blue Reshape the darkness So you lock your eyes on the trembling glow The faces you find are so familiar

They could almost speak Their stories fall where the light won't read And you can feed the fire To curse the darkness When the voices call but in the end long shadows And it filled And the foul thing cradled in her arms

Was sleeping While it slept The vice-like grip on her body slackened And she could move And think a little more freely Though She was never truly free The moment she made a move

To slip its hold Or to thwart whatever plans A nasty little thing set in motion It would snap a weight to reassert its control. Then it would usually find some horrific means of punishing her. It had dozed off on the road outside of Butler Ridge in Johnson County, Tennessee. She felt the driving compulsion to lumber forward fade as they approached a farm that seemed abandoned.

Acres of land lying overgrown and neglected. She was thankful. Usually when they came upon a homestead in the night, bloodshed was soon. to follow. She carried the hateful mockery of a child to the middle of the barren field and just stood there breathing in the silence. The closest thing to rest her current state allowed. She watched the stars wheel overhead, gave her apologies to the moon that rode a little under half full, and tried to find some connection to the beauty and mercy of the green. She knew none would come. Great Gulf stood between her and that power as long as the babe clung to her cold, pale flesh.

This was the most active way she found to minimize the horrors they would bring to the world during those terrible times when the binding failed, finding some remote spot, far from anyone who could be harmed by the thing and just standing there. Like a mother carrying her crying babe outside at church, so as not to disturb the worship of us. others. They had stood there for several hours, and she had begun to think she might even see the sunrise when the thing's eyes snapped open. It began to murmur and coo, then rooted around and latched on to her breast. The lance of pain was immediate, its control over her clamping down like a vice, and she lurched forward again. The piece of the abandoned farm fallen behind as they

pushed on toward Butler Ridge. When they reached the tall house that sat atop that ridge, there was no preamble. No peering into windows or wailing in the night to lure the folks who lived there out. They simply stood in silence. Behind them, 50 yards or so back by her estimate, she heard murmuring and whispering. As a dozen or so people, mostly women, made their way across the hillside. She wanted to tell them to run. and she wanted to scream until her throat bled to scare them away,

but she could do nothing. The group settled behind a thin scrim of trees, clearly thinking they were hidden from sight, and their voices rose, a rhythmic pleading cadence. She could only catch snatches here and there, something about, please, mother, and justice, and holy vengeance. Were they praying? They better pray.

She thought darkly as the babe wriggled in her arms and pulled itself away from her breast. By no will of her own, her body held it upright so it could watch as misshaping things that might have passed for owls in some circle of hell swooped down from the night sky, crashing through the windows of the house, screeching and hooding and screaming through the rooms within. Eventually, skinny older man and night clothes fled their assuited. salt through the front door of the house, tearing across the lawn directly toward them, panic in his eyes as a pair of the winged nightmares tore at his scalp and neck. He stumbled to his knees at her feet, gazing up at her in stunned shock. She felt her mouth stretch into that grin that felt so alien and wrong.

That was no expression of hers. She watched helplessly as her own hands reached for him. She could have sworn she heard someone cheer. Her fingers had just closed on the terrified man's face when the world. Nurse Phyllis hurried into the room at the sound of the patient's thrashing. She knelt by the bed and gently clasped the woman's wrist to check her pulse. Oh, the poor thing was as cold as ice. The patient stilled at her touch, and Phyllis stroked her hand, making soothing noises.

Gradually the woman calmed, and Phyllis tucked the blankets neatly back around her Before returning to the chair and small table she had placed outside the room, she opened the logbook she had brought from the nurse's station and carefully added her notes. The patient in room 16 has been sleeping since her arrival. She roused briefly to take water, then lapsed back into sleep. Her rest is clearly troubled, as if fever ravages her, but her body is ice cold to the touch. Patience pulse is steady but slow.

Inside room 16. Daughter Dooley, she labored up a hillside in the pre-dawn light, somewhere between Kentucky and Virginia. A light rain fell, softening the edges of the world around her. She'd been working all night, and by all right, should be exhausted. But there was a strange, fierce joy in her heart, that drove her onward. Her movements were not her own.

But for once, she didn't mind. She was soaked in gore, from her fingernails to her eyebrows, and the grin that twisted her lips could have almost been her own. As she crested the hill she looked about with a sense of what? Pride? Green savor, if it was. Because the hellish tableau of violence and destruction would have made the hungriest of dark-touched things blush. What looked, or perhaps some sort of tent revival, lay in ruins. Splintered piles of wood, canvas, and broken bodies littered the muddy clearing where a bustling encampment had once stood. Long tents serving as barracks lay collapsed and shredded, rotting unnaturally fast on the cold earth, and in the center of the clearing was a pile of stacked round a tall pole that had once held up a massive chapel tent. Several of the bodies on the top of the pile had their hands nailed to that thick wooden bean in a posture that suggested they were beseeching what sat above them for mercy.

And at the top of that pole was a massacre of antlers from countless white-tailed bucks, bound together around a single servine skull to form some sort of unholy effigy. Beneath this, flapping weakly in the light breeze with a rain-soaked hand-stitched linen banner that named the place. Golgotha, this had been a center of worship for the cult of the black. stack. For those who still served that deerskin Judas carried out foul rituals in his name, she feared the babe was delivering her to its master, that his followers would take the child from her arms and tear her limb from limb for defying their black tongue master. So imagine her surprise when she felt the hatred, the burning desire for revenge radiating off the creature

at her breast like heat haze. She felt its unholy rage and felt an answering fury rise in her own heart. The stag had failed this one too, after all. That petty little pony scheme to transfer its essence into the blank slate of her transformed mind and body had gone badly. A failure that had left the scion of the inner dark trapped in the form of a helpless babe that would never grow, dependent on a body that would never be its own. It had been abandoned by its makers and bound beneath the earth in a place with no name.

There was a reason the green and the dark worked so hard, worked together. The hatred that pulled through her now was at its core, living soul in the cult's encampment with brutal efficiency in the symphony of slaughter. The babe at her breast may have driven her actions, but for once she did not turn away. They were one in this point.

particular endeavor. And there had been no survivors. The child cooed and she nodded, trundling over to a pile of severed heads that lay not far from the macabre memorial she had built around that center tent hole. She lifted two of them by the hair, a man with curly brown locks and a thick beard and a young girl who resembled him closely enough to have been his daughter, and trudged back down the hill to add them to the cue of slack faces and empty eyes that lined the edge of the road. Let these fallen thralls stand as a warning and a welcome to any member of the beast's foul congregation who might not have been home when she called. She had always been horrified at the things the child had driven her to do.

The senseless carnage in which she was forced to participate felt like a hell tailored specifically for her. This was Diffy becoming that the sight of these dead fools gladdened her heart. Were they not just like her? Folks struggling on the fringes of the world seeking some means to better themselves? Looked upon the glorious horror that they'd wrought and wanted to scream. Whether from joy or shame, she could not say. She controlled neither her John nor her voice. So she stood silent in the gray drizzle,

hoping it might wash some of the blood from her hands in the distance thunder roll. The hillside dissolved into billowing. Occupant of room 16, twisted and writhed in her bed as another nightmare sucked her down, down into the darkness. She stood in a clearing in the woods of northeast Tennessee. The night air was clean and cold. and the sin of blackberries floated on the breeze like fine perfume.

And in the other time, it would have been a lovely night to be out and abound, walking in the shade of the green. But this was a night of blood and darkness, a night when death walked the door. She had heard distant gunshots, followed by a grown man's screams, but those didn't last long. She could feel that one of the fouls, constructs the things she carried forced her to conjure from the bones and rot beneath the soil

had taken the man for its supper. She could feel its two canine mouths tearing into his soft belly. These ramshackle chimera, flora, flesh, and forest floor were tethered to her, and the babe made sure she was intimately familiar with the details of the havoc they reeked upon the world. She saw what they saw, felt what they felt what they felt. felt, and that the unnatural creature in her arms wielded, tasted what they ate. This was no child, but a vessel made to contain a being of immense darkness and hunger, and it seemed to relish her torment, its mocking infantile grins seething with malice. She was spared the sensory horror of her constructs victim's final moments as the thing that was not a child shifted on her hip and cooed.

drawn her attention to the man who had blundered into the clearing, screaming his brother's name. The woman who had once stood triumphant against the black stag only be snared into a trap-baited with her own kindness, turned to face the poor soul. She would have sighed with regret if she could so much as take a breath of her own choosing. She would have told the man she was sorry for bringing this shadow to his door, but of course they hadn't come to his door, had they? He'd come to the He'd discovered his family's homestead

On the edge of the land Where she should have spent the next year Sleeping with this vile thing Clutched in her arms Bound safely beneath the earth One year she'd sleep in the place with no name And then she was free for another six To live her life as she chose

Unless something went wrong with the binding Or disrupted the cycle in some way But that hadn't happened for a long time Until these poor stupid people had to go and name the place, dig into the soil, and put down roots in the dark earth. Welcome to Crawl, Tennessee.

The hand-dob plank nailed to an old post at the bottom of the hill had proclaimed. And the thing that was not a child laughed and clapped with glee at the side of it, the nameless plate, the seal, was broken. The creature that clung to her breast like a leech unleashed on the world, Talk this family like a starving wolf

Come down the mountain in winter Driven by hunger to seek the flesh of men. She knew them. The man that had blundered into the clearing Was the father. The uncle lay dead beneath the teeth of her construct. The grandfather and mother Would be snug inside the tidy little house they built

And they would pay a call on them Stood the reason the father was here. The son His pride. and joy. The boy was a pitiful thing, underfed and small for his age, but clearly loved. She didn't know if the abomination on her hip was saving the child for last or if it had something worse in mind for him. Now though, there was the father to deal with. He'd spotted his son and was running in their direction, desperation writ large upon his broad and sweaty face. The daughter of Edith

and Catherine Dooley wanted to flinch away, as the parasite held in the crook of her left arm began to rifle through her mind, like a nosy house guest peeping into her cupboards. She had learned much from her mothers, but since accepting the great antlered bastard's arrangement in her youth, she had also been tutored in workings the good practitioners of these hills would never dare attempt.

Her blood ran cold. As it settled on a spell, she had learned from her first instructor in the ways of the dark, dark. A blind old woman called back. She'd sat for hours in the stinking old shack that Shirley lived in with a dozen feral cats. Eleven pairs of jealous eyes would watch her scribble notes while Shirley idly stroked the biggest and meanest of the feline monstrosities that deigned to share space with her. The ancient crone spoke with such delight of inflicting pain and suffering that sometimes she wanted if Shirley was a woman at all, or merely a conduit for the greenest.

eyes beast surrounding her. Her own monster selected one of Bad Shirley's favorites and she felt her right arm rise, palm facing

outward. The man stopped dead. Every muscle in his body flashed in his eyes and she knew that feeling intimately to be a prisoner

in one's own body unable to move to speak, to breathe was a special kind of hell. She felt her own body turn bringing the man's tiny son into view.

She felt the delight the thing took in forcing the man to watch whatever it was she planned to do to the innocent child, and she could stomach it no more. She could not overtly defy the will of this wicked thing, but perhaps she could mitigate some of the damage. As she felt the violation of its touch on her gifts once more, she acted without hesitation, harnessing all her mothers had taught her of protection and warding, She pulled against the thread of the working the dread child was using her gifts to construct

and wove her own will into the fabric of the spell. Conflicting energies of protection and destruction wrapped tight around the boy one after the other and she couldn't predict how those opposing forces might affect the child. She had managed to protect him in some way of that she was certain. But her charm was twisted by the baneful working of the parasite. She could sense its realization of what she'd done and anticipated some form of retribution. Instead, the thing that was not a baby grinned insipidly up at her. She felt her body kneel and pull the boy close.

She waited for the feeling of his neck in her hands and for the command to squeeze or snap. But instead, she felt her body leaned forward. Her lips brushed the boy's cheek. One hand lifted, patted him gently on the head, then her body rose again and sent him on his way. They watched the boy go, practically skipping back down the path towards town. It was possible she'd done more harm than good she knew, but at least she knew the child was a lie. The creature waited until he was out of sight, and then her body turned back to the father, who was turning blue now. his lungs still frozen in the clutches of what bad Shirley had called the lover's embrace.

As she stared at him, something burst in the man's head, and the child let him fall to the ground. Her head turned toward the house where the remaining family waited. She wasn't finished yet. She heard a distant noise of creaking wood, like a heavy step on a loose floorboard, and she ignored it as her legs began to carry her up the hill, but it came to her again. Louder now. The ground beneath her feet shook,

and there was a sound of wood rattling against brass, and she sat bolt upright, sweating. In the bed the nurse had tucked her into. The air was filled with the kind of silence reserved for sick rooms and funeral chapels, a sort of heavy warmth that hoped for the best, but often witnessed the worst. She scooted back to rest against the metal frame of the headboard and looked around the room.

It was a Spartan affair. She lay in a narrow bed against one wall beneath a shuttered window. There was a small nightstand to her right and a low chest of drawers against the far wall. She rubbed her eyes and tried to remember how she'd gotten here and where exactly here was. Her memories were dim, elusive things that her mind locked away from her, no matter how hard she tried to recall them.

She knew the ritual had failed to contain the child, the dead queen, as some called it. She knew that it had used her body and gifts to wreak havoc across the countryside until practitioners of the green and the dark had managed to contain it once again with the aid of Bartholomew. Bartholomew. That furry bugger had tackled her right back into the grave into blissful oblivion. And what a sensation that was to be rocked to sleep in the literal arms of the green. The next thing she remembered was emerging from the grave to find her furry-faced friend waiting for her, as he'd promised.

In those early moments, she had no idea how bad it had been if the dreams held any truth to them. and she was fairly certain they did, and it had been very, very bad. She had intended to get a bath and a fresh set of clothes and didn't be on her way, as she usually did when the ritual was completed. This time, however, she'd been overcome with such a bone-deep weariness that she could barely move. Her body hadn't been her own to command for so long and didn't want to listen to her now.

She needed rest, the old man. bear had said, and he knew of a safe place where she could convalesce for a time. Nothing sounded so nice as sleep, so she had agreed. She must have dozed off on their way here because everything else was a blank until the nurse, Phyllis, that was her name, had brought in the picture of cold water. Oh, that had been so lovely. And now she found herself thirsty again. She lifted her hand to reach for the little bell on.

on the nightstand that would summon the nurse when she heard the sound that had woken her again. The creek, the groaning of wood warped by time and temperature so that it no longer rested comfortably amongst its fellows. The doorknob rattled softly. Not hard enough to announce someone seeking entry, but the sort of subtle vibration that came from the shifting of ancient earth or the shivering blast of explosives deep within a newly dug mine.

The temperature of the room, goose flesh danced over daughter Dooley's bare arms. Hello? Is someone there? The floor crept again, and a whisper tickled the back of her mind. The shadows around her shifted, and she felt the weight of unseen eyes upon her. If you're trying to scare me, you're doing a piss poor job of it? Show yourself and speak true, or else leave me be and let me chip my beauty rest, would you? There was a flurry of whispering, like children arguing over who should go first. In sanatorium, stepped out of the shadows.

Last night I dreamed of darkness. Last night a dream. I tried to call. My father's dead. Well, hey there, family. Back and forth we go from the shadows of the past into the darkness of the present day in 1928. Now what do the dead of Woodhaven have to do with our beloved daughter Dooley as she lies recovering?

I guess y'all have to come back next time and find out, won't you? I sure hope you will. I think we can make it worth your while. Speaking of things worth your while, we are always adding new content over in The Holler, our paid subscription service where you can access hours upon hours of exclusive storylines that you aren't going to find anywhere else.

Old favorites like Build Mama a Coffin, new studio quality productions of our live show stories like easy money and the ties that bind. And whole new adventures into parts of our Appalachia, you ain't even seen yet. They're all waiting for you in, The Holler. Head on over to www. Old Gods of Appalachia.com slash the holler to move in with the family today. And this is your any story with a pile of severed heads can't be half bad reminder that Old

Gods of Appalachia is a production of deep nerd media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. Today's story was written by Steve Shell and edited by Cam Collins. Our intro music is by Brother Landin' Blood and our outro music is by those poor bastards. We'll talk to you soon, family. Talk to you real soon.