The Amelia Project - Introducing: Fear Daily

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Today we're introducing you to fellow fiction podcast Fear Daily. Fear Daily takes you into the shadows of the past, unearthing the 1990's most terrifying tales of monsters, madness, and life after death. The show explores ghost stories and supernatural encounters left on an old online bulletin board that continues to operate somewhere in an unknown part of the Pennsylvania Rust Belt - a time capsule of society's greatest fears. Written by Brennan Storr, creator of The Ghost Story Guys, and hosted by Brandon Schexnayder, creator of Southern Gothic... Fear Daily is guaranteed to be the stuff of nightmares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone who loves to drive has a name for their car or truck. Betty, Midnight, Big Yellow. Your pride and joy deserves a name you can trust. Penzoil. You know the name Penzoil means heritage, passion, and performance. And you know Penzoil platinum, full synthetic motor oil maximizes engine protection. Find it at Canadian Tire, because Betty deserves the best. Pins Oil, long may we drive.

The Hulu original series Murdoch Death and the Family dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama to the screen like never before. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark. Watch the Hulu original series Murdoch Death in the Family, streaming October 15th on Disney Plus. Hello Amelia listeners. Halloween is approaching and everyone. at the Amelia offices is very excited. The interviewer has prepared special trick or treat bags to hand out to the kids who come knocking. But rather than sweets, they contain fake identity DIY kits, including new names, birth certificates and passports. Meanwhile, Alvina has devised

a special Halloween package. Clients can fake their death and come back dead as a vampire, zombie or werewolf. We'll be back with our next regular episode on Halloween itself, with Maine Moaput Arthur, the interviewer's origin story. The episode is in fact already out for Patreon subscribers. Check out ameliapodcast.com for that. But for now, we have a horror recommendation for you, one that has been keeping me company on dark and chilly autumn walks.

Fear Daily is a retro-horror. show, which brings you daily bite-sized stories of hauntings, monsters, cults and killers, all from the 1990s or before. It's pure hand-crafted horror from the veteran storytellers of Southern Gothic. And if you like the Magnus Archives, Black Tapes, or Archive 81, chances are you will love this too. Oh, and did I say it was daily? It's daily, two news stories every day.

from Monday to Friday without letting the quality slip. I don't know how they manage to keep up that schedule, but they do, and it's impressive. The show is a time capsule of society's greatest fears. It's scary, occasionally funny, and always gripping. So, without further ado, enjoy this episode of Fear Daily, and we'll be back with Maine Muppert Arthur on Halloween. When the internet began, bulletin board services or BBS became the first online communities of the so-called information super highway. Using their phone lines, people logged in from all over America to talk about sports, games, movies, and on one BBS in particular, share their ghost stories.

Over time, those communities all went dark, except for one lone server that continues to operate somewhere in an unknown part of Pennsylvania's Rust Belt. A relic of the 1990s, veiled in mystery, it is a digital archive of humanity's strangest encounters with the unknown, as told by the people who experience them. My name is Brandon Sheck Snyder, and you are listening. to Fear Daily. Subject, together. User, Alt Melody. Posted, August 9th, 1998. From the ages of 11 to 14,

I used to have to spend summers at my aunt's house and Great Neck. It wasn't by choice, not that kids that age get a whole lot of choice and how their affairs are managed. My mom looked after me for the rest of the year while working full-time, so I guess she figured it was a way for her to get a little time off without having to take me out of school. She probably also worried about the kind of things I'd get up to if I was left alone in the city. It makes sense to me now that I've got a little distance from it. Back then, I hated it. In the run-up to the holiday, my friends would talk about the things they were going to do together,

seeing Madonna and Bon Jovi at the Garden or having sleepovers, and what did I have to look forward to piano lessons and walks along Manhassad Bay with Aunt Amy? It wasn't that it was torture or anything. It just wasn't Madonna. I never minded going there with Mom for Christmas because not as much was happening at home when my friends would disappear into the cocoon of their family lives for a couple weeks. Besides, Aunt Amy had lived alone since Uncle David died in 1975,

and even a selfish teenager knew you didn't leave family alone on the holidays. They had a beautiful house across from Plum Point with big windows that looked out over the water. Sometimes at night, the three of us would all just sit there in the living room with lights off, Aunt Amy playing David's favorite songs on the piano, while outside snowflakes blanketed the bay. This past Christmas, we got a call from the Great Neck Police to let us know that Aunt Amy had passed. The piano had been a focal point of her life, so I suppose it's only fitting, she died sitting there, her hands resting on the polished ivory keys. Being in Amy's house without her there wasn't as strange as I had expected. At least once

during every visit, should run out to what had been David's favorite deli on Middle Neck Road and bring back dinner. Standing in the living room with Mom, as the afternoon light faded, I half expected her to walk in, shaking the snow from her hair. Of course, she was never going to walk back in there again. The kitchen was empty. Countertops wiped clean before her heart had given out. Mom and I couldn't bring ourselves to touch Amy's belongings that first day. Instead, we decided to have a meal in her honor.

The deli is still there, so we ordered the same thing she always used to, a pound of turkey, a pound of roast beef, a dozen slices of seeded rye, gravy. The elderly man behind the counter looked up from where he was writing our bill. He knew exactly who we were and offered his condolences. When our order was bagged and ready, he held his finger like he'd forgotten something. kneeled down, out of sight, knees popping audibly, and when he came back up, there was a can of baked beans in his hand. Sometimes, he said, David used to like beans, no charge.

Back at the house, Mom and I ate silently in the high-ceilinged kitchen. We'd made it back just ahead of the blizzard. The radio had been threatening all day, and now wind howled at the double-paned windows. Once dinner had been finished and the leftovers packed up, we turned off the potlights above the kitchen island, plunging the house into total darkness. Together, we went into the living room and sat on the bay window's long bench seat to watch the storm. I leaned my head back against mom's chest, listening to the tick of the clock. I miss her. Mom wrapped her arm around me.

Me too, baby. We cried ourselves to sleep. I had a dream. In it, I was laying on the bench seat in Aunt Amy's living room as wind whipped thick snowflakes back and forth across the bay. Next to me, I could feel the rhythmic rise and fall of Mom's chest as she slept. Behind us, Aunt Amy was playing Leo Ornstein's a morning in the woods. My chest clenched with emotion and the tears came again. Wiping them away, feeling the hot liquid against my fingertips, I realized it wasn't a dream. I was wide awake, but the music continued to play. I so desperately wanted to look behind me to know if Aunt Amy was there sitting at her piano the way she always had, something told me not to turn that to see would be to bring this moment to an end, and I knew

I knew I didn't want that. Instead, I lay back on mom, who shifted against me, getting comfortable again. Could she hear the music, too? wondered. Would she remember it all as a dream? I'd never ask. I breathe deeply, letting the music fill the silence as the three of us watch the snowfall one last time. Subjecture. Subject, gumdrops. User, quiet witness. Hosted, October 3, 1996. The parking lot was full of media vans this morning,

a pack of blow-dried hairdoes trying to get as close to the apartment building as the police cordon would allow. Word had spread quick, the gumdrop killer strikes again. This time, he left behind more than his usual locked door. mystery, he left behind a living victim.

Cops hated the whole gumdrop killer name, so the fact it was their own fault is kind of funny. After details of the first couple killings broke in the news, residents of high-rise apartment towers found dead in their beds poisoned by an unknown toxin, their eyeballs missing. A reporter from the Times had managed to catch one of the lead detectives when he was half in the bag. The reporter asked if the police had any idea what the killer wanted with the victim's eyes, to which the annoyed cop responded, maybe he eats him like fucking gum drops. I don't know. The rest was history. Who am I? I'm nobody, unless you're a fan of comic books, in which case you might recognize my name as the anchor on one of your semi-favorist series. If you're not

familiar with my business and inker is someone who interprets the original artist's graphite work and you guessed it, ink. There's more to it, but I'm not here to give lessons on the finer points of the comic book industry. You've got Kevin Smith for that. I'm here because I'm one of only two people alive who's seen the gumdrop killer. No, this isn't a confession. I'm not a killer of anything. It's hard for me to swat flies, since I've always figured they've got as much right to be around as I do. Lord knows, Lord knows, I wouldn't have made it out of short pants if the rules allowed for beating me to death as soon as I got annoying. The detective who interviewed me till sunup asked me not to speak to the media, and I won't. The last thing I need is that

kind of attention. The only reason I'm posting this here is because if anything happens to me, I like the idea of my story not getting buried in some cardboard box at an LAPD lockup. Why would anything happen to me? Because the gumdrop killer saw me too, and I'm not convinced the cops can do much against something like that. I'll start at the beginning. I moved into this a year ago after one of my dates pointed out that an invitation back to the house,

a grown man shared with his mother, was always going to get an automatic no. It's a two-bed, two-bath, and a 20-story new build, so I'm the first person to live in my apartment, same as my neighbors and theirs. The Comstocks, the couple visited by Gumdrop last night, had only bought. their place last month. I had met them before last night when I watched him die as something barely human plucked out his eyes. The thing about living in a modern building like this is that everything looks the same. Same carpet on every floor, same gray paint on the walls, even the same apartment numbers, just with a two-digit prefix beforehand to denote the floor number.

I'm 1020, my neighbor is 1022, and so on. The Comstocks have, or at least had, apartment 1122, one floor above me. That's why, when I stumbled out of a cab into the lobby of our building last night and hit the button for 11 instead of 10, I didn't notice for 11. while. You know that feeling when you've really got a load on, like your field of vision narrows to a point, and all you can do is move toward that point. It doesn't matter if you're on a crowded street with cars whizzing past. The only thing you see is what's at the end of that tunnel, a burrito card, a bathroom, some poor woman who hopefully spot you before you can bother her

with your idiot drunkenness. That's where I was last night. completely moved on Singapore slings and desperate to get into my place so I could take a leak. I weaved my way down the featureless hallway, saw a 20, and went for the doorknob. The competing interests of gin and a need to urinate completely bypassed any thought of a key, and walking into a darkened apartment laid out exactly like my own meant I didn't see anything to suggest I was anywhere but home. home. Inside the bathroom, I flicked on the light and, halfway through a deeply gratifying piss, it occurred to me that someone had redecorated in the few hours I'd been gone. There was potpourri on the toilet tank instead of stacked up issues of wizard, and the bar of soap

next to the taps was a bright pink instead of the hairy white bar of dove that did double duty between my shower and sink. Nothing will cut through a gin fog like panic, and that's exactly what I felt in that moment. This wasn't my apartment. I had just broke and entered. Well, I didn't break anything, but I doubt the cops would be that discerning when they laid charges.

My stream finally reduced to a trickle. I wondered about the etiquette of flushing while committing burglaries. and that's when I heard sounds coming from next door, the bedroom going by the layout of my own home. First, I thought it was people fucking, so I listened a little more. It's been a while since I've had feminine company, but even drunk me knew that the process didn't sound like what I was hearing.

It sounded like struggling, whimpering, and something else, something wet. Carefully, I stepped out of the bathroom, wincing at how long a shadow I was casting thanks to the bathroom light. The noises continued like I hadn't been seen, and I debated just sneaking back out the door and believing whoever lived there to wonder if they were being haunted by a ghost with an enormous bladder. My curiosity won out, however, and I creep toward the open bedroom door. My footsteps were almost inaudible on the linoleum floors. I inched closer to the black doorway, hearing the struggling more clearly. Something was wrong, really wrong.

Dread blossomed in my chest. A spike of adrenaline burned away the rest of my drunk. Placing my hands on the doorframe, I leaned into the room just enough for my eyes to start adjusting to the dim. The patio door was open, curtains across it, fluttering in a slight breeze. On the bed were two people, no, three, two in the bed and one. The third figure was barely a person, enormous, muscled arms, pinned the couple under the blankets like butterflies in a display case. The body was thick, too, seeming rigid like the body of a beetle. Its legs were long and thin, folded up under.

it like it was doing some kind of isometric hole. One of the figures, I'd later learn it was the husband Johnny, wasn't moving. The other is wife Anne was shaking side to side, losing power with every moment as the third figure's head got closer to her face. The more the curtains blew, the more the light of the city filtered in, outlining the tableau in front of me. Something emerged from the third figure's mouth, long and slick, like a mosquito's probosciscus. My stomach turned, threatening to announce my presence with a fire hose spray of slightly

fermented Singapore sling. The rest of me was frozen. Turns out, that's the third aft to fight or flight, freeze. All I could do was watch as the long, rubber. tube split into two, one settling on each of the struggling woman's eye sockets. There was that wet sound I'd first heard in the bathroom. I knew what it was now, sucking. Probosciscus withdrew, tugging until the eyes popped right out, trailing long, thick cords of their own that could only be the optic nerves. The figure withdrew the proboscis

quickly snapping the stalks and sucking the stolen treats into its own mouth. I heard them popping wetly as a chewed. Oh, I thought dumbly, that's the Gumdrop killer. Hey, that cop was right after all. Having that conscious thought brought me back to my body, and the first thing I did was scream. Gumdrop's head snapped in my direction, his eyes a bright silver in the dark. I reacted by turning to run at the same time as I vomited what must have been a bright red fountain of pineapple juice gin and benedictine across the wall in front of me out of the corner of my eye i saw gumdrop throw himself on the floor landing on his powerful arms he moved toward me

at an impossible speed thumping forward like a combination of gorilla and insect i couldn't outrun him There was no way, but I was going to try. I passed the bathroom with gumdrops close behind. I was only feet away from the hall door. He was faster. I knew it in my heart. This was it. Instead of feeling gumdrops landing on my back,

I heard a grotesque, wounded cry, and I turned in time to see him scuttling back into the bedroom. Why wasn't he coming closer? It only took me a moment to figure it out. The shaft of light cast from the bathroom cut the hallway in half, his half, and mine. Did he not like the light? He was still there hiding in the dark. I could hear him breathing.

To test my theory, I reached behind me, fumbling for the handle, as I kept my eyes on the bedroom doorway. When I found the door latch, I pressed. rest down and hold it open, brightness pouring in from the overlit hallway, pushing the darkness further back. For an instant, I saw Gumbdrop's face and it's going to haunt me until my dying day. If his figure had barely been that of a person, his face was barely that of a man, pale, balachi, shot through with blue veins, his silver eyes full of a deep, hate I'd never known before. Another roar followed by more frantic thumping, and what sounded like one of the curtains

being ripped down, people were coming out of their apartments now, drawn by the war cries next door. The cops were not far behind, and I was held on suspicion for a couple of hours. Then a witness who lived in one of the apartments across the street came forward to say that seen a man with huge arms and tiny legs climbing down the balconies on our building shortly after the screaming started. After giving my statement,

I was released from custody with the aforementioned stern warning about not spreading my story to the press. All the cops would tell me about Anne Comstock is that she survived the attack and had a crazy story about a much, monster kissing her husband before sucking out his eyes. My guess is it wasn't a kiss.

I bet next month's paycheck on the creature using that proboscis to inject something like a paralytic agent into his victim so he can take their eyes and whatever else it is he does to them. Something he didn't get a chance to finish with Anne because I'd wandered into the wrong apartment. Now, the big question is, does gumdrops know which apartment is the right one? And is he going to come back before I can move? Fear Daily is an independent podcast hosted by Brandon Sheck Snyder and written by Brennan Storr, with Joanna Smith serving as the consulting editor, audio production by Rachel Boyd

and sound design by Southern Gothic Media. This podcast is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to real events or locations, is entirely coincidental.

Add-free versions of Fear Daily are available now on your favorite podcast apps. For more information, visit FearDaily.com. But move fast before the server goes offline. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's Suicide Crisis Hubline. It's good to know, just in case.

Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline is funded by the government in Canada.