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# Wyrd Tales Issue No. 3
- URL: https://wyrd-tales.ghost.io/wyrd-tales-issue-no-3/
- Published: 2026-10-22T16:02:26.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:26:26.000Z
- Author: JW Nelson

## Reading It in Brazil

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/11/2e1146a4-cf4c-4c72-b0ad-0836c55d0cea/content/images/size/w1200/2026/10/bard-feature.jpg)

The author, in bard mode. From the Wyrd Tales archive.

When I was in Brazil in the late 90s, I was on a religious mission. Now, when you're on a religious mission (almost everybody in Utah knows this, but some of you might not), you are forbidden from engaging in secular activities, such as reading novels.

There were many other activities that I didn't engage in, trust me, but the one thing I couldn't get away from was novels.

I remember I found a simpatico, like-minded gentleman there, and we read Stephen King's *It* on our day off.

It felt like bootlegging, and in fact we often would hightail it out of the local area so we could imbibe in our guilty pleasure without judging eyes.

The one thing I discovered during this time was: isolation and starvation makes everything more poignant.

For example, the scary scenes in *It* , simply because we had nothing else that we were reading, no desensitization, at the time were terrifying and true. There was this echo of religious fervor, us being on missions, both of us, and that only added to the picante flavor of the experience.

Why do I tell you this? One part secret, one part warning: if you truly want to engage a story, it's about isolation. Take a horror story, for example. Reading it in the park in the middle of the day is one thing; reading it in a dark corner of your basement at midnight is another.

Keep that in mind, and remember: no matter how much you want to engage the story, understand, it wants to engage you even more.

## Demondread

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/11/2e1146a4-cf4c-4c72-b0ad-0836c55d0cea/content/images/2026/10/wyrd-tales-issue-3-banner-inbody-v1.png)

From the Wyrd Tales archive.

The iron screech of crows and the timber saw of flies putrefied the battlefield. The patina of mud, sweat and copper glistened over the valley of slop like a silk funeral shroud fit for the dead and soon to be. Hundreds of broken bodies contorted in stiff slumber waiting for the crows to take their eyes before the Beryls took their souls.

Cloven-hooved hell troops clomped across the matted grassland watching for, waiting for, whining for movement and moans. They swept across their victory field divining for embers of life still banked in the broken mortal bodies at their hooves. The goat-faced demons dowsed with gore-tipped spears up until they spied a twitch or heard a breath, then peeled back their jowls in ecstasy as their sharp bone spears penetrated slowly, excruciatingly, into the broken bodies bubbling black blood and death rattles.

Bhishoor al-Yasin's sight returned first, but not memory, not yet. He watched, at first wondering, what he was seeing. Then the day, the battle, the slaughter returned to mind. He was suffocating inside his helmet, but he was grateful. He praised all the Beryls for this second chance.

Today was his lucky day, he thought, then wondered if he was dead or mad to think such a thing.

A hell spawn clambered toward him, a demonspear descending in a slow dip, seeking out his innards. Instinct made him roll away from the point as it fell, grinding ribs, already.

"Mikael's might!" he gasped, feeling his ribs like fingers reaching for his heart.

The bone demonspear struck dirt and the demon looked sad, forlorn. Then he stiffened, confused, as he saw Bhishoor's hand reaching up into his belly, as if to say, 'Why would he touch cursed flesh?' Then the demon understood. There was a moment of comprehension, relief almost, as he saw it was only the mortal's short blade sheathed deep in his abdomen by Bhishoor. The shaggy goat-faced horror nickered, expecting to withstand plain steel. His toothy grin switched to a grimace as the blade did bite.

Bhishoor twisted and pulled the blade out, spilling steaming demon guts across his torso and arm. The hulk dropped like a sack.

Bhishoor took a shuddering half breath until his ribs objected. Then he flinched from the smell of demon guts. Beryllium blessed steel kills hell spawn but it does nothing for the smell. It reminded him of a month-old beef rot and fetid swamp water.

Bhishoor couldn't breathe. Trembling arms wrenched his open-face barbute off his head. Brushing viscera from his eyes, he reached inside his gambeson and felt for the wound that took him down. Trembling fingers traced a thick slice across his heart cage. It was covered in guck and he was sure that was what saved him. He explored the opening. It felt like a thick slice, smooth, like the first cut into roast beef on Solstice. It was a slash not a thrust or he would be already dead. The blood-sopped mud had compressed the gash, stanching the bleeding.

He upgraded from feeling lucky to feeling truly blessed. He was still unsure of his sanity but one hill at a time.

His foggy memories returned as he assessed the field. The battle was fierce but glorious. The Oracle found the portal right where she prophesied. What she didn't prophesize was the hemorrhagic nature of the festering canker opening up The Blessed Lands to a hellscape.

Finding the wound on the world in vision and healing it shut were not the same thing. Priests worked fervently for ten days to salt the connection while The Blades of Mikael rallied farmers, merchants, and miners, locals all, to guard against an unthinkable invasion that, oh yes, The Oracle knew that too, had gathered to come through.

When the abscess split open, soldier and citizen stood their ground, soldiers by training and villagers for love of home. All were valiant. Not one ran. And they died by the barrel full against demon spawn with hardly any Beryllium steel among them.

Bhishoor felt the corrosive guilt for leading these folk to slaughter. Worse, he knew they would fail. There was no way to win, here, without ritual or castings. The priests died first, and worst, sucked into the festering ulcer as it burst. The villagers were butchered like hogs, dead to a man, some women, and some still children. The knights fared only slightly better in that those not slaughtered or chased down, were doomed to live in hope of reinforcements that would not, could not, arrive in time.

But the priests accomplished something before the onslaught, for only one or two of the demons crossed through at a time and gaps between their crossings. They were less in number than before. Either they moved into the village to find more bodies to mangle, most likely, or they fled back through the portal having released their bloodletting, less likely.

Bhishoor lay sideways, head inclined, studying the abscess, he calculated that if they held the hell spawn here, perhaps, perhaps, a few of the knights would find aid.

"Well, the sun doesn't wait on you, Bhishoor!" he murmured. Bhishoor heard his own rally, but it was pure theater. Any action was suicide now.

Or, he thought, perhaps he would see how blessed or mad he truly was.

Rising from the mire, he scrabbled around for his glaive. His weapons were of Beryllium steel. He hoped any first attacks would surprise the goat-footed bastards. Seeing a familiar pole stuck in the slop, he plucked it free with a bloody slurp.

With the glaive's resurfacing, a severed leg came free too, severed and skewered on the end like a spit roast. He swung the familiar weight of it around his body to clear the appendage. His ribs squealed in protest and Bhishoor yelped. The shock of the pain made him snort, which compounded in his head and he saw the moment as absurdly … funny. That, and the fevered delusion of his ridiculous plan, fell full upon him and, madness be damned, he started to laugh.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/11/2e1146a4-cf4c-4c72-b0ad-0836c55d0cea/content/images/2026/10/wyrd-tales-issue-3-banner-inbody-v1.png)

From the Wyrd Tales archive.

## LORE: Ghosts on the Glowing Screen

### The Ghost Hunters

**Sam and Colby** 

Sam Golbach and Colby Brock started out making comedy skits on Vine in 2014, moved to YouTube for urban exploring, and got into ghost hunting in 2019\. Their annual October series, Hell Week, has run since 2020\. In 2022, about 350 theaters screened their October releases. This year Hell Week is coming to Netflix.

**Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej** 

The believer-and-skeptic format started with BuzzFeed Unsolved, which drew over 1.4 billion views. In January 2020, the two launched their own studio, Watcher, with Steven Lim. Their ghost show, Ghost Files, is hot.

**Nuke's Top 5** 

Nuke started in 2015 and now has close to five million subscribers, which puts him among the biggest paranormal compilation channels. His countdowns collect ghost, cryptid, and poltergeist clips from around the internet. Sometimes the audience solves them. A "ghost" in a Goodwill video stumped viewers for about a year, until someone spotted the bottom of a poster on the wall.

### The Researchers

**New Thinking Allowed (Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove)** 

Jeffrey Mishlove holds the only doctorate in parapsychology ever awarded by an accredited university, from UC Berkeley in 1980\. He hosted Thinking Allowed on PBS from 1986 to 2002\. His YouTube channel, New Thinking Allowed, continues that work and has become one of the largest public archives of psychic, spiritual, and scientific interviews. His early training was in criminal psychology. He is careful never to claim he knows exactly what the phenomenon is. His work has also been shaped by a vivid dream he had at 25.

**Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World** 

Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin and co-host Domenico Bettinelli cover UFOs, hauntings, urban legends, conspiracies, and listener questions, avoiding sensationalism. They describe their approach as methodical and logical, but not entirely skeptical. A typical episode lays out several competing explanations side by side. On the Joplin "butterfly people," for example, they compared cryptids, trauma, folklore, and guardian angels. Listeners can call in their questions on a feedback line.

**AJ Gentile and The Why Files** 

AJ Gentile hosted national shows on MTV, VH1, and Playboy Radio, and made a show called Stoned Science. The Why Files channel launched in September 2020\. It now has about 5.9 million subscribers and over 1.2 billion views.

AJ tells the story first, then breaks it down and debunks it where he can. He calls himself an open-minded skeptic who is still drawn to the unexplained. His co-host, Hecklefish, is a sarcastic puppet goldfish (whose voice actor has never been named).

The show has expanded into a podcast with an interview series called The Basement, covering ghosts, possession, shadow people, and consciousness. This month he returned to The Shawn Ryan Show.

### SPOTLIGHT: Ed and Lorraine Warren

Ed and Lorraine Warren were both born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1926 and 1927, and married in 1945\. Both called themselves demonologists, and Lorraine also said she was clairvoyant. Ed died in 2006\. Lorraine died in April 2019 at 92.

Their best-known case was the 1975 Amityville haunting, where George and Kathy Lutz said a demonic presence drove them from their home. The Warrens were among the first investigators there. Some writers called it a hoax, while Lorraine maintained it was not.

By the Warrens' account, a 28-year-old nursing student received a Raggedy Ann doll from her mother in 1970\. After strange events, a medium said the doll held the spirit of a girl named Annabelle. The Warrens concluded it was demonic and took the doll. The films replaced the rag doll with a cracked porcelain one, partly over trademark concerns and partly because the original wasn't scary enough.

In the museum, the doll's case had a frame treated with holy oil and holy water, with three crosses attached. Tony Spera, the Warrens' son-in-law, said three Catholic priests blessed the museum and its objects.

The Conjuring universe is the highest-grossing horror franchise ever. The Annabelle spin-offs came out in 2014, 2017, and 2019\. The final Conjuring film, Last Rites, opened to about $187 million worldwide in 2025, and the universe has passed $2.5 billion.

The Occult Museum closed in 2019 over zoning violations, and Matt Rife later bought the Warrens' home and museum. In 2025, the estate promoted rumors that Annabelle had disappeared to sell a tour called Devils on the Run. In July 2025, Dan Rivera, the tour's lead investigator, died at 54 in a Gettysburg hotel. He had built Annabelle's case himself. The coroner said the doll wasn't at the scene, Rivera was alone, and nothing about the death was suspicious. Annabelle is now on display in Salem, Massachusetts, through Christmas!

In 1997, skeptics Perry DeAngelis and Steven Novella called the Warrens' evidence "blarney" in the Connecticut Post. Critics note that the doll's history rests entirely on Ed's word. Ed's claim of Church recognition as a demonologist also appears to come from Ed alone.

Real or frauds, The Warrens built the template every channel here still uses. They brought cameras, told the story first, and left the verdict to the audience.

Sources:

- Social Blade: The Why Files: https://socialblade.com/youtube/handle/thewhyfiles/videos
- Cyprus Mail: The Why Files: https://cyprus-mail.com/2025/11/21/tv-shows-we-love-the-why-files
- Patreon: The Why Files: https://www.patreon.com/cw/thewhyfiles
- Podchaser: AJ Gentile: https://www.podchaser.com/creators/aj-gentile-107Zzpvy0z
- IMDb: Andrew Gentile: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0313054/
- Digg / Page Six: Night Media complaint: https://digg.com/entertainment/0xbkevqv
- Tubefilter: Hell Week to Netflix: https://www.tubefilter.com/2026/09/24/sam-and-colby-halloween-horror-netflix-youtube/amp/
- Her Campus: Hell Week: https://www.hercampus.com/?p=2262455
- TV Tropes: Sam and Colby: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/SamAndColby
- The Mary Sue: Watcher: https://themarysue.com/?p=565507
- BlogTO: Ghost Files Live: https://www.blogto.com/events/ghost-files-live-toronto/
- CreatorDB: Nuke's Top 5: https://creatordb.app/creatorstats/nukestop5/
- Snopes: Goodwill ghost video: https://www.snopes.com/articles/361969/goodwill-ghost-woman-video/
- Audible: Mishlove interview: https://www.audible.com.au/pd/B0FR98WYDM
- Psi Encyclopedia: Jeffrey Mishlove: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/ebook/article/mishlove\_ebook-article/mishlove-650.pdf
- Apple Podcasts: Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1423288932
- Pocket Casts: Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/jimmy-akins-mysterious-world/f245de00-7e49-0136-7b90-27f978dac4db
- Podbean: Mysterious World episodes: https://www.podbean.com/pu/dir-6b78d-72a64
- SQPN: Alone Together for Christmas 2025: https://sqpn.com/2026/01/alone-together-for-christmas-2025/
- Wikipedia: Ed and Lorraine Warren: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed\_and\_Lorraine\_Warren
- Wikipedia: Annabelle (doll): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabelle\_(doll)
- Sonoma State Star: Lorraine Warren: https://sonomastatestar.com/?p=19509
- Register Citizen: Occult Museum: https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-register-citizen-torrington-ct/
- KTTC: Dan Rivera: https://www.kttc.com/2025/07/16/ghost-hunter-dan-rivera-dies-while-tour-with-posse
- NBC News: Dan Rivera: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna219043
- Dan Rivera report: https://jira.phpfox.com/p/dan-rivera-cause-of-death
- Yahoo: Haunted Warren Museum, Salem: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/ct-doll-said-inhabited-inhuman-093000947.html
- Fangoria: Last Rites box office: https://www.fangoria.com/conjuring-last-rites-posts-one-of-horrors-biggest-box-office-openings-ever/
- Boxoffice Pro: Last Rites: https://www.boxofficepro.com/?p=38710
- Based on a True Story podcast: https://www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/24

## One Last Thing: Where Do You Read?

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/11/2e1146a4-cf4c-4c72-b0ad-0836c55d0cea/content/images/size/w1200/2026/10/IMG_1430.jpeg)

The room where it happens. From the Wyrd Tales archive.

So let me ask you, and I want an honest answer: where do you read? Sure, sure, I absolutely want to know what you read, but I'm very curious about where you read. Your environment, your tactile sense, your smell, sounds, sights, are all part of the story. You are part of the story.

Picture this: reading Stephen King's *It* on a Kindle in your living room on a Saturday afternoon, or on the edge of a jungle as evening sets with the sounds of the wild behind you. Now, those are two different experiences completely.

Sure, most of us can't be that picky, and probably wouldn't if we could, but I am curious where you read.

Jim

## Lilliana

*The Thaumaturge* is live for members. [Read the full story here](https://wyrd-tales.ghost.io/lilliana/)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/11/2e1146a4-cf4c-4c72-b0ad-0836c55d0cea/content/images/2026/10/wyrd-tales-issue-3-banner-inbody-v1.png)

Wyrd Tales arrives every Thursday. If a story stayed with you, pass it to one friend who reads in the dark.