Darkest Mysteries Online — The Strange and Unusual Podcast 2026
Creepy Stories From New Years Eve
08 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, I'm welcome, stories all the time. Glad you are here. Let's get into it. My shift at the ski rental lodge ended at nine. New Year's Eve is always packed at Mount Holloway. A lot of them don't even ski. They just want pictures and the gear. So the lodge hires seasonal workers to handle the overflow, and since I'd just moved to Vermont in November, I took the job mostly out of necessity.
That night, December 31st, things got hectic early. Everyone was in a rush to return their gear and get to the bonfire down at the base.
Chapter 2: What eerie experiences occur at the ski rental lodge on New Year's Eve?
By 8.30, most of the staff had either clocked out or wandered off to sneak drinks. I volunteered to stay behind and finish the clothes. Not because I was a team player, more because I didn't feel like being social. I'd only been in town a couple months, hadn't made real friends yet. Hanging back was easier. I wrapped up a little after 9.
The last few stragglers came in, dropped off their stuff, and disappeared. I lowered the returns, did the quick sweep, locked the racks, shut the lights. When I stepped outside, the mountain felt empty. Not quite, exactly. Just hollow, like most of the people had drained out and left something thinner behind.
The shuttle to the lower cabins had already left, but I didn't bother checking if anyone was still around to give me a lift. My place was barely a mile down the service trail. Maybe a twenty-minute walk if you didn't stop. I'd taken it dozens of times, even in worse weather. That trail runs behind the lodge, cuts through a stretch of woods, and spits you out near the Axis Road.
There's one left turn that marks the halfway point. It's not a real fork, just a curve with a skinny path breaking off, but it's obvious once you've seen it a few times. But that night, it just didn't show up. At first, I figured I'd send out and walk past it. Easy mistake in the dark. My flashlight barely reached 10 feet ahead and the snow softened everything.
But after a while, I started to feel uneasy, not panicked, but unsaddled, like the space around me wasn't quite right. The trail didn't end. It didn't curve. It just kept going. I slowed down, stopped, looked around. All trees. Nothing recognizable. I pulled out my phone thinking maybe I could use the GPS, but the signal was bouncing and the screen showed nothing useful.
Just a loading wheel and the time. It was 10.17. I blinked at that. I'd left just after 9.30 and I hadn't stopped walking. That's when the cold hit differently. Not just cold sharp, like the kind that gets behind your teeth. On the air felt thin, like I couldn't get a full breath, no matter how deep I inhaled. Then I saw the lights. Faint at first, maybe twenty yards ahead, blurred by the trees.
I headed toward them, assuming I'd looped back toward one of the utility buildings or cabins. Maybe I'd walked in a circle without realizing it. But what I found wasn't part of the resort. It was a cabin. All small, sitting dead center in a clearing I'd never seen before. One porch lied above the door, flickering like it was on its last bulb. The windows were narrow and dark.
The steps leading up were crooked, like they'd sat with time. Snow was banked up against the walls, but the roof was spotless, like someone had brushed it clean just minutes earlier. I stopped at the edge of the clearing. It didn't look abandoned, but it didn't look lived in either.
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Chapter 3: How does the narrator describe the unsettling feeling in the empty mountain?
Just run in some quiet, hard-to-pin-down way for a minute. I just stood there trying to figure out how far off the path I must have gone. My first emotion wasn't fear. It was embarrassment, like I trespassed without realizing it. I turned to head back, and it's when I saw him. A man maybe ten feet away, just inside the true line on the opposite side of the clearing. I hadn't heard him.
No crunch of boots in his nose. No branches. Just there. Standing there. He wore a long, dark coat and one of those neckcaps pulled low. Hands at his sides. Face blank. Watching me, I froze. Then he said he already came inside. His voice was calm. No edge to it. Not threatening. Just certain. But he was correcting me. I managed to say no. I haven't. He didn't respond. Didn't move.
Just kept watching. I didn't ask questions. I didn't wait for him to explain. I moved slow, deliberate, around the edge of the clearing, keeping trees between us. I didn't turn my back. I don't remember how long I walked after that. Everything looked the same, and my phone wasn't helping. At one point, I started retracing my steps just based on tree shapes I thought I recognized.
Eventually, I found my cabin. It was ten after eleven when I got inside. I didn't take off my coat. I didn't turn on the lights. I just sat on the floor with my back to the wall listening to nothing, not even wind, just this deep, pressing silence like the whole mountain had gone to sleep. At 11.50, someone knocked. I stood up, crept to the door, and looked through the peephole. It was him.
Same coat, same hat, standing on my porch like he'd been waiting there the whole time. He wasn't cold, not shivering, no fog on the glass from his breath. He didn't move. Then another knock. And then I heard it. My voice. From behind me, somewhere in the room. Quiet, but clear. Let him in. That's all it said. Same tone I use when I'm trying to convince myself something's fine. Same rhythm.
Same inflection. It wasn't just similar, it was me. I know how I sound. I didn't turn around. I didn't want to know where it came from. I opened the bedroom door, ran through, slammed it shut, and locked it. Climbed out the window in my socks and hit the snow running. I didn't stop until I reached the main road and flagged down a snowplow coming up the hill. Didn't explain much to the driver.
Just asked to be dropped at the diner in town. I never went back to that cabin. Didn't even pick up my stuff. I called the landlord the next day and said I was leaving the key under the mat, didn't care about the deposit, took the first bus south, and found a short-term rental in another state.
Aiden, my cousin, invited me to spend New Year's at his family's cabin up near Rockwell Lake in northern Idaho. It wasn't supposed to be a party or anything, just the three of us, me, Aiden, and his younger brother Drew. We were all close growing up, practically inseparable from most of our childhood.
The cavern was deep in the woods, past a narrow dirt road that turned to snowpack well before we reached it. The place hadn't changed since we were kids. Our grandfather built it by hand back in the 60s, surrounded by tall pines and silence. One floor, one wood stove, a couple of old bunk beds, and a kitchen that smelled like cedar and dust.
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Chapter 4: What happens when the narrator encounters a mysterious cabin in the woods?
It was upright. Had legs. Shaped kind of like a wolf or maybe a bear, but it was too thin. Tall but gaunt. The limbs were too long for its body, and its head was angled low like it was sniffing the ground or watching us. It didn't move. Just stood there, silent, maybe thirty feet past the tree line. Aiden waved his arms and shouted, trying to scare it off like he were a coyote. Nothing.
Not a twitch. Then it did this thing I still can't fully explain. It backed into the woods, but it didn't walk away. It didn't turn or pivot or anything. It just slid backward into the darkness, legs stiff, body rigid, like it was being pulled by a string. Drew muttered something about Manj and turned back toward the cabin. We all followed. No one said much.
We left the fireworks half-buried in the snow. Back inside, we tried to pretend it was nothing. Opened more beers, turned the radio until we got some static that almost resembled music, and laid out snacks like the thing hadn't just stared us down. Then the lights started flickering.
Not like a bulb dying, more like a pulse on-off on every few minutes Aiden figured the generator might be freezing up around 10.30. He pulled on his boot, grabbed a flashlight, and told us he'd be back in two minutes. They stood by the window and watched him head toward the little shed where the generator sat. The moon was bright enough to see his outline against the snow.
He was halfway there when he stopped. Bend down. There was a dark trail leading to the shed. Not footprints. Just a single line, like something had been dragged through the snow. He stepped forward to look closer. The flashlight beam shifted to the left and then blinked out. Just like that. No shout. No thud. He just vanished. I didn't think. I ran outside, calling his name.
Drew followed, slipping once on the icy steps. We found the flashlight lying in the snow, still warm. That detail sticks with me. Still warm, like he'd just dropped it seconds before. No blood. No broken branches. Just another drag trail, fresh and long, leaving away from the shed and back into the trees. We followed it maybe ten steps before we heard it.
This lard, unnatural, crack-like frozen wood splintering underweight. Then we saw it. It was crawling across the tree trunks. Not on them, across them, as if gravity didn't apply. And in one of its claws, tangled and limp, was Aden's coat. Neither of us screamed. We just backed away, carefully, like animals trying not to provoke something they didn't understand.
Once we reached the porch, we went inside and shoved the wood stove in front of the door. We turned off the lights and sat there in the dark. Around 11.30, Drew whispered that something was scratched into the windows. I got up and looked. Each pane of glass had the same mark etched into the frost circles, with slashes through the middle. We shut the blinds, sat back down, waited.
The fire crackled. The radio started hissing again, even though no one had touched it. The crank wasn't turning. Through the static, we heard breathing. Slow, deliberate inhales. Then came a new sound scraping. Like fingernails on metal coming from behind a cabin. The lights cut out completely. Total darkness. Drew flicked his lighter.
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Chapter 5: How does the story shift to a cabin gathering with friends?
The dispatcher was calm, told me to stay on the line and get somewhere safe with a lock. I told her I already was, but I wasn't sure that meant anything anymore. The officers didn't show up until 1.20. By then, the power was back on. No forced entry, not even my own footprints from earlier. One of the officers glanced at me and asked, could an animal have dragged them off? I said, maybe.
He didn't look convinced, and honestly, neither was I. They did a quick walk around the property, then told me to call again if anything else happened. I didn't go back to sleep. I sat on the couch with my phone in one hand and the candle still burning on the table. Every sound, the fridge kicking back on, the creak of the heater warming up made me flinch.
Around four in the morning, I finally reached for my phone to text Caleb about what had happened. There was already a message waiting. Sent at 12.49. Don't open the door, I forgot to mention. I froze there. I didn't reply. I didn't pack neatly. I grabbed my stuff, locked the door behind me, and drove back to the city before the sun even started to rise. I was 22 when this happened.
During winter break at Wexley University, a small college buried in the hills of northern Maine... I worked part-time for campus facilities, mostly maintenance tasks, snow removal, basic lockups. Most of the time I was alone, which I actually preferred. New Year's Eve fell on a Sunday that year. That afternoon, my boss texted me to ask if I'd cover the overnight shift at the maintenance building.
The guy who'd originally picked it up called out last minute. Something about a family emergency, and they needed someone to be present in case of another power outage. We'd had a few that week because of the heavies, no? I didn't hesitate. It was holiday pay, and all I had to do was stay awake in the break room, monitor the radio, and check in once or twice if something came up.
Honestly, I saw it with paid alone time. It had snowed all day. Not a blizzard, exactly, but steady enough that by evening the sidewalks were buried again. By eight, the whole campus was just white and quiet. We kept plowing a separate garage behind the main building. Nothing huge, just a compact utility truck with a front blade.
I was told to take it out around midnight and do a single pass through the staff lot to keep the snow from icing overnight. Everything was calm until then. I watched something dumb on my phone, microwaved the sandwich from the vending machine, and stared at the same dry erase board that had said, do not microwave coffee mugs since before I was hired. The walkie was completely silent.
Around 11.45, I started getting my stuff together. Hat, gloves, coat, the keys to the plow. The building creaked as I stepped out. It always did that when the temperature dropped, like it was stretching in its sleep. The back lot was buried under at least four inches of fresh snow, maybe more. I followed a narrow shoveled path out to the garage.
The light over the keypad was glowing faintly orange behind a crust of rust. I wiped it off with my sleeve and typed in the four-digit code. No green light. No sound. Nothing. I tried again slower this time. Still nothing. On the third try, I finally heard the mechanical stutter of the door murder trying to engage, like it wanted to rise but was choking on ice. It stalled out with a tired buzz.
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Chapter 6: What strange occurrences take place during the New Year's celebration at the hunting cabin?
Nothing. Not even a hum. My foam flashlight lit up the small cone in front of me, just enough to see the plow part exactly where it should have been, facing outward. I figured the garage must have lost power earlier in the storm, wouldn't be the first time. It happened the previous winter too, when ice collected on the rooftop transformer.
Still, it was unnerving standing in that dark space alone, flashlight shaking slightly from the cold in my hands. I climbed into the cab of the plow and jammed the key and turned it once. The engine gave a dry cough and then nothing. No clicks, no douse lights, just silence, like the battery had been sucked dry. I tried again, listening harder this time. Same result. That heavy dead silence.
I sat there for a second, not moving, just breathing in the stale, cold air. It smelled like gasoline and old rubber and something faintly metallic, like rusted chains. I considered going back inside to radio it in, maybe called a backup guy. That's when I saw something shift in the mirror. At first, it was just a blur, a movement that didn't match the static surroundings.
I turned off the flashlight and leaned forward, squinting through the narrow view between the dashboard and the windshield. Someone was outside. I could just make out a pair of boots pacing slowly in the snow right in front of the door. They stopped. My hands were suddenly damp inside my gloves. The cold felt sharper now. Real. Nobody was scheduled to be here. Nobody.
All the other maintenance staff had signed off by six, and the only security on campus stayed near the front gate, over a quarter mile away. I held my breath, hoping, honestly hoping, it was just a student who stayed behind for a break and got lost. Or a confused custodian from the town team. But then I heard the beeping, a keypad. They were trying to get in. First attempt to fail.
Second attempt, another fail. I slid down in my seat slowly. Pulled my feet up, crouched tight, and stayed as quiet as I could. My whole body had gone still. Not tense exactly more, like a full body pulse. Then my phone buzzed in my pocket. The vibration was so loud in the silence, it felt like a scream. I didn't dare look at it.
On the third keypad attempt, the garage door motor kicked in again, and this time it managed to rise a few more inches. Not all the way. Just enough. That's when I saw the glove hands appear underneath the opening. He was pulling the door up by hand. I pressed myself back into the corner behind one of the shelving units and held still. No thoughts, just instinct. I'd. Stay small.
When the door rose to about shoulder height, he ducked in. Snow Parker. They could. Flashlight. He didn't say a word. He walked with slow, careful steps, scanning the garage like he was looking for something very specific. The beam of his flashlight moved across the plow, over the walls, down the shelving.
He passed within five feet of where I was crouched, and I could hear the faint squeak of his boots compressing the snow that had blown inside. He didn't react to the truck at all, didn't even try to check it, just walked to the back wall. There, he paused. I watched him reach into his coat and pull out something thin and shiny. Wires. He took out a second.
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Chapter 7: What unsettling events unfold when the power goes out at the cabin?
Just after sunrise, two campus officers showed up to do a sweep. The garage was empty. No footprints but mine. The plow was still dead. Battery totally shot. But nothing had been moved or taken. No forced entry. No forced entry. No vandalism. Just emptiness. I walked with them to the back wall where I'd seen a man crouch.
All we found was a pair of stiff gloves and a six-inch wire looped around a bowl. That was it. We checked the cameras next. The outdoor feeds were fine, but the one aimed at the break room door, the one I exited through, had glitched. 20 minutes of footage missing from exactly 11.40 to midnight. No one ever figured out who he was.
They checked local records, even questioned a couple of seasonal workers, but no leads. No complaints. No reports of break-ins. My shift at the lodge ended at 11. It's this cabin rental place tucked way back in the Vermont woods. Seven cabins spaced out just enough that you get the illusion of being alone, even if the next group over is only a short walk away.
We mostly got people from Boston or New York who wanted a quiet winter retreat, whatever that meant to them. Couple of small families, occasionally someone who brought snowshoes they'd never used before. Normally I'm off for New Year's. It's not a big night around here, but still.
I like staying home, heating up leftovers, and watching bad TV until midnight, with a guy who usually handled night maintenance. Colby decided to pregame a little too hard the night before and ghosted. So they called me in last minute. The job isn't hard, just repetitive. Walk the grounds every couple of check the heating systems, especially in the older units.
Clear the walkways if it starts snowing. Most importantly, be available for guest calls. If someone can't get their fireplace working or hears something weird in the walls, they want answers fast. That night, four of the seven cabins were booked. I figured I'd do my rounds, stay warm in the office between them, and ride it out. It was quiet up until about 10.30 when the desk phone rang. Cabin 4.
A woman on the other end. Marlene said the lights in the back half of the cabin were flickering. Not in a panicked way. Just tired and annoyed like she'd rather not be dealing with it. I told her I'd come check it out. When I got there, she answered the door with a small, taint smile. Her husband was a few feet back on the couch, hunched over his phone like it was the only thing holding him up.
Didn't even glance my way. She said the flickering had stopped by the time I arrived, but something about the way she said it gave me pause. Like she didn't fully believe it was over. I offered to check to break her panel anyway. At first, she hesitated just for a second, but it was there. Then she nodded and let me in. The place was clean and quiet. Cozy, even.
Smelled like cider or one of those candles you'd find in boutique shop. It had that warmth people try to recreate in photos, like a catalogued version of winter. The breaker box was in a closet near the back bedroom. I opened it up, expecting to find a loose switch or something out of alignment. Instead, I saw that one of the breakers was taped to no FF position. Black electrical tape.
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Chapter 8: How does the tension escalate with the mysterious knocking sounds?
I left a note on the desk, radioed the check in, and headed out on the utility cart. The ride out to cabin seven is a little rough in winter. The snow gets packed unevenly on the trail, and visibility's never great once you're out from under the floodlights. That night was foggy too. The kind of thick air that eats your headlight's awful sound. Cabin 7 was dark, locked.
No footprints in the snow except mine. The porch looked undisturbed. I even checked behind the railing just to be sure. Nothing. I figured the feed had glitched. Started heading back, a little irritated at the false alarm. Then my radio crackled. At first, I thought it was interference. Happens sometimes. But this wasn't static. It was breathing. Not gasping. Not strained.
Just slow, rhythmic inhales and exhales. Steady enough that I almost thought it was mine, echoing through the speaker. But it wasn't. I spun around, scanning the trees, the cabin, the trail had just come down. Nothing. I called and on the radio. Asked if anyone else was on my frequency. No response. Just that breathing. Quiet plastic Y, like it was filtered through tubing.
I turned the volume down to nothing and walked the rest of the way back. When I got to the office, I checked the cameras again. Cabin 4's feed was down. It had been working 20 minutes earlier when I checked the whole grid. I called the landline inside. No answer. So I went back. Their porch light was on. Through the front window, I could see the husband still sitting in the exact same spot.
Same posture. Same phone. Like he hadn't moved an inch. I knocked. No one came. I knocked again. Harder. Nothing. I opened the door. The cold hit me immediately. Sharp, dry air like the heat had been off for hours. Colder inside than out. Marlene was in the kitchen. Her arms were wrapped around her, self-shaking. She looked like she hadn't moved much either.
She said she'd been hearing movement under the bedroom in the crawlspace. Not footsteps scraping, dragging. Something heavy shifting on wooden beams. I asked her husband if he'd heard anything. He didn't even look up. Just mumbled, it's not for us. I asked Marlene where the access panel was. She didn't answer. Just backed into the corner and shook her head. So I went looking myself.
In the bedroom, one of the rugs had been kicked aside. A crawlspace panel was open, about an inch. This disturbed, like someone had been down there recently. I knelt down and shined my flashlight inside. Four feet high, dirt floor insulation, the usual. Pads overhead, standard stuff, except for the coat, a parka, fur-trimmed hood, same as in the video.
It was laid out carefully on the ground, like someone had folded it open and left it there. And underneath the collar, partially tucked inside, was a jawbone. Not buried. Not hidden. Just there. I pulled back fast. The radio on my hip hissed. A voice whispered low and even. You turned it back on. That was it. I walked out of the bedroom. Marlene was crying softly now.
Her husband still hadn't moved. I told them they needed to pack a bag. Right now, no explanation. No questions. I drove them to cabin two, closest to the road, set the heat, gave them water, promised a refund, locked the door behind them. Then I drove back, went into cabin four, opened the breaker closet, and flipped everything off. The next morning, the owner asked about the power cut.
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