Darkest Mysteries Online — The Strange and Unusual Podcast 2026
Creepy Stories From New Years Eve
07 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What experiences led to the creepy stories shared on New Year's Eve?
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 unusual events occurred during the ski lodge shift?
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.
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Chapter 3: How did the protagonist feel while walking back to the cabin alone?
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. 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.
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Chapter 4: What strange encounter happened at the mysterious cabin?
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. There was no cell service, which was the point apparently. Aiden was trying to recapture some kind of rustic purity or whatever.
He brought a box of fireworks, a bunch of firewood, and way too much beer for three people. Drew, still the node of the trio, brought this crank-powered radio and a telescope he claimed was for stargazing, but mostly just made him look like a budget conspiracy theorist. I came light, just clothes, some snacks, and this vague scent of dread I couldn't really explain.
I chalked it up to winter nerves. Or maybe I just didn't trust the whole no signal, no neighbors thing. Around 9-0, we bundled up and headed outside to prep for the fireworks. The clearing behind the cabin was perfect for it, packed down with snow and open enough to launch without hitting any trees.
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Chapter 5: What was the significance of the lights flickering during the New Year's celebration?
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.
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Chapter 6: What unsettling events unfolded after the power went out?
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. I used the flicker of light to find the flare gun hanging over the fireplace. It was old, but it still worked. It was meant for bears. This wasn't a bear. Midnight hit.
Outside, we heard footsteps, four at a time, something dragging itself across the outside wall, inching toward the front door. I raised the flare gun. Then there was a knock.
One. Then two more. Then quiet. Then a voice. Low. Calm. Just outside the door.
It said, Happy New Year. It wasn't Aiden. I fired the flare through the window. The burst of red lit up the clearing. The thing was right there, arms spread, standing tall. Its joints bent outward like a spider opening itself up. Its mouth opened wide, wider than anything human, and something hit the snow. Aiden's boot. Then the flare went out and it was gone.
We didn't sleep, just waited for the first grey light of morning. At dawn we packed what we could and started walking. It took us nearly six hours to reach the road. Eventually, a snowplough driver spotted us and let us climb into the cab without saying a word. Some rumours said Ed had got drunk and wandered off into the snow. Search teams looked for weeks, but they never found anything.
New Year's Eve was supposed to be low-key.
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Chapter 7: How did the group react to the strange noises coming from outside?
Honestly, I was looking forward to it being uneventful. I just genuinely didn't feel like pretending to be excited when I wasn't. So when my friend Caleb asked if I could watch his place while he and his girlfriend were in Vermont, it felt like the perfect out.
The house was this older place he'd just moved into a couple of months earlier, out in rural northwestern Pennsylvania, a good 20 minute drive from even the smallest town. He described it as still a work in progress, which I took to mean it wasn't exactly cozy yet. I got there around 10.30 in the morning. Inside, the house felt half-moved in. Boxes stacked in corners, walls mostly bare.
Calab had told me the radiator upstairs was busted, so I set myself up downstairs, space heaters on, thermos of black coffee nearby, and one of those fussy fur blankets that look ridiculous but actually do the job. By early evening, the snow had picked up. Still, not a blizzard, just thick enough to blur the trees at the back of the yard.
You know that kind of snow that makes everything feel padded? Like even sound has to slow down to get through it. That kind. The house stayed quiet except for the occasional hum of the space heater kicking on. I'd planned to stay up until midnight, mostly just to say I did. I had the TV going on low, flipping between random urine countdowns, none of which I cared about.
Around 11.30, I stood up to stretch and refill my coffee. My back popped in a way that made me feel about 40 years older than I am. The kitchen window looked out over the backyard. That was when I saw him. There was someone standing by the trees, not near the house, not walking or moving, just standing right where the yard ended and the woods began, perfectly still.
At first I thought maybe it was a tree stump or some trick of the light, but the shape was too human. Shoulders, head, everything. I couldn't see a face, just a solid silhouette where no silhouette should have been. There was enough ambient light from the porch for me to make out the shape, but not enough to see detail. The figure stood right in that awkward patch where the light faded into dark.
Not totally hidden, but not exactly visible either. I stood there at the window longer than I probably should have, just watching, waiting for them to do something. Waves step forward, disappear, but they didn't move. Eventually, I backed away, locked the back door, and checked the front even though I knew it was already bolted. Then I turned off the porch light. I'm not sure why.
Maybe I thought if they couldn't see the house clearly, they'd go away. I sat back on the couch and tried to convince myself it was a lost hiker maybe, or a neighbor from farther up the ridge. but that didn't really drac. Nobody hikes that trail at night, not in the cold, not on New Year's Eve. When the clock hit midnight, I heard faint fireworks in the distance, probably from town.
I didn't go back to the window. At 12.30, there was a knock. Not loud, just two precise knocks, like someone trying not to be rude. It was so quiet in the house, the sound felt unnaturally sharp. I got up, moved to the front door, and looked through the peephole. A man stood there in a navy parka, hands tucked into his coat pockets.
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Chapter 8: What shocking revelation occurred at the end of the night?
I asked through the door if he needed something. My voice cracked a little at the end, which I pretended not to notice. He said his car had broken down on the ridge, said he just needed to use a phone. His voice was calm, not pleading, not upset. Like this happened to him all the time and he was just going through the motions. I told him I could call someone for him, but I was opening the door.
He nodded. That's understandable, he said. No frustration, no push, just acceptance. I asked who he wanted me to call. He didn't answer right away. Then he tilted his head slightly and said, you're watching the house for Caleb, right? That's when I stopped talking. I stepped back from the door, still staring at the people. I hadn't mentioned Caleb's name.
There was no note outside, no car in the driveway that could have told him that, and I'd only gotten the key the day before. I went for my phone on the coffee table, grabbed it, and stood there with the screen glowing in my hand. I didn't even dial. My thumb hovered over the keyboard while I kept glancing toward the door. Then everything cut off. The power went out.
No flicker, no warning, just black. The TV died, the space heater stopped, and the fridge stopped humming. Total silence, except for the faint sound of snow brushing the windows. I stood in the dark for a moment, listening. The porch light was out now, so I couldn't see if the man was still there. I didn't hear him leave. I went into the kitchen and found the drawer where Caleb kept candles.
As I struck the lighter and got one lit, I heard the back door creak, just slightly. I froze. No footsteps. No voice. Just that soft sound of wood shifting against metal. I crept down the hallway with the candle flickering in my hand. The WAC door was still locked, the chain still in place, but something felt wrong. I stared at the door for a few minutes, trying to breathe normally.
Then I looked down. The boots I'd left by the door were gone, just gone. The mat was empty except for two wet outlines. I stared at that spot for a full ten seconds, then grabbed my phone and finally called emergency services. 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.
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