Desert of Bone

Good evening MMers! We hope you all have sweet dreams tonight, unlike several of our readers have been having lately. Normally weird dreams aren’t something to write to us about, but we have been getting reports from all over the state of people having the same strange dream. 

“It starts with me waking up in a desert,” Katie from Freeport told us. “The sky is grey, the sand is this really deep red and feels really scratchy. All over the sand are these white trees, or at least they look like trees that are this bleached white color. I feel like I walk for hours in this dream and never get to where I am supposed to be, and the whole time I just feel scared.”

The desert and trees have a similar feel to this

Joe from Standish has reported a similar dream, “Its been happening for a few weeks now, I go to sleep and almost immediately wake up in this freaky desert. The sand is coarse and gets everywhere, and there are these white pillars everywhere. At first I thought they were trees, but when I got close they were bleached bone. And not regular bone, it was covered in these tiny spurs almost like there was something wrong with whatever died and left them.”

What does Javier see in the distance?

Javier from York reported that he has had these dreams for months now. “I get a little further towards my goal every time. I have no idea what ‘the goal’ is, but I feel like I’m getting very close. I saw something in the distance last night, but the heat coming off the horizon kept it obscured, whatever it was was dark and huge.”

Whatever this dream is, it seems to be affecting a large amount of people, we can only hope it is something innocent and not a portent of something dark looming on the horizon. If you or anyone you know is experiencing these dreams please write to us. Stay safe out there Maine!

Black Tarot

 Good Morning, MMers! We've got a story for you that spreads out all over the state. Several of our loyal readers have sent us emails about a mysterious envelope they have received in the mail. The envelope itself is black, about 3.5 inches by 5 inches. The recipient's name and address are written in silver ink. There is no return address, and strangely enough, no postage. So far, four different people have contacted us about these envelopes, Larry Gilbert from York, Sharon Messina from Farmington, Dominic Stoddard from Corinth, and Sara Burgess from North Yarmouth. 

Here's, Sara Burgess. 

"This envelope just showed up one morning," she wrote us. "I didn't know what it was, but figured someone sent me a card or something. It felt heavy, like one of those nice cards. It wasn't my birthday or anything, but you never know. So when I opened it I was shocked the find these five cards."

Sara recognized them as tarot cards, but there was something off about them. "I don't know much about tarot cards - just from like movies and stuff, but just looking at them, something didn't feel right."

The cards themselves were slightly larger than playing cards, about four inches long and 2 3/4 inches wide. Their backs were black dull gold designs reminiscent of fancy playing cards, with two eyes staring outwards. 

The back of the cards each received

The other side, the face sides, were terrifying. Here's Dominic Stoddard:

"When I was a kid, I read those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. Scared the crap out of me. The art looked like that, but I did some looking on the internet, and it clearly isn't the same guy. I can't find these images anywhere."

For those readers who are unfamiliar, the art of Stephen Gammell is quite terrifying in its simplicity and style. It's given thousands of readers nightmares for decades, but Dominic was right - this wasn't the work of Gammell. His agent even clarified it for us stating, "This is not Mr. Gammell's work, though obviously an inspired imitation." 

Sharon Messina was shocked. "My mailbox is at the post office - a P.O. Box you know - and yet there was this envelope. I asked the postmaster, but he had never seen it. He couldn't explain it either."

Larry Gilbert, fifty-two, recognized what was wrong right away. "The art was unsettling, for sure, but at the end of the day that's just pictures. It was the cards themselves that was all wrong. As a kid I got really hooked on this occult stuff, you know? Aleister Crowley, H. P. Lovecraft, tarot, all that stuff. So I sorta knew the cads, and these were cards of the major arcana that don't exist in any tarot deck I've ever seen."

For those who don't know, a tarot deck is broken into two sections - the minor arcana, consisting of four suits of fourteen cards (1-10 and 4 "face" cards) and the major arcana (22 suitless face cards). Unlike playing cards, the suits of the minor arcana are typically: swords, cups, coins, and batons. The suits of these cards were blades, wands, sigils, and grails, all pretty clear interpretations of the familiar suits. It was the major arcana that differed wildly.

These cards, which we are dubbing the "Black Tarot" contain cards not found in the normal major arcana; cards with titles like, "The Necromancer" or "The Black Sun." It's clear this deck has drawn some sort of twisted inspiration from a traditional deck, but seem to be something of their own.

There seems to be no connection between the recipients. They have little in common. They do not know one another, are separated by locations, ages, jobs, you name it, these four people seem to be randomly selected. So why did each one of them receive five of these Black Tarot cards in the mail. These could be construed as a spread of some kind. Here's one such spread:

What these could mean and who is sending them is still a mystery. We asked all four of the recipients for pictures of their cards, and they were happy to oblige. Without knowing what the cards all mean, what the spread is, and maybe most importantly, what the initial question asked was, it's almost impossible to determine what all of this means. Still, it doesn't stop Sara Burgess from feeling creeped out.

"It's weird, you know?" she said said. "I mean, who has all these creepy cards and why send them to me? How do they even know me? I don't know, it just feels like... like an invasion of privacy or something."

If you have any information about the Black Tarot, their meaning, or sender, please reach out to us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com. 

Sara Burgess' cards

Larry Gilbert's spread

Dominic Stoddard's spread

Sharon Messina's spread

Stay safe out there, Maine.

Tiverton

Heads up, MMers! We've got a real spooky story for you on this Friday the 13th! This one concerns the town of Tiverton in Franklin County. Not many people have heard of Tiverton and that's because there are only 12 full time residents! That's because Tiverton is known a vortex of dark energy. Visitors to the town, which was originally settled by Puritans in 1692, have reported seeing orbs of light, wolf-shaped black shadows, and hearing disembodied voices whispering their names. 

Then there's the mysterious group said to patrol the woods around Tiverton. They're called the Dark Watch and some say they're a cult of descendants of the original inhabitants. Others claim they're a group of black magicians who want to keep people from entering the town.

If you do visit Tiverton, make sure you don't take anything home with you. Reports say that anyone who takes an artifact from the town will be cursed. Dark shadowy figures will follow you around and terrorize you. 

One loyal MMer, Torey from Bath, claims he took a small statue he found in an abandoned building. He said that at first he just had some bad dreams. Soon he began to see shadow people around his house and heard strange noises, like a cross between a growl and some sort of whispering. He said every night the shadow people got closer and closer to his bed.

We haven't heard from Torey in some time, but we're sure he's fine. If anyone hears from him, please let us know. And as always, stay safe out there, Maine.

courtesy of Torey, 2019

courtesy of Torey, 2019

Bitter Pill to Swallow

What's up, MMers? This story comes to us from Melinda Hardy, a nurse at Stephens Memorial Hospital. She tells us that one of the women she worked with for five years, another nurse (who wished to remain anonymous) told her this story. "[She] was totally the most honest person I have ever met. She wouldn't lie to save her soul," Melinda told us. 

The story starts about ten years ago, somewhere around 2010 or 2011. A patient came to see a doctor at a private practice where the other nurse worked before coming to Stephens. This patient suffered from chronic pain due to a motorcycle accident a year prior. He had recovered from his injuries, but the pain still lingered. Ibuprofen wasn't cutting it anymore, so he went to the doctor to get some relief. They tried a number of different prescription pills, but nothing seemed to take. In the end, the doctor gave him something different.

What did "Billy's" doctor prescribe him?

"My friend told me she hadn't seen pills like that before," Melinda said. "She didn't recognize the name, but that's not that uncommon. There's always new varieties coming out. She just assumed it was some new brand that a pharmaceutical rep had given to the doc."

The patient, we'll call him Billy, took the pills. He called the doctor's office two days later claiming he felt better than he had in months. The pain was gone. The doctor was pleased with the treatment and had Billy come back in a month later for a check up.

They continued a treatment of the medication, but the nurse was surprised that Billy kept coming into the doctor's office to get his medication. "Usually a patient gets a prescription filled at a pharmacy, right?" Melinda told us. "Doctors don't usually give out medication directly, but my friend, I guess for as weird as the situation was, she just trusted her doctor."

Two months go by, with Billy taking these pills. Maybe they're experimental, maybe generic, but maybe - as this nurse was beginning to suspect - it was something more illegal. "But the treatment was working, and when you're in healthcare long enough, you start to realize that whatever works is the best medicine," says Melinda. "He tells them that the pain is gone. He feels great, but that he feels a little numb, like he can't feel anything at all. Well, this alarms the doctor, who tells him that loss of feeling could be a possible side effect. He suggests Billy keep taking the medication unless something doesn't feel right, and that at his three month check up, they'll determine whether or not the numbness has gone away and how to treat that."

But Billy never showed up for his three month appointment.

It wasn't until a month later, that the nurse, now concerned because Billy had always been punctual, decided to call the police for a wellness check. They found Billy in his house; he had been dead for over a month.

"It wasn't an overdose, no siree," Melinda told us. "When the police got there, they could tell something was wrong. They call it in or whatever and when they go inside, there's blood all over the kitchen. They find a rotten leg in the kitchen sink."

It was Billy's leg. They found his other leg in the living room. In the bathroom they found his left arm. They found fingers from his right hand in a trail leading to the bedroom. Billy was on the bed. He had finally bled out. They found the battery operated carving knife he used to sever his limbs.

"He couldn't feel anything, you see?" Melinda told us. "The medication, it made him numb. It took away his pain, but it took away all his pain. He couldn't feel a thing, so when he took the knife to his leg, there was nothing. So he just kept going. 

"At least," she added, "that's the way my friend told it to me.

Pretty wild story. It has just the perfect touch of campfire ghost story to it. So, of course, we at Malevolent Maine did our research. It was a little difficult to find out much without specific names. However, we were able to trace Melinda's nurse friend back to a now closed doctor's office. Using that region as our search bubble we came up with one police report of a thirty-something male being found dead in his home. There was no mention of cause of death. A little more digging did uncover reports of a motorcycle accident about two years before the reported death. There weren't any names attached to the news stories, but again the area and physical descriptions seem to match.

So what do you think, MMers? Could there be some sort of pill out there that makes you feel so numb you could hack yourself apart? It's a a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but our guys are telling us it's probably true.

Be careful what you put in your bodies, MMers

Stay safe out there, Maine.

Look out for the Lobsterman

We know it's still winter, but here's a story  that will send a chill down your spine during even the warmest summer months. This one comes from Lubec, and while we first heard it from Mary Wilkes, just last week we received another siting from Simon Bagwell. We'll start with Mary Wilkes' tale.

Mary tells us that all of the old-timers of Eastport know not to be on the shore during a full moon. She said she heard it from her grandmother, who said she had heard the story from her own mother. The fishermen and their families know that on nights of a full moon, the best thing to do is stay inside and lock the doors and windows.

There are reports of a shadowy figure, a man or a man-shaped thing. They say it walks along the shoreline and the nearby neighborhoods. The figure wears some sort of tattered brown robe and its hands appear to be mishapen, swollen things, looking more like lobster claws in the dark than hands. Mary says the old-timers will sometimes leave small baskets of fish, crabs, clams, or mussels out for this strange figure.

No one knows who or what this "lobsterman" is, but his regular appearance during the full moons for the past sixty years (at least) is cause for some concern. As of yet, no one has reported any nefarious actions by the so-called werelobster, but at least for the people of Lubec, they're not taking any chances.

Which brings us to Simon Bagwell. Simon says he's "an old duffer" who has lived just outside of Eastport in the little town of South Trescott his entire life. Last September, after the flatlanders had left for the summer, Simon was coming home from a night at a local watering hole. He was driving down the South Lubec Road, where the road winds real close to the shore, when his pickup got a flat tire. A real "popper" as he explained it. He pulled over to the side of the road, but didn't have a spare tire. It was late, and Simon wasn't too far from home, so he figured he'd just walk.

He hadn't gone too far from the truck when he heard something walking down along the shoreline. He thought it might be an animal of some sort, but whenever he stopped, the footsteps down on the sand seemed to stop as well, only to continue when he started up again. He called out, thinking it might be another person, but he got no response. 

Simon kept walking, picking up the pace. Whatever it was down on the shore seemed to match his pace. Simon got to a place where the road started to pull away from the shore. As the ground turned from soft beach sand to harder gravel, Simon claims to have heard a scuttling sound, like a dozen little legs all clicking-and clacking over the ground. Simon started to jog but the thing matched his speed, coming closer and closer to him.

Simon ran as fast as he could, but he knew the creature was gaining on him. There was a salty, briny stench in the air, and suddenly the night seemed much colder than it should in early September. Just as he was sure the thing that followed him was about to reach him, headlights splashed across the road. It was a trucker heading north. 

Simon whirled around quickly and saw a blur diving back into the darkness on the side of the road. It was huge, he said, larger than a man, and dressed in some kind of simple, ragged brown robe. Simon swears the creature had some sort of brownish-red shiny skin that looked, "like armor or a shell." Then it was gone.

"I don't know what it was," Simon said, "but I know it scared the pants off me. I ain't never seen nothin' like that in my entire life."

So if you're in the Lubec area during a full moon, be careful!

Stay safe out there, Maine!

Is this what Simon Bagwell saw?

Welcome to Malevolent Maine!

Welcome to Malevolent Maine, the blog about weird, strange, or frightening occurrences from around the state of Maine. We are just three dudes who have always been interested in the paranormal, supernatural, and occult, and we started this blog to learn more about our state and to bring attention to anomalies so many people have experienced. But we need you to send us your stories about weird things you have seen around the state, if we like it we will reach out to you for a personal interview and more information! This is our first time blogging so it will take some getting used to, but we will try to post as often as possible. As long as your stories come in we will research them, write them up, and post them here for all to read! 

If you have a story about odd phenomenon from around the state reach out to us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com, or connect with us on twitter. We look forward to hearing from you and stay safe out there, Maine!