Speaker 1: Welcome to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM paranormal
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Speaker 2: Now get ready for us Strange Things with Joshua P. Warre.
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Speaker 2: Ready to will be amazed by the wizard of Weird.
Speaker 2: This is a Strange Thing with Joshua Warn. I am
Speaker 2: Joshua pe Warren.
Speaker 1: At each week on this show, I'll be bringing you
Speaker 1: brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises, and weird experiments
Speaker 1: you can do at home.
Speaker 2: And a lot more.
Speaker 1: On this edition of the show, Tales from the Hearse
Speaker 1: author David Alan Voyles. This is a particularly special podcast,
Speaker 1: and that is because the man you are about to
Speaker 1: hear me interview was my English teacher when I was
Speaker 1: a sophomore at Clyde A. Irwin High School in Asheville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Now Here is why this is especially weird.
Speaker 1: Mister Voyles was one of those teachers that everybody loved.
Speaker 1: He always had a and you could tell that he
Speaker 1: sincerely enjoyed his job. And when I was his student,
Speaker 1: he was always truly supportive of me and my writing,
Speaker 1: and he would invite me to read my macabre poems
Speaker 1: and short stories in front of the class. He was
Speaker 1: just a really warm person who actually cared about his students. Regardless,
Speaker 1: I'm not the kind of guy who remains friends with
Speaker 1: his old teachers. Frankly, I did not enjoy going to school,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine. I don't like being forced to
Speaker 1: live like normal people on a daylight schedule. But you see,
Speaker 1: over the years, as I got older, I would hear
Speaker 1: that mister Voyles was becoming stranger and stranger. As he
Speaker 1: was nearing retirement, he started writing and then publishing creepy
Speaker 1: stories himself. And then next thing you know, I heard
Speaker 1: he'd lost his mind and bought a hearse and was
Speaker 1: driving people all over Ashville and scaring the Bejesus out
Speaker 1: of him for fun. It seems that once he retired,
Speaker 1: he decided to finally reveal his true identity. He's the
Speaker 1: only teacher I know of who has done this, and
Speaker 1: I thought, what are the chances.
Speaker 2: That I just so happened to be a student of
Speaker 2: this fella.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, Lauren and I had to take his
Speaker 1: hearse ride. And I'm joking here. He didn't actually lose
Speaker 1: his mind. He just decided to start having fun with
Speaker 1: his lifelong love of spooky things. He started throwing one
Speaker 1: of the most elaborate Halloween parties in the entire area
Speaker 1: each year. I mean the kind of thing where you know,
Speaker 1: he must spend months prepared every year, you know, turning
Speaker 1: his house and wooded property way up in the mountains
Speaker 1: into I don't know, like a devilish carnival or a
Speaker 1: haunted house. You know, various themes. Amazing job, and people
Speaker 1: come from far and wide have a great time. So
Speaker 1: this guy, he plays in a hearse. He turns his
Speaker 1: house into an attraction at Halloween. And he has written
Speaker 1: numerous books, including one of my favorites called Tales from
Speaker 1: the Hearse. But he has a new novel about a
Speaker 1: young Edgar Allan Poe. It's called Edgar, and he's going
Speaker 1: to tell you about that and more. He's got some
Speaker 1: strange stories.
Speaker 2: You're about to hear.
Speaker 1: But before I play this interview, I want you to
Speaker 1: know that his house was seriously damaged recently by Hurricane Helene,
Speaker 1: and he is currently displaced and maybe for a long time.
Speaker 1: So in our conversation on his cell phone, you will
Speaker 1: occasionally hear a little buffering, but not too much, so
Speaker 1: please understand and forgive that.
Speaker 2: As you know, I don't usually do.
Speaker 1: Interviews on this show, but a conversation with him on
Speaker 1: this show is long overdue. So here we go. Let's
Speaker 1: get the scoop on this mysterious man. David alan Voyles,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Well, it is my pleasure to be here. I am
Speaker 4: thrilled to be able to talk with you.
Speaker 1: Isn't it funny to think that I am probably a
Speaker 1: good ten years older than you were when you were
Speaker 1: my English teacher.
Speaker 4: That is that is a mind glory, it really is.
Speaker 4: That is great.
Speaker 1: You know, you were one of the few teachers that
Speaker 1: everybody always loved, including me, and it's synchronistic that a
Speaker 1: guy like you, who is so into dark literature would
Speaker 1: end up being my teacher for a year.
Speaker 2: But let's talk about your roots.
Speaker 1: Where were you born and raised and what attracted you
Speaker 1: to the literary field.
Speaker 4: I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I just
Speaker 4: always had an affinity for Halloween. I loved Halloween. I
Speaker 4: loved dark things, spooky things, and that I just never
Speaker 4: outgrew it that that love of Halloween especially is just
Speaker 4: something that I always look forward to, definitely the favorite holiday.
Speaker 4: And so even when I started teaching. Of course, I
Speaker 4: got my degree in literature, but I always gravitated toward
Speaker 4: the dark stories and loved those. Those are just my favorites,
Speaker 4: and so the classics of those, you know, worldwide, even
Speaker 4: I would love to do and work Halloween into my curriculum.
Speaker 4: You know. We would have semester schedules in high school,
Speaker 4: of course, as you recall, but in the first semester
Speaker 4: you have Octo. So that was very easy for me
Speaker 4: to find some literature to do there, and I would
Speaker 4: always read a spooky story and do some fun stuff
Speaker 4: with that. One time I stuck a rat, a fake rat,
Speaker 4: on the back of my coat jacket and read a
Speaker 4: story called the Graveyard Rats and had stayed seated the
Speaker 4: whole time, I remember, before the class was there, so
Speaker 4: that when I got up at the end of the
Speaker 4: story to write on the board. They would then see
Speaker 4: the rat on the back of my jacket at the
Speaker 4: Graveyard rat story. When I retired from teaching, because of
Speaker 4: the Halloween and Halloween parties that we'd always had, we
Speaker 4: had a theme one year of having a ghost tour,
Speaker 4: and so we have a little bit of property around
Speaker 4: our house and I could make scenes and I could
Speaker 4: walk around the property and tell the stories about these
Speaker 4: scenes that I'd made up. And after that party, I
Speaker 4: was talking with my wife and my grown son and said,
Speaker 4: you know, people just love that kind of thing. Wouldn't
Speaker 4: it be cool to do that on a full time
Speaker 4: basis and have a ghost tour? But like the walking
Speaker 4: tour that you have, I thought, well, what if you
Speaker 4: could do a hearse. What if you could get a
Speaker 4: small number of people and take them around the haunted
Speaker 4: places in Ashville and a hearse. Within a year we
Speaker 4: had bought a nineteen seventy two Cadillac Hearse and we
Speaker 4: had dark ride tours on the road, and you did
Speaker 4: get the opportunity to take a tour with us.
Speaker 1: As I recall, oh absolutelyely. I love the entire experience.
Speaker 1: But you know, before we get to that was teaching
Speaker 1: your first job or did you have jobs before that.
Speaker 4: No, teaching was my first job. I went into it
Speaker 4: thinking in high school. I mean from about my high
Speaker 4: school years, I started thinking about being a teacher and
Speaker 4: wanting to be a teacher. And this is a terrible
Speaker 4: thing to say or to confess to, but often later,
Speaker 4: like when they ask you, I actually got the opportunity
Speaker 4: to serve as a Teacher of the Year for the
Speaker 4: county and the region, But they asked you questions like
Speaker 4: what inspired you to be a teacher, and I'm unfortunately,
Speaker 4: it's usually this wonderful, great teacher. But I can remember
Speaker 4: that in the tenth grade, I had a teach and
Speaker 4: I sat in that classroom. I loved English and I
Speaker 4: loved reading, and I thought, oh my god, this is
Speaker 4: so bad. I could do a better job than this.
Speaker 4: And that was my very arrogant sixteen year old self saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I could do this. But it really did become a
Speaker 4: thing with me. Is like, I wanted to teach, So
Speaker 4: I knew when I went to college that I wanted
Speaker 4: to get my teaching certificate and I wanted to teach English.
Speaker 2: And you didn't start publishing until after you retired.
Speaker 4: Right, that's correct. You After thirty years of teaching and
Speaker 4: doing the ghost tours, when the ghost tours ended because
Speaker 4: of COVID, I thought, well, this is a good time
Speaker 4: to I'm going to go ahead and put some of
Speaker 4: these why not put them together in a book? And
Speaker 4: I have started out with a series of Christmas horror stories,
Speaker 4: because you know, after all that Christmas really needs right
Speaker 4: more horror.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 4: I had to do. I did a collection of thirteen
Speaker 4: stories there thirteen days, thirteenth of Christmas. And I enjoyed
Speaker 4: doing that and had a friend who was to start
Speaker 4: doing He was already had just started helping independent writers
Speaker 4: in the authors publish, so he helped publish that first
Speaker 4: book and one or two after that, and that it began.
Speaker 4: But it was not until then, you know, well into
Speaker 4: my sixties that I started trying to publish. And I
Speaker 4: just turned seventy this year.
Speaker 1: So now getting back to the hearse and you're you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, Lauren, and I had the honor of
Speaker 1: being guessed in that hearse and what a unique experience
Speaker 1: that was. You were a dressed in this dramatic costume.
Speaker 1: Tell us about Virgil, this character that you created.
Speaker 4: I wanted to come up with something as a character
Speaker 4: and for Josh my son, who was the driver of that.
Speaker 4: We started, you know, brainstorming about ideas and I thought,
Speaker 4: I thought I'd liked the idea of being this sort
Speaker 4: of grave digger, funeral home director teller. And then I guess,
Speaker 4: going back to the roots of you know, going back
Speaker 4: to Dante in the Inferno, I thought, you know, Virgil,
Speaker 4: the Roman poet serves as the guide to hell for
Speaker 4: Dante in that work, and I thought, you know, I
Speaker 4: like the name Virgil anyway.
Speaker 5: And I've always liked Ray Bradberry's story Something Wicked This
Speaker 5: Way Comes and the main character there are two boys
Speaker 5: in the story, but one is Jim Knightshade, and I
Speaker 5: love the name night Shade and that whole idea that
Speaker 5: you know, poison and.
Speaker 4: Everything about that. So Virgil Nightshade was the name that
Speaker 4: I took for that. And my son ended up wearing
Speaker 4: the garb of a like almost looks like a grim reaper.
Speaker 4: But he was, you know, tall, and he's just real big,
Speaker 4: and he seemed intimidating with this half skull mask underneath
Speaker 4: the cow that and he was our driver, and so
Speaker 4: he was we referred to him as Sharon the you
Speaker 4: know the ferrymen of the dead and Greek mythology taking
Speaker 4: you across so leading people into this darkness. Sing perfect thing.
Speaker 1: When we go back to this break, he's gonna tell
Speaker 1: you the true weird story called Maggie and the Pig Face.
Speaker 2: Hey do you like this podcast? It's free?
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Speaker 1: I am Joshua pe Warren, and you are listening to
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coach to Coach AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal podcast Network, and I will be right back. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 2: I am your host, the Wizard of weird. Joshua P.
Speaker 2: Warren beaming into your worm whole brain from.
Speaker 1: My studio in Sin City, Las Vegas, Nevada, where every
Speaker 1: day is golden and every night is silver.
Speaker 2: I Gietato Zume.
Speaker 1: His website is his name David Allenvoyls dot com.
Speaker 2: That's spelled d a v I d a l l
Speaker 2: E n v O y l e.
Speaker 1: S dot com. When you go there, it says dark
Speaker 1: Tales for bright minds. Let's get back to the conversation
Speaker 1: with horror author David Allenvoyles. When I was a teenager, Uh,
Speaker 1: you probably recall I published a book called Speaking of
Speaker 1: Strange and it had paranormal experiences and just weird encounters
Speaker 1: that people from the region it had.
Speaker 2: You published. Are you?
Speaker 1: You wrote a story that was published in that book
Speaker 1: called Maggie in the Pig Face.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you want to recap that,
Speaker 1: but I just want to ask you in general about
Speaker 1: some real paranormal experiences that you've had in your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that story, that is so that is such an
Speaker 4: odd We were living out in Leices, which in an
Speaker 4: area you know, well at that time I'm in Swanna,
Speaker 4: Noah now and on the other side of the other
Speaker 4: side of the county, but at that time that that
Speaker 4: really wasn't a count and that just enough to kind
Speaker 4: of make that story a little bit shorter. And I've
Speaker 4: never been able to understand it exactly or come up
Speaker 4: with possible good explanation for it. But we had a
Speaker 4: dog at that time, lived on about seven acres we
Speaker 4: left at that time. The dogs run everybody did at
Speaker 4: that point, and that dog would just travel and go
Speaker 4: all over the place. But below us was someone who
Speaker 4: slaughtered hogs on occasion. But we had the dog brought
Speaker 4: up this hogshead at one point just in you know,
Speaker 4: it's it'd been a fresh, freshly butchered kill, and we
Speaker 4: were getting ready to have company, and we thought, oh
Speaker 4: my gosh, this is terrible. I took the thing and
Speaker 4: pitched it over the fence into the woods and it
Speaker 4: tumbled down a long hill into a ravine, and thought
Speaker 4: we were taking care of it. But over a period
Speaker 4: of time, that dog kept bringing up this hog skull,
Speaker 4: and weeks would go by, and of course you can
Speaker 4: imagine how disgusting that was, until eventually it was just
Speaker 4: this bleached out skull. Well after weeks had passed beyond that,
Speaker 4: and I'm trying to get rid of it. Every time
Speaker 4: that dog got into something, some poison or something. I
Speaker 4: don't prefer not to think that somebody poisoned the dog,
Speaker 4: but it did get into poison and it died, and
Speaker 4: I buried it on the edge of the property. We
Speaker 4: had a long curving drive that led up to a
Speaker 4: ranch house up on the side of the mountain there,
Speaker 4: and I buried the dog put the little toys in there,
Speaker 4: like some people do with their favorite toys and things.
Speaker 4: And not too long after that, one day I was
Speaker 4: driving back up that driveway and making the curve back
Speaker 4: to the house, looking at the grave because it'd often
Speaker 4: do that. And I saw sitting there and a brown
Speaker 4: patch of dirt that marked the grave, something white and
Speaker 4: what in the world is that? And I got out
Speaker 4: of the truck and went over to look on it,
Speaker 4: and there was a hog skull sitting on top of
Speaker 4: her grave. And I have no idea how it got there.
Speaker 4: My wife remembers that there was another little dog that
Speaker 4: would sometimes come and just sit at her grave, and uh,
Speaker 4: and I, you know, it's just it's just really odd
Speaker 4: to think of whatever might have happened, but it does
Speaker 4: seem like, you know, Maggie in the face. Josh was
Speaker 4: just my son. Josh was just a little kid at
Speaker 4: that time, and he'd uh, he'd referred to that dog
Speaker 4: it's called as a pig face, and so he when
Speaker 4: when when it returns the second time, he was like, Daddy,
Speaker 4: the pig face is back. So that was the essence
Speaker 4: behind Maggie and the pig face. But aside from that,
Speaker 4: I haven't had too many experiences. People often say, well,
Speaker 4: you had this hearse. Did you ever have any experiences
Speaker 4: with the supernatural and the hearse? Well, I've said often
Speaker 4: that I'm apparently about as spiritually sensitive as a brick.
Speaker 4: You know. I just don't ever since any of the
Speaker 4: things that other spirit sensitives do, and I'd like to,
Speaker 4: but it just doesn't seem to happen to me. But
Speaker 4: I have had on occasion spirit sensitives tell me about
Speaker 4: things that were happening, especially one story about the hearse.
Speaker 4: If you'd like to hear that, Oh yeah, sure, when
Speaker 4: we I don't know how long we'd had it. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure even if we had actually begun having the
Speaker 4: tours yet, but I knew of a woman and had
Speaker 4: come to known her, who just convinced me even though
Speaker 4: I am a skeptic, and I look at this and
Speaker 4: approach it the way you do. Really you always look
Speaker 4: at it from the scientific point of view, as if
Speaker 4: to disprove it and then see what can still be there.
Speaker 4: So I'm very much a skeptic of these things, but
Speaker 4: I had experiences with her that just made me feel
Speaker 4: like I can't come up with any other explanation that
Speaker 4: there are such things as spirits, that there are connections
Speaker 4: we can have with the dead. Well, she had invited
Speaker 4: her over to see the hearse, I think early on
Speaker 4: after we had gotten it and renovated it and ready
Speaker 4: to do the tours, and so she came over. We
Speaker 4: just opened the door, she stuck her head in it,
Speaker 4: and I guess I should say first, we bought the
Speaker 4: hearse from a fellow in Virginia who actually was selling
Speaker 4: it as a part of an estate from his brother
Speaker 4: who had passed away. His brother had owned the hearse
Speaker 4: and he had used it as a business and had
Speaker 4: put Hi Fi equipment in it, stereo equipment, and he
Speaker 4: would DJ parties. So we learned about that and we
Speaker 4: had to do quite a bit of renovation beyond that,
Speaker 4: because it's sat for a long time. But anyway, that's
Speaker 4: the person that we bought it from. Well, without her
Speaker 4: knowing any of that history, we opened the door up
Speaker 4: for her to see her. She stuck her head in
Speaker 4: and she said, as you recall, we had like there
Speaker 4: were two rows of seats, one that ran all the
Speaker 4: way down the length of the hearse and went across
Speaker 4: the middle, separated from the front seat. She stuck her
Speaker 4: head in the side door and she said, well, first
Speaker 4: of all, let me tell you, I'm hearing rock and
Speaker 4: roll music, seventies rock and roll music, especially Creden's clear Water. Okay,
Speaker 4: And she said, and there's a gentleman sitting in the
Speaker 4: corner of where these seats that you've made very happy,
Speaker 4: very pleased, thrilled with what you're doing with the hearse,
Speaker 4: very very large fellow, very very huge fellow. But he
Speaker 4: loves this music. Well, I didn't know it at that time.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that he had done these parties. But
Speaker 4: I sent another message back after this to his brother
Speaker 4: who had survived, who sold us the hurst, and I said,
Speaker 4: I just got to ask you a question. Did your
Speaker 4: brother particularly what kind of music did he play? He said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was definitely seventies music. But he was a real
Speaker 4: fan of Creeden Sclarewater Uh huh. And I had seen
Speaker 4: pictures of him. But I said, and your brother was
Speaker 4: a pretty large man, and he said, oh yeah, he
Speaker 4: was huge. So how she was able to zero on
Speaker 4: those are just not things that you can coincidentally come
Speaker 4: up with. That just struck me as like, Okay, so
Speaker 4: I'm glad if we're going to have a haunted hearse
Speaker 4: that the previous owner of the hearse was at least
Speaker 4: happy with what we were doing with it.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, that is I mean so specific. When things
Speaker 1: like that happen, you scratch your head and you say,
Speaker 1: how could that possibly be coincidence?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I know, you know, and I watch shows all
Speaker 4: the time. I love watching these shows. But I'm you know,
Speaker 4: I'm understanding, or I'm at least skeptic enough to go, oh,
Speaker 4: they could have done thus, and so to find out
Speaker 4: that information or done this kind of research or whatever,
Speaker 4: somebody told them that they had to tell them that
Speaker 4: this was stuff that I only I knew. I was
Speaker 4: the only connecting point here to those two people that
Speaker 4: she had no idea who we had bought this from.
Speaker 4: It was in another state. And as you say, when
Speaker 4: you had those kinds of facts come up, it's that's
Speaker 4: a head scratcher. It's hard to say that. Hard to
Speaker 4: come up with any other kind of justific not justification,
Speaker 4: explanation for it. Hard to come up with that.
Speaker 1: And things like that just continue inspiring ideas for stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've written a number of books, including your
Speaker 1: latest novel, Edgar, and let me tell you this is impressive,
Speaker 1: to say the least, all the way from concept to execution,
Speaker 1: right to the last page.
Speaker 2: Tell us about.
Speaker 4: Edgar, I got. I had been wanting to write a
Speaker 4: book about Edgar Allen Poe for decades. The thing that
Speaker 4: I wanted to write, and I say this in the
Speaker 4: introduction to the book, I have wanted to do this.
Speaker 4: There's such a mystery about Poe's death, and everyone has,
Speaker 4: you know, come up with all kinds of different possibilities, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, his death October seventh, as we're recording
Speaker 4: this is still that's tomorrow for us right now. That
Speaker 4: death has been fascinating of how why did he end
Speaker 4: up where he did? And clothes there aren't even his
Speaker 4: Most people assume assumed that he was in a drunken state,
Speaker 4: because that's what the people that found him thought. But
Speaker 4: why was he there, Why was he not wearing his
Speaker 4: own clothes? What happened to him? And I wanted to
Speaker 4: write a story about that, But this book edgar. When
Speaker 4: I finally came down around to sitting down to write
Speaker 4: a book about Poe, that's not the story that came out.
Speaker 4: For some reason, and I cannot explain it. I just
Speaker 4: wanted to write a story. I thought, you need to
Speaker 4: write one about if he was a boy, with the
Speaker 4: premise of what if all the scariest things that Poe
Speaker 4: told about in his stories were all inspired by things
Speaker 4: that happened to him when he was a boy at
Speaker 4: fifteen years old living in Richmond, Virginia. Wouldn't that be
Speaker 4: an interesting story? So that's the one I wrote. And
Speaker 4: I had such fun researching things about Richmond at that time,
Speaker 4: finding out things about real people in his life that
Speaker 4: I wanted to incorporate into the story. His relationship with
Speaker 4: his adoptive parents, John Allen and Francis Allen, what that
Speaker 4: would have been like. There was quite a bit of
Speaker 4: tension that he had with his adopted father. All those
Speaker 4: things I wanted to work in, but I wanted to
Speaker 4: work in his stories as well. So I took thirteen
Speaker 4: or so of the stories and reworked them a little bit,
Speaker 4: but had under the basic premise one of his stories
Speaker 4: in which there is the narrator of the story, William Wilson,
Speaker 4: is the story is a doppleganger for the narrator. He
Speaker 4: sees himself, and this stud covers years in the character's life,
Speaker 4: making his life miserable. And I said, Okay, that's going
Speaker 4: to be the premise story. The Eedgar Allen Poe has
Speaker 4: a doubleganger and it is making his life miserable by
Speaker 4: causing these supernatural events that will go on. And I
Speaker 4: can work in stories, parts of post tales into the chapters,
Speaker 4: but make it one long cohesive tale when we.
Speaker 1: Come back more on Edgar. And then also what happens
Speaker 1: on Halloween Knight when you drive around in Asheville, North
Speaker 1: Carolina in a hearse Well, he has kind of a
Speaker 1: funny story about that as well. I'm Joshua P.
Speaker 4: Warren.
Speaker 1: You're listening to strange things on the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be
Speaker 1: back after these important messages, so stick around. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Strange Things on the iHeart Radio and Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Joshua P.
Speaker 1: Warren, and this is the show where the unusual becomes usual. Well,
Speaker 1: it's time for the conclusion of my conversation with author
Speaker 1: David Allen Voyles and we were just talking about his
Speaker 1: brand new novel called Edgar. It actually, as I was
Speaker 1: reading it, it inspired me to want to go back
Speaker 1: and reread some of Poe's stories so that I could
Speaker 1: further solidify the connections, which and that's one of the
Speaker 1: great things about this book is that it sort of
Speaker 1: opens up all of these other worlds of possibility.
Speaker 2: And let me just tell you, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've thought about this. I bet you have.
Speaker 1: When I finished reading this, I thought to myself and
Speaker 1: a lot of people listen to this podcast, somebody out
Speaker 1: there needs to buy the rights to this book and
Speaker 1: turn it into a TV series about young Edgar Allan Poe.
Speaker 4: It does. I kind of picture it that way. It
Speaker 4: wasn't the way that I intended as I'm writing it,
Speaker 4: but it does flow that way, and it's very episodic.
Speaker 4: It definitely has these because each chapter, each chapter really
Speaker 4: is going, is influenced by a particular chapter or a
Speaker 4: story of pose. And even though it's connected all over,
Speaker 4: it takes place over one summer. It definitely has that
Speaker 4: kind of episodic flow. So with a connecting theme of
Speaker 4: this doppelganger, this dark Edgar that keeps appearing and making
Speaker 4: Edgar Allan Poe's life miserable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just a wonderful book, and I hope
Speaker 1: everybody will go read this. We're going to give out
Speaker 1: your website to actually go ahead and give it out
Speaker 1: right now, what's your website address?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's David Alanvoyles dot com. And I spell my
Speaker 4: Alan a little different than Edgar Allen Poe. Mine is
Speaker 4: a L L E end, So David Alanvoyles dot com.
Speaker 4: We did have one momentous Halloween where it was the
Speaker 4: only time this really happened, but being an old hearse
Speaker 4: and somewhat questionable, it broke down on Halloween night with
Speaker 4: customers in it, and that was unbelievable. We had two
Speaker 4: or three we had made special tours for it, pulled
Speaker 4: up into the Unca parking lot, which was one of
Speaker 4: our first stops, and we knew we were had had
Speaker 4: some questions about the Hears's mechanics at the point, but
Speaker 4: we thought, no, we've already got these people book for
Speaker 4: Halloween night. It seems to be doing okay, and Josh
Speaker 4: gave me the signal from the front seat, kind of
Speaker 4: a line across the throat and when he turned around
Speaker 4: to look at him after hearing a particularly loud clunk,
Speaker 4: like nope, this tour is over, and we had to
Speaker 4: pull into the parking lot and tell them I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: but this hearse's died, unfortunately, and they laughed and chuckled
Speaker 4: ha ha haa, thinking it was part of the tour,
Speaker 4: and had to say, this isn't part of the tour.
Speaker 4: I'm afraid I got to call you a taxi or aneuverer.
Speaker 4: And we got those folks. They were so nice and
Speaker 4: so forgiving. One of the couples. We didn't realize it
Speaker 4: at the time, but we did the same thing the
Speaker 4: following Halloween and didn't realize that. They told me and
Speaker 4: they said, you know, we were in that hearst that
Speaker 4: broke down last year. But we still loved the whole
Speaker 4: idea of it so much that we had to do
Speaker 4: it again, and so they got they did it and
Speaker 4: we got the successful right out. But I will never
Speaker 4: forget that Halloween when the hearst died.
Speaker 1: One of the nice things about being in the ghost
Speaker 1: business is that when you screw up or something breaks
Speaker 1: or whatever, you can just say, oh, I told you
Speaker 1: ghosts were real this year.
Speaker 2: Oh man, well.
Speaker 1: So that opportunity give us your website once again and
Speaker 1: anything else you'd like to say.
Speaker 2: The floor is yours.
Speaker 4: The website is David allenvoyls dot com. I also invite
Speaker 4: people to join me on Facebook for the Dark Corners page.
Speaker 4: It's a dark Dark Corners is the name of it,
Speaker 4: which is also the name of the podcast that I have.
Speaker 4: I haven't been active with the podcast, but it's basically
Speaker 4: got three seasons that you can listen to. Now I
Speaker 4: want to come back and revisit and add to that.
Speaker 4: But the first season is my mention of some of
Speaker 4: my original short stories. Season two is a novella that's
Speaker 4: in thirteen episodes called Which Works, and the third season
Speaker 4: is the novel in thirteen episodes as well, called Wraiths
Speaker 4: of the Appalachian well.
Speaker 2: David, the clock has got us.
Speaker 1: But once again, you know, I think it's absolutely amazing
Speaker 1: that I had the honor to be your student. I
Speaker 1: knew we had a lot in common, but I did
Speaker 1: not realize just how much at the time. And it's
Speaker 1: been wonderful to remain your friend after all these decades,
Speaker 1: and I know you will continue to surprise and entertain
Speaker 1: us with your amazing tales. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being my guest.
Speaker 4: It's been a thrill. It's my pleasure as well to
Speaker 4: be able to talk to with you and share those
Speaker 4: stories with you, and I look forward to hearing even
Speaker 4: more from your broadcasts as well.
Speaker 1: All right, once again, his website is Davidallenvoyles dot com.
Speaker 1: Of course, you could just go to Amazon and type
Speaker 1: in his name, and as a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: mean you'll find all of his books. But right now
Speaker 1: I'm looking at Edgar when Poe's Nightmares began. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you it's got almost five out of five. I mean
Speaker 1: practically five out of five stars. It's like, maybe there's
Speaker 1: a little sliver of white, but it's basically five out
Speaker 1: of five stars. And that's really hard to get. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: people are so mean when they review stuff. And the
Speaker 1: paperback's only thirteen dollars ninety nine cents and the kindle
Speaker 1: is four ninety nine. So if you like that kind
Speaker 1: of novel, then you should check out his work. So
Speaker 1: we'll see what he's up to in the future. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it would be great if we just continued
Speaker 1: this theme of tales from the hearse and I just
Speaker 1: kept telling you tales that are creepy and spooky for
Speaker 1: the rest of the show. And since it's my show,
Speaker 1: that is what we're gonna do. And therefore, let me
Speaker 1: go right to right to the emails that I get.
Speaker 1: I get some of the most interesting emails from listeners.
Speaker 1: Here's one from Paulette. She says, Hi, Joshua, the other night,
Speaker 1: my husband and I were listening to your podcast. We
Speaker 1: live in the Sierra Foothills, so we are an hour
Speaker 1: from everywhere, so we listened to you in the car.
Speaker 1: You were talking about your friend that passed away and
Speaker 1: how you have a word to confirm so you knew
Speaker 1: when it was them after they passed. Well about six
Speaker 1: years ago. So my mother passed from colon cancer. I
Speaker 1: am an only child and I have three now adult children.
Speaker 1: My mom was a paranormal sci fi fan for as
Speaker 1: long as I can remember, and we talked about if
Speaker 1: she ever died, she needed to let us know she
Speaker 1: was still around. Well toward the end of mom's life,
Speaker 1: I had to move into help her. I lived with
Speaker 1: her about three months before she passed away at home.
Speaker 1: The next few days after her passing were just a
Speaker 1: blur of making arrangements and talking with family. After five days,
Speaker 1: my youngest daughter was in the car with me and
Speaker 1: she looked at me and said, Mom, I'm disappointed. I
Speaker 1: really thought Grandma was going to let us know she
Speaker 1: was around. And I said, well, honey, I'm sad about
Speaker 1: that too, but I guess it just as it meant
Speaker 1: to be. We were sitting in the driveway at my
Speaker 1: mom's house, where I was still living, and as we
Speaker 1: backed up, my rear sensor went off and in my
Speaker 1: video on the screen in the car, there was a
Speaker 1: green digital block showing there was something in the way,
Speaker 1: and we kind of looked at each other and I
Speaker 1: got out to investigate because there was nothing there. When
Speaker 1: I got back in the car, I proceeded to put
Speaker 1: it in reverse and there it was again, that green
Speaker 1: digital block. And we looked at each other with delight,
Speaker 1: and my daughter said, so you think it's Grandma. I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know, and then I said, mom, get in
Speaker 1: the car. She went everywhere with us when.
Speaker 2: She was alive.
Speaker 1: I put it in reverse again and well, no green block.
Speaker 1: We were excited about it and talked about it all day,
Speaker 1: and later that evening we were in the car again.
Speaker 1: Back in the driveway. We were telling my cousin about it,
Speaker 1: and he said, you're crazy. We proceeded to back up
Speaker 1: and nothing. He said, it was just a fluke, and
Speaker 1: I said, wow, I really thought it would happen again.
Speaker 1: I pulled back into the driveway and before I backed
Speaker 1: out again, I said, mom, My cousin thinks I'm crazy,
Speaker 1: Please show him what I'm talking about. We proceeded to
Speaker 1: back up and boom. There were now two squares, one
Speaker 1: yellow and one green. The square colors represent how close
Speaker 1: you are to hitting something, and my daughter and I
Speaker 1: squealed and my cousin's eyes just got big. Wow, he said.
Speaker 1: Then we continued on our way. It happened one more
Speaker 1: time after that, and this time there were three blocks,
Speaker 1: two green and one yellow. You see, my dad passed
Speaker 1: away when I was young, and my mom's husband had
Speaker 1: passed several years before, and I'm convinced this electromagnetic energy
Speaker 1: came from them. It settled my mind about the afterworld,
Speaker 1: and in a weird way, it comforted me because I
Speaker 1: believe the three of them are together. It never happened
Speaker 1: again after that. That's my story, and I believe glad
Speaker 1: I could share this with you, sincerely, your f Paulette.
Speaker 2: Wow, thank you, Paulette.
Speaker 1: You know what I said, I was going to tell
Speaker 1: you a creepy story that wasn't creepy at all. That
Speaker 1: was very inspirational. I love that story, and you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me of this idea that sometimes
Speaker 1: you can perhaps use your car as a ghost hunting tool.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of what she was doing there.
Speaker 1: She was using the car as an instrument to sense spirits.
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, my wife, Lauren is from Texas
Speaker 1: and her mother used to live near San Antonio, and
Speaker 1: there's this little hill outside of San Antonio where you
Speaker 1: can you can park your car. Well, you don't park it,
Speaker 1: you just put your car in neutral and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden it will start rolling up hill or so
Speaker 1: it sings and till it goes up and over some
Speaker 1: railroad tracks. And the story is that some kids died
Speaker 1: when their school bus was hit on those railroad tracks. Well,
Speaker 1: I have an update for you when we get back.
Speaker 1: But hey, listen, look, I promised you a creepy story,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to give you one. I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you about what one person saw upon waking up.
Speaker 1: What would you do if you saw this at the
Speaker 1: end of your bed, perched at the end of your
Speaker 1: bed when you wake up in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: I'm Joshua PE Warren. You're listening to Strange Things on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network,
Speaker 1: and I will be right back. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: final segment of this edition of Strange Things on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: I am your host, Joshua P. Warren.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the story was that this busload of kids
Speaker 1: back in the day was hit by a train. They
Speaker 1: all died right there on the train tracks. And so
Speaker 1: now if you go there and you put your car
Speaker 1: in neutral, even though you're at the bottom of a
Speaker 1: hill and the tracks are at the top of the hill,
Speaker 1: the car will just start rolling up the hill.
Speaker 2: And we did it, and it worked about thirty feet
Speaker 2: up this slight.
Speaker 1: Hill, onto the railroad tracks and over, and it's really
Speaker 1: an amazing experience. And they said that if you had
Speaker 1: talcum powder and you'd sprinkle it on the back of
Speaker 1: your car, that when afterward you get out and you
Speaker 1: look and you'd see the fingerprints and the talcum powder
Speaker 1: of all the little kids. But we didn't have any
Speaker 1: talcum powder. But the fact of the matter is, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what's known as a gravity hill. It's actually
Speaker 1: an optical illusion. It's an amazing optical illusion, though, because
Speaker 1: it really does look like you're going uphill, and yet
Speaker 1: somehow you're not. You're going ultimately downhill. You'll have to
Speaker 1: look up the physics of that. And they always said
Speaker 1: that the reason that you would have fingerprints pop up
Speaker 1: from the talcum powder is that you probably have a
Speaker 1: bunch of finger prints already all over the back of
Speaker 1: your car, all over your trunk, and you just don't
Speaker 1: know it because you're touching it all the time. And
Speaker 1: so when you sprinkle the talcum powder on there, you
Speaker 1: see them and it's just you combine those two effects
Speaker 1: and it's really powerful. But it absolutely works as described. However,
Speaker 1: I just looked it up and somebody has written here
Speaker 1: that in twenty eighteen that they redid the road and
Speaker 1: it changed the physics of the road, so the effect
Speaker 1: no longer occurs. Ha, how about that? That's kind of sad,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Hey, the concept is cool that you could maybe use your.
Speaker 1: Car as a paranormal instrument. Why don't some of you
Speaker 1: try out the experiment that Paulette did and let us
Speaker 1: know what happens in your case. All right, Um, before
Speaker 1: I tell you this scary story, I can't help it.
Speaker 1: I just have a little short one here that I
Speaker 1: just love. It's inspirational. I gotta I gotta squeeze this
Speaker 1: one in here before I get to this terrifying stuff.
Speaker 1: I got this message from a man named Utah. His
Speaker 1: name is Roy. He said, Joshua, I had terrible neuropathy
Speaker 1: in my left leg, burning numbness and tingling sensations due
Speaker 1: to nerve damage. But after wearing the Tesla Purple medallion
Speaker 1: every day, the neuropathy has vanished. After many years of suffering,
Speaker 1: I can now touch my left leg and it feels normal,
Speaker 1: no burning at all, simply amazing. I am shocked at
Speaker 1: the profound results. Miraculous. Thank you, Roy. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have ever experienced any kind of neuropathy, but
Speaker 1: that is a horrible thing and I'm just that warms
Speaker 1: my heart to know that, Roy, you have been helped
Speaker 1: by this.
Speaker 2: Thank you for this message. And you know.
Speaker 1: I'm not a medical professional. I'm not out there trying
Speaker 1: to sell snake oil or anything like that. But I'm
Speaker 1: just reading you the email the guy got. If you
Speaker 1: want to experiment with that kind of thing, I believe
Speaker 1: I still have some of those Tesla purple pendants in
Speaker 1: my curiosity shop if you go to Joshuapwarren dot com.
Speaker 1: So I just had to squeeze that one in there. Okay,
Speaker 1: here is a message I got from a man he
Speaker 1: said I could use his full name, Joseph S. Peters,
Speaker 1: regarding an incident in Houston, Texas. Going back to Texas again,
Speaker 1: he said, the most frightening experience a child could go
Speaker 1: through happened to me when I was four years old.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was living with my mother in
Speaker 1: an apartment that seemed to exist between our realm and
Speaker 1: a much more frightening dimension. One night, I awoke to
Speaker 1: find a shadow creature perched at the end of my bed.
Speaker 1: I stood up in shock while my brain was trying
Speaker 1: to comprehend the beast that was staring me down. It
Speaker 1: was blacker than night, with the appearance of a cross
Speaker 1: between a vulture and a bat. The shadow creature spread
Speaker 1: out its wings with a span of four to five
Speaker 1: feet as it cried a psychic screech. The sound was
Speaker 1: so loud and terrifying that I had tears fall from
Speaker 1: my eyes before I actually fainted. I woke up some
Speaker 1: time later and noticed that the sliding door to the
Speaker 1: closet in front of me was open. On the top
Speaker 1: shelf in the corner stood the same demonic creature. I
Speaker 1: jumped up, fearing for my life, begging the creature not
Speaker 1: to scream that awful sound. I was scared by its
Speaker 1: screech and was willing to do anything not to hear
Speaker 1: it again. The shadow beast then flew out of my
Speaker 1: closet toward me, ultimately paralyzing my body. I could only
Speaker 1: think this was the end, for surely this bat from
Speaker 1: hell would kill me. Then, in a split second, it
Speaker 1: turned around and flew through the door, going out in
Speaker 1: the hallway. Once it was gone, I regained control over
Speaker 1: my body and I screamed out at the top of
Speaker 1: my lungs for my mother, who was sleeping next to me.
Speaker 1: She woke up and asked me what the problem was.
Speaker 1: Not knowing how to describe my experience, I told her
Speaker 1: something was in our house and that it was trying
Speaker 1: to get me. And my mother immediately looked through every
Speaker 1: room to find the intruder and returned to the bed,
Speaker 1: saying there was nothing in the apartment. This was not
Speaker 1: the first paranormal event in the apartment, nor would it
Speaker 1: be the last. As for the shadow creature, I can
Speaker 1: only assume it was a demon. However it appeared to me,
Speaker 1: and why would it appear to me, I would never know.
Speaker 1: Before we left that place, long before we could find
Speaker 1: that out. Now you might say, well, this is just
Speaker 1: coming from a four year old.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: Kids are capable of seeing things that adults cannot see,
Speaker 1: and I remember things very vividly from when I was
Speaker 1: four years old. As a matter of fact, I've told
Speaker 1: you this before. I remember I have memories of being
Speaker 1: in the crib and not being able to talk. My
Speaker 1: very first memory that I have, I mean, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to My very first memory was Cookie Monster, and because
Speaker 1: my mom and dad had bought me a big, blue,
Speaker 1: furry cookie Monster. And at whatever, I don't know what
Speaker 1: point this happened to me, but I was a baby
Speaker 1: who couldn't even speak their helpless in a crib, and
Speaker 1: I remember very clearly seeing Cookie Monster.
Speaker 2: And I have heard that.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not supposed to be able to remember
Speaker 1: that far back, but I sure could. Here's a story
Speaker 1: from Joe in Canton, Ohio. He says, my grandfather passed
Speaker 1: away in the mid nineteen eighties. We sold his vehicle
Speaker 1: as we were selling some of his possessions. My mother
Speaker 1: and grandmother signed the title, and the new owner came
Speaker 1: to pick up the vehicle. They could not find the
Speaker 1: car keys anywhere. The house was searched from top to
Speaker 1: bottom in drawers and closets, on shelves and tables, they
Speaker 1: were nowhere to be found. A few days later, my
Speaker 1: mother arrived at my grandma's house and found her to
Speaker 1: be distraught. My mother asked what was wrong, and she
Speaker 1: would only reply that she had found the keys. My
Speaker 1: mother was happy to hear the news and ask where
Speaker 1: they'd been. My grandmother replied, on the floor in the
Speaker 1: middle of the bathroom. We certainly would have found them
Speaker 1: quickly if they'd been their days earlier. It seemed like
Speaker 1: Grandpa didn't want to sell the car. And now I've
Speaker 1: read this one to you before, but it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. This came to me from Thomas Kelly, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Speaker 1: He says, in nineteen ninety seven, my girlfriend and I
Speaker 1: were renting a huge, beautiful old duplex in South Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend worked the night shift ten pm to seven am.
Speaker 1: I would go to bed just after she left her work,
Speaker 1: and she would wake me in the morning when she
Speaker 1: returned home. One morning, she woke me up and asked
Speaker 1: me why there was a butcher knife in the bathtub.
Speaker 1: I told her I had no idea, and we laughed
Speaker 1: it off. A few weeks later, she woke me up
Speaker 1: and asked why there were bone cutters in the bathtub,
Speaker 1: and again we laughed it off, as the kitchen was
Speaker 1: adjacent to the bathroom and the butcher block knife holder
Speaker 1: was on the counter just outside the bathroom. A month
Speaker 1: or so later, a similar thing happened. My girlfriend asked
Speaker 1: me why the bone cutters were in the bathroom sink.
Speaker 1: This continued for three years, probably ten times. Somehow in
Speaker 1: the night the cutlery would end up in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: in the bathtub or the sink, one time in the toilet.
Speaker 1: One night, the butcher knife was lying the foot of
Speaker 1: our bed. During our last weekend in the duplex, we
Speaker 1: threw a party and invited the downstairs tenant and all
Speaker 1: the tenants, and there was a couple who had lived
Speaker 1: in the building for years, and when the subject of
Speaker 1: the landlord came up, we both went white when they
Speaker 1: told us in nineteen sixty eight, our landlord's mother had
Speaker 1: committed suicide in our unit in the bathtub with a
Speaker 1: butcher knife. Okay, let's clear the air and in the show.
Speaker 1: On a positive note, take a deep breath. If you
Speaker 1: can't close your eyes. Here is the good fortune tone.
Speaker 1: That's it for this edition of the show. Follow me
Speaker 1: at Joshua P. Warren Plus, visit joshuapwarren dot com to
Speaker 1: sign up for my free e newsletter to receive a
Speaker 1: free instant gift, and check out the cool stuff in
Speaker 1: the Curiosity Shop. All at Joshuapwarren dot com. I have
Speaker 1: a fun one lined up for you next time, I promise.
Speaker 1: So please tell all your friends to subscribe to this
Speaker 1: show and to always remember the Golden Rule. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, thank you for your interest and support. Thank
Speaker 1: you for staying curious, and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again soon. You've been listening to Strange Things on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: Well, if you like this episode of Strange Things, wait
Speaker 3: till you hear the next one. Thank you for listening
Speaker 3: to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.