THE 3AM PROTOCOL

An original horror story, written for THE 3AM PROTOCOL. A man who debunks haunted houses for a living has five rules on one sheet of paper. Four of them are only science.

(00:00) What I am, and what I am not

(03:28) Five rules on one sheet of paper

(04:57) The four that are only science

(10:48) Infrasound, and Vic Tandy's foil

(13:49) The stack effect

(16:39) The two I do not find

(19:09) The house

(19:55) The nine complaints

(21:37) All nine, explained

(25:55) Hollis said nine is too many

(29:36) The causes were installed

(30:56) Rule five. Three nights, never four.

(36:24) What should we put in

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Ten horror stories from the deep woods, narrated at 3 A.M. Every one of them starts with somebody whose job was to count something out there, and whose numbers stopped adding up.

(00:00:00) Cold open

(00:02:45) The Trail Register

(00:12:04) Deadfall

(00:21:20) The Game Camera

(00:30:33) Snow Line

(00:38:13) The Burn Scar

(00:47:21) Nine Recorders

(00:56:48) The Mushroom Line

(01:07:03) Nineteen Miles

(01:14:43) The Collars

(01:23:32) The Culvert

(01:33:02) Outro

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

An original horror story, written for THE 3AM PROTOCOL. The diner downstairs closed in 2013. At night, I can hear it open.

(00:00) Two thousand rooms

(02:19) The room above the diner

(04:42) The fourth night

(06:02) The pattern

(07:34) Temperature inversion

(10:34) The town at night

(12:53) Going down

(14:58) The recorder

(16:53) Listening for words

(18:21) What it cost

(20:35) It closed twice

(21:42) Amarillo

(23:20) The order

(24:42) What I actually think

(26:50) Setting a place

(28:13) The photograph

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

An original horror story, written for THE 3AM PROTOCOL. The night shift at a county morgue has five rules. Four of them are just the job.

(00:00) Night intake

(03:05) Chain of custody

(04:28) Emeric Vas and the five rules

(06:30) Why four of them are the job

(08:33) Rule four

(09:54) The register

(11:03) A normal night

(14:40) The first mismatch

(16:22) What a body does

(19:13) Rule three, drawer nineteen

(22:14) Who Emeric was

(25:28) Forty one blank lines

(29:17) What comes after

(32:18) The next number

(35:15) Rule five

(36:57) The car park

(38:06) Three ideas

(40:42) The signature

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

An original horror story, written for THE 3AM PROTOCOL. I inherited a house in Hancock County, Georgia. The basement is nine feet under the lawn, and it is not on any deed.

(00:00) Hancock County

(04:32) Five summers

(07:14) The door behind the shelf

(08:15) What is down there

(10:12) Metes and bounds

(11:40) The tax cards

(13:25) The 1933 deed

(15:04) The fire

(16:16) The ledger

(19:25) The nights

(21:33) Mr Whitfield

(23:15) The sensible explanation

(25:34) The nine feet

(28:04) Why I did not sell

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

Three stories about the three systems a summer camp uses to make sure nobody is missing: the nightly count, the waterfront tag board, and the end-of-session group photograph. And about what each of those systems showed while the adults decided not to look at it.

(00:00) Cabin Nine

(10:35) The Tag Board

(17:36) The Group Photograph

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

Six dark web horror stories, narrated at 3 A.M. Scary stories to fall asleep to, from the part of the internet most people only ever read about. In every one, the person at the keyboard turned out to be the thing being looked at.

(00:00) Cold open

(01:02) The index

(04:32) Looking for the seam

(07:09) The last four folders

(09:55) The auction

(14:06) The seller page

(15:45) The moderator

(18:35) Eleven years of empty rooms

(20:29) His sister's kitchen

(22:28) The mirror

(24:38) Two hundred and six edits

(26:49) The route

(30:46) What he had been carrying

(32:43) The long session

(35:28) The keystroke log

(37:10) Outro

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

A rules horror story to fall asleep to, narrated at 3 A.M. This one is about a Ouija board. Thirty-one of them, actually.

(00:00) The forty envelopes

(01:18) What the job actually is

(03:41) The public administrator

(06:44) Category five

(08:21) The six rules

(10:31) Rule two, the lot number

(12:47) Boards

(14:43) Faraday, eighteen fifty three

(16:46) Where the messages come from

(18:10) The ledger

(21:23) The audit

(25:17) It matters who carries it

(29:03) Rule four, the wrong name

(31:10) Lot C one one three seven

(33:44) I am not going back for it

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Six stories about being watched, and about the thing every one of these people said afterwards: by the time they understood what was happening, somebody else already knew their week.

(00:00) Intro

(00:59) Five Stars

(07:11) The Last Bus

(14:00) Somebody Opened My Mail

(19:19) The Reference

(26:15) The End of the Drive

(33:46) The Long Way Home

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).

Three Ouija stories about the boards nobody should have sat down at. One burned into the floorboards of a house. One left behind in a bag at a care home. And one that answered before anyone asked.

(00:00) The Board in the Floor

(10:33) The Ones Who Stopped Talking

(18:50) The Answers Came First

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Has something happened to you that you still can't explain? Send it to [email protected] (anonymous if you prefer).