What happened inside this church will SHOCK you

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of this incredible piece of art than to tell you one of the new stories that is in this book. Again, our second graphic novel, Where Nightmares Live, is out right now wherever books are sold, so grab your copy today and follow along. And remember, your nightmares are waiting.

We've covered lots of bizarre stories on this channel, but I can say with confidence that today's story is easily one of the weirdest. In fact, it could even be the most weird, because you'll get to the end of the story and hear what happens, the big reveal, and you're gonna be like, wait, what happened? So buckle up, it's a good one. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious

delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do and we upload once a week. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to clean the Like Button's house, but instead of cleaning it, just go ahead and bring a wrecking crew to their property and level it. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the afternoon of January 5th, 1909, a 56-year-old Reverend named John Carmichael kissed his wife and kids goodbye, and then stepped out of his cottage into the cold and wrapped his

cloak around his black suit, and then he hopped on his horse and he galloped out onto the road. Reverend Carmichael lived in a rural part of Michigan, and on this day, he was making his way to another town about nine miles away called Columbus, where he was going to host this big religious revival. Basically, he was going to hold this big sermon and try to get new people to join his church. And so as the reverend galloped his way down the road, he saw all these kids outside having snowball fights and making snowmen, and it was just really nice. But also, in virtue of being the reverend, basically everybody in town knew him, and so either the

kids wanted to say hi to him or their parents did. And so as the reverend is really just trying to hustle his way to Columbus, he kept having to stop over and over again to have small talk and play nice. But after about 30 minutes he had reached a point in the journey where all the houses were kind of behind him and he had this kind of nice quiet stretch where he knew he wouldn't be bothered by anybody. He had made this journey many times to Columbus and he always looked forward to this stretch of the road. It was just very peaceful and gave him a chance to kind of just be left with his

own thoughts and think about his upcoming sermon and what he wanted to say. And so as the reverend was having this sort of peaceful time trotting his way down the snowy road, he heard the sound of hooves fast approaching him. And so the reverend turned around and he saw there was this very rough looking guy wearing this brown stained shirt with a long overcoat over it, and the guy's hair was slicked back and greasy and he had this big weird grin on his face and he was waving wildly at the Reverend, obviously trying to flag him down. Now inside, the Reverend did not want to talk to this guy because he knew who this guy was. His name was Gideon Browning and he lived in the town where the Reverend lived and he

was known for being kind of erratic and had a horrible drinking problem and frankly, you know, the Reverend just wanted to be left alone. Here he was enjoying his ride, and here comes the town drunk, you know, he doesn't want to be around this guy. But also the Reverend understood that he was the Reverend in town. People knew who he was. He couldn't just be a jerk to people. He had to be kind. And so he smiled at Gideon and waved to him to be polite, but was dreading this interaction with Gideon. And in fact, weirdly enough, the Reverend over the past several weeks had been running into Gideon all over town, to the point where it was becoming weird that he just kept seeing Gideon. And every time he

interacted with Gideon, it was just awful, because Gideon was just totally an unpleasant person. But here he was once again, having to have yet another interaction with Gideon. And as soon as Gideon came right up alongside the Reverend, his first question was, hey, Reverend, can I ride with you? And the Reverend again is like, my goodness, I don't wanna do this right now.

But he was like, of course we can ride together. And pretty much immediately, the Reverend regretted this decision because Gideon would just not shut up. He just talked the entire time they were supposed to be in this peaceful part of the reverend's journey. But not only that, the questions Gideon was asking reverend the whole time they were riding together were sort of invasive. Gideon wanted to know

exactly where the reverend was going and what he was doing there and you know how many churches did the reverend own and just all these personal questions and sort of against his better judgment the Reverend was being truthful with Gideon. He told Gideon that he was going to Columbus to have this big revival and he also told Gideon about one of the churches that he owned in a town called Rattlerun. And as the Reverend was again kind of giving up this information that he kind of wished he wasn't, he noticed Gideon began doing something strange. As Gideon was galloping along, keeping a fixed gaze on the Reverend,

Gideon reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver coin and began flipping the coin into the air and catching it and flipping it and catching it over and over and over again, never affecting his riding.

I mean, it was like Gideon wasn't even aware he was flicking this coin. And the Reverend, you know, he's kind of watching Gideon do this, and it was sort of impressive. Like Gideon was just able to flick this coin over and over and never drop it and just keep on stride. But more than just being impressed with Gideon's hand-eye coordination, the Reverend began to notice that he really liked what Gideon was doing with this coin. It was kind of soothing in a way. Not so much the actual coin flipping in the air, but the sound it was making, the sound of it spinning in the air and slapping into his palm over and over again, it just kind of put the reverend at ease,

and he didn't know why. And so after a while, the reverend just kind of stopped answering Gideon's questions, and just kind of stared at the coin and listened to that sound, and he just felt himself drift into this weird relaxed state, almost like he fell asleep. And so as this weird thing is going on with this coin, the two men eventually reach this crossroads where there's a general store. And at this point Gideon catches his coin, puts it back in his pocket, and the two men, they come to a stop at this general store, even though the reverend did not want to go to this general

store. He just kind of followed Gideon up to the hitching post. They both got off their horses. They tied their horses to the post. And again, the reverend's thinking, I can't stop here. I gotta go to Columbus. I gotta get to the survival. But Gideon just turns to the reverend and says, hey, we gotta make a stop here. We need to get something. And the reverend found himself saying, okay don't want to do this, I don't want to stop here, I gotta go. But he just stood there, just waiting for Gideon to tell him what they were going to buy. And Gideon, who had that big grin on his face again, he said, well actually, I'm not going to go into the store, you are. You're going to go in there, you're going to this was a normal request, nor did he want to go in the store. He wanted to leave. But for some reason, he just said, okay. And he turned

and shuffled in the store, found a new hatchet, paid for it with his own money, walked outside, handed it over to Gideon. And then at this point, second the reverend got back on his horse to do that, Gideon hopped on his horse and said, hold on a minute, reverend, we're not done yet. Now we're going to go to your church and rattle run, because I'm getting married soon, and I'm thinking about maybe getting married in your church, and I want to scope it out. And so the reverend at this, who again, just wants to go to Columbus. He doesn't want to be around Gideon at all. But for some reason he just said,

Okay, yeah, we'll go to my church in Rattlerun. And so at this point Gideon pulled out his coin and started flipping it again and again. And the two men rode side by side in the direction of Rattlerun. And the whole time the reverend's thinking, What am I doing? Why are we doing this?" And also, in addition to just brain fog and confusion, the Reverend also realized that Gideon was clearly lying to him because he knew Gideon was married. So what's he talking

about needing to scope out his church to see about potentially getting married there? That didn't make sense. Like, why was Gideon actually wanting to go to his church? The Reverend didn't know, but he was really starting to feel scared. But again, he just couldn't stop agreeing to the things Gideon wanted to do. And so the two men galloped their way to Rattlerun, the whole time Gideon's flipping that coin and staring at the Reverend, and the Reverend's just totally transfixed on the coin. And then they get to the church, Gideon puts the coin in his pocket, the two men hitch their horses to the post outside, they go up to the front door, the reverend unlocks it, they go inside,

and sort of automatically the reverend walked to the back of the church and he lit the stove, and then as he was walking back towards the front where Gideon was still standing right in front of the doorway, Gideon suddenly told the reverend to stop where he was. And so the reverend stopped in the middle of the church and he's just looking at Gideon, who's got that coin back out, and he's flipping it up and down again. And at this point, the reverend just looks at Gideon and says, well, do you want to look around? And Gideon, who's flipping that coin up and down, just says, no, I don't need to look

around. There is no wedding. Hey, reverend, go ahead confused, and his left arm just suddenly raised up into the air. He had no control over it. And then a second later, Gideon says, hey, go ahead and raise your other arm.

And so the Reverend, who still got his left arm out to one side, felt his right arm come up to the other side. And so at this point, the Reverend's just was going on. Clearly, Gideon had hypnotized him. That could be the only explanation for what was going on here. But before the Reverend could say or do anything about how totally weird the situation was, Gideon, who was flipping that coin and had a big grin on his face the whole time he was

making the Reverend raise his arms up, suddenly Gideon's face completely changed and he became deadly serious and he was staring at the reverend and then he dropped the coin to the ground and began moving towards the reverend. The following day around noon the caretaker for Reverend Carmichael's rattle run church made his way to that church to check in on the building. He knew Reverend Carmichael was going to be in Columbus for a few days and so he just wanted to make sure, you know, nothing was out of the ordinary. And as this caretaker galloped up to this small white steeple church, he noticed right

away there was a column of smoke coming up out of the chimney. Clearly there was a fire lit inside of the church. And the caretaker's thinking, that doesn't make any sense. The reverend is not supposed to be here, so who could possibly be in the church right now. And then after the caretaker got up to the front door, he was about to put his key in the lock when he discovered the door was already unlocked. And so instinctively, he put his hand on his pistol on his hip, and then he grabbed the handle

and he flung the door open. And when he looked inside the church, he just froze. Because the entire interior of the church was drenched in blood. There was blood on the pews, the walls, on the altar, and then also amongst all this blood, the caretaker also noticed there were little pieces of ripped up fabric all over the place, and he saw one of them had a unique button sewn into it, a button he recognized as belonging

on Reverend Carmichael's suit. And so the caretaker is horrified, he's looking around, he doesn't see anybody, but he sees there's a drag trail right down the center aisle all the way up to the altar, and it curves around to the right out of view. Now the caretaker wanted to turn and run away, but he was worried that maybe Reverend Carmichael was in here somewhere, and was maybe still alive and he could help him. And so the caretaker felt like it was his responsibility to investigate. And so he drew his pistol and he began walking down this bloody aisle,

kind of looking around for any sign of anybody inside the church, but it was deadly silent. And he eventually got about halfway down the aisle when he spotted a silver coin sitting in the middle of the aisle covered in blood. And he kept on walking to where the blood trail turned around the pew, and it led right up to that stove that was obviously still smoldering and the door to the stove was shut.

So the caretaker couldn't see what was inside of it. And so the caretaker just walked up to the stove and after looking around one more time to make sure nobody else was in here, he opened up the stove and inside the stove was a human skull.

News of Reverend Carmichael's horrific murder very quickly spread all around town and beyond just that town. I mean, this was all over the place. And within 24 hours, there was this huge police investigation that was launched to try to figure out who killed him.

And very quickly, the police in Rattlerun spoke to the sheriff of the town where the Reverend lived, and they learned that on the same day that Reverend Carmichael had left to go to Columbus and then obviously was killed inside of his church. Well on that same day, a man named Gideon Browning had had this really big blow up public fight in town, same town as Reverend Carmichael, with his brother-in-law. And this

fight was so explosive, lots of people saw it and heard it, and people said after this big fight with his brother-in-law, Gideon had hopped on his horse and rode off angrily. And the kids in that town who were outside that day having snowball fights and building snowmen, they would say that they saw Reverend Carmichael traveling down this road because he talked to all the kids and their parents.

And not long after Reverend Carmichael had kind of disappeared down the road, they also reported seeing Gideon Browning coming down the same road, heading in the same direction as Reverend Carmichael. And after that, nobody had seen Gideon since. And so very quickly,

Gideon became the number one suspect in this murder. And basically the thought was, you know, Gideon was so angry from this fight with his brother-in-law, that he must have just taken out his anger on the Reverend. Basically the Reverend was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got killed. Now, the police knew this was a flimsy theory at best, but Gideon had a reputation for being

totally erratic and a total drunk, and so it kind of fit with who he was, that this was something maybe he would do. And so within 24 hours of the murder, there was this huge, multi-statewide manhunt for Gideon. Three days later, and 500 miles away from the town of Rattle Run in a city in Illinois, a man opened the door to a boarding house and stepped inside. And the owner of the boarding house,

her name was Miranda Hughes, she was sitting behind the front desk. And when she looked up and saw this man, she had to stifle a gasp because this man looked absolutely horrible. He was wearing this really dark stained brown shirt

with a long overcoat over it. He was shivering and skinny and pale and just looked like he was about to die basically. But the man just walked up to her and said his name was John Elder and he wanted to rent a room.

Now Miranda for a second thought about refusing this guy's service just because honestly he kind of frightened her. But then again Miranda thought you know what a lot of my guests are pretty rough these days and this guy's got money and he wants a room so there you go I'll give him a room. So she brought him upstairs to a room on the second floor, she opened it up, John stepped inside and Miranda as a courtesy said hey do you want me to make you

some food? And John without even turning around just says I'm fasting, and then he shut the door in her face. For the rest of the weekend, despite what John told Miranda, Miranda would come up to his room and leave food outside of his door at every mealtime. It was something she did for her guests, but John never came out to get the food, and for a little while Miranda was actually kind of concerned about this guy, considering how terrible he looked, and you know, now he's fasting, that didn't seem healthy. But at the same time, Miranda was kind of happy to not have to deal with this guy, and so she basically ignored him.

But on the morning of January 12th, so one week after the murder and three days after John Elder had checked into this boarding house, Miranda was walking across the back lawn of this boarding house when she heard what sounded like somebody moaning in pain coming from the outhouse.

Now, normally Miranda would never even think of going to the outhouse and seeing if somebody was okay in there, but the sound this person was making sounded so obviously like they were in pain that she just couldn't help herself.

And so Miranda ran to the door of this outhouse and she yelled inside, hey, are you okay in there? And the only sound she heard coming out was more moaning and whimpering. And so acting on a gut instinct, Miranda grabbed the door and flung it open and what she saw made her scream. It was John Elder and he was sitting on the toilet looking up at her with wide panicked

eyes and his throat had been slashed from ear to ear. She could basically see deep into his neck. This was a fatal wound and he was bleeding everywhere. And so Miranda stumbled backwards, turned around, and ran to go find police. By the time the police arrived at the boarding house and went to the outhouse, John Elder

was already dead from this horrible wound. And at first, the police did not connect the death of John Elder to what had happened in Rattle Run 500 miles away. They were totally disconnected. That is, until police searched John Elder and they found in one of his pockets was a bloodstained letter addressed to the Sheriff of Rattlerun. And as soon as the police read it, they knew they had something huge on their hands. Because John Elder was not who he said he was.

To understand who John Elder was, and to even begin to understand what happened in Rattlerun, we need to go back to January 6th, the day that Reverend Carmichael left his house and began making the journey to Columbus for this big revival. During that journey, Reverend Carmichael did come in contact with Gideon Browning. Gideon Browning came up alongside him, they rode together, you know, they went to that general store and Reverend Carmichael did buy that hatchet for Gideon, and they did go to the Rattlerun church. But

the reason they did all these strange activities together is not because Gideon had hypnotized Reverend Carmichael. The actual reason for why they did these things together is even more bizarre. In the weeks leading up to that fateful day, January 6th, Reverend Carmichael was running into Gideon Browning all the time all over town. It was like everywhere the Reverend went, there was Gideon. And then on January 6th, when the Reverend is making his way down the road, and he turns and sees Gideon Browning coming up alongside him, he's like, oh my goodness, it's happening again. But the way the Reverend handled this was not to say, wow, what a strange coincidence, I keep running into this guy everywhere I go. Instead, the

Reverend believed that Gideon must have some sort of special power, that he's able to know where I am at all times, and he's using that power to try to intimidate me by spying on me. And so on January 6th, when Gideon came galloping up alongside of the Reverend, the Reverend's already completely paranoid and on edge about Gideon, fearing this guy has magical powers basically. And then when Gideon pulled out that coin and began flipping it into the air, which apparently was just something he did, the Reverend took that as,

oh my goodness, in addition to having magical powers to always know where I am, Gideon also has the power of hypnosis. And that coin that I can't take my eyes off that sounds so incredible and it's soothing me, well that is hypnotizing me. Gideon is now controlling me and my thoughts and my body.

And so at this point, the Reverend actually believed he was hypnotized. And so he just kind of began going along with anything Gideon wanted. And so it's assumed that Gideon did want to stop at the general store and just kind of said, hey do you want to stop at the general store? And the reverend's like, yes I'll stop at the general store. And then maybe Gideon asked the reverend, hey do you mind buying me a new hatchet, comes back out. And then apparently, you know, Gideon said, hey, I wanna go check out your church and rattle run.

And the Reverend was like, yeah, okay, let's go check it out. And then when they got to the church, at some point, the Reverend just went to the middle of the church and put his arms out to either side

like he was Jesus Christ's flipping the coin, fumbles it and it falls to the ground. And the reverend, who believes that coin has full control over what he's doing, he thought, oh my gosh, the spell is now broken. I need to save myself. And so the clothes over, and once the Reverend had those clothes, he hacked Gideon to pieces, and then burned his body in that stove. And then after this horrific murder, the Reverend took his own suit and basically ripped it off and shredded it to bits and then kind of threw it all around the church to make it seem like he had been the one who was killed and that was his skull inside of the stove. And then he put on all of Gideon Browning's clothes,

the brown dirty shirt and the long coat. And then he traveled 500 miles to Miranda Hughes's boarding house, where he went inside and booked a room under the pseudonym John Elder. And while the Reverend was hiding out

inside of this boarding house, the police in Rattle Run very quickly figured out that the body inside of the church, the skull inside of the stove and the remains that were in there did not belong to Reverend Carmichael, they belonged to Gideon Browning.

And so immediately it went from, Gideon Browning must have done it to no, no, no, Reverend Carmichael is the killer and he killed Gideon. But before they could track the Reverend down, Reverend Carmichael, AKA John Elder, had gone into that outhouse and slit his own throat.

However, when the police searched John Elder's body, so Reverend Carmichael's body, they would find that bloodstained letter addressed to the sheriff in Rattlerun, and basically it was a confession. Now, granted, it was the confession of Reverend Carmichael,

who genuinely believed Gideon had hypnotized him all these special powers, and he basically was acting in self-defense, but nonetheless it was still a confession to murder. Now of course there's lots of details in this story that we can't be totally sure of, like we don't really know what the discussions were like between Reverend Carmichael and Gideon Browning when they met on that road and then eventually made their way to the church and the murder happened. This is basically just the best theory around what happened. Also it's

worth noting that there was a history of mental illness in Reverend Carmichael's family, but this story happened at a time when nobody took mental health seriously and so it's very unlikely that story happened at a time when nobody took mental health seriously and so it's very unlikely that even if authorities had known about that, that this crime could have been prevented.