Wicked Grim Stories

Scotland, 1900 — three men gone without a trace, a storm that left no wreckage, and an empty tower staring at the sea. The ship’s crew expected a welcome. On December 26, 1900, the relief vessel Hesperus approached the Flannan Isles Lighthouse, a lonely tower perched on a jagged rock in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The…

Ontario, 1880 — a family murdered, a mob unpunished, and a shadow over a town that never lifted. They said the Donnellys were cursed. By 1880, the Donnelly family of Biddulph Township, Ontario, was infamous. James and Johannah Donnelly had come from Ireland during the potato famine, bringing with them six sons and one daughter.…

West Virginia, 1890s — a sealed tunnel, a deadly blast, and a whistle that never stopped. The first time they heard it, the tunnel had already been closed for months. Mud Lick Tunnel was cut into the Appalachian hills in 1892, carved by men swinging hammers in dim lantern light. The work was brutal —…

Canada, 1930s legend — a frozen camp, meals waiting, and a silence too heavy to melt. The dogs were dead, but the fires still smoked. In November 1930, a fur trapper named Joe Labelle snowshoed along the banks of Lake Anjikuni, deep in the Canadian wilderness near the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. Labelle knew the…

Idaho Territory, 1880s — gold, dust, and a road that swallowed a coach whole. The coach was due by sundown. Silver City, Idaho Territory, was a boomtown in those days, its streets choked with miners, gamblers, and prospectors chasing veins of gold. The Owyhee Mountains rose jagged and red around it, and the only road…