Moonlight Over a Ruined Village

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Moonlight Over a Ruined Village is a Weird Fiction anthology podcast dedicated to weird and scary stories. These stories deal with people caught in the grasp of social decay and are based on accounts collected from the residents of a suburban village that has fallen into a state of ruin. Though the names of the people and locations have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved in these events, the events could happen anywhere at any time. These tales deal with dark themes and disturbing content that some listeners may find troubling. In addition, there is a fair bit or profanity, so listener discretion is advised.

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  1. Episode 1

    Moonlight Over a Scavenging Bird

    For tonight’s tale, we join a doomed soul that has been locked away. He was first removed from society, and then from all sources of light. His sanity did not survive. The years he spent in his perpetually darkened cell could not be counted by his broken mind. He clawed at unforgiving walls and pulled at iron bars until his body failed him. He devoted his wretched life to vain attempts at escaping that darkness, and he failed every time. Soon the denizens of the darkness found him and dined on his flesh and blood. Before long, he was forced into a sickening communion with these horrible creatures.             Satisfied with his ruined state, his captors pulled him from his cell, threw him into the back of a vehicle, and dumped him onto a dirt road in the middle of a ruined village. But it is not just any ruined village. It is the very village from which he was abducted. In fact, it is the very village he played a role in ruining. Emboldened by the familiarity of the road beneath his feet, he sets out to reclaim his village.             Those plans are cut short by the arrival of two goons known as them boys. They inform the prisoner that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated in this village. In fact, they are there to see to it that he accepts the changes all of them have been through. The prisoner then has to acknowledge the horrific changes he was forced to undergo in the darkness.               This tale is dark and deals with imprisonment, supernatural elements, body horror, mistrust in government institutions, and antisocial behavior. Moreover, it contains profanity and references to past stories. Listener discretion is advised.

  2. Episode 2

    Moonlight Over a Retching Demon

    Tonight’s tale begins in a hole, dug deep into the earth by a creature that wants nothing to do with the world. The hole is merely a space in the earth for him to occupy until he passes from this world. For that is all this creature wants. He seeks oblivion.             Yet the outer world would still claim this creature’s time and labor. The creature is awakened from his wretched slumber by merciless lights that flash in his eyes and a thunderous pounding in his skull. So the creature answers the phone he had been sleeping on, and discovers he is late for work.             Thrust back into the world he wanted to abandon, the ruined creature bathes in freezing waters and is subjected to the judging stares of an outraged class of students. This causes him to violently retch in the river, which just makes it worse. He then runs through the streets and endures the outright hostility of the types of jackasses who honk their horns at pedestrians. He finally arrives at his job, where things start to go really bad for him.             It is hard to know what finally broke him. It could have been the pedantic middle manager drunk with the authority granted to him by elites who couldn’t care less about him. It could have been the sniveling customers who tried to make him share the burden of their idiocy. Although it was more than likely his altered physical state from his time being held as a prisoner of the cult of the spider. Whatever it was, our hero looked the world in the face and declared that he would rather not.             So he retreats to the darkness. But there, he finds he is not alone. In fact, his decision to abandon humanity was not entirely his own.  Our retching demon soon learns that he has been expected by an old evil from his past. This tale involves one guy retching more than is entirely necessary. It also contains references to antisocial behavior, body horror, vampirism, occult themes, violence, bureaucracy, and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

  3. Episode 3

    Moonlight Over the Government Trying to Help

    For tonight’s tale, we find the ruined village in a precarious situation. The hapless inmates of the village have lived their lives in fear for too long. Mostly, they fear stepping in things that have no business being out in public. Too many dogs have walked amidst the spider azalea and have never returned.  The police have cowered in fear while the lawless elements have ruled over the village for too long. As a result, the powers that be have decided to put an end to this situation. Tonight is the night that the government tries to help.             This is done by forming at least one committee that implements multiple dynamic procedures to eventually arrive at the proactive decision to outsource it to someone else. Though that ‘it’ remains undefined, they have enlisted the aid of the hapless reporter who has written about the ruined village before. She braved the drunken chaos of the River Road after dark and survived to get to her bus stop. She endured the unbridled idiocy of the Cult of the Spider and its army of creepy weirdos rolling around in the dirt. She has seen it all, she has documented her experiences, and she has presented her findings to the public. In addition to bringing great shame to her parents, she has gained the attention of the government. They aim to call upon her expertise as they make their fumbling attempts to control the chaos that runs through the village.             But there is darkness at the heart of this village that the reporter didn’t dare to write about. She didn’t mention the true living horror that inspired the ridiculous legends of the village. She didn’t mention the terrified dog that pleaded to her for help before it was eaten alive. But most importantly, she didn’t mention the snake woman who lurked in her shadow every time she ventured close to that village. As the newly minted public servant returns to the ruined village, she prepares herself for her inevitable encounter with the snake woman who is ever lurking in the shadow she casts beneath the moon that shines over that ruined village.             This tale contains multiple references to government officials making flagrant attempts to help the people around them. It also contains references to cult activities, body horror, alcohol abuse, supernatural horror, and the willful and flagrant perpetuation of bureaucracy. Moreover, it contains more profanity than is necessary. Listener discretion is advised.

  4. Episode 4

    Moonlight Over a Banquet of Blood

    For tonight’s tale, we join a public servant on her first day at her government job. Typically, that would be the sort of thing to make her parents proud. This is especially true considering their humble expectations for their daughter. Armed with a liberal arts degree and a boundless imagination, her parents naturally expected very little from her. Those expectations were further diminished by her involvement in the incident in the ruined village.                         Their wayward daughter foolishly ventured into the ruined village to engage with its denizens. This was done at the behest of one of her teachers who insisted on engaging her in their liberal-arts nonsense. While she was there, she was confronted by a crazed old man who screamed at her about his obsession with trash. That lunatic attracted the attention of a second lunatic, who inflamed the chaos with his undying vendetta against the old man. Fortunately, she was rescued by them boys and their River Road crew. Unfortunately for her, she was then threatened by Sachiko, the ethereal serpent deity who had claimed the village as her own. As a result, the young woman decided to document the experience.             The article, which humiliated her parents to no end, was largely ignored by the general public. Yet there were creatures that lurked in the darkened edges of society that did read the article. Government employees, who had taken it upon themselves to find out what was going on in that God-damned village, decided to use her article for their research. More accurately, they wanted to use her article instead of doing research. So they hired her to join a team they had assembled to deal with the nonsense going on in that village.             The team, which is led by Sachiko and Tomisaburo, was charged with controlling the nonsense in the village. Their first task was to assist the spider, a ruined creature produced by the Cult of the Spider to bolster their ranks. This creature needed help finding victims to feed upon. Tomisaburo couldn’t be bothered to even show up, and Sachiko couldn’t decide who to feed to this ruined creature. But the public servant, who still had the voice of the crazed old man ringing in her ears, knew exactly who the first victim should be. Unfortunately for her, that choice put her at odds with the rest of the village. Especially the River Road crew.             This tale deals with themes of parental shame, body horror, supernatural elements, governmental incompetence, and violence. Furthermore, it deals with alcohol abuse, animal endangerment, vampirism, and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

  5. Episode 5

    Moonlight Over Discarded Syringes

    For tonight’s tale, we check in on the River Road, which is the cultural center of the ruined village. Though it is not without its own form of tortured beauty, it is plagued by trash. Yes, people still throw their trash on the ground. Usually it comes in the form of wrappers for dog snacks, cigarette butts, beer cans, and chicken bones. Or at least, people assume they are chicken bones. However, the recent discovery of discarded syringes has caused a degree of concern amongst the denizens of the village. That is a level of ruin they are not at all comfortable with.             The main culprit is a prisoner being held by a government agency that operates in tunnels that run beneath the ruined village. The village is so far gone that none of the villagers even care about that. The prisoner is a vampiric human spider hybrid who needs to drink human blood to live. However, he has promised to not be a dick about it, and so far he has held up his end of the bargain. Indeed, the prisoner has been abiding in full accordance with the conditions of his rehabilitation. The team overseeing him claims he is totally docile. In fact, he needs the help of a public servant to feed.             This public servant took the grisly task of directing this spider creature to its victims with trepidation. But to be honest, that trepidation was tinged with a sense of excitement. She was quickly disappointed. The spider was so mild-mannered that his victims didn’t even notice he was feeding on them. Although that was creepier than Hell, it was more or less what his keepers wanted. So that constituted a rare win for the village.             Then the attacks occurred. They were a shocking contrast of brutality and precision. On the first night alone, the monster tore its way through the River Road, leaving pools of blood and discarded needles in its wake. At the end, three victims were discovered by the River Road crew. The monster is still at large and the River Road crew wants answers. Unfortunately, the only person in a position to give them is a public servant with a government agency at her back. And she is not in a helping mood.             This tale contains themes of violence, medical horror, body horror, alcohol abuse, government corruption and crime. Moreover, it contains instances of antisocial behavior, profanity, and the wanton use of public transportation. Listener discretion is advised.

  6. Episode 6

    Moonlight Over a Purloined Tale

    For tonight’s tale, we sneak into the icy depths of the archives to steal part of a tale to break the heat of the summer. This tale deals with Tomisaburo, the mastermind behind most of the ruin at the heart of the River Village. While we may know him as a cunning strategist who always manages to stay ahead of his hunters, that was not always the case. He used to be a rash and impetuous little upstart that actively pursued danger. Well, maybe not much has changed since then. But he has gotten a lot better at escaping those consequences. This is the tale of the incident that taught him the importance of doing that. Indeed, his heightened sense of self-preservation began with this very incident. For this was the time that Tomisaburo came very close to being killed.             The tale begins with Tomisaburo, brooding away in a hole he dug into the earth. He managed to single-handedly enrage an entire village of humans.  This was done by flagrantly humiliating one of the head villagers well past the point of financial ruin. In doing so, he exposed the corruption at the heart of the upstart government that the humans were trying to enact. The head villager was overcome with shame at his misdeeds. Driven to madness, he and his entire family burned their estate to the ground and died in the fire. The only survivor was a young noblewoman named Gonzaemon.             Offended by this unprovoked aggression from this upstart Kitsune, the villagers hunted down all foxes, Kitsune, and any other creature they didn’t trust. In order to appease their anger, the Kitsune of the area agreed to aid the villagers in their quest for revenge. Indeed, Tomisaburo’s own father promised to deliver Tomisaburo’s pelt to them while it was still warm with his living blood.             But the head of a noble Kitsune family had a different proposal. He proposed that Tomisaburo should be made to repay the damages he caused to the village. The way he created for Tomisaburo to do this was too horrible for him to endure. For he intended to marry Tomisaburo to his daughter. Furthermore, he was being put in charge of the protection of Gonzaemon, the strange daughter of the disgraced village elder.             So Tomisaburo plots his escape from this horrific fate. But he soon learns that the marriage may never have a chance to occur. For he has incurred the wrath of every creature in the area. With the Mountain of the Wolves at his back, the Ground Spiders crawling through the earth, and the Ravens patrolling the skies above him, there may not be enough of a pelt to deliver to the vengeful villagers.               This tale is the first part in a series available to our Patreon listeners, so it contains references to previous tales. It contains violence, occult themes, blasphemy, body horror, government corruption, and references to gambling. Furthermore, it contains profanity and references to excessive alcohol consumption. Listener discretion is advised.

  7. Episode 7

    Moonlight Over a Court of Vampires

    For tonight’s tale, we join two young people who together chose to commit the greatest act of defiance in the very face of the ruin at the heart of this world.  They met each other, talked things over, and reached the agreement that they had fallen in love with each other. They overcame multiple obstacles to do this. The greatest of which was determining which one of them fell in love first. Since this was a mystery ill-suited to their youthful spirits, they agreed that they fell in love at first sight. But the question lingered.             Their love was not allowed to bloom unopposed, as they were surrounded by hostile onlookers. Most of the hostility was from their classmates who were sick of them going on about who fell in love with who first. That conversation was insufferable and annoyed everyone who happened to overhear it. However, a small portion of it was a product of their elevated status. For these two lovers were self-proclaimed vampires. They were pilgrims on the path to the netherworld, and other people thought that was ridiculous and pretentious.             But when their teacher, who was late to class that day, tells them to investigate the recent vampire attacks in the nearby village, the undead students find themselves at a crossroads. The village, which is full of drunkards and the types of weirdos who walk around with their pants unzipped, is ruined and they’d just as soon not deal with it. However, there may be a real vampire stalking the darkened River Road. This could be their chance to meet an actual vampire. Or rather, another actual vampire.             This tale contains references to vampirism, which should be obvious from the title. It also contains mentions of violent assaults, the consumption of blood, antisocial behavior, mistrust in authority figures, creative writing classes, and public intoxication. Furthermore, it contains profanity and occult themes. Listener discretion is advised.

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Moonlight Over a Ruined Village is a Weird Fiction anthology podcast dedicated to weird and scary stories. These stories deal with people caught in the grasp of social decay and are based on accounts collected from the residents of a suburban village that has fallen into a state of ruin. Though the names of the people and locations have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved in these events, the events could happen anywhere at any time. These tales deal with dark themes and disturbing content that some listeners may find troubling. In addition, there is a fair bit or profanity, so listener discretion is advised.

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