The following episode contains descriptions of body horror, we advise extreme caution for children under 13. The following is from Amelia B. Edwards, the phantom coach. The world, he said, grows hourly, more and more skeptical of all that lies beyond its own narrow radius, and our men of science foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as feeble or that resists experiment, they reject as false or that cannot be brought to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting room against what superstition?

Have they waited so long and obstinance to war as against the belief in apparitions? He spoke with bitterness and having said thus, relapsed for some minutes into silence. Presently, he raised his head from his hands and added with an altered voice and manner. I paused, investigated, believed, and was not ashamed to state my convictions to the world. I, too, was held up to ridicule by my contemporaries and hooted from that field of science in which I had labored with honor during all the best years of my life.

These things happens just three and 20 years ago. Since then, I have lived as you see me living now, and the world has forgotten me as I have forgotten the world. You have my history. It is a very sad one, I murmured, scarcely knowing what to answer. It is a very common one, he replied.

I have only suffered for the truth as many a better and wise man has suffered before me. Hi, everyone, I'm Alastair Murden, and this is the newest Spotify original from podcast Haunted Places, Ghost Stories Assister series to podcast Haunted Places. Ghost stories have arisen from every century and every corner of the world, from the streets of Victorian Whitechapel to the swamps of Bangladesh, whether seated around the campfire or curled up with a pair of headphones. We return to them time and again to feel a skin crawl and our hearts race.

Each week, Ghost Stories reimagines chilling paranormal tales from history's most sinister storytellers told like you've never heard them before. Today, we're concluding Amelia Bea Edwards chilling travel tale from 1864, The Phantom Coach. This is the final entry in a two part series. So if you haven't listened to part one yet, make sure you go back and start from the beginning. Last time we met James Murray, an unassuming barrister from the tiny town of Walding in northern England, he told us a tale of his life from 20 years before when he was about a wide eyed newlywed.

He warned us that he would not take questions or arguments about the veracity of his tale. The only needed to offer his account to us before he died. All James wanted that night years ago was to return to his wife after his unsuccessful hunting trip on the moors. But the swiftly piling snow had other plans. He feared dying in the cold, but was discovered by a gruff man called Jacob. Jacob resisted. James requests to spend the night at his master's home, but the lawyer would not be denied.

James soon discovered, though, that his host was no ordinary recluse. The man had been hiding from the world for 23 years after he was disgraced by the scientific community is a fence. He contended that he had material evidence of ghosts. James was unnerved by the man's strange manner and even stranger house. He was greatly relieved when the scientists told him he could catch a male coach if he made the five mile walk to the crossroads. Within an hour and 15 minutes, James host offered his servant Jacob as a guide, and the two men set off into the now snow covered landscape.

But the pristine white held a sinister secret. Coming up, we'll try to make our way home. When I stepped into the snow alongside Jacob, the night was not how I remembered it, the glittering sky was opaque. Now there was only a long stretch of darkness, with Jacob's Lantern acting as the slowly dying star guiding us forward. Our boots crunched through the snow as we walked, Jacob kept silent.

I was too lost in my own thoughts to try and pull him into conversation. My mind kept turning over what my host had said. Did he really have evidence of apparitions or were these just the rambling thoughts of a man too long out of society? To what lengths would he go to prove his point? Even to this day? I can remember that conversation with stunning clarity. I can close my eyes and take myself back to that lone house where an old man crumbled against his piles of research.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts while walking through the snow that I did not notice Jacob had come to a stop until I was near to trampling him.

He used his lantern to gesture to a small road trailing away into the night. Yon's your road. Keep the stone fence to your right hand and you'll be right where you need to be. I had no choice but to trust his words.

I could not see if the way would be easy. And in the snow each breath was a fight. Thinking again of those snow banks that had acted as coffins for other travellers. I asked how long I might have to walk. He told me that three miles farther along I should find the coach. Three miles seemed interminably long, but my wife was waiting for me. I had to reach her.

I pulled out my coin purse to pay Jacob for his pains. His smile was cast in shadow by the soft glow of the lantern, making him look as though he was some fake creature, a spirit of the moors. Then he offered a warning. The road's a fair road enough for a few passengers, but it was over steep and narrow for the northern traffic mind, where the parapets broken away, close against a signpost has never been mended since the accident.

What accident? I asked, somehow more chilled than before. Jacob shrugged.

The night all pitched right over into the valley below a good 60 feet or more, just at the worst, a road in the whole county. It was nine years ago.

Oh, God, I exclaimed my own fear of heights rearing its head. I could almost see the rickety coach pitching itself over some imagined cliff. How many lost Jacob pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, his eyes lifted towards the heavens, and I wondered if he was trying to find those lost souls or if he just had trouble remembering the details. All four were found dead and the two others died the next morning. My chest seized, my host's obsession with apparitions began creeping back into my skull near the signpost, you say I will bear it in mind.

Good night. There was no use lingering on something that had happened nearly a decade before I ordered whatever fear that had gripped me to leave me be. I gave Jacob a few coins. Good night, sir, he said before pausing eyes locked on mine, his voice strangely vulnerable. I'm glad I found you tonight. The master's very lonely nowadays, and without another word, he retreated into the night. I watched his small star retreat back towards the house from whence it came when I could barely see him over the shores of snow.

I turned my head towards my new course. There was thankfully a difference in shading between the snow and the pale stone fence. It was the only thing that allowed me to find it in the darkness. I started my three mile walk in search of the male coach. I was alone in the dark, fighting my way across snow covered land. The lack of falling snow hadn't stopped the chill from pounding against my cheek with each step. I wished for some comfort on this bitter night, I wish to be at home as much as I wished for these things, however, my thoughts turn towards darker subjects.

My host had been so convinced about apparitions, he conducted all manner of tests to prove their existence. What had he seen to inspire such confidence? I could still see the look on his face as he explained his theory. More manea than excitement. I can understand why the scientific community was scared of him. There was something unnerving in his assertions. Who would want to imagine that after death they would be trapped in amber for all eternity living on this earth, but so far removed from it, a shiver raced through me.

I couldn't be sure that it was the cold this time. So much of my work had revolved around this fear. Every step brought me closer to my wife, but every thought pushed me farther into the realm of the dead. To drown out my thoughts, I tried to hum. Hmm. The sound was swallowed by all of the damp snow in the cold night around me. I turned to the mental calculation of Sum's. Any string of large numbers could be added together as a means of quieting the darker parts of my head.

Still, I could not entirely shake that intuition that grips the back of my mind. There was something sinister in this night and it would swallow me whole if I gave it the chance. More pressing than the dark was the cold air that was eating away at my fingers and toes. I could no longer feel my hands. My knees knocked together unsteadily. As I continued onwards, each breath was pushed through a block of ice in my lungs. If I did not find some source of solace soon, I may be lost in the snow, permanently frozen, forever, looking towards a coach that I would never reach.

As that last thoughts started to wrap itself around my throat, I was saved by a lantern on the horizon. In the distance was a glowing light. I forced my legs to move faster than they ever have before, desperate to reach the stranger, whoever they may be. The gleaming lamp was attached to a coach. It made no sound as it moved. Not even the horses were tempted to make noise tonight. To me, it did not matter that I had not yet seen the broken piece of fence that marked the accident.

I told myself that I must have missed it in my frazzled state. As the light grew, I was able to take in what approached. A large dark carriage was pulling through the snow at fast speeds. A guard and a driver sat in the front. One passenger was sitting alongside them, staring into the distance. Only when they were nearly upon me could I hear the rush of the hooves and the jostling of the cabin on tired wheels. They roared past me without a glance, and I fear that I would never find safe passage home.

Fate smiled on my tired soul. However, when the coach pulled to a slow stop ahead, the guards made no move to jump down and greet me. No one appeared to acknowledge me at all. Still, I would not be discouraged. I opened the door handle, climbed inside and found a corner seat for myself. I said a quiet word of thanks to God. I was safely ensconced in the carriage on my way back to my wife. My fortune had changed.

Up next, James settles in for a smooth trip home, but his means of conveyance is anything but ordinary. Hi, listeners.

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Now back to the story. My happiness started to dwindle as I took in my surroundings, as strange as it may seem. The coach was colder than the night air on the moors. I caught the stray whiff of dead leaves against freshly turned earth. It did not fit at all with the landscape around me, and the smell was inescapable. The coach was stuffed with three other gentlemen who all appeared to be lost in thought. Their heads were bowed, their features shrouded in the dim light.

How intensely cold it is tonight, I ventured to the man opposite me. He lifted his head in my direction but did not speak. The winter seems to have begun in earnest. I finished. I wish that I could see more of my neighbor's face, but it was quite impossible. I could feel his eyes on me, but I did not know what he hoped to find. I had never much liked being the object of study. Only my wife was permitted the honor of taking in my features at her leisure here.

However, I was too frightened to do more than accept it. That dreadful smell of decay stung through my nose, my stomach churns with each movement of the carriage. I could feel nothing but cold and sickness. No one else appeared to struggle with the same afflictions. I became convinced that the only way I could continue in this coach without costing up my accounts was to bring some fresh air into the space. I imagined it would help a great deal with my nausea, if nothing else, wanting to be considerate to my fellow passengers.

I turned to the man on my left. Might I open the window, chap? I said as affably as I could. It was hard enough to get the words out with my stomach in agony for my pains. I was rewarded with nothing. The man did not acknowledge that I had spoken at all, tired and more than a little irritable.

I spoke again. The window, sir, if you please. He did not even stir in his seat. I leaned forward. If he was going to ignore me, then I should be free to do as I wanted. I placed my hand on the sash that held the window covering and pulled the suede strap tore from the window. I held the faded leather in my hand, finally getting a good look at it. The ends were frayed and the material was damp.

It carried the same Fowle's sense that plagued everything else in this carriage. I look to the window for somewhere to place the sash and realized why I was sick, dark, wet spores trail down the glass, the glow of the lantern struggled into the cabin through a sickly black film. This was not simply a small spot that had taken hold. The window itself was losing the war to mold and probably had been for several years now. I forced myself to pick out more details in the darkness, surveying all my surroundings with a more critical eye.

The carriage itself was barely clinging to life as nature that it's best to destroy it. The floor beneath my feet looked fragile, like one particularly percussive hurdle in the road would send my feet through the delicate wood. The window frame was rotting. The curtains were threadbare and caked with spores. I reached out to touch the fabric and felt it start to crumble against the pads of my fingertips. Machine on the dark leather fixtures wasn't Polish, it was sickly slick mauve.

This was not a vehicle fit for riding in time and nature had worked together to dismantle what they could of the vessel. It felt as though this carriage had been plucked from the very depths of the earth to give passengers one last ride. I could not imagine that it saw regular use these days. There was one passenger I hadn't yet attempted to speak to. His face was turned away from me, but I made one last try at conversation with this group of strangers.

Do you believe that the regular mail coach was in need of repair? This one is certainly not in working order. It was a simple enough observation. Despite my failed attempts to engage with these people, they must have realised how deplorable the conditions were. He turned his head slowly to look at me. I wish I had not asked the question at all.

To this day, I can never scrub what he looked like from my mind. The man was less human than Korps, his lips had all but disappeared, revealing a set of brilliant white teeth that were at odds with the state of decay across his face, his eyes glowed in the darkness, revealing a horrible truth. I lost the ability to speak while I had been growing concerned about the state of the coach, I quite naively had not assumed there to be anything amiss with the passengers.

I now had my answer for why they refused to speak. The man opposite me was nearly grey, as though he'd spent the last decade living somewhere without light. He stared intently at me with his own glinting gaze. I looked away despite what I had seen to this point. It was looking at the man sitting next to me that confirmed the worst of my fears. They all share that ashen complexion and the rigidness that comes with death. Their hair was wet, shining with the dew one found on gravestones in the early light.

Their clothes were falling from their rotting frames. Their half putrefied hands were smeared with grave dirt. Slivers of bone peeked through where the skin had been worn away, worn away by unnatural motion. The dead walking among the living. I felt all eyes turning to me, though strangely, living eyes surrounded by lifeless features, I screamed and dove for the handle, but he wouldn't give. The moon shone through the carriage window as I struggled desperately with the door.

It was the first time I'd seen the moon all night. The radiant silver lights revealed the broken signpost that signaled where I was to meet the coach. The horses thundered past it. Dread filled my body. I caught a glimpse of a large black space, a void that was nearing us with every passing. Second, the coach careened towards it, the horse's hooves pounding, carriage rocking. Then suddenly, all sounds of motion stopped. Leaving only the whistling wind.

For the briefest second, we were weightless. We floated through the night. I steadied myself against the door, praying for God to save me in the next instant, I felt the crush of the floor giving way as the coach finally made its landing.

That was nothing after that but pain and darkness.

I am not sure how long I lay there at the bottom of the ravine, I awoke in a bed with my loving wife at my side, according to her. My life was saved by a snowbank. I landed upon it softly enough that I did not die immediately from injuries. Shepherds found me and called a surgeon. When I was rescued, my speech was most incomprehensible, my skull had been fractured and my arm was broken, nothing else was found around me.

My body was discovered at the exact spot where the carriage had crashed almost a decade earlier. I could never bear to tell my wife the truth of what happened that night. When I broached the topic with my surgeon, he taught the whole thing up to my delirium. For 20 years, I have kept this part of myself locked away. It creeps in at the edges sometimes that fear of becoming another apparition that carries people to their death. But I fight it back.

You may not believe what I've told you, but I swear every word to be true. That night I was not carried away by an ordinary male coach, but a phantom one. The spirit's on board force me on a ghastly ride that nearly ended in my death since then, I have wondered, are they always looking for a fourth passenger to fill their coach?

Originally published in the 1864 Christmas edition of Charles Dickens Weekly Literary Journal, or The Year Round, Amelia Edwards, the phantom coach, has become one of the most iconic examples of Victorian horror. The story begins with the familiar Gothic everyman out of his element, who encounters a spirits obsessed scientist who is a Faustian character. A thoroughly modern motif of zombie like spirits gives the phantom coach a certain timelessness. Amelia Edwards was not only a writer, she was also an accomplished artist.

And it is in this sense for the visual, as well as her friendship with printmaker Gustaaf Doree, which likely influenced the stunningly descriptive imagery in her work. Edwards was a noted travel writer, having toured Europe and the Middle East extensively. She was instrumental in the growth of Egyptology and archaeological preservation in Great Britain, thanks to her wildly popular illustrated study and travelogue A Thousand Miles Up the Nile. Her stories often had international themes and inspirations, including the discovery of the Treasure Isles, which is the first known work of fiction about the Bermuda Triangle.

Finally, Edward status as a queer woman in the 19th century makes her an important historical figure within Victorian literature. Though the phantom coach is set in the more gothic environment of the Northern English Moors, Edward's interest in corpses carries through to her own home in the south of England. Her house in Bristol included in many antiquities from the Middle East and Asia, some in the form of mummified body parts. Most notable among these are the two ancient Egyptian heads she kept in the wardrobe in her bedroom, who she writes, perhaps talk to each other in the watches of the night when I am sound asleep.

Thanks again for tuning in to haunted places, ghost stories. We will be back on Thursday with a new episode. You can find more episodes of ghost stories and all other originals from podcast for free on Spotify. See you on the other side. Haunted Places Ghost Stories is a Spotify original from podcast. It is executive produced by Max Cutler, Sound Design by Russell Nash with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Travis Clark. This episode of Haunted Places Ghost Stories was written by Lil DiRita and Jennifer Rachet with Writing Assistants by Greg Castro.

I'm Alastair Madden. Listeners, don't forget to check out our love story, the newest Spotify original from podcast every Tuesday, discover the many pathways to love as told by the actual couples who found them.

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