Shownotes Transcript
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Welcome to another edition of Nightmare Fuel, creeps and peepers. I'm Dan Cummins, and I'll be sharing another original short story of the fictional horror variety. Except this fictional story has a very interesting factual basis. Operation Wandering Soul and its accompanying ghost tape number 10 were all too real.
The audio you will hear today from Ghost Tape number 10 is the actual audio the U.S. government recorded for a now declassified PSYOP. I highly recommend noise cancellation headphones for the best experience. Hope you enjoy this new nightmare. Time now for the tale of Operation Wandering Soul. This is based on a true story. While the characters and specific events are fictional, the mission at the heart of the story and the beliefs surrounding it are not.
It was the middle of January, 1968. The war in Vietnam had entered a new and terrifying phase. In a remote portion of the enemy's mountains, Sai War Detachment 6, part of the U.S. military's shadowy MACVSOG command, was conducting black operations meant to terrify and break the spirits of the Viet Cong.
The small six-man team had pushed deep beyond their operations base, up more than 4,000 feet in the mountains, on a wet jungle ridge thick with cypress, bamboo, ferns, and other dense tropical foliage. They had hacked through miles and miles of an area often called the Amazon of Asia, full of strange and often dangerous animals, such as king cobras, horned pit vipers, Burmese pythons, tigers, leopards, and even packs of wild dogs.
After they had hunkered down hours after the sun had set, roughly 75 yards from the edge of a small village of no more than a dozen huts and 50 or 60 locals believed to be storing weapons for and supplying food to the Viet Cong, they were ready to test out their new covert psychological weapon. 23-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant Miguel Migs Ortiz, a PSYOP technician who handled loudspeaker ops, spoke quietly.
Hey, Sarge, loudspeaker's hot. Hope Charity likes ghost stories. Just say the word. The team leader of the battle-hardened and unflappable U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Carl Taylor, already on his second extended tour in-country, gave the go-ahead. Wake the dead, Migs. Let's see if this ghost shit actually works.
The eerie soundtrack of the rainforest at night, that unsettling cacophony of large insects, birds, reptiles, and other nocturnal predators, was about to be drowned out by the sounds of Ghost Tape No. 10, part of a classified operation called Wandering Soul. Ghost Tape No. 10 had been created back at the 4th Psychological Operation Group's headquarters in Saigon in late 1967.
by a team of U.S. military audio engineers who had worked with South Vietnamese soldiers, hired as voice actors for several weeks. And they had also possibly, if the rumors are true, hired men proficient in dark occult rituals. The tape was meant to sound like the recently awakened dead rising to the soundtrack of a funeral dirge. Included in the audio was Buddhist funeral music and other eerie sounds, in addition to the voice of a young girl saying, Come home, daddy.
and the ghostly voices of dead men warning anyone listening to go home and be reunited with your loved ones so that you could avoid the same tragic fate as they had suffered. According to some in recent years, this tape wasn't just meant to sound like the recently awakened dead. It was the sound of the recently awakened dead. Audio of actual tormented spirits.
The Americans had been playing this audio over loudspeakers from helicopters near Viet Cong and NVA positions at night for weeks, to try and prevent enemy soldiers from resting, to scare them out of their slumber, and, if the paranormal rumors are again true, to run them from their positions by literally raising the dead, at least in spirit form, dead who could possibly harm and even kill any stubborn soldiers refusing to flee.
Saiwar Detachment 6 was sent into the jungle to witness what happened from the ground when Ghost Tape No. 10 was played near a village, thought to be a Viet Cong stronghold and important resupply point. Like with most cultures, traditional Vietnamese beliefs include various rituals enacted to show proper respect for the dead. But Vietnamese culture places more importance upon these rituals in regards to the safety of the living than most. Tradition calls for proper burial.
And it is believed that if this does not occur, the soul of the deceased will now wander the earth, thus becoming a wandering soul, a ghost or spirit. And this wandering soul can be an angry spirit, unhappy with both how it died and how it was disrespected in death. It is believed it can bring both paranormal terror and real-world violence to the living.
Back in those mountains, in the dead of night, Miggs did as his team leader, Staff Sergeant Taylor commanded, and pushed play on the tape deck attached to a portable loudspeaker. Damn, Miggs. That's spooky as hell, muttered their RTO, Lance Corporal Rich Anderson, 21-year-old rifleman.
Lance had been in country for a little over three months. He'd been a part of two successful operations during that time and had even been in a few firefights and killed a couple of VC. But this was his first time working with PSYOPs, and it was definitely the first time he'd ever been part of anything like this. And he didn't like it one bit. 31-year-old ARVN interpreter and PSYWAR liaison, Sergeant Le Van Kwong, liked it even less.
He'd been wary of this mission from the very start and reluctant to go on it. He would have happily turned it down were there not concerns about his loyalty to the Americans in South Vietnam. He was afraid if he had said no that existing suspicions that he might be loyal to the Viet Cong due to where he was from and his previous membership in the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam when he was still a young school teacher would have been dangerously exacerbated.
He shook his head, closed his eyes, and whispered a small prayer in Vietnamese to the mother goddess, asking for protection from evil and angry spirits. If he hadn't been afraid of the judgment he would have received from his American team members, he would have also offered up a small tribute to any recent dead in the village. My lord, I don't care for that one bit, whispered 25-year-old Corporal David Doc Parsons uncomfortably. Doc was the team's second Marine and medic.
A devout Baptist and fiercely patriotic young man who was on his way to becoming a doctor back in Missoula, Montana, before he felt morally obligated to help America's efforts in stopping the spread of communism, he had a strong belief in and respect for the spiritual world. This doesn't feel right, he muttered. Feels like we're messing with forces we don't understand. Shit, scoffed 22-year-old private first-class Eli Big Dog DeWitt, the group's machine gunner. Charlie got you questioning your beliefs, Doc?
Eli had a tough exterior, but was probably the softest member of the crew underneath it. He'd only been in country for six weeks, and unlike the rest of the crew, he'd never wanted to go to Vietnam. He'd been drafted. He missed his dog and his grandma back in Michigan, the woman who had raised him fiercely. As opposed to a few of his teammates, he had no moral qualms or concerns of any kind over playing the ghost tape, however. No part of him believed in ghosts or in anything of that sort. No, Doc answered him quietly.
Lord works in ways we don't always understand, and so does the devil. You knew what you were getting into, Doc, Staff Sergeant Carl Taylor stated flatly. Stay strong, Corporal. The point is to scare Charlie, not ourselves. Before Doc could respond, or anyone else could add anything more, the team heard a man shouting in what the Americans assumed was Vietnamese. But Sergeant Le Van Quang immediately recognized it as Thai. Big Dog was the first to spot the man. Sarge, we got movement at two o'clock. One tango coming in hot.
Every other member of Cy Ward Attachment 6 now quickly also saw him. A young Asian man between the ages of 25 and 30 running towards them, waving his arms and repeatedly shouting something they couldn't understand. By the time Staff Sergeant Taylor spoke next, this man was less than 60 yards away. The fuck is he saying, Kwong? I don't know, Sarge. He speaks Thai, Kwong said. The audio they were playing had already been making him wildly uncomfortable, and now he's feeling more unsettled.
The ghost tape was wrong, and not just in the way that it was scaring the villagers. It felt real, evil, and he wondered if the man coming towards them was possibly trying to get them to stop playing it. Find out if he speaks Vietnamese, now! Tell him to stop running before we stop him, Taylor commanded. While Big Dog put him in the sights of his M60 machine gun, Sergeant Quong yelled out in Vietnamese for the man to stop running and hold his hands up.
But he didn't. The man didn't understand what he was saying. He just kept running and waving his arms frantically and yelling loudly and urgently. He was now only 45 yards out, moving fast and showing no signs of slowing down. 40 yards out. 35. After a few tense moments while several members of the team stared at him and awaited their next move, Staff Sergeant Taylor spoke firmly to his gunner without taking his eyes off the running man. Light him up, big dog. Yes, sir, replied Eli Cooley.
and then he pulled the trigger and unleashed the hot hell that was the m60 762 nato slugs in a short burst of not much longer than a second private dewitt sent 10 scorching rounds into the man's upper torso sending him airborne his legs kicking out as his body snapped backwards mid-stride landing hard on his back he was dead by the time he was on the ground the team now heard screams and wails from the village the man had run towards him from
Staff Sergeant Taylor, worried that other possible VC could be approaching, yelled out the following order. Migs, kill the tape. Now. Everybody, eyes out. Quiet. Staff Sergeant Taylor's jaw clenched as he scanned the village in front of his team and listened to the continued screaming carrying across the heavy night air.
The light from various oil lamps could now be seen from inside the simple jungle homes on stilts, constructed out of woven bamboo panels and wooden planks with simple curtains in place of doors, and either tin or thatched roofs woven together from dried palm leaves. Shadowy figures, hopefully peaceful villagers and not NVA or VC combatants, could be seen milling about, afraid and curious about both the source of the ghost tape and the lethal gunfire they had just heard.
Taylor motioned with his left hand, swept it forward, and then barked. All right, on me. We're going in. Big Doc, take point. Kwong, with me. Anderson, watch our six. Doc, you help Migs bring the audio. Let's move, quiet and tight. The six-man team moved like ghosts through the dripping underbrush, boots sinking into the soft jungle loam. As they approached the village, they saw almost no other young men like the one they'd just killed. They'd all likely already been lost to the war or off somewhere else fighting.
Women, old and young, clutched small children. Most of the older men stood silently, wide-eyed, whispering or sometimes shouting at one another in their foreign tongues. They all Thai, Quang muttered to Taylor, scanning the villagers' faces. Lao Thai, ethnic minority group, not Vietnamese. They won't understand us. As Taylor and his men, weapons still drawn, stealthily walked out from the shadows of the jungle and into the village, he growled under his breath and frustration, then raised his voice and called out,
"'Anyone here speak Vietnamese?' "'Vietnamese!' he quickly repeated. "'Anyone speak it!' There was no response, only frightened stares and murmurs in a language none of the Americans recognized. But then one man stepped forward, a wiry elder who looked like he was in his late sixties, bare-chested but wearing a necklace strung with tiny animal bones. His eyes were sharp but wary. He spoke slowly, in stilted Vietnamese to Quang. Quang listened and frowned. Then he turned to Taylor and said...
He say man we shot tried to warn us. He knew what he hear. It was recording. Recording of ghosts. He say, this place haunted already. Many have died on mountain. Too many. Dead here, not at peace. Not good to wake them. Taylor scoffed and shook his head. Shit. Well, that ghost recording works better than I thought it would. They didn't flee, but it sure as hell rattled him.
Before Kuang could respond, while the rest of the team continued to scan the villagers and the jungle that now lay behind them for any sign of someone intending them harm, an elderly woman pushed through the villagers, her silver-streaked hair swinging loose around her shoulders and her eyes wild with fury. She pointed at the Americans and began shouting in Thai, angry, guttural words that came out sharp like a series of slaps.
The old man tried to calm her down, but she wouldn't be silenced. Her eyes welled with tears, and her voice cracked with grief and rage. "'What's she saying?' Taylor asked. "'Kwong?' "'I don't know, Sarge. She speaks Thai,' he responded. "'You!' Taylor barked as he angrily pointed with his left hand at the older man who had spoken earlier with his translator. He continued to hold his CAR-15 with its short barrel and oversized flash depressor in his right. "'What's she saying?' Kwong translated Taylor's question."
"'Kwong and the old man then went back and forth "'in an exchange that sounded increasingly heated "'while the old woman continued to yell at all of them. "'The tension was building to a level "'that felt increasingly dangerous. "'It felt like at any second, words would turn into shots "'and there would be a bloodbath. "'Kwong, the fuck is she saying?' Taylor yelled. "'The interpreter hesitated "'before reluctantly telling his team leader "'that the man was refusing to translate her exact words. "'He just kept saying that the spirit of the man they killed "'would soon have his revenge.'
I don't like this revenge talk one fucking bit, Sarge, said Miggs, nervously twisting back and forth and training his CAR-15 on various villagers in front of him. It looked like his trigger finger was getting real itchy. Stay calm, Miggs. Don't be stupid, said Corporal Parsons gently. Shut the fuck up, Doc, Miggs snapped. I don't need your soft-ass bullshit getting me killed. Quiet, Staff Sergeant Taylor commanded. Easy, Miggs. Fingers off triggers, boys. Nobody shoots unless I call it.
Taylor then approached the old man who spoke Vietnamese and placed the end of the barrel of his Kar-15 against the man's forehead, just above and between his eyes, before he shouted, "'Kwong, you tell this motherfucker he has one more chance to tell us what that old bitch was saying before this village has more bodies to bury!' "'Yes, sir!' Sergeant Le Van Kwong answered quickly, successfully able to hide his indignant anger over how the Americans so often casually threatened the lives of his countrymen in ways that would outrage them if it was their own people.
He spoke sternly to the old man Vietnamese over the growing din of murmurs and curses from villagers, who were both afraid of being shot, but also outraged that one of the Americans was now threatening a respected elder, especially after what they'd done. When the man scowled and started to speak, Quang interrupted him and made it clear to him that if he wasn't very careful, he was going to get his entire village killed. The old man paused, then through gritted teeth spoke slowly and deliberately.
"'Kwong seemed a bit shook by what he said "'and asked him if he was positive "'that that was what the old woman "'who was still cursing the soldiers had told him. "'The man nodded. "'The fuck is it, Kwong?' Taylor yelled. "'I'm losing patience. "'Getting real goddamn close to any of this motherfucker.' "'She said,' Kwong spoke solemnly, "'the man we kill was her son "'if we do not bury him properly. "'Now, tonight, his spirit will return as Fee Tai Hong.'"
While still holding his rifle to the old man's head, Taylor fixed his gaze on his translator and asked, ''Pi-tai what?'' ''A vengeful ghost,'' said Kwong seriously. ''Restless, hungry, the dead who die cruel sudden death. They come back for living, especially those who mock the dead.'' A moment of uneasy silence passed between the men of Psywar Detachment 6. Migs shifted uncomfortably and muttered, ''That's some real old world shit, Sarge.''
Private First Class DeWitt, Big Dog, laughed. Man, get the fuck out of here. I thought we actually had something to worry about for a second. Taylor's eyes narrowed. He lowered his weapon and stepped back two paces away from the man he'd just nearly killed. His voice was hard when he spoke next to Kwong. Tell the old man to tell the woman that we never wanted to kill her son, that we're sorry, and that she can bury him first thing in the morning. Kwong did as he was instructed. The old man then spoke to the woman who started laughing through her tears before she hissed something at Taylor in her native tongue.
The fuck she say now? Taylor asked Quong. He didn't like the way she was looking at him. After going back and forth with the elder who spoke Vietnamese again, Quong, who was looking more and more frightened, told his team leader. He said she say that she decides she will not bury San until he come back and kill us all. Taylor matched her gaze, not looking rattled in the slightest. He then turned and said to Quong, she can think whatever she wants. I don't give a shit. If all we have to worry about tonight is her son's ghost, then we have nothing to worry about.
Staff Sergeant Taylor was not a superstitious man, never had been. And yet, in that moment, he felt a bit nervous. He told himself there couldn't be any truth to the old woman's crazy words. And yet, not all of him accepted that. He'd felt a bit rattled in a way he would have struggled to explain ever since the first time he'd heard ghost tape number 10. It didn't just rattle the villagers. He hated to admit it, even if it was just to himself, but it rattled him as well.
Taylor now instructed his men that they were going to divide up into three pairs for the night and sleep in the village. He and Kwong, Big Dog and Doc, and Miggs and Lance Corporal Anderson. Each pair would sleep in a different villager's hut, along with several of the villagers themselves, to reduce the risk that anyone would try to shoot them up in the night, and to make it harder, if any fighting were to break out, for a small band of insurgents to kill them all at once.
One man in each group would stay up and keep watch for the first few hours while the others slept. Then they'd switch a couple hours before dawn. They'd leave during the day when they were less likely to be ambushed or to walk into some sort of booby trap or step onto a VC landmine. Big Dog joked that splitting up would also make it harder for the man's ghost to find them all. And Taylor laughed. But inside, he was surprised by how little he found the remark funny.
In especially dark night, the stars, frequently unable to be seen to the passing and scattered clouds overhead, cloaked a village in a velvet blackness, broken only by the flicker of a few cooking fires still glowing low beneath some of the huts. Inside these huts, the shadows deepened. The bamboo floors creaked under any shift of weight, sounding alive with the subtle groans of structures built by hand and aging quickly in the oppressively humid jungle.
The air, while still uncomfortably warm, was thankfully much cooler than it had been in the sweltering valley below. The faint coppery tang of blood from a butchered chicken mingled with the comforting scent of wood smoke and boiled rice hung in the air. A few oil lamps flickered weakly, their flames wavered in the draft that slipped to the slats in the walls, casting long, uneasy silhouettes of the men resting with rifles within reach.
Outside, the jungle spoke in murmurs, the chirr of insects, the sudden whoop of a gibbon far off, and the occasional rustle of something moving unseen to the underbrush. Somewhere in the dark, a baby cried, and an old woman murmured a lullaby in Thai, her voice low and melodic, almost drowned out by the rhythm of thunder rolling in over the enemy's peaks.
Marine Staff Sergeant Carl Taylor and his ARVN Cywar liaison and interpreter, Sergeant Le Van Quang, stayed in the home of the elder, the man who spoke Vietnamese in addition to Thai. The interior of the man and his family's hut was dim, lit only by a single small clay oil lamp hanging in the corner closest to the blanket that passed for a door, next to a battered tin basin and a chipped ceramic bowl.
The air was thick, with the earthly scent of damp wood, old smoke and something slightly sweet. Fermented rice, perhaps. Or drying herbs hanging from the rafters. A handful of raised platforms made of uneven bamboo poles stretched along the wall furthest from the entrance. Covered with worn straw mats, their edges curling. Above them a sagging mosquito net was bundled and tied off to the roof's low crossbeam. It cast faint shadows that danced with the shifting breeze.
From outside came the soft rustle of leaves and the wind, the constant chorus of cicadas and tree-frogs, and the distant cry of a tokay gecko over the start of a new drumming of rain on the thatched roof as the thunderstorm rolled in above them. Staff Sergeant Taylor and Sergeant Quong both puffed on freshly lit cigarettes as the old man, laying on his sleeping platform, quietly watched them, as did his wife and daughter. His granddaughter slept in another nearby hut,
Taylor had made it clear that none of his men would be sleeping in homes with any young children who couldn't be kept quiet throughout the night. In addition to making it harder for them to sleep, their cries would potentially mask the noise of any enemy soldiers approaching. Kwong had seemed especially nervous and rattled ever since he'd heard the old woman's claims about her son's ghost coming for them. Now Taylor asked him directly, "'You worried about that man's ghost coming for us?'
"'Quan took a contemplative pause and a long drag of his cigarette "'before he answered Taylor's question with one of his own. "'You do not believe in ghosts?' "'Taylor shook his head as he began to answer. "'No. I worry about the living. "'I'm more worried about that man's mother coming for revenge "'than I am about his spirit.' "'But,' he thought to himself, "'he was a bit worried about the ghost as well, wasn't he? "'If he wasn't, why had he asked Quan about it? "'He could tell himself he was just making conversation, "'but he knew there was more to it than that.'
Quong nodded before he asked another question. You never see a ghost? Taylor took another drag as he thought it over. No, he said truthfully. Never. My sister and I thought we heard a ghost in the attic of our house growing up. We got good and scared. But then Dad went up there and found our spirit. It was nothing more than a neighborhood cat. What about you? You ever seen a ghost? Yes, Quong said confidently and without hesitation. Many times. My father died when I was young, but he'd come back many times.
"'Everyone I know has seen ghosts.' "'Hmm,' Taylor mused. "'I don't think I know anyone back home who are as convinced as you that they've seen a ghost. "'Why is that? Why would there be so many ghosts over here, but not back home in America?' "'Kwong looked up and thought for a while about Taylor's question as he continued to smoke. "'Finally,' he said, "'maybe land here more spiritual. "'Maybe you have to believe. "'Maybe spirit must feed on belief to return.'
"Or maybe it's just a bunch of bullshit superstition," Taylor said dismissively. Before he added, "You never answered my original question. Do you believe what the old woman said about her son? That he could come back as a... as a what did he call it? 'Fee-tai-hong,'" Kwong answered. "A vengeful spirit." And then he looked almost embarrassed. It was hard to make out his exact expression in the low light when he said, "Yes. Yes, I believe in fee-tai-hong. I grew up next to Thai family. Have heard of this spirit many times before.
I do not know if he'd come back, but I believe he can. Taylor nodded and blew out some smoke. He was still trying to convince himself that this was all just a bunch of nonsense. But true or not, he was curious. So he asked, So what is this? This Fi Tai Hong. Huang proceeded to tell him that, according to oral Thai tradition, Fi Tai Hong are especially dangerous and aggressive spirits, the most feared ghosts in Thai culture, because, due to their sudden death,
They're stuck in a state of shock. They can't accept that, in a moment's time, their life was stolen from them, and they were rendered no longer able to fulfill the dreams and desires they had while living. They simply cannot comprehend how they could no longer be alive. They're lost in feelings of disbelief, rage, and sorrow. And then all of these emotions are manifested into the form of a very vengeful ghost. Kwong explained as he finished his cigarette.
that the first seven days following the person's death is when their spirit is most actively seeking revenge and that the living are advised to avoid the area where they had died. Fi Tai Hong will often try to kill the living, ideally the person or persons responsible for their deaths. After finishing his explanation, Kuang told Taylor, who looked more nervous than he was willing to admit, that if he would like to get some sleep, he should, that he himself would not be able to sleep at all that night.
When Taylor asked him if that was because he was genuinely scared, he did not hesitate to answer yes. And then he asked if it would be all right if he quietly mouthed prayers to both the Christian god he learned of in Catholic school and the mother goddess he had learned to worship at home from his parents. He wanted to ask both for protection from evil. Taylor told him that would be fine before he finished smoking and laid his head down on his thin reed sleeping mat for the night.
He rolled up his jungle blouse to use as a pillow, the fabric still warm from his body and faintly reeking of sweat, mildew, and the faint metallic tang of CLP gun oil. As he listened to Quong quietly whispering prayers in Vietnamese, he was surprised by how comforting he found that.
He was also surprised by how much trouble he had falling asleep, continually telling himself he wasn't afraid, but unable to stop imagining what horrible form the Fi Tai Hong's vengeance might take.
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The air inside the hut machine gunner, Private First Class Eli Big Dog DeWitt, and Marine and Team Medic Corporal David Doc Parsons found themselves in was thick, warm, wet, and heavy, with a musky scent of old smoke, dried fish, and earth. A bit of dim moonlight snuck through a gap in the storm clouds overhead and pushed thin silver fingers through the woven slats of the thatched roof. It cast a patchwork of lines across the bamboo floor.
"'Two elderly women, an elderly man, and a teenage girl slept, "'or at least pretended to sleep, on the other side of the building's only room. "'Big Dog lay on his side on a woven mat, his head propped against his rucksack, "'and his arms crossed over his chest.'
His M60 leaned within arm's reach against the wall. Across from him, Doc, who agreed to take first watch, sat upright, his back against one of the bamboo supports, his fingers idly turning his silver crucifix between his thumb and forefinger over and over. The two men didn't speak for a long while. Only the jungle did. Its clicks, chirps, and distant howls never ceased.
Its steady rhythm only occasionally interrupted by the thump of something heavy shifting in the dark just beyond the hut's walls. Finally, Big Dog exhaled deeply through his nose, frustrated he couldn't sleep. His mind wouldn't stop rolling over what he'd heard about the Fee-Tie Hong, and as much as he hated to admit it, he'd felt a bit off ever since they'd first played that damn ghost tape. "'You think that old man meant what he said?' he asked quietly, staring up at the ceiling. "'About the guy coming back, that Fee-Tie whatever?'
Doc responded quietly, thoughtfully. The Fee Tai Hong? Yeah, I do. That's what he said. Angry dead. Violent. Restless. Died sudden or cruel. Unburied. He fidgeted his crucifix around a bit faster, intermittently squeezing it tightly as he spoke. Big Dog tapped his fingers against his bicep as he listened, before he turned his head to peer in Doc's direction in the darkness when he spoke next. We lit that poor bastard up with ten rounds. Didn't even know what he was saying. Damn. Damn.
I've never been one to believe in ghosts, but that sounds like textbook shit for a haunting to me. Could be, mused Doc. Then he paused, stopped fidgeting his crucifix and really squeezed it tight again before he turned to Big Dog and asked, you believe in the devil? Eli took his time before he answered. He wasn't sure if he did or didn't. Finally, he said, yeah, I think so. Grandma sure believes in him. And that woman ain't never missed church once. I don't think. I've always struggled when it comes to believing and all, but I do believe in grandma.
and she sure do believe in the devil. So he paused again in contemplation before he finished. Yeah, yeah, I guess I do. Doc nodded and returned to turning his silver crucifix over between his thumb and forefinger. As he said, you believe in evil. And if there's evil, there's spirits. I think the places hold on to things. People too. Well, you might think I'm crazy, but I think there's something wrong with that tape we played.
Sarge says it's just psyops, just a tape full of superstition and some jungle tricks, but I swear, since we first played that thing, since before we killed that man, I haven't felt alone. Not even now. "Shit, Doc. That's some spooky shit," Big Dog said before he clenched his jaw, composed himself, and added with a heavy conscience, "We didn't kill that man, though. I did. You were just following orders, Eli," Doc said. He tried, but didn't quite succeed in sounding convincing.
He was about to say something else when Big Dog spoke again in a hushed and nervous tone. You feel that? He asked. He suddenly curled up into a seated position and looked around the hut with his eyes narrowed. Yeah, Doc said anxiously, as he too looked around the room. But then whatever they felt, a slight shift in temperature and air pressure, a sensation of feeling watched. It passed. Big Dog swallowed hard, then joked weakly. That guy's spirit does come back. I hope he goes for Taylor first. Weren't my idea to light his ass up.
Doc looked at him seriously and spoke calmly when he said, "'We're all on the hook, Eli. We're all in this together. I don't think this place cares who pulled the trigger.'" Big Dog squinted his eyes to get a better look at Doc in the darkness. He could see, even in the low light, that his teammates' eyes were distant, that he was lost in a thousand-yard stare. After a quiet beat, Big Dog spoke again. "'Damn, Doc. Thought you were trying to cheer me up for a moment. I was just hoping to get some sleep tonight.' So was he."
Doc said with unmistakable notes of sorry and regret in his voice. Big Dog grimaced and said, You're real comfort, you know that? Just trying to tell the truth. Doc replied before the two men lapsed back into an uncomfortable silence. Outside, the jungle's lullaby rolled on behind the rain with clicks, hoots, and strange unsettling shrieks that rose and fell like breathing. For the next several minutes, Big Dog was desperate to get some rest, but he couldn't.
He gave up, crossed his arms behind his head, opened his eyes, and stared at the roof. Doc continued to sit and stare towards the door, lost in thoughts of home, and also worried about what he might see before the night was over. In a low, frustrated voice, Big Dog complained, "'Goddamn humidity makes it feel like my piss is gonna steam.' Doc smiled, maybe for the first time since he'd set up the loudspeaker to blast that evil PSYOP audio hours earlier, before he said, "'Too much information, brother.'
Big Dog smiled too, but he had to force it. He really didn't want to go outside. Not alone. He couldn't stop thinking about that strange moment he and Doc had shared just a few minutes before. That feeling of being watched. And when he wondered what might have been watching him, his mind couldn't stop returning to thoughts of the Fee Tai Hong. But he wasn't so scared that he was willing to piss himself. I'll be back in a minute, he said as he quietly rose to his feet. If I ain't, don't wait up.
He chuckled softly, again trying to force himself to feel better than he did. And then he grabbed his .45 caliber Colt M1911 and flashlight before he slid out of the hut's low doorway and into the night. Big Dog stepped down off the hut's raised bamboo platform and onto the wet grass of the jungle that seemed almost too quiet now, like it was holding its breath, after he looked around to make sure no other villagers, or anyone else, was watching him.
He walked a few yards to the edge of the village, unzipped, and glanced around nervously before he decided to leave his flashlight off. He didn't want to make himself an easy target. Behind the tree line, black mountains loomed above him. Tendrils of mist wove to and fro, through and just over the trees. And then he felt it again, that off feeling from before. And this time it was accompanied by a scent, the smell of soil and rot.
He finished pissing, exhaled, turned back, and froze. Something moved between two trees in the distance. Or maybe not? Before he yelled and woke up the whole damn village, he squinted and drew his pistol, pointing it out into the darkness. "'Ain't nothin'," he whispered tightly. "'Just a bat or somethin'." And then slowly, he began to walk back towards the hut. Meanwhile, Doc stared at the doorway. Something felt wrong. It was too quiet outside.
He could tell Eli had been a little shaken when he'd left, and that he hadn't really wanted to step out, even just to take a piss. There was no way he would have ventured very far. Doc assumed he'd probably only walked ten or so yards from the door. Doc had also thought he might have heard him pissing. It was hard to tell with the rain. He'd also thought that maybe he'd heard him zip back up. But since then, nothing. No sound of boots squishing into the mud. No whispered curses. No snarky, Miss me? as he walked back into the hut.
After he waited a few more moments, Doc couldn't handle the suspense any longer. He grabbed his own sidearm, strapped on his helmet, and, after he kissed his crucifix, walked out of the hut as quietly as the creaky bamboo floor would allow. By the time Doc stepped outside, the mist Big Doc had seen on the mountainside above had come down and encircled the village and thickened.
Doc scanned the area around the hut he'd been in as best he could with his flashlight off. Before he crept around the side of the hut, his eyes thankfully already adjusted to the dark about as much as they could be. Then he saw movement. He saw the figure of a man who staggered towards him from just inside the mist at the tree line, barely visible in the dim starlight of the rainy, cloudy night. Eli? Big Dog? He softly called out. When there was no answer, he raised his gun and pointed it at the figure lurching closer at a low shuffle.
"'Big Dog!' he quietly called out again, his finger now dancing just above the trigger. Then, thankfully, the shape emerged fully from the mist, and it was indeed his gunner. Private First Class Eli Big Dog DeWitt, but he was covered in blood. His shirt was soaked, dark red glistening across his chest, multiple holes torn through the fabric, his jaw hung slack, his eyes were wide and vacant.'
How? Doc wondered, his mind reeling. He'd heard no gunfire, no screams, no warning at all that something like this had happened, and there didn't seem to be anyone else around. Jesus, Eli, Doc said breathlessly before he rushed forward, half panicked and half reached for his friend. What the hell happened? He asked. Say something.
Big Dog's mouth opened, but nothing came out but blood. He swayed. Then he collapsed onto Doc, literal dead weight. As Doc struggled to ease Big Dog down onto the ground, right before he could call out for help, a sharp burst of pain ripped through Doc's neck. His hands shot up and gasped at something buried in the side of his throat. A long, jagged piece of sharpened bamboo. Blood poured down his collar, hot and fast.
Doc stumbled forward, choking, gasping, unable to make a noise loud enough to alert the other members of Psy Ward Attachment 6. And then he dropped to his knees. He twisted and turned to look behind him and saw it. The Fee Tai Hong.
A man-shaped shadow, soaked and shining with mud and blood. Its face was a blur of fury, eyes like coals, mouth wide open in a scream that made no sound, fingers gnarled and blackened, skin slick with premature rot. The holes in its chest from the bullets its body took earlier still impossibly bleeding. It was the man Taylor had shot, but now twisted and wrong, and hungry.
Doc thought to fire his pistol, but the thing lunged and drove him onto his back while it silently snarled. It tore the bamboo stake free from Doc's neck and then rammed it into his gut. His breath came now in wet gasps. The monster, the Fee Tai Hong, stared silently down as it stood above him. Beyond it, Doc saw a few stars peek out from behind the moving clouds overhead. And then he didn't. Staff Sergeant Carl Taylor had fallen into a light, uneasy sleep.
and almost immediately he had started dreaming. He dreamt of things he wouldn't remember when he woke, the man trying to warn them whom he'd ordered to kill, the Phi Tai Hong, the strange way that ghost tape number 10 had made him feel. Sergeant Le Van Quang sat awake a few feet from him. He continued to quietly pray to both the Christian God and the God of his ancestors for protection, but he worried it would not be enough.
He listened to the rain and the noises of the jungle around him, hoping that if something horrible began, he'd be able to hear a warning. A few moments earlier, he thought he'd heard someone outside speaking English, one of his teammates. He was tempted to go out and check, but they hadn't shouted or otherwise sounded to him like they were in distress. Still, he worried that something bad had already begun to happen, something even worse than what his team had done when they'd killed an innocent man.
Across the room, the old man he'd spoken with earlier was sitting up on his sleeping mat. He was eerily silent. He stared at Kwong as if he could sense he was worried and knew what he was worried about, and he smiled. In another nearby hut, the steady hiss of jungle insects poured in through thin walls like static on a busted radio.
The low glow of a single low-burning oil lamp cast a sickly light over the two men seated on an end of the hut opposite that of an elderly couple and another old woman who seemed to be sleeping. Sergeant Miguel Miggs Ortiz sat cross-legged near the wall, tinkering silently with a bulky loudspeaker rig. Lance Corporal Rich Anderson lay on his back, head propped up on his rolled-up field jacket, his rifle resting across his chest.
Neither had said much since the screaming had died down in the village an hour or so earlier, before Taylor had divided them up and given them their assignments for the rest of the night. The relative silence around them felt loud now, pressurized. Anderson, unable to sleep, finally spoke in a whisper. You think that old lady really meant what she said? Miggs didn't bother looking up when he answered. About the guy we shot coming back from the dead? Turned into some angry jungle ghost? He gave a hollow chuckle, but there wasn't any humor in it.
"'I don't know, man. She looked serious. Real serious.' Anderson shifted uncomfortably before he spoke again. "'She looked pissed. I mean, how could she not be? We killed her damn son. Shit like that makes me wonder sometimes if we're the good guys or the bad guys. And that elder, I don't think he translated everything she was really saying.' Migs set the speaker down with a soft clack and leaned back against the wall. "'Shit, I don't know, man,' he said wearily. "'This whole night has felt off, you know?'
Shit, this whole operation has felt off. And you know the worst part? He asked, his eyes distant. What? Anderson responded. Migs spoke gravely. I've listened to ghost tape number 10 like 10, 12 times. Had to back at the fire base. Testing the volume, checking for playback issues. He rubbed his face. His fingers lingered at his eyes. By the third or fourth time, I started feeling weird. Not like scared exactly.
but like it was sticking to me. Like something in that audio just wasn't audio. Like it got in me or something." Anderson frowned and furrowed his brow. "Jesus." Migs stared at the speaker box. "You ever notice that part where it sounds like someone whispering behind their voices, real low, under the chanting?" Anderson nodded. Migs leaned forward. "I swear to God, one time I heard it say my name."
The two men sat there silent again. Anderson didn't know how to respond. He hadn't liked the tape either, but he hadn't thought there was anything necessarily wrong with it. He thought it did what it was built to do, make him feel uncomfortable. Then both men heard the soft crunch of footsteps outside. Not an animal. Steady. Bipedal. Migs sat up straighter, grabbed his rifle and asked, You hear that? Anderson was already sitting up and reaching for his weapon by the time Migs finished his question. Yeah, shit. Probably a villager not listening to Sarge's order.
Staff Sergeant Taylor had ordered everyone to stay inside until dawn. Miggs now cautiously stepped over to the flap that served as a door and told Anderson, I'll check it. Stay put. He then stepped outside into the deep, heavy blackness of the jungle night. The oil lamp from inside the hut barely spilled light outside the door. The village was dead quiet. Nothing but the hum of bugs and the far-off soft squeal of some nocturnal creature. Miggs whispered sharply, Whoever's out here, you're supposed to be inside.
He said as if anyone could understand him. Go back to your... And then his words broke off with a sharp gasp. Inside, Anderson stood up. Mix! He hissed. No reply. Just the buzz of insects. Anderson, carrying his M16, walked over to the doorway, paused to listen for movement, heard nothing, and then stepped outside. His eyes intensely scanned his surroundings. Mix! He whispered. Still nothing.
He moved forward cautiously, wanting to take his flashlight and turn it on, but not wanting to take either hand off of his rifle. And then he saw something. A man-sized shape, slumped near a well at the edge of the huts. "'Migs!' he whispered harshly, creeping toward the well and wondering how he could have gotten over there so quickly and quietly. "'Come on, man, answer me!' he spat, eyes locked on the slumped figure. He wanted to yell out for his teammates, but he also didn't want to give away his position if the enemy was near.'
But if that enemy is the Fee Tai Hong, his mind worried, will it even matter who tries to save you? Anderson froze when he got close enough to really see what he'd been looking at. Miggs was leaning against the stone lip of the well as if he was peering down in it to see what was inside. He was slack-jawed, his arms hanging down beneath him like broken branches. His body was upright, but only because a long, sharpened bamboo stake had been driven up through his mouth and out the top of his skull, pinning him there like a grotesque scarecrow.
His eyes were still wide open, glassy with shock. Anderson dropped to a crouch and felt panic choking him. When he'd recovered enough to think again, he turned to run, but something was standing right behind him. Its body was twisted and bruised and full of bullet holes, dark with dried blood. Its mouth hung unnaturally wide, jaw cracked open too far. Its eyes were empty, dead, and yet somehow, watching, the feet I hung lunged.
Anderson almost managed a single scream before its fingernails turned into claws thanks to its unnatural transformation. Jagged and splintered like cracked bamboo, they ripped across his throat and sprayed hot blood into the night. His scream never left his mouth. It had died just before he did. Only two members of Cy Ward Detachment 6 remained, one being the man who had given the order to shoot down the villager, who was now a monster.
Sergeant Kwong just faintly heard over the rain and whirring of insects and other jungle noises what sounded to him like a man running, as Staff Sergeant Taylor continued to slumber near him. A few moments later, Kwong heard what sounded like whoever had been running fall to the ground. His mind went to the Fee Tai Hong. He worried that the sounds he had just heard outside were connected to it, that the man they had killed had truly turned into a vengeful spirit like his mother had warned.
His stomach had felt sick even before he'd heard the movement outside. It had felt like a blanket of dread had been settling onto the village as the night deepened. He didn't want to. He wanted to stay inside until the morning light. But he knew he needed to go check out what he'd heard. He also knew he needed to do it quietly.
Sergeant Taylor would want him to wake him, but if whoever was outside was a villager who had defied Taylor's orders to stay inside until dawn, he worried there could be a confrontation, and that it could escalate into another innocent villager, or perhaps several, also ending up dead. It would be best to head out alone. He grabbed his rifle and slowly rose to his feet as he continued to whisper his barely audible prayers. His light weight and soft step helped minimize the groans and creaks of the bamboo floor as he slowly made his way to the opening.
Before he stepped outside, he looked back and saw that Taylor was still lightly sleeping. He also looked over and saw that the old man who spoke Vietnamese was still watching him, and still smiling that knowing smile he didn't care for one bit. Quang stepped down off of the hut's raised bamboo platform and onto the wet grass of the jungle. He looked around as far as he could see in every direction, and saw nothing. He didn't hear much either.
Suddenly the jungle beyond the huts had fallen strangely still. No frogs, no cicadas, just a distant hiss of wind threading through bamboo stalks. The light falling of rain from the storm that was now weakening and the echo of something ancient pressing in from the dark. He padded past the fire pit and toward the well. The moon broke through the thinning clouds and hung high and pale, its glow catching in the mist that now crept low inside the village along the ground.
He circled near his hut, scanning the tree line. Nothing. But then he saw it. The figure stood at the edge of the clearing, just where the jungle began again. It was the man they'd shot. Or what was left of him. He was now both shadowy and bloodstained. His mouth opened wide and trapped in a scream. His eyes were black. No whites, no irises, just deep, circular pools of void. His arms too long and too crooked. His hands turned into claws with gnarled fingers and blackened skin.
the feetai hong kuang froze he didn't bother to raise his weapon he knew it would be useless his breath trembled in his throat as the spirit stared at him with his dead soulless eyes and then it tilted its head just slightly as if considering him he expected pain he expected death but neither came instead from behind him a woman's voice spoke quietly in vietnamese you should not be here
Quang spun around. It was the old woman, the mother. She could speak his native tongue, after all. She stood only a few feet away, her thin frame cloaked in a shawl, face creased with sorrow and fury in equal measure, her eyes burned with knowing. He knows you, knows you did not want this, she said in Vietnamese, slow and careful. You, you are from this land. You honor our ways. You respect the old ones. She looked past him toward the spirit, and her voice thickened.
But he is full of rage. A spirit of hot blood. You must go. Now. Before his fury forgets who you are. Kuang's lips parted, his throat dry. And the others? He asked softly. She shook her head. This is not your fight. You still have a chance. Behind him, the Phi Tai Hong had moved. But he could feel it, like a furnace burning behind his back. Run, child of Vietnam, she said. Run now. Kuang did.
He turned and sprinted out into the darkness of the jungle, leaves slapping his arms, branches hitting his face. The nightly noise of the jungle had returned. It was behind him where the silence of the village now hung heavy. He paused and turned to look back. The feet I hung watched him, but didn't chase. But he knew in his bones, if he didn't start to run again, it would. So he turned and fled, and he wouldn't stop moving until the dawn.
Staff Sergeant Carl Taylor snapped awake with a gasp, heart jackhammering in his chest. A not-so-thin layer of dirty sweat clung to his skin. His shirt was soaked. His dream, no, his nightmare, still clung to him like a wet shroud. Black eyes, blood pouring from multiple holes. A bamboo stake dripping with fresh blood. A face staring back at him from the shadows, not quite dead, not quite alive. He sat up fast, hand instinctively going to the Car 15 beside him.
Then he noticed he was alone. "'Kwong!' he rasped. No answer. He stood, grabbing his rifle and stepping towards the door of the hut. "'Kwong!' he barked louder this time. "'Sound off!' The old man, the village elder who spoke some Vietnamese, stared at him from his seated position on his cot across the room and smiled, his face wrinkled with amusement. He muttered something in Vietnamese and let out a dry laugh. Taylor pointed his rifle at him. "'Where is he? Where's my team?'
The old man didn't answer in English. He just stared at Taylor and spoke now in Thai, saying in a low, eerie tone, "'Your ghosts are already walking. You will join them soon.'" Taylor didn't need a translator to understand there was something chilling behind his words.
He strode quickly towards and then out of the hut's opening, rifle drawn and pointed wherever he stared. Out in the night, he moved toward the center of the village, yelling now, his voice cracking, full of both fury and fear. "'Anderson! Big Dog! Doc! Migs! On me! Now! Weapons hot!' He was answered first by silence, and then by the rustle of villagers waking, stepping out of their huts, their oil lamps glowing like floating eyes in the mist.'
More and more of them came outside, whispering to one another in hushed tie as Taylor twisted back and forth, leveling his rifle towards them as he shouted, ''Get back inside! Go on! Back in your goddamn huts!'' But his voice sounded small now, weak. They didn't move. They just stared. But the jungle, the jungle screamed. A distorted high-pitched wail tore through the village, ghost tape number 10, blasting again from MIG's loudspeaker.
The cries of the damned, twisted Vietnamese voices, shrieks layered over groaning tones of death and loss drowned out the nightly noises of the jungle. Taylor, his blood turned cold when he was finally able to think somewhat clearly. He bolted towards the sound, cursing under his breath. "Miggs! Shut that shit off!" He cleared the fire pit, stumbled past the well, and then stopped. There, sprawled near the base of the loudspeaker, was Miggs and Anderson.
Their bodies were torn, riddled with holes. Blood dried into the earth beneath them. Flies already circled their mouths. Their eyes were empty and wide, frozen in the shock and horror the men had felt when they'd witnessed their killer. Taylor stepped back in horror, and he sought the Fee Tai Hong. The malevolent spirit stood near the edge of the clearing again, unmoving, watching. Taylor raised his rifle, his finger on the trigger. He wasn't going to let some fucking ghost take him without at least firing off some shots.
but before he could pull the trigger, something hit him. His gun flew from his hand and slammed down into the dirt. Taylor followed it to the ground. He then quickly flipped over on his back and looked up. Migs stood above him, but not Migs. A ghost, translucent, pale, blood still soaking the front of his flak vest, eyes black as the jungle night. "'You brought this here,' the ghost of Migs whispered. "'You brought this evil. Now it won't leave.'
Taylor stumbled back, his breath caught in his throat. Then he heard Doc's voice behind him. "You should have made him angry, man." Taylor turned. Doc's ghost stood before him now, its throat a torn mess, bamboo still embedded in the wound. "Oh no, Jesus, no!" Taylor screamed. He turned again, only to see Anderson and Big Dog stepping out of the shadows, faces twisted not with rage, but with a sorrowful acceptance of their fate, and with resignation over what they must do next.
Please, Taylor gasped, dropping to his knees. I didn't know. I was just doing my job, just like all of you. They didn't answer. They just kept coming. The last thing Taylor would ever feel would be a great silence when the ghost tape cut off. So total, so final. It felt like the jungle itself had drawn a breath and decided to never exhale.
That silence had followed his screams as the spirits of his men and the Fi Tai Hong descended upon him like a storm, a wave of vengeance. Silent, merciless, inevitable, crashing down and leaving only his broken, bloody, torn, and punctured corpse in its wake. Following that silence, a soft chanting rose, low and steady, rhythmic.
The villagers, still holding their lamps, began to speak in unison, their voices rising into the dark as they recited Thai prayers of protection. Wards against the unclean dead. They surrounded the clearing now, forming a ring of flame and sound with their lamps and their voices. The Phi Tai Hong watched them, then turned. Slowly, the spirit walked back into the jungle, disappearing into the mist.
Behind it, the ghosts of the fallen Americans followed, including the fresh spirit of Staff Sergeant Carl Taylor. Silent and spectral, none looked back. The old mother of the fallen son, whose death was the match that had lit the night on fire, stepped forward into the center of the clearing, her voice stern and heavy, as she pointed towards the dead. "'Dig graves. Bury them. Bury everything they brought. Bury my son separate. The ghosts must sleep.'"
Only the members of Psywar Detachment 6 would truly understand how Operation Wandering Soul had been both an unparalleled success and also a recklessly dangerous failure. It had not only terrified a village, it had somehow amplified the powers of the dead and helped give rise not only to the Fee Tai Hong, but also to its victims. But the only member who had survived the night and could have shared the full story, or at least close to it, Sergeant Lei Van Quang,
would never be seen by American forces again. And he would never share the horrors he witnessed with anyone. And that's it for this Nightmare Fuel. I hope you're entertained by today's tale, Operation Wandering Soul. Crazy that was a real U.S. military operation, right? And the Phi Tai Hong is an entity really still feared in parts of Thailand and in areas with Thai populations today.
This tale, like all the Nightmare Fuels, was written by me, Dan Cummins, and scored by Logan Keith. Keeps getting better at ratcheting up the horror. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Productions catalog. Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time, with little short sucks on some Fridays. And these Nightmare Fuel episodes on some Fridays as well. And new episodes of the now long-running Paranormal Podcast, Scared to Death, every Tuesday at midnight.
Please go to badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs, including all show-related merch, and stay scared. Bad Magic Productions.
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