A Black Market Deal That Changed Everything

When 19-year-old Vera started selling contraband through a Moscow tea shop, she never imagined meeting someone like Mikhail. The charming Georgian businessman offered her a dangerous proposition: smuggling caviar and champagne for substantial payment, plus an invitation to his Black Sea home during the May Day holiday. (Trust no one was Vera's survival rule, but something about Mikhail's gentleness made her hesitate.)

From the moment she boarded that private train in 1990, nothing made sense. Why would this mysterious figure possess such wealth in communist Russia? At his seaside mansion, surrounded by Fabergé eggs and priceless artifacts from across Soviet republics, Mikhail compared Vera to Saint Shushanik and revealed his true purpose—he needed someone brave enough to preserve cultural treasures as the regime crumbled. Was he protecting history or recruiting an accomplice?

The arrangement worked perfectly for a year until the Soviet collapse. Vera emigrated and rebuilt her life, but years later spotted Mikhail on television looking exactly the same.

Could he have possessed supernatural knowledge, or was something even stranger at work? Listen to discover how one risky decision at a tea shop led to an encounter that defies explanation.

Have you experienced something unexplainable? We're actively seeking your vampire encounter stories and folklore topics for upcoming episodes. If you have any experiences you’d like to share or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in articles and YouTube videos email me directly at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com.

Please note that if you give us permission to share your stories of vampire encounters and would like to remain anonymous, we will change your name and any potential identifying details to protect your privacy. I look forward to hearing from you.

You’ll find The Night Visitors podcast on a variety of platforms, from Apple and ListenNotes to Pocketcasts and iHeartRadio, plus more.

The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society is a worldwide community sharing firsthand vampire encounters and exploring the folklore, history, and pop culture of the undead.

You can watch our episode videos on YouTube @VampireResearchSociety

GET SOCIAL: Join the Facebook group or follow on Instagram @nightvisitorsvrs

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe on your fav listening platform or subscribe to my Substack newsletter, where you’ll receive each episode in your inbox weekly on Fridays.

Podcast Theme Music

Title: “Haunted Haus”, Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Lic CC 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

What happens when caring for an elderly woman slowly drains the life right out of you? In this chilling 1992 case from Cape Cod, twenty-two-year-old Roxanne takes a caregiver position with Mrs. Campbell, a centenarian living in a 1700s Massachusetts home. The house stays dark despite summer’s brightness, and something feels deeply wrong from day one.

Mrs. Campbell never eats, yet she maintains sharp mental clarity and unusual energy (which should have been Roxanne’s first warning). As weeks pass, Roxanne’s vibrant personality mysteriously fades into exhaustion and listlessness. Meanwhile, her employer grows increasingly vital and energetic. The turning point comes when Roxanne discovers Mrs. Campbell tending flowers in the cemetery at midnight, surrounded by others in a secretive gathering.

After witnessing this ritual, Roxanne suspects she’s been deliberately drained through witchcraft, though Mrs. Campbell might call it something else entirely. The old woman speaks cryptically about “life feeding on life” and ancient powers. Eventually released with severance pay and a fortifying herbal shake, Roxanne escapes to rebuild her life as an event planner on Cape Cod.

This case raises an unsettling question: How many energy vampires work without their victims’ consent?

Listen to hear the full disturbing details of Roxanne’s summer with Mrs. Campbell.

Have you experienced something unexplainable? We're actively seeking your vampire encounter stories and folklore topics for upcoming episodes. If you have any experiences you’d like to share or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in articles and YouTube videos email me directly at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com.

Please note that if you give us permission to share your stories of vampire encounters and would like to remain anonymous, we will change your name and any potential identifying details to protect your privacy. I look forward to hearing from you.

You’ll find The Night Visitors podcast on a variety of platforms, from Apple and ListenNotes to Pocketcasts and iHeartRadio, plus more.

The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society is a worldwide community sharing firsthand vampire encounters and exploring the folklore, history, and pop culture of the undead.

GET SOCIAL: Join the Facebook group or follow on Instagram @nightvisitorsvrs

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe on your fav listening platform or subscribe to my Substack newsletter, where you’ll receive each episode in your inbox weekly on Fridays.

Podcast Theme Music

Title: “Haunted Haus”, Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Lic CC 4.0

Other Music

Title: Asia

Artist: Aleksey Chistilin

Lic CC 4.0

Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

When Bihn arrives in 1977 Texas as a Vietnamese refugee, isolation and language barriers make every shadow feel threatening. Her charming nocturnal neighbor, who greets her in French with an aristocratic air, seems suspicious from the start, especially after she notices visitors leaving his apartment with strange puncture wounds on their necks.

Haunted by dread, Bihn turns to what she knows: traditional Vietnamese protective rituals. She burns spirit money and leaves blood pudding offerings outside her door (the old ways don’t just disappear when you cross an ocean). But when those offerings vanish each night, her curiosity overtakes her fear. What she discovers in his apartment are old photographs showing him unchanged since the 1920s, his motionless body in a darkened room at noon, all seem to confirm her worst suspicions, or do they?

After performing protective rituals with holy water, Bihn learns something that chills her more than any supernatural encounter: the apartment has been “vacant for over a year.” Her neighbor has vanished without a trace. Could cultural displacement and loneliness have blurred reality with folklore, or had Bihn truly encountered something beyond explanation?

Years later, having moved away, Bihn rarely discusses what happened. But she remains convinced of what she experienced in that Texas apartment.

Listen to hear this unsettling tale of reality, folklore, and the unexplained.

Have you experienced something unexplainable? We're actively seeking your vampire encounter stories and folklore topics for upcoming episodes. If you have any experiences you’d like to share or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in articles and YouTube videos email me directly at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com.

Please note that if you give us permission to share your stories of vampire encounters and would like to remain anonymous, we will change your name and any potential identifying details to protect your privacy. I look forward to hearing from you.

You’ll find The Night Visitors podcast on a variety of platforms, from Apple and ListenNotes to Pocketcasts and iHeartRadio, plus more.

The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society is a worldwide community sharing firsthand vampire encounters and exploring the folklore, history, and pop culture of the undead.

GET SOCIAL: Join the Facebook group or follow on Instagram @nightvisitorsvrs

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe on your fav listening platform or subscribe to my Substack newsletter, where you’ll receive each episode in your inbox weekly on Fridays.

Podcast Theme Music

Title: “Haunted Haus”, Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Lic CC 4.0

Other Music

Title: Asia

Artist: Aleksey Chistilin

Lic CC 4.0

Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/