Lore Alive 3: Under the Rug

Welcome to Lore Alive, a special Halloween bonus series that brings dark tales from history to life with immersive sound design and voice actors. For today's spooky tale, we travel north to Maine, and the tiny community of Dark Harbor. It is here that a promising marriage falls apart, and a horrifying legend grows up in its place. Lore Alive was created by Aaron Mahnke, with writing and direction by Nicolas Tecosky, audio production and sound design by Brandon Grugle. This week's episode starred Sarah Palm and Joanna, Nick Tecosky as Sal, and Amanda Cucher as Amanda. ——————————————————————————— Series Sponsor: Warby Parker: Right now, buy one pair and get additional pairs for 20%. Go to WarbyParker.com/LORE https://www.warbyparker.com/lore to try on any pair virtually! ——————————————————————————— Lore Resources: Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support https://www.lorepodcast.com/support Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop https://www.lorepodcast.com/shop ——————————————————————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Aaron Mahnke?

  Every Friday this October, we're bringing one story from history to life with immersive sound design and talented actors to create an atmosphere that fits the tale. It's the style that you know from other shows I've made, like Thirteen Days of Halloween or Havoc Town, applied to true tales from history's darkest corners. This is Lore Alive. I've been at this for nearly 12 years now, and that means that I've told you hundreds of stories that sit at the intersection of history and folklore. Sometimes those tales are of a strange beast that roams the nearby woods, or maybe stories of a person who went too far, crossed the wrong line, and transitioned from normality to infamy.

• 0:43Aaron Mahnke?

  Most, though, are legends of the things we leave behind: our pain, our troubles, our suffering. Sometimes those hard moments cut so deep that they leave a mark. They haunt us in more ways than one. By the way, this entire Halloween bonus series was made possible by the generous support of Warby Parker, my absolute favorite maker of prescription glasses. I've been a loyal customer of theirs for over a decade, and it means so much to have their support. More about that after the show. For today's spooky tale, we're traveling north to Maine, where a tiny island in Penobscot Bay is home to a small community called Dark Harbor. And it's here that locals still whisper about a promising marriage that fell apart and

• 1:28Aaron Mahnke?

  the horrifying legend that took its place. There are no warm fuzzies here, my friend, just anger and pain and terror. And if you're ready, let's begin.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  There was a lump underneath the rug in the parlor.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  You expect old houses to have quirks: poorly patched wiring, leaky pipes, creaks and groans from multiple lifetimes of settling. These things are not unusual. All of this is to be expected.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  And with a house as old as the one we bought, you have to accept the occasional haunting: a child who gets drowned in the bathtub, a gentle grandmother who drew her last breath from the bedroom down the hall.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It's rare that you stumble upon something truly horrible that has somehow seeped into the floorboards and walls.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  I do so love this house, but I do so wish I'd never laid eyes on it.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  My husband and I moved here from New York. It was hard to leave. It's where we'd met in a graduate program that my husband Charlie still loves to name-drop 20-plus years later, and we lived there for a very long time after, nearly half of my life now.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  But the city had begun making us both anxious in recent years, and so when my husband got brought on as a lecturer at a community college, well, we both decided that we could write anywhere and that a change would do us a world of good. And it is lovely here in Dark Harbor, though I do find Mainers to be sometimes maddeningly closed off. I also find winters to be interminable. On the whole, they can become claustrophobic, even in this large house with the vast wilderness surrounding us.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  It was six months into our time here when the disturbance began.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  One morning, I came down the stairs to find that every single piece of furniture in the parlor had been moved in the night. Sofas, chairs, end tables, all of it pushed against the walls of the room, leaving the center of the room bare but for the rug.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  We thought at first that someone had broken into the house in the night, but after inventorying everything, we came to the conclusion that nothing had been stolen. A sheriff's deputy suggested that perhaps it had been the work of local teenagers playing a prank. It seemed unlikely to me that they could have come up our gravel drive in the middle of the night, broken in, and moved our heavy furniture without our noticing, but I could find no other explanation. We moved the furniture back and went on with our lives, making sure each night that every door and window was locked.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  And then... the blood stain appeared.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Like before, I'd come down, half asleep in the morning, to brew coffee. The furniture was all where it should be. I didn't think to look down until my socks were wet. I cursed and bent to pull them off. Looking down, I saw it. Large and unmistakable. A massive red stain on the carpet.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Again, I called the police. Again, they came, although this time in larger numbers with more serious questions. They tested the DNA. It was, in fact, human. It didn't match either of ours, nor anyone in their database. No one had been reported missing in Dark Harbor for years. They passed it to the state, who promptly forgot about it. But I wouldn't. I'm a writer. How could I? First thing the next morning, I went into Town Hall, looking for records of who had lived in our house previously.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  The house was old and had seen many owners in its time. I wrote down the owner's names and cross-checked them at the library. Could there have been a death in the house?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I found four obituaries of previous owners, though three of four had moved from the house before passing. I was only partly surprised that the fourth was a murder victim.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Another cross-check against the microfiche records from the town's sole newspaper gave me all of the answers that I was looking for. There were breathless articles, many bordering on tabloid, reports of strange behavior, swatches of a diary published "without meaningful omissions," as the editor-in-chief assured his readers.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  I printed everything out to peruse at my leisure at home.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I present it here back to you, without, I assure you, any meaningful omissions.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  We know little of Salatheal Stoner before he'd left Maine to settle the estate of his uncle in Church Falls, Virginia. Friends, who called him Sal, would later describe him as an affable man, not prone to any sort of temper. He was said to have laughed easily.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Maybe they just didn't want to believe that they'd missed the signs, a dark mood here or there, for instance, but no one reported such.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  While in Virginia, he made the acquaintance of a young woman who was local to Church Falls. Her name was Amanda Carter. It is from her partly-published diary that the bulk of the firsthand accounts of this story come.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  It was here she first laid eyes on Sal Stoner and was taken with his dark eyes and smile. He walked confidently through the room to greet friends, and then, to her terror and delight, he looked directly at her. She describes the electricity of that look.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  She couldn't look away.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  And just as confidently as he approached his friends, he marched over to her.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Pardon me.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  For what, sir?

• 8:10Speaker 02

  For being drawn to your face like a moth to the flame.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Aren't you a bold young man?

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Well, fortune favors the bold.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  And who is fortune smiling upon tonight?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  One Mr. Salatheal Stoner, Sal de Friends. And who do I have the pleasure of addressing?

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Miss Amanda Carter.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Miss Amanda.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Hello, Sal.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  It was love, or at least, it was something intense and passionate enough to be mistaken for it. It was a brief courtship that ended in a wedding.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I can only imagine how the people of tiny Church Falls, Virginia whispered about it. So quickly, they were practically strangers. But neither would be dissuaded.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Sal had a business to run back home in the north, and Amanda seemed more than happy to make the move. She wanted to see more of the world than her native Virginia, and Sal spoke so glowingly of Maine. It is beautiful here, but I sense from her diary that he may have oversold it a bit.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  The day she first set eyes on her new home would prove to be one of the unhappiest in her life, she'd admit. The house was chilly, austere. The view of Dark Harbor was sweeping, but also gray, a stark difference from Church Falls.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  But she loved Sal and didn't wish to disappoint him, and so, for as long as she could, she held her tongue. But it wasn't just the dreariness of her surroundings or the cold that, even in the height of a New England summer, would seep into her bones at night.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Worse was Sal. He worked long hours and frequently left Amanda at home in the large house until midnight. When he was home, she describes a man distracted and distant. She tried to find friendship in town and found some small success in that, but those she came across at the Dark Harbor Women's Club, while unfailingly polite and occasionally even friendly, could not fill the empty space that Amanda felt growing within her.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  It was the first winter that cracked it all wide open for the first time.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  To someone accustomed to more temperate climes, the first white-out must have come as a shock. The isolation she felt was complete.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Sal was not terribly supportive, and after meals would spend the vast bulk of each day in his study. One night, over the dinner table, it came to a head.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  What did you get done today?

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Hmm?

• 11:12Speaker 03

  What were you doing today?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  I was here, in my study.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  I know that, but what were you doing in there all day?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Working.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  On what?

• 11:27Speaker 02

  On my work. It's none of your concern.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Isn't it, though?

• 11:33Speaker 03

  When the weather is nice, you spend all day at the office. When it's abysmal, and so far, it seems like it's been nothing but abysmal since November, you lock yourself away from me all day long.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  I'm not locking myself away.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  You do. You shut yourself off from me as though I am not even here.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  I have responsibilities that go far beyond these walls.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Well, if you manage them as well as you manage your house, you must be an utter failure at business.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, dear. What in the hell are you talking about? I provide a home, food, protection.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  You're not my dog, Sal. You're my husband. You owe me more than the bare minimum.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  What is it that you think I owe you?

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Yourself. You led me to believe you were some great romantic. You misled me about this wretched place.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  This is a good home.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  It's a good house, Sal, but don't pretend it's a home. I had friends in Virginia. I had social calls and lectures and culture.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  You sold me a lie.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  What would make you happy, hm? Do you want my attention? Well, you've got it. Here I am, darling. I'm listening to every word. Go on, speak. Where are you going? You got what you wanted.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  I wish I'd seen this callousness before we were married.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Amanda!

• 13:08Speaker 02

  God damn it.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  It would not get easier. As months turned to years, there was a growing rift at the center of the marriage.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Try as she might to change her station, to make friends, to find something to occupy the vast amount of time she had each day as Sal worked, Dark Harbor wouldn't open itself to her. She felt like an outsider, even within the home.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  She thought perhaps that things would get better if she were to try to make the house her own, and took to dispersing it up.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Sal was more than happy to indulge her in this, though she suspected that perhaps he went along with all of it to shut her up.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  He did not make any changes within himself, however. He turned further into his work. "Solitary as an oyster," as Dickens once wrote.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  The more he isolated himself from her, the more she demanded of him. It became the grandfather of unhealthy cycles. Neither seemed to have the capacity to make the other happy. I wouldn't call it spiteful exactly, but neither could I say it wasn't. This is strange. She hated the floors. They were hardwood, mahogany, which the original builder likely had to ship in. Utterly beautiful, but she could not walk barefoot on them in the winter. It became one of those small annoyances that can spiral into full-blown rage in an already tense situation.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  She became strangely obsessed and bought rugs for every room in the house.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yes, dear.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  The floor in the parlor.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  What about it?

• 15:05Speaker 03

  It's hideous.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  I can assure you, it's not.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  I hate the look of it.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  That's a shame. I love it. I grew up playing on that floor. It never seemed to bother anyone else.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  I hate the feel of it under my feet.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Then wear slippers, darling.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  I don't believe that you are hearing me, Sal.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  I am hearing you. I like the floor. The floor stays as is. Good lord, Amanda! Why did you do that?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  To get you to react. It's like arguing with a brick wall.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Then why do you bother?

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Because there's nothing else for me to do here. I don't know what I did in Virginia to deserve this frozen hellscape.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Just unlucky, I suppose.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  They weren't fighting about the floor, of course, but that floor became a sticking point for her. Further proof that this man did not care about her suffering, about anything besides his business.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  The diary entries after this take on a grueling sort of sameness, a simmering resentment in Amanda and an unwillingness to engage from Sal, who seemed to sometimes relish the effect it had on poor Amanda. Twenty years this went on, back and forth, each making the other more miserable. Amanda, who believed herself victim to a horrible bait and switch, and Sal, who steadfastly refused to show his cards. The floor argument would regularly rear its head, and each time it ended the same. Sal unmovable, Amanda enraged.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  And then, one night, for reasons even she couldn't fully understand, she tried something different.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Sal?

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  It is my birthday next week.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Hmm. Yes, I know.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Is there anything you would like?

• 17:19Speaker 03

  I'm afraid to ask.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  You've never been afraid of a thing. Ask.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  A rug. For the parlor.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  He must have looked up at her in that moment. Who knows what he saw? A lonely woman, a lost soul?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Maybe he saw the girl that he had been so taken with at the ball in Virginia all those years ago.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  But he relented.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I can do that.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  It should be noted that this next bit took a little more detective work. You see, Amanda's diary ends just there.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Sal is traveling to Bangor to pick up the rug, finally.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  After that, we have to piece together what happened from other reports. The reason will become shortly evident.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  The next morning, he traveled to Bangor and came home with an enormous red Axminster rug, imported from England. It had been expensive, and it had been a pain to transport back to the house. But he got it inside and into the parlor.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Amanda!

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Amanda!

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Coming.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  Is this it?

• 18:47Speaker 02

  It is.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Let me roll it out a little so you can see it properly.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  And so Sal unrolled the large rug.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  There. You got your rug.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  What do you think?

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Well?

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Why are you laughing?

• 19:18Speaker 02

  God damn it, woman, why are you laughing?

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Because, because I hate it.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  I hate it, Sal. It's hideous. I hate it, and I hate you.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Stop it.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  All this time.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Stop it!

• 19:43Speaker 03

  For years, I tried to love you, but it's impossible. You don't love back.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  How dare you!

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Even just now. Buy me a birthday gift. You treat me like something to be managed.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  You are an ingrate!

• 20:00Speaker 03

  I just wanted your love, but Sal!

• 20:06Speaker 03

  I hate you!

• 20:13Speaker 01

  It was a glass of water. In blind rage, he'd reached for it and hurled it at her head, where it hit full force at the temple.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  What?

• 20:25Speaker 03

  You...

• 20:28Speaker 03

  You himby with...

• 20:32Speaker 03

  You tiny little...

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Hypothetic, impotent, stupid man. Everyone will hear of this.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Even after she'd stopped responding, he continued.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  She lay there, unconscious and mortally injured. Sal stood and walked to the rug and began to unroll it. When he got to her broken body, he just kept unrolling it. And then... Then he nailed down the rug.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Salathiel Stoner then cleaned himself up and made himself dinner.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  The next day, he went to work. And again the day after.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Who knows how long she suffered beneath the rug before dying? It was weeks before there was a knock on the door.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  The sheriff appeared after Amanda had missed church two weeks in a row. Another woman at the church thought it strange.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Sal answered when he knocked. "Invited him in graciously," the lawman reported. Even invited him to take a seat in the parlor, where the sheriff froze in the doorway.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Amanda's body was still there, under the rug. It was impossible to miss. Sal just sat there in his chair and smiled at the horrified man.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  He was committed to the state insane asylum in Portland. Doctors there would say that he never showed any remorse. Or for that matter, any joy, any humor, any sorrow.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  There was something about the man that was just... Wrong. He died a few years later.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  As for the house, it changed hands a number of times over the years. People moved in, people moved out. I asked around in town about whether or not they'd heard any stories about the house, but most hadn't. Barbara, who owns the café in town, mentioned that she'd heard something at some point, but couldn't remember what. "Did you ever hear about it being haunted?" She said, "Find me something around here that isn't."

• 23:23Speaker 01

  We kept on in the house. Though we got into the habit at cocktail hour of raising a glass to pour Amanda. And whenever there was a bump in the night, I'd make sure to calmly say, "I hear you, Amanda."

• 23:38Speaker 01

  We all seemed to be at peace with each other.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Until one night last October.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  It was late at night, and I woke with a splitting headache and went down to get myself a Tylenol and some water. Crossing back through the parlor, bleary-eyed, I tripped over something on the floor and came tumbling down, water glass crashing to the floor.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  I sat up to see what I'd tripped over.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  It was a massive lump beneath the carpet. Before I could even register this thing that shouldn't be there,

• 24:19Speaker 01

  it began to thrash.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I didn't know what to do. I panicked, screaming for my husband, shoving furniture against the wall, frantically with all my weight, knocking over a side table, breaking a lamp. Where was my husband? Why wasn't he here helping me? She was under there. I knew it. If I could just get to it. Finally, I was able to get enough of the massive rug free to roll up the corner.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Body underneath thrashed and grunted, redoubling its efforts as if it sensed it were close to freedom.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  And then I was right there.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  With every bit of my might, screaming against it as I pushed the heft of the carpet up over the thrashing lump and then collapsed back onto the ground as I realized...

• 25:13Speaker 01

  There was nothing there.

• 25:23Aaron Mahnke?

  Lore Alive was made possible by Warby Parker. Before Warby Parker, I had to do that thing that we all hate: Stand in front of a wall of frames and find the needle in the haystack. Just trying to buy glasses shouldn't require a spreadsheet, right? And that's why I am obsessed with Warby Parker. Nothing else comes close on quality, price, selection, and customer service. Once you buy from Warby Parker, you'll realize how much easier they've made the entire process. Their virtual try-on has made it possible for me to skip those eye doctor showrooms entirely, since I can literally try on glasses from my phone before I buy them. And yes, I've tried other virtual try-ons that feel pretty janky, but with Warby Parker, you can genuinely tell how the frames are gonna look and fit. Warby Parker glasses start at $95

• 26:08Aaron Mahnke?

  and include prescription lenses with anti-reflective, scratch-resistant coatings. They use premium materials in each frame, design every frame in-house, and have a collection of silhouettes, colors, and fits for every face. Me, I wear progressive lenses, which are more complicated to get just right, but Warby Parker nailed it. And these glasses are absolutely amazing. They look and fit so great. Right now, buy one pair of glasses and get 20% off any additional pairs at warbyparker.com/lor. That's 20% off any additional pairs when you purchase one pair at W-A-R-B-Y-parker.com/lor. An audio project like this is obviously a team effort, and there are a lot of humans to give credit to.

• 26:52Aaron Mahnke?

  For starters, Lore Alive was created by me, Aaron Manke, and it was written and directed by Nicholas Tokowski of 13 Days of Halloween and Havok Town fame. This week's episode starred Sarah Palm as Joanna, Nick Tokowski as Sal, and Amanda Kutcher as Amanda. This episode was recorded by Blake Long, with post-production and sound design by the brilliant Brandon Grugel from Atypical Artists. Our show was produced by Nicholas Tokowski and me, Aaron Manke, with special thanks to Lauren Shippen from Atypical Artists. I hope you've enjoyed this Halloween treat, and I promise, no tricks, that you'll get another one next Friday. And until next time, stay spooky.