Transcript of Listener Tales 111: Camping Tales

Hey weirdos, I'm Bigfoot.

And I'm Mothman. Duh.

I actually can't believe you like knocked on my man like that. Yeah, it's crazy.

He belongs to everybody, I feel.

News to me. News to me, Mothman. Um, my costume didn't come in time, so pretend I'm Bigfoot.

Yeah, I crickets that. She made this for me.

Mothman woman. Mothman. Moth mama.

Moth mama.

I love it. I also just I like that you're wearing like Nancy from The Craft sunglasses. Yeah, I respect it. I'm actually—

I'm excited for these.

I was going to say, would you just wear those anyway? Yeah. Oh, and this is morbid. Yep.

And it's listener tales in case you didn't know why you were here.

It is. Brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all about you.

All about you. And this listener tale is camping themed, which is why we are creatures of the forest. Camping is something I am unfamiliar with and something I would never like to be familiar with again.

You've camped before?

Like when I was younger.

In a tent?

Yeah. No.

Yeah. I learn new things about her every day.

Yeah. With one of my friends. I went with their family.

Why?

Because I thought it was gonna be fun.

I went camping once. Donna? Whoa, that's my mother-in-law's name. Donna, are you watching?

Wait, doesn't Donna like camping?

Oh my God, Donna loves camping.

Donna loves camping.

He's reminding me. Yeah, I went glamping.

Yes, that's literally—

he's like, you camped with Donna? And I did, and I've told you about this, but when Drew— Drew's family doesn't— they used to camp like when they were younger, but they glamp or not even really anymore, but they used to glamp.

I love glamping.

They had like a really nice— You can't stay.

Nicholas, we only ask like an hour of your time, if that's okay.

Is it my story? Is it just that you don't care?

Can you stay for like an hour?

It's a lot of questions. Sorry.

If you could stay for like an hour, that would be sick. But if you can't, I understand. You have things to do.

That's one of the only times that I ever got sleep paralysis is when I stayed in there.

That makes sense.

I don't know if it's— I don't know if I'm not sure what the difference between a camper and an RV is. Is there one?

Beats me.

They had a nice thing that we— Go back?

Go back.

Go back. No, I'm not going to.

He said it seems like it was nice.

No, here's why I'm not going to.

Oh, okay.

It was like an, you know, a vehicle that you park in the woods and you sleep in, like a nice one. And I got sleep paralysis there and I thought of the Blair Witch a lot.

Valid.

It was scary.

I think that's so fair.

Thank you.

And if you're going to get sleep paralysis anywhere, it's going to be camping.

Yeah. Or glamping. I don't want to do it again.

I won't be doing it again.

Oh, I don't like it.

I will not be doing it again. I don't belong sleeping outside.

I don't like the woods. We just went into the woods and I stepped in poison ivy and now I'm really paranoid about it.

I mean, I love the woods.

I like looking at the woods.

And I like a nice walk through the woods.

Yeah.

And I loved, you know, I like hanging in the woods sometimes.

What?

What do you mean? But I feel like it's whimsical. It's vibey.

I haven't hung out in the woods since I was like a drunk teenager.

And like, you remember woods parties? And yeah, so that was the thing.

I actually referenced woods parties during one of my live show segments.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, that's funny.

Oh, woods parties were the best.

They were fun.

What I would give.

The woods.

Yeah, that's fair.

That's a good thing of the woods, but I'm not sleeping out there.

Somebody would inevitably always say, the cops are coming! And everyone would run into the, like, into the actual woods out of the clearing.

Every time someone would yell cops.

And the cops were never coming.

They were never coming.

Except the cops did come one time. So they did come one time. That one time they did come, but that wasn't my business.

Well, now that's the woods. So, and this, and this is the your—

that's our woods. But this is brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all about you. So we need to move on from us.

This is your woods.

Tell us.

It's not our woods.

Tell us the tale of the camping woods.

So the first woods that are your woods.

Your woods. Yours.

Elbows. This is gonna— the first one is don't drink those fucking murder beers and how my dog vomited to save our lives.

What do I do?

What do you do? Sorry, it's been a little while. You can just hang out. And if you have anything to say, go right ahead and say it because you're spooky and everyone loves you, Nicholas. Period. Okay. So whatever you feel, if you have something you want to yell out, yell it out, babe.

In fact, more people are into your vibes, Nicholas, lately.

They are.

We had a few haters. Sure, we still do.

But you're always going to have haters, Nicholas. That's how you know that you're doing something right.

Yeah. You probably have a page on Reddit.

You absolutely have a page on Reddit.

That's how you know you made it.

Yeah.

It all comes around and eventually people love you.

Exactly.

And Mark and Nicholas, they're loving you.

And Nicholas, I don't know, maybe you should come to the live show with us for a little while.

Yeah, he's going to.

I don't know. Period. So let's, let's start here. So the murder beer guy and why you should never camp in Bend, Oregon. I said Oregon. I said it right. Good for you. But in my heart, it's Oregon.

Also, I'm never going to camp in Bend, Oregon.

No.

And I'm never going to camp anywhere.

No, especially not Oregon because of the Oregon Trail.

I'm not gonna get dysentery.

That's right.

Jinx.

Uh, this is a doozy and maybe too long. I'm not sure. I like that. I like that you're not sure right when we start. You're like, I don't really know. Um, I want to start out in a good old-fashioned Listener Tales tradition and say how— I almost said stinked because I'm wearing sunglasses.

Oh my gosh.

Uh, how stoked I am to have found your podcast. My name is Sarah, and yes, you can use it.

Hi Sarah.

Uh, my therapist says that listening to your podcast is almost like a meditation. I love that. That was before I mentioned it was a murder pod.

I was wondering if your therapist had all the information.

I said, wow, me and my partner are tattoo artists and we spend a good amount of time traveling. This wasn't the first time we had camped near Bend. I like this.

I like this.

I like this.

I like where we're headed.

I like you. I like this.

I like the vibe.

I like this, Sarah. The best description I can make of the humans that inhabit this dusty, forsaken land is as follows. Everyone is either a hipster, a hippie, or straight up good ol' boy backwoods redneck. Whoa.

I like that.

Those are three distinct things.

For a short moment.

Yeah.

And then you said good ol' boy and I said hate that.

Hate that. So I'm going to take these off while I read because my eyes are not good enough. And then while you read, I will put them back on.

Perfect.

The three don't get along, but everyone can agree on one thing. The woods are a place— are the place to be. And there are a lot of woods in this area. I mean, hundreds of square miles of dense uninhabited woodlands. From mountain biking, camping, river rafting, hiking, off-roading, shooting guns, there's a lot of outdoorsy stuff to do in the area. And that brings us to our story.

I don't know why I felt the need to do that.

I really liked that you did that. Can I be honest? You just went like this.

Am I allowed to YouTube do that?

Can you boof on YouTube? You can boof on YouTube.

I don't know. Are we still going to get monetized if you boof on YouTube? Well, not— no, not boof. That means poop. It doesn't even— boof means poop to me. Like, I'm always like, oh, got a boof. But to other people, I think that means shove a tampon soaked in alcohol up your butt to get drunk. Who are these other people?

I'm too old for this. I'm too old to be on the internet. Wait, we have a Gen Z both behind the camera.

That's what boofing is, isn't it? Like, I, I've always just— well, not always. One day I just started calling pooping boofing, and farting for that matter too. This is a little about me.

Honestly, I like that. Like, that makes sense. Like, I feel like that, that's right.

Yeah, but I shouldn't say it too much in front of people that don't know me, because they're like, oh, you're just announcing what the fuck? Soak a tampon in alcohol and put it in your butt?

It's not even that. It can literally just be—

wait, wow, you put the bottle in your butt? Why?

What?

Oh my God. Wow. I'm— how does that work? I feel like you'd have to do a handstand for that to work. He said, yep, yep. All right, I don't know how we got here.

I'm from another time, so I don't know. I've landed here accidentally.

My people just drank.

My people just go via the The mouth. I don't know about this.

I'm dead.

So my partner Chago is really into mountain biking and there are some really popular trails in the area.

At first I just read that as is really into mountain.

Just really into mountain biking.

My partner Chago loves mountain biking.

One thing about me, love mountain.

Chago plus mountain equal love.

And by the head of one of the main trails is BLM land dispersed campsites. If you don't know what that means, it's basically free campsites with zero camp amenities like toilets, benches, tables, designated campsites, or a camp host. And it says, yay, shitting in a hole, or poofing, or just primitive camping in the creepy woods. We love that kind of thing, especially since it's free. That sounds horrifying to me, I'm not gonna lie.

Shitting in a hole, all of that. Yeah, like that.

There's nothing, there's no amenities, there's no toilets, benches, tables, designated campsites, a camp host, nothing.

Yeah, I I like it.

Yeah. So it was Chago and I with our pup camping out here down a long dirt road off the side of a main highway. We were maybe half a mile down this dirt road at a campsite that was pretty far away from any other people camping out there. We hate people.

So do we.

Same. Down the road a bit deeper is there were bigger campsites with a ton of people in their RVs and trailers and some tent camps. And a bit further down, they had some logging activity happening. So big logging trucks were occasionally seen barreling down the dusty road. The first night went swimmingly. Our pup's first camping trip had her rolling in the dirt like the little piggy she was, and I had my hammock up and a nice book. Oh, relaxing. Chago rode his mountain bike to the local trails and was gone for a couple hours while I just hung out at the site. Then we drove into town to see my nephews, and afterwards we met up with some friends and had some drinks. We got back to the camp kind of late that night, and Chago was pretty buzzed. This night was not so relaxing, with him being in a booze-induced bear-like separation, I felt alone and kind of scared.

Oh, I don't blame you, Sarah.

The forest was too quiet. Every little snap of a twig had my heart jumping. My dog either picked up on my anxiety or just felt the vibe and was whisper barking at every noise.

I know, I love when they do that.

I know exactly that whisper barking.

Sometimes Dolo does it in her sleep.

Yep. Something wasn't right. Not even the crickets were chirping like they were the night before. Dead silent. Now I have a completely irrational fear of Bigfoot murdering me in my sleep. Scream. He said you should scream.

Yeah, yell, Sarah.

That will make Bigfoot go away.

Listen, we're misunderstood.

But I feel like a scream would make you be like, oh yeah, I'd go away.

I don't want to hear it. But like, I'm not going to murder you.

Well, that's the thing. You hear a scream, you're like, oh, that was not my intention. Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.

It actually kind of bums me out.

Yeah, of course. I've always felt that way.

I'm not trying to bother anyone.

Yeah. Bigfeet. They just, they just want to buy Bigfoot feet. Yeah, Bigfoot feet. Um, I have a completely irrational fear of Bigfoot murdering me in my sleep while camping, and this forest was very squatchy, as the guys on the show Bigfoot Hunters like to say. I actually love that.

How dare they hunt me?

So how dare they? So I just chalked the bad feeling up to these squatchy woods and my irrational fear and finally drifted off to an unsettled sleep.

Squatchy is a gross word. It's kind of hilarious.

The next day, Thiago and I had a bit of a tiff, and him having a brutal hangover was surely to blame.

Uh-oh.

I decided to take a walk for some air and took my dog with me. She's a Frenchie and quite buff, so she looks kind of tough. That being said, she's scared of literally anything, including piles of towels that weren't there earlier, or statues, or reflections in the mirror.

I'm obsessed with that.

Anyways, we walked up the road deeper into the woods and turned off to the right-hand side after I spotted a pile of rocks that seemed like a good lookout spot to contemplate my whole existence and try to distract myself.

Were you pretending that you were in a music video?

Oh, absolutely.

I hope so.

Yeah, you have to. You always have to. It's to do when you're walking or when you're alone in the car.

Yeah. Driving in the rain. Yes. Looking out the window.

You are the main character.

In your mom's Ford Taurus in the backseat.

And here's the thing. Always do that forever.

It's called whimsical.

Be the main character of your own life.

Okay? Whimsy up your life. And don't feel bad about it. Romanticize that shit.

Yeah. Romanticize.

Happy. Happy. He's romanticizing his life.

He is. He's like, I love that. That makes me happy. Because Nicholas, you're the main character.

Of our lives as well. Yeah.

Uh, so we were a few hundred feet from the dirt road down a slight hill. That's where I heard a noise coming from behind me and deeper into the woods. A kind of specific rumbling of an engine and a blasting of AC/DC through some shitty speakers.

What sound?

Very specific sounding.

True, true.

I turned around to see where the noise was coming from and spotted a white Ford cargo van coming down the road.

That's never good.

I'm gonna get out of there. Run! The front windows were down and I could see a man with a scraggly beard and a weird sun hat singing loudly and moving erratically.

I don't hate it quite yet.

I'm not like totally put off by this yet.

He's just singing.

Slightly.

Moving erratically.

Yeah.

Maybe he's just a white person dancing. I'm known to move erratically as well.

It's true. We're all known to do that.

Yeah.

My dog's hair stood on end all down her body and I got a creeping anxious feeling as he passed out of sight heading towards our camp in the main road. Okay. I specifically remember thinking as he passed, 'Thank fuck he didn't see us down here alone in the woods.' Well, trust your gut. That's a gut feeling, babe.

We weren't there and we're in our house.

No.

So yeah, what do we know?

You tell me that you suddenly felt, 'Thank fuck that he didn't see us alone in the woods.' That tells me something. Uh, shortly after, I saw Chago emerge from the trees riding up the road on his mountain bike. He spotted us and came down to where we were. He mentioned that he saw a white van pass our camp. He said the van slowed down and the man driving made eye contact with my partner as he crept pass our camp. He looked like he was scoping out our campsite, Chago said. So I knew I had to come find you and make sure you weren't in the back of that van.

That's nice.

Yeah, that was very nice, especially after a fight.

I know, he still loves you.

The thought made me shiver. We hung out for a bit and made up, tried to teach our dog how to ride alongside the bike. The little dumb baby did great until she bolted in front of the bike's path, almost causing Chago to yeet himself off the bike.

That's tough.

We then walked back to—

that is tough.

We then walked back to camp, forgetting the weird van guy and getting ready to head to town. As we were packing up, I heard a noise coming from the direction of where the dirt road starts. Through the densely packed barren trunk— trunks of dusty trees, I saw the first glimpses of white. It was the van. The roar of the engines and blasting tinny music was very specific. I said, fuck, it's that van again. The anxiety started again. We sat and watched it rumble up the road through the trees. As it came closer, we just knew some shit was gonna happen, but it's like we were frozen. It closer to our isolated single campsite and then fucking rolled to a stop. I hate it here. Before we knew what was happening, my dog flipped her shit and started barking like I've never heard and ran at the van. Get her! I shouted to Chago as he tried to chase after her. The man leaned out his window and I could see his greasy long black beard and long hair.

Wash your hair.

His weird straw sun hat and truck stop sunglasses kind of obscured his face. There's nothing wrong with gas station sunglasses, but like put together with with all this.

Yeah, that's true.

He was trying to say something to us through the nasty tobacco-stained face hole that was missing some front teeth.

Oh no.

Our dog was still going cuckoo nuts, and though the barking— through the barking, the guy asked, do you guys drink?

Not with you, babe.

Huh? At this moment, Chago reached the van and my dog and was trying to wrangle her in while trying to look as tough as possible.

He said, I'm getting my French bulldog, Frenchie.

We were both almost fully covered in tattoos, and he says an intimidating looking guy. This did nothing for us in this case. It was chaos. He tried to calm our dog down, and as he was trying, the man turned around and reached for something in the back of his windowless white van. So cliché.

No.

At the exact same time as this man reached behind him, my dog stopped barking and turned to look back at me. I saw why she stopped barking. She was basically projectile vomiting at that moment.

What a superpower.

She was like, I'll save you. She was looking back at me with panic in her eyes. She was so worked up over this greasy human that she puked.

I get it.

Same girl, same. She said, stay away from my paw-ents. Insert vomit noises at the end of paw-ents. There you go. Anyways, the man turned back around and had something in his hands. It was 2 beers. Chago was so caught off guard from the projectile vomiting LDB, little dumb baby. He just instinctively took them out of the man's greasy, dirty hands. Rapture.

Not the rapture, honey. Nicholas, right now? I think we just got past a rapture.

I'm sure another one's scheduled. What would you do if I just went floating up into the ether? You just went— I was just like, oh, I'm going to heaven.

Bye, guys.

Me and Aiden are just like, fuck.

You both go, she wasn't even baptized.

God failed.

You guys were both baptized, weren't you? Yeah, yeah, you'd be so pissed.

Yeah, she doesn't even go here. I'm his godmother.

Oh my God, I think like technically you're mine too, even though I didn't get baptized. My mom was like, yeah, that's how that works.

That's me.

My mom claims she baptized me herself at the hospital, but I don't think that works that way.

That's how that works.

She said she found some holy water. She probably just like found this man with the beer, someone poured one on So that'll work. That'll do.

She found the little basin somewhere and she was like, eh, liquid.

It was probably like somebody's bedpan.

Somebody's piss that she just found.

That explains a lot about me. Thanks, D'Arcy. Leave it in. Anyway, we'll see what happens next wrap here, Nicholas. But that's, that's evidently why I won't be getting picked. I was baptized in a bedpan.

Canon. A canon event.

Oh God, now people are gonna message me and be like, I'll baptize you.

Yeah, it's gonna get weird, just get ready. Uh, thanks man, have a nice day, Thiago said in a way that invited no further dialogue and was very direct in the deepest man voice.

He said, get out.

The guy smiled a gross, crazy-looking smile and slowly rolled off. That's when he turned his attention to me, still sitting far back away from the road, trying to position myself behind my parked car.

I love that.

He made eye contact, and as he rolled by, he shouted to me, 'I like your hair. You look like my sister.' What the fuck?

Your sister? I love that.

'You look like my sister.' That's mine. I don't know.

Is that your sister, Nicholas?

That's my— he's like, 'That's my life.' Using my best unfuckwithable tough bitch face, I just politely but sternly replied, thanks, and stared him down as his van crawled away. Ew. Chago dragged our girl back to camp and we tried to clean her up. After that was done, we looked at the beers the man had handed him. They were called Boneyard something. Don't drink those fucking beers, I told Chago as he put them in the fucking cooler like a dingus maximus.

Chago!

We packed up extra light, uh, extra tight. Look, uh, took all our valuables with us and headed to town to take my nephews on a bike ride to a more kid-friendly park. This park we went also had some more advanced trails, so while I sat and hung out with the children, Chago took a couple laps on his bike, generally enjoying the day and forgetting about the weirdness from earlier. Me and the boys played in the sunshine and chased butterflies. This— that's adorable.

I love that.

I heard the familiar whirring of Chago's bike and looked up. Surprised by the look of alarm on his face, I stood up and asked, "What's wrong?" as he finally reached us. He told me about how during his ride, he ran into an older guy at the top of the trail and had a very interesting and alarming conversation. Uh-oh. The old guy told Chago that he wouldn't have been on this particular trail if it wasn't for a closure of Phil's Trailhead where we were camping.

Oh, goddammit.

Chago thought he was just talking about how because of the logging in the area, some of the trails over there were closed. Closed. No, not that, the guy continued. The police barricade of the road, the canine units, helicopters, drones, and complete energy evac— emergency evacuation of the area due to a criminal on the loose. What?

You guys missed that?

Oh shit, we're camping over there, Chago responded. That apparent— that was happening while they were in the other park. Oh, oh, is it you they're looking for then? The guy coyly asked as he laughed and rode away. He said, I love that he said fuck that. Immediately I got on my phone and started searching the news for any information. The closure and emergency evacuations were confirmed. The cause was someone in the exact campground area we had at our camp at had called in and threatened to kill everyone in the area and then kill themselves. They said that they had full— a fully loaded rifle and handgun with them.

Oh my God.

Panicking, we packed up and headed to town, but the closure was still active, so we dared not try to return to camp.

We sat at a restaurant called Dump Why the fuck would you ever name your restaurant Dump City? That's crazy marketing.

That's reckless as fuck.

I'm obsessed with it, kind of, that they were just like, it doesn't matter if we call it this.

Dump City. We had a couple of drinks and so, oh, dumplings. Dump City, come for the dumplings.

Jill, I don't know. Wow. You should call them. Give them your idea.

I got you, Dump City.

I do love dumplings.

I do too.

But I don't know if I'd get them from Dump City.

Well, they also kept an eye on the press releases. And waited for an update. The update finally came. Police apprehended a man who was intoxicated and had made the call from his white Ford cargo van camped out in the BLM forest by Phil's Trailhead.

Or nor—

it was him, the beer guy.

Maybe it's a good thing that you looked like his sister.

Yeah, maybe that's what spared you. It all worked. It was him, the beer guy. Now the murder beer guy really sunk in. He had reached behind him and had in his possession two guns which he planned to use on people in the area, but instead head, pulled out some beers to ever so kindly hand to us and send my dog into a vomit attack of panic. This crazy guy had probably reached around his firearms to hand us those beers.

That— I feel like I would spend the rest of my life being like, why didn't he kill us?

Yeah, that's stressful as fuck.

Yeah.

Thoughts started racing. What if we had been mean to him?

Yeah.

What if I didn't remind him of his sister?

I'm telling you.

What if the dog hadn't vomited and distracted Chago and had said something rude or told him to fuck off like we would have done in any other circumstance?

You would have been fully within your bounds to do that.

What if he had seen me alone in the woods? Was that the bad feeling I got the night before because the man had been camped in those same woods? What if, what if, what if?

Oh, I like how you ended that.

I told Thiago again, don't drink those fucking murder beers. We raced back to our campsite after the all clear and packed up haphazardly at record speed. And got the fuck out of those woods. We camped in my sister's— another sister— in my sister's driveway the next night and enjoyed a non-squatchy, non-murder-y evening.

That's a nice evening.

Except Chago drank the goddamn murder beers.

Here's the thing, I like had a feeling Chago was gonna do the murder beers. Yeah, Chago lives life on the edge. He does live, and I respect that about Chago.

Good for Chago. Yeah. Then in the theme of the day proceeded to projectile vomit the bad juju that was for sure encapsulated in those ominous boneyard beards.

Oh no.

And there it is. I hope this was entertaining because it's definitely a staple story for the rest of our lives. Chago quit drinking shortly after this experience and is now enjoying the amazing— an amazing sobriety.

Hell yeah, Chago!

And she said, so proud of him. And I say, so proud of you, Chago.

Fuck yeah.

Fuck yeah. I hope you enjoyed this, and I You keep it weird, but not so weird that you narrowly avoid possibly getting yoinked out of existence by a greasy crazy van guy, but get saved by a distracting projectile vomiting puppy and possibly looking like said man's sister, but then drink murder beers and get so sick that you give up drinking forever. Or do. Whatever floats your boat.

Hey, whatever works, right? Oh my God, I love your dog. Oh my God, I hope you have a tattoo of that dog because that's the most tattooable dog I've ever seen.

Oh, a beaut.

A beaut. A true beaut. I feel like, um, what's that style? Um, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, period.

That's it.

Yeah, no, um, like, like, I don't know, when that dog just looks like a tattoo.

He does look like a tattoo.

I'm saying it's a beautiful dog. Look at you with your cool sunglasses on.

Yeah, I gotta put them on.

I just want to stare at your dog.

It's time to vibe. Uh, Sarah, that was an amazing story, and it was really scary, and I was on the edge of my seat. Literally, that man would have killed you.

Yeah, if you didn't look like his sister.

So I'm really glad that you guys— good for Thiago. I think Thiago read the room too. I think he was just like, thanks, man. Yeah, like he got the vibe.

Yeah, it was smart.

You guys were smart.

Good job, Sarah. I kind of just burped that at you. Sorry. Good job. All right, tale 2: my real life man or the bear? Oh no. Oh, the bear, the bear, the bear.

That scares me a lot.

This listener would like to remain anonymous and will allow that.

We will allow you to remain anonymous.

Fine. Hey, Morbid Fam, you know that question that has been popular recently on the Tikki Tokki? Oh yeah. The one asked of women, you're alone in the woods, who would you rather encounter, a man or a bear? Here's my real life answer. In August of 2024, I was— I almost just read I was blowjobs.

Just, I was. I was blowjobs. I just became.

What the fuck? It says I was between jobs. Like, not even slightly that word.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what that means about me.

I'm not gonna explore it.

Fuck. Sorry, sorry, Anonymous. I was between jobs and I decided to visit my happy place. McLeod Falls in California is out near Shasta, and there's a campground that runs along 3 gorgeous waterfalls. That could call to me. Yeah, wouldn't camp there, but I'd go there.

I'd go there. I'd look at it.

Yeah, I'd look at it and then I'd go home. I had been there at least 5 times already, but I just love it so much out there that I had to go again. I stayed about a week, and although I went alone, the campsites around me were all occupied with happy campers. The first night I slept in my tent but didn't sleep well, so I left my tent up as a placeholder and slept in my car instead.

Bed.

I've been on the road a lot and I prefer my car because it has a hard shell. I can get more comfortable and I can leave quickly if I need to.

Yeah, that's fair.

Smart.

Yeah.

I also didn't have campfires because I go to bed early so I can wake up early. So the days go by of exploring and swimming. I saw tons of deer and one morning I even saw a baby black bear. They're so cute.

They're so cute. Leave them alone.

Don't go near them. Don't be like John and get out of the car and try to follow them.

Yep. John tried had to look at one very closely.

And even his 10-year-old children said, maybe you shouldn't do that, Dad.

They said, that was dumb, Dad.

On my last day, I decided to pop a cap.

What?

In someone's ass?

Hello?

Oh, what does that say about us? Because I think you mean open a beer. Pop a cap. But I've never heard that. I've never heard that. The only pop a cap I've ever heard is in someone's ass. That means shoot them.

That's—

I immediately thought of that. I've never heard that for like open a sodie. Like a sodie. I just thought it was like— I've heard like crack one open, you know? My last day, I decided to shoot someone's ass.

And that's it, period. And that's solicitation. That's solicitation. I see why you wanted to remain anonymous. All right. So I decided to pop a cap. Yeah.

And then she said, this person, whoever it is, is like, are you guys for real?

What did he just say?

What'd he say? No way. No way. You shot someone's ass. No way.

That's crazy.

So you popped a cap and you hiked the length of the waterfall— waterfowl? Waterfall! I'm not a fowl. Uh, and conclude the day by swimming at Middle Falls. The water's very cold but once you get used to it you can stay in all day. I was like a chubby mermaid out there. I swam under the fall. Hell yeah. Just picturing a chubby mermaid shooting stuff up. Just a chubby mermaid with like a clock. What's happening? I don't know.

What has happened? It's the pop of the cap. It is.

Um, so I swam under the falls and I floated with only the sounds of constantly crashing water. It was getting towards— on towards evening, and I realized a lot of people had left and there was only two men standing on the bank. Oh, hate that.

Get out of there.

I continued to luxuriate in the falls for as long as I could, and when I got back to the bank, there was only one man left. Somehow that's worse than two men. Oh yeah, you know what I mean?

I don't know why.

As I was drying off and getting ready to walk back to camp, this tall, overweight, fedora, my lady-looking mother— oh no, oh no, like my lady, my lady, oh no, my lady-looking motherfucker approached me. He said, could you take a picture of me? He was holding his phone, and this seemed like a normal request. I said sure and started to climb down the rocks to take his phone. That's when he said, I want to send my girlfriends in the Philippines a nude photo of me.

Oh, go fuck yourself, dude.

You're so nasty.

Go fuck yourself.

You're junk.

I'd literally be like, fuck off and die.

She would.

Yeah, fuck off and die. I just screamed, you nasty bitch. I'd get out of here.

Jump back into the water. I just grabbed his phone and I immediately said, sorry, I can't do that, and I handed his phone back. I grabbed my stuff and I walked/jogged as fast as I could back to camp. I was pissed. This was the last night of my magical camping trip, and now I have to look over my shoulder. I wish I had thrown his phone.

I don't blame you.

You should have. You just stomped on it.

But you know what? You were being smart. You were.

And that very same thought triggered my first memory of coming to these falls a few years before. This same motherfucker asked me that same question at the same fall years before. What? I had forgotten because I had so many adventures around that time, and so the memory kind of just faded.

Good for you. Then I thought that she was like, life is so great that I just forgot about that shitty thing. Yeah, good you.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's awesome.

So I had so many great adventures around that time, that memory had faded. Then I thought how gross and pathetic that this guy is still out here trying to get women to take pictures of his teeny weeny. Like, dude, don't you have a life? If this was Dante's Inferno, I imagine he would be in the second level where lusty fucks are, quote, blown into a violent storm without hope of rest. Hell yeah. And he would just be walking around for all of eternity with a broken camera asking for people to let him pose nude.

Yep.

So I got back to camp, still pissed and upset, and climbed into my car and watched the trailhead to make sure he hadn't followed me. I was in the clear now, and I decided to totally pack up so that— so that, that— so that, that—

so that, that—

so that in the morning I could GTFO. Once I was packed up, I noticed that a lot of the campers around me had left. The Camp Docent was, uh, only a couple spots away in a cabin, so I felt okay. I got ready for bed and curled up in my car. What's a docent? Do you know?

Like, I know, like, uh, there's like a museum docent, but what's a docent? I think I would just say— I'm trying to think of for like a campground what it would do?

What does a museum docent do?

I think they're like, they like oversee everything.

Oh, so it's like a keeper of the grounds, kind of?

I would think so. I'm not sure, so don't hold me to that.

Well, that's what we think. But the night didn't end there. After I curled up in my car, some young men pulled up at the campsite diagonal of me.

I hate that. Yeah.

And they left their car lights on as they looked around and set up. I realized I wasn't going to get any sleep right away, so I grabbed a little bottle of tequila and my green, and I sat on the picnic table table in the dark looking up at the stars. It was dark and I was quiet. I looked at the stars and I savored my final night in one of my favorite places. I do respect that you're like trying to like not get them to ruin it for you.

Yeah, like still having a whimsical moment. Yeah, to yourself, because you deserve it.

You do deserve it. And like you should be able to do that.

Yeah.

I'd been out there 20 minutes and I noticed something walking about 20 feet from me. I couldn't see well and it took me a moment, but I realized that it couldn't be a deer because of the size and the it moved. It was a big black bear. Oh, it was scouting for food left behind by other campers. I sat still so as not to startle it. I saw it recoil for a moment like it smelled me and my booze. I think it sensed that I wasn't a threat, so it walked past me not wanting any trouble. As soon as it passed, I climbed into my car just in case.

Yeah, black bears are like pretty— they're chiller. Yeah, as long as you don't like fuck with them, they won't fuck with you usually. I think—

isn't it like they're more scared of you really?

Yeah, black bears get like freaked out.

They're like skittish.

Yeah, yeah, unless they're protecting their babies. But obviously you don't want to fuck with a black bear.

Like, no, I mean, don't fuck with a bear.

We have a ton of those around the house.

Yeah. The bear didn't bother me. It silently shared space with me. The bear didn't try to manipulate me. The bear wasn't pervy. The bear didn't ask me to take a pic— the bear didn't ask me to take pics of it naked, which kind of would have been adorable if it did. I love this next line. In fact, the bear was naked and it still wasn't creepy about it. The man made me feel uncomfortable, and I sense he would have tried to lure me in and escalate. So yeah, team bear, 100%.

Hell yeah.

I love that. I love that you had the man and the bear at the— in the same night.

Yeah. And you had an experience with both of them and it was crystal clear who you would pick. Like, she didn't even talk about, like, feeling scared of this bear. No. She just was like, oh shit, that's a black bear.

Yeah.

She was like, I'm just going to sit here for a minute. And it looked at her bear, just kind of smelled and was like, 'All right, I'm gonna walk away now.' Isn't that just like, really sad, that a woman will be like, 'Oh wow, a black bear!' And then, 'Oh fuck, a man!' Like, then see, yeah, like, that's real. That man walked up to her and asked her to take a naked picture of him to send to his girlfriend in the Philippines.

Hey, do you mind if I whip my dick out? Yeah, I do.

You wouldn't know her, she doesn't go to school here. Yeah, yeah, like, that's that vibe. And this bear just chugged on through.

Yeah.

But yeah, Anonymous, that was a good tale.

I'm sorry you experienced that. Like, I'm still glad that you had a good time, but I hate that they even tainted your trip twice.

Because that's gross.

To a beautiful place.

Yeah. All right. Tale number 3. I literally got lost in a horror movie-esque forest survivor, like the TV show style, featuring a rift in the fabric of space-time. He said that again.

He's not here.

Yeah.

Are you talking about Mikey?

Mikey?

He's usually here. Sometimes he silences you.

Maybe that's why he's talking so much. He's like, he's not here, so I'm out.

Also, he said, listen, he said, listen to me. Yeah, you see what you did, Mikey?

See that, Mikey?

Mickey's like, goddammit, it was one time. Goddammit. He was like, it was an intense story, okay?

No, I have to start off with a bit of backstory so you better understand why I did what I did and how on earth I ended up in this situation. I grew up in a smallish town in Manitoba, Canada. Speaking of Canada, that's where Mikey is. My parents are ultra hippies in a sense and wanted their children to grow up near nature, so they bought a house off-grid on the edge of a forest where I was born. Oh, my parents had me in their early 20s, and after deciding they wanted more children after many years, they had my brothers in quick succession. That means that I technically grew up an only child because my brothers, twins, were born when I was 14, and my baby brother mother when I was 16.

Oh wow.

So I had to find ways to entertain myself. You may say that my parents were crunchy— no preservatives, food dyes, having their own chickens and sheep for eggs, wool, wool and meat, walking barefoot, and so on.

I'm obsessed with this.

They became less and less strict in the— in this regard as I grew older, and especially after they had more children, but it's still in there somewhere, as my brothers are also quote unquote forced to play outside. We had a rule when I was kid that you had to be outside for at least 4 hours a day. School and other activities didn't count.

Yeah, you gotta ground.

That meant that I played mostly alone in the forest near our home every day until I was about 12. Since my friends usually had other things to do after school— I suspect their parents didn't enjoy the idea of their children running around in the literal swampy forest until dark— I used to go into the forest around our home and do whatever 6-year-old children with sticks and rocks did. From then, school ended until it became dark. I was out playing hide and seek with my imaginary friends, climbing trees and eating dirt. My parents used to call that me gaining an immune system.

All right.

I tell you this because I've always felt a very strong connection with nature in the forest, and even now I live basically in the forest with my girlfriend, like the cottagecore gremlins we are.

I love that.

I love that.

I'm obsessed.

It never felt scary or alien to me, which I believe clouded my judgment and caused me to have a huge case of hubris that put me in a dangerous situation that easily could have been avoided. That's a bummer. He's like, that they're like, yeah, it's beautiful, but it also made me do this.

It's true. I love the word hubris. I do too.

Now, my first year at uni, I made some wonderful friends, Ali and Isaac, that love all things outdoor as much as I do. We made it a recurring tradition to every year go out bare bones camping in the early fall. I call it bare bones camping since we usually only packed one tent that had been in someone's garage for God knows how long, far too little food, far too much alcohol, and that's about it.

See, I think that's why people enjoy camping, because I think they bring a lot of alcohol.

Yeah, exactly.

So like, you can enjoy anything with a lot of inebriation. Yeah.

You know, we took a week off and made it a sort of challenge how long we could survive with the things we brought with us, along with whatever we foraged and made. Now that may be many people's worst nightmare, but I enjoyed a lot and consider myself quite apt at surviving in the woods.

And I respect that.

If there ever is a zombie virus outbreak, hit me up and I'm sure we'll survive.

Thank you.

It sounds worse. It sounds worse than it was. But now when we go, we do prepare better. For example, we bring a lot more food in those foldable polar pan—

polar— we bring foldable polar bears.

Have you heard of them? Foldable solar panels that can charge your electronics, and 2 tents since Allie and Isaac decided to make me the third wheel and get together.

Oh my goodness. Allie and Isaac.

Oh my God.

Allie and Isaac. Come on, you're fucking in the camping trip.

I've been somewhat older and a little smarter because it was honestly a miracle that nothing really bad happened to us the last 5 years. Oh no. So last year, 2022, when it was time to go on our annual Survivor knockoff camp trip, it was our 5-year anniversary. So we decided to go go all out and go to a national park a few hours away from where we lived. The park had many campgrounds and different overnight accommodations, but in true us fashion, we didn't want to be around other people, so we decided to hike right into the woods in a random direction and see where we ended up.

I like that. That's a theme here that everybody's like, I didn't want to be near other people.

I just, I really hate people, so I decided to be away.

That's how you know that you're our people.

Yeah. Now before it gets spooky, I have some warnings.

Hell yeah.

1, don't do this. It's super dumb. We're dumb people with no regard for our own health.

All right.

2, never go hiking right into an enormous forest if you aren't on a hiking trail and aren't familiar with the location.

Don't gotta tell me twice.

3, if you do, bring water and food and a compass or a map. Don't be dumb like us and never go alone. 4, first aid kit. You know it, you love it, bring it with you. I appreciate those warnings.

Those are really good.

Now that I've provided the masses with an adequate warning, let's get into the meat of this story. We went into the forest on a Thursday and in high spirits, and with lots of spirits in my backpack. In the afternoon, we found a little clearing and set up camp there. This forest wasn't really the— that dense or dark, but it was very symmetrical, if that's the right word for it. Every square meter looked the same, so when you didn't see any landmarks, you could walk 100 meters and it didn't look like you had moved.

Oh, that's not good.

The first night was totally normal. We ate freeze-dried spaghetti and got a bit tipsy catching up and having a great time.

You can't breeze past that. You can't breeze past freeze-dried spaghetti.

I'm intrigued.

What the fuck?

I'm intrigued. I said I'm not like excited.

I'm not excited.

I want to see it.

I don't even know.

Like, show me what freeze-dried spaghetti looks like. No, I want to see it.

Can't you just bring a thermos with real spaghetti?

Yeah.

Freeze-dried spaghetti?

It's like astronaut food.

Blech. I know we had to try that when we went to an astronaut museum at school.

You know, you know, the one astronaut museum that we have around here.

I think there is one. I don't know. We went there. We tried freeze-dried food and it was gross, but they didn't have spaghetti.

I remember trying freeze-dried, like, ice cream and stuff.

Yeah, the ice cream was good, but we tried other stuff and it wasn't good.

No, no, I don't remember.

I don't remember it, but that's spaghetti. Shouldn't be freeze-dried.

We shouldn't do that. I'd like to see it.

And that's where we stand.

That's where we stand on that issue. So on Friday, we went deeper into the forest. I wouldn't do that. That's where I stand on that issue. No. After a while, we found a spring and decided to sit there for a bit. It was literally the most boring, normal camping trip ever.

Until it wasn't.

That was until our phones died.

See, I told you.

So for context, we didn't bring any charging equipment with us. With us, but we also didn't use our phones for anything as that was part of our challenge.

What?

We had them turned off somewhere in our bags, and when Allie went to take a picture of the spring, her phone wasn't turning on. So naturally, Isaac and I also tried to turn on our phones, but none of them would turn on.

I hate that.

A little bit creepy, but maybe we could have— the cold drained the battery or something. I don't think that happens. Uh, that evening we tried to find a place to set up a tent, but the trees grew close to each other that it was impossible to find a large enough area to pitch a tent. We hadn't walked that far from the spring, so we figured turning 180 degrees and walking back would be easy. After 2 hours, when we still hadn't found our way back, I started to get freaked out. Isaac and Allie started building a semi-functional shelter from the wind, and I went to try to figure out which way was the way back to the parking lot. I had to figure out which way was east.

Oh, fuck that.

How I would do that, I had no idea. Since the sun had just and you couldn't really see any stars or anything because the trees were in the way. That's when I heard something that sounded like a grown-ass man screaming. The way that you just dropped that— he was like, yeah, it was so weird, it was crazy, it was starting to get a little— and that's when I heard the man screaming.

That's how I know you're a man, because if I heard that, I'd just sink into the earth. I'd sink into the earth.

Like, top of his lungs, falling off a cliff without any safety equipment, screaming. You know what happened?

He found your He's trying spaghetti.

It's inhumane. I'm telling you, it did sound far off, but it still gave me goosebumps. I could still see Isaac and Ally, so I shouted to ask them if they had heard anything, and they hadn't, which was super weird.

What the fuck?

Because I only stood like 50 meters, like 160 feet, from them, and it was really loud.

This is giving Blair Witch.

Later— that's all I keep thinking of. You're gonna find your— which one of you is gonna throw the fucking map in the stream? Which one?

We don't have a map.

Who is it?

They already did that.

Goddamn. Oh, later on we laid down to try to sleep. Isaac said he heard something walking in the forest, like twigs snapping and footsteps.

Pretty soon you're gonna have little handprints on your tent.

That part fucks me up.

That part—

even just thinking about that, I was like, because the kids kids make some noise like they're lifting something. Oh, stop.

No, no, I don't like to talk about it.

That noise sends me.

That movie is a masterpiece, and they're not gonna do a good job remaking it.

You can't remake it because you can't remake that marketing. Also, the amount of people— you can't do it.

I wasn't even there, and I know you can't.

I'm out of there. Being like, do we get to see the witch this time? No, that was the scary part. No, you don't. It's like why The Strangers doesn't work in sequel form, because you showed me The Strangers. I don't want to see The Strangers.

No, your brain is scarier what it conjures up.

Exactly.

And that's how we feel about that.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Thank you for coming. Weirdly, Ally and I didn't hear those footsteps. The force—

I don't like that. It's like traveling through the group. Like one person hears something, the other two don't.

I don't like that.

The next person hears something different. These two don't.

Because it's isolating everybody in that moment of fear. And I don't like that.

That's weird.

I don't like that. Um, I do love that for like a story though.

Great story.

Um, so the forest was dead quiet, like unnaturally so. We couldn't even hear the wind or any animal noises, but Isaac insisted that he had heard something. The next morning, after miserably failing to sleep, we again tried to make our way back from where we came. We still had some food left and water purifiers in case of emergency, so we weren't going to starve. And with the light, I was a little less scared.

But the night's always coming.

We spent the day just fooling around and still trying to walk back, which was a bit easier since the sun had come up and we could figure out which way was east. Around midday, we could hear running water, and finally we had made it back to the spring. Or so we had thought. Allie went and picked some berries so we could snack on them while Isaac and I sat around and tried to make a game plan of sorts.

Are you guys gonna start tripping now?

Probably. A little while later, I could see Allie running towards us, zigzagging through the trees yelling something. When she stopped, I could hear her say she saw the parking lot from where we came from, but that was impossible if this was the same spring clearing area. She swore up and down that she'd seen headlights in the distance and heard a car engine stop, so we packed up our stuff and followed her. There was nothing there. No sound to play with, no roads that a car or four-wheeler could have driven down, nothing. At this point, I still wasn't as freaked out as I probably should have been.

Wow.

But we continued walking in a straight line to the best of our abilities, thinking we would hit the edge of the forest somewhere. We set up camp for the third time, and almost as soon as the sun went down, shit got wild.

I told you it would.

As I said earlier, in this forest, every tree looked the same. There was almost no natural landmarks, and you easily got turned around. So when I went to pee a little bit away from my friends— we're close, but not that close, sorry.

That's respectable.

And I saw an oak tree, I was thoroughly flabbergasted. This whole forest was like pine trees and other tall skinny trees. So why the fuck was there a large, probably at least 70-year-old oak tree in the middle of the forest? Then I started hearing things like small animals running up and down the tree trunks and skittering all over the place, almost like they were running from something.

The Blair Witch.

I shone my flashlight in the direction of the sound, and what do I see? Two reflective massive big eyes staring at me.

Huh.

Now I'm tall, 183 centimeters or 6 feet. When you look at something far away, it looks smaller, right? So tell me why this thing was maybe 70 meters away from me.

I don't know how far that is.

But the eyes were at eye level with me, meaning it was big, big.

Was it a baya?

It moved towards me. And this was not an animal I knew about. At first I thought it was a moose because I saw something that looked like antlers, but they were super skinny. And the sound it made did not sound like a moose. It was very high-pitched, like a fork scraping on a plate, but coming from a throat of someone with tuberculosis who smokes 3 packs a day.

Descriptive. It's like, um, Where's that monster? Where's the monster?

Oh, he's over there now.

Yeah, he's like, uh, what?

From the ritual.

From the ritual. That's what I thought too, right?

Immediately I thought about that. Is it based on a wendigo?

I think so.

It probably is.

Props.

It does. It makes me think of a wendigo. That's not good.

That's really bad, in fact.

I did what any sane person would do, pulled up my pants and ran screaming in the other direction. Yes. Smart. I yelled at the top of my lungs in hopes Allie and Isaac would understand that they also had to run at this point because it was every man for themselves. Only like a minute later, I stopped to look back and saw nothing. The adrenaline in me at the time was through the roof. I could literally hear my blood traveling through my body, and it felt like an out-of-body experience in a really uncomfortable way. Ew. I waited a bit, and when I was sure nothing moved or made a sound I quickly tried to sneak back to where we had camped. I could still see the light from where we had put up the tent, so I slowly walked towards it. There, eating berries and other plants we had foraged, sat Isaac and Allie, totally chill but a bit puzzled why I'd been gone so long. I was still worked up that I was in a totally not chill way shouted at them because they hadn't run when I told them to. We didn't hear anything, was the answer to that.

What do you mean you didn't hear me screaming at the top of my lungs? Apparently the only thing they noticed was me going to relieve myself out of eyesight, and after 15 minutes, me coming back from them from a totally different direction.

What?

I still don't understand how the fuck this was possible. Safe to say I did not sleep well that night. We were a bit worried the batteries in our flashlight would run out since we hadn't charged them before this. So we had to lay there in the pitch-black forest just staring up at the orange roof of that tent.

No.

Somehow I managed to fall asleep and to get a solid 4 hours of sleep before Allie woke me to tell me that Isaac had for real this time found a road. We got going in the direction Isaac pointed us to, and there it was, a well-traveled trail. I was elated. Normally we camp for about 5 days, but we decided to cut this trip short because the vibes weren't there.

They were not immaculate.

Also because I was scared shitless. We followed the trail for only about 40 minutes until we got to a parking lot. Now here's something super weird. We went into the forest on a Thursday and we came out on a Saturday, but we had spent 3 nights in there, so it should have been Sunday. How did we experience 3 nights but it had only been 2 days? The sun came up and down down 3 times in the span of 2 days.

But it didn't.

2 days. Super weirded out, we called an Uber to get us out of there, ate some Wendy's for dinner.

The appropriate decision.

We tried to come up with a normal explanation for all the things we heard, saw, and experienced, but ultimately we decided it was better if we didn't know.

Life is fucking weird, man.

Side note, I tried turning on my phone back home and it turned on with 60% battery left. Left. So I don't know what the fuck that was about either.

We're not meant to go into the woods.

No, for extended periods of time.

To go into the ocean.

No. We did go camping the next year again.

You guys are absolutely fucked. You're fucked in the head for that.

Fucked up. That's wrong.

How dare you.

You're wrong for that.

Did you bring freeze-dried spaghetti again?

But this time we were better prepared and camped in my part of the woods near my childhood home in order to avoid any horned monsters lurking about.

Yeah, but what if they know you now? What if they like marked you?

Truly, what if they have your scent?

They do. What if they— what if— what if they do?

Yeah, they do have your scent, just so you know. That was that. I have some true crime stories I might send in when I get to writing them.

Please do.

As I said, I don't particularly enjoy writing, so I might take a while.

You did a great job.

You're great at it. Once again, thank you for existing and reading my— this story. I love you so much. Keep it weird, but not so weird that you go camping survival mode and start hearing things and get caught mid-piss by a demon. So scary it makes you experience an extra day. Don't do that. Like, actually don't.

I'm not gonna.

I won't either.

I'm not gonna.

That is a horrifying story. Oh my gosh, the way that you experienced an extra day.

Wowza.

That stressed me out.

Wowza.

You saw— you saw the monster from the ritual.

I gotta tell you, I think that's one of the best listener tales we've ever done.

Yeah, that was crazy. That was like really freaked out by that. I would love to hear Isaac and Ally, who I love that they're in love now.

I mean, they bonded.

They did, because a lot of times they were just left alone while you were screaming and pissing.

Yeah, I'm honestly surprised you guys aren't a throuple after that. That's crazy.

Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Fuck. All right, tell number 4, the tale of the camping murders. Yes, murders, as in more than one, from multiple camping trips.

Oh, and you kept camping?

And it— this listener tale has a prologue.

Oh, it says settle in, settle in for this one. This is going to be the culmination.

All right. My husband Josh is a few— Josh, I don't know why I just like to say Josh. Josh is a few years older than me, 8 years to be exact. Get it, boy? And just— but you said that.

I love that. But, but honestly, get it, boy?

Despite our age difference, our fun levels have always been on the same page, and he's always been great with getting along with my my friends. Part of the reason why I love him so much. So one summer I told him my BFF since middle school, 25 years of friendship and still going strong—

hell yeah—

we're going camping for a weekend and I wanted us to go too. Now I had never really been camping. I'm what you would consider an indoor cat. Me too.

Same.

I do enjoy going out. I play sports. I would go ghost hunting with these BFFs back in the day. But when it comes to going away for a long weekend, I do enjoy the finer things and like to stay at hotels hotels or nice Airbnb— Airbnbs and go to nice restaurants and feel fancy. Yes. I feel like I'm like talking to myself right now.

Yeah.

YOLO, am I right?

You are right.

Remember when Janelle Evans got that tattooed on her body? I'm just thinking about that.

Oh my God, I forgot that. Yeah.

Well, I'm rewatching Teen Mom 2. Uh, I did go camping once in high school after senior ball, but I got very high. A cicada flew up my shorts and I freaked out, and then I passed out in a tent only to awake the next day, as if the night was a blip on my radar.

Honestly, a cicada flying up your shorts is a fucking nightmare.

Yeah, really is.

Those things are scary.

Honestly, a cicada existing within a 10-foot radius of you is— Anyway, I was excited to go spend a weekend in the wilderness for real with my friends and my husband, but when I told him about the plans, he paused, looked away briefly, then back at me with a bit of fear in his eyes.

Oh wait, hold on, can I, can I show you that. So he paused.

Okay.

He looked away. Wow. That was what happened.

Academy Award winner Elena Urquhart-White.

Thank you. Crazy. I like that you said, wait, that was just so— you said, and you asked permission.

You asked permission. You said, can I show you that?

Can I?

He said, yes, of course.

Can I wow you with my, with my acting abilities?

And you did.

Thank you.

And you did.

It was cinematic. I feel like it had to happen.

Okay. Yeah. He told me he didn't know if it was a good idea for him to go camping because the last times he— two times he had done so, there was a murder.

A murder.

Two. Let me just quickly go on a tangent because I feel like right now I should say, submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story—

there it is.

We were, we were in sync there. The Tale of the Camping Murders.

Oh, hell yeah. You've just set the vibe and I like it.

And then said, pour Midnight Dust on the fire. Yes, love it. All right, so chapter one. Oh, I love it.

You're killing it.

Josh grew up camping a lot. He used to go all the time with his his dad, and it was a really fun thing he used to do. When he got a little bit older, he wanted to relive some of those childhood memories and experiences, but you know, he was a college kid with no money and he didn't have any of his own camping equipment.

It happened.

So the first time he went camping, when murder number 1 happened, he needed to borrow his dad's tent. I'm sorry, is he going camping alone?

I just want to know.

Probably. His dad is a good dude but very particular about people borrowing his stuff, especially his camping equipment. So it was important not to lose the tent.

I'm— I mean, that's important on any camping trip, I feel.

I feel like also it's like the most vital thing when camping, so like you're not bound to lose it. But I've never—

people lose tents when they camp?

Maybe if they like blow away, I guess.

That's your shelter.

Don't lose it.

That's terrifying. See, I shouldn't camp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so long story short. He lost the tent.

I guess it happens.

He lost the tent. I suppose that happens because it was state's evidence in a murder, so it doesn't usually happen.

So he didn't lose it, so it does not usually happen. What the fuck is happening right now? Hello?

Okay, so this story takes place in 1998. I was 2.

Oh my.

You were 12?

12.

12. Math. It was spring break of Josh's junior year of college. A couple of his college buddies and him went camping down near Maryland somewhere. Where? Not sure, but it was cold. It was April and it was north enough that it was cold out, but not like upstate New York in April cold. Anywhere. Anyway.

Anywhere too.

Anywhere. Anywhere anyway. There were 4 of them and they were well Well, idiots. They brought nothing but beer, weed, and snacks. That's a theme.

Yeah, it's survival camping.

Yeah. And they were the only ones in this campground because it was so early in the season. Remember, early April, kind of northeast, probably about 40 degrees.

Oh.

So the first day they set up their campsite, they were like, this is way too cold. Fortunately, there was a log cabin nearby that they could rent. So they moved all their shit to the log cabin and proceeded to basically get fucked up for 3 days.

Wow.

They're in college. College. On the third night, the guys decided to build this super big campfire outside. Side note, don't do that when you're like super duper fucked up. Yeah, okay, back to the story. They got logs from the trees and they built this stupidly massive raging campfire and were being stupid college-aged boys yelling things like, "We are the kings of the forest! We are alone here!" Oh my God, man. Well, when off in the distance they see this other normal-sized campfire fire. Now when I say distance, I don't mean like 40 yards. I have no capacity of what that is. I mean like out in the distance, a pretty decent way. Okay. Maybe a quarter of a mile or so.

It's like almost half a football field.

All right.

Right? Because like 50 yards is, I think a football field is 100 yards.

I think you're right.

So it's like almost half a football field.

All I remember from cheerleading is first and 10, do it again, come on defense.

Work, work.

So I know that Tim— wow, you're— that's— you're really rude for that. I just put myself out there. I just put myself out there and you were a mean theater kid. And that's why. And that's why.

That's exactly—

that's why we're different.

That's exactly what happened.

You were a mean— I was just spreading cheer and you were a mean theater kid judging me.

You're right.

Wow.

You're right.

And that was my high school experience.

I'm just kidding.

That's actually why I quit cheer, because people were not nice to us. It was like the complete opposite of Every high school movie, I was like, oh my God, I'll do cheer and I'll get really popular.

Yay.

And everyone was like, loser. I was like, okay, I quit. I'll do softball. And then they were like, lesbian. And I was like, you're not wrong. You're halfway there. I'm bi. And that's a little about me. All right, so how do we get here again? From Buffon to high school to sexuality.

Real unhinged one.

Back to camping. All right, so the fire was noticeable, but it was a little far away. But it was the only other person in the general vicinity of where they were. So these guys, the drunk, high, fucked up idiots that they were, started screaming and chanting at the dude, our fire is bigger, you can't beat us, fuck you dumb other person, this is our forest. It sounded just like that.

Fuck you dumb other person, this is our forest.

That's like the voice that I do for Drew when he says something I think is dumb.

He's like, "I don't sound like that." John hates me because the girls do it too.

Yeah.

But like, in that it was like, "Ugh." That's just, that's woman punch. And he's like, "I've never started a sentence with ugh." And I'm like, "But in my head you have." In my head you always do.

When you say a dumb thing, it always starts with ugh. Uh, you know, things that stupid, dumb, fucked up college kids would say.

Yeah.

And that was it. The fire went out, they cleaned up, and they went home. Except because they switched to the log cabin, Josh forgot all about the other campground that they had set up, which included, yeah, his dad's fucking tent.

That was dumb.

So he left his dad's tent in the state park. He remembers the sinking pit in his stomach when he got home and thought, oh my God, the only thing I couldn't do was lose this fucking tent.

Which seems like it would be hard to do.

Yeah, but apparently Absolutely not. But of course he lost it, so he called up his roommate who was one of the 4 idiots on the trip. It was still spring break and his buddy lived closer to where they went camping, so he asked, hey man, can you swing back over there and pick up my tent? He was about an hour away from it. The friend said, sure, no problem.

That's a good friend.

That is a good friend. So a day goes by— this was pre-texting, hello 1998— and his buddy calls Josh and the convo went like this. Friend: hey, so I went to the campground and there's a problem. Problem. Josh: What? Friend: Well, you did leave your tent there and they did find it, but they don't have it anymore. Josh: What do you mean? Friend: It's, uh, state's evidence now. Josh: What are you talking about? State's evidence? Friend: Well, remember the person we were screaming at and taunting, the only other person out there? There was a reason why he was in his private secluded area in the woods. He was on the run from the fucking police because he just chopped some people up with ax.

What the fuck?

The guy that they were taunting in the woods was a literal ax murderer.

Like, a literal ax murderer.

Fucking A. This is what you do when you're drunk, high, and stupid. It's the plot of every awful '90s horror movie. But after they left, the ax murderer apparently came to their cabin and looked around, touching Josh's dad's tent, which then became evidence evidence. They got lucky that he didn't come while they were still there, but that was camping murder story number 1.

Holy shit, they almost became murdered.

Ax murdered.

They almost became murdered.

Yeah. All right, chapter 2. Camping murders.

I thought you said chapter 2.

I might have, like, chop chop. Yeah, I didn't mean to. Yeah, chapter 2. Camping murder story number 2 was like 2 years later. Josh had purchased his own tent at that point because his dad was so pissed at him for having his first tent become state's evidence.

Yeah.

Now Josh was like, okay, great, I have I have my own equipment. It's 2000 now. Josh had just graduated college.

It's the millennium. Oh, look at that.

Oh my God, it's the millennium. It's totally Rufus, dude. So Josh had just graduated college, and he remembers exactly what night this murder took place because it was the night of this big Red Sox-Yankees game where Pedro Martinez pitched against Roger Clemens. Oh, fuck Roger Clemens. You know who you're talking to, baby. Baby. Fuck that guy. It was a classic pitcher's duel. Now, this trip was, uh, with a different group of friends, his high school friends, but similarly to his college friends, they were drunk idiots.

Yeah.

So they go to this campground in upstate New York somewhere, and this campground is packed. The exact, exact opposite of his first murder camping trip. This campground was not remote at all. In fact, it had its own main community building, which is where Josh remembers watching the Red Sox-Yankees game.

That makes sense.

Anyhow, Anyway, at this time, Josh and his buddies were 21. There you go, I was right. So what do you do when you're 21 years old and camping? Same thing you do when you're 19 and camping— you drink. Yeah, a lot. Now at this campground, Josh remembers the people there were kind of weird because they were almost like a set of cliques. Their group had about 30 people and they took up a bunch of campsites, but the group next to them he thinks were Eastern European. He doesn't remember exactly where they were from, where they were from, but they clearly were speaking another language like Polish.

Polish.

Hey, my honey's Polish. And then on the other side of them was this giant massive group of bikers. That would make me feel so safe. Me too. I like bikers. I do too. Much like we like truckers. Yeah. He said they stood out because— hopefully I don't regret saying that. I hope they're not the murderers here.

Who knows? Yeah.

Well, he said they stood out because, uh, there were so many motorcycles everywhere. But the drunk 21-year-olds, Eastern Europeans, and bikers were the three main groups in their portion of the campground.

What a grouping. True.

Truly. It was like earlier with the hippies, the hipsters, and the good old boys.

Yeah, the good old boys.

Yeah, this is a bit of a better trio. So the first two nights were fine. On the third night, it's always the third night.

It always is.

Josh remembers getting really drunk again. College kid idiot. But nothing really eventful happened. So he went to bed and passed out like one of those drunk 2 AM passouts when you're like, oh, I don't want to see the world for a while. But then he felt like he was suddenly woke up, woken up. And when he was able to gain some semblance of consciousness from his still drunk slash early hangover state, he just heard screaming, terror and screaming, and someone yelling, oh shit, I think Josh is in there, which is like the last thing in the world you want to hear when you're in that state.

Or when you're in any state.

When you're conscious. He fully woke up, opened his eyes, and the entire world was on fire. Fire. Everything was burning, including his tent. Oh, so he opens up his tent, and remember, when he went to bed, it was a lovely summer night. He was drunk with his friends, a true all-American experience. He opens up his tent to fucking hell on earth, just a complete hellscape in front of him. So what apparently happened was the Eastern European group and the biker group, at some point, like 3 AM— got in— always 3 AM— got into a fucking epic brawl. Oh no, just a crazy brawl that spilled over into his friends' campsites. And one of the big moments of the fight involves somebody getting pushed and knocking over a grill that had a bunch of hot coals in it.

Oh no, probably hot dogs too.

Oh, not the fucking hot dogs! How dare you waste a dog!

Damn.

But those hot coals landed on Josh's tent and caught it on fire. Holy shit, brand new tent.

Not his— oh, he just bought—

he was really proud of it. So now his tent is on fire, there are bodies from this giant massive brawl all over over, including one, and he doesn't know if this person actually died or not. But in his drunk state, this dude was murdered because he had one of those cooking forks that you use to flip a steak stuck in his head. What? Like embedded in his head. And he was bleeding from his head with his eyes closed. Did the guy survive? Josh doesn't know, but he thinks he did.

Oh man.

And while Josh is still drunk or hungover, his tent is burning, and he's like, I gotta get the fuck out of here.

Yeah, you you do.

Then they, uh, they then just left and went home. And it wasn't until a little bit later, with some retrospect, that he was like, I'm not sure I can ever go camping again. My last two camping trips involved taunting an ax murderer and having my tent taken to state's evidence. Then I got a new tent and that caught fire because two random groups got into a fight that left my tent burning and someone getting stabbed in the head with a pitchfork.

Yeah, that should tell you that you're not supposed to camp anymore.

Well, then I asked him to go camping. Yeah. Chapter 3. So he tells me these stories and I'm like, holy shit, are you a liability?

He is. He is.

But they say third time's a charm, and I really wanted to go spend a long weekend with my friends experiencing the world like an outdoor cat. I love—

and holy shit, are you a liability?

Like, just like, you're the problem. Fuck, am I just learning that you're a liability?

Is it me? Jesus.

Is it you?

Jesus.

So we bought a new tent.

Oh no.

And all new equipment because we had none. The trip was 4 days, 3 nights at some state park in Pennsylvania. Everything was great. I had so much fun hiking.

Get me to that third night.

I know. Finding random lakes and streams to swim in, learning to play kubb, which is Viking chess. If you haven't played, it's awesome. And I would be happy to teach you. Oh, teach me. Thank you. And being with my friends and their partners, I was loving it. Yeah. Yeah, until the third night.

Yeah, here we are, we're at the third night.

Fucking third night, it's coming. Similar to Josh and his friends, we, uh, enjoyed imbibing the alcoholic beverage every now and again. However, we weren't idiots like his friends. We were very mindful of everything because we were at a very family-friendly campground.

Oh, that was nice of you.

Yeah, and technically you're not supposed to drink in state parks in Pennsylvania, so we would hide the empties either in coolers or in an opaque garbage bag. We also didn't, you know, taunt any potential ax murderers or get in any epic brawl. Good for you. So the last night we're there, we still had a lot of booze, so we decided to get after it a bit.

Let's get after it.

I don't smoke anymore, but some of my friends do, so they enjoyed some of that. And then, oh, we had the Vampire Weekend Pandora channel playing quietly in the background. You just took me back.

That is delicious.

Remember Pandora?

Remember Pandora channel? I used to love The Shins. Yes, uh, that Pandora channel is, is really A+.

Do you know that Papa got me ad-free Pandora?

Wow, that— he's a G. He really was. Yeah.

Um, wow. Oh, Pandora.

I'm going to listen to Vampire Weekend Pandora.

My art teacher used to let one person put their phone on the, like— she had this, like, big stereo thing that you could put your phone on top of and it would, like, play music.

And she always let me put my Pandora channel We used to use Pandora in the morgue. Oh yeah, like a playlist.

Fucking Pandora.

Yeah.

Oh wow. So it was a lovely final evening, just sitting around the fire, drinking, relaxing, chatting, listening to Pandora. It was after 10 at this point, so that's technically quiet hours, but we were being respectful of the other people camping, not being loud, when all of a sudden a flashlight shines towards us and then another. We freeze briefly and Josh whispers, it's happening again, but this time we're gonna be murdered.

Goddamn it, Josh.

I feel like, I feel like you should leave, right?

You gotta get the fuck out of here.

Get out of the campsite, Josh.

Don't whisper to me, it's happening again, we're gonna get murdered.

I'd say it's your fault, go on and get. Then, in the fire's glow, two park rangers come walking up to us and they say, how are you doing? My stoned and drunk friends seemed a little nervous and replied, good, good. Then they asked if we were drinking. We lied and we said no. Then one of the rangers shined a light on a beer can at one of the tables. A beer can that I left on the table. Oh, girl. I was the fucking idiot that night and left evidence on the table.

Oh no.

They then proceed to tell us that we're not allowed to drink and that we had to pour out all of our alcohol. Uh, they had fun doing that. They were like, pour it out. At first we tried to reason with them, but they weren't allowing it, and they watched us as we murdered our alcohol and honestly the forest because we had to pour it all on the ground.

Yeah.

One of my friends made the point that it was bad for the environment, but the rangers didn't care.

That's lame.

At one point Josh yelled, I'm 40, how can I not have a drink? He wasn't 40, but he was the oldest of all of us.

He wasn't 40.

I love, in fact, it's like the narrator. In fact, he was not 40, but he was the oldest of all of us. I told you at the beginning his age would come back and was trying to use his age as part of the reason the whole thing was stupid, especially because we were being quiet and not interrupting anyone else. Needless to say, we poured out over 100 ounces of alcohol that night. We went to bed afterwards because the mood was killed.

I'd say so.

And that was because of me.

Me.

I was the murderer of our fun and our alcohol. Quite the twist. You would never think that you'd be the murderer.

Never.

Fortunately, no humans were injured this night, just our egos and part of the forest ground. So I guess third time was a charm of Josh's camping trips. Thanks for reading this, and I hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you are involved in multiple murders while camping and the third murder ends up being you.

I love that one.

That was such a good one.

I really love that.

I love it a lot.

That's a lot of murders on on camping trips or just shenanigans.

That's a— I think that's just like what happens on camping trips. Yeah.

And I just think like, that's that, you know? I think you did it. I gave it your all.

I think so too.

And that's that.

Yeah. What else are you gonna do, you know?

What are you gonna do?

All right, this will be the last one because it's Appalachian and that's where you end.

You have to end on an Appalachian one.

Appalachia.

So this one is— excuse me, let me get my eyes back.

I don't know if I will excuse you. Remember when you were a theater kid that taunted me? I allowed you act and you didn't even allow me to cheer without judgment.

I allowed you to.

Without judgment.

I can't help my face.

You really can't. I can't help my face either.

It's true. How ghosts turned my hike on the Appalachian Trail into a full-on sprint. Hi, weirdos. My name is Katie.

Hi, Katie.

Pronouns she/her. Tutu. Yes, you can use my name. Tutu.

I am tutu years old.

Tutu. Yes, you can use my name and I absolutely love your podcast. Thank you. I've been waiting for something spooky to happen to me for some time now so I could finally write a listener tale. And what do you No, I was blessed with an absolutely terrifying night just for you.

Huzzah!

I could write paragraphs about how much I appreciate you both, but instead I'll cut to the chase.

Fine.

The chase being the scariest night of my life. I'm gonna apologize in advance for the length. It's about an 8-minute read.

That's fine.

Settle in. Uh, last year, the year of my 21st birthday— 2-1— should have been the greatest year of my life.

It never is. On my 21st birthday, my friend crashed her head into a wall. So we're not friends anymore.

No, it never will be. No. Uh, so instead, it was easily the hardest. It seemed like every week was something new— family illness, myself getting sick several times, friends passing away, and doing my best to support my other friends while they also went through the hardest year of their lives. It's safe to say when 2022 came around, I was ready for a, for a break from it all. In January of this year, my dad was reading the paper when he came across an article of a girl who had hiked the entirety of the Appalachian Trail. I was immediately intrigued. Anyone that knows me knows I'm a bit of a tomboy. I love the outdoors and practically grew up in the woods. I decided right then and there that I would hike the trail. I hoped it would be a fresh start from the craziness my life had been.

You did a little—

yeah, you did. In September of this year, I left for a month-long hike on the trail and was immediately hit with its intensity. It was easily the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Uh, However, there was one night in particular that stood out more than any other. 20 days into my hike—

oh my God, Jesus Christ, I just— my whole body just felt a warm—

I'm tired just from that.

I go up the stairs and I'm like, whoo, that was crazy for me.

So 20 days into my hike, I had arrived at a shelter. For those of you who aren't familiar with the trail, there are shelters every 8 to 10-ish miles in case of harsh weather conditions. Shelters usually consisted of 3 walls and a roof. However, the shelter I had reached this particular night was one of the largest shelters on the trail. This one was rectangular shaped, 4 walls with 2 large door frames on either side of the walls running lengthwise. On either side of the shelter were 2 bunks. I've attached a drawing for reference. Thank you. I arrived at the shelter late in the day. Rather than pitching my hammock in a tree like I did most nights, I decided to hang it inside of the shelter between the 2 bunks. My hammock came with a bug net that fully enclosed it while I slept. Little did I know this would become one more obstacle in my escape later on.

Oh no.

I then attached my food sack to the rope and threw it on top of the roof, securing the other end to a post down below so I would be able to pull it down later. This protected it from bears, the only predator I was supposed to expect on trail.

Uh-oh.

By the time I was fully set up, it was 9 PM and it was dark inside the shelter. I was fully alone tonight, like I was most nights. I decided to do my hike in the off-season, so I rarely saw anyone. Most of the days and nights were spent completely alone in the middle of the mountains.

It's horrifying.

You're brave. Extraterrestrial.

And not.

I zipped myself into the bug net and settled down for the night, texting my family and friends to let them know I had made it to the shelter for the night, like I did every night. About 15 minutes later, I hear what sounds like footsteps approaching the shelter. I remember sighing in relief. Nights alone in the woods were often terrifying, and it always helped having fellow hikers nearby. I waited for the footsteps to approach the shelter so I could inform my new friend that they were welcome to sleep in the shelter with me, but they never did.

That's really nice that you would have just told a stranger that they could sleep in the same area.

Yeah, because I'd be like, don't come the fuck in here, occupied, ocupado.

Yeah, friend.

Uh, I wasn't worried though. Lots of hikers preferred to pitch their own tent outside the shelter for privacy. I again find myself playing on my phone, talking to friends, and scrolling Instagram with what little signal I had. After a while, I noticed I hadn't heard anything more from the footsteps. No shuffling to set up camp and no footsteps walking away. It seems strange.

Hate that.

From my vantage point in the hammock, I could see outside— couldn't— I couldn't see outside. If I had any lights on inside of the bug net, I wouldn't have been able to see out. Uh, the light from my phone reflected off the black netting and would only light up the inside of the hammock, but nothing on the outside. I settle myself deeper into my sleeping bag and try to relax. No more than 5 minutes later, I hear heavy footsteps again approaching the shelter, this time from the back.

Got you surrounded.

I quickly sit up and press my face against the bug net in order to see outside and wait for the owner of the feet to appear. The footsteps walk right past the doorway, and I see nothing.

No.

I immediately feel the blood in my face drain down my Fine. The noise was close enough to the door that I should have been able to see whoever it was, but no one was there. My whole body hummed to life with adrenaline.

That's a wom, babe. Wom wom.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to get a grip. Maybe it was just a possum walking by and I hadn't seen it due to its short stature. I don't know. I knew deep in my heart it wasn't that. Breathe, calm down, I was silently screaming to myself. You're fine, you're just worked up. I laid flat in my hammock for several minutes listening for more while my pulse hammered away. Just then, I felt my body begin to relax, and I heard a noise that seemed to deafen everything around it. On the wall closest to my feet, I could hear the sound— what sounded like a baseball bat running along the length of the wooden siding, slowly, like a psycho killer would do.

Psycho killer.

Footsteps again crunching in the gravel alongside it.

I don't like it.

Right now seemed like an appropriate time to run to safety, but again, I was in the middle of the forest and I had no idea who or what was out there. It was then that I recalled reading a comment in one of my hiking apps that mentioned this particular shelter. The comment read, weird guy at the tent sites. For some odd reason, he displays a baseball bat at his sight. I was certain at that moment that the sound was the man from the comment and that he was going to bash my head in with that bat.

Period.

Period indeed. I quickly sent a text to my dad saying that I didn't feel safe where I was and to mark my location in case something were to happen to me. Imagine getting that text from your child. No, no, no, that would be— I would die.

I'd send a helicopter to Appalachia.

Truly, I would take flight.

Yeah, period.

I think I would become a cryptid and I would fly. I would take flight.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm just hitting stuff.

That's mama shit.

He replied seconds later with, get your bear spray out. This only increased my rapidly rising pulse. I had put— I had brought the bear spray for protection but never planned on using it.

Sometimes you gotta, baby.

As I'm sending my last text, I hear the bat sound again, this time on the stoop of the shelter. I shove my face and head lamp, which I had just rustled out from under my sleeping bag, against the bug net again and see nothing. I feel tears rolling down my cheeks without even realizing that I had been crying. I remember thinking, I'm gonna die if I don't move. I pushed aside my feelings of fear and tried to replace them with thoughts of someone braver than I was.

No, you're hella brave.

I st— you're brave just for being there.

That's what I'm saying.

I strapped on my headlamp, unzipped the bug net, and nearly fell to the ground. In my left hand, I had my phone open to dial 911, and my right was bear spray. As confidently as I could, I stepped outside of the shelter with my bear spray up and called out, hello?

No, you don't do that, baby. You don't do that. No, that's the worst.

No, you know, you walk out there and you say, I have a gun. Yes, that's what you say. Fuck you up. Yeah. Nothing. I wasn't quite sure what my plan was, but I knew it involved spraying this asshole in the face if he came running around the corner.

What was just like, hi, hi, hi, hi.

I walked around to the back side of the shelter and was horrified. Nobody was there.

What?

But I could hear the footsteps again, loud and clear, walking south of the shelter. I knew right then and there that what I was dealing with wasn't human.

Oh, not in Appalachia, baby.

I switched my phone from the calling app to my camera, knowing 911 wouldn't be able to help with this one.

Nope.

And started taking a video for proof. Just as I had done so, the detached footsteps stopped, turned around, and started walking right up to me. In a panic, I ended the video and ran back into the shelter. Once inside, I frantically punched numbers to hostels inside my— into my phone, desperately hoping one would answer and send a driver to get me. My hopes were low since it was now 10 PM at night. After being sent to a voice— to voicemail multiple times, one of the hostels called me back and I broke down and do a full-on sob. I remember the conversation going something like this: Ma'am, are you okay?

No.

Do you want me to call the police for you? No, they wouldn't be able to help. Why not, honey? Nobody is here. You're alone? Yes, but that's not what I mean. They were probably like, what? What?

If it was me, I'd be like, ah, ghost. Yeah.

Oh, you see a ghost, gonna send someone for you, babe. I explained my situation more in depth to the lady, and she went quiet for a second before telling me she didn't have room in her hospital— hostel.

What a bitch.

I felt like I was gonna pass out from fear at this point. Hearing the panic in my voice, she gave me the numbers of several hostels in a nearby resort.

What a nice woman.

Seriously though, just sleep at the desk, like make a little room.

I'd be like, you can sleep in the lobby here. Yeah.

And then once you're here, we'll get you somewhere else.

Yeah, because she knows what's going on. It's a—

it's a walker.

It's a walker.

While I'm dialing the resort, I could hear footsteps now running past the doorway on my right.

It's a flesh pedestrian.

Again, nobody is there. I'm hyperventilating when the front desk lady answers my call. She informed me to get to the closest road as soon as possible and that she was sending a maintenance man to pick me up.

Oh, you know, they get these calls all the time in Appalachia.

I hang up the phone and start throwing everything into my pack, all the while trying to ignore the footsteps running around the shelter. I exit the shelter and scramble to where I hung my food sack. In a panic-stricken frenzy, I try to untie the knot before giving up and cutting it free from from the post I had tied it to.

Was there freeze-dried spaghetti in there?

Probably, and I don't want to see it.

Oh, now you don't?

I— no, I want to see it. Oh. I ran through the woods until I made it to the road I had crossed on my way in. The maintenance man was already there waiting.

A jeep.

Maintenance man. I threw myself into his truck without checking to see if this was in fact the person that was at the resort sent after me. I know, probably not the smartest decision, but at this point I was okay with riding with a potential Bundy if that meant I was near civilization.

I'd rather deal with a human scary person than an invisible scary thing.

That's— see, I'm the opposite.

In Appalachia.

That's true.

Like, not right now.

Yeah. Yeah. The car ride to the resort was long and awkward, so I decided to tell the driver about my terrifying encounter.

Wait, no, because I was just thinking, here's the thing, you can kill a person.

That's true. You can't kill a ghost. They're dead. He proceeded to inform me that I most likely ran into angry spirits. After all, quote, the trail runs right through Native lands. That sent chills throughout my body. My witchy friends made me take crystals with me for protection from things like this. Later that night, after dumping the contents of my pack on the hotel room floor, I found one of my protection crystals had a piece broken off. My friend informed me that this meant it had absorbed a large amount of negative energy and was now quote unquote useless. Yeah. I almost made this the last night of my trip but decided I wasn't gonna let a little ghost sighting stop me from having perhaps one of the best experiences of my life. You're a badass. I'm so thankful I didn't. I continued to hike for the rest of the month and finished proudly after having hiked 283.5 miles in 30 fucking days.

You went back.

This bitch. This bitch. You went back? During which time I made lifelong friendships, hiked through the entire Smoky Mountains, and learned more about myself in 30 days than I have in 22 years of living.

Wow. You ate, you cried, and you lurved on that trail.

Many of those days I spent listening to this podcast to keep me going. Oh my God, that's so fucking cool.

That's really cool. Cool.

So to put an end to this incredibly long story, keep it weird but not so weird that— take it away, Ash.

You decide to embark on a fucking journey hiking across the Appalachian fucking Trail, and you say, this whole thing is going to change my life. And the first time that you try to set out there, you— the footsteps and the baseball bats and the spirits and the broken crystals, everything gets to you. And you get in the car with a man who you don't know if it's Ted Bundy, but he says, I'm not Ted Bundy, but those spirits they're gonna get you, boo. And you say, no, they're not, I'm gonna finish this trail. And you keep it so weird that you finish the fucking trail while listening to Morbid. Which also, like, the fact that you listen to Morbid the entire time you hiked the Appalachian Trail is like, you made it harder for yourself in that way.

That's true.

You said, I'ma freak myself out while I do this. Hell yeah. You got your freak on. Missy Elliott would be proud. I'm on a Missy Elliott kick.

You are on a Missy Elliott kick.

I love it.

And you got your freak on. That was wild.

That was scary. That was crazy. If you guys thought that this was going to make me camp, yeah, you're wrong.

I'm saying you're so weird.

Well, you people, as, as usual. Can I ask you something? Do you say as per usual, or is that redundant?

I do not like saying as per usual.

Doesn't it feel redundant? Yeah, I know as and per are different, but like, I don't love it. But aren't as and per kind of the same? Cuz it's like per my last email.

That's what I would feel.

As per. I don't like as per usual. As, as, as, as my last email. Yeah, per my last email.

Yeah, I'm totally on your side.

I think I might— you're like, you don't have to convince me. I think I'm gonna start saying per, per my last email. Per, per, per, per. I don't know. Anyways, I've gone on a lot of tangents this time. Good job.

If you have any listener tales, send them in with listener tale in the subject line.

Yeah, to morbidpodcast@gmail.com. Do it. We hope you keep listening.

And we hope you—

we really hope you keep listening.

Yeah, and we hope you keep it weird!

As weird as us.

Yeah. Bye!