Camp Monsters - Goat Island

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Alma never paid much attention to the stories people told about the woods on Goat Island. Woods were just woods...until the night she had to walk into them.Listen to REI’s Wild Ideas Worth Living podcast.This episode is sponsored by Asics. Shop amazing products by Asics in stores or at REI.com.    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

REI Co-op Studios Slip, but floating. For now, anyway. We can't last. We can't last out here. Not long. This water's too cold. See?

Over there. No. Over there. Dark a shape. It's land. It's our only chance. No. No.

We can't push the kayak. Gotta let go. Swim. Swim! Swim! Oh, come. Come behind. Don't stop.

Don't look back. Go. Go. Swim! Yes! There you are! Oh, you made it. When I lost you up there, I thought...

Anyway, we... I can't stay here. It's a narrow little strip of gravel. There's no shelter. Tide coming up. Waves are going to be crashing against that bluff soon. Night's coming down. Hey, look, the only way's up that slope.

It's steep, but... Hey, there's something. What's that hanging down? A root or vine, or... It might help us climb. No, it's a wire cable. A thick old rusted cable. No, what?

Yeah, no, of course I'm going to climb up. I'm just wondering. I'm wondering where we are. An old cable like this hanging down the bluff. Is that a building up there? I'll see up there that concrete. It's like a ruin? We couldn't be.

I'm sure. We're not. I'm sure we're not on Goat Island. No, we couldn't be here. We must be on the Camp Monsters podcast. Yeah. Starting to warm up a little bit now. Just a little bit with this fire and a roof over our heads. Funny when the cold gets right down to your marrow like that, how long it sticks around. I was just glad we found this shelter and there were some dry sticks in it. And I'm glad you had the matches in that little waterproof container you bought at REI. I just wish we bought a bigger one and put our cell phones in it. And I wish I hadn't got us into this mess.

I wanted to kick off Season 8 of the Camp Monsters podcast with something special. So I dreamed up this sunset kayak tour on the Puget Sound, north of Seattle. I never thought the weather would turn so bad, so quick. It was only supposed to be a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. What? No, no, I'm just thinking. I'm not being quiet to listen.

I'm not listening for anything out there in the night, in the rain. It's just, well, that's these ruins we're in. I mean, this isn't some old shack or boat. or something. This is huge. All these great, big, low buildings poured and thick concrete, gouged, crouching down here in the earth, right into the bluff. This little room, this vault we're huddled in with graffiti leaping around in the firelight, rain drops streaking orange in front of all that dark outside the little door. There's only one place we could be. This is Fort Whitman, the ruins of Fort Whitman.

We're shipwrecked on... ...on... ...on goat island. Ha ha ha ha ha ha... ...of course the thunder picks that moment to let it rip. I didn't really mean to make it sound so ominous. There's nothing ominous about goat island. I mean, not really.

It's just that... Well, it's abandoned, for one thing. You know, totally uninhabited, so... There's no way we can... hike for help and no one's going to find us tonight. But all the same, we're lucky to be here. We're just lucky to be alive and have this fire. So we're just try to stay warm and keep feeding the fire and keep waiting,

just waiting for dawn. Jumpy? No, I'm not jumping. This isn't pacing. I'm just trying to get comfortable. I'm still trying to thaw out from our unexecutive. expected swim tonight and what are you trying to do anyway you scare me or what you're the one acting all look you're putting words in my mouth no no i don't know any scary stories about this

place about goat island or this old ruined fort or and even if i did i wouldn't tell any of them here now after the night we've had i mean anyway people always make things up about empty, lonely places like this. Huh? Oh yeah, of course I noticed the graffiti. Teenagers with nothing better to do, paddle over here in the daytime and spray it up. They're always off this island by nightfall, though, I bet.

I wish they'd think of something else to draw other than mushrooms and rocket ships. What? No, what are you talking about? Oh, okay, yeah, you're right, I guess. I do kind of see it now. There's something behind the graffiti, isn't there? It's kind of under it.

I think it's painted on? You're right. It's etched or scratched. Scratch right in the concrete. Pretty deep, too. That's why it shows through the paint. Makes shadows in this jumping firelight. Well, you know, concrete this old starts to soften.

It makes it easy to scratch and carve things into. Here, hand me that rusty nail by your feet. Oh, man. No, I could barely make a mark. Somebody must have really worked to scratch all this on the wall. It's writing. There's a lot of it, too. Hey, I think I'd make out the beginning part here.

Let's see. My name is... Alma. I can't make out the rest of it. I can't read anymore. Oh, you can, huh? Well, look, I wish you wouldn't read any more of it. I mean, it's just somebody's idea of a joke that old story about this island.

And... Well, if you're going to read it, can you at least do it silently? Just read it to your self? Oh, come on, what do you mean you are? You're not even mumbling. You're practically singing it. My name is Alma, last caretaker of Fort Whitman. And I leave this as a warning to whoever reads it. And as a full account of myself and the terrible thing I did. And if what happened to me here on this island, just please just stop it. Will you stop it? It's just that old GoTo Island story and it's not true. None of it. It never happened. Or if something happened, it was such a long time ago.

I'm sure it wasn't like they say. The story just got built up, you know, and built up and exaggerated into this whole mysterious thing. Like there was... Like there was something haunting this island, right? stalking it. Hiding out there in the dark. Strange eyes shining in the firelight.

A little closer every time you see them. Until... Until... Will you cut it out? I am not staring. I'm tired. I just happen to be looking out that doorway at the night. All that dark and rain.

I'm not watching. Did it look like I was watching? What I'm trying to tell you is that there's nothing to watch for on a deserted island. That's the whole point of what I'm saying. There's nothing out there. Okay, fine. Listen, if you'll stop reading that junk carved in the wall, then I'll tell you the story the way I heard it.

Just so you can understand what really happened and how it got exaggerated, and then we can have a laugh about it and about the other stories. Okay, so this Alma person, the caretaker, she was... Well, they say that one night she... But, well, before that, okay, this island.

goat island the stories say it was always uninhabited but I don't know that for sure if we get when we get out of here we'll go across the street and ask the people who've always been here the Swinomish people

they're still here they'll know whether that part of the story is right but anyway in 1910 the army came the U.S. Army and they cleared the thick forest off just a little strip of the bluff on this northern tip of the island, and they built this fort, the one we're in now to help

protect the entrance to the Puget Sound Waterway. They built it, and they named it Fort Whitman. And then they mostly forgot about it. I mean, after the Great War, World War I, the army put it on caretaker status. That meant just a soldier or two stationed here, sometimes their families, plus a handful of civilian workers hired to keep the guns from rusting away completely. That's how they say that Alma came to Goat Island. She was the wife of the sergeant who was placed in charge back in the 1930s sometime. And one autumn evening. They say she left the clearing by the fort and went out into the woods that cover the rest of the island.

The woods that cover all of the island. today. These woods. Alma didn't pay any attention to those silly stories that some of the men told, even then, about the woods. They were just made up story, she thought. Probably made up just to try and scare her. Didn't work, though.

Alma knew. Woods or woods? Just woods. No matter how they make you feel. And when you have to go into them, you do. And that evening she had, to because of that blasted goat. Nanny, Alma had decided to name it, and hadn't had a name before.

The men stationed here and always just called it goat. And no one could give Alma a straight answer about where it had come from or how long it had been there, just that it was the fort goat and had been there as long as any of them had. Nanny! Nanny! Alma called due to the darkening forest that pressed so... thick all around her. It was funny that the goat didn't answer back.

Nanny was normally a noisy little goat who loved to belch out her ragged bleat between nearly every bite of brush she ate. But now, Alma called and called. All she heard, or maybe only thought she'd heard, was a sort of distant crashing, like something struggling in the bushes,

way back in the forest. Well, there was nothing to be scared of back in those trees, even though evening was falling. And there was nothing in those stories that the men told, whispering together. Did they whisper so she wouldn't hear them, or knowing that she'd listen harder? And they whispered about seeing something back here in the forest. A small, dark shape, they said. black, shining eyes. They said they heard things.

And then, then Alma heard something. She stopped to listen. It was that rustling, struggling sound again, closer now, just ahead. And also, another sound under it. A low, quiet sound,

like a whisper? A voice? Fear put its hand on Alma then. Because if there was a voice up ahead, it must be a person. And just as surely as there was nothing to fear from an empty forest, there was everything to fear in the heart of a stranger met in a lonely place. Alma knew that. She touched the rough bark of the tree in front of her, and she leaned her head against it, listening.

The sound was close, maybe just around the other side of the tree. Maybe she could see what was making it if she, silently, slowly, slowly, leaned out to one side of the tree trunk. Alma drew in her breath and her head, drew it back behind the tree and hoped she hadn't been seen or heard, and she tried to understand. Nanny was out there, the goat, yes, in the center of a tiny clearing, but what else? Some shape, some darkness, crouched in front of the goat, crouched by its head, talking to it? What was it? Too small to be a person, what?

And shaped different, she couldn't. place it, it was like nothing she'd ever seen. That voice, that harsh murmur, a hideous, hideous sound. Not right. She didn't like it. She should run. Yeah, run. Hide. Run. No, no. Quiet now, quiet, Alma. She thought to herself, nonsense. You hush that stuff. You don't know what you saw. It was too, it was too quick. Look again now. Just once again lean around the tree

and this time really look. Inch by inch, the bark slid past Alma's nose again, silver, black and brown. That steely side of her mind forced her onward while another part conjured up images of what she was about to

see. She was about to see a face. She knew it. right on the other side of the tree now waiting for close a terrible twisted animal face eyes wide hot mouth gaping teeth tinged with blood any moment now any moment almost almost no oh no it was just it was just nanny of course of course no it was just nanny of course I was just nanny, standing, all alone on her own in the middle of the clearing, head low. Oh, silly.

There was nothing else there, no one else around. That dark, small figure Alma thought she'd seen must have just been... It must have been that rotting stump, way over there, and her first glance was so quick that she'd thought it was much closer to the goat. That was all. Alma took a looped rope from the pocket of her apron and she passed her over the goat's head. She expected the usual goatly resistance to this, but she got none. Nanny didn't move her head, didn't move a muscle.

Wasn't moving at all. Nanny, Alma said, and she gave the rope a little tug. Come along, Nanny. But the goat didn't. take a step. Nanny? Alma said, and she took one of the goats rough, crooked horns in her hand, had pulled. What she felt then flashed her back to her days as a volunteer nurse in France during the Great War. Flashed her back to the boys they'd bring in with shell shock, unhurt, but fear frozen, so stiff that their arms and legs seemed carved from wood. Muscles straining, eyes staring, fixed.

dripping tears. To touch those men felt just, just like touching Nanny felt now. Alma knelt slowly beside the goat. Nanny? She asked again quietly. Nanny, it's all right. She peered into the goat's eye, that strange rectangular pupil so different from ours it's impossible to interpret. impossible to see what they're feeling. Well, Alma didn't see what Nanny was feeling, but she did see something in that eye. She saw a reflection, a reflection of herself and of something else. Something dark and small, standing right behind her,

and moving, slowly, reaching out. There was a crash in the bushes as Alma world. to look behind her. And as she turned, the sound seemed to turn with her, so that when she was facing the empty forest that held no sign of a dark figure, she still heard the crashing behind. And she kept turning, quick as she could, and she lost her balance. And as her tangled legs stumbled and she began to fall, now there was no nanny standing there anymore. And Alma tried to tell herself that the crashing she heard in the bushes now was just the sound of the goat running away, running back

toward the fort. But when she hit the ground, the crashing still seemed to be coming from the forest behind her, so she sprang up faster than she ever dreamed she could, and she ran, ran, flying toward the fort, fighting through the slashing,

thrashing, crushing brush all around her, convinced in some instinctive chamber of her heart that part of the noise was coming from something that was just one step. behind. Well, don't worry. That wasn't the scary part, not yet. Alma made it back to the fort's clearing, and she wasn't five steps into it before she felt ashamed of her fear, ashamed of losing herself so completely to it like she was a little child. She looked back and saw the wall

of undergrowth, stilling from her passage, no sign or sound of anything behind her. now, of course. She slowed to a walk then, and breathed deep and looked all around, glad that no one was there to see her and that it wasn't far to the little cottage where she and her husband lived. As she rounded the corner of the house, there was nanny, standing, calmly chewing cud, and then Alma was upper porch, and inside with the door locked, taking deep breaths and beginning to assess the shredding damage that the thorns and branches had inflicted on her clothes and skin as she ran. Alma wasn't in a hurry to go back into the forest after that. As a matter of fact,

it's a question if she ever did go back into the forest or not. Some say she did. But some say she... Well, we'll come to that. In the meantime, over the next few days, the only change that Alma noticed outside herself was in the goat, nanny. And what the change was, she couldn't precisely put her finger on. It was something in the way the goat looked at her now. A knowing look, as if they shared a secret that the goat was just waiting to tell. And the fact is that Alma had a secret. Well, it wasn't really a secret. She didn't Think of it as a secret. It had all happened so long ago.

It belonged to another life, to another person, almost. But a few days after Alma's strange trip into the forest, her secret came out. One of the new men recognized her, you see. One of the new civilian workers hired to replace some others who'd quit and returned to civilization. A few new men arrived one evening on the shoreboat. Alma knew they were coming. She was walking to meet them, walking along the bluff toward the pier and the last light of an autumn sunset. Just the kind of light that can take you right back in time, if you let it.

She saw the boat chugging back across the channel and the new men walking up the steep trail through the blue shadows of the ravine. Alma stopped on top of the bluff and stood smiling a welcome at them. As they came closer, the lead man looked up. at Alma and he smiled back or no he seemed to smile but well yes he did smile but with his eyes that was it his eyes smiled so broadly back at Alma while the rest of his face just hinted at a smile and it wasn't until he broke from the blue shadows into the full sunlight that alma realized that the lower part of the man's face was a mask It was one of those fancy, very realistic masks that the army had paid artists to make out of porcelain or thin copper in the years just after the Great War to help the poor fellows who'd been wounded in the face. Alma was surprised for an instant, but she didn't let her own face betray her.

Most of the workers sent to the island were wounded veterans. The army gave hiring preference to them for jobs like this. and Alma had been a nurse in the Great War after all. She'd seen everything. But before that, before she'd volunteered as a nurse, Alma had followed another profession. The man in the mask stepped up to Alma with a questioning look in his eyes. Then he pulled a little note pad in a pencil from his shirt pocket

and quickly wrote a name followed by a question mark. He turned the note pad so Alma could read it and she, She felt herself reddening a bit. Oh, Alma said, glancing shyly away, I, well, no one's called me by that name in so many years. The man looked pleased with himself and excited, and he scrawled something else on the notepad and turned it back to Alma. Under the name he'd written a question,

The Singer? It read, with Singer. in all caps. Alma smiled wider and she gave a little half- laugh. Yes, Alma said, I used to sing under that name. Well, of course, by dinner that evening, everyone at the fort had heard about Alma's brief career as a singer. When she was young, in a 19-teen, she'd spent a few hectic years on the Vaudeville theater circuit.

It had been a long time since anyone had recognized her from that life, but it turned out that the new man in the mask had been a big fan back in those days. He still owned a few of the records she'd made back then. She was pleasantly surprised that any copies had been sold, much less kept. He played them for everyone before dinner in their little makeshift mess hall, and then there was no stopping it. Everyone pounded at tables for Alma, insisting that she sing for them, sing the old song, sing them all.

Of course, in almost music hall days, there had been lights and costumes and musicians down in the pit to accompany her. Now there was just her in her apron, sitting in a scarred old upright piano that needed tuning. But none of the people who saw her sing that night ever remembered any of that. Because she was magnificent, absolutely captivating. She knew all the tricks of the vaudeville trade, and inside of three songs, she had even the shyest man belting out those strident old tunes right alongside her, and then settling down in rapt silence as she felt her way through a lonely ballad. She sang all the good old songs of the good old days,

the songs of 1917 when she was at her peak, singing for packed theaters, and then going out to the streets to sing the same songs again for the overflow crowds. Good old patriotic songs, the marching songs, the songs that woke a sleeping nation up to rise to the challenge of the great war. Songs that she'd sung so stirringly back in those days that the army recruiters who were working with the vaudeville shows at the time would step on stage beside her during her last big number. And they'd form the boys into ranks right there in the theater as she sang, marched them out through the streets to the train stations and the marshalling yards and the big training depots. Well, she'd done her duty all right. She could see them now.

She could remember them all as she sang these songs. Remember all those happy, shining, boyish faces, marching, marching, marching away to the tunes that she sang. Back at the beat-up little piano in the 1930s mess hall, Alma was right in the middle of one of those numbers, a big bombastic song. Now, maybe it was goodbye Broadway.

She was right in the middle of it when she happened to glance over at the new man, the man in the mask, the one who'd recognized her and got all this started. He'd been tapping his tin mug and nodding his head along to the music, but now he'd stopped and she noticed it. She glanced over at him. He was still smiling faintly, but, well, of course, he was always smiling faintly. His smile was painted on. But now above that painted,

smile, Alma saw his eyes, looking back, looking way back through the years and seeing himself singing those songs, back when he could sing, singing them, really belting them out and smiling, back when he could really smile. His eyes were full of years and tears, and as soon as Alma saw them, her eyes filled too and her song choked off. The piano faltered. She stood up roughly, knocking the stool over behind her, and she said something about needing some air. She stumbled out into the night and weezed a deep breath in through her emotions. Those songs still rang in her ears, the sound of all those voices swelling to join her. So many of them, past and present.

And now she also heard the sound of marching feet. She stopped to listen on the lonely past. in that moonlit night. She heard it, the crunch, the boots on cobblestone crunch of marching men, marching troops. She could hear it, not in her mind, not in her memory anymore, but here, right here with her in the night. But then in a moment her eyes adjusted to the dark and the sound lost its mystery as she saw what she was actually hearing. Not the marching boys of memory, no, it was the goat. Just the goat, nanny, standing in the middle of the trail in front of her, silent but for the sound of its chewing.

It's noisy chewing, just at the pace of an army marching. Strange. Well, there was nothing to be frightened of, but a terrible fear began to claw its way higher and higher from almost belly up into her throat. Is it getting louder? Is the sound getting louder? louder, louder, Alma raised her hands to stop her ears, and suddenly terrible things began to happen.

The goat, the goat began to stand up there in the moonlight, to stand up on its hind legs, not like a goat anymore, but not like a man either. Like a half-animal nightmare standing up on quivering legs with its madly chomping head rolling from side to side and its horrible strange eyes fixed on Alma. There was something, something about the goat's face as well. Something about its jaw. It would, it shone.

Its jaw shone in the moonlight like it was painted on, like it was made of painted porcelain. And then the goat stood perfectly still, and its horrible chewing stopped. Stopped. And there was silence for an instant. And then a tinkling shatter on the sidewalk at their feet. And the goat wasn't chewing anymore now. Of course it wasn't chewing anymore because now it couldn't chew. It couldn't chew without a lower jaw.

couldn't chew with only a lolling, foaming tongue with a face wounded so badly and as Alma stared at the goat and tried to scream, the two most vivid memories of her life came crashing, smashing together. Concerts in the crowded theaters of 1917, songs and boyish faces so packed with hope but in fervor collided with their time as a nurse in field hospitals in France, so crowded with wounds and fever that there wasn't any hope at all. And the boys died begging under the cold stars. Neat lines of marching, smiling faces, tangled ranks with sobbing kids with bandaged eyes,

straggling back toward Aris, blinded by those yellow cross gas shirts. She'd sang them into the ranks. She'd sang them into the battles, and then she'd nursed and comforted the remnants afterward, but she'd never, never, never let herself see the connection between the two. She'd never let herself understand what she'd done, what she'd been. What did they call it? What did they call the goat that led the other animals into the slaughterhouse? What did they call it?

Judas, Judas, Judas, a Judas goat. That's what they called it. That's what she was. That's what she'd been. And now the goat standing in front of her in the moonlight wasn't a goat anymore. Wasn't just a goat with a missing jaw or mangled limbs or a sucking chest wound or a bandage over weeping, sightless eyes. It was all of those things. It was everything mashed together.

Every nightmare jumbled up and come to life. And finally, finally, Alma found her voice to scream. A harsh, hoarse, despairing sob. And as soon as it heard the sound, the goat, the goat looked right at her. And, well, that's where the stories that people tell nowadays

that kind of diverge. Some say that the goat ran toward Alma, ran scrambling toward her on its two twisted hind legs and chased her into the forest. And, of course, they say they're still out there somewhere in these woods

on this island. Others say that the men of the fort came out of the dining hall and found Alma jibbering, crying, a sudden hopeless wreck whimpering broken in the path in the moonlight, and that the goat was never seen again. Either way, the fort was permanently closed shortly after that. And then, of course, there are the really ridiculous epilogues to this story,

the ones that say that the army tried to station men here on Goat Island again during World War II, but had to withdraw them after too many unexplainable incidents. Or the one about how the Department of Fish and Wildlife tried to leave some naturalists over here for a few weeks in the 1970s. But, well, you can see where all these stories end up. They want to make you believe that any time a group of people tries to spend a night over here on this island now, one of the party gets separated somehow.

It wanders off into the dark and the goat or that little dark figure or Alma herself or whatever it is that's out there that's supposed to be out there. Confronts the person with something terrible. Their worst fears, their darkest secrets. confronts them and drives them hopelessly, terribly, totally, mad. I mean, it's ridiculous, right? It's just a terrible old cliche of a campfire story. It's not even any twists or turns,

just predictable all the way through, huh? I'm sorry if I bored you with that one. Anyway, I hope it was more entertaining than just sitting here all night staring at the fire. It's getting a little low now, isn't it? Throw a few more of those sticks on there, will you? Oh, are we out? Already? Well, there's still a lot of night left.

Well, that's okay. I'm sure there's some more sticks and dry things to burn and some of the other abandoned rooms of this old fort. Just giving that waterproof flashlight there. I'll go looking. You stay here with the fire. What? Oh, no. No, come on.

It's just a story. I'll be fine. Really, there's nothing real out here to be scared of. It's just a silly old ghost story. Goat Island's just a quiet, uninhabited little nature preserve. That's all. Now, look, I'm only going to be gone a few minutes. You just stay here close to the fire,

and I'll be right back with more fuel. It's fine. Camp Monsters is part of the R-EI podcast network. Those rowdy World War I-era marching tunes you hear in the background are sung by our executive producers, Paolo Motila and Joe Crosby. Get them all psyched up for season eight of the Camp Monsters podcast. Our genius sound designer Nick Patry

manned the enormous sound trumpet that allows him to record these wonders onto wax cylinders, for enjoyment on your gramophones back home. Meanwhile, our senior producer Jenny Barber is hard at work crafting a delicate mask that she swears will allow yours truly, writer and host Weston Davis, to go out in public without frightening the children. But Jenny, being frightening is the whole point of Camp Monsters. Thank you, thank you, thank you all for making an eighth season of Camp Monsters possible.

It's your support, your listens, your share, sharing on social and your spreading of the word of mouth that makes it possible for us to keep coming back and telling these tales. Thank you. And keep it up. Of course, you know by now that the stories we tell here on Camp Monsters are just that. Stories. Some of them may be based on things scratched deep in the concrete walls of an abandoned fort

on an uninhabited island in Washington State. But it's up to you to decide who or what. made those scratches and how they scratched them so deep. Next week will be deep in the forests of western Pennsylvania at the bottom of a very steep slope with a very badly broken ankle at night in the rain. And just when things seem to be at their worst, that's when we'll hear those rustling footsteps.

And that grunting snuffle from the bush. nearby and then we'll see we'll see well I hope we see you again next time right here around the campfire