Camp Monsters - Hogzilla

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Beyond the high school football end zone, through that little gap in the fence, and all the way down the hill into the trees is where locals believe the legendary ghost hog lives. Landry, the small town football star, may find himself running from more than his opponent this Friday night.This year’s sponsor is YETI. Check out all of their amazing gear in store or at REI.com. Drink it in – Shop YETI DrinkwareShop YETI Rambler Camp Monsters Mug

This is an REI Co-op Studios production. You never forget the sound of it. Grunts and cries. Half-words hammered into silence by thunderous collisions. Your own breath, sucking in and hissing out. Your own heart pounding. Your own blood rushing sucking in and hissing out. Your own heart pounding. Your own blood rushing in your ears. And you can taste the copper of it.

Your blood on the back of your tongue. But you bite down harder and you keep running. Expecting every step to be your last. Moaned down, blown over, hit so hard you'll never remember. The fear lifts your feet so fast you must be flying. You hope you're flying. You're afraid of the earth.

Up ahead, a glimpse of daylight. You stretch every fiber of yourself toward it just as the world breaks down around you. Collapsing, colliding, slamming shut, crushing you. Crushing you. Crushing the life out of your lungs. You struggle, but you can't... You can't take it. You break. You fall forward. A distant roar rises in your ears, louder than the rushing blood. The ground jumps up

to meet you, hits you harder than you've ever felt it. And you lie there, gone, empty, gasping in nothing, unable to remember, until many hands pull you up, stand you on your feet, slam you on the shoulders, lift you in the air, screaming that you made it,. Lift you in the air. Screaming that you made it. You did it. You won. You're a running back. You're a high school running back. And you've just won the big game.

But on this week's episode, you'll have more to run from than the opposing team. This is the Camp Monsters Podcast. Oh, there it is. You can't miss it. Shining up there like a jewel on a black velvet night. The brightest thing for a hundred miles around. The stadium. In a small town out here in the Arkansas hills. It's nothing much to look at during the day, just some grandstands and goalposts. But on a Friday night in fall,

with the lights on, the stands full, the bands playing, it's the biggest thing in the county. I know normally we tell these stories around a campfire, but since football runs right through the middle of this one, I thought a setting like this might be more appropriate. So let's rub shoulders up to the very top of the stands where we might be able to hear ourselves think. Oh, and say hi to everybody in town along the way. You want a hot dog? Here we are, at good seats. You know, the story starts in this very stadium, quite a few years ago now. Well, not quite in this stadium, just outside it, I guess. You see that stand

of cottonwoods over there? Down the hill, past that far corner of the end zone. You see their leaves shimmering in the lights, nothing but darkness behind them? Out beyond there is a kind of swampy scrubland for a few acres Scrappy trees, thick brush A little grass-choked stream that drains down toward the river That gap in the fence there is just so the groundskeeper can get out and keep the bushes back There's nothing out there Unless

Unless you believe the stories some people tell. Stories like this one. It was the drag-tail end of one of those fever-hot days when nobody's bothered to tell summer that fall's coming. Man, it was hot. So muggy you couldn't tell where your sweat ended and the air began. You felt like a catfish trying to breathe boiling water. We were supposed to be sprinting down to that end zone there.

The one by those trees. But let me tell you, it was the very end of a two-a-day practice and nobody had a sprint left in them. The only thing that kept us going was the knowledge that it was almost over. It had to be. The shadows were long and the light was going deep gold like it does just before the sun disappears.

It couldn't be long now. One or two more drills and they'd let us go. They'd have to. We ran down there in our imitation sprint and right away they had us line up. A-team offense and defense, red zone drills, trying to score. Coach was yelling that this is how we'd feel at the end of a long, hard game. And now he wanted us to execute.

I played tight end because I'm big and tall, and Coach said I didn't have enough brains to worry about getting them knocked out. I don't remember the play call, but it didn't matter much because everybody on the field knew that one way or another, Landry was going to get the ball. The center snapped it and I hit the guy across from me, tried to make my shaken legs keep driving. I swear I felt a cool breeze go by behind me. That's how fast Landry was running by. Then I got tripped up, hit the ground and rolled in time to see him run right by two tacklers and over a third into that corner of the end zone down there.

He made it look easy, like he always did. Effortless, like he wasn't even running full out. But Landry didn't stop in the end zone. He flipped the ball away in the back corner of it, then let his momentum carry him across the track, through that little gap in the fence, and all the way down the hill into the trees. And that was just like Landry, too. See, he could tell we were sucking wind, feeling down. We needed somebody to do something a little ridiculous.

Well, running down that hill, it wasn't much, but it doesn't take much when you're all that tired. Seeing Landry lope through that fence spread just a little ripple of laughter through all of us. Nervous laughter, maybe. Wondering how Coach was going to punish him. But while we were chuckling, Landry was down in those trees.

He told me about it later. Said after he made it through the fence, the hill fell away so steep he let the stubbly ground carry him down until he was right in there among the cottonwoods. fence, the hill fell away so steep he let the stubbly ground carry him down till he was right in there among the cottonwoods. He was surprised how dark it was when he got down there. The hill blocked out the sunlight, the night was already creeping dark blue between those thick, rough tree trunks. And quiet. All the shouting and whistles seemed far away down there, he said. The rustle of a breeze he couldn't feel flickered those thousands of cottonwood leaves in a rippling

rush, seemed to drown out all the other sounds. The leaves were whispering so loud that at first he didn't hear the other sound of movement the hiss of something shifting and thick dry grass but when a twig snapped he looked that way off to one side

into the gloom under the crisscrossing limbs of the low brush and he thought he saw something move behind a big, dark, rotten log over there. Then he saw a big, round, shiny red thing, tried to figure out what it was and he'd only just realized that it was an eye when the thing moved again and he saw that it wasn't hiding

behind that huge log it couldn't be not when the log itself stood up on short thick powerful legs and turned toward him with a face full of tusks and both

eyes glowing red. I was the first one over to that fence after Landry had gone through it. Other guys were closer, but Coach was hollering so loud at Landry for his stunt that I think they were a little shy of going over there. I couldn't see Landry right away down there in the dark under the trees but that changed soon enough. He burst out of those bushes and came running up that hill quicker than he could have run down it.

I laughed again. I thought he was showing off. I thought it was all part of the gag. But as he came up to me, I saw different. His eyes were so wide, white, all the way around, like I'd never seen them. And his face. You ever seen Tiger's Eye, the stone? It's got a glow that seems to simmer up inside of it, shifting and shimmering its color from the warmest blackness on up to a high honey gold, ever-changing. Landry's face was like that, like Tiger's Eye, usually, but not coming back up that hill.

Racing back up that hill into the last golden light of the evening, his face looked gray and flat. The light had gone out of it. And back there, down under the trees, something was moving. Something was coming. I saw it. Something was coming. I saw it. Something big.

Coming, like... Even at the top of the hill, I took a step back from that fence. What was it? What was coming? Landry hopped through the gap in the fence and whirled around like he expected something to be right behind him. And then he stood staring down into the trees. Hog down there.

Was all he said at first, quiet. And I looked back where he was looking. I squinted down into the trees again, but I couldn't see anything moving anymore. And before Landry could get control of himself, before he could find his way back into that big smile that always protected him, before he could laugh the whole thing off, he told us about what he'd seen down there. About the hog as long as a car,

taller than his waist, tusks as big as three fingers, eyes burning red. He kept looking behind him as he stuttered the story out, like he was afraid the hog was about to bust out of the bushes and charge up the hill after him. And the more he told, and the scarier it was, the more all the guys

around us started to laugh. And the more they laughed, the calmer Landry got. The less he looked behind him, the more he leaned into the story. And the hog got bigger and wilder and more ridiculous. Pretty soon everyone was laughing at the idea of this big football star surprising a wild boar down there and then hightailing it away faster than he'd ever run. Even the coaches started laughing at his tall tail, which I guess saved Landry from a punishment lap. After that, the guys started calling Landry Hogzilla, after the legendary demon hog that some folks claim is really out there somewhere. And the name stuck, though I don't think Landry actually liked it.

I'd been the first one up to that fence. I'd seen his face when he sprinted up that hill. I knew. I knew there was more to it than the jokes he'd told. There'd been something down there. Landry kind of changed after that. I didn't link it up at first to the scare he'd had I thought it was the pressure Everybody did Maybe part of it was I mean, he came out that season running red hot

The best back in the state Some people said the country Big time college scouts were coming around all the time. His highlights were on the local news. He was getting interviews on TV. People were already starting to talk about the pros. And everyone in town was always stopping him, talking to him, telling stories, giving advice and encouragement before every game. And we were winning. He carried us. He kept us winning.

But it was a heck of a load for anyone to carry. A lot of pressure. And those of us who knew him noticed. We saw that the better he ran, the grayer he looked. He was worn. Tired. Transparent, almost, sometimes. He could still turn the lights on.

Still glow like his old self when other people were around. But I'd catch him in a quiet moment by his locker when no one else was looking. And when he tried to turn that old smile on me it looked brittle like it was shatter if he dropped it he's always been a great runner but that season he was like nothing anybody had ever seen every team knew what was coming every team game planned for him but it was just nothing they could do. And it's funny when you're that good and that gifted.

It's funny the way some people will talk. Some folks just couldn't believe his talent was natural, I guess. They started to tell stories on him about why he was so good or what he did to get that way. Some of the things

they said were really strange. Folks said they'd seen him in the woods at night, running. They caught a glimpse of him dashing fast across some lonely country road. Saw him in the headlights just long enough to know for sure it was him. Of course, I never believed those kind of stories. Until... Until one night I couldn't sleep. The big cross-county rivalry game was coming up, the big grudge match, and every time I closed my eyes I was playing it over and over again. About an hour before

dawn I decided I might as well get some exercise while I worried, so I went on a run. It was still dark out, but there was most of a moon and the sky in the east was starting to get pale. Plenty of light to run by. Down our long driveway and across the field, along the moonlit shoulder of the rural route. When I got out by the creek, I veered off the road onto that old railroad grade. Long abandoned now, tracks and ties all torn up or rotted away. It's just a gravel track through the trees. The rocks shone white under the moon. I'd gone maybe half a mile along that pale, lonely path when I heard something in the bushes just beside the trail. An explosion of movement, something crashing through thick brush.

I thought it might have started a deer, and I turned my head to see... Just in time to see a figure. A person in light-colored shorts and t-shirt, bursting out of the woods and leaping up the slope onto the top of the grade. That startled me. Sca startled me, scared me a bit, never expecting to see anyone out there, much less racing full speed out of the brush right toward me. I veered off a step, slowed down, got my guard up and said something like, hey, hey! But the figure didn't make a sound. And as he gained the top of the grade, I could see it was Landry,

running as fast as I'd ever seen him go. And with a look on his face, a look of pure, blind terror. As he passed me, running, flat out, going by me like I was standing still, as he passed me, I realized that the sound, the crashing in the bushes, hadn't stopped when Landry emerged. He was still going, still getting louder. Something else was in there, running at Landry's heels, chasing him. Something else was coming.

I looked back. And in the moonlight, I swear I saw, coming out of the low scrub, a razorback. A boar so big I couldn't even get the scale of the thing. To this day, I think I must have seen it wrong, must be misremembering. That boar crushed a little pine tree as it broke cover. The tree must have been six feet tall. The hog ran right through it like it was an itty-bitty little sapling. Its tusks looked about the size of my hand, and even in that pale moonlight, its eyes had a red cast, like they were glowing. Well, that's all I saw.

Just that one little snapshot of a glimpse. And then I was off, trying to follow Lander as he crashed away down the other side of the grade and back into those woods. He was moving so fast. Faster through the thick woods than he ever ran on the field, ducking and dodging all the limbs and branches that I caught full on the shins and chest and face. Before long, the tremble of swaying branches and the rising call of birds disturbed from their slumber up ahead were the only things I had to follow him by. I'd lost sight of him completely, he was so far ahead.

As for the boar, that huge monster, there wasn't a single moment when I didn't hear it behind me. Crashing through the brush, tearing up the earth with its stuttering, quick-hooved pace, grunting, snorting, popping its heavy tusks together with that nasty sound the way they do. When I stumbled one time, Tripp almost fell sprawling. I swear I felt its hot breath and caught a spray of saliva on my legs. It was that close. It popped those big tusks again. It was like a starter's pistol for me. I've never moved like that before. I hope I never have to again. I had no idea where I was until I broke out of the cover of the trees. That

big hog so close behind me, I could smell him. When I burst out of there, three steps and I realized we were in the yard behind Landry's folks' house. Landry was standing under the big oak tree they have back there, just standing, his chest heaving, hands on his knees, with the first rays of the new rising sun painting him blood red. I screamed at him. I meant it to be words of warning that the hog was right behind me, but it just came out as a scream. He shook his head at me, pointed toward the sun, like that meant something.

I'm not ashamed to say well I'm not too ashamed to say that I shinnied up that oak tree like a natural born lumberjack till I was up a good 15 feet above the ground. I stayed there five minutes or more too even when nothing else

came out of the woods except more of the morning sun. Landry was sitting at the base of the tree now, head in his hands, catching his breath. Then I started laughing, like a fool. I came down the tree laughing, still I in the woods, but laughing. And I tried to get Landry started, too.

I laughed about how big that hog was, about how close it got to us, about the look on Landry's face when he ran by me, about how much faster he was than me. But Landry didn't even crack a smile. He wouldn't look at me. And when I joked that I was sure to take him on our next hog hunt as bait, he turned his head away and I stopped forcing it and I just sat there quiet while he cried. And then he told me, Every night, he said. Every night since that practice when he first seen it every night of the whole season it had this dream that he was running in a game

at first running for a touchdown then in the dream he'd run right off a field through that same hole in the fence every night. And he knew what was about to happen, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't stop himself. And it would be down there every night. That demon hog waiting for him.

He would start chasing him through endless woods and then somewhere in there he'd realize that it wasn't a dream. He'd realize that he was running, really running for his life. And every morning, just as it was about to catch him, he'd end up like this, in his own backyard, exhausted. And the hog gone, like mist in the morning sun.

Well, I didn't know... I didn't know quite what to say. I told him he was under a lot of stress, putting too much pressure on himself, sleepwalking. I told him how I'd been so nervous myself that night that I'd gone on a run when I was still half asleep. But one thing I told him, he wasn't seeing things. That hog was no dream, no hallucination. I'd seen it with my own eyes.'d swear to it Hog as big as that Well Landry looked at me then

And he cracked that Shattered smile of his The real one The one that looked so weary Those days And he asked me Hog as big as that It would leave some track wouldn't it

Running like it was Leave some real sign Hog as big as that. It would leave some track, wouldn't it? Running like it was, leave some real sign. I said I reckoned it would. And he looked back out in the trees and he told me, when the light come up a little more, we go back in there and see. And we did just that. Looked all over those woods. We saw our tracks in the dusty spots clear as day.

Saw where we'd broken branches too high for even a monster hog to reach, but... No sign. No sign of big hoof prints. Not a single bristle caught in the fork of a twig. Nothing. Nothing. Well, I didn't know what to make of that. Still don't, frankly. But it...

It scared me some. Made me worry about... All kinds of things. My mind, for one. And Landry. I worried and I wondered how long he could keep running. Keep running. I wondered how it was going to end. As it turned out, the end wasn't very far off. Well, it was just like Coach said at the end of the big rivalry game that Friday. We were dog-tired.

Worse than the end of a two-a-day practice. War out. Dragging. Steam pouring off our backs into the chill night. And down by five, with our undefeated season on the line, time almost gone, staring into the end zone. Into that end zone. The one with the big cottonwoods down the hill behind it. And just time enough for one play.

It was like coach said. We had to execute. We ran a trick play. We'd practiced it all year, hadn't run it until then. Pre-snap motions, shifts, and a whole lot of razzle-dazzlele later I ended up with the ball in my hands Rolling out behind the line with Landry Streaking toward the corner of the end zone That corner The one The one with the gap in the fence I pulled up just long enough to set my feet to throw

And as I did a funny thing happened. The whole season came pouring through my mind in an instant. Every game, every play, every great run Landry made, every touchdown he scored, and I realized, I remembered. All season long, all those touchdowns. He'd never scored one to that corner of that end zone. The one with the gap in the fence and those ghostly cottonwoods behind. Not one. And I think...

I think if I would have remembered that just an instant earlier, maybe I would have muffed the throw. Not on purpose, but just out of surprise, or because of the feeling that something bad was about to happen, which gripped me as soon as I threw that ball. I almost muffed the throw anyway. I'm no quarterback. I launched a duck that wobbled through the night air

with a couple thousand eyes on it. It was too high. It was too long. Nobody could jump that high. Nobody could make that catch. Nobody but Landry. He jumped that catch. Nobody but Landry. He jumped that high. He corralled that ugly throw like it was a perfect spiral.

He came down light as a ballet dancer with both feet inbounds for good measure. The clock expired. The stands exploded. The band was playing. The cheer squad cheering. Our whole sideline pouring out onto the field. And Landry kept running. Slowly, but like he couldn't stop.

Out of the end zone. Across the track. Through that dark little gap in the fence. Down the hill. Out of sight. I wanted to run over there. I tried, but everything was happening at once. The thunderous, dazing crack of hands pounding my helmet, faces in front of me, grabbing my face mask face mask yelling everyone hauling on my jersey and pads trying to spin me around to face them trying to lift me up i was fighting i was trying

to fight through them over to the fence everyone was caught up in the excitement lost in the moment anyone who'd seen landry go through that fence must have reckoned he'd come right back up again. But he didn't, and no one had followed him. Landry was still down there, and I knew, I knew someone should, someone had to help him. The night was so loud. The band shouting, getting louder every second. But as I struggled toward that gap in the fence, I was listening through it all for...

I don't know what. Popping tusks, maybe? And then came the moment and the sound. I swear I heard it, though I don't see how I could have, loud as the night was. It was like there was a little breath, a gap, a pause and all the other sounds just long enough for me to hear clear as the snap of a twig in a quiet thicket for me to hear the scream and then I was finally through the fence crashing down the hill

and in among the thick old trees I didn't see Landry at first. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark of the place. But it didn't take any time at all for me to feel the darkness down there. Like all my worst secrets were hiding in the bushes. Perched on the limbs of the trees. Waiting to pounce on me. That's as near as I can tell how it felt.

I nearly tripped over Landry before I saw him sprawled out on the ground right in the center of the grove. I went to ask if he was alright but as I stepped close the question lost its purpose because I saw his leg twisted up beneath him, his foot pointing the wrong way. So I knelt down beside him and he caught my eye, made a little hissing sound, and then looked down further into the thicket down past his broken leg and there it stood

that huge hog hogzilla eyeing us just as nasty as ever. And it had us dead to rights. Landry was broken. Couldn't move. And I couldn't leave him. There'd be no running from the beast tonight. I was praying someone would follow me down. But I didn't hear any help coming. And that hog stared at us. All we could do was stare back. It popped its huge tusks once and I about fainted dead away. But then it turned its huge bulk around and trotted off into the dark of the brambles. And as soon as it was gone, I heard the band playing on the field behind us,

folks sliding down the hill toward us. Landry told me later that as soon as he caught that ball, it was all like a dream. Like something he was watching. He didn't even think about stopping himself until he'd run through that fence, down the hill and into the darkness under the trees. And he knew the hog would be there. But that night, before he could run from it, and before he even saw it, it hit him. It took the legs right out from under him. That must have been when he screamed. But all he remembers feeling through the pain was relief. Relief that it was over. That

he couldn't run from the thing anymore. That whatever was going to happen to him, he was just going to have to face it. I mean to tell you, he did face it. He faced it all the way down. And he won. Well, the doctors got his knee put back together. Almost as good as before. Maybe a step or two slower, but Landry told me that was the best thing for him. Kind of took the pressure off. And the next couple years, I loved watching him on TV on Saturdays, playing on scholarship for one of the state universities. Smiling, flying around, having so much fun. Effortless again.

Happy again. effortless again happy again well looks like it's about time for the opening kickoff of this game man what a lot of fun it doesn't get any better than this and hey once the game's over I know a shortcut back to the parking lot yeah it's right through that gap in the fence down there and down through those trees. Uh, yeah. You're right, maybe we'd... Maybe we'd just better follow the crowd. Camp Monsters is part of the REI Podcast Network.

Tonight's rousing pregame speech was given by our senior producer, Chelsea Davis, reminding us all to go out there and win just one for the Chelsea. Our associate producer, Jenny Barber, is sure taking that to heart as she sprints past the safety, running full speed down the near sideline. Nobody's going to catch her. Touchdown! And on to kick the extra point

is our engineer, Nick Patry. Nick, can we get a kicking a football sound followed by some cheering right here? Perfect. Whoop, we've got a little interruption here. A couple of streakers on the field. Looks like our executive producers Paolo Motola and Joe Crosby. And it appears they've choreographed an energetic, early 90s-style dance routine.

No, you can't actually hear their popping and locking. That's the sound of our writer and host, Weston Davis, popping his enormous tusks and slobbering down in the darkness under the trees past the end zone. He can smell next week's episode from a mile away. In fact, anyone can. That's because next week we'll be in Florida in search of the elusive skunk ape. Oh, we'll find one, all right. That'll be the easy part.

The hard part will be... Well, join us next week to find out. And as always, the stories here on Camp Monsters are just that, stories. Sure, some of them are based on things people claim to have seen or experienced, but it's up to you to decide what you believe and how to explain away what you don't. So please subscribe, share, review, and tell your friends to check out Camp Monsters Podcast. It's your support that keeps us recording. Thank you so much.