Camp Monsters - Mermaid of Moon Lake: Part 2

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Dean is gone, and Oren is left to face whatever lurks beneath Moon Lake. Trapped under an overturned boat, he’s dragged toward the depths by something massive beneath the surface.Listen to Mermaid of Moon Lake: Part 1Listen to REI’s Wild Ideas Worth Living podcast.This episode is sponsored by REI Co-op. Shop amazing products by REI Co-op 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 Where were we? Oh yes. You were trapped, weren't you? Trapped in that tiny, cramped space. space. So dark, you can only tell how small it is by feeling, feeling with your hands, searching frantically for a way out. A way that you know doesn't exist. And there's noise all around you, the sound of the space that you're trapped in getting smaller and smaller,

and smaller. What's that? There's that. There's a little. something new down there at your feet at your feet and then at your ankles then it's clawing up your legs water icy cold black water rising higher and higher and higher every second even as the tiny space you're trapped in keeps shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. You dig frantically at the wet gravel that keeps piling in, stealing your space. You find one of the wet wooden walls and you press against it. And the wall seems to press you back. Pointless. Helpless. Hopeless. The water keeps rising, so cold it burns, up to your chest now, up to your neck, lapping at your lips, no matter how high you raise them.

This will be, this will be, this will be, this will be, this will be, you know this will be your last breath before the air runs out. And you use it, despairing, to call out a familiar name. Kemp Monsters Podcast! Then suddenly, here you are. Then suddenly, here you are. Back around this warm, Warm, crackling little fire on a cold autumn night by the shores of Moon Lake

in the remote you wind to mountains of northeastern Utah. Huh. I guess you must have drifted off for a moment. And what a strange dream you had. In your dream, it seemed like a whole week of mundane activity passed by, when, in reality, it was just a few seconds' doze. You're still here. around the campfire, and I'm still telling you the story about the creatures that are said to haunt

the shores and waters of this lake. The Moon Lake monsters, as some people call them, or the mermaids of Moon Lake, although they aren't like any mermaids I've ever heard about. But you dozed off just as our main character, Oren, was trapped under an overturned boat, being pulled back into the water by an enormous creature of the deep. Well, if none of that sounds familiar, you'd better go back and listen to the last episode, part one of what we're calling the Mermaid of Moon Lake. For the rest of you, let's get right back into it. The year is 1935.

It's the middle of a cold night, but the storm that drove orange, to take shelter under his overturned rowboat on that remote shore of Moon Lake is over. The lake is calm, the moon shining bright, and the boat, Orrin's under, is being pulled out into the lake by an enormous monster, the color of night. The bow scrapes along the beach as it slides, piling gravel up so that the narrow gap Orrin used to slip under the boat is now too small. him to slip back out. He tears at the gravel with his fingers, but it piles up faster than he can clear it. The point of the bowel bumps his head, crowding him toward the water. Orrin crabs down

the wet gravel, rolls onto his back, heaves with his legs against the boat above him. It lifts, but not far enough to roll it over, and it slams back down as soon as he tries to move out either side. As soon as he drops his legs, his wool socks are suddenly cold and heavy as he dipped down past the shore and into the waters of the frigid, frigid moon lake. Well, that'll be the way out then. The only way out. Once the boat is fully in the water, here where the shore drops off so suddenly where the deep water comes so close to land, Once the inverted boat is in the water, Orrin will have to dive down below the gunwale and swim back for land. Swim back through that black, blind, freezing water, trying to outrace that terrible, dark shape.

The thing that snatched his buddy Dean right off the shore a few moments ago. But that's the only way out. Swim for it. It's what he'll have to do. it's what he's supposed to do that's what the terrible dark monster out there expects him to do

Oren doesn't know it but there are eyes watching from the moonlit shore just then old ancient eyes weird wild penetrating the eyes of the old woman of moonlit lake, that legend, that myth, that eternal presence that haunts these waters.

She appeared there at the lake's edge in the cold moonlight, watching. And the next few minutes looked very bad indeed for poor Orin. She heard the crushing, rushing sound of tumbling gravel cease as the two little boats pulled free from the shore and drifted further out into the lake. She saw the water all around them, ripple and royal with the powerful currents of the enormous dark things as it swam

just below the surface, around and around and around the two little boats. But as she waited, the seconds stretched into minutes, and the minutes passed and passed, and there was no sudden, thrash, no final splashing spasm as the great beast struck and took its prey. Hmm. There wasn't any way that he could have escaped. The old woman would have known,

would have seen him swim for it. But time was passing. The moon would set. Dawn would be lapping at the eastern shore of the sky soon. So the old woman would have to try something else, much as she hesitated to do it. Something even more effective than the monster, but less predictable, less controllable. Right about then, Orrin was realizing that he was going to have to try something different, too. When the overturned boat had pulled off the shore into the lake,

he'd stayed floating under it for a few moments, until he felt the brush of something huge, cold and muscular against him, just the briefest touch. And then the thing instantly recoiled. Recoiled like Oren remembered seeing a fox recoil when it sensed its prey under the snow. A lightning crouch before the power. and the kill. So quicker than that, Oren grabbed one of the narrow plank seats that

spanned the inside of the little flip boat. Then he swung his legs up onto the underside of the other seat, and just as he did, he felt and heard the thunderous clackle of enormous jaws snapping closed on the water where his legs and body had floated an instant before. and then he held himself still quiet as he could with his head and shoulders over one seat and his legs over the next almost entirely out of the cold water and the total blackness under the flipped boat he couldn't see anything but he could feel the water ripple back and forth beneath him every time a length of the massive thing down there

pulsed through the lake beneath the boat and every time the water rippled like that it seemed to settle a little higher up on his body. This had nothing to do with the creature, Oren knew. The air pocket trapped inside the overturned boat had found the seams between the planks and was slowly leaking out into the night. Slowly leaking out.

Along with Orrin's hopes. He didn't have any plan other than, staying alive as long as he could, and as the water rose higher and higher, creeping up to soak him here, and then there, Orange's body shook itself harder and harder in a vain effort to stay warm, and the harder it shook, the faster Orange's shuddering breaths poisoned his ever. shrinking pocket of air and that's when strange things started to happen down there under that little boat shapes began to take root in the corners of Orrin's vision beautiful beautiful many colored shapes began to sprout and grow

Warren found himself strolling easily through memories that he had no business remembering just then in this life and death situation. Remember, I remember the sound of those gentle, laughing voices in the next room when he waited in that warm parlor in Salt Lake that time. No, no, come back here. But his mind was reeling all of that. off balance and the force that he had to use to haul himself out of one memory took him right through his cold deathly reality and out the other side into another memory then he was laughing i mean he was he was really laughing and the water seemed to be getting warmer degree by degree and it didn't matter much that the water was even higher and he cared less and less about

whatever was stirring the lake up just beneath him now he was laughing with the guys in the mess hall belly full and glad to have a job of work in the midst of these lean times in the midst of this hard life and dean was there and his mother was there somehow his brother everyone he'd ever cared for who'd ever cared for him living and dead they were they were all of them there I mean they were right there with him under the boat and he knew that if he moved his hand over even just a little bit on the edge of that cold wet seat he'd feel their hand there warm right next to his what would you have done how long could you resist curiosity after all what was it something about a cat oren couldn't remember oran didn't want to remember he took a deep deep breath and all at once he was all the way back under that horrible boat gasping bad air with sharp tooth death swirling the water below him and the freezing cold reaching the very center of his bones

so he moved his hand just a little little bit and yeah he felt the warm hand there beside him just like he knew he would oren let all his breath out the warmth from the hand touching his spread until his whole body was warm, wonderfully, deliciously warm. His eyes were closed. He couldn't remember closing them, but now they opened, and now it seemed natural that he could see his surroundings, dimly, just dimly, but he could see them. Everything under the boat now was bathed in a faint, watery blue glow. A long time passed before he turned his head toward the warm hand that he felt beside him. There was no rush now. Everything was nice, sleepy. Nothing mattered very much. No hurry.

But finally, that old curiosity. again, that's all. So he turned his head in that direction. And he wasn't at all surprised to see that poor, mysterious little girl stretched out on the boards beside him. The same one from before, the same one who'd appeared so suddenly in the night and stood down on the shore crying as that creature came and snatched Dean away. Of course it was her. She wasn't real, she was more than real, and he could trust her. She took his whole hand now, and then she slipped off the seats and down into the lake. There wasn't any question of him staying behind.

Small though she looked, it was clear that this world of night and storm and impossible creatures she was a part of it Orrin was a stranger here she was his only hope of shelter salvation he'd go wherever she led him so Orin slid down off the seats tensing himself for a shock that never came

he felt the freezing water but the warmth within him kept the shock at bay the girl swam down under the surface he followed her down and he could see under the water too rippling dim light like the moon filtered shifting down through the deep

and all he could see now in every direction where the coils of that huge dark creature circling around and around and around them making slow patterns with its body that were almost almost beautiful hypnotic

well the girl was with him though he couldn't be afraid and then a piece of the pattern almost like a triangle began to drift out of its place in the swirling surging motion slowly

lazily like a portent presaging a new form of the pattern a new better form. Orrin looked over at the girl and he saw her staring at it too, but he couldn't be sure of her expression. He couldn't see her eyes. He looked back at the place where the pattern was broken, where the triangle drifted toward them. And on the triangle, Oran saw a sharp, half-round reflection like the moon might make in the lens of a huge, wide, black eye. The girl let go of his hand suddenly in the cold water stabbed him all over his body. The triangle drifting

toward him turned into the head of the creature, speeding at its final lunge. And he saw it all in slow motion, saw its jaws began to open like Knives being drawn from their sheathes, row after row, after row, after row of black, black teeth, glinting sharp in the watery moonlight, stretching right back to fill the mouth where a tongue and a palate should be. The jaws were open, incredibly wide, all those rows of sharp black teeth speeding through the water toward him, so fast he didn't even have time to flinch. It was going to happen now. there was nothing he could do

he barely had time to close his eyes what does dying sound like does it come with a roar or a bang huh orange just heard a squeak oran had to assume that he

made the sound just as those big jaws closed on him and snuffed him right out. Other than that, death was just darkness, like keeping her eyes tight shut. And there it was again. That squeak and a third time from a different direction. So do angels squeak? Orrin slowly, He slowly opened his eyes just a slit. There were shapes out there, dimly lit shapes. And he opened his eyes wider.

Didn't understand what they were telling him. It took another squeak from the shapes just in front of his eyes before he realized what he was looking at. Two huge black teeth of the creature, locked tight together, right in front of him. Squeaking where they ground against each other as the monster tried again and again to snap its jaws shut on him. Orrinly, reeled backwards, slicing his hand on a tooth as he did so.

The blood and the water sent the beast into an even greater frenzy, its tail slashing and flailing behind it until the surface of the lake above must have been capped in white foam. But the thing's great, ugly head was frozen, stuck with jaws half closed, only held open by... by the little girl who'd thrown herself in front of him

who had saved him she looked at Orrin now and the meaning of her look was clear go it said but Orin replied with a look of his own and then took her arm

and pulled her free of the jaws of the creature which instantly snapped shut behind her he kicked off the creature's clothes snout and he trusted to the magical powers that the girl seemed to have to keep them both safe and indeed as they swam for the surface the beast swirled and curled around them creating turbulence in the water that tossed them back and forth up and down but it didn't snap at them again they broke the surface funny under water Orrin hadn't felt the need for any breath

like he'd never need to breathe again. But as soon as he took his first lungfall of the cool night air, he couldn't get enough of it. And the girl had to support him and gently pull him toward the shore as he gasped and gasped convulsively. They reached the pebbly verge, but of course the monster could slide some way up the beach. Oren remembered what had happened to his friend Dean.

They had to go a few yarn further. They had to get back there, into the trees. They were only steps away from safety, but Horan's legs failed him completely. He was cold. So, so cold now. The freezing water of the lake seemed to have sucked all the strength out of him. He tried to crawl, panic, pulling his shaking hands and knees painfully forward. But just a few feet up the rocks, he found something standing in his way he sank back exhausted onto his haunches and he looked up there was a figure standing there wrapped in dark fabric short but strong in the bright moonlight later all orin could remember about her was her face an old old woman Looking back at him with the emptiest eyes that Orrin had ever seen, he looked into those

eyes, searching for warmth, for help, for pity, but couldn't find any. Nothing but a cold, blank eternity stretched behind those eyes, a dark, shining eternity, like the glassy stare of a bird of prey at rest. Orin didn't know what she was going to do, but that look didn't promise anything good. And whatever she wanted to do, he was powerless to resist. Just then the girl splashed her feet out of the water beside him, crunched lightly up the gravel until she stood between the old woman and Orrin's crumpled, kneeling body. She glanced back at Orrin, and she gave him.

one more of those looks that were at once so unreadable yet so comforting. Then the old woman opened one of her withered, shawl-draped arms, then the little girl stepped forward into a long, tight, hug. And she never stepped out. When the old woman straightened up, she was alone. The little girl had disappeared completely. But the old woman's eyes. Now her eyes had changed just as completely as the girl had disappeared.

There was warmth there now. There was so much warmth and pity and a look that seemed to know everything that Orrin was all the way deep down. And another look that loved him anyway. Orin was saved. He knew it. weak as he was, she would help him. She'd bring him someplace warm and safe. She'd help him, put him back together again.

He'd tried to make his cold, numbed face smile. He tried to force his cramped and freezing muscles to shuffle him forward on his knees, but he couldn't summon the strength. No matter. She'd help him. But that's when he saw the old woman. Look into the lake behind him, and he saw the fear come into her eyes, and then he heard the sounds. The great head of the creature slid slowly onto the beach just beside Oren, staring at and threw him with that great black, shining, savage eye.

it cracked its serrated mouth open to show the tops of its huge black teeth grinning at him and mocking satisfaction and it worked its jaws up and down ever so slightly as if to remind Oren where he might should, could have been where he would yet end up It was an ugly, fearful thing, that giant head. Oren was exhausted beyond the point of fear. He thought he could accept whatever happened next, but then it was very hard to accept what actually happened next.

It happened so fast that even with his eyes wide open, it took Oren extra time to comprehend it. There was a splash from the creature's huge tail, and the beast flashed its dagger mouth wide open, and it lunged. But not at Oran. No. Instead, it... No! No! Faster than thought it plunged right at the old woman.

Jaws gaping teeth stretching in their sockets like a shark's widening to grasp and pull her in. all she could do was raise a feeble hand toward the monster and its awful jaws slammed shut on her withered fist and then then the creature began to began to it was it was slowly transforming

starting at its head it was slowly turning into something like black greasy smoke and the smoke began to suck and flow right into the old woman's clenched fist in and in and in until the very last whip of its black smoky tail had wriggled into her hand and was gone the old woman relaxed her arm then and orange caught a glimpse of a dark black spot in the very center of her shriveled old palm, black like a pit dropping down into endless nothing. She tucked the hand back under her shawl and turned her eyes again to Oren, and again her eyes had changed completely. They were the opposite of empty now. Her eyes

were full right up, half with stern, pitiless, unfeeling power, and half again. with warmth and care and creation and love. Orrin watched the war between all those feelings as they flashed and rolled in the old woman's eyes. He stayed on his knees with the patience of exhaustion. And at last, it was decided. And with care in her eyes but a sneer on her lips, the old woman shook her other hand out of her dark shawl, a hand without the black hole in it, and she reached it toward him.

He did not move to take her hand. He could tell he wasn't meant to. She reached out and took hold of the short hairs at the very front of his forehead, then gave him the very smallest of shoves backward. All at once he was warm and dry, even his clothes were dry. He didn't feel hungry. He didn't feel tired or afraid. Birds were singing somewhere. And there was sun streaming in from the cracks in the low, rough-hewn, old door.

And Orrin knew it was morning, and knew that he was inside that little cabin they'd found in the woods the evening before. His body was sore but rested. Owen raised himself from the bed of green-needled pine boughs, and he saw a wisp of smoke rising from the ashes on the hearth. Other than that, there was no sign that anyone else had been there for a long, long time. And that's the story of how three men went up Moon Lake back in 1935, and how only one man came back. Oh, Oren had a terrible time convincing the authorities that he hadn't been involved in the disappearance of one or both of the other men, but the police could uncover

no motive, no bodies, no proof. In fact, no sign of violence anywhere on the lake. They did find the cabin, though, but not where Oren told him to look. No, no, it was actually further up the slope or the mountain, up above the new high water mark that the lake would have once the dam was completed. And anyway, it was just an old hunting shelter. There was no sign of habitation for months, years even. The deputies who found the cabin didn't stick around it long. There's nothing to see there. Anyway, it felt better being down by the boats. Anyway, that's one of the stories they tell about the so-called mermaids of Moon Lake. Ha, not the kind of mermaids I'd like to run into.

To this day, there are stories and sightings of the creature, the little girl, or the old woman of the woods. So tomorrow, go ahead, rent a boat or a kayak, explore all the little. the remotest shores of this beautiful lake. But if you should happen upon a small, old cabin that looks abandoned, tucked back in the tall pines, well, I'm sure you won't go trespassing. And tonight, as you're lying in your tent down by the quiet shore, and you think you hear the sounds of someone softly crying, by all. means investigate. Try to help that little girl. It's the right thing to do. Just maybe don't go

too close to the water. Or else our sound designer Nick Patry might get you. Legend has it, you can still see him out there at the last light of dusk, crouched by the water, trying to capture the perfect sound effects. But his efforts are always foiled by the constant, irrepressible stream of questions and commentary coming from yours truly, writer and host Weston Davis. Did you get it, Nick?

Whoa, that's a good splashy sound, isn't it? Is that a boom mic? What's the fuzzy cover on it for? Is it time for dinner yet? How many tents can you count from here? Oh, I think I saw a fish. No, no, it's just light in the water. No, it was a fish.

Dick, look, there's a fish down there. Then suddenly, bursting from the depths of Moon Lake like an enraged lake monster, is our senior producer, Jenny Barber, who insists that this cold plunging stuff is invigorating and healthy. But try telling that to our executive producers, Paolo Motela and Joe Crosby, huddled, knee-deep in the water, They're trying to bite back tears because their toes are just so cold.

We've said it before and we'll say it again. You are the reason that Camp Monsters exists. And when you speak, we do our best to listen. Well, you've been asking for Camp Monsters merch and now it's here. Follow the link in the show notes to see how you can help spread the word about Camp Monsters by rocking some amazing Camp Monsters gear, only while supplies last, so don't wait. Next week on Camp Monsters, we'll be going across the country to the coast of North Carolina. The forest grows thick there, very, very thick.

But back in the depths of it, there are signs that people tried to live there, long, long to go. What happened to them? Well, if you go deep enough back there, back with the branches press so close that you can't push through them anymore, you may find something strange, or something strange may find you. See you next week. Camp Monsters is part of the R-E-I podcast network. The stories we tell here are just that. Stories. Sure, some of them may be inspired by the things people say they've seen

around the shores of Moon Lake and the twilight. But it's up to you to decide why, when they looked again, there was nothing there at all. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing Camp Monsters. Thanks for posting nice reviews. Thanks for telling your friends. the more listeners we draw in close to our firelight

the longer we'll get to keep telling these stories see you next week back here around the campfire you around the campfire