Camp Monsters - Mole

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Bring a flashlight.  Or a headlamp, if you have one.  Bring a sweater, no matter what the weather is like outside.  The further we go, the cooler and darker it will get.  Bring boots too, the higher the better.  The walls and ceilings drip and ooze, the floors are wet with muck.  Down there, under the city.  Down in that... wilderness?  Well, it may be uncultivated and inhospitable, but it certainly is inhabited.  What inhabits it depends on how deep you go.  In this episode we’ll go as deep as we can.  Deeper than perhaps we should.

Our sponsor for this podcast is Yeti. And instead of sending us a script to read, they actually sent us what they described as a care package. We knew something was up when they asked for our address. And the next thing we knew, there's a Yeti cooler being delivered to our office. We open it up and smoke starts pouring out. But everything inside is cold. Turns out it's dry ice. And

everything inside isn't just cold, but frozen solid. And they sent this cooler all the way from Austin, packed with a few local items. Full brisket, ready to be cooked. Sausages, ribs, pulled pork, some cheeses from Texas hill country, even ice cream. There's enough food in here to last until Thanksgiving, although that's not likely to happen. So yeah, Yeti, you could have just sent us a script, but hey, thanks for the cooler and food. This is an REI Co-op Studios production. Wilderness. It's from the Old English.

Wilderness. Land's from the old English, Wildiernes, Land of Wild Deer. Conjures up images of dripping green forests and fog-shrouded highlands, vast, trackless, unblemished spaces, doesn't it? But what the word wilderness really means is any uncultivated, uninhabited, inhospitable region. That's according to the Oxford English Dictionary. And by that definition, a wilderness is always much closer than you think. Imagine a big city, the biggest you can think of. Sure, there's an element of human wilderness wandering amidst the skyscrapers and alleys, crowded streets and trains and trash. Through the noise and through that eerie midnight hum,

it can be so much more ominous than silence. But plenty of other podcasts have tackled the human side of the wild city. This episode is about something decidedly inhuman. Something that dwells in the furthest reaches of New York's last wilderness. No, not upstate. Underground. Bring a flashlight. Or a headlamp, if you have one.

Bring a sweater, no matter what the weather's like outside. The further we go, the cooler and darker it'll be. Bring boots, too. The higher the better. The walls and ceilings drip and ooze. The floors are wet with muck down there. Down there. Under the city. Down in that wilderness? Well, it may be uncultivated and inhospitable, but it certainly is inhabited. What inhabits it depends on how deep you go.

This is the Camp Monsters Podcast. The wild places of this country are haunted by mysterious creatures. Creatures you might only have heard whispers of. Every week we amplify those whispers, tell the old tales, relate the recent encounters, and share all the strange stories about the wilderness you love to visit. Well, you might not love this week's wilderness. The tunnels and sewers and subways underneath New York are a working wilderness.

Dirtier and more dangerous than your local woods. Not the sort of place to venture alone. This week you'll be going underground with a professional. One of the many people whose job it is to tame this subterranean wilderness just enough to keep it quietly pumping the lifeblood of the city. A guided tour, as it were. This story came from and is for all the people who work underground to keep New York, and every big city like it, running. This is just a story, of course.

It's based on things that tunnel workers and sandhogs claim to have seen or heard or heard about, but witnesses can be mistaken. So listen to this story and decide for yourself. Nothing like this could possibly be lurking in the tunnels just under your feet. Right? Right? Did your ears pop? Yeah, they'll do that on the way down here.

The pressure changes this deep. Heck of a place to send you, your first day on the job. Just stick close to me, you'll be alright. Where are you from, anyway? That's alright. I'm not a native New Yorker either, if you couldn't tell. Well, I just came here chasing a dream. And ended up underground.

I used to host podcasts. Well, this is as far as she goes. About as deep as you can get by elevator in this city Don't worry though We'll end up a whole lot deeper It's just From here we gotta go the hard way Come on Look around

Try to remember what you're seeing Any landmarks you can use It's a whole world down here, twisting and turning, up, down, every which way. A lot of it looks the same. Easy to get lost and no fun trying to wander your way out. You can end up wandering for a long time. You know, nobody has a map of the New York Underground? No. Not the subway people or the utilities, anything. Here.

Right here, we're taking these stairs. And watch your step. More like a ladder than stairs, huh? Awkward going down. Awkward coming up, too, but you'll figure that out later. Yeah, nobody has a map. Not a complete one anyway. That's why whenever they build down here, they gotta be careful. They run into things. Old things. Tunnels, passageways, pipes, sewers. Things somebody forgot about a hundred years ago. They can cause trouble, too, you bet.

Nobody wants what happened in Chicago back in 92. They punched a bridge piling through an old tunnel under the Chicago River. The next morning, there were fish swimming in the basements of every building in the downtown loop. Like where we're heading to right now. When they were digging this, they ran into something strange. Oh, yeah, right in front of you, that's the end of those awkward stairs. Deep enough for you yet? And we're still going down. Oh, here, I gotta show you this. You want to talk about landmarks? Here's a landmark for you. Come through here. Shiny light around in here.

Up at the walls, up at the ceiling. High ceiling, huh? And the whole place painted up with graffiti. All different, but all in the same style. All the same style. So that means one person, or one little crew of people, did all this. Don't ask me how they got up there to do this ceiling. I'm glad it was them and not me.

But it's impressive, right? Amazing. It's art. There's quite a bit of it down here. I mean, plenty more that's just tagging and trash, but some really magnificent stuff like this. Reminds me of those old caves you find sometimes. With the ancient pictures of mammoths and lions and handprints. Wild patterns.

Now someday, way in the future, somebody's's gonna rediscover this place. I guess it'll tell them about as much about the best of who we were as anything else would. But come on, we're just passing through. We got a ways to go here. Speaking of rediscovering things, I was gonna tell you about that place we're going to. Now, it's one of the deepest spots under the city. They just finished it a couple years back. It's part of the plan to deal with future flooding.

After Hurricane Sandy gave them a taste of what they'll have to look forward to, now the sea levels are rising. Anyway, I know the guys who worked on the crew that dug that place. Sandhogs, they call themselves. Out of Local 147. And some of them say that down at the very bottom of the pit, deepest pit they dug yet, you know, anywhere in the city, down at the very bottom, they swear they ran into this tunnel or cave or something.

Already down there. They called it a cave because it couldn't have been a man-made tunnel. It was too deep down. Someone would have known something about it if there was a tunnel down there.

I know a gal who was there when they first hit it and she saw it and she said it looked like a tunnel. Like something that had been dug out rough a long time ago but never quite finished. We're going over here, through here.

Yeah, we're getting there now. You know, it's a funny thing. In all those caves where they find the ancient art, there's always a specific place where the paintings stop and the cave keeps going. Sort of a line. Like a darkness line. A point of no return. Depths that people never passed into. Nobody knows why. Huh. Maybe their torches ran out. Okay, stop. Stop. Stop right here. Stay behind me.

Now, see that doorway up ahead? Trace it with your light. That's it in there. That's the big dig, the chamber I've been telling you about. Nothing but blackness through that doorway, right? Now the chamber's too big to shine your light across from here. But listen. Just through that door, we're going to turn right.

Okay? Hard right. And go down the stairs along the wall. Get me? If you take a step too far straight ahead in there, it's nothing but air. Nothing but air and a hard landing and a mile of muck for you, and nothing but paperwork and endless explanations from me. So hard right once we get through the door, okay? Stay close.

You got it? Just keep your hand on the wall as we go down so you don't drift too close to that edge. That's quite an edge. Don't try to look over. Can't see anything down there anyway. Just darkness down to dark water. Just keep moving. And you're getting chilly, huh?

Okay now, pop quiz time. There's something different about this chamber. Have you noticed it yet? Yeah, I know, it's got a funny feeling in here. I'll tell you about that in a second. But what else? We'll keep going. You tell me when you figure it out. You guessed it. Weird, huh? Every other place down here, everywhere, every back corner of every last forgotten little crawlspace is covered with graffiti of some kind. But this chamber, coming down this staircase, it thins out. And right about here, it stops entirely. Look at this

one. Just a quick scrawl in black spray paint. And even it just kind of trails off here. Like whoever was doing it got distracted or something. Dropped their can and left. So just like in all those ancient caves, this is it. The darkness line. The spot where the art runs out. The place where people turn back. I don't know why. In the old days, maybe you could say the torches burn too low to go deeper, but what's the deal here? We got torches that don't run out,

right? These LEDs last forever. That's the same thing. I think it goes back to that funny feeling that you noticed. You know, there's folks that spend even more time down here than workers like us. Folks that live down here. Well, not down here, but up in the higher tunnels,

abandoned subways, old freight train tunnels, things like that. And they find some forgotten place and make a home out of it. And once they get started underground, they can't help but go further. It's curiosity. It's human nature. They go exploring. Here. We're ducking into this big side tunnel here. Yeah, most of the underground folks stay out of sight, but I meet some of them sometimes. Got to know one of them pretty well.

My buddy Shakespeare. That's what one of them pretty well. My buddy Shakespeare. That's what he goes by anyhow. Talks with a British accent. I don't know if it's real or not. He's done more down here than most, though. Knows his way around everywhere. Everywhere. Except for this place.

This new, deep chamber. He says it's too deep. He tells me he positively won't come in here at all. He says nobody will. Not more than once. I guess I'm the exception. I've been in here a couple times, with crews mostly, doing spot checks and cross pumping when they first started testing the drainage in this hole. I didn't like it then. Even with all those people and lights. I tell you, I like it a whole lot less now. In the dark like this.

Let's get this over with and get out of here. Huh. Speak of the devil. Looks like this is it. The end of the devil. Looks like this is it. The end of the line. Now look at this mess. Some kind of blockage further along this side tunnel. Back in all this water and mess up in here.

What could block a tunnel this size I'd like to know. Guess we'll have to find out eventually once we get this all diverted and pumped out. Come on back this way. There should be a valve room back here a bit. Maybe we can fiddle with things, get some of this drained off. Here, in here. Not much room. Shine your light over here, will you? Yeah, these are the valves. Oh, look at this. What is this?

These are new valves, right? All new pipes, but look. Looks like someone's been at these valves with a chisel or something. Boys really butchered it during the install. When their wrench kept slipping, I guess they used their teeth. What'd you say? Oh, I thought you said something. Here, lay the tools out on that ledge right over there.

Oh, and that big flashlight, too. Just set it so it shines over this way. Now a little to the left. That's it, there you go and give me number 12 hmm let's try 13 yeah that's the one just a quarter turn should do it Here. I'll do these other ones too just to make it worth the trip. What? Maybe the water's starting to drain out there. I could have swore there was...

Never mind. Let's get these last ones. Funny how any little sound down here that ain't dripping just kind of jumps out at you. For a second I thought, hey, whoa, whoa! Ah, come on, fumble fingers, dropping our best light down in the muck? Sure, sure you didn't touch it. Just the two of us down here, I guess it jumped off the ledge itself, huh? Does it still work?

Of course not. Now, forget it. Look, sorry I snapped at you. It's your first day and all. Here, just put the wrenches back and... Shh! Shh! Now that was something, wasn't it? Hey, forget this.

Let's get back topside. Let's get some more of the crew down here. Hey. Hey. Hey! Did you see that? Right when my light hit the door, there was somebody... Hey! Hey, I'm sorry.

Guess maybe you didn't knock that light over after all. Gutsy. Whoever it was must have come right up to us in here. Must have been right behind you in the dark. I didn't get a good look. Just somebody wearing a long brown overcoat or something. It was brown all over. I don't know. I just saw a flash just for a second. As soon as my light hit him, he was gone. I don't know. I think he went right down there where it dead ends at the blockage in the water. Now forget it. Let's get out of here.

I don't like this. Let's just... Let's get topside again. No, but hold on. Just let me... I'll just look to make sure the coast is clear. Okay. Come on out. Come on out. on out This way

Quick We'll just go back to the stairs this way Man The echo's in this place Did you hear him back there? Or whoever it was I saw it Do you think he's following us? Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I can't hear anything. Wish we still had that stronger light. I don't see any... Oh, hey, wait. What's that? Right there. Those red eyes. Moving.

Like... Run. Run! Go! Go! No, this way! This way! Where are you?

Hear me? Hey, over here. Over here, come on, this way, quick. Wait, is that? Oh, no. Help! Help! Help!

Help! Over here! Here! Here! Thank you. Oh, thank you. I ran away from you. I ran away when I saw your light coming.

It's not far, though. I'm snapping teeth. Bit me. It's okay, I think. Let's go. Come on. Come on, let's go. We gotta get out of here.

Help me. Come on, help me. Here. Here. This way. There's a ladder over this way. Quick. Did you see it? Oh, it was here. It was... Come on, here! The ladder! Right here!

Don't look around, just go! Go! Up! Up! Quick! Up! It couldn't... It couldn't... It can't climb. I don't think it can climb. Not with those... Did you see it? Did you see its hands? Lucky you. Brown all over like...

Like fur caked to filth. And little yellow needle teeth snapping fast at me. And tiny eyes reflecting red, and these huge naked pink hands like a, like, like have you ever seen a mole? Big, pale, hard looking shovel hands, with bits of yellow bone erupting from the end

like rotten teeth. I don't know. You didn't see it? I never seen anything like that. I never thought... Hey, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. The rim. You see the rim up there? The rim at the top of the ladder up above you. We're coming up on another level. And that thing couldn't have... I don't see how it could have beat us up here if it can't climb, but then... There are all kinds of tunnels down here. I don't know.

Just watch. Just watch the opening up there for a second. See if anything peeks over. Okay. Okay. Okay, nothing. I think we're okay. Doesn't look like the ladder just keeps going past the level up there and on up. Yeah, I can't tell. I think so. Okay, let's just... let's just go. As quick as we can, right up past this level, and just keep climbing, no matter what, okay? I can't... I can't get past you. I'll have to go first. Just go, and don't stop for anything, okay?

Just go. Go! Ow! Why'd you stop? A hatch? What do you mean? A hatch in the ceiling? Open it. Can you open it? No, it's okay. I just... I don't like this. Just hurry.

Hurry. Hurry. I think you're okay. You got it yet? Just pry it back. Pry the hatch off if you have to. Shh. I thought I saw...

Over there. I thought I saw those eyes. Those red eyes. Too big for a rat. Oh, there we are. There it is. The thing. The thing's coming.

Come on, hurry. There, got it. It's over, just go. Go, just climb. Climb, keep going. That's it, just go. No, it's got me. It's got me. It's got me. Con! Con, keep going! That's just... Go! No! Godman!

Godman! No! No! No! Well? What do you think? Did you get out of there? Or are there so many tunnels? So many dark twists and turns.

So many dead ends. So many places to run and hide, and for something to hide from you until the last moment. And so, so difficult to find a way out. I'm sure you tried anyway. I'm sure you kept going as long as you could. And this is about as long as we can keep going this week. I hope you enjoyed the change of pace.

We'll be back around the campfire next week. Stick around for a minute. We'll listen to a a campfire next week. Stick around for a minute. We'll listen to a little bit of that story. And if you enjoyed your guided tour of New York's unique underbelly, please subscribe if you haven't already and take a moment to rate, review, and share. It's you spreading the word about this podcast that keeps us recording. Thank you. Next week, we'll wake up in the middle of the night in a bunkhouse

at a sleepy little summer camp in South Carolina. Everyone else is still asleep except... Except... Who is that? Cat Monsters is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's recorded deep underground in the overcast room of Cloud Studios in Seattle, Washington. Our gruff but lovable producer, Chelsea Davis, guards the entrance. That stuff dripping from the ceiling was made by our very talented engineer, Nick Patry. And any

strange echoes out there in the tunnels are probably just our executive producers, Paolo Motilla and Joe Crosby. These stories are written and told by yours truly, Weston Davis. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week. This season of Camp Monsters is brought to you by Yeti. Now, Yeti doesn't market their tough-as-nails and nearly indestructible load-out bucket as a mole catcher, but we think it'd do the trick of keeping what belongs underground, underground.