Camp Monsters - The Portal

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Mysterious disappearances have plagued the remote Beaver Dunes in Oklahoma's panhandle for years. Could it be the Devil’s Stovepipes—or something even more unsettling? Reports of eerie lights, voices of the vanished, and a mysterious creature emerging from the sands suggest there's much more to this story.This episode is sponsored by Peak Refuel. Shop Peak Refuel's amazing products in store or at REI.com. Take the Camp Monsters Listeners Survey.Artwork by Tyler Grobowsky.

REI Co-op Studios If you're ever out in the dunes, any big sand dunes, anywhere in the desert or on one of those wide beaches where the sand piles up, if you're out in the dunes and for a moment you imagine that you see a hole open up in the loose sand ahead of you, stop. That isn't your imagination. It's a very rare, very real, very dangerous phenomenon that scientists call a decomposition chimney. Isn't that a pleasant name? Even better is what people call them in the remote places where they've been known to occur. They call them devil's stovepipes.

What you're seeing, if you ever have the misfortune to encounter one of these holes in the desert sand, is the remains of an ancient tree, buried decades or even centuries ago by the slowly moving dunes and rotting away ever since then, from the inside out, until only a thin tube of bark and rotten wood remains to keep the sand at bay. But do not, do not get close to it if you see one. They're very unstable. They're liable to collapse at any time, especially from the weight of approaching footsteps. And if you're too close when one of these devil's stovepipes collapses, they'll pull you down with them. They'll pull you down into a sandy tomb.

As for the story that we're about to hear, well, it could be that devil stovepipes are to blame for the mysterious disappearances that have been reported over the years on the remote beaver dunes in the panhandle of Oklahoma. But then, the existence of devil stovepipes wouldn't explain the strange lights and sounds that are reported to occur at the same time that people vanish. And it couldn't account for the voices of the missing that folks claim they can still hear months or years or even centuries after a person has disappeared and it certainly wouldn't explain the creature that a few have reported seeing crawling out of that mysterious place in the sand that's come to be known as The Camp Monsters Podcast

And welcome to Beaver Dunes Park, Oklahoma. That's a nice campsite we found right out here among the dunes. You can just see the outline of them looming up in the darkness all around us, silhouetted by the starlight. Now, you saw these dunes before the sun went down. They weren't what you were expecting, were they? They're not just towering sand hills devoid of vegetation. These dunes are covered in thick dark scrub in a lot of places, but with trails criss-crossing them and expose the pale reddish yellow sand. Only this breeze blowing when the moon comes up and shines on these dunes,

you're liable to see all kinds of things. Movement in the brush that's just the wind, probably, but it'll sure make strange shapes in your mind. If they're only in your mind. Some folks say, on a moonlit night, they've seen a column of Coronado's troops who marched right through here way back in 1541. And some say they've seen...

Well... Before we hear about that, does anybody want something to eat? The specialty around here is the chicken coconut curry. No, I don't mean the specialty in this area of Oklahoma. I mean the specialty right here, around this campfire. Because that's one of the favorite meals from our friends at Peak Refuel. Of course, that's not all. I've also got the Peak Refuel chicken alfredo, some sweet pork

and rice, some biscuits and sausage gravy, and plenty of others to choose from. They're all super light, perfect for those long backpacking treks where every ounce counts. And it only takes about 10 minutes to prep one of these delicious peak refuel meals. So you've got plenty of time to get one ready and eat it while I tell this story. And these meals pack a punch. Each one has nearly double the protein per serving than the average outdoor meal on the market, and the good folks at Peak Refuel only ever use 100% real meat. No TVP or fillers or things like that. Here, try this Peak Refuel Beef Stroganoff. Tastes great, doesn't it? Now you know why Peak Refuel says,

if you wouldn't eat it at home, why would you bring it into nature? Anyway, you wanted to hear that story that people tell about these dunes. Well, it always starts with those same three names. Bernardo, Juan, and Juan Carlos. They weren't going far. Just to the top of the next dune, or maybe a little farther. Just to see what was ahead. What they might see from the top.

What tomorrow might bring. How much further did it all have to follow their leader, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, across these sandy, scorching, unforgiving dunes? The sun was setting. The sky was pink and purple. The sand that had been pale as the sun all day was golden now, where the light still touched the tops of the dunes and a dark gentle blue down in the valleys. Bernardo, Juan and Juan Carlos. The others saw them stop atop the dune and talk a moment pointing down to the next valley. Then they went over the rim.

Bernardo pausing to look back down at the camp and make the sign with his hands that meant Just a moment We'll be right back Then he disappeared over the dune as well The camp sentries saw them go No one thought much of it Minutes passed

In the dark brush it was already night And the birds nesting there spoke softly in their sleep. Around meager little stick fires, the so-called conquistadors of Coronado's disappointed little band muttered toune grass and looked tired and resentful. The sun left the top of the dunes, and the sky was purple and black. No one could say for certain whether the flash or the sound came first, but there was a sudden flash of light, blinding bright, like lightning but with a sickly greenish cast, so bright that every eye in the camp was shattered with the ghost of whatever they'd been looking at when

flash came. And at almost the same time there was a sound, like ten cannon ripping into voice right beside each person, so loud that ears rang and some bled and no one could hear each other without shouting. And everyone did shout, but not at first, not for a few moments. For a few moments there was stunned silence while all the people cowered toward the earth and looked into the sky and reached for their prayer beads or weapons and waited to see what would happen next. And only then, only when nothing else happened for a few moments,

did everyone begin shouting at once and running, fingers pointing toward where the last of the greenish light was still fading behind the nearest dune. Behind the dune that Bernardo, Juan, and Juan Carlos had crested. The people of Coronado's 1540s expedition into unknown lands were many contradictory things, but cowards they were not. Up the sandy, slipping dune they charged, up to the top and down the other side shouting battle cries, slogans of the martyrs, and those three names, Bernardo, Juan, and Juan Carlos. And many swore they heard the voices of those three, crying out in response and anguish,

but that was impossible, because the valley beyond the dune was completely empty. Bernardo, Juan, and Juan Carlos were not there. They were nowhere to be found. The only things down in that shadowy valley were a smell of rot and sulfur and a small depression in the ground, still filling with sand when the first men reached it. And one or two of them said that as they'd charged down into that valley, they'd seen something retreat into that depression before it filled. Something horrible, beyond description. Within minutes, dozens were digging out that spot in the sand, but

deep as they dug they found nothing. Others climbed to the top of every nearby dune, thinking that Bernardo, Juan, and Juan Carlos must have wandered over the next rise. But from those summits they saw no men, and no tracks of men. Just sand and scrub and dunes and a growing darkness. A deepening, threatening night. Back. Back. Back to the fires. Build them up with brush, with whatever you can find, and stay close. Because all that night, and all through the next day's march, and even now, centuries later, on a dark night, you can hear the voices of those three men, Bernardo, Juan, and Juan Carlos, crying out, crying out a warning, a warning

about the terrible creature that crawled from a portal in these dunes, that crawled out and pulled all three of them in so many centuries ago, a creature and a portal that wait there still for any wayward traveler foolish enough to venture into the dunes at dusk. Celeste was listening to her grandfather tell this story. She leaned forward, body tense, fingers on her wind-chapped lips with a wide-eyed look of horror and suspense on her face, and the funny feeling in her heart that she was telling a lie somehow. Because the truth was that she didn't really feel the way she looked. The truth was that the story just didn't really scare her anymore. I mean, it was a scary story. She had nightmares about the creature and the portal when she was little and Gramps

told it really well. He told it so serious that you almost you almost thought that he believed it himself. But then he got to the end of the story and he looked around the staring terrified eyes of her little brothers and sisters and cousins and he chuckled and a grin cracked his sun-scarred face. aired. Because Gramps was such a quiet, interesting, hard-bitten man with the look and feel of someone who'd worked so hard for so long that he'd worn most of the talking out of himself. This story that he told was a family tradition, and it was the only time that Gramps ever had more than a few quiet words to say in a row and Celeste felt like if she showed that it didn't scare her anymore that she knew the story was made up that the portal and the creature in it weren't real

Celeste kind of felt like she'd lose some of the connection with the old man maybe the only connection she'd ever get Gramps finished the connection with the old man. Maybe the only connection she'd ever get. Gramps finished the story, and the little kids were already running around, screaming high-pitched and pretending to be the creature. She kind of wished she could join them, but she was 14 now, and supposed to be too grown up for all that. It's a funny age to be, 14. Feels like no one sees you except to tell you what you're doing wrong. Feels like even the things that aren't changing are about to,

and nothing you can do about it. And the sun was just starting to set. She knew she should go inside and help set up for dinner, but instead she just wandered off by herself toward the shed. She needed some time. She needed something. Mom would be angry about her leaving the family get-together, and scold her for going out on an ATV alone like she knew she wasn't supposed to do, riding out into the dunes that started just down the road. But she'd be careful. The old ATV, you know, that's a four-wheeled

off-road vehicle. Some people call it a quad. The quad that Celeste jumped on was old and beat up, but she'd learned to fix it, and she got it running pretty good now. It looked like it had been put through all kinds of dumb stunts, but not by Celeste. The quad was a hand-me-down, just like about everything else she had. Her older siblings and cousins liked to go out on the dunes and pull that kind of wild stuff, but that wasn't Celeste's style. She just liked to ride. She'd be careful. The Sun wasn't even down yet. She made the park entrance and then veered right off into the dunes letting

her route choose itself. Up, down and around the familiar sandy corners. Fast and slow, high and low, wallowing in the soft spots and flying off one or two easy jumps. Her helmet muffled the engine whine, and she loved the sting of her long hair whipping her bare shoulders when she got her speed up. The air tasted dusty as the sand cooled down in the blue shadows after a long day in the sun. She wound her way through the big sand hills, always knowing where she was going to end up. At the top of her favorite dune, the big one, with a view out over the rest of the park and no one else around.

When she finally made her way up there, she switched her quad off and pulled her head free of her helmet. The sun was just setting on the horizon, the sky was turning pink and purple. The wind made whispers in her ears, and the birds were bedding down in the scrub. She heard the distant whine of another ATV out in the dunes somewhere. And then, then she thought she heard... what was it? A gust of wind rushed past her ears, filling them with that staticky sound, but when she turned her head and the breeze died down again, she almost thought she heard it. She was almost sure. There were voices calling, weren't there? Distant voices.

One or several of them. Some kind of commotion. Far away. So far it was hard to locate their direction, but twisting around to listen from different angles, she thought they were coming from roughly ahead. So she shoved her helmet back on, urged the quad motor back to life, and nosed down the sand. Over the shoulder of the next dune she went, and the next, rolling slowly.

From time to time she'd stop and listen. She was getting closer, though she still couldn't hear what the voices were saying. Every time she got near the crest of her eyes, she'd stand up on the running boards, peering over into the next valley until she saw it. Not the source of the voices, no. At least she hoped not. It was something she'd never seen in these dunes before. Down at the blue-shadowed bottom of the next valley, it looked like there was a hole or a pit in the sand down there. Narrow.

She couldn't tell how deep from where she stood on her machine on the ridge of the nearest dune. Well, of course, it couldn't be deep at all, not in loose, dry sand like this. There was no structure. There was nothing to hold it up, keep it from collapsing in on itself. Celeste nosed over the rim of the dune and let her machine roll itself down toward the... whatever it was. Of course, the thought of Gramp's legendary portal

jumped into her mind, but she pushed it back into the corner with all those other childish fears. That was just a story. That wasn't real. This, apparently, was. She stopped, well short of the pit or the depression in the sand that she couldn't see the bottom of. The sun was down now, the sky a rare shade of purple, and the light in the valley was blue so she could barely make out the rim of the pit from this angle, except for the slight movement of sand from the farther edge sliding down into it. She took her helmet off to listen, but she kept her quad idling. She couldn't hear the voices anymore, just the puttering of her motor and the faint calling of the birds. Curious as she was, she wasn't going to get any closer to some mysterious, probably unstable

sand pit. There wasn't anybody down there. They'd cry out if there were. The voices she'd heard must have been coming from somewhere else. Unless... Hello? She called and waited. Nothing.

Except... She thought it was a bit of fabric at first. Maybe. It looked old, stained brown, ghosting slowly up out of the pit on an eddy of wind. It floated up almost gently. They came to rest on the very rim, with most of it still dangling down into the hole. It lay there fretfully, moving ever so slightly now and then, when the breeze, or something, twitched at it. Celeste paused a moment on her idling motor, transfixed.

She took a little deeper breath than normal and let it out with a shudder. Something about the way the brown fabric moved made her think of a hand. A long, thin, dried-out hand. No, gross. It was... it wasn't a hand. Something didn't look right. It wasn't... It couldn't be a hand.

That was it. She was getting out of here. Celeste put her thumb on the throttle. Now stop a second and try to remember. Is lightning yellow? Can it be yellow? And if it is yellow, and if it strikes near a valley cast in deep blue shadows, would that make the flash seem green?

Is that the way it looks when light and shadow mix? Celeste tried to remember. She tried to work all that out in the instant after the greenish flash came so bright from somewhere nearby. Not from the pit though, right? That wouldn't make any sense. But this flash came so bright from somewhere, from all around her, that Celeste winced and closed her eyes and turned away from the hole. And then came the thunder. If it was thunder.

A sound sharper than any thunder Celeste had ever heard ripped the air all around her. So loud that her scream of pain at the concussion in her ears was lost completely, and she whirled back forward and hunched her shoulders and was about to put her hands over her ears. But she never did. Her hands never left the handlebar, her thumb never left the throttle, because when she whirled back forward she opened her eyes wide in surprise and shock and pain. And with her eyes open she could see it there in front of her. The creature scrabbling feverishly at the sand as it clawed its way out of the hole. What was it? What did it look like?

Like something that might have been a human being long, long, long ago. But now it was too dry, too thin, too long, too ragged, and too fast. It clawed up the sand out of that steep hole with arms moving faster than the eye could follow, and a face that lunged from side to side like it was tasting the air, seeking her like a pit viper. Surely the thing couldn't see in the normal way, for the places where its eyes and nose should be were sunken into empty darkness. Its teeth gleamed out, though, dingy bright in the upper jaw above a ragged void where the lower jaw should be. The thing looked like a piece of something horrible and incomplete Horrible and incomplete and hungry Celeste saw all this in an instant

And then she hit the gas Wouldn't you? Her thumb was still right there on the throttle All she had to do was push the lever and thumb was still right there on the throttle all she had to do was push the lever and she was away from there just push the lever and and one other thing one other thing that Celeste forgot in her panic she forgot that her handlebars were pointed straight ahead. So when she instinctively pushed the throttle and the quad jumped under her

and the acceleration took her, straight forward, straight toward the pit, straight toward the creature, she saw ragged, wasted, sun-dried arms reaching out for her. Long, thin fingers with filthy, broken nails. Eye pits scowling, darker and emptier than the hole in the sand.

A huge, rotting void beneath the jaw, sucking at the air around her and then breathing gusts of hot, horrible decay back at her. She saw all of this. She felt it, smelled it, hurtled toward it, drove right into the creature. Was that a dry-throated scream? Right into and over the narrow pit, and over the creature with a scratching grasp of fingernails screeching on her quad's front fender and a sickening bump of the front wheels. But before she could throttle clear of the hole, she felt her rear wheels begin to bog ominously,

felt the back of the quad settle lower and lower, pointing its nose slowly upward, slipping by inches backward into the pit as the wheels sprayed a fan of sand all over it felt like the ground itself was falling away from beneath her she pushed the throttle as far as it would go heard the motor scream higher and louder and protest she leaned far forward out of her seat over the handlebars she willed the wheels to find a purchase to to catch the sand, to fly her

forward and get her out of there. If she slipped back into the hole, how far would she fall? And what would be waiting for her down there? Should she jump? Could she make it out that way? She'd have to try. The machine was slipping steadily backward. One, two, three, now! She let go of the handlebars to jump, and as the throttle dropped and the wheels slowed their wild spinning, they caught just right in the sand, and the quad jumped forward and threw Celeste back toward the widening pit.

With a strength and quickness born of desperation, she twisted in midair in her fall, and she lunged back toward the handlebar, just barely managed to grab the bar with the throttle on it and get her thumb back in place and keep the machine churning up out of the pit and onto the face of the dune behind. Up, up, up, rocketing up the steepest part of the dune, her front wheels lifting just before she cleared the top, gravity trying to tumble her backwards and down. But she made it, flying over the crest, spraying sand in every direction and landing hard, pulling herself back onto the seat, fighting to regain control. She sped into a turn, almost tipped it, settled down and followed the ridge of the dune up to the very summit, and then let the quad slow and roll to a stop. Only then, only when it stopped and the motor quieted to an idle,

did she realize that she'd been shouting the whole ride, shouting and sobbing in the hard spasms of shock. She sat there on the summit of the dune, fighting to regain control, shaking and sick to her stomach, heart pounding. The sun was all gone now, blood-red sky on the horizon with the rest of the world darkening to purple and black. She heard the whine of one last late rider like herself,

no doubt heading back to home or camp. She looked back down into the valley that she'd just left, but she couldn't see any sign of the pit, or the portal, or the creature, or anything. But she knew. She knew what had happened to her. She couldn't explain it, but she knew it had been real. Gramps' story was real. It had almost happened to her. The thing from the portal had almost got her. And she knew that it was going to take her a very, very long time to try to figure that out. To come to terms with what had just happened.

And that's when the hand grabbed her ankle. Lean, strong, dry, scabby, hot, burning. Celeste looked down and saw it. Saw the creature's horrible hand snaked out from under the ATV, locking Titus' fate around her limb and straining. Straining to pull the rest of the creature out from under the machine or... or to pull her down there with it. She jammed back on the throttle so fast and hard that she left the sand completely on her way down the far side of the dune.

Flying over every bump, no pretense of control now, just speed and panic in her actions. Off the trail, into the scrub, feeling thick branches rip at the sides and bottom of the quad but feeling also the scalding grip on her ankle grow tighter tighter still across another trail sideways that sent her airborne on a diagonal and then slammed her down and up and down again barely holding on and now facing scrub too thick to ride through, just an instant ahead. She jammed the handle sideways into a turn much, much too steep for her speed. I felt the slide of her wheels across the sand deepen and deepen and deepen. Two instants of sliding and sinking down until they dug too far and the slide stopped and that bad rotation began. The wheels on the other side going up into the air and over

and Celeste clung on, frozen, for one roll under the screaming machine as it crushed the breath out of her and broke her hold so that the next roll threw her into the air, through the brush and down the steep, sandy slope, down into the darkness gathered at the bottom of the valley. There's a gap here, probably less than a second of flying sand and pounding earth and stabbing branches, pummeling and ripping at her whirling body. And then Celeste felt a brief moment of relief at finding herself conscious for a sweet instant of stillness lying at the bottom of the dune. An instant that ended in a blasting fear that jumped her back onto her feet,

feeling her body for serious damage, hoping the adrenaline wasn't masking a fracture, but afraid that she might need it to if she was going to escape. Celeste felt like there should have been a moment of suspense. After all that, after the crash, she felt like she'd earned an instant where she could stand there in the stillness and and look around for the creature and not see it but no such thing she heard it coming for her even as she staggered to her feet and she saw it right away that horrible torn vacant face bobbing toward her low and fast across the sand, pulling itself with its hands,

dragging the rest of it that trailed off into ragged-looking strands. Like something incomplete, something that had been torn in half, but moving with unbelievable speed in spite of it. Fast. Too fast. She turned to run from it, but only made a few steps before she felt the strong arms of the thing swipe and knock her leg sideways mid-stride. She flew another pace and hit the sand hard, and the creature was on her, a brand-hot arm around her middle,

merciless fingers twisting in her hair. And there was that sound again, like a peel of thunder exploding inside her head, and a flash of pale green light that lingered over everything like a sickly fog. She thought her head was spinning, but no, it was the sand that was spinning, swirling out from underneath her like a drain it opened in the earth and she found herself clawing at the yielding sand as the creature pulled her down down and down into a widening abyss not quickly but irresistibly the sky narrowed into a circle surrounded by swirling sand and that circle of sky got smaller and smaller, until something up there

covered it like a lid, and it disappeared. And the darkness would have been complete except for the last of that faint green glow. And in that glow, she saw and smelled the horrible face of the creature, leaning ever closer to her own. And the ragged, rotten darkness where its jaw should be seemed to laugh and laugh and laugh at her. And then everything was darkness, and all she could hear was the whisper of the sliding, pressing, encasing sand. And all she could feel were the arms around her, dragging at her. She kept trying to fight, but there was less and less left in her.

Until only her mind was fighting, still white-hot and concentrated, while the rest of her hung limp. And she was like that when Gramps pulled her out of the sand, and he was worried that he'd reached her too late. Puffing with the strain and muttering blessings under his breath, he laid her gently on the valley floor. And after a few tense moments, she started to shake her head back and forth, back and forth, weakly at first, and then stronger and stronger. Suddenly she sat up,

coughing and blinking. And when she saw Gramps, her eyes filled with tears. And only part of that was because of the sand in them. Gramps' eyes filled too, filled to overflowing, and he sat heavily and stiffly on the sand beside her. For a long time they both just sat there, quiet, beside each other. And then he said, in that soft, serious voice of his. Sorry I followed you, but you shouldn't go riding in the dunes alone. It isn't safe. And Celeste smiled at him and nodded a lot

and couldn't get a single word or even a laugh out of her throat, choked tight with relief and love. And after another long while they got back on his old quad and they rode home, slowly, together. Well, we can go slow or fast, but I guess it's time we got back home to our tents. The moon is out full now, but if you see anything moving out there in the dunes, don't follow it. And if you wake up in the middle of the night and you think you hear voices crying out in old Spanish. Go back to sleep. It's just the wind. Or echoes, maybe.

Echoes from long ago and deep, deep within these dunes. Echoes of the ones who didn't escape. The ones who disappeared without a trace. And of course they aren't the only thing that's disappeared without a trace out here in these mysterious dunes. Why, just a few minutes ago there was a full peak refuel meal sitting there in front of you, and now it's disappeared. I guess there's no mystery there though, huh? It's amazing how filling just one of these peak refuel meals is, especially after a busy day of outdoor adventure like we've had. I hope you saved a little room though, because you know Peak Refuel also

does desserts. Of course they do. I've got peach cobbler, a mountain berry cobbler, peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bites. Oh, plenty to choose from. All delicious and all made with Peak Refuel's carefully sourced premium ingredients. Every supplier that Peak Refuel works with goes through an extensive screening process to ensure that only the very highest quality non-GMO ingredients go into each Peak Refuel meal. So chomp into these chocolate fudge brownie bites with confidence. If it's Peak Refuel, it's the best fuel there is. Riding those sick new ATVs across the dunes tonight are our executive producers paulo motla and joe crosby our engineer nick gramps patri tried to warn them about the three who

disappeared our producer jenny barber our senior producer hannah boyd. And yours truly, writer and host, Weston Davis. But all Joe and Paolo could think about was how cool that green lightning would look in the mirrored visors of their helmets. And it does look cool, guys. The creature thinks so, too. We have a lot of fun on this podcast, telling stories that you may or may not believe. But next week, we'll come face to face with a creature so strange and so terrible that you won't believe it. You won't. You can't. No matter what we tell you, no matter how hard we try to make you understand, you'll still go out there.

You'll still go out there. You'll still go out into that soft autumn night and then you'll find out. So join us next week as we try to convince you that we've seen the Dover Demon. Really?

You've just got to believe us. Please take a moment to rate, review, share and tell your friends about Camp Monsters. It's your spreading the word that has kept our campfire circle growing for six seasons now, and we'd love to keep that going. So thanks for your help, and keep it up. As always, the stories that we tell here on Camp Monsters are just stories. Sure, some of them are based on things people claim to have found

in the long-lost journals of ancient conquistadors, but it's up to you to decide what's real and what's just another Eldorado. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week, around another campfire.