Camp Monsters - The Signal Cabin

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

A light in the darkness is usually a sign of a good thing—especially when you’re walking in the rain down a lonely old railway line in Tennessee. In this case, the light ahead is calling you toward something much less comforting.Welcome to Camp Monsters Summer Camp. Over the past few seasons of the show, we’ve gotten tons of suggestions on the monsters we should cover. We noticed that a lot of these take place at a summer camp. So we’ve collected the best of the stories you’ve sent — and researched a few of our own — to create our first series of legendary summer camp creatures. Hopefully you can take these episodes with you to summer camp or they’ll bring you back to when you were a camper, scared of what might be lurking outside of your cabin.This year’s sponsor is YETI. Check out all of their amazing gear in store or at REI.com. Pack it up - Shop YETI Camp ChairsDrink it in - Shop YETI Drinkware

This is an REI Co-op Studios production. When you're cold and scared, when you don't know where you are, a light in the darkness can mean the difference between life and death. It can mean safety, help, rescue. But in this case, along a lonely old railroad line in Tennessee, in this case, that light up ahead means something much more sinister. This is the Camp Monsters Podcast. Hey! We're telling this week's story up here in the cab of this old steam locomotive. Come on up. We've got a fire, that's for sure. But it's not our usual campfire.

Here, press your foot down on that pedal. Whew! Startling how bright and hot that firebox is, huh? We're just getting her steam up. Here, press the pedal and open it again. That shovel full of coal ought to do it. You know she's working her way up to 2,500 degrees in there. A little bit warmer than our usual campfire, huh? But of course, you've learned all about that here at Railroad Summer Camp. It's sooty work, helping keep these old steam engines running for this living history museum.

Sure is fun, though. When she's got her steam up, we're going to run her up the old valley line and back. Have you been up there yet? A beautiful ride on an evening like this. Up through the woods and wilderness of the valley, with glimpses down onto the stream below. Years ago, it used to be a fairly busy branch when it led up to the old Southern Railway mainline. But when the new tunnel went in further north, the railroad gradually abandoned this run, until it would just be a trail through the woods today if this museum hadn't got a hold of it and kept it up. And you know, there's a kind of a colorful old story about that branch line, too.

I only mention it because one camper earlier this summer brought the old tale back into people's minds. How's it go? Well, the story starts with a number. 1,586. Or was it 1,587? Or 1,588? You see, Eula was counting railroad ties as she walked along, though she'd actually come a lot further than the number of ties she had counted.

She hadn't even started counting until the darkness had become complete and the rain had started to fall. Now that rain was coming down in unseasonably cold sheets, plastering her hair to her face and sometimes gusting so heavy that she had to stop for a moment and bow her head under it so that she could keep her eyes open and gulp air into her lungs without getting a mouthful of water. Regret? Oh yes, you'll have felt it.

Tonight wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be a lark. Just a pleasant stroll through a starlit Tennessee night. Sure, she'd known that it might end with a gentle slap on the wrist the next morning, once the rail camp leaders caught on that she'd hiked down from the upper camp to bunk with her friends at the main depot. But she didn't figure a harmless little stunt like that would merit very serious punishment. But she would have welcomed any consequences now, if it meant she could get out of this mess.

Lightning sizzled so close above her that she didn't have to wait a second for the thunder, which was so loud that she swore her chest was about to split with the sound. She hadn't counted on this violent summer thunderstorm raising in so quickly to blacken the clear night sky. Eula hadn't even brought a rain jacket. And she had misjudged the distance. It was so much further to walk than it had seemed when she was riding up on one of the locos. Plus the awkward spacing of the railroad ties. After a couple of miles, it was really slowing her down, wearing her out, and she was in constant fear of stepping into one of the gaps and wrenching her ankle.

The weak little circle of light that her flashlight made was barely enough to help her squint for each next step through the sheets of rain. Suffice it to say, Eula was miserable, wet and cold, but there wasn't anything else to do but keep going. 1,605, 1,606. She found herself trying to remember the name of that old poet, or whoever he was, from the 1950s, who died of exposure walking along a railroad, counting the ties until he collapsed. Never someone she'd wanted to emulate. 1,612. 1,613. It was just about then that she first saw light.

It appeared suddenly, up ahead in the middle distance, just after another blinding flash of lightning. In fact, at first, Eula tried to blink the light away, mistaking it for the afterimage of the lightning's blast on her retinas. But after another step or two, she stopped and squinted up ahead. Because this light was moving. Swinging jerkily from side to side like the flashlight of someone walking along the tracks coming in her direction. Eula might have been relieved to see some other person heading her way down these wet and lonely rails,

only who could it possibly be? Who would be out here on a night like this? She doubted that her absence from the upper camp would have been noticed yet, and even if it had been and they'd sent people out to search, they would have sent them in groups. That wouldn't explain this lone flashlight coming up the tracks. The first small hint of unease struck Eula's mind, just enough that she switched her small flashlight off. As soon as she did that, the other light down the track stopped moving and shone directly toward her.

She was 50 or 60 yards away, much too far for the light to reach her. She knew she was perfectly invisible right where she was. Still, the feeling of that light pointed right at her made her feel exposed, and she had to wrestle back the urge to slide down the loose ballast and into the water-filled ditch beside the tracks. Instead, she stood still, just where she was. And after a few long seconds, the light swung away again, and she watched it move around the area where it first appeared,

like someone was pacing up and down the tracks there. After another thirty seconds or so, it disappeared. Eula stood still and kept her own light switched off What did this mean? Someone was there, down the track, doing something But who could it be? And should she carry on, get closer? Risk being spotted by

Whoever it was who had business along railroad tracks out here in the middle of a storm-soaked night. Feething with her feet, Eula crept forward a few more ties without turning her light on. Maybe if she left the tracks now and tried to find her way through the brush, she could creep past whoever it was without being seen. As she was trying to figure out how she'd navigate through the thick bushes in pitch darkness, the light reappeared. But this time it was floating, eerily, fifteen feet or more in the air.

The light flitted and hovered about and Eula tried to understand what she was seeing. Then another light appeared suddenly stronger than the first and steadier and Eula let out a little exhalation of relief and recognition. It was the signal cabin. A tall, narrow hut beside the tracks with windows on the second story, for switchmen in the old days to watch over a junction and control the signals and switches that routed the passing trains.

Eula recognized the pattern of the windows up above the track, illuminated from inside by the light that had just been turned on. Eula had often wondered about that derelict old tower, as she'd sped past it on one of the museum's trains, up or down the line. She'd always assumed that it was what it appeared to be, sped past it on one of the museum's trains, up or down the line. She'd always assumed that it was what it appeared to be, an abandoned relic left standing for scenic purposes beside the defunct old junction that it once presided over. She had no idea that the rail museum still used it for anything.

If they still did she reminded herself that she had no idea who was up there what legitimate purpose could anyone have out here on a night like this but Hula decided to investigate she was shivering cold and the light from the signal cabin shone with such a soft warm glow she kept her light off though and she approached the cabin slowly feeling out the ties ahead with her toes she could see someone up there A figure that moved slowly around the little room But through the gusting rain she couldn't see any more than that When she got to the base of the signal cabin She had a terrible time finding the stairs up to the door

Which turned out to be around back of the building away from the tracks Whoever it was with the light must have known of a trail from the tracks to the stairs that Eula couldn't find. The brush around the base of the cabin was so thick and clinging that twice she had to risk turning her flashlight on to disentangle herself from the prickly branches that trapped her. The stairs themselves, when she finally reached them, were made of rusty iron grating. In the light that reflected down from the window at the top of the stairs,

Eula could see streaks of dark red on the old white paint of the building. She figured it was rust that had flowed down from the stairs and stained it.

The lower steps were almost impassable, with bushes growing up through the gaps in the stair grating. Eula tried to step over and through these without making too much noise, and then she crouched as she quietly gained the top of the stairs. Holding her breath, she peeked through the small window set in the wall beside the door into the cabin. What a treasure! What a cozy looking little room! Well, it must be kept up by the museum after all. It looked like an old photograph come to life in warm and brilliant colors. The light that streamed out into the night came from an old-fashioned kerosene lamp sitting on a battered but clean table in the middle of the room. There was a fire in the grate of the black pot-bellied stove off to the left,

and the tall switch handles that had once been used to control the signals in the points of the old junction looked as ready to do their work as they had been eighty years ago. And in a spindly wooden chair across the room Beside the big windows that looked out onto the blackness of the rain-swept tracks sat the little crumpled figure of a very small, very old man. He sat with his chin falling down against his chest like he was deep in thought, or napping. And though the chair was small, the old man's feet barely touched the ground. He looked about a hundred years old,

and Eula doubted whether he could weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. All her apprehensions disappeared, and she tried the handle of the door. It was unlocked, and she rapped on it with one hand as she opened it with the other. If the old man had been sleeping, he awoke as she came in. She saw the flash of his pale eyes opening, and as she stepped shyly into the room, he heaved himself up out of his chair and took a slow step or two toward her, smiling and bobbing his head. He was the only thing in the room that looked dusty. Thin wisps of white hair floated up around his head, while his clothes and even the skin of his face and hands seemed washed out and yellowed, faded

like a crumbling old snapshot. But as he stepped into the warm lantern light, Eula recognized his face. She couldn't remember where she'd met him, but she knew that he was connected somehow to the railroad museum. The old man smiled again, apologetically, and he mouthed a few silent words while motioning at his throat, which had a wrinkled red kerchief rolled up and tied around it. He was obviously indicating that he'd lost his voice. He couldn't speak. Eula sympathized with him.

Said something about how summer colds are the worst. And then she began to pour out her own predicament, and ended by asking if she could possibly stay in the signal cabin for a little while. Until morning, or at least until the storm broke. A look of hesitation passed over the old man's face, and Eula rushed to assure him how she wouldn't be any trouble at all. She was just looking for a little shelter from the storm. The old man looked out at the rain that was still hammering against the windows. He stared for rather a long time

before finally shrugging and nodding his assent. He hobbled over to her little cupboard and presented Eula with a towel that was as old and tidy as everything else in the room. He motioned her into a big winged back chair that was pushed up against the wall near the door on the opposite side of the room from him. her into a big winged back chair that was pushed up against the wall near the door on the opposite side of the room from him. Then he moved slowly back to his rickety old chair

by the window, sat down, and consulted a big pocket watch. As Eula watched him glance at it, she realized that she'd been hearing the gentle tick of that timepiece ever since she'd first entered the cabin. She could hear it still, even when he'd replaced it in his pocket. That and the rain on the roof and the occasional settling of a log in the fire were the only sounds. Eula sat in a cozy chair and did her best to dry her hair and clothes with a towel. The stove made the whole cabin warm, and the towel had a strange, pleasant scent like an

airy, sun-warmed room. The pocket watch ticked on, and Eula must have dozed off anyway she found herself in a dream one of those rare ones where you're immediately aware that you're dreaming she dreamt she was in the cabin this same little signal cabin but the lamp had gone out and the room was much darker.

The storm was over and moonlight was streaming through the large windows that looked out on the track. And as she looked out the window, she saw that there was a light moving around out there. She could see the shadows shifting in the trees across the tracks. So she went over to the window and looked down, and saw the old man standing out there beside the gleaming rails, holding an old-fashioned lantern and checking his watch. And then she heard the most unexpected sound at this time of night on a track where nothing ran except daytime excursion trains from the museum.

She heard the sound of a distant train whistle and the forest up the tracks began to glow with the approach of a locomotive's headlight. Eula watched in amazement as a train rounded the bend. It was a big old steam engine,

black, larger than anything the rail museum had. The roar of it built as it rolled down the line toward them. Eula felt the floor of the cabin tremble as the train roared past. Down on the little platform below, the little old man was passing a message to the engine crew with a train order stick, a long pole with a loop of string around its forked end and the message tied to the string. The fireman on the locomotive

stuck his arm out of the cabin and thrust it through the loop as the train roared by, snagging up the string and hauling in the message without the train having to slow down at all. Then, quick as it had come, the engine was gone, away down the line in the moonlit night, and the big freight cars were rattling by.

The old man turned back toward the cabin, and in the light of his lantern, Eula saw him smile up at her. Just as there came a sharp sound and an ominous rumble from somewhere nearby, and Eula turned her attention just in time to see a load of huge iron pipes begin to roll loose from their snapped bindings on a flatbed car up the line. She watched the piled pipes begin to tumble down each other and one of them rolled off at an angle right as the train passed the cabin. Right toward the old man smiling sweetly up at her. Right into his neck.

Eula turned her head and closed her eyes in that horrible instant and she screamed. And then she was awake leaning sideways halfway out of the big wing-backed chair and for a moment

she was swept away by a wave of terror even more intense than the last moment of the dream. Because the real world, the real interior of the little cabin seemed to have transformed into the cabin of the dream. The lantern was out and the storm was over and moonlight streamed through the large windows looking out onto the track. Eula sat up and stared out of those windows, listening.

Watching for the orange flicker of a lantern on the trees across the track, straining her ears for the distant hiss and roar of an antique train. But the only light in the windows was moonlight, and the only sound from the world outside was the soft patter of water dripping off the eaves and trees onto the foliage below. There was no sign of lantern light out there, no whisper that the dream was anything but a dream. Eula began to calm down, and even when she sensed movement there in the cabin with her, it didn't immediately disturb her.

The lantern must have just gone out for some reason. Maybe the sudden darkness had woken her. The old man was probably stirring himself, about to shuffle over to the table and attend to it. But an instant after she'd sensed the movement, she also heard it, and from the sound she decided that it wasn't the old man. It couldn't be, though it came from the direction of his chair or by the window. Whatever was moving was coming too fast and too low along the floor, like a little dog running from the windows toward her. Had there been a little dog in here when she came in,

sleeping by the stove or by the old man's chair? Or a cat, maybe? She tried to remember, but before she could, the sound had reached her and leapt up off the floor and whatever it was landed gently in her lap. Eula reached down for it, more startled and frightened. Whatever the creature was,

it was small, just the weight of a little lap dog. As her fingers first brushed it, she felt a cool wetness, like a friendly dog's nose, but no, there was more wetness than just a cold little nose would have. Or maybe

the poor creature had just come in out of the storm. Anyway, the thing was cold, terribly cold. She closed her hands around it, but then instantly withdrew them. Something was wrong. The thing had hair on at least part of it, and flesh under the hair, but it didn't have the soft angles of an animal. Beneath the hair it was hard. Hard and cold and... and round.

And the wetness she'd noticed at first seemed sticky on her palm. She moved her hands to fling whatever it was away from her. And as she did, there was another movement in the little cabin. This time from the space between the big windows where shadows hid the old man's chair. Eula looked up in time to see the old man stand, rise, suddenly and awkwardly, and much more quickly than she could imagine a man of his age moving. As soon as he started up, Eula realized that something was wrong with him. There was the sudden lurch of panic in his movements. He staggered, and she saw his arms

reach out into the moonlight like he was trying to take hold of something to keep himself from falling. He didn't find anything to grab, and yet he didn't fall, and his arms kept searching out in front of him. Then he tottered forward, with his whole body tripping out of the shadows and into the moonlight, turning toward where Eula sat. And then she saw two horrible things at once. In the faint blue light that streamed in through the big windows, she saw what was wrong with the old man. She saw what he was missing, what his desperate hands were groping toward her for. And she saw the fear and the desperation on the old man's face. The face that was on the head that she'd just pushed out of her lap. The awkwardness was gone from the old man's body

now. It moved with incredible speed toward its head and toward Eula. She didn't have time to scream. She didn't have time to breathe. She tore herself out of the chair and ran toward the door. She could hear the rapid running footsteps of the headless body dashing up behind her. her, but she'd barely gone three steps before her foot landed on something round and hard and squirming. It rolled away from under her, threw her off balance and sent her flying through the air toward the wall. And for the second time, Eula woke up in the signal cabin. But it took her a while to recognize where she was.

Sunlight streamed through the rain-streaked, partly shattered windows onto the floor that Eula shared with a thick layer of dust, broken glass, and rodent droppings. What furniture there might have been years ago was now piled in a broken heap in one corner of the room, and the old signal switches were a rusted red tangle where a roof leak had let decades of water drip down over them. Eula took all of this in, but it didn't make any impression on her. Her head was throbbing so badly she couldn't think at all. She dragged herself into a sitting position and sat for a long time,

staring down at the marks in the thick dust on the floor. Eventually she realized that the marks she was staring at were footprints, and some long time later her mind had recovered enough that she recognized one set of the prints as her own. But there was another set,

made by a very small pair of old-fashioned hard-soled shoes. These other prints were as fresh as her own, but much fainter, as if the other person barely weighed anything at all. It was not long after seeing those prints that Eula made a hasty exit from the lonely old signal cabin and began stumbling as quickly as she could down the tracks toward the main depot. Eula made one other discovery once she'd reached safety and was treated for her injuries. She discovered an old black-and-white photograph that hung on the wall in the rail museum's lobby one that she'd glanced at in passing many times before but never stopped to look at closely

this time it caught her eye the figure of a little hunched old man with pale eyes in the uniform of a railroad employee of a hundred years or more ago leaning against the doorway of a signal cabin with a small sweet smile on his face on a face that eula could never forget she asked the museum's archivist about that photo, but unfortunately there was very little information about it. It had been found completely out of context, inserted in the midst of a set of apparently unrelated photographs that recorded a rail car accident of about the same era. The archivist was very surprised when you the correctly guessed that the accident had involved a poorly secured load of large iron pipes.

Well, look at that pressure gauge. Steam is up. We're ready to roll. You want to come with us? Like I said, that valley branch line is beautiful on an evening like this with the sun just setting behind the hills and we'll go past that old signal cabin too but don't worry no matter what the signals say there

we aren't going to stop especially if we see the warm light of a lantern burning in the windows. Come on, let's go. Camp Monsters is part of the RAI Podcast Network Driving this train is our very own brave engineer Nick Patry

who, like his hero Casey Jones always remains at his sound controls no matter what train wreck he sees up ahead. Beside him, fiercely shoveling coal into the roaring firebox, is our associate producer, Jenny Barber. Back in first class, glancing apprehensively at the huge pocket watch she always carries on a thick gold chain, is our conductor and senior producer, Chelsea Davis. Back in the freight yard, the burly yard jockeys that are our executive producers,

Paolo Motola and Joe Crosby, argue over who was supposed to secure that load of big iron pipes. And standing on the little siding up ahead, train order stick held dutifully in both hands, is yours truly, writer and host Weston Davis. Here comes the express. Listen to that big steam whistle moan.

Next week, you'll wake in your cozy bunk at summer camp in the middle of the night and find that you can't move. You can't make a sound. And the cabin door is open. In the doorway, you see a shadow. A tall, thin shadow. Silent and featureless and terrible. A nightmare. A tall, thin shadow.

Silent and featureless and terrible. A nightmare coming slowly toward your frozen form and you realize there's only one thing you can do. One thing you need to do. You need to listen next week. Please like, share, review, and generally spread the word about this podcast. It's word of mouth and recommendations to friends

that have made Camp Monsters Podcast the success that it is. Thank you. And remember that the stories we tell here are just that, stories. Sure, some of them are based on things that people claim to have seen and experienced, but it's up to you to decide what you believe,

and how to explain away what you don't. Thanks for listening. See you next week around the campfire.