Creepy - Creepaway Camp 2022 - Day 2: The Old Bridge in the Park & The Camp on the Other Side of the Lake

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

The Old Bridge in the Park***Written by: MoistSquelch and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***The Camp on the Other Side of the Lake***Written by: Sum Gigh and Narrated by: Danielle Hewitt***Find our reward tiers and how to get your bonus magnet at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Megan McDuffee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy fosters and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence, and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Has anyone seen Jimmy or John lately? Not since the other night when they went off into the woods. You don't think they... Left us here to die? No. Well, I do. I saw John yesterday talking to himself. Avoiding the sunlight, his usual thing.

If he didn't reek of garlic, I'd think he was a bear. vampire. I'm sure he'll be around. Should we start without him? Yeah, it would serve him right for dumping us out here, not even keeping up with his own little event. Do you have a story? Kind of. It's not really about camping as much as it's about a place not too far from where I live. When I was a kid, I was always scared of the old bridge in the park. The children in the town of knew better than to cross the old bridge in the park. especially during the evening hours on foggy nights. Even the grown-ups stayed clear,

knowing that those who dared venture out were doomed never to be seen again, and everyone knows grown-ups are usually pretty naive when it comes to such matters. They had even made an effort to stop people from crossing the bridge by making a gate that closed every day an hour before sundown to block access to the park. The grown-ups seemed so proud of themselves for protecting the little ones, and so the children didn't have the heart to tell them that it was a waste of money better spent buying birthday and Christmas presents. Everyone knew better than to cross that bridge, so there was no reason for a date at all. Unfortunately, Eleanor was nobody, and even if she was, she was. was somebody, she was a very stupid little girl.

Born and raised in the next town over, little Elnor had only recently moved to when her parents divorced and her father and new stepmother got full custody of her. Though she fancied the idea that she was just too clever to get along with the other children, the opposite was in fact true. She was nearly as ignorant as a grown-up, constantly questioned. things and demanding evidence for every trivial truth. Some of the harsher rumors claimed that she didn't believe in ghosts, aliens, or even the completely inarguable fact that the fourth grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Mason, was a werewolf

demon hybrid from heck, who worked for the devil himself. Thus, Eleanor had rightfully replaced paste-eating Patty as the village idiot in elementary school. Even so, Eleanor was very prideful. No matter how much the other children chastise her for saying silly things like, There's no such thing as baby biting sewer clowns. She persisted. It wasn't long before everyone started avoiding her, fearing that her blatant disrespect of the supernatural made her dangerous and unlucky.

At first, Eleanor didn't seem to mind too much, as her vanity deluded her into thinking she was better off alone anyway, since apparently she was just so much more intelligent than all the other children anyways. Still, even nobody's did lonely. And so when she heard the other children discussing the matter of the old bridge in the park, she couldn't help but to butt in. Oh, come on. How is a bridge going to eat children? It's just a bunch of stones.

The children had heard her say many strange things, but now she had gone too far. Even the grown-ups knew how dangerous the old bridge was. A few of the kinder, more patient ones gave Eleanor a pitiful glance, reminding themselves that she didn't know any better. But while things like Mr. Mason and the sewer clowns were survivable, the old bridge in the park promised at least a bazillion percent chance of never being seen again. sure the children hated Eleanor, but they wouldn't wish such a fate upon even the worst of little girls. They begged and pleaded with her to drop the subject, as she demanded more proof and credible sources of information.

Some were valiant enough to promise to invite Eleanor to the birthday parties if she'd only promise never to cross the bridge. But stubborn little Eleanor wouldn't listen to reason or bribery. She'd swore to them that she'd prove that the old bridge was nothing to fear, using a hand-me-down video camera she'd received on her ninth birthday. Tonight, I'm going to cross the old bridge, she said. And then, you'll see how foolish you all are. There was no way to stop her from killing herself without putting some effort into trying. Distraught, the sweet and generous children of... Decided they'd try and be nosed.

nice to Eleanor on her last day alive. All except Patty, who wasn't too keen on being the stupidest child in school again, by not stealing the dessert from her lunch and not throwing worms at her during recess. Eleanor didn't appreciate their efforts. That night, Eleanor snuck out of the safety of her home, bighted to the park, and struggled over the gate. Tonight was particularly foggy, and it took her longer than expected to get to the bridge. Apparently, the gate wasn't the only precaution the grown-ups took. They had also changed the paths around, so that the only way to get to the old bridge was by following the winding deer paths through the marshy woods. It was eerily quiet. No owls hooded, no crickets chirped. Any reasonable person would have recognized this silence

as an omen of horrible tragedy to come, but not a girl who denied even the existence of moon vampires. Armed with only her reckless self-confidence and a flashlight, Eleanor walked to her own demise. By the time she found the bridge, it was nearly a quarter past ten, widely known in the town of to be the most sinister of times. Obviously this was true. Why else would the grown-ups rush them to their rooms and demand they sleep until the sunrise promised their safety?

Eleanor either willingly ignored the time or just didn't know its significance as she turned on the camera. Eleanor gave a cheery smile into the camera and said her hellos, almost passing as a normal little girl, until going into a smug little rant about how stupid she thought everyone was and how she couldn't wait to see the looks on their faces when she proved to them that she was right. She was so self-satisfied that God himself,

considered striking her down with a lightning vault for being so prideful, but then decided he was better off not wasting his precious time. She lifted her foot to step onto the bridge, but hesitated, as if for just a second the ignorance clouding her mind had cleared. It wasn't too late to turn back. If she chicken out now, the other children would surely only make fun of her cowardice for a few weeks, and, as a bonus, she'd not suffer what was most likely a horrible death. After an agonizing 12 seconds of thought, Eleanor put her foot down on the stone of the bridge. When she wasn't immediately exploded into confetti or elsewise injured, she let out a whoop of celebration and started bragging incessantly to her camera.

Meanwhile, God was probably reconsidering his leniency. As she walked on, she prattled. She pulled onto the camera and bragged about how clever she was. All in all, it took nearly five minutes of self-righteous babbling before Eleanor realized something was amiss. This is a very long bridge, isn't it? Thinking she had misjudged the width of the river. Eleanor peeped over the railing only to see there was nothing below her.

And it's so foggy, I can't see a thing. Maybe people have gone missing because they fell off. Despite her efforts to see the river, she couldn't even hear it, no matter how much she tried to clean and pop her ears. The fog made it impossible to find. But it had to be there, right? And so she continued on, every step making her more and more anxious. At this rate, her camera was going to run out of batteries. Any rational person would have turned tail and run screaming like a banshee that had stepped on a leg.

ago, but, again, Eleanor hesitated. She checked the time on the wash she had borrowed from her stepmother, as if it would tick out, nope, everything is perfectly normal, do carry on in Morse code. This must be broken. Surely I've not been walking for a whole 30 minutes. Her panic only rose when she checked to see how long the camera had been recording. Eleanor hadn't pressed the button, and all this time she'd been talking to no one like a complete maniac. Before she had time to swear aloud, her flashlight had the nerve to flicker.

Not only had she forgotten to record this experience, she'd left her spare batteries at home. Eleanor was in trouble, though she didn't yet realize how much trouble she was in. Even now, she thought the worst that would happen is she did lost on the way home without any light to guide her way. Her shoulders slumped, and with a pout, she turned around to head back before her batteries died completely. She felt almost as dumb as she was, wandering to the woods so under-prepared. Cottyness killed the cat, Eleanor supposed, though by killed, she actually meant non-lethaly inconvenienced. Maybe she'd try again tomorrow night. It felt like three hours had passed, but in reality it was closer to two and a half.

Eleanor, patient saint of not believing anything without proof, ignored the very real evidence of her stepmother's watch, telling her it was nearly one in the morning. Unable to control herself anymore, she burst into a sprint and ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, desperate to see the bank of the river. Her flashlight gave out, and so did her confidence. She screamed as loudly as she could and fell into a heap on the cold stone of the bridge.

What was she supposed to do now? Turning back clearly wasn't any good, and seeing as the park was closed, there was no one around to hear her pitiful cries for help. And so, Eleanor gave up. Instead of running around screaming, she opted to just sit. there and wait for the sun to come up. Surely it'd be a waste of energy to do anything more. Hours passed by. Slower than maple syrup right out of a too cold fridge. Eleanor did anything she did think of to pass the time, practice multiplication in her head, figure out what she'd tell

her father when he found out she'd been out all night wandering the woods, anything, but acknowledged that maybe she'd never did off this bridge alive. Though instead of fearing monsters, she was still afraid of earthly things like dying of wolves or boredom. To prevent at least one of those things, Eleanor put on her camera, for real this time, and began recording her goodbyes. At the very least, she thought she could delete it if everything turned out all right. As if on cue, a light in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She quickly turned the camera off and got to her feet. Was it the sun already?

No, it wasn't the right color and it was too small. Could it be... Hey, help! Like a moth drawn to a buddzapper, Eleanor scrambled to her feet and darted for the light. Help me! Hello? The light, or more accurately,

the ancient old lady holding the light, responded, Are you lost, little girl? Eleanor slowed to a quick jog, tears of relief swelling in her eyes. No child in the entire world had ever been more happy to see a weird stranger on a bridge. Yes, oh, thank you so much. I was so worried that I'd never see anyone again. She couldn't yet see that the old woman had no eyes, or that her right arm appeared to be made of solid gold.

She couldn't see the many rows of bristle-light teeth, or the fingers that seemed to have twice as many bones as they should have. If she had, maybe she'd have stopped herself before running straight into the monster's arms and hugging her close. Please, will you take me home? The monster was taken aback. She'd eaten many children, but this was the first to so quickly give itself up to her. This was very fortunate for Eleanor. If the monster were more focused, she'd have unhinged her jaw and swallowed her hole

before Eleanor had the chance to look up and realize she was in mortal danger. With a scream, she threw herself off the monster and backed the way she came without even looking back to confirm what she saw was real. Stepped it or not, she was more prepared to face the lonely bridge before facing what seemed to be an actual monster. The old woman regained her wits and let out a cackle before. for chasing after Eleanor. Don't you want my help anymore?

Her feet pitter-pattered in such a way that it sounded like she had three sets of feet. Eleanor had never been an athletic child and was still plump with baby fat and too many Christmas sweets, but there's something about being terrified half to death that really gets the adrenaline pumping. Slow down, sweetie, it's been too long since I've had a good meal. I can't keep up. Eleanor never listened, but for once it did her some good. Her lungs burned as she gasped in just enough air to propel her into safety. Though she didn't know it, the other children's carefulness was saving her.

The monster was weak enough from Hunter that she actually stood a chance of surviving. She was panting too hard to hear that the river was babbling below. Her eyes were too clouded with tears to see the sun was rising, and the fog was fading away. The moment the light of morning reached down to the bridge, the monster led out a horrible streak and quickly scurried down into the river, but Eleanor was still running until she was off the bridge and nearly out of the woods. Finally, she slowed down to a walk to let her lawn's rest.

She'd done it. She survived the old bridge. With a start, Eleanor looked at her camera and it nearly, nearly sobbed with joy. The whole thing had been recorded. There was concrete proof of the horrible monster and her escaping. Heck, she really only streamed the one time, so she probably looked pretty brave. The other children would be so impressed with her. Her tearful rejoicing settled into a worried frown. If this was true, then what else was? Was Mr. Mason really a demon? Did she really have to worry about sewer clowns and moon vampires and ghosts?

Heck, it didn't matter. All that mattered is that she survived, and if she could survive this, she could survive any crazy old thing. Her confidence rose again. No longer was she blind to the world around her. Now she knew better, and she'd use her knowledge for good. Where did that bridge monster come from? Clearly it was weak to sunlight and could only live in darkness.

maybe she could destroy it. But she would need help. The other children knew things, but they were too afraid to fight them. It was time for that to change. Things in this town were going to be completely different from now on. Together they would rid this town of whatever monsters may plague it. Eleanor sprinted off the bridge and through the woods,

breaking out into the road, leading back home, Blam! The truck had seemingly come out of nowhere, flattening Eleanor before she even knew what hit her, literally. And thus, the first child to ever survive crossing the old bridge died, not because of the monster that haunted it, but because she was too stupid to look both ways before crossing the street. I still haven't seen John anywhere.

I think we should all leave. This place... What? This place what? Where have you been? I took Jimmy home. He was pretty homesick. Hey, I'm homesick.

Can I go? Dude, don't say it like that. This is supposed to be fun. Fun? If you want this to be fun, don't you think you could have picked a place that wasn't so close to a... Don't. So close to what? Didn't anyone wonder how John could afford to rent out a camp for a month?

Just to tell ghost stories? I guess I always assumed he stole people's or... organs and sold them on the black market. Oh, and come on, man. I told you that in confidence. You know what? I'm taking that liver back. No, I licked it. It's mine. Is it really that much of a stretch that John would have brought us to a camp that's just

across the lake from a massacre? Danielle, do better. That's just a story you heard from some guy. Yeah, well, maybe we need to let everyone hear what happened at the camp on the other side of the lake. The way I heard it, there used to be a camp on the other side of the lake. You can't find it now, because of all the trees and overgrowth, but not for the reasons you'd think. Because this didn't happen decades ago.

It happened last year. Any trees and shrubs and anything else you can see there. That was the town, putting all that there to make things disappear. except that they couldn't just bulldoze all the cabins because no one wanted to get close enough to find them. You can't walk there because of the trees and thorny bushes they planted. And you can't fly a drone over because they put a camouflage canopy over the entire area. And that's the kind of shit the military does to hide weapons.

The town knew well enough that ghost stories and no trespassing signs are basically catnip for urban explorers. and just about any asshole with a GoPro and a YouTube channel. No. They had to make it disappear. The camp on the other side of the lake wasn't anything special. Just another camp upper middle class parents sent their shitbag kids to for a couple months so they didn't have to listen to their upward inflection or deal with their eye-rolling.

The camp boasted no Wi-Fi reception, so it was even better for parents who were sick of their kids staring at their phones instead of enjoying nature. You know, the parents that say stuff like, When I was a kid, we went out in the morning and didn't come home until the streetlights turned on. Then at the same time give their kids a phone when they're five and expect constant check-ins. The sorts of parents who only pretend to care are the sorts of parents who can act like it didn't happen. One theory was that unplugging all those brady pieces of shit from their screens meant that they didn't have anywhere to place their judgment or be anonymously cruel.

And instead of that, they actually had to socialize and make friends and be kind. Except we don't live in a time of reason anymore. We live in a world that wants news, wants shocking, wants to get people's attention, even if that 15 minutes is for something horrible. So some people think that someone, or a few people decided to go viral the old school way by getting the attention of the national media. Except it didn't work out that way. See, they were too far out in the woods,

and the town was able to sweep things under the rug before it got bigger. And with rich parents who didn't want their kids implicated in what had happened, or to have to face the idea that one of their little angels was really a sociopath, it all just faded into the trees along with what was left of the camp. No one really knows how any of it happened, but one guess is as good as any. It doesn't really matter so much anyway. No one is dumb enough to rent property here in the camp.

anymore, right? There were five cabins, ten kids to a cabin. And when the cops arrived to do a spot check, when the head counselor hadn't checked into town for his usual supply run with the cook, they started to check the cabins one by one. Walking up to cabin one, everything looked normal. Ten beds, each filled with a kid. Except that it was noon, and each kid was covered head to toe in a sheet.

One of the cops had a body camera on him to document the call. That's probably the only reason people could tell what had happened there, or remembered it with any detail that didn't get even crazier than what they found. Supposedly, it got leaked on some deep web forum, but good luck trying to find that. In that first cabin, the cops couldn't find anything wrong with any of them. They were all dead and stiff as a board from rigor mortis, eyes wide open like they'd been scared to death. If so, the cops, they'd. They were the lucky ones. Cabin, too, was a little more obvious.

Ten beds. Ten bodies. All burned alive. Their hands and arms curled up, skin flaking away like black paint chips. But no scorch marks anywhere in the cabin. No footprints. No sign of a struggle. As if each camper laid down and just started on fire.

A fire that only ate away at their skin and hair and bones. As soon as they opened the door to cabin three, they saw blood. Each mattress was covered in gore with drag marks leading off each bed, leading to the bathroom at the end of the cabin. Inside, they saw that the body parts had all been sorted into piles. Supposedly, it took over an hour to continue the search. The cops were too sick to stand up. No one had ever seen anything like it. Most hadn't even seen a dead body before.

Any cops that stayed cops after that never spoke about it. The ones who quit won't even admit they were there. When they finally got their shit together, they smelled what was inside cabin for before they even got to the door. If you think about it, the first three cabins made sense. People were dead and all, but at least it sort of had its own method. Fucked up, but still a method they could kind of wrap their heads around. but in the fourth cabin they found filled beds again.

It's just what was in the beds that scared the shit out of everyone. The bodies in the beds were rotted, like seeing bone through the skin kind of rotted. The entire room was filled with flies and maggots swarming around. They said you could smell what came out that door from across the lake. Can you still smell it now? They didn't go into the door. They just stood there, saw what happened and slammed it shut.

Again, afraid that there was some kind of flesh-eating bacteria in the air. If there was, it never left that cabin. The fifth cabin made everyone worry about a cult. Like full-on satanic panic style. The walls inside were coated in blood. The beds had all been flipped up and pushed against the windows, with the legs pointing into the room, and tied upside down

with their ankles and wrists on each leg of the bed were the campers naked and cut open they call it stem to sternum their organs had been pulled out and piled in the middle of the room smack in the middle of a pentagram that had been cut into the floor

they didn't notice right away but the pentagram had been scratched using the campers fingernails and toenails some still stuck in the wood Whoever or whatever killed those campers sure had a vendetta against Cabin 5. Or maybe it was all just a culmination. The problem is that there were 50 kids registered at the camp that year, along with a dozen counselors and staff.

But they found almost a hundred bodies when they actually started counting body parts. They found parts scattered in closets, outhouses, anywhere and everywhere. No one knows where the extra bodies came from and no one came forward to claim them. However they did it, or why they did it, the town and the parents covered it up. Maybe they knew who did it. Maybe they did it themselves. Maybe the town was afraid of the attention for other reasons. No one really knows. They just made it disappear. This place, or whatever it is, doesn't want people here.

And the locals don't care if you disappear. No one has been dumb enough to camp around this lake since then. Well, until now. How do you know any of this if it's such a secret? We don't even know where we are. She doesn't. She made it up. So it isn't true? I mean, what's truth anyway?

I'm not a philosophy doctor. Is it weird that I think it's kind of cool? I mean, sad, but cool. It's not like it really happened anyway. Are you sure about that? Listen, John might have poor judgment and questionable taste and no sense of timing. And his hygiene could use some improvement. I'm sitting right here.

I'm just saying, every camp and lake has some kind of ghost story that locals like to tell. It isn't real. Let's find out. What? Well, you say it isn't true. So let's go see for ourselves. It's the middle of the night. Aw, you scared? I'm not. Let's go. Uh, wait. If you're really going at least let me help you find the boathouse. The path's a little tricky down there.

Want a play never have I ever? No. Owen almost died last time. Should I throw gas on the fire? That could be our thing. I don't know. John's usually the one responsible for figuring out how to hand him. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative common share-a-like licensing,

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