Creepy - Creepaway Camp 2023 - Day 1: My Wilderness Experience & The Beckoning Path

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

My Wilderness Experience***content warning: mental and physical abuse***The Beckoning Path***Link: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Beckoning_Pathway***Written by: Shinigami.Eyes and Narrated by: Michelle Kane under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea 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.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas 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. In my life, I have seen the majestic beauty of a single raindrop to reversing a palm frond before plummeting onto the naked breast of an indigenous woman feeding her young, one in each arm as nature has desired.

I have also borne witness to the waking nightmare of the genocide, intent of humanity's most deranged performance artist, Hans Blokin, as he severed his own left knee-in' protest of a two-scent postage stamp increase. These images converge to both haunt and uplift me during my waking hours. But never have I witnessed that which I have listened to most recently. What I am about to share with you will no doubt edge itself into history as one of the most tragic events to take place at an abandoned summer camp since the 1991 movie Bikini Summer Camp Part 3 from the universally vilified director Chad Rockefeller Jr. who was subsequently excommunicated from the director's guild for the film deemed a crime against humanity in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. A movie so disjointed and reprehensible that the two remaining copies of the film are kept within the Granite Mountain Vault near Salt Lake City, Utah, so that it's

Stench will never again affect the populace following the tragic screening at Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale in the year of its release. It was a massacre. The few survivors of that day refused to speak of the horrors they witnessed, except that, and I quote, that one cheek's boobs were righteous. What you are about to hear are the last known recordings from a small group of podcasters attempting the unknown.

Led by a madman blinded by his own hubris and lack of self-preservation. He's probably really self-conscious too. I would just like to formally welcome everyone to Creep Boy Camp, 2023. I think this is going to be a lot of... Can I go first?

Kind of blowing up my spot there, Owen. Go first with what? Telling a story. I wasn't really yet that part yet. But you have a story ready? No, but I don't want to be the last one here again. What are you talking about? This is just like last year when you dragged us all out here and didn't let us leave

until we told a story. Sounds like someone's angling for a director of entertainment with that big imagination of theirs. What? Really? I'm honored. I know I can... What are you doing? Don't encourage him. John, what are we doing here? Glad you asked J.B. I got us all jobs being camp counselors. Any of you going to react? React? To what? You doing something stupid? You ignoring the fact that we all have lives and families outside of this podcast?

You thinking that at any point we would be surprised by what? whatever weirdness you would have planned for us? Kind of, yeah, all of that. You don't learn taking this way better than I expected. We chipped Owen. You what? After last year, we figured that you were going to get all excited to mix things up again. So we had a GPS chip and planned it in Owen.

What? When? How? Where? Am I missing one of the question words? At the vet. That's why you took me there? I thought I just needed an update on my heartworm meds.

Yeah, we did that too It's really weird watching you scoot along the carpet Can we backtrack for a minute Are you saying that we are going to be camp counselors? Yeah, is that a problem? Yes Yes But also

How did you have time to start running a summer camp? I didn't, just running the place How can you afford this? Sponsors Someone gave you money. to do this. Sort of. I might have gotten a little creative on the pitch.

They might think this is going to be a documentary into this systematic fear of summer camps as it relates to the social zeitgeist and ingrained fears as created by filmmakers. So you lied. No. I just didn't tell them the truth. Calm down.

It happens all the time in Hollywood. Do you really think that Tom Six told his investors the plot for human centipede? And now look, we have three of them. You're going to sew us together ass to mouth? I knew it! Who had John Sows Us ass to mouth under bingo cards? Right here.

You guys made bingo cards about me? That's so 20-20. And no, I'm not going to sew you ass to mouth. At least I hadn't planned to. You're here to get ready for camp. No. What do you mean? No to what?

All of it. Not happening this time, John. Narrating stories is one thing, but this is just fun, exciting, ingenious, psychotic. This isn't that bad. We just need to spend the month going through the training so we can get the okay from the insurance companies and get some good picks for the brochures. All we need to do is play some games, make some bug juice, and tell some stories. It's a hell of a lot nicer than my wilderness experience. I was a pretty quiet kid growing up.

I didn't get into much trouble. I was okay in school. Had a couple of friends, but generally just kind of did my own thing. My sister Grace, on the other hand, was, she was on the other hand, I guess. If there was a rule to break, she broke it. If there was some line she couldn't cross, she leapt over it. She started running with a rough crowd around middle school. She was only a little over a year older than me.

but the thing she did or at least the thing she'd been caught doing when I thought to do any of that for years. Assuming my life turned out differently, I mean. I don't know if any of you remember the rise of therapeutic boarding schools in the 80s and 90s, but if not, I envy you. See, my parents had a certain idea of what me and my sister were supposed to be like. They'd met in college at a really elite school And I think they expected both my sister and I

To carry on their legacy Legacy Such a stupid fucking word I hate it more than anything else They drill it into our heads About how important it was When in reality it's the most selfish bullshit in the world The idea that you need to accumulate enough

Or build enough or impact enough lives That you'll be remembered through time and it all comes on to money. Those supposed legacies out there, Rockefellers, Dupons, whoever, they're all built on the blood of other people. I could go off on a rant about this for a while, but I'll spare you all since I'm guessing you get the point.

After my sister got picked up by the local cops for smoking weed at the park, my parents called that the last straw. They acted like my sister was just the worst person in the world. when all she really wanted was for them to pay attention to her. Nope. Said they talk about how much they sacrificed so that we could live well. Sacrificed. Fucking bullshit.

They never wanted us. They had us because in their world, adults without children reviewed is lesser. No idea why, since neither they nor any of their friends seem to even like their kids. They'd host parties and talk about how unruly all the kids were and how we were so much more disrespectful than they had been. Fucking bullshit. I was a good kid. Grace was a good kid. I can see that even now, but it wasn't enough for them.

Enter rustic development. For their pamphlet, a place where boys will learn to be men and uncouth girls will learn to be ladies. Something about that phrasing always chilled me. We will learn an implication and a foregone conclusion. There were no long goodbyes or heartfelt. I'll misuse. Plenty of tears, though. That's what happens when you're kidnapped out of your bed in the middle of the night

and thrown onto an ice cold bus and whatever you're wearing. At the time, I just slept in a pair of tidy, witty underwear. My sister in an oversized Nirvana shirt back when they were still a band. Coincidentally, Kurt Cobain quote-unquote killed himself when we were there, but I didn't hear about that until much later. Technically, we weren't kidnapped, but it felt that way. See, Mom and Dad sheld out tens of thousands of dollars to Mr. and Mrs. Regal, the co-owners of Rustic Development,

so that we would learn to be the people they want. wanted us to be. They left the front door open to the house and led the half dozen or so men up the stairs into our rooms. I can still smell the whiskey on their breath. The way they laughed is they pulled us down the stairs. My sister and I huddled against each other, hands duct taped together on that freezing cold bus, trying not to shiver and cry and failing at both. It sounds like a horror movie, doesn't it? But we weren't the only ones to go through this by any stretch of the imagination.

These places were real, and there were a lot of them. Some still exist. We even thrive to this day. After an hour of driving, we were dropped off at what looked like Camp Crystal Lake from the Friday of the 13th movies, except not as nice. We were pulled off the bus.

Boys and girls separated to different camps. It was the last time I saw Grace. I remember from the rest of that night are these horrible, twisted faces, jeering, laughing, and yelling at us. The voices overlap, so it sounded like they were chanting in tongues until we finally found our cabins with no more than a thin blanket on the wood floor to sleep on. No glass in the windows. Holes in the wood. I remember hands on my naked skin. lingering

groping eventually we were locked inside and Pelsan up there were seven of us in that cabin none of us spoke we all just cried until we fell asleep at night we'd hear laughing

at first I thought it was the sadist employees but they were usually too drunk to walk by nightfall when we were locked in after a few days one of the other boys took a chance and told me the laughing was coming from the cabin at the end of the property. The broken boys, he called them. They were the ones who'd been driven crazy by the torture and conditions.

They were the ones they couldn't let around the other kids because they'd gone almost feral. These were kids who were considered problem children for their behavior, instead of the truth that they had learning disabilities and undiagnosed mental health issues. Turns out, brutality doesn't fix that. They couldn't send them home because there might be questions or an investigation. There was no long-term plan. But those boys were going to be there until they died. I thought it was just a story to scare me.

Except I was already scared. And one day I saw him for myself. What was left of them anyway? And yes, kids died there. They were called accidents. and brushed off his unfortunate circumstances. But look at what they'd done for so many others who've gone through similar camps. Others who've grown up to understand the importance of the process.

If it was so bad, do you really think they'd keep working there? Or start their own programs? No, that's ridiculous. Such a person would have to be mentally unsound. Right. See, rustic development wasn't just for the troublemakers. Special needs kids, kids with ASD, ADHD, ones with bad grades, kids who didn't bow down to their parents at every corner. They were all there.

And there were kids like me who hadn't done anything wrong. But maybe a sibling had, and it was just better safe than sorry to correct both at the same time. Of course, they'd come up with some reason for us to be there. They said I was a bad student. that I failed classes. I'd never fail the class. I'd never gotten lower than a B. But when people tell you over and over again

that you're stupid and a loser, you start to believe it yourself. I started to think I had failed, that I deserved to be there. That maybe we all deserve to be there. When in reality, It was that the parents fucking paid to send us there. They paid to pretend like we didn't exist,

and they were being good parents by providing tough love. They paid to have us tortured. I didn't know it then. But rustic development was the brainchild of the regals. Two high school dropouts who'd actually been victims of another therapeutic boarding school, only to grow up and be turned into sadists in the true Marquita sod fashion. they had no experience in social work or psychology or therapy or even fucking camping. They had no decency or civility or conscience.

They just wanted money and were more than happy to do what us would have been done to them. And worse, here's some of the basic rules. No smiling. Seriously, we didn't have permission to smile. Smiling was viewed as dissent. Smiling meant we went to the slab. A broken up an uneven concrete basketball court in the middle of the camp. You had to kneel there with bare legs until someone told you to get up.

I'd never seen anyone there for less than 12 hours. No food, no water, no matter how hot it was. And there was never a time when the court was empty. Usually there were a half dozen kids there for any variety of offenses beyond what I describe now. No talking. The old children should be seen and not heard thing. Talking resulted in a beating. Belts, sticks, fists, didn't matter.

We were publicly beaten by the workers there. Or we'd be forced to fight each other. Usually in a three-on-one scenario. It was bad, but not as bad as some other places I heard about later. I'd hear worse stories during litigation years later. No sympathy. Worse than anything else, sympathy was condemned and apathy was enforced. You didn't help another camper when they fell.

You never shared food or water. You stopped caring about the world around you. Sometimes I wonder how many people I meet these days live the same way and just carried it with them into adulthood. To this day, I see people shake their heads at the way society used to be back in the 30s and 40s and 50s. The cruel and corporal punishment. You kidding me? Do you think anything changed? This was motherfucking 1994.

Did I mention that in 1979, the Supreme Court actually ruled that. that this sort of thing was entirely legal and their parents had every right to send their children to what amounts that torture camps? There are still school systems now that are reenacting corporal punishment for their children.

Nothing's fucking changed. We just stopped looking. My sister died there three weeks into the program. Not what I can only call their death march. Not one fucking person at that place had the least understanding of how to camp or survive outdoors and they sure as fuck weren't going to spend any money on good equipment. The tents barely stood. The walls were paper thin. Water was considered a privilege and was only

given out in tablespoon portions. My sister, according to survivors, had been given less than a cup of water over the course of five days while being marched nearly a hundred miles. I did and find out the details until the police got there. But the police weren't there for my sister. They were there for the others. There remains. I found out about Grace days after it happened. Just through hushed whispers, when I asked one of the counselors, one of our guards, about

her, I was placed in a three-foot-by-three-foot wooden box and left there for two days to rot in my own sweat. piss and shit. If it was their intent to break me, they did. If it was their intent to take away my sense of sympathy and compassion, they did. Honestly, I don't know what they actually wanted for many of us. I don't think they cared about making us better men and women

by whatever horrifying bastardization they created in their minds. I think they just wanted money and wanted to torture kids like they'd been tortured. or worse. One thing I knew was that I was a different person than the boy who'd first stumble off that bus in his underwear. Actually, there was one other thing I knew. Something Grace taught me. Something I shared when the owners Bob and Sue Regal showed up one day with investors

to show them how much of a moneymaker rustic development was. I watched them get out of their shiny black cars and look discreet. disgusted at the dust and dirt that had kicked up around the wheels on their paint jobs. I could see the grease and sweat on their faces as they walked from the parking lot, almost winded with the exertion. I did not hate them. I did not fear them. I was impartial to them.

I watched them as a witness, like an animal in the zoo looking at a throng a tourist walk by without understanding the nature, the creatures they walked amongst. Make no mistake. We weren't boys and girls anymore. We weren't men and women. We were something else. We were forgotten, abandoned.

I knew my parents wouldn't cry over grace. They'd be mad or annoyed. They'd tell their friends how they did everything they could to fix her. but in the end she was too stubborn. I wondered how the lies would build up over the years. What kind of monster they'd turn her into a cocktail party's, warning their friends and new parents about the harrowing ordeal they had been put through.

I knew the grace was gone and I'd never see her again. But that didn't mean she couldn't still make a difference. The main selling point for rustic development from their brochures at later sea was the isolation of the place. How even the most defiant and elusive of children wouldn't be able to get away through the woods and trails and hills? And they were right.

Not one kid got away. Not even the strongest and fastest of us had any illusions about escape. They did a good job of breaking us. Honestly, I think some of us could have gotten away under different circumstances. And that's the point. When you lose everything, you aren't really afraid to do anything anymore.

You aren't afraid to smuggle a broken bottle from the fire pit where the guards would throw their empties at night. You aren't afraid to slice open your hand as you press the broken glass in every tire you see, whether it's a luxury sedan or four-wheeler or the golf cart that Sue would put her around in. You weren't afraid to get caught because what difference does it make? They couldn't take anything more from me.

See, this was before the widespread use of cell phones. And there are no landlines just in case someone got sneaky and tried to call the police or child protective services. But stranding them all with us wasn't enough. And I knew that. We didn't have the strength to fight back against them all, even though we outnumbered him three to one at least. and most of us have been so passive into herself from the pain and humiliation that there was no fight left anyway. Most of us. Not all of us.

And not the broken boys. Grace was a good kid. She just had a little rebellious streak. She picked up a thing or two. And sometimes told me about them. Like how to pick a lock. I remember pulling the old lock from the door and stepping back. expecting a sudden rush or stampede from the broken boys trapped inside the cabin for who knew how long.

But there was nothing, not a sound, and my heart dropped. They were my only chance. Slowly I stepped forward. Each creek of the wood steps feeling like an earthquake ripple across my skin, hitting every nerve. I pulled the door open and stepped back. eyes on the darkness for any movement, but nothing. It was like looking into a cave, no light, no movement, no sound. Despite their ineptitude and sociopathy, the guards always had an eye on us,

so it wasn't long until I was noticed by one of the more malicious counselors. I think his name was Greg. He was tall and thin with a chipped front tooth he'd whistle through to get our attention. He had this crooked grin, like a mouth poorly drawn onto the head of a scarecrow. He loved making us fight, and his fights didn't end until one of us stopped moving. So I knew the moment his bony fingers dug into my shoulder that I was standing upright for the last time. I don't know what happened to the broken boys. I don't know who they were before they got there, and I don't know what happened to them in their isolation

to make them the way they were. But I do know that Pavlov was onto something when it came to reacting to stimulus. It was the sight of Greg in the doorway that spread them. The first out of the door was a small boy, maybe ten. It was filthy, like he'd never bathed in his life. Fast, that he was on top of Greg

before he could even let out a scream. The small boy's fingers digging directly into his eyes. That's how it started. The rest of the boys ran out behind him, spreading across the camp like missiles locked onto enemy targets. The guards,

as cruel and violent as they were to us, didn't even react at first. They watched the swarm of boys run from the cabin. Their anger and rage infectious to the other campers who grab sticks and rocks and follow their lead, finding strength for the first

first time since we got in there. As I watched them run out, I became painfully aware of the slow creaking sound behind me. I turned to see one last broken boy standing in the doorway. But he wasn't one of them, not like I'd expected. He stood tall with lazy eyes, like an old tired dog keeping an eye on things. He leaned against the frame of the door and blinked slowly. He told me he wasn't going to hurt me. Then he said,

You know we aren't crazy, right? I look back at the people being attacked, listened to their screams. Yeah, that. Well, we figured we'd just be what they thought we were. They wanted monsters. They got them. If I had a world of my own,

everything would be nonsense nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't and contrary wise what is it wouldn't be and what it wouldn't be it would you see

and with that he walked off the porch and disappeared into the woods what happened next is highly debated none of us survivors are what you'd call a credible witness and the shit of it is no formal charges were ever pressed

not by the regals with the investors next of kin no one really wanted to know the details of what the press claimed was the worst wild animal attacked in the state's history I guess no one really wanted to look too closely to the bite marks and it wasn't just the broken boys

most of them were too starved and tired to do much and they weren't crazy, they were just pissed. But they were the spark that started the fire. You'd be surprised how quickly the Lord of the Flies is possible. I can still remember the screams from the owners and investors. They went from authoritarian, demanding it all to stop, to anger at the audacity of us all and the failure of the guards,

to please of leniency that went unheard. as their staked bodies cooked out in the sun until their organs finally failed from a prolonged torture and malnourishment. We all went home without putting up a fight. We all had different stories, but we were all broken from then on. No parent filed a lawsuit against camp.

Why would they? They'd have to show how they were complicit with their own children being kidnapped and tortured without so much as sending a letter, even placing a phone call to check in. No. Better to pretend none of it ever happened. I can't speak for the other kids. But I never pretended.

I never forgot Grace. I never forgave my parents. When I got home, I still remember stepping out of the police car and seeing them standing on the porch. That look in their eyes. Like they didn't know what to say or do. It was fear, I realize. And maybe I didn't make things better as I walked up to them and threw my arms around both of them. And the biggest hug I'd ever given anyone.

I squeezed them and showed the police how much I missed and loved my family all the while whispering one day this will happen again for grace. Wow, you really have terrible luck camping. That's what you got out of that? I think Nate just means that between last year and this year, I mean, you sort of have a pattern of bad things happening to you in the woods, right? I also had a pattern of bad things happening to me in middle school, high school, and Denny's when all I wanted was my goddamn country-fried steak and eggs. Yes, but we aren't in any of those places.

I think any of those would be better options than spending another month at camp. I'm writing down that JV wants to spend a month at Denny's next year That's not what I meant No take backs Not to take anything away from what happened to you But am I the only one who sees this turning out exactly like what happened to you? How's that?

A bunch of people with no business running a summer camp Being in charge of kids I'm not following John, we can't stay here I almost lost my job last time You don't have to worry about that I got in touch with all your employers None of you can legally get fired for the next six weeks.

How could you do that? Just that each of you were using FMLA. Are you fucking kidding me? What's FMLA? Family... What was that? Family Medical Leave Act. You told our bosses we all had kids and we need maternity leave?

Or paternity leave. Don't be sexist. John, you know I defend you to my friends, my family, other podcasters, strangers on the internet, even the feds when you got involved in that weird pyramid scheme where you were claiming to be selling hairs from Freddie Mercury's mustache, which looked totally legit by the way. But you've gone too far with this. What are we supposed to say when we go home and we don't have any newborn children with us? I mean, I'm not proud of it, but I can...

Please, I'm begging you, no matter how you are going to end that sentence, please stop it. I know I only speak for myself, but don't you all think this will be a lot easier if we We just go with it. We can bury John up to his neck and cover him in honey later. Thank you, Megan. No, seriously. Thank you. Anyway, let's get another story before we pack it in.

John, it's like 9 p.m. Oh, I get it. It's adjusting our bodies to a different schedule when they are campers and we need to get a full night's sleep? Yeah. Totally that and not the other thing. Who's got a story to distract from the awkward thing I just said out loud? This might be a dumb question, but are we going to go on any nature hikes?

Michelle, I'd never tell you to your face that it was a dumb question. Yes, there will be hikes. Then I think I have a story about the beckoning path. All right, Shuna Gamey eyes and listening ears, everybody. There it was. That path I'd always wanted to travel down. I always loved hiking and these woods had many beaten paths that just begged to be explored. I'd been down many of them, and some had gorgeous views, and others were nothing more than spots

that some nature-loving couples used for obvious sexual activity, judging by the discarded condom wrappers and occasional lost piece of clothing. But this place had to be different. At least I hoped so. It was a long hike to get there, and it took me long enough. to build the stamina to travel so far. Months upon months of exercise made my endurance much better, and I would rarely get short of breath unless I was sprinting for long distances. I looked better than I did in previous months, that's for sure. Not only that, but now I was in peak physical

condition. I always wanted to look how I did at that point. I had lean muscle, and I was curvy in all the right places. That gut I had despised had finally shrunken away into oblivion, and I'll be damned if I'll let it return. After all, what woman wants to be fat and unhealthy? But enough about that. Let's get back to the path. As I was saying, this place was beautiful. The trees here seemed older, the air seemed fresher, and the canopy above was so thick, hardly a sunbeam would pass through. The path itself seemed old and carried an air of mystery that seemed to lure me in. I remember each time I would walk and catch sight of it. It always seemed to call to me. Though I was very tempted, I knew that if I explored it then, I'd be too exhausted to walk

back out and get to my car to drive home. That is, until now, I was ready this time. The beckoning path seemed to lead me into nothing but pure darkness, but I knew there had to be more than that. There were probably all kinds of beautiful things waiting in that thick foliage, just waiting to be discovered. My curiosity always got the best of me. It was time to explore. The trees were gigantic. They seemed to be nearly ancient, and I knew some had to be hundreds of years old. climbed up some of their trunks only seeming to increase their age. The place seemed to be untouched by human hands, if not for this scraggly trail. It seemed as though nature would overtake the bare dirt once again soon. For some reason, though, the occasional shiver would tease at the hairs on the back

of my neck, making them stand on in. It wasn't cold at all, though. It was at least 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside, so why did I feel so cold? shrugged it off and decided to put on the hooded jacket I was carrying in my backpack. I searched the area just soaking in the natural beauty of the forest. Only then did I realize the canopy formed by the outstretched branches was so thick that what beams of sunlight could come in were hardly any more than thin fingers that could barely illuminate the path. I paused.

Did I just hear breathing? I held my breath, just checking to see. if it was my own. That seemed to be the case. I only laughed at myself for being so paranoid, but that show returned as I forced a lighthearted chuckle. My instincts were trying to take control. They were telling me to turn around and go back. They were telling me something was horribly wrong. They wanted the safety of the sunlight. I was an idiot. I pushed it all away. I disregarded all those things as paranoia. Just then, I saw a lumbering figure a few yards away, easily nine feet tall, though I only

caught a glimpse. It seemed human, or at least Simeon. It passed behind a tree, and I saw no other sign of it. Needless to say, scared the hell out of me. There were no apes, or, for that matter, any other primates that fit a description matching what I had just seen in the area. There was a zoo nearby, but it would have been all over the news if something had broken loose. I tried to convince myself that I was just seeing things.

It wasn't working at all. My mind traveled back to all the thoughts of Bigfoot and how so many jokes were made about how it only exists in blurry, out-of-focused areas, or that he, she, or it was just someone's excessively hairy hippie relative. I didn't laugh, though. I couldn't bring myself to. That invasive feeling of being watched was ever so present. Was I being monitored? Now visibility was damn near gone. Why did I want to keep pressing forth? Was I hoping to discover something? I still don't know why I did that. I broke out my flashlight, shining it all around in the thicket of trees, only to make a fact. fascinating discovery. There were carvings on the trees. Some of the bark was peeled off some

and the primitive carvings were inlaid in the wood. What struck me as odd was that much of the art I saw resembled the art of evolution, but one thing unnerved me greatly. The final stage, human beings as we know them, was missing. Did this mean that we were just as mythological? to Sasquatch as they are to us? I took a step forward to view the carved image a little more closely. A branch cracked underneath me, only causing me to let out his startled yelp. This had to be a joke. I had to see what was behind this.

I continued. The terrain began to grow a little more difficult to climb, but I had to know. That was either my best or worst trait. If something intrigues or interests me, I must get to the bottom of it, even if it's the last thing I do. I certainly don't feel that way anymore. Soon I felt that chill again. I was being watched, and that was clear. Rustling sounds weren't heard, but maybe whatever was watching me had lived here since the beginning of its time.

One thing began to confuse me, though. Another source of light was nearby. There was a dull yellow glow to it. It appeared someone had made a fire nearby. Maybe I could ask them for help finding my way out. I was definitely lost by now, and it was probably dark, even outside the woods at this hour. I could also smell meat cooking, only reminding me of how long it had been since I'd had a good meal. I turned off my flashlight following the dim light.

I decided to look into this further, walking as quietly as I could until the fire came into sight. It was a rather small fire, but what I saw frightened me. There was a whole group of these Simeon bipeds fitting the classical description of Sasquatch gathered around the fire. They seemed to communicate in grunts and guttural vocalizations, but it wasn't so much their presence that frightened me. It was the meat they were preparing. A sharpened stick was driven through what had obviously once been two human legs, arms, and a torso.

The head appeared to be missing. The grunt suggested they were communicating, but I found myself stumbling backwards in terror. My flight reflex was taking over. I could fight my instincts as much as I wanted to earlier, but this time I'd let them take control. My heart was racing in fear as I spun around, only one way left. I was going back the way I came. Now, with my flashlight to guide me, I had to find my way out. Running on adrenaline alone, I was terrified.

But I knew that getting out of here could be a life or death situation. Once I had made it back to the strange carvings, something made my heart feel as though it was about to leap through my chest. leaves and branches were snapping. I was standing still. This only made me start running again faster this time. But was there any hope for me? Whatever it was knew this forest better than I did

and there was no time for me to summon up a little plan to outsmart this thing. All I could do was hope I was in better shape than it was. It was in pursuit of me, but fortunately I seemed to be a step ahead. There was no way I could lose it in the forest, but at least if I made it back to civilization, it would probably flee. After all, what's more dangerous to a beast than a group of intelligent prey? I could see the opening and the path I had entered from, and somehow it was still just barely light outside.

The fiery glow of the sunset was lighting the sky, casting a tangerine glow over everything in sight. I would have taken pleasure in the beauty of it. if I wasn't so positive, I was being chased. My legs were carrying me as fast as they could, and I was finally into the clearing and on the beaten trail that others before me had worn. If I knew anything right now, it was that I shouldn't look back. I had to keep running, find my way to my car, and drive home. I didn't even listen to find out if I was being followed.

My red sedan came into sight, and I quickly slung my bag off one arm, tug the keys from the outside pocket, unlocking the vehicle and getting inside, just hoping I heard nothing. Before peeling out of the stretch of country road that had led me there, I saw one thing in my rearview mirror. A bipedal simeon, akin to the missing link, covered in dark hair with a sloping forehead, could be seen bearing its teeth, as if challenging me. When the engine to my vehicle started and I redded the motor, the primitive beast fled in what might have been terror. It was a quiet drive back home. After I finally got the chance to get inside the house and relax, I began to realize something.

Sasquatch or Bigfoot, whatever you want to call the apparent missing link between humans and their Simeon cousins, were always thought to be peaceful, but several. Several people disappear every year and are never found. Yes, there are many reported sightings of such beings, but did you ever think that they haven't been collected by scientists and researched because so few have lived to tell about them? I don't know if I'm correct, but the human remains roasting over that fire suggest that I am.

Is it possible that this strange race is jealous of humanity? for its advanced technology? I may never know, but I can tell you one thing. I'm not about to return to that path to find out. Yeah, we're definitely going to look for that path later. John, is there anything else you want to tell us about this place? What do you mean? It's never simple with you.

What's the catch about this place? Is it built on a radioactive dump site? Or some crossroads next us to hell? God, I wish. No, nothing like that. It's just a camp. All the usual stories. What do you mean usual?

I mean, there's rumors about an axe murderer who stalks the woods around here at night who chops people into pieces and nails, arms, and legs to the surrounding trees to add to the limbs, as a were. John, we've all worked with you long enough not to believe in urban legends. Let's make smores. Yes, smores.

What none of them could possibly know was that this was the beginning of a road that none of them would see the end of. And so begins the mercabry telling of an unsolved series of deaths that will haunt us forever. Or, until you don't, die and are finally released from this hell of existence into the ethereal bliss of infinite silence.

I recommend watching a good horror comedy like Tucker and Dale versus evil or Deadstream available on shudder to cleanse your palate and endure the crushes weight of life if for only 90 minutes sweet dreams and do not let the bad bugs bite 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 creepy pod on social media and YouTube told on this podcast, are done so through Creative Commons share-a-like licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the story's author.