Creepy - Creepaway Camp 2025: Day 8 - Archer Lake & 1971 & Storytime in the Woods

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Archer Lake***Written by: EM Otero and Narrated by: Rissa Montanez***1971 - The Vietnam Experience***Narrated by: Joe Stofko***Story link: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/1971_TheVietnam_Experiencecontent is available under CC-BY-SA***Storytime in the Woods***Written by: Nancy Schumann***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. 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. Uh, what are we going to do? About what?

About John going missing. Um, nothing. You can't be serious. All right, Rissa, it's not that big of a deal. I'm sure he's fine. Sure, I'll admit, things have gotten a bit weirder than any of us anticipated, but you really think John is in physical danger from a bunch of podcasters? We all know?

Yes. Rissa, you don't have to worry. Me, Jimmy, and JV have been checking in with all the other groups. No one has him. Though, I did notice that people have started calling their little areas towns or villages. Which is weird, but kind of on par for podcasters. I'm sure John set this all up so that he could go off and pout about how things didn't turn out like he wanted them to. As if he isn't used to that by now.

Well, that's not exactly true. Shh. What? What's not true? Damn it, J.V. There's one group that we weren't able to get an audience with. And I don't know who they are. Because they all weird, weird animal masks, and none of them speak.

Which group? Point them out. Because when I get my... Oh, she's taking off her flip-flops. Everyone down. Whoa. It doesn't need to come to that. It's that. group that's camped past David Cumming's skinny-dipping pond.

It's gotten weird, though. I heard that they call the whole area five streams. Past the area, the no sleepers named Green, because, well, it's green over there. I guess making up names is hard. There's also rumors that they want to expand out into the bayou, to some place called Archer Lake. I don't know.

It's all very confusing and feels really, shoe horned in. Fine. If you're all too chicken shit to deal with this, then I guess I will. Here, get me that. She took the beer. Why'd she take the beer?

Hey, yeah, you. I want to talk to your leader or whatever you call him. Don't even try that silent treatment with me. Here, I brought some beers. So let's go sit down, relax, and maybe we can find some common ground, huh?

I heard you're interested in Archer Lake. Believe it or not, I think I can help. Hey, come sit. The fire is warm and I have plenty to drink. I am not above sharing a beer with a stranger. You knew around here? I figured. Five streams is a small town and a new face sticks out.

No, there isn't really a whole lot to do around here anymore. This is the only campground and it's on the village border. You're basically in green here. Green's a pleasant town, for the most part. All these little towns have quirks, though. You know how it is. Archer Lake? What do you want to go up there for?

No, no, they don't have camp at Archer Lake anymore. And I think it's for the best. Honestly, if I were you, I would avoid the whole five streams area. Just keep on driving down Route 12 till you hit Sherbourne. Okay, so that place may stink of dog food from the factory there, but you're better off there. Nothing good happens in five streams, especially in the state park and at Archer Lake. Why? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Really? You want to know that badly? You some kind of journalist? Okay, okay, but you ask for it.

Consider it your warning. Let's start with some history. Long before you and I were born, the local tribes of Susquehonic Native Americans avoided this place. They said ghouls lurked in the woods, and the meat from any animal hunted here was rotten and filled with worms. When the settlers showed up,

they forced the tribes into the very land they feared. The farms and towns they set up around what is now known as Five Streams and Archer Lake struggled. Farmers woke up to their livestock mutilated. Children and women went missing. You know, all the same stuff that they blamed on the disgruntled tribes that they moved out of their land. So, just like folks were prone to doing at the time, they all formed a mob. Their goal was to burn down the forest and kill any natives they found. only the woods wouldn't burn.

But of course, this didn't stop that hateful crowd, and they venture deep into the thick woods with blood on their mind. I am sure you can imagine what came next. Well, I'm going to spell it out for you. Okay. Fifty folks went in and five came out. This small group never talked about what they saw and then promptly left the area.

And then there were no more attacks for a while. But there was a flood and a dam breaking that a lot of the locals attributed to the tribes of five streams. But of course, no one saw any of these natives since the day they stepped foot into those woods. In the 40s, they wanted to develop the land, some factories and whatnot. The surveyors found the place strange and really hard to map. Landmarks never seemed to stay where they were supposed to be. and some even said they saw a castle in the distance. No one found it, though, but either way, they bulldozed a significant portion of the forest.

And they did not find a single home. You would think that hundreds of natives being pushed in there, they had left something behind. Hell, you would think that they would still live there. But nope, not one person, not one home. No signs of anyone. That's when they found Archer Lake. None of the surveyors founded it on their maps, and it's a good-sized lake. This didn't affect their plans, though.

They built the factory, a bunch of homes, and hoped to revitalize the area. It worked for a while, but people kept getting ill. Mosquito-borne illnesses and parasites mostly, and they kept having structural issues. So the land was wet, and it shifted. under the foundations. Walls would collapse. Sinkholes formed. And eventually, the factory and the homes were abandoned. But that didn't stop someone from buying up the land. And they created Archer Lake Campground. The factory remnants are still in Five Stream State Park, but all the land that the campground owns used to be housing. And before that, it was all part of the forest

that the Susquehonic feared. Archer Lake started as a public campground and then shifted to having a summer camp program for kids. I went the year before it closed. It was the summer of 2000. I was 10 years old and was just a young, dumb kid at camp trying to have a good time. I didn't make friends easily. My parents weren't from the area and that instantly labeled me as an outsider. But of course, kids pick up what their parents say and their ignorance spreads into the schoolyard. I just hope that summer camp would have been different. Have you ever been to summer camp?

You know, it's truly a unique experience, especially back then. We just had a bit more freedom than we should have. And I have all kinds of stories about the trouble that we got into. Except this one isn't one of those stories. You should grab another beer. I know I am. All right, right off the bat, we heard things about the area. It was an unspoken rule among the locals to never go venture into five-stream state park. If anyone had land that bordered it, they said to never go out at dark, never whistle, always keep the blinds closed at night, and never, ever answer someone's call for help. I know it sounds strange and heartless, but there is a reason for that. You know how many people go missing a year here? Fifteen. And no, that may not seem like a lot from someone who lived in a

city, but keep in mind, that is what's reported. Hunting season comes around, and we get a lot of out-of-towners coming in to hunt on our state land. End of October through November, it sounds like a goddamn war zone out here, okay? These out of towners, though, they don't know the rules about the woods around here. They come out here from their suburban lives. in their fancy trucks with their shiny new guns, and then they go sauntering off into the woods. They don't know that no one should be in those woods to begin with. But then they hear a voice calling for help, and then they follow it. How do I know this?

Well, let's see. That's easy when an out-of-towner's truck remains parked on the side of the road when night falls. Then you know he's not coming out. No, no, the cops don't impound them. A couple of degenerates, the Benson boys, So these two brothers take these trucks and they scrap them. They sell them off piece by piece on eBay, and whatever they can't sell, they dump in the Chenango River.

Sure, they've been arrested a time or two, but their uncle is the judge and a cousin is a sheriff, so they never do time. So the official number is about 15 people, but realistically, it's much higher. Now, back to Archer Lake. The campgroundsland bordered five streams. There were about a thousand anchors between the camp and Five Stream State Park,

but it still shared a border, and when you're in the woods, it's all the same. You can't tell a state-owned tree from a private one, and Five Streams has a way of spreading. One thing I thought was really cool that Archer Lake did was they brought up kids from New York City. Some programs for underprivileged kids in the city getting to experience nature, and shit. Some of them were from group homes, you know, foster care and all that. I met some friends I still have to this day through that program. That year, actually, I met three of the best friends I would ever have, and one that I knew I would have gotten close to if I had the chance. This kid,

Henry, he was a sweet boy. We first bonded over our love of Gundam Wing. We had seen nothing else like it before. You know, big robots, political intrigue, and awesome action. Two other boys and a girl from the city, Carlo, Tyson, and Sam, heard us one day talking about it and they joined in. And just like that, I had a friend group, my very first one too, and I loved it. Not long after we all started hanging out every day, the first tragedy of the summer happened. A girl by the name of Lucy went missing. She just vanished on a hike.

No one could remember the last time they saw her exactly, only that they knew she came. The weirdest part was, the counselors completely gaslit us into thinking she didn't exist. They even went as far as hiding her stuff, but she had tucked a few personal items into the bunk bed frame. This all included a journal, a stuffy, and some candy. You know, without these things, we probably would have believed the counselors that we had just made up this girl.

Lucy, like a lot of these other city kids, lived in foster care or in other similar situations. No one was missing her other than us kids, and even then, she was quickly forgotten. And that's when we learned to not trust certain adults. There were a couple of counselors we could tell had been genuinely disturbed, but there were a couple of counselors we could tell had been genuinely disturbed, but they kept their mouth shut. They were scared. And of course, at 10, I thought I outgrew fear. I needed to prove how old, mature, and tough I was,

even in the face of existential horrors. By mid-July, two other kids went missing, but the counselors said that they were sent home. We knew that they were lying. In our childish stupidity, we kept daring each other to do stunts to face these fears. Some were simple, like, during a hike. Let the group go ahead until you were out of sight,

and then count a 200 and then catch up. But it was never a full 200 seconds. We all counted so fast we were probably running back in under 40. The next one was cutting through the woods and going off the trail. This is so dumb to do in any unfamiliar woods, but especially here. At this point, another two kids were hanging around our group, a girl named Alex, who I knew from school,

and an out-of-towner boy named Gabriel. Gabe, as we started calling him, took the first dare, cutting through the woods to go directly to pavilion for breakfast instead of taking the meandering path there. After arriving at the pavilion and not seeing Gabe for nearly an hour, we started to worry. We were talking about forming a search party, but before we acted, he appeared. We expected him to be terrified, but he was giddy and couldn't wait to tell us what he found.

He said he found a well that talked, and he spent some time talking to it. We thought he was making it up, but he wanted to bring us there. He used gum wrappers on branches to leave. us back, and he offered the unwrapped gun from his pocket to us. I declined. And so we followed his foiled breadcrum trail, which led us to the well that he spoke of. He introduced us to what he called the Lady in the Well, and he had a full conversation, but we heard nothing. And after a while, we grew tired of entertaining him, and I got frustrated and I tossed a stone into it. Gave Gabe screamed at me, saying that I was trying to hurt his new friend. But a moment later, it launched

back out of the well, and it landed at my feet. After Gabe whispered down into the well, apologizing for us, he told us she didn't like that, and not to do it again. Then we asked if we could look down the well. He begrudgingly led us. The well was deep, and I saw nothing that would toss a stone back at me. But it was mesmerizing. The more we gazed into the well, the more alluring it became. The narrow dirt shaft glittered

and gave the impression of a vastness. Spirling stone walls changed to an old road leading to a beautiful beach. The water that wasn't visible a second ago now stretched out into an ocean blue horizon, and I could hear the sounds of waves, seagulls, and laughter. Light and warmth radiated from the well,

and I suddenly backed away. I told them we couldn't be here, that this wasn't right, but no one was listening. I pulled them away one at a time, and their trance only broke when they weren't looking down to its deceitful water. Gabe was the hardest to move. He was practically climbing into the well when I pulled him away.

I told them we should all go back to camp, and they all nodded, except Gabe. He was looking back at the well. We all walked back together, completely silent, and it didn't take long for us to forget, though. And so an hour later, we were playing tetherball, laughing and shouting like nothing had ever happened. Even Gabe seemed into it.

That night, we played another stupid game. This time it wasn't just us. All the kids were involved. The game was, while everyone was watching, walk into the dark woods as far as you dared, and then stand there facing the darkness for as long as possible. Of course, Gabe wanted to go first, but I held him back. And a girl walked ahead.

She was slightly older than us. I believe her name was Michelle. She came from a small town on the other side of Cooperstown, and I think they said that she was a foster kid. Confidently, she walked into the woods, the branches snapping and breaking under her feet while we all watched. The only light was from the stars and a weak, sallow, bulb on the front of each of the cabins. Before long, she was invisible at all. And a few moments

later, she stopped. At least we thought she did. We couldn't hear steps anymore. This was the part where we waited, and so we all did with quiet anticipation. As the seconds turned into minutes, I just felt my dread grow. And then when the minutes piled up, some kids started mumbling to each other and I wondered if she found the well. After about an hour, there were only a few of us still waiting and we were falling asleep right where we sat. Eventually, I had a blink that lasted till morning when I felt the warmth of the rising sun on my skin. We all checked the beds and saw that Michelle never returned. The next day, Gabe kept asking if we would go to the well with us.

him to see if she was there, or if the lady in the well knew anything. None of us wanted to go back to that well, or wanted to let anyone else know that they wanted to go back to it. I felt the pull, and I'm sure the others did too. I wanted to experience that warmth, that joy that I felt looking down into that other world. Later that day, during a hike, Gabe vanished, and I knew he went to see the well. I took the group with me to search for him. and we did a half-hearted line walk and canvas of the woods until everyone got tired and they all just followed me in a single line. I thought for sure that he'd be at the well.

But when we got there, it was barely more than a stony impression in the ground. My thought instantly was that under the caved-in stone and dirt, Gabe was down there, with the lady of the well. And then the forest seemed to get even more hostile as the time went on. We heard voices more, and at night we saw strange faces looking in from the windows. It was getting to where no one slept with the curtains open and lights off anymore. We heard footsteps outside, and things trying the door handle, very gently. We all would watch intense silence as the doorknob turned back and forth slowly.

barely making any noise. My friends thought for sure the counselors were trying to kill us. I was wondering if it wasn't the forest itself. But I didn't share the suspicion at first with our little group. I just simply observed. Over the next few days, I watched the detached counselors as they went about their activities. I knew most of them outside a camp, and they were all decent people. Up here, though, they seemed different, glassy-eyed, distant, and cruel.

But still, I never saw them hurt a single camper. They only disregarded the missing ones. After Gabe disappeared, and their frequent nightly visits, we quit our challenges and kept close. No one wandered off, no one went into the woods alone, and no one went into the woods alone, and no one went anywhere in the camp alone. Alex, the only other kid in our camp that was a local, pointed out to me that the only kids disappearing were the ones from out of town. More specifically, the kids that were from foster homes.

She thought that they might be easy targets because no one would really be looking for them. And then I thought about my other friends, Carlo, Tyson, Sam, and Henry. They were at risk more than Alex and I. We had families that would look for us if we went missing. And Alex's dad was a cop or a sheriff or something, so I knew that if anything happened to her, the whole town would just be up in arms. That night in our cabin, we all grouped together,

and we talked about our theories. I mentioned the forest. Henry said aliens, and Carlo thought Bigfoot, which we all laughed about, and just as we did, we heard the doorknob turning again. We all went silent and watched it rotate,

and then we heard the latch retract. Someone forgot to lock that doorknob, but I could see in the dim light that the eye-hook latches were hooked. The door pressed in slightly, like something testing to see if it was actually unlocked until the eye-hook snagged it. We all held our breaths as we watched the door move,

and we shared scared looks at each other back and forth. Then we heard a soft whisper through the door, asking us to open up. I put my finger to my lips, telling everyone to be quiet. And the voice continued. It asked us again to open, up and that it was our counselors and there could be something dangerous in our cabin and they needed

to get in. We all looked at each other again, wanting to trust the voice, but no one moved. And then we heard something walk away from the door and around the cabin as it tested all the windows and kept asking for help and for us to let it in. We waited in complete silence, barely even breathing until we heard those footsteps fade toward the next cabin. Needless to say, none of us slept that night.

The next day, after we dragged ourselves out of bed, we saw strange pale flowers that had sprouted up all around the cabin. I didn't know then, but I know now that they were called ghost pipes. They're a parasitic bloom and they grow in the shade of trees, but they were everywhere,

making the grass look more white than green. So this freaked me out completely, and it definitely crept the others out too. We walked silently to the pavilion and went about our normal routines. But when we went out on the hike, we said that no matter what, we wouldn't separate.

About halfway through the walk around the lake, Henry stopped, and I nearly knocked him over. He was staring out at the lake, and at first I didn't see what he was staring at. But after only a few seconds, I saw it. A pair of arms were waving and flailing in the water. Henry thought for sure someone was drowning, but there was something wrong about it. The arms weren't splashing about like someone fighting for their life.

They were lazily moving and sinking under the water, only to slowly come back up. Alex and the others were all standing now, watching, just as the rest of the group continued forward without us. We discussed what to do until Henry got frustrated and yelled about how he would not watch someone drown, and then he hopped into the water, of course. The pale arms kept moving in the same, almost rhythmic way, and as Henry got closer, struggling to stay up, Alex jumped in after them both. She was a swimmer. This much I knew.

And she put Henry to shame with her speed. They both moved up on the flailing hands and reached to grab them to pull the person up. Except the moment they touched those ghostly pale hands, they disappeared under the water. I waited for them to reappear, but they didn't. No bubbles, no splashing. No screams.

They were gone, disappeared under the water as if they were made a stone. We ran the distance to the group, distraught about what to do. When I looked back out at the lake, I saw those same pale arms again, waving lazily for help. This was my last straw, and I called the police. I had to sneak into the counselor's office during the day, but it wasn't hard. The police showed up later that day, but they only sent two officers to look around.

When they asked the counselors about the missing kids, they had an excuse for each one, usually that they got sent back for being homesick or some other random bullshit. The cops said that they were going to get a hold of the parents, but most of them didn't have numbers. Except Alex. When her father found out, they sent divers into the lake.

Some didn't return. And then they searched the woods, and again, some didn't return. The sheriff's department said the lake was exceptionally deep and had an algae bloom, and said that the woods were prone to sinkholes. And they shut down the camp. He still searched for his daughter for years until one day. He just didn't come back. I don't know what you're looking for out there.

And it's none of my business. Just don't say that you weren't warned. Here, take a beer back to your camp and drink on it. I really would avoid the whole area, but if you go out there, stay out of the forest. And if you hear a voice, don't follow it. Don't be out after dark. And most importantly, if it looks like,

someone is drowning in the lake? Let them. So, can I talk to your boss or what? Or you can just walk away without saying anything. Thanks. Finally! You must be the leader of this group. Nice goathead.

I'm sure John had a lot of questions about that. What? You mean this mask? Wait, is that? Oh, geez. It gets so damn hot in that thing. Joe? Joe Stavka? What are you doing out here? What? Am I not part of the show anymore?

No, I mean, yes. I mean, of course you are, but why are you? I mean, who? Oh, take it easy. Don't worry about any of that. I'm here. Things have happened. Sacrifices have been made. And let's leave it at that. But I mean, Joe, what? What are you doing here? I got an invitation. I thought I was supposed to tell a story. I wanted to tell you all about 1971, the Vietnam experience. 1971 and 1972.

Ah, the years go by. Nixon was president. The Godfather movie was released. Libertarians had their first convention. and I was drafted for military service. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 18 and just graduated high school in May. My mother and father were there to see me released

into the world of hard work and dedication. However, that was not the case as I decided to fight for a cause and signed up for the army in June of 1972. After three months of boot camp, learning how to fight hand-on-hand combat and weapons training, I was shipped off from my boot camp to my home of Travis County, Texas, to San Diego to be deployed. While in San Diego, I was shipped on a plane to a mysterious land known as Vietnam. I had only heard about the mysteries of Vietnam in the local news.

It was mostly stories about missing in action and prisoners of war in the North Vietnam camps, which I heard about. These men, who were found deep in the jungle, slaughtered to death by the red evil known as the Viet Cong. However, I still continued with no regrets, thinking I was going to fight for the freedom of the Vietnamese people from an evil cause and liberate them for the better good of the world. Going from San Diego to Vietnam was a harsh plane ride, especially with all the storms going on across the Pacific Ocean.

However, to pass the time, I talked to some of the other fellows from the plane. First was a guy from Austin, Texas, known as Paul. Paul was an 18-year-old high school flunk who decided that his only path after school was to go into the army. Paul's sense of employment made him a happy man with really no problems.

There was also a kid from California named Carson, who was from Stockton, California. Carson was half Vietnamese, half Irish descent, and decided to fight for South Vietnam's cause. He spoke fluent Vietnamese and English from his mother's side, and he would always be cracking swear words. words in Vietnamese. He obviously was the quirkiest kid from the group, being this 20-something fellow, who always cracked jokes to make everyone feel better. I soon befriended the two fellows, and we were the

best of buddies after the end of the flight. We arrived at the military base in Saigon, and were allowed a few days to roam the city before the deployment into the jungle. While time was on my side, I ventured into the streets of Saigon. I stumbled on an old bookstore, in which I took a peek inside to reveal thousands of books, mostly written in Vietnamese. The woman behind the counter looked at me, and then went to the back. I decided to look at the folklore section, which was full of of stories told by locals and traditions passed. I then saw a book in English, which looked a little worn, and decided to take a peek. I opened up to page one, and found the image of a frightening dragon with large red eyes.

I wasn't scared, but decided to read the story anyways. It mostly talked about a dragon which roamed the jungle, looking for prey, unless someone had offered a sacrifice. After reading it, I thought it was the cheesiest read I had ever laid eyes upon. However, as I turned around, the shopkeeper looked at me and said politely in English, You better walk with your eyes open in those trees, and then walked away. I was kind of confused, but just walked out and proceeded to the base. After a few days in Saigon, we were given our mission, and being privates, we would be the first one sent in to investigate the Viet Cong, and would investigate the local jungles nearby the border, most notably the missing prisoners within the thick jungle.

Me and about 200 men were shipped off in jeeps to the battle zone, specifically the border between north and south Vietnam. Arriving at our destination, it was a very quiet place, nothing but the chirps of small birds in the distance. It was large, ancient jungle, which didn't seem to be of anything, really. The man in charge told us to get ready and set up camp, which we promptly did. His name was Sergeant Rogers, and he was a ripped guy who had to be over 250 pounds, He walked like he had to be doing something at all times, but was not one of those yell at your face fellows.

Instead, he treated the men in his brigade as if he was another soldier just giving orders. After a few hours of set up, Carson, Paul, and I were sent off to investigate the thick jungle. Grabbing our guns, we quietly walked through the middle of the jungle, scouting for anything that we could see. The place was quiet, and we heard nothing but the chirping of bugs in the distance

and the occasional bird. If it wasn't for the war that was going on here, this would be a beautiful vacationing spot. After a few hours of scouting and seeing nothing, we headed back to base camp, but not before Carson saw something crude in the distance. It looked like something, man-made, like a big rock building of some sorts. We then approached the huge building only to find

that it was a large abandoned temple of sorts. We approached the temple thinking something could be in there, but only then heard footsteps and someone yelling something in Vietnamese a few hundred feet away. It was the Vietcon. We then came back to camp and told our superiors the story of some temple in the middle of the jungle. He just laughed and said those were old Buddhist temples which had long been forgotten. Even though our superior didn't care,

we still were deeply interested in these temples. Another day, and we were picked again to scout out the jungle. This time, we decided to venture deeper into the thickness of vines and trees. After a few miles of venturing into the jungle, We saw a camp of the Reds.

It was an encampment of a few hundred men, which were just a mere 100 yards from us. We just looked at them and looked at the entire encampment, not seeing any prisoners. We scouted the thickness of the jungle for a few hours, writing the daily log of what we saw, and reported to Rogers, which was mostly how many troops,

how far away, etc. We stayed at the side of the camp for a few hours when a red soldier approached us in the distance, not seeing us. He pulled something out from his pocket and we were ready for the worst. However, it was just a zippo lighter and he went out for a smoke.

Carson, who was hyped up to capture this guy, rendered a plan. We would go up to the soldier, gag him and try to get any information about the missing soldiers. We decided to put this plane into full effect and to try to get anything out of this soldier. We surrounded the guy at all sides, slowly approaching him in a quiet fashion.

He was about another 20 feet away from all of us, and I could smell the cigarette burning rapidly now. Slowly walking as close as I could, I could finally see the orange-year-old. part of his burning cigarette as he took it out of his mouth. I then grabbed my pistol and brag, and went behind him grabbing him and ganging him. He was letting out some sort of muffled screams of help, but I was not going to let him go. Carson and Paul then held him down as he still kept screaming for us to let him go. Carson then told the man with a knife to his neck in

Vietnamese that if he screamed once, he would cut his neck wide open. The man went quiet, sweating bullets out of fear for his life. Carson then started talking to the man in his native tongue about all the information that he knew. The man and Carson talked for about five minutes until Carson, in disgust, let the man down, and then beat him with the butt of his gun, leaving the man unconscious. so we could get away. We then went on the ferocious hike back to camp, tired, and covered in mud from the jungle.

I then popped the question about what the man said. Carson, who was mad, blankly said, The man said there's no prisoner of war camp near this area, and that men from their encampment have disappeared as well, thinking of an American POW camp. I was dumbfounded. thinking that we had not had any disappearances since coming to the jungle, and we had not captured any enemies since we got here.

I then walked back and was speechless as we walked to the encampment. The three of us walked to Sergeant Rogers' tent and explained to him that there were no prisoners at the camp and about the soldier. Rogers was almost as confused as us, but then gave us orders to head back to our quarters as if something was bothering him. His face, as we just stared at him, was red mad, as if someone had murdered his wife.

He then proceeded to yell at us to get back to the quarters, and we scurried back to our beds. Paul said, Why was Rogers so infuriated with us? We did our job and scouted the enemy. What else does he want? I don't know, Paul. I think Rogers is hiding something from us and the other troops, Carson explained.

The trooper at the Reds camp also said something about a serpent-like creature when the disappearance occurred. Why didn't you say anything about that to Rogers, I asked. He's never going to believe us. Plus, I think there is more to learn about the jungle, Carson exclaimed. Okay, we'll talk more about this in the morning, I sighed. No, we cannot let anyone else know about this, Paul yelled out. Carson hesitated and said to us, Let's just keep this to ourselves for now.

If something does happen, then we will be ready for it. The three of us then shook on it that we would not talk about it again and proceeded nervously to the bunk. A few days passed by, and we were preparing to advance towards the North Vietnamese camp that we spotted earlier. Rogers explained that this would be a routine mission, and that we would be going deep into the jungle to attack the enemy. Rogers had a nervous look on his face, but was ready to send the troops into battle. We then grabbed our guns and supplies and walked through the jungle. Our first job was to clear a path by removing trees and other debris,

mostly with construction equipment and flamethrowers. Carson and I were put on flamethrower duty, and Paul was put on cleaning the debris. We spent another few hours clearing trees and rocks before setting up camp deep within the forest. We began setting up sandbags and digging holes, preparing for the attack. Then we saw the Vietnamese. It was a counter-attack force a few hundred yards away.

We then grabbed our guns, and a firefight soon engulfed the two forces as we battled deep into the night. Bullets were grazing past me and Paul as we reloaded our guns. Paul had killed about ten to twelve of the enemy before Rogers yelled out for the big guns. I was lucky if I had even shot one or two. two guys as it was my first battle with real people. The Gatling guns began firing on the enemy as many of the Vietnamese were underpowered in weapons running at us. We began taking them down

with all the firepower we had. We began to cheer, but it wasn't for long as more of those reds kept appearing through the trees. Their dead bodies just piling on top of each other with the evil in their eyes. Then everything started to fall apart. Snipers in the trees began to pick us off one by one, killing the many good men around me. Paul was grazed in the leg, and Rogers yelled out for a retreat. All of us began to fall back as more and more bodies from our side began to fall. Rogers, by then, was already off the battlefield, and most of the survivors were running towards the south. I then heard Paul crying out that he was shot in the leg. I grabbed him and put him over my shoulder with Carson giving us cover fire. It was then that we were almost surrounded and began to run eastward.

I then shouted that the temple could be our place of refuge until the enemy left. left. We dragged Paul to the temple, which was a long two-mile walk. We then saw the temple in the moonlight, with its ancient vegetation growing all over the old stone walls. I began hearing shouting behind us as we ran into the temple. It was dark and quiet for most of the night. I walked outside to find a few of the reds looking at me, seeing that I was in the temple, but they looked terrified with blank expressions. They ran off, shouting something in Vietnamese. They were yelling out, con wrong, con wrong, confused, and pissed off. I sprayed a bunch of bullets toward them, and then ran off back to the fortress. I said to Carson that those bastards were gone,

and they were running for their lives back into the jungle, not telling him what they said. Carson was busy tending to Paul's wounds, which were getting better, but he could still not walk on his own. I proceeded to walk through the old temple to get a feel for what we were in. Mostly what I found were statues of some fellow I didn't know, and paintings of dragons everywhere. The drawings depicted people running out of a temple into a jungle being chased by a dragon-looking creatures. The creature was yellow with red eyes and a red stripe. It had sharp teeth and a sinister face looking like it was going to devour someone. I then walked deeper into the temple with my lighter looking at these paintings of this dragon,

which would do anything from sitting on top of some temple to devouring people. I was deeply into these drawings when I heard a large bump at the end of the corridor. It was Carson. He then looked at the drawings and was shocked by the content. He said they were from a local dragon legend. According to Carson, the Vietnamese, like many East Asian cultures, were very intertwined with the dragon in their stories. He didn't know this particular story,

but he said that dragons in Vietnamese culture were often said to be bringers of rain, particularly in agriculture. He also said they believed the dragon to be a father figure to the men, and it was even included in their creation stories. They signified that they brought much good to the world, but this dragon is very different from the ones in Vietnamese folklore. He said that this dragon was evil and was a vicious killer,

not like the loving creatures typically depicted. Just as he was about to explain more, we heard the screams of Paul in the distance. We ran back to Paul as he explained that something was growling at him in the distance. We looked outside to see the silhouette of something in the distance just staring at us with these big red eyes. It looked like some large bird with the body of a worm. It was growling and had a huge snout like a lion. It was hunched over the body of a man who was screaming for his very life as this monster started

eating him from his torso. The creature ripped flesh and tissue from the man, swallowing his intestines like spaghetti. It then turned around and growled at us from outside the temple and began waving its wings. It then went off. We then saw its face as it tried breaking into the temple. to have something to eat or kill. We ran deeper into the temple, into a large atrium, and stayed there for a few hours, hearing the creature's snarls and screeching. It screamed and was banging on the walls of the temple trying to get us. We just remained in the atrium,

hours passed, and we went silent for a while. We heard the occasional bird. I picked up my lighter, and made a makeshift fire with pieces of cloth and leaves. I then noticed the same silhouette of something in the background. I hopped back, thinking it was the same beast, but it was a statue of the same dragon covered in gold and ruby. Carson explained, Whoever was here didn't just fear this creature. They also worshipped it.

I then walked towards the back of the atrium and noticed a room. going to the back of the temple. It went to a long line of stairs, which proceeded to a room with an opening big enough to fit the dragon. Inside the room, there were drawings of dragons everywhere, and a large altar big enough for a human to be sacrificed.

It was covered in dirt and leaves, but it was definitely for sacrifices, as I found plenty of daggers nearby made of gold. I then heard a hit, above me and saw the dragon coming down with its claws. It missed me, but scratched me deep on the leg. I heard its musky breaths from the other side of the cavern. It let out a roar, and I smelled the stench of rotten flesh within its grasp. I saw it trying to grab me from the corner of the room. I then ran to the open door back to the atrium, but not before it grabbed my leg.

With its claws digging deep within my skin, I let out a shriek and then grabbed my revolver from its holster and shot it in the arm. It shrieked out and yelled, and I saw this as an opportunity to get out of there. I crawled back to the open door and escaped the beast by climbing back to the atrium where my colleagues were. We waited for daylight to come, which seemed like an eternity. Paul's bleeding was stopped, and we then picked him up and proceeded to walk out of the temple to civilization. My eyes then adjusted to the incoming daylight as we swiftly walked out of the temple toward the American camp. We walked for what seemed like ours, only to find a crew of mangled corpses of Vietnamese troops near a large tanker truck. They looked like they were ripped as shreds by nothing man-made.

One of the men was ripped in half at the torso and missing his lower half. Another man was missing his body and only his head was left. Something had taken down an entire battalion of Vietnamese. We knew what did this, but weren't going to stay around for confirmation. We began to check the bodies and looked for any necessary supplies, finding water and some painkillers. I suddenly heard in the distance a faint cry for help. We walked in awe toward the dying man. He was yelling that word in Vietnamese again,

Khan wrong. Carson then talked to the man saying a few words about a serpent with wings and how it ambushed them. He talked to us for a few more minutes about the creature, which would just not die, and that the creature severed a huge, gash in his leg in an incoming attack which happened a few hours ago. He was able to survive for a while,

but kept blanking in and out of consciousness. He then began going into shock and kept shouting the same word until he died, con wrong. By then I was sick to my stomach and throwing up whatever content was in my body, trying to think to myself what the hell was going on, and all I wanted to do was go home and never see this shit again. I was sick as could be, and grabbed a swig of water from my canteen, which was halfway full. We then looked through the entire tank, leaving the mangled bodies and corpses behind on the way back to camp. We began walking for what seemed like ours, stopping to give us a break in carrying Paul, which was okay for the time being.

His leg, however, began showing signs of infection. We finally saw the familiar sight of an American Jeep in the distance, hoping that someone was still alive. We finally made it back to the American camp, which seemed to be all but abandoned. Jeeps and tents, all but abandoned within the area, mostly everything charred like it had been in a fire. The corpses began to appear.

just like the Vietnamese camp. Charred remains of men were all over the place, half-eaten men, with their innards all over the place. It was a disaster zone. We then began walking through the entire encampment trying to find some life when we saw a handful of Americans, including Rogers. Rogers was loading up gasoline into a large Jeep

with a few injured and healthy people in it getting ready to leave. We began yelling at Rogers that we were okay as he yelled back and waved to come along. We dragged Paul to the Jeep and put him in gently. Many of the men in the Jeep looked injured, including Rogers, who appeared scared out of his mind. He then said to us that everyone in the battalion was dead but us, and that we were lucky to be alive. He later said that no one from either side was alive, including the Vietnamese. He then paused and said, After the retreat, we ran towards the base camp,

and we settled at before and stopped there for prep work in the morning. Then something came in the distance and began to attack us. That thing was everywhere, slaying troops one by one with its big red eyes and bloody teeth. It was flying around our jeeps, and stopping anyone from leaving, charred men and cooking them to death. ripping men apart piece by piece, we ran into the nearby forest and hid in a small cave until the thing left. That was when I began finding survivors and found this Jeep. We then began talking about our own encounters with this creature and how it killed many men along the way.

By the time we went, explaining all of our stories, we reached a small town outside of Saigon and went to the nearest American military post. That's where my story ends. After that horrible encounter, all 12 of us were relieved of our military duty due to PTSD, and were never given an explanation on that serpent. We were flown back to the States

and sent to a mental health division of the VA. There, the doctors said that the dragon was just the result of stress, we had endured, but I know what I saw. After the scramble, we all went our separate ways. As for the others of the few that survived only know of what happened to Paul, Rogers, and Carson. Paul, after returning home, had his leg amputated. He lived a nice life until he began having flashbacks of the dragon and temple. He was later admitted to a mental health clinic in 1984, where he died a year later.

Rogers, after returning home, worked at a grocery store where he later became the manager. However, due to constant headaches and hearing voices, he committed suicide in 1995, leaving a suicide note about how he was hearing noises

from outside his window and seeing red eyes behind him. As for Carson, he still contacts me, and after returning home got this degree in Eastern Religious Studies from the University of Michigan. He is still studying about the dragon in the tomb and has implied that he might go back to Vietnam

trying to solve the mystery of the murders. As for all the other men slaughtered by the dragon? I don't know. It was never explained to me what happened to the many people who perished by that dragon. In the end, I still know what I saw, and I know the other two men saw what I saw. That thing still stalks me in my dreams and in my sleep. The doctors from the VA still say that it is stress of being in war,

but I know what I saw, and it was not hallucination. I know that thing is still out there, waiting to kill me, waiting to skin me alive, waiting to kill me with its razor-sharp teeth and its blood-red eyes, and it will still be waiting for me in my dreams, still waiting. Wow, that was... Wow. Thank you. Joe, do you know where John is?

Of course I do. If you say he's right behind me, I'm messing you both up so bad. Behind you. How many of those beers did you have? No, he's right over there. Hey, Rissa. This piouso. John, where the hell have you been?

Hey, Rissa. I decided to take all your advice and try to relax a bit. I'm sorry that every time we all get together that I'm basically a clenched fist waiting for things to go wrong. I'm working through it in therapy. You might want to up your appointments. Funny, my therapist said the same thing. Weird.

Anyway, the other day when I got surrounded by masked and hooded figures, I completely braced myself to get kidnapped and tortured and probably eaten. But it all actually ended up being a big mistake and we had a group hug over it. They all just wanted to thank me for inviting them to camp and said that they knew it wasn't my fault that the food had run out and that the cars didn't work or anything like that. Really? It was that easy. You just talked it out and everything's...

I guess I wouldn't exactly put it like that. What did you say to them? I just told them about story time in the woods. Alexi loved the forest. He was the reason he volunteered to accompany groups of kids to summer camp every year. The forest was his element when it came to summer camp time. The forest wasn't for lectures. The forest was for chasing each other, for building tree houses and for picking wild berries

to munch on. Alexi told the kids about the mighty oak tree with its strong roots, as they built a house into its branches. But then, won't we be too easy to find? All the enemy has to do is look for the oak trees. A girl of about seven asked, a look of concern on her face. Well, you're right. There are fewer oak trees here. But it's still the second most common tree in this forest,

so the enemy will have to spend a lot of time looking for you if they're only going by fighting. finding oak trees. The children giggled around him. The pine trees don't make great treehouse bases, though you can probably hide in one just by yourself. More importantly, all those many pine trees make the forest very thick. They hide you and the other tree kinds alike. The enemy will quite literally not be able to see the forest for all the pine trees.

Now the kids really laughed out loud. The tree house was ready before twilight. Proud of what they'd built, the children demanded to be allowed to sleep in the treehouse. Alexi saw no issue with that. For the next half hour, they carried mattresses and blankets from the hut to the tree house. Alexi lifted the mattresses up as high as he could and two kids pulled them into the house. They could carry the blankets themselves while climbing up to their new home. When the sleeping arrangements were in place, they lit a fire.

As it grew darker, the light of the fire created an odd halo around Alexi, and the children hung on his every word, his deep voice delivering every word slowly and with gravitas. There was this woman. She was small and looked unassuming. She wore dark gray clothes, head to toe. She carried a large handbag as she stood by the roadside late one evening and hailed a taxi. The taxi driver had had a long day without much to do, so he pulled over gladly. The woman looked respectable, and he'd get at least one more fair. The woman got into the taxi, and they politely said hello to each other. Where are you going? the driver asked. Take me to the South Cemetery, the woman answered.

The driver thought it was a little late in the day to be making visits to dead loved ones, but he didn't say anything. and started driving to the city's South Cemetery. When they arrived at the gate, the woman said, I won't be long, please wait. He agreed. Waiting would make the ferry increase,

and he could make sure the woman got home safely. So he waited. It grew darker, but eventually the woman returned. She got into the car quietly. Her knees looked dirty, and her handbag seemed heavier than before, but he didn't say anything.

Back home, he asked. No, she said. Take me to the East Cemetery, please. The driver thought this was rather odd, but a fair was a fair, so he turned the car and drove to the East Cemetery. When they arrived, the woman asked him to wait for her again,

and he did. Night had fallen in earnest now, and the driver wasn't happy to be waiting outside a cemetery, But he liked the thought of leaving the woman by herself even less. She didn't say a word when she got into the car. The driver saw her knees and elbows were all dirty, and again, the handbag looked much heavier. The children around the fire moved imperceptibly closer, millimeter by millimeter as he spoke.

Where too, he asked, having abandoned any hope that this would be a normal fare. I'd like to go to the North Cemetery, please, she said, as if that was the most normal thing in the world. The driver felt a cold shiver down his neck as he drove off. The North Cemetery's gate looked firmly shut by the time they arrived. It was night now, and long past the closing time, even though the driver wasn't sure what time a cemetery closed at. Again, the woman asked him to wait. Again, he didn't argue. He waited with the motor running.

The lights of the car were the only lights around, and he had them directed at the cemetery gate. Still, he couldn't see where the woman went. She seemed out of breath when she returned. She opened the car door quickly, and in her haste to get in, the handbag opened briefly. The driver froze and immediately looked the other direction,

pretending he hadn't seen anything. His eyes were fixed on the steering wheel when he asked, Where next? The children around Alexi whispered the question at the same time as he said it, and they also said with him, To the West Cemetery. Alexi paused, looking around the fire, where all other chatter had ceased completely.

Building up to the finale, he continued. The hairs stood up on the driver's arms as he drove to the last of the city's cemeteries. He didn't even care to look at the time now. He just hoped the drive would end soon. When they arrived at the gate, she asked him to wait and shine the car lights at the cemetery gate. She got out of the car and opened the gate, though the driver was sure had been locked by heavy metal chains. All he wanted to do now was turn the car around and drive away. Never mind his fare.

But he couldn't. His head was screaming for him to leave, but neither his arms nor legs moved. Then the woman walked back into the light of the car. Her hair was disheveled. Her hands, knees, elbows looked dirty, and her clothes were torn now. The driver swallowed as she got into the car with her heavy handbag. His voice shaking, he asked. Do you eat human flesh?

Alexi paused, letting the utter silence hang in the air. He could hear the hearts of 20 children beat in excitement. Very quickly he jumped up. His arms stretched out and with a loud roar yelled, Yes! The children screamed. Alexi smiled. In the morning, they wouldn't even find this story scary at all.

At that moment, in the dark around the king, Campfire, however, it was the scariest story they had ever heard. So that's it? You told him a story and everything's just okay now? Like I said, not exactly. Which part? Well, oh, hey, everyone. Girl, well, look.

What the hell have you been? What the hell have you been? Love the energy. Good to be home. Risa can explain it all later. so I don't have to worry about scripting it all out over again. What? Never mind.

Anyway, I'm back. Yay! Yeah. Nice. We don't have to worry about the other groups anymore. I got it all taken care of. They kind of got their own things going on that I'm sure will never be referenced again by this podcast or theirs. So we can just go back to what's important and end things on a high note as best as possible.

Or until... Until what? One sec. Are you waiting for something? Yeah. It's just that the month isn't over, so I really can't imagine a scenario where things would end smoothly and that we all... Great. Now it's going to rain. I hope that's all it is.

John, that was thunder. What else would... Hey, why is that... This doesn't look like rain? It's not. Well, what is it? It can't be what it looks like because it looks like. Yeah? It's blood.

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