Creepy - Society and the American Jesus

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Change is coming...***Written by: Ryan Peacock and Guest Narrated by: Owen McCuen***Bonus Episode: "The Creepypasta I Made Up Came True" written by Jessumgui and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer***Content warnings: Suicide, missing children***Find our reward tiers and how to get your bonus magnet at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by 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.

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A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling and disturbing creepy pastures 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. Creepy Presents Society and the American Jesus. Written by Ryan Peacock with guest narration by Owen McCune.

Starting in the late 1960s, there's a radio broadcast that originated outside of the town of Amber, Texas. The broadcast consisted primarily of religious sermons and analysis of the gospel and the passages contained within. The man on the radio only ever identified himself as the American Jesus. The broadcast originated from a station located on the outskirts of Amber that had previously been owned by a local company.

It had been shut down and the program had been pulled off the air about three years prior due to low ratings. The property had been purchased about four months prior to the start of the broadcasts, although no record can be found that provide any information about the buyer, including if it was a company that made the purchase, or if the individual were referring to himself as the American Jesus was behind the purchase. During his sermons, the American Jesus often asserted that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, who had come to gather new disciples to build what he referred to as the kingdom of God.

and within a few months of the start of his broadcasts, he began encouraging listeners to join him at his station outside of Amber to build a new society. Most residents of Amber and the surrounding area were quick to dismiss the unusual broadcast and its eccentric host, according to Mack Johnson, who lived at Amber at the time. According to a statement from Johnson,

We heard the broadcast, that man up in the old radio station and his Bible show. I heard it, never listened to it, but I heard it. It struck people as an oddity at first, some whack job setting up shop and trying to get their voice heard, seeing whatever he wanted to get noticed. The American Jesus was it? It was something like that.

Something that wouldn't sit right with most God-fearing folks. Now I ain't the holiest man you'll ever meet, God willing. But ain't it a blasphemy to declare oneself the second coming of the Son of God? I always thought as much. I reckon I wasn't the only one who thought as much either. If that fellow had ever shown his face in town, someone might have popped him in the head for saying that sort of thing he was saying. Hell, I got the feeling Father Davis might have done it himself, judging from the way he talked about the man. God rest his soul.

Old Father Davis, he was not keen on those broadcasts. No, sir. He didn't say much on him, but he said enough. Yeah, if that American Jesus fella had ever shown his face in town, he would have got an ass-whipin from Father Davis himself. Wouldn't that have been a sight to see? Despite the poor reception that he received in Amber and the surrounding area, though, the American Jesus still succeeded in attracting his own small but dedicated audience. His broadcast made its way through a large part of Texas,

and while he received little attention in the major cities, some smaller rural communities were more receptive to his message. Some of his more devout listeners even went so far as to decide to pack up and accept the American Jesus' offer of starting a new message. society outside of Amber, Texas. Most of those who left to join them were described as having already had little to their name, and having been fairly down on their luck, although there were a number of people of higher repute who decided to leave home to follow the broadcast of the American Jesus.

There's no official number on how many people decided to join his society, but it's estimated that between 70 and 150 people left their homes between 1968 and 1970s. By 1973, the group that was known only as society was firmly established in the area surrounding the broadcast station of the American Jesus, and the group attracted further attention when Charlie Williams, a Dallas reporter, visited the organization and wrote a story on them. According to Williams, he'd requested to visit the compound that the group had constructed in the area around the broadcast station and received a letter containing a formal invitation to enter the compound and speak with the American Jesus.

He arrived at the compound on August 14th and was allowed in where he met with the man behind the broadcast in a small house that had been constructed nearby. Williams described the encounter as follows. The whole area was fenced off. It was a tall fence made of metal. Most of it looked like scrap. There was a large gate where the road turned towards a radio station, however,

and was open when I arrived with about three or four people waiting for me. They asked that I exit my vehicle before coming inside, and I agreed. They took me to this house that they've made. It was very small, very simple, and made of wood. It was close to the station itself and was a little larger than some of the other houses I'd seen. The inside was not very big. There was room for a bed, a desk, and a few bookshelves, but that was really it. There was a man at that desk.

He was young, probably a little younger than 30, and he was rad like he spent a lot of time out in the sun. He had a beard and short curly hair, and he wore these plastic sunglasses. He was a little bit heavy set. He wore loose robes to hide that, but I could still see it. Anyway, he got up to greet me and shake my hand, and he said to me, Hello, Charlie, how are you? Well, I recognized his voice. I'd heard some of the sermons he'd been broadcasting,

and I recognized his voice from the sermons, and I knew that this was the same guy. So I told him that I was doing well. I asked him his name, and he said to me, I am Jesus Christ. I am the eye of providence and the will of the Holy Ghost, and I have returned to protect the American people. He went on to tell me how he'd come back to America in its time of need. He said that the trumpets had sounded,

and humanity was on an unavoidable war path that would result in our total destruction, and that he was here to build the new kingdom of God for the faithful. He said that the kingdom of God would protect them when the apocalypse came, and that it was the true society that would rise up and rebuild once the bombs had fallen. So, of course, I asked him. Well, how do you know all of this? And he said that he'd seen it in a vision sent to him by God, and that he was just there to carry out the will of God.

After that, I asked him a little more about this group he'd made, society, and he told me a little more. He said that once he'd had his visions, he'd set out to spread the word and rally those who God had called as his soldiers. And that true to his vision, they had come to him. He then offered to show me the rock upon which he had built his church. I agreed to see it. The man and I left the house and he showed me around the compound. There was a large number of people there, about 70 as far as I could tell.

Most of them were armed. They carried a pistol in their holster or a hunting rifle. even some of the kids that I saw. I saw about five or six kids playing around the compound. A couple of them had guns, which just seemed... It seemed crazy to me, but I didn't say anything. Some of them had constructed homes similar to the one I'd been inside, although there were a number of RVs and trailers as well.

There was some land that had been used for farming. They were growing some of their own crops, and I could see some of the animals they kept as well. Near the center of the compound, there appeared to be a large communal area with a fire pit and several chairs, and I could see a tent that had been set up where some of the members of the group were cooking. There was a large dining area near the tent. As far as I could tell, despite their best efforts, they were not entirely self-sustaining, but they were damn well trying to be. All the while, the man I was with talked about how they were working to develop their own society and become fully dependent to the rest of the world.

He then asked if I would stay until evening and break bread with them, so I did. I stayed there until around the evening and I spoke with some of the people there and asked them about how they'd come here and about the man I'd spoken with, the American Jesus. Most of them stated they'd come here after hearing his broadcast and how he brought them out of a dark phase of their lives, or saved them from the fires of hell. I got the impression that he was appealing to the people who had literally nothing else but faith, and he was coming at them with the message of, come to me, come be with me,

come live with me, and I will make everything better. And sure enough, they'd come, and there was this community waiting for them, full of people just like them. Everyone started hitting towards this building on the far end of the compound. It was probably about the size of the broadcasting station itself and made of wood. It wasn't immediately clear that it was meant as a chapel,

and not everyone felt comfortably inside. A number of people had to stand outside the door and listen when the American Jesus came up to the altar and he gave a sermon. It wasn't much different to the sermons I'd heard on the radio, where he goes through Bible verses and interprets some of the meaning out of them. But when he was on the radio, he spoke softly, and the things he said weren't that different from the things I had heard some other preachers say. This sermon was a little bit different. This time, he was talking more about hellfire that was to come, and the Apostle. where the sinners would burn and Satan would come, and how when he did, and when he'd ravaged the earth and left nothing behind, only then would society emerge and build the kingdom of God.

It was just complete and utter madness. But this is what he and those people truly believed. There was a dinner afterwards. They'd sacrificed the cow earlier that day, and butchered it for a large, bland, but filling stew that they served with bread. I said my goodbyes after that, and then I left because I'd seen enough. Charlie Williams later shared most of this in his report in a Dallas newspaper, along with his own thoughts on society, as a bizarre group who he went so far as to compare to a cult.

While his story caused a few waves at the time, a few interested publications attempted to contact the American Jesus and society as well, although they were declined, and the American Jesus later responded to the article during one of his broadcasts saying this. We allow Mr. Williams to come into our midst and break bread with us to quell any negative rumors about us and our way of life. Our intent was to demonstrate to him and to the world around us

that we are a simple group of people united by our own common beliefs, not some mad religious cult. I hold no ill will towards Mr. Williams for his unwillingness to look past what might to some seem to be a little bit strange. But these eccentricities he was so quick to condemn are simply the realities of living in a small independent community that looks to become self-sustaining.

Yes, we hold a very close relationship with God. Yes, we believe that an apocalypse is coming, and we believe that from this apocalypse we can and we will build a new kingdom of God. Yet our beliefs do not tread on anyone else. We exist independent of the world, and we simply ask not to be disturbed. Within a few months of Williams' report, interest in society had mostly died down, and it's believed that the group took on a large number of new members around this time.

On April 17, 1978, the American Jesus declared via one of his broadcasts that he had decreed the property owned by society as a sovereign nation that would be known as the American Society of Jesus Christ, and that they would soon become the New America when the apocalypse finally came. Around this time, members of society began to petition the American government to recognize the sovereignty of the American Society of Jesus Christ. However, they received no official recognition nor any meaningful response from the American government. It was approximately two months after the American Jesus and society attempted to give

recognition as a micro-nation that society had its first run-in with American law enforcement. In July of 1978, a young woman who identified herself using the name Rachel Summers appeared in a police station in Amber, claiming she had been an escapee from society's compound. According to Summers, she had left with her family to join society about five years ago, when she was 14 years old. Her parents had already been devout Christians, and the message of the American Jesus had resonated with them. Summer said that shortly after their arrival at the compound, the American Jesus had begun speaking to her and other women in the compound privately,

and offering private sermons. In many of these private sermons, he'd explained the importance of repopulation after the fires of Armageddon had come, and had encouraged the women in the compound to forego monogamy, and instead practiced polygamy with him, planting the idea in many of their heads that they could carry children and directly descended from God himself. While some in the compound had rebuffed his advances,

the American Jesus had responded by having them locked in a cellar dug beneath the broadcast station for silent prayer. Summers explained that the American Jesus had begun his private sermons with her when she was 15, and that these sermons had quickly devolved into sexual abuse. Her allegations proved enough cause for the local police to visit society's compound and speak with the American Jesus. However, no search was carried out, and the American Jesus denied all allegations and insisted that Summers had never been a part of his community. Things were further complicated when Rachel Summers was found dead, hanging in a motel

room in late July of 1978. While her death was ruled a suicide, at least two eyewitnesses described having seen two unidentified men at the motel on the day of her death. A suicide note allegedly written by Summers was found at the scene, claiming that she'd seen the air of her ways and speaking out against the new Messiah, and that our only forgiveness would be found in God's judgment, and it was decided that there was not enough evidence to cause any reasonable suspicion of foul play. Despite this, the Police Department of Amber, Texas, along with other interested parties, had taken a notable interest in the dealings of society

and began keeping a closer eye on the group and their compound. There were even some discussions of attempting to send one of their own in to watch the group from the inside, although it was not believed that this action was ever undertaken. The American Jesus quickly became aware of the spotlight on him, and protested against it in many of his sermons, starting during one broadcast. The servants of hell stand upon our doorstep and harass us in the name of peace. There are wolves draped in the wool of sheep, staring down our flock with salivating mouths and sharpened teeth.

It is treason against God for these agents of the American government to treat us this way. And when the time comes, when the hellfire descends from the sky, and when our father returns, they will reap what they have sown. Our army of eagles will march upon them. All who wear the crest of the eagle are the soldiers of God, and their time will come soon. And the hellfire comes. society will be born and there is no place, no refuge for the sinner in society. All who wear the crest of Satan and who follows Satan will be destroyed in the presence of God

this and more I promise you. Around this time the sermons of the American Jesus began to take on a different, more fanatical tone. Many of his followers believe that this changed signaled that the end was coming, and society took on an influx. of new members, bringing its estimated population up to around 200. During a broadcast in November of 1978, the American Jesus spoke almost exclusively in tongues, screaming of God's coming vengeance across the airwaves

during the few coherent parts of his sermon. During a sermon a few days later, he said the following during another broadcast sermon. I've seen it coming. I've seen it. I've held the instrument in my hands. God has handed us the reins to our own. destiny. The hellfire will come and when it does the army of eagle angels will descend and the bloody purge will begin to the believers. Whether or not you are part of society, I ask you now

to join me in fasting and prayer. Tomorrow from 6 a.m. for three days and on the third day when the fire comes you will know when it is time to raise up your head and cry out to God in thanks and to sing out his praises amongst the screams of the sinners as the armies of God slay them in the streets. Join me in fasting and prayer on the eve of the coming Armageddon, my children, and we shall stand triumphant. When God arise to bind Satan in hellfire forever and ever, this is what we have been waiting for.

This is what we have been called for. The kingdom of God waits for the true and the faithful. I have seen it, for I am the eye of providence, the voice of the Holy Ghost. I am the beloved one, and I have said this, and it will be made true. While the predictions of the American Jesus failed to attract any widespread attention, many followers of the American Jesus began a fast anyways, believing that some sort of apocalypse was at hand. However, three days passed, and there was no hellfire to be found. On November 26th, on the final day of his fast,

The American Jesus gave a final sermon that consisted almost exclusively of him screaming in tongues. Surviving recordings of the broadcast only seemed to contain a few short sentences where his screams appear to be somewhat intelligible. The broadcast was as follows. Hark! Hark! Hark! The time is at hand, brothers, sisters, children. Sar, Ar, Rasa! The time is at hand, we will speak to him. We will carry out his divine will. We will herald salvation.

Yamaxak. Avah, this child, we shall speak to him. We will speak to him. Following this final sermon, the airwaves went silent. The broadcast never resumed. Those followers who had not yet joined society listened.

They heard nothing. In the week that followed, no activity was noted as coming from society's compound. No one appeared to enter or leave. and when at last someone did open the gates again, it was not some sheepish member of society out on a supply run, but a bone-thin young woman who only barely had the strength to walk before she was picked up by the officers who were watching the compound

and taken to the hospital. There, the young woman was identified as 26-year-old Ava Martin, a university student who had gone missing in Arizona about two years prior. The appearance of a missing person crawling out of society's compound was enough to spur a new investigation into the group. And the same day that Ava had stepped out of the compound, the Police Department of Amber, Texas had sent several officers to investigate the compound. However, instead of the large group that had been there less than a week prior,

all they found was an empty shanty town of tents, trailers, and wooden structures surrounding the now abandoned broadcast station. Society and the American Jesus had seemingly disappeared. Amber police found little evidence to explain this disappearance, as most of the tents and trailers looked who been abandoned quickly. Although, with Amber Police having kept an eye on the compound for months, it was unclear how or when they left. The home of the American Jesus, described by Charlie Williams a few years prior, sat empty and in disarray. The broadcast station from where he had given his impassioned sermons was also found to be empty.

The only evidence to what had happened to society appeared to be in the church, where three crucifixes have been erected in place of the altar, surrounded by what is assumed to be the unidentified remains of society. Between 134 and 226 individual bodies were found surrounding the crucifixes around the altar, lying broken in a stinking slurry of blood, bile, and feces. The state of the bodies made it difficult, if not completely impossible in many cases, to determine the identities of the deceased, or even if some of the remains discovered it come from one body or multiple. The human remains surrounding the altar had suffered severe burns that had charred off most of their skin. The flesh beneath had been blackened by intense heat.

Later forensic reports concluded that some sort of concussive force had also struck the bodies, shattering the bones of almost all the victims and ripping many of them completely apart. Most disturbingly, on the skinned faces of the bodies who are still somewhat intact were written expressions of unimaginable agony. Frozen screams of horror and pain with empty eye sockets staring vacantly ahead. The eyes having long since been boiled away by the searing heat of whatever had killed them. Only 31 of the bodies recovered were ever able to be identified as former men. members of society. The rest were too severely disfigured, and authorities could only guess

at their identities. On the crucifixes, police found two other women. Twenty-four-year-old Janet Reyes, who had gone missing from a town in New Mexico in 1977, and 22-year-old Haley Smithers, who disappeared while driving home from work in May of that same year. The third crucifix was empty, but appeared to have been damaged. It was suspected and later confirmed. confirmed that Ava Martin had been hung there prior to her escape. Though malnourished, Reyes and Smithers were both somehow still alive, although neither of them proved responsive to external stimuli and remained silent and catatonic, leaving them unable to answer questions from the local police.

Society in the American Jesus had not previously been tied to Martin, Reyes, and Smithers' disappearances. None of the three women have been suspective interacting with the organization, nor had they been familiar with the broadcasts. Police would later theorize that society had been responsible for multiple unsolved abductions, although they uncover little proof to support this theory. The burnt bodies and the two women on the crucifixes were not the only things found inside the church. Surrounding the crucifixes were 33 small human skulls, believed to have belonged to children.

Forensic scientists were unable to determine who the skulls had come from, and the remainder of the bodies were never found. These skulls were later determined not to belong to the corpses found strewn about the altar. These 33 dead children had likely been dead before whatever had killed the others in the church. Disturbed by their findings, the local police turned to Eva Martin in the hopes of finally getting some answers, although Martin's explanation would not answer some of the most pressing questions. What follows is an excerpt from a transcript of a recording made during one of her conversation, with the detective with the Amber Police Department.

Martin. He decided that the sacrifices needed to be perfect. He'd known that from the get-go. It was why he wanted so many children. Not just any children would do. They had to be his. They had to be his children, and there had to be 33. I saw the book he had, once.

A red leather-bound book. He said that he had learned the secrets of the oldest gods from it, and that he would use their knowledge to glorify the one true God. He needed us to have babies. He would try and try until we were... Most of the girls didn't say no. They thought it was an honor. But sometimes the girls they had weren't enough.

Sometimes he brought in girls from the outside like me. He said it was to keep the gene pool diverse. I... I just think he took whatever or whoever he wanted and made up whatever excuse sounded nice. My baby was named Joseph. He left me alone after Joseph was born. I wanted to find a way to get us both out, but he wouldn't let me.

He wouldn't let us go. And when he decided it was time, he took him any... He chose the outsiders for the ritual, said they were sinners, that they were never part of society. Me, Janet, and the new girl. Haley. He could have taken some of the others, but they'd started to follow him, started to believe his bullshit. So he chose us. The ones who didn't really believe. The ones were expendable. What he did, whatever that ritual was, if there is a god, then I don't think they'd ever be okay

with something like that. What he did to the children. Their empty eye sockets looking at. at us. When they started to glow red, I closed my eyes, and then I heard the laughter. I didn't look, didn't want to see what it was. I just remember a voice speaking to them, followed by a searing heat and the screams. I don't think I want to remember. But when I opened my eyes again, everything was quiet. Everyone was gone. Everyone except us on the crucifixes. Martin was unable to provide any other information at the time, and upon her physical recovery, spent some time in a psychiatric ward in the hopes of recovering from her ordeal. The other two women recovered at the scene, Reyes and Smithers, also spent time in a psychiatric ward

and would eventually begin speaking again, although neither was willing to discuss what had happened with the American Jesus and society. Reyes claimed to remember nothing, while Smithers continued to adamantly refuse to speak on the matter. She offered only one statement on the subject in 1982 when pressed by a reporter. Don't ask me about that. Don't ask me what it said. I don't ever want to have to remember what it said. Haley Smithers would commit suicide later that year. She left behind no note, nor explanation for why she had chosen to take her own life. Her family has refused to comment on her passing. Janet Reyes also refused to speak about what had happened and attempted to distance herself from it.

She legally changed her name in 1986 and is believed to have since left the United States. Her current status is unknown. Likewise, Ava Martin would go on to live a private life and is also believed to have immigrated from the United States. She is believed to be living with family in the UK, where she cannot be reached for comment. With no definitive answers on what had happened to society and the American Jesus that day in the church, Amber Police ultimately dismissed the incident as an attempted domestic terrorism gone wrong. They concluded that much of the group had been killed while attempting to craft homemade explosives and remain adamant that that was what happened.

By 1980, society's compound was gone. Their wall was taken down, the tents and wooden structures were taken down, and the abandoned RVs fell in their way into numerous. scrapyards. All that was left was a broadcast station where the American Jesus had first reached out to the world, and by 1987, it had been demolished and the property been sold to a land developer. It's difficult, if not impossible, to locate the site where the American Jesus and society once steeped their claim. Yet, though they have become a seldom mentioned footnote in history, their message still resonates today. While most are quick to dismiss the American Jesus as another

lunatic with a god complex, and some even claim he was a former student at the University of Austin. Others regard him as a prophet. Some small sects that refer to themselves as Christian still carry a message similar to that of the American Jesus, and some pastors even as far as Canada have cited him as a direct inspiration, and believe that he was the true second coming of the Messiah. There are some who believe that the disappearance of society and the American Jesus This was either a cover-up by the U.S. government to maintain power in the face of the kingdom of God, or one of the first signs of the rapture. Opinions remain split in some fringe religious groups who still remember the words of the ominous voice

that broadcast salvation across Texas. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents. The creepypasta I made up came true, written by Jessum Guy, and narrated. by Jimmy Ferrer. Maybe you've heard of Pyro Joe, but probably not. He's one of those urban legends like Slender Man or Jeff the Killer, but not as well known. I made him up years ago.

He was a story I told at a campfire to scare the new kids in the scout troop. The problem is, I think he became real. We used to do a camping trip for the Webelows. Those are fifth-level Cub Scouts who are old enough to join a scout troop. It was a welcome get-to-know-you kind of thing. Around the middle of August, a couple of weeks before school started, Mr. Nelson, our scoutmaster, would take the new kids on an overnight camping trip behind the Wayside Community Chapel outside Hendricksville.

It was out in the sticks. About a half mile down the gravel road off the state route that ran between the city. Hedricksville and Byers' corners. We were pretty deep in the woods, but it wasn't like some kind of wilderness outing. It was a good way to ease a bunch of 11-year-old kids into the scouting scene. I always went along to help Mr. Nelson on these trips. He was getting pretty old. The only reason he hadn't retired yet was that they couldn't find anybody to take his place.

I didn't mind. A lot of other kids in my classroom. class thought I was a dweeb, but I was pretty into scouting. Early Friday afternoon, Mr. Nelson and I would haul all the food and camping gear out to the church. The building wasn't being used anymore. The windows were boarded over. The paint was peeling, and there were a lot of weeds growing up through the gravel in the parking lot. But there was a clearing behind the church that was level and dry. In the middle of the clearing, There was a fire ring surrounded by logs to sit on.

A couple of trails wound through the surrounding woods, all of which led back to the church. One of the first things they told the kids was that if they got lost, they should stay on the trail and just keep following it. Sooner or later, it would lead them right back here. Even if they got off the trail, they couldn't walk more than a mile or two in any direction without coming across a road or a highway.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was a pretty safe place for a campout. At least it was until the night Eddie Tranzona disappeared. The night, I told the Pyro Joe story for the first and only time. Early Friday evening, the parents started dropping their kids off in a church parking lot. Carl Riggily's mom must have hugged and kissed him on the top of his head at least a dozen times, when they tried to squirm out of her grasp. I was starting to think we'd have to pitch a tent for her too. But she finally managed to let go, Carl, climb back into her minivan and drive away.

Joel Parsons' dad, on the other hand, barely stopped the car long enough for Joel to grab a sleeping bag and hop out, before shooting off in a cloud of dust. One thing I distinctly remember was Eddie Trezona's dad, making a big production over giving Eddie a Swiss army night. A real outdoorsman needs a real outdoorsman's knife." Eddie's dad proclaimed for all to hear, and then hung the knife around Eddie's neck on a loop of parachute cord. Eddie couldn't have been prouder if it were the Medal of Honor. There were other kids, but it's been a few years, and I can't really remember who else was

there. Everything started out normally enough. Mr. Nelson and I showed the kids how to set up their pup tents. There was some whining and griping about the sleeping arrangements, but when things came to an absolute impasse, we decided it with a coin toss. Always solemnly reminding them that you have to respect the coin toss. Eddie was the odd man out. I don't know of many 11-year-old kids willing to sleep in a tent by themselves,

out in the woods. But when Eddie called heads and it came up tails, he took it in stride. He just held up his new knife and assured everybody he'd be okay. After that came the nature hike. It took about two and a half hours. Not because there was so much nature to see, but like I said, Mr. Nelson was getting old. He just didn't move so fast anymore. The kids didn't mind.

Mr. Nelson still had a pretty sharp. by and pointed out a lot of stuff they would have otherwise missed. I don't think I ever heard the word cool so many times as I did when he found the fire-bellied newt. By 8 o'clock, we were back at the camp. Mr. Nelson showed them how to build a fire without using lighter fluid, and I took a couple of kids to cut sticks for roasting hot dogs. Eddie Tranzona had a blast sharpening the ends of his new knife.

At some point, I made the mistake. of letting the kids hear me call the sleeping bags fart sacks, which of course caught on like wildfire. Mr. Nelson pulled me aside and said, You know I'm going to get calls from the parents about that, right? He was kind of grinning when he said it, so I don't think he was too upset. We ate hot dogs until we were so full we had to loosen our belts and then made smores, washing it all down with fresh apple cider from Emirates Orchard on the other side of town.

After that, we just sat around the fire and talked. Mr. Nelson pointed out different constellations in the night sky. I told them what it was like to be a scout. Once it was good and dark, Mr. Nelson excused himself and crawled into his tent. I gave him 15 or 20 minutes to fall asleep before I let the kids start telling ghost stories. That's a real fun of a campfire, telling ghost stories. At least that's what I used to think. The stories they told were about what you would expect from a bunch of tweeners,

ambling tales of gore, poorly contrived jump scares, and clumsy attempts to gross everyone out. The kids, of course, loved it. When they finally asked me to tell a story, I pretended reluctance, saying things like, I don't know if I should be talking about this. and some stories are best forgotten, which made them beg me to tell it all the more. I need to make this clear.

I made this story up. There is no kernel of truth in it. It's not based on anything that ever happened or anybody that ever existed. I completely 100% fabricated this story for the express purpose of scaring about. bunch of little kids on their first camp out. Making it up was how I kept my mind occupied while working my summer jobs, spending five or six hours a day on a zero-turn riding more,

trimming the fairways and all the county clubs for my uncle's lawn care service. The story of Pyro Joe is in no way shape or form based on anything real. In a nutshell, Pyro Joe was an arsonist. He liked to set things on fire. In the beginning, he was content with torching abandoned houses in old barns, but it didn't take long before that just wasn't enough anymore.

Soon he was setting fire to Barnes full of livestock, and then houses with people in them. The police finally caught up to him on the night he'd set an old folks home ablaze. As he stood out front, listening to the patients and staff screaming, a policeman who just happened to be driving past saw the flames and tried to arrest him. Rather than surrender, Pyro Joe ran into the burning building and was incinerated with his victims. I never found his body. I intoned dominously before wrapping up the story in time.

telling them that Joe's mother, who many thought was a witch, held a memorial service for her son in the very church we were camping behind. When nobody showed up, she laid a curse on everybody who had ever heard the story of her son. If they didn't stare into a flame and repeat his name three times in remembrance, the ghost of Pyro Joe would come in the night and drag them into the fire. With each of the kids distracted, staring intently at the campfire while we chanted Pyrro Joe's name, I tossed a packet of flash powder, something I had learned to make from a YouTube video into the Coles.

My timing was perfect, a split second after we said the last Pyro Joe, Green Flames left five feet in the air with a hiss and a crackle. There were gasps and squeals. Carr-rigley actually tumbled backwards off the log so hard that one of his sneakers came off and flew into the darkness. Eddie Trezona, for some reason only an 11-year-old would understand, had his Swiss army knife clenched between his teeth and almost swallowed it. I immediately jumped up, looking at each one of them frantically, demanding to know

who didn't say Pyro Joe's name. It was priceless. all those kids sitting around the fire, eyes huge, mouse hanging open. But when I noticed some of them were actually trembling, I started to feel guilty. Some of them probably wouldn't be able to sleep without a nightlight for the next two years, and then alone go to another camp out. I broke down and told them the truth, that I had made the whole thing up. I even told them about the flash powder.

Of course, I didn't tell them how I learned to make it. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. Coming clean seemed to do the trick. About a half hour later, all the kids had calmed down enough to turn in for the night. Carl Ridley hopped off into the darkness on his one foot to find his shoe. Eddie Trezona crawled into his tent, Swiss Army knife back in his mouth, parachute cord hanging down like rains on a horse's bit. I waited until they all had their rain,

fly zips shut before grabbing a couple of buckets of water from the nearby stream and dousing what remained of the campfire. I poured two buckets of water on that fire and stirred ashes with a stick, making sure it was completely extinguished. I was a good scout. In the morning, Eddie was gone. The flap of his tent hung open and his sleeping bag was balled up at the far end with his shoes sitting beside.

The Chamber of Commerce always ran. rented a port-a-potty for us to use on these camping trips, and it sat on the far edge of the parking lot. I jocked over to find it empty. We checked the old church building, but it was locked up time. There was no way he could have gotten inside. After that, we split into two groups, one led by Mr. Nelson, the other by me, and began walking the trails shouting at his name. We found no trace of him. So, Mr. Nelson called the state police. It was just before noon when I found it, there in the cold, dead ashes of last night's campfire.

The sheriff's department had deployed their search and rescue team. Deputies organizing volunteers into groups to start combing the wants. Most of the parents had come to pick up their kids, and only Joel Parsons was still waiting. He and I were sitting on a log by the fire ring, trying to stay out of the way, until Joel's dad showed up and I could go join the searchers. Joel was absently poking the ashes with a hot dog roasting stick from the night before, not speaking when I saw the glint. I didn't say anything.

If I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, it would be better for Joel not to know. Twenty minutes later, when his dad finally came and got him, I fished it out of the ashes. It was the blackened remains of a Swiss Army knife. Melted strands of nylon, parachute cord hung from its lanyard ring. Bits of red plastic handle still clung to the set of screws in the knife's frame. At the various stainless steel blades and tools. has been warped by intense heat. I gave the knife to one of the S-A-R deputies

and told him everything about my Pyro Joe story, flashpowder and everything. Even though I was on the verge of tears, I could see he was struggling not to laugh at me. In the end, he just patted me on the shoulder and said, It's okay, kid. We'll find him. We didn't. There were no tracks, no sign, no trail the bloodhounds could follow.

After two weeks, the search was called off. The police believed Eddie had wandered as far as one of the roads that criss-crossed the countryside around the old church and had been picked up by somebody. The wrong somebody. It wasn't like I kept Pyro Joe's story a secret. I told people what I had done. the sheriff's deputy, Mr. Nelson, and even Eddie's parents. Everybody gave me the same patronizing look

and pat on the shoulder the deputy had and told me it wasn't my fault. Still, I felt responsible. The scout troop kind of fell apart after that. Attendance was way down, even with the older kids that hadn't been on the trip with Eddie. Very few showed up for the community service projects or the fall canoe trip.

We didn't even have enough guys for the Klondike Derby team. Mr. Nelson stuck it out long enough for me to make Eagle Scout, and then he retired. But nobody stepped up to take his place. The troop officially disbanded. As much as it hurt me to see that happen, I had plenty of other things on my plate. I graduated high school and went off to college, where I earned a job. degree in forest conservation. My dream was to be a park ranger somewhere like Yellowstone, Yosemite, or Glacier. But when Cook's Point State Forest offered me a job less than a month

after I graduated, I jumped on it. It might not be as glamorous as being a ranger at a national park, but it was just the kind of work I wanted to do, and only a three-hour drive from home, making it easy for me to visit my parents on the holidays and special occasions. I never really forgot about Eddie Trezona. But as time went by, I dwelt on the incident less and less. By my senior year in college, I had almost convinced myself that I had imagined seeing Eddie crawl into his tent with that knife between his teeth. He must have dropped it into the fire when I scared everybody with the flashpowder. He had probably gotten lost on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and then

wandered through the woods until he came across a road, where some human trafficker, a pedophile, snatched him up, just like the police thought. I willfully ignored the fact that I had put the fire out with two buckets of water long before the knife could have gotten hot enough to warp the steel, that the dogs couldn't find his scent, and that his shoes were still in his tent. I mean, who walks across a gravel lot to use a porta-potty in their bare feet? Still, no matter how successfully I deluded myself, I never told another ghost story, around a campfire or anywhere else. Six weeks ago, I got an emergency call to report to the Ranger Station. A backpacker had gone missing. I was a

assigned to lead one of the search teams. While I was organizing the volunteers, a girl approached me. She looked at being her mid-teens and was part of the missing hikers group. I think Pyrro Joe got Zoe, she said, struggling to hold back her tears. Her name was Kelsey, and she was friends with Zoe, the missing hiker. Kelsey explained that she had told the story of Piro Joe. about how he set fire to barns and houses, how he ran into a burning building and died rather than being arrested, and how his mother, who many thought was a witch, had put a curse on anyone who heard his story. Kelsey had even admitted to throwing a pocket of flashpowder on the fire. Then, in the morning, Zoe was gone.

I found this in the ashes, Kelsey said, handing me the charred and soot-stained remains of a charm bracelet. Zoe never takes it off, not even in the shower. We didn't find, Zoe. There were no tracks, no sign, no trail the bloodhounds could follow. Over the next few weeks, I did some digging around the internet. While I couldn't find any mention of a Pyrojo creepypasta, I did come across 11 missing persons cases spread across eight states that were eerie similar to both Eddie's and Zoe's disappearances.

After a series of phone calls and emails to different rangers, sheriff's deputies, and police officers involved in those cases, I found six where someone had specifically mentioned the Pyro Joe story. It was a completely made-up story that I just told once seven years ago. How did it get passed around so widely without, as far as I can tell, ever being posted on the internet? How was it involved in the disappearance of at least eight people? Did Pyro Joe somehow become real?

There's only one way to find out. I took a personal day from work. This afternoon I'm going to take a hike up to the old Firewatch Tower in the park. There's a little used campsite nearby that I know well. I'll build myself a fire, and once it gets good and dark, I'll tell a ghost story for the first time in years, a story of Pyro Joe. But I'm not going to chant. his name. We'll see what happens then. If I brought him into this world, maybe I can take him out.

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