The Lets Read Podcast - 279: I FOUND A BURNING FIGURE IN THE WOODS | 15 True Scary Stories | EP 267

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about family curses, Summer vacations & fire lookout experiences HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsRead ♫ Music, Audio Mix & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by: - Betterhelp

Thank you for watching! What I'm about to tell you is something I still go to therapy over. It happened back during the summer of 2008. I started going to therapy around the start of 2009, and I've been going ever since. It wasn't my idea, it was my parents. And in a way, the only reason I still go is to keep them from worrying themselves sick over me. Not that I don't derive some small benefit from it. But what I tell my parents, my therapist and I talk about, and what we actually talk about, are two very different things.

Around the start of the holiday season back in 2007, I was a sophomore earth sciences student at UC Davis. The university offers some summer placements to students who want to gain a little work experience, and although they're mostly dreary research assignments, I happened across one that piqued my interest in a way the others didn't. In short, I had the opportunity to spend the summer working as a fire lookout in the Trinity National Forest. It was a three-month long placement, but I'd be paid for my time and completing a piece of long-term field research would look very good on my resume. I applied, I was accepted, then several months later I was told that I'd be posted to the Tomhead Mountain Lookout, which was about 30 miles west of the city of Red Bluff and about 130 miles north of Sacramento. Seeing as I didn't own a car back

then, I had to catch a bus all the way up to Red Bluff. From there, I hitchhiked along the 36 and then hiked up into the hills until I reached the flat top peak of Tom Head Mountain where the old fire lookout tower stood. The first thing that struck me was that the 20 foot tall lookout tower was made of wood. I figured a fire lookout tower would have been built with less flammable materials, but since it had been constructed back in the 30s, I guess wood was all they had at hand or something. It didn't make for the best first impression. After all, that tower was supposed to be my home for the next three months. But in the end, I managed to get myself settled in and the place started to feel more cozy than decrepit.

A big part of the assignment involved what we call numerical weather predictions, or NWP. I won't bore you with the exact science of it, but it's somewhat similar to the kind of prediction models that allow news channels to give long-term weather forecasts. But then, in the context of being a fire lookout, we can use these same models to predict the dry spells or heat waves that might result in a wildfire. Because prevention is always better than a cure. Working on weather analysis kept me occupied for a precious few hours each day while hygiene and hydration became important aspects of my daily routine. But outside of maintaining myself and my equipment, I had very little to keep me occupied. To kill time, I'd go for walks in the woods surrounding the lookout tower. Sometimes I'd visit the abandoned miner's cabin, sometimes the old campground that lay just beyond it. I'd keep my bear spray with me just in case I had any close encounters of the fur kind, haha, but I never, ever saw any people around.

At first, the seclusion was a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of the big city, and by the end of the first week, my social battery had been thoroughly recharged. But by the end of week two, once the boredom had really started to set in, I found myself just pining for human contact in a way that was very much surprising to me. I had my old Samsung cell phone with me, along with a very efficient solar-powered cell phone charger, but the lack of solid coverage meant it was more useful as a paperweight. If I walked up to this one spot on the ridgeline, I could manage to squeeze the odd text message through, but any sort of phone call was out of the question, and that was something I hadn't anticipated. It sounds foolish to think about it now, but I figured that since I was so high up on a mountain, getting decent cell reception wouldn't be an issue. Where in actual fact, it was all about

your proximity to them. Communicating through the odd text message was all well and good, but by the end of that first month, being the only living soul for miles really started to grind on me. When a Trinity Forest Ranger showed up with my second month supplies, I was so happy to see her that I almost hugged her when she stepped out of her 4x4. She could tell how happy I was to see her and she joked about me going a little stir crazy up there all on my lonesome. She was nice enough to stay a while and drink some of my bad coffee. Then once I'd hauled my supplies from her trunk, she drove off into the sunset. After that, knowing I wouldn't see another person in the flesh for a whole month,

it actually made me kind of emotional. You don't realize what social animals we are until you really cut yourself off from other people. I once read that in prison, solitary confinement is one of the cruelest punishments at the guards disposal because being isolated from your fellow man can drive a person crazy in a frighteningly short amount of time. I'm not saying I started to go crazy up there but for a while, it sure as hell felt like it. It started towards the end of my second month.

I'd be out on one of my regular walks and I'd see something move out of the corner of my eye, but then when I turned to look, nothing. There's a lot of wildlife out there in Trinity, so for the first half dozen times it happened, I figured it was just a fox or a raccoon or something skittering away from me, frightened. But then, after a while, the shadows in the corners of my eyes started getting larger and clearer, until eventually they weren't just in my peripheries anymore. I'd see something moving in the trees up ahead of me, too big to be a bobcat or mountain lion, the wrong shape to be an elk or deer. I'd stop, look, listen, but nothing ever moved, nothing ever stirred, and by the time I started to call out hello into the empty woods ahead of me, I'd developed a genuine concern for

my own psychological well-being. I tried a dozen different things to lessen the feelings of loneliness and isolation, and although talking to myself might make it sound like I'd lost my mind, I can assure you that it helped. Pouring my thoughts out onto this page helped too, as did singing my favorite songs, and after a day or two of accentuating the positives and eliminating the negative, I began to feel considerably better. But then came the day when, as I set off on one of my routine walks through the woods, I caught the glimpse of a human figure standing among the trees. I turned my head to look in their direction, and unlike all the other things I'd seen moving in the corner of my eyes,

this person didn't dart off among the trees. Quite opposite of that in fact. They remained as still as a statue, limbs very rigid, completely unmoving. In all honesty, the person's sudden presence scared the crap out of me, and the odd, unnatural way that they were standing did not help either. But then, the more I stared at this mysterious figure, standing stationary among the trees, the more I realized that it wasn't a person at all. I took a few steps towards it, consumed with curiosity only to discover that what I was looking at was some kind of wooden effigy. Someone had constructed a sort of skeleton out of wooden planks, then after attaching what looked to be chicken wires and skull and a ribcage, had stuffed the cavities with a variety of dead roots and leaf stuff. I remember being almost mesmerized by it, not because it exuded any kind of eldritch power or anything crazy like that, but because it was so exquisitely constructed,

and I remained in this sort of blissful state of thoughtlessness until a rather alarming thought occurred within me. That effigy had been staked into the earth less than an entire football field away from that lookout tower, and it almost certainly hadn't been there the previous day. And that meant that someone had walked all the way up Tomhead Mountain in the middle of the night after putting a ton of work into their eco-conscious art installation, only to stake it just meters away from where I was laying my head each night. I could think of a dozen innocent reasons why someone might do such a thing, but still, there was something about the thing's presence that just didn't sit right with me.

This probably sounds incredibly juvenile to some, but as I stood there, face to wooden face with the mysterious effigy, I was suddenly filled with the overwhelming urge to knock it over. I didn't like the idea of going about my business and having this twig man just standing there looking all creepy like he was. It's never something I do now, but I obviously can't speak for the much younger, college-aged me who raised a hand, reached out, and prepared to knock the thing off its little stubby feet. But I also remember this feeling of intense hesitation as I reached out to touch it, how

it almost felt like I was desecrating some sacred sculpture. The sensation halted me in one second, but in the next, it felt like a challenge. And then, with one heavy stone, I sent this effigy falling back into the dirt with a little dry thrush. In the moments that followed, I felt the hairs of my arms standing on end as I was struck by the sudden cognizance that whoever planted that twig man might still actually be close by. I looked around, then over both shoulders making sure the coast was clear. I don't believe in any kind of sixth sense, but if there ever was a time in my life where I felt like I was being watched, it was then. I decided not to finish my walk that day, and I headed back to the tower to make sure that I had that second can of bear mace handy.

I wouldn't say that I was scared, more apprehensive of what that effigy's sudden presence might actually mean. I later considered the possibility that some renegade artist with a little penchant for hiking might have mocked that thing up on the fly. At first, I had this irrational image in my head of some unhinged redneck hauling the completed effigy up to the mountain like a character from an unwritten Thomas Harris novel. But the alternative, that it was a spur-of-the-moment creative thing, was a considerably less unnerving explanation. No one had put that thing there to spook me. They probably didn't even know that I was in the area to begin with, and the more I thought on that, the more I felt strangely guilty for having shoved it over. The next morning, I decided to head out on one of my morning routines,

and while I was at it, I'd stake that twig man back into the earth and just leave him upright, just as I'd found him. I completed that morning routine and jotted down a few early morning weather observations and then set off in the direction of Tomhead Springs with some soap and a washcloth. When I reached the spot where the twig man had been lying in the dirt, I was startled to find him standing upright again. Someone had returned, possibly in the middle of the night and had returned that twig man to his vertical position. Again, I wasn't outright frightened by this, just more unnerved. I also figured that if it was me who made the twig man, this silent companion I could go visit on hikes every so often,

I'd also be kind of bummed if some jerk-off came along and just pushed him over. Besides, if he was someone else's silent but stoic companion, maybe he could be mine too. I gave myself a scrub down at the springs, made my way back to the lookout, passing the twig man as I went, and then spent the rest of the day making weather observations and reading the books that I had brought with me. Then once the sun went down and my very early bedtime approached, I climbed into my sleeping bag and then attempted to catch some shut-eye. I think I might have just been on the cusp of drifting off when a deeply alarming scent began to drift into my nostrils. It was the smell of smoke. I leapt out of my sleeping bag, threw on my shorts

and boots, then was about to radio the ranger's office over in Redding when a flicker of flame in the woods below caught my eye. The fire was close, very close, and by the looks of things, it was still small enough for me to fight. I grabbed the tower's small fire extinguisher and rushed down the stairs and then bolted towards the source of the fire. If I could put it out there and then, I'd not only save the state of California hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I'd also save acres upon acres worth of protected forest. And I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, and then when I saw what was burning, I experienced one of the strangest sensations of my entire life. It was the twig man. That's

what was burning. And although I carried on hurtling towards it, I'd never seen anything so repellent in all my life. The desire to put the damn thing out and prevent a potentially massive forest fire, that thought alone kept on propelling me through the woods. But upon considering the dual questions of who set the twigman on fire to begin with, and why, that was the first moment of fear. After putting out the fire, I got to thinking of who or what might be to blame. I couldn't rule out vandalism as being the motivator, but even the most thoughtless of vandals would think twice before setting a wildfire in a national forest. I also couldn't

rule out the possibility that the person who had set the twigman on fire was the same person who put him there in the first place. I doubted very much that someone who'd taken the time to create such a sculpture would also be willing to burn the entire forest down. The very nature of the twig man suggested its creator felt a reverence for nature, not a contempt for it. But in turn, that raised another question. What if twig man's creator set him on fire because they knew I'd come running to put him out? Since I was just a few days from my second and final resupply, the same ranger that had visited me the previous month decided to head up to the mountain a little early, both to drop off my supplies and check out what remained of the Twigman. When she got there and I walked her out into the woods, there wasn't much

left of him to look at, but the sight of him provoked a very familiar reaction from the ranger. She had all the same questions I did, but all that matters is that I dealt with the fire both quickly and professionally. In her words, I should have been very proud of myself. For the next few days, I felt perfectly content to be alone. It was like the fire and the praise I'd gotten for my decisive action had topped up my social gas tank, so to speak, satisfying that crucial third layer in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When I went on my regular walks, I didn't see any shadows moving in the corners of my eyes. I wasn't overcome by that creeping feeling that I was being watched. I felt at peace both within and without. And that was the start of my third and final month up on the

mountain. But towards the end of it, that same dread-inducing feeling that I was losing my mind returned with a vengeance. Having finished all of the books that I brought with me, and having grown sick of journaling my own depressingly repetitive stream of consciousness, I was even more plagued by tedium than ever. And on the surface, this seemed to lead to a drastic decline in my mental health. I started seeing things again, like people moving in the woods, and the encroaching sense of paranoia resulted in a handful of completely sleepless nights. The exhaustion I began to feel exacerbated every other symptom until at one stage,

I started to wonder if I could complete the full three-month term. I tried as best I could to power through, taking things a day and a night at a time, until finally, I had just seven more nights to go. I tried to mark the occasion with a minor celebration, and opened up a can of warm soda that had been saving for a very metaphorical rainy day. Then after an evening spent trying to keep my spirits high, I settled down to sleep. One down, six to go, I told myself. But I couldn't have been more wrong.

Hours later, I think maybe around 1.30 or 2 in the morning, I opened my eyes and heard what sounded like something moving among the trees below my tower. It was a very heavy sound, like something large and bipedal was stomping through the underbrush, and seeing as that was a zoological impossibility, I decided to climb out of my sleeping bag and go take a look. Having picked up my flashlight on the way out, I aimed its beam down into the darkness below me, and in an instant, I saw them. To my horrified astonishment, I discovered that the tower I was in was surrounded by at least a dozen hooded figures. And beneath me, just out of sight at the base of the tower, was the source of the noise that I'd been hearing.

As alarming as the encounter was, I didn't immediately understand the significance of the noise that I'd been hearing. As alarming as the encounter was, I didn't immediately understand the significance of the stranger's presence. There was always the possibility that they were simply a group of late-night hikers who happened across the tower and were merely curious. But when I called out to them and asked them to identify themselves, I didn't hear a word in reply. I took a few steps out and then headed down the stairs a little so I could see what was occurring at the base of the tower, which, if you remember, was only around 10 to 15 feet down. More hooded figures stood below me and the sound that they were making came from the fact that they were staking large bales of twigs underneath the tower.

It was kindling. They were going to set the tower on fire, with me inside of it. The first thing I thought to do was rush back into the cabin to report what was happening via my radio. While I was doing that, I threw on my clothes and boots, grabbed my flashlight and my survival knife, then walked out onto the balcony, just in time for the fire to start. I didn't waste a second. I ran along to where the stairs were, then went down two or three flights so that the fall wouldn't break my legs. I figured I'd have to jump, as whoever was surrounding the lookout would probably be expecting me to head down the stairs once they set the fire to it.

And since they seemed perfectly content to roast me alive in what amounted to a very serious crime, I figured that they wouldn't be too excited with me escaping the scene. I remember jumping, knocking the wind out of myself, and being almost certain that I'd just sprained an ankle until I put weight on it. Somehow, I was fine, and I also took the nearest hooded figure to me by surprise, which in turn gave me this brief but golden opportunity to slip past him if I moved at speed. I honestly thought that I was about to get shot or stabbed or whatever, and I guess the person I ran at nearly did get me with something, but it was a stun gun. As I ran past them they lunged at me and I saw this little tiny bolt of lightning dancing in the air for a split second before I slipped past them and made my escape. I remember hearing this furious scream from someone screaming about me getting away, but by then I was long gone, half running and half sliding down the mountain as fast as I could in

complete darkness. I was lucky not to fall and accidentally kill myself, but there was no catching me and I made it all the way down the mountain without seeing so much as a flashlight behind me. And I ran, and I ran, until I was too tired to run anymore. Then after what seemed like hours upon hours of rummaging through the brush, I came across a little place calling itself the Rocky Ridge Hunting Club, along with a small group of hunters preparing to take advantage of the dawn's calm. And by that point, the sky was so light that I could point out the plume of smoke rising from Tomhead Mountain, and within the hour, choppers were making passes over the lookout, creating artificial rain while the ground-based fire crews rushed to the scene.

I should have felt exhausted. I should have been dead on my feet. But when I saw that first chopper fly over us, heading in the direction of Tomhead, I felt ten feet tall. I'd made it to that hunting club just in time to avert a major ecological disaster, and I felt like a hero. But I was not treated like one. Even after I explained everything that had happened, with the twig man, with the hooded figures, with the fires, it was me who got the blame for burning down the Tomhead Mountain lookout. According to the fire crews, there was no evidence of an accelerant being used, but it was impossible to tell if the source of the fire had been inside or outside the cabin.

I guess it was my preposterous explanation that swayed the opinions of the fire had been inside or outside the cabin. I guess it was my preposterous explanation that swayed the opinions of the Forest Service, but on their command, I was arrested on charges of arson, endangerment, and destruction of government property. My defense attorney told me that I'd dodged being charged with a serious environmental crime by the skin of my teeth, as in the kind that's only one step down from outright terrorism. She also told me that my best option by far was to basically plead temporary insanity. At my trial, she made it out like I was some upstanding citizen who'd merely been unfortunate enough to have suffered a kind of psychiatric crisis as a result of severe and

prolonged isolation. I pleaded guilty, got a hundred hours of highway trash picking upping, and a mandatory psychiatric evaluation at the behest of the state of California. I tried to get my parents to believe me, but unfortunately they took my attorney's arguments as gospel and instead of the truth, chose to believe that I'd gone temporarily crazy. But unlike my attorney, whose interests ended once the money dried up, mom and dad wouldn't let it go. They hounded me and hounded me until eventually I gave in and agreed to go to regular counseling sessions. I didn't want to take pills for something I knew that I didn't have, so

to them, therapy was the next best thing. But these days, I don't talk to my therapist about how I'm scared to lose my mind again, or how it might be a symptom of a much more frightening form of disease. I talk to him about how painful it can be when you tell someone the absolute truth, and they choose not to believe you for the sake of their own sanity. On June 1st of 2001, citizens of the small, mountainous South Asian nation of Nepal received news which brought the entire country to a standstill. Almost every member of Nepal's royal family had been slaughtered and what appeared to be an attack by a lone gunman. Yet as the day wore on, the situation took a dramatic

turn for the worse. It emerged that the crazed shooter was none other than the royal family's very own Crown Prince Dependra. Born on June 27th of 1971, Dependra was the eldest child of Birendra, the Crown Prince of Nepal, and the princess Aishwarya. After graduating high school in the capital Kathmandu, Dependra went on to study at the UK's Eton College before beginning a career in the Nepalese military. Known as Dippy among his friends, Dependra was friendly, outgoing, and surprisingly humble for a young man who was often addressed as Crown Prince or even His Royal Highness. He was outgoing, athletic, and openly called for a generous expansion of the Nepalese welfare system. He was also a patron of the Nepalese Boy Scouts and occasionally spent time writing essays on the subjects of nationhood and national identity.

To many, Dipendra represented the future of Nepal's royalty. Little did they know, he would be the instigator of its very downfall. On the evening of June 1st, once the grounds of the royal palace had been secured, Nepal's chief justice held a press conference and read the following statement to a gathering of the nation's media. On the 1st of June 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra opened fire at a house on the grounds of the Royal Palace, the residence of the Nepalese monarchy, where a party was being held. He shot and killed his father, King Birendra, his mother, Queen Aishwarya, and seven other members of the royal family, including his younger brother and sister,

before shooting himself in the head. The citizens of Nepal were shell-shocked. How could their beloved crown prince have done something so utterly horrifying? The chief justice went on to announce that since Dipendra had survived the self-inflicted gunshot wound, he had technically inherited the throne upon the death of his father, King Barendra. He lay in a hospital bed in a comatose state, both a mass murderer and a monarch. In the days that followed, many questions were asked of both the Nepalese government and its subordinate security services. But without a doubt, the overarching question remained. Why?

Had Dependra suffered some kind of sudden psychotic break, shot his family in a daze, and then taken his own life when he realized what he'd done? Or had he deliberately killed them? In which case, what prompted his decision to do so? To this day, there have been no definitive conclusions on why Dependra carried out the murder of his family, but a number of sometimes contradictory theories remain prevalent. The first theory centers around a rejected bid for marriage,

one which caused Dependra to descend into a murderous rage. While visiting the United Kingdom, Dipendra had met an Indian girl by the name of Devyani Rana. Then upon returning to Nepal, Dipendra announced that he was in love with Devyani and wished to marry her. Supposedly, King Birendra rejected his son's proposal, claiming that the girl's family were a lower class and that her father's political leanings also left a lot to be desired. What's more, the king and queen had already picked

out a prospective bride for their crown prince, and having ensured that she was of aristocratic Napoli stock, they would not budge on their decision. This is supposedly when Dependra flew into a murderous rage, gunning down his family in the heat of passion before finally turning his weapon on himself. However, a few of this story's details simply do not add up. Firstly, Devyani Rana was most certainly not lower class, and King Barendra would almost definitely have known this. Her family was descended from former Indian royalty and were actually much wealthier than the Nepalese royal family. In fact, upon hearing that her daughter was in love with the crowned

prince of Nepal, Devyani's mother warned her that the move might result in a sharp decline of her standard of living. It also seems highly out of character for someone like Dependra, who was intensely passionate about Napoli's nationhood, to insist on marrying an Indian woman after having known her a relatively short amount of time. It also seems even more out of character for Dependra to fly into a murderous rage over just about anything, at least not of his own volition anyway. This also pokes holes in the theory that Dependra murdered his family after his father, the king, suggested that they completely dissolve the monarchy following the end of his reign. And even so, if Dependra did intend the murders to be a violent coup d'etat, why take his own life once he believed everyone to be dead? Others have looked to other areas of the investigation where they

claim chilling inconsistencies. Many have questioned why there wasn't more security at the party where the attack took place, while a number of people had pointed out that Dependra's supposedly self-inflicted gunshot wound was located at his left temple, something which struck them very unusual for a right-handed person. The Nepalese government then shocked the world by refusing any and all help from friendly nations, asserting the burden of the tragedy was theirs to carry alone. This might strike many as decidingly dignified, but some, Scotland Yard included, found it deeply suspicious that Napoli's officials seemed so allergic to foreign intervention,

raising the question, what exactly did they have to hide? On the day following the royal massacre, the slain were given a state funeral and cremated in front of one of the holiest Hindu temples in all of Nepal. As we've covered, Dipendra was proclaimed king while comatose in a Kathmandu hospital. But just four days later, he slipped away during the night and was announced dead the following morning. Upon his passing, a distant relative named Ganindra Shah ascended to the throne in a turn of events that surprised him just as much as everyone else. Some say Ganindra's strange behavior in the days that followed were a result of the man's deep and profound grief, and others assert otherwise. In one instance, Gynendra rather publicly suggested that the royal massacre was the result of an accidental discharge,

as in Dependra shot his entire family with a fully automatic assault rifle by accident, and he later defended his decision to publicly suggest such a theory, saying he was bound to tradition to avoid the suggestion that his distant cousin was a murderer. But some have argued that Gainendra's public statement was also an attempt to skirt legal and constitutional hurdles and ensure that if he survived,

Dipendra would be exempt from prosecution. If true, this would constitute a horrifyingly shrewd attempt to seize power. Perhaps Dependra was relying on trusted surgeons to save his life following the self-inflicted wound. Maybe passing away from the self-inflicted wound simply wasn't part of Dependra's fiendish plan. Maybe his true intention wasn't to end the royal line forever, but to ensure its survival for another thousand years. On June 12th of 2001, a Hindu ceremony known as Akhato was held in the Nepal King Barendra's belongings, then rode an elephant out of Kathmandu as a way of symbolizing his exile into death. The Nepalese citizenry grieved bitterly and the world wept with them.

Yet as the ceremony unfolded, a deep sense of resentment towards Gainendra began to grow. Many pointed out that on the day of the massacre, Gainendra had rather conveniently been unable to attend the event at which it took place. Others counted that Gainendra's wife and two children did make it to the party, meaning it was highly unlikely that he agreed to be part of any such plan to end their lives. However, while every single member of Dependra's family met their end that day, Gainendra's wife and two children miraculously survived their injuries. Slowly but surely, in the eyes of many Nepalese citizens, the single most compelling piece of evidence to suggest Gainendra's innocence became one of the most damning suggestions of his guilt.

In the years that followed, elements within the Nepalese Maoist Party claimed that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency executed the massacre. Nicknamed Prachanda, one communist official asserted that multiple people with the mask of the Crown Prince Dependra were present in the room at one point. Prakanda also asserted that there were dramatic inconsistencies between the official version of events, which were endorsed by Ganendra and his government, and the eyewitness accounts of the medics and police officers who attended the royal palace in the aftermath of the massacre. It was also Prakanda's opinion that Dependra was not in fact the perpetrator of the massacre, but yet another of its many victims. He pointed out the fact that the gunshot wound was not where a right-handed shooter would have placed the barrel of his weapon and placed the blame squarely at the feet of the newly crowned King Gaimendra. But others, perhaps those with much more fruitful imaginations, place their belief in our final theory, one involving an 11th century Hindu mystic. Gureknath was a revered saint, yogi, and a prominent figure in the Nath tradition of Hinduism. He believed to have lived during the 11th and 12th centuries, although precise historical details about his life are uncertain due to the hagiographic nature of many accounts.

Guraknath is considered one of the influential figures of the development of Hatha and Kutalini Yoga and is often credited with the spread of yogic teachings across India as well as the wider region. Today, he is still revered by millions of Indians and Nepalese, and in both countries, numerous temples and shrines dedicated to him can be found. Garaknath is often depicted as a yogi with supernatural powers, and his teachings emphasize the importance of spiritual practice, self-discipline, and the attainment of enlightenment. Many of the stories detailing his life and work involve him being kind, gentle, and understanding, but one such story has a markedly different tone. According to the legend, the first ruler of Nepal was named King Prithvi, and he is credited with uniting the kingdom following the conquest of numerous

petty kingdoms. One day, in the late 1760s, the king came across an old holy man practicing yoga in the forest. Being a man of great respect, the king offered the holy man some curd to quench his thirst, but after consuming it, the holy man vomited into the king's drinking bowl and demanded he drink it. Naturally, King Prithvi was repulsed and tossed the holy man's fresh vomit onto the ground, but this caused the holy man to fly into a rage, claiming that the refusal to imbibe the fluid of a holy man is tantamount to a mortal sin. King Prithvi laughed, but this only angered the holy man further, and after focusing all of his divine will, the man put a curse on King Prithvi's bloodline, claiming that his royal lineage would last no longer than ten generations.

Obviously anyone who puts a curse on you after offering you some puke to drink is probably playing with a few cards short of a full deck. But upon hearing of the curse, the great Yogi Garaknath grew ashen. Garaknath claimed that despite his evident madness, the man was still a very, very powerful yogi, and that his curse should be taken very seriously. Some dismiss the warning as far-out nonsense, yet it appears that history did indeed vindicate our curd-vomiting yogi. King Prithvi was born in April 1743, and if a generation is said to be anywhere between 25 and 30 years, this means 10 generations is anywhere between 250 to 300 years. Between the

year of King Prithvi's birth and the massacre of the palace royal party, 258 years elapsed. Exactly 10 generations since the mad yogi declared the royal family's doom. There are many, and perhaps rightfully so, who dismiss the timing of the family's demise as mere coincidence. There are many other, much more feasible explanations, but the fact remains that hundreds of thousands of North Indian Hindus believed that Karaknath had indeed prophesied the end of the royal lineage. And with belief and manifestation being so chillingly interlinked sometimes, perhaps the moment young Dependra learned of it, it ceased to be ancient rumor and became destined to be self-fulfilling. The nation of Ireland is famous for many things. Throughout the centuries, the country has produced

some of the greatest artists, musicians, and poets the world has ever known, and quite arguably the world's greatest beverage too, Guinness. The iconic Irish stout was first brewed in 1778 by Arthur Guinness at Dublin's St. James Gate Brewery. Almost two decades prior, the man himself signed the now legendary 9,000-year lease on the brewery, and it wasn't until the late 1770s that the brewery began producing the dark, creamy stout that would give the Guinness family name its now global fame. The exact story behind the drink's initial creation is very poorly documented, but it's commonly believed that Mr. Guinness experimented with several different techniques and ingredients in the effort to create a new, distinctive kind of beer. The use of roasted

barley, which gave Guinness its distinctive jet black color, along with its characteristic flavor, is one of the key elements that sets it apart from other beers. And over the centuries that followed, Guinness has become one of the most recognizable and beloved beer brands on the planet. But did you know that the story of Arthur Guinness' descendants is one as dark as the drink which bears their name? This is the story of the Guinness Family Curse. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Guinness family amassed a sizable fortune from the export of their beer. They bought their way into the aristocracy, became a giant on international stock markets, and so intertwine themselves with the Irish culture that,

wherever there are Irish people, pints of Guinness are being poured. But as their wealth accumulated, a pattern of highly publicized tragedies fueled rumors of a Guinness family curse. The family itself had dismissed such claims, telling the Irish Times that any big family will have its share of grief. But the frequency and severity of the events has many putting stock in more sinister explanations. Firstly, of Arthur Guinness's 21 children, 11 of them passed away before reaching adulthood. Granted, child mortality rates in the late 18th century were considerably worse than they are now, but even by those days' standards, burying one of your young children every two years for two decades

would be enough to convince anyone their family was cursed. Tragedy continued following Arthur's death, with alcoholism and mental illness plaguing his grandchildren and descendants. Yet it wasn't until the 20th century, and the mass proliferation of print and analog media, that a noticeable pattern of tragedies seemed to emerge. Born in March of 1880, Walter Edward Guinness, or Lord Moyne as he was known, was the great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness. He was a war veteran, a close friend of Winston Churchill, and an accomplished businessman in his own right.

But like so many others, Guinness heard the call of duty at the outbreak of World War II, and offered his services to both king and country. Churchill awarded him the position of Minister of State in the Middle East, and although he served both honorably and admirably, his tenure was doomed to end in tragedy. In the early afternoon of November 6th, 1944, and at the height of the Second World War, Lord Moyne arrived by car at his colonial residence in Cairo. He was being driven by an army lance corporal and was in the company of two assistants when the group were ambushed by two gunmen from a Zionist paramilitary organization known as Lehi. As one of Lord Moyne's assistants went to open the front door of the residence, the driver got out to open the door for Moyne, and a man named Eliyahu Bedzuri emerged from a hiding place and shot his driver in the chest. Another man, Eliyahu Hakim, then pulled open the car door and shot Lord Moyne three times.

The first bullet hit him in the neck on the right side, just above the collarbone. The second penetrated his abdomen, punctured his intestines, and became embedded in his spine, while the third shot, fired after Moyne raised his right hand, ripped across four of his fingers, and punched into his chest. The two gunmen then fled the scene on rented bikes, but after one of Lord Moyne's surviving staff raised the alarm, they were chased down by an Egyptian motorcycle policeman and placed under arrest. Lord Moyne was rushed to a nearby hospital and after briefly regaining consciousness,

some believed that he might survive. Just minutes after arriving at intensive care, he was given the first of three blood transfusions which initially caused his condition to improve. Yet after complaining of a burning sensation down his right leg and an inability to move it, x-rays revealed that the injury was to his spine. And shortly afterwards, his right arm also became paralyzed as a result of the neck wound. Doctors were reluctant to operate until his condition improved, but at around 5.30pm, a lumbar puncture revealed a blood stain, and it was decided to operate.

Lord Moyne was given a fourth blood transfusion, and in the operation that followed, surgeons removed a bullet lodged near the second lumbar vertebra. And in the process, doctors discovered the injuries to his colon and large intestine. surgeons removed a bullet lodged near the second lumbar vertebra. And in the process, doctors discovered the injuries to his colon and large intestine. Soon after the operation, Lord Moyne's condition failed to stabilize, and within just a few short hours, he began to rapidly deteriorate. Doctors did everything they could to save his life,

but sadly, Lord Moyne passed away at exactly 8.40pm. He was 64 years old. The following day, his remains were flown home to England before being cremated on November 17th at Golders Green Crematorium. Yet the wartime tragedy did not end there. Just months before the end of the Second World War, Arthur Onslow Edward Guinness, who was the 32-year-old heir to the family business, was killed in action fighting in Holland. Yet even before the assassination of Lord Moyne and the death of young Arthur, the Guinness family seemed prone to unfortunate scandal. Brian Guinness, the son of Lord Moyne and a man of gentle nature with a willingness to please, found himself romantically involved with one of the infamous Mitford sisters, Diana Mitford. The couple married in 1929 and were well-known socialites around London, but beginning in 1932, things started to go downhill. That same year, Diana Mitford had a

chance encounter with one Sir Oswald Moseley, who soon became the infamous founder of the British Union of Fascists, more commonly known as the Blackshirts. The pair commenced a torrid affair, and the following year, Diana abandoned Brian and their two children. She would later marry Mosley at a ceremony in Berlin, where none other than Adolf Hitler was one of the wedding guests. Born in 1945, Patrick Brown was the son of Una Guinness, an heir to the Guinness fortune. He was a central part of London's social elite during the swinging 1960s, and rubbed shoulders with artists, gurus, aristocrats, and revolutionaries. Patrick's home became a hotspot for all types of people, and the young heir became friends with

the likes of the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and even a skinny young man named Dave Jones, who would later perform under the name David Bowie. Patrick lived large, and he also lived fast, and true as ever to the age-old saying, he died young. On December 18th of 1966, Patrick was racing through southwest London in his light blue Lotus Elan when he crashed into a stationary minivan. He was rushed to the hospital, but sadly, Patrick did not survive his injuries, and he was declared deceased at the tender age of 21. Just a month later, British newspaper The Daily Mail published the coroner's report which detailed the cause and events surrounding Patrick's untimely death. Around five months later, music lovers all over

the world lowered the needle onto a newly released record and heard the following lyrics. I read the news today, oh boy, about a lucky man who made the grade. And though the news was rather sad, well, I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph. He blew his mind out in a car. He didn't notice that the lights had changed. A crowd of people stood and stared. They'd seen his face before, and nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords. Patrick's death, and perhaps the Guinness curse by proxy, had been immortalized with the stroke of a Liverpool boy's pen, and will forever remain a beloved excerpt of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. Following Patrick Brown's death, the next in line to the Guinness Family fortune was

Lady Henrietta Guinness. Henrietta had already been plagued by several very public romance scandals, but following her untimely inheritance, her fortunes turned fatal. Lady Henrietta Guinness was with her boyfriend, Britain's best-known beatnik, Michael Beebe, when he crashed his flame-red Aston Martin into the French Riviera. The accident left her badly injured and severely mentally scarred. Tragically, in 1978, Lady Henrietta, at the age of 35, threw herself off the Pont de la Torre bridge, as reported by the Irish Times. Having been treated for depression for some time, she is known to have once said, if I had been poor, I would have been happy. More recently, the curse of the Guinness

family appears to have struck once again, but this time in the year 2005. The latest victim was a wealthy landowner killed by a cocktail of heroin, cocaine, and drink, addictions that have reaped a bitter harvest from the brewing family in the past. Robert Hesketh, a 48-year-old father of three, died in his sleep after taking the drugs at a country house party in the English county of Wiltshire. His body was found by his wife Catherine, daughter of the Guinness heir, Lord Moyne, in their locked bedroom the morning after the party in November. She told an inquest in Salisbury that she had been unable to get into the room at the home of the Guinness family near Marlborough during the early hours

of the morning after an 18th birthday celebration for the eldest son of their hosts. She told the inquest that she was unaware of her husband's drug use, adding that she spent a lot of time at their London home and it was possible he was taking them without her knowledge. Mr. Hesketh, a close friend of musician Jules Holland, was found dead when Erkskine Guinness broke into the room of Fosbury Manor. Dr. Adnam Al-Badri, a pathologist, told the inquest that Mr. Hesketh died from central nervous system depression and heroin toxicity with alcohol and cocaine. The 1600-acre Churchtown estate has now passed to Mr. Hesketh's only son and heir, 11-year-old Frank Hesketh. And we can only hope that Frank,

who will now be in his 30s, has inherited all the money and one of the wealthiest in the entire world. They continue to own several prominent businesses, including Getty Images, one of the largest providers of stock photographs in the world. Chances are, if you've ever used Google Image Search, you've seen a picture with a Getty Images watermark. Yet the family is famous for another reason, and this one is considerably darker. The Getty family began with George Getty, an oil man from the state of Oklahoma. He and his son, Jean-Paul Getty, later known as J. Paul Getty, teamed up to start Getty Oil, a company that continued to exist until it was sold shortly after the millennium and moved its base of operations to California.

J. Paul brought the family to great heights, but his father believed that he would ruin the family business, and it was probably out of spite that J. Paul didn't run Getty Oil into the ground and opted to vastly expand the family fortune. The curse, however, seemed to only afflict those who came after J. Paul Getty. Most people believed that the curse was karmic retribution for how terrible J. Paul was to his family. He married five times, his children rarely saw him, and J. Paul even skipped out on his eldest son's wedding after deciding the business was more precious than his own flesh and blood. Perhaps the first tragedy to hit the family was the death of Timothy Getty, J. Paul's youngest son, who died of a brain tumor in 1958 at the tender age of just 12 years old.

In her book, Alone Together, Timothy's mother claimed that J. Paul had once scolded her for spending too much on the child's cancer treatments. The 1970s were an increasingly tragic time for the Gettys. Third son John Paul Jr. left his wife and took up with the actress Talitha Pohl in 1966. The two became addicted to drugs, causing J. Paul Sr. to cut off his son completely. Pohl went on to die of a drug overdose in 1971. Older brother George always felt their father's cruelty the most. He was chief operating officer of Getty Oil, but J. Paul didn't trust his business savvy and often overrode his decisions. George, who was reportedly scared of Mr. Getty, as his children called him, often drank to numb the pain. One night in 1973, after an argument with his wife over J. Paul, George went

into a room, drank alcohol, took sedatives, and stabbed himself with a barbecue fork. It took an extra 20 minutes to bring him to a discreet hospital where he died. J. Paul tried to cover up his son taking his own life so it wouldn't mar his image. The month that followed saw the worst tragedy the Gettys ever experienced. In July 1973, J. Paul Jr.'s son, J. Paul III, was enjoying a vacation in the Italian city of Rome. But then one morning, his mother received a horrifying letter stating that he'd been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. The family thought it was a ploy by the young man to extort money from his famously frugal grandfather, but in reality, none other than the notorious Undrangata Mafia had kidnapped J. Paul III.

The boy's grandfather, J. Paul, refused to pay the $17 million ransom, saying that the rest of the grandchildren could be targets if the family settled. He didn't budge even when the kidnappers sent the family a lock of the boy's hair and his severed ear. And eventually, the grandfather relented after negotiating to reduce the ransom. He agreed to pay $2.2 million, the most that can be tax deductible, and loaned the remaining $800,000 to his son. J. Paul III was a captive for six months and it traumatized him forever. He became addicted to drugs and suffered a drug-induced stroke which left him paralyzed and unable to speak, and he died in 2011. In 2015, Gordon Getty's son Andrew was found dead in Beverly Hills,

naked from the waist down and lying in a pool of blood, said the Los Angeles Times. His death was attributed to a heart condition exacerbated by drugs. And then, in November 2020, another of Gordon's sons, John Gilbert, died in a San Antonio, Texas hotel from an accidental overdose. Despite the family's success, the Getty name lives on in its businesses, philanthropic ventures, and the many museums named after them. It's clear that even with all the money in the world, you can't buy happiness. Between February of 1983 and November of 1985, I was employed by the United the Forest Service ran a kind of earn-as-you-learn program, where you can spend a couple of years as a paid intern, learn the ropes, and then graduate as a fully-fledged forest ranger if you proved yourself capable. I signed up, was selected for induction, and was sent up to the Willamette National Forest as a trainee ranger. I spent the next six months realizing I was just

about born for that kind of work. I'm not saying it couldn't be hard, it was exhausting at times, but the sense of duty, the feeling that you were doing something good and honorable, that was more valuable to me than any sized paycheck. Those first six months were some of the happiest of my life, and at the time, I could see myself walking trails and working on restoration projects for the rest of my career. But then, towards the end of 83, I was offered a very different kind of assignment. Having proven myself capable of working unsupervised and having already confessed to enjoying all the solitude the job had to offer,

my district ranger, basically the area chief, asked if I wanted to spend the summer of 84 working as a seasonal fire lookout over on Waldo Mountain. Waldo Mountain is around 50 miles east of Eugene, Oregon, and it overlooks Waldo Lake, as well as the Waldo Wilderness Area to its north. The lookout is no longer functioning as such today, and operates as a kind of public shelter on a first-come, first-served basis. But back then, it was a fully stocked, live-in fire lookout that was occupied by either a forest ranger or a trained volunteer all summer long. The usual arrangement was that three different rangers would each do a month-long stretch up at the lookout. But when it came to delegating fire lookout duties for the following summer,

staffing problems meant that there was only me and one other member of park staff available for the job. If I did a six-week-long stretch up in the lookout from early June until mid-July, my district ranger would make sure it reflected very favorably on me when it came to offering me a full-time position. And so then, about six months after the offer, I was headed out to Waldo Mountain with my first two weeks worth of supplies. Now a lot of you might be picturing the Waldo Mountain Lookout as being your typical sort of tower and cabin structure, and that's exactly what I was picturing too before I actually saw the thing. But when I got there, I found it was basically just a small cabin built atop a rocky outcrop. As you can imagine, being so high up on top of a mountain, the views from inside the lookout were nothing short of spectacular. The boy was at Crampton there. It was maybe 12 by 12 feet, with a cooking

and sleeping area crammed into one corner, a small map table in the center, and some cabinets and the ham radio crammed in the other. That was to be my home for the next six weeks, and I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't find the prospect just a little daunting once I was actually faced with it. I thought being alone up there would be easy. The only thing I didn't really consider was the sense of boredom that would set in once my regular duties were out of the way. So being in fire lookout isn't all just sitting on your butt and waiting for a fire. Since weather conditions hugely influence wildfire behavior, lookouts monitor things like temperature, humidity, and wind speed in order to assess danger levels and potentially even predict a fire's source behavior

based on those previously mentioned observations. This can actually take up a surprising amount of time, and outside of that, lookouts are entirely responsible for maintaining and repairing their shelter and equipment Which, again, can swallow up a surprising amount of time once you realize the summer rains can make your lookout leak like a sieve But then, once all those observation and maintenance tasks were over and done with, life up on Waldo Mountain was actually kind of boring. I started out by hiking up and down the ridge to get a really good look at the area, and then sometimes I'd head down to one of the lakes nearby to take a bath. I also planned to make the two books I brought with me last the whole six weeks,

but I finished The Sicilian by Mario Puzo in about a week, and I discovered I could only read The Hunt for Red October for about an hour at a time before all the technical stuff made my head hurt. So then one day, with nothing else to do but twiddle my thumbs, I decided to familiarize myself with the ham radio. I've been left instructions on how to use it, as well as what frequencies to dial it into if I ever needed to get in touch with anyone. But I figured that instead of trying to learn on the fly while panicking after spotting a forest fire,

I should probably mess around with it a little, if only to test if it was properly functioning. I'd been told that I needed to do weekly radio tests anyways, but all that involved was squeezing the little receiver, saying radio check, radio check, over, and then waiting for the response. But then, I wanted to see if the rumors were true, and then on a good day, I'd be able to use that little old ham radio to talk to folks as far away as Hawaii. And so, like I said, one day I just sat down at the little desk it was mounted on and decided to start playing around with it. You gotta remember, this is way before cell phones were as common as they are today. Back in the early 80s, things like ham radios were a much more popular form of long-range communication,

especially among a small band of dedicated hobbyists. That being the case, I figured that there was a pretty good chance of me finding a voice among the static. I didn't even really plan on talking at first, I was simply content to find an active frequency and listen in on whatever was being said. But then, since I didn't hear anything, I decided to start talking. I remember cycling through the frequencies, listening first and then repeating something along the lines of, this is Waldo Mountain Fire Lookout calling, you read me, over. I'd talk, wait about 10-15 seconds for a response, then when I didn't get one, I'd move on to the next. I did this maybe 20 or 30 times, just out of pure boredom really,

then when I did it on one particular frequency around the 14 megahertz mark, I suddenly heard a man's voice coming back at me through the buzz of white noise. Wado Mountain, this is Pelican Butte Fire Lookout. I heard the voice say, receiving you loud and clear, how copy, over. I didn't really know how to talk over a radio. I was just told to say over when I was done saying something, then over and out when I was finished talking altogether. So in reply, I just tried to wing it as best I could. Copy loud and clear, Pelican, Butte. Good to hear you.

Then I was asked exactly where they were located. The guy said that he was down near Klamath, almost 8 miles south and not too far from Mount McLaughlin and the California state line I guess that's not all that far for a ham radio on a good day But I was still impressed at how clear it sounded despite the guy being almost 100 miles away I was also rather pleased to have someone to talk to. I know I talked about how content with my own company I was, but after going two weeks with only one solitary face-to-face encounter with another human being, I was surprised at how much I appreciated hearing another person's voice.

The guy said his name was Harold, and that he was a forest ranger with a team down in Klamath and that it was his fifth season in a row acting as live-in fire lookout. He sounded very experienced and gave me lots of advice, with the most appreciated being his tips on how to keep the cabin fever at bay. For those unfamiliar with the term cabin fever, it's when people start to feel restless or irritable because they've been indoors or in the same place for too long. Some folks say it can drive you crazy, and although there's no real danger of that up in a fire lookout, that sense of being trapped with your own thoughts can

wear on even the strongest of people. I very jokingly asked Harold if he ever knew any lookouts who went crazy, either from the isolation or just being stuck in one place for all that time. He reassured me by saying no, he'd never known anyone to lose their mind or anything. He'd known plenty to quit, especially the civilian volunteers that were drafted whenever staffing levels weren't ideal, but he'd never known anyone to go crazy. But then, Harold did mention how he thought that I was very brave for taking the Waldo Mountain lookout this season, especially in light of what happened to the last volunteer. Obviously, those are just about the most ominous words a person in my position could ever wish to hear, so right away I asked Harold what he was talking about. He gave me this almost theatrical kind of, oh, you didn't know? And then started saying how he didn't think that he should be the one to tell me. But luckily it only took a little polite

cajoling to get him to tell me. As a matter of fact, I never actually asked what happened to the previous year's lookout, I just took it for granted that a ranger or volunteer completed the season without any sort of event. It didn't even occur to me to ask about previous lookouts or their experiences. I just blindly accepted the position, thinking it'd be a paid camping vacation. It was obviously the slight danger of animal attacks if you strayed too far from the lookout, and I'd heard rumors of a tower up in Washington getting struck by lightning, but aside from that, what else was there to go wrong up here? Well, Harold was nice enough to fill me in.

The last Waldo Mountain Fire lookout who had volunteered the previous year had vanished during the final few weeks of their assignment. One day a ranger went up to the lookout with some pallets of canned food and water, only to find the place completely deserted. They looked around a little, thinking the volunteer lookout was off taking a wash or something of that nature, and then decided to wait for them. An hour or so passes, so instead of waiting any further, the ranger heads back to HQ and figures they'll check in via radio to make sure the volunteer is doing okay. 24 hours pass and no one's heard a single thing from the volunteer lookout,

so another ranger heads up Waldo Mountain to check on them, only to find the place is still deserted. The ranger team figured the volunteer had simply had enough and called it quits, but if that was the case, why was all their stuff still up in the lookout? All their clothes and their food was still there. Hell, even their boots were just lying inside the door, meaning that wherever they went, they did so in bare feet or maybe sandals. Harold said he and the team down in Klamath followed the volunteers' disappearance as best they could. Losing a lookout like that felt personal, and Harold said the Klamath team even sent a few rangers up to Willamette

so they could help out with the search and rescue effort. But the volunteer was never found, and as far as Harold knew, they were still officially a missing person. I asked him what he thought had happened to the missing volunteer and he said it was difficult to say. It wasn't out of the question that they'd taken a nasty fall someplace, maybe even down a ravine or into a hidden cave system, which might explain why they were never found. But then again, Harold said that you also couldn't rule out some kind of foul play. Maybe it was a personal thing.

The volunteer had an enemy, someone they'd made very angry who was devious enough to realize that hitting them someplace secluded like that might make for the perfect murder. Or maybe, just maybe, this poor soul got themselves selected almost at random by a killer who saw an opportunity and just took it. I remember listening to all of that and feeling the hairs on my arms and neck standing on end. Harold said he didn't mean to scare me, and offered up some final theory involving the volunteer just voluntarily leaving, having gotten sick and tired of the lookout lifestyle that they couldn't even bring themselves to carry their stuff home. You did indeed get the occasional rich kid heading

up there to find themselves or something for those three months, only to realize that they were wasting their entire summer vacation by week two or three. So if he had to put his money where his mouth was, Harold said that he'd have gone with that. Granted, that final theory was probably the most likely outcome, but I'm also not scared to admit that the stuff that he'd said first had me pretty shaken up. I kept a.38 with me just in case I ran into an overly friendly mountain lion, and that'd obviously work at keeping a person at bay too. But the idea of someone creeping up on the lookout, in the middle of the night, while I was fast asleep, that was most definitely enough to give me the heebie-jeebies. I thanked Harold for passing on the info, then, the next available opportunity, I asked one of the Willamette Rangers about the missing volunteer from the previous year. They said they had no idea what I was talking about, and that the ranger who had served as lookout the previous summer was one of the same ones who couldn't do it this year.

I'd actually worked with this ranger on several different occasions, so I had it on personal experience that they hadn't gone missing, or that if they did, they'd sure turn up again. I mentioned this to Harold the next time I got, and he basically gave it the old, oh, that's what they told you, is it? And I suppose they had folks just jumping at the chance to serve as lookouts this year, huh? Hearing him say that prompted a moment of terrified revelation, so much so that I literally felt the color draining from my face as I listened. It was possible that Harold knew that the Willamette Ranger had trouble finding lookouts for that season, so much so that I'd been asked to complete an extended stay. But even if he didn't know, and it was just pure guesswork on his part, he was right.

Once again, I got in touch with the Willamette HQ using my ham radio and asked them if the whole missing volunteer thing was true. My district ranger denied the whole thing and told me that I must have been getting some bad info from some place. He said that he'd never heard of any herald down there and that he'd be in touch with Klamath's district ranger all the same. He claimed that it wasn't very professional of one of their rangers to be spreading rumors like that and that I was to disregard anything I'd been told. Now I know I should have just listened to my superiors there at Willamette but you also need to appreciate the unusual position that I was in. Back then, there just wasn't any Google or smartphones to go fact-checking things at the drop of a hat. All I had with me there was my radio, and I couldn't simply abandon my post to go off investigating all the stuff I'd been told.

The only thing I really had to go on was this. Unlike other years, when the Rangers were inundated with hundreds of volunteer lookout applications, it's been almost impossible to properly staff the lookout for the 85 season. That's the thing that played on my mind, until in the end, I had no idea who to believe. As crazy as this might sound, I chose not to confront Harold regarding what he'd told me about the missing volunteer. In my head, I rationalized that by telling myself how Harold might have been mistaken somehow. Maybe he was confusing Waldo Mountain with another Oregon lookout, or maybe even one up in Washington. He might have also gotten mixed up regarding what year this person went missing and either way,

I didn't want to alienate the only other person I could talk to for prolonged periods that is, who knew what it was like living at a fire lookout. I guess that really does sound kind of pathetic now that I think about it. So I'm just talking you through what I was thinking at the time and why I didn't just outright accuse Harold of being a liar and go back to talking to no one but myself. Anyway, about a week later, Harold and I are talking this one evening when he asks if Wado Mountain is anywhere near Deschutes County. I had to check my map table, but lo and behold, Willamette National Forest was right on the border of Deschutes County.

Harold goes on to tell me that he had an old high school buddy who lived out near a place called Lapine, which when I checked was only around 25 miles from Waldo Mountain. This high school buddy just so happened to be a ham radio operator in his spare time and he and Harold would talk every so often, including that very same day. Harold's high school buddy had checked in to say hi, but also to tell him a troubling story about a break-in that had occurred in his neighborhood just that previous night. Someone had broken into a family home completely silently then crept up the stairs, but then instead of robbing or hurting anyone, the intruder crept

into the husband and wife's bedroom and just watched them sleep. The wife said she woke up, saw some shadowy figure looming over her and screamed. Her scream then woke up her husband, which prompted the intruder to hightail it out of there. No one was hurt, but the whole neighborhood was spooked, and after the news hit the airwaves, the whole of Lapine and Deschutes County seemed to be on edge. I didn't need to ask why Harold told me all of that and as I listened, I felt this icy chill run through me. I know I was 20 something miles away from where the break-in had happened but I couldn't help but picture the intruder creeping up to my lookout before watching me sleep. I had my.38 with me, which made me feel a lot safer.

But all the way out there, miles away from just about anything, no one would come running at the sound of my screams, because there would be no one there to hear them. I think he could tell how spooked I was because good old Harold seemed quick to reassure me. He didn't think that I was in any real danger but in light of the incident's proximity to Waldo Mountain as well as what had supposedly happened there a year before, he figured it was worth giving me the heads up just in case. I didn't sleep much that night. I kept the radio dialed into Harold's frequency and he did the same with me. He checked in once or twice

just to make sure that I was alright and each time I only had good news to share. But on more than one occasion I heard something from outside the lookout that had me clutching that.38, shining my flashlight through the dirty glass windows and praying that I wouldn't see anyone approaching through the darkness. Thankfully, I never did see anybody that night. I heard a bunch of things that scared me just about out of my wits, but never anything that I felt might threaten my life. That same fear wasn't quite as strong as the next, and Harold reassured me that there hadn't been any more of those creepy break-ins over in Lapine. But still, it weighed on my mind for quite a few

nights after, and I don't think I got more than three or four hours of solid sleep during each one. And then came the day when I finally got to talk to my district ranger over the ham radio, and got the opportunity to ask him some follow-up questions regarding that missing volunteer from the year before. My district ranger, who had been in touch with the folks down in Klamath, said that there had been no record of anyone named Harold staffing any of their lookouts. This wasn't something that I could let go of though, so I confronted Harold on it, and this is what he told me. He swore on his grandchildren's lives that he really was in an old fire lookout tower down in Klamath County,

and it just wasn't in service anymore, and neither was he. Harold told me that he'd spent 30 years in the Forest Service, and for his final five, had indeed spent every summer up in a fire lookout. Now, he was retired, but since his wife had passed, he found that he missed being out in nature during those long Oregon summers. With his old lookout being permanently freed up, he decided to head out there, fixed it up a little, and then spent the summer steeped in nostalgia. Harold figured that he'd come off as some lonely old kook if he told me the truth, so

instead, he told me a little white lie without ever imagining that he'd be eventually found out. He swore that everything else he told me was the truth, especially all the stuff about the volunteer going missing, and truthfully, I believed him. It made perfect sense to me, as much as I needed it to anyway, I just didn't want to lose that voice in the static, the one that I was counting on more and more to keep me sane. The first few weeks had been a breeze and although the addition of Harold had been welcome, it had not been entirely necessary. But then towards my final week, on week six, I realized that I had just about reached the

limits of my endurance for isolation and I had actually started to consider Harold a good friend. And with that in mind, you can imagine the fear that I felt one night when Harold got in touch over the radio with a distinct sound of terror in his voice. As I said, we had been keeping our radios tuned in to one another's frequencies at night, just in case anything bad had happened. It had been a quiet evening, but then at around midnight, my radio suddenly burst to life with the sound of Harold's voice. Jake, it's Harold, he said in a slow, shaky voice before asking, are you there? I'll copy, over? Hearing the urgency in his voice, I rushed over to the radio and began asking him what was up. He then told me in this frantic, fractured style of speech that he'd heard someone moving around in the darkness outside his lookout tower. Then, after grabbing his flashlight and heading out onto the walkway outside his cabin,

he realized that there were several dark figures in the woods which surrounded him on three sides. Right away, I told Harold to get the hell off the frequency so he could call for help, but Harold then tells me that he'd already tried to contact his HQ down in Klamath, but that no one seemed to be manning the radio. He needed me to contact my ranger HQ so that they could call the cops down in Klamath. I told him I'd do that right away, but before I could twist the frequency dial, I heard him shouting, wait. Harold then started to explain in the same terrified voice that the cops needed to know which Pelican Butte to drive out to. Apparently, there was already a Pelican Butte campground down in Klamath County,

and the cops needed to head to the old lookout tower Harold was manning which was off Falls Highway near the four mile flat quarry. If I didn't pass along this crucial piece of information, Harold would be screwed. I remember frantically scribbling all that information down and asking Harold to repeat the name of the forest road he mentioned at one point. And then after waiting for his response, this is what I heard. Harold's voice suddenly broke through the static and said, Oh God, they're coming up the stairs.

I told him to lock and load the rifle he'd mentioned having with him and to shoot anyone who came through the door to his cabin. I then heard Harold screaming, Oh my God, oh my God, what the hell are you people? The next thing I heard was a loud bang, then another, and another. Harold let out a scream, then once his own had sort of petered out, something else unleashed an ear-splitting, inhuman roar before the transmission suddenly went quiet. I faced some pretty terrifying moments in my life, but that right there might just take the cake.

I thought I'd just heard Harold, a man who I'd grown remarkably close to over the previous five weeks, being shot to death in a lookout tower almost a hundred miles from where I was sat. I flew into a full-blown panic, trying desperately to dial into the frequency of the Willamette HQ. Once I had one of the rangers on the other end, I began to frantically relay everything I'd heard, including all the stuff about going to the correct location. Then once they'd promised to contact the Klamath County Sheriff, I switched back to Harold's frequency and began calling out to him across those airwaves. Harold? I said. Harold, are you there, buddy? And the airwaves stayed silent, nothing but the cold buzz of static.

I begged him, begged him to say something, say anything. I told him the cops were on their way, that he just needed to hang on and everything would be okay. But deep down, I knew things most probably were not. Harold had mentioned spotting several people circling his tower in the woods below him, which meant the odds were not in his favor. So, when he set the radio's handset down, it hit me that the man I'd gotten to know so well over the previous five weeks had just been brutally murdered before my very ears. But then, just as my head sank down in my hands, the radio buzzed into life and someone began to speak. Hello? Someone asked. The voice sounded like it belonged to a younger man.

Is anyone there? I rushed over to the radio, announced my presence, then asked where Harold was and if he was okay. In reply, and in a way that I could almost hear him grinning, he tells me Ah, sorry to be the one to tell you this, but uh Harold is dead I heard laughter before the transmission cut out and In reply, I started yelling about how they wouldn't get away with what they just did I told them the deputies were already on their way, that they were all going to rot in jail.

Then when I figured whoever was on the end probably wasn't listening anymore, I ceased my rant and let go of the push to talk, only to hear laughter coming from the other end. It was maniacal, gloating, satisfied. But just as I was leaning forward to change the frequency and rid myself of the taunting howls of a murderous stranger, they spoke once more. You are so stupid. I heard them laughing. I can't believe you sent the cops out there.

The voice had changed almost completely, but in my confusion, I hadn't quite realized what was going on yet. I reached over, picked up the headset, and once again asked where Harold was. There is no Harold, you moron, I heard a reply. It was me. Me this whole time. And you ate it up. What kind of sad, lonely piece of human trash are you? You ate up every word. I was speechless. Stunned into a dumb silence and all I could do was listen.

God damn, the young man said. I knew I was good, but I didn't think I was that good. He let out another long, wheezing laugh, then once he'd pulled himself together a little, he asked if I was still there. I didn't know what else to say. I picked up the handset, and the first thing that came to mind was the first thing out of my mouth.

I said, You should be ashamed of yourself. And you should kill yourself! Came the reply instantly, with the man screaming those last two words so loud they were almost lost in distortion. As I leaned over to the radio set to change the frequency, more of that same warped maniacal laughter poured out from the small tin speakers, only to be suddenly silenced with a twist of the dial.

To say I felt foolish would be the understatement of the century. That guy dangled a little bait in the water and not only did I bite, but I swallowed hook, line, and sinker too. There was no Harold. There was no missing volunteer lookout from the year before. But then again, I bet some of you figured that one out long way back. I also bet that that guy knew so much about being a fire lookout because he'd talk to one a whole bunch, most likely using the same ham radio he used to talk to me. Then, I don't know, maybe

what was intended as a one-time prank just snowballed. It wouldn't be too hard to fake all those sounds either. The gunshots and the screams, I mean. But what must have been difficult for anyone in their right mind was having the patience to drag me through a five week long con before delivering that horrifying final performance. That's what, for me at least, makes this all seem a lot more than just a playful prank. He didn't just string me along for a day or two, call me a sucker and then disappear from the airwaves to waste some other radio operator's time. He kept things going for more than a month. He put hours into talking to me, into building his character and earning my trust. He put on the gravelly smoker's voice of a man in his 60s and he did so for hours upon hours upon hours. Then in the end,

the kid, I guess, who ended up screaming at me through the airwaves sounded like his balls had only just dropped. He made me believe in a person who didn't exist and as much as that speaks to the sheer magnitude of my own idiocy, I think it says a lot about his being a psycho, too. I spent the rest of my final week in a kind of semi-depressed daze. I felt like the single stupidest person on the face of the earth, a weak-minded pathetic excuse for a man who got so lonely that he fell for the dumb prank of a bored psychopathic teenager. And that's the thing, too. I didn't just fall for it one time. I fell for it again and again and again. Every time I picked up that handset and started talking to Harold, I let that black-hearted little brat take me for a ride all over again.

I'd been humiliated, stripped of any and all pride, and when the time came to leave the lookout, I was only too happy to put the whole thing behind me. I grew up in a small town in the hills of southwestern Kentucky, not too far from an old abandoned coal mine. There were rumors that it was haunted and one time me and my middle school buddies walked up there and just kind of stared at the entrance for a while. Daring each other to step inside but never getting any closer. I told my mom about it and she told me to stay away from the place. I thought that that was proof that the place was haunted but she said those rumors were nonsense and that the place was just dangerous, especially for curious little boys like us. Our town didn't just have a haunted mine either. We had our very own haunted house too. It was actually about a mile out of town and I only ever saw the place when I was driving out that way with my dad. But every time we passed, I stared and wondered if there really were ghosts walking around that

big old place. It must have been a pretty nice place at one time. Three floors, balconies on the second, with a big old gravel driveway lined with trees. It looked like a mansion to me when I was a kid, but it was also boarded up, falling down, and absolutely derelict. At first, all I heard was that something terrible had happened there. Some people got murdered, and that their ghosts were hanging around the place because they couldn't move on. But my dad said that was bullcrap too. He also told me that I was too young to be asking those kinds of questions and that he'd tell me all about it when I was older. Well, many years later, when we were both much older, I asked him what happened out at that old big house outside of town and this is what he told

me. At one time, the house had been owned by the Fairfax family, one of the richest in all of Kentucky. They got rich from owning shares in coal mines and as the family's wealth grew, so did their holdings. They mined the hills around Whitesburg, Cumberland, and McRoberts for almost a hundred years, and by the time the Fairfax Mining Corporation was owned and operated by a Maxwell Fairfax around the turn of the century, the family owned half the coal mines in Perry and Letcher counties. It was Maxwell who had the house constructed, and he considered it his own small contribution to the family's legacy, the seat of power from which they'd rule over the Kentucky mining industry for another hundred years.

Maxwell was supposedly a shrewdly intelligent businessman, one who rarely made mistakes. But in choosing his heir, he made a mistake that was fatal not just to the Maxwell Mining Corporation, but his entire bloodline. Maxwell's protege and the heir to the family fortune was his eldest son, William Fairfax. Maxwell taught his son everything he knew about the family business and when he finally passed away in the early 1930s, William stepped up to take his place. William then started off on an aggressive expansion project, buying land here and staking claims there. It paid off for him too. Their investors were happy, their customers were happy, and I hear he offered very fair wages too. Needless to say, he was a popular man, one who'd earned the right to call himself a Fairfax. But the same eagerness by which he cemented his reputation would eventually become his undoing.

William Fairfax opened six new mines in his many years, but to do so, he had to skirt all kinds of state and federal regulations. This was no issue for a man of such vast wealth and power, and even less difficult was the act of procuring land from those less fortunate than he. One of these poor landowners, a Choctaw man whose name had been lost to history, sold his land to Fairfax at a discount, and this is a very important detail of the story, but one we'll revisit later on. Anyway, Fairfax does the same thing across southeastern Kentucky, opening up brand new coal mines as he went. For a while, everything was running smoothly and profits were steadily increasing.

But then one day, William Fairfax calls a meeting with the mining company's top guys and makes a shocking announcement. Following the end of that work week, all mining operations were to shut down with immediate effect. Needless to say, the board of the mining company was horrified. To their knowledge, the company was doing just fine. They were unaware of any financial difficulties, none of the mines were anywhere near depleted, and there had been no attempt to take over the company, hostile or otherwise. But Fairfax went one step further. Once all mining operations had been halted, the company was to completely dissolve, with all employees and board members to be laid off immediately.

The second move caused a veritable poop storm. The miners the company employed were devastated, but generous redundancy payments quickly eased their suffering. The same went for the board members, who each got the equivalent of a couple of million dollars in today's value. A check that size surely saw them through the winter, and other mining companies were crying out for workers, so very few of Fairfax's former employees went destitute. But all anyone wanted to know was, why? Why shut down one of the most successful mining operations in the entire region?

Well, the answer is disputed, and I'll tell you the one that I believe before the one I don't want to believe. The first explanation is that Fairfax knew something his board members didn't, and that's how the company's entire investment structure was about to fall out from under them. For one reason or another, Fairfax and his top investor had endured a bitter falling out, so bitter that his investor had promised that Fairfax would never work with a single American financier for as long as he lived. The guy was apparently so well connected that he had the ear of all the money men in Lexington, and so in the time it took to say a few rude

words, William Fairfax had doomed his family's beloved mining company, his very legacy, to a slow death. But then, instead of stripping the assets or potentially risk leaving his employees destitute, William Fairfax rather nobly neglected the opportunity to protect his fortune in favor of ensuring his workers and board members did not go hungry. Now obviously, this was a really nice thing to do, but I'm sure you'll all agree that it seems pretty out of character for a super rich coal baron like Will Fairfax, and from what I can gather, it was pretty out of character for him. Fairfax emulated his father in that he was a shrewd businessman. He paid his employees fairly,

but he worked them hard. So when he starts just giving his money away all of a sudden, in what amounted to generous severance packages, people thought he was crazy. And the sad thing is, that seems like it was true. So as I mentioned, Fairfax declared that the company would continue through the working week before ceasing operation, presumably to fulfill contracts so he could better compensate his employees. But during those days, Fairfax appears to have acted out of character. He was giving away his fortune, shrugging off the board members' accusations that he was throwing away his family's legacy. But that's all the subjective crazy stuff

you could just as easily put down to having a good heart. But as time went on, and the week drew to a close, Fairfax supposedly went from acting out of the ordinary to acting in a way that was downright frightening. He stopped eating. He looked like he hadn't slept. And people had said that he'd be talking away one minute, then the next. His words would get all garbled, like he was jabbering nonsense. And there was other stuff too, like how he'd be reading or looking at something and then just suddenly jerk his head to one side, as if searching for the source of a sound that no one else could hear. I don't know if anyone sought to make any kind of intervention, and by that I mean get Fairfax to a psychiatrist,

or even to just a general hospital of some kind. But if there was one in the works, it came far too late. Sometime later, I'm not sure exactly how long but I figured it was maybe a week tops Folks around town realized they hadn't seen any of the Fairfax family at all Williams hadn't been seen since the mine closures But neither had any of his family and his wife and daughter were often seen visiting stores around town While his son was fond of riding over to the town saloon to drink and play cards. They were regular visitors and popular too, so when all three of them suddenly stopped showing their faces around town, people started to talk, and that talk eventually led to the town sheriff

heading over to the Fairfax place to check on the family. What he actually found there took years to make it to the ears of the wider public, but what the sheriff could bring himself to say was that upon entering the Fairfax family had passed, and although many assumed it was some kind of tragic accident, others grumbled that William hadn't been well as of late and were obviously concerned for his recent state of mind. Rumors were rife, but the fact remained that no one but the sheriff and his boys had seen the inside of the Fairfax house. They managed to keep a lid on things for a day or two, but then the law stated that the Fairfax house. They managed to keep a lid on things for a day or two, but then the law stated that the Fairfax's bodies had to go over to the coroner, and when that happened, the sheriff and his boys couldn't keep things quiet anymore. The Fairfax's hadn't been lost

in some tragic but unavoidable accident. William Fairfax had murdered his own family. I think the most common explanation tagged onto this version is that Fairfax knew that his family were doomed to be impoverished. They weren't accustomed to such a lifestyle either, so rather than watch them suffer and grow to resent him, William Fairfax decided to put them out of their misery before it even visited them. It makes for a pretty horrible story, right? Man loses fortune because of his own hubris, then after quite possibly losing his mind, he decides to kill his family instead of allowing them to live in poverty and misery. Seems like it's all there, doesn't it? And personally, that's the version I like the best. But there's

another version, one that a frightening amount of people believe, and to be honest, when you get your hands on that coroner's report, it's not as easy to dismiss as you might think. For the first part of this second and much more terrifying explanation, we gotta circle back and touch on the land Fairfax bought from that Choctaw man at heavy discount. Fairfax could have and probably would have paid ten times what he ended up paying for that land, seeing as there was this huge coal seam running the backside of the hill this guy's land was on. Yet, he only ended up paying a fraction of the estimate. The question is, how did he manage to obtain such a reduction in price? Well, you ask certain people, who I politely refer to as the Fairfax's official historians, the discount was agreed upon due to the Choctaw man's desperation.

He needed fast money, and was in no room to to negotiate and was willing to accept a much smaller sum of money so long as it was paid in cash. But ask other people and they give you a very different explanation. Fairfax got his hands on that land so cheap because the Choctaw made a very special request of him. If he promised to fulfill it, he could have the land and the promise was this. Up in the hills, on this old Indian guy's land, was an old Choctaw charnel house. They sometimes called them bone houses or bone caves, but whatever the name, they were held as deeply sacred places by the natives. Following the death of a Choctaw, their friends and or family would place their bodies up in a tree, or if there were none available, they'd construct a kind

of primitive scaffolding and then place the body of the deceased at the top. The idea was that carrion birds, or flesh strippers as the natives called them, would remove all the tissue, spiriting away the soul of the dead so that their bones could be safely stored in one of those bone caves I just told you about. And so the land Fairfax bought was host to one of those bone caves, and the discount he received was conditional. The Choctaw man refused to sell unless Fairfax made a promise to him that the bone cave would remain untouched. Supposedly, Fairfax gave the man his him that the Bone Cave would remain untouched. Supposedly, Fairfax gave the man his word that the bones of his ancestors would be respected,

but then sooner had the Choctaw taken his money and rode off into the sunset, Fairfax ordered the Bone House demolished. Apparently, the quickest and most direct route to the coal seam was directly through the bone cave, and although Fairfax was more ethical than most, profit trumped decency every single time. And so, Fairfax went back to his promise almost right away, and on his order, workers packed the cave out with dynamite and then blew it sky high. Now, as compelling a story as that all is, there's not an ounce of evidence to support it outside of local hearsay. But what there is evidence for, and this is evidence I've seen with my own two eyes, is that the Fairfax family annihilation wasn't quite what

the official historians have made it out to be. You see, when the sheriff and his boys showed up at their place, they were greeted by a vision of hell. But it wasn't no average murder scene, if they even exist at all. As following the slaughter of his family using a combination of knife stabs and hammer blows, William Fairfax dragged their bodies outside, each wrapped in expensive cotton bedsheets, and began placing their bodies in the trees that lined the driveway to their home. The coroner report states that Fairfax had attempted to strip away some of the flesh from his family's bodies, but for some reason had stopped himself during the act and had instead opted for the trees. Now, I'm not saying that Fairfax fell foul

of some ancient Choctaw curse. What I'm saying is, I think he believed that. Maybe it's because he really was losing his mind. But whatever the reason, after killing his wife and two children, Fairfax started to mimic the Choctaw's burial rites. To this day, no one knows why Fairfax started to mimic the Choctaw's burial rites. To this day no one knows why Fairfax did what he did. They got their guesses but even folks like me who lean away from the supernatural have a hard time piecing together the details in a way that doesn't give you the creeps. Just a little context. I'm female, in my 30s, but I was in my late 20s when this story happened. I figured I'd better add that here so you know more about who's writing in. So way back in 2014, a full 10 years ago, I first saw a photo that looked a lot like this one.

For those of you that can see it, the picture displays a smiling young woman sat on a bed, but then behind her is one of the most spectacular views of rolling pine-dotted mountains that you'll ever likely see. I remember wondering if what I was seeing was the woman's home, and if it was, what I'd have to do in order to live in that kind of carnivorous mountain paradise. I did some research and then discovered that the woman was indeed living up there in the mountains, but not on a permanent basis. The place that she was staying was a fire lookout tower, and not only did she get to stay up there for months at a time,

but she was actually being paid for the privilege. And from that moment on, I was obsessed. I thought living the life of a fire lookout for a summer would be the adventure of a lifetime. I also thought that it would be a relatively easy thing to get into. But on both counts, I was very wrong. I thought I'd be able to just sign up as a fire lookout and then be in the field in a matter of months. But for each vacancy that gets posted, which is around 40 to 50 a year, the Forest Service gets literally tens of thousands of applicants. You also have to make your application months in advance in order to make the deadline,

purely because the sheer volume of applications the Forest Service has to work through. That first year I applied, back in 2014, I was way underqualified and was rejected within days. I then went away, did some volunteer work since that's all I could get fresh out of high school, and built up my resume until it was somewhat respectable. Then, come 2015, I applied again, but after a few weeks of hoping and praying, I got the news that I'd been rejected, again. It sucked twice as hard as the first rejection because I'd actually put a ton of work into making myself worthy of hiring, but apparently, after a year of on and off again work in community gardens and even a brief stint at the National Arboretum, I was apparently still one of the least qualified candidates. It took two more years of applying, but when I applied for the 2018 season, just before the 2017 holidays, I was so jaded that I even made alternative plans for my summer, all so that the fire lookout rejection would be like water off a duck's back in my mind.

But then, and I find this really ironic, the only time I actually planned not to be accepted was the year that I finally was. And the reason I'm writing all of this is because I want to give you an idea of just how long I'd been waiting to be accepted as a fire lookout. It was like a dream come true and I hadn't just waited for it, I'd worked hard for it too. I was also like a completely different person to the one that had first applied back in 2014. I was older, wiser, more experienced and much more capable of looking after myself. But I still wanted the same thing. I firmly believed with all of my heart that three summer months living out in the wilderness would

be emotionally and spiritually fulfilling in ways I could barely even calculate, and it would have been if not for one person. When the email informing me of my assigned lookout arrived, my parents and I joked that it was very aptly named. I'd waited four years for my prized placement, so when I found out that I was being sent to Gold Mountain over in Washington State, we all thought that that was just precious. The lookout on Gold Mountain also happened to be the tallest live-in tower in the whole state, so you can imagine why I felt both extremely excited and supremely blessed. The fire lookout postings on Gold Mountain ran for what's called a season, which is roughly three months. You arrive in late June, stay all the way through August and September, then depart in early October once regular rains return. I caught a red-eye from Portland to Spokane, landed in the early morning, and then drove 170 miles out to Gold Mountain with

my 14-week truck rental. I thought it'd be a hell of a task to find the place, but not only was it surprisingly easy to locate, it had its very own access road and gold mountain lookout drive. I arrived mid-morning, met with one of the Colville Forest Rangers, and then after going over a few final details, he handed me the keys. Before he left, and with this big warm smile on his face, he asked me if I was having any second thoughts. He said he always gave volunteer lookouts one last chance to back out before they committed themselves to a season. He was smiling because, like, I think that he could see how excited and eager I was, and he knew that there was no way in hell that I was about to back out now that I was finally living my dream. He laughed when I told him as much, and after handing over the keys, he got into his truck and drove off. And I was elated, so much so that I actually danced a little jig as I went to retrieve my stuff.

The only two downsides would be, one, having to use a nearby creek to wash myself, and two, having to walk all the way down to the bottom of the tower to use the chemical toilet. I also wouldn't be completely isolated, which was kind of a pro and a con at the same time. A ranger would stop by every few weeks to replace the chemical bin on the porta potty that I had, as well as to generally check in on me and make sure that I hadn't gone AWOL. But this would also give me a brief window to head over to the Inchelium Community Store to pick up additional groceries and supplies. Aside from that, I was very isolated from the rest of the world, with the nearest patch of civilization being almost 15 miles away to the southwest.

That's actually exactly what I'd been hoping for. But as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. So as I mentioned earlier, I had to walk down to a nearby creek if I wanted to get washed properly and all that, and at first I was quite apprehensive about the prospect of getting half naked in the middle of the woods, and the first few times I walked down in a bathing suit under my towel. But then, when I actually saw the deeper part of the creek, all my fears were quite literally washed away. Although the water only came up to my shins, the stones and sand on the bottom of the creek were smooth enough to walk on in my bare feet,

and the water moved fast enough to ensure that I wouldn't be washing in any dirty or stagnant water. I'd walk down, covered in a towel, flip-flops on my feet, carrying whatever underwear I wanted to wash while I was there. One hand would be securely holding the towel while the other would be holding my little bag of toiletries as well as the most important item of all, my bright orange can of bear mace. This is another point I feel like I should address while I'm on this topic. While I'm aware that many volunteer fire lookouts prefer to have a firearm with them while on lookout, I personally chose not to have one with me. I know that might sound crazy to some

people, what with there being bears and cougars roaming the woods out there, but I honestly thought that between the bear mace and the taser that I kept up in the tower, I'd be able to defend myself against just about anything. And I was right too, so I guess I was vindicated on that point, but it was very frightening to have put that to the test. Now anyway, I'm three weeks into a 13 week stay, but I'm already getting very comfortable living the life of a fire lookout. Then one day, I'm walking down the spiral track that leads down from the lookout tower, whistling a little tune and looking forward to getting clean again. But then as I walk into the woods and get about a hundred meters from the deeper waters and little waterfalls I used to wash, I suddenly see someone crouching on the opposite side of the creek.

I immediately slowed my walking speed, contemplating whether I should just head back to the tower before returning later. Then, once I got a better look at the guy, I decided he looked harmless. He was dressed like a typical hiker, but then despite having the body of a defensive lineman, the guy could have been the twin brother of the kid who played McLovin in that Superbad movie. He had that same short, dark haircut with the uneven fringe and the same dark brown eyes ringed by black rimmed glasses. The only distinguishable difference was this guy was yoked. I was aware that the odd hiker passed through the area, so

after getting a read on him, I decided on a course of action. I didn't want to walk all the way back to the tower without at least washing my face and hands, so I decided to keep the social awkwardness to a minimum, say hi as I approached the creek and just hoped the guy was relatively normal. If not, well, I had my bear mace. As I got to the edge of the creek, my presence obviously startled him a little because he went from crouch to standing and kind of awkwardly avoiding my gaze. I remember saying, hey there, nice day for a hike, before I set down my stuff and took a few steps into the water, he politely returned my greeting but as he did, I noticed that he was looking at me as if I'd grown an extra head or something. I understand why he was so confused, I mean,

one minute he's sitting there enjoying a quiet moment of respite next to the creek and then the next, some half-naked lady is strolling through the trees and saying hi like it's the most normal thing in the world. I could understand why it piqued his curiosity, so at first, I chose to indulge it as best I could. The guy started asking me what I was doing, and while trying not to sound too sarcastic as I washed my hands and face, I told him I was, well, washing my hands and face. I was being a little pedantic, I guess, and I also supposed that he had every right to ask me some follow-up questions,

so I entertained those too. I told him that I was acting as a fire lookout at a tower not too far from the creek, and that I was spending all summer there, and that the creek was my only means of getting washed. He looked impressed at first and then asked if I was staying there all on my own. Right away I knew it wasn't a great idea to tell any stranger that I'd be alone someplace for an extended amount of time, but like I said, the guy seemed mostly harmless, and I wasn't completely cut off from the outside world. I told him that yes, I was all alone, but I had the means to protect myself in a very reliable radio with a very clear signal that would instantly summon rangers if I was in trouble or if there was a fire.

And this obviously answered his question, but engaging his reaction, I saw that it was almost like he didn't believe me. He asked me if I had a gun. I said no. He asked me if my boyfriend was with me, which was kind of a presumptive question, but one I also answered with a no. He then asked me if I ever felt scared, being up in that watchtower at night all alone. And that question is the only one to which I returned a dishonest response when I told him no, I didn't get scared at night, when the truth was, it was almost impossible not to. The nights were just about the only times I wondered if I hadn't been a little too hasty in committing to an entire season. You hear some wild noises out

there at night and outside your window there's nothing but a sea of darkness below the gigantic ceiling of stars. And that's on a good night. On a bad night, when the winds are up, it howls around the tower like a banshee and then makes the whole thing creak so loud you can't tell if it's the wind or someone slowly creeping up the stairs towards you through the darkness. I don't scare all that easy, even for me, nighttimes up in the lookout tower were a test of nerves. But something about the guy's question told me admitting any kind of fear was not in my best interest. I recall how he just kind of stood there for a moment, with this incredulous look on his face

probably believing me by that point but just thinking I was crazy I'd just about finished washing up by then so I waded out of the creek, picked up my stuff and then started back towards the lookout tower but no sooner had I turned my back the four-eyed hiker yelled after for me he yelled something like, It's not safe for you to be all alone out here.

And I felt like yelling back, not with you out here it isn't, but I thought it was probably best not to antagonize him. Instead, I simply reminded Big McLovin that I had my mace, a taser, and that a few words into my radio and heavily armed rangers would come to my aid. I guess the heavily armed part wasn't strictly true, but the rangers were packing a hell of a lot more firepower than I had. Besides, I just wanted to protect this impression of absolute safety in order to prevent McLovin from continually offering me his company. But in that effort, I failed completely miserably. After I made the comment about heavily armed rangers, I turned and started to walk off again, but that's when McLovin yelled after me and asked if I wanted some company. I absolutely did not want any company, and even if the guy was as handsome as Bradley Cooper, I'm more of a Brandi Carlile kind of girl, wink wink nudge nudge, and if some of you are asking

yourselves, why not just tell him that you're a lesbian so he'll leave you alone, there's a depressing truth that you probably need to hear. As many of my fellow sapphics might tell you, there's a certain breed of heterosexual man that isn't just undeterred by such information, they're nauseatingly emboldened by it. Sometimes I'd rather encounter an outright homophobe than someone who wants to make their token lesbian friend, or even worse, the guy who thinks he'll be the one to fix me. And so, with that in mind, I didn't tell Protein Shake McLovin any of the sort. Instead, I answered his question with a question, and asked him his name.

My response threw him off a little bit, but after a momentary pause, he told me his name was Trent. I told Trent my own in return, which is Abby, and then tried to make it abundantly clear that I was perfectly safe and that I didn't need any company. And then after wishing him farewell, I walked back to the lookout. As far as I know, Trent watched me walk off until I was out of sight, by which point I was heavily regretting having told him where I was staying. The most tiresome thing was how Trent seemed to want to protect me out of some undated sense of chivalry. I'd almost rather that he was an out-and-out perv so I could just have an excuse to bear mace him. I walked off hoping that I wouldn't run into him again, but then also having this comforting feeling that I wouldn't. He didn't

seem like the type to come back and do anything that constituted harassment. I think maybe three weeks went by so long that I'd actually forgotten about my little encounter with Trent. And then one day, I walked down the hill to take a creek shower, and when I got to the water, there he was. Trent was sitting on a flattish rock just a few feet from the water's edge, and when he saw me coming, he started to smile. I was in the same getup as the first time I ran into him, so just a towel but with my bathing suit underneath, my flip-flops, and then my bag and bear mace in the same grip.

I kind of just wanted to wave the bear mace in his direction as if to say leave me alone, but again I thought it was better not to antagonize him. I greeted him again, but purely out of politeness. I didn't want to talk, he was ruining my washing time and since I knew that he was only there to try and engineer a second encounter with yours truly, I really didn't appreciate his presence. Trent returned my greeting and then attempted to make small talk with me in a way that seemed a little over-familiar. I did my best to remain polite, told him that I was doing fine and that no, I hadn't spotted any fires yet. We kept going back and forth like that as I washed myself as best I could and then eventually,

the subject of me requiring his company came up again. I started with Trent bringing up how dangerous it was for someone to be living out in the woods all alone and how he thought that I was very brave for volunteering myself for it. I reminded him that it wasn't all that dangerous if you kept yourself out of harm's way, but that just allowed him to segue into talking about how I'd be safer with someone there to watch my back. As I once again explained why I didn't need his protection, I could see Trent growing more and more frustrated, and the weirdest thing was, I don't think it was entirely down

to not getting his way. He seemed genuinely unable to comprehend where I was coming from. Then, when I got to the part about me feeling safer out there on Gold Mountain than I did in a major city, he just kind of snapped. He started off with some impassioned speech about how I was being naive and idealistic, and how out in the wilderness, those attributes could get you killed. For the second time, I told him that I appreciated his concern, but that it was entirely unwarranted. Then, when he couldn't seem to shut himself up, I did a little snapping of my own.

I told Trent that, in all honesty, the only person making me feel unsafe or uncomfortable was him. I'd been out there for weeks and he was the only person who had made any creepy unwanted advances on me. So if he truly wanted me to feel safer, he should just leave me the hell alone. It felt great to say that in the moment, but my attention had been to rain on his parade, not pour gasoline on a bonfire. He ceased the kind but patronizing approach and went straight to the insults. He asked me if I was stupid, or if this was just my first time camping and I didn't know any better.

Because anyone with experience knew that the woods have a thousand different ways to kill you, and that someone as ignorant as me wouldn't last another week without someone like him around to protect them. That right there, that's what made me so angry. It wasn't him assuming that I couldn't defend myself. It was him calling me stupid or naive or idealistic. It was the sheer manipulative arrogance of trying to scare me into accepting his company. I waded out of the creek in a rage, picked up my stuff, and then held up the big orange can of bear mace that I had with me. I told him his gross, manipulative ass could just F himself,

and that if I saw him down by the creek again, I'd report him to the ranger teams for harassment. I also made it clear that the rangers did indeed have the power to arrest him and that it wouldn't just be some smoky bear looking dude asking him politely to move on. That was also the best of all possible outcomes for him too because if he stepped within 10 feet of me, then I'd spray him with so much bear mace that he'd go blind. And at that, I turned around and started walking back up to the lookout tower, just as I'd done a few weeks before. Trent started yelling after me, and I'll never, ever forget how he said that it was,

and I quote, just like a woman to spit in the face of someone trying to help her. Even though what Trent yelled after me was truly disgusting, I'm not going to start throwing around arbitrary labels like incel or misogynist, but what I will say is that I definitely think that there was something kind of Asperger-y about Trent. And I say that because of the way that he got all mad when he couldn't seem to understand my thinking. I don't think Trent was acting the way that he was to deliberately frighten or even troll me. I don't think he was operating on that level of psychopathy.

Instead, I think his ability to understand my attitude morphed into frustration and then legitimate contempt for me. Of all the hikers I had to run into during my three-month stay on Gold Mountain, I found it almost comical that I had to run into that one. But that doesn't mean that I wasn't scared, you know. I mean, not only had I attempted to escape the creeps of the big city, only for them to basically follow me, but Trent had already proven that he was willing to hike all the way out there to do nothing but harass me. That time, after getting back to the tower, I figured it was just a matter of time before he showed up again, but what I didn't figure was just how

quickly that third encounter would come, or just how terrifying it would be. It was about a week after that second encounter and the prospect of Trent returning was still very much on my mind when I bedded down for the night with my bear mace and taser close at hand. I remember listening to the crickets chirping as I drifted off to sleep, a sound that I still have a lot of love for, but then the next thing I know, a very different kind of noise had me waking with a startle. You know when the sound of something wakes you up, but you don't actually hear what that thing is? I guess some people actually hear their phones ringtones in their dreams or hear people calling them to wake up,

but in this instance, I just remember jerking awake after hearing something, but not knowing exactly what I'd heard. I waited a second or two, wondering if it had been a coyote howling nearby that had woken me up, and if I was about to hear some follow-up screech when I heard what could arguably have been the worst sound possible in that moment. And that sound was that of a boot pressing onto one of the steel steps below me. Someone was climbing the tower's stairs. I remember kicking off my sleeping bag in my underwear. I then shoved my feet into my untied boots and kind of wiggled my ankles until my feet slid into them while grabbing the mace and taser from the small side table nearby. After that, I froze again,

in complete darkness, and listened for the sound of boot soles on steel steps. It took a moment, but suddenly I heard it again. The distinct sound of a boot sole hitting a steel step. Someone was trying to tread softly enough to muffle the sound, but they were doing a really bad job of it. I called out just a single, Hello? before I put down the taser in favor of my flashlight. I then shouted something like, I know someone's out there. I got a gun up here

and I'm about to call the rangers. The part about the gun was obviously a lie, but it just popped in my head in the heat of the moment, I guess. A moment of silence followed. I think in my gut, I kind of knew that it was him, but that didn't make it any easier to hear his voice. Trent's words broke the silence in a way that actually made me shudder, and it wasn't just realizing that it was him either. It was what he said. You're not safe out here, Abby. He said, in this flat, scolding tone. I screamed back at him that if he even tried to enter the tower, I'd push him off and just leave him there until the rangers showed up.

Trent didn't say anything in response, not at first anyway. I just heard him take a few more steps up the stairs, getting closer and closer toward me. I couldn't stand the silence, so I screamed some more, telling him that he had one more chance to leave me alone before he got himself maced. Then suddenly, there he was, this dark figure moving on the other side of the glass. I turned on my flashlight, lighting him up, blinding him. I twisted up his face in a way that made him look like some type of monster. I screamed a little more, told him to not even think about opening the door.

He ignored me. Then what he said next turned my blood, quite literally, to ice. Someone's gotta teach you, Abby. Just typing the word teach, even all these years later, makes me so angry I feel my cheeks burning. But back then, it scared the crap out of me. In the moment, teach didn't mean educate, not really. Teach meant assault. Teach meant violate. And worse, teach might mean torture and kill.

But Trent wasn't going to get to do any of those things to me because of all the things Trent was, he was clearly not a person of practical intelligence. Because in opening up the cabin door while failing to adequately shield his eyes, Trent gave me the perfect opening to absolutely drench his face with a noxious smelling bear mace, and I really let him have it. The moment I got a clear shot, I sent a prolonged spray of this highly caustic liquid directly into his face, and his reaction was instantaneous. He winced, he rubbed his eyes, but Trent did not retreat from the cabin. Instead, he responded by blindly lunging forward while grasping wildly for me. It was terrifying, but also shockingly easy to simply step aside and just dodge that attempt.

However, the cabin was also extremely small, meaning he was just a second or two away from changing direction and potentially pinning me into a corner. Thankfully, my taser was literally right there beside me, and so the next time Trent lunged wildly in the direction he thought I was, I stepped out of the way again, then began dry stunning him before he had a chance to find his feet again. It might sound a little sadistic of me, but hearing Trent's scream might be the single most satisfying sound I had ever heard. The fight completely left him, and he just simply laid there panting between the shocks. I would scream for him to get out, and when he failed to move I'd shock him again and listen as his screams reverberated around the cabin. I also think that he might have actually been drunk when he showed up that night.

I mean, mace me and tase me and I think I might slur my words too, but I have a very strong suspicion that alcohol had something to do with Trent's vile decision making that night. Either way, he did not fare well once he entered the cabin, and after dry stunning him a few more times with a taser, he began dragging himself towards the door and the staircase outside. The whole time I'm screaming at Trent to get the hell out, and there's like a residual bear mace in the cabin so I'm kind of reacting to it by that time too. I didn't give him any more of the bear mace in the cabin so I'm kind of reacting to it by that time too. I didn't give him any more of the bear mace until we were about halfway down the stairs, but on the way out I was dry stunning him and actually kind of hoping that he'd just collapse and fall down them all. But I guess the charge wasn't strong enough to make him seize up and

fall over because all he did was kind of tense up and scream every time I shoved it into his back or side. Then as I said, once he was about halfway down, I gave him another blast of bear mace and then ran back up to the cabin to call in assistance from the rangers. Rangers may take shifts to ensure continuous monitoring of radio so knowing the right frequencies it was easy to report what had just happened with Trent's visit. And by the time they showed up he was gone. But early the next morning he was picked up by the cops, questioned, and then simply released without charges. As far as the cops were concerned, the bottom line was that what happened that night was all just a bunch of he said she

said. They couldn't prove Trent had any ill intentions, and all they could prove was that I blasted him with bear mace, and the one thing that kept the cops on my side was how cagey Trent had acted when asked why he was out in the woods so late at night exploring the tower. Before he was released, Trent was warned to stay well away from Gold Mountain and to stay away from the Colville National Forest altogether if he could avoid it. But to be perfectly honest, that didn't do a single effing thing for my peace of mind. In fact, I spent the last few weeks of my stay expecting Trent to show up again to settle the score. And I never felt safe down by that creek again.

I kept looking over my shoulder almost everywhere I went. And, if even so much as a mouse farted outside the lookout tower, you can bet your ass that I was waking up with my heart racing before reaching for that bear mace. Trent, if that even was his real name, had managed to taint the adventure of a lifetime to the point that I couldn't actually enjoy it anymore, and when the time came to leave, I cried. And those tears weren't because I was going to miss the place, it was because I was actually happy to finally be leaving, and that feeling was so far removed from the reaction I thought it was going to have, that it actually broke my heart. You know why Stranger Things Season 1 was so popular?

Because it used to be our lives. Obviously without the upside down and paranormal stuff, but once upon a time, all we did was ride bikes and spend time with our friends, looking for adventures or pretending we were on one. This was particularly true for me during the summer. I'm sorry for sounding like a complete boomer, but I don't see kids these days doing that. I know that's in part because of technology, the internet, playstation, streaming, blah blah blah. I also suppose parents are a lot more careful than they used to be. My parents didn't care where I was as long as I wasn't bothering them at home.

I've talked to some neighbors lately and they seem worse than helicopter parents. It's like someone is going to snatch their babies away at any minute, like a hawk with a tiny dog. My wife and I are child free, so we'll never have that problem, and I like it because I couldn't stomach the idea that I'd have to restrict so much of my kids' freedom. My best memories came from those times when my friends around my old neighborhood got away and did secret stuff behind our parents' back. Some things were not something any adult would approve of. We stole adult magazines, but there's even more access

to that today. I guess, yeah, the world is scary, but most of the time we were being kids and expanding our imagination. I remember one particular summer was the most fun and the one that reminded me so much of stranger things later on. Now let me start by painting a picture of where we lived. It looked like the Edward Scissorhands town but not so colorful. There was also an abandoned house at the far end but it wasn't on a hill so that one looked more like the one in the new It. Yes, there was a story to that house and everyone knew it. A couple of years before my time, an old woman died in there and her body decomposed for some

time before the smell reached the neighbors. They got her, got the house cleaned up and it was put up for sale. No one bought it. It randomly burned down one day which left it with black dark gray outside walls and they gave up trying to sell it. My family moved to that neighborhood years later and by the time I had any kind of consciousness I knew everyone avoided that place. That summer, I won't tell you the exact date, my buddies and I, 11 to 13 years old, were somehow obsessed with Monopoly. I know I said before that my friends and I looked for adventures, so we should have been playing Dungeons and Dragons like that show, but no. We liked Monopoly because it was also a pretty long game. One of my friends, Jonas,

had made us start playing because his dad told his mom that it was a smart game and would help him in life. His mom was very strict, unlike the rest of our folks, but with that game, he got to have us all in his room for hours, playing almost every day without an issue. But anyway, one night we finally got bored because most of us went bankrupt and only two were left in this weird stalemate. We packed up the game and talked about owning houses in real life. Jonas said that he would be happy with his parents' place. I wanted something bigger because my house with my four siblings was way too small. Another friend, Gary, said that he wanted something close to the city,

like a penthouse or condo because they'd look so fancy to him. But he wanted a beach house too for vacation so his plan was to make a lot of money and we all agreed that we would all have a ton of money and do whatever we wanted. Suddenly one buddy, Patrick, asked if any of us would buy the abandoned house. We laughed, obviously not, but he said think about it, it's the cheapest house in the neighborhood. It was also the biggest plot. He would tear it down and do whatever he wanted with the land, and I said that I would never because the house was obviously cursed.

Anyone else could have bought it all these years, but they didn't for a reason. Saying things like that at our age gets you teased or mocked in any group of friends, and I was embarrassed, but I said something like, if you guys are so brave, let's go there right now and check it out. Ah, that got him quiet real quick and I laughed. See, you guys are too scared because I'm telling the truth. Patrick started shaking his finger saying that he wasn't scared at all. He added that we should all go right then and there to explore. And Jonas said that there was no way his mother would let him go out with us so late. It wasn't late, it was just night time already. The other two friends I haven't mentioned were

Charlie and Christian. They were twins and they agreed with Patrick. And I couldn't back down so I said screw it, let's go. We planned to sneak out of Jonas' window so his mom would think that we were still in there playing. Jonas felt a little rebellious so he joined and we climbed out making a ton of noise and I don't know how Mrs. Jonas' mom didn't hear us. We got our bikes and walked them further away until we could ride. I remember that moment felt so exhilarating. Even though I had believed the stories about that house, the idea of going with my friends on an adventure on a hot summer night was like nothing in the world.

It was very freeing. We pedaled, but as we got closer to the house, we saw a small light flickering in one of the windows. I almost fell forward on my bike because I hit the brakes way too hard. The rest followed my lead, their bikes echoing that metallic screeching that's so recognizable. I told them, wait a minute, someone's in there. Jonas' rebellion suddenly wore off pretty quickly and he said that he wanted to go back. Patrick responds, let's see who it is, and Charlie and Christian agreed. Now Gary says, let's go back and tell Jonas' mom, and they all look at me. I wanted to leave, but also not. I was morbidly curious, so I said let's just take a peek inside. Others asked how we were going to do that so I told them

that we would leave our bikes, crawl into the garden just like we did to get out of Jonas' house and take a look through the window. Jonas didn't want to do that. Patrick asked him what was the worst that could happen and Jonas said that the ghost of the old lady could be there. Patrick rolled his eyes saying, ghosts don't turn on lights. They went back and forth for a while so I told Jonas, hey, you and Gary can go back and act like we're still around and the rest of us will do this quickly and we'll be back soon. Jonas and Gary nodded and they left and so the remaining four of us left our bikes on the sidewalk and jogged silently to this abandoned house. And the smell hit me hard because I had pressed my body too close to the walls.

Years had passed, but I could smell the smoke. I started coughing and Patrick covered my mouth, giving me this look. I managed to remain quiet, but everyone smelled that smoke too. It was such a weird odor but we kept going. We reached a window that was reflecting a bit of light and stayed down beneath the windowsill. And now that we were closer it was clear that the light came from a candle. I whispered asking who would peek first and the twins shook their head. So this was between me and Patrick.

He said that he would do it after hesitating a second and started lifting his head and he came down quickly and said someone was definitely there. Who? I asked. A man, I think, Patrick said. Okay, I'll look. And I did. It was like a dark shape, covered in clothes and I think a blanket. He was sitting on the floor with his body hunched almost over the candle, and something was in his hands. I didn't understand what he was doing. I got down and told the guys what I had seen and described the item in the man's hands. Patrick peeked again, and staying there a while, he knelt after and said, I think it's something like to inhale? I think he's smoking.

I was confused, so I went up again. But when I did, I only saw the figure for one second before he turned his entire body towards me. I got spooked a bit, until another, larger figure came right to the window. And at that point, all hell broke loose. I screamed, Patrick screamed, the twins screamed, and we all ran off to our bikes. We didn't stop screaming until we got close to Jonas' house and we lost all sense of pretense. We knocked on the door and told Mrs. Jonas' mom everything about that house. Gary and Jonas came out of his room and were all scared, but Jonas' mom called the other parents and someone called the cops, and the long and short

of it is, those two guys were a pair of junkies who had been squatting in the abandoned house for a few days before we discovered them. We got in trouble naturally and we tried to say that Gary and Jonas didn't come with us but Jonas' mom wasn't an idiot. She grounded him and we didn't get to see him for two weeks which was a lot in summertime. Someone in the neighborhood managed to get the house torn down, and it was just a barren place for a while. I was told someone bought the land years later and made a new home, and they still live there, so I guess maybe there's no curse. I know this little moment in time wasn't much, but these are the stories that you talk about when you're older. The crazy things that you did with your friends in the summer.

And I often wish that we could go back there. When I was 16, my family went on a vacation to Cancun with a big chunk of our extended family. It was an all-inclusive package, so we never left that hotel. Our days consisted of sleeping, eating, and going to the beach right by the hotel because my family didn't want to spend a single penny more to, I don't know, explore the beautiful city. You must know that sleeping after a day at the beach or a pool hits a little harder. You're in bed and you feel like you're still in the water, but you're more tired than ever so you sleep like the dead. Some days I didn't even notice how tired I was until I woke up the next morning. My parents would wake me so we didn't miss the hotel breakfast, which closed at 9am. One night was very strange though. We stayed up much later than usual, and I was nodding off.

I had stayed with my aunt and some of my cousins talking about the stars and the darkening beach and how pretty everything was. I wanted to ask my aunt if we could try to take a bus and see more of the city. Cancun is a touristy place so it really wouldn't be dangerous. But my aunt and her husband were wishy-washy and I get it years later. Going on a vacation with your whole family is pretty expensive so an all-inclusive was the best way to do it. If we went out, we would undoubtedly want to spend money or eat somewhere, and that just wasn't in the budget for anyone. But they told me they might want to go somewhere on our last day. I smiled at her, and honestly, I don't remember much of the rest of the night.

I was really sleepy, and I went with them back to our rooms. My aunt and her family had been given rooms on the floor right below us. I don't know how or what happened but the next thing I knew, I was waking up and thinking that I was in my aunt's room. So I got up from bed, went out, took the elevator and knocked on our room door. I was calling out to them saying, Mom, Dad, yelling my sister's name and banging on that door. It was probably around 4am. The door swung open and I stumbled slightly inside. Two big hands grabbed me and I thought it was my dad. I told him I slept in my aunt's room and I was sorry, but I suddenly focused and it was like bam, an instant chill ran through me.

A fully naked man with the hairiest chest I had ever seen at 16 was there. I'm focusing on the hair because I don't want to talk about everything else that I saw for the first time ever as well. And he was angry, and he looked like he had just woken up. But all I thought was, what did he do to my parents? Why was he naked in our room? And also, why was he still grabbing me? I then asked him, what are you doing here? He looked at me strangely and stepped closer, but I just bolted out of there. I went down to the lobby and there wasn't anyone around to help me. I thought about yelling for someone but I don't know, I was just

confused for some reason. So I sat down and tried to breathe. I don't know how I fell asleep again but I woke up after my sister slapped my head incredibly painfully. She started to berate me saying, are you crazy? How can you just sleep here? I tried explaining myself and she told me that I was never in my aunt's room. I had gone to our room just like always and she felt me lying down next to her. But I swear I had almost seen my aunt and her husband sleeping in the other bed when I woke up and left. I spent the rest of our vacation thinking about what had happened. My sister told everyone and they all laughed at my expense. My aunt confirmed that they had gotten out of the elevator before me so they assumed that I had gone

to my room. After teasing me for a bit, they all concluded that it must have been just some sleepwalking episode. I never told her or anyone about the naked man, but I thought about him. Anything could have happened to me. Waking up a random dude as a 16 year old girl in the middle of the night on vacation and basically falling into his arms. And I'm just so glad that he let me go. Also, nothing similar has ever happened to me again. I didn't have a sleepwalking disorder, thank God, but whenever I go to hotels or other vacations, I have a little ritual of checking the door number before falling asleep. My husband says it's OCD, but I say it's being careful. When Airbnb first became popular, I thought it was the greatest idea imaginable.

I wanted to take a summer vacation somewhere without spending too much because I live in the loudest, most child-populated residential building in the world. And I swear to God, you had to be careful some mornings, particularly in the summer, of kids running around with water guns. Going somewhere to relax on my own, without having to deal with other families and their unruly kids, sounded fantastic. I found this great spot too. It was a little beach house, and the details on the app said that it wasn't a tourist town, so it was never high season, and that was perfect. And so I booked it, at a great price, and asked for my PTO, and that was perfect. And so I booked it at a great price and asked for my PTO and went on my way. It was somewhat far off, but I realized that getting out of the city was my only option for some peace and quiet. I even passed some beaches and cringed at the number of cars in the parking lot alone. It just wasn't for me, so I kept going. But as I drove, I realized that I was getting way, way out

of the city, and I started to worry. My GPS said that I was going in the right direction, but I was leaving civilization behind. I stopped and got out for a second to stretch my legs. For one second, I felt like I had stumbled into some cowboy movie except a little grayer. I tried calling the Airbnb host but they didn't answer. So I got back in my car and kept driving. Finally I saw the destination was closer on my GPS and I gasped. It was the same little house that I had seen in the photos except it looked much tinier and lonelier than the app showed. I parked in front and looked around. Ah, yes, that's how I saw that it could technically be called a beach house, but it just wasn't the kind of beach anyone could use. First, there was no

access to it. What I mean is that the tiny house sat on this odd low cliff. There was big moldy rocks beyond that and stone and sand before you got to the water, and therefore the tiny beach house that I had rented in the never high-season town was a place in the middle of nowhere next to the sea that I couldn't even swim in. Did they lie about it on the app? Not exactly, but it was a fake advertisement for sure and I grabbed my phone to complain but my mobile data wasn't working. I went inside and tried to find the wifi but no, no wifi either. I tried calling and no one answered me once more. I looked around and saw that the interior was the only part the app hadn't lied about. It was pretty comfortable and had an air conditioning.

I turned it on and I enjoyed that and I thought to myself that perhaps this was what I truly needed. I loved the beach, but going into that water would be impossible and a little dangerous. Yet a little peace and quiet to self-reflect wouldn't be so bad. I grabbed my things from my car and settled in. The kitchen worked, the bathroom had excellent water flow, surprisingly, and there was some kind of cable on the TV, but it didn't have the best image. So the first thing I did was make myself something to eat with the groceries that I had brought for my stay here, and I took a chair outside. I sat by the window and enjoyed the sound of the waves and it was excellent until it wasn't. Night fell quicker than I expected and it got eerily quiet but I told myself it was exactly

what I wanted and needed. I went inside, took a long shower, and settled down to enjoy the air conditioning and just think about life. And that's when the power went out. I told myself that it would come back soon, but it didn't. Two hours went by and the tiny house got way too hot despite our location. I looked for anything, candles or something, and I just found nothing. I had to use my phone light and open as many windows as possible, plus the doorway. And that helped because the breeze of the ocean was soothing, but it was way too dark to make me feel safe. I tried calling my hosts again, and they still didn't answer.

In my head, I was already planning my serious complaint to the Airbnbs, so I could just get this listing out of there. The night continued and everything the breeze moved sounded like something stranger. I was only glad the moon was shining so brightly and I made a cold sandwich just to pass the time. Something like a bird flew close by and squeaked, although I've been told that most birds are usually asleep at night. It could have been an owl, and I refused to think about what else it could be. I finally decided to go to bed and try to sleep.

I had to close the door to sleep, but the window was next to the bed, so it would help with the heat, I hoped. I lay on the stiff mattress longer than I wanted, watched the strange shadows that wove from outside into the walls, and I listened to the quiet that was never fully quiet. I didn't realize how many things you could hear when you don't have any electronics on. Mosquitoes started playing the violin in my ear, the creaking of the furniture got on my nerves, and even your own breathing is distracting. I close my eyes while watching the moon, feeling sleep finally overtake me when I felt the light disappear suddenly behind my lids like something was blocking the window. I didn't want to open my eyes though, partly due to sleep and partly because I'm not really sure, but I just kept sleeping. And then the moonlight was back on my face. Now I will go on to say that there was probably just a cloud covering the moon for

a few moments, and finally it was morning. The power was still out and the hosts weren't answering the phone and I couldn't take it anymore. I booked a whole week there, but I took my stuff and just left. I stopped at one of the but I took my stuff and just left. I stopped at one of the beaches on the way back and ate the best fried fish of my life, drank an awesome margarita and just listened to the people. A kid started crying next to me and while I can't say that I'm grateful for it, I had to acknowledge that I was happy. Loner hermit life is simply just not for me. Oh, I did complain about that tiny house, and it was taken down, and the account was thankfully taken off of Airbnb. I've checked for months, just in case. Lately, I stumbled across some videos online which explained how, in some cultures, there's

a really weird belief. If you're in bed, in your pajamas, and you get an invitation or an urge to go out, don't do it because that's death calling. I never heard about it before, but somehow it makes complete sense to me these days, but kind of in a broader sense. Things that are meant to happen will. However, if there's something preventing you from doing or going somewhere, don't force it. The world is trying to tell you something. Those videos reminded me of a summer vacation I took with my husband, Charlie, a few years back. Now, the universe, as they say, was adamant about us not going and I should have noticed the signs. First, I was trying to book our hotel reservations and my card got declined three times before I gave up doing it online.

I called the hotel directly and they ran it through their system and it still wasn't working. And at last, I grabbed Charlie's card and that one didn't have a problem. We had planned on using my card for the rewards but whatever. I called the bank the next day to get that thing fixed and they did. They couldn't explain why it wasn't going through but they said that it should work fine for the trip. The day arrived and our car overheated on the way to the airport. We called some friends, they came to assist, got us to the closest mechanic and when they heard that we were on our way to a vacation, they told us that they

would take care of everything and gave us a ride to the airport. I could only be glad to divine providence or whoever that nothing happened on the plane. But we arrived at the five star hotel and there was a mix up with our rooms. This was an expensive resort and I had investigated beforehand and reserved a no-smoking room with a fridge. We got to the room and there was no fridge and the walls had the most putrid smell. I'm especially sensitive to cigarette stench and I just couldn't stand it. And I'm afraid to say that I went full Karen on the staff, but it was warranted. After a big commotion, we got upgraded to a suite which was nice and had a great view, a pleasant Lysol odor, and a fridge. Once we were settled, I called the resort restaurant

that we wanted to try because I had a few food restrictions and we wanted to know if the cooks could follow it. On the phone they said it was fine. We went down, sat and ordered and I explained my situation. The waiter told me to wait a second because he wasn't sure about it. I told him that we had called beforehand but he wanted to check. I guess I should have been appreciative of a service but it took more than 30 minutes before they told us that it was impossible to replace what I needed. Charlie was starving so I changed my order to something not filling so we could just eat and went back to our rooms. I was trying not to get sulky or more upset because too many things had already messed with our vacation but as we were trying to rest for

the night and Charlie and I got a little cuddly, we heard this blood-curdling scream from the hallway. I can't explain how horrible it was. We thought someone was dying and went out in a panic. All I saw was two kids running up and down the hallway. Charlie pulled me back inside and turned up the TV and we tried to concentrate on ourselves but the scream came again, repeatedly. Then it wasn't from the hallway, the noise came from directly outside on our balcony. I looked and those same kids were playing on the balcony of the adjacent suite and I wanted to die. My husband was kind enough to go to their room and ask their parents to keep their

children in check. The father apologized and agreed but the craziness just kept going on for hours. I called downstairs but no one came to tell them anything. I thought normal kids had bedtime so I went to talk to them and was face to face with the father. I told them my husband and I wanted to rest and the hallways or the balcony of the hotel weren't a playground for their children. But the dad said that he couldn't ask them to keep quiet because his kids deserved to have fun on their summer vacation. We called the reception again and it looked like someone arrived to tell the children that they couldn't be roaming the halls. But they went inside, and the room shook from their

loudness after that. The only explanation in my head was that they were jumping in bed and kicking the walls. I just couldn't sleep. And I was miserable. So Charlie took our bags and we left that resort. We found another one some time away and were, at last, finally in bed by 5am. The next day, my husband wanted to check out the hotel casino but I booked a spa day. I get there and the only masseuse working seems to have the worst cough. I know I sound like the biggest b-word right now but I just was so tired and disappointed. The poor woman coughed out the entire time and after ten minutes of it I decided to stop. I told her to just rest and I still tipped but I felt cheated. I went to the casino with Charlie and we got some respite from the bad luck for around two days. I started feeling

my throat itching on the third and I knew that I caught whatever the masseuse had. I thought nothing of it and was glad that I had brought some cold medicine from home just in case, but Charlie caught it too. I don't know if I gave it to him or if the entire resort was plagued, but my husband had it so much worse. And two days later I was driving him to the ER. Charlie has always been a little sensitive to respiratory infections, and a few tests later it was confirmed that he had pneumonia. I was afraid of going home with him by plane, but I bought some face masks, this was before COVID so it wasn't that common, and got home somehow. Charlie had two more ER visits before he recovered and it was the scariest time of my life.

They told me that he had lowered the normal oxygen levels and put him in treatment and by then I swore up and down that I could never take a vacation. I won't even mention how we had to live during COVID. But instead I now believe that you should pay attention. Everything was telling us not to go almost from the moment we left the house. Listen to the universe, even if you honestly want to go somewhere or do something, that trip wasn't worth even a second of our pain. Nothing is. This happened in middle school over the summer, but it was a field trip organized by the school. It was just two days and one night stay where my classmates and I would visit a

historical museum and other places in the capital. We were assigned four kids to a room with two queen-size beds. We had one male and two female teachers as chaperones, but they got their rooms just all on the same hotel floor. I have trouble sleeping on strange beds and I got up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back. My three roommates were sleeping soundly and I envied them. I grabbed my phone and started to doom scroll when I saw, or sensed maybe the better word, something from the corner of my eye. The wall in the far corner was different. Have you ever heard the story, well I think it's a creepy pasta but it could just be an internet legend, of that guy who lived an entire life after an

accident, had a wife and kids and a career, but he became obsessed with the perspective of a lamp, which is how he woke up, and the whole thing turned out to be a dream after an accident. The walls felt like that story. Now, to clarify what I'm talking about, I didn't see a shadow, a face, or a ghost. It was like the walls themselves were just off kilter, as if drawn by a child who doesn't understand point of view yet. I wondered if I was asleep or had dreamed of waking up and using my phone. I also thought that I probably was having eyesight issues and decided to tell my mom once I got back home. I fell asleep with my phone on my chest and in the morning the others were slowly waking up and I stared at those walls again and nothing seemed amiss. Everything was correct so I knew that I had been dreaming,

but I noticed something else. The other guys finished waking up and started arranging their things because we weren't coming back, but none of them would look at each other. The vibe was just really weird, and I chalked it up to us being tired and not looking forward to a long bus ride. But as we were about to leave, one classmate named Sam wandered out loud, did you guys see that thing last night? I asked what he was talking about just to make sure. He said the walls were off, and I started to nod very aggressively in agreement. The other guys said the same thing. We realized that we had all woken up, but the rest of the guys were just too scared to move. I was the only one who had reached for my phone and acted like nothing was wrong. We started speculating about what it could have been during the two-day excursions.

When we got to the bus to return home, we asked others if they had seen something. And no one had, just us. But we couldn't even put a name to whatever it was we saw or experienced. I started calling it a glitch in the matrix, but the other guys never saw that franchise so they didn't get it. I bet you feel old now, huh? That some kids don't even know what the matrix is. When some girls showed some interest, my classmates changed the whole story and they told them that we had seen the shadow of a man who had been burned against the walls just to make it more spooky for everyone involved. I didn't participate in that because what happened seemed like so much more than paranormal fake stuff.

All four of us were up and had seen it, or we all dreamt it at the same time, and I had never heard about people dreaming like that. But what could it have been? When I was 13 years old, it was the only time that I was ever sent to summer camp. All my friends from school went constantly, but the camp they frequented was too expensive for my parents. They managed to find a cheaper one that only lasted one week and I got excited about the idea even though it wouldn't be my friend's summer camp. I thought about the stories that I could tell them once the new school year started and it was tons of fun. The campsite was near a lake so we had several water activities. I got close to my cabin buddies and we were planning on pranking the boys but we never got to that part because

I ended up scaring them later. On the third night of our stay, our head counselor took all of us out far past our curfew to sit around a campfire. We roasted marshmallows, the works, but then he asked if anyone knew a scary story. Almost all the boys lifted their hands, wanting to tell theirs first. The counselor pointed at each of them, and they began one by one. One boy told a story about a bear who sneaked into a cabin one night and snatched a kid away. Another had a tale about an old woman who was the founder of a campsite and had been killed by evil camp goers as revenge for punishing them. That one was pretty intense. But it was the head counselor's story that got stuck in my mind.

It was about a man who lived far away from the city, cut off from everybody because his instincts told him that every other person was a monster. He couldn't see people normally like the rest of us. He saw them as dangerous creatures who were out to get him. The only way to save himself was to take an axe and cut off each of the monster's limbs and run away. Someone asked the head counselor if the man saw kids as monsters too and of course he said yes. Others asked more questions like where was his house or if the guy had a disease in his eyes or something. The head counselor didn't have many answers for much,

but he told us to remember that most scary stories told across campsites in almost every country have some basis and truth. He said our parents don't let us go out at night alone because evil people did exist, bad guys were real. And we were all just captivated by what he said. I believe he said those things because the boys had been sneaking out past curfew and getting into trouble in the woods. So he must have organized this little campfire experience to teach us a lesson and a way that we would listen. I thought it was a good idea. I wasn't the kind to go out into the

woods anyways, but we had been hoping to prank the boys past bedtime. When we returned, I talked to my cabin girls and we decided not to do anything because we didn't want anyone to call our parents and ruin our camp time. And then we all just went to sleep. Too tired because it was much later than our usual sleep time, but sometime later I remember waking up. I heard a noise outside. This campsite had woods, although they weren't so dense, but it was still possible for wildlife to be out there and hurt you. I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep but I felt like something walked past me. I opened my eyes again and lifted my torso a bit to see the head counselor walking past our windows outside. Why was he outside still? And now this part is the strangest.

I don't know if I dreamt it but I remember the head counselor coming into our cabin, meaning opening the door and flashing his light inside. The brightness didn't pass through me. He must have not seen me awake, but I noticed that he was holding something large, like a stick in his other hand. I saw his face despite the darkness and his eyes were huge, like he was looking for something urgently. He didn't find whatever it was because he turned, closed the door silently, and left. I don't know what he was doing or what happened. And the next day, the other girls had no idea what I was talking about. They were all dead asleep after the fire. I asked some boys if they had seen the counselor roaming about their cabin, but no one had seen him. So in my mind, I came up with two theories.

Either the head counselor was playing an elaborate prank after telling us the story of the axe man at the campfire, like a warning for the campers who love sneaking out into the trees, or I was dreaming because he told us that story. If it was a prank though, it failed because everyone was asleep. But the image of him coming into our cabin is so vivid that I still have a hard time where everyone slept in these huge tents. Around ten children fit into one. We had beds, but we wrapped ourselves in sleeping bags on top of the mattresses.

There was only one building on the entire grounds, and it served as a counselor headquarters, recreation area, and dining hall, etc. Even the toilets were outhouses, although they were much cleaner than the porta-potties I've had to use at concerts. One night I woke up because I had to pee. It was pretty dark and scary scary so I hurried out, did my messiness and was on my way when I stopped. I saw a man holding a torch, a literal torch from movies with fire and everything. He opened the flap of one of the boys' tents and shined that light inside.

I thought that he must be the security guard at the campsite and I didn't want to get in trouble so I walked briskly away. My feet stepped on a branch, however, and he turned to look at me. It was almost comical if it wasn't terrifying. He looked surprisingly spooked too and I just walked to my tent as fast as I could. Through the fabric I saw him going away and I hoped that he wouldn't rat me out for being outside so late. I was an anxious kid and I was worried all night about getting punished and being excluded from activities because I wanted to pee. And I even rehearsed what I would say to the counselors if they called to scold me. And since I couldn't sleep at all because of my anxiety, I saw the light torch going back and forth through the campsite. It only made sleeping more difficult because I expected him to come back

and check our tent. When the sun started to rise, my eyes shut for just a little while before we were all woken up for the day, and by lunch I couldn't even hold my head up until I saw two female counselors approaching me and asking what was wrong. They took me to the side, and only later I learned that they wanted to see if I needed the nurse. But at the moment I blurted that I had gone out last night to pee. I had seen the camp security guard with his fire torch and I was worried that I would get in trouble with everyone here because he saw me. I also told them that I had seen the guard doing their rounds all over the site and I hoped that he wouldn't check on the girl's tent

going forward because he would wake me up easily and it was hard for me to fall asleep again. I said all of this very quickly and I said all of this hoping that they'd listen because I didn't want to repeat myself. I was breathing hard as I opened one eye and sneaked a look at their faces and I only saw this weird look of confusion and horror. One of them asked, what security guard? I told them it was a man who had a real fire torch and was looking through the boys' tent when I walked back from the outhouses. And they looked mortified and told me to go back to my lunch while they ran off somewhere. I went to the table and talked to the others about the security guard and only one other kid had seen a light late at night. He was glad it was just the guard because he thought

it was something scary. But after lunch, the director of the camp made an announcement that we would pack all of our things up because our parents were coming for us. We were all so disappointed. Why? What happened? And all we could do was speculate. A girl in our tent said that it must be bad weather coming or something so it was just better to go home but we still had many days left. That was pretty sad. We saw cars arriving and it was a bit disastrous but my mom hugged me tightly and didn't let me go in the car for a while. Nothing else was said and I never went to any sleep away camp again. Years later, I ran into a girl from that tent.

Her name was Cherry and she was older than most of us. I was shy and didn't talk to her much that summer, but she remembered me. And we reminisced a little about that summer camp and I wish I'd gone to others. But Cherry said that there was no way our parents would ever allow that after what had happened. I asked her what she meant, because as far as I was concerned, we had been sent home because of weather. I never questioned it, and she says no. The counselors discovered that a man,

who had been released from prison around that time, was living in a shack near that camp spot. No one knew until someone, me, alerted them about a man lurking outside with a torch at night. Cherry went on to add that he was a registered sex offender. So yeah, the camp had to close down. She told me that she had begged her parents to go to another camp for years, but they wouldn't allow it. When she whined and prodded, they had come out with the truth, and that truth shut her up pretty quick. And it shut me up, too. I must have been around seven or eight years old when my mother enrolled me in Girl Scouts,

and we went on an outdoor mission the first week after school ended. I must have been around 7 or 8 years old when my mother enrolled me in Girl Scouts, and we went on an outdoor mission the first week after school ended. I know there were real Girl Scout camps, but there weren't any in my area. Some older members were exploring the idea of starting one, but for this trip, they rented a spot in a regular camping ground and sent us off. My mother had been a Girl Scout since she was a little girl, and she became a counselor during her college years. She wanted me to join too, because she still had friends from those times and said that I could use the social skills. I wasn't a huge introvert, but I wasn't the life of the party either. Our counselors must have been in their

mid-twenties or at least over eighteen. They were all girls. I noticed rather quickly that some of us weren't especially suited for the wilderness, despite what the scouts were supposed to represent. But it was one thing to catalog flowers in your friend's mom's big garden and a whole other to truly try to survive in the woods. We were around thirty little girls being managed by three 18 to 20 year olds. I understood faster than others that our counselors weren't as dedicated to the task as the people who were normally in charge. During the school year, my first as a scout, we had an older woman as a troop leader. I'll call her Mrs. Evans.

She was essentially training the younger ones who became our counselors but didn't come with us on that excursion, and my peers started to notice the indifference of our counselors soon enough. One of those girls was Tana. She was a natural leader, even at eight years old. Some people just have it, and it wasn't because she was popular. She was organized and could take charge. I'm sure that attitude has served her well wherever she is, but that summer trip could have messed us all up. It was day three and Tana had managed to get on the radar of one of those counselors. I'll call her Paula. As luck would have it, Paula was Mrs. Evanson's granddaughter. Big cliche. The nepo baby who doesn't care.

Anyway, another thing that made us all admire Tana was that she knew how to talk back. I don't know if she did it at home, but she stood up for herself, even when it would have been more convenient to just shut up and take it. Paula hated that Tana corrected her and did it often, even when Paula grimaced and spoke through her teeth. Tana didn't care did it often, even when Paula grimaced and spoke through her teeth. Tana didn't care and soon enough, we were all snickering at how angry Paula got every time she was wrong. It was small, inconsequential things like not knowing the real name of a plant and how a compass works in real life. The worst happened during a longer hike. Paula was leading

the entire 30 girls on her own. The other counselors stayed back to prepare for another activity they had planned, otherwise known as doing nothing and smoking weed, but I didn't understand any of that until Tana told us later. She was also more knowledgeable, street smart than the rest of us. Anyway, about an hour into the hike, we were fully lost. Paula had a map in her hands, but she'd turned it in her hands many times, and she got her phone out, but there wasn't enough data to get Google Maps working. Some of the girls raised their hands with suggestions like, Miss Paula, let's look for moss on the side of trees.

Let's follow the tracks back. Let's do this, etc. And Paula lost her last nerve, screaming, Shut up. I know what I'm doing and you don't. And you may ask, who else lost her marbles? Well, Tana did. She laughed, loud and echoing through the trees, and she said things like, You have no idea what you're doing.

I can't believe you're even related to Mrs. Evans. I think Paula was two seconds away from slapping the mouth out of Tana, but that little eight-year-old took the map out of her hands, told us to follow her, and walked. And we followed. As we walked, Tana explained how to find clues in the forest, actual very important things that we should know to try and survive in the wilderness. And we were back in the camp in no time.

We all cheered, clapped, and hugged Tana, saying that she was the best, that she should be a counselor. Paula heard it all as she stomped past us and beyond to the other counselors. One of them told us to rest and get ready because we had other stuff to do that day, but we had barely changed and chatted a little before Paula called Tana out. I knew that what was coming wouldn't be good, but they made the other girls stay near the campsite. I didn't see it, but here's what happened. Paula and another counselor took Tana to the small meadow. They tied her to a beach chair one of them had brought and impaled onto the ground They proceeded to slap Tana's face until their hands hurt and left her there for hours They returned, telling us that Tana had a special task for the group and wouldn't be joining us for some time

But at night, we grew concerned and I wasn't brave or really a leader but when other girls said that they would sneak past the counselors to see if they could find Tana I went along and we found her quickly. That day had been scorching. Tana's face wasn't only red from the slaps, she was sunburned to a crisp and thirsty like nothing else. One of us had thought about bringing water and she gulped it down pretty fast. I had never imagined any adult would be capable of such a

horrible act. We untied Tana, took her to the tent and one of us had a phone, Christy, because her mom was very paranoid about things and we called her and soon all the parents were informed. Mrs. Evans arrived at the campsite a few hours later. She guided us to the parking lot where several parents had volunteered to come get us and carpool around until we all got home. Tana's parents wanted to press charges on Paula and her friend, but I'm not sure what happened with that. They must have reached a settlement because I never heard of any escalation, court hearing, or even an arrest. Mrs. Evans had to quit Girl Scouts, sadly. I felt bad for her because she was an awesome woman, but her

granddaughter had been involved. There was no coming back from that. And meanwhile, I also begged my mother to quit. She allows it because what happened was just too horrible for words. And after that, she let me develop my social skills however I wanted. And rest assured that group activities were never my thing again. To be continued... Maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon. And maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data. Located anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends. And I'll see you again soon. Thank you.