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Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast

June 27, 2025 / 01:16:28

This episode of Morbid covers listener tales featuring spooky camping experiences, including a haunted amusement park and a mysterious noise in the woods. Ash and Elena discuss Gypsy Rose Blanchard's recent comments and clarify their stance on her case. They also introduce listener stories about Lake Shaunie and Lake Desolation, both known for their eerie histories.

In the first tale, a listener recounts an overnight camping trip at Lake Shaunie, an abandoned amusement park in West Virginia. The listener describes meeting the caretaker, Chris, and experiencing strange occurrences, including a chilling encounter with a ghost child.

The second story involves a camping trip at Lake Desolation, where a group hears a bone-chilling noise at 3 a.m. Chad and Leah, two campers, flee in fear, leaving their friends behind. The episode reveals the tension and fear as the remaining campers hear footsteps outside their tent.

Ash and Elena react to the stories, sharing their thoughts on the spooky elements and the experiences of the listeners. They emphasize the importance of trusting one's instincts in unsettling situations.

The episode concludes with a call for more listener tales, encouraging fans to share their own spooky experiences.

TLDR

Listener tales of spooky camping experiences at haunted locations like Lake Shaunie and Lake Desolation.

Episode

1:16:28
00:00:00
Hey weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. And we're dead camp counselors.
00:00:07
[Music] I have a lot of blush on today, so I feel like I look a little more alive. So
00:00:27
maybe I'm the ultimate final girl. Yeah, you're you're like right before death, I
00:00:30
would say. Yeah, I'm Cuz you're not surviving that. Super duper blood. Okay. You're not surviving. I am not wearing
00:00:36
blush. So, I am dead. She's dead. She already died currently. My legs look like they're definitely dead. I have the
00:00:42
palest legs known to man. I mean, same. That's why I'm wearing the tube socks. Yeah. Um, so we got to we we're excited
00:00:48
about this. This is fun. And uh we wanted to hit on a couple of things first. So, Nicholas is going to be in
00:00:54
the episode that's on YouTube. Yeah. because we find he's a hot topic. Polarizing if you're very polarizing,
00:01:02
but we understand in the audio version, we're not going to use Nicholas because I can understand that if you don't see
00:01:08
our reactions to Nicholas that it's not as fun and could be a little jarring and
00:01:13
like a little like screechy and not fun. One thing that we don't want to happen is we don't want you to veer off the
00:01:18
road cuz you got scared. Yeah. We don't want that. So now you have two ways of watching. One will have Nicholas or or
00:01:24
listening, I should say. One will have Nicholas where you can see us right here. Yeah. And then the audio version
00:01:30
will be Sans Nicholas. Sans. So you can choose your own adventure now because we
00:01:34
heard you. It's like goosebumps. Yeah. You know, then those are the best goosebumps to be honest. So yeah. Um and
00:01:39
the second thing is a really weird thing, but we Never did I ever think that we would have to address this.
00:01:44
Yeah. So this is just something that's kind of funny, but we just wanted to hit on it so nobody gets too up in arms. Uh,
00:01:50
so Gypsy Rose Blanchard apparently did made a video where she was talking about a few like content creators on Tik Tok.
00:01:59
One of them being someone who's apparently called Sir Morbid. Not morbid, but she missed the sir when she
00:02:05
said it and she said morbid. She's not talking about us. We've never covered her case and we've never any Gypsy Rose
00:02:12
Blanchard content and we don't plan to ever do it. So she wasn't talking about us. She was talking about Sir Mor. did
00:02:18
not come for Gypsy Rose. Yeah, we did not come for Gypsy Rose. Uh, but a lot of you were like there to back us up and
00:02:24
be like, "What the fuck?" So, we appreciate that. We love you. We love that you'll ride at dawn. Like, couldn't
00:02:31
tell you how much I appreciate that, but I promise that wasn't about us. Uh, she
00:02:35
just missed saying the sir. Yeah. You know, so it was sir morbid, not morbid. Sir Morbid is different from morbid.
00:02:41
Yeah. We're not going to cover her case. We never have. No. We've never done any
00:02:44
Gypsy Rose Blanchard content. None. Yeah. And we don't plan it. Nope. So, uh, with that out of the way, it's
00:02:51
listener tale. It's Listener Tale. It's brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all about you.
00:02:57
[Music] There's nothing in this cup, don't worry. There's something in this cup.
00:03:01
It's coffee. Don't worry. So, we're going to be doing like camp summer tales kind of, camp Appalachia,
00:03:12
like foresty foresty things, you know? Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. Uh, this is my favorite
00:03:19
outfit. This anytime we can get even though I'm sticky as [ __ ] anytime we can get super bloody, it's so fun. I've
00:03:27
ruined the couch. That's unfortunate. I've ruined the couch. I'm sitting on a sweatshirt because underneath I put my
00:03:33
legs down and it was just like it looks like somebody got killed on this couch. Yeah, it truly does. But you know what?
00:03:39
We suffer for our art, you know. Yeah, it's art. It's just the way it is. That's pretty. Honestly, the coach
00:03:44
should be bloody in the pod labs though. Facts. You know, it's just that the blood is sticky. Yeah. You know, I never
00:03:50
realized how much arm hair I had until I put blood on it and it start when I dragged down, you know, when I got
00:03:56
attacked and the blood dripped down. Yeah. It really hurt my arm hairs. It really hurt my arm hairs. It did. I can
00:04:04
understand that. I heard them screaming. Yeah. Yeah. Every one of them attacked.
00:04:09
All right. Are you starting or am I? I'll start. Oh, facts. So, my first listener tale is listener tales lake
00:04:17
shaunie. We covered that once. We did cover that. It's somewhere I really want to see. Actually, this person saw it.
00:04:24
This says, "Good morning. Please see my attached listener tale about an overnight camping trip at Lake Shauny
00:04:30
abandoned amusement park." Did he say warts? Did he say warts? What did he say? We're
00:04:37
not skipping over it. If he said warts, he said large. And he know he said large. Let me show you. That was runchy
00:04:49
as [ __ ] Nicholas, he's yours. Nicholas, I am not straight, baby. I don't want to see anything large.
00:05:02
Okay. Don't be homophobic. It's pride month. It's literally pride month. He said I He said I remember your gay
00:05:10
ass. He's like, "Bitch, I remember." It's literally Pride Month, Nicholas. Nicholas, I'm crying. Oh. Oh [ __ ] He's
00:05:20
like, "Yeah, I remember." He's like, "I know. I know your gay ass." Oh, damn. All right. Wow. Okay. Wait. So, this
00:05:28
person went to Lake Shaunie overnight, which do you know what that means? That means that we, you and I, can go to Lake
00:05:34
Shan overnight. Camped at the amusement park. Yeah. I'm not trying to camp, but I think that's the only way you can.
00:05:38
Yeah, you can go. Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll stay at a hotel after. We'll stay somewhere. Not there. Yeah. See, it
00:05:43
didn't work out. I I was going to say clearly. All right. So, dear Ash and Elena, my name is April, and you can use
00:05:50
my day name and my dogs names freely. I love how you spell your name. And my husband, too. I know you spell your name
00:05:56
really cool. It's a P R Y L. I'm not sure how I stumbled across your podcast, but I do know that the very first
00:06:02
episode I randomly picked was Frank and Rose West girl. And you said it correctly. Holy canoli. Uh, that was a
00:06:10
doozy. That was intense. It may or may not have traumatized me. Us, too. Us, too. Yeah. Yeah. Me, too. For life. But
00:06:19
whatever. It hooked me and now I'm like a walking commercial for Morbid. Thanks so much. Love you. In fact, it was you
00:06:25
girlies that prompted my husband Wesley and I I love that name. Great name. Along with our two roadie dogs, Aussie
00:06:31
and what is this? Takcoa goose. Takcoa goose. I hope I said that right. Yeah. Aussie and Takcoa goose. to make a
00:06:38
7-hour road trip from Atlanta to the one and only Lake Shaunie abandoned amusement park in lie of spending
00:06:46
Thanksgiving with our family. [ __ ] Thanksgiving. Go to Lake Shaunie. [ __ ] Thanksgiving. Go to Lake Shaunie. I love
00:06:52
that we inspired that too with that episode because honestly, I get it. I want to go. I want to go so bad. Let me
00:06:58
set the scene. It's late November. It's West Virginia. It's cold as [ __ ] And we're the fools that decided it would be
00:07:05
a good idea to sleep in a tent in a haunted amusement park. That's the part I can't get behind. And there was a
00:07:10
massive rainstorm set to blow in that night. But hey, at least we had firewood. But rain. Yeah, you know that
00:07:16
that fire rain. Bad. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. This road trip was for real.
00:07:23
Destination scary stuff. We went to the abandoned mining town of Thurman. Oh my god, you really you did it right. You
00:07:29
guys rule. Uh, we hit up uh, Point Pleasant for all things Moth Man. That place was creepy pants. Like to the
00:07:37
point it gave Wesley a panic attack because something was off. Way off with the energy. But that heavy energy story
00:07:43
is best saved for another time in another place. Let's get back to Lake Shaunie. We arrived about 3 p.m. and met
00:07:49
Chris, who is the self-proclaimed caretaker. As you know, the park has been in his family since the 60s or
00:07:55
something like that. Chris is pretty awesome and he gave us a tour of the property that included a detailed
00:08:00
history of everything Lake Shaunie. From the natives who first inhabited the land
00:08:04
to the white settlers who stole the land to the beginning development of the park
00:08:08
during the Great Depression. Stolen land. Topical stolen land, you say? That's crazy. Uh after about an hour,
00:08:15
Chris made a sweeping gesture and said, "Well, I'm out. The park is yours." The fact that he was just like G2G. Like
00:08:23
damn. He climbed in his truck and before speeding off said, "Oh, and by the way,
00:08:27
because this place has lots of children who live here, I've heard that people who camp with their dogs are
00:08:33
particularly magnetic." He slammed his door and drove away, honey. He said, "You got a big storm coming." He said,
00:08:39
"Have so much fun with the ghost children." So scary. And then [ __ ] got real. I bet. Remember, it's November.
00:08:46
Not a lot of daylight. We quickly had to decide what to do first. Set up camp or
00:08:50
do our first round of exploration. Duh. It was time to take a walk. So, it's dusk. I'm taking pictures like I was
00:08:56
hired by National Geographic. Speaking of pictures, feel free to share mine and the video. We'll get to the video a
00:09:02
little later. So far so good. Nothing creepy creepy yet. After a quick dinner of gas station baloney and cheese
00:09:10
sandwiches. I'm sorry, that's [ __ ] reckless. Good for you. Do you like baloney? I love bologna. I grew up on
00:09:17
baloney. Same. I don't like bologna. I haven't eaten baloney in like a billion years, you know. So, I don't
00:09:25
know if I would still I have fond memories of baloney. I don't. You know who still buys baloney? Oh, from the
00:09:31
deli? My husband, honestly, this I love Drew. Like, this is why Drew [ __ ] heavy
00:09:36
with baloney. I get him. It disgusts me. Me and Drew can eat a bologoney sandwich
00:09:41
at your house. Bologna and cheese and the yellow mustard. I like yellow mustard. Yes, I have iconic, but it's
00:09:48
turkey. It's turkey and um havari dill cheese. Oh, she's fancy. She's fancy. Yeah, she doesn't know about this cheese
00:09:56
and baloney sandwich from the gas station. Listen, April, I love you and I respect so much about you. Just not
00:10:01
this. Just not this. I respect it, though. I'll tell you, I respect it. I respect everything you do, April.
00:10:06
Bologna and cheese sandwiches and bad beer. We knew it was time to set up camp. Why didn't we just rent a little
00:10:11
RV? I know that would have been a good idea. These are questions. Oh, I would go in an RV. Yeah, I would go in an RV.
00:10:17
I think we can glamp at Lake Shiny. That would kind of be fun, actually. Let's talk to people about that. Karin and
00:10:23
Sabrina, you guys doing anything? What you up to? Wait, that's actually a really good
00:10:28
idea. It is a good idea. We're going to text them later. Yeah, we are. Before getting too far into the tent popping
00:10:33
process, I decided to check out this little shed over by the cornfields. Yep, the corn fields. No. I open the creaky
00:10:40
door and it's just an empty little building. Let's call it a tiny house. With the impending storms, we decided to
00:10:45
toss our sleeping bags in the shed and call it home for the night. Crawl. No. Crawl. Why you staying in a
00:10:54
shed? What are you doing? Why you staying in a shed, babe? In hindsight, this might not have been one of my
00:10:59
better decisions. We've all made bad decisions, but honestly, I was beginning to wonder if this entire trip was a good
00:11:04
idea. Valid. Um, it's it's zero dark 30 in time for the night walks. Wesley suddenly had knee problems or more
00:11:12
likely scared of the dark problems. He volunteered to stay with the dogs by the campfire. So you can have both hands for
00:11:19
taking photos. Wow, Leslie. That's make us fall. Wesley, wild reason. Um, thank you. I
00:11:28
I'll continue. Nicholas, thank you. Really? I think we don't see you. Are you in here,
00:11:34
Nicholas? Show yourself. Should I see you, Nicholas? And if I should say he was large
00:11:40
earlier. Where are you? Just give us a general idea. Earlier he said to your left of where you are.
00:11:49
That's a small space. He's probably helicoptering in your face. I hope he's not Mikey. I hope that's not Can we even
00:11:58
What did he say? Susan. What if he called you Susan? Susan? He said, "That's such a Susan thing to
00:12:08
say. Nicholas, his version of Karen is not interested in in your runchiness." He's
00:12:15
like, "Excuse me." He's like, "That's not even what I was talking about. What I'm Susan. Susan." I'm going to start
00:12:21
calling you Susan. That's homophobic. On this Pride Month, I keep doing this and then I'm just like, "Whoops." I
00:12:28
know. My shirt is like stuck to me. Whoops. Guide. There's a guide in this story.
00:12:35
There is. Yeah, he left. He didn't of a guide anymore. [ __ ] that. Uh, really? I
00:12:41
think he was a scaredy pants and wanted Aussie and to uh Takcoa for extra protection. Off. I went into the dark,
00:12:47
dark night by myself. You're a [ __ ] badass, April. Great. A badass [ __ ] Uh, cuz I can't say I would do that. I
00:12:55
can say fullheartedly I would not do that. Can't do that. My first stop was the old ticket booth. There was a small
00:13:01
pin wheel on the ground. Hm. This seemed like a good place to start. My unexperienced booty started to ask it
00:13:07
questions and when it answered, I almost pooped. Undoubtedly, he loves that word.
00:13:13
He does. Uh, and when it answered, listen. Who are you talking to, Nicholas? Don't
00:13:20
start with me. It's like when you were like, "Forget that one." He was like, "Please leave."
00:13:26
I know. Cuz I was like, you were like, "Forget it." He's like, "Pay attention." You know what? Get the [ __ ] out of here.
00:13:31
You want to hear me? Get off. To be fair, there was a slight breeze that I don't want to discount as an as
00:13:37
evident in the video, but I don't think that this was just the wind. Anywh who, when I asked the pinwheel if someone was
00:13:42
there, it began to slowly spin. I asked it to change the direction. It did. The wind doesn't just change direction like
00:13:49
that. I asked it to stop spinning and it also did that. Yeah, you were communicating with something. Next stop
00:13:55
was the creepy trail. I like that. I like that, too. I like that a lot. I want to name my house that. Uh yeah,
00:14:00
just the my driveway is just the creepy trail. Uh it runs along the back of the property line. Chris says that it's the
00:14:06
only place on the property where he refuses to go. That's how you know it's Oh, I slow I began a slow walk partly
00:14:13
because I was as scared as Drew Barrymore talking to Ghost Face and also because I didn't want to roll my old ass
00:14:18
ankles on an uneven path. Both valid reasons. Smart. I make my way around the bend and begin to approach the
00:14:24
gravestone of the Mitchell Clay children. As you may recall, two of them were murdered by the Shaune while doing
00:14:30
chores on the property. The third was kidnapped and later burned at the stake. Anyhow, this part of the trail has a
00:14:37
couple of security lights. I was feeling a bit braver with the light and began to
00:14:41
walk with a little more pep in my step until I realized that I saw my shadow and another smaller shadow walking next
00:14:49
to me. No, that's a baby. That's a little kid. I don't like it. That's a little kid. When
00:14:57
I say the hairs on the back of my neck went up and a cold cold chill ran down my body, I am not exaggerating.
00:15:04
What does one do when walking towards the graves of three murdered children in an abandoned music amusement park with a
00:15:10
ghost child companion in the middle of the night? That's a good question. One gets the [ __ ] up out of there. I ran I
00:15:17
ran like the wind. Okay, I'm old and chunky. I ran like that. Back at camp after I caught my out of shape breath, I
00:15:24
drank a bad gas station beer and started to share my tail. However, mother nature
00:15:29
had his own her own agenda. With a crack of thunder and flash of lightning, the sky angrily broke wide open and we made
00:15:35
a mad dash for our tiny house/shed next to the cornfield. Once inside the safety
00:15:41
of the plywood walls, we realized the only way to latch the door was from the outside. Why? Yeah, that's not good.
00:15:48
Well, it's a shed. But it's a shed. You're like, I was like, that's [ __ ] up. Nefarious. It's [ __ ] The door
00:15:54
seemed only to stay closed fairly well on its own. So, at the time, it didn't. He's in the afterlife.
00:16:01
Okay. Which is close cuz the veil is like pretty thin right there. I don't know how thin it is right now. It's
00:16:07
Friday the 13th soon. Facts. I don't know what that means, but let's go with it. Bet. Uh, if you could
00:16:16
give me a little more specificity of where you are in this room, perhaps Nicholas.
00:16:23
The second I said something. The second I said something. Listen, I advocated for you. I advocated for you to stay on
00:16:32
the YouTube episodes, Nicholas. So, sorry, Nicholas. Uh, so, um, sorry, Nicholas. I'm I'm just saying sorry.
00:16:41
Sorry, Nicholas. I don't know. We're family. I'm stressed out right now. family. Sorry, Nicholas. I see her. I
00:16:48
see her. Sorry, Nicholas. What about Sorry, Ash. You're being bullied on your I don't want to piss Nicholas off. I'm
00:16:53
not trying to piss him off. I'm just trying to tell him that I advocated for him. Keep the He keeps telling me he
00:16:58
dislikes me. We're family. Not that he dislikes you. Just what you said. Oh, okay. It's cuz you said ignore what he
00:17:04
said. Okay, that's fine. All right. So, I have to say if you're only listening on audio, you're missing out. Nicholas
00:17:13
is great. Cool watch on YouTube. So, the door seemed to stay closed fairly well on its own. So, at the time,
00:17:20
it didn't present as a huge problem. We settled in for bed. Before turning off our headlamps, I reminded the dogs that
00:17:26
if a small ghost child opened the door during the night and asked them to come out and play, they were to respond with
00:17:32
a firm no. Before my eyes were even closed, Wesley had already begun to snore. I tossed and turned and
00:17:39
eventually drifted off to sleep. Reality fell away to the dream world and all was
00:17:44
well in our tiny house saw a shed next to the cornfield until it wasn't. Suddenly the door flew open and my dumb
00:17:51
ass was the one sleeping next to the door. I screamed. The dog started to bark and snoring beauty awoke with a
00:17:57
start. We quickly determined that the wind blew open the door, not a ghost child trying to steal our dogs. With
00:18:03
some rocks and a rope, we maggyvered that door closed. At this point, I was awake and there was no hope of not being
00:18:09
wide ass awake, which turned out to be a good thing because all night long there
00:18:14
was a wrapping at the door and it would slowly be pulled open and then closed again, which the wind doesn't do. This
00:18:21
continued long after the wind and rain died down. Like, imagine the door slowly opening and then slowly closing and like
00:18:28
a wrapping at the door. No, I just like it so much. But we should totally go. Nonetheless, dawn broke to a beautiful
00:18:35
blue sky. We survived the night, packed up the car, and drove off into the West Virginia mountains. That's even scarier,
00:18:41
to be honest. Uh, that's it. That's my story. Thank you for planting the seed. If it weren't for y'all, this trip would
00:18:46
not have happened. Keep it weird, but not so weird. You spend the night in a tiny house shed next to a cornfield in a
00:18:52
haunted abandoned amusement park in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. Damn. April. April. And the pictures are
00:19:00
next to me. Next to me. Who's next to you? Um, he you asked him where he was and he said you were next to him. Am I
00:19:08
next to you, Nicholas? Are you to my left? Cuz you don't have a lot of space over there. What if I'm Nicholas? What
00:19:14
if you are? I mean, somebody did think I was Nicholas, which I am not. That's true. That was a weird That was a weird
00:19:20
hypothesis. Someone was like, "It's Ash. They pre-recorded them and that's why Ash always knows what Nicholas is
00:19:26
saying. Don't drop the fire." Okay, I fixed it. Uh, but yeah, there's some really good photos with this one that
00:19:34
are awesome. Really spooky. April, you did a really good job without the photographs. It was really good. Um, and
00:19:39
you made us want to go to that. I want to go to so many abandoned abandoned abandon. I want to go to so many
00:19:44
abandoned places. Especially amusement parks. They give me like the I know. So, thank you, April. All right.
00:19:53
My next one is called Lake Desolation Serial Killer and Abandoned Asylum. That one has to be great. I think I
00:20:00
would think it'll work. He said next saying it. What is Nicholas getting at? I can't
00:20:09
figure this out. Nicholas, is Elena next to you? More on this later. Yeah. Am I next to
00:20:18
you, Nicholas? I don't know. We'll see. All right. So, it says, "Dear Asholina, I submitted
00:20:23
this story last summer, but since you have re-released the Spooky Lakes TM episodes, I think I thought I would give
00:20:28
this one another go. It's on a listener tales. I also have another tale of a haunted driveway to type up and send
00:20:33
soon." That's funny that you were just talking about driveway. Yeah. I'm a huge fan, also a fellow spoopy New Englander
00:20:39
who grew up in southern New Hampshire. Hell yeah. Thank you. And come back every fall to enjoy the haunts of of
00:20:45
nature. I've attached my listener tale on a spooky lake asylum and potential serial killer for you, but in a friendly
00:20:51
double spaced poda. You're beautiful. I hope you enjoy. And my soul would leave my body if you read this. Well, soul,
00:20:58
prepare for departure. Congratulations on being soulless. You are in jealous now. Oh god, you
00:21:07
ejaculated your soul. You have to listen to the rewatch. Gross. Yeah. Okay. My name is Megan. You
00:21:14
can use my name. Also, shout out to Rachel, Erin, and Lyanna, who will appreciate this tale. I'm a 30-year-old
00:21:19
lady who resides in good old cheesy Wisconsin. Cheesy. I would love it there. I love cheese. We had cheese for
00:21:25
breakfast this morning, but who grew up in New Hampshire in a house built in 1780. Oh, hell yeah. And that isn't even
00:21:32
the most haunted thing in my life. Oh, [ __ ] This tale is dedicated to the creepiest yet most enchanting body of
00:21:38
water I have ever witnessed in upstate New York. We could go there. We could. For the past 28 or so summers of my
00:21:44
life, I've been visiting an eerie, cold, quiet lake on top of a mountain in the foothills of the Aderondax. Lake
00:21:51
Desolation. That is the most metal name. Yeah, Lake Desolation. All I can think of is Sparky
00:22:00
from um I know it's domination, but all I can think is desolation. Domination. Desolation. Damn. It's
00:22:09
losing all meaning, though. Desolation. Desolation. Desolation. All right, we're
00:22:13
done. Lake desolation is the way that Why did that bring instant tears to my eyes? Because it scared me a
00:22:29
lot. I think your dirty minds are thinking something else, but that actually genuinely scared me. I'm
00:22:35
scared. He just screamed, "Why can't I come?" And I realize what that sounds like, but he said it so angry that I
00:22:44
don't feel I I don't feel safe after the pointing at each other and saying yucky
00:22:54
things. Personally, I'm scared shitless right now. No, the way he said that so angry. He
00:23:01
doesn't usually say it like that. He doesn't. You're gross. We're going to go back to
00:23:08
the story. Nicholas, please don't be angry. Please don't be angry like that cuz it genuinely scared me. Thank you.
00:23:14
[ __ ] I love that you guys laugh. That was [ __ ] scary. Lake Desolation is a pitch black,
00:23:21
freezing cold lake at 30 to 45 deep fed by cold springs. The lake is literally 68 acres of blackness. No. Yes. Nope. It
00:23:30
is. I don't want that. I kind of do. Oh. Surrounding the lake today are old shanty but sturdy shacks that were built
00:23:36
by the Irish in the 1920s as camps and have mostly stayed as such with very few people residing on the lake year round.
00:23:42
The scene is as picturesque as an old A-frame one and twotory camps painted bright blues, reds, and a white clash
00:23:49
with the dark abysmal shade of the lake that absorbs all the sun and reflects nature in the camps like a mirror. Wow,
00:23:56
that was [ __ ] poetic. That is also there's an attached image. Milton, New York is a quiet town. Maybe one or two
00:24:03
stop lightss, a general store, and a few roads headed up to factories, camps, and
00:24:07
scenic homes. And apparently a ton of horror. Horror. Horror. Every summer, my family is headed up the w the winding
00:24:13
mountain road and felt an eerie feeling of how desolate. Yes, in the name. It re
00:24:17
it truly was up there. Jumping in the water was ice cold and so dark. The depth of the water always made me feel a
00:24:22
little bit afraid of it. Was there anything down there? It always ran through my head. There is. A couple
00:24:27
summers ago, as an adult, I was up at the lake after moving to the Midwest and not being able to go to upstate New York
00:24:33
every summer like I did when I lived in New Hampshire. My mom and I were visiting my grandma and decided to drive
00:24:37
up from her house uh from her hometown to the lake to stay a few days to keep cool. My mom and I stood on the dock and
00:24:44
I ran and jumped in the dark water. I came up from underneath and treaded water as I shouted to my mom, "I hate
00:24:49
being in the lake alone. I always feel like some dead body is going to come up and grab me." Oh no. a trauma that I
00:24:54
have faced since that Are You Afraid of the Dark episode. Hell yeah, I know exactly which one you're talking about.
00:24:59
She seriously replies with they pull dead bodies out of that lake all the time. Wow, mom. I go, what? Naturally,
00:25:07
thinking she's messing with me. But she continues to tell me that a couple times
00:25:10
they have pulled a dead person out of the lake after a heart attack while swimming or drowning. Okay, normal, I
00:25:16
guess. Then, without missing a beat, she also proceeds to tell me of the lake desolation serial killer. The [ __ ]
00:25:22
what? I'm sorry. Who? That they have never caught. What the hell? What the hell Barry? What the hell? What the hell
00:25:31
Burton? The serial killings happened in 2003 and 2009. Both were young girls with red
00:25:38
hair. One was found. I don't want to go anymore. Well, we have to. It was 2003 and 2009, you know, they never caught
00:25:45
him. I'll go with you. What? I don't I don't want to do it. We're going. No. Yeah. No.
00:25:52
No. Then again, I'm not young. So that that might help the self-realization. I mean, just go I'm not young. I'm not
00:26:02
young. Watching you. Maybe cuz you're not young and he's in the afterlife. So he's like,
00:26:11
"Hey, he just confirmed that." He said, "Definitely watching you from up here in
00:26:16
the afterlife since you're so not young." Okay. He said, "You're coming. You're coming up here sometime soon.
00:26:22
Coming around the bend. Anyway, the serial killings happened in 2003 and 2009. Both, like I just said, were young
00:26:29
girls with red hair. One was found in an old logging site and the other found in
00:26:32
the woods. One girl was missing for years before they found her skull and bone fragments. Oh. Uh, okay. Why was
00:26:39
this not on the news? That's not the only creepy thing about the lake, by the way. Do you guys remember the app uh
00:26:44
Randonaut? Oh my god. Yeah, like random randon nautica or something like that. I
00:26:50
don't know. I don't remember it. Yeah, I think it was like you could go it would
00:26:54
send you to a place. I think I do remember this. The app supposedly manifests something you'd like to see
00:27:00
and then chooses a random point of longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates. Yeah, I remember that. That
00:27:05
was like a big thing. Yeah, that does sound familiar. Now, the app actually led a group of teens to discover a dead
00:27:10
body if that refreshes your memory. Absolutely. And that was like huge right when Tik Tok came out or like when we
00:27:16
discovered it at least. I don't know when it came out. Well, last summer, my 17-year-old sister and I decided to try
00:27:22
it. The coordinates it had chosen for us were 13 minutes driving distance away from our camp at the lake. We drove
00:27:27
through the pouring rain. The location, oh, just the Saratoga County Homestead. What is that? A literal abandoned and
00:27:33
decaying insane asylum that has been closed and falling down since 1973. Damn, it manifested what you wanted to
00:27:41
see. You know that's what you wanted to see. I suddenly lost my feeling of adventure and we noped it back home
00:27:47
without exiting the car. We literally had no idea that that place even existed. Later that summer, I did see a
00:27:52
Travel Channel show about it though and had to immediately call my sister. Also,
00:27:56
in the Lake Laneir episode, I remember you talking about the fear of submerged man-made objects, aka some
00:28:02
mechanophobia. Rotate. Did he say rotate for me or lucky for me? It was kind of like
00:28:14
slow motion film. Slow motion. I thought he said lucky for me something you didn't you can't understand.
00:28:21
Looking for me actor you can't understand. Are you an actor, Nicholas? Is your real name even Nicholas?
00:28:31
Are you Are you a a famous actor, Nicholas? Oh, or are you like a bad spirit? I'm going with famous actor.
00:28:40
Are you a famous actor from days of your Nicholas? Let us know. Let us know. Okay. Well, in
00:28:47
the 1920s, there was a hotel on what is now the pitily Little Lake Beach, and parts of the hotel structural docks are
00:28:53
still submerged. Nope. I don't like that at all. Yeah. Just to spice up the lakes's creepiness,
00:29:01
in the woods surrounding it is an abandoned village. I need to see that. Yeah, I need to see that. I don't want
00:29:08
to see the submerge thing because it'll give me an existential crisis of some sort. I want to see it, but I don't want
00:29:13
to see it all at the same time. It's one of those things. But I want to see the abandoned village. Well, in 1842, a Glad
00:29:19
factory was erected to bottle Saratoga mineral water, and a thriving village built up around the factory of workers,
00:29:24
but the factory closed in 1866 and was relocated closer to a rail track for logistical purposes. I don't even have
00:29:32
to write the creepy little tidbit that happened next because the article below described it horrifyingly. Quote, "With
00:29:37
its only industry gone, the community had no purpose and the people moved away. Some farming activity continued
00:29:42
until the early 1900s, but one by one, the residents moved and nature took over. Had this been in the arid out
00:29:49
west, you would be standing in the middle of a ghost town. But in our climate, the woodframe buildings quickly
00:29:53
rotted and trees began to grow in the pastures and open land until a mature forest now occupies the site.
00:30:02
Whenever just like nature just like takes something back. Yeah. You know, like takes over, it freaks me the [ __ ]
00:30:10
out. Like I'm I'm for it. I support it. Nature, take what you got to take back. Take everything if you want to. It's a
00:30:16
It's a spooky situation. It is creepy. That's spooky. So anyway, I'll be super happy to hear you read about my spooky
00:30:22
body of water. It's no like Lenir or witch who wants to take a town with her to her grave. But would you dive in feet
00:30:28
first? Hannah. No. Hannah. Hannah Crana is my favorite morbid episode. Hannah Crana is a great one. It was so fun.
00:30:33
Yeah. Anyway, keep it weird, but not so weird that you've been swimming for 28 summers in a lake that may have bodies
00:30:38
in it. Been driving past a serial killer dumping ground. Touched a freaking hotel
00:30:41
dock post with your feet and it was all covered in seaweed and it traumatized you. And an app takes you to an
00:30:46
abandoned insane asylum 13 minutes away from you that you didn't know existed. Damn. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot
00:30:52
in one summer menu. That's a good one, though. Now I want to look up Lake Desolation and I want to like learn more
00:30:56
about it. Maybe next Spooky Lakes we'll cover it. Yeah, maybe we can. Brought to
00:31:00
you by Megan. Brought to you by Megan. I also want to try I always wanted to try
00:31:05
that like random or whatever it is. I wonder is it still a thing? I think it is. Let's try it. I
00:31:11
mean, I imagine it is. So, I'm going to read Listener Tales, Shadow People, Spooky Headlights, and Mystery. Oh my.
00:31:18
Oh my. Hi, Ash and Elena. Please see the attached pod and photos. One attachment
00:31:24
is my rendering of the ghost. We say one is us on the ferry, me on the ferry, the
00:31:29
c the cabin in question, and the fire pit. Wish I took more. Who' have thunk I'd need them? smiley face. I hope you
00:31:35
love this story, and I'd cry the happiest of tears if you ever read it. Much love from Washington State. Katie
00:31:41
and Cody and Maddie. Yeah. Yay. E. I like it. Hello, you wonderful land mermaids of morbidness. Thank you.
00:31:49
You're like Leslie. No, that was amazing. That was really good. longtime listener like I found your podcast back
00:31:54
in the underwater days and still relisten to those episodes when I run out of new ones. You two honestly bring
00:31:59
comfort to the creepy and I know I'm not alone in that giant thank you that you both deserve. Thank you. Thanks. My name
00:32:05
is Katie, pronounced Katie. Feel free to use my name because how [ __ ] cool would that be? Pretty [ __ ] cool. It's
00:32:10
like Catty Heron. That's what I thought of. This story involves myself and my boyfriend at the time, now fiance.
00:32:16
Hopefully never ex-husband Cody. Never ever. This listener tale happened a couple of years ago and somehow after
00:32:21
saying, "Wow, I should send my story in a trillion times, I finally am. Yay." I'm not a writer or a great editor for
00:32:27
the fact for that fact. So feel free to slim this story as you see fit. And you know your girl has attached a double
00:32:32
space pod queen. This is the tale of creepy headlights, a shadow figure, and a whole campsite disappearing right
00:32:39
before our eyes. It's a doozy. My boyfriend Cody and I were heading a couple of hours away into the woods. a
00:32:45
recipe for pure fun, clean fun to celebrate my 32nd birthday at a cute little cabin. This was the first full
00:32:52
year of COVID. And what better way to celebrate than puzzles and smooching in the mountain air. We left our home in
00:32:58
Eastern Washington with our geriatric dog child, Maddie, who just left us in January after 16 wonderful years
00:33:05
together. I'm so sorry. And headed a couple hours north to stay the night with my mom before heading to the cabin
00:33:11
the next morning. The drive was going perfect. I was being the ultimate passenger princess and bought us iced
00:33:16
coffee and the playlist was giving, as the youth say. About halfway through the drive, we had to take a ferry across a
00:33:24
large river, which is always my favorite part. No one else was on the ferry, which takes about 15 minutes to get over
00:33:29
the river and another 15 at best to get back to pick up more cars. Important details there. This ferry is tiny. Damn
00:33:37
tiny. Holds three cars at best tiny. We were the only car on at the time and no cars were waiting on the other side,
00:33:43
which again would be at least 30 minutes for the ferry to pick them up and get them across. Remember that. Remember? We
00:33:51
finally reach on the other side and the ferry guy lets us off. We depart the ferry and our cell signal was instantly
00:33:57
lost. Just for context, the nearest town is about 45 minutes from the ferry crossing and pure no single signal
00:34:04
mountain driving. I have my downloaded Spotify playlist ready. After about 15 minutes of driving, it was dark as could
00:34:11
be and I was rocking out to some 90s tunes. As you should be. Brilliant. Cody is being a safe, diligent driver and not
00:34:17
boopping along with me. That's fine. We can't all be fun all the time. The moon is covered by clouds and there are no
00:34:23
street lamps, just pure dark sky ahead of us. I peep the rearview mirror and see headlights far behind us. No cars
00:34:30
could be there, I thought. Not unless they drove a zillion miles an hour after entering the ferry. Like I said, it was
00:34:36
at least 30 minutes for more cars to be picked up and brought to our side. So, what the [ __ ] I comment to Cody that
00:34:43
it's strange to have a car behind us, and he agrees. I feel slight unease because I am overthink I'm an
00:34:48
overthinking [ __ ] who assumes the worst. You got to be. You really have to be in this day and age. You have to be
00:34:53
an overthinking bishom. Yeah, just assume the worst and be really happy if that doesn't happen. I try to shrug the
00:34:59
feeling off, but my tummy has been activated with anxiety. The car stays far behind us for a while, then starts
00:35:05
to get closer. Finally, it's right behind us. Now, my family had a run-in when I was a kid where my parents and I
00:35:11
were driving over a mountain, and a car tried to shove us off the road three times before they themselves crashed.
00:35:17
Damn. [ __ ] I have deep anxiety with mystery cars and mountains. I don't [ __ ] blame you. I do too. Now, I keep
00:35:24
my eyes on the road and my elderly dog child in my arms. Suddenly, I see something dark in front of us. This took
00:35:30
all of one split second, but I will never forget it and hope I can even explain it. A large round object, now
00:35:36
lovingly called the ghost. It was in front of us. I truly thought it was a bear, but it looked like a void of some
00:35:42
sort. Round yet jagged, hallow yet so deep. I slam my imaginary passenger side brake. And I'm always doing that. I did
00:35:50
that to you yesterday. Uh, and gently say to Cody, "Bear, bear, bear." But as I say it, I real I realize nothing is
00:35:58
there. Nothing was there. Did I just make up a whole event in my head? Feeling silly for yelling out bear. I I
00:36:05
look over at Cody and see his eyes are damn wet. Like about to cry wet. The rapture.
00:36:17
We'll come back to that. Nicholas, not sure how to explain that one. Maybe he's a ghost fan. Yeah, there you go.
00:36:23
There you go. I like that. Um glossy little eyeballs. This only happens when he is very scared, like watching Nuke's
00:36:30
top five alone at 2 a.m. scared. He says nothing. I look behind me and the headlights and car are gone.
00:36:39
No, no, no, no, no. The goosebumps have goosebumps. Nicholas just said keep recording, but he said it angry.
00:36:51
That camera died. That camera died like a minute ago. He said, "Turn it back on." We're going
00:36:59
to keep recording right now cuz we're not done. I feel unsafe. So, yes, we will keep recording. Thank you,
00:37:05
Nicholas. Let's uh let's keep it chill. Nicholas, you're scaring Ash. You're scaring Ash. Scaring me. I look to my
00:37:14
left at a at my weteyed man friend, and he says, eyes not moving off the road and knuckles white. Did you see it, too?
00:37:22
Oh. I gently reply, "The bear. Even though I knew in that moment it was not a bear. "No," he replies, still
00:37:30
being a little too quiet for my anxious brain. The dark thing, the black deep hole. I will attach my rendering drawn
00:37:37
moments after the event, just titled in my iPhone notes app. Ghost, and it's like exclamation, ghost.
00:37:45
What? We slow down a bit, realizing there has been no turnoff for miles. And where the [ __ ] did the car go behind us?
00:37:53
If it was a bear, did they end up hitting it or worse? I never saw a crash. No headlights on the side of the
00:37:59
road. We continue the slow drive. No music, no giggles, and no chatting. I was thankful in that moment that Maddie
00:38:05
was mostly deaf by this 14 year of year of her life and was blissfully unaware of the stress we were feeling. Matt was
00:38:11
just straight vibing. Yeah. Maddie said, "I don't care. This is fun." She said, "I'm almost on my way out." It was
00:38:16
another few hours to get to my mom's house. We tell her everything. She isn't big into spooky stuff and says it was
00:38:21
just our sleepy eyes. Mother, I am 32, not 92. My eyes are not yet that sleepy at 700 p.m. I mean, I'm 35 now, so they
00:38:30
definitely are. I was going to say mine are quick. We kind of forget the ordeal.
00:38:34
Brush it off as a weird night of events and all. And the next day, we leave Maddie with my mom and drive up to the
00:38:39
cabin. To paint this picture, as it will come in super big in a couple moments, the cabin is in a very old, very
00:38:45
run-down yet ever so perfect camping resort. A couple cabins, a tiny little restaurant that doubles as the check-in
00:38:53
desk, store, coffee station, thrift bookshop, some boat boats for rent, and so on. I love the sounds of this. I want
00:39:00
to go to there. It is old and it is perfect. We rented the cabin at the very end of the resort loop overlooking the
00:39:06
other other cabins, all like eight of them and restaurant. From our campsite, we see families making s'mores over
00:39:12
their fire pits. We have an RV somewhat close behind us with people laughing and
00:39:16
talking and playing games. Their low laughter and talking feel comforting to me. We hear music playing and kids
00:39:22
laughing and dads cursing at fish they cannot catch. I am deep in my happy place. Great. It really does. Like this
00:39:29
makes me be like, "Okay, I could do this." That's great. Summer vibes. We set up a our fire pit, pull out the
00:39:34
pre-downloaded pu uh music and scary stories from Reddit to tell after dark and prepare for a fun night. We do
00:39:40
puzzles, make coffee, get cozy, and sleep. The first night was indeed bliss. Yay. And it sounds like [ __ ] bliss.
00:39:49
The next morning, everything is the same. It's a Saturday in midocctober. This is better for you. And it's misty
00:39:56
and cold and beautiful. I want fall so bad. I want that. The families are waking up and making coffee
00:40:03
over their fire pits. Why are you making this sound so dectable? I just need to be here. People are renting boats to go
00:40:09
fish. The dock is full of people. The RV of people rush to the restaurant for breakfast. As do we. I have chicken
00:40:16
fried steak and biscuits. Cody has a corn beef hash. Black coffee and old mugs. All the good stuff. Bustling for
00:40:23
co times for sure. We all stayed very far away and the restaurant was outdoor seating mostly. She's like, "Don't
00:40:29
come." Don't come at me. We decide to rent a boat for that afternoon, too. The woman at the front desk tells us to pick
00:40:34
a boat and at checkout tomorrow, bring payment for it. Sounds great. We love some small town financial trust. She
00:40:41
reminds us checkout is at 11:00 a.m. the next day, but she will be there from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., which is another
00:40:47
big detail. We make dinner reservations for around 700 p.m. for that night, the last time slot available for dinner. The
00:40:55
restaurant is so tiny and could only have like 15 people in the vicinity. We have some fun at our cabin, puzzles and
00:41:01
music and such, and go for a walk before deciding to go pick up our boat. By this
00:41:05
time, it's about 300 p.m. Way past checkout times for everyone leaving that day. But still, I see kids running and
00:41:11
fires going at cabins along the lake and people walking their dogs. They should all be staying the night, I think to
00:41:17
myself. I mean, someone took all those other dinner reservations, right? We get in our little rickety boat that has a
00:41:23
tiny lake and Cody starts to row us away. The lake is small with lots of little beaches to stop at and wildlife
00:41:29
to see. We row the entire lake, which took maybe 2 hours and was so wonderful. I just sat there painting in a
00:41:36
sketchbook and drinking somewhat warm PBR. Oh, that's great. Cody tried to catch a fish between rowing. When we had
00:41:42
left the with the boat, we passed by our cabin. And as we rode, we saw the RV of
00:41:46
people sitting by the fire drinking beer and playing a ball toss game. This would
00:41:50
be close to 400 p.m. After a couple hours, we're ending in the same spot and it's getting dark. I mentioned in
00:41:57
passing conversation to Cody that I no longer see their fire from the RV, and he comments that they were up late last
00:42:03
night and must have turned into bed early. It's like 700 p.m., my dude. Who are they? My mom's version of me. We get
00:42:10
back to land and Cody drops me off in front of our cabin while he docks the boat before dinner. I sit outside and
00:42:16
finish my beer on our little old little dock. He meets up with me about 10 minutes later and says dinner is
00:42:21
cancelled. No one was at the restaurant. This was a Saturday and they were open until 9:00 p.m. as the lady earlier that
00:42:27
day told us. I was bummed because fish and chips were my main focus of the trip. I researched food reviews for like
00:42:33
a week before we got there. We chitchated about why they would close when it was a Saturday night and busy.
00:42:39
He said there was no note on the front door, but everything was dark, but oh well. We made our fire and had hot dogs
00:42:44
and s'mores. By this time, it's dark. At least 7:00 p.m. or later. We started telling spooky stories to each other
00:42:50
just like the night before. And I loved watching my boyfriend get all weted and scared again. He keeps getting spooked
00:42:56
out by the sounds in the woods around us. But in the middle of my story about the goatman, because who doesn't love
00:43:01
the goat man story, Cody hushes me and I was getting all prepared to make a do not ever hush me, sir rant. But his eyes
00:43:08
and tone made me hold my sass back for a moment. I asked what was wrong. Was it an angry duckling or a rabid beaver we
00:43:15
saw while bo while boating? He says, "I haven't heard anyone since we got back tonight. Have you?" "No," I say. "But so
00:43:23
what? I like the piece." My positivity had zero place in this conversation, I think. Babe, when we left, there were so
00:43:29
many people. It was busy. The restaurant was open. Fires were going. Look around.
00:43:34
No one's here. No smoke from burnt out fire pits. The lights are all off. So, I do look around and I realize not one
00:43:41
fire is going. Not one person is talking. Not one light is on. The RV is even gone. Where did they leave? When
00:43:49
did they leave? They would have had to drive past our cabin on their way out. They were here when we returned from
00:43:54
boating. The cars are gone. Everyone's gone. But that can't be right. Check out was hours ago, and everyone was still
00:44:00
here way after that, I say. Now, let me preface this with my boyfriend and I love anything that gives us chills and
00:44:06
wet eyes. We love a good spooky. We fall asleep to scary videos. We are the weirdos, mister. Yes. But this felt bad.
00:44:14
He's Oh, I don't like that. I hate this. Imagine everybody just [ __ ] disappearing. Gone like like
00:44:20
inexplicably gone. He slowly gets up and says to me while trying to play cool, I'm cold anyway, you know? Let's put the
00:44:27
fire out for now and do something fun inside in the safety of the indoors. He walks 10 the 10 ft to the waterfront to
00:44:33
grab our giant bucket and starts to put out the fire. I decide to get the lights
00:44:37
on inside and fire going in the fireplace. When walking from the fire pit to the front door, I hear twigs
00:44:43
cracking from in ahead of me. I can't see anything. The moon is so covered and it's just darkness. So, I race back to
00:44:50
the fire and Cody. He's being more frantic than I'd like to putting this fire out. What started as basic speed of
00:44:56
walking for water has turned into him running from waterfront to fire pit in mere seconds. Oh no. I call out to him
00:45:01
and tell him about the twigs I heard. I know, Katie, he says. I heard it before while we were telling stories. I didn't
00:45:07
want to scare you. Please go inside. I love that he's like trying to go inside, too. I ran inside because you don't need
00:45:13
to tell me twice. I mean, he did actually, but whatever. We lock the front door, which was barely a real door
00:45:19
at best, and a piece of plywood at worst. Oh, God. Cody grabs knives, hammers, and other heavy items and
00:45:25
places them by the door in the table just in case, he says. Super comforting. My god. But lo and behold, I was
00:45:31
addicted to nicotine at 32. At around 9:00 p.m., my addiction tells my brain that it's totally fine to go outside.
00:45:37
totally safe. Oh my god. What's the worst that could happen? So much. I step out to the front porch to light a
00:45:43
cigarette. Cody stands in the door because he's a highly supportive man. As he told me this is not the time to crave
00:45:48
tobacco in a stern dad voice and watched over me with a grumpy look. I got two drags in and heard not just a crack of
00:45:56
twigs, but a full-on thud from about 10 ft in front of me in the darkness. That made my skin go all goosebumpy, but I
00:46:03
didn't move. I couldn't move. Oh my god. Then the sound of very fast. No, this is
00:46:09
a nightmare to me. Nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare. Then the sound of very fast,
00:46:13
increasingly loud running starts towards me from where the thought I thought I had heard was. It's the running for me.
00:46:20
Never. Never want to hear running in the forest. Walking slowly. Not really scary. Awesome. Your full-blown running.
00:46:27
I'm not into it. [ __ ] I'm not into it. Cody yells at me to get inside now. I threw my cigarette into my coffee cup
00:46:34
because safety first. Duh. And start and darted back inside. Cody quickly locks the door and put a chain in front of it,
00:46:41
a chair in front of it, and said I was not to leave again. I was not about to disagree. I was pretty sure I needed to
00:46:46
change my underwear at that point. Yeah. One more thing about my boyfriend. He can sleep anywhere, anytime, through
00:46:53
anything. And he fell asleep on the tiny cabin couch minutes after this happened.
00:46:58
I would have I would have murdered him. somehow forgetting the events that just took place. Okay, this is fine. This is
00:47:04
totally fine. I don't want to call my mom and say, "Mom, pick me up. We're being haunted." Not at all. Not that I
00:47:10
could call without any service. Sell service. I made a fire in the wood stove and laid my painting supplies out. I
00:47:16
turned on my Spotify playlist for sad indie girls who cry a lot and started painting by firelight. I know the one.
00:47:22
Now this is my jam. I love that. You're like, "Got it." Yeah. The thoughts of what was happening outside and where the
00:47:29
[ __ ] did everyone go were leaving me. I happily painted trees and listen and listened to fleet foxes. Great band
00:47:36
until I was brought back to my current reality by a loud, insanely loud bang at the front door about 5t from me. [ __ ]
00:47:45
[ __ ] your pants. It shook the whole cabin. It made my paint water ripple and made my throat clench. But it did not
00:47:54
wake up Cody. That's such man [ __ ] I sit up off the floor, grab my knife, and lean over to him as quiet yet stern as
00:48:01
possible. Cody, Cody, Cody, wake up. Cody, wake the actual [ __ ] up. He finally does, and in a groggy state,
00:48:09
sees my eyes filled with tears. Something just banged on the door, dude. It shook the whole house, I whispered to
00:48:14
him. Just like the strangers, he jumps up and grabs a knife next to him. Now, we do not know how to use knives, and
00:48:20
I'm thousand% sure in an event where we had to, we would wait too long to use them and just be unal alived by whatever
00:48:26
was coming at us. I get that. But the false sense of security was much needed. The reality of our situation sets in.
00:48:33
We're alone. We have no cell service. We are not built for survival under anything other than comfy circumstances.
00:48:40
What the [ __ ] do we do? We debate if we should go outside, stay inside, or if we
00:48:45
just leave. Just so you all know, leaving was a thousand% always an option. Our car was right outside. Full
00:48:52
tank of gas, snacks in the glove compartment. Why we didn't take that is beyond me now. That's always so scary
00:48:58
though, like trying like it's like in the horror movie where you're like, "Get in your car. Get in your car." But
00:49:02
sometimes that's how the killer thinks you're thinking and they've already slashed your tires and now you're just a
00:49:07
sitting duck in your car and you paid for this apartment. Like I get it. You pay for a such a cabin. You're such a
00:49:14
Capricorn. Yeah. You pay for a cabin. They're like, "I don't I [ __ ] abandoned this right now. We paid for
00:49:18
this night." Like, why would At that point, I would not be thinking at all. That would be my first I'd be like, I'm
00:49:24
calling for a reimbursement since we were hunted down. Since we were hunted in the middle of the night, we were
00:49:28
hunted. Could we please get 100% of this trip money back? Well, the good news is
00:49:32
there was no more banging after that one. Luckily, we decided the best thing we could do is just go to bed. Remember,
00:49:39
Cody could sleep anywhere. Like in a haunted house where the ghosts only come out when someone falls asleep. He would
00:49:44
fall asleep just fine. We put the knives by our bedside tables and laid down. Bam. He was asleep. I laid awake all
00:49:50
night. I'm sure. I know you think this has to be the end, and I promise it almost is. But not before this last
00:49:56
part. The cherry on top of this [ __ ] show now lovingly known as my favorite birthday ever. We woke up super early
00:50:03
the next morning and packed and clean our cabins up. I didn't want to be charged a cleaning fee, even when
00:50:07
fearing for our life. You know, same also a same mindset. What time can we leave? Cody asked me. The woman said by
00:50:14
11:00, but she'd be here by 8:00 a.m., so we can leave now, honestly. We went outside and saw no one again. We walked
00:50:20
a 2 minutes walk to the restaurant front desk. No one was there. It was around 9:30 a.m. at this point, but no one was
00:50:26
there. The lady told me to come in before 11:00 a.m. Girl, here I am. We still had to pay for our boat rental. We
00:50:32
had the keys to return. Not one sign of life was anywhere. So [ __ ] weird. The sign on the door still did did not say
00:50:39
closed, but it was locked. We walk around the sights of other cabins, the ones that had happy families and giant
00:50:44
fires the day before, and no one was there. We decided to leave our keys in the dropbox with our phone number to
00:50:50
make payment for the rental and yeed out of there so fast. On our drive back to the my mom's to pick up Maddie about an
00:50:56
hour and a half away, we tried to make sense of the night before, but we couldn't. None of it made sense. I then
00:51:03
said something that I wish I hadn't out loud. Cody, did something happen to us after the ferry? Was any of this real
00:51:08
anymore or are we in some weird limbo? He didn't have an answer. Regardless, we get back to my mom's answer what explain
00:51:16
what happened and she shrugged it off as maybe being COVID related. She's like, I
00:51:20
don't know. It's the rona, I bet. Uh, why that's mom [ __ ] That is mom [ __ ] Why couldn't she dive into the
00:51:25
spookiness with us? Come on, mom. No logic right now. I don't even know if that's logical. To end this story on
00:51:30
another creepy note, we did start re researching what I had seen and it turns out a lot of people had seen what I had
00:51:36
seen. Deep, dark, empty I think it happened in 2020. Yes, thank you for asking, Nicholas. Deep, dark,
00:51:45
empty black masses that give you a feeling of doom and despair. Shortly after this incident, my my boyfriend had
00:51:51
a mental health crisis and abruptly left and lived in the woods alone for 3 months. After lots of therapy and he
00:51:58
healing, he came out stronger. But we came out stronger together. I'm glad to hear that. But sometimes I wonder if
00:52:03
this experience did something to him. His feeling of hopelessness and sadness that almost ended him were a lot of a
00:52:09
lot of what I read about these figures. But this ends on a happy note, y'all. Damn. And that is the end of my story.
00:52:15
It's been a couple of years and regardless of that event, I booked another trip to the same cabin for this
00:52:21
fall as well because we're getting married and wanted to be wanted to really pack a punch in the creepy
00:52:28
department. We've never seen another shadow figure. The banging didn't follow us home. So, I guess all is well. I did
00:52:34
start researching what I'd seen and it turns out a lot of other people had seen it. So, keep it weird, but not so weird
00:52:39
you almost crash into a shadow figure, take on its sadness, lose a [ __ ] ton of
00:52:44
humans from sight, and can never explain it again. You went back. You went back to the hell dimension,
00:52:53
Katie, what? I think something happened to you and I think you're I think it's like calling you back now. I don't think
00:52:58
you have free will anymore, Katie. Oh my god, you guys are adorable. Oh, I want to see. Hold on. And the ghost.
00:53:05
Ghost. The ghost. I love the question. Please, don't worry. That's so scary. Oh, you guys are so cute. You guys are
00:53:11
adorable. Oh, I love you guys. Oh my god. And your dog, Maddie. Maddie. She's so cute.
00:53:19
I am scared, Nicholas. I'm not okay. Weird flex, but okay. I'm not. Um, imagine that cabin h that happening. Did
00:53:30
you see the cabin? Yeah. [ __ ] that. That's intense. Katie, that's wild. Katie, what a good story though. That
00:53:38
was scary. I think we have time for one more. Thinking of like a whole resort just disappearing. Like what? All right,
00:53:45
this next one is just called listener tale submission. Hi, please enjoy my listener tale submission. Mystery
00:53:50
Mysterious. As per what seems to be your preference, I have attached a double spaced 12point peda. I think that's how
00:53:55
you spell it. It is well done. It is nine pages long, so it goes without saying that if you need to cut anything
00:54:00
out, please feel free. No, I've attached a sketch of our campsite as well as photos of all of us and the few things I
00:54:06
have that show what the campsite looked like. Anyway, please enjoy the one time me and a few of my friends almost died
00:54:11
in the middle of the night while camping. Aka the plot line to the most basic horror film ever. Ah, but some of
00:54:17
the best. Some of the best. All right, ready? Hi, morbid girlies. I would like to start off this listener tale as
00:54:23
everyone does with endless flattery cute fanirling. My name is, please say my name, Kelsey. Kelsey. Kelsey. We love
00:54:30
you. And I was put on to your show by my boyfriend Jake. Jake, we can say we love
00:54:34
you, too. We love Jake. We love Kelsey. We loved Kelsey and Jake. Yeah. Um Jake,
00:54:39
who probably read this story Jake? Cake. Sorry, that almost got lost on me with Chelsea. Chelsea and Cake. Chelsea. I
00:54:46
like it all. It's great. Well, Jake probably read this story a gajillion times before I sent it in order to make
00:54:51
my ADHD ramblings make sense. Also, Ash, I am an Aquarius. If that says anything
00:54:55
about how this listener tale is about to go, he he does. it. I'm in an uh astrology class right now, so I'll let
00:55:01
you know. Oh, the first time Jake and I ever listened to you guys, we were actually on a 5-hour road trip, and I
00:55:06
listened to four episodes back toback and just giggled along to your commentary. And yes, I have sent a photo
00:55:11
of the two of us for your viewing pleasure. You guys are really cute. You are. I'm pretty sure those episodes were
00:55:15
the leaf killer episodes, which have [ __ ] haunted me ever since. Those ones were rough. Yeah. I'm in college
00:55:21
and work a student job in a warehouse where I sit alone in silence for eight hour shifts. So having you guys listen
00:55:27
to really makes time fly and feels like I have two friends hanging out, spilling
00:55:30
the tea. You do. When true crime news pops up now, especially with the Idaho murders, Jake always makes it a point to
00:55:35
ask what my morbid girlies had to say about it. Everyone always will say that to their partners. They're like, "What
00:55:40
do your girls have to say? What do you girls have to say about it?" Anyway, I will get onto the story now, but please
00:55:45
do your thing. Keep doing your thing. Thanks. I've changed all the names in this story beside my own as well as
00:55:50
tweaked some details that aren't really relevant to the story in order to keep everybody out of trouble and keep this
00:55:55
mostly anonymous. Please buckle up because this is long and I know you never shorten a story, but please feel
00:56:00
free to if you need to. Okay, let me set the scene for you. It's midsummer of 2021. I'm from Iowa and I had come home
00:56:07
from college to work for the summer at what can be considered a summer camp of sorts that was focused on teaching kids
00:56:12
water sports. Hell yeah. The staff for this camp was relatively small, so we were all pretty close. Larry?
00:56:20
Larry? Is there a counselor named Larry? The staff for this camp was relatively small, so we were all pretty close-knit.
00:56:26
Most of the instructors had either grown up in the area or had grown up vacationing in the area, so we all knew
00:56:31
each other pretty well. Each year, the instructors hosted an instructor camp out. The term camp out can be used super
00:56:37
loosely here. In years past, this could mean literally anything, ranging from a mini golf tournament to partying at
00:56:43
somebody's cabin or even drinking out in the middle of a random cornfield. Damn.
00:56:48
Yeah, you read that right. I said drinking in a cornfield. Remember? It's very Freddy versus Jason. It's Freddy
00:56:52
versus Jason for sure. Remember how I said I was from Iowa? Yeah, I meant like a real tiny town in Iowa. Cornfields.
00:56:59
Cornfields and such. To give you a better idea of what I mean, the town I grew up in had a population of 2,700
00:57:05
people. Holy [ __ ] I graduated with a class of 100 kids. What? That's very small. I knew every single person I went
00:57:12
to high school. You knew everyone. And what their mother did for a living. Holy [ __ ] We're talking about drive your
00:57:18
tractor to school day rural. Drive your tractor to school day. That's my kind of rural. I want to go there.
00:57:26
That is my kind of rural. Barely any light pollution at night. So things are dark at night and it is very quiet. But
00:57:32
the sky must be so pretty. Yeah. And the corn. And the corn. Let's just glow in the in the moonlight. That corn. Now
00:57:39
remember I mentioned water sports. This is because our town is located on a series of large blue water lakes which
00:57:44
are all fel fed by uh wetlands and smaller lakes in the region. I got through that. You did. This particular
00:57:52
particular year it was decided that we should actually spoke too soon. I know. This particular year it was decided that
00:57:58
we should actually camp out for the instructor camp out. All of us were at least moderately comfortable with the
00:58:02
outdoors. So, we were excited. We picked a little lake that was about 5 mi outside of town. I've attached a sketch
00:58:08
to the email of the general setup of the lake and the drive-in area for reference
00:58:12
about for what I am about to describe so you can get a general sense of what everything looked like. Basically, you
00:58:17
drove in on a long one lane gravel road. One lane is always not good. When it's one lane, it freaks me out. Yeah, I
00:58:24
don't like it. No room to turn around. I need a way in and a way out. Surrounded
00:58:27
by tall old growth trees that ran all the way up to the border of the lake. Then you took a 90° turn to proceed
00:58:34
another half mile and end in a small parking area and boat ramp. That's desolate. That is That's lake
00:58:41
desolation. Lake desolation. We wanted to be near the lake but have quick access to the road just in case. So, we
00:58:46
decided to camp in a small clearing that was just past the turn in the road. The
00:58:50
clearing had a bunch of tall grass and a large dead tree in between where we set
00:58:54
up camp and the lake. Babe, tall grass and ticks and murderers. I was just going to say and and spooky people and
00:59:03
ghosts. Yeah. And corn. All of that. And corn. And also corn. We got to the lake
00:59:08
around 6 or 7:00 just as the sun was beginning to set. We were all coming from different places, so we all came in
00:59:14
with separate cars and parked in the little parking lot and just walked down to the campsite. In total, there were
00:59:19
eight of us. Me, Maya, Ella, Chad, David, Blake, Beck, and Caleb. My friend Maya didn't actually work with us, but I
00:59:26
asked her to come along on the camp out because this summer I was working two jobs, meaning 13-hour work days and a
00:59:31
little time to see her. Everything started off totally fine. We met in the parking lot and decided we should have
00:59:36
one car next to the campsite to have all of our supplies in. So, we packed my Jeep full of our tents, lawn chairs,
00:59:41
drinks, snacks, s'mores, etc., and drove down to the campsite to set everything up. I parked my car so that the back end
00:59:48
was facing the campsite and the front was to the road so we could easily drive out of there if need be. smart. We
00:59:54
flattened out the tall grass and set up three tents, which should be enough for the six of us for sure who were going to
01:00:00
stay there all night. A couple didn't want to stay, and that was cool. After having That's totally cool, man. You
01:00:05
don't have to start. Survival instinct. I get it. The survival instinct kicking in. Yeah. After having Beck, the only
01:00:11
truly outdoorsy guy in our group, spend like an hour showing our dumb asses how to put up tents, we got a fire, started,
01:00:16
and hung out. Honestly, it was a blast. I've never lost laugh so hard, and we were all genuinely having a good time.
01:00:22
More than a few alcoholic beverages were consumed and even more stupid dares were
01:00:25
carried out. We were really just a bunch of [ __ ] idiots out in the middle of nowhere getting drunk and not causing
01:00:30
anybody any trouble. That sounds amazing. To be honest, I want to go to there. Maybe not to there, but I'd like
01:00:36
to do it. We did all the traditional camping stuff like toasting s'mores and telling spooky stories. Oh yeah,
01:00:42
especially about flesh pedestrians because that had recently made an appearance on all of our Tik Tok for you
01:00:46
pages. But looking back on this, knowing what I do know about our fleshy ped pals, this was dumb. This was dumb. This
01:00:53
was dumb. Our fleshy our fleshy ped pals. I like that. About the time things were winding down, Chad's girlfriend
01:01:00
Leah decided to join us. This was because I brought Maya along and she hadn't realized it was truly it wasn't
01:01:05
just truly an employees only situation. We all like her, so it was no big deal. But it definitely messed up the sleeping
01:01:10
situation. Of the three tents we had, Maya and I were supposed to be in one. Chad, his brother David, and Beck were
01:01:17
supposed to be in the middle tent, and Ella was supposed to be in the third tent furthest from the road. Well,
01:01:22
because Chad's girlfriend joined us, Beck decided that because he was still sober and didn't want to stay in the
01:01:27
tent with the couple, he was just going to drive home. Maya and I, having consumed a few too many beeros, were the
01:01:33
first two to hit the hay. And we crashed in our tent, which was nearest to the car and the road. The rest of us stayed
01:01:39
up a little while longer until David needed to go to bed. So, he took the single tent that Ella was originally
01:01:43
going to sleep in. It was around that time that Beck decided to leave, taking Caleb and Blake with him down to the
01:01:49
parking lot. They were the two that weren't originally going to stay and taking Ella to her car. She wasn't in
01:01:55
any condition to drive, but David was in her tent, and she didn't want to sleep in the same tent as Chad and his
01:01:59
girlfriend, so she decided to crash in her car. This left four of the original eight in the campsite, five uh five
01:02:06
total, counting Leah, David, Maya, and I all passed out in our respective tents.
01:02:10
And Chad and Leo were still awake sitting by the campfire. Okay. 3:00 a.m. hits and this is when [ __ ] starts to get
01:02:16
weird. Of course it is. 3:00 a.m. Yeah. Chad's starting to fall asleep in his chair by the fire, but Leah is still
01:02:22
awaken on her phone. At 3:00 a.m. on the dot, which I am now told is the witching
01:02:26
hour. Yo, yo. This strange noise happens. Chad said this noise was so bone chilling and raised all the
01:02:33
goosebumps on his body. So, he was violently sitting instantly awake and sober, looking at Leah to see if she
01:02:39
also heard the noise. She had and was sitting frozen, staring in the direction of the sound. Suddenly, the noise
01:02:45
happens again, but much closer and moving closer closer from the direction of the lake. The noise happens a third
01:02:52
time. This time, Chad remembers within a dozen feet or so of the camp. And they're both on their feet to get the
01:02:57
[ __ ] out of there. When telling the story later, they couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that made them know
01:03:03
for sure the noise meant that they needed to run, but they just said it was instinctual. Oh. They put out the fire
01:03:08
and start screaming for the rest of us to wake up while Leah grabs her keys and they sprint to their car. I have to give
01:03:14
them props for the thought of trying to wake us up, but the three of us all were
01:03:17
sleeping like the dead. So, one or two shouts, "We're not going to do much." I love how they were just like, "Wake up.
01:03:21
Bye. Wake up. Bye. We're [ __ ] out of here." Drive by. I vaguely remember slightly waking up and hearing Chad say,
01:03:26
"Let's get the [ __ ] out of here." to Leah before he slammed her car door and they sped off the road. Wow. Now, before
01:03:31
you guys say, "Wow, those are some sucky friends leaving you there, defend for yourselves," like my boyfriend and every
01:03:37
person after said when I told them the story, just wait until the end of this story where I've provided a recording of
01:03:43
the sound so you can decide for yourself if you would have stuck around. Personally, I would have ran too. Wow.
01:03:49
That's what this person says. After that, I was kind of in a sleep haze, like halfway between sleep and awake,
01:03:55
where I was thinking there was no reason to really wake up because whatever was happening would definitely be told to me
01:04:00
at breakfast the next morning. This is fun. She's like, they'll catch me up. I then heard slow footsteps right outside
01:04:05
of our tent, but assumed it was probably just Beck putting out the fire. Remember, I had gone to bed before
01:04:10
knowing that Beck and the rest had already left. I rolled over and looked over at Maya, who was also awake and
01:04:16
also heard the footsteps. She got up and went for the zipper of the tent opening
01:04:20
to check what was going on, but I all of the sudden got a really bad feeling and
01:04:23
stopped her. She just looked at me. She told me later she had the same bad feeling. And we both just laid back
01:04:29
down, listened to the footsteps recede, and went back to sleep. How are you just
01:04:34
going to sleep? You guys are brave. Everybody's just going to sleep. Yeah, in I can go to sleep. Just going to sleep.
01:04:41
Yeah, I can barely go to sleep in my home. If something [ __ ] me up in the middle of the night, like if I even if I
01:04:47
have a bad dream where I like where I get startled awake and I think because you know those dreams where you wake up
01:04:52
and you're like was I was that in the house or was that a dream? Like did I hear that sound or was that my head?
01:04:58
Yep. If that happens to me, I guess we're just staying up all night like I'm awake. I'm I'm downstairs. The kids come
01:05:05
down in the morning and I'm like, "Hello, children. I've been awake for eight hours." Like I'm No. Yeah. So, if
01:05:11
this is happening to me in a tent, [ __ ] that. But what do you do? Where do you
01:05:16
go? [ __ ] that. I sit up. I sit up and I stare at that at that zipper. And I will
01:05:22
it to stay closed and I will the sun to come up. Fair. Yeah. Fair. That's what I
01:05:27
do. That's what I would do, too. Well, around 4:00 a.m. we woke up to our phones blowing up. It was Chad. I woke
01:05:33
up to 26 missed phone calls from him. Chad was really trying to warn them. He was like, "I'm really trying to get you
01:05:38
by." I woke up to 26 m calls from him, all with panicked voicemails telling us we needed to get the [ __ ] out of there.
01:05:45
So, he tried. I finally answered him and he poorly explained the situation in the
01:05:48
most panicked way possible, thinking it might be a friend of ours out there messing with us or maybe an axe murderer
01:05:53
or something. Yeah, you know, but essentially that we needed to get in my car and get out of there right now. Maya
01:05:58
and I took a moment to gather our strength and the only weapons we could find in our tent, which were literal
01:06:03
s'mores skewers. I mean, that'll do it. Yeah, depending on what kind of skewers.
01:06:07
Yeah, that's true. do the wooden ones. Maybe go for the eyes. I guess I was going to say and you get distance with
01:06:11
those. That's true. That's why like a a golf club or something is really good to
01:06:16
have cuz you create distance. A golf club is good because it has that like heavy end so you can swing it. But a
01:06:20
baseball bat I feel like isn't great cuz they can just grab it. Yeah, that's true. Same thing with a golf club, but
01:06:24
at least it's a little heavier. Yeah. Well, we made a mad dash to my car. Yeah, we we've actually talked about
01:06:30
this a lot. I've never whipped out of anywhere so fast in my entire life. Think Dukes of Hazard style yeeting down
01:06:36
this gravel road. The entire drive felt like a horror movie. The a ass out of her jean shorts duke in it. Out of here
01:06:43
as I just knew someone was gonna jump out from the dense trees by the road in the dark and kill us or something. I
01:06:49
don't know. I was freaked out. I think you were correct. After Maya and I calmed down a little and eventually made
01:06:53
it into town, we called Chad back to let him know we're okay. What was his response? Chad. Chad, we're all right.
01:06:59
What was his response? Oh, was it? How's David? In our absolute panic to escape that axe
01:07:06
murderer flush pedestrian demon thing that Chad had heard, we had forgotten about his brother David, who was now the
01:07:12
only one left at the campsite and the in the furthest tent from the road. Maya and I looked at each other and [ __ ] a
01:07:20
brick. Oh no. Chad wanted us to go back there to get David. Chad, you can go back there and get David. I'm sorry,
01:07:26
Chad. That's your brother. Ultimately, and with an animated display of our vocabulary, we let him know that David
01:07:32
is his brother. And that as much as we like him, there was no way in hell we were going back there. Especially after
01:07:39
Chad just left us there to fend for ourselves just over an hour before. Thank you. Does Chad think he is? Also,
01:07:45
you left your brother. You left us and your brother. You left your friends. You left your brother. And now you're like,
01:07:50
"Go get my brother for me." Like back to that campsite. [ __ ] [ __ ] Go get your brother, [ __ ]
01:07:59
Chad did not want to go back there with just his girlfriend. You're a bad brother, Chad. So, he ended up having to
01:08:04
wake up his mom to help him. Chad. Chad, you're being a [ __ ] Chad. That's [ __ ]
01:08:08
moves right there. They both went to the campsite. What a [ __ ] Chad. [ __ ] made.
01:08:14
I'm not saying I would go back there, but I do love my brother. I would go back there for my sister. Thank you.
01:08:20
Which one? Only this one. Just kidding. We would go back for the others. At least one of them. Yeah. They both went
01:08:26
back to the campsite and grabbed David and also grabbed Ella who was still passed out in her car, clueless to
01:08:31
everything going on. Oh my gosh. The following Monday at work went as you would expect it to. We were all talking.
01:08:36
Talk about like team building. Yeah, that's a team building exercise. Although, did you guys do great at it?
01:08:40
Probably not really. It seems like you guys failed at team building. Yeah, it was actually just like a higher up at
01:08:45
the at the camp being like, let's see how this works. And being like, wow, so you guys are really going to you guys
01:08:49
are bad at emergencies. Yeah, you'll just scatter, I guess. Well, we were talking about the camp out over lunch
01:08:55
and doing the typical debriefed, you know, to laugh about everything that had happened when the whole Chad heard a
01:09:00
noise situation came back up. We all gave him a good amount of [ __ ] and we were going to write it off until I said,
01:09:05
"Well, it was a good thing that Beck stuck around to at least put out the fire." Every single set of eyes in the
01:09:10
room looked at me in confusion. Remember, I had gone to bed before Beck and the rest of the group had left. And
01:09:16
both Maya and I heard those footsteps. After a few minutes of going back through when everyone left and how the
01:09:22
sequence of events played out along that timeline, we realized that at that time
01:09:27
that someone or something stalking around outside of our tent, the only people in the entire campsite from our
01:09:34
group would have been me and Maya in our tent and David who was passed out on the
01:09:39
other side of the camp. Yeah, that's [ __ ] up. Safe to say this realization freaked us the [ __ ] out. Especially
01:09:44
because Maya was seconds away from leaving the tent and investigating until we both listened to our gut and just
01:09:50
went back to sleep for a while. Honestly, I am I'm not psyched that you went back to sleep, but I'm glad you did
01:09:55
not go out and investigate. Yeah. And I guess like you probably don't snore because whoever that was would have come
01:10:00
in and killed you if they heard you. In the days, weeks, and months following, all of us tried to rationalize what Chad
01:10:06
heard and the footsteps Maya and I heard, but none of us could come up with a solid answer. Some of the guys thought
01:10:11
maybe it was some of our older campers messing with us. Some of us really believed it to be a flesh pedestrian.
01:10:16
Some of us thought it might have been Chad tweaking out and making the whole thing up. And some even thought it might
01:10:21
have been some farmer on the neighboring lands that didn't appreciate us be appreciate us being so loud so they came
01:10:26
to mess with us. I hope that's it. This story honestly I do too. It's farmer John. It is. This became the bonfire
01:10:34
bonfire bonfire bonfire story of them all which brought a lot of outside input input of what might have happened. And
01:10:41
one particular theory is worth mentioning. The lake that we camped on is said to be haunted by the Native
01:10:46
Americans that once lived on the land. I don't think I have to tell you guys that
01:10:49
the murder of one person, let alone almost 40 people, can leave an area haunted as [ __ ] But because of this,
01:10:55
the inexplicable bad vibes that Chad and Chad Chad that Chad and Leah got when they heard that noise at Witching Hour,
01:11:01
nonetheless, at a spot once inhabited by the natives at one time, our location being less than 5 miles from a massacre
01:11:07
site. And given the small lake that we were next to is a wetland uh tributary to a lake named after a native spirit, I
01:11:14
was convinced that this was what we heard that night. There's something going on there until yesterday. Oh, well
01:11:20
ladies, we finally get to why I decided after almost two full years to send this
01:11:24
story in for a listener tale. Last night, I got an Instagram DM from Chad. Woo! Scary. Chad. Getting a a late night
01:11:32
DM from a man named Chad is the scariest experience. And I hope you said like, "I
01:11:37
hope you're taking care of things yourself now, Chad." Yeah, Chad. Did you wake up your mom before you sent this
01:11:41
DM? Well, Chad solved the case of what the [ __ ] was that? Okay, Chad, you took
01:11:45
care of it. when he came across a post that had the exact noise he and Leah heard approaching him that night. It was
01:11:51
a [ __ ] mountain lion. A mountain lion. Yes, we are from Iowa, but mountain lions are not a thing in
01:12:01
our area. In fact, the DNR has said that between 1995 and 2021, we only had 30 confirmed cases of mountain lion
01:12:08
sightings, as our state has no self-sustaining mountain lion population, and most times they wander
01:12:13
on over from the states to the west of us. Chad tells me this and I'm like, "Cool,
01:12:17
cool, cool." Okay, so I'm not being haunted. Turns out mountain lions are opportunistic predators and will eat
01:12:23
basically anything they can. You're telling me that this big ass cat came down from the literal [ __ ]
01:12:29
mountains and walked across a few states just to happen upon our camp and isn't going to see that as an opportunity to
01:12:36
be a predator. I'm thinking idiots out camping was the main entree on his menu that night. The one thing that had we
01:12:42
had going for us and why the cat probably didn't approach earlier was that apparently they're deterred by
01:12:46
fire. The fire that Chad and Leah had put out before they left. Calm down, Smokey the Bear. I know they did the
01:12:53
right thing, but how scary. So, when Maya and I heard those footsteps outside our tent like 10if like 15 minutes after
01:12:59
they decided to leave and thought that we shouldn't go out there, we made the right call because it was apparently a
01:13:04
[ __ ] mountain lion just strolling through. I have attached the Instagram G D D D D D D D D D D D D D D
01:13:08
D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D DM that Chad sent me so you guys can play the sound and truly know
01:13:11
the absolute horror those two must have been in when they heard that noise, not once, not twice, but three times moving
01:13:18
toward them. I've also attached pictures of us, as well as a few pics or videos that I have of our campsite from the
01:13:23
blur of that night. Don't post those. Got it. Anyway, that's it for my listener tale. If you guys made it this
01:13:29
far and are reading this on the show, please know I have most likely either [ __ ] in my pants or passed out from
01:13:34
excitement. Probably both. Oh, damn. Wake up. Wake up. Change your pants. Change your pants. Lastly, shout out to
01:13:39
my girl gang for proof reading this for me and hyping me up to submit it. Ash, I
01:13:43
don't think I could ever hold a candle to your skills, so please take keep it please take it away. Keep it weird, but
01:13:48
not so weird that you think that you got haunted by flesh pedestrians, but really
01:13:51
it was just a mountain lion coming to eat you in the middle of the night because you put out a fire, which is
01:13:55
scarier. It It is scary cuz that thing can actually eat you. I want to hear what it sounds like. Yeah. Now we got to
01:14:00
hear the sound. [Music] That's [ __ ] terrifying. Now it's That sounds like a person screaming. Yeah,
01:14:09
that's unsettling. Yeah. Can you restart it? Want to hear it again. Can you restart it? No. No. No, I can't.
01:14:27
Cuz that sounds like a person screaming. That would that would [ __ ] my pants. And it almost kind of sounds like like
01:14:39
Yeah, I don't unsettling. Yeah, I would my pants too. I probably would have [ __ ]
01:14:43
my pants. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Why does it make that sound? That's
01:14:52
not what I expected a mountain line to sound like. I thought it was going to be like
01:14:59
Yeah. I thought it was going to be like deep gutal and like something like beastly coming at you, but this is just
01:15:06
like Frankly, I don't know what I was expecting. I was expecting guttural and like deep. Yeah. Something beastly.
01:15:16
Yeah. Damn, you guys have some crazy ass tails. You do. It's crazy. All right. Well, if you um want to send your
01:15:24
listener tales in, you can send them to um [email protected] with some listener tail, please. And let
01:15:31
us know if we can use your name and the pictures and post them and all that good
01:15:35
stuff. Know what we can use and what we can't use. Yeah. And it's time for us to
01:15:39
go wash this blood off of us. Yeah. Cuz I'm sticky. I'm so sticky I'm going to die. So, we hope you keep listening and
01:15:47
we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't send us in phenomenal, awesome, wonderful scary
01:15:55
tales. Let's do it. [Music] [Applause]

Episode Highlights

  • Choose Your Own Adventure
    Listeners can choose between watching or listening to episodes with or without Nicholas.
    “Now you have two ways of watching. One will have Nicholas...”
    @ 01m 34s
    June 27, 2025
  • Listener Tale: Lake Shaunie
    A listener shares a spooky camping trip at an abandoned amusement park, filled with eerie encounters.
    “We survived the night, packed up the car, and drove off into the West Virginia mountains.”
    @ 18m 37s
    June 27, 2025
  • Lake Desolation: A Haunting Tale
    A chilling story about a lake with a dark history, including serial killings.
    “Lake Desolation is a pitch black, freezing cold lake at 30 to 45 deep fed by cold springs.”
    @ 23m 21s
    June 27, 2025
  • The Mystery of the Ghostly Encounter
    An eerie drive leads to a mysterious dark figure and disappearing headlights.
    “Did I just make up a whole event in my head?”
    @ 36m 00s
    June 27, 2025
  • A Night of Spooky Stories
    As night falls, the couple shares spooky stories around the fire, but something feels off.
    “I love watching my boyfriend get all scared again.”
    @ 42m 52s
    June 27, 2025
  • The Cabin's Eerie Silence
    After a day of fun, the couple returns to an unsettling silence at the cabin.
    “No one's here. No smoke from burnt out fire pits.”
    @ 43m 39s
    June 27, 2025
  • A Bang at the Door
    A loud bang shakes the cabin, sending the couple into a panic.
    “Something just banged on the door, dude.”
    @ 48m 11s
    June 27, 2025
  • The Next Morning's Mystery
    The couple wakes up to find the cabin resort completely deserted.
    “Not one sign of life was anywhere.”
    @ 50m 35s
    June 27, 2025
  • Returning to the Cabin
    Despite the eerie experience, the couple plans another trip to the same cabin.
    “I booked another trip to the same cabin for this fall.”
    @ 52m 18s
    June 27, 2025
  • The Camp Out Begins
    A group of friends heads to a secluded lake for a summer camp out, filled with laughter and s'mores.
    “Honestly, it was a blast. I've never lost laugh so hard.”
    @ 01h 00m 18s
    June 27, 2025
  • The Panic to Escape
    After a terrifying night, the group realizes they left one friend behind and must decide whether to go back.
    “Chad, you can go back there and get David. I'm sorry, Chad.”
    @ 01h 07m 26s
    June 27, 2025
  • Mountain Lion Revelation
    The mystery of the night is solved: it was just a mountain lion, not a ghost.
    “Turns out mountain lions are opportunistic predators and will eat basically anything they can.”
    @ 01h 12m 21s
    June 27, 2025

Episode Quotes

  • We suffer for our art, you know.
    Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast
  • If it weren't for y'all, this trip would not have happened.
    Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast
  • Nature, take what you got to take back.
    Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast
  • Imagine everybody just disappearing. Gone like inexplicably gone.
    Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast
  • Please buckle up because this is long.
    Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast
  • This became the bonfire story of them all.
    Listener Tales 99: Campfire Tale Edition! | Morbid | Podcast

Key Moments

  • Camping Adventure03:07
  • Spooky Photos19:31
  • Lake Desolation21:51
  • Ghostly Encounter37:39
  • Spooky Night42:48
  • Deserted Resort50:35
  • Summer Camp56:03
  • Witching Hour1:02:26

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown