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Insanely Creepy Paranormal Camping Stories · Stories from the Dark

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: So Dave and I had been mates since secondary school,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: ever since he fired an elastic band at our physics teacher, Mr. Wright,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: when he was writing on the whiteboard with his back turned.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It hit him in the back of the head, but
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Dave moved so quickly that when Wright turned around, he
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: had no idea who'd fired it at him. He threatened
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the entire class with detention unless whoever it was admitted
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: what they'd done. And without skipping a beat, Dave put
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: his hand up to say, It was me, sir. The
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: punishment might have been harsh, but he forged his legend
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: with that bullshit mission, and me and my other mate
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: started inviting him to play football with us. And Dave
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: was a great footballer, but he was an even better friend,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and our friendship survived going to different sixth forms and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: different universities. And we ended up both moving back home
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: once we'd graduated, and it was honestly like we'd never
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: been away. We had new places to hang out. The pub,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: 5A side football, etc., but he was still the same
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: old Dave, quick with a joke, slow to call time
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: on a night of driving, and always down for a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: camping trip. We've been doing it for years, first with
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the school, then with our dads, then a few times
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: during the summer whenever we were back from uni. We
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hadn't done anything like that in quite a while, mostly
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: because we were working full-time post-grad jobs. But then after
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: we got talking about it, we did a little bit
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of advanced planning and organized a trip on a weekend
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: where we were both free. We decided on a place
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: called Kielder Forest in September for a bit of wild camping.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: A time of year that wouldn't be too sweaty or
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: too cold or too damp. Kielder is the biggest bit
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of woodland in the country, way up near the border
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: with Scotland, if you're familiar with it. So while camping
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: isn't strictly allowed, we knew that we wouldn't bring any
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: undue attention to ourselves as long as we didn't light
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: any big fires or leave any trash behind. All we
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: brought with us was a stove, some food, and a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: couple of ponchos to sleep under. Not counting, of course,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the two big bottles of vodka that we were going
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to use to keep ourselves warm, wink wink. And then
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: after driving up on the Friday after work, we parked
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the car out in an out-of-the-way spot near the edge
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: of the forest and then hiked our way in. Now
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the sun was already almost about to set by about
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a mile in, and the forest was much denser than
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: we expected. Having checked our maps, we reckoned that we'd
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: find a flat area near one of the burns, far
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: enough from the path so no one would stumble over us.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: But the trees there were so dense and tall that
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: figuring out where we were was harder than we'd predicted.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And after about an hour of walking, light was fading
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly and we were walking in that soft, half-gray
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: light that you get just before full dark. Now Dave
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and I are side by side, and he was talking
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: about some wanker that he had to deal with at work.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Now suddenly, from completely out of nowhere, there were these
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: sort of three bright flashes. It was like lightning, and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it was like these blinding red-white strobes coming from a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: single source somewhere in the trees ahead of us. There
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: was no sound, no crack at all that might indicate lightning,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: just a trio of flashes so bright that it felt
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: like something had reached out and touched us. I remember
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: throwing my arms up with my eyes screwed shut, but
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it was still there, this bright pinkish haze behind my
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: eyelids that made my head immediately ache. I remember shouting
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: something like, what the F was that? And then when
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I opened my eyes again, everything was just an afterimage,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: swimming with blobs of red and black. I was blinded,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like properly blinded, and it was terrifying. I shouted for Dave,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: saying that I couldn't see, but he didn't reply. Everything
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: was just dead quiet except for my shouts and the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: sound of my own panicked breathing. I called out a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: second time for him, louder, but still got nothing, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: then I started to panic even harder because I'm like,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: why is he not responding? I pictured him having some
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: kind of fit next to me, but it was just silence,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and so he must have been out cold. There was
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: nothing I could do but stand there, blinking hard and
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: rubbing my eyes like somehow that was going to do
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: me any good. Now the blindness lasted a minute or two,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: maybe less, it's really hard to say. But as dark
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: shapes started to come back to me, and I was
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: able to make out tree trunks again, the first thing
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I did was start looking around for Dave. But as
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: my vision slowly returned to me, I realized Dave was gone.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: And that's when I really started shouting. And not just
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: his name, but things like, where are you? This isn't funny.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I think I tried leaning on the idea that it
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: was some prank, though, because that was the only way
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: out of this nightmare that I started to slip into.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Even though it was a ridiculous idea that Dave had
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: set up some strobe to blind me before rushing off
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: behind a tree or something, it was the only thing
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that allowed me a few moments of sanity before it
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: crumbled almost completely. Because everything was gone, and there was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: no sign of my friend at all. I walked in circles,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: calling out and then listening. But there was nothing, just
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the gentle ambience of the forest at night. I even
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: started shining my torch on the ground to look for footprints,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: but nothing stood out to me. And so I dropped
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: my pack and took out my head torch and then
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: wore that too so I had as much light as possible.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I started sweeping the beams across the undergrowth and tree trunks,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: even up into the branches too, but It was nothing.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I searched for about 20 minutes, maybe longer, going further
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: out in loops and shouting till my throat started to hurt.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And then as the reality of what just hit me,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I started to have a panic attack. It happened after
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I checked my watch, thinking that maybe I'd been unconscious
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: or something without realizing it, and that Dave had gone
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: for help. Again, it was one of those sort of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: straw-clutching attempts to grasp at logic, but There had been
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: no big time time change and I hadn't been unconscious,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think. Dave had just disappeared. You hear stories
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: about people getting lost and killed there. It's a big
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: place and it's easy to get lost in the dark,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: but that wasn't what happened. He'd been right there beside
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: me one second and then gone the next. And I
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: still haven't found a way to explain it, but I
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: know those flashes were responsible for it. I tried his mobile,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: but it wouldn't connect. No answering machine or anything, and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: my calls just ended after a second or two of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the screen saying dialing. It wasn't an issue of reception either,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: as we weren't even that deep into the forest yet.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: And so after calling him didn't work, I did the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: only thing I could think to do, which was head
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: back towards the car. Luckily, we'd driven in my car,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: so I was able to get somewhere to report it
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: pretty fast, but the whole time I'm trying his phone,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: hoping for a connection and just getting nothing. I ended
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: up in a small police station in a place called Hexham,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and as I walked up the steps and pressed the buzzer,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: all I could think was, they're not going to believe you.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: No one's going to believe you. Because by then, after
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: going over it in my head, it sounded absolutely mental.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I tried to put it off too, like after they
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: let me in and I was talking to the guy
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: at the front desk, I told them absolutely everything from
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: start to finish, except the thing about the flashing lights.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I even told them how I went temporarily blind, which
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: obviously prompted them to ask how that had happened. And
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: then when I told them, the mood started to shift.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: The guy at the desk looked up at me like
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I was winding him up. That, or I'd been in
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: those woods gobbling mushrooms, which made the lights and Dave's
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: disappearance all very explainable. I told them I knew how
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: it sounded. But the last place I'd go if I
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: was high on drugs was a police station. And I
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: swore I was telling the truth. But I think him
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and his colleague, who by then had come out to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: join him, had been in the job long enough to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: know that I was serious. After taking my initial statement,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: they told me that they'd get the ball rolling on
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a search right away, but we'd still have to wait
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a while for search and rescue teams to get ready.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And so in the meantime, I sat in the waiting
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: room filling out some forms and going over my story
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: again while they actually wrote it all down. I didn't
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: mind all the scrutiny. I really didn't. I was happy
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to answer every question they had for me. The thing
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that got me down was thinking about how long it'd
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: all take. I'd seen stuff about search and rescue operations
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: on the television, so I knew that they probably had
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: days and days of searching with dogs and helicopters before
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: we even got an idea of where Dave had gone.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, he was God knows where. I mean,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: even today, we still don't know. I thought that it
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: would be days before I saw him, if I ever
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: saw him again. but thankfully it didn't take days. It
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: took hours. And a few hours later, I was still
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: sitting in the police waiting room, texting back and forth
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: with Dave's dad to keep him updated. Both his parents
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: were obviously worried about him, but his dad had that
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: same sort of we're in it for the long haul
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: kind of attitude as I did. And so you can
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: only imagine our surprise when almost out of nowhere, the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: guy behind the desk got a call saying that they'd
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: found him. A cab driver had almost hit someone walking
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: down the middle of a dark country lane a few
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: miles from where we'd been. The driver stopped to give
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the guy a what for but the guy was obviously
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: in a very sorry state. He seemed frightened and confused
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and for the life of him, couldn't seem to talk.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: The driver had to fish the man's wallet out of
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: his jacket pocket to ID him, and it turned out
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the scared, confused person walking in the middle of the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: bloody road was Dave. My Dave. He was taken to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a nearby hospital, but one of the policemen drove me
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: over to make sure that it was the same Dave.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: And it was him, all right. There was no mistaking it.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: He just looked different. His face looked different. thinner like
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: he dropped a stone and weight and his eyes were
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: wide like he was on something which he most definitely
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't as i would know but the thing that really
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: got my attention and had me like what the hell
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: were the gray hairs seemingly sprouting away from his temples
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: they weren't like proper streaks or anything like that just
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: a few hairs but they were very visible especially considering
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that they weren't there a few hours before He was
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: being treated when I approached him and obviously I was
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: over the bloody moon to see him back so soon.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: But it was like he didn't even recognize me at first.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: He flinched when I got close and it was only
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: after really looking into my eyes that I saw a
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: flicker of recognition. And then after that he broke down
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: into tears and kept saying, I want to go home,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I want to go home, over and over. The nurses
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: asked me to give them some space after that. but
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I'd seen enough to know that he had no cuts
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: or bruises and was wearing all the same clothes and,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: as I later found out, still had all of his
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: gear with him when he was brought into hospital. I
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: started thinking that I'd been right in one of my
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: initial hunches, that the lights had caused like a seizure
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of some kind or some kind of mental break and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: he'd run blind into the forest where I was still
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: shouting and swearing and blind covering my eyes. Now he
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: might have run into a tree, Maybe knocked himself out
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and I just didn't catch him on my search. And
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: if that was the case, then all they'd do is
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: treat him for a concussion or something else and then
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: discharge him. But that didn't explain the gray hairs and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: it didn't explain the loss of weight either. And then
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: as I waited in my second waiting area of the night,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: doctors came out to update me on Dave's condition. And
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: it didn't seem to be good. After writing a load
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of tests, the doctors found evidence of brain damage. The
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: kind that you might get from oxygen loss or some
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: kind of head trauma. There was nothing external to explain it,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: but it was there. And so in order to reduce
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the swelling and prevent chances of further brain injury, they
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: put him into a medically induced coma. I was devastated
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: at the time, but I didn't understand how routine that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: is for brain injuries. And the fact that I had
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to pass the news on to his father was just
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: very difficult. I was assured Dave would most likely be okay,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that they'd seen worse incidents of brain damage turn out
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: just fine. But it was still a horrible thing to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: be told, so as much as people tried to reassure
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: me that everything was under control, I still couldn't help
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: but worry myself sick. And it was all made the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: worse the next day when the police called me back
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: for a formal interview under caution. They don't do that
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: unless they think you did something. But while I knew
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that I hadn't done anything wrong and was only too
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: happy to go through with it, I still felt sort
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of betrayed. The officer who interviewed me kept asking if
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: me and Dave had argued at any point, or if
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: there was any drink or drugs involved. I knew where
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: he was getting at, and I told him that I knew.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: But we didn't fight, and we didn't argue, and we
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: didn't even remotely disagree on anything. We just never did.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And the idea that I'd done something to him was ridiculous,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: so rather than go all no comment after getting a lawyer...
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I answered every single question that he had for me
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and with nothing but the truth. They had no evidence
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of anything else so they let me go eventually. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the way they looked at me stuck with me. Like
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: they were just waiting for me to slip up. Dave
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: was brought out of the coma a couple of days
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: later with absolutely no memory of that evening. And the
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: last thing he remembered was us parking the car and
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: getting our packs on. The rest was just some blur
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: of bright light until the next thing he remembered which...
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: was almost getting hit by that taxi. Doctors said the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: brain injury might account for a gap in his memory,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: but they couldn't explain the weight loss or the gray hair.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: The body just doesn't do that, not in such a
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: short space of time anyway. They kept him for a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: few nights and apparently those were the worst, as sometimes
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: he'd wake up scared, asking where he was and how
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: he'd got there. Other nights he'd wake up screaming and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: thrashing and reacted with absolute terror to any nurses or
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: doctors who approached him. It worked out that he was
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: having these bad dreams, these really bad dreams, that were
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: so bad that he'd wake up drenched and hyperventilating before
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: staring at the hospital ceiling for the rest of the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: night because he didn't want to go back to sleep. Now,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't tell them what the dreams were about, and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: whenever they asked, he'd just shake his head and turn
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: his face away from them like he was sort of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: pretending he was somewhere else. He was eventually discharged less
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: than a week after he was admitted. But while the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: doctor said the swelling in his brain had gone down,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Dave still wasn't himself. He couldn't go back to work
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: because he couldn't concentrate on anything and his hands would
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: shake too hard to be able to do much at all.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And things got so bad that he couldn't manage on
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: his own anymore and he eventually moved in with his sister.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: She said he kept the house lights on all the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: time and while he sometimes went for walks, it was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: only ever into town and never in the direction of
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the woods behind where she lived. He became a recluse basically,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: hardly ever going out except to get exercise that he
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: badly needed and when I went to visit him after
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: a few weeks of living there, it didn't seem like
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: he didn't prove at all. He hadn't put any of
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the weight back on and even more of his hair
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: seemed to have turned grey. and then whenever I tried
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to bring up what happened that night, he'd just shut
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: me down immediately. Sometimes his face would just go blank
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and he'd change the subject. Other times he'd get this
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: look of fear in his eyes, and this one time
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: when I asked, he got tears in his eyes before
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: stammering out, don't, please. I didn't push him. I'd just
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: go back to light conversation, bring up anything and everything
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I could to cheer him up. And sometimes it worked
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: and sometimes it didn't, but Even when a visit did
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: go well, I'd still drive away with these twin feelings
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of sadness and frustration that I couldn't help him. I'm
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: my oldest and closest friend in the world, and there
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: wasn't a freaking thing I could do to help him.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And we're still good mates, and I go around every
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: week or two. We watch matches, have a beer if
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: he's up to it. Only these days he doesn't talk
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: about work or plans or really anything because there aren't any.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Sometimes in the evenings he'll go quiet and just stare
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: out the window, even though there's nothing there but the street,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and I've seen him jump at stuff like a car
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: backfiring or even a door slamming. The doctors keep monitoring
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the brain thing, but no one has an explanation for
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the rest. The police file is still open as far
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: as I know, and they never charged anyone with anything.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: It's just been left marked unexplained, I suppose. If they
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: even do such things with cases like that, I'm not sure.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So I recently found your YouTube channel and since you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: do a lot of hiking and camping videos, I figured
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you might be interested in one I got from back
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: in my prime hunting days. But to tell that story,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I have to introduce you to someone named Trigger. I
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: got Trigger about a year after my wife Mandy passed away.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Cancer took her, and it was fast, too. And six
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: months from that first doctor's visit was the funeral. The
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: kids had already flown the nest by that point, working
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: big-time jobs in the city, and I was really proud
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: of them. but it left the house a little too
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: quiet sometimes. I never started out looking for a pet,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: more just something to keep me busy. But when an
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: old friend suggested I try the animal shelter, I realized
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: it's exactly what I needed. I found him at the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: shelter not long after. A six-month-old German short-haired pointer mix.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: He looked way too skinny, with ears that looked too
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: big for his head, but I just knew that he'd
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: make a good companion. Training him to be a hunting
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: dog took a while, but once he started to get
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the hang of heal, stay, and quiet, especially quiet, I'd
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: take him on day trips further out into the Cascades.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: He'd freeze whenever I'd raise my hand, stay low during
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a stalk, and only ever break once I gave the word.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Then once he was ready, we'd head out into the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: wilds for whole weekends of camping. He'd sleep pressed against
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: my sleeping bag, head on my boot, and sometimes I'd
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: wake up in the dark then just sort of listen
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to him breathing. It was nice knowing he was there,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and it sure made going back to the empty house
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: on Monday way easier than it would have been otherwise.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Then almost three years ago now, in October of 2023,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: we drove up into a remote stretch of national forest
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: just east of the coastal range. I had my old
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: 270 Winchester with me, while Trigger had his orange vest
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: so nobody would mistake him for a coyote. Now, there
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: were maintained trails for a couple of miles from an
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: old logging spur, but after that it was all barely-touched wilderness.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Thick pines and douglas fur along with underbrush so dense
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that it felt like it was grabbing at my pant legs.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It was as wilderness as it comes, and I'd hunted
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the general area before, but I'd never been around that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: exact ridge. I didn't think it seemed like anything special
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: at first. But on that point, I was proven very,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: very wrong. And the first night was as ordinary as
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: it gets. We set up camp in this flat spot
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: near a creek and I cooked some freeze-dried chili on
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the little stove that I brought with me. Trigger got
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a bowl of kibble. It was cold that night and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: there was a clear sky with bright stars. So after
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: staying by the fire until it burned down, Trigger curled
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: up next to me in the tent and there we
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: slept until first light. There was a little bit of
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: frost on the ground and ferns that morning. And then
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: once I fed Trigger some breakfast and made some coffee
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to warm up, I started glassing the open slopes above
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: our camp. And that's how I spotted sets of fresh
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: tracks crossing what I figured was a game trail. They
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: look like they belong to a decently sized buck, so
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: after walking up, I let Trigger get himself a pretty
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: good whiff of them. He gives them a good sniff
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and then looks up to me and wags his tail,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: sort of like, we got ourselves a big one, Chuck.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and then after giving him a nod and a good boy,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: we got to following the tracks. The ground was cold,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but still soft from the recent rain, so the dearest
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: prints showed nice and clear for a while. Trigger stayed
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to heel, always on my right, that I'd never accidentally
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: point my rifle at him once it was unslung, and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: he kept his head low, nose working away, and every
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: time a stick cracked under my boot, he'd glance up
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: with his ears forward, then eventually settle again. After about
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a half hour, the undergrowth started to rise and thicken,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: meaning visibility dropped to 20 or 30 yards in certain places.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I kept stopping to take a look ahead of me
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: with my binoculars, as I mentioned earlier, but saw nothing
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: moving and heard only the usual sounds of the forest,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and so we kept on following. Sometimes the tracks would
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: fade if we hit a patch of harder ground or
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: a particularly thick mat of pine needles or something like that.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: but Trigger would just work around in a circle, sniffing
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the ground until we picked them up again. He loved
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: every minute of the little game I taught him. Stay quiet,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: do your job, and when all is said and done,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: there'll be a big fat reward of some venison bones
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: in it for him. And boy, did he know it.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: We lost the prints again after maybe 40 minutes of tracking.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I waited for Trigger to find them again, but he couldn't,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and instead, he zeroed in on another set of prints.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and the stride, the gait, really, had shortened and the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: depth was different in certain places. And then while that
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: could have easily been down to an animal putting more
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: weight on its back feet so it could move more carefully,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: something in my gut started to just tighten. Especially when,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and in this real quiet and clipped way, I heard
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Trigger start to whine. Trigger hadn't whined like that since
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the early days of his hunting training, when we crossed
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: paths with what I figured was either a larger bear
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: or something. Now, there were no bear tracks near where
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Trigger was whining, just those odd-looking deer tracks. But God knows,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Trigger smelled something, and it was something he really didn't like.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I figured that we might have happened across some elk,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: or maybe even a moose if one had wandered a
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: little too far south, something Trigger had gotten a good
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: whiff of before. And so figuring a little exposure therapy
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: would get the fear out of him, I decided to follow.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You know, really just for fun. And as we closed
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the distance over the next half hour or so, I
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: started to hear something moving ahead of us. I heard
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: bushes rustling and then silence. And then after a little
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: more stalking, a low sound that might have been a
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: branch setting. Now I knew it was close, so I
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: was surprised when I crested a ridge and saw something
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: moving maybe 100 to 150 yards ahead of me. Trigger
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: caught a big whiff of the thing's scent as we
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: hit that ridgeline. He knew we were close and so
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: he didn't make a sound, but his tail went right
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: up in the air as if to say, we got him, Chuck.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: We got him right there. Yet at the same time,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: he wasn't as excited as he usually was. He still
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: had that sort of tightness about him, a fear that
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: he couldn't seem to shake. We pushed through a stand
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of some young trees, tracking the thing as it wound
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: through a dense patch of brush. I kept my eyes
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: up with trigger at my heel until I spotted it
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: about 40 yards away, stopped and sniffed at something on
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the ground. I raised my rifle, settled the scope on
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the gap and looked through the lens at what I
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: thought would be an elk. But what I saw that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: day sure as hell wasn't no elk. It was crouched
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: low in the ferns with big dark haunches that were
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: rounded like a black bear's I thought that I might
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: have bumped into one that was stalking my elk, but
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: then I saw its tail, and how wrong it looked
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: on that size of an animal. It was long, thin,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and bare, just a fleshy weathered mass that twitched occasionally
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: as it snuffled around in the dirt. It looked like
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a rat's tail, but there was no kind of rat
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: on earth that can reach that size. I held the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: crosshairs on it and then watched as it froze and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: then reared up from the undergrowth and lifted its head
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: way up so I could now see it. The skull
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: looked far too small for its body, and it had
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: these huge black eyes bulging out of their sockets with
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: no whites visible whatsoever. They looked like an insect's eyes almost,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: all black and wet as it sniffed the air with
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: nostrils I couldn't make out. But then, it seemed to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: have smelled us. It must have from the way it reacted,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: but My finger was already on the trigger, and as
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: quick as that thing was, my trigger finger was faster,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and I just fired, mainly on pure instinct. A mix of,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: this is my kill, and people have got to see
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: this to believe it. And the shot smashed through the silence,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: and in my scope, the thing's head just about came apart.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Now one second those eyes were there, then the next.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: There was nothing but a spray of red and dark
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: matter as the body dropped hard into the ferns. There
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was no thrashing, no sound at all after the echo
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of my shot died down, just silence again. Trigger stayed
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: locked by my side, just like he'd been trained, as
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I worked the bolt and chambered another round. Everything was
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: very routine except all of the thoughts running through my head.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And then with my heart hammering in my chest, I
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: didn't waste any more time waiting to find out what
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I'd just shot. I walked up carefully as the ferns
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in front of me stayed still, rifle at the ready
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: just in case. But when I arrived at the area
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I thought I'd find it, there was nothing. The brush
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: was flattened and soaked with blood, so dark it was
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: almost black in places where it pooled. But there was
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: no body, no carcass, just blood and wide drag marks
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: leading away through the brush. Whatever it was had been
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: heavy enough to crush the vegetation completely flat, so while
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I was really confused, it had left a clear enough
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: trail with plenty of blood still dripping from leaves and stems.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: But then, how had it gotten away from me so silently?
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I'd never known anything like it, to the point where
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: when I saw how the spot its body had been
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: was empty, I was completely stunned. But then, bullets do
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: weird things sometimes and The light can play tricks with
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: blood spray to make you think a wound was way
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: worse than it was. And the only way to find
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: out for certain was to follow that trail. And so
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: that's what me and Trigger did. Trigger stayed right by
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: my side, nose down and completely silent, but I could
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: tell he was very tense, as both of us were.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: The drag marks went for almost 30 yards, weaving between
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: bushes and saplings, before it went straight into the base
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of a massive pine tree. It was an old one too,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: so wide you could hug it and only ever cover
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: about half of it with your arms, and with bark
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: so thick in places it looked like armored plating. Now
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the blood trail didn't stop on the ground either. It
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: seemed to drip up, way up, with smears on the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: bark like something heavy had hauled itself up high and
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: dripped down. And then right as the reality of what
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I was looking at hit me between the eyes, Trigger
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: started to bark finally. He'd been trained to bark like
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that whenever he had a bear raccoon treat, and I'm
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: using treat as a verb here for when the dog
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: keeps a scarred animal pinned in a tree like that.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: It can't climb down, and it can't jump either, so
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you either just take it out or wait it out.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: But on this occasion, I couldn't see the damn thing.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: for how thick that pine was. Trigger was barking continuously,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: hard and sharp, and had planted himself at the roots
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: of the tree. I told him to shush, but he
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: wouldn't quit. It was like he was telling me, it's there,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it's right there, now go on, get it. And it
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was like it was him giving me commands for a change.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Or maybe he was pleading with me to finish that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: thing off before it came back down. Because whatever it was,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: he was terrified of it. And by that point, so
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: was I. And when I looked up, way up I mean,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the goddamn tree seemed to be moving. And not from
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: wind though, there wasn't any worth mentioning. But way up there,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: just out of sight, something was making the branches shift.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and sway so hard that needles and small twigs began
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to fall on my face. Whatever was up there was big,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: bigger than any black bear, and so big the trunk
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: itself seemed to flex when it moved. I remember slowly
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: circling the bottom of the tree, rifle aimed up while
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I tried to get an angle on it through the canopy,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: but there was no clear shape, just dark masses among
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: dense needles and then more movement as it climbed even higher.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: But how? That's all I could think in the moment.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: How the F is this thing still moving? I put
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: a bullet right between its freaking eyes and blew most
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of its skull away from what I could tell. And
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: then not only had it dragged itself away, but it
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: climbed a goddamn tree. I mean, what the hell kind
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: of animal does that or is able to do that?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And then right as I'm wandering all of this at
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a thousand miles an hour in my own mind, with
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Trigger barking away to my left, I feel the first
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: drop hit my face. It was warm, thick, and splattered
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: down my face on the side of my neck. And
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: at first, I thought it was like bird poop or something.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: But then when I looked, it was clear and slimy.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: But there was one other major difference, too. It smelled
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: like death. Now, I'm not just saying that to paint
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a picture of how bad it was for you. I'm
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: saying that because that's exactly what it smelled like. It
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: smelled like a rotten animal carcass before, one that had
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: been left in the hot summer sun for a week
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to really ripen, you know? And that slime that dripped
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: on me that day had the same stink to it,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: like a sickening sort of metallic rot mixed with the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: faint smell of dead fish, of all things. It just
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: about turned my stomach inside out in the moment. I
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: wiped at it with my sleeve just as the stench
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: started to really overpower me, and I ended up bent
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: doubled over and vomiting right there in the roots of
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the tree i actually took my jacket off and left
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: it there after wiping that crap off my face and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: neck with a sleeve and then kept on dry heaving
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: with my eyes watering until the smell seemed to lessen
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a little trigger was still barking and circling and looking
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: up and i spat in my hands and wiped my
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: face again and then realized that my hands were now
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: uncontrollably shaking i backed away and called trigger But he
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: didn't want to leave. And it was just like I
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: was saying before with him barking, kill it, Chuck, kill
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: it already. It's right there. But I couldn't. I couldn't
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: even see a thing. And if I'm being really honest,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: by that point I was just scared of pissing whatever
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: it was off. And I didn't want it thinking that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: it had to fight to survive, if you know what
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I mean. I had to grab Trigger's collar and drag
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: him a few steps before he came. and then as
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: we got maybe 50 yards away and into clearer ground,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I looked back. The tree was starting to shift again,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and I saw just for a split second it moving downward,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: and then it was gone again, and within seconds, the
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: tree had stopped moving as well. After that, there was
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: nothing but the sound of Trigger's low whine and the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: faint sound of something dragging itself away from us, before
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the usual forest went quiet and returned again to normal.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Once we got back to camp, I ate whatever didn't
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: need water or fire to prepare and fed Trigger some
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: kibble to fuel up for the hike out. I didn't
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: know if I was leaving so fast because I wanted
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to report it or just get the hell away from
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: whatever kind of animal that was. And it might sound
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: kind of paranoid, but I just had this deep-seated feeling
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: in my gut that whatever it was had followed me
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: back to my camp. I normally talked to Trigger while
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: we walked, but there wasn't much talking done that day.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I just kept him close, tried keeping both me and
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: him nice and calm and moved as quick as I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: could until we were back to the truck and safely
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: inside its cab. The smell stayed in my nose the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: whole drive home and so I showered the moment I
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: got back after throwing the clothes on that I was
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: wearing into the machine. and I gave them two hot
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: washes and I think maybe a little of the slime
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: got on my shirt collar somehow, but the smell still
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: seemed to cling to it after and so I just
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: ended up throwing it out. I reported it the very
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: next day once the local wildlife office was open and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: told them how I'd shot something before losing the body
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: up a tree. I left out all the wilder details
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: at first. I knew that they'd just make me sound crazy.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: and then a couple of days later I met up
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: with two wildlife officers so I could show them where
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: it all went down. I can't fault them. They were
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a couple of really solid folks, but they could only
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: go with what they knew and what science and logic
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: told them. We found the blood trails alright and the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: marks on the bark, but after they looked around and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: took a couple of photos and collected some samples, they
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: said it was almost certainly a black bear that I'd wounded.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I could see where they were coming from too. bears
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: climb and if the bullet hit the body instead of
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: the head the way I thought it did, a wounded
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: bear could still make it up a tree, but what
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I shot was not a bear. Now not wanting to
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: come across as some crazy old kook, I tried just
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: arguing my case, saying that I was pretty sure the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: thing I shot had some kind of tail and as
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: unlike any kind of animal I'd seen before. One of
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the wildlife officers very politely suggested that the thing's tail
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: could have been a branch or maybe a trick of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the light, and I just had to grip my teeth
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: and nod, knowing well that it was no bear. I
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: tried to make out what I saw could have either
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: been a very deformed or very sick animal, and I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: knew saying the second thing would have had them wanting
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to test the blood for any diseases. They said they
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: would too, and they'd even get back to me with
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: the results to put my mind at ease, but you
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: know what, they never did. not even a text message
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: to let me know what they'd found. Wildlife officers are
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: always in small teams, and they always are overworked, and
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: so while under-resourced, it makes sense that the expensive process
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of testing the blood just wasn't a priority for them. Now, eventually,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I went back there more than once, once with Trigger
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: and once without. I retraced my steps to that same
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: ridge and to that same tree to find the rain
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: had pretty much washed most of the blood away. The
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: marks on the bark were fading too and I guessed
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: from where that big old tree was slowly repairing itself.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Trigger sniffed at the base the time I took him
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and he got very tense again, just like the first time.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And I just stood there staring up into the branches
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: until my neck ached but there was obviously nothing there
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: by then. Just an old tree standing silently in the woods.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: And after that I just stopped going to that area
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: of the cascades. I didn't want to think about it anymore,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and all the wondering and doubting myself made it feel
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: like maybe I was losing my mind. Trigger still loved
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: heading out into the woods on the weekends, so I
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: took him to different places. And the more memories we
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: made together, the easier it became to push that thing
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: to the back of my mind. Trigger adapted, as that's
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: what dogs do, and so instead of staying trapped in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: some negative thought death spiral, I just took a page
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: out of his book and tried my best to move on.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Now sometimes late at night Trigger will sit up in
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: the dark and stare out the window with his ears
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: forward not making a sound. I tell myself it's a
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: raccoon or a cat from down the road and then
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I just roll over and try to sleep. But before
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I do, that old familiar feeling comes back to me.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: The one that made me sick with fear that that
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: thing in that tree had climbed down and followed me.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: So back in March of 2015, a few friends of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: mine and myself decided to head out on a camping
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: trip out in the National Forest. There were four of us.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: It was myself, Kev, Kev's cousin Jay, and our friend Michael.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Now Kev was always the one suggesting the trips, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: once he had everything organized, we'd just tag along with
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: whatever gear we could get our hands on. He said
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: that they were the biggest patch of woods in the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: whole region. that you could walk for days without seeing
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: another human being, and so we drove up from the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Boston area after work on a Friday and hiked about
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: two miles in and then set up camp near this
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: little stream. Now, the campsite was nothing fancy, just a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: few tents, a campfire, and a cooler. it was quiet
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: out there really quiet no highway noise no planes passing
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: overhead just the sound of water moving over the rocks
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and the sort of soft breeze working through the leaves
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: above us it was awesome we sat around the campfire
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: until around 11 drinking and laughing and just talking trash
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Mike seemed fine the whole time, just his regular chilled
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: out self. And then it was around that time that
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: he just stood up and said he was going to
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: take a leak and then walked off through the trees
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: with his headlamp on until he was out of sight. Now,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing him pushing through the trees for maybe
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: half a minute before Kev started talking about getting some shut-eye.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: We'd been at it all day and had been drinking
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: for hours at that point, so I guess we were
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: all feeling a little sleepy. But right as Jay was
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: suggesting that we try trapping some birds or rabbits the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: next morning, we heard Mike running full speed back to
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: us through the trees. I mean, literally full speed. Not jogging. Sprinting.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: With that beam of his headlight bobbing around as he
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: got closer. He came in so quick that he almost
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: fell into the fire before he was able to stop himself.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: And then as we're like, whoa dude, what's going on?
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: He wielded around and says while panting, there's a guy
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: out there. He's old. He's naked. He's floating. And we
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: all heard the word floating. So we're like, huh? And
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: laughing because we think he's just messing around. I mean,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: that's what I thought at first, really. But then as
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I got a good look at him and saw the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: tears that were in Mike's eyes, his face was the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: color of ash and He kept twisting around to stare
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: into the darkness between the trees, and then as he
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: caught his breath, he went into more detail about what
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: he'd seen. Now, he said that there was an old man,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: skinny as a rake with his wild gray hair, and
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: he was just hanging there in mid-air between two trees.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Mike said he was about six feet off the ground,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and that his skin was almost like a yellowish green,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: like he was sick, really sick. He said he couldn't
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: believe his eyes for a second, and so he just
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: stopped and stared in silence. But the old man then
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: turned his head, real slow, and looked right at him.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: But instead of eyes looking at him, the old man
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: had these sort of dark voids, like either his eyes
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: were jet black or there was nothing in the sockets
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: at all. Now we're all collectively saying, Bro, did you
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: take something and just not tell us? because at the
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: time that seemed like the obvious answer. Now Mike was chill,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: but he had a wild streak in him, especially when
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: it came to partying. Like he was the first one
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: to get his hands on weed and molly, then one
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: time we found out that he did acid with a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: girl and just didn't tell us about it for months.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And so trust me when I say that it wasn't
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: intended as an insult, and Mike sure as hell didn't
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: take it as one either. Now he swore he hadn't
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: taken anything, and that he wasn't imagining anything either. He
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: said he stepped behind this big tree to take a
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: leak and then when he'd gone, he looked up and
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: saw him, drifting sideways through the branches like gravity didn't
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: apply to this old man. And he said he was
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: sure that he was floating too, that he didn't see
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: any rope or harness and how the guy's arms were
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: hanging slack by his side so he definitely wasn't holding
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: on to anything. I guess he saw the beam of
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Mike's headlamp on him because he turned and That's when
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Mike saw his jaw was slack too and hanging at
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: an odd angle like it was unhinged. And then when
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: he saw the eyes, dark or empty, he ran. And
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: he was in such a state of panic that I'd
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: never seen anything like it before. And as much as
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: he tried to calm him down and think rationally about
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: what he'd seen, he didn't want to hear it. He
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: kept saying he saw me over and over and saying
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: we needed to get the hell out of there. Now,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I thought that I was watching one of my oldest
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: friends go through some sort of mental breakdown in real time,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and so obviously just packing up and leaving wasn't the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: thing to do. But then he started begging us, like
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: actually begging us with tears rolling down his face, saying
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: if there was ever a time for us to just
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: trust him, it was then. Now, Jay started off in
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the direction that Mike had come from, saying he wanted
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to see for himself. But Mike's voice almost broke as
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: he yelled, No! No! No, we need to leave. Now.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Jay ignored him. But then no sooner had he broken
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: through the trees, but he came back running. Screaming, holy crap, run.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I remember Mike yelling something like, I told you, I
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: told you, before the panic hit me and Kev. And
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: we all just started booking it. We left everything right there.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Fire still burning too as we ran for the trail
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: that we'd hiked in on. The trail was narrow. And
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: with roots sticking up everywhere, I think each of us
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: almost fell down like two or three times each. But somehow,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: we stayed on our feet and didn't stop running until
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: we were maybe halfway back to the car. Now this
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: time it was Jay's turn to be like, why did
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you stop? We gotta go! But Mike looked like he
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: was about ready to pass out and I didn't feel
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: much better either. And so we slowed to a very
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: fast walk as we took turns looking over our shoulders
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: and made sure nothing was following us. I didn't even
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: really know what I was looking for, and I still
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't 100% sure the whole thing wasn't just something made up,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and Mike kept his Oscar-winning acting chops a little secret.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: But I guess that was just wishful thinking. Because after
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: maybe 20 minutes of jogging and fast-walking so he could
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: get back to the car faster, I realized there was
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: nothing in existence worth puking up a stomachful of beer for,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: which both me and Jay did around the same time.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: It was Kev's car, so once we got to it,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: we all climbed in with him behind the wheel and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Mike in the passenger seat. Kevin started the engine, then
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: we got moving, and it was like the mood in
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the car completely changed as we did. We were still
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: freaked out, especially Jay and Mike, but it felt like
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the aftermath, you know? Mike and Jay just kept asking, like,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: what the hell did we just find, man? And looking
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: back out the window to make sure that we weren't
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: being followed. I did the same. Feeling this, like, morbid
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: curiosity about whatever'd scared the crap out of two guys
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I considered to be pretty level-headed, but then the next
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: thing I remember is hearing them screaming. And I turned
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: back around to see a tree falling right in front
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: of us. It was as thick as two telephone poles
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and came down so fast and so close that even
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: though Kevin slammed on the brakes, we still smashed into it.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Kev's airbags exploded as glass showered the dash and We
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: were thrown forward as the front end crumpled. Me, Mike,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and Kevin had our seatbelts on, but Jay didn't, and
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: he slammed into the seat in front so hard that
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: it literally broke his nose. We sat there half a second,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: ears ringing, and then the sharp smell of gasoline hit
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: and we all scrambled out. There was no smoke or
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: fire or anything, but that didn't matter. If one spark
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: was all it was going to take, then we needed
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to bail and fast. There were cuts on Mike and
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Kev's arms and faces from the glass and Jay had
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: a ton of blood coming out of his nose. But
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: thankfully there was nothing worse than that and we were
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: able to get on the move again. The car was
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: totally finished and for a second we just stood there
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: looking at it from a distance, trying to figure out
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: how far we still had to walk to the main road.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: But that's when the trees seemed to start moving. It
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't the wind. There wasn't even a breath of it
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: moving through the branches. It was coming from the trunks.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: They creaked and leaned towards us, slow at first and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: then faster and faster like they were bending on purpose.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: There were loud cracks coming from what I'm guessing was
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: bark splitting, and I don't know if it was the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: roots or what, but there were these sort of wet
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: popping sounds coming from their bases when they started swaying
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: real hard. One big tree to our left groaned and
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: tilted until it was almost at a 45 degree angle.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: We gasped as it hung over the road for a
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: second and then slowly forced itself upright again. And another
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: one behind us did the same, swaying in a way
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: that made me feel sick to my stomach from how
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: unnatural it felt. I remember Mike made a sound like
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: he was choking on something. His words, I guess. And
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: then he got them out and said, He's here. It's
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: him doing this. No one said a word in argument
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: at that point. We just ran, as fast as we could.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Thank God we still had our headlamps on from when
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: we just took off, otherwise the forest road ahead of
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: us would have been completely black. Every few steps something
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: in the forest would shift, be it the branches scraping
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: together or trunks swaying when nothing should have touched them.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And it had us freaking out again with Kev saying,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: what the hell is going on? While Mike was just
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: screaming for us to run, just run. At one point
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I thought I heard a sort of heavy, wet sliding
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: off to my right, like something human size was being
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: dragged across the leaves none of us dared to look
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: at what it was we just kept running as fast
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: as we could and in this weird way where like
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I just didn't feel tired anymore and I felt like
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I could run all night that feeling didn't last long
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: though and no matter how bad we wanted to get
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the F out of there none of us was particularly
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: fit at that time Now, I'm not sure how long
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: we ran for that time. It felt like minutes, but
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: we must have gone way longer because after stopping in
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: exhaustion again, we hit the highway after just a few
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: minutes of walking. The trees had stopped shaking by that point,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: and seeing a truck pass us as he slowed, I
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: guess we all started to feel kind of safe again.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: And then when Mike finally took his phone out of
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: his pocket, and I responded, I got a picture. I
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: took it right before I ran. I just about jumped
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: off the ground when he said that because, like I said,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: I had this terrible curiosity. Mike unlocked his phone, opened
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: his photo gallery, and tilted the screen towards us after
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: tapping on the picture, cranking up the brightness. I crowded
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: around to see a photo, time-stamped right around the time
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: that he'd gone to take a piss. It showed the
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: edge of a tree trunk, some undergrowth, and in the
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: center a long beige smear like someone had dragged a
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: finger through wet paint. There was no shape, no face,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: just a blur that looked like it was moving impossibly
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: fast across the frame. Mike stared at it for a
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: long time, longer than the rest of us, breathing loud
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: through his nostrils as he got angrier and angrier. And
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: then out of nowhere, he threw his phone down onto
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the asphalt and stomped on it so hard that the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: screen cracked and some of the back paneling came off.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: After that, and with his head on his hands, he
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: just let out this insane scream of, it was right there.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: We tried our best to calm him down, and that
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: time it actually worked because after a couple of screams of,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: of course, it's an effing blur, of course it is,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: he seemed to just sort of accept it. Now he
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: was the first to say, let's get the F home,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I want to get out of this crap hole, and
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: then he started walking and we all followed. Now eventually
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: we flagged down a truck, closer to dawn, The driver
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: took a look at all four of us and drove
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: us straight to the hospital in the nearest town without
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: asking too many questions. I thought that we were good
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: from there on out, but when a cop showed up
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to ask Kevin about his car, Mike completely lost it
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: on him and almost got himself arrested. It was a
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: local cop that showed up to take statements, and he
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: was nice at first while asking what happened. But then
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: for some reason, Mike brought up the floating man and
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the way the trees moved, and the cop's expression seemed
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: to change. He started asking if we'd been drinking or
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: using drugs, and then we admitted to drinking, the cop
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: kind of rolled his eyes, and Mike lost his mind.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: He lunged at the cop before anyone could stop him,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and while he didn't hit him, thank God, it sure
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: did look like he was going to for a second.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: And instead, he grabbed the cop's shirt with both hands
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: and screamed in his face, saying the man was real,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: and that he'd seen him, and that if the cop
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: went out there for himself, he'd see it too. This
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: guy was just shocked at first because Mike's just this
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: friendly looking dude, you know. But then before he had
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: a chance to drag him off, the cop had him
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: on his back and in cuffs while telling us to
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: get back. So while me and the rest of the
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: boys caught a ride home from Jay's uncle, Mike took
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: a little pit stop at the county before heading home.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: And I guess that was the one little bit of
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: luck that we had that night in that Mike managed
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to assault the nicest cop in New England. They actually
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: put in a good word for Mike at his court
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: hearing and explained how apologetic and polite he'd been following
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the arrest. Mike's parents also hired this big-time attorney who
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: was able to argue that the assault was the result
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: of just some temporary psychotic break brought on by the
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: stress of that car wreck and whatever it is we saw.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: The judge ordered counseling and evaluation instead of any real
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: jail time, and so after some mandatory trips to a
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: psych hospital a few times a week and then a
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: little outpatient therapy... He was good to go. Or not
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: entirely good to go. Now, we don't go camping anymore.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: None of us do. Both Mike and Jay said that
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: they had trouble sleeping for a while afterwards, and to
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: this day, Mike won't ever go near any sort of
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: trees after dark. He knows we all believe him, and
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: so that makes it easier. It makes it clear that
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: whatever that thing was, it wasn't just in his head
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: or a smudge on his phone screen. But I do
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: wonder how the hell the man, if that's what he was,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: managed to blur himself like that. Mike said it was
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: moving slow, not fast, and so it doesn't make sense
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: why it looked the way it did. He said he
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: felt like that thing followed him home for a while,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: even into the city, maybe even looking through his windows
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: or feeling the presence of it in his room. I
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: told him it was probably just the stress of all
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: of that, the insanity of it, I guess, but a
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: part of me thinks that he might have been right.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to
• 54:54
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• 54:58
  Speaker 1: every Monday and Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. And
• 55:01
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• 55:05
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• 55:07
  Speaker 1: over at my email, letsreadsubmissions at gmail.com and maybe even
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: hear your story featured on the next video. And if
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: you want to support me even more, grab early access
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: to all future narrations and some bonus content over on Patreon.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Or click that big join button here over on YouTube
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to check out the extra perks from members of the channel.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: And check out the Let's Read podcast where you can
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: hear all of these stories in big compilations located anywhere
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts. I also have a true crime
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: channel called Saturn Soul. All the links for everything are
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: down in the description below. Thanks so much, friends. And remember...
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Don't feed the Joel Botts.