Two of my friends and I had gone camping once deep in the woods. My friend, lets call him C, owned a log cabin. We made a tradition of going there for a week every summer, spending most of the time hammered and making fools of ourselves where nobody else could see.
The camp is faaaar away from civilization, it’s a thirty minute drive down an old logging road in a small town. We have no cell service or even electricity. We either cooked our meals on the barbecue, or when we were adventurous we used the open fire. It’s nice to just get away from everything and everyone else.
On our second night, my other friend, let’s call him J, suggests that we make a BIG fire, “high enough to reach the fucking moon!” and we did our best, piling up all the wood we could gather into a small mountain and lighting it into a roaring inferno.
C tried to roast a marshmallow on the blaze, but it burnt in seconds before it was even within a foot of the fire, melting and crumbling to dust. We were pretty drunk by then, and we started jumping around the fire and chanting like we were part of a cult or something, making spooky faces at each other, laughing all the while.
When we finally tuckered out and sat down, the bonfire was dying down and I could just barely make out a distant sound that I realized had been going on for a while. I just didn’t register it under the blazing fire and all the noise we were making. I couldn’t make it out that well, it almost sounded like something coming from a speaker. That, or I was just really drunk and was mistaking the wind for something else.I asked my buddies if they heard it, and J laughed, “Hear what?”“
Sounds like, I don’t know... someone playing music?” I said.
J laughed again, “Music? All the way out here? At what...” he checked his watch, “2 am? You goin’ crazy?”
I turned to the direction I thought it was coming from. The cabin was in a big clearing, and there was a really thick patch of trees to the left of it. That’s where it seemed to be coming from, somewhere in the distance.
“I hear it too,” C affirmed, turned to me, “It’s just the wind. It whistles like that when it goes between the trees there sometimes. Messes me up too.”
I nodded. We packed it in soon after.
The next night we didn’t go as crazy with our fire, but we still kept it going pretty good. I didn’t drink much that night, still recovering from my hangover all the drinking before had given me. We chatted and joked along with the crackling fire. J started to tell a spooky story but forgot the ending at the most important part and we laughed at him.
Something tickled my eardrums. It was that same distant sound again, subtle enough that it took me a while to notice. I watched the direction it came from as if I could pierce through the trees and the darkness and see the source.
“What’s up?” J asked.
“It’s that same sound I heard last night. It really sounds like music, like a radio or something, listen...”
“You sure you didn’t drink any tonight? Who the hell is gonna be doing that all the way out here?"
C spoke up, “Well actually, remember that little clearing we walked by when we went on our walk down the path today? That’s a public camping spot. Now, not many people drive all the way up here, can’t imagine it’s really well known... but I have seen and heard people camp there before.”
“Still, they must be playing it pretty dang loud if we can hear it all the way here. Wasn’t it like a mile down the trail?” I asked.
“They probably think nobody’s nearby too,” C said.J called it in early, and C dozed off once the fire died down. I watched the last bits of wood crackle for a while longer, listening. It was definitely music, and when the fire died down completely I caught just a bit of it before it shut off too. It sounded like some old timey band song, but I couldn’t be sure. I woke up C and we went to bed.
I remember thinking it was weird we hadn’t heard the other campers during the day at all.
We took a walk up to the camp again the next day. Nobody was there, but there were ashes in the fire pit and a beer bottle.
“See, just some dudes having a good time like us.”
Another fire that night. We kept it low, and started to make s’mores. The moon was full in the sky, but the rest of the night was shrouded by a thick blanket of clouds. The fire crackled quietly around midnight, when J perked up, “Well, I hear it now!”
I listened, the muffled music was subdued under the fire, but there wasn’t any wind that night. You could hear it a lot better.“They really like to party!” J laughed as it grew louder.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of music you’d crank up and jam to. It went through total bangers such as twinkle twinkle little star, Mary had a little lamb and some other old tunes I didn’t recognize. The speakers were peaking as it echoed through the trees, interrupted by bursts of static.
“This fucking sucks, man,” J had to speak up a little.
C was a little tipsy, “Alright this is just BS. We gotta go tell them to turn that shit off.”
So we got in C’s car, I drove since I hadn’t drank yet. As we made our way down the path between the thick trees, the headlights as our only light, the three of us were unusually tense. It was kind of creepy. What kind of guy plays kids songs that loud in the middle of the woods? Of course, I guess it could have been a family with a young kid but... that loud? Past midnight? I know that at the time I had this really bad feeling in my stomach that was telling me it was a bad idea to go there.
As we approached, the volume seemed to lower, but we could hear it more clearly. It was close. It sounded like there wasn’t just one speaker playing the music.
“Huh...” I muttered as I brought the car to a stop, the headlights shining on the camp.
“Nobody there...” J said distantly.
The camping spot was empty, but the music was definitely coming from somewhere nearby. That feeling in my gut grew stronger. Why was the camp empty? Where the hell were they? I wanted to turn back, but C got out before I could say anything and he started shouting, “Excuse me! Hey!”J and I followed after him as he walked to the edge of the camping spot, peering into the thick brush. The moon was covered by the clouds, so I could barely see anything. Twinkle twinkle little star was playing again, on what sounded like four different speakers at least. They were a little out of sync with each other.
“C... let’s go back,” I started to say but he pointed at something in the trees, “No, come on, I see his fire.”J followed after him as he dove into the brush, “Hello?! Hey buddy, could you turn your music down please? Sorry to bug you and all, but it’s just a little too loud!”
After hesitating, I went after them, smacking the bushes aside. I saw a faint orange glow cast on the trees ahead. I found it weird that they had their fire there instead of in the perfectly good fire pit.
“Hello?” C continued, “We’re from the cabin down the road, could you please turn it down, it’s really bugging us and...”
I was lagging a bit behind. C and J’s shadows spread out from the flickering glow. I heard a subtle noise like water running, or people talking under the music. I tripped over something, and nearly bumped into J. I turned back to see a bunch of bottles and empty cans of fish where I had tripped. There was random junk scattered all around.
“I see him,” J said. The fire flickered, the light licking and fading across the trees.I could make out someone sitting against a tree, their back to us.
“Hey!” C shouted again, he walked into the tiny clearing, “Buddy! Look, sorry to bug you but please could you...”
He stopped mid sentence. J fell onto his bottom when he came up to where C was.
I maneuvered around the big tree in front of me just in time to see the figure behind the tree slowly stand.
The full moon peaked out from behind the clouds, casting a silver sliver across my friends’ two frozen forms. The orange glow in the clearing grew brighter over the figure, lighting half of his face in an otherworldly way. He was unshaven, probably unwashed, his clothes were all torn up and dirty, and he looked old, at least 60. His eyes sparkled with a wild glint when he caught sight of us, his beard curling up into a smile, and then... he opened his mouth wide in a big O, and the music became louder. It was like... it was impossible, but it sounded like it was coming from him!
C screamed, and I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to get closer but I did, the old man’s face twitched as a burst of static crackled from his mouth. He looked right at me, and I saw pure glee in his eyes. It sounded like he had swallowed a radio, the sound was coming from deep in him, from his lungs or his stomach. Old MacDonald had a farm started bursting from his throat. He chuckled, a deep throaty chuckle of a chain smoker, and the music rose and fell along with his laugh. It was like the music was being played through a filter of his voice. The orange light flashed and blinked on his face, and his eyes rolled back in his head. It was then that I noticed that his feet weren’t on the ground. I shook my head and stared hard. He was floating, just a few inches off the dead leaves. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but when a loud crackle of static came from the right and I turned to the source of the light, I really thought I was having some crazy nightmare, that I wasn’t really awake. J and C were both staring at it, pure horror radiating from their faces, their bodies stock still.
There wasn’t a fire.
I still don’t really believe what we saw then. The source of the coppery light wasn’t a fire, but... a swirling mass of coursing shapes, bundled together in a ball, floating just under the canopy of the trees. My jaw dropped. My eyes hurt looking at it. It was around ten feet wide, and it didn’t appear to be solid. It was like fire, but it wasn’t fire, it was almost gaseous, or like a ball of electricity, I don’t know, and it flowed with these shapes that weren’t quite humanoid, they spun and swam through the ball like fish. I could hear them humming and chattering to each other, and in the center of the glowing mass of specters there was a portable radio. It floated there in the middle, sparks flying off of it, and it would twitch and you’d hear a loud burst of the music come from the radio instead of the old man. I felt my eardrums throb, ringing, and I could hear just barely under all the sound the shapes whispering the music in repetition, instruments and all. The three of us stood there stock still looking deeply into that swirling ball I don’t know how long, completely frozen, when I noticed something in the corner of my eye. There was a barely visible thread, or tendril of the orange light streaming towards the old man.
Prying my eyes away from the orb, I turned to face the man. He was slowly being lifted higher, slowly being pulled towards the ball. He laughed and gibbered, his eyes kept widening, then rolling back, before rolling back down and widening again and again, rapidly. His cheeks were twitching and his body hung limp, like he was in a state of total relaxation. J ran away. I fell to my knees when the man came within an inch of the orb, floating above us, his limbs hanging down like swaying vines. All of the shapes swam into one point on the orb, head-first, and the old man’s mouth stretched open again, wider than it ever had, and an absolute racket of radio static and music crackled out of his mouth, the shapes echoing it. C screamed again, barely audible under all the noise, and then suddenly the shapes all shot up straight, breaking out of the orb and there was a huge flash of light like a dozen fireworks had gone off all at once. For an instant, all noise ceased. I mean it didn’t just stop, it was like everything was muted. C’s mouth was still open, I could see it vibrating, but not a noise came out. The old man’s limp body and the radio fell to the ground noiselessly. I myself was trying to scream, but nothing came out.
Then, gradually like when you clear your ears after being underwater, the sounds came back.
“Come the fuck on guys, let’s get the fuck out of here!” J was shaking C, shouting. I was still frozen. The old man moaned something out, before jumping to his feet with vigor beyond his years. His eyes were still white, he yelped something and pranced towards the radio, picked it up, and starting running towards us with a big grin on his face, with the radio outstretched like he was offering it to us.But we were already running away with everything we had, I got in the car, turned on the engine and we were out of there in no time. We drove aimlessly, without saying a word, until we came across a hotel and booked in. I ended up breaking C’s shocks with how I was driving through the dirt road at full force.We went back to get our stuff the next day. We didn’t go by the camp where the old man had been, and we were in and out.
We never went back. Sometimes I think its just some crazy dream I had, but C will remind me that it was real. After we left, J never wanted to talk about it again. C sold the cabin for much cheaper than its worth. He couldn’t go back there. Our annual camping trips came to an end. Sometimes, I have vivid dreams about that ball of shapes. They whisper to me, whisper things I cannot understand. I still have no idea what we saw, not even the slightest clue.
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