Campfire Stories: Around the Campfire by Jennifer Weigel
Haunted MTL is continuing the tradition of telling spooky stories for summer… Here are some new twisted tales to tell around the campfire… Kicking it off is Campfire Stories by Jennifer Weigel.
Ed, Dirk, Kaya and Jean warmed themselves around the campfire, telling spooky stories. The start to their camping excursion was unmemorable. It had rained all week and pitching the tents was a challenge with all the mud, but it was the weekend now. There was plenty of beer and hot dogs and S’Mores and so on, and they’d managed to get a campfire going with dry wood, old newspaper, and those chunky not-chicken nugget firestarters they had purchased at the gas station convenience mart on the way. So all was as it should be. There they were, just hanging out, sitting around the campfire and shooting the shit with their best buds.
The full moon hung heavy in the sky, wispy tendrils of clouds occasionally obscuring the rust orange hues that flickered about its lower bulge in the atmospheric dust. Dirk had just finished telling a werewolf story as the faint baying of a hound echoed in the distance. He took a long drag off of the joint he held aloft in his right hand and took in his surroundings. The grounds were pretty much empty after all of the rain and there were no other camping parties to speak of. Someone was set up three or four sites down the river, but he more or less appeared to be a transient minding his own business just trying to get by and stay dry, not out partying for the weekend.
Ed popped another marshmallow on a silver spear and plunged it into the fire to set ablaze. It crackled and popped as the outside charred to black soot. He turned it to sear the surface evenly, black ash giving way to molten white lava blistering forth from within. Ed sandwiched the burnt husk oozing white between two squares, one graham cracker and one cheap chocolate, and tossed it in his mouth to consume in a sloppy sticky gulp.
“This is the life,” he quipped, mumbling while half-chewing, a satisfied smile creeping across his lips as he speared another marshmallow to start the process anew.
“For sure,” Jean agreed, snuggling closer to Kaya under the wool blanket that they shared, their hands delicately and discreetly darting about some rather provocative personal locales out of sight of prying eyes. Not that Ed or Dirk cared, the girls could do whatever they liked. Ed found it kind of a turn on for all that he would never so boldly admit it as to insult his friends – he knew full well he wasn’t their type and they were both already spoken for, each to their own, anyway.
Dirk’s left hand poked at the smoldering fire with a stick to enliven it a little and embarked on telling a new narrative of suspense, of a group of lost campers who were picked off one by one by a serial killer who stalked the woods with hook. Or was it a machete? Or a large axe? He eyed the lone camper several sites away trying to discern if he had any such belongings to build a story upon. It made no difference anyway; Dirk had spun a similar yarn three narratives before while they sat around the fire skewering marshmallows in essentially the exact same fashion as they were now. His words all spilled into one another like a hodgepodge of harrowing horror from one twisted tale to another. Between fables, he would pause for a long toke before continuing to the next.
The boundless bag of marshmallows continued to be speared one at a time and flash fried in the fire only to find themselves one by one making their final journey down Ed’s cavernous gullet. Dirk told story after story as werewolves, ghosts, serial killers, supernatural phenomena and other horrors wove in and out of the smoke filled air. The girls continued to cuddle together under the blanket, wrapped up in their own little world. The fire blazed on into the night.
Dirk paused for a moment as if crafting further suspenseful lulls in his myth-mongering while taking in something close by to work with. He took another hit and looked around. Everything was still exactly as it should be. It was the picture perfect camping trip. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had changed. He poked at the fire quizzically. It burned on as it had been, smoldering without extinguishing itself or burning too hot and blazing out. Ed popped another S’More in his mouth, still clutching the nearly full bag of marshmallows.
“What’s happening?” Dirk asked.
“What do you mean?” Ed responded He speared another marshmallow and set it into the fire, turning it to be equally ravaged by flame, before drawing two and two together, “Oh wait, is this the start of another tale of supernatural suspense?” He threw his chest out a bit and boomed in that old-school voiceover narrative, “What you are about to see and hear defies explanation, for mankind cannot comprehend the truly terrible, the uncanny unknown, the rare ramifications of…”
“No,” Dirk replied. “Something’s… well… not quite right. It’s, it’s like we’re on pause.”
“Pause?” Jean quipped.
“Yeah,” Dirk answered. “Like everything is just staying the same. You two… Ed… me… the campfire story… the fire.” He looked around. “It’s all just so… consistent.” Dirk’s gaze came to rest on Ed, “How many marshmallows have you eaten?”
Ed glanced at the bag and spoke through a glob of sugary gooeyness, “I dunno. Three or four.”
“Dude, you’ve been eating those things all night one after another like they’re going out of style,” Dirk looked taken aback. “You’re going to turn into Stay-Puff at that rate. Like seriously.”
“Well, I’m sorry Mr. Who’s-Keepin-Track-Anyway…” Ed rebuffed “What’s it matter? You want one? Well, you can totally have one. I’m not stopping you.” He held the bag aloft.
“No, it’s not that,” Dirk said. “It’s just… that bag should be gone by now. And the fire and… It’s all just so static.”
Jean thought a moment and said, “Maybe we were all killed by that mass murderer at Campsite Whatever-the-Hell.” She gestured towards the transient loner before continuing, “And this is what Heaven is, just sitting here around the campfire with our best buds.”
“There’s no place I’d rather be,” interjected Kaya as she nuzzled up to Jean.
“Heaven… Hell… Whatever…” Ed said as he popped another burnt marshmallow S’More in his mouth. “I think the difference between the two is just in what you make of it.”
“Maybe,” Dirk said, still eyeing the surrounding woods suspiciously. He studied the roll of gently smoking pot-filled paper in his hand. It hadn’t changed either. He continued pensively, “Even a good trip’ll turn bad if you’re on it too long.”
“I don’t think it makes any difference,” Jean exclaimed. “I’m here. I’m happy. That’s all that matters right now.”
“Amen, Sister,” Kaya giggled.
The group sat in silence for awhile. They seemed to gain a little more clarity of their circumstances as they studied their surroundings. The full rust-tinged moon continued to hang heavy in the sky, slightly obscured by very occasional wispy clouds. Their far neighbor continued to mind his own business. The fire continued to blaze along. The bag of marshmallows continued to remain mostly full despite Ed’s ravenous attack upon it. Nothing really changed. Everything just kept going.
Dirk looked again at his joint, snubbed it out, and put it in his pocket for later. “Guess we best just make the most of it, then,” he said as he grabbed a marshmallow and skewered it to plunge into the fire.
“That’s the spirit,” Ed smiled, teeth white and black with marshmallow goo.
Dirk started in on another twisted tale, of a group of friends finding themselves in limbo, forever lost to the flickering light of a smoldering campfire, roasting S’Mores and telling scary stories…
If you are enjoying these campfire stories, light up your own campfire and be sure to check out our Summer Slaughter Series story from last year, an exquisite corpse with each of us building upon the writer(s) who came before us.
I thought about featuring some sort of Father Nature bit for Father’s Day, but having already explored Perilous Parenting I decided to focus on more creepy insects instead. Because we love creepy insects here at Haunted MTL. Thus, I present Assassin Fashion, featuring the Assassin Bug…
Fashion Plates
Now I don’t know about you, but my first thought after snagging my prey and slurping out their dissolved innards is that I totally want to wear the dried up husk of their now lifeless body. Like that necklace made of nothing but shrunken heads. That is some first-rate fashion right there, and no one would dare to say otherwise lest they want to become a part of the dead-flesh coat… And this is exactly what the Assassin Bug does. Like a spider, it stabs its unsuspecting prey, turns it into a giant protein shake inside of its insectoid shell-glass, sips it out, and then attaches the corpse’s carapace to its ever growing collection atop its back.
Aside from being totally badass, these nightmarish embellishments serve a number of additional functions. They help the Assassin Bug blend in among its prey, masking its own odor and helping it to appear as a mass of insects that belong in or near the nest (especially among those more social networking creepy crawlies like ants and termites). In fact, it may even draw the attention of those clean up crews seeking to bury their dead, luring them in to become part of the body snatched horde. And the horrifying additions also act as a sort of armor and potential decoy for other predators like lizards and birds, who can end up with a mouth full of dead bug bodies rather than a bite of juicy Assassin Bug.
Kissing Sucks
And Assassin Bugs don’t just carry around one or two dead bodies, they may totally pile them up, as well as use other insects’ and plants’ secretions to their own advantage. Here’s a cool video from Deep Look that shows a partnership some Assassin Bugs have with Tarweed, keeping moth caterpillars from eating all of its flowers so that it can itself reproduce and spread.
Fortunately humans are too big to be susceptible… Or are we? There are also parasitic Assassin Bugs known as Kissing Bugs or Vampire Bugs that feed on mammal’s blood at night; they even act as a vector for other parasites that can cause disease years after feeding, which are associated with Chagas disease and are transmitted to mammalian hosts when the Assassin Bug poops while feeding and the host animal smears the poop into the bite when itching it.
So here’s a pencil drawing I did of a dead bug I found (I had a whole series of these back in the day). I hadn’t at the time known what it was, but it turns out to be an Assassin Bug. I wonder what its fashion sense was like…
So remember, if you want to be at the forefront of creepy horrific fashion, just look to the Assassin Bug for inspiration. If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
This time on Nightmarish Nature we will again explore some of the more fetid fungi and plants, this time focusing on those that imitate rotten flesh in order to attract flies. Among the best known of these are the Stinkhorn and the Corpse Lily or Corpse Flower. The Language of Flowers be damned, literally…
Fungi
Many of the fungi in the Stinkhorn family erupt in mushrooms that reek of rotten flesh and sprout from a white sort of egg sac in various forms, the common type being a phallus like structure with a white body and olive head. The Beefsteak fungus resembles, well, a cut of beef oozing blood. And some mushroom bodies of the Clathrus genus bloom in elaborate lattice structures or devil’s tooth and devil’s fingers that resemble terrifying alien beings. These odoriferous fetid fungi grow in decaying wood material and use their stinky attributes to attract flies and other insects which will then spread the spores from their fruiting bodies. They truly look like something out of an outer space or aquatic nightmare.
Plants
Some plants also utilize pungent putrid odors to attract flies and other insects, in part to aid in the pollination and dissemination but also to attract insect matter for their own needs, to absorb the insects for valuable nutrients that they cannot otherwise obtain. The largest flowers in the world bear many of these characteristics, also being among the stinkiest. And some pitcher plants mimic rotten flesh to attract flies upon which they “feed”.
The Titan Arum of Sumatra and Indonesia is a plant that over time produces a huge flower somewhat resembling a calla lily but larger as the plant body stores enough energy to do so. While Calla Lilies are often used to symbolize rebirth and resurrection and can be associated with death, often in a funerary setting, the huge Titan Arum does more than that, strongly mimicking decaying flesh in order to attract flies. These flowers can grow to almost 8-feet tall and bloom for only about three days before wilting; they are a huge draw at botanic gardens when flowering because of the rare nature of the event and the remarkable presence that the flower has, in both size and smell. The US. Botanic Gardens has a page devoted to this plant here, where you can even track previous blooms.
Another noteworthy flowering plant is Rafflesia, a parasitic flower native to Indonesia and Malaysia that feeds on the liana vine and grows from a sprouting body bud into a huge flower over the course of five years. Its flowers, once finally formed, can grow to almost a meter across and resembles something out of a horror film. These too smell of death and decay to attract flies in order to cross-pollinate. You can learn more about these unusual plants on this video from Real Science here.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
So, as you may have noticed, we have a special fondness for spiders here on Nightmarish Nature. Well, they are kind of the spokes-critters for horrifying animalia, perhaps because they are so freakishly different from us. Or maybe it’s because I find them a little disconcerting for all that I try to take the “you mind your business, I’ll mind mine” approach, at least if they stay outdoors. Or just because I really like to draw spiders for all that I prefer not to find them sharing my home (though I’ll gladly take spiders over other bugs or mice or larger critters who didn’t get an invite).
Anyway, this segment is devoted to the largest Giants Among Spiders, as if you didn’t have enough to worry about already. And the top place is contested based upon body mass or leg length. Most of these are tarantulas, which globally take top place among the large arachnids.
Goliath Birdeater Tarantula
The Goliath Birdeater Tarantula of South America is the biggest brute of spiderdom, weighing in at over 6 ounces. They build funnel burrows and are known to eat birds (although rarely), mice, lizards, frogs, and snakes, but largely any big insects including other species of spiders. They have urticating barbed hairs that they fling at would-be attackers as an irritant to escape. And people even eat them after they singe the bristles off. Here’s a National Geographic video showing this spider in action, in case you wanted to see a giant spider take out a mouse.
Giant Huntsman Spider
And with the longest legs, we have the Giant Huntsman Spider of Laos, with a leg-span of 12 inches. Their legs have twisted joints and they move in a crab-like manner, which furthers their impressive appearance. ‘Cause they’ve got legs, and know how to use ’em. They prefer to live in underbrush and cave entrances. These are like the big relatives of their Australian cousins, which we’ve all seen online and developed a healthy aversion to.
Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater & Brazilian Giant Tawny Red Tarantulas
Next we have two more South American species: the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater, which boasts one-inch fangs, and the Brazilian Giant Tawny Red, believed to be the longest-lived spider with a lifespan of up to thirty years. Both are in the tarantula family and have urticating hairs, a word you probably never read much before today unless you are in the hobby. So apparently South America is not the best travel destination for you if you struggle with arachnophobia, though I suspect you’d figured that out already. (I wouldn’t recommend Australia or Southeast Asia either.)
Face Size Tarantula
And finally the Face Size Tarantula, which has a very terror-inducing name reminiscent of the Face Huggers of Alien-glory. Anyway, these spiders have an 8-inch leg-span and live in India and Sri Lanka. They look kind of like big hairy wolf spiders with stripey legs, sometimes with pink and daffodil coloring.
If you enjoyed this eight-legged segment of Nightmarish Nature on Giants Among Spiders and their larger than life kin, please check out past segments:
David Davis
August 21, 2022 at 3:05 pm
Really enjoyed the atmosphere on this one. It felt a lot like sitting around a campfire.
Jennifer Weigel
August 25, 2022 at 11:12 am
Thank you. Once I wrote it I thought it would be a good lead in. It’s been a great series.