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 SâMores and so on, and theyâd 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.
âThis is the life,â he quipped, mumbling while half-chewing, a satisfied smile creeping across his lips as he speared another marshmallow to start the process anew.
âFor sure,â 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 â he knew full well he wasnât 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 Edâs 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 SâMore in his mouth, still clutching the nearly full bag of marshmallows.
âWhatâs happening?â Dirk asked.
âWhat do you mean?â 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, âOh wait, is this the start of another tale of supernatural suspense?â He threw his chest out a bit and boomed in that old-school voiceover narrative, âWhat you are about to see and hear defies explanation, for mankind cannot comprehend the truly terrible, the uncanny unknown, the rare ramifications ofâŠâ
âNo,â Dirk replied. âSomethingâs⊠well⊠not quite right. Itâs, itâs like weâre on pause.â
âPause?â Jean quipped.
âYeah,â Dirk answered. âLike everything is just staying the same. You two⊠Ed⊠me⊠the campfire story⊠the fire.â He looked around. âItâs all just so⊠consistent.â Dirkâs gaze came to rest on Ed, âHow many marshmallows have you eaten?â
Ed glanced at the bag and spoke through a glob of sugary gooeyness, âI dunno. Three or four.â
âDude, youâve been eating those things all night one after another like theyâre going out of style,â Dirk looked taken aback. âYouâre going to turn into Stay-Puff at that rate. Like seriously.â
âWell, Iâm sorry Mr. Whoâs-Keepin-Track-AnywayâŠâ Ed rebuffed âWhatâs it matter? You want one? Well, you can totally have one. Iâm not stopping you.â He held the bag aloft.
âNo, itâs not that,â Dirk said. âItâs just⊠that bag should be gone by now. And the fire and⊠Itâs all just so static.â
Jean thought a moment and said, âMaybe we were all killed by that mass murderer at Campsite Whatever-the-Hell.â She gestured towards the transient loner before continuing, âAnd this is what Heaven is, just sitting here around the campfire with our best buds.â
âThereâs no place Iâd rather be,â interjected Kaya as she nuzzled up to Jean.
âHeaven⊠Hell⊠WhateverâŠâ Ed said as he popped another burnt marshmallow SâMore in his mouth. âI think the difference between the two is just in what you make of it.â
âMaybe,â Dirk said, still eyeing the surrounding woods suspiciously. He studied the roll of gently smoking pot-filled paper in his hand. It hadnât changed either. He continued pensively, âEven a good tripâll turn bad if youâre on it too long.â
âI donât think it makes any difference,â Jean exclaimed. âIâm here. Iâm happy. Thatâs all that matters right now.â
âAmen, Sister,â 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 Edâs 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. âGuess we best just make the most of it, then,â he said as he grabbed a marshmallow and skewered it to plunge into the fire.
âThatâs the spirit,â 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 SâMores 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.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrickâs Days⊠though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I donât know how you managed to find me after all this time. We havenât been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, youâve managed to find me every St. Patrickâs Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. Itâs a little disconcerting, like Iâm starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hutâŠ
Anyway as Iâd mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And Iâd already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrickâs Day. Hell, heâd already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Montyâs crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didnât want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew theyâd want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livinâ the dream.  We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick âem. Itâs like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least itâs not high maintenance women who wonât toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldnât know, Iâve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isnât all that itâs cracked up to be, and it doesnât work like in the movies. I wasnât bitten, and I generally donât bite unless provoked. He says technically Iâm a wolfwere, to which I just reply âWhere?â and smile. Whatever. Itâs the little things I guess. I just wish everything didnât come out as a bark most of the time, though Montyâs gotten pretty good at interpretingâŠÂ As long as he doesnât get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livinâ the dream. There arenât all that many rabbits out here but itâs quiet and the locals donât seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like heâs gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantryâs stocked itâs no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that alreadyâŠ
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
So what better follow up to Invisibles Among Us in Nightmarish Nature than Monstrous Mimicry? Further exploring the leaps that critters will go to in order to eat and not be eaten. This time we’re focusing on those creatures that want to intentionally be mistaken for one another.
Insects Pretending to Be Insects
This is a pretty common subgroup in the mimicry set. Featuring such celebrities as the Viceroy Butterfly, which looks an awful lot like the Monarch. Why? Because everyone knows Monarch Butterflies taste nasty and cause indigestion. Duh? Though it appears the Viceroy took further cues from this and is not all that tasty in its own right either. Dual reinforcement is totally the way to go – it tells predators not to eat the yucky butterflies regardless. But some bugs go a bit further in this, imitating one another to seek out food or protection. Various wasps, spiders, beetles, and even some caterpillars impersonate ants for access to their nest or because ants aren’t as appetizing as their buggy counterparts to much of anything outside of the myrmecophagous crowd (as shared before, here’s a fun diversion with True Facts if you have no idea), though some also have nefarious plans in mind. And similarly, the female photoris fireflies imitate other firefly signals luring smaller males to try to mate with them where they are instead eaten.
Kind of Weird Mimicry: Insects Pretending to Be Animals
Moths are pretty tasty, as far as many birds and small mammals are concerned, so several of them find ways to appear less appetizing. Using mimicry in their larval form, they may try to look specifically like bird scat or even like snakes to drive away predators, with elaborate displays designed to reinforce their fakir statuses. And once they emerge as moths, they continue these trends, with different species flashing eye spots to look like owls, snakes, cats, and a myriad of other animals most of their predators don’t want to tangle with. But other insects pretend to be larger animals too, with some beetles and others producing noises often associated with predator, typically towards the same end – to deter those who might otherwise eat them.
Animals Pretending to Be Animals
Similarly some animals will mimic others. Snakes may resemble one other, as seen in the Milk versus King versus Coral Snakes and the popular rhyme, Red with Black is safe for Jack or venom lack, but Red with Yellow kills a fellow for all that it isn’t 100% accurate on the Red-Yellow end (better to err on the side of caution than not – so assume they are deadly). Fish and octopuses will imitate other fish for protection status or to conceal opportunistic predatory behaviors. And lots of animals will mimic the sounds others make, though Lyrebirds tend to take the cake in this, incorporating the vocalizations into mating rituals and more.
Really Weird Mimicry: Animals Pretending to Be Insects
Some of the weirdest mimicry comes out in animals pretending to be insects or small fish, where a predator will flick its strangely formed tongue that looks like a fish or water nymph to draw in more tiny critters that feel safe with their own, only to find themselves snapped up as dinner. Snapping turtles are notorious for this, disguising themselves in the muck to make their big asses less obvious and reinforce the ruse. Even some snakes do this.
Weirder Still
Then there are things that pretend to be plants. Like orchid mantises. Or sea slugs that look like anemones (some of which eat anemones and have stingers to match). I mentioned a few of these in the Invisibles Among Us segment last time, because some are highly specialized to look like very specific things and others just aren’t. Essentially, nature loves to play dress up and be confusing and adaptive. It’s like Halloween year round. And who can really argue with that?
Here’s a fun video from Animalogic exploring some of these themes. And feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
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.