S23 Ep24: NoSleep Podcast S23E24

The sun shining, birds are singing and all feels right in the world. Until the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed. In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression no matter the season or time of year. At the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round. Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more. A Russell of the Leaves. A fleeting movement at the edge of your vision. How often have you walked a forest trail that does only to feel the unmistakable sensation that something unseen is watching you? For centuries, humans have all been living together. Damn it! Nothing is going right these days. WNSP is off the air, the theme music won't play properly, and my trip to this swamp in Virginia has left me knee-deep in muck and mud. This is not the way I wanted to present the season finale. But yes, greeting sleepless listeners. This is the No Sleep Podcast, and I'm your host, David Cummings. We have reached the end of season 23. Well, technically the Christmas episode is the end of the season, but you get the idea. And despite me being stuck in this swamp, I want to take a moment to thank you for listening to our show during season 23. It's been a fun one to present with all the cryptids and strange creatures running a muck all season. I can only hope this swamp doesn't have too many cryptids lurking about. We really do appreciate all the support you give us. By listening to the show, and if you find yourself able, by being part of our sleepless universe platform, by following us on social media, by being active online, sharing our stories with others, and by just being fans of what we do. We know the horror storytelling podcast world is getting bigger, so we're grateful you make us a part of your listening routine. And since this season finale is being presented in full to all our listeners, we're only able to do that with the help of our great sponsors. And yes, I know it's easy to just skip over ads in shows, but it's these companies that make our show available to you absolutely free. I hope you drop by their site, still learn more about them. That helps them, and even more importantly, it really helps us and allows us to bring you two hours of horror entertainment for free. The world moves fast. You work day, even faster, pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 co-pilot is your AI assistant for work. It helps in to word, excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 co-pilot. A big thanks to all our sponsors. They really do help keep the lights on, even in our dark, dank little world. And now you're likely wondering why I'm down in this swamp. Well, like you, I've been listening to that darkness of the night show on WNSP. The host of that show, the velvety sounding DC, has been presenting cryptids from cryptid valley for years now. But lately, the show has been having odd glitches, which, to my ear, seem to be pointing us down to a particular place in Virginia. A state park right on the coast, just north of Virginia Beach. And I figured why not come down here myself to find out just what's going on down here. And now I'm mucking through the swamp all alone, wondering what I've gotten myself into. Tell me, ho, is that you, David? Huh? Jemma? Jemma or more? What on earth are you doing here? David, you know how much I'm drawn to far, flung places, like First Landing State Park. You can either find me pounding the streets of Bristol or lurking here, deep in the swamp. You fly across the pond to slurp around in this swamp for fun. Not fun so much as a research trip, because I've written a story about this place. It's a story you're featuring on this very seasoned finale. And once you've heard it, you'll understand why I'm steering well clear of the water and the sand. The boardwalk isn't that safe. Either if I'm honest, in fact, I don't think we should linger here too long. Okay, help me or help us understand what you mean. What can you tell us about this story as we prepare to launch into it for this finale episode? Well, my story tells the tale of a woman who, like me, likes to travel so low and is very much based on my own experiences of flying to the States for the very first time, not long after COVID. And having my travel plans changed at the last minute, getting picked up by a new friend and adventuring around Virginia and you guessed it, visiting First Landing State Park. It's a creature feature because I love those and taps into my adoration for the cryptid episodes of the X-Files, which I was obsessed with when I was younger. And I won't give up way any more than that, only to say it's a very hot, sticky story and there's a lot of goo. Hmm, it sounds like a different kind of story, but never mind that. Well, your story sounds compelling indeed. And how exciting it is for us that we have our own grand-dum, Erika Sanderson, to perform this epic tale along with Erin Lilis, Jesse Cornett, and Wuffy a white. I can honestly think of no better people to handle the highs, lows, ins and outs of this story. Erika is no stranger to my work and I have to admit that I often write with her voice in mind. She's going to knock it out of the swamp, I can feel it. Well, has Gemma and I slowly, hopefully, make our way out of this one? We offer up this tale for your creepy cryptid contentment. What say we get out of here, Gemma? I agree. I think we've overstayed our welcome. I hope we get out on the scale. If we do, we should count ourselves lucky. Because mark my words. There is something very strange in First Landing State Park. I am more myself when I travel than at any other time. This is something my mother cannot understand. Why can't you be happy at home, she complains? I have no easy answer to this. I could tell her, you only have to turn on the news. It's exhausting living where and how we do. But that wouldn't be the reason. And it wouldn't be something she could understand if it were. My mother is rooted firmly into her country of birth. Little I say out loud is going to help clear up the mystery of my wanderlust for her. You can't dig out roots, not after they've sunk deep. Nor can you fight fear, which I suspect lies at the heart of our differences. Besides, I have a feeling what she really means is, why don't you come and see me more often instead of tripping off all over the place? But she knows why. She just doesn't want to admit it. It's hard for me to spend time with a person who fundamentally doesn't understand me, or like the things that I like. It's hard for her too, which is why we don't often meet. The disparities between us are painful for both parties. She's been easier on me about all this since the incident though. I'm grateful for that. I think about this as I stare out of the tinted aeroplane window next to me. It's not just my mother. In general, I'm finding it harder and harder to be around other people. Increasingly, I seek solitude. The peculiar and fulfilling loneliness that a company is solo-traveled. Something I would have once been afraid of. Until I started to question, why? A lone time I've come to realize is a rare and special gift. Other people can crowd in. Stop you from experiencing yourself. A nice distraction. But distractions only last so long. You can't run from your own shadow forever. I mean, you can try. But it's stitched on with sutures of light and dark. So it's a lot better to get acquainted, I think. I suppose some might say that constantly travelling is a form of running away, especially in my case. Surely therapy would be better for you, people say. But I never was that interested in exploring myself with others. Which is precisely why therapy hasn't stuck. Trust me. I've tried. But it's not safe for a woman to travel alone, my mother says. That's why, when this flight lands in Dallas, Virginia, I was supposed to be meeting a tour guide right off the plane. I had thought my original carefully organised plan airtight. Taking the sights on a small tailor-made intimate tour. Eat good food, drink some cocktails, learn some things about American history and politics. The guide however cancelled on me a mere half an hour after my flight departed. Flew. Her message popped up on my phone not long after the seat belt lights pinged off. So sorry, she said. I'm heartbroken. Full refund. I should feel more upset, but I'm strangely okay about it. Any disappointment can be turned into an opportunity with a little reframing. My mind runs through all my options, suddenly remembering an acquaintance who lives in Virginia Beach, which is not horrendously far from Dallas, I don't think. Maybe I'll go there instead. Although how exactly am I sure? Perhaps I'll hire a car. I'll probably slow down on the complimentary wine. Instead, I order another. I have hours left on this flight. Plenty of time to sober up and figure out the details. I sit back in my narrow chair and sit wine from a plastic glass. My uncle has a saying, drink the free wine and eat the free food at weddings, especially the meat. Load up on the meat, Melanie. That's the expensive stuff. I get it. Life is made up of things that cost money, like plain tickets, and things that don't, like memories and free booze and meat at weddings. The things that cost money should in my mind be experiences rather than possessions. This is something else my mother, who never leaves the country and replaces her car every year, doesn't understand. So she calls me a feckless hippie. But I work, I earn a living, and anyway, names are just words, and words only have as much power to harm you as you allow them to. And when it comes down to it, none of this matters much in the end. All that matters is moving forward in the right direction, towards yourself, not away, and making the most of every damn moment you've been gifted in this life. I think a lot of survivors probably feel the same way. I experience an uncomfortable moment of pride in myself, then force it into a box I've mentally labeled, good things. Because why not? Why not feel pride at the little victories? A year ago I could barely go outside. Now look at me. Moving forwards through space and air, but backwards through time, long distance international travel is a dimensional head fuck if you think about it too much. I can leave a place in the morning and arrive eight hours later, only to find it's still the morning in my destination. Is that what they mean when they say that time is a flat circle? They never really understood that expression. But then, I've never been too smart. Outside the oval tinted window, clouds hang thick and level as an iced cake, the consistency of the milky, like inch thick frosting, or like royal-ing smoke, the sort that fills your lungs with a foul, accrued residue. But it's not a good idea to think about that, so I order another wine. The clouds break up later into small fluffy hummocks that reveal glimpses of the blueest blue far below. It's easy to imagine hopping from clump to clump, as if the clouds are solid things. Easy also to imagine discovering that they are not. To visualize falling, suddenly through the air, plummeting at a thousand miles per second, hurtling towards the vast cold ocean like a brick dropped by God. Wind whistling past your ears so violently, they feel as if they might tear off and fly away. Blue around, all around, sparkling waves racing up to meet you and to greet your fragile form, hitting the surface of the water. Bones shattering, piercing your warm wet skin, vertebrae compacting, ribs fracturing, next snapping into like a twig underfoot. But at least it's wet and cool, not hot and smoky, and a jolt awake. I've been napping, and my head dips dangerously close to the woman sitting next to me, almost resting on her shoulder. I stiffen and pull away, smiling uncomfortably. She smiles back. Did I have nightmares all over her? Scream in my sleep. I do that a lot. I think she would look more freaked out though if I had. Was I talking in my sleep? I ask self-conscious. She shakes her head. I breathe a sigh of relief. I almost crossed a boundary, but saved myself just in time. Then I realize I have tears on my cheeks. I haven't been screaming or talking in my sleep. I've been crying instead. The other woman looks away. I pat my face with an napkin. I will not be embarrassed, I decide. It's not my fault she's uncomfortable. I should try not to fall asleep on her again though. No more wine for me, I think, even as my eyes start to droop once more. The next few hours are hazy. I dip in and out of fitful naps, waking myself up regularly. My neck develops a fierce crick. I get up, move around, do some stretches in the aisle between seats, drawing a few funny looks. I use the bathroom and chat to the air hostess standing nearby. She tells me she used to vacation at Virginia Beach as a child. She tells me about a place near to it called First Landing State Park. Between the beaches of Chexapig Bay and the Cypress Wabs. You like camping? I grin. I do like camping. A lot. Well, there's a really nice campsite out there, with facilities. A bathhouse or two, running water. Beach on one side, swaps on the other. Long Creek Trail runs behind it. Nice, easy walking. It won't be busy this time of year. You'll need Bugsbury. She shows me some pictures on her phone. I see huge old moss-for-stuned trees rising up out of dark water. They're roots forming distinctive nobly-meas hummocks in the swamp. And I see long sandy beaches with placid waves lapping on smooth shores. It excites me. I thank her for the tip. I check the display on the headrest screen in front of me when I sit back down. 39,999 feet up in the air. Outside air temperature minus 58 Fahrenheit. Ground speed, 541 miles per hour. 2651 miles to go. Over the Atlantic Ocean, like a cloud myself, I'm skimming the sky. I watch the world inch past the window at a snail's pace, knowing we are actually traveling at incredible speed. All things considered, I'm calm, content, hypnotized by the drone of the jet engines. I realize I'll never get tired of looking at the sky. Sky reminds me of water. Water is cool and wet. I ask my friend, who it turns out is excited by my sudden change in travel plans and changes hers accordingly. If we can take a trip to first landing state park, explore a bit once I've gotten over my jet lag. She thumbs up this request and the plan is set. Now, if only I could stop thinking about dying. Wouldn't that be something? It's a process. I know that. I'm moving towards myself all the time, a good friend once said back when we still spoke. His attitude towards me changed when it became apparent I was not the same person as before the incident. This hurt, but I couldn't control him so I let him go. His advice lingers though. And I know he's right. I'll get there. I will. Might just take me a bit is all. Another nap. Another jolt to wake to check our position. We're over Vermont now. I'm starting to get increasingly sore and uncomfortable, so this is welcome news. I'm bored. I've watched a couple of movies, listened to two episodes of my favorite podcast, jotted copious notes down in my diary. My knees ache. There is not enough room for my legs to rest comfortably, at an angle that's right for my height. I need to pee again, damn you free wine, but the woman next to me is dosing and I don't want to annoy her anymore than I already have. I can hold it for a little longer, but soon, they'll have to clamber over her. We always like the word Vermont. It's satisfying to say, we pass over a huge white stepped quarry dusted with snow. The landscape around it is a patchwork quilt of white and black and grey tiles, very different to the big blue of earlier. The much harder landing too, I imagine, if one were to fall from the sky. My friends drove from Virginia Beach to Dallas to come pick me up. When she suggested it, I didn't fully realize the distance and effort that entailed. She said that she lived close by, in Britain that would mean a mile, maybe two. In America, it means she drove four hours out of her way like it was nothing, so I wouldn't be stranded at the airport. I told her I could hire a car or get a train or find a bus, but she wouldn't hear of it. Wouldn't let me pay for gas, either. She also packed a call bag with ice-cold colors, one of which she hands over as soon as my tired rear hits the passenger seat of her truck. I know then that she is a keeper. Oh my god. I pierce the can with the ring pole and take a deep long swig before saying anything else. I know it's rude, but I am so dehydrated from the flight and the interminably long queue at passport control that I can barely see straight. Hi, I gasped eventually lowering the coca-can. Gratitude leaks out of my every paw. I'm Melanie and you are a fucking lifesaver. The small belch escapes my tingling lips. Lee, she grins, but we've never met in person before, only online. She jabs coordinates into her phone satnav. And don't mention it. Her voice is calm, easy on the ears and brain. As meetings go, it is low-key, which is about all I can handle. We pull out of the airport and onto the access road that feeds into the interstate. Or at least I think it's the interstate. I don't know what anything is called here. It is a relief to find Lee isn't someone who needs to talk for the sake of talking. Jetlag is thoroughly kicking my ass. It's mid afternoon, but nighttime back home. There is some initial awkwardness between us as I struggle with shyness and fatigue. But Lee is laid back. It soothes me. After a short while, we settle into a rhythm. Talk, rest, talk, rest. It feels like the right way to get to know someone. Slow and steady, not a violent, frantic exchange of information. This is my first trip to America. And I cannot get over how fucking large everything is. Roads, cars, trucks, horizons, birds, buildings, food portions, gas stations. Everything feels inflated and enormous. I'm enjoying it. The contrast with home is very welcome. I like how much space there is everywhere. The highways are busy, but not as bumper to bumper, steel and glass crowded as a major road would be this time of day in Britain. The views are pretty bland. Just road and sky, trees, and dozens of signs for rest stops and diners. I realize I need to adjust my definitions of what is a long drive. I get the impression it's not uncommon for people to truck along for eight or nine hours, and that's still be considered a short journey. I suppose that makes sense when you consider some individual states a bigger than my entire country. But the thought of all that long distance driving makes me wince. My knees are already swollen. I desperately need to lie down. Elevate them. All in good time though. All in good time. Early on I fall into the trap of being over polite to the point of annoyance. Thank you. I keep saying, acutely aware of how much out of her way lea's gone. I can't tell you how much this means to me. Seriously, thank you. Please, let me give you some money. Shut up, are you ready? She winks and turns on the radio to show there is no bite to the words. Or to shut me up. Either is fine with me. I take the hint, but resolve to slip some dollars into the glove compartment when she's not looking. At the very least, I'm shouting all her meals from now on. Turns out, we have a lot in common. She likes to paint. I like to paint. She likes to write fiction, so do I. She grew up with only her mom, just like I did. We both love nature and the outdoors and have a hatred of crowds and people who try too hard. We're both dog people. We share a fixation with the ocean too, with water. She likes astronomy. I'm into geology. Our dads are both ex-military. I realize we're going to be fine. We have enough to talk about when we feel like it. The road stretches out, and I push my seat back on its track and stretch out along with it. Hot, tired, uncomfortable. But I've arrived. And it feels good. Eventually we hit the outskirts of Virginia Beach. I sit up and look around with interest. Almost dead with fatigue, but managing to fight it off. There is a large military presence here. Naval ships, fighter jets, roaring overhead. A lot of water, a lot of birds, and a strip of high-rise hotel blocks lining the beach front, one of which is mine. Obviously busy during peak season. The place now has a ghostly preparatory air to it that I like a lot. The streets are quiet, even though it's a Friday night. Music, the easy-listening variety, plays it intervals from speakers attached to lamp posts and storefronts. Playing for who? Was hardly anyone around. I don't mind that though. It adds to the abandoned theme park ambience that is settled here like a head-e-per-fumed milling-colle. This is compounded by the haunted house attraction we drive past. Taki-bright lettering and a giant blue fiberglass skull fixed to the outside wall. Hands protruding, grasping. Lee drops me at my hotel. I'm going to take a day to adjust to the local time and sleep as well as I can, before we head off on our little camping adventure. I ask her about first landing state park before exiting the car. Lee goes there all the time. If I'm fine with sharing a tent, we can camp there no problem. She knows the good spots. I can try smores. Maybe we can sneak out for a midnight swim in the ocean. I say, fuck yeah! And the plan is sealed. But first, I need to lie down. In a soft bed. Order room service. Find something shitty to watch on the TV. Stay awake as long as humanly possible so I can adapt. So my eventual sleep is deep and restful. Without nightmares. Without dreams of death. Without flickering orange light. And the horrible sour burning smell in monostrels. Lee honks as she pulls away from the hotel. I grin and wave. Feeling like we've known each other for a hundred years already. I feel good about life. Underneath the exhaustion. Feeling any other way would be ungrateful. It doesn't matter where in the world you go. Birds are always an anchoring sight. I watch them wheel above a dawn stained sea and feel grounded. My plans to adjust to local time have failed miserably. I crashed hard when I got to my room. Then woke up at 3 a.m. I have been up since. It's mid-morning back home. Jet lag is one of those things you just have to accept rather than fight time learning. Take the sleep when you can get it. And slowly adapt your schedule where you can. The remains of my room service dinner are rodley tempting at sunrise. I was too tired and out of sync to eat much of it after checking in. Now I find myself picking through cold soggy fries with gusto. Breakfast here doesn't start for another two and a half hours. I watch the ocean from my chair by a large sliding window. There's a balcony outside, but it's too high up for me to comfortably sit on. Besides, it's cold and windy out, especially at this height. This armchair is just fine. I have a notebook open on my lap, in which I jot down random thoughts and feelings as I watch the brilliant burnt sienna sun rise slowly above the purple sea line. I feel comfortable, yet dislocated, as if I've lived in a thousand places, but none ever completely. Scraping noises from the room above keep me slightly on edge. There is someone moving furniture around up there, but why they're doing it at this hour I have no idea. I keep an eye out for any figures strolling along the wide, well-tended beach far down below, but there are none. Too early. Lee told me dolphins often play close to the shore at dawn, but I'm yet to see any. They would be hard to spot from this distance anyway. That's okay. The sea is enough. It always has been. A squad of brown pelicans lazily drifts across my line of sight, from left to right. A smile. They're majestic. More like dinosaurs than anything avian. Moving pondrously, they lower themselves in formation, skimming the surface of the ocean before landing, and bobbing peacefully on the waves as the sky behind them turns to light blush pink. The sun creeps higher. No longer a mere sliver, but a blazing eye half closed. I close my own for a moment, savoring the quiet. The absolute stillness of this sliver of my life. The memory of the sun burns two bright spots into the darkness behind my eyelids. Eyes inside my eyes. Both of us watching each other. Burning bright spots in my vision. A light so hot it seers. Can you feel it on your skin? Can you feel the heat on your face? It only takes a second they say. A flash in the pan they call it. Only the pan is your body. And that smell. Is that your hair curling? The singed strands scrambling away from the flames. Can you hear the sound of yourself screaming? Can you... fuck? I wish the memories would leave me alone for one fucking single minute. But perhaps that's too much to ask of my brain right now. They open my eyes again, searching for a distraction. I find it. A figure now stands in solitude on the beach below. A frown trying to fix on it while steadying my breathing, which is suddenly ragged. It's a man I think, although hard to tell reliably from here. I would need binoculars to be sure, but the longer I look, the more I'm convinced. His height, the broadness of his shoulders. He has long arms and legs really long. Or perhaps this is a trick of the growing light, the low angle of the sun. The man is quite obviously naked. He is one ghostly pale color all over. He moves. And I can see the absurd thick white line of his dick swinging about between his legs. Or am I just making an assumption? The light is so poor. He's barely distinct from the grayish yellow sand beneath him. He moves again. Nope. Definitely dick. No doubt about it. I laugh out loud. Not something I've been expecting to see as part of my sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean experience. I watch as he stretches as if still waking from a sleep. And then shakes himself, like he's ridding his body of water, dog fashion. Or is he shedding sand? Sand, I realize. His hair, which is long, whips about him like a stringy nest of snakes. He continues to shake himself as the sun climbs higher, revealing something else. On the beach by the man's feet, a large shadow stretches out. I lean forward, sprinting. What is that? It looks like a hole. A body length hole. Like a long burrow. Has he been sleeping in it? Buried under the sand instead of sleeping rough under a blanket. Is that why he's shaking himself off? But if so, where is clothes? I can't see a pile of garments discarded anywhere on the beach nearby. No bag, no shoes. Nothing to indicate he's got an undressed. He's just naked. Unless the clothes are in the hole. Either way, it's weird. I breathe out loud. I watch the man closely, feeling like a voyeur, unable to stop myself. I can't decide whether or not to be freaked out by his nakedness. I mean, it is early. Maybe naked swimming is a thing here. I'd assumed people would be quite conservative. There are signs on the beach telling people not to swear or curse. Right alongside the no concealed carry notices. But the man wanders slowly towards the sea. He moves awkwardly, as if handkered by something. Almost like he's not used to walking on land. Like his feet are hobbled or tender. His gate reminds me of a seal or a penguin out of the water, ungainly off balance, unsure of the solid ground beneath, even if it is only compacted sand. God, I wish I had binoculars so I could see better. The man shambles and flip flops along. Behind him, a trail stretches out from the burrow to the backs of his feet. Darkish in color, it reflects light in sparkling intervals. So at first I think it must be oil, dense and distinct. But then I realize how stupid that idea is. He's definitely leaking something though. Some sort of discharge. Blood? Is he bleeding? Hurt? Is that why he's walking so funny? Whatever it is, the man doesn't look back to see what he's left behind. Instead, he walks straight into the ocean, transforming suddenly into an elegant shape and disappearing in a gliding smooth motion, not unlike that of a dolphin slipping beneath the waves. Streamlined. No resistance. Mouth open, I wait for him to reappear. But he never does. Instead, the sun rises fully from its hiding place beneath the waves and a round, furious red ball of promise and mystery. It looks like fire. It is fire. But for once, that doesn't upset me. I push the plate of cold fries to one side. I wait. And wait. The man never resurfaces. Does he drown? Or did he swim so far along the shore I can't see him anymore? But I can see for miles down the beach in both directions from here. And there is no way he can still be underwater. He would have to hold his breath for 30 minutes. But that's how long I've been here, watching. And as far as I know, no human can do that. Not even free divers. Can they? I am so fucking tired. No point trying to go back to sleep now though. I still have hours before breakfast. Time for an early morning stroll, I think. I stand at the edge of the deep hole where the man came from, staring down. Hand dug, although the finger-farrows don't look right. They look too indistinct. Tiny sharp indents surrounded by smudges, delineate and the sides of the hole, like claw marks that have been wiped over with something softer. I wonder how long it took to excavate this much sand. Also, where is the removed sand? There is no pile just a hole. That strikes me as incredibly improbable. Who would go to all that effort? I wonder how long it took to excavate this much sand. Also, where is the removed sand? There is no pile just a hole. That strikes me as incredibly improbable. Who would go to all that effort? What do you think of that? There is no pile just a hole. That strikes me as incredibly improbable. Who would go to all that effort? Why? Looking up, I can see my balcony from the burrow, a direct line of sight. I'm not sure I like this. It feels too coincidental. Or perhaps not coincidental enough. It is a large hole for any one person to have engineered in my opinion. This long, deep, man-sized depression in the sand, almost like a grave. And wet at the bottom in the way that beaches are wet if you dig deep enough down with your fingers. It is full of strands of seaweed and grass, leaves, stuff that looks like slimy green pondweed or algae. Furry strands are pedragold moss and a rusty colored sticky residue that is transparent in places, like jelly, like glue. This glue has lumps in it, frogs bornish, and bright neon green and orange streaks of shimmery stuff suspended in the mud. I'm reminded of comic book descriptions of toxic waste, of nuclear residue, of swamp thing. It's like a child has been experimenting with making glue, coloring it with additives, a mountain dew and orange phanta artifice that is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in this context. Leading from the hole across the breadth of the beach and then stopping at the edge of the sea, more of the sticky stuff. I'm relieved it isn't blood, but fascinated and revolted by the actuality of it. It definitely looks like a discharge or secretion. The way it is laid out and the scuff marks beneath seem very much as if it came from the man somehow. I have nothing scientific to base that assumption on, except for one thing. Huge clumps of hair, long strands of it are meshed in the gloop. Hair that's fallen out, or been dragged out, like wet hair that sticks to your fingers when you're in the shower. The kind you have to plaster to the tiles to get rid of so it can't clog up your drainpipes. Hair that pisses off your partner or flatmate. It blies in the direction the man walked, adding to the impression of a personal creature actively shedding something, sloughing off the sticky, hairy gelatinous sheath as he moves. Which begs the question, what's the actual fuck? Stranginess aside, the practicalities of this situation are what bug me the most. Where has he been? Or what has he been rolling in? There's a whole lot of this gooey stuff. It smells funny, like dried seaweed, but not quite that. Briny, also eggy, sulfurous, the stagnant pond water smell. A bit like uncooked meat left too long in the sun, seafood on the turn, or like a jellyfish washed up on the beach. In fact, the residue reminds me of a dead jellyfish a lot. Same texture and density. Glassy and spongy at the same time. Snotty, in a salty, clear, porridge sort of way. None of that would make any sense if I said it out loud. But it makes sense in my head. Kind of. I crouch, poke at the slime with a stick. It resists at first, then sucks at the tip of the wood. A pier is closely as I dare. Can I see things moving around in the goo? Tiny bugs or parasites maybe. The streaks of neon green and orange seem to shift and warp with the light, making patterns in the glute. A stair harder. There is definitely something wiggling around in there. I feel compelled to study it more closely, like I should collect some of the stuff, take it back to my room to look at. But what purpose would that serve? I'm not a biologist or marine expert. Or a doctor. It would only stink the place out anyway. I follow the trail right to the edge of the sea, where waves lap at my feet invitingly. The residue floats in small, buoyant clumps on the surf for a little way out before seemingly dispersing. A very faint rainbow-colored slip of reflective light on the surface of the water is the only other remaining indication that the man has been here recently, like oil sitting on water. It will eventually disperse too, once the motion of the waves has done its work. I looked for the strange slime-coated man, who is now presumably as clean as a whistle. But there is nothing out here except for pelicans and other birds riding the waves. What am I doing out here? I ask myself suddenly. Being an idiot, I realise, making 2 and 2 equals 7. There is no great mystery here, except for why I'm shivering on the beach at sunrise instead of eating pancakes in my safe warm hotel. Who am I expecting to find? Fucking Aquaman. The stranger has been crawling around in some ungodly mess, for reasons best kept to himself is all. Maybe he's a drain specialist, or works in sewage, or landscape gardening, or maybe just maybe he likes rolling around in un-mentionable shit. We all have our kinks, don't we? He took himself out for a little sensory R&R, and then he went for a swim to clean himself off. That's all. Just a sticky guy with his dick out, having a good time. Absolutely none of my business, not one bit. A guy who likes to sleep buried under the sand, my brain fires back. A naked guy covered in jelly who likes to sleep in a hole in the beach. Oh fuck, fuck, sake. I give myself a little shake. There's always an explanation, even for the most bizarre of occurrences. Always. As I shiver on the beach, my brain keeps chewing on things. I'm a dog with its proverbial bone. His clothes must be piled somewhere else, I think. Safe from thieves or passes by, that's all. Or maybe he's a natureist. And so what if he likes to bury himself in the sand? We've all been there. But the slime. The discharge. A pelican takes flight in front of me, slowly lumbering out of the water, moving further out, see. It's none of my business, I decide. I'm tired. I'm cold. I should go back. But the man hasn't surfaced yet. What if he was drunk? He sure walks like it. What if he drowned? Or he could have been unwell. Maybe he wasn't in his right mind and he didn't know what he was doing. Or maybe he did know what he was doing and that's why he left nothing behind. As he just ended his life, right there in front of me. What a way to go. Jesus. I look at my surroundings properly, fighting against the weird, wump, wump, wump of my brain grinding along on virtually no sleep. Almost immediately I see there is a long wooden jetty jutting out from the beach about half a mile away to my right. It has a fishing and tackle shop perched on top of it. I hadn't spotted the jetty before now. I've been distracted. My shoulders slump in relief. I feel ridiculous. I can see figures moving around on the jetty. In distinct, but one of them could be the man. He swam out in that direction. That's all. I start laughing to myself. A prank, I think. Probably some TikTok stunt. He's chilling on the other side of that jetty, tackle out, enjoying the peace and quiet of the beach before the day starts. Waiting for dolphins. Fishing, ejaculating into the surf, feeding the marine life. Who gives a fuck? He's fine. None of it has anything to do with me. I tell myself this. But I can't quite bring myself to believe any of the plausible explanations. Not even two days later, when I leave the beach and head for the swamps. Turns out, survival instinct is a difficult thing to squash. Turns out, I should listen to myself more than I do. You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson after last time, wouldn't you? The Cypress swamps of first landing state park are everything a person born in a wet, green, pastoral country full of reliably deciduous trees wants to see. Tropically hot and humid, wild, weird, twisted and decidedly beautiful. And surprisingly dry in the spaces between the bodies of water. Dead, crisp leaves, moths on the trees, peeling bark. These things stand proud against the damp, heavy air. It is a place of contrast, possessing a certain harshness which appeals to me. What saw this wispy shit? I ask, fascinated by the long, dry, pale green strands that to dangle down from the trees all around, like an old man's beard, sweeping the floor in many places. I find it enchanting, resisting a sub-nerge to drape myself in some of it, wrap a strand of it around my neck like a feather boa. Lee smiles. Spanish moths, you get it a lot where there are Cypress trees. It's not really a moth though. Right, the moss backhoe, it's more like a green sponge, wet and dense, not like this at all. I finger some of the stuff. It feels scratchy and scaly. Made of long, wiry strands and stems, it grows downwards, reminding me of corroded chainmail drape to cross a branch. It gets greener after it rains. The whole point is that it evolved to store water, so it looks kind of gray at the moment because it used to store water up. Been a dry winter this year. Nature is fucking brilliant, isn't it? I sigh. Meandering along a boardwalk that winds through the swamps, taking it all in with wide eyes. I'm still jet lagged as hell. I have moments where the fatigue hits me and I feel spacey and displaced, but I move through them quickly, and on the whole, find I'm energized by my new surroundings. Even if Lee did catch me napping earlier over my coffee, sitting bolt upright at the table, cup in hand, fast asleep. Proud with some turtles around somewhere. This walkway opens up to a viewing platform a little bit. You can see all sorts of things if you stand quietly for a while. She's right. After 10 minutes, the boardwalk loops in on itself to form a viewing platform over the largest expanse of rainbow-sheen swamp water in the park. I'm told the sheen comes from natural oils, produced by decomposing matter and bacteria, munching on iron deposits in the soil below the surface. Whatever the cause, the iridescent surface is extremely pretty when the sun hits. It also reminds me of the slime back on Virginia Beach. But of course, I don't say this out loud. We stand quietly looking out over the multicolored water, listening to alien bird cries and other noises. Water-speaking, mud-burping, insect-stancing in the air. Other tourists crashing around in the distance. Fighter jets periodically roar overhead. You can't avoid them, even here. But the sound is muted by the trees. And it is the trees, when all is said and done, that are the stars of the show in First Landing State Park. They are bald cypress trees, lethals me, and I've never seen anything like them. Stretching high and thin, the branches and foliage resemble conifers or pines, with clusters of thin green needles puffing outwards like fur. The bark is thick and scaly, but it is the roots that fascinate me. They don't grow down like most tree roots. Instead, they grow up. Prusting out of the swamp water all around, in long triangular peaked protuberances, like elongated wooden spikes with fat bottoms. Those are so freaky! It's delightful. They look like termite mounds, not roots. I saw those in Australia. Same shape almost, like sharply tapered at the top. Yeah, they're cod-neez. I don't know what they do, but they grow real big, some of them. They look like roots. But they must serve another purpose, or else I grow like that. Right, because they're growing up, not down. I can't get over it. It is illogical, makes no sense. Roots go down into the soil to soak up nutrients, to keep people at home. Is that my problem? Do my roots grow up? That would make an odd sort of sense. They're kind of gross, like knobbly old fingers coming out of the water. I look, it's all due. Terrible. Leigh points. Sitting on a log jutting out of the water at a sharp angle is a gorgeous black turtle, sunning itself. Head cramed up on a long wrinkled net. Oh, this is so cool! I sound like a child. It feels so, I don't know, exotic here. It's not quite so exotic when mosquitoes eat you alive. I hold my arms out before me, displaying some of the pink shiny burn scars on my skin. They can try, but they have to like barbecue. Leigh blinks. I respect the fact that she's never once asked me since we met where my scars come from. I probably will tell her when I'm ready, but I don't want to ruin the mood. For now, jokes will do. Introduce the topic lightly, then leave it at that. Leigh is happy to accommodate. We fall into an easy silence again, drinking in the atmosphere. Until suddenly, a large ripple disturbs the surface of the swamp. Did you see that? Leigh nods, frowning. Yeah, something pretty large in the water. Do you have crocodiles out here? She shakes her head. Not plenty of snakes, turtles, coyotes. I heard rumors of gators over in great dismal swamp, moving up from Florida. But I think that's an urban legend. I'm pretty sure alligators like it warm. It gets too cold here in the spring for gator babies. The ripple surges again. We both make surprise noises. Pull back from the wooden railing. How deep is it? The water? Not very, I don't think. That being said, I haven't been out on this stretch in a boat. I've certainly never swam in it. We both watch the water intently, hoping that whatever is making the disturbance will surface fully. We wait for 10 minutes. Nothing. Giving up, we cautiously make our way back from the platform and along the boardwalk. They've got their leeches in the water. You're welcome to go for a swim and see. I don't think I want to share a tent with you though if you do. Can we go to the beach instead? Sure. Little history lesson in it for you, too. Turns out, first landing state park is the place where English colonists first landed in 1607 before later settling in Jamestown. I'm ashamed I don't already know this. But school, I was taught about the Industrial Revolution, about Pitt and Palmerston, and selective parts of the World Wars. Not this. It feels like a deliberate and baffling emission to the curriculum. Tunnel vision history. I can see on looking around, why a boat would land here. The beach is wide, and the shoreline shallow, accommodating. The Cypress swamps would have offered water to thirsty sailors, although the thought of drinking that rainbow-bright oil slipped liquid makes me shudder. You'd have to be pretty desperate, but then, if you've been at sea for months on end with only weak rum to keep thirst at bay, it might seem more appealing. Lee has brought kayaks, so we dragged these along the boat ramp across the beach and out into the water. I've not kayaked for a long time, but quickly get the hang of it, even though my arms ache from trying to hold the paddles correctly. We follow the shoreline for a while, waving periodically at large tankers and ships on the horizon. It's not long before Lee spots something dark and long and strange bobbing in the water. She points and scoots over to its skillfully. It takes me more effort to maneuver my kayak. Shit! I gently grab hold of her awe to steady my own rocking. Gross! I grimace and set my paddle down so I can cover my nose with a sleeve. In the water belly up, a dead dolphin floats, fins to the sky as if offering its soft underside for a tickle. Only there is no soft underside. The dolphin has been gutted, efficiently, savagely. It's inside's fully scooped out. I can see its exposed rib cage and some of its backbone. The sharp, distinctive nose bone protrudes from the waterline, but everything else sags just below it. The remains are covered in a strange sort of porridge-like glue, streaked with luminous orange and neon green trails. My brain wears into action as I recognize the gooey stuff. It leaks into the ocean, floating on the surface around the dead animal. The goo is clumped, and where thickest appears almost like frog spawn or fish row. I get a sense of something beyond the mere secretion. I get a sense of purpose or intent, of biological design. My mind takes me back to my first morning in America. To the man I saw from my high-rise hotel window. This, I realize, staring at the eviscerated dolphin, is the exact same stuff I found on Virginia Beach. The sticky residue left by the naked guy who dug a hole, and then went for a swim. I try to lean him closer, wondering if I can spot any of the tiny organisms wriggling about in the secretion like before. But I'm too awkward. I do see several long strands of clumped hair caught on a jutting rib, dreadlocked with filth and grease and sand. Then that's enough to make me shiver. Another uncoincidental coincidence, I think. Must have washed in from a ways out. Maybe those gator rumors aren't so ridiculous after all. I know better, but keep quiet. Suddenly, my keenness for camping feels rather dulled. Like most fools who don't want to be in use since, I keep my worries to myself. I don't know Lee well enough yet to tell her my wild theories about the whole digging long-haired, slimy, dick-out dude who disappeared into the sea. And certainly don't want her to think I'm a raving lunatic for suggesting the man also gutted, hollowed out, and glooped all over a dolphin for some nefarious, no doubt horny and quite possibly biologically improbable ex-files adjacent reason known only to himself. Neither do I want to suggest, or even think about, the idea that the same man was somehow swimming around under the iridescent knee-pierced waters of the swamp earlier as we cooed over turtles and Spanish moss. Instead, I do what Brits do very well. I shut up and lean into my finest reserves of idiotic stoicism. We head back to the shore before sunset, so we have time to set up camp. I'm finding the kayak more and more difficult to come and dear as my tiredness grows. This, I have found, is the worst part of the day for jet lag. Still daytime, but in reality, nearing bedtime. When I eventually put foot back on the shore, it's a relief. I shoulder my paddle and grab the closest end of the kayak, heaving it out of the sea. It is then that we both spot a long, man-sized shadow in the sand. It wasn't there when we'd arrived on the beach, meaning it was created while we were out on the ocean. We trudge over to the dark patch, but I already know what it is. My heart has a peculiar sinking sensation to it. The sensation you get when you realize things are going wrong. Weird. It's another hole. From it, another trail of slime neon-flect. This time, there are small bones in the discharge that look like fish bones. Oh, that's nasty. Lee's mouth draws down and disgust. I don't realize what she means until I see several piles of feces in the bottom of the hole. Fresh, wet, coiled like plastic joke turds, each of them teeming with wriggling things. The smell hits us then, and it's not just the eggy salty smell that comes with the jelly excretion. It's the smell of strange shit, and it's so overpowering, so awful, so revolting that we both start to gag and back off. Oh, that's nasty. There aren't even any flies on it. It's so bad. I see she's right. Fly is love fresh shit, but there isn't a single buzzing pest to be seen. Plenty of things moving around in the shadow of the hole though. Who takes a six-foot trench to take a dump on a public beach? There's a bathroom like a five-minute walk away. She grows more thoughtful the longer she stares. What's with all the weird slimy shit? It looks like...prox porn. Yeah! Look, it's all over the place. I've never seen anything like it. I don't answer, because I have a more pressing question. Why is the same man from Virginia Beach now digging holes in this one? Because it is undoubtedly the same guy, no question about it. Same trench-shaped calling card. What exactly is the purpose of the holes? I remember reading a new story once about an elderly man back home who liked digging tunnels beneath his house. He dug so deep and so far he hit the water table, opening up multiple sink holes until the local authority stepped in and put a stop to it. They called him the mole man of Hackney. The old gent said he'd developed a taste for it, which made sense, I guess. When you find joy in something, you keep at it. This feels different though. Not digging for digging's sake. This, like the slime, is more purposeful. I crouch down to peer into the trench from a different angle. Look, I squint and wretch as the smell smacks me in waves. It's not just a hole. It's a tunnel. It goes way back. I point to a deep round exit wound at the far end of the depression. It is pointing in the direction of the swamps, which makes me highly uneasy. A memory of rainbow ripples comes back to me. This guy, who every is, can swim, and he can dig, and he can crawl. And he can gut a dolphin, scoop it out like an ice cream bowl. Still no evidence of the displace sand though. What is he doing with it all? The word excretion sticks with me. But I don't know why exactly. Lee crouches and takes out her cell phone, attaches it to a foldable selfie stick she used while kayaking, turns on the flashlight app, and inserts it delicately into the mouth of the hole. The phone illuminates a good three or four feet of smooth-sided slime slick excavations, which eventually disappear into blackness. I can see faint dig marks on the walls of the tunnel, the floor of which is coated, predictably, with more of the snotty jelly-like substance I'm now so familiar with. Weird. She shakes her head and pulls her phone back. It's like a rabbit tunnel or a burrow on the... Man-sized. It's harder dragging the kayaks back up the ramp than down it, and I find as we leave the beach that I'm starving. My body has no idea what time of day or night it is, so is suppressing my usual hunger signals until I'm running on fumes. It's only when I start to get cold and woozy, I realise I haven't eaten anything for nearly seven hours. The campground at first landing is as the air host desk described it to me. A well-appointed tree-covered patch of land, with camping plots of various descriptions, some serviced with water and electricity, some that are tent-only. We go for a tent-only plot, as we know this is likely to be the quietest, and Lee says it is also the best experience. When it's super dark out, the stars are incredible. I'm quite least concerned about the stars, and more concerned about weird, slimy men prowling around us in the dark, but Lee surprises me when she reveals she is carrying a gun. She announces this like it's no big deal. Oh, hey, I hope you're not mine, but I'll bring my weapon into the tent, that's cool. But first, I don't understand what she means. Weapon? She shows me a box of bullets. Just a precaution when I go camping. I've never needed it. Reeling a little, I chew on the inside of my cheeks while I momentarily wonder if she's going to murder me in my sleep. But I ultimately decide I'm being stupid. Things are different over here, that's all. Guns are commonplace, and having one doesn't necessarily mean the owner is a psychopath bent on death and destruction. It's just a cultural difference, that's all. Like sitting on the floor to eat in India, or the tomato throwing festival in Spain. Besides, something tells me I didn't survive flames and pain, only to end up dead years later at the hands of someone who drove four hours out of her way to get me from the airport. And don't forget the cola, I remind myself. To take a moment to process how I feel, realize I'm fine with the gun. Mostly. I trust me. And today, I'm a lot more worried about other things. Like dead sea creatures. Piles of shit so smelly the flies won't touch them. Riggling, squirming things. Slime. Tunnels. I think Lee is thinking about these things too. Maybe a gun isn't a bad idea after all. Just make sure it stays under your pillow. I reply eventually, laughing to hide my nerves. You got it. And we speak no more about it. Later that night, when the strangeness of the beach has receded somewhat, we meet a guy called Todd. His tent is a good distance from ours, so we don't encroach on each other's space at all. But he comes over when he sees Lee working on lighting the kindling. I am standing well back and off to one side. My body stiff as a board, because fire still terrifies me. I don't know Lee well enough to tell her why, and she is too fixed on the task to notice my weird posture. Hey, can I borrow your light when you're done? I drop mine somewhere like a dumbass. Sure. Lee sparks up a piece of Tinder that eventually catches. A bloom of yellow spreads outwards from the kindling. I begin to sweat. Come on, Melanie. This is a good challenge for you. Think of it as exposure therapy. Todd lingers, but he is pleasant, so we let him. He's a tall drink of water, with a dry, droll voice and salt and pepper hair, dressed in carkey pants, and a thick hoodie with the artwork of a heavy metal band I've never heard of on the front. Lee seems unfazed by his presence. I follow her lead. At home, if a stranger tried to dissimilarly insert himself into a situation like this without invitation, he'd probably be scaled at, or blanked entirely until he backed off. But again, here things are different. Guns on the pillows, no swearing on the beach. Would you like a side of friendliness with your burger, ma'am? If only my mother could see me now, I think, shaking my head. We gather around the fire. Beers are uncapped. My uneasiness and fear starts to fade. I convince myself once again that I'm putting two numbers together and making a word. That people are weird and gross, but not necessarily dangerous. That slime isn't a crime. I giggled to myself at that one. Hot dogs are consumed. The famous s'mores are made in eaten and a messy and sickly, but eminently satisfying. A bottle of bourbon is drawn forth. Todd lights up. I shuffle away from him as sartitiously as I can. My hands turning slick as the end of his cigarette glows fiercely with each drag. I'm already about as far back from the campfire as I can get without being conspicuous, and the air has taken on a deep chill, meaning I'm shivering where my friends aren't. I think Lee has finally figured out the source of my discomfort. She's smart, observant, but content to let me work through everything in my own time. I'm grateful for this. I don't want to be patronized. Casually I steer the conversation to something that's bothering me more than my recurring trauma. Priptids, and any local law that might be relevant, given the odd things we've seen. I'm not superstitious, not really, but I am perhaps more accepting of fate and destiny than I was before my accident. Part of believing in destiny is also being willing to accept that things beyond the realms of what I previously considered normal could be possible. Including, but not limited to, weird man things who borrow into sand and secrete goo, and eat dolphins from the inside out. You know, there aren't actually many legends and myths around here specifically. I can tell this is a subject matter that interests him. The great dismal swamp out in Chesapeake and Suffolk has some cool ghost stories, though. And Blackbeard is meant to haunt the sand dunes not far from this campground. Wait, wait. There's a place called the Great Dismal Swamp. Lee did tell me this before, but I realized I forgot to comment after the ripples distracted us. And we didn't go there. I shake my head and mock disappointment. Lee grins. It's pretty cool, but I didn't know how many swamps you'd actually want to see on one trip. Besides, it's pretty much more of the same. Water, cypress trees, root stick it up, wispy shit. Don't forget the alligators. There aren't any gagers in Virginia. If there are, they are pets, people, throughout when they got too big. The DEC fetched too out a Whitney point only a month or so back. I frown. It's so wild to me that people would want an alligator as a pet. Or any apex predator for that matter. I guess that's the point. Todd pulls out another cigarette. Now he started, he can't seem to stop. I twitch as he lights up, but get a handle on it. People want to feel superhuman, right? Superior. In slaving natural predators is all part of the power trip. I don't know how to spell for male bullshed. I know. I guess so. There aren't many animals other than humans that keep pets. Some cappuccine monkeys have been known to adopt other species of monkeys and care for them, but that's different. Todd blows out a column of smoke. Although I once read an article about a tarantula that kept a frog as a pet. Pet keeping is a supremacy thing. Todd shakes his head. With a tarantula it was more like symbiosis, I think. The frog was poisonous so the spider could need it, but the frog also ate the ants that preyed on the spider's eggs. We're getting off point as fascinating as this segue is. I attempt to reel my campfire mate back in. So, few ghosts? Anything else? In Virginia Beach there's the Witch of Pungo. Lea's eyes in the light of the fire are intense. Grace Sherwood, the last known woman to have been convicted of witchcraft in Virginia. They'd tighter up and threw her off a boat. I shake my head. Jesus. Imagine being a woman back then. Imagine being a woman right now. I raise a weary toast. The others follow. I'm still not getting what I need. The silent stretch is until I bring it back in once again to what I'm really interested in. So, no, um... swamp men myths? I feel like a prick, but I have to know. Lea flicks me a look. Todd perks up. Not a swamp man, exactly. He finishes his cigarette and flicks the dead butt into the fire. I almost fall backwards off my camp stall as the butt arcs over my knees, expecting it to land on me. Spark, catch, expecting heat and searing pain. But there is none. The butt sails into the fire. Curls, disappears into the flames. Lea clocks my overreaction, and her eyes dart briefly to my arms. My burns are hidden now by the sleeves of my jacket. I have mixed feelings about them. After the incident, I was offered plastic surgery to help with the scarring. After that, it was suggested I should have further surgery for cosmetic reasons. Mom said she'd pay for this, but I chose not to take her up on the offer. I didn't like the idea that my new form was something that needed to be cosmetically helped, even though she meant kindly. I think she still struggles with my decision, even if she said she respects it. It can't be easy for her, I know. I was her baby once. Nobody wants to see their baby damaged so severely. It was my own dumb fault anyway, I remind her over and over. But she gets angry whenever I say that. Todd wears a far off look. But... But I heard a UFO crash in the swamp 30 years back. Or a meteorite. It was all over the news when I was a kid. Talk of a government conspiracy, you know, how it is. A military cover-up. They said the sky glowed neon green for a whole week over this entire stretch. Mutated frogs and turtles washing up on the footpaths dead. Real area 51 shit. Come on man, I've lived here just as long as you and never once heard anything about that. Todd blinks, surprised. Really? It was all the local news channels could talk about for months. Lee shakes her head. Nope, not one single word. Don't you think of a flying saucer had crashed into the swamp? It would have been found by now. First landing isn't the biggest park in Virginia, not by square miles. And it's real popular. People all over it for most of the year. Besides, there's at least four military bases within a stone's throw of where we're sitting right this moment. Fort Story, Visor, Mary Graham. Fighter jets overhead every two minutes. I think someone would have spotted a UFO if there was one to be seen. Todd shrugs. Like I said, area 51. Maybe they did find it. Who's to say it isn't in some secret bunker under a lighthouse? Little green men being dissected into salami slices all in the name of science. A small meteor is more likely. I remember Lee's an astronomy nut. Earth is hit by debris from space a lot more regularly than we realize. Something like 500 meteorites a year, if not more. We don't recover a lot because most of them fall into the sea. Todd sits at his drink. Well, you ever read that book where a meteor hits the earth? And a whole new biosphere starts expanding outwards from the impact site? Strange matter that absorbs everything around it slowly and echoes it back. Oh, mutated and shit. Man, I fucking love that book. I smile. Todd is talking my language now. I know it very well. It's one of my favorites. I dig around in my backpack, which is nearby. Pull out a neon pink paper bag with a big X on the front cover. Oh shit. Todd jumps up from his log, goes to his tent, rummages around, and waves at us with his own copy of the same book, only with the US cover variation. Lee shakes her head. What? I have a feeling I know. She reaches behind to wear her sleeping bag, pokes out of the door of our tent. I know what she's going to retrieve before I see it. A paperback book. The same as the ones Todd and I are holding. We all laugh then. It rings out loud and clear across the park. Maybe that's what attracts it to us. I wake up shrieking. I warned Lee about the possibility of this happening beforehand. I might scream. I have night terrors. I'll probably toss and turn a bit too. Apologies in advance. Lee only shrugged. Miss Kool? I groaned my teeth. Between us will keep the whole camp ground awake. Despite the warning, I foolishly thought I might get away with it for the night, because I'm exhausted, drunk, and I realize despite the oddness of certain things. Happy. A little on edge, but enjoying the ride. There is no overwhelming sense of being in danger. Things feel a bit strange, sure. I'm unsettled, but I don't have any urgent sense of imminent doom. I might just get through the night, I thought naively. A full night's sleep. Wouldn't that be nice? But there is no escape. And I wake up raw-throated, covered in sweat, shaking. Lee switches on a small hanging lamp. You okay? It should be a dumb question, but isn't. Sorry. I told you that this happens. You're after Apaljee's. PTSD. And maybe that's what it is. Although nobody has ever named it specifically for me before. They use phrases like having a difficult time and working through something tricky. Wanna talk about it? Guess it can't hurt. I give her the nuts and bolts. No embellishments. My arms and chest bore the brunt of the damage. Some of my neck too. A portion of one ear. But the rest are mostly brain scars. They're pronounced. An interfere with basic things like memory recall and coordination and multitasking. Which I used to be very good at. It's not uncommon for me to walk into a room and stand there for some time. Lost. Unable to remember my purpose for being there. Mornings are worse than afternoons. Getting out of bed can be a struggle. But once I get going, it all slowly starts to fall into place. I am Melanie. I used to smoke heavily. But one night I fell asleep on the couch, drunk, stoned. With a lit cigarette still dangling from my mouth. In seconds, the nylon top I was wearing. A cheap shirt I'd bought from a market stall. Which in no way conformed to the usual flammability requirements of clothing. Went up in flames. I remember little about it except waking up as my housemate returning from the pub. Frantically tried to put me out with a wet towel. Afterwards, there was a lot of pain. Leigh listens and pats my hand just once in sympathy. Have you ever noticed that bad guys in movies have always got scars? Or some deformity? An eye missing or their burned? Can it make it hard to turn on the TV sometimes? What is beautiful is good. There is a study on it, I think. How beautiful people in the media get all the good attributes. You ever watch a Disney movie? I rubbed my eyes tired. Only beauty in the beast. She smiles. The beast was way harder before he turned back into the prince. I don't feel much like sleeping anymore. I shunned towards the tent door in my sleeping bag. I'm just gonna sit outside and watch the stars, I think. Jet lag, Jenny. You sure? I could set up the telescope for you. It brought it just in case. No, you're fine. Get some rest. Sorry I woke you. Shut up! She flops back into her sleeping bag. You've got nothing to be sorry about. Fucking brits. I apologize all the damn time. I laugh, but it's a struggle. Lea's right. The stars look amazing out here. An array of brilliant studs and an almost totally black night. I doze fitfully, upright on the stool, bundled in my sleeping bag, jacket, sit coody over the top, the hood drawn tight around my face. I move my stool so that if I do fall completely asleep, I don't topple sideways and into the embers of the fire that glow on the ground nearby. In my waking moments I listen keenly for any sounds that might anchor me better. My ears buzz with a faint exhaustion hum. My anxiety is up, way up after my nightmares. The blackness around feels oppressive, hungry. Then as my eyes drift closed for the dozensth time, a terrible scream rings out into the night. Fuck! I frantically scan the blackness around me with useless eyes. Who is screaming? It's usually me, but I'm awake. Aren't I? Perhaps not. Perhaps I'm still dreaming. That might be why everything feels so off, so still and menacing. Another scream rips out across the campground. No, not me. But if it isn't me, and I am awake, then it can only be one of two people. Lea or Todd. But Lea is snoring gently in the tent. When I shine my flashlight on it, I can see the shadow of her sleeping bag rise and fall with her breaths. Another cry in the dark. It's a male voice, and it is terrified. That means it's... Todd. Oh! Todd shrieks, but the word sounds garbled, wet somehow. Fuck! I leap up off the stool. Todd is tall, substantial. Whatever is making him hollow like that can't be good. I throw myself into our tent, shake Lea. Wake up! Wake up! What the fuck? Lea lurches up like a mummy from a tomb in an old black and white monster flick, hinged at the waist, sitting bolt upright, faced white and shocked in the glare of my torch beam. What's happening? Something is wrong with Todd. We need your gun. Now. Todd? Lea can't make it make sense in her head. Scrubs at her hair, blinking. Get that light out of my face down. Jesus, oh, fuck! Help me! Lea snaps fully awake and into the moment. Shit! She grabs her gun from beneath her pillow where she left it, just as I asked. The space between our tent and Todd is relentlessly black and terrifying. We have lights, a head torch in a super strength mag light, but they barely seem to penetrate the night. Todd? Lea leads the way across the campground. She's the one holding the gun after all. Talk to me, buddy. But there's no answer. I can hear rustling and crackling in the trees not far from us. Tweaks snapping loudly, and a dragging heavy sound. But that stops abruptly as we approach. We reach Todd's tent. There is a huge ragged hole in one side of it, a hole that goes clean through the fly sheet and the Lea beneath. Two of the flimsy poles holding it up a snap like twigs, so the nylon shell sags on one side. Slime glistens in the beam of our torchlight. A trail of it, leading away from the ruined tent. I can see what's happened all too clearly. Todd has been yanked clean out of his tent by his ankles, and dragged off somewhere by something or someone. I have a good idea who. When I move the light away, discharge blows like phosphorants. Like our beams have charged its luminosity. I cover the end of my maglight. Switch off your headlamp. Lea does as she's told. The trail of thick glow in the dark slime snakes off into the trees towards the swamp. Alongside the luminous streaks and smears, distinct smudgy, dragging footprints. Whoever took Todd was barefoot and big. It's at this point I decide to tell Lea what I saw that morning on Virginia Beach. The trail leads to the swamp, and then into the closest body of water, and after that goes cold. We stubbornly search for Todd in vain until dawn, calling his name and treading the boardwalks with increasing desperation, until it becomes apparent we're not going to find him. Neither of us can quite believe this is happening. A part of me still suspects I'm dreaming. For the lightning sky has that surreal flat quality to it that dreams often have. As the sun rises slowly overhead, and the first fighter jets of the day war passed, we admit defeat. Now what? A shiver. I'm hungry again, and bone weary. We have to report a missing. It's usually someone in a small park office that we passed yesterday. If not, I'll call from myself. But I have to charge it first. I can do that at my truck. My phone is out of charge, too. I forgot to plug it into my charge pack. I remember with the jolt that I've left all of my belongings back in our tent for anyone to find. My phone, my wallet, my passport. This makes me feel even more panicky than I already do. If someone steals my passport, I scold myself for thinking so selfishly in the circumstances. But I also know how my brain works. Its default defense strategy is to worry about the mundane shit, rather than tackle the bigger, scarier problems that seem to have no easy answers. I chew on my sore lower lip. Was there be anyone at the office yet? Lee shakes her head. Probably not. Let's go back to camp, call the cops from there. But another idea has hit me. And although it's ridiculous and dangerous and absurd, I think it's our best way of finding Todd. Okay, I say mind made up. I square my shoulders, roll my tired head around to work out the kinks. You go back to camp, charge your phone, make the call. Lee frowns realizing I've used you instead of lets. And where do you think you're going? Back to the beach. Her eyes grow wide. Oh, that's clever. She flat out refuses to let me go alone. We jog to camp, snatching up our phones and my battery pack and passport, plugging in Lee's cell and hoping it regains enough juice by the time we get to the beach for her to call someone, before we do what we've newly resolved to do. Namely, finding the sticky man's freshly dug shit filled trench, lowering ourselves into it, and shimmying along the tunnel he's dug to see where it leads. I have a feeling it'll lead to Todd with any luck, whether he's alive when we get there or scooped out like the dolphin we found is another matter. We don't even know the guy, not really. We stand on the edge of the man's size, stinking trough, peering in. Lee's lip is curled and disgust. The pit smells much worse than it did yesterday, which is saying something. Can excrement ripen with time? My sleeve held over my mouth. I have a flash of inspiration. Pulling out a travel face mask I've kept in my hoodie pocket ever since my flight here. It's one of those proper industrial masks that meet various health regulations. I strap it across my face, and the smell dies down to a more bearable level. I know we don't, but imagine how fucking scared the poor guy must be. We can't just leave him. We could take hours for the police to even show up. Time is of the essence, surely. We have no idea if this even goes anywhere. I think he, it's whatever, travels like this, under the sand, under the water. I saw him walking only once, and it was like he was awkward, not used to being on land. I think he uses these tunnels to slither around, you know, like it's faster for him. It makes sense. You can burrow down, stay out of sight. It was that's the case, there might be several of these tunnels, and they might all connect up like... The story of the Moll Man comes back to me. Like Moll tunnels. You never know. You could have a hideout or something in the middle of them. But then, somewhere he might have taken Todd. Like Alien, the Queen's Hive. You realize how fucking out of the realm of normal this is, don't you? What you're saying, all of this? I nod. I do. But if you want to be scientific about it, there's evidence, right? We have multiple trenches. We have a missing man and a torn-up tent. We have a dolphin carcass, and the common factor between the Moll is this gross slime. I gesture to the whole. It's the closest thing we've got to a trail, and I think we should follow it. We can't leave Todd's defend for himself, Lee. She is scared and undecided, staring down at the black mouth in the sand. Bad men need nothing more to come for their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing. What? I shrug. It doesn't matter where the quote is from. She knows I'm right. I'm going into the tunnel. You don't have to come with me. I say, not for the first time. You can stay up here. Wait for the police. She shakes her head. Not a chance. Lee makes the call while handing me her head torch, which I drag over my hair. She then passes me the gun, giving me a quick rundown on how it fires. I'm terrified I will forget her instructions in the heat of any moment, so I make her go over it three times just to be sure. You're probably only going to be able to use it if you're up close, because Aiman Long distance shots is hard. I agree with her. I'll get close alright. The memory of the scooped-out dolphin comes back to me. Dolphins are fast. How did he even catch it? Let alone gut it so violently. Doesn't matter, I tell myself hefting the gun in my hand. Dolphins don't carry. If the freak tries anything with me, I'll blow his brains out point blank. They run it through in my mind, the scenario. Pushing up close. Poking the gun into the man's temple, pulling the trigger. Replaying these actions so I get comfortable with the outcome if it comes to it. I have no idea what the gun is, what make, what type, what caliber. Back home, these things barely exist outside of movies or novels. Unless you count farmers, and my granddad, who once owned an air rifle to scare birds away and nearly shot the neighbor by mistake. Once upon a time I would have been terrified by the weight of something so deadly in my grasp. But not today. I just want to get down there. See what's what? I can tell Lee thinks my responses aren't totally normal. I should be more openly afraid. I don't inform her that since the accident, I get scared like anyone else. But a muted, remote kind of scared. Like I'm flat inside, living on a two-dimensional plane, Edwin A. Abbott's style. Old me before the fire would never have suggested going down there into the fetid duck. New me knows how far a brain can go to normalize something terrifying. The mouth of the tunnel yawns. The mounds of shit before it are faintly steaming. Still warm, I think. Even all this time later. Gross. I can see organisms thrashing around in the feces. Am I really going to get down there in all that? Ready? Mulder? Lee switches on the mag light and pulls down her sleeves to cover any bare skin she can find. I don't reply. Best save all my energy for what lies ahead. The tunnel is disgusting. Perhaps even more disgusting than trying to crawl over stinking piles of slimy shit without kneeling in or touching any of it and failing. Must she warmth oozes up between my fingers as I put one hand in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. I don't think I will ever forget the sensation. It will haunt me like the smell of my own burned flesh still haunts me. Sometimes memories come back as pictures. Sometimes as scented assaults. Sometimes as a feeling or sensation. Sometimes all these things at once. My hand is now tainted forever. When I'm done here, I'm scrubbing it with bleach. The passage once I get fully into it is larger than I first expected. I guess the sticky guy is bigger in person than I realized. This does not bring me comfort. The size of his excavation are coated like everything else he touches in the mucoyed luminous ooze that glows with iridescence under the beam of our torches as if we're down in a tunnel painted with toy shop slime. The secretion reeks. There is little air down here to mitigate its stench. My face mask can no longer fight back the tide. I gag every few moments. I try to push my disgust and revulsion to the back of my mind. What the fuck are you doing down here? An inner voice wails. Go back immediately. But going back would entail just as much effort as going forward, if not more. We've been crawling along for a good distance already. I know there can't be too much further to go, because the tunnel is starting to angle upwards, implying it is headed for an exit point. Oh, it's like every bad smell I ever smell that my whole life rolled into one. Anything gets ticked this bad, not ever, not even in my worst nightmares. Mind the route. I caution, as a nalled tree root suddenly protrudes out of the wall ahead of me. I squeezed past it, angling my body to one side. I mean, God, Melanie. Oh my God. Lee can't think of anything more eloquent to say. She's overwhelmed, wretching frequently, but it keeps going to her credit. Ah, Todd, better buy a beer after this. I am drenched in sweat from head to toe. It is hot down here, suffocatingly so. I wonder what it would be like to die in here, if the ceiling of this man made construction suddenly caves. The tunnel angles down once more, so I can let my body slide for a few moments, allowing gravity to do the work. This speeds things up considerably. Lee bumps into my feet. She was not expecting the dip. Her momentum adds to mine, and for a short period, it almost feels like we're bobsledding down a slope face-first. Then the tunnel veers upwards again, more sharply this time. Shuffling uphill through slippery gloop while where this tide and anxious is awful. Lee hangs on to one of my legs, while I use both my hands to grab on to any other tree roots I can find, and haul us along. The gun I tuck into the back of my pants, hoping against hope that the safety is still on, and it doesn't go off somehow and fire right into the base of my spine, or into Lee's face. Where the fuck is this going? I know what she's thinking. She's thinking the same as me. Are we going to be stuck down here forever? Going back the way we've just come would be hard, really hard now with the rise and fall of the tunnel floor. We'd have to push ourselves backwards uphill the whole way, and that would be tricky. Tricky but not insurmountable, I tell myself. You've survived worse, but then the tunnel widens out, and these thoughts become a moot point, for we find eventually what I expected and hoped for. Daylight. And along with it, our first proper look at the thing that took Todd. Swamp man is the first thing that pops into my head when I emerge from the tunnel, and into a huge freshly dug pit, just like the comics. I've been ruminating on the idea for a while, but it crystallizes when I see where we end up, when I see him. His skin has a greenish tinge to it up close, and his hair is long, matted, stringy with slime. He has adorned himself with dozens of wispy strands of Spanish moss, which are stuck to his lean body with a gummy paste in scattered patches that look deliberate. Like Caddysfly larvae attaching grains of sand to itself as camouflage, he has a clumsy slap-dash crown of pine needles climbed to his head, and veraged types of lycan plastered to his back, along with mud, sand, twigs and dead leaves, seaweed, driftwood, seed pods and fishbones. His arms and legs are extremely long, but strong, sinewy and flexible, like those of a contortionist or gymnast. There is not an ounce of fat anywhere on him, only muscle, slime and natural flotsam glued on as a disguise. His fingers and toes are webbed, his nails long, deadly, and halfway between sharp spades and claws, so he can dig as well as swim, I assume. His penis is huge, limb-like, almost down to his knees. But first, he doesn't see us as we climb out of the tunnel, so he frees and try to control our breathing, while I silently hand the gun back to Lee. Suddenly, I don't want the responsibility of it. I'll fuck up, I know I will. I want the gun to be with the woman who can actually use it, who can aim straight. Our survival shouldn't rely on my now-shaking fingers. She accepts it without protest. Eyes wide as sources. My theory was right I realized, scanning the area, and pretending to be a tree. Motionless, rigid. Fingers spread like branches, because he still hasn't registered our presence. And all I can think of is that dumb quote from that dinosaur movie. Its vision is based on movement, and that sets me to thinking. If the dude spends as much time underground as he does, and is mostly active in the night, or first thing in the morning, then it stands to reason his eyesight might be compromised in daylight. Again, a mole comes to mind. Tiny glittering eyes that don't work very well out of the dark. He could be nocturnal. I can't be sure because he still has his back to us. Either way, it presents an opportunity for me to look around. There have to be other escape routes than the way we've just come. Swamp man has made a sizable home for himself on this patch of land between stretches of water. As dens go, it is sophisticated, deep, and his tunnel leads right to it. Tunnels. Plural. There are other pits, black mouths, and waiting. He's given himself multiple access routes to different parts of the park around the den. This is smart. For if one tunnel collapses, he has several others to retreat into. I can see that one heads in the direction of the beach where we've come from. Others lead into the swamps, and still others seem to head out in the direction of the campground. There must have been a concealed entrance trench near our tents, I realize. That's why he was able to get away so quickly. That's why I couldn't hear Todd screaming after the initial attack. The scale of the subterranean transit network is mind-bogglingly impressive, especially when I think about the pit and tunnel, the entrance to which I hadn't spotted back in Virginia Beach. That one must go right under the city itself. If not under the city, then along the entire stretch of coastline, which is vast, a spectacular feat of underground engineering considering it is all hand dug. It hits me then. The absolute strangeness of what is unfolding around me. How bizarre and surreal this encounter really is. In the tunnel, things were still unknown, unproved. Now I'm here, faced with the being I never thought possible. My reality is warping. My perceptions of everything I've encountered so far in my life, tumbling down like falling masonry. Swamp man's circular air is excavated like a sunflower seedhead, with tunnel pit petals radiating out from it. He has added considerable infrastructure to this large hole, lining it like a nest, only not a den made from twigs and feathers, but more like a wasp or a swallow's nest. It is immediately obvious where all the excavated mud and sand from the pits and tunnels has gone. Here, he has stuck it all over the interior of the pit in hand-sized globules to create a large, bulbous sort of dome that covers one complete half of the layer. I don't have to wonder how either. For as we watch, equal parts fascinated, disgusted and horrified. Swamp man, who crouches on the opposite side of the pit to us, his back still turned. Suddenly strains, shudders, makes a guttural almost orgasmic noise, reaches down between his legs. I can see his member dangling there, shockingly paling clean, compared to the rest of him. And Paul's a huge, turgid pile of sandy soil-laden excrement out of himself, that he then expertly applies to the walls of his nest, pasting it on like cement, with his large, spade-like hands. Leigh starts gagging again. I punch her lightly on the hip, malting, shut the fuck up! I appreciate this is easier said than done. I feel like throwing up myself, especially when the smell of his fresh shit hits us. I'm fascinated by Swamp man's hands as he works. Once again, I marvel at their build, at the long, broad talons tipping each webbed finger. Streamlined yet adaptable, able to cover a larger surface area when digging. Goldilocks hands, neither too big nor too little for his needs. Like he's evolved this way. Swamp man finishes plastering, then shovels fresh dirt and sand up from the floor of the pit into his mouth. At least, that's where I assume it goes for his back remains turned to us. A loud, gulping sound fills the lair. Moments later he is shuddering and shitting again. More of the stuff goes on to the wall. He is a completely self-sufficient machine I realize, equipped with the means to hunt, travel, fight and build. So what's the slime for? I'm lost in the strangeness of Swamp man's physique, his anatomy, his biological processes, even as Lee starts to edge towards the creature. Maybe it's not for anything. Maybe it's decorative. But it doesn't feel that way. His body is designed for optimum functionality. Maybe it adds as a sort of navigational tool, or a buoyancy device, or a digestivate, or maybe it helps him get around like a lubricant for the tunnels, or perhaps it protects him from the sun, or from seawater or... Lee has had enough. Wait! But she's already taken three swift long strides towards him. Her arm comes up. She throws her entire body into the motion and brings the butt of the gun down hard upon the back of Swamp man's head. The creature utters an awful, bleeding cry, like a goat in pain, and slumps forward, clutching his skull between his enormous hands. Lee follows up with two swift kicks to his ribs and spine. Swamp man Howles spins around. Sees us. His eyes are indeed small and not suited to daylight. Bright red in colour, with tiny dot pupils that are a lured green. He has a huge lower jaw, I see, wholly disproportionate to the rest of his face, that juts out like a plow attachment on the front of a train. Again, this is a purposeful design, useful for when he is digging tunnels. Nobly ridges a bone and cartilage stick out all over this enlarged jawbone like a fossilised beard growth. I can see gills behind the jawbones, and it makes me think of a whale shark, swimming around with its mouth open, filtering plankton. Swamp man looks from Lee to me, back to her again. Lee hits him square in the middle of the face with the butt of the gun, jibbering in terror. I know she's trying to stun him rather than hurt him, but I feel sorry for the creature. His cries of pain and confusion are horrible. We're invading his territory, creeping up on him unannounced while he's minding his own business, attacking him from behind. Todd, I have to remind myself, fuck what is wrong with me? Todd! He came in the night and dragged Todd all the way down here. He doesn't deserve our pity. He's a predator. Lee keeps kicking and hitting. Its swamp man does not seem to want to retaliate. If anything, he just takes the assault, moaning sadly. What the fuck do we do? Lee is getting tired, and the creature is showing no signs of injury. He won't go down, it's like head in a tree! I mentally wake up, run over. Physically I know we can't stand up to the strange man, but something about the way his eyeballs swivel wildly in his head makes me think I'm right about the whole daylight thing. His pupils are tiny to block out the light which seems to hurt him. I grab Lee's mag light from where she's thrown it down, make sure my head lamp is on, and shine both torches full into the creature's face. He lets with a huge anguished bellow, rearing back as if burned. I hear anger in the sound. Finally a reaction. His arms shoot out. He pushes me with immense force. I fly back, hitting the excavation wall hard. Still howling, swamp man turns tail, and dives into one of the tunnels leading out of the pit. Then he is gone, but we can hear him shrieking underground for a good while after. I stop feeling sorry for the thing when we find Todd. He's further inside the weird fecal nest structure, hidden by Shadow until we venture fully into the domes gloom. What did it do to him? I survey the carnage that used to be a tall, affable man, who only yesterday liked camping and metal, and UFO landing theories and cryptids and smoking. But Lee wants answers. Melanie, what the fuck did he do to Todd? What he has done to Todd is similar to what he did to the dolphin. He split him open and scooped out his insides, sticking what remains of Todd's body to the side of his nest with gloom and but cement. Why, I do not know. A trophy? Left overs? Nothing immediately obvious presents itself. Todd's husk suddenly twitches. Oh god is he still alive? Lee clutches at my arm. I shake my head slowly, feeling sick. He can't be. He has no internal organs left. Did why is he fucking twitching? She's reached the limit of what she can reasonably process without having some sort of mental break. I'm impressed she's gotten this far. By all rights I should be a gibbering wreck too. But I'm keeping it together, hanging by the thinnest of threads. She asks a good question though. I peer as closely as I dare at Todd's hollowed out rib cage, which has been picked clean of flesh. No, that's not right. Scoured clean, as if with steel wool, or perhaps some corrosive agent. The bones that remain make a perfect hanging framework for a different kind of excretion. An excretion that moves. The undulating mass giving the impression of life left in Todd where there is none. There is life within him though. There's a different variety. It's the foamy gelatinous frog spawn substance, thicker than the rest of the slime. I stupidly pick a handful of the stuff up, bring it closer to my face so I can see better. Don't touch it! You don't know what it is! But I do know what it is. Exactly what it is. The small dark suspended, lavic blobs quivering in jelly. The swamp man's children. They look like tiny frog people. Minoture webbed feats and webbed hands. Greenish in tone, although still translucent. Undeveloped. Embryonic. Very recognizably humanoid in all other respects. That distinctive kidney bean shape of a human fetus. But with a tail. It strikes me in an instant that I'm not looking at a crime scene. There is no malice or forethought in what has taken place here. Todd has not fallen victim to a sadistic predator or maniacal monster. He's just been used for parts as all. Insulation. Like a tough of hair caught on a branch woven into a nest. Swamp man needed to line his lyr. He needed something warm and robust and hospitable enough to support the developing eggs. Apparently Spanish moss is no match for living tissue. The soft organs. The sharp protective bones. But why not lay them in the water like frogs did? Perhaps. Perhaps the carcass nest lining acts as food for when the little ones eventually hatch. There is just enough flesh, sinew and skin left for this to be feasible. It is only the organs that have been removed. Everything else remains. Does this make him and any children he spawns accountable? But for that to be true, swamp man would have to be the same species as myself. As Lee. Todd. Looking at the mess in front of me. I know that this cannot be true. Swamp man is not accountable. He is a parent protecting his young, building the best home for them he can. And we came along and invaded his territory. My stomach lurches. He'll be back soon enough once the shock of encountering us has worn off. Back to defend his young. We need to get out of here. Pick a tunnel. Lee shakes her head. No, I'm not going back down there ever. We go up and over out that way. Feel safer. I look to where she points. There is a small clearing in the undergrowth at the far end of the nest pit, with protruding tree roots leading up to it, indicating a rise through which we can scramble. Let's go. Another distant subterranean war prompts us to move. And so we do. We emerge slimy, scratch, disgusting by another stretch of rainbow-shined water, studied with cypress knees. Spanish moss tickles our shoulders as we pant and struggle our way toward some sort of path. Several times we meet trenches in the underbrush, half hidden with twigs and creepers and dead leaves, like booby traps, and half to double back. Terrified Swamp man will erupt out of them and gut us with his scooping spade hands. Our fear makes us stupid. We get lost quickly, plunging deeper and deeper into the park, searching in vain for trails or boardwalks to get us back on track and failing to find any. I think we're in between trails. There's several that go in a big loop all the way right back to north end beaches. We just try to get... A group of fighter jets war overhead, oblivious to the drama unfolding far below them beneath the bald cypress trees. Lee clasps her hands together in gratitude, reorientating herself by the trails left in the blue above. Never mind. This way, if we need to go... She doesn't get to finish the sentence. There is an eruption of movement from a mulchy patch of earth right behind her, which suddenly yawons. Soil and roots burst outwards, as do streamers of goop, hair and moss. Tiny fish bones fly like darts. There is a huge rush of air as swamp man propels himself from his camouflage trench, grabs Lee with his lethal hands and pulls her backwards back into his hole, dragging her with him into the tunnel as she rides and screams and lashes out. One of her flailing arms connects with a root, hooks around it desperately. She has moments before her arm is ripped free of her body. Swamp man is more than strong enough, I know, but all I need is a moment. I lurch forward, pick up the gun she has dropped, take off the safety, shove it over her shoulder into the darkness and pull the trigger. The gun fires. A scream, a bombonably human in nature shreds the air. Lee is released. I grab her and pull, and she emerges like a baby pull from the womb, red face, wailing, coated in gunk. We scrabble to the trail we made, running for our lives, doubling back on ourselves for safety, reeling from every tiny movement in the trees around us. Swamp man is not fast on land, I remember. His speed is predicated on being underground or in water. I cling to the hope that we can outrun him, whilst we navigate the dry spots between patches of swamp water, remembering his awkward gate on the beach that first morning in Virginia. We pissed him off, didn't we? Lee crashes through a wall of Spanish moss and spluttering as it gets into her mouth. I think it's more that we found his lair. It doesn't want us to... I trip, tumbling forward and landing hard on my knees. Lee helps me up, and I pick up the pace even though my legs are now screaming at me. We pound through the trees blindly, calling out for help, but our cries only seem to draw the creature chasing us closer, so we quit yelling. Panic and adrenaline fuel me, despite my exhaustion, but I'm sweating buckets. The air is stiflingly hot and sticky. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to draw breath, when by a stroke of luck, our feet finally hit a solid boardward plank with several loud thunk, thunk. Moments later, a trail marker comes into view, pointing the way back to camp and the main visitor center. Relief surges through our bodies. We slow for a mere moment trying to catch breath, clutch each other for support, desperately gathering enough energy to get us this last small distance back to total safety, shaking and shivering, sweat slick, filthy, terrified. A moment is all swamp man needs. Too late, I see the boardwalk across as a large area of rainbow-shined swamp I recognised from before. It leads to the viewing platform from which we saw the turtle sunbathing yesterday, and from which I first noticed a large sinister ripple in the murky waters. Here's territory. I can't sink in, I make this connection without enough time to act on it. Like a fish leaping from a river, a large, slick, strong, shaped flies through the air. Once again, grabbing Lee, this time with both hands, lifting her, hugging her to its form, flipping and crashing back into the surface of the swamp on the other side of the boardwalk for the colossal splash. Lee doesn't even have time to scream this time around. As I watch, a large ripple once again disturbs the water, heading for a cluster of particularly large cypress needs jutting from the swamp. Some almost as tall as a person. Knowing I cannot follow, I watch helplessly as swamp man once again rears up on the surface, glistening, furious, carrying liars if she weighs no more than a dry twig, and with an ear-spitting whore, received to smash her body down upon the sharp, fanged point of the largest cypress knee, spearing her right through the middle and killing her instantly. Her body sags as life leaves it. Her head lolls to one side, clopping in my direction. Sightless eyes gazing at me in accusation. I scream, but swamp man isn't interested in me. He starts to scoop at Lee's exposed chest with his shoveling, grasping hands. I cannot watch. I have one chance to survive and that chance is fleeting. My window of opportunity closing. I take it. I can mourn the loss of my new friend later. The police, when they eventually arrive, find no remains. I leave them to swamp man's den, but he is disposed of what is left of Todd's carcass and vacated the massive hollow by the time I managed to muster up any substantial support. I also take the cops to the patch of water near the boardwalk where Lee died, but there is no corpse to be found. No blood on the cypress knee upon which my friend was speared. A healthy dose of signature slime, but then, as I am told several times, this is a swamp, ma'am. The beast has cleaned house, has slithered off into his network of tunnels, taking his kills and his gelatinous offspring with him. Only one small cluster of spawn remains in the den, caught on a jutting rock, abandoned by its father, slowly drying in the building heat of the day without its insulating flesh jacket to keep the weather off. The police seem wholly disinterested in it. Ants have begun deconstructing it by the time I'm led away from first landing state park, passling and carrying the little spawns acts away, one by one, in an industrious little relay that went right past my feet and across the den floor. Nature doing its thing. I am under no illusions that swamp man will surface anytime soon. The creature's travel system is likely to be vast, judging by the engineering skills I've already witnessed. He likely has multiple other dens to spawn in, or maybe he's gone back out to see this time, swam off to a different part of the coast. I show the cops the trenches, both in the swamp and on the beach, and try to explain about the network he is excavated, where the tunnels lead, and things get chaotic while I'm held in a weird limbo, which is never officially labeled as custody, but the implication is strong. I'm watched closely by several brim-faced uniformed types, some with guns, others without. My fingerprints are taken, my nails scraped, my clothes are confiscated, a woman with a camera takes pictures of me from all angles, my version of events is questioned over and over again. I never once think about asking for a lawyer. I'm not afraid of the truth, as improbable as it sounds. I want people to know what happened here, right down to the very last detail. Later that afternoon, a shark carcass washes up on first landing beach. It has been gutted, scooped, and adorned with swamp man's signature secretion. Except this time, instead of eggs, the shark holds a different treasure, a more grizzly one. Hiding in the cavity where the sharks' liver should have been, is a human hand. Please. This discovery sets things in motion just as they are slowing down. There is an initial gratifying surge of interest from all sorts of other non-police agencies, environmental, government. I don't know who half of them are. One particular group of suited individuals who seem to carry the weight of authority without badges, takes a very keen interest in my story, and asks me to show them the den and trenches again. But then things go abruptly quiet. The collective demeanor towards me changes significantly. My version of events is met with a sudden wall of blank, polite smiles. I can sense when a secret is being buried. But first, I railed against it, wanting hard and lead to get proper justice, wanting their families to have something to lay to rest and mourn. But forces far bigger and better funded than I can argue with have other ideas. The disappearances at first landing-stake park sink into obscurity faster than a stone dropped into the swamp. And there is nothing I can do about it. I try, believe me. I try to talk about it, until I'm threatened with severe repercussions. My phone is confiscated. I am told, in no uncertain terms, to cease and desist my efforts to broadcast what has happened in the park to a wider audience. I'm released after four days. No further questions asked. A member of the British Embassy has squirts me onto a first-class all extras paid for flight back home. And I'm reminded that all references to the event, public or otherwise, are now explicitly forbidden and will result in prosecution. I take that to mean exactly what it sounds like. If I blabber anymore about what I've seen, what I've been through, I'll disappear just as definitively as Todd and Lee. They haven't forbidden me from writing about this, though. These mysterious forces. They can't ban me from recording my experience in my own personal diary. So I have done just that. Think of this as a journal of sorts. A brain dump of what I saw. They also don't know that I saw opticiously collected a small sample of swamp man's abandoned spawn while I was initially showing the cops the den. I wiped my hand across the small lingering streak of the stuff on the pit wall, close to where Todd had been pasted, and then hastily ripped down. And I scraped what was stuck to me into an empty Vaseline tin I'd found in my jeans pocket. A part I'd been meaning to dispose of, and was very glad I had not. The spawn lives in a large jar on my window sill now. A jar I populated with twigs, dead leaves, stones, a sunken pit filled with a mix of salt and fresh water. And even some pond weed I collected from a ditch close to my house. I laid a trap in my garden, caught a mouse, popped that into the jar too, arranging the spawn inside the opened animal's chest, which I dissected with a pen knife, scooping out the tiny organs with a teaspoon. I wonder if it is substantial enough, this rodent nest, or if I should find something bigger for the young to live off. I have placed a shelf in the jar, in case the critter prefers land to water when it hatches. I watch the spawn obsessively as it develops. The process is slow, painfully so. These things do not grow fast. It might take months, perhaps even years before any one of them gets to a size that appreciably resembles an infant swamp man. I don't know if what hatches will be male or female, or how I shall house it, or them, or if I will let any of the things grow to term and reach enough maturity to procreate in turn, or even whether I shall let it live at all when it does eventually hatch from its sticky, gooey shell. I don't know why, in all truthfulness, I collected the spawn in the first place, acting only upon a wild, sudden instinct that came over me when I saw the leftover eggs attached to the earth, abandoned by their father. I don't think I'm motivated by revenge. For I still firmly believe the creature acted out of a natural protective instinct. Not, as I said before, a desire to be cruel, or to me, or to murder for the sake of it. Perhaps by observing this creature, I hope to achieve what I have only managed to achieve so far by travel, to understand more about myself, about the world and my role within it. By comparing this anomaly with myself, with my own actions and motivations and behaviors and development, I might unlock something I currently lack. I have been struggling with so many thoughts since my accident. What it means to be alive, to be human, to experience pain and regrowth, to feel vulnerable like prey, but also what it means to face death from mere inches away, watch it consume your pink flesh, to survive the wrath of a brainless element, of a natural force with no rationality or purpose beyond combustion, and to remain alive once it is swept what it can away from you. Fire, Mother Nature, she is perhaps the ultimate apex predator. Now I have looked her in the eye and survived. I don't exactly know where I fit in anymore, but now I know there are differently evolved forms of man out there. It changes things. Because there are great mysteries out in the world. Mysteries begging to be solved, and I can do nothing but heed the call of my own heart and attempt to unravel a few, before I run mad with fear and impotence and my own supposed, pathetic place in the grander scheme of things. I can learn, and I can grow as the sticky little things in my jargrow, who I shall be when they hatch as anyone's guess. Perhaps I will be their mother. As we bring our season finale to a close, I wish to thank Jema Amor once again for sharing her story with us. I'd say to her face, but she disappeared a little while ago, and I have no idea where she is. And I can only hope the distant sounds of chewing I'm hearing are just from her having a snack, and not, uh, well, her being something snack. And of course, thank you sleepless listener for joining us for this finale. Don't forget to join us on Christmas Day for our big full-length Christmas episode, and those of you in the sleepless universe will find a second Christmas bonus episode waiting for you as well. Festive fights abound my fiendish friends. We hope you'll join us in the new year for more devilish delights. But for now, let me say on behalf of the entire no-sleep team. Thank you for your support. Thanks for listening, and we wish you and yours all the best of the holiday season with only the warmest and best wishes for a very happy new year. And as always, stay sleepless. Our tales may be over, but they are still out there. Be sure to join us next week so you can stay safe, stay secure, and stay sleepless. The no-sleep podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikolsky, Jeff Clement, Jesse Cornett, and Claudius Moore. Our editorial team is Jessica McAvoy, Ashley McAnelli, Oli A. White, and Kristen Samito. 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