Really Strange Stuff - Ch.24 - Stories (Patreon)

** content warning: brief mention of death & animal death **

=::= Callie's PoV =::=

I was a little worried at first, but Serenity was right as usual. The whole vacation thing turned out to be a great idea, and our fans were almost a hundred percent supportive of the three of us taking some time off.

And like we agreed, we didn't bring a bunch of professional audio or video gear with us. All we had was our phone cameras, plus Sere and Bails each brought their own personal cameras. The bottom line was we didn't want to make this into a working holiday. The whole idea was to relax, to try and have some fun. And we did.

Our first stop was Cave City Kentucky, where we spent a few days doing tourist stuff around Mammoth Cave National Park. We did a couple guided tours of different parts of the huge cave system, but we also took time to do some exploring on our own. None of it was serious spelunking, we didn't go anywhere dangerous and didn't go deep enough to require specialist equipment or any thing like that.

When we'd seen enough of that area we briefly discussed heading west to Hopkinsville, where the Kentucky goblin story got started back in the fifties. After reading up on it though we decided not to bother. The original house was long gone, and the location was on private land that wasn't open to the public.

Instead we turned to the east and visited some other locations where there'd been incidents of the paranormal, the supernatural, or just really strange stuff. We weren't looking for leads to follow or events to investigate though. Sticking to our vacation plans, we were just touring places that other folks had already investigated.

From Cave City we made our way to Somerset, and spent another couple days there. We visited a local paranormal museum, checked out some more caves, then eventually moved on to Pikesville where we did the same thing.

From there we crossed into West Virginia, where my girlfriends helped me cross two things off my supernatural bucket list. We spent my birthday visiting a haunted abandoned amusement park, and we even convinced the owner to let the three of us set up our tent and spend the night camping out there. We didn't see any ghosts, but there were some strange noises and the whole thing was a fun little adventure.

Our next stop was also in West Virginia, and it was another bucket-list item for me. We did an over-night tour of an old haunted lunatic asylum. That was a little more lively than the amusement park, and by the time morning came we'd had a couple good scares and a whole lot of fun.

After that our focus shifted from hauntings to high strangeness, as we headed to Point Pleasant West Virginia. That's where the whole Mothman thing happened, and the town had a museum and research centre dedicated to the phenomenon. They even put up a statue in Mothman's honour a while back. In fact they actually held an annual Mothman Festival, but that was in September so we were a couple months early.

One thing we'd run into over and over on our trip was both Serenity and I got some good use of our new Goddess-given skills. Like I knew when the stories we heard from tour guides or other folks were the truth, and I knew when they were telling us complete nonsense. More importantly I could also tell if anybody was trying to mess with us, like if we had to ask for directions or anything along those lines.

And fortunately it only happened twice, but we did have a couple people try and give us a hard time about our ears and tails. Or about the fact that we were three attractive young women who were obviously a lot closer than just friends. When those situations came up, Sere was able to smooth-talk folks so there wasn't any serious trouble.

Another thing that happened repeatedly that none of us were prepared for was we kept running into fans. It seemed like almost everywhere we stopped there'd be at least one or two people who recognized us, and wanted to say hello or get a picture of us or take a selfie with us. Fortunately we always kept a box of RSS stickers in the car, so we had plenty to hand out to folks whenever we met them.

Still, the first time it came up all three of us were really surprised. After all, none of us thought we were famous in any way. Except we were definitely noticeable, our feline and foxy parts certainly made us stand out. And like Serenity said at one point, the places we were visiting were the sort of locations our viewers would also be interested in. Like of course folks who enjoyed Really Strange Stuff would be hanging out in or visiting haunted hotspots, or towns with a reputation for strangeness.

So none of us were that surprised when we had another fan encounter while we were taking selfies in front of the Mothman statue. The difference was this time it wasn't just about grabbing a few pictures with the three of us. This guy had something he wanted to talk to us about.

"Hey have you girls ever heard of the Mongolian Death Worm?" Frank asked, after we'd finished taking pictures by the statue. "Or legends like the Lambton Worm?"

"Sure," Serenity nodded. "Those are very different things though. What about them?"

The guy gave us a sly smile as he replied, "Seems like we might have something along those lines right here in West Virginia. They're calling it the Walden Worm, and from what I've heard it sounds like it might be right up your alley."

My girlfriends and I all exchanged a glance, then I shook my head. "Never heard of it."

"That's because it's new," he replied. "No-one's investigated it yet, at least nobody like you three. If you're interested then how about we find somewhere quiet where we can talk, and I'll tell you all about it?"

Frank was a middle-aged guy, probably in his mid-forties. He had short thinning black hair and a black moustache. He seemed friendly, and when we were doing the pictures thing he told us he'd been on a business trip to Columbus Ohio but was on his way back home to Huntington Kentucky when he decided to take a side-trip to Point Pleasant for pretty much the same reason as us. After all, he was a fan of RSS and that meant he was interested in the same sorts of things we were.

I could tell he was telling the truth, so a few minutes later the four of us were sitting around a table in a nearby bar. Frank had a bottle of beer while my girlfriends and I were drinking coffee. And I had my phone out on the table with an audio app set to record, so we could save whatever tale Frank was about to share with us.

"I'll be up front with you," he began, "This is third-hand information. I got it from my brother-in-law, who's work takes him through the area on a regular basis. He heard the story from a local guy named Mike Howard, who was buddies with the guy at the heart of the story, a man named Dave White."

After a sip of his beer Frank continued, "So this all started last autumn, when Dave left military service. He'd been stationed over in the Middle East for a while, but was finally back home with his wife and kids. And like anyone in that position, he brought some souvenirs back with him. Only in Dave's case, he was into rocks and crystals and stuff like that? So that's the sort of thing he brought home with him, some strange or interesting rocks he'd found out there."

"The next few months everything seemed normal, Dave and his family were all happy to have him back and life was good. Except that all changed over the winter," Frank said as his voice got a little quieter. "Dave found one of those strange rocks had somehow busted open, and it turned out the thing was hollow. What he didn't realize until much later was that wasn't a rock at all. It was some kind of bizarre egg. And something unnatural hatched out of it."

Serenity commented, "It must have been a pretty strange egg, for someone to confuse it for a rock."

Frank shrugged, "I'm just relaying the story that was told to me. I don't know what it looked like, but I figure you're right. It was definitely no ordinary egg."

"So what happened next?" Bailey asked.

"Right," our new friend nodded. "So the family kept chickens, they had a good-sized coop set up a dozen yards from the house. And not long after that strange stone broke open, they stopped getting eggs. At first they thought the chickens weren't laying for some reason, but then Dave's wife found evidence that something was getting in there and eating the eggs. Probably overnight, since she usually went out to collect them in the morning."

After another gulp of beer he continued, "Then a month later things got worse. The family woke in the middle of the night to their dog barking up a storm while some awful noises were coming from the chicken coop. So Dave grabbed his shotgun and went out there thinking he was going to deal with a fox or weasel or something like that. He didn't find the culprit, but two of his chickens were gone. There was nothing left of them but a big mess of feathers and a few spots of blood."

"Over the next couple weeks Dave did what he could to keep the local wildlife out of his chicken coop," Frank went on, "But whatever it was just kept on getting in there. There were never any tracks, he couldn't find any paw prints to tell him what he was dealing with. And every week the family lost a couple more chickens, until the middle of March when there wasn't a single bird left. Rather than replace them Dave figured they'd leave the coop empty for a few months. He hoped whatever was responsible would move on, since there wasn't any more easy meals around."

"And sure enough things were quiet for a time, Dave and his family started to relax. Then in early April it got a whole lot worse. They woke up in the middle of the night to the dog barking and sounding like it was going crazy. Then the barking stopped like it was cut off all the sudden? So Dave grabbed the shotgun and ran outside, where he caught a glimpse of 'something' as it disappeared into the woods out back of his house. According to him it looked like a giant worm or slug, but it moved more like a snake."

Serenity frowned, "That's definitely weird. And that was this past April? So only three months ago?"

"Was the dog ok?" Bailey added, while her ears drooped down to either side.

Frank sighed and shook his head, "Dave never found any trace of his dog. Only a bit of blood in a spot where the ground was all scratched and chewed up, like the dog must have put up a hell of a fight? And yeah, this all happened just a few months back."

I asked, "Is there more? Or was that the end of the story?"

"Oh there's more," Frank nodded, before draining his beer. So we ordered him another, then he continued with his tale.

"After the incident with the dog, Dave sent his wife and kids to go stay with his wife's parents up in Spencer. He figured anything big enough and bold enough to take down a big ole' hunting dog wouldn't have much trouble going after a couple young children. And that turned out to be the right move, because whatever it was, that thing spent the next couple weeks trying to force its way into Dave's home almost every night."

He paused there to clarify, "Everything I've told you so far basically came directly from Dave himself? He told all this stuff to his buddy Mike, he even had Mike come over a few nights to try and help hunt this thing. The two would sit out on the back porch waiting for it with their guns and some lights, but it never made an appearance. One night they stayed in the house watching TV until they heard something banging on the back door around midnight, but when they put the lights on and went out to check there was nothing there."

"Then things turned tragic on the twenty-first of April," Frank stated quietly. "There was a fire, Dave's house burned to the ground. It was intentional too, the police searched the ruins and found a big gas can right there in the living-room. There was no sign of Dave, but they found his shotgun next to the gas can? And apparently it was surrounded by a lot of spent shells, like he'd been shooting it off in all directions? They couldn't explain that, but the fact that he'd vanished without a trace made the whole thing seem really suspicious."

He had another gulp of beer then shook his head, "So the official explanation was the house fire was an attempt to fake his own death. The cops say that Dave actually ran off to start a new life somewhere else, without his wife and kids. Except he never took any money, never touched his savings or anything like that. He never took his truck either, that was still parked next to where the house used to be."

"Unofficially," he lowered his voice again, "Folks think the worm got him. They figure he lured it into the house after dousing the place with gas, like maybe he was setting a trap for it? Maybe he felt responsible, since he'd brought the thing back home with him. Or maybe he just wanted to stop it before it moved on to even bigger prey."

My ears were folded back and my tail down low behind my chair as I asked, "Do you figure he got it?"

Frank slowly shook his head again, "If he did, then he ought to still be around, right? No, I think folks are right when they say the worm got him. And here's the thing? According to my brother-in-law, Mike says there's been more unexplained animal disappearances in the months since then. Mostly dogs, and one pig."

"There's also been a couple more sightings of the thing too," he added in a quiet serious voice. "Nobody's ever got a good look at it, and as far as I know there's no pictures yet. But according to Mike folks all describe the same thing. It looks like a really big worm or slug? But it moves real fast, like some kind of snake."

After another gulp of beer Frank finished his tale by saying, "The Walden Worm is out there. And I reckon it's still hungry."

** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Mythriel, who sponsored it! **