Sirenhead

“Spooky Scary Sirenman”

Well.  Last week’s second post was a little bit depressing.  But, unfortunately, for a large majority of the population, that’s life in America.  Writing that post was exhausting, but a necessity for me to do my duty as an American citizen and good human.  Hopefully it didn’t alienate too many family members.

Anyway, I figured that I couldn’t wait to post last week’s until today, like my schedule usually is.  Plus maybe it adds some import to the topic if I break my own mold to put it out there.  I figure it’s something worth it, anyway.  It’s important enough that it doesn’t need to wait for Tuesday to roll around.  But this post did, because it’s another story I wrote!  So I guess we’re back to my regularly schedule program?  Well, it’s my white privilege that I can go back so easily at a time like this.  But I don’t know what else I can do.

Anyway, I wrote this story at Philmont last year, as a scary story to tell to the campers around the bonfire at night.  It was pretty well received, which was nice for me, and a lot of the campers asked if they could find it online at the end of the summer.  I never got around to getting it out quickly, because I’m dumb, but it’s finally here.  So if you’re reading this post and you stayed at Hunting Lodge at Philmont Scout Ranch in 2019, you might remember me and/or this story.  I was one of the three goofy white boys working there.

Before the story starts, I’d like to explain some of my inspiration for this story. I always imagined the monster to look like, well, Sirenhead, which is a creature created by Instagram artist and monster-maker, Trevor Henderson. While this story doesn’t have to specifically be about Henderson’s creation, I think it’s pretty cool and wanted to write a story about that monster, so I did. And I think it turned out pretty well. I’m a huge fan of his work, so I wanted to shout him out here. I tried contacting him before I posted this, but he never answered. That’s okay, though! Right? Please don’t sue me.

There’s technically two versions of this story. This one is the shorter version, the one I told at Philmont (with some added expletives). Hopefully you enjoy it. I know I did, and it seems like a lot of scouts did, too. And if you remember me telling this story, say hi! Someone else did that a few months back and it made my week. Just saying.

“Sirenhead,” by Andy Sima (2019)

The water had just been starting to boil when the radio went off.

            “Alpine limits camp to Base Camp,” crackled a female voice over the radio speaker.

            The radio went off about every fifteen minutes or so, usually with backcountry staff radioing to Base Camp to ask about when the next commissary delivery would be, or to report one of the many injuries sustained by the scouts hiking through.  Usually it was nothing major, and I didn’t pay any attention initially.  I didn’t figure it would be anything special.

            “Base Camp to Alpine Limits, go ahead,” someone else on the radio said.

            “A crew that was supposed to show up today never arrived,” the person at Alpine Limits said.

            I dumped a packet of freeze-fried mashed potatoes into the pot of water and stirred.  I listened to the radio out of the corner of my ear, but my more immediate concern was preparing the potatoes for dinner.  The old gas ranger flickered with burning propane.

            “What’s their crew number?” Base Camp said.

            “626-72,” Alpine Limits replied.  “They were supposed to hike in from Henderson’s Meadow.”

            “10-4, keep an eye out for them.  If they’re all together they should be alright,” Base said.

            “Copy that, base.  Alpine Limits clear.”

            “Base clear.”

            “What was that?” Bryan said, wiping his hands on his jeans as he walked in through the door to the kitchen.

            “Crew’s late to camp,” I said, stirring the potatoes.  Bryan pulled the cornbread out of the oven.  The mix of wood smoke and baked corn meal mixed in the air, filling the kitchen of our cabin.

            “Not the first this summer, won’t be the last,” Patty said.  “Is dinner read?”  She had just come from the cabin’s foyer.  All the kerosene lanterns had been lit, and the cabin was starting to feel cozy again.

            “Just about,” I said, and I set our kitchen table with the potatoes. Bryan had j8st gotten the condiments when he asked, “Where’re Max and Alissa?”

            “They aren’t off making out again, are they?” Patty said.  My ears perked.

            “Again?” I asked.  But patty just waved her hand.

            “Trevor, go find them,” she told me.  I nodded and left the cabin.

            Outside it was just starting to get dark.  The sun had set below the mountain walls, but it was still light enough to see the massive pins that coated the hills like hair.  The hot wind, carrying New Mexico dust to knows where, blew past my face, rustling my summer camp staff uniform and slamming the screen door to the cabin.  An odd scent, like rusty metal and stagnant water, floated in on the breeze.  The branches of the trees bounced up and down, keeping time with the sour-smelling wind.

            I made my way down the packed dirt trail, dwarfed by the pine trees and feeling much like an insect crawling over the skin of a giant.  I passed the toothpick sign that bore the name of our camp, “Lake Lodge.”  The name was an ironic shell of what it had once been, since the lake in question had long ago dried up, revealing the skeletal mud bed beneath.  I trekked on past the sign and eventually reached a small meadow, coated in wildflowers and tall grasses.

            At the far edge of the field, an old log lay where it had fallen years ago.  Max and Alissa were sitting on it, facing me.  Max waved wildly and grinned.  I waved back and stopped just into the field.

            “Dinner’s ready,” I shouted.  Max threw a thumbs-up and shouted something incomprehensible. Alissa laughed and punched him.

            When I got back inside, I found that Bryan had set the table with all the food.  Five plates with five hamburgers, five pieces of cornbread, and five helpings of instant mashed potatoes.  Patty had cut her hamburgers into pieces.

            “Patty’s cutting her patty, I see,” Bryan said, stepping out of the director’s room carrying a jug of orange juice.  From concentrate, of course.

            “Patty’s cutting her patty, bleh,” Patty mocked.  “It’s how I eat, and I’m the camp director so I get to make the rules.  Sit down and shut up.”

            Eventually Max and Alissa came in and took their seats next to each other.  They giggled over something, and I continued to stare at my plate of food.

            “Alright, now that y’alll are here, let’s say grace,” Patty said.  I folded my hands together as Patty spoke, saying, “For fun, for rain, for light, for-”

            “Alpine Limits to infirmary, we have a severe 10-30,” a male voice on the radio suddenly and blaringly crackled.  The prayer stopped abruptly.  That was the code for a camper injury.

            “Severe?” Alissa asked.

            “This is Infirmary, go ahead with the symptoms an patient identifiers, Alpine Limits,” the radio said.

            The was a short pause in which we all held our breath, interested in hearing what it was that had gone wrong, what one of the hikers was injured with.  But the radio said nothing else, and then there was a spasm of static and what sounded like muffled voices.

            “Alpine Limits, you’re very 10-1, please 10-9,” the infirmary said over the radio.  The radio code for “You’re hard to hear, please repeat the message.”

            But now there really was no sound coming from the radio, not even static or distant words.  The radio was silent.

            “Negative contact with Alpine Limits, please respond,” the infirmary said over the line.  “Alpine Limits, what is your status?”

            “What wasn’t us,” a female voice spoke.  “This is Alpine Limits.  We don’t have a 10-30.”

            “Can you 10-9 that?  You don’t have a 10-30 anymore?” the infirmary said.

            “No, we never had a 10-30.  That wasn’t us on the radio,” the woman at Alpine Limits said.

            “Could the camp with a 10-30 please reidentify?” said the infirmary.  But there was no response.  The infirmary said over the radio again, “Negative contact with unidentified camp.  Infirmary on standby.”

            We all stared at the radio on the table.  Max held a spoon of potatoes halfway between his plate and his mouth, but he put it back down.

            “I definitely hear them say Alpine Limits the first time,” Bryan said.

            “Me, too,” Patty replied.

            “But that first voice wasn’t Jen,” Alissa said.  Jen was the director of Alpine Limits camp.  “She wasn’t the one speaking that first time.”

            “Then who the hell was talking?” Patty said.

            “Beats me,” said Bryan.

            I stared down at my plate.  I thought back to the foul wind that had blown through camp.  I was tempted to say something, but I didn’t want to.

            Bryan had built a fire out back, behind our camp cabin.  The fire glowered in the dark, underneath the high summer moon.  The faces of scouts, visiting our camp, peered out of the darkness like shadow guards.  Bryan stood on the edge of the fire ring, telling a story.  It was something about the old abandoned gold mines that littered the mountains around us, and what might live or have lived in those forgotten stone tombs.  The kids around the fire were enthralled.

            One by one, the crews of scouts tapered off and went back to their campsites, scattered around the periphery of our cabin.  The fire died down slowly, the smoke drifting off into the night sky, balloons into the dark.  Eventually, it was just Patty, Bryan, Max, Alissa, and myself.  And the radio.

            There was a random babble of static and morse code from patty’s portable radio, which was pretty common.  But the static was soon overtaken by other sounds; namely, the screaming wail of what sounded like a tornado siren.  It faded in from behind the static until it was piercingly loud, and then just as quickly faded back away into nothing but the sound of radio interference.

            I had jumped up out of my seat when the siren had gotten unbearably loud, and Alissa and Max had covered their ears.  Bryan had cringed away in pain, and Patty was frantically trying to lower the radio’s volume, but to no avail.  But once it was gone, we were left in stunned silence.

            “What the heck was that?” Max asked.

            “I don’t know, I’ve never heard it before,” Patty said.

            “Sounded like a tornado siren,” Bryan added.

            “It sounded like we were right next to the thing,” I said.  Then the radio started up again.

            “This is Base Camp to all backcountry camps.  There is not an emergency.  I repeat, there is no emergency.  Would whoever made that noise please 10-37?”  Based wanted someone to identify themselves.  So they didn’t know where the sound came from, either.

            There was no response from anyone, and the radio sat silent for a few minutes.  We waited for something to happen, and the fire crackled away, filling the silence.  I again smelled something on the wind.  Beneath the scent of smoke, I smelled that odd, metallic rotten scent.  Max and Alissa had scooted closer to each other.  Bryan and Patty were peering intently at the radio.  I sat and watched the fire.

            “This is Base to all backcountry camps.  Please do a roll call, in alphabetical order.  Note anything unusual in your report.”

            Patty glanced at all of us.  They’ve never asked for that before,” she said.  But she pulled out a radio code cheat sheet from her pocket.  One side had the names of all the camps with staff working at them.  There was another, smaller list of trail camps, camps without staff.  Camps without radios.  The roll call began quickly.

            “Abalone camp present, nothing unusual.  Clear.”

            “Agave Grove camp here, all’s well.  Clear.”

            “Alpine Limits, checking in.  We have a 10-79.”  A missing person.  I shivered.

            “Base to Alpine Limits, please clarify.”

            “Crew number 626-72 still hasn’t arrived.  The entire crew is 10-79.  As suggested earlier, we’re waiting to see if they arrive tomorrow.”  An entire crew not showing up was unusual, but not unheard of.  Sometimes scouts got tired and decided to stay at trail camps instead of hiking all the way through.  “They were supposed to come from Henderson’s Meadow.”

            “10-4, Alpine Limits.  Check back in the morning.  Continue roll call,” Base camp said.

            “Black Valley checking in, all accounted for.”

            The roll call continued in much the same way.  When it got to us, Patty spoke into the radio.  “Lake Lodge is all good.  Staff and campers all accounted for.”

            Eventually the roll call was over, and every staff camp had checked in.  Alpine Limits were the only camp with something off.

            “Thank you all backcountry camps.  Have a good night.  Base clear.”

            “Alright, well I think I’m going to go to bed before things get too weird,” Max said.  He stood up and stretched.  “Wake me up if there’s trouble.”

            “I think I’m going to bed, too,” Alissa said.

            “Goodnight, you guys,” Patty said.  “Sleep tight, don’t let the bears bite.”  And Max and Alissa walked into the darkness together, leaving behind our fiery wall of light.

            Before I could say anything more and dig myself into a deeper hole, the radio went off.

            “We have a 10-30,” a male voice said.  “Patient is at Henderson’s Meadow.”  And injured camper.  But it wasn’t coming from a staffed camp.  The three of us around the fire listened intently.

            “Base to unidentified caller, please 10-37.  What’s your 10-20?”  But the line had gone dead, and there was no response.  “Is this Alpine Limits again?”

            “It isn’t us, Base,” a female voice said.  “Alpine Limits clear.”

            “Henderson’s Meadow is in your area of responsibility, Alpine.  Can you send a team out there to meet the patient?” Base replied.

            “Who even called in the 10-30?” Someone on the radio said.

            “Doesn’t matter.  Alpine, go check it out,” Base said.

            “10-4.  Preparing a rescue team now.  Alpine Limits clear.”

            “Base clear.”

            The portable radio by Patty went silent.  Is niffed at the wind, and I could smell it stronger now.  The scent of old pipes and dead meat.  It almost seemed to come from the radio itself.

            “Do you guys smell that?” I said.

            “Smell what?” Patty said.

            “The wind,” I said.  Bryan sniffed deeply.

            “Probably a fresh mountain lion kill nearby.  We should double check bearbags and smellables tonight,” Bryan said.  But I didn’t know.

            We sat around the fire and none of us moved.  It was too late to stay up any longer, but we were too interested in the radio to go to bed.  We had to see it through now.

            “Alpine Limits portable one is 10-8 to Henderson’s Meadow,” the radio chirped.  The staff team were on their way, then.

            “How far of a hike is it?” I asked.

            “By scout?  About an hour and a half.  By staff?  Probably half that,” Patty said.  Bryan chuckled.

            The wind-blown smell got stronger and stronger, and I thought surely Bryan or Patty would say something.  The putrid, static smell, of old hollowed out tunnels collecting water for years, of divets in the mountainside where dear go to die and be eating, of those forgotten corners of cities where trash and ugliness collect until it takes on a groaning life of its own.

            The wind swirled it around in my nose, and I wanted to vomit.

            “Do you guys really not smell that?” I said.

            “I don’t smell anything,” said Patty.

            “Just a little, but not really.  Maybe something died upwind of us,” Bryan said.

            “What about the mountain lion kill?” I asked.  Bryan shrugged and we lapsed into silence.

            Time passed.  The fire became embers, and the odd clicks and buzzes from the radio got more frequent until there was finally a voice.

            “Alpine Limits portable one, we are 10-7 at Henderson’s Meadow, entering now,” the voice said. 

“Copy that, portable one.  Infirmary on standby for patient vitals,” the radio said.

            There were a few minutes of silence then.  Then radio speaker almost had a visible aura of malice as we stared at it, waiting for hear a response.  But maybe I should have gone to bed earlier.

            The radio clicked on.  “This is… oh, God, this is Alpine portable one.  Jesus, we… we have a 10-86.”  There was the sound of someone throwing up in the background, retching violently into the bushes.  Presumably the other team member.

            “Can you 10-9 that?  Did you say a 10-86?” Based radioed in.

            Patty sucked in her breath.  “Oh, fuck,” she said.

            “What’s a 10-86?” I asked.

            “Fatality,” Bryan mumbled, shocked as Patty.

            “Yes, 10-86,” the radio said.

            “Are you absolutely sure?”

            “Yes, God, yes, I’m sure.”

            “How do you know?  Are they still breathing?  Is there a pulse?”

            “No, there’s no fucking pulse!  Jesus Christ, it’s just a head!  In the middle of the trail!”  Someone was crying in the background.  “I can’t… I can’t find the body.  My God, something cut off his ears.  They took his ears!”

            “Portable one, if this is some sort of sick joke, you’ll be out of here before-”

            “It’s not a fucking joke, ok?  There’s a dead camper in the middle of the trail but it’s… it’s just his head.”

            The radio was silent a minute.  “Copy that, portable one.  Infirmary, contact the police and prepare a full team.  Portable one, where is the rest of the crew?”

            Another beat of silence.  “I… I don’t know.  There’s nothing around.  I can’t hear anything.  Oh, God, Tyler, let’s go. We need to check out the rest of the camp,” the radio said.

            “Holy shit,” Patty said.  “I’ve never heard a 10-86 before.”

            “I’d never though I would hear one,” Bryan muttered.  “Lightning and floods I get, but this…”

            “Do you think it was a mountain lion?” I asked.

            “No,” Bryan said.  “No animal decapitates its prey on purpose.  None that I know of, anyway.”

            I was going to say something else, but the radio cracked back to life.  “Oh, Jesus, this is portable one.”  In between gasps, hard breathing, and sobs from another party, whoever was on the line spoke.  “We’ve got multiple 10-86’s.  I… don’t know how many.  Oh, fuck, they’re everywhere.  Hanging from the trees.  Their heads…  Their heads, they’re all stacked in the fire pit.  All their ears are gone.  Oh, my God, we need to get out of here.  The trees, the trees, like fucking Christmas trees… How’d they get up there?”  The sobs in the background got louder.  But underneath it there was another sound.  In the distance, what sounded like a tornado siren.  My neck stiffened.

            “Portable one, I want your team out of there now,” the radio said.  The sound of the siren slowly got louder.

            “Oh, God, fuck, it’s everywhere.  I think I got some on me…  They’re leaking, oh God, I… Fuck, do you hear that?”  The siren in the background got louder, and it was now mixed with the wild thrashing of something huge sprinting through the forest.  “Oh, Jesus, what is that?  Tyler, do you- oh, my God, what is that?  Fuck, fuck, fuck, no no no NO NO-” and there was a blood-curdling scream that drowned out the deafening roar of the tornado siren, a horrendous tearing noise, and then the line went dead and there was only silence.  I couldn’t hear anything in the forest, and for a minute, nothing happened.

            “Alpine Limits portable one, do you copy?” a voice on the radio said between strained breaths.  “Portable one, do you copy?” A pause, and I knew there would be no response.  “Oh, God… Negative contact with portable one.  Infirmary, stand by with that team.  We, uh… wait until the police arrive.  Logistics, I need you to 10-8 to Alpine Limits ASAP.  Please.”

            That was when I walked away.  I got up and stumbled my way away from the fire.  Patty was crying, and Bryan was doing his best to comfort her between his own strangled sobs.  But I didn’t care anymore.

            I made my way back to the cabin where we slept.  I sniffed the air before opening the door.  It was stronger than ever now, and in the distance, I thought I could hear sirens.  Maybe there were police.  But maybe not.  I opened the door and stepped inside.

            Max’s body hung from the rafters, strung up by his feet.  His intestines spilled out like bloodied balls of yarn, and a sickly red stain coated the floor around where his earless head lay.  Alissa, in the next room over, wasn’t in any better shape.

            I stared at the bloodied mass of flesh that had once been Max, and I sank to my knees.  Questions spiraled in my head, growing louder and louder.  I was haunted by all the things I didn’t know, the things I’d never get to know.  And the questions spun and spun, and spun and spun and spun, and continued to get louder and louder until there was nothing but the sound of sirens.