Blue Wolfe and Friends presents: Camp Here and There.
Episode Fifty Three: Itself Swallowed
SYDNEY
[WHISPERING] Shhhhh. All voices to a hush, please. If you speak, the sound should drift away through the open, baby pink sky, like a whisper being swapped between moths on a curtain.
It’s quiet day, as you know! Hushed as a newborn babe to ensure we see no more whippoorwill mimics. I’m here as a special exception: an authorized whisperer, sanctioned by Lucille herself, to deliver only the barest minimum of news~!
Now! Our breakfast situation. For breakfast we have juice precisely portioned into sippy cups. Slurpers will not be tolerated. One errant gulp could doom us all!
Moving on. You may have noticed the distinguished guest currently looming over the administration building: our Great Horned Owl. Majestic today, as ever. Wings wide and grand, talons sunk deep into the weathervane.
She’s been here forever—or close enough. I remember her from my first season, when I was still small and fawny and thought this camp was the whole world. She sat in that same spot back then.
She sits unmoving and ever-watching. Yesterday, the whippoorwills simply roosted around her, not the least bit disturbed by the fact she is several links above them in the food chain. I’ve never seen her blink. Never seen her eat. Never seen her move a muscle.
That is… until today.
At dawn, I saw it—her neck in a slow, deliberate rotation. Once. Twice. I thought it would stop at one hundred eighty degrees, as is the respectable limit for any self-governing bird, but it didn’t.
One full turn became two. Then three. By the fourth, I was less impressed and more concerned for the integrity of her spine. I kept track on my hands—five, six, seven… eleven. She hasn’t stopped. She’s just rotating. The weathervane beneath her hasn’t moved since dawn, but she has—pivoting endlessly with her unblinking stare.
The only interruption in the motion came at precisely 6:77. That’s when Lucille stepped out from the administration building—a rare sight, as she rather prefers to stay within its walls. She was headed toward the staff restroom by the mess hall; because the one in administration suffered a pipe burst during the last tunnel excursion.
Jaw set, eyes glowering, she crossed the gravel with a brisk stride.
The moment her heel touched the path, the owl froze mid-rotation. Dead still. Then the owl’s head tilted, slow as sap, until both of those yellow eyes were fixed squarely on Lucille’s back.
Lucille, of course, pretended not to notice. She never looks up. The owl tracked each step with severe precision. When Lucille paused to chastise a counselor about wearing their staff uniform, the owl’s neck adjusted by a fraction—just enough to follow the gesture. When she finally disappeared inside the restroom door, the owl righted itself and resumed its rotation.
It’s the same every hour now. Always when Lucille leaves the building. I’ve started marking it down. When the owl is still, that’s how we know Lucille’s gone to the bathroom.
Whatever could it mean?
Best not to linger on it! Lucille likes her privacy, after all. And she is our camp director—generous, patient, endlessly devoted to all of us. Really, she works harder than any of us. So I think it’s good she takes a moment for herself now and then. Think about it kids… A woman can’t diligently lead a camp of this size without kindness, compassion, and warmth, and Lucille has all three in abundance!
Anyway, that’s enough about our feathered friend’s spinal acrobatics.
Now, regarding today’s schedule of activities—or rather, the quiet we’ve prepared for you all. After breakfast, we’ll transition into what I’m calling “Contemplative Crafts.”
Each cabin will receive a basket of supplies: yarn, felt, those little googly eyes that Matthew insists are watching him, and—most importantly—silly cement. Not glue sticks. Those make a horrible sticky-clacky sound when you twist them. Nooo. Just squeeze these bottles of blessed, silent adhesive!
You’ll be making sock puppets. Because they’re soft and fabric doesn’t clatter when dropped. And now, if someone absolutely must communicate during craft time, they can make their puppet mouth the words instead of using their vocal cords. It’s genius, really!
After crafts, we have “Silent Sports Hour,” which is just regular sports but with all the equipment wrapped in towels. Basketball becomes “muffled circle tossing.” Baseball transforms into “padded stick swinging at cotton-wrapped orb.” And dodgeball? Well, we’re using marshmallows. Large ones. The kind Matthew usually reserves for his depression s’mores. But I’ve struck a deal with him that he can have my— [SMALL GASP]
…
The owl just stopped again. Which means—yes, there goes Lucille, heading toward the mess hall facilities. Right on schedule. 8:77. You could set a watch by her bladder.
But I digress. Finish your juice, campers. Remember: sip, don’t slurp.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
Lunchtime, and I am once again the voice of nutritional reason. Careful whisper, don’t peak above a breath.
For lunch: soft foods only. Nothing crunchy or brittle or, God forbid, a noodle. Instead, we’ve got cream-of-goat soup and a mashed tare-tare constructed into a smooth, seamless mound, the top of which is so exquisitely troweled by Matthew’s melancholic hands that I suspect he spent hours in deep, meditative swirling
The owl. You want to hear about the owl.
I decided to wait by the door for Lucille’s bathroom break, intent on finally asking her what the deal was. Lucille crossed to the restroom once again at 9:77. But before I could call out to her, this time the owl moved. Her wings unfurled in one violent sweep, and for a moment the early sky was crossed with a holy fan of dark and white, crisp and radiant. The bird’s shoulders were so massive that Lucille, striding in her boring floral, looked swallowed—yet enthroned—by the span. For an instant, in perfect alignment, the wings arched outward just as Lucille paused on the path—lit straight through with ribbed feathers and sun-glossed edges. She appeared crowned and haloed by the world’s most disgruntled angel.
Then it took flight; massive, deliberate strokes drumming the air.
And it’s been tormenting us since. Well, better to say it’s tormenting… uh…
During “Silent Sports Hour,” I was out in the rec field to help a child with a scabbed knee. And I saw her. It was now perched on the nearest goalpost, wings folded like a cape, gaze as sharp and pointed as the talons wrapped around the post. Every so often, its head would slow-swivel to track a particular child or a cluster of counselors, but then it seemed to have zeroed in on one specific quarry.
Jedidiah.
He was at the edge of the track, lining up cones for some aerodynamic study. Every time he reached for a cone, the owl’s head jerked an angular fraction in his direction. He tried to ignore it, but it was impossible: the owl was glaring him down with stern severity. The next time he grabbed a cone, the Great Horned Owl let out a… well, at first, I thought it was a croak. But then it wasn’t animal at all.
It was Lucille’s voice. Her actual voice, broadcast from the beak, echoing across the rec field in the same cavernous, no-nonsense timbre as our director’s morning check-ins:
“Jedidiah. Posture.”
He dropped the cone. Nearly fell over. The owl repeated:
“Posture, Jedidiah!”
I watched his spine snap upright so fast it looked like he’d been yanked with a fishhook.
The owl mimicked the voice: “Eyes front, Jedidiah.” Then softer: “Good boy.”
I’d have thought it was funny, if it weren’t so plainly, hideously targeted. Jedidiah didn’t come in for snacks after that. He just stalked back to the nurse’s building and locked himself in.
I wanted to check on him, but I had my own situation to monitor.
Namely: Lucille.
At 10:77, she emerged from her office and cut across the quad in exactly the same brisk pattern as before. She did not acknowledge my presence, nor anyone’s, though usually she’d spare a microsecond for a nod or some pleasantry about accountability.
Instead, she walked directly to the mess hall bathroom, shut the door, and did not re-emerge for a full twenty-six minutes. I know this because I set a timer. She has not spoken to anyone today. She just reappears every hour, heads straight to the restroom, re-locks herself in her office, and starts again.
It’s eerie, and also—I have to say it—impressive. If the goal was to throw us all off with sheer commitment to businesslike routine, then, wow, mission accomplished.
Now, I’ll admit: my brain is not at its best lately. I’ve had spells where I lose ten minutes, or can’t quite get my lips to move how I want, or stare at minor bloodstains on the bedsheets and feel the hours dissolve out of me. Sure, people don’t always trust me. But watching Lucille today, I’d swear on my best lost tooth that something is wrong with her.
Now the camp is clotted with rumors. The children are whispering about the owl, of course, but they also whisper about Lucille. Some say she’s been replaced by a robot. Some say she’s been possessed by “the bathroom demon,” a legend Natsume has been gleefully circulating since last year’s session. One child in Grasshopper pinky-swore he saw Lucille’s shadow detach from her body and run up the flagpole. Another says she saw the owl’s face flicker into a person’s, just for a blink, and “it looked like Nurse Sydney, except tall and mean.” Haha. Hilarious, children!
I suppose we will have to monitor the situation for updates…
That’s all for now, campers.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
Uhm…
At some point, Jedidiah was outside with the owl. Lucille came once again to cross the gravel path. As soon as she stepped down the porch, the owl’s eyes, previously on Jedidiah, snapped down to Lucille. The bird’s neck did an entire pirouette on the weathervane—one-two-three-four times—before leveling its head in Lucille’s direction.
The owl’s neck twisted up like a wrung towel, then it swelled. Not puffed up like a sparrow on a nest, but, ummm… you know when you step on a four-day-dead squirrel and it kind of… balloons? And the internal pressure makes the skin bulge and the face starts to smooth out, it loses all the lovely definition, and the whole thing is more latex than muscle? That’s what the owl did. It expanded—shoulders first, then chest, the thick pale down on its belly splitting down the center like a peeled peach, exposing a lattice of indigo muscle and… various viscera.
Its head followed last, beak cracking as the skull split along its length. For a moment, it screamed, but it was still Lucille’s voice, only rawer, wet with its own throat. I’ve seen a lot in my career, but never this: a bird twisting itself inside-out.
It didn’t finish. It got almost to the part where you could recognize the eyebrows. (Lucille has a very distinct brow.) Then it stopped, half-transformed, perched like a terrible, melted woman-owl, and fixed them both—Jedidiah and Lucille—with a glaring stare. A grotesque thing now stood above, crouched on the weathervane.
It stayed like that for an hour. The bird…. The half-Lucille.
We were asked—strongly, by Salem—to keep you children from looking at it. So we ordered mandatory cabin time for all kids, and led them through the back path towards the nurse’s building, away from the administration building. Still, some peeked, and one or two started whispering about “the Wet Angel,” which is an evocative but… not wholly inaccurate name.
Jedidiah, however, didn’t move. I found him later in the same spot. The bird-woman held him in a gaze so total, it held me, too—stood all the hair on my body.
And then, finally, the Lucille shape… smiled? It said, again in Lucille’s voice:
“Jedidiah. Come here.”
I wanted to run. Instead, I pressed myself flat against the sodden side-wall of the nearby shed and watched. Jedidiah moved forward, step by step, his legs stiff and awkward. Each time he tried to slow, the voice barked sharper:
“Closer, Jedidiah. Don’t be shy.”
By the time he was at the base of the building, his face was colorless.
Then the thing did a new, horrible trick. It blinked—just once, both eyes were dark as night—then flickered, lost some of its bulk for a moment, and suddenly it was Lucille, wearing her pleasant maternal smile. It crawled down the side of the administration building—all tendon and twisting limbs—never breaking its gaze on my partner. It faced Jedidiah, standing in the clearing near the quad.
“Jedidiah,” said the owl again, neck ribboning outward in disgusting telescopic spirals, “bring me the pail.”
It wanted him to clean up. In that moment, it was perfectly Lucille. I watched Jedidiah try, try very hard, not to turn his back to the thing as he fumbled for a bucket from the shed I was pressed against. He didn’t look at me as he grabbed it.
With one limb, both feather and knifebone, the owl gestured for him to get on his knees.
“Scrub! Scrub the mess! You know what happens when you neglect your duties.”
He dropped.
The thing made him scrub the grass for several minutes. Each time he slowed, the owl shrieked at him in Lucille’s voice, and he was back at attention.
I watched the owl trudge toward Jedidiah, then plant itself on the damp, scrubbed up patch of grass. It bent low, leaking a thick drool of yellow-black ooze onto the ground. The sound it made was a wet, “Good. You did good, Jedidiah.”
Jedidiah stood and began to back up. The thing followed, stalking him with every nervous hop, until it finally cornered him by the utility shed. Then, it did something truly obscene.
It started to tear.
The entire creature began to peel itself like wet fruit, feather and flesh unstitching down the side and curling away from the bone. The ripping flesh sounded like a bag of grapes getting slowly upended. Somewhere beneath that shifting mask, the features tried to organize themselves, flipping between Lucille’s sneer and the blind, eyeless rictus of a newborn chick.
“Mom?” I heard Jedidiah say quietly.
It split further down the seam, unzipping itself from chin to breast, ribs blooming open like a nest, and all the stuffing inside was bloody and crawling with… with? I’d call them maggots if it wasn’t clear from the way they chanted and wept that they were baby owl heads, each with its own little Lucille-face, gnashing and blinking and asking for more. The air stank of fresh liver and the acrid, musky tang of throat, and for just a moment, it took on the shape of a face I didn’t recognize… but felt familiar…
And then it said a soft voice: “Show me your hands… are you hurt?”
Jedidiah stood straight, wiped his palms on his shirt.
And then he ran.
Just full-tilt up the field, not looking back. The thing chased him, loping in an ungainly, disjointed gallop, slopping bits of itself with every stride. I was certain it would catch him.
But he got to the admin building first and vanished inside. The owl stopped short, arched its mangled wings, and howled in a voice that was all of Lucille and none of it.
The next part, I’ll never forget…
There was a pause, then a click as the admin building window flew open. Jedidiah, trembling and wild-eyed, clambered out clutching something silver in his hands. I recognized it: the rusted revolver Lucille kept in the back office.
The owl-woman thing tried to shout, “Put that down—!” before the bullet crashed through its temple. Blood and down exploded in a crunchy, wet sound.
Jedidiah didn’t wait to see if it worked. He fired again, and again, spending the whole cylinder in panic. Most of the shots missed, but the two that landed were enough: the owl’s entire face caved inward, blowing to pieces. The head slumped off, rolled in the mud, and stopped.
For three slow seconds, the body bobbed on its legs, then it, too, crumpled. The wings folded over like a death shroud.
Jedidiah stood above it, shaking, hands slack and sticky with old powder residue. He watched it for some time.
Somewhere behind me, Lucille let out a small sigh. I turned to face her.
She didn’t say anything. Just stood with a grim set to her jaw, looking whole again.
The dead bird stayed where it fell until Lucille came back with one of Rowan’s shovels. She didn’t ask anyone for help, and she didn’t spare a word for Jedidiah. She scooped the massive carcass up and walked it to the woods. I watched her until she vanished in the trees, and then I went to check on Jedidiah.
He was sitting behind the supply shed. I sat next to him for a while, but he was silent. Eventually, I put my head on his knee. He put a hand on my hair… and that felt nice.
So…
[CHIPPER] Campers, it seems the owl was just a particularly motivated mimic bird, perhaps using Lucille as a source of inspiration! Nothing to worry about! Truly! Sometimes nature gets a little ambitious, that’s all! We’ve all had days where we try on a new voice, or a new… face, or a new terrifying range of behaviors that defy the known laws of skeletal structure. Perfectly normal! Perhaps this is what had Lucille’s face all in a tizzy the other day…?
The important thing is that the situation has been fully resolved, thanks to our highly capable and endlessly dependable camp director, who handled the—ah, remains with great professionalism! Really above and beyond. Gold star!
So there’s no need for concern! Just your everyday, run-of-the-mill overachieving mimic bird having a go at leadership. Happens in the animal kingdom all the time!
Anyway! Dinner will proceed as planned. Let’s all keep spirits high, stomachs settled, and voices at a respectable volume. Camp is safe, camp is serene, and everything is exactly as it should be. Dinner today is…
Oh God… poultry.
[BRIGHTLY, THROUGH TEETH] Thank you for your attention, campers! Enjoy your meal!
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
Ghost recorder… 25:25. Uh—
JEDIDIAH
…Sydney?
SYDNEY
Oh. Hi.
[SWEET, AWKWARD] You’re—um—you’re back.
JEDIDIAH
Y-yeah. I just came from… from talking to Lucille.
SYDNEY
Oh.
[PAUSE]
How’d—how’d that go?
JEDIDIAH
She asked me about my faith.
SYDNEY
Your—your faith?
JEDIDIAH
Yeah.
SYDNEY
And?
JEDIDIAH
I love you.
SYDNEY
I love you, too.
JEDIDIAH
She… I shouldn’t laugh. I thought it was rhetorical, y’know? Or, like, another one of her tests.
SYDNEY
Did you tell her the truth?
JEDIDIAH
No… [THOUGHTFUL] I believed for a long time when I was a kid. Then I thought about the last time I actually tried to ask for something.
SYDNEY
Like a miracle?
JEDIDIAH
No, nothing that dramatic. Just… I used to pray at night. Like if I lied to my mom, or did something bad at school, I’d go to bed and do that hands-folded thing, and try to even it out. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” over and over. And eventually I stopped… but sometimes I still do the gesture in my head. I guess like a tic.
SYDNEY
Mhm.
JEDIDIAH
The last time I remember, I was praying you wouldn’t go to hell… cause you did that whole Satanism thing in high school.
SYDNEY
[LAUGH] Oh my God! You remember that?
JEDIDIAH
I didn’t want to go to heaven without you.
SYDNEY
[LAUGHING] Well, I wasn’t baptized anyways.
JEDIDIAH
Yeah…
SYDNEY
What’d she say next?
JEDIDIAH
She just said, “Good.” And then she barked at me to organize the sign-in sheets, but the folders were all sticky from whatever was in the owl. So it was just… a typical day I guess. [SIGH]
[PAUSE]
JEDIDIAH
Do you remember when we were eleven?
SYDNEY
Hmm. I remember it was the year you moved to Cuyahoga county.
JEDIDIAH
We were roughhousing. And I broke that angel statue in the living room? The one in the blue robe with her hands—
SYDNEY
No, I don’t remember that.
JEDIDIAH
I tripped and then it shattered everywhere. I remember I was hyperventilating. Because, like, my mom really liked that statue.
SYDNEY
Uh-huh.
JEDIDIAH
I was so scared of getting in trouble, or that God hated me. And I was trying to scoop the pieces up, but the ceramic was shredding my hands.
SYDNEY
I don’t think I was there for that, no.
JEDIDIAH
I see.
[PAUSE]
SYDNEY
Are you okay, Jeddie?
JEDIDIAH
Honestly? Not really. But I’ll do what I need to.
SYDNEY
That’s good.
JEDIDIAH
I can’t, uh—I can’t see Adam anymore.
SYDNEY
Because he’s “pushing” you?
JEDIDIAH
It’s not—it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do, I think.
SYDNEY
[SIGH]
JEDIDIAH
And I need to ask you—
SYDNEY
[MUMBLE] Oh, God. Here it comes.
JEDIDIAH
No, I can’t tell you what to do.
…
Whatever it is you need to do, promise you won’t let it hurt you.
SYDNEY
Right.
JEDIDIAH
I don’t want to lose you again. I can’t… I can’t do it twice.
SYDNEY
Don’t be dramatic.
JEDIDIAH
I mean it.
SYDNEY
… Right. I promise.
JEDIDIAH
Thank you.
SYDNEY
Hmmm. If there was a God you could talk to, what would you say to him?
JEDIDIAH
I’d tell him he’s lazy. And to double-check his blueprints.
SYDNEY
[LAUGH] I’d say thank you for how handsome you are. Like the way you look when you’re lost in thought. That’s all I’d thank him for.
JEDIDIAH
[AMUSED] You’re such a sap.
SYDNEY
Oh! And for the hair on your knuckles.
JEDIDIAH
Okay—
[CLICK]
Today’s episode of Camp Here & There was written and directed by Blue Wolfe.
The role of Sydney Sargent was performed by Blue Wolfe.
The role of Up and Adam was performed by Voicebox Vance.
With original music composed by Will Wood and produced by Jonathon Maisto.
Additional music composed by Kyle Gabler, and Another You.
Dialogue editing by The Leo!
Sound design by Blue Wolfe and Another You.
And a special thanks to Patrons for making this possible!
Special thanks to Scottie *<:o), Cyet, Tundra (Jack), and Bellamy Verne.
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Thank you for listening to Camp Here & There! And remember: Nothing is still something if named.