I’m not usually one for content warnings. I mean, I don’t begrudge people who use them or need them, but I can never remember to until it’s too late. That said, I really, really like dogs and cats, so I’m giving a reverse content warning here: nothing bad happens to the animals in these stories. This is our creepy-flavored calm before the storm.
I sometimes wonder what it means about me that I seem to lack the instincts that tell other people that a place is creepy (and friends of mine, having seen me waltz obliviously into Bad Places, have sometimes wondered how I’m still alive). But then again, I like to think of myself as very rational, and Instincts are something we usually associate with animals, not people.
So, back in The Rules, we covered how animals didn’t behave the same way in the camp as they do in other forests—how they were out of sight and silent until asked to speak. That makes the few true animal encounters I had stand out even more, especially because these were all with domesticated kinds of animals.
And they were all at the same place: the initiation building.
One afternoon, we actually had adult supervision! One of my friends, someone who had moved to Central Louisiana recently and therefore knew none of the history or baggage about the camp—it was his West Coast father who had heard him talk so much about the camp that he wanted to see what all of the fuss was about. So, we all loaded up in a car and headed off to give him the grand tour.
We bring him to the initiation building, explaining to him the game we usually play with the flashlight in the dark with the Claiborne newbie. We all go to the front door and huddle around it, looking in at the heaps of plant matter and dumped garbage that covered the floor, creating an unwalkable, swampy mess of soaking, decaying muck. As we were all crowded at that door, there was sudden noise and movement from the back door, the one on the opposite wall from us—another gaping, empty hole in the building much like the one where we stood.
A blur of frantic feral cat cried out as it streaked through the building, running not away from the large group of humans but directly to us, ignoring the back door from whence it came or the side window as escapes, barreling at us. There was so little room at our doorway that the cat literally brushed against my calf as it streamed out of that building, fur fully poofed, posture screaming terror. We turned to see the cat running away, down the road, instead of vanishing off into the woods.
We turned back and listened, trying to figure out what had scared a cat so much that it would run towards people, instead of away from us. What could be a bigger threat than four or five humans?
But there was nothing there.
At the time, the threat was what confused us. As I had more and more experiences at the building, the real question became why was that cat willing to go inside of it at all?
The next animal encounter I had at the building is one of my happiest Camp Claiborne memories.
I had come out in the middle of the day with my younger brother to look around and hang out. We stopped at that building because the big, windowless annex to it had a strong but skinny tree next to it, great to use to climb up onto the roof. That was our destination.
We arrive, and nothing seems amiss. My younger brother shimmies up the side of the building; all is normal. Just when I was about to start my climb attempt, from around the corner of the road comes a pack of dogs.
In retrospect, I probably should have been wary about a half dozen or more dogs, mutts, no collars in sight, all running together sans a human as a pack in the middle of the woods. But all I could think was: “Puppy puppy puppy puppy!”
I turned away from the building and took a couple of steps back towards the road to meet them, as they all made a beeline to me. They surrounded me. Luckily, they were sweet and friendly and happily dopy dogs. I pet them, scratched their ears. I was basically in Heaven.
But I had come out there with a destination, a mission in mind. So, when the dogs started to lose interest in me, I started to edge back towards the building.
Suddenly, I was fascinating again, and the dogs surrounded me begging for attention again. The cycle repeated, over and over, until I noticed that I was farther from the building than I had been when the dogs first arrived. I started paying attention.
Whenever I started to head closer to the building, the pack would reorient themselves, putting their bodies between the building and me, subtly herding me away from it. I didn’t understand it—at the time, I thought myself clever for simply exploiting that and occasionally stepping in the direction of the building whenever the dogs’ attention started to stray, so that I could maximize my puppy time.
But all good things must end. Eventually my brother got tired of the top of the building, and wanted to go somewhere else. As soon as his feet hit the solid ground, the dogs moved like a murmuration of birds, tails wagging and tongues flapping as they turned away from the building and ran off down the street, ignoring the woods entirely, much like that feral cat.
My brother and I jumped in my car and started to follow them, but they had a head start. Aside from their initial direction, we couldn’t find which way they went.
But they had been so friendly, I thought. Someone must be camping, camping with their large amount of dogs. I drove us around the area—and this was a part of the camp I knew fairly well—trying to find all of the nearby sites where someone could have camped.
I don’t know why I thought that. Back then, nobody camped at Claiborne, especially not on that side of the camp, in that area. But still, it was surprising that there weren’t any other hikers, explorers, or other humans out that day. Where did the dogs come from? Why didn’t they want me near that building?
Many years later, I returned to the camp as an adult, on a visit home. I brought members of my new family, wanting to show them my old stomping ground, the place I spent so many hours as a wayward youth, the subject of so many of my stories.
One member of the family who especially loves traveling and so was with me was Duncan, my adorable black doggie. Duncan is a miniature poodle—the medium size, not the tiny toy or the giant dog—but tall for his breed. He’s bold, fearless, outgoing—he loves everyone and everything in the world and fully expects them all to love him just as much.
We get to the initiation building, stop the car, leash the dog, and get out to give the old place a looksee.
There were some somewhat disturbing changes to the building over the years—those will be covered later on, in a future installment. But what was really off was Duncan.
Usually, he’s the kind of dog who is permanently glued to my leg, always wanting to be near me. He hopped out of the car as normal, but refused to leave its immediate vicinity. To get closer to the building, to explore, I had to hand his leash off.
The closer I got to the building, the more frantically my brave, bold, fearless dog whimpered. The farther from him I went, the higher pitched his voice got. He shook in fear, taking a few darting steps after me before cracking and fleeing back to the car, and his whimpers gave way to desperate cries. I had just about reached the building proper when his panicked noises became too loud, too constant, too distressed for me to ignore.
I returned to him, thinking I would just pet him, scratch his ears, tell him he was ok, and then resume my exploration.
But he circled me immediately, wrapping me with his leash and then started trying to DRAG me with all of the force a 22 pound dog could muster, trying to drag me back to the car.
We’d never seen him so scared, before or after. For context, this is the dog who, the first time he saw fireworks, ran around in playful circles, jumping up trying to catch them (he also greatly overestimates the height of his jumps). He’s fearless. At least, he’s been fearless every time before that day, and after it. The rest of our time at the camp, going to other places, he was fine. His normal, happy, curious, sniffy, bold self.
Something at that building really set him off. Something he could detect, and found terrifying.
But I couldn’t see anything.
Join me this Monday, Halloween, to hear the penultimate story of this collection, what happened the time I could see something.
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viii. halloween night
