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[GRIAN]
Statement of... Scott S. Major, regarding a camping trip in the north of England with friends. Original interview transcribed three years ago, September 15th, 2019. Statement begins.
[GRIAN (STATEMENT)]
It was just meant to be a normal camping trip. It really was.
This was about a month ago, now. Three of my friends- Joel, Jimmy, and Lizzie- and I all had week-long breaks in our schedules at about the same time, so we figured it was the perfect time to take a trip up north. We’d been planning on it for awhile. We figured we’d head up, make a campsite, spend three days or so and then head back. Get in touch with nature, or… whatever.
Everything was normal at first. We met up, drove up out of the city and kept north until we were into the Pennines. We found the trail we wanted to take, parked, and went a few hours up the mountain on foot. Everybody was in a good mood. Joel and Lizzie brought their dog, Geraldine, who is the cutest, and the weather was pretty nice, too. I remember the only thing I noticed was that you couldn’t really hear much small wildlife, not many songbirds or anything.
It took us longer than we thought it would to find a place to make camp. It was pretty steep most of the way up, and we also wanted to find a spot that was a little more clear. It was pretty heavily wooded around and we didn’t want to start a forest fire. But eventually we found a place where the trail leveled off into a little clearing- perfect place to pitch our tents.
It was already pretty late by then, so we built a fire and made some food as it was getting dark, and then-
That was when we first heard the howling.
I don’t know if you know, but there just aren’t wolves in England. They’ve been extinct here for centuries. After everything happened, I did… a lot of research. Whatever we heard, it wasn’t wolves. But it was close.
We were all… a little spooked, I think it’s fair to say. Anyone would be. Jimmy suggested going back down to the car, but obviously that wasn’t happening. It would be two hours of hiking down cliffs in the pitch black. At least where we were we had shelter, and fire.
None of us got much sleep that night. We had two tents- Joel and Lizzie shared one, obviously, they’re married, and Jimmy and I had the other. I could see… well, Jimmy and I, at least, we thought we could see… something moving in the woods, but when we shone the flashlights out there, we couldn’t see anything. Maybe it was our heads and the fear playing tricks on us, but… I doubt it.
And, listen. I know, obviously, there’s animals in the woods, I’m not an idiot. But this was something… big. And hungry. I couldn’t see it, but I just knew. Lizzie told me later Geraldine was really bothered that night, too. She wouldn’t settle down for anything, kept pacing around in their tent and growling.
I did get to sleep eventually, for a couple hours, at least. Had some really weird dreams, which probably isn’t that surprising, given the circumstances. I don’t remember much from them. Just running, and a lot of… red.
But when I woke up, something was wrong.
I felt… sick, and too warm, like I was running a fever, and the whole world looked red. Like it had in my dreams. And-
I woke up before Jimmy did, right. He was still sleeping. And I was looking at him, and I had this thought, like: I could just kill him. With a pillow, is what I thought. I mean, he’s not that strong. And I didn’t- it took me a moment to realize I was already holding the pillow in my lap.
I don’t know why that happened. I didn’t want to hurt him! As soon as I realized what I was thinking, I threw the pillow across the tent and I had to sit on my hands to keep them from shaking. He woke up, and I guess I must have looked absolutely terrible, because he looked all worried and told me to have a lie down.
To be honest, though, all I wanted to do was get off the damn mountain, by that point. I knew something was wrong. But as soon as I said I was fine and I just wanted to get going as soon as we could, we heard thunder.
I still think about that storm. I don’t know if it was just bad luck. But I know if it hadn’t happened exactly when it did, we would’ve been out of there on the second day, and…
Well. It doesn’t matter now.
The rain came on quick. Before long, it was pouring. Fortunately, the tents were mostly waterproof, but it still meant we were stranded until it let up and the trails had had a chance to dry out. We didn’t even have a satellite phone or anything like that to call for help, which was stupid, but the forecast had been clear.
We spent most of that day in the tents. I just felt worse and worse. I was getting horribly shaky, and my heart was beating too loud and too fast. Jimmy got worried enough to say they should take me to a hospital, at one point, but it wasn’t like we were getting anywhere until the rain stopped.
And my vision kept getting redder. I just wanted to- you know when you’re sick, even if you’re not really that sick, all you want to do is not be sick anymore? I felt like that. I felt like I was dying, and I knew exactly what I had to do in order to feel better, and I wanted to do it just so I would stop feeling like I was going to die. Except I didn’t want to, because what I had to do was kill one of my friends.
I don’t know how I knew that’s what I was supposed to do. I just did. But it started with the pillow and it just got worse. Lizzie ducked in around noon to see how we were doing and I thought about tackling her out of the tent and smashing her head against the rocks.
I didn’t do it. Obviously. I never would- and between you and me, I’m not even sure I could take Lizzie in a fight. She’s terrifying when she’s mad. But I kept thinking it anyways. And the whole day was like that. It was horrible.
The worst it got was at one point in the afternoon. I don’t even really know what happened. I closed my eyes, and then I opened them again, and I was on the ground with Jimmy’s hands on my shoulders. He had a bruise starting on his face. He told me my eyes looked red, for a moment.
That was when I knew I needed to leave the tent. I didn’t trust myself not to hurt somebody. I talked Jimmy into not telling Lizzie and Joel- ugh, I regret that now. I mean, I think it was probably the right call at the time. We didn’t know anything. But if I’d told them then, maybe they wouldn’t have been so… unprepared.
It was still pouring, outside. I was drenched before I even made it to the tree line. But I sat down there and I told myself I wasn’t going to move until I felt like myself again. If that never happened… then it never happened. But I wasn’t going to kill any of my friends.
I thought I was going to die out there.
But then, finally, the sun set, and all at once I was just- fine. Like I could breathe again, and all the red was gone, and my hands stopped shaking. I felt exhausted, too, like I had no energy left at all, but I was too relieved to be able to think again to even really notice.
The rain was finally letting up, too. I got up- almost fell on my face- and made my way back to the tent Jimmy and I were sharing to let him know I was feeling better and it was looking like we were going to be able to leave in the morning.
He hugged me as soon as I ducked back inside the tent- which was fantastically stupid, since I was absolutely soaked. Said he was just glad to see me looking like myself again, which was very sweet of him. But we didn’t even really have the time to catch our breath before all hell broke loose.
Lizzie screamed. Geraldine started barking. And the wolves- or whatever was in the woods- started howling.
I think Jimmy and I both realized at the same time what me getting better had really meant.
Lizzie told me later Geraldine saved the day. She wasn’t paying attention, when it happened, and Joel had a knife. Geraldine got between them, bit Joel hard on the arm- I have to think she knew it wasn’t really him. But it gave Lizzie enough time to realize something was very wrong and get out of the tent before he could shake her off.
Jimmy and I met her in the middle of the campsite. We didn’t really talk about what to do, or anything. There wasn’t time. We just… started running.
It was dark, and getting darker fast, and the ground was all mud. We had a little head start thanks to Geraldine, but I was absolutely exhausted from whatever that weird sickness had been, and Lizzie was hyperventilating and bleeding and we didn’t have time to stop and calm her down with… with Joel and the wolves behind us.
I glanced back, a few times. I had to, you know? I saw them, between the trees. The wolves. They can’t have been wolves, but they were. And Joel was there. He didn’t-
You know, if that’s how I looked when I felt sick, I get why Jimmy was so worried about me. The teeth... eugh.
I still have nightmares about that. Running down the mountain, in the dark and the wet, with the wolves behind us. Honestly, it’s a miracle none of us broke our necks. Jimmy slipped once on a steep ledge, almost went right down a cliff face, and if Lizzie hadn’t caught him he’d be dead, I’ve got no doubts about that.
It felt like we were running forever. It took two hours to hike up the mountain, when we first got there… I have no idea how long it took to get down, but it was definitely longer than two hours. It could’ve been days. It felt like days. Just running, and trying to make sure nobody fell behind, and Joel yelling after us, and the howling. It was hard to make him out from the howling, after awhile.
I don’t know how we made it. But we did. When the car came into view, I almost collapsed. Jimmy was running on a twisted ankle, by that point. Lizzie nearly had to shove us into the car. We had a really terrifying moment where we realized maybe we’d left the car keys with Joel, but they were in Lizzie’s purse, thank god.
I didn’t- we didn’t want to leave him out there. Even once we made it to the car, and Lizzie was behind the wheel, we didn’t want to… he’s our friend. Or he was. He was Lizzie’s husband.
I mean, he would have killed us, but I don’t know if that makes it any better.
They never found him. We told the rangers, obviously, at the first station we found. They launched a search that went for weeks, but they never found Joel, alive or- otherwise. They said our campsite was torn to pieces. Looked like wolves.
There was one more weird thing, after. They sent us all to the hospital from the ranger station- Jimmy’s ankle needed treatment, and Lizzie was hurt and in shock, and they weren’t too happy about me having been out in the rain for hours, either. But Lizzie-
When… Joel had attacked her, she’d described it as him swiping at her with a knife from behind, and Geraldine getting in the way, so she just got a shallow cut. But at the hospital, when they cleaned it up, it didn’t look like a knife wound at all.
It looked like claws.
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[GRIAN]
This was a… surprising one to find. Scott never told me most of this- oh, uh, for the benefit of the tape, Scott’s a friend of mine, and I know Timmy and- well, I knew Joel, too. I called Scott up to ask about this, and he didn’t want to talk about it too much, but, well- he stands by everything he said here.
Joel did disappear three years ago, and the people on that trip were the last ones to see him alive, as least so far as has been reported. Timmy did corroborate Scott’s story, when I called him, though he didn’t have anything additional to offer and couldn’t confirm some details- in particular, he said he couldn’t speak to anything about the sickness Scott described. I couldn’t reach Lizzie, though Scott assures me she’s doing alright.
I don’t really know what to think. Scott’s not a liar, and Timmy might be a bit slow at times but I can’t see him mucking about when it comes to a friend going missing. And he’s right about the wolves. The last reported sighting of a wolf anywhere in Great Britain was in the eighteen hundreds, in Scotland.
I don't know.
If Joel is still out there, I hope he's alright.
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