An Incident at Devil's Lake

With the sun dipping behind the trees, a group of six climbers found themselves the last remaining souls in the woods. Lee struggled to hold himself on the overhang as Kat and Jenny spotted him with their arms held out and Elias squatted on the ground, prepared to shift the crash pad if needed. Isaac had been wandering farther and farther away for the past ten or so minutes, occasionally stopping to cram his hand in a crack, but he remained within Daphne’s view as she lounged in a hammock. 

Swinging her legs over the edge, Daphne brought her SLR camera to her eye, watching carefully through the viewfinder and snapping a photo at the exact moment Lee fell to the ground. “You good?” she shouted through the bare spring trees.

Lee stood up, brushed himself off, and gave a thumbs up. 

Elias patted him on the back. “You were so close. Spot me?”

Stepping aside, Lee swapped places, dragging the crash pad closer to the start of the route. Elias covered his hands in chalk, squatted down, and pulled himself into the rock. He shut out the sound of Daphne’s shutter in the distance and the cheering of his friends as he ascended the rock. When he reached the crux, the same difficult position that Lee had fallen off of, Elias let out an annoyed groan before straightening his arms and hanging for a second. He took three quick, deep breaths, then swung himself up and into the rock, his fingers barely grasping the edge of the crack. 

A chorus of “you got it!”, “great job!” and “keep going!” erupted from everyone behind him. Elias held on, the flat edge of the top of the rock was within arm’s reach. He stared at it. He felt the raw skin of his fingers aching. His arms began shaking as he held himself on. Inching his left hand up the crack. Elias drew three quick, deep breaths and went for it. The top of the rock had a layer of loose dirt covering it. His fingers slipped right off, sending him falling towards the ground. Kat and Jenny caught his arms and head as Lee frantically kicked the crash pad beneath him.

“You good?” Daphne shouted. 

Getting to his feet, Elias gave a shaking thumbs up. “I might be done for the day,” he announced solemnly. After a long day of climbing, he needed to rest his aching muscles and bandage his raw skin. Kat and Jenny examined their own hands and agreed. With a growling stomach and a nasty scrape on his knee, Lee nodded his head. “I think we’re gonna leave!” he shouted over to Daphne. 

Glancing woefully at her red and swollen ankle, Daphne replied, “Yeah, we should probably leave while we still have people capable of setting up the tents.” She packed up her camera and searched the woods for Isaac’s bright orange T-shirt. Unable to spot him, she shouted his name until he reappeared. “We’re heading out to the campsite.”

The six college students had woken up at six on a Saturday and piled food, tents, sleeping bags, and climbing gear into Lee’s pick up truck and Jenny’s sedan. A two hour drive brought them to Devil’s Lake at nine and a ten minute hike from a dirt road took them to the rock formations in the middle of the woods.

And after eight hours outside, as the sun cast long shadows across the dry forest floor, the six climbers packed up their gear and prepared to hike back to their cars. Climbing shoes were clipped to their backpacks, crash pads were strapped to their backs, and bag straps were looped over their arms. Lee picked up the plastic container of food and the group set off.

As the hour approached six, Jenny found herself lost in the maze of roads that connected the campsites. Elias attempted to navigate from the passenger seat, but, with no cell service, was forced to use the paper map he purchased at a Kwik Trip on the way. He had no experience using a paper map, and had mostly purchased it for kicks, but the page dedicated to Devil’s Lake Park was proving more useful than Google Maps at the moment.

“Kat says they just pulled up,” Daphne said from the backseat. The two were on the phone, although the call kept breaking up. 

“Well, tell her we don’t know where we are,” Jenny commented. She exhaled sharply, rolling a little under the speed limit and scanning the surroundings. “Hey, this is where Lee got a flat tire last year! We’re close!”

“Oh! Entrance, entrance, entrance …” Elias traced the roads of the map. “We’re on Park Road! Follow it until you see campsite signs.”

“They’re starting to set up the tents,” Daphne said. “Get the fire going, Kat, we’re starving. Hello? Hello?” Daphne hung up and slipped her phone into her pocket. Pulling her camera back out of its bag, she began flipping through the photos she had taken. Most of her photos were of the spring nature of Devil’s Lake; leafless trees, dead leaves, unsprouted flowers, and rocks. Interspersed with the nature photos were action shots of her friends climbing, falling, and waving from the tops of routes. “Oh, I got a great photo of Lee falling off that one route,” she laughed. “A little cropping and he’ll look like he’s falling to his death.”

“There’s Lee’s truck!” Elias shouted.

Startled, Jenny slammed on the brakes, instantly throwing the speed from six to zero. “Finally,” she said with relief. Pulling into the campsite, Jenny began unloading the car, Elias aided with starting a fire, and Daphne sat atop the rickety wooden picnic table, elevating her ankle, and took more photos. 

By the time the campsite was set up, the six climbers were sweaty, sticky from the heat, and still covered in dirt and chalk. Daphne, desperate to clean her hands before preparing her hot dog, set off in search of a bathroom. Cutting through the green grass, she eyed the other campgrounds. It was one of the first warm weekends of the year and on that mid-April day, most of the campers were families. The young college students were surrounded on three sides by small children running around with limited supervision. When a six-year-old ran into Daphne from behind, she sped towards the bathroom. 

The small one-story building in the middle of the campground had eight one-seater bathrooms, all of which were locked. Daphne circled the building, pulling on every door, until she turned away, exasperated. Scanning the open field for a functioning bathroom, she spotted a water fountain a few yards away. That didn’t work either. “Dammit,” she said. She turned around and spotted another small child staring at her. Ignoring him, she started off towards the only other man-made structure in sight, which she soon discovered was an outhouse with two stalls and a hand sanitizer dispenser. Smothering her hands in white foam, she returned to the campsite and reported on the situation. 

“Look, we’re all starving,” Jenny began, “so let’s just eat first, then walk down to the lake and clean up a bit.”

“I like that idea.” Daphne picked up a long, thin stick from the ground and stabbed it into a hot dog. “I want to take some pictures down at the lake before we leave.” Crouching at the fire beside Elias and Lee, she stared at the flames dancing and licking the sides of her dinner. 

Kat laughed, sitting in the dirt across the firepit. “You should take some photos of the flames.”

Daphne nodded. She still had her camera around her neck, and she lifted it to her eye and snapped a few photos of the hot dogs in the flames, then a few distant shots of the trees that lined the campsite. 

When dinner was eaten and cleaned up, Kat, Elias, and Lee took the first trip down to the lake. The others sat around the campfire, chatting mindlessly and tossing twigs into the flames. By the time Kat, Elias, and Lee returned — each of them with a T-shirt and shorts over their soaking wet underwear — they stumbled into a heated argument about the existence of Mothman. As the three soaking wet campers pulled a small log up to the campfire, Jenny, Daphne, and Isaac put on their sandals and started down the road towards the lake. 

Isaac twirled a stick in the air, presenting his theory on Mothman. “Obviously if he is a real entity, he is some sort of alien who flew down. That’s why he has wings.” He accentuated his words with the stick, using it as a pointer.

“Oh, don’t tell me you believe in aliens, too.” Jenny rolled her eyes.

“Of course I believe in aliens.”

“Aliens aren’t real!” Daphne added. “All your evidence comes from The X Files, and let me tell you, Isaac, the truth is not out there.”

“Yeah,” Jenny laughed, moving a few steps away from Isaac. “The truth is down here.” She kicked a stone across the cement, sending it into the dirt. The ambient sounds of the park swallowed the last of their conversation, until Jenny interrupted it with a new thought, “Have you guys ever heard about the Beast of Bray Road? Old Wisconsin legend where I grew up.” Isaac and Daphne shook their heads, launching Jenny into the lore of the local cryptid until they reached the sandy shore of Devil’s Lake. 

Stripping into their underwear, the three waded into the water. Daphne knelt down, scrubbing the freezing water over her arms and legs. Once satisfied that the chalk was gone from her skin, she shivered and dashed back for the shore. Bouncing on her uninjured foot, she took out her camera and snapped a few shots of her friends splashing each other. Approaching the water, she crouched down, hovering the lens just above the small waves and blindly taking more photos. 

With Isaac and Jenny splashing around in the water, Daphne limped her way down the beach, trying her best to take photos of the grass, the sand, and the concessions building until they called her back down. The three slipped their clothes over their wet underwear and started trekking barefoot through the grass, back to the campsite.

The sun was halfway gone. The daylight was slipping away. The six climbers sat around their campfire, the flames illuminating their faces as they swapped stories of past camping trips. As the night drew on their voices grew quieter, save a few moments of raucous laughter and excitement, when their joy filled the air for a fleeting minute.

Daphne continuously stared up at the sky, hoping the clouds would dissipate and reveal the full beauty of the night sky. She kept her camera around her neck, occasionally turning it on to capture a snapshot of the campfire and the ghastly faces that surrounded it. When the day ended and midnight approached, only the six climbers and their neighbors across the road still had roaring fires. Twisting around, nearly knocking Elias off of their log, Daphne squinted through the viewfinder and pressed the shutter closed. She took a moment to flip through the photos of the neighboring campsite. The five adults were silhouetted by their fire, one of them throwing his hands upwards in the dramatic recitation of a ghost story. Elbowing Elias, she showed him the photo without interrupting Jenny’s tale. 

Struggling not to break into laughter, Jenny explained the story of a physics lab gone wrong. As she mimed the motions of setting up a catapult, she looked up to see Daphne with her camera to her eye. She smiled for the photo without pausing.

With her camera still pressed against her one open eye, Daphne began to lean back, aiming her lens higher and higher. She snapped photos of the woods behind Jenny until she stared straight up into the sky. A small gap in the clouds gave way to the stars above. Just as the gap formed into a perfect circle, Daphne pressed the shutter button, knowing this would be the best shot of the weekend. Smiling, she turned off her camera and stood to tuck it safely inside the tent. 

In the morning, the campsite was in distress. As the sun rose and light returned to the campground, the frantic disarray became apparent as other visitors walked past, wondering why they had not heard any disturbances the night before. The two tents lay on the ground, ripped open from the inside as the occupants had fled. The six climbers were nowhere to be found, but everything they had brought with them was left behind. There was no blood or even footprints trailing away from the dry dirt.

The campsite remained untouched until later that afternoon, when another group came to set up their tents in the same spot. A park ranger was called, and then the police, after no one could get into contact with the missing climbers. 

Among the items left behind were a Swiss Army knife — opened on the largest blade — a bottle of lighter fluid that had spilled into the dirt, and a camera. As search parties combed through the woods of Devil’s Lake, police combed through the photos taken on the camera, learning the story of the six climbers. 

The first dozen photos were from the trip to the park. A man stood in line at a convenience store, a woman pumped gas, a monarch butterfly sat on a Kwik Trip sign. When the six arrived at the park, they parked on a dirt road lined with cars, then hiked through the woods to their climbing spot. The photos of them bouldering spanned most of the day. 

There was an hour-long gap in the timestamps of the pictures before a few shots of the campfire in daylight, and the next several dozen were taken at the lake. 

The final set of photos were taken in the night, during an animated conversation around the campfire. The bright orange glow lit up their faces and threw everything else into shadow. A woman smiled for the camera from through the flames, her ghastly face barely recognizable. The next six photos slowly tilted upwards, until the camera was pointed at a gap in the clouds. The five between the woman and the sky were of the bare trees, but a closer look at the second revealed a shadow standing among them. It was almost human in form, with one arm hugging a tree and the other outstretched towards the climbers. The shadow towered over the heads of the climbers, looking down on them. It had no features, other than a set of sharp white teeth that glinted off the light of the fire, as if hungry. 

In the years that have passed since the incident at the Devil’s Lake campsite no sign of the six climbers has been found. Some claim to have spotted them running through the woods or standing along a deserted road at night, but these claims are unsubstantiated. No one knows what caused them to flee, silently, without waking one of the hundred or so campers that surrounded them. The human-like form caught in only one photo receives most of the blame, but the bodies of the six climbers have never been recovered, and their former campsite remains regularly uninhabited. Those who have dared to sleep in the campsite with the small plaque have reported scratching at their tents and the sounds of whispers in the night. Sometimes even the clicking of a camera shutter can be heard among the sounds of the trees, with no one in sight.