When your dog starts acting funny, staring, growling at an empty spot of air, that's

gonna be scared of. That's just something the dogs do. And when the neighbor lady, and you

know the one, when she stops you on the street in the morning, it tells you that she

sees things creeping around your house at night. Well, isn't she the kind of person who

sees things everywhere? It's nothing for you to worry about. And when you're coming back

from taking the garbage out, crossing your dark backyard at night, you get a sudden rush

of that feeling that it's something horrible. It's about to burst out of the bushes over

there and chase you down. Well, that's silly. You're just tired. But when your dog wakes

you up, whining, in the middle of a dark midnight, and you roll over and look, and you

see it. You see with your own eyes something that you know for a fact can't possibly be there.

What then? What do you do? Do you stand your ground and try to convince yourself that you must be

dreaming? But if you're dreaming, why can't you wake up? And you know, you can't wake up from

the camp monster's podcast. Usually we wrap our season up in some wild, exotic location.

On a remote beach somewhere, or deep in the mountains, with the trunks of ancient trees like

pillars all around us. So tonight, for this final episode of our 2023 camp monster's season,

tonight we're having a barbecue and our producer Jenny Barber's childhood backyard just

outside of Fresno, California. Pass me that mug, will you? Is this my drink? Well, probably.

Anyway, we're all friends here, right? It's a nice backyard. There's backyards near Fresno,

go. An old swing set over there, some flower beds, a little pool with a diving rock. And this well-loved

grill with some Italian sausages on it. The heat of summer is over. There's a little crispness in

the night air. The dark sky up above and down here, just enough light from the back porch and

streetlights and this little fire from a propane fire ring. And I've got a good stick to Whittle

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