DO NOT GO TO THE SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS!
I’m Cori and about 15 years ago I was the leader of Boy Scout Troop 187 in Mesa, Arizona. Our troop was led and organized by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so everyone in it was (in some way) a member of the church. We would go on monthly campouts across the state, but almost always south of Mesa and the Phoenix Metropolitan Area in Casa Grande or some other rocky, scorpion-infested wasteland. I didn’t see green trees outside of an over-watered park or that weren’t made of plastic until I was in my late teens.
Anyway, we live near Apache Junction, one of the last cities on the eastern-most part of the Phoenix Metro. It’s the kind of place where cookie-cutter houses caked in weathered stucco mixed with ill-maintained homes with sagging rooves and yards overgrown with desert shrubs that may as well have been barbed wire. The city itself was like lichen clinging to the edges of the Phoenix Valley; lit by flickering incandescent lights that hadn’t been serviced in years. Every morning, as the sun rose from behind the Superstitions, the shadows cast by the jagged rocks were dragged away from the city like claws sinking back beneath the brown monoliths.
That image is burned into my brain. I remember waking up before dawn in the second-story ballroom of some old dance studio that had long-since been converted into storage units and watching the shadowy talons slink away from the building. I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that we had been just out its reach; that it’s darkness had been clawing at the building, desperate to get in, but had somehow failed before the sun rose.
The building was owned by a member of the church who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew our adult leader. I remember feeling weird when we first arrived. Our plan was to get to the campsite that Friday night, as we only had until Saturday afternoon before we had to return home. (Mormons don’t camp on Sundays.) We had taken too long to get at the church meeting house before leaving because one of the boys had detention at their high school. The building owner was waiting for us outside when we arrived. He seemed nervous. He kept wringing his hands and fumbled with his keyring for what felt like a solid five minutes.
“Glad you’re spending the night here,” he said. Our adult chaperone was not thrilled. We had planned a hike that was going to take at least 3-4 hours, which had to be cut short because the turn-around time it would take in one day was going to stretch our journey from dawn until dusk. It was against our church’s policy to keep us that late, so we were going to stay in this weird storage/dance studio for the night, wake up, do a quick hike to what was basically going to be the first resting point (a small nook wedged between two cliffs) and then turn around and head home. Half the troop was visibly disappointed and so was our chaperone, but some of boys were relieved. Why hike when you could just do “Wii Fit” which had come out two months ago.
“Why are you glad?” one boy asked. The building owner forced a smile and finally found the key to the front door. He swung it open and led us inside.
“It’s bad luck, ya know?” he said. “They don’t call ‘em the Superstitions for nothin’.”
At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. I was a privileged white kid from a Christian religion. I had no idea that the mountains were sacred; that they got their name from some strange, supernatural forces that plagued them. I couldn’t have known from my sheltered world what they truly were.
That morning, after the shadows had retreated and we had a sugary breakfast of donuts and orange juice (a combination that never fails to make me nauseous even to this day), we decided to head out. We left our stuff behind, taking only our GPS tracker, compasses (we were all trained how to use them), walking sticks, first aid kits, water, and a couple snacks. Some of us even brought those Boy Scout Manuals. We set off, driving to the nearest parking lot in the desert, loading our pockets with granola bars and gummy bears, and then began our hike.
The trail was rough. Nowadays, after having transitioned into an office job and giving up on exercise since the Pandemic, I couldn’t fathom making that hike with my worn-out body. Back then, though, I was fit as a fiddle. My friends said I was pudgy, but I could keep up with them without much difficulty, much to the annoyance of the very athletic boys.
About two hours in and we decided to take our first break. The kid who got detention wanted to pee because he refused to go before we left. While we waited around for him, we took shelter from the sun in a small outcropping of haphazardly stacked boulders. We told him not to wander too far, but he gave us the bird and climbed over a small ledge to be out of sight. We sat around eating granola and talking about homework for a solid minute before we started chanting “hurry up! hurry up!” to the kid we were waiting for.
That’s when it happened.
“Hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry–”
“HUAAAAAH!”
It wasn’t his voice. It was a woman’s voice - shrill and sharp - and it was coming from the other side of the boulders, the opposite direction from him. My mouth slammed shut and my eyes bulged wide. I looked at our troop and all of them were doing the same. Some were stifling laughter. Some looked really confused. Our chaperone though… he looked concerned. He leapt to his feet and we started to follow him like baby ducks but he waved his hand at us to stay still. We waited.
A chill ran up my spine. I could hear my heartbeat slamming in my chest, but I couldn’t hear anything else. I couldn’t even hear the wind. Instinctively, I licked my finger and raised it into the air. The air had gone completely still. To make things worse, it had also dropped about 10 degrees. Was I having a cold flash? I looked around. The kid who had gone off to pee was nowhere in sight. I tapped the arm of the boy closest to me and pointed at the ledge he climbed and the boy nodded, as if he had had the same thought at the same time. We’re never supposed to go anywhere without a buddy, unless we had to use the bathroom.
This boy and I got up. We made our way to the ledge. Our boots were crunching the gravel and dirt so loud that you’d think we were tap dancing on broken glass. We heard a hiss of a whisper behind us. We looked back at the group to see who made the noise, but they were looking this way and that, clearly confused as to where it came from. I gripped my walking stick like a bat and continued towards the ledge.
BANG!
A gunshot rang out.
We scattered like roaches under a light. I don’t remember much of what happened next. It was a blur. I think I was sprinting towards the ledge before I jumped off it into a pile of rocks. The kid we were waiting for was lying on the ground in front of me. His eyes were wide, he was shivering, his lips were blue, and when he saw me, he screamed.
Another gunshot.
Who was shooting? And at what?
I grabbed the kid but his body felt like ice and I recoiled in reaction. He looked at me; his eyes were pleading, his face was contorted in terror.
“It stood up!” he said. “It stood up! It stood up like a person!”
A chill shot down my back. I felt like I was going to be sick.
Our chaperone was shouting our names. One by one, the boys sounded off and I could hear running. They were gathering. Emergency protocol. The chaperone was supposed to do a roll call, we were supposed to get as close to him as we could, and then we were supposed to go. I reached down and pulled the kid to his feet.
“It stood up on its own! It looked at me!”
“Come on!” I said. At the time, all I could think about was gunfire and the rest of the boys. He pulled him up the ledge and waved the walking stick in my other hand, signaling my position.
“DON’T MOVE!” the chaperone shouted and I froze in place. I encircled my arms around the kid and we waited just below the ledge. He was shivering and I could feel the cold in his body seeping into mine. This is where everything became hazy. I don’t remember much after this so I emailed my former troopmates. Only a handful of them are still alive. More than half died young (unrelated, I think). What they told me makes almost no sense.
They said I had been waving my stick until the chaperone had told me not to move. When I ducked back down under the ledge, the rest of the boys were standing behind our chaperone, who had a pistol that he carries with him everywhere. They say he was pointing it at something walking on the ledge, two bullet holes in its chest, blood dropping into the dirt. It was like some kind of mountain lion that had been horribly disfigured. One person said it looked like a dog or wolf, but was too catlike. Another insists that it was rabid. They describe the same slack-jawed expression, the limp tongue, the sagging skin that looked more like it was draped over a beast’s skull rather than growing naturally around it. It let out a scream. Not a howl, not a growl, just a scream.
I don’t remember any of this. I do remember being wrapped in a tarp and several sleeping bags back at the dance studio next to a pile of other bags and tarps that I presumed was the kid I found. We were both experiencing symptoms of hypothermia and were delirious. Apparently, in stupor or sleep or whatever, I had been muttering everyone’s names. It makes sense because I think I was mentally going through emergency protocol; sounding off and making sure everyone was okay. The kid had apparently been repeated “it stood up” over and over until they got him back to the studio.
They say the chaperone shouted at it and the mountain lion slowly limped away before disappearing behind the boulders. They found us and carried us down the mountain on their backs, taking turns.
After I came to in the studio/storage building, I felt warm very quickly and got out from under the pile of fabric and plastic. I felt a lot better and, in fact, felt sort of thrilled. Maybe the stress had converted to adrenaline. Maybe the boys cheering me on for surviving/finding the kid was affirming. I felt brave.
I don’t anymore. Not after what happened a year later when we went back…
to be continued. part 1 of 3.