Twisted by the Pool (1005 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.95 on 29 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (View user info) at 2006-05-04 08:27:51 EDT
There is a little known place in the Black Hills of South Dakota that has a few different names; Hippy Hole, Hippy Hollow, we called it the pool.
Several miles from any road it is only accessible on foot. Those who take the hike through the dense pine woods, over boulders, and sometimes through poison ivy, are rewarded at the end with a cool swim at one of the prettiest swimming holes imaginable. The pool sits in a hollow, surrounded by a half moon crescent of rock over which flows a small waterfall. Opposite the rocks the pool closes up again to feed the creek that creates the waterfall.
I can't tell you how many summer days we spent there swimming, jumping from the rocks (a good twenty foot drop), and plugging up the waterfall. Plugging up the waterfall was my favorite, if you set two or three people in it about four feet from the edge you could plug up the flow enough to allow another person to sit at the rock edge, once the water had built up enough everyone would pile out and the resulting rush of water would shoot the rider out over the cliff and into the pool.
Now that I think about it, the pool was just as much about the rock ledge as it was the pool; jumping from it, sunbathing on it, maybe sharing a bowl, it was the only place to be if you weren't in the water. I suppose that ultimately is why It chose to strike there.
Growing up in the Black Hills you hear stories of weird occurrences, hauntings, and even mythical creatures. Unfortunately there's so much legend in the hills that it's easy to disregard the stories and disbelieve them. I hate to admit now, as one of the few survivors of that fateful trip, that we'd all been warned off the pool, we'd all heard the stories, we'd all heard that it had a mind of its own. But like so many other kids we didn't believe it until it was too late, until we'd experienced it ourselves.
It was another summer day in the Black Hills. Sunny and hot, oppressively hot, we decided to go to the pool. Bill drove me, Aaron, Jude, Kristi, and Jen to the trail head. We grabbed the cooler of beer and sandwiches Kristi had put together and started the long hike. There was enough of a breeze to make the needles of the surrounding pines whisper but not enough to provide any relief from the heat of the day. Where the trail gave way to large boulders and rock, the heat shimmered in the air with that metallically liquid shine you see when heat bounces off pavement. Aside from whispering pines and our own jostling over the trail there was no other sound in the forest.
When we finally reached the pool, sweat dripping from head to toe, we were ready for our effort's reward. Everything was unceremoniously dropped on the rock ledge and each of us in turn jumped from the rocks to the cool water below. It always amazed me just how cold that water felt when you jumped into it for the first time. The creek that fed the pool was mostly comprised of snow melt runoff from the higher hills so it never really warmed up. It was literally breathtaking, near heat exhaustion, hitting that frigid water made even the toughest of us shriek like twelve year old girls upon our return to the surface.
We all climbed back up and started taking turns on the waterfall ride until finally our appetites got the best of us. Passing out the beer and sandwiches we settled down to eat and enjoy each others company. Looking back I know this is when it happened.
Bill, usually a slow eater at best, bolted his sandwich down as though he hadn't eaten in weeks. He then slammed his beer and let out an impressive belch that even got a laugh from the girls. As the laughter gave way to conversation again Bill stood up and said to no one in particular "I'll do it. Watch this you guys, I'm gonna do it today."
All of us chuckled at this show of bravado on Bill's part because we knew he was talking about the big jump. The big jump involved a climb to a shelf of rock a good sixty feet above the water, a jump from the shelf over a pine tree growing right next to the cliff the shelf sat atop, and finally into the waiting water below.
I've made the big jump once and I can tell you it's scary as hell. You have to take a running jump to clear the pine tree and when I jumped I either imagined or actually felt the top of the tree brush my legs as I fell past it.
We laughed because Bill had made the climb several times only to back out, he could never bring himself to do it. I stopped laughing when I saw the look in Bill's eyes and started to feel sick as I watch him lurch to the cliff to begin the climb. Bill doesn't normally lurch; Bill is usually a fairly graceful person. Scarier still was the jerky way he started climbing up the cliff, looking like some freakish praying mantis with his herky jerky movements as he grabbed for footholds and handholds.
I didn't notice, while watching Bill, that Jude, Aaron and Jen had all got up and started toward the cliff too. "We'll come with Bill." I started to hear them say it in unison and apparently Kristi had too.
They lurched to the cliff much like Bill had and began clamoring for space to start the climb.
"Hey, come on guys, this isn't funny."
They didn't reply or even acknowledge I'd said anything. Suddenly Jen started shouting. "Fucking stop it! Get down! You guys are scaring me!"
"She's right guys, you're kind of scaring me too."
By this time Bill had reached the top. I watched horrified as instead of waiting, instead of taking a breather, he stepped off the ledge. He stepped off! There's no way to make it without the running leap and he didn't He feel silently from the top into the top of the pine tree and I watched, barely hearing Jen's scream as his body twisted and turned all the way to the edge of the pool finally coming to a stop with a loud wet crunching noise.
I wasn't thinking. I should have known he couldn't have survived that. I dove into the water, thoughts of helping my friend the only thing going through my mind. When I came to the surface and began swimming for shore it seemed as though sound, sound I hadn't noticed was missing, washed back into the world; the caw of a crow, the rush of the water, and Jen's shrill screams. I looked up in time to see Aaron reach the top of the big jump and take exactly the same step Bill had taken only to lie twisted by the pool, next to his friend, no longer part of this world.
Frantically I swam the rest of the way, noticing the rivulets of blood slowly ebbing into the pool from my friend's broken bodies. Looking up I saw Jude and Kristi still trying to climb the cliff in the same stilted, jerky, manner I'd seen Bill climb it and I realized that they would share the same fate if I couldn't stop them.
I broke from the bloody water near my friends bodies and started climbing back up to the ledge. As soon as I reached the ledge I turned to the big jump cliff and began climbing as quickly as I could but I was already winded and tired from swimming and climbing. I could tell Kristi would reach the top before I could possibly hope to catch her.
Pushing as hard as I could, climbing as fast as I could I nearly fell when I saw Kristi fall past me, tumbling through the tree and repeating the loud crunching wet smack as her body hit the rocky shore of the pool.
I started crying then, crying for my friends now no more than twisted bodies. Crying as I climbed, gaining on Jude. Jude, my best friend, nearing the top of the cliff never responded to Jen's screams or my frantic shouts. Jude slipped, hanging on with one hand then pulling himself back up. That mistake was nearly enough, as he reached the top I got within grabbing distance. As he clamored over the top I found a surge of energy and nearly leapt up the cliff face. As my friend, closer than my own brother, began to walk to the edge, I got to my feet on the shelf of rock. Grabbing Jude's shirt I pulled, hoping to pull him to safety and instead found myself holding his shirt. I rushed to the edge and was in time to see Jude crash into the cliff face, detoured from his fall by my grab at him, and then bounce out through the tree and into the water.
It haunts me still today. I could have sworn that Jude had snapped out of it when I grabbed his shirt and instead of the seemingly mindless fall of my other friends endured a conscious encounter of pain. It haunts me because before he hit the cliff his eyes met mine and I could see he was back, confused but conscious.
Holding onto a last hope I back up and made the big jump. Hitting the water my momentum carried me under. As I started to fight for the surface I opened my eyes and began to search for Jude. I finally found him, when I broke the surface, one more body lying twisted by the pool.
Jen and I hiked out together and told the story of our friends. The authorities refused to reclaim the bodies citing the problems they've had there before so Jen and I returned, with several other friends, to try to bury our friends. When we got back to the pool we found our friends twisted bodies gone.
I've added this story to the tales of the Black Hills in the hopes that someone pays heed and avoids that pool. I fear that just like my friends and I that the warning will be ignored and that some day more kids will see their friends lying twisted by the pool.
User Reviews
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2008-04-07 15:38:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ozzy (user info) at 2006-05-09 06:20:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
Submitted by legallady (user info) at 2006-05-06 21:16:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
the quarry...damn. Memories.
Submitted by jojojojoan (user info) at 2006-05-06 20:40:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
NEEDS MORE COWBELL.
Submitted by hot_pocket (user info) at 2006-05-05 17:06:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ill give you a plus two but, what im confused about, is why would they all just 'step off' the rock..if they had known and seen other people do the jump and seen whoever in front of them just die, would they keep going? and so then, what? like, your dead friends were never heard of again?
it was a good story but it was just eerie, like they were lemmings or zombies or in a trance or something....
good read though, good story...theres a place like that out where i live, almost exactly as you described it...waterfalls, crescent, big jump...etc
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2006-05-05 16:41:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good read...it had a nice flow of someone really re-telling the story.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-05-05 09:35:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I know, I chuckled when I saw your first review. The funny thing is in all the years I went swimming there and even hearing all the stories of skinny dipping etc there, I never thought of it that way. You are dirty and I like it.
incidently, if you google hippy hole sd, which I did in hopes there'd be pictures of this particular spot in the world, all you find actually regarding THAT hippy hole is something about it being a place for naturalists who want to take a nekkid swim. I could not follow the link as the damn network nazis here deemed that as offensive content.
Submitted by kimberly (user info) at 2006-05-05 09:18:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-05-05 09:12:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Y'see Barry, it's just that well... I'm a hippy - so a Hippy Hole...
never mind. :-)
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-05-05 08:58:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Forgot to mention:
Hippy Hole is a real place that exists much as I described it, though we never called it the pool. People have indeed died there, almost all of them atempting the big jump. I have fond memories of swimming in that swimming hole.
thanks all for reading. Barry
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-05-05 08:45:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent work, as always...
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-05-05 08:40:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hippy Hole?
hee hee hee
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2006-05-05 08:30:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy fuck....
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2006-05-04 16:35:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
a good read
Submitted by Girlwithaclue (user info) at 2006-05-04 16:18:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was good...
I couldn't decide if it was true until the end.
Good Job!
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-05-04 14:37:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice!
Submitted by MichelleNJ (user info) at 2006-05-04 12:41:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff.
Submitted by Sphagnum (user info) at 2006-05-04 12:29:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This was very good
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-05-04 12:28:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This gave me chills.
Wow.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2006-05-04 10:11:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-05-04 10:10:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Reminds me of when I was a lifeguard and a kid broke his leg on the side of the pool jumping off the high dive. Thanks for the recall. :p
Submitted by Heimdallsman (user info) at 2006-05-04 09:59:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good here, good there, good all around.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-05-04 09:43:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Uh huh.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-05-04 09:18:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I did mean to +2 this.
Submitted by MandaPanda (user info) at 2006-05-04 09:07:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good story.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-05-04 09:04:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
whoops, didn't mean to +2 that
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-05-04 08:52:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was written for a comp elsewhere by the way. thanks for reading guys.
Submitted by ess-arr (user info) at 2006-05-04 08:52:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
haven't read anything good in while, thanks.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-05-04 08:40:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment