Christmas Campfire 2024 (Part 2)

December 31, 2024·1 hr 1 min·5 clips

Something grabbed John's ankle and yanked him back into the pitch-black silo as he tried to escape.

Chris Stewart introduces part two of the Christmas Campfire 2024 series, recorded between Christmas and New Year during foggy weather that creates a suitably spooky atmosphere. Listener John from Virginia, a patron member who has listened since season one, submits a detailed story titled "The Spiral Stairs" about his teenage years in a coal belt town along the Ohio River. John's family moved from Michigan to southern Ohio in 1997 when he was nearly 15, shortly after surviving childhood leukemia, settling in a once-prosperous steel manufacturing town now fallen into decline. The abandoned Alpha Portland cement plant stood as a decaying landmark on the town's outskirts, consisting of massive concrete silos and workhouses that hadn't been demolished despite being an eyesore and safety hazard. Local legends claimed the plant was haunted by miners who drowned in basement tunnel collapses, with documented accidents from the 1920s involving gas asphyxiation of 80 miners and a later wall collapse that killed at least five workers and precipitated the plant's closure. Teenage boys regularly trespassed in the ruins despite extreme danger, navigating routes passed down through word-of-mouth that required jumping over gaps with no floors and climbing through structurally compromised sections. John describes feeling the building was somehow alive and hostile, wanting trespassers to leave or pay a price, creating oppressive dread in the lower levels that made kids act recklessly once reaching open air at the top. The plant could only be accessed safely via two routes: the long climb up Tower Three or the spiral stairs descent through Tower One, which served as the secret shortcut exit used when being pursued or for safety. On one summer day in 1998, John and friends spent hours inside escaping the heat before deciding to leave through the spiral stairs. Each teen descended alone into the 100-foot-deep silo one by one, waiting at the top for signals from below before proceeding down the wobbly, groaning metal staircase into near-total darkness. As the last person down, John reached the silo base and climbed the rubble pile to the broken wall opening. With his head and shoulders outside, something grabbed his left ankle and violently yanked him backward down the rubble pile into the dark silo base. He pulled out his switchblade and flailed wildly in panic, expecting to find an animal or attacker, but despite his vision adjusting, the silo was completely empty with no possible hiding places. When his friend called from outside, John climbed toward the opening again face-down, and as his friend grabbed his wrists to pull him out, invisible hands clamped around both ankles simultaneously, bunching his pant legs and pulling him back toward darkness. The narrative style is literary and evocative, with extensive scene-setting about the industrial decline of the Ohio River valley and poetic descriptions of the cement plant's malevolent atmosphere. John's writing balances detailed historical context with visceral fear, creating a slow-building dread that culminates in the supernatural encounter. The story fits audiences interested in true paranormal experiences, abandoned location exploration, and coming-of-age encounters with the unexplained, particularly those who appreciate detailed atmospheric horror.

As heard by us

A seasonal campfire of fog, Tower One, wolf-moon unease, and late-night stories.

Christmas Campfire Part Two for 2024 stays close to its seasonal, listener-led shape, opening on a dark city under sea fog before giving way to the stories.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Sea fog, dark stairs, and a wolf moon make this your odd year-end listen.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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