Hugo's Monster

[Nightspren]

So, I recently came back from Boy Scout summer camp, and there was a campfire story there that was highly anticipated for the the first year campers, with older boys dropping hints and the promise of hearing the story sometime during the week. Finally, in the middle of the week, so we could have equal parts anticipatory fear and nightmarish certainty. This is the story as best I can recall.

The nightmarish sightings occurring at Worth Ranch have continued for as long as people can remember. The sightings are irregular, never more than two every summer, and large numbers of years have passed between sightings. Even so, one sighting can put the entire camp in fear for months to come. All sightings have one thing in common: the thing in the dark is big, black, and walks on two legs. Even more disturbing is the summer the staff found a man frozen in terror behind the dining hall, flashlight pointing straight up at the trees.

Perhaps it will be good to explain how all this came to be. The tale of the good doctor Hugo.

During the early 1900s, there was once a man named Hugo, who had just graduated from medical school at the top of his class. There was only one thing barring his career as a successful doctor: an obsession with the grafting of different body parts. It started out as a humanitarian endeavor; Hugo was especially fond of grafting a dead animal's leg onto a different animal who had injured itself in an accident. Soon, however, he moved on to transplanting kidneys, eyes, even lungs and hearts-and with less and less concern for his animal patients.

When the townspeople found out about Hugo's morbid experiments, he was driven out of town and forced to start somewhere else. When he arrived at his new home, he vowed never to go back to his old experiments. The young man had gone mad, however, and the voices in his head would not let him cease. Inevitably, the neighbor's pets started disappearing and the man was driven out of town. And so the cycle continued, until Doctor Hugo found the town of Palopinto, Texas.*

Here, in Palopinto, Hugo resolved to stay as far away from the town as possible, so he lugged his equipment up to Kyle Mountain (the largest mountain in the area) and set up his laboratory inside a cave there. One night, the voices in his head gave him his new goal: to transplant a human brain.

The only thing townspeople noticed was the lack of good hunting around Kyle Mountain until one day, a large crate arrived in the train station addressed to one Doctor Hugo. When the sheriff heard of this, he remembered the strange tales he had heard about Hugo, he went to the train station to confiscate the crate as evidence, but no avail-Hugo had already collected the crate and brought it back to his laboratory.

Two days passed, and a rancher's daughter was presumed kidnapped when her horse appeared about an hour after she went for a ride. Distraught, the old rancher gave a piece of his daughter's clothing to police bloodhounds to track her scent. After hours of searching, they finally found Hugo's cave-and a horrific sight. There was blood everywhere, but that wasn't the worst. The crate had held a large African gorilla, and this was the creature Hugo had used to transplant a human brain. The little girl's body had died when Hugo removed her brain, and the gorilla into which it had been transplanted was unconscious in a cage. Worst of all, though, was Hugo, lab coat stained red, laughing maniacally.

When the police and the rancher recovered from their horror, they leveled their shotguns and revolvers at the doctor. He turned towards them, and his expression turned deadly. "DONT MOVE!" he shouted. "I'VE GOT THE WHOLE PLACE RIGGED WITH DYNAMITE! ONE STEP AND I'LL BLOW US ALL SKY HIGH!"

The rancher, mad with rage and horror, didn't listen and shot Hugo in the shoulder. "You asked for it," was the last thing he ever said. Only one officer escaped to tell the tale, a young man who stayed outside the cave the entire time.

There must have been a back door or secret entrance, because a year later, the sightings started occurring. The first was the only one that happened during daylight. A rancher saw a large black thing carrying off its cattle, so he shot it in the arm. The thing screamed in a little girl's voice and ran away.

Many have theorized against the authenticity of this theory, and I am inclined to agree. With our current understanding of medical science, brain transfers are impossible. Much more likely is that the story was composed after the sightings to explain such things. Many things are unsure in this story, but one thing we can be certain of: There is something lurking in the woods around Palopinto.

So what do you think? This is my first time relating an actual legend, not just a really bad creepypasta, so keep that in mind.

[spud the mackem]

cool story.

[Scandal]

cool story bro.

[Nightspren]

I shan't tell it again.

[Redefining Success]

why would it scream with a girls voice?

[Guest Nathan DiYorio]

why would it scream with a girls voice?

The truth of that matter is because it is a work of fiction, and vocal transfer often accompanies a transplant of the mind in such material.

If I were to lend credence to an authentic origin for the tale, however, it would be because a number of primates (though not gorillas) create very shrill, high-pitched vocalizations which I supposes someone unacquainted with the noises might mistake for a girl's scream.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Nathan DiYorio

[Redefining Success]

The truth of that matter is because it is a work of fiction, and vocal transfer often accompanies a transplant of the mind in such material.

If I were to lend credence to an authentic origin for the tale, however, it would be because a number of primates (though not gorillas) create very shrill, high-pitched vocalizations which I supposes someone unacquainted with the noises might mistake for a girl's scream.

I was making the point that the creature wouldnt scream with a girls voice after a brain transplant, but you made the same point.

[Kenemet]

One jarring note for us westerners (wouldn't show up in a speaking role) is that "Palopinto" is actually spelled "Palo Pinto."

And I wouldn't have the "transplant the limb of dead animals" but rather "removing organs from animals or fresh corpses and transplanting them into other animals." Body parts start to decay after death unless they're kept in special conditions.