What's Cooking at Camp Minnow?

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. At first, I thought the old clapboard shack had caught fire, so I ran over to take a look.

Nope, it was just a candle, right there in the front window making the cracks and spider webs look larger than life. I pushed on the wooden door, calling out to whoever was in there. There was no answer.

The door creaked open with that loud howling whine ancient hinges do and what I saw inside made my blood run cold! That was 5 years ago, and every year, on this very night, that same candle burns in that same window. I've never gone back in there, and I've never, ever spoken of what I saw, until now.

The only way I can tell this story is to go back to the very beginning, back to 1986. It was the summer I turned 10.

I was excited to go away at the end of the school year to a brand new summer camp on the banks of Grand Lake, Camp Minnow. Two glorious weeks of fun in the sun - swimming, fishing, hiking, cookouts, games, you name it.

Camp Minnow had 14 bunkhouses, all named after fish. I was in Trout Bunk. Then there was a cookhouse, a dining hall and a staff residence.

I still remember almost everybody that was there. There was my best buddy in the entire world, Jake Jarvis, he was over in Salmon. There were the Boxton twins and a few other kids from away.

My brother, Gene was hired on as a junior counsellor. It was his first real job and boy did he love being paid to boss me around!

And then there was our camp mom, Mama Viv. Her real name was Vivian Bryant. She was old as dirt. Well, not really, she was about 40, but to us, at the time, she was old. She, from what I understood, was a divorced housewife whose marriage fell apart because she couldn't have children.

She was a whiz in the kitchen! They say camp food is supposed to be awful, but at Camp Minnow, the food was better than what I got at home. Mama Viv could cook like a beast!

I remember it being unusually cold and damp that summer and Mama Viv insisted we all have hot meals at both lunch and dinner. She made chocolate chip cookies every morning at the crack of dawn and at breakfast, they were still warm.

Every morning she'd wrap each one of us up in her thick smooth arms and give us a hug. She'd ask how we slept and about our plans for the day. She was a great listener and so kind. What happened at the end of the first week of camp hit her harder than anyone else.

It was a Saturday morning. We all got up at the sound of the horn at 7 am like always. I remember it being cold and rainy like it had been all week.

We all started pulling off our pyjamas and putting on our clothes for the day. I remember I was really hungry. Saturday was pancake breakfast day and I could hardly wait to get some.

I was slipping on my shoes when Josh suddenly asked, "Where's Brian?"

We all stopped and looked around the tiny cabin for the smaller Boxton twin.

I looked at his brother, Brent, "Where's Brian, man?" I asked.

Brent shrugged, looked around again and then replied, "dunno, outhouse maybe?"

Nobody seemed concerned. But I had a terrible feeling deep in the pit of my stomach - a dull achy churning that just materialized out of nothing and wouldn't go away.

We ate breakfast. Still no Brian. I asked Lizzie Borden, a senior counsellor, who preferred to be called Elizabeth for obvious reasons, and who we insisted on calling Lizzie for the same obvious reasons if I could go back to Trout for a minute. I made up some story about forgetting my inhaler.

Really, I wanted to see if Brian was there. I was hoping he'd shown up. No such luck.

I returned to the dining hall and then it was all a blur. I found my brother, I know that much. I told him we couldn't find Brian. I told Mama Viv and she started moving around the hall quickly, with great efficiency, waving her arms, pointing, giving orders, I suppose.

I could see her trembling beneath her cool exterior. Once, she turned and looked at me and I saw the tears in her eyes.

We were all sent back to our bunks. All the counsellors and adult staff searched for Brian.

My brother, Gene stopped in to see how I was. He was pissed off more than anything. He was sure Brian had run off and hid just to see what would happen. It wouldn't have been the first time a Boxton twin had pulled a prank that inconvenienced everyone around them.

They searched all day. They didn't find him. Mama Viv insisted the police and our parents had to be called.

They were. The cops came out and determined that Brian had likely wandered off into the lake and drowned - an unfortunate accident.

Mama Viv busied herself by making food for the search party - a big hearty stew with homemade rolls and rhubarb crumble for dessert. It was the last meal ever served at the camp. We all went home the next day.

Rumour has it Mama Viv was never the same. Lost her mind, they say. The horror of what happened to Brian was too much. She moved back to Minneapolis with her mother and 17 cats.

A few years later, all the camp buildings were torn down, except for the cookhouse. Lots were sold off here and there for holiday-makers, campers and tiny cottages. Everyone had forgotten about Camp Minnow.

Until this very day in 2006. Twenty years to the day Brian disappeared, another camper, a young girl camping with her family and a couple of friends vanished without a trace.

There was an uproar for a while. Those of us old enough to remember Brian felt our bones fill with ice. The similarities were just too much to bear. People stopped coming to Grand Lake.

Then, nothing. All the hoopla, all the fuss died down and the campers started slowly coming back. You can see why. It's a beautiful area. Biggest lake in the province, great fishing, miles upon miles of hiking trails. It's almost perfect.

Then exactly 5 years ago, I came out here with a group of chums. There was me, my buddy Dave, his wife Amber, Amber's sister Joanie and her wife Sonya, and their kids, Jasper, Rudy and Stella.

They were all sitting by the campfire, about 20 feet from the lake, just where the sand ends and the grass starts.

I remember the night like it was yesterday. It was chilly and damp - that kind of night where you wish it would just rain already to get it over with. There wasn't a star in the sky. It was pitch black, except for the light of the fire.

I decided to take a walk, to stretch my legs a little. And that's when I saw what looked like a tiny light across the gravel road, in the old cookhouse.

I made my way over and saw the candle in the window. It was about half-burned, wax dripping down, forming odd shapes on its ever-shrinking pillar. The shadows the candlelight cast were menacing, almost warning of some sort of danger. Huge, dark, monstrous-looking things.

It'd been ages since I'd been in that cabin. I wasn't scared, not really. I haven't been afraid of the dark for a long time. So I pushed that squeaking door open and peered inside.

There he was! The very breath inside my body stopped at the sight of him. I turned to run, but I couldn't move. Fear had gripped me in its paralysis as I stood face to face with him. Pale, almost translucent, with eyes black as the midnight sky sunken into his sallow face. Dark circles framed those dead-looking eyes.

He stood, part human, part something else, I don't know, in tattered clothes that draped over his frame like a sheet. His outline wasn't sharp or defined like a person's would be. It was more fuzzy, floaty, like a ghost, maybe.

His nails were long, curled and filthy. They were sharpened to five very fine points on each hand. I saw them as he gripped a large ladle and stirred an old pot, one of those great big ones, just like Mama Viv's stew pot.

I could see steam coming from the pot. And I could smell something cooking. I couldn't put my finger on what it was exactly.

He smiled at me, but I saw no teeth. His lips were red, a deep, blood red. It was more a grin, a smirk. He continued to stir and said these words as he did:

Welcome to Camp Minnow,

Please enjoy your stay.

But if you're first to fall asleep,

You will not see the day.

It happened to me,

It will happen to you

Silly little sleepy heads

End up in the stew.

Those words sent a shiver down my spine! It was Brian! Brian Boxton. He was the first one to fall asleep that night. He was always the first one.

I ran out of there and never looked back. But I said nothing. What was I going to say?

But every year, on this very day, I go back when the sun goes down. I go back just to see if the candle is there, burning in that window. And every year, it has been.

His words, his sinister face and those talons stirring that pot still haunt me to this day:

Welcome to Camp Minnow,

Please enjoy your stay.

But if you're first to fall asleep,

You will not see the day.

It happened to me,

It will happen to you,

Silly little sleepy heads

End up in the stew.