The Campfire Story

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.”

The flashlight shone upwards under Mr. Henderson’s face as he said the words slowly, ominously, leaning into the drama of his story as the campfire crackled and snapped and sent wayward sparks upwards into the night air.

Billy didn’t know Mr. Henderson’s first name. Of course he didn’t. All adults were Mr. This or Mrs. That; big, lumbering creatures full of authority and bereft of first names.

All he knew was that Mr. Henderson was in charge of this little overnight camping expedition, six boys and one adult spending a single night at a remote campground that sat at the end of a long dirt road that seemed to lead forever into the woods.

It was Billy’s first night out. He wasn’t much for the great outdoors, but his best friend Keith had talked him into it; hard-charging Keith, dare-me-to Keith, Keith who would eat a live bug just to freak out his sister and get a laugh from the crowd.

To be honest, though, camping wasn’t that bad. Kind of nice, actually. Like a sleepover, but with knives and fire.

Billy checked the status of his marshmallow impaled on the end of a thin stick and held toward the campfire. The tip of the stick had been sharpened courtesy of Keith and the little pocketknife he couldn’t stop showing off to anyone within shouting distance.

Unfortunately, Billy had miscalculated the proper toasting distance and now his marshmallow sprang to life with a burst of flame. Billy drew it close to his lips, blowing on it quickly to douse the fire as Mr. Henderson continued his campfire ghost story.

“Some said it was a witch who lived in that cabin,” he said, “luring any passersby with that light so she could sacrifice them to her ancient gods. Some said it was an evil spirit who had lived there all the way back to the time of the Indians. And some said…”

“Native Americans.”

It was Johnny who had interrupted him, know-it-all Johnny with his giant round glasses that looked almost like a snorkeling mask.

Mr. Henderson said, “What?”

“You’re supposed to call them Native Americans,” Johnny said.

“Thank you, Johnny,” Mr. Henderson said, placing the flashlight back under his face to start again. “And some said it was an evil spirit that lived there all the way back to the time of the Native Americans. And some said it was a creature from another dimension of time and space, who reached out from beyond the stars to…”

“They call them First Nations in Canada.”

Johnny again, bringing Mr. Henderson’s story to yet another screeching halt.

“Who, Indians?” Keith said, slicing away at another hapless stick for no other reason than it was there.

“Native Americans, dickhead,” Johnny said.

“You’re a dickhead,” Keith said.

“Guys,” Mr. Henderson said. “Let me tell the story.”

“Did they even have nations?” Billy asked. “The In… the Native Americans?”

“Sure,” Johnny said, using the entire palm of his hand to shove his enormous glasses further up on his nose. “There was the Iroquis Confederation, and the Lenape, and a whole bunch of others.”

“Mr. Henderson?” Billy said. “Don’t you want to finish your story?”

“Nope,” Mr. Henderson said, rubbing at his face with both hands. “Nope, I think we can skip it and call it a night.”

The boys broke up into pairs, each duo heading for one of the little tents clustered around the campfire. Billy followed Keith to their tent. It was really Keith’s tent; Billy didn’t have any camping equipment except for the sleeping bag his dad had bought him just that morning.

Keith, though, Keith had it all. Tent, canteen, backpack, even a pocketknife, the pocketknife, the one he couldn’t stop showing off. Even now, lying on their backs in their sleeping bags, Keith had his knife out, holding it up and waving it slowly in the beam of his flashlight.

“Check it,” he said. “This knife is awesome.”

Billy did his best not to sigh. “You showed it to me already.”

“Well,” Keith said. “It’s still awesome.”

Part of what made Keith’s pocketknife obsession so annoying was that it was awesome, and Billy knew it. He didn’t have a pocketknife. His dad had said he wasn’t old enough for one yet, which as far as Billy was concerned, was complete bullshit.

He wasn’t just ready for a pocketknife; he needed one. What if he was out here in the woods, and he needed to cut rope or fight off wolves or something? He was practically helpless without a knife.

Even worse, Keith’s dad had gotten him a really good one. Custom made, and it even had Keith’s initials engraved on the handle. Billy knew all of these details, because Keith refused to shut up about them.

He squirmed a little in his sleeping bag.

“What’s with you?” Keith said.

“I have to piss,” Billy said.

“So go piss,” Keith said.

“Just… anywhere?”

“Yeah, man. The woods are like a giant bathroom.”

“What if you have to take a dump?”

Keith shrugged. “You pull your pants down, lean against a tree, and let fly, my dude.”

“How are you supposed to wipe?”

“You use leaves.”

Billy’s face scrunched up. “That’s gross.”

“What, Mr. Fancy Pants, do you need a bidet to clean off your whistle?” Keith said.

“My whistle?”

“That’s what my dad calls a butthole.”

“Oh,” Billy said. “What’s a bidet?”

“It’s like a water fountain for your ass.”

Billy tried to picture that, failed, and shook his head. “What?”

“It’s, like, you know, a toilet, with a thing in it that shoots water up your butthole after you poop.”

“Ew.”

Keith shrugged. “Better than wiping.”

Billy had a lot of questions about the Ass Water Fountain, but they were going to have to wait. The pressure in his bladder had grown to the point where he was sure he would explode if he didn’t have a piss pronto.

He climbed to his feet, fishing around for his flashlight. Once he found it and clicked it on, he unzipped the tent flap and stepped carefully out into the cool dark night.

“Watch for poison ivy, dude,” Keith called after him as he closed the tent flap behind him.

“Poison ivy,” Billy muttered. “Like I know what that looks like.”

He walked a short distance into the trees for privacy. He wasn’t stupid. The last thing he needed was the other boys knowing he was having his first piss in the great outdoors. They’d all come running with their flashlights, lighting him up and dancing around him while they threw pine cones. And he’d be helpless, stuck with his pants down, because trying to stop a piss mid-stream was like trying to stop an onrushing train.

Stealth was required. So he stepped carefully through the leaves, past a few trees, and switched off his flashlight before unzipping his pants and getting out his business.

Once he switched his flashlight off, the darkness seemed to crowd in around him, rushing in like floodwater to fill every molecule of space around him.

He’d never experienced anything like it. There was no spill off of street lights through the window, or glow of a digital alarm clock to cast at least a tiny amount of residual light for his eyes to work with. This darkness was total, complete, and nearly stifling.

Anything could be in that fluid blackness, anything at all. Animals with sharp teeth and sharper claws could be padding their way toward him silently right now, watching him with eyes that would glow if he shone his flashlight at them.

They could be coming right now, while he was helpless with his pants down, incapable of running away or fighting back or doing anything other than screaming and dying as he was torn into bloody shreds.

In the tent with Keith, or around the campfire with Mr. Henderson and the other boys, those monsters had seemed a foolish fantasy, held back by the perimeter formed by the firelight and the company of his friends. But now, without those talismans to ward them off, the monsters of the night were given form and flesh, made real in his mind.

He switched his flashlight on briefly, swung it around. No monsters. No creeping, murderous predators looking for his blood.

Still, he was decided. The flashlight stayed on. So, he cradled it under his armpit, made sure his unit was pointing in the right direction, and let fly.

Sweet, sweet relief, washing away any of the silly fears the darkness had put into him. It was almost like his terrors drained out of him and into the dirt along with his piss.

He was just dribbling out the last of it when he saw the light.

He almost wasn’t sure that he saw it at first. It was off in the trees, away from the camp, so far away that Billy bet that if it were any further, the mass of tree trunks would have hidden it from view.

It was dim, wavering, flickering and uncertain, winking at him out of the depths of the forest. Too dim and unsteady to be a flashlight; it looked to Billy like a small candlelight barely clinging to life on a breezy night.

He pointed his flashlight in the candlelight’s direction. Nothing. Nothing but plain, boring tree trunks, standing around like unfinished statues in some forgotten tomb.

Billy groaned and rolled his eyes as he tucked his business back into his pants and trudged back to the tent. Now that the pressure was off and his flashlight had chased away any visions of snakes or mountain lions or other general forest terrors, the mystery light wasn’t much of a mystery to him.

“Mr. Henderson is trying to play a stupid joke,” he said to Keith once he was back in the tent.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s out there in the woods with a candle or something, trying to spook us like that story.”

“You saw him?” Keith said.

“No, I saw the candle, like, out there a ways where you could barely see it,” Billy said. “I shined my flashlight at him but he was hiding behind one of the trees or something.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He’s probably hoping one of us sees it and gets freaked out,” Billy said. “You know, since his story wasn’t really all that scary and Johnny pretty much ruined it.”

“Stupid,” Keith said, and then snapped his fingers. “Oh, you know what we should do?”

“What?”

“We should sneak out there and scare the crap out of him. Flip the tables on him, you know?”

“Turn the tables,” Billy said.

“Whatever, dude,” Keith said. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know. Let’s just forget about it, get some sleep.”

“Come on, my dude!” Keith said. “I can’t sleep! It’ll be awesome. We sneak out there, right? We creep up on him while he’s trying to be all cool, and then Blammo!”

“What’s Blammo?” Billy said.

“I don’t know. We’ll yell and shine our flashlights. To scare him, you know?”

“That’s not going to scare him,” Billy said. “Shining a flashlight at him and shouting Boo.”

“Come on, dude, show some balls,” Keith said.

Billy said, “I don’t think that’s going to scare him, either.”

“Ha! Good one, bro,” Keith said, clapping him on the back and grabbing his arm as he jumped to his feet. “Come on.”

“Keith…” Billy said with a groan, but Keith was dragging on his arm and before he could form his complaint out loud, they were out of the tent and into the trees.

“Where was it?” Keith said. “The light you saw?”

“Over there.”

“I don’t see it. Let’s move closer,” Keith said. “No! Don’t use your flashlight, dude! He’ll see it!”

“How are we supposed to walk through the trees with no flashlight?” Billy said. “It’s pitch dark out.”

“Not pitch dark. It’s a clear night and the moon’s out. I’ve got great night vision.”

Billy wanted to call Keith out on his bullshit, but he knew that would only lead to Keith bragging for the better part of an hour about his extraordinary eyesight, so instead, he said, “Yeah, well, I don’t.”

“Hold on to my belt. I’ll lead the way.”

“Whatever, Superman,” Billy muttered, but he looped his fingers through the back of Keith’s belt all the same.

They stumbled through the darkness and into the depths of the trees, Keith leading the way. Billy felt the heavy tree trunks around him more than saw them. They seemed to close in behind the boys and swallow them up as they trudged clumsily along, feeling their way with their hands, quietly cursing each other as they went.

A glance behind him, and Billy saw that they had gone so far into the trees that he could no longer see the campfire or the glow of flashlights inside of the other boys’ tents. He and Keith were lost in a black pool of nothingness, with no landmarks or any other way to tell which way was which.

He started to get nervous. What if they got lost out here? He didn’t have a compass, or a map, and all Keith had was his stupid knife that wouldn’t do them a damn bit of good in trying to find a way back to camp.

“I see it!” Keith said. “I see it!”

“Shhh!” Billy said. “He’ll hear you.”

It was a bit of a relief. At least they had something to give them some direction. Mr. Henderson would know the way back to camp, and once they scared him and had a good laugh about it, they could all go back together.

Now Billy saw it, as well, the flickering light dancing through the trees ahead and to their right. It was still so far away. It was like they hadn’t made any progress toward it at all.

“I think he’s moving,” Keith whispered. “We’ve got to go this way.”

“Wait,” Billy said. “We’re going to get lost.”

“We’re not going to get lost.”

“Where’s the camp, then?”

“Back there,” Keith said.

Billy couldn’t see where Keith was pointing, couldn’t see anything at all. “Back where?”

“Back… just trust me.”

More fumbling forward in the dark, and now Billy was starting to have serious second thoughts about the entire matter. Something wasn’t right. They’d gone too far from camp, he was sure of it. Why would Mr. Henderson be all the way out here, if the whole idea was that one of the boys from camp would see his candle and believe his story?

He didn’t want to say it out loud, but a part of Billy started to think that the light winking in and out of sight through the trees might not be Mr. Henderson. Now, other, much more insidious explanations started to seem much more likely to Billy.

How could Mr. Henderson move through the woods like this without making noise or getting lost? Something else had to be out there. Billy knew it. Something that lived out here in the depths of the silent trees. Something that had lived out here a long, long time, long enough to become a part of it, as much as the branches and the leaves and the things that crawled sightless in the night searching for food.

It couldn’t be, though. That was little kid thinking. That was monster under the bed thinking. Those sorts of things didn’t exist, not in the real world. There were no monsters under the bed. There were no bogeymen lurking in the dark.

Keith brought them to a halt just as Billy saw the flickering, dim light once again.

“Okay, he’s right up there,” Keith whispered. “You stay here, be ready to scare him in case he comes back this way. I’ll get closer. When I switch on my flashlight, you join in, okay?”

“We shouldn’t split up,” Billy said.

“Quit being a pussy. I’m only going, like, a little way.”

“What if it isn’t him?”

Keith paused before answering. “Who else could it be?”

“I don’t know,” Billy said.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m going.”

Billy gripped Keith’s belt tightly. “Don’t.”

“Just,” Keith said, prying Billy’s fingers off. “Stay here.”

With that, he was gone, his belt slipping out from Billy’s fingers and disappearing into the black. Billy immediately felt like he was being swallowed up, sucked down into quicksand, left here all alone amongst the silent and dark tree trunks that felt like tombstones more than anything. He couldn’t see them but he could feel them, pressing in around him, crowding in close and threatening to crush him.

Moments later, he saw it again. The light in the trees. Not so far away this time. Closer. Much closer, and then it disappeared.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. He wanted to switch on his flashlight now, chase away the dark, put an end to the mystery and the game and get back to the campfire and the tents and the other boys. Back to where everything felt safe, where everything felt sane.

He wanted to call out to Keith, but he couldn’t. Keith would be furious with him for ruining his big prank on Mr. Henderson.

He jumped a little at the sound of a twig snapping nearby. Something was out there. Something that was not Keith. A nameless thing, a terrible thing, a predator, a killer, that lived and waited and stalked through the dark night, hoping for foolish little boys to wander off from camp.

The pitch darkness became a pressure all around him, pressing in and filling up his lungs until he couldn’t breathe. It was out here, it was out here with him, he knew it, it was creeping right up on him and would dig into his skin with sharp claws like fishhooks to drag him screaming into the night and tear him apart.

He couldn’t take it any longer. He couldn’t take the pressure of the dark a moment longer, and when another small tree branch snapped just in front of him as loud as a gunshot, he let out a shriek and hit the button on his flashlight.

Keith was there. The flashlight beam lit him up so brightly that it seemed like he shone with a supernatural light.

For a split second, all of Billy’s fear and panic vanished, pouring out of him like dirty water out of a bucket. The mere sight of his friend chased away all of the terrible imagined threats that had been waiting in the dark, at least, until that split second had passed and Billy’s relief allowed him to get a full look at Keith.

All was not right with his friend. Not right at all. This was not the Keith with the twinkling eyes and the constant cocky grin who was always looking to climb that tree or race down that road or dive headfirst into that creek.

Everything about Keith was now very, very wrong.

He stood straight, arms held stiffly at his sides, as if he were pushing down at the ground with both hands. His right hand gripped the little pocketknife that he was so proud of.

His entire body was trembling, shaking and shuddering as if caught in the grip of a seizure. Keith’s eyes were rolled back into his head, so far that the iris was gone and all Billy could see was bloodshot white.

Worse than the eyes, was the mouth. Keith’s mouth trembled like the rest of him, his teeth chattering open and shut, open and shut in a staccato rhythm. A tiny, faint groan came out of his throat, barely audible over the chattering teeth.

“Keith?” Billy said, his throat suddenly dry.

Slowly, Keith’s right arm began to rise, until the blade of the pocketknife was pointed straight at Billy. All the while, the trembling never stopped, nor the chattering teeth, nor the eyes rolled impossibly far back into Keith’s head.

“Keith?” Billy said again, his voice cracking and screeching with the panic that was swelling up from within, threating to drown him. “Keith, quit screwing around. You’re scaring me.”

The knife blade glinted in the light, pointed at Billy’s heart, and beneath the chattering teeth, the tiny groan became louder, growing, sounding now like Keith’s lungs were a bellows being forced shut with a dying man’s last effort.

As that air blew past those chattering teeth, the trembling lips barely twisted together until they could form that weak breath into a single word, barely audible to Billy’s ears.

“Run.”

With that, the thing that Keith had become took a halting step toward Billy, knife blade still pointed at his heart. It was the last straw. Billy turned and fled, screaming, sprinting, charging through the trees as fast as his feet could carry him.

He dared not look back, he dared not slow down for anything, he dared not do anything but run, run, run, even as he felt the muscles in his legs burning and starting to fail beneath him. All the while, he was lost to the panicked awareness that he was lost, completely lost, running wildly further into the forest with no idea if he was headed back toward camp or further into the death trap of endless trees and dark night.

His lungs were about to give out when he heard it. A car horn, far off. Mr. Henderson’s car horn.

It was like a life line thrown to a drowning man. Fresh energy surged into Billy’s exhausted legs, propelling him forward, pumping his muscles over and over as he crashed through tree branches and scratching thorn bushes in the direction of the sound.

He didn’t stop until he blundered into camp, into the waving flashlight beams of his friends, his body so spent that he collapsed in a heap in front of them. Instantly, he was surrounded by the boys, each shining their light into his face, each asking him innumerable questions that he couldn’t hear through his panting breath.

Mr. Henderson pulled them back, told them to give him some space, but Billy wanted to tell him to shut up, let his friends crowd in and shine their lights and ask their questions. Anything but leave him alone in the dark. Anything but that.

“Billy?” Mr. Henderson said. “Billy, are you okay? Where’s Keith?”

“Out there,” was all Billy could get out between heaving gasps. “Far.”

“Why?” Mr. Henderson said. “Why were you so far out there?”

“We went out there to scare you.”

“Scare me?” he said.

“You were out there with a candle, like your story,” Billy said. “Hoping one of us would see it and get scared. We went out there to sneak up on you and scare you back.”

“Billy,” Mr. Henderson said. “I wasn’t out there.”

Billy shook his head, refusing to believe the words.

“You had to be,” he said. “You had to be.”

“I’ve been in my tent,” Mr. Henderson said. “I came out to douse the fire and I saw your tent flap was open. When you and Keith weren’t in there… where’s Keith? Why didn’t he come back with you?”

“Did you guys get separated?” Johnny asked, his big round spectacles glowing with reflected light like an owl’s eyes.

All Billy could do was nod dully, lost to Mr. Henderson’s words.

Billy. I wasn’t out there.

You had to be. You had to be.

Things moved forward in a blur. The boys built up the campfire and shone their flashlights into the trees, yelling into the woods for Keith to hear it and come home. Mr. Henderson blew the horn on his car over and over again.

All the while, Billy sat in the dirt with his arms wrapped around his legs. He couldn’t stop thinking of what Keith looked like in those last moments before he’d fled back to camp.

He hadn’t looked like Keith at all. Not laughing, cocky, can-do Keith. Shaking and trembling like that.

He’d looked like something was trying to take control of him. Trying to take control of his body, and Keith had only been able to fight back barely enough to force out a single word.

Run.

It couldn’t be. Things like that didn’t exist. Not in the real world. In the real world, there was always a reasonable explanation, a rational, physical mechanism that could be measured and sorted and understood.

Out here amongst the dark trees, though, it seemed like the real world had left them behind. Out here, the campfire and the tents and the lights felt like the last outpost of the real world, perched precariously on the border of a deep, bottomless pit of impossible, unknowable horrors.

Billy. I wasn’t out there.

You had to be. You had to be.

But he hadn’t been. Mr. Henderson hadn’t been the source of the light flickering just out of sight in the trees, a little further, a little further, always barely out of sight, always a little deeper into the endless trees.

Until they were far enough away. Then, that light hadn’t danced out of reach any longer. Then it had come back. For Keith. For Billy.

The search for Keith kicked off with surprising speed. By the morning, the boys’ fathers had all come in a rush, summoned by Mr. Henderson’s frantic cell phone call, and then the police, both state and local, and civilian volunteers who heeded the call. They even brought in dogs, K-9 units attached to the State Police who were trained to track and recover people who’d become lost in the woods.

It was the dogs that picked up something. Once they had Keith’s scent from his sleeping bag, they strained and pulled on their leashes, leading the men and boys in a frantic motley parade through the trees.

The men and boys kept up with the straining dogs as best they could, stumbling over fallen tree branches, slipping on loose rocks and steep slopes. Billy plodded along with them as best he could, so spent and exhausted that he moved in a half-waking haze. His dad had told him to wait at the car, but Billy had insisted on coming along, hoping against hope that the dogs might be able to lead them to his friend after all.

But the dogs didn’t lead the parade to Keith. It lead them to something much, much worse.

When Billy saw it, his fatigue vanished, replaced with terror. It sat in the middle of the trees, halfway up a short hill.

It could hardly be called a cabin any longer. A shack, at best; ancient, moldy, party collapsed. It might’ve stood there for centuries, standing silent vigil over the nothingness of endless trees. There was a single window with the last remnants of a nub of an old candle melted onto the sill.

The dogs rushed up to it, dragging their handlers by their leashes, demanding the parade come and see what lay within.

Billy grabbed at his father’s arm, begging, pleading for them not to go in there. Not to see.

“It’s just a cabin,” his father said. “We have to check it. Keith might’ve taken shelter in there.”

There’s no shelter there, Billy wanted to say but couldn’t. Just death.

Before he could think of a protest, one of the K-9 officers came back from the ancient cabin carrying a small, clear plastic bag.

“Trail ends here, chief,” he said to the leader of the parade. “Dogs are going crazy. I got to take them back, they’re freaking out. Not sure what’s gotten into them.”

The chief of police nodded toward the cabin. “There a body in there?”

“No,” the K-9 officer said, holding up the bag. “All we found was this.”

“Why is it in a plastic bag?” Billy asked.

The police officer seemed reluctant to answer. “It’s evidence.”

“Evidence?” Billy said.

“There’s blood on it, son.”

Billy could see it now, through the clear plastic. The little pocketknife, engraved with Keith’s initials on the handle. At the sight of it, Billy’s legs got weak and he fell to the ground, curling up into a tight ball with his arms wrapped around his knees.

“It got him,” he whispered, when the words were able to come out. “It got him.”

It was all he could say, over and over, until his father carried him out of those deep and silent woods.

Keith’s body was never found.

The campground shut down after that. The story of the little boy who had disappeared into the woods, leaving behind nothing but a bloody pocketknife, seemed to inspire would-be campers to seek their shelter elsewhere. A little closer to the light.

Every now and again, one of the locals driving past the campground late at night will report seeing a light out in the trees, a light out where no light had any right to be. No houses, no trails out there. Just a single, barely visible light, winking through the trees.

Perhaps a candle, or perhaps the last feeble glimmer of a flashlight with dying batteries, calling to any of the brave or foolhardy to come and see, come and see what lives and waits and watches in the depths of the deep forest late at night, while civilization sleeps and ancient terrors prowl in the dark.