The Last Camping Trip

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The scouts saw it from their campsite, but they..."

"We told that one last year Kevin. It was good enough for third, but we want the brass ring this time."

My friends and I were so excited, Davey, Kevin, and I. We always looked forward to these camping trips, and the yearly Autumn camp out was one of the best. We took a bus to Graceson Falls, a huge state park with so many lakes to swim in, trails to hike, and several caves to explore. All the local scout troops would be there, ten in all, and we would meet in the Starfall Campground for the jamboree. There would be canoeing, races, smores, and, of course, the annual scary story contest. We had been crafting our stories since the last jamboree, and we were ready to take that prize this year.

As the bus pulled up to the campsite, we all spilled out of it excitedly.

We were the first to arrive, the others arriving tomorrow, but Scoutmaster Larry wanted us to get there early to get the best spots. As I stood in the center of the campground, watching the other scouts mill about, going about their preparations, I couldn't help but soak in the sounds and smells of the surrounding forest. Graceson State Park had always been my favorite place to camp, chiefly because it exuded this energy of safety and adventure. It was a maintained park, the park rangers keeping the animals in check, and the forest peeled back from the areas where hikers and campers stayed. Even so, it wasn't too hard to imagine a wolf or a bear watching from the trees, just waiting to pounce on the unexpected.

It wasn't too far-fetched to think that something mysterious or unknown could be lurking in those woods.

We set up our tent a little further back than the others. Scoutmaster Larry had given us a set area where we could pitch our tents, and we had set our own tents at the edge of this. We wanted to feel like real scouts, like trailblazers, and I imagined us like old-timey explorers as Kevin, and I set up our tents. Davey had disappeared, and I assumed he was getting water, firewood, or something. No sooner had I set up my tent, though, than Davey hissed at us from the woods.

"Nice campsite, but follow me if you girls wanna do some real camping," he said, motioning us into the woods.

"But," Kevin started, "Scoutmaster Larry said,"

"Who cares what Scoutmaster Larry said. Do you want to camp or what?"

We looked at each other. I did feel pulled by adventure, and Kevin, despite being kind of a wet blanket, seemed to feel it too. We nodded, and Davey set out his plan. We leave our tents here as a decoy and move off into the woods. Davey knew of a place where he had set up his tent where we could do some actual camping for the night, away from the adults and other scouts. It would be like camping on our own, being explorers and roughing it for real.

"But what if they look for us?" Keven asked.

Davey just waves his hand at the question, "We'll go back to eat, and then after dinner, we'll head back to the site. We'll wake up before anyone gets good and stirring tomorrow and be back in the camp before they notice anything."

I had to admit, it wasn't a bad plan. We would strike the camp after tonight and rejoin the jamboree tomorrow as the others arrived. No one would miss us for just one night, not with so many other scouts around. Kevin and I agreed to go look at the campsite first, wanting to see where he had put it before we committed to staying the night.

And so we plunged into the forest, Davey leading the way.

We took no trail, our feet following new ground as he led us to the campsite. As we went, I felt as though I could feel something watching us. It was still early afternoon, and the forest was alive with the sounds of nature, but this tickling on the back of my neck felt a little sinister somehow. I turned to glance around as we went, but I saw nothing more dangerous than a bluejay or a squirrel. I decided I was being silly and caught up with Keven and Davey as they headed for our secret campsite.

Even Kevin had to admit that the campsite was pretty cool. It was set in a small clearing and complete with a firepit that led me to believe that other scouts had used this site before. His tent almost looked out of place here, and I could just imagine scouts before us sleeping under the stars in sleeping bags. Davey asked us what we thought, and I could see that both of us were sold on the idea of a rustic campout in the woods. We both agreed to come back after dinner, and thus we returned to the group.

The rest of the day went by fairly uneventfully. We returned to find a hike about to begin, so we tagged along as Scoutmaster Larry showed us nature's glory. We were a little nervous that they might happen upon our campsite, but the hike took us around the nearby creek and up to a natural waterfall that fed from the lake nearby. As we returned, Scout Leader Mark had our dinner cooking over a small fire near the councilors' tents. We set about preparing for the meal, and soon we were all stretched out on the grass eating campfire stew and hardtack bread. As we ate, Scoutmaster Larry laid out the day's events for tomorrow's jamboree. It would be a whole day of canoe races, decathlons, contests, and all of it capped off by the scary story contest at the smore roast.

All of us were chattering quietly as we headed off to bed, the sun setting behind us, as the three of us pretended to head to our tents.

As the sun set low, we moved into the woods and made our way to the campground.

As we followed Davey into the woods, I began to hear something strange in the surrounding green. It started as an overriding noise, making Kevin and Davey hard to hear even at close proximity. Davey was too excited to even acknowledge it at first, but I saw Kevin shooting furtive looks into the surrounding wood. The sounds of the forest seemed higher than I had ever heard, and the deeper we went, the louder it seemed to become. The birds sounded like a flock, squawking and chattering animatedly to each other, and many of them sounded like species not native to the region. The scouts are taught to identify local birds, it's for a badge, and many of these sounded different from the finches and quail you usually heard this time of year. I heard deer grunting and the yowls of cats, the growl of a bear, and even the throaty howl of a wolf. The strangest thing of all wasn't the sounds or the presence of non-native animals.

The strangest part was that each cry was exactly the same.

Same sound, same volume, same everything.

The others could hear it, too, that much was obvious, but they were pretending they couldn't. We could all hear the sounds of animals, all of them too loudly. Kevin was starting to cry. Davey insisted that everything would be okay once we made it to the campsite. He was pulling Kevin along by now, Davey's hand wrapped around his wrist. Kevin was nearly frozen with fear, and I could see his eyes shining as he was half drug through the trail.

When we reached the tent, we all went straight in, not daring to even start the fire we had built up to use that night.

We huddled in our tent, Kevin hyperventilating as Davey and I peeked out through the flap. The forest was still very loud, very populated, but it seemed to stop at our campsite. It was like a song heard from behind a door, you know the song, but the words are muffled. We watched the woods, both of us agreeing that we couldn't go back. We would have to stay here tonight, and Davey said we should sleep in shifts.

"There's definitely something out there. If we sleep in shifts, we can catch it if it tries to sneak up on us."

I agreed, but for the moment, the two of us just watched the woods. The noises were moving away, like a troop of actors on the move, and Kevin came to join us as well. We spent an hour watching the woods, and I was unsurprised when I looked over to find Kevin snoring in a corner. The adrenaline was kicking out, and we were all getting tired. I told Davey I was going to lie down as well, but I just couldn't get comfortable. I was so tired, but my mind wouldn't shut off. I lay there, angrily tossing, for what felt like hours, and that was probably why I heard them.

I had just started to doze when the first of the voices scraped across my senses.

I woke up to find Davey and Kevin stirring, awakened by the voices from outside the tent.

They were familiar voices. Campers and scoutmasters we knew, all of them calling our names. They were out in the woods at night searching for us, and their voices clattered through the dark wilderness in a jarring way. They were too loud somehow, disturbing the perfect silence of the nighttime forest. They also seemed wrong somehow, like the animal sounds from earlier.

Each of them cried out the exact same name, called in the exact same way, again and again.

Davy opened the tent, looking out into the darkness, looking for flashlights. The forest was still dark, the crickets and the night birds alarmingly silent. The quiet of the night was disturbed only by the yelling searchers, and the sound of their voices was making my skin crawl.

Kevin seemed shaken as the voices grew closer and closer. "Maybe we should just go to them, guys. They're going to be mad if they find our tent out here. We can just say we were out here using the bathroom."

His voice shook as he said it, and I could tell he was getting ready to bolt.

Keven was the type who feared getting in trouble more than silly things like possible death.

Davy turned away from the flap to look at him, "Are you crazy? They'll never find us if we stay right where we are."

Kevin, however, didn't seem so sure. As we stood at the tent flap, watching the woods and listening to the voices, Kevin made a sound like a wounded cat and made a break for the woods. He shoved past us and went running into the brush, yelling that he was sorry for making them look for him.

We heard him apologizing until his yells were suddenly cut off. He was stammering apologies one minute and was silent as the grave the next. Davey and I stood looking out into the woods, shuddering in the sudden silence that held sway across the dark green world.

Then, as suddenly as they had stopped, the voices began again.

We could hear Kevin's voice amongst them, calling for us to come out.

"Davey," I said, both of us still looking out into the woods, my eyes having just realized something my brain should have a long time ago, "if they're out there looking for us, why don't they have flashlights?"

Davey contemplated this, and it seemed to scare him just as much as it scared me.

We went back inside, huddling in our tent as the voices grew closer and closer. Davey zipped up the doorway and walked backward into the suddenly flimsy canvas tent. He seemed afraid to turn his back on the doorway and just sort of stood in the middle as he kept his eyes fixed on the secured opening.

I hunkered in my sleeping bag, listening to the voices calling our names as they came closer and closer.

Davey shuddered, cocking his head like a dog who hears a noise. He suddenly took a step back towards the door, and I yelled at him to get away from there. I hunkered down in my own bag, hearing the voices calling our names, and my tears were wet as they slid nakedly down my face. We were trapped out here, alone, with no one to help us. Why hadn't we just stayed with the others? I sunk deeper into my bag, hoping I would wake up to find out that this was just a dream and feel silly for letting it scare me.

I opened my eyes as the zipper slid open.

I looked out to see Davey standing in the doorway, looking out as the voices surrounded our tent. I begged him to close it, begged him to come back, but he only glanced back at me, almost apologetically. The moon cast his face in stark relief, turning him into a carved totem, and then he turned and stepped out into the night. He left the tent open, and I heard him scream as whatever was calling to us got him.

His scream was high and long, cutting through the monotonous calling like an ax through a melon.

It cut off at the peak of its terror, however, and the sound of its ending made me bunch down in my sleeping bag all the more.

The next time I heard his voice was when it joined that frightening chorus, all of them now calling for me.

I put my hands over my ears, trying to block them out. I wanted them to stop, I wanted this to all be over, and as I sat shuddering, I suddenly became aware that I couldn't hear anything. I pulled my hands away from my ears, slowly at first, and heard nothing but the silence of the outside night. I looked to the flap of the tent and found only the soft rustle of the fabric against the zipper as I began to worm out of the warm embrace of the sleeping bag.

I got about half out when suddenly they were all around me.

Their hands pushed at the walls of the tent. Their faces were canvas-covered masks as they tried to press their way inside. I could see their terrible features and hear their ragged breathing as they all shoved at the thin barrier of my tent. There were so many of them, adults, children, animals, and others who resembled nothing so much as skeletons with vaguely human shapes. A shadow fell onto the floor of my dwelling, and I looked to see one framed in the open doorway.

I zipped my sleeping bag shut then and hunkered at the bottom, a snail trapped inside its shell.

Outside, I could hear the monotonous voices surrounding me again, moving in for the kill as I shuddered in the bottom of my sleeping bag.

When I heard the metallic sound of a zipper, I knew I was done for.

The creature sank its face into the mouth of the sleeping bag, and I cowered as its bony face leered at me.

As it opened its mouth, it screamed my name, lunging at me with its bony teeth, its pale white skull luminescent in the darkness of the bag.

I died with the sound of my own name, fighting against the rippling scream that rode up my throat.

The scouts around the fire looked at me as though I was from another planet. The campfire was the only sound, the logs crackling merely, as the collected troupes sat looking at me as I stood in the story circle. Even some of the scoutmasters looked a little rattled by the story, but slowly, they started to clap.

Scoutmaster Larry clapped the loudest, shaking his head as he approached, "Now I see why you wanted to go last. That would have been a hard story to top. I think we can agree which story wins this year's Jamboree Scary Story Contest."

The applause picked up then, and Davey slugged me in the arm as I sat back down.

"Can't believe you kept that to yourself all week. I thought Keven was gonna pee his pants."

"Was not," Keven said petulantly, though he looked a little pale.

I smiled.

Storytelling was something I was good at, and it was always nice to be recognized for my talents.

I let my mind slip into the woods around us, hearing the call of the night birds and the whimper of the wind.

Perhaps there was something like that out in the woods of the state park.

Who could say what lurked in the deep pockets that surrounded area made for man?

I felt myself shiver a little as the wind pushed a sound across my senses, a lonesome sound that sounded eerily like my name.

My audience might not be the only ones having trouble sleeping tonight.