Short Story: Camp Anneheg by Sam Bryant

Short story time! This is a new series that Sam is going to be introducing to you guys. Very cool stuff and I'm really looking forward to more.

Remember, if you're a short story writer then please send me some samples of your work to scaredsheetlessncn@hotmail.com Just put in the subject, "Short Story" as I get a lot of spam!

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Camp Anneheg

I Wish I could tell you that I was Lee Rogers, an ordinary guy, but I'm afraid its a bit too late for that introduction. The worst part is that my life got weirder when I met Michele Holmes at Camp Anneheg. It was a personal tradition to go to Camp Anneheg every summer, but I always went alone, at least until this year. I convinced my close friend Tina Brown to come with me. Our friendship started in a less than conventional way, as to say I saved her from a tormented life at junior high.

It was the seventh day of school, and I had already started exploring the campus at lunch rather than eating. I stumbled upon three punkish older kids picking on a small sickly, fellow eighth grader. I was aware of who they are, being who I am I had to be aware of all the hooligans around me. I was self-obligated to stop them, “Hey, what are you punks doin to that girl over there?” I knew they were making fun of her, but that was the only way to get their attention.

“What's it to ya ” snarled the lead hoodlum.

I answered making the disdain in my voice obvious, even to these buffoons, “Whatever I make it punk. Now, stop pestering the lady,” Fighting ensued when he swung at my face with a sloppy right hook. I easily dealt with them thanks to my foster father's obsessive Marine style training.

With only a few loose droplets of sweat on me I charmingly said, “ Are you okay? Why don't I take you to the nurse?” I could tell quite plainly that she was bothered, and crying about it all, so I grabbed her hand, and began walking her to the nurse while saying, “If you want I can eat lunch with you.” From that day forth we were friends.

We were on the ferry ride to the island of Amethana, off the coast of Oregon. We could hear a faint radio-caster describing the extreme weather that would probably keep us locked on the island for at least a month after the ferry left.

Not being particularly interested in the news, I turned to Tina to say, “ I still can't believe this is your first time at any camp.”

“You know I never really went anywhere before I met you,” before I could spark up an impromptu conversation regarding that fact, the ferry glided to a stop, and the captain told everyone to get off the boat, and line up by year. Standing outside on the pier were the councilors standing in a row, and in front of each was a row of students; Myself, and the other camp-seniors. The older kids who hadn't attended before, Tina. Then the rest of the kids in row by age. I was lucky to have Clay Willis as my councilor, he was a camper last year, and a good friend of mine. I figured it would be a good year; boy, was I wrong.

On the third day of camp, while the counselors were prepping for our first day of target practice an ear piercing screech resounded through the woods, faintly resembling white noise, and three rifles burst in the hands of their counselors shredding their hands, arms, and leaving them in a surprisingly alive state. They were supposed to be evacuated from camp, but a large storm kept the ferry from returning to the island, and cut off all telecommunication.

As the week droned on more, and more counselors were being severely injured, immediately after one of those loud shrieks. The camp was slowly becoming less supervised, until the last remaining counselors called all the camp-seniors to a special meeting. They never said where they had been taking the injured individuals, but we all presumed it that they had a special room in the infirmary, or some other place where they wouldn't be bothered.

I was starting to expect something like this was going to happen. One of the two counselors said, “We only have two adults and eight camp-seniors left. We'll divide the kids into groups led by two camp-seniors, or one counselor,” he paused for a moment, “ Rogers, and Holmes will take Brown, Ray, Taylor, Miles, and Stephens, Farenbach and Lewis...” I zoned out now knowing my group, and thought that I had never met Holmes, and that I only knew her name was Michele. I zoned back in to hear counselor Willis saying, “ Now, get to know your partner, and find your groups.”

At that moment I turned to Michele, who was apparently sitting next to me, and nicely said, “Howdy Michele, how should we...”

“We are going to find our kids before it gets any darker.” She interrupted me, but the strange thing was it didn't make me angry like it usually does, nonetheless I followed with an unintended huff.

It took roughly twenty minutes to find our group, and a cabin. Danny Stephens was a silly exploratory kid. Aaron Miles, a swimmer, and super religious. Keegan Ray, a troublesome little brat that liked setting people off. Bell Taylor, a nice sort of emo-girl, and finally Tina Brown my good friend who wasn't as sickly as she used to be. “Go to bed kids,” spouted Michele just before we heard another shriek. It was louder this time, almost as if it were close by. Every window in our medium sized cabin exploded inward with intensely unsettling crackling. I jumped in front of the group, my back facing the one wall with windows, I know what a weird design it was, but it helped keep the group safe, so I won't complain about it.

Now with tons of little bits of glass deeply piercing the skin of my back I yelled, “Michele take the group out of the cabin! Clay's cabin is nearby, run!” she did as I asked.

I ran to the window to look out of it, but I didn't see anything other than trees outside. I once again turned and ran. It took less than four minutes to catch up to Michele at the head of the group, Clay's cabin was just ahead. I tackled the door open, only to see the walls covered in blood, but without the bodies anywhere to be seen. I was falling to the ground on top of the broken door, and had no way of keeping the others from seeing this horrible sight.

Having abandoned our earlier hurry, we were now sitting on the front steps of the massacred cabin, myself and Aaron closest to the door to prevent anyone from going in. They were all frighteningly calm about the whole thing.

Danny broke the silence, “Ey guys, guys, I think we should find whatever did this.” Bell, and Tina simultaneously shot this idea down.

I had to think, for a minute. We had an unknown enemy and, as far as I knew very little strength, what could I do? 
 
I broke the new silence after less than a minute, “We're going to the main cabin. Maybe the archives have something, anything really.”

“What're you talkin about? Why would they have anything about a screamin monster?” said Keegan

“This camp is made of the old Fort Sedah. Where they supposedly did weird tests.” I stood on the top step, and began walking towards the main building, everyone one followed with little hesitation.

As we walked to our new destination, still with none of the speed we had just twenty minutes ago, Michele inquired to me, “How are you so calm? Not even I'm level headed after seeing that, that horror in the cabin,”

Trying not to think too much I calmly reassured her, and the rest of the group, “After what my birth father did, I refuse to let anyone, or anything prevent me from protecting what I want to protect... Never again will I be too late to help,” from then the group was silent for at least ten minutes, and at that time I realized that something was following us from the edge of the woods. Is it the same thing that’s been causing problems around camp, or something different, maybe even worse? My cautious thoughts slipped to the back of my head as I remembered how my birth father used to beat me, and when I became old enough to protect myself my younger sister, or should I say late younger sister. One day when he was extra drunk he took it a little too far, and she died. Shortly after he went missing, that’s what the police call it anyway. I know exactly where his rotten corpse is.

The door creaked open, which was odd seeing as the building was frequently used, and it was refurbished just three years earlier. The inside is contrastingly nice, just as it should be. Everyone instinctively goes to a different filling cabinet, and begins rummaging through their drawers contents. Roughly ninety minutes go by, and in that time I hear several screams, but no one else reacts, so I assume they didn't hear it, but still it set me on edge, especially since no one else reacted.

Aaron then yelled, “ Everyone I may have found something,” he was holding a thick stack of papers with more black splotches on it than a coffee mug.

All we could read was, “ Classification level: S7...We got the funding... Doctor Paracelsus will commence testing soon.... No one could have expected this.... Station was locked down,permanently due to...” That’s all we could get out of a thirty page report, I'm sure everyone was a little nervous about what we were missing.

“What is the plan from here?” inquired Michele, we were all silent, nothing ran through my head, excluding baseless conjecture on weather these occurrences were related to that one file we found. As we all stood there thinking about what we could do, I looked down at my watch to realize that it shouldn't be as dark as it was, somehow it was three forty three in the afternoon, everyone’s watch agreed. Despite the time, the sun was nowhere to be seen.

“We better hope the fence between the camp, and old base has been taken down,” I said disrupting the stillness that had invaded the room.

Bell then made her first statement of the night, “"Why do we need to find out what that thing is? I mean, its killing all these people and we don't know any way to stop it. I say we just stay here."

“Well that’s a good question. Why would we try to save ourselves? Who would want revenge for their friends? Why do anything? We're not staying here, okay. If you want you can stay, but I wouldn't recommend being alone. “ As I walked out the door they all followed suit, even Bell.

As we approached the old base, we could still hear the screams of that unknown thing still prowling around camp, and causing trouble. The unraked leaves crunching under us, as the only sound. A slight wind making us even more on edge as it continually changed direction and intensity. The large building had an eerie feel to it, even when just approaching it. The door isn't locked, and slowly creeks open. Once inside we see cobwebs covering every surface, excluding a single path between the outside door, and one hallway labeled exclusive access.

We had been walking for what felt like an hour when we found a single room at the end of the path. The room was littered with all the bodies of our fellow campers, and councilors that had either gone missing or were evacuated to an unknown location. No one had left the camp except the Ferry driver. As we all stood there staring at this mausoleum of a room we heard a door burst open, and another blood curdling screech behind us. I thought to myself, “I won't let this thing win,” and then everything was black... Just like before.

To Be Continued