The Camping Trip

Last summer a few of my friends and I went camping at lake small pond. It was a long drive through dark, eerie woods on windy back roads. We all were super excited but bumed at the same time. The weather wasn't the greatest that night. Thunder roared through the air and lightning lit up the dark eerie sky as if ten thousand floodlights shone directly into your eyes. One of my friends' names was billy. He was terrified of lightning because when he was a kid his house was struck by lightning and caught fire. Well, he was still inside, and he has never been able to get over what happened. The other friends with us were Stefani and Steven. Steven has been my best friend since we were kids, and we've done everything together. We both come to this lake every summer. And Stefani is good friends with Billy and he wanted to bring her along this year.
Once we all arrived at the cabin, the storm was starting to get worse, so we all hurried to unload the car and get everything inside. While we were unpacking, I tripped over a root hidden by leaves. I toppled over like a Jenga tower and got all scraped up. I tried to get up but the ground was so slippery it was like I was on ice so I went straight back down into the dirt. Billy looked over and saw I was struggling to stay on my feet. I looked like a baby deer trying to walk for the first time. Billy rushed over and helped me get on my feet and he helped me inside the cabin.  We were all soaked and tired. Everyone looked like they were going to pass out because we were driving for seven hours straight to get to the lake. We played rock paper scissors to see who went first to shower. Steven won and I came second, Stefani came third and poor Billy came last. So 15 minutes went by and Steven was done showering so  I went to take my turn and since I was second. I still had some hot water but Stefani and Billy would have little to no hot water so their showers will be fairly quick. After we all showered Billy started to cook our dinner. Once he was done cooking dinner we all sat around the table. Billy cooked everyone grilled cheese and we all ate them in seconds like we were starving hounds. Stefani said she would wash the dishes so we could start to clean up the table and get everyone ready for bed. I went to brush my teeth as they were finishing cleaning up. While I was in the bathroom I heard a strange noise coming from outside the window, so I slowly moved the curtain out of the way of the window and all I could see was darkness. All of a sudden a crack of lighting spans across the sky casting light throughout the once abice called the wooded. A figure appeared out of the darkness. A shadow of a man cased into the bathroom and then the sky went dark again as the abis took back control over the light. I sprinted to everyone screaming with my toothbrush hanging from my mouth. Steven ran up to me and asked what was wrong. I told them what happened and none of them believed me and said I was seeing things and it was the storm playing tricks on my mind and I was probably just tired. No matter how many times I told them that, I knew what I saw they wouldn’t believe me. After a while, I gave up trying to convince them what happened and went to bed.
In the morning I crawled out of bed and walked down the hallway and to my surprise I was the last one up because normally I'm the first person out of the group so to see everyone already up and eating breakfast was a huge surprise. Billy can barely get up at noon and he was up and eating at six-thirty in the morning. After we finished eating Steven said sense it's only sprinkling out we should all go for a swim. We all thought it was a great idea so we all went and changed into swim trunks and headed out the door. We all raced down to the dock and the ground was still wet. I look over my right shoulder and see Stefani tumbling headfirst down the hill, so Billy Steven and I all stopped in their tracks and started laughing as we watched her tumble onto the dock. 

At the bottom of the dock, a man stood with a bucket of fish. He looked up at the four of us with a concerned look. He told us that we should leave the lake before nightfall or most of us won't ever leave the lake. 

"What is your name?" I asked the strange man as my friends looked on in confusion.

    “My name is Stinky Joe. I have lived here for more years than you could imagine in many lifetimes. Every year kids go missing here and are never found again. there is a man that's going to find you kids if you don't leave before midnight” He said in a ghostly voice.

All of us were spooked out but at the same time, most of our group have been coming here for many years in the past. I walked up to the strange man and yelled "we have been coming here for years and nothing has happened to us so how do you think you're little ghost story is gonna make us leave I don't believe one thing you said"    

“I warned you all and that is as much as I can do you are just like all the others I have tried to wear naive and ignorant. You are on your own now” the man said in a defeated tone as he walked out over the fog-covered lake and disappeared like some kind of spirit

    We all looked at each other in disbelief but we all decided that we were going to stay because me and Steven have stayed there for many years in the past. So we all decided that swimming in the lake wasn't a good idea since we were all still a little freaked out. So I led everyone back up to the cabin.

    Billy led everyone else up the cabin to start cooking lunch for us. He went to turn on the stove and nothing happened. He tried over and over to get the stove to turn on but still nothing. Frustrated, he kicked the stove over and over. 
“Why won't this damn thing work” he wailed 
Feeling defeated he stormed out the door to check on me in the shed. The shed door was closed and when he tried to open it the door wouldn't budge. So he took a step back and sprinted towards the door screaming and throwing himself at the door smashing it to pieces. The first thing he saw was me on the ground laying still like a lifeless corpse. He rushed over to me, threw me up over his shoulder, and sprinted to the cabin like there were rabid dogs chasing him. When he got to the front of the cabin he busted through the door yelling like a wild banshee for help. He threw me down on the couch like I was a sack of potatoes. 

    My eyes slowly opened and all I could see was a blurry face. I sat up confused. The last thing I remember was pouring gas into the generator. I rubbed my eyes then when I opened them I was lying down on the couch.  I told everyone that I couldn't remember what happened and that all I remember was that I was pouring gas in the generator then I woke up here.  I slowly sat up scaring my surroundings in a haze. I stood up and walked to the door.

“ I need to go on walking to the dock to clear my head and try to comprehend what happened,” I said as I opened the door.


“Will come to make sure nothing happens to you” Stefani blurted out. 
“Ya we don't want to leave you on your own in case it happens again” Billy chirped in. 
“ ok yall can come,” I said.
    We all started walking down the steep hill down to the dock. I was still out of it and would space out and fall behind everyone than have to run to catch up. One of those times when I fell behind the group I started to run to catch up and tripped over the biggest root sticking out of the ground. I have never seen a root that big. When I got back up I examined the root and bent down to touch it. I reached out and when my finger made contact with it the feeling surprised me. Instead of it being a firm piece of wood it was soft and every time I poked it would jiggle. I looked up to see my friends were already almost at the bottom of the hill so I sprung up and sprinted to attempt to catch them. This time I was binging causes and looking for obstacles in the trail so I wouldn't topple over again. I sounded like a spray bottle running down the hill. I was wheezing. I have run this far in a few years. Finally, I got to the bottom and met up with my friends.

    We were all sitting at the edge of the dock dangling feet into the water. For once there was no fog covering the lake. It was beautiful just looking over the whole lake with a crisp breeze flowing through the air. It was so peaceful the birds were chirping, squirrels judging you from their treetop playground. We all just sat there for a while and nobody realized it. The birds stopped chirping, and the squirrels just disappeared. The mist started to cover the beautiful lake surface. Then stinky joe emerged from his cloud of fog hovering over the water like a god. He took a few steps towards us and he seemed defeated. I was about to ask him what was going on but it was like I forgot how to speak. 

    

“It's too late to leave now, he's coming for you now and he already gave you a warning. What do you think happened to your friend? You have no power, your car is flipped over at the bottom of the lake, and you have no service to call for help. You are all stuck here. I warned you to leave but you didn't listen, nobody ever does and you will never leave this lake again. I was once like you. A young kid on vacation with your friend. I was his first victim. He chased me down to the dock and once I had nowhere to go I jumped into the lake and sank to the bottom like I was a concrete block. I was helplessly screaming for help but only the fish could hear my cries. once I hit the bottom its face shot up from the surface and put me into a trance and the next thing I knew I was cursed and was forced to keep people from visiting the lake for eternity. Now you will join the thousands of others at the bottom of the lake trapped there for eternity screaming and crying for help. I would wish you good luck but you won’t make it and if you do nobody will believe you about what happened. Once he gets a hold of your soul you’re existence is wiped off the face of the earth nobody will remember you. It will be like you never existed. I would wish you good luck but your fate is already decided goodbye”  He said in a defeated raspy voice 

He just disappeared into thin air in a matter of seconds. We all looked at each other and we all had a petrified look on our faces like we just watched a loved one die right in front of us. We all bolted up the hill towards the cabin trying to get there before the sunset. Billy was in the front of the pack setting the pace for the rest of us. Sprinting up the steep hill made my legs feel like jello and I was in pretty good shape. But Steven wasn't a very athletic person so he started to fall behind the group. As we climbed further up the hill he fell further behind. At the time we had no clue he was as far behind as he was. By the time we realized he wasn't behind us it was too late he was nowhere to be seen and the darkness of the sky started to cover the woods with shadows as the sunset. Within minutes the sun vanished behind the horizon and we were left in darkness with no clue where Steven was or where to start looking. I decided to start heading down the hill that we all just sprinted up to try to backtrack and find a lead in where he went. Billy and Stefani went back up towards the cabin to check on the statics of the generator and our car. The more I walked down the hill the cooler the air got. I was almost back to the dock and the fog had completely covered the lake and the shore around it to where you couldn't tell what was land or water. Still, with no sign of what happened to Steven, I was about to head back up to everyone else. But as I started to head back up the hill I heard a  scream that sounded like no human could make and it was so loud you could feel the soundwaves hitting your body like the noise of a firework going off. I stopped dead in my tracks out of pure terrier. I have never heard a voice scream like that as if they had balled up all of their emotions for thousands of years and let it all out at once. I scanned the area trying to find the source of the noise but I couldn't see anything because of the thick fog that was lingering through the forest. I stood there for what felt like hours but in reality, it was only a few minutes in that dead silence a huge snap came from behind me followed by the sound of feet stomping and what sounded like someone gasping for air. I wiped around and I just froze. Sprinting at me was a 7-foot tall ghost-white boney creature staring at me. It was standing on his hands and knees like it was resting or getting ready to pounce on me. Its head tilted to the side making a loud snapping noise like its bones were exploding inside its body. All of a sudden it opened up its mouth, its jaw went down three feet before stopping and letting out the same loud terrifying scream that stopped me dead in my tracks earlier. Then it Started sprinting at me grunting and screaming like a wild banshee. I wiped around and ran for my life. I feel like Usain Bolt, I've never been that fast in my life. Running in the fog weaving in and out of trees jumping over logs just listening to the beast behind me knocking over any tree in its path like they were just little twigs. All i could think about was that this thing definitely could have outrun Steven and that he was an easy snack for the creature to catch. I kept sprinting towards the cabin to warn everyone else. But at the time I didn't realize I was just putting their lives in danger by leading the creature towards them. I got halfway up the hill when I saw Billy.
“RUN BILLY RUN” I wailed.     

“What the hell is that thing?” Billy screamed at the back wall turning around and sprinting in the other direction.

     Running side by side, me and Billy gasping for air trying to outrun the monster behind us got to the cabin, and busted through the door just as the sun rose and the creator vanished as if the sunlight terrified the creature and forced it back into the darkness. We both started to search the house for Stefani looking in every nook and cranny but she was nowhere to be found 
“Do you think it got her?” Billy said in a distraught tone.
“ It is very possible we both were with each other and well we were focused on running. It could have slipped away for a minute and snatched her right out of the house,” I replied.
“ Like why is this happening to use we didn't do anything to deserve this” Billy cried 
“ I don't know but we gotta start doing something to try to get out of here” i replied
    I and Billy started walking to the shed to try to get the generator working again so we could get help. I pushed the door open and standing in the middle of the shed was stinky joe. But he had no legs and was almost see-through. I reached out to see if I was just seeing things and he grabbed my wrist.
“I'm surprised you've made it a whole night. You too are very lucky, unlike your friends who now will never leave this lake again” Stinky Joe said with a raspy voice.
“ They're gone,” I said, almost collapsing to my knees in disbelief.
“ NO YOU'RE LYING” Billy cried out in horror.
“Have I lied to you before I told you to leave or he will come for you and now too of your friends are missing all because you didn't listen to what I said just like all the other kids before you” he said in a disappointed tone.
I quickly ran over to try to get the generator running so we could call for help. Wall billy continued to talk to stinky joe. I stood over the generator as if I knew what I was looking at but I had no idea how it even worked or let alone how to fix it. I started to mess with the wires that were dangling off the side of the generator that was clearly cut intentionally. The wires started to spark when I touched them to each other. There were three different wires cut and I tried a few different combinations till the motor turned over on the third combination. The engine puttered before screaming back to life. It roared the air, shaking the shed at the same time filling it with smoke. Once it was running I sprinted into the cabin and dialed 911. 

The phone rang for a few seconds till I heard “911 what your emergency”
“You need to send someone to lake small pond there, something after us it killed two of my friends. We need help now” I screamed into the phone.
“Ok sir I need you to stay calm there are officers on route to your location now” The operator replied. 
“ HOW CAN I STAY CALM IF TOO MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD” I screamed back at the operator. 
“ just try to stay calm THere are officers on their way they will be there in ten minutes”
Out of anger I slammed the phone down and walked away running back out to the shed to see that Billy was gone and so was stinky joe. The entire roof was ripped off the cabin and was nowhere to be seen. I was alone and left for dead. I laid down on the ground and it was a race to see if the monster would get to me first or the police, I stared at the sky waiting to discover my fate. I heard sirens in the distance and the grunting of the monster. It really was down to the wire. I got up and sprinted down the road towards the sirens. Behind me, I heard the monster grunting and trees crashing down. IN front of me through the trees, I could see the light flashing and the sirens echoing slowly getting louder. I kept sprinting. I could hear my heartbeat like it was being played at a concert. I came around a corner and I could see a cop car flying down the road towards me. I started screaming for help then I felt a warm consent breeze on my neck. I wiped my head around and everything went black.