I don’t quite know how long this will run, or if it’s even worth telling, but I’ve had some memories come flooding back after reading stories and experiences from others. Memories that, honestly, I think would have been better to remain buried and forgotten. Lord knows I’ve gone to great lengths to just forget them myself, though nothing really seems to work. They will leave for a time, sometimes years, and then something will bring them all flooding back.
It all started, at least for me, in the summer of 2008. It was my first year out as a park ranger, where I wasn’t having to follow some experienced ranger around like a sad little puppy dog. I had my posting, and my park, and life was good. I remember the day I moved in, the soft, comforting patter of rain on the old tin roof, and the feeling of the cool water as it dribbled off my hat onto my back. Sure, I was wet, but I was the head ranger, and this was my park. It took me a couple days to get settled, and that’s when I met my partner. Sam. Well, Samantha, but god help anyone that called her anything other than Sam. Sam and I would, over the years, become very close. I shouldn’t have to explain what I mean by that, I wager you can guess. Sam had one year seniority over me, and yet she had turned down the head ranger position in favor of staying at the park we were assigned to. Even though I was the ‘boss’, I still tended to defer to Sam on all manner of decisions. She’d been at the park longer than I had, so she obviously knew more.
After I’d settled in, Sam dropped by to check on me, and then tell me more about the park I was now in charge of. All told, the park covered some five thousand acres of forested land, as well as another thousand acres of lake. The lake itself had been built in the fifties, as part of some government project to draw more people to the park (fishing, boating, swimming, that kind of thing), and then later the camp was built. Well… the first camp. There were actually two summer camps located in the park. The first camp had been built in the 1950’s, and was located directly across the lake from the ranger’s residences. The second camp was newer, and dated back to the 1990’s, and was maybe ten or eleven years old (I was never sure how old) by the time I arrived there. The first camp, called “Camp Pinewood” or something similar, had been abandoned in 1975 after an ‘incident’ at the camp. I remember asking Sam just what the ‘incident’ was, and she became rather evasive about it, finally telling me that in a couple days, the “judge” would stop by and tell me the story.
The second camp located some 1000 yards down the hill from the ranger’s residences, was called “Camp Hope” and was a special camp. Again, the ‘judge’ would explain things to me in a couple days. For now I just needed to get settled in, and wait. Yay, my first own park and I can do f all at it because I had to have things ‘explained’ to me. Wonderful. Just wonderful. Sam seemed to understand my frustrations, or sense them, or… something, because she just told me that things were done differently here when compared to other parks, and there were some rules I needed to know. Until I spoke with the ‘judge’, it wouldn’t do me any good for her to try to explain things.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long, maybe another day, for the ‘judge’ to show up on my doorstep. He reminded me of the stereotypical small town judge featured in so many movies, and while he spoke with a deep southern drawl, and looked as if a stiff wind would have blown him over, his handshake was very firm and his mannerisms spoke of a great deal of hidden strength. Sitting down at my dining room table, he spread out some papers, and began to talk.
The first camp, Pinewood, had not been simply ‘abandoned’. Rather, in 1975, just days short of the July 4th celebrations, there had been a fire at the camp. This fire destroyed one wing of the camp’s communal building, and damaged several of the camp bunk houses. When the dust settled, sixteen campers were injured, two killed, and one had simply vanished. The state police investigated the fire, and the missing camper, before ultimately the case just went cold. That camper was one “Millicent, Billi, Macintyre”, and it was generally believed by the authorities that she had set the fire herself, and then fled the state. Granted, no one knew how she had pulled this feat off, but that was the going theory in 75.
In the 90’s, Camp Hope was created, opposite the old camp which on a clear day you could still see some remnants of across the lake. Camp Hope was a special year round camp, though it also had summer programs as well. The camp was filled with various juvenile offenders, and was treated more like an ‘out doors’ version of juvenile detention, as well as education. I think the word he used was a ‘diversionary’ program. Where youth offenders could get away from the corrupting aspects of their homes, and get a new lease on life. At least that was the intent. Camp Hope had its own civilian staff who would handle most everything, while the Rangers were there in case, as the Judge put it “Anything went wrong.” That’s one hell of a vague term, and asking for clarification didn’t prompt anything beyond him giving me his personal phone, and telling me that I’d know when to call him if the need arose.
As he stood to leave, he paused by the door and looked back to me, warning “There’s one final thing you should know.” he said, his words a grave whisper “I don’t think Billi ever left Pinewood. In fact, I’d be willing to bet she’s still out there… somewhere, and damned angry that she’s been forgotten.” With that, he swept out of my home and left.
The next several weeks were a blur. A couple of the new ‘campers’ attempted escapes, and needed tracked down and rescued from various spots in the forest, while one made it as far as the gate itself, only to get turned back by Sam who was doing her hourly patrols. I kept busy scheduling various repairs for the park, and touching base with the various counsellors and the director for Camp Hope. I even approved a special ‘trust building’ event where the campers would go out into the forest and using only a map, and compass, traverse over a path finding various checkpoints. The first camper to reach the end would win a bottle of Coke. Quite the prize, when you haven’t had one in weeks. The counsellor and director were excited to see how well the campers worked together, while Sam and I were going to just hang around for the inevitable call that someone had gotten lost… again.
We didn’t have to wait long.
I was taking a break after a foot patrol of the grounds, when Sam came wandering over from her residence to see what I was doing. That or to annoy me with a complaint that I still needed to get her porch painted, and sitting on my ass wasn’t doing any good. All in all, just fun ribbing from co-workers. No real harm in it. I remember tossing a scrap of paper at her, prompting her to threaten to cite me for littering when one of the counsellors came running up the path at a jog. Out of breath and sweaty, the counsellor took several minutes to catch his breath before he gasped out that “one of the campers had gone missing.”
Sam looked at me, then back to the counsellor. All playfulness was gone, and it was down to business. “When did you notice?” She asked, pulling out a pad to make a note for her report later. The counsellor seemed to dodge the question, before eventually saying that it was on the ‘navigation’ course. I offered to drive us down to where that was in my truck, while Sam questioned the counsellor. The counsellor wasn’t really sure when the camper went missing, just that they hadn’t showed up at the fourth checkpoint. Figuring the girl in question had gotten a bit lost, they opted to ‘wait it out’ to see if she showed up. When she didn’t, they started walking back along the paths to the third checkpoint, calling the girl’s name and searching for her. At the third checkpoint, the counsellor there noted that the girl had passed him some twenty minutes prior, but hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her after that. Between that, and the jog up to come grab myself and Sam, as well as a stop off at the director’s office to notify them, a good hour and a half, maybe two hours had passed.
Crap… this wasn’t good. We dropped the counsellor off, and I started to get out of the truck, when I felt Sam’s hand on my arm. “I think I know where she is.” Sam said, levelly, and told me to close the door. I gave her an odd look, and she simply replied “Pinewood.” I must have looked at her like she had a horn growing out of her forehead, because she just sighed “Trust me on this. It.. well it happens maybe once or twice a year. A camper goes missing, and we find them wandering around Pinewood. No one really knows how they get there, but it always happens.” I rolled my eyes at that, and snorted, to which she just looked darkly at me. “I’ve been here longer than you, and I’ve seen things that I can’t explain. There’s something wrong with this place, and I can’t quite explain it. If you don’t believe me, just ask the judge, he’ll tell you.” I just gave up at that point, looking out at the massed counsellors, no doubt wondering why we’d not left the truck, and back to her. “You better be right.” I just said. She rolled down her window, and spoke with one of the counsellors, saying something about having a good idea where the girl was; and then nodded at me to leave.
I won’t tell you about the drive to Pinewood, on the other side of the lake. Not because it’s some horrific tale of dead trees and and overgrown road, but because I don’t really remember it. Not all of it at least. I have flashes of it from time to time, but it’s only the last thing I have any real memory of. The drive felt like it took hours, though only a few minutes passed, and then we were at the gates of Camp Pinewood. The sign over the road long since overgrown and forgotten, the gates themselves ajar and rusted in place. In the distance, lumps in the grass from long discarded clothing or bags from the campers back in 75 who fled the place in a hurry, and then what was left of the cabins. Many had the blackened damage from an old fire, while others looked just run down. It didn’t feel like a nice place, though I could almost imagine that once, it was a happy place where children looked forward to going. Now though, it was a skeleton of its former glory. In the center of that grassy expanse, stood an emaciated figure. A girl in torn shorts, and an equally torn shirt. When she turned and saw me, her eyes sunken deeply into her head, she broke out in a scream, and ran. Not away from me, but toward me. Wrapping me up in a bony hug, as she began to sob, over and over again saying she was sorry, and had been so scared.
I remember picking up this waif of a girl, the bones of her elbows digging into my arm as I cradled and walked back to the truck, Sam waiting patiently for me. I half expected the girl to vanish the moment I crossed past where the gates were, but she did not. She just clung to me, and then to Sam. All the while babbling on, and on, about how she was sorry, and really wanted to go home. As we drove back to the camp, I listened to her story. She told how three weeks prior, she’d met a girl on the trail while doing that navigation thing. The girl had suggested they sneak away for a cigarette, and in doing so she’d gotten lost. She wasn’t sure where she was, but told how she’d walked in circles for a couple days, before stumbling across the old camp. There she’d found food in some of the buildings, and had been sleeping in the cabins. She told how she’d seen the other girl a few times, always standing back and laughing at her, only to vanish when the girl blinked or wiped her eyes. The few times the other girl spoke, it was accusing her. Saying that it had all been her fault, and to just accept her fate. She’d tried running away from this other girl, only to find that no matter where she turned, she always seemed to end up back where she’d started. By the end of it, she’d pretty much given up hope of ever being found, and was considering hanging herself when I found her.
Three weeks. She was certain of that. She’d been gone three weeks. She’d been missing, at most, three HOURS, not three weeks. Yet, here she was, skin and bones, her clothing tattered and torn, and convinced that she’d been gone three weeks.
Sam and I dropped her off at the infirmary, with the doctor giving her a once over and then helping her settle in. The doc actually behaved as though it was a perfectly normal thing, from her condition, to the weird time skip the girl had experienced. I found myself walking out of the infirmary, knowing less than I had when I went into it. So much just didn’t make sense about everything. I found Sam sitting in the bed of my truck, idly smoking. When she saw me approaching, she wordlessly pulled out her phone and held it out to me. I just dumbly shook my head, not sure what exactly to do or say. She pursed her lips at this, then gave a curt nod and pushed the dial button. It must have only rang once, because before long I heard her say two simple words. “Billi’s back.” She then hung up the phone and looked at me, adding “We need to talk.”
I’m going to leave this here for now, as I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, and I really don’t want to get complained at by Sam for daring to stay up too late once more. I don’t know if my story is what you’re used to, or if there’s answers to the many questions I have, even to this day, about it… but I do promise I will update this when possible.