The thought of camping always amused me; sitting by the fire at night and talking with your friends, grilling marshmallows and drinking all while being out in nature. Something about it seemed so peaceful. I shared my thoughts with a couple of close friends and they were all very positive to the idea. We decided to make it happen and drove out to the woods the next weekend.
Ashley, Sara, Peter, Malcolm and I were all excited and had packed the car with supplies for the coming three days. It really was as fun as I imagined and during our first night we stayed up until almost 3 am. The second day was when things started going wrong. I woke up at around 6 am which, considering the circumstances, wasn’t especially weird. The thing that startled me though was the silence, the complete and unreal silence. It felt like I had gone deaf, I couldn’t hear anything. No wind, trees rustling or my friends breathing. I felt a paralyzing fear and didn’t dare to move, but shook it off as to being in the woods. I mean, the woods really can play tricks on your mind. I must’ve fallen back asleep because I woke up from Sara looking down on me. Just a couple inches from my face. I nearly screamed and asked her what the hell she was doing but she just laughed it off. Apart from that, the day continued on as normal. It was actually really fun. When it got late in the evening me and Ashley both had to pee, one of the less fun things to do while camping, and so we walked away together to find a suitable place. The darkness surrounded us and I really had to concentrate on where to put my feet so I didn’t trip over some roots. Ashley suddenly screamed and I nearly ran to her to find out what had happened. She looked mortified and stared at something on the ground while holding something in her hand. I focused my eyes on the things she looked at and when my eyes had adjusted to the darkness I saw the outlines. The outlines of bones. Human bones. I screamed as well, a scream of pure horror, and looked up at Ashley, in her hand she held one of the bones.
But what I looked up at wasn’t Ashley. Her face had morphed into something that didn’t look human. Her cheeks had sunken into her face and she looked lifeless, pale and dull. She opened her mouth and a scream higher than any human should be able to make escaped from her. I froze and just stared at her, convinced I was dreaming. She fell down to the ground and started to shake uncontrollably. I screamed for Sara, Peter and Malcolm and they all came running. Ashley had stopped moving and rested lifeless on the ground. Sara screamed at me, demanding to know what had happened. Everything was chaos. It wasn’t easy but we all managed to calm down a bit, just so we could gather ourselves and actually talk about what just happened. We inspected Ashley’s body and that was when I noticed it. Her right hand was badly burned, with redness and blisters on it. It was such a contrast to the rest of her now pale body that it was impossible to miss. I connected the dots; thats the hand she was holding the bone with. That was it for me. I wanted to leave right that second.
We left as soon as we managed to, leaving Ashley and almost all of our stuff behind. I sat quietly in the car and stared out of the window. I heard Malcolm breathing excessively behind me in the backseat and I turned around, thinking he was stressed. His eyes were wide open and he stared down at his hands. He claimed he felt funny and started breathing even faster. I looked down at his lap, where his hands rested. A bone. A human bone rested in his hands. Seemingly a rib. My blood turned to ice and I acted on instinct. I slapped the bone out of his hands and it flew out of the open car window. I then swore to myself that I never would return here. We came home about ten minutes ago, I’m relieved that I’m home but I can’t help but think, I really miss those woods. I think I might go back tonight.