Here’s an update on the events that transpired at Camp Tallwood in Summer 2019. If you’d like to hear my story, I suggest starting at the beginning.
“What the actual fuck,” said Arizona.
“We have to learn more about this place!!” Raven insisted.”
“There’s something really, really wrong here…” I said “it’s just this feeling I have… like I’m always being… watched or something.”
“Really Freckles?” Said Conner, rolling his eyes.
Bunny’s eyes were wide “No,” she said softly, her voices so hushed I barely heard her over the crackle of the logs. “I… I keep hearing these strange things.. and… and…” she trailed off .
“What kind of things, Bunny,” Peps asked gently.
Bunny shook her head, her dark eyes frightened. “It’s just… I’ve seen someone… something…peeking from behind the trees. At dusk. When the light is purple and starts to get low… it’s like it’s playing some kind of game. When I see it, it jumps back behind the tree. Too fast to be human. I almost feel like it’s teasing me.” Bunny was close to tears. Friday put his arm around her and she leaned into him.
Connor started creeping towards Ari. She scooted away in disgust and laced her arm through mine. Her grey eyes were liquid in the light of the stars. Stay on planet earth, please, Emily, I thought. She winked at me and smiled, I smiled back. That left Peps and Bookie and Raven. Connor wasn’t cool enough for Peps, with her pink hair and NYU art girl vibes, and Raven wouldn’t touch him with a sixty foot pole. And although Bookie was in the stratosphere and Connor was in the Mariana Trench, he sometimes stole secret glances at Connor’s vaguely attractive-adjacent face. It looked better in the shadows when you couldn’t quite see all of the details. Or maybe it was certain aspects of his personality that ruined it for me. Again, I digress. That night, though, Connor pulled out a bottle of Jack that he’d been saving.
“Y’all are wayyyy too on edge,” he said. “Let this Tennessee honey blow off some steam.”
So we did.
We passed around the bottle, laughing, saying things we shouldn’t have that would fade with the morning light. Friday and Bunny started to make out all sloppy-tipsy as the fire burned low and they thought we couldn’t see them. Until Connor whooped and brought them back. Bunny giggled, embarrassed, but also giddy because. Well. Thai. I mean Friday. And Ari… Sedona… I loved to say her pretty name…she leaned her head on me and I tried not to act like it rushed straight to my head like a shot of whiskey. Her soft skin had the faint scent of pears… and her hair smelled like the smoke of the campfire. She smiled up at me and I smiled back. Her eyes were silver. Her lips were… “Not yet,” she whispered in my ear, sending shivers. Fuck. Then we heard the screaming from the woods.
It was blood-curdling. We sprinted as fast as we could, weaving back and forth from the Jack. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…” I said, vision blurry, tripping over rocks and sticks. We stumbled into the woods, blindly, following the screaming. I felt waves of sickening terror wash over me. I was certain that in our moment of negligence, something awful had happened to one of the kids, and I threw up on myself, chunks of half-digested turkey and the acrid sting of cheap fermented rye burning in my throat, but I kept running. And running. And running. The screaming grew shriller, more desperate, and I barely registered the brambles slicing my shins and the branches slapping my cheeks. I was completely swallowed by blind panic and the tangible darkness of sockets between the hardwoods.
But then the screaming stopped. And there was no one there. We were completely alone in the dark, silent woods. There was nothing. No crickets. No night birds. No rustling leaves. Total silence. It was eerie. And it was so, so dark. Like the moon didn’t shine there. “I know where we are,” said Bookie. “I recognize that tree. We’re not that deep into the woods, follow me !” He was quiet, but calm and confident, so we began to cautiously follow him back to the cabins. Then we heard the footsteps. We froze and huddled together. I was too terrified to care about Connor’s hand on my ass. Then they got faster, closer. We started sprinting after Bookie, dodging this way and that among the huge trees. “Don’t look behind you!” Shouted Bookie. “Just keep going!! We’re almost there!” But Bunny did, and let out a curdling shriek. Then she tripped. Friday swooped her up, and they kept running, Friday whisking her along behind him. I looked back, too, and froze. There, behind us, was that… thing. Peeking out from behind the trees… moving impossibly fast. It was nothing more than a shadow, vaguely humanoid, except the arms were far too long, and the legs were cocked at a strange angle, like a goat walking on its hind legs.
And then it disappeared. Ari bumped into me and almost knocked both of us over. “Shit! Freckles, run!!” I snapped out of it as the footsteps surrounded us and grew closer. I couldn’t breathe… my chest was too tight, and my heart fluttered in the pit of my stomach. Whatever it was sounded big, and the cadence of the foosteps was a little off, awkward, like perhaps one of its legs was clubbed or too short. I didn’t particularly care to find out.
Just as I thought I was about to take my last breath, we broke through the trees and I fell crying onto the grass. It was wet with glistening dew. The footsteps abruptly stopped, and the crickets and soft crackling of leaves from the forest recommenced, as if nothing had happened. I could breathe again. I began to do a head count. Ari was bent over, puking. So was Peps. Connor was there, and so was Friday, his arms around Bunny. Bookie stood with a quizzical look on his face, trying to make sense of what the fuck just happened. And Raven… wasn’t there. The others were too busy catching their breaths to notice. “Guys!! Guys where’s Raven??” I yelled, the sickening waves of panic returning. The world started spinning and I fought the urge to throw up again. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck,” Friday groaned. “No way in hell am I going back in there!!” Yelled Connor. “Connor, you asshole!” Shouted Peps. “We don’t fucking need him,” spat Ari. “Come on, Connor. She’d do the same for your sorry chicken-shit ass,” I snapped. My tone shocked me. “WELL FUCKING COME ON!” Bookie shouted. I’d never heard him that loud or distressed
And so with my heart in my mouth, I ran back into the trees. But it wasn’t quiet this time. There was a veritable symphony of crickets, and a soft, inviting breeze that rustled the silver-dusted leaves in a calming sort of way. The whippoorwills called. Small mammals rustled through the underbrush.“RAVEN!!!” We called, shattering the now-peaceful forest. “RAAAAAVEEEEEEN!!!” I screamed her name until I was hoarse. The sun began to rise. “The kids…” began Friday. “I know,” Bookie said. “We have to go back.” “No!” yelled Ari. “I am not leaving her!” “Ari, love, we have to,” said Peps gingerly. “Raven is tough, she’ll be okay. We have to take care of the kids.” Bunny was quiet, tears silently streaming down her dark pixie face. So we trudged back, beyond bone-tired, defeated. “I’ll start some coffee,” I said. Bunny burst into tears. “Shhh, shhh, hun, it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay,” said Friday. Peps gave her a hug.
We dropped the boys off and starting trudging up the hill to our cabin. Then we stopped dead in our tracks. The door was swinging wide open, and a trail of sticks and leaves and dirty footprints led into the cabin. Bunny screamed, and we all went sprinting into the cabin. Breathless, my eyes followed the trail leading into the soft blue darkness within. “I’ll check the right, you check the left,” I said to Ari. “Bunny and I-” started Peps, and then she just stopped, staring at Raven’s bed. There she was, on top of the covers, sound asleep. The dirt trail led right to her bed, and she was covered in it, her hair full of sticks and leaves, her limbs all scratched up from branches and brambles. Bunny tentatively approached her. “Raven?” she coaxed, gently shaking her arm. Strangely, Raven’s eyes flew open. Normally it took Peps two cups of coffee and lots of annoying music blasted though earbuds to wake her up. “What the fuck,” Raven said. “Why am I covered in dirt?! Was this a prank?? I am going to kill all of you… I bet it was fucking Connor!” “You mean you really don’t remember?” Asked Peps softly. “Remember what?” She snapped “you dick-holes rolling me around in the leaves while I was asleep?!” “No-” I started, but just then the girls started waking up. Ari shoved her into the shower, hissing “quick, hop in, don’t let the kids see you- I’ll explain”
The girls saw the mess, of course, but we told them it was the boys playing a prank, and we’d get them later. Peps gathered the girls, I swept, and Bunny changed the sheets while Ari filled Raven in. It was all out of sight, out of mind by the time Melissa met up with us. She eyed us, taking in our unusually messy appearances, slowed mannerisms, and purpled eyes. “All of you have been working so hard this summer with hardly any time off,” she began. She was right, of course. The few days of down time between waves of campers was spent here, at Tallwood. It was on those days that we hiked farther, swam longer, and rode around bareback, laughing and forgetting everything but the present moment. Tallwood had that kind of effect. I miss them. All of them. All of it. Sorry, I keep getting distracted…
“Why don’t we have a chill day today! You all take the kids to the lake to splash around! We’ll do ice cream sundaes and lunch by the lake, and afterwards Midge and Katy and Amanda and I will look after the kids while they watch a movie, and you lot can get some rest.” She started to walk away and then turned on her heel. “And I know you’re tired, but whatever you do, don’t take your eyes off of those kids. The lake is dangerous,” she said severely. “We know we know Miss Melissa!” Connor broke in. “The lake is deep, and cold, much colder than you think, and no one truly knows the depth” he said, making his voice much spookier than hers. We all had Melissa’s lake speech memorized by now. “And whatever you do! Do let the kids swim past the rope. Again: no kids past the rope. And no swimming without life jackets unless they excelled at the swim test!!” Connor continued in the same ridiculous tone. “I’m serious, young man,” she snapped. If looks could kill, Connor would be six feet under. “Don’t worry, Miss Melissa! We’ll watch them like hawks. Plus Freckles is a great swim instructor- the kids will be fine!” Trilled Bunny, back to her usual bright self in front of Melissa. “Thank you Bunny,” she smiled.
We each had two cups or more of coffee coursing through our veins, but they weren’t quite as jumpy as me. I was on edge and couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something awful was going to happen. Like someone was going to die. But I tried to smile and shake it off and be cheerful for the kids. After getting everyone into their swimsuits, we rounded up the kids and headed to the lake. When we got close, they started to run towards the water and the dock out of excitement. “Hey hey hey!” We called, and caught them before they could leap in without us. I lined the littles up and put most of them, complaining, into life jackets. The 11-14s were all strong swimmers so I wasn’t too worried, then we turned them loose. “Let’s take turns guarding,” I said. I was a lifeguard back home, and I knew what it was like to sit in stand all day. “We’ll switch every thirty minutes, okay? So no one gets too tired. I’ll start”. “Sounds good!” chirped Bunny. “Okay!” Said Peps. “Don’t fall asleep, Freckles!” taunted Connor. Friday winked at me. Bookie shook his head at them. And Ari had already run ahead of everyone and dove gracefully into the still water, barely making a ripple on its glassy surface. “Oh my god!! It’s freezing!” She screeched, making the kids laugh.
The first half hour was really fun. The kids splashed, and Bookie read at the foot of my stand. Friday and Connor dunked the kids and raced around, laughing. Raven chilled in the shade, floating with some of the older kids, and Bunny and Peps had a game of Marco-Polo going in the shallows. It was almost like nothing had happened. “Get in, Freckles!!” A little boy called Jack cried. “Yeah! Come on Freckles- PLEASE?!” The 7-10s begged, splashing me. I laughed. “Don’t worry! I’ll dunk all of you later! But I gotta keep you safe!” I told them. I sat up straight on stand, constantly and systematically searching the water, just like I did back home. I knew how quickly and quietly drowning could happen, especially in open water where there were hidden currents and you can’t see the bottom. That’s why Melissa usually had me guard.
It was another fun, relatively uneventful day on the lake until Connor got on stand. After me was Bookie, and then Peps. They were both good, scanning and keeping an eye on all the kids, especially the littles. And I swam around with Bunny and Ari and Friday, dunking the kids as they hung on our backs, and played Marco-Polo and the colors game. The lake was warm at the top and got significantly colder the deeper you went. It was only about 12 feet deep at the deepest point of the roped-off swimming area, and some of the older kids liked to dive down and grab shells and lake mud to throw at us and each other. Then it was lunch time, and all the kids scrambled to the picnic area to dry off and then lined up for sundaes. The air warmed my chilled body and I basked in the sun (slathered in SPF, of course. I fry like a potato). It was the perfect day to have ice cream before lunch. Chocolate syrup and cherries seemed to wash away our fear. Even Raven was smiling.
Then Connor got on stand. He brushed me off when I warned him about the after-lunch wall of tired you hit in the hot sun. I know he thought I was a royal stick in the mud, specifically with the stick up my ass, but now I know why Melissa only ever had him watch me teach swimming in the mid-mornings. He started off leaning back in his chair and twirling his whistle, royally pissing me off as he tried and failed to get Ari’s attention as she took a break and tanned on the dock. Bookie and I were playing duck-duck goose in the shallows, while Bunny and Friday were watching a swimming contest at the deep end. Raven sat with her feet in the water, talking to Ari, and Peps was judging a jumping contest. It was just another sunny day on the lake, and in my false sense of sunshine security, I thought about how happy I was to be there. During the day, at least. But happy nonetheless.
After everyone was all changed and dried off, we got them settled in the lodge with pillows and blankets and snacks to watch their movie. We were about to head back for a much needed nap when Melissa asked if we’d done a head count. Fuck. My blood ran colder than the lake water. We didn’t do a head count after we got out. “We did one after lunch,” stammered Peps. “There were 26 kids total! 14 littles, and 12 of the 11-14s. Everyone was there.” “I know you did one after lunch. I’m asking if you did one after everyone got out.” Melissa’s eyes narrowed. We were all silent, not daring to meet her fierce gaze. Melissa flew into the hall and did a head count. 25. “I need you to do a roll call right now,” she hissed at us. So Bunny called the names of the 7-10s. Everyone was there. Friday did the 11-14s. All 12 11-14s answered when their names were called. Only 13 of the littles replied. We did the call twice more. Did a head count. 25 total. 13 littles. 13. Seven year old Jon-Mikell didn’t answer…
Just a quick update: sorry I haven’t had a chance to finish telling my story- I’ve been back at Tallwood! I’ll be back Monday with an update and some explanations
-Freckles