This Summer Camp Offers All the Best Screams and Scares

Day One

They say I gotta keep this journal to get credit for doing my “public service” here at Camp Arawak, so I’m keeping it, even if I think this whole thing is a dumb idea. I guess I know why they need to force people like me to “volunteer” to help get the camp up to snuff, though. Everybody’s heard the rumors about what happened here years back. To me, it just looks like a run-down old dump. Got this nice bag, though, name of the camp right on it, plus a bunch of other stuff that I guess they’re going to be giving out to the campers when they arrive. Some books, some cards, a puzzle, that kind of thing. That beach ball is kinda creepy, though. Who’s that grinning kid supposed to be?

Day Two

Kendall disappeared last night. We were playing a game of strip poker with the cards they gave us in these bags – they’re weird cards, too, with, like, high school kids on ‘em. If I gave a damn, I’d ask what kind of camp they think they’re running here. Anyway, Kendall said that she had to pee and went out. That’s another thing, the bathrooms are all in this concrete outbuilding. Showers and everything, segregated for “boys” and “girls,” y’know? Anyway, she never came back.

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We didn’t think too much about it last night. Maybe she didn’t feel comfortable with the game. But she was still gone this morning, so we went to Dean about it. He just said she might have taken off, and if she did, her parole officer was going to hear about it. It was unspoken, but it didn’t have to be said – we all know that Dean thinks we’re trash, and he’s not about to go traipsing through the woods looking for one of us.

Day Three

Maybe I was too hard on Dean? He took us out for a hike today. He said that he wanted to see what the trail looked like, if it needed to be cut back or anything. I think he was secretly a little worried about Kendall after all, but we didn’t find any sign of her. What happened instead was that we lost Rob.

He was hanging back toward the back of the line, and I figured it was because he wanted to fall behind enough that he could light up a joint or something for a minute. We’re not allowed to even smoke cigarettes while we’re here, if you can believe that, imaginary person reading this who isn’t a cop. So I didn’t say anything when he dropped out of sight. He was still gone ten, fifteen minutes later, though, so I yelled up ahead and we all stopped and went back, but nothing. Not even a burnt up bit of roach to show where he’d been standing…

Day Four

Okay, things are getting really weird now and, honestly, I’m writing this as much because I want to keep things straight as because I think I’m ever going to turn it in and get credit for … whatever this is turning into.

Sometime last night a storm rolled in. It was that lightning, rattle the windows kind, y’know? So we were all in the counselors’ cabin, which is where we’ve been staying while we slap a fresh coat of paint over all the decaying wood of this place. We had a big fire going and the rain was beating down outside. I think everyone was a little freaked out, maybe because of the storm, maybe with Rob and Kendall vanishing like that.

Tim was putting this puzzle together on the floor, and I guess it was the puzzle we got in our kit, but I swear it looked like it was of a naked dismembered lady or something? I hadn’t even looked at mine yet. I was reading the book they had thrown in the bag, something spooky by Dean Jobb. Looks like Kendall had gotten something equally creepy by Bob Calhoun.

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Liz was in the kitchen and we heard this crash and we both looked at each other but by the time we went in there she was gone. The back door was hanging open, rain coming in, lightning cracking outside, but no sign of her. Then Tim pointed out the pin.

It was an enamel pin, the kind that have been so popular lately. It was of, like, a clown or a puppet or something, but it was creepy as hell. Just staring at you with these weird red-black eyes.

“Did Liz have anything like that?” he asked, as if I knew what Liz had on her, and I told him I hadn’t ever seen it before. I picked it up and dropped it in the bag with everything else, so I guess I’ll ask Dean about it …

Day Four – Part Two

We can’t find Dean. I mean I can’t, I guess. Maybe Tim did. I dunno. I haven’t seen either of them in a while – at least, I don’t think I have.

After Liz vanished, we figured we’d track down Dean, who should have been in his room but he wasn’t and the window was open, papers blowing around, rain coming in. So we split up to look for him, and we’d been separated maybe five minutes when the lights went out. Not just here, all over camp.

Every building has an outside light, so the kids don’t get lost in the dark while they’re here, I guess, and they all just dimmed, like a brownout, and then turned off and stayed off.

I bumped my shins and elbows finding a flashlight and what I found after that was this big, tacky red smear by the front door of the counselors’ cabin so I locked myself in here, because I’m not entirely stupid.

I don’t know where Dean or Tim are, but I saw someone outside. Someone moving around in the dark, illuminated by the fingers of lightning. They were wearing a heavy, dark coat, a slicker or something to keep off the rain. Maybe it was Dean and maybe it was Tim. Maybe they were looking for me, or looking for the others. Maybe they’re in danger now and if I yelled I could help them.

I didn’t yell, though. I’m writing this by the light of my zippo, because I don’t want to turn the flashlight back on. Once I’m done, I’m putting it under a floorboard under my bed and I guess if someone finds it in a day or a week or a year, there’ll be one more story to add to the legend of Camp Arawak…

Featured photo: Matt Whitacre / Unsplash