Why I Don't Go to Camp Anymore



I have been attending Camp Rock Water for about four years now. I just loved camping, being able to see some new faces, getting to do fun and exciting activities. My favorite part was the River Rope Swing. I never wanted to leave that swing once I got on. I was just so excited to go back, mainly because it would be my last year I went. Summer finally came and it was time to head to camp..

When I got to camp after a four-hour car ride, I was so excited. I was just on a big nostalgia trip remembering all of my old favorite places. First things first, my mom had to take me into the lodge to get signed up. When we got into the lodge there were a lot of people there. We waited in line until it was our turn to sign up. Before we were handed any papers, the lady at the table told us that there had recently been some weird things going on a few miles down through the woods from us. I kind of just ignored it.

My mom helped me lug my suitcase to the cabin. When we got there, I was so happy to see some of my old friends from last year. Kyle, one of my long time camp friends, was sitting in a corner making his bed. Jacob, another one of my really good friends, was on the floor taking stuff out of his bag. And who could forget about Brad! He was putting stuff in the closet, like baseball bats and golf clubs. As for the other two kids, I had no idea who they were, but they both seemed to like me. Turns out they were brothers. Their names were Brandon and Nathaniel, and it being their first year they were kind of nervous. We all got settled in, and after our parents have left we sat down and started talking about past adventures in camp.

It wasn’t for another hour that our cabin leader arrived. When he got in, he kind of looked at us all with a gloomy face.

He turned to us and said, “Hey, guys. I’m your cabin leader for the next two weeks. Now, before we do anything, I have to tell you that some things have changed, and we will have to be more cautious due to the weird things that have been happening.”

We all were a little uneasy, but we wouldn’t let that stop us from having the best summer ever. The day continued on as normal: we introduced ourselves, played some cards in our cabin, went outside and played basketball, went to the mess hall to eat, and came back to the cabin to sleep. It was kind of odd that there were only 6 cabins full of people; usually there are around 30.

So the next day when we woke up, it was raining hard. The sounds of the rain smacking the metal roofs of the cabins echoed off to the distance. The camp leader was nowhere to be found. We kids kind of sat around the middle of the cabin, just waiting for our cabin leader to get back. We started talking about some ghost stories that happened around the camp. Some of them seemed completely stupid, but others were kind of scary. Outside of our cabin, there was about 400 acres of woods. In those woods, there were some obstacle courses, the chapel, and the river. There was one more thing in the woods that nobody really knew about, because it was so far off. It was the original Camp Rock Water cabins. There were only a few of the older cabin leaders that knew about it and how to get to them. Supposedly, back in the early 1900’s when the camp was first established, two kids got into a fight in their cabins. One kid killed the other in his sleep. He had apparently taken a heavy rock and dropped it on the other boy's head. Legend has it that the presence of the boy who was killed, lurks around the old camp ground and chapel. The boy could be sometimes seen crying at the back of the chapel. Someone even said they went to the cabins and saw his head peeking out from one of the windows.

At this point, everyone in our cabin was really scared. I swear Brad was going to have a panic attack. Our camp leader came rushing in through the cabin door. He told us that we needed to pack our things and go to the lodge. We will have to be calling our parents in the morning to tell them to take us home. We walked all the way from our cabin to the lodge in the rain, completely drenching our stuff. When we got there, only four other cabins had been there. As I was sitting next to the fireplace with my cabin mates, we overheard people talking about what was going on. Someone had said that all of cabin six had gone missing after returning from chapel!

Later that night, I woke all of my friends. I wanted to go and check out what had happened in the woods. Though at first they were very hesitant, they still agreed to tag along with me. We grabbed a few flashlights and snuck past the cabin leaders that were sleeping near the exit. When we got outside, it was still raining. But now it was pitch black outside. This still didn’t stop us from heading over to the woods.

When our group finally got to the mouth of the woods, Brad and Jake just couldn’t do it. They sadly walked back to the lodge through the shortcut in the gardens. All that were left were Kyle, Brandon, Nathaniel, and I. We walked slowly through the thin path towards the chapel. Every now and then, we would trip over some uprooted trees, but we still kept going.

We could see the chapel ahead of us, but there was something wrong. It was very quiet. The rain had stopped; there was no wind, nor any kind of animal in sight. As we walked up to the chapel, Brandon (who was carrying one of the flashlights) just started screaming. He ran as fast as he could back towards camp and dropped his flashlight. The light was shining towards the chapel, and through one of the illuminated windows, we saw a face of a child, crying. We all screamed and started to run towards the camp. Out of fear, we lost all sense of direction and had no idea where we were. We came up to the ravine that led down to the river. There was a small black figure that blocked our path. Our only way out was taking the ravine. Nathaniel, Kyle, and I began scaling down the side of the ravine, and we noticed another figure, but of our own. I shined my flashlight down a ways, and there was Brandon lying dead, head smashed in, blood everywhere. He must have tripped on an uprooted tree and fallen down the side of the ravine. But we had to just keep running.

We were halfway down the ravine; we could feel the sweat falling into our eyes like ocean water. And there it was again, a figure of a little boy standing at the end of the ravine, waiting for us to “play” with him. I told everyone just to keep running. I looked behind us, and Nathaniel had disappeared. Completely gone! Kyle and I saw the old stairs coming up on our left that led back up to the back part of camp. When we got to the stairs and we were almost to the top, we could hear a kid saying, “We can play with the rocks!” We didn’t stop to look back. We ran all the way to the lodge. When we got there, all of the cabin leaders had been awake. Two other cabins had left to go “investigate” what was going on in those woods. They both went missing. Kyle finally spoke up. He hadn't said anything all night until now.

"I saw him. The boy just wanted to play with us."

Years have passed since that encounter. Kyle was sent into a mental hospital for serious mental trauma. Jake and Brad were found buried under that chapel after they demolished it. Their bodies were cut up; their hands cut off and put into a small chest across from them. As for the other three cabins of kids, nobody ever found out what happened or were they went. Maybe they just didn't care.