My Experience with "Hotel California"

I used to go camping a lot with my Boy Scout troop, especially for summer camp, which most of the time is held at the same camping grounds. The place was peaceful, there was a small lake nearby to go fishing at, and since it was used by the Boy Scouts for summer camp, it had a cafeteria in case you couldn't cook your meals for any reason. It was perfect except for one small thing, it was near the penitentiary that the song "Hotel California" is written about. No big deal though, it's a maximum security facility, there hadn't been a breakout in years. The only ominous thing was that I was camping on the week of the 10th anniversary of a massacre at the penitentiary, where 30 of the most dangerous inmates were killed.

I gave that small fact no mind, I mean, what could possibly happen, those criminals are dead and nobody has escaped in the past 17 years. Nothing bad would happen right? Wrong.

On the first night, my tentmate and I heard some rustling in the nearby bushes. He's somewhat of a paranoid wreck, and thought it was an escaped convict. I assured him that it was just a squirrel or a rabbit or something, and we went back to sleep. Nothing else happened that night, or so we'd thought. When the wake up call went off, they announced that two campers from another troop had gone missing last night. The troop that lost the campers just so happened to be the troop in the campsite right next to our troop, and the missing campers tent was just a few feet away from our tent.

My tentmate started getting a little scared again, but I gave it no thought. I went throughout the day by following my schedule, going to the right merit badge classes and everything. After dinner, we had the opening campfire, which was mandatory to attend unless you're sick. Two of the other scouts in my troop were sick, so my tentmate and I had to stay behind and take care of them. We had our own small fire, and both of us fell asleep next to the fire.

My tentmate and I woke up when we heard what sounded like a far off cry for help. Once again, my tentmate got scared shitless, and I got a little concerned this time. I went to wake up the sick scouts and have them come with us to investigate, but when I got to their tent, all I saw were two torn up sleeping bags, and a little blood on one of the cots. My tentmate screamed in horror when he saw this, and we both ran to the campfire ceremony to tell everyone what happened. But when we got there, the fire was out, and nobody was around.

After worrying for a bit, I remembered there was a cracker barrel at the cafeteria after the campfire, and we ran there as fast as we could. When I found our scoutmaster, I told him what we saw, and he immediately told the camp staff, who then announced the news to the entire campgrounds. They decided to lock all gates and exits of the campgrounds so that nobody could get in, or out. We'd be stuck here until the end of the week.

All troops went back to their campsites and reluctantly went to bed, but in the morning, each of the 11 troops there that still had all their scouts, were missing two scouts. Every tent that lost it's scouts was left with ripped up sleeping bags and some blood on the cots, some tents with very little blood, and some with puddles of it. I'd had enough, so I decided that later at night, I'd take my survival kit, the troop lighter, my spray on deodorant, and my pocket knife, and sneak off to where I heard the cry for help last night.

After everyone had been asleep for a good two or three hours, I made my journey, and had to go to the edge of the small nearby forest. I took out my headlight, turned it on, and looked around. I chose my path based on recently broken branches, and traces of blood. It lead me to a small clearing, with a big and horrible view.

All the missing scouts were there, but half of them were dead, and the other half mortally wounded, battling each other. Before I could even start thinking about why they were killing each other, I felt a cold chill run down my spine, and looked at the edges of the clearing. We were surrounded by the ghosts of the massacre victims from 10 years ago. The ghosts surrounded me and took everything from me except my knife, the lighter, and my bodyspray. They wanted me to fight, but I refused, until they ordered the remaining campers to come after me.

I had no choice now, it was kill, or be killed. One by one I stabbed, cut, and incinerated my fellow scouts, until they were all dead. I looked at the ghosts and said "I've killed them all, now let me go!" But they just hovered and started grinning eerily. One of them finally came closer and said "Count how many bodies there is, child." Confused by this request, I hesitantly counted the bodies. There were only 24 bodies, but 26 scouts were missing. That's when I realized that the two scouts that weren't there, were the ones from my troop.

"You have to kill them next, but you don't get to stop just after you kill them, you'll stop after we're satisfied with the bloodshed." Then, my troopmates were brought before me, bound and gagged. I went up to them, crying, and told them what I had to do. They let out muffled cries, but I silenced them as quickly as possible by slitting their throats.

The ghosts weren't pleased yet, they made me stab and cut them for what seemed like hours before they finally let me go. When I finally found my way out of the forest, the wake up call had just gone off, and my troop had the horror of waking up to see me covered in blood, telling them the awful news. At first, they didn't believe me and were about to call the police, but for some reason, my tentmate stood up for me and said he believed me. They decided to give me a chance, and I took them to the scene of the bloodbath. They realized that some of the bodies had been dead for two days already, and they instantly believed me.

After we showed the entire camp what had happened, they evacuated the campgrounds immediately, and called the police, who immediately closed down the camp. Ever since then, the song "Hotel California" is the only song I'm able to hear on the anniversary week of that incident. Nearly 10 years have passed since that horrible day, and they're re-opening it again this summer, on the 20th anniversary of the massacre at the penitentiary and the 10th anniversary of the massacre in the forest. May god have mercy on the scouts going there this summer, because the ghosts of the 30 convicts and the 26 scouts sure as hell won't show mercy, not after what I experienced.