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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/thegeneralg on 2024-09-10 19:06:53+00:00.

I can remember that last night at camp like it was yesterday. We sat just outside the newly refurbished cabins as a campfire crackled peacefully in the stone ring in front of us. The grass had been freshly mowed, and the scent of pine lingered in the air. The sound of crickets and other insects was all I could hear as they floated contentedly nearby. The intense heat of the afternoon had finally lessened, and the night sky felt pleasantly cool and refreshing. During the day, the sky was so blue it almost hurt your eyes. But at night, it was all inky darkness, and the flickering light of the campfire was the only main source of light. I watched as tiny wisps of smoke slowly climbed into the sky before they disappeared into the dark pine branches. I was close enough to the fire that I watched as the coals pulsed with heat and the embers cast a soothing glow on the surrounding pines.

By then almost everyone else had gone to bed, so it was just Violet and myself. We hadn’t said anything to each other for a while, but I had a question I’d been meaning to ask. She was the head camp administrator and knew everything. It was Labor Day weekend, and with the final celebration over, there was just a tiny few of us left to close everything down for the start of camp next year. The end of summer atmosphere and the fact that the camp was now virtually deserted meant that it was the perfect chance to ask something that had been on my mind but for some reason I hadn’t quite been ready to.

“Why don’t we ever go across the lake to the land on the other side?”

“We’re not the only people who like to gather around the fire in the woods at night.”

I was unsure of how to take this. “What do you mean?”

She paused, a hesitant look on her face. “Depends on who you ask. I’ve seen some giant bonfires, some weird dancing, some screeching, and a group of people. But others say people have found things in the morning amidst some smoldering remnants of a fire. Bones that they can’t be sure are animal or human. Some have sworn people were watching them. Not doing or saying anything, just silently watching. Either way, no one’s ever bothered us out here, but never forget someone can always start.”

There was a silence that hung over the air. I knew she had more to say.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

She sighed. “I’ve told you what I’ve seen. That’s it. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t heard things. I have. Whenever I see a giant bonfire, or better yet, I smell it because it doesn’t smell like a normal bonfire, I hear things. Strange things I haven’t heard anywhere else. Noises that don’t sound completely human or completely animalistic. But the worst is when it’s not a sight or a sound, but a feeling. Only a few times, maybe 4 or 5 in all the times I’ve been here, have I felt something, but you better believe that was enough. I’ve never felt such raw, animalistic fear. It’s almost like it felt like a literal part of my DNA and it was so intense my body could barely contain it. It passed quickly, but you don’t forget something like that.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t.”

“The other thing is that even the fire isn’t like normal fires. Even from a distance, it looks mostly normal, but there’s some tiny difference that stands out. It’s not a fire that invites you to sit around, roast marshmallows, and tell stories. It’s a warning. For what exactly I don’t know, but a warning is a warning all the same.”

“Fair enough. Thanks for telling me.”

“Sure. There’s just one other thing. I don’t know why or how it happens, but there have been a few times when  I’m outside and night and all of a sudden, the sounds of insects stop buzzing and the frogs stop croaking. Completely and simultaneously. It’s more than a little unsettling, and every time it happens, I get inside as quickly as possible. I never see or experience anything else, but something tells me to get inside now,” she emphasized the final word. “So that’s what I do, and once inside, I slam the door shut. And nothing ever happened. But it beats the alternative.”

“No doubt.”

“Just remember. We tell campfire stories, but there are things out there that are the campfire story.”

We went to bed soon after that. By that time, the fire had burned down to a small glow, and the only lights were the ones scattered intermittently throughout the area. The rest of the area was completely dark, so I was paying close attention to my surroundings. I was halfway back to my cabin when I felt it. The sense that something had changed and not for the better. I quickly looked around, but everything looked exactly the same. So I kept on, trying to figure out what was different.

Then it hit me. Everything was quiet. No mosquitos shrilly whizzing by, or no crickets chirping away in the bushes. Everything had fallen completely silent.

I could immediately see why Violet had the reaction she did. It was downright eerie. So I had a similar reaction, and sprinted the rest of the way to my cabin. It wasn’t far, but in the darkness and with fear trickling down my neck faster than the sweat from my sprinting, the short distance felt like it had multiplied.

When I finally had the door in sight, I frantically unlocked it, tugged it open, and slammed it shut before sliding the deadbolt in place. Only then did I take a deep breath and try to calm down. Everything was exactly in place, and the illumination that flooded the space did not reveal any unwanted surprises. Just like always, I had the cabin to myself, and that had not changed. Nor was there any commotion from outside, no pounding on the door or disembodied scream. Just the still summer night.

So after a few more deep breaths, I tried to get ready for bed. Once I was under the covers, I switched off the light and looked out the nearby window. My bedroom is on the second floor, and it came with a window overlooking the nearby lake and forest. With the light off, I could just faintly see across the lake, and what looked like a fire just barely flickered from the other side. I don’t know why, but I could tell it had just started, as it was just a sliver of a flame against the night sky. I could also faintly make out shadows moving near it.

The sight sent a chill down my spine, and that chill immediately spread to the rest of my body when I saw the sight of what looked like a boat gliding across the lake’s surface. It wasn’t like any boat we had here, and the shadow inside it was too large to belong to anyone I knew.

I laid there in shock, unsure of what to think or do. I’d been a camp counselor out here for years, and I’d never seen anything like this before. Sure, there were a couple times where I thought someone was watching me at night here or there, but it turned out to be nothing besides the usual feeling of being out there in the woods at night. The longer I laid there starring out the window, the more I half expected to see something or someone leering outside at me, but nothing happened. At some point I fell asleep and had the creepiest dream where someone in a cheap mask and a black cloak was watching me from the foot of my bed. They didn’t do anything or say anything, they just stood there. So still it was unnatural.

I eventually woke up to sunlight streaming through the windows. It was warm when I stepped outside, but you could feel summer was slipping away, and the pleasant weather made it easy to shake off what I’d felt the night before. It also didn’t hurt that last night had been the last official night we were at camp, and we were all due to leave later tonight.

So off I went in search of a quick breakfast that I found in the form of some cereal that Violet and Eric were also having outside. Once I grabbed a bowl, i joined them at a picnic table.

“Sleep well guys?” I asked them after I had started eating.

“Ok,” Eric said. "I had a crazy dream. “Someone broke into my cabin and was watching me while they hid in my closet. Someone wearing a mask.”

That made me sit up straight, and I wasn’t the only one. Violet was looking at both of us with an uneasy expression.

“I had a bad dream too. Someone people were lurking outside my window. Two of them. Both in robes and masks.”

Then I told them about my dream. And I told them about what I’d seen and felt last night for good measure. Eric was pale when I was finished.

“I saw that too,” was all he could say. “And I swear I saw a procession of people with torches coming out of the woods right near the boundary of camp.”

The three of us sat there in total silence until Violet spoke.

"Let’s just get everything done and get out of here. "

That was fine by me, because with that ominous air hanging over everything we finished the few final matters in record time, and then the only thing left was for all the remaining counselors to hop in two cars and engage in our usual final camp ritual of a movie and pizza. Over the years we’d seen several movies on Labor Day weekend, from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Ghostbusters, but this year we were going to Aliens. I loved the original and I was looking forward to it.

And I was not disappointed, because it was an incredible ride of a movie that we all enjoyed that somehow manage to make me forget what had happened the night before, if only for a short time. When it was done, we all went to the local pizzeria and treated ourselves. As always, it was a wonderful time. When we were all done, it was time to return to camp so we could pack up and h…

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