THE SCARIEST THING...
Bryan F. Orr
“I didn’t think he would ever leave,” whispered Petey Rollins, rolling his eyes in exasperation. This was met with a chorus of sighs and “tell me about its!” from his five friends around the campfire.
The boys from cabin “K” watched their camp counselor, Perry Cumming, (and didn’t that name cause a few giggles!) hurry down the hill towards the row of cabins that lined the shore of Lake Gitaloomay. When he entered the Community Latrine, the boys turned back towards their fire and visibly relaxed. The six boys of Cabin “K” hated Counselor Cumming, who was a bit of a tyrant. He ran their cabin as if it was a boot camp.
It had been Petey’s idea to make a batch of “Ex-Lax brownies in the Camp Kitchen the night before. They then left the baked goods wrapped in cellophane on their cabin table that morning with a card addressed to the “Boys of Cabin K.” Cumming of course confiscated the brownies, as they knew he would. It had taken the laxative a while to work, but at least for the night they’d be free of the overzealous counselor.
“You know he’s gonna make us pay for this tomorrow,” laughed Ty Nederling. He threw a pinecone into the fire and watched it become consumed in the glow.
“Yea, but knowing he’ll be doing the porcelain polka all night makes it all worthwhile,” said Marty Antony, the cabin clown in their group.
“Porcelain polka,” laughed Tim Quicken. “That’s a good one, Marty!”
The other five boys in the group looked at Tim as if he had just said something dirty about their sisters. “Shut up Chicken,” said Oscar “Dutch” Taylor, the self imposed leader of the group. Dutch had earned this distinction by being the largest of the ten-year-old boys that year. It never ceased to amaze Tim that his bunkmates all looked up to Dutch when not one of them actually liked the jerk.
Every cabin at Camp Gitaloomay was made up of similar rankings. Dutch was the toughest in Cabin “K”. Petey was the idea man, which ranked him right behind Dutch. Marty was the funny one, placing him third. Ty Nederling, who went by the nickname Bony, was the rich kid who bought the popular kid’s affections by spreading his generous allowance around come every “mail day.” Avery Jones was the “cool guy,” by virtue of being the only black kid in their cabin. Which made absolutely no sense to Tim, since he knew Avery from back home where the both of them belonged to the same computer club, “Cyber-Geeks.”
Tim, who along with Avery were both first-timers at Gitaloomay, didn’t make a squawk when on their first day he was designated “Low Man on the Totem Pole,” while Avery was deemed to be part of the gang. He liked Avery and was hoping that with his hometown friend being included in the inner circle that Avery would put in a good word for him eventually.
Not so. Two weeks later and he was still the group pariah. Even Avery kept his distance from the Quicken Chicken, as he was called. As if he’d never heard that one before! As usual, Tim was sitting apart from the group on top of a stump on the other side of the fire. He was facing his peers and the camp below, which was lit prettily by the full moon above and a blanket of twinkling stars. If he hadn’t been so miserable he might have appreciated the view.
“Did you believe what Cumming said about that naked lunatic on the loose?” asked Avery, of no one in particular. He was looking into the dark woods that surrounded the camp on every side but the lake. Tim rolled his eyes. If it had been him that had asked that question he would have been chased from the fire in a chorus of Chicken! Chicken! But coming from Avery the question was regarded seriously for a moment.
“Nah,” replied Dutch confidently. “Every year a counselor tries to pass off some urban legend on us. They’re all full of shit, Ave.”
Avery nodded, a bit wiser now. A comfortable silence fell on the boys as they fed the fire with sticks and pinecones. Tending the Cabin Fire was a big deal at Gitaloomay and taken very seriously by all the boys. Tonight the Fire belonged to Cabin “K.” Something that occurred only a handful of times while they were at camp, so they were making the most of it. The boys from the other cabins were either playing cards, writing letters to home, or reading in their bunks before lights out was called. Tim picked up a stick but put it down when Dutch glared at him across the fire. Low Men on the Totems' weren’t allowed to feed the sacred flames.
“Hey, watch this,” Marty giggled, as he took down his shorts and bent his bare ass close to the fire. A ripping fart followed and a small explosion of blue flame shot from his ass. Everyone went into hysterics and an assembly line was quickly formed, but except for a barely audible “poot” from Ty’s bony ass, no one else could summon up the gas.
So much for the “Sacred Flames,” thought Tim.
“Damn,” lamented Petey. “Why couldn’t they feed us pork and beans tonight instead of grilled cheese and soup?”
“So what do we do now?” asked Ty, pulling up his shorts. He turned to Dutch, who was lying on the ground with his head resting on a log; “You want me to sneak some mallows from the kitchen?”
Dutch shook his head. “How ‘bout we tell ghost stories?” he said, looking straight up into the night sky. If anyone else there had suggested such a thing, Dutch would have called him a homo, thought Tim.
“Yea!” Petey agreed enthusiastically. “But nothing pussy like, the guy with the hook!”
(Tim sighed, that was the one he was going to tell)
“And not the one about the babysitter who keeps getting threatening phone calls from the maniac in the same house!” added Marty.
“Hey, I like that one,” protested Ty.
“No man, let’s do this for real,” said Petey.
“What do you mean, ‘for real,’” asked Tim.
Petey eyed him distastefully. “I mean, what is the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?” he said, leaning towards the fire. The flames sent shadows dancing across Petey’s somber face. The group grew quiet as they considered the question.
“The scariest thing?” asked Marty, with a wry grin.
“Yea. For real though, no made up bullshit.”
“That’s easy man. Have you seen the dick on ol’ Harry Meeks from Cabin “A”? The damn thing must be a foot long!”
Everyone laughed but Dutch. “Cut the shit Marty! Get serious for a change, why don’t you. This could be cool. But let’s make it interesting. The guy with the scariest thing gets...” he thought it over, scratching the back of his crew cut head. His eyes lit up. “The Golden Hatchet.”
A Golden Hatchet was given out at the end of each summer to the best all round kid in each cabin. It was literally a popularity contest voted on by their peers. And though it was considered un-cool to openly covet the spray painted hatchets hanging over the fireplace in the Main Hall, everyone at Camp Gitaloomay wanted their Cabin’s hatchet more than anything on earth. So Dutch’s proposal was met with stunned silence. Such a thing seemed liked heresy to the boys, but each in turn was confident of having the scariest thing to relate. (Except for Tim, but he thought this was his best chance of winning the Hatchet) Thus desire won out over tradition, and they all quickly agreed to the contest. But to keep the tradition somewhat alive, an open vote at the end would determine the winner. And no one could vote for himself.
“All right, I’ll go first,” said Petey, following Dutch’s lead by lying against the barkless log. The others also followed suit except for Tim, who was still sitting on the stump. “The scariest thing I ever saw was a face at my bedroom window.”
“What?” interrupted Marty. “What the hell’s scary about that?”
Petey smiled. “Okay smart guy, what would you do if you saw an old man’s face leering at you from your bedroom window in the middle of the night, and you were home all alone?”
“That’s easy,” returned Marty, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“What then?”
“I’d shit my drawers, that’s what!”
Petey relaxed and laughed along with everyone else. “Well, I didn’t shit my pants, but I sure was scared.”
“That true Petey?” Dutch asked him doubtfully.
“Sure it is! See, it was this old guy who lived down the street from us. He got his rocks off by peeping into the bedrooms of little kids. I ran to my parent’s room and called the police. When the cops got there they found the old guy still looking into my room and jerking off in the bushes.”
“EWWW!!” exclaimed the other five boys together.
Dutch shook his head. “Petey, that ain’t scary. That’s just gross. Okay, me next. The scariest thing I ever saw was this pack of wild dogs that nearly caught me and my cousin Phil at the garbage dump in my home town.”
“Damn, now that’s scary,” agreed Marty, the whites of his eyes shining brightly in the light of the fire. “I think I really did just shit my drawers!”
“Go ahead Dutch,” said Ty, frowning at Marty. “How many were there?”
“I didn’t stop to count ‘em Bony. But there had to be at least six of them. Phil and I were checking out the dump because every now and then you could find some really cool stuff laying around.”
“Like what?” asked Avery, his face wrinkled in disgust.
“Like nudie magazines for one,” Dutch said.
“That’s reason enough for me,” laughed Ty, giving the guys a salacious wink.
“Bony, what would you do with a picture of a naked girl?” teased Marty. “I seen you in the shower man and you ain’t even got your pubes yet!”
“Screw you Marty. Seems to me, you spend a lot of time checking out other guys in the shower.”
“Would you faggots shut up and let me finish!”
“Sure Dutch,” said Ty, flipping Marty the bird. “Go ahead.”
“Brown-noser,” hissed Marty.
“Alright, so Philly and I were scrounging around in the bottom of this little valley of garbage...”
“How Polluted Was My Valley,” said Tim, slapping his leg with hilarity, but no one got the joke.
“Shut up Chicken. We were both intent on digging around, but suddenly I got this feeling like we were being watched. So’s I look up and see this line of mangy looking dogs staring down at us from a ridge of garbage above us.”
“Oh shit, what’d you do?”
“I tapped Philly on the shoulder and now he sees them too, and for what seemed like ten minutes the dogs and us just stared each other down. One of the mutts finally gets bored and wanders off, and for a moment I think we might just get out of the mess alive. Then my retard cousin gets this brilliant idea to chase them away by throwing something at the biggest dog. He picks up this Campbell’s soup can and hits this huge pit bull right between the eyes. Bammo! That’s when all hell broke loose. Those dogs poured down the ridge at us like a bunch of Indians’ in a John Wayne movie.”
“Damn dude,” said Petey. “I gotta admit, that is the scariest thing. So how’d you get away?”
“Well, luckily there was a bunch of junk cars close to hand and Philly and I ducked in one and closed the door behind us just in time. But not before that big ass dog took a chunk out of Phil’s butt!”
This was met with a large degree of ribald laughter. “Served him right!” Marty hooted.
“Anyway, the guy who ran the dump heard Philly hollering and rescued us. It turned out he kept the dogs around to chase off trespassers, but like I told him, those dogs weren’t after us to chase us away. When we jumped in that old Chevy Impala those dogs threw themselves at the rust bucket as if they hadn’t eaten in days and Philly and I were nothing but hamburger in tennis shoes.”
Dutch’s brow wrinkled and his eyes shined with fear as he recalled that moment in time when he was sure that his life had come to an early end. He looked up at his bunkmates, who were looking at him with surprise. They weren’t used to seeing Dutch without his cloak of bravado. He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest confidently. “So beat that for scary, you chickenshits.”
“Alright, it’s Bony’s turn,” Petey sighed. Though it hardly mattered anymore. Dutch was sure to win the Golden Hatchet now. He was sorry now that he hadn’t embellished his story a little bit.
Ty Nederling shrugged and looked into the fire. “I don’t think I have anything to tell,” he said, not meeting their eyes.
Dutch and Petey exchanged glances. “Everybody’s been scared at least once in their lives, Bony,” Petey insisted.
“Yea, man. Just tell us what the scariest thing was. Don’t worry about it not being as scary as mine, cause nobody’s is!” Dutch boasted.
Ty nodded and took a deep breath. Out in the woods a wildcat cried, sounding very much like a lady who’s just seen a scariest thing of her own. But the Braves of Camp Gitaloomay were all used to that by now, and the boys of Cabin “K” barely paid it any heed. Ty looked up at them and began.
“The scariest thing I ever saw began with a dude who looked just like Mr. Rogers.”
“Huh?”
“You mean Mr. Rodgers, the Gym coach back at home?” asked Marty.
“No, the Mr. Rogers from, Won’t you be my neighbor?” answered Ty, looking back into the fire as if his past was unwinding in its flames. Everyone but Ty and Tim laughed, thinking it was a joke, but Bony wasn’t kidding around.
Tim could tell this was a story that Ty would have preferred to keep to himself, but was telling it because he wanted to fit in with the gang. Tim sympathized, and continued to try and think of something to rival everyone else’s scariest things. He wanted that Golden Hatchet very badly. Down by the latrine a movement caught his eye. He peered past the guys and down the hill.
“I was seven years old and playing in the driveway of my house when a car pulled up to the front of the curb. This guy, wearing a sweater just like Mr. Rogers, complete with the white canvas sneakers, steps out of the car and says, ‘Hey son, you seen a little black puppy running around loose?’ “
“No sir, I says honestly. The guy nods and shakes his head sadly. ‘My little girl is going to be so upset about this. You see, it’s my fault the little guy got away. I left the front door open and...well, we just moved into the neighborhood down the block and I don’t know the area well enough to know where to look. Would you mind helping me find him? There’d be a reward of course...”
“Aw, don’t tell me you fell for that Bony?” Petey asked him with disgust written all over his face.
Ty looked down at the ground, ashamed. Tim wanted to tell him to shut up, that no amount of friends in the world was worth revisiting this kind of pain, but Ty pushed on.
“I didn’t even give it a second thought,” he said bitterly. “The thing is, my folks told me the same things your parents did; don’t take candy from strangers, and never, ever get in a stranger’s car. But when they told me those things I always pictured a monster, not Mr. Rogers!” he sobbed suddenly. The flames of the fire were reflected in the fat tears rolling down his face. The other guys shifted uncomfortably away from Ty as he got himself under control.
“I jumped in the backseat of his car and was looking back at him when I realized my mistake. His face, which had looked so friendly before, now showed its true self.” Ty Nederling looked his so called friends in the eyes and dared them to contradict him. “It was now the face I had always imagined on such people. The face of a monster.”
“Did the creep...” Dutch left the question unfinished, but everyone knew what he was asking.
“Touch me? No, as soon as he got in the front seat I tried to open my door but he had disabled the handles. I think he had done it before”
“So, what happened?”
“I jumped out the open window right over his shoulder and ran for home. For once in my life being small and skinny was a good thing. But none of what I just told you was the scariest thing.”
“Aw, give me a break Bony,” said Dutch, who saw his sure thing suddenly not so sure. “What, are you gonna tell us, that he had a hook for a hand too?”
Nobody thought that was funny, not even Marty. But to his credit, Ty didn’t take the bait. “There was this big glass-plate window in the front our house that reflected the whole street. I remember birds used to fly into it until my dad painted the shadow of a hawk on one corner of it. Anyway, as I was running towards the house I saw my reflection in the window as big as day. But not just mine, the creep’s too and his whole car. I watched as the man got out of the car and took off after me as if he had all the time in the world. I felt like I was running in place and the house, my sanctuary, was getting further away, as he got closer and closer. The man got bigger in the window as we approached the front door. He was looming over me and his eyes found mine in the reflection. His hand shot out and...and...he suddenly stopped, as if what he saw in the window scared him even worse than it had scared me.”
“What do you mean, Ty?” asked Avery, his eyes magnified by his round glasses.
“I think that man saw himself for what he was that day and it scared the shit out of him. He was a monster preying on little kids. Surely, not even the worst people on earth like to see their true reflections.”
“So the reflection saved your life?” said Dutch, no longer concerned with the prize. Hell, Bony deserved it.
“Yes, and the image of the man-monster was also the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. I still dream about it, but sometimes...” Ty’s eyes became haunted and he looked away, too scared to say the last. It went unsaid, but they all knew how the sentence ended, But sometimes the man-monster doesn’t care about its reflection and it catches me and what follows is unspeakable...
They all took a deep breath and collected their thoughts. Marty Antony glanced over at Tim and saw the kid was scared shitless. He elbowed Petey, “Hey look at Chicken,”É he whispered.
Petey grinned. Tim was such a pussy. The kid’s mouth was hanging open and his eyes were round with fright. Petey rolled his own and turned back to Marty. “Okay, not that there’s much sense in going on with this-
“Hey, that’s what y’all said after Dutch finished!” Marty protested.
Petey threw up his hands. “Alright, but remember, it’s the scariest... thing...not the funniest thing!”
“Cool,” replied Marty, grinning like the fool he was. “The scariest thing I ever saw, by Martin P. Antony.”
“Marty!” yelled everyone but Tim, who was looking as if he’d just seen a ghost.
“Alright! Alright! Now this happened to me just last year. My old man and I were fishing for crappies on Lake Myers, which ain’t too far from here, actually.”
“Yea, I know the place,” said Dutch, spitting into the fire. “Supposed to be a great spot for crappies and bluegills.”
“That’s why we used to go there,” said Marty sadly.
“Used to?” asked Petey. “Something happen to you out there?”
“That’s why I’m telling the story, smart guy! If I wanted to tell a story about how we caught our limit of panfish, I’d send it to Field&Stream!”
Everyone was a little surprised at Marty’s outburst. It was out of character for a guy who was constantly cracking wise.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Petey. It’s just that talking about this kinda freaks me out.”
“Fine,” said Dutch. “You heard him boys, Marty forfeits! Who’s next?”
“I didn’t say that!” Marty objected. “Okay, here goes. The old man and I pushed off real early that morning. The sun wasn’t even up yet when we cast our first lines of the day. I remember there was a fog bank that sat atop the water like something out of a horror movie. And when our row boat pushed through it the fog eddied and flowed around us like a living breathing thing.”
A scream punctured the night somewhere down in the camp and the boys all jumped.
“Bobcat’s in the garbage again,” said Petey, smiling sheepishly. Everyone but Tim bobbed their heads coolly, as if it hadn’t nearly scared them all half to death. “Go ahead, Marty. I have to give you this, you know how to paint a picture.”
Marty smiled grimly. No one paid any attention to Tim, whose eyes were as big as pie plates now. “The fog had also dampened any noise. When I cast my lure into the fog it made no sound when it entered the water. No splash. It was as if the fog had swallowed it whole. I would frantically reel it in to convince myself that the world that I knew still existed beyond the mist. I tell you man, it was some eerie shit.”
Dutch laughed. “That’s your scariest thing? Fog?”
Marty glared back at Dutch. “No man, it was what was in the fog. And it was a hell of a lot scarier than some pussy puppy dogs!”
Dutch grinned, his horse teeth gleaming wetly in the firelight. Marty knew that smile well. It was Dutch’s way of marking him for later. But he had gone too far to back down now. He looked away from the cabin bully and into the fire for courage.
“We were out there for about an hour before the sun came up, lightening our mood as well as the day. But the fog still refused to lift. I couldn’t even make out my dad sitting in the stern of the boat and he didn’t go in for a lot of talking while he was fishing either. So at times it felt as if I was all alone out there. Neither of us had caught any fish and I was getting bored when my line started whizzing out of my open faced reel.”
““You got a big one!” I heard the old man say from a hundred miles away.”
““Ain’t no crappy!” I hollered back. The tip of my fiberglass pole was bent nearly to the water and at any moment I expected my lightweight line to snap. I had about half of the line reeled in when I realized that I had snagged something. There was no fight or life at the other end.”
“Ain’t nothing but a tree limb, Pop!” I said to the old man. I heard him grunt and the faint hiss of a beer can opening, as he drank his fifth already that day. “At least he’s catching a buzz,” I muttered, too low for him to hear me.”
“Ha ha!” laughed Avery. When no one else laughed he looked down at his shoes timidly.
“I finally cranked the dead weight up to the boat. I could hear it thump against the gunwale. I sat my rod down and bent over to unhook my favorite purple worm and looked right into the face of a bloated corpse.”
“No fucking way!” said Petey, duly impressed.
Marty visibly shuddered and nodded. “And like a little girl I freaked out, man. I must have forgotten I was in a boat because the next thing I know I’m running right off the edge of the skiff and into the cold water of Lake Myers. I went straight down too. I remember the bubbles,” Marty said softly. “The bubbles running past my face as I sank like a stone. I really began to panic then. I started clawing my way up to the surface, but like Bony I didn’t seem to be making any progress.”
Nederling nodded at Marty and something passed between them. “My lungs are fit to burst by this time, when all of a sudden my hand comes into contact with something more substantial than water. I literally climb my way up to the surface, where I take in great gulps of air. Believe it or not, after nearly drowning I had all but forgotten about the stiff I had snagged! But as soon as I wiped the water from my eyes I could see what I had climbed up on.
“The dead body,” said Ty.
“Yea. It was some kid that had gone missing a week before but no one had thought to drag the lake for. His eyes were gone, eaten by the same damn fish my old man and I were casting for. His skin looked as pale and loose as soap that’s been setting in water too long. A crayfish crawled out of one empty socket then and that’s when I started to scream.”
“Lord awmighty,” whispered Petey.
“What happened then?” asked Dutch, satisfied at least that someone had beaten the guy, who had beaten him.
“Next thing I recall I’m looking up into the faces of two paramedics bent over me, which nearly set me to screaming again. The old man had dragged me out of the water by my hair and carried me to shore, where he called 911 at the Bait and Tackle Shop. And for a second there I thought I’d dreamed the whole damn thing. And then...”
“What Marty?”
“There was this newspaper rack, not two feet from me, with a little boy on the front page. ‘Local boy, still missing!’ it read. And though the boy on the paper, who had a gap toothed grin, looked nothing like the corpse in the lake, I knew it was him.”
“How?” asked Avery.
“Because he called out to me,” said Marty, wiping something from his eyes. Everyone waited for more but Marty was done talking. In the distance the hollow echo of someone chopping firewood for the night reached their ears, though none but Tim was paying it any attention.
“That leaves Avery,” said Petey who, like everyone else, was shaken by Marty’s story. The image of the floating body was stamped in his brain. He hoped that Avery didn’t have something scarier than that to relate. Damn that Dutch for bringing this contest up! “Well Avery? You got something scarier than that, or should we just go ahead and vote right now?”
Avery Jones looked up at the boys staring at him expectantly. And then over at his old friend Timmy from back home, whom he had ditched like yesterday’s garbage, just because these clowns didn’t dig him. He was ashamed of himself. Tim did look like an idiot though, with his mouth hanging open and his eyes as round as saucers. But no matter what it meant to his popularity, Avery promised himself that he’d make it up to Timmy. Right after he claimed the Golden Hatchet, that is.
Avery gave them a thin smile. “The scariest thing I ever saw was a letter,” he said simply. The guys all waited but Avery didn’t elaborate.
“Okay, it’s obvious you lose, Ave,” said Dutch. “But what gives? There’s got to be more to it than that.”
Avery nodded. “A few weeks before Camp I started getting bad head-aches. Nothing serious, but my mom worries, you know? So she took me to our family doctor for tests just to be safe. They took blood and even gave me one of those Cat Scans. Then the doctor gave my mother a prescription for pain killers and told her he’d let her know, but not to worry. I was really looking forward to Camp because my good friend Tim Quicken told me the guys here were really cool.”
“Chicken’s never even been here before this summer,” sneered Petey.
“What a fricken liar,” snorted Dutch.
Avery glared at them. “Yeah, Tim was wrong about a lot of things, like the guys being cool here. But let me finish so I can claim my damn prize.”
“Awful confident for a loser, Avery,” said Dutch, marking him with one of his toothy smiles.
Avery ignored him and pushed his glasses up his nose. “A week later I came home one afternoon to find my mom and dad crying together on the couch. They didn’t see me come in so I tiptoed right out of there. I don’t know about you guys, but nothing makes me as uncomfortable as watching grown ups cry like little kids.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Marty. Even Dutch grudgingly agreed.
“I went to the kitchen where I poured myself a glass of milk. But my hands were shaking so badly I kept slopping it on the counter. Something about their grief had made me very nervous. My stomach felt as if I had swallowed a rock and my head began pounding worse than ever. I took my glass to the table and with shaking hands shook out one of those prescribed painkillers, even though I wasn’t supposed to without asking mom first. It was then I saw the letter.”
“It was to my grandmother in Alabama, and it was only half finished. But that first paragraph was the scariest thing I ever saw. It read:
“Dear mom, I’ve got some real bad news. I would have called you with this but I don’t think I’m strong enough to say it out loud. Avery’s going to die. He has an inoperable brain tumor and the doctor gives him six months at the most to live. I’m not going to tell him though until he gets back from summer camp, which he has been looking forward to so much. I can’t believe that...
“Ave’s daddy just walked in mom. I’ve got to go and give him the news.”
Avery stopped there-after all, what more was there to tell-and looked at the guys sitting around him but they were all looking elsewhere. Marty and Pete scootched away from him, as if his cancer might be catching. Avery shook his head and sighed. He couldn’t believe he had wasted over two weeks of what remained of his life on these clowns. He looked up at Timmy and smiled.
“Your turn, buddy.”
Tim’s eyes flickered down at Avery and back up again to the horror he’d witnessed earlier. He hadn’t heard a single word that Ty, and Marty had said, and only a little of what his friend Avery had related. He felt no sadness for his friend, not because he was unfeeling but because nothing existed in his mind right then but pure, unadulterated terror.
He had watched in stunned silence as a wild naked man pounced on the unsuspecting Perry Cumming as the camp counselor exited the latrine. The Golden Hatchet buried in his head cut Perry’s single scream short. Then, for the next several minutes, Tim watched in disbelief as the crazy man dismembered their counselor, while his bunkmates droned on and on about stuff that just didn’t matter anymore.
The naked man, now clothed in blood from head to foot, was finished with his gruesome chore and had been slowly making his way up the hill toward their campfire, which was reflected eerily in his silver eyes. Timmy faintly heard Avery say, “Your turn buddy.” The lunatic locked eyes with him as Tim looked up again.
The Golden Hatchet splattered with blood and gore nevertheless caught the light of the flickering fire in its concave blade. Tim smiled, knowing that the prize now belonged to him and him alone. Why, it was even being delivered to him at this very moment! Tim nodded at the naked man, who raised the bloody hatchet over his head, then grinned at the five unaware boys looking up at him on his stump.
“The scariest thing I ever saw,” he said, pausing a beat, as he began to giggle, “is standing right behind you...
