This is So NOT Cool

I groan like an old man as I sit down on the log that Tom had vacated, grabbing the fire stick and jabbing at some of the coals that rim the outside of our towering blaze. As I make contact with the logs in the fire, they shoot little sparks out, as if they're angry at me for disturbing them. I giggle lightly, like a little school girl, as I play 'poke the fire' with my fire stick.

As I do this, my mind starts to wander. Now that I’m alone with my thoughts, and I don’t have to be social with my friends, my head starts reeling with ideas, new stories, new characters, new plots, and of course my favourite, new antagonists.

I whip my phone out and load my notes app. I’ll have to jot down my ideas before they fly away again, and then when I get home I can start turning them into something more concrete. Especially once I have access to my laptop again.

I kick it into high-plan typing gear as I start to map out my story in my head, the words flowing through my body as if it's an electric current. The idea's come and go so fast that I don't even have time to get all of them down. Before too long I am completely submerged in the wonderful world of fantasy as I create my new story.

Well of course that is before I hear an unnatural rustling in the trees.

My head snaps up towards the sound, so unexpected and quite frankly, kind of creepy. Besides, it is such a basic, overused, cliché of a horror movie that I have to snort at my antics. My life is too boring to be true crime horror worthy anyways.

I turn back to my phone to get lost again in the new world coming to fruition on the pages of my notes app, but before I can even think about reattaining my almost trance like hyper-focused writers state I hear another shuffle in the leaves, followed by a crunch as if someone is stepping on sticks purposefully.

My eyebrows rise high, wondering what could be making that noise. I look back at the trailer that my friends should be inhabiting right at this moment but nothing seems abnormal.

Of course, looking at the outside of the trailer isn’t going to tell me anything at all, and I know that. But maybe one of them got up while I was otherwise busy, and went to the bathroom?

I debate just dousing the fire with my water bottle and getting into the trailer, but if it is one of my friends sleepily wandering through the forest then maybe I should go try and help them instead of being a paranoid fool.

I look back down at my phone and quickly save my notes, and exit the app, before looking at the time on the screen. 2:57 am it reads and I sigh, clicking the flashlight that sits by the fire on and looking into the trees.

"Maybe I should cut back on the horror genre in general for a bit, I'm starting to get paranoid." I mutter to myself before I slowly start to make my way to the trees. Heading in the general direction of our bathroom hut, wondering if maybe it really was one of my friends that got lost on their way to or from it.

My steps are light and hesitant as I grapple for any excuse to not check out the noise other than I am clinically insane and paranoid from all the horror movies and books. Nothing comes to mind, so, with some reluctance I enter the thick green foliage that is right smack dab over head and start to make my way in a little bit.

When I get to our little makeshift outhouse, I check inside and notice that no one is there. And I didn’t see any of my friends on my way to the tent either.

I try not to face palm, I should have just checked the trailer and seen if someone was missing from their bunks, but instead, I decided to do the stupid person thing and come into the woods.

I furrow my brows in a frown, wondering then what was making the noise just moments ago. There aren't a lot of large woodland animals in this national park, so I am not too worried about a bear coming out and eating me. But that doesn’t mean that I am imagining the noises I just heard, does it?

But I don’t see any deer either, or even a hint of woodland wildlife at all really. It is eerily quiet, now that I am thinking about it. Taking note that even the cicadas and crickets seem to be drawn into silence, no animals or insects at all anywhere, making noise.

That in itself causes me a little bit of panic. It isn’t normal for even the small woodland creatures and insects to go silent like this, even in the dead of night. It usually means that something is wrong.

I cautiously peer over my shoulder behind me and see nothing, I turn my head back around and look in front of me and still see nothing. I spin around a full three sixty and still see nothing too deranged other than the old menacing trees that stand like a bazillion feet tall.

I shine my light in front of me and peer into the darkness, trying to see if there is a person or maybe even one of the seemingly silent animals out there. I can’t help feeling the hairs on the back of my arms rising in response to something. The eerie silence?

I take a few steps away from the outhouse tent, further into the trees. I look back towards the campfire that I left only a few moments ago, I can still see the red-orange glow through the trees, meaning I am not too far away yet.

I take a few more steps, looking into the bows of the trees, the gentle breeze shaking the firs only slightly. The sound of the breeze rustling the branches of the trees is the only sound that I can hear, though.

The breeze isn’t even strong enough to move my hair. It just gently rustles the tops of the trees, far from the reach of this silent ground.

There are no more twigs snapping at least.

Still nothing shows up in the weak beam of the light and I huff, double tapping the screen on my phone, the brightness of the screen lights up then and I see that it is 3 am exactly. The witching hour.

I turn around and yelp as something comes into the beam of the flashlight, something, or should I say someone, who is less than two feet away from the very spot I stand.

The first thing I see is what looks to be a gleaming knife. One that looks as if it hasn't been cleaned in years and has old crusted blood all over the handle. I then notice the worn, almost black, sneakers that the guy is wearing, then the creased, wrinkled, and dirty stained jeans. A white, yet not so white because of blood stains, sweater, the sleeves pushed up to the crook of his elbows. And shoulder length greasy black hair. But what is most terrifying is his face.

His skin is pale white, almost paper coloured, as if he had been spending too much time indoors. But also I don’t even think isolation from the sun could wash out all the colour from someone's features. He was so pale that even the light from my small and dim flashlight seemed to glint off of his skin, and deep blue veins could be seen in more prominent places on his skin such as his hands and forearms. There is absolutely no colour to his face and skin, none at all.

The hair on the back of my arms and neck seemed to grow ridged at the uncanniness of it all. Then his eyes flash to my own.

His eyes are dark as the night sky, even in the beam of the flashlight, they appear to sap all the colour and light from around them. But that isn’t all that catches my attention from his prominent features on his face. There appears to be an almost lack of some of his eye lids, as he not only doesn't blink properly but he also has what appear to be black burn rims around his eyes. As if his eyelashes were an affront to him and he had to get rid of them.

But even that wasn’t the most shocking thing that I saw. What is most shocking is the carved smile that is on his face. Crude cuts on the side of his mouth to halfway up his cheeks, splitting his face in an eerie and painful looking way. In what could be called a joker winning smile. Even the joker himself would probably flinch at the sight of these scars running crudely up his face.

And just as suddenly as I see this guy, I know who this is. As if on instinct.

I, the girl who has never believed in ghost stories, myths, or any of that conspiracy theory nonsense was standing in front of none other than a myth itself.

A killer, a lunatic, a psychopath.

I am standing in front of none other than Geoff the Killer.