Frightful Flash Fiction

Summer Camp

My parents had forced me to go to some stupid summer camp. It's called Camp Morning Mars, named after it's founder Zachary Mars. It was a summer camp for boys, where we would learn survival skills for when we're lost in the woods. Which would never happen because I absolutely hate the woods. They also taught us how to bake, which I always thought was a girl camp thing.

Either way, it was me and five other boys. Everything was going relatively fine, but then our counselor decided it was time for a hike. Which meant I would have to go into the forest. I refused to go at first, but with encouragement from the counselor, and the taunting from the other kids, I went with them. It wasn't as bad as my mind made it out to be, but I still didn't like it.

But the worst was yet to come. Only after a couple of days at the camp, the other kids decided they wanted to explore the forest. Now we weren't allowed into the woods without adult supervision. And we especially weren't allowed to go into the forest at night. It was nearly pitch black out, with the only source of light being the full moon above, it made sense why we couldn't go out.

It was strictly prohibited, and our counselor couldn't have made that any more clear. Apparently, a few years ago, a kid went out into the woods by himself at night. He didn't come back, but don't worry, they found him, torn apart by whatever wild animal attacked him. But these kids didn't care. Especially Todd, he kept making fun of me.

"You're such a loser. What are you possibly scared of? You the think The Gold Man will come out and get us?"

The idea of the Gold Man showing up frightened me even more, but I couldn't let them know that. I'm not proud of myself, but I let peer pressure convince me. So the five kids and I went into the woods, alone, at night. It wasn't so bad, at first. But a couple minutes into the walk, we started to hear howling.

The sound terrified me, but the other kids just laughed it off. They were fearless, or just too stupid to be afraid. Then, it happened. We felt something move by us extremely quickly. We felt the gust of wind come from behind us so we all turned around.

One, two, three, four, five. There were now only five of us. We looked around for the other kid, but we didn't find him. Todd decided it wasn't our problem, and that it was time to turn back to the campsite. The other kids were scared now, but Todd was still as brave as ever.

However, that changed really quickly. Cause from behind a bush, we saw what looked like the head of a wolf, staring us down. This was it, I thought to myself, all because I was stupid enough to go with them. We stared back for a couple seconds before taking off.

We ran fast, but the wolf ran faster. Whoever was behind me was in deep trouble. One by one the wolf attacked. And soon it became wolves. Nobody looked back, we just kept running.

One of the wolves almost got me, their claw cutting the side of my arm. We got closer and closer to the campsite, that's when Todd tripped, and I ran past him. He asked for help, but I kept running. I wanted to help, I really did, but I couldn't stop my legs from moving me forward. I heard Todd screaming as I kept getting further and further away.

I was able to finally turn my head, to take one quick glance at the wolves. And I saw them, they stood about six feet tall, with long humanoid arms, and claws. They weren't wolves, at least, not regular wolves. I ran inside and locked the door as fast as I could.

I ran to our counselor and told him what happened. He refused to go outside until morning, so I had to wait. I didn't sleep that night. When sunrise came, the counselor went out to take a look around. All five of them were found, dead. Torn apart, just like the other kid that left.

I went home much earlier than expected, and Camp Morning Mars was closed, maybe for the rest of the year, maybe permanently. I have no idea what was in those woods, but I have a feeling they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I couldn't sleep again, I stayed up, thinking about what happened at camp. I tried to help myself relax, by reading, or scrolling through funny videos on my phone, but nothing really helped.

I looked out my window, just thinking, as my eyes caught hold of the moon. Oddly enough, it made me feel a bit better, and I was able to relax. It's weird, I never found the moon this pretty before.

(Well hello again. I recently just got 1000+ views on this collection of short stories, and while that may not seem like a lot to many people, I'm amazed I even got this far. Thank you to all my readers, and my followers. The time you've given to my stories means a lot. I'm glad some people can enjoy my work. So again, thank you all for the 1000+ views, and to hopefully a thousand more.)