Nights of Fire

Chapter 10: Richard

        That night after the extreme snowball fight (of coarse cabin 5 won) that we had to miss, we had one last campfire before Mr.Flarity decided that he had the right to give us just a little upbeat lecture. Everyone sat around the campfire as Mr.Flarity took his place upfront. Gloria was sitting by the cabin 5 girls as she talked to them and supposedly did their hair but it just looked like she was making a nest out of it.

        "Ahem." Mr.Flarity stood in front of us all, looking as if he was about to throw up. "I have some rather, bad news for ya'll." I don't know why he said that, he was not southern. Everyone went quite and he started up again. "Everyone in the camp knows the story of Samuel the night rider. Over a decade ago we have driven Samuel away, leaving him in the state of Alaska, but on the day where we had the welcoming ceremony for miss Witney Evens, we have discovered that mister Samuel has returned to the camp lake. Now this is nothing to worry about for he has not harmed anyone yet." Casper than interrupted Mr.Flarity.

        "So you're saying that he will hurt us?"

        "No no not at all. I merely saying that we are not in any harms way. The reson my wonderfull sister has returned here is to help us drive Samuel away again. He, for all we know right now, has inhabited the lake, so that is off limits. We will be returning to our normal schedule effective immediately. After this campfire go straight to your cabins and lights out at 10:00pm. Now please enjoy your meal and then return to your cabins." He walked over to Gloria and sat down next to her. He talked and talked as Gloria listened. It didn't seem like it was a happy conversation.

        I walked over to Witney who was having a deep conversation with Lisa but stopped it as she saw me. "Hey!" She yelled over all the commotion. "What is the normal schedule like. The whole time I have been here it has just been ceremonies." I almost forgot.

        "Oh you know. We wake up, put on the camp uniforms, eat breakfast, do battle training, lunch, lessons, free time for games and the annual spring volleyball tournaments will probably start up soon, dinner, more free time or some work. That's usually it, very tiring days."

        "So it''s just like a very awesome boarding school?" She laughed and so did I. We walked back over to the log and sat down next to everyone. Noel and Casper joined us and everyone was a little jolted from what Mr.Flarity had just said. We tried to keep things upbeat but with every smile and joke there was still a bit of darkness hidden beneath it. 

I am known as the guy who was always kept things happy, the jokester, but now, even though I knew all of this before, now that it was public with the camp, it was different. The whole time that we knew that Samuel was back, we still had a hope that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be real, but now that everyone knew, it meant that it was true, that there might be no way out.

We finished eating and headed back to our cabins. Matt and I climbed in our beds and sat there in silence but no one turned out the lights. I started to hear Matt snore but I couldn't keep my eyes closed.

At one point I ended up finally falling asleep, but the only thing I remember is the nightmares

                                                                                       ***

It was dark in the alley in front of me. The gravel under his feet crunched as he came towards me.  I couldn't see anything of him, it was almost as if he was jsut a solid shadow. Every few moments he would flicker and in an instant he would be a few feet closer to me. By his posture and the way he walked, I could tell that I might be in trouble. I tried to move but my feet were sunken into the gravel. I screamed out in frustration and pulled at my legs. He was now only a few feet away from me and with one more flicker he would be right next to me. It happend fast, he was right there. His arm was raisd and he thrusted a knife at me but before it hit his shadow engulfed me. The darkness was blinding, my eyes would not adgust but I had a sense of where I was. It was rocky, almost like a hicking trail only I couldn't tell, I couldn't see. I thought that this must be what it was like to be blind. Having the sight on the tip of your tounge but the darkness was too thick and feirce. I walked around and tried to feel my way aorund but I couldn't see my arms so I didn't even know where I was trying to feel. But then I finally realized. I fpushed my hands forward, the light from my hands peirced the darkness.The room was nothing. Rock walls and rock floors, like it was a closed cave with no way out. The room was large, almost as big as a floor of one of the cabins at camp. I wasn't too worried about where I was until I saw him. He was nothing more than just a smoky figure but his eyes still had light, only they weren't normal eyes; his eyes were just holes in his smoke like body, light peirced through them like a hole in the cave wall. He stared at me with his not-eyes eyes. I backed away, keeping my hands at my sides. I knew who he was, I knew the story of him all too well. I didn't know if he has come back to me in my dreams to finish the job. I heard of things like this, that he could travel through your nightmares to kill you in your sleep. Does he not have enough blood on his hands already, especially from my family? Does he even remember Amanda? Does he even care?

I kept walking away and he watched me go. He didn't try to stop me.  He left me alone but he didn't go away. I thrusted my hand toward him and the light traveled through his body. He screamed like a banshee and I had to bring my hands to my ears. He didn't shut up and I ended up droping to floor. My head seered with a headache. Now he decided to come towards me. He screamed louder and harder than ever. The pain in my head did not stop and I cried out in pain. He kicked me in the ribs and then whispered like wind in my ear, I will never stop until she is dead. With that I woke up.