Shivers 2

Don't Fear The Reaper

When the call came from Gerald about a reunion at Camp Calloway, the responses varied from shock to reluctance, curiosity to terror. The resort, once a cherished sanctuary for urbanites seeking refuge from the city, had become infamous after the massacre of 1978, when thirty people were slaughtered by a relentless predator known as The Reaper. Yet Gerald seemed to think it was high time for a gathering.

Mandy, Sam, Lisa, Eunice, Tyler and Carrie - Gerald’s oldest friends, and the only ones who'd managed to survive that summer of blood - answered the call. Their lives, knotted together by tragedy, couldn't resist the pull of an old comrade.

The long road to Camp Calloway was the first punch to the gut. As they journeyed up the winding road, their hearts filled with dread and excitement.

The camp was untouched by time, the lush beauty of the forest still as enchanting as before, its rustic cabins set against the backdrop of the seemingly endless forest. Gerald greeted each of them warmly. Despite his age, he was still the vibrant force they knew. A force now consumed by the dark corners of the past.

Nightfall arrived as old memories started to unfurl. A game of charades, marshmallows roasting on an open fire, and old songs that echoed in the starlit night. But as the embers started to die, so did the laughter. Gerald, then stood up, the moonlight casting long shadows on his face, and said, “I believe it's time we talked about that summer.”

“Are you mad?” Eunice snapped, rising from her chair. “Why would we want to relive that?”

“Because, Eunice,” Gerald responded. “I believe The Reaper is sitting with us around this very fire.”

Silence fell over the group like a burial shroud.

“Let’s not play games, Gerald,” said Lisa, her voice trembling.

“But I’m not,” he insisted. He spilled his guts, telling them about twenty years of research, about the truths he had uncovered. Carrie was quiet throughout, her gaze fixed on the fire, her past a phalanx of horrors she was forced to relive.

As days turned into nights, an air of mistrust hung over the once jovial reunion. Then, one by one, they began to die. Mandy found Eunice in the bathroom, her eyes gouged out. Tyler, drowned in the lake. Lisa, with her throat slit open. Sam was found hanged in the woods. Each death a grisly echo of the massacre they had survived.

By the time Gerald found himself alone with Carrie, it was clear who the Reaper was. He confronted her, the woman whose frail sanity had been shattered by a traumatic past.

“Carrie,” Gerald implored, “You need help.”

But it was too late. Her eyes had that distant look, the one he'd seen in old photos from Alkhurst Asylum. The Reaper was here.

“I tried to forget him, Gerald," she rasped, her voice not her own. "I tried to bury him. But you wouldn't let it go. You woke him up.”

As the axe plunged into his chest, Gerald's life flashed before his eyes. The chilling realization that his relentless quest had unleashed The Reaper was his last thought. His lifeless body fell to the floor as the ghost of Camp Calloway's past once again soaked the rustic cabins in blood.

The wind blew through the silent camp, carrying with it the haunting echoes of a past that refused to die. As dawn broke, it found Camp Calloway, once a place of joy and laughter, now a theatre of horrors, its stage graced by the Reaper's grotesque dance.

Carrie, or The Reaper, stood over Gerald’s body, axe in hand, her breath hitching as the last vestiges of her humanity slipped away. She looked around at the blood-splattered cabin, the silence of the night broken only by the crackling fire and her ragged breaths.

One by one, she visited each scene of her macabre handiwork. She laid her fingers on the dead eyes of Eunice, ran them through the water where Tyler had taken his last breath. She stood where Lisa had fallen and looked up at the tree where Sam’s lifeless body had swung.

Each death was a tableau of horror, a painting of brutality and madness. Her dark alter ego, The Reaper, relished each gruesome detail, her consciousness consumed by his thirst for blood.

In the solitude of the Camp Calloway night, she found herself standing on the edge of the lake, the moon reflecting in the still waters. Her shattered reflection stared back at her, a cruel imitation of her fractured psyche.

For a moment, she allowed herself to feel. The enormity of her deeds, the lives she'd extinguished, and the horrific persona that had been awakened once more.

Just as she was about to step into the icy embrace of the lake, the wind carried an all-too-familiar melody. A soft tune wafted from the direction of the abandoned rec room. She recognized the tune. It was the same they had sung around the bonfire, just a few days back, when the air was filled with laughter and nostalgia, not blood and dread.

She walked towards the sound, her feet guiding her back to the bonfire. There, amidst the chairs still arranged in a circle, the haunting tune played from a forgotten cassette player. The fire was long dead, the stars too seemed to have hidden behind the clouds, leaving only the chilling melody and the memories of what had transpired.

Carrie's eyes fell on Gerald's chair. He had been right. The Reaper had never left. The beast within her had been slumbering, waiting. Gerald's obsession had awakened it, let it loose upon them. She was the Reaper, the phantom of Camp Calloway.

In the chilling silence of the night, Carrie fell to her knees, the taste of her tears mixing with the taste of blood on her lips. All around her, the spirits of her friends watched, trapped in the hallowed grounds of the resort. Their blood was on her hands, a macabre reminder of the truth she'd tried so desperately to suppress.

Carrie’s tale ended as tragically as it began. She was found at the break of dawn, lifeless on the banks of the lake, the gleaming axe beside her. The horror that had revisited Camp Calloway had consumed its final victim. The Reaper had returned to the shadows, leaving behind the chilling legacy of a summer massacre.

And so, the sun rose once more on the picturesque beauty of Camp Calloway, a beauty forever marred by the terror of The Reaper. The once lively camp was now a ghost town, a somber testament to a tale of horror, a tale of old friends and old secrets, a tale that would forever be remembered as the nightmare of Camp Calloway. The camp was silent, its horrific past hidden behind the façade of nature's beauty, the dreadful secret buried deep within its heart.