Scary Stories: Continued

34

This ghost story isn't really mine, but it starts with me.

Years ago, back when I was younger and in better shape, I used to do some backpacking. Nothing terribly ambitious, but every so often I'd find a loop trail that could be done in a few days, get a friend, and head out.

One weekend, my friend Kristen and I went to southeastern Ohio to backpack a 14/15 mile loop trail. It was great: very wooded, moderately strenuous, not too many other people. There were some signs of past human habitation along the way - a broken-down shack, a little old schoolhouse, that sort of thing. We did it in two days, camping about halfway along the trail. I noticed, though, that on our way out, just a few miles from the trailhead, there was a beautiful spot to camp, if you had time to make it a three-day trip. There was just enough room for a single campsite right on the edge of a ravine, with a smoothed-out place for a tent and a stone fire ring already in place. Once I got home, I told my roommate at the time, my cousin Shelly, about the trail, including the pretty second-night campsite.

A year or so later, Shelly's half-sister Emma came to visit, and they decided to backpack the same loop trail. They, however, decided to make it a three-day trip, and spend the second night at the campsite that I'd told Shelly about.

I only found out what happened that night (no one volunteered the information) when Shelly overheard me talking about the trail to some other friends, and she laughed and said, "Yeah, Emma says she's NEVER hiking that trail ever again." When I, surprised, asked what had happened, this is what Shelly told me:

Apparently, during the second night, in the absolute darkness that you can only get when sleeping out in the woods, Emma awoke to the sound of a woman screaming. Right outside the tent. She was petrified, and lay huddled in her sleeping bag, listening to the sound of screams until they finally faded away.

She then fell asleep again, until she (sort of) woke up and opened her eyes and looked through the shadowy barely-there early morning light at the front of the tent, toward the tent's door.

There was a little girl crouched there, looking at her, whispering, "Don't wake up. Don't wake up."

The little girl faded and Emma pulled her hat down over her head and scrunched up in her sleeping bag until Shelly woke up (having slept the night through quite well) and they could get out of there.