I instantly woke up. I was trying to scream but only hoarse gasps of air came out my dried throat. I sat up in the bed and tried to get out but fell down, hazed. Was I drinking last night? No, how the fuck would anyone get some booze in here? And why would I be stupid enough to drink it in the first place? I thought. As soon as my thoughts were finished they were replace with a flashback of a girl talking to me and a crowd of people. We were all sitting at tables like the ones you’d find in a high school cafeteria.
“Now, I’m only gonna say this once so put away your phones, this ain’t high school .” the woman said
If I remember right, her name was Tessa or something like that. She was an interesting character. Judging by her appearance and height I’d say she was around 230 pounds. She looked to be about 50 and had a missing tooth. Her eyes were brown but looked black from the dark circles suggesting a lack of sleep. She seemed to pop out with the floral dresses she wore all the time.
She was going through all the rules about the camp. You wouldn’t think she’d have to say this but apparently some dumb ass brought some liquor in one of those metal flasks winos keep their booze in. he was fired and they called the cops on him, he was no longer legally allowed to work with children. Apparently the laws on that are strict in the state of New York…
Back to reality, My dazed state cleared, but now I’ve got bigger problems. The interior of the building I’m in is littered with blood, guts, corpses and bullet casings of various calibers, the wooden walls of what I now realized was a cabin covered with bullet holes here and there. I got off the bed to examine my surounding further. The bed I was laying in is the only thing that isn’t stained with blood or guts or someone’s body. I checked the pockets of the sweat pants I was wearing and found a Virginia drivers license I assumed to be mine and four 9mm bullets..
I jumped at what sounded like a scream, well, a scream is the best way I can describe it. It didn’t sound like any scream I‘ve ever heard. I spotted a Pistol that lay near a dead body and took it. I checked the ammo, one clip, fifteen shots. Add that to my four that’s nineteen shots. I heard footsteps from behind the Barricaded door, the footsteps turned to something smashing against the door.
“Hello, can you hear me?” I said to the door
“Are you hurt?” the sound of my voice only aggravated whatever was behind the door.
A hole was punched into the hole. The lacerated arm reaching through seemed to feel nothing from breaking the arm receded and was replaced by a head. The head just as badly lacerated as the arm with bald spots on its pale, almost white, scalp, the eyes were bleeding and the pupils dilated to the point that half the eye was covered with its pupils. It let out that scream again. It was much clearer now, and seemed to be an echo of what you and I know as a scream, an unnaturally high scream combined with what sounds like a pig squealing. It tried to slip through the hole, it would never fit but it didn’t seem to realize that.
At that instant I shot it three times in the head. I just stood there, paralyzed from the shock, breathing as if it were my last breath, hands shaking so much I had to put the gun down. After a moment the shock went away. I walked towards the hole in the door, as I reached the door it stood up. It didn’t do anything else, it just stood there, breathing deeply. I shot it again to put it out of its misery, but with no effect. It merely stood up again, still deeply breathing. I gave up and left it to die.
While leaving I thought I heard something but I didn’t turn back, I didn’t want to see what I had done. Killing something out of fear, pathetic; there was a special place in hell for people like me(if there really was a hell). But now wasn’t the time to speculate on the belief in a place of eternal suffering made by a supposedly all loving deity. I had to figure out what the fuck was going on. I began to look around and see what was once a mere dirt path with adjacent cabins and trees forming a canopy was now blood stained earth and scorch mark from what appears to have been grenades. The adjacent cabins reduced to smoldering ash or chunks of framing hanging by a thread of support beams. The tree canopy being reduced to fallen trees leaving the parts of the ground not stained with blood and scorched from grenades littered with fallen trees.
The whole place now beyond recognition. I was paralyzed again, not from a fear, but from a numbing effect the sight had on me. To try and imagine the chaos of whatever hell took place. The image of children running in various directions now playing in my head. The counselors panicking as well running in any direction. Both only to be killed by a falling tree or one of those things attacking them. The National Guard must’ve been called in because some of the bodies are in uniform and have m4’s and mp5’s dropped nearby.
I stood there, wandering where to go. After a moment I decided to follow what was left of the path to the right and see where it took me. I had traveled about a quarter mile down the path when I reached the only building I’d seen that didn’t look like a cabin and wasn’t completely destroyed. The aluminum siding and shingles that seemed to be tearing themselves off made it stand out completely from the log cabin buildings. That, and the fact that this building was the only one I’d seen without blood stains or scorch marks.
Something inside of me was telling me to turn back but I kept heading towards the building. I had this peculiar feeling about this building, other than the unusual condition of the building. I couldn’t tell what it was at the time. I had made it to the door and tried to open it before my thoughts were complete, I tired again, this time actually concious of what I was doing. The floor seemed to be smeared with a too much blood to have come from the pile of bodies i saw in a corner, the walls were white and, except for a few spots of splatered blood, they were clean to a point that seemed almost perfect and smelled of bleach and...lighter fluid?
the bodies are being burned, some sorght of instinct was telling me to get the fuck out of there but I realized something; There was no one here to burn the bodies. Then my relief turned to panic, the thought of isolation scared me more than anything that crossed my mind so far. This panic caused me to run towards a lone door to the left on the far side of the room, sliping on blood only to regain my balance nealy steping on intestines on the floor. The sight of this causing more panic and I began to half run, half sprint the remaining ten yards to the door.
I broke the door down and vioces began instantly shouting in my ear...
"Damn it, Private, what the hell is this?!" An army sergent who's name I couldn't remember shouted at me.
"It looks like the trigger to an m4, sir!" I shouted back to him. He then shoved it in my face.
"Check your gun, Sykes!" I stared at my gun for a second and noticed that while reconstructing the gun, i forgot to put the trigger on.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THE USE OF A GUN WITH NO GODDAMN TRIGGER?! THIS SHIT'LL GET YOU KILLED OUT THERE!" his yells still ringing in all [the other soldiers in the room still reconstructing their guns] of our ears.
"...think before you act, it'll keep you from at least dying from some stupid shit"he calmed down and, this time, talked in a normal tone."
I started remembering that i had always thought of this whenever i got into paniced situations and it calmed me down. Why? This man was known to me as the calmest man in the military. The fact that he even raised his voice in the first place is shocking from what I remembered about him...
I was no longer paniced and began to look cutiously looked through the keyhole of a nearby door to the right.
