Camp Charlie

Chapter 12

When Alan opened his eyes, he found himself on his bed. It took him a minute to adjust his eyes to the bright light that entered from a window. His friends surrounded him and started questioning him, the moment he opened his eyes. He sat up abruptly and ran outside without saying a word. Hannah, Sarah and Ethan followed him. On reaching the place he was looking for, Alan was stupified. The corpse, he had seen in the morning was gone.

"I swear it was right here. I saw it with my own eyes."

"What are you talking about Alan? What did you see?"

"I... I saw a corpse."

"A corpse! Are you sure? It could've been your imagination."

"No Hannah! I am not crazy. I know what I saw. It was a corpse of a man and it was hanging from that tree," said Alan as he pointed towards a willow.

His eyes were bloodshot and were filled with tears. He pulled his hair like a mad man and fell on to his knees. To his friends who were faced with the dilemma of choosing whether to trust their friend or to believe what their eyes saw, they were confused.

The probability of him telling the truth was a big zero, thought Ethan. Not that he doubted Alan but because he trusted what his eyes saw.

Hannah was worried to death by seeing him like that and the only thing she knew, was that she blindly trusted him.

Sarah, who was supposedly the practical one, had an uneasy feeling about all this. Her heart told her something else and her brain was stuck, telling her something else. The others hadn't seen what she had and they hadn't felt what she had felt. Something was wrong with this place and she was determined to find out.

But answers to our questions are not easily found and the things to fear are not easily seen...

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Alan had locked himself inside his cabin and wasn't allowing anyone near him. He sat thinking about what happened earlier in the morning. The moment he closed his eyes, the same scene replayed in his mind. It was as if, the image had been imprinted in his mind. But the most disturbing thing about all this was, that no one trusted him. He had seen it in their doubtful eyes and heard it in their uncertain voices. But he couldn't bring himself to terms with the fact that what his eyes had seen didn't exist. It was real, all of it.

The others sat in Sarah's cabin, drinking coffee. Caffeine was something that their disturbed minds were craving the most. None of then brought up the topic of Alan but it was playing in their minds like an old song. They couldn't remember the lyrics but it was there, at the back of their minds plaguing every breadth they inhaled.

"I'll go and check upon Alan." That was the longest conversation that they had had, since the afternoon. They took turns and went to check up on their friend who was always deep in thought.

Sarah was filled with a whirlpool of emotions. She had always considered Alan to be the sanest amongst all of her friends. But the series of events that had unfolded today made her think otherwise. Maybe he wasn't wrong. But if he wasn't, then where was the corpse that he had been talking about. It couldn't just vanish into thin air or maybe someone made it do that, she thought.

Ethan was rattled. He had always thought of a man like a machine, it could be repaired. But he couldn't find the screw which was loose in this machine, named Alan. It could be blamed upon his wild imagination or his screwed up past. Whatever he had said was just some delusion, or so he hoped.

It was Hannah who went to see him in the evening. The setting sun had cast shadows all over the place. A scene so beautiful managed to disturb her. She was cautious of every sound that she heard and every step she took. Alan's words replayed constantly through her mind, enabling her to see beyond the beauty of this place. The calm of this place had turned into silence, the song of nature seemed like a warning cry and the petrichor was tinted with the smell of conspiracy.

For a person like Hannah, who always managed to smile in the most difficult times and never took anything seriously, the heaviness inside her heart suffocated her and the confusion inside her mind weighed upon her. The twinkle in her eyes was replaced by the fear of the unknown and the once enchanting smile was replaced by a sad one.

Destiny was playing with them. That's exactly what she thought, but it wasn't destiny after all. Maybe that's the reason she didn't find Alan in his room.

**********

Keeping himself sane was becoming difficult for Alan. He wanted to know more. More about what he had seen. He got off his bed and went outside. His head ached and his body felt like lead but he forced his feet to take him to the place with the hanging man and that tree. The body wasn't there anymore but the tree was still there with its branches spread out. But the branches looked more like the hands of a monster because of the shadows formed by the setting sun.

The willow's bark pricked his finger when he touched it. He walked around the tree, trying to find some proof of his innocence. It was getting dark and the light wasn't sufficient, so he took out his phone from his pocket and switched on the flashlight.

And he did find something. Dried blood. It wasn't his. Now he knew and believed that he wasn't imagining things. He saw them because they existed. And now, he saw something else. Engraved on the tree was a name. Charlie.

Just then, he felt the presence of something living, behind his back. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

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