The Cold
Jason and Morris walked the small trail from the mess hall to the bonfire where five other teenage camp counselors were gathered. Morris fumbled with the bags of marshmallows in his hands when he noticed his wrist felt a bit lighter. He stopped in his tracks and looked down to the dark soil of the camp hoping to catch his possession gleaming in the moonlight.
“Hey, do you have a fleschlight?” Morris asked Jason.
“Umm doesn’t everybody?” Jason said matter of factly.
“Yah, did you bring it with you?”
“Dude, there’s so much wrong with you asking me that question.”
“Why is it wrong?” Confused about Jason’s tone he righted himself and looked at him.
“For one, you don’t ask another man about his private dealings, with his private stuff for his private affairs. Two, there are girls all around us! Three…why in the hell are you asking me? It’s not like I’m gonna let you borrow it or something. That’s weird.”
“But I really need to borrow it, I can’t find my…” He turned his attention back to the ground, trailing off in a full panic.
“Ew dude, NO! You can’t use it, it’s mine and I left it at home like any sane person would do! Geez man, open your eyes and touch grass. There’s a whole world full of women out there for us to get to know, maybe even…”
“What are you talking about?” Morris smacked Jason on the arm. “I see it schwinging from your belt loop. Come on man, I gotta find my braschlet. My girlfriend gave it to me and if I go home without it sche’ll kick my asch.”
Jason looked down at his flashlight then back up at Morris feeling all kinds of embarrassed for his tangent.
“Ohhhhh… flashlight. Yeah, here.”
“That’s what I schaid. What the hell did you think I schaid?”
“I thought you were asking me about my fleshlight.”
“What’s that?” Morris scrunched his face up sensing there might be a level of grossness on his lips in his explanation.
“It’s uhhh….ahem… What does this bracelet look like again?”
“It’s schilver and it has my name on it.”
“You really need to see a speech therapist.”
“I do dammit!”
“Okay, okay… calm down.”
****
Seven kids sat around the bonfire at the center of Camp Wenyahatchahoochee as instructed by the camp director, Darren, and his assistant, Joy. Their task was to tell their best scary stories, but some had taken it as their personal mission to scare the piss out of each other. The first five stories were really good, one was even comical, garnering a round of applause from the group.
It was now Jason’s turn and he was seriously unprepared. He sat quietly flipping his flashlight in his hands, trying to come up with something good. He looked around the bonfire at the small group, then back to the fire. He’d remembered a story about an armadillo being gifted with a special weapon by the humans he referred to as the forest gods. He thought the story was funny but didn’t know how to retell it or even if he should. He scratched the idea and thought of something else.
“We’re waiting dingus!” his twin sister said rolling her eyes from the other side of the fire.
Jason shot her a glare and narrowed his eyes at her. He was no writer or storyteller, his skills were nonexistent but he had to do and say something. Sensing the restlessness of the group, he began with the only thing he could think of.
“It was a dark……… and stormy night….” Jason started, shining his flashing under his chin.
“Oh, this is about to be lame lame… oh my god. Where did you get your storytelling skills – the bargain bin of the dollar store?” Jalisa said teasing her brother while shaking her head.
“No more like Barney & Friends,” Leo said, chuckling.
“Who??” Morris asked, seriously confused about the reference. He fiddled with the bracelet that had found its way back to his wrist then placed a marshmallow on his stick.
“No, no… I’m pretty sure it was from the 70s. You know way back in the olden days when people didn’t know how to tell a good story.”
“Heeeey…” The camp director said feeling the sting of Tasha’s words. “Let’s be nice,” he said looking over his glasses. “Go ahead, Jason. This’ll be great. I believe in you!”
“Yah, we believe in you!” Jalisa said giving her two thumbs up and a big sarcastic smile.
“Shut up…” Jason said feeling smaller than the tiniest bug in the woods.
“Hey, don’t lischen to them. You got thisch. Schtart with the schetting, work into the plot and deschribe schome charactersch. Then introduce the horror. Got it?”
“No… I really don’t. She’s the storyteller, I’m the artist.” He said pointing to his sister who was in a conversation with Tasha.”
“But sche can’t do what you do, scho schee it asch a painting then transchlate.”
“Okay, I’ll try it.”
Jason closed his eyes and saw the story as a painting – every color, every brush stroke, and every detail. He thought about his opening and thought he’d take a pointer from the old horror films and shows he stayed up late to watch on Saturday nights. He cleared his throat to let the others know he was ready to try.
A shadow settled over him as he stared into the fire and then he began.
“Sometimes in places like this, you find rotten ground where nothing will grow. Ground like that is said to be cursed and sour. It was either cleansed by lightning or fire no one knows but the ground rejects all forms of life…”
“Oooooo… a spooky camp story, puh – leeez.” His sister said rolling her eyes.
“Jalisa, you had your turn. Let him finish. Go on Jason.” Darren smiled and nodded.
“Scorched earth will never hold a living thing. So we get places like this, where we’re able to build camps or bonfires. Before then, when the earth was lush and teeming with life, people lived off the land. But those very same people were said to have offended nature with their wicked ways and fire was sent to cleanse the land. Burning each and every life into the dust we are now sitting on top of.
Take a look around you. Do you see how the trees are misshapen and gnarled? How they seem to stretch their branched out like arms toward the heavens? Do you see it? Look for yourselves. I read up on this place before we came and these trees are what they called petrified wood.”
The campers look at the trees around them, and a few of them shivered at the trees’ resemblance to people. A couple of the girls rubbed their arms as if they can feel the night nibbling at their skin. A chill wind blew through the branches emitting a whistling that unsettled them all.
“The whistling you hear are high pitched screams from long ago because places like this relive the trauma like old spirits caught in a loop. That cold you feel? Is the cold the dead things of the earth carry with them. There is no warmth for them but when there’s heat nearby, be it of fire or even of the body, they seek to snuff it out.
You rub your arms to rid yourself of goosebumps rising over your skin but find that you can’t. You scoot closer to the fire to keep the warmth on your face but those cold dead fingers still find their way to your flesh. You do everything short of listening to the siren song howling around you bidding you to step into the firelight, and still it’s not enough.
Suddenly the shadows around you have grown longer and impossibly dark. Disembodied eye glow out of that darkness. Staring right into the depths of your very soul. And you feel it don’t you? Creeping into you… slipping into your shadow, attaching itself to you. Seeping in through your pores sucking all the warmth out of you. That cold, there’s no warming it. There’s no curing it, it’s in you now. You’ll see… you’ll go to the mess hall tonight for your cocoa to drink and find that it’s not helping. You’ll take your hot shower tonight and feel the cold running down your spine and you’ll sink down low into your sleeping bags to shy away from it while you sleep and wake to find yourself one of them.
A shadow tethered to this place, where the earth is sour and scorched, where the ground won’t accept life but… will welcome you in death.”
Off in the distance lightning strikes lighting up the night sky over the lake. Thunder roars and booms overhead vibrating the ground beneath them, startling everyone around the campfire. A chill wind whips through the trees shifting the shadows near the bonfire to look like tortured souls stretching their arms above their heads. But it was the whistling that sounded like a far scream that shook them all.
“Uhhh… Jaschon, where did you read about this plasche?” Morris asked eyes darting back and forth between the trees and their shadows. “Jaschon?”
Jason’s eyes were on the fire, entranced by its movements…almost as if the fire was dancing right before him, beckoning him to join in the dance. Morris, looked at Jason wondering why he hadn’t answered him. Concerned, he then looked to Darren and Joy. Darren removed himself to kneel in front of Jason. He snapped his fingers twice thinking that would snap him out of it. Jalisa came to sit next to her brother, she smacked him on the leg and called him dummy thinking that would bring him out of it. It didn’t. It wasn’t until Leo’s hot melted marshmallow slip off his stick and landed on Jason’s thigh, burning his skin.
“Agh ..Ouch!”
“Sorry man, I was trying to keep it from falling in the fire and whipped it back a little too fast.” Leo apologized, more concerned with the marshmallow than anything else.
“Jason, look at me. Are you okay?” Darren asked.
“No, my leg hurts.”
“Ya moron, he’s asking why you were all… mesmerized. You just blanked out.” Jalisa shook her head annoyed with the whole situation.
“Really? I thought I was still telling the story.”
“What??” Jalisa looked to Darren then back at her brother. “Did you hit your head or something earlier?” She touched his forehead with the back of her hand. His skin was cold to the touch. She snatched her hand away.
“I feel weird.” Jason gave a slow blink of his eyes. He looked as though he were about to faint.
“Yeah, you look weird, weirdo. Come on, mom’ll kill me if something happens to you. Let’s go get warm.”
Together the group walked a brisk pace back to the mess hall as the wind picked up and rain began to fall. Darren stayed behind to put out the bonfire then rushed to catch up with the group. Once with the group, he asked who had lost a silver bracelet. Morris checked his wrist to see that it had fallen off again then looked back at his friend who looked a fright near death.
“It never schtays on, the damn thing!”
“We’re all damned things. In the end, the cold comes to get us. It comes to get us.”
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