Ghost Story
17 Mar 2020Today’s prompt: “You are a camp counselor. Make up a story that will scare the bejeezus out of your eight- to ten-year-old campers.”
On a night like this, at a camp like this, beside a lake like this, after the campers had all finished singing songs around the campfire and gone to bed, a man crawled out of the lake. He walked up the trail to the cabins, and as he walked, water drip. drip. dripped off of him onto the trail.
He approached the first cabin, and he put his hand on the window, and he peered inside. Then he walked to the front door of the cabin, the wet palm of his hand making a squeeeee sound as it slid across the window. The campers inside the cabin heard the sound, but they stayed in their bunks.
Next the campers heard the man knocking quietly on their door. Tap. Tap. Tap. And they heard a deep voice say, “Open the door. I’ve brought you some waterrrr….”
The campers all shivered in their bunks and pretended they didn’t hear anything.
The man moved to the next cabin. He drip. drip. dripped along the path. Again, he put his hand on the window and peered inside. Then squeeeee, he pulled his wet hand along the windowpane as he walked to the door. He tap. tap. tapped on the door and said, “Open the door. I’ve brought you some waterrrr….” The campers in this cabin pretended to be asleep as they trembled in their bunks.
The man from the lake walked to a third cabin, drip. drip. dripping as he went. He peered in the window and slid his hand across the glass, squeeeee. He tap. tap. tapped on the door, and said, “Open the door. I’ve brought you some waterrrr….”
In that cabin was a camper named [insert-your-name-here]. They must have been thirsty, or not afraid of creepy noises, or both, because they opened the door to the cabin.
In the moonlight coming through the doorway, the other campers saw the man from the lake grab [insert-your-name-here] by the throat. It looked like he was choking them. The campers all screamed, and the man from the lake fled. But it was too late. Their cabinmate was dead.
The next day, an autopsy was performed, and the coroner declared that the cause of death was drowning. The campers protested that they’d seen the man choking [insert-your-name-here], but the coroner said, “Then why were their lungs filled with water?”