A Campfire Story For You.
I love camping. All kinds of camping; car camping, backpacking, backyard camping, living room camping. You can put camping at the end of any activity and I would love it.
A couple of years ago I came up with the perfect spooky campfire story. And like any camp setting, the story is as important as the s’mores and flashlights.
Today I am going to share that story with you. But beware, reader’s discretion is advised.
I will take you back to my high school days. I grew in Mesa, Arizona and for those of you not familiar with the landscape of Mesa it is a citrus haven located in an oasis surrounded by desert landscape and mountain valleys.
In the summer months something my friends and I would do is go camping. The older high school boys would always take us out in their trucks and 4 wheeler vehicles. Since it is unbearably hot in the summer around Phoenix we would drive up to the high country of Flagstaff or Show low.
Flagstaff and Show low are known for there long heritage of Native American rituals and vast rural forest that are unmarked and unknown. Legend has it that a lot of the forest is occupied by skin walkers. What are skin walkers you ask? Well Native Americans believe that back in the day whole tribes would get possessed by demon spirits and transform their bodies into creatures resembling demons. They would have no hair, would only move on all fours, and would have eyes as black as night.
We would always tease each other on these camping trips that we see skin walkers to freak the other person out
…then one day…
We heard from a local man at a gas station outside of Flagstaff about an old water tower and abandoned small town that was good to go off roading. We were all stoked to try a new trail and to explore some abandoned buildings.
Off we went. It seemed like we drove for hours on this dirt road and I was starting to get car sick from zigging in and out of the pine trees. Finally we came to a clearing and over the pines and saw a rusty old water tower! We were so excited to finally get there and right before dinner time.
It was a cooler day than usual because it was the beginning of monsoon season. So it was more sticky then normal where you could almost see your own breath in the thick air. Making it a very eerie situation, there was absolutely no sound. No wind blowing, no birds chirping, nothing.
Of course all the girls huddled together going into an old saloon type building. The boys immediately split up with their machetes and paint ball guns to investigate. It was getting darker by the minute and the girls and I decided this is not somewhere we wanted to camp. We had bad vibes and if we left now we could still make it to our usual spot before we all got to hungry. We yelled for the boys to come meet us to figure out what we wanted to do. We were in front of the old saloon which you could see all the way through to the back of the building.
We all started discussing our options and all of our opinions. As we were talking we heard a loud crash upstairs in the building we were standing in front of. We all screamed. The boys looked worried and said it was probably just a raccoon.
My friend Jay and I were the ones standing parallel to the building so we could see directly through it. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of movement in that area. I grabbed on to Jay’s arm and looked at him. He was pasty white and looked like he just saw a ghost.
He told us that there is something not right and I should take all the girls to the truck. We all sprinted like no one’s business to the back of the truck. Since there were 6 of us in a 4 person cab, 3 of us had to sit in the bed of the truck. I volunteered myself to be one of the 3 in the back.
Meanwhile the 3 boys went to examine what Jay saw. We watched in the car, every second getting more and more anxious. Then all of a sudden we heard paint ball guns being shot and the guys started screaming. In the middle of the town’s road we saw the boys sprinting towards the car with complete terror in their eyes!
You know when you have so much adrenaline that you can’t feel your body and everything is moving slow motion. That is how I felt in that 30 seconds it took them to get to the car. I started screaming at them “WHAT HAPPENED??! WHAT HAPPENED??!! WHAT DID YOU SEE!!!” They couldn’t answer except yell back we got to get out of here, NOW!!
All of a sudden in the distance I saw 3 things coming ever so gracefully out of the building they were running out of. They looked like a large werewolves without fur and skinny nimble legs. But as I starred longer, whatever they were was definitely humans walking comfortably on all fours!
I nearly passed out at the site. And what spooked me more is that they were just watching us with their big beady eyes. All of a sudden without even making a sound they disappeared.
“Guys…Guys!” I said. “We need to go NOW!” Everyone got in the cab and we peeled out creating a huge cloud of dust.
I thought we were out of this nightmare until out of the dust 2 of these creatures came hovering after us. I say hovering because there was no galloping type of moment. It was so alien like it almost looked like they were floating controlling their direction with their feet and hands. It took them no time at all to catch up to the truck.
One was parallel to me now and with one swift motion turned its head 90 degrees and just stared at me while he was still in forward motion.
I ducked and hid and laid down in the bed hoping and praying this was all a dream. Then all of a sudden my friend (who was also in the back of the cab with me) said they sudden stopped they are not chasing us anymore. I peek my head up and saw the 2 of them sitting like dogs before they get a treat a few hundred yards back in the middle of the road just starring at the truck. We drove on never looking or going back to that site again.
the end.
