"Shotgun":
My friend Tom and I were both twenty-three when we planned a backpacking trip into the Adirondack Mountains in New York. We wanted total quiet—no crowds, no distant highway hum, no reminders of the city—so we pushed deep into the forest along a narrow trail that wound between thick, dark pines. After hours of hiking, we reached a small, perfectly still lake tucked so far into the woods it felt untouched. A flat strip of sandy shoreline made the perfect spot for our tent.
We set up camp quickly, hammering stakes into the firm ground, then gathered some wood and built a small fire. The flames flickered orange against the trees, and Tom grinned as he poked at the kindling.
“This is exactly what we came out here for,” he said. No people. No noise. Just us and the woods.
As the sky dimmed to a deep blue, we ate our food by the fire, talking about old stories from school, work stress, and random things that seemed funnier out there away from everything. The lake was mirror-flat, and the only sounds were crickets and the occasional splash from some unseen fish. It felt peaceful in a way that made your mind finally slow down.
Around nine, we doused the fire and ducked into the tent. Tom zipped the door shut, and we settled into our sleeping bags. I lay there listening to the absolute quiet. No cars. No planes. No distant houses. Just darkness and the soft breathing of the forest. It made me feel small, but in a strangely comforting way—at least at first.
About an hour later, I heard something.
It started faint—just the occasional crack of a branch. At first I ignored it, but then the noise came again, slower this time… heavier. Like deliberate footsteps moving through dry leaves.
I sat up and whispered, “Tom. Do you hear that?”
He mumbled, half-asleep, “Probably just an animal. Go back to sleep.”
But the steps kept coming. Not darting around the way deer or raccoons did—these were slow and heavy, like someone carefully picking their way toward us. My chest tightened. We hadn’t seen a single person on the trail all day. Who would be wandering out here at night?
The footsteps stopped right outside our camp.
Then a beam of light swept across the ground, bright enough that it bled through the thin tent fabric. It moved over our bags, the fire pit, the trees. My whole body locked up. Tom snapped fully awake beside me, whispering, “What the hell is that?”
The light hovered near the tent… then moved directly toward it.
We exchanged one panicked look and reacted instantly. Before the flashlight reached the door, Tom quietly unzipped the back flap and we slipped out into the shadows. We ducked behind a massive hemlock tree ten or fifteen feet away, grabbing the small rifle and camp axe we’d brought—more for comfort than any real self-defense plan.
From behind the tree, we watched the tent door unzip.
A man stepped inside.
He was tall, maybe mid-forties, with a tangled beard and filthy clothes. He held a flashlight in one hand and a large shotgun in the other. The sight of the gun made my stomach drop. He rummaged through our bags and shouted, his voice rough and angry: “Where are you? I know you’re out here! Come out and say hello!”
Tom’s eyes met mine, wide and pale in the dark. I mouthed, What do we do? He just shook his head, his jaw clenched around fear.
The man stepped back out of the tent, sweeping his flashlight across the woods. The beam passed so close to our hiding spot I had to force myself not to blink. He lifted the shotgun and pointed it into the darkness—right near us.
“You think you can hide?” he snarled.
Then he pumped the gun and fired.
The blast shattered the silence. Bark exploded off a tree only a couple feet from us. I bit down hard to keep from making any sound. My heart was slamming so hard I thought it would give us away. Tom whispered, barely audible, “Don’t move. Just don’t move.”
The man stalked around our campsite, muttering to himself. He kicked our fire pit, scattered our things, even shoved a few items into the still-hot embers just to watch them burn. Sometimes he laughed—an unsteady, slurred laugh that made it clear something wasn’t right with him. Drunk, maybe. Or something worse.
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. We crouched there in the cold dirt, every muscle locked, waiting for him to find us or leave—whichever came first. My mind kept imagining him dragging us out, or firing blindly into the darkness out of frustration.
Eventually, after what was probably twenty agonizing minutes, he stopped pacing. He gave one last angry scan of the campsite, then turned and walked back into the woods. His footsteps faded slowly, the night swallowing them up.
But we stayed hidden. Even after we couldn’t hear him anymore. Even after the breeze returned and the forest started sounding alive again. We didn’t move until the first faint light of dawn bled through the treetops.
When we finally crawled back to camp, everything was trashed. Food scattered, bags shredded, some clothes burned into melted piles. We packed whatever we could salvage, hands shaking so badly we dropped things twice.
On the hike out, neither of us said much. At one point Tom muttered, “That was too damn close. He could’ve killed us.”
All I could do was nod. The knot in my chest stayed tight the whole way back.
We went straight to the ranger station and reported everything. The rangers said it might’ve been a local with issues who didn’t like people near “his” land. The police took our statements, but that didn’t change how the night felt.
We never went back to that spot.
Even now, the memory makes my stomach twist. You grow up thinking the woods are peaceful… that nature is the safest escape from people.
But sometimes, out there in the quiet, people are the real danger.
"The Last Tent":
I had been counting down the days to that fishing trip like a kid waiting for summer break. Tom and I had talked about it for weeks—just two old friends escaping everything for a weekend in the Virginia backcountry. No traffic, no noise, no responsibilities. Just trees, water, and the peace you can only find miles from the nearest cell tower.
We loaded up the truck before sunrise and drove until the pavement gave up and the dirt road took over. Dismal Creek sat tucked deep in the woods, quiet and slow-moving, barely more than a ribbon of cold water winding between thick stands of pine and oak. It was perfect.
We picked a spot along the bank where the trees opened just enough for two tents and a fire pit. The ground smelled like damp moss and old leaves. The creek hummed softly beside us, steady and calming. Even the air felt different—cooler, heavier, like it soaked into your lungs.
The fish weren’t biting much, but neither of us cared. We were just happy to be out there, casting lines, talking about nothing, listening to the woods settle around us as day gave way to dusk.
When the sun dropped, we got a small fire going and roasted hot dogs over the flames. Sparks drifted upward into the dark like tiny orange fireflies. Tom started telling stories about his job—ridiculous stuff about his coworkers—and I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt.
That’s when we heard it: footsteps, slow and deliberate, crunching through dry leaves.
Tom stopped mid-sentence. We both turned.
A man stepped into the glow of the fire. He looked to be in his fifties, maybe older, with messy gray-streaked hair and clothes that had seen too many seasons. He carried a worn backpack and a crooked smile—like he was relieved to have found someone.
“Evening,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you boys. Mind if I sit a bit? Been hiking all day.”
Tom shot me a glance. We’d run into strangers on trails before—hunters, hikers, campers. Nothing unusual about that. I nodded.
“Sure,” Tom said. “Grab a seat. Want a hot dog?”
The man—Randy, he called himself—sat cross-legged by the fire and took the food like he hadn’t eaten in days. He started talking right away, telling us he lived not far from here, that he knew every inch of the woods by heart. For a while, his stories were interesting—old fishing tales, local history, the changes he’d seen in the creek.
But the longer he talked, the stranger he felt.
His eyes kept flicking around, like he was checking for something we couldn’t see. His hands rubbed together constantly, even when they weren’t cold. And every time the fire popped, he twitched.
“You boys come around here often?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “First time in this area. It’s peaceful.”
He nodded slowly, staring into the flames. “Peaceful, sure. But you gotta be careful out here. Things happen in these woods.”
Tom laughed lightly. “Like what? Black bears stealing our snacks?”
Randy didn’t smile. “Worse.”
The word hung in the air like smoke.
I tried to brush off the uneasy feeling creeping up my spine. Maybe he was just lonely. Maybe he’d been out here too long by himself.
Eventually, Tom yawned and stretched. “Well, we’re calling it a night. Early fishing tomorrow.”
Randy stood. “Mind if I camp close by? Not safe to wander at night.”
I wanted to say no—something about him made my stomach knot—but Tom shrugged. “Sure. Just keep it quiet.”
Randy set up a small bivy a little ways off. Tom and I zipped into our tents. The creek murmured softly, and for a while, I just listened to it, trying to shake the unease sitting on my chest.
Somewhere in the night, I drifted off.
And then a sound woke me.
A soft, careful shuffling. Like someone trying not to be heard.
I held my breath and whispered, “Tom?”
No response.
Then I heard a zipper—Tom’s tent—slowly opening.
My heart thudded so hard it hurt. I leaned toward the mesh of my tent and squinted out.
Randy stood over Tom’s tent, back turned to me, his silhouette outlined by the dim moonlight.
And in his hand…
A gun.
“Hey,” I whispered, my voice barely there. “What are you doing?”
He turned his head slowly. His face was blank, hollow, like all the friendliness had evaporated.
Then—without a word—he lifted the gun and fired into Tom’s tent.
The shot cracked through the trees. Tom screamed—a raw, terrible sound—and then it cut off.
I froze. My mind couldn’t process it. I felt like I was outside my body, watching a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.
Randy turned toward my tent.
I scrambled backward just as he aimed and fired. The first bullet punched into the side of my neck—hot, blinding pain that made my ears ring. Another slammed into my back, knocking me forward.
I hit the ground hard, choking on the copper taste of blood. Every instinct screamed at me to cry out, to move, to run.
But I forced myself to stay still.
Play dead.
It was the only chance I had.
Randy stood there breathing like he’d just sprinted a mile. Then he turned to Tom’s tent, rummaging inside, muttering to himself.
“Should’ve listened,” he whispered. “Things happen out here.”
I stayed motionless, every second a battle not to gasp or cough. My vision blurred at the edges. The world pulsed with my heartbeat.
Then he walked to the truck. I heard the keys jangling, the engine struggling, revving too hard.
A crash followed—metal against a tree.
Silence.
I waited. One minute. Two. Ten. I didn’t know anymore. The pain swallowed time.
Finally, I forced myself out of the tent, crawling through leaves slick with my own blood. Tom’s tent was still. Too still. The sight hit me like another bullet.
I stumbled into the woods, clutching my neck, trying to keep pressure on the wound. My legs felt like wet sandbags. Branches clawed my face. Every breath was fire.
But stopping meant dying. So I kept moving.
I don’t remember most of that walk—just pain, darkness, and the thought of my family. That was what kept me upright.
Eventually, a faint glow appeared through the trees. Headlights on a distant road. I waved at the first car that passed, but they didn’t see me. I kept going until I found a house with a porch light burning.
I banged on the door and collapsed as it opened.
The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed, bright lights above me. The doctors said the bullets had missed anything vital by sheer luck. A few inches either way…
They caught Randy a few days later. He died before trial—heart failure, they said. Part of me is glad. Part of me wishes I could have asked him why.
I still replay that night in my head. The fire. The jokes. The smile on a stranger’s face that hid something broken and violent underneath.
I survived.
Tom didn’t.
And that’s the part I can never shake.
"The Girls Next Door":
I was just ten years old in the summer of 1977, still young enough to believe that most people were good and that the world, for the most part, made sense. My mom had signed me up for Girl Scout camp in Oklahoma because she thought it would help me “come out of my shell,” meet girls my age, learn some outdoor skills. I remember packing my little duffel bag the night before—my rolled-up sleeping bag, my silver flashlight, a tiny notebook, and a stash of snacks I’d hidden under some shirts so the counselors wouldn’t confiscate them. I was nervous, but excited too. It felt like a step toward something grown-up.
The bus ride to Camp Scott felt endless. The windows rattled the whole way, and the smell of vinyl seats mixed with sunscreen and bug spray. Girls whispered and sang and shouted over one another, but I mostly stared out the window at the passing fields and trees, imagining what the camp would look like. When we finally pulled through the wooden archway with “CAMP SCOTT” carved into it, the whole bus buzzed. I remember thinking the place looked huge—thick woods everywhere, shaded paths winding off into shadows, clusters of canvas tents set up on wooden platforms.
Our group was assigned to the Kiowa unit. The tents were arranged in a loose horseshoe shape, and mine—Tent 6—was close to the showers. Right next to us was Tent 7, where three girls stayed. I didn’t know then how much that detail would matter.
The first day felt magical in the innocent way only childhood summers can be. We hiked a short trail, made crafts under a big open pavilion, and sang songs around a campfire until our throats were dry. I’d met the girls from Tent 7 at lunch—Lori, bright-eyed and only eight, curly hair bouncing as she talked; Michele, nine, with a giggle that never seemed to stop; and Denise, quiet and thoughtful, ten like me. They invited me to sit with them. Lori opened her lunchbox and grinned at me.
“Hey, Jenny,” she said, like she’d known me forever, “want to trade cookies later? I brought chocolate ones.”
“Only if you share your marshmallows too,” I joked. She laughed, and Michele joined in, kicking her feet under the picnic table.
Michele leaned closer. “I heard something weird earlier. One counselor said someone found a note… like a prank. Something about killing girls in a tent.” She said it lightly, like gossip she didn’t believe.
Denise didn’t laugh. Her eyes flickered. “Who would write something like that? That’s not funny.”
I shrugged, trying to seem braver than I felt. “Probably older kids messing around.”
But I felt a small, cold prickle along my spine that I pushed away.
As evening came, the counselors reminded us about lights-out rules—no wandering, stay in your tents, no talking loud after dark. My tentmates, Anna and Beth, were already whispering as I climbed into my sleeping bag.
“Did you hear about the note?” Anna murmured in the dark. “The one they found in a doughnut box?”
Beth whispered back, “Yeah. It said something about a mission to kill three girls in tent one. But they renumbered the tents this year, so maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”
I pulled my sleeping bag tighter around me. “Let’s not talk about it. It was just a dumb joke,” I said. But inside, the unease stayed.
Sleep came badly. The woods felt too big, too quiet, like they swallowed every sound. Sometime after midnight—maybe later, maybe earlier, time felt strange—I woke to the unmistakable crunch of footsteps on dry leaves. Slow. Deliberate. Not a counselor’s brisk walk. Something else. I held my breath, listening.
Anna stirred. “Jenny? You awake?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Do you hear that? Someone’s outside.”
Beth mumbled, barely conscious, “It’s just a counselor doing rounds. Go back to sleep.”
But the footsteps didn’t move like someone doing rounds—they circled. They stopped near our tent. Then they moved away again, toward Tent 7. Curiosity and fear churned in my stomach. I edged toward the flap, lifting it just enough to peer outside.
Nothing but darkness. Then—briefly—a thin flicker of light, like a flashlight swinging low, the beam barely touching the ground before vanishing again.
I shut the flap quickly and lay back down, heart beating too fast.
A few minutes later, a different sound. Softer. A muffled moan—or maybe a cry. It drifted from the direction of Tent 7. I froze. My mind raced with explanations. Someone had a nightmare. Someone was sick. Someone was playing around.
But the next sound was longer. Pained. Real.
Anna whispered, voice trembling, “What was that? It sounded like—like someone hurt.”
Beth sat up fully now. “Maybe we should get a counselor.”
But we were terrified of breaking rules, terrified of being wrong, terrified of what admitting our fear might mean. And then the sound stopped. Silence returned, thicker than before.
Far off, I thought I heard a vehicle—an engine rumbling on the road that bordered camp. That road was supposed to be empty at night. The engine noise faded, then disappeared completely.
I must’ve slept eventually, though it didn’t feel like it. Dawn came gently, birds chirping like nothing had happened. I left the tent quietly to walk to the showers.
As I passed near Tent 7, I noticed something off the trail, in the trees. At first, it looked like just a sleeping bag, weirdly far from the tents. I stepped closer, thinking maybe someone dragged theirs out as a prank.
Then I saw an arm.
Small. Pale. Motionless.
My breath caught in my chest. I moved closer before my brain could tell my body to stop. There were more shapes—another sleeping bag, lumpy, with two bodies crammed inside. Blood soaked through in dark patches. And sticking out from one bag was a familiar shoe—Lori’s little brown sneaker.
I stumbled backward, choking on a scream. Then the scream finally came.
I ran, yelling for help. “Help! The girls—something’s wrong! Something happened!”
Miss Rogers rushed out of the counselors’ tent. “Jenny, slow down. What happened?”
I pointed, shaking. “Over there—sleeping bags—blood—they’re not moving—please!”
Her face went white. She told me to stay put and sprinted toward the trees. Within seconds, other counselors were screaming. Crying. Calling for radios.
Everything after that blurred—sirens, police cars, shouts, the whole camp falling apart. They found blood inside Tent 7, a man’s left shoe print in size nine and a half, and that large red flashlight left on top of the girls like some horrible signature. They found that note again—the one about killing three girls. It hadn’t been a joke at all.
I told the police everything: the footsteps circling, the light, the moans, the engine on the road. A farmer nearby reported hearing the same strange traffic around two or three in the morning.
They arrested a man—Gene Leroy Hart, an escaped convict with a dark history. The trial was everywhere in the news. Evidence whispered guilt, but the jury said not guilty. Hart died just months later from heart problems. Years later, tests strongly suggested he was the killer—but by then, truth felt like a ghost. Too late to matter.
I grew older, but that night has never left me. Sometimes, lying awake, I still hear footsteps circling a tent. I still see that faint flashlight beam swinging and disappearing. I still hear that muffled moan from the darkness. I still wonder—what if he had chosen Tent 6 instead? What if he had opened our flap? What if I had been curious enough, foolish enough, to walk toward the sound?
Camp was supposed to be safe, fun, full of songs and learning and innocence. Instead, it taught me the cruelest lesson: that danger can stand just outside your thin canvas wall, watching, waiting. That the world isn’t always what your parents told you it was. That sometimes the monster in the woods isn’t a story—it’s a person.
I never went camping again.
"The Raid":
We were all in our late teens and early twenties, buzzing with the kind of excitement you only feel when you’re young and heading toward somewhere wild and free. I was nineteen then, and my boyfriend Joel was twenty—quiet, steady, always the first to grab my hand when the world felt too loud. We packed two rattling old vans with sleeping bags, grocery bags full of cheap food, and a beat-up guitar missing one tuning peg. Our friends piled in around us: Lena, who could make anyone laugh without even trying; Tom, who joked his way through everything; and Rita, who brought her sketchbook like it was an extra limb. There were about twenty-five of us altogether—mostly kids from our Florida hometown, plus a handful of friendly locals we met along the way.
The drive took two long days, a blur of gas-station snacks, bad singing, and the sweet sense that none of us knew exactly what we were looking for—but we knew it wasn’t in the city. When we finally reached the mountains of North Carolina, a local named Dave waved us down at a rest stop. “There’s a spot you’ll like,” he said. “Briar Bottom. Right on the river. Quiet. Real peaceful.” We followed his pickup down a winding dirt road full of ruts that rattled our bones.
And then it opened up: a soft grassy clearing surrounded by tall, dark trees. A river slid past us, bubbling gently over stones. Joel stepped out, stretched his arms wide, and grinned. “This is perfect.”
Setting up camp felt like building our own tiny world. Tom and I hammered stakes into the ground while Lena unrolled the heavy canvas. Rita shouted, “Make it sturdy—I’m too tired to fight a collapsing tent tonight!” Joel knelt inside ours, smoothing the sleeping bags side by side. “Cozy,” he whispered, giving my hand a quick squeeze that made my heart warm.
Dinner was simple—sandwiches, fruit, and whatever snacks people pulled from their bags. But with twenty-five of us sitting in a loose circle, it felt almost like a celebration. Dave got a fire going, someone passed around the guitar, and Lena called out, “Play the road song!” The flames crackled and popped while our voices tangled together. Tom told a ridiculous story about a hiker who thought he saw Bigfoot but actually found a lost dog in a fur coat. We all doubled over laughing. For a moment, it felt like nothing bad could ever reach us.
But as night deepened, the energy softened. People drifted to their tents in small groups. Rita yawned and waved. “I’m tapping out. Wake me if something fun happens.” Lena followed her, rubbing her eyes. Soon it was just Joel and me by the fire, embers glowing red.
“This is exactly what I needed,” he murmured. “No noise. No stress. Just us.”
I leaned against him. “Same. Let’s go to bed.”
Inside the tent, the warm dark wrapped around us. Joel pulled me close, and the sound of the river lulled me. Somewhere far off, someone whispered something and laughed. Then everything quieted.
I must have fallen asleep deeply, because when the noise came, it ripped me out of it like a hand on my throat.
A low rumbling. Engines. Close.
Joel jerked awake. “You hear that?”
I held my breath. The rumble grew louder, then stopped abruptly—like trucks had just rolled through the river. Silence followed. Heavy, unnatural.
Then: footsteps. Several sets. Crunching slowly through grass. Deliberate. Too heavy for animals.
“Someone’s out there,” I whispered.
Joel pushed himself up. “Probably—”
But then a flashlight beam cut across the tent wall. Another. Voices barked harsh orders. Hands slapped against canvas.
“Get out! Now!”
The campsite exploded with panic. Tents unzipped, people cried out in confusion. I cracked our flap open and saw them—men with guns, flashlights, vests. Their movements sharp and aggressive, not like any officers I’d ever seen. They kicked sleeping bags, dug through backpacks.
Joel pulled me back. “Stay down.”
A man ripped open Rita’s tent. She screamed. “What are you doing?”
“Sheriff’s department!” he barked. “Drug search!”
Tom stumbled out of his tent, hands up. “We don’t have anything! We’re just—”
A shove cut him off. “Shut up.”
Lena emerged next, trembling. “Please, we haven’t done anything.”
Her words meant nothing. Flashlights burned our eyes. Guns pointed at us like we were threats instead of kids on a camping trip.
Dave stepped forward, voice steady but shaking. “This is public land. You can’t treat us like—”
The leader—a tall man with a cold stare—jammed his gun into Dave’s stomach. “Move. Now.”
Dave pushed it aside. “Don’t point that at—”
The leader swung the gun at him. The world cracked open.
A deafening blast. Echoes slamming through the trees. For a heartbeat, everything froze. Then a spray of pellets tore through the air.
Joel’s body jerked violently beside me.
He grabbed his chest. Blood soaked through his shirt so fast it looked unreal. “Help…” he gasped, stumbling. “Somebody—”
He collapsed into the grass.
I dropped to my knees beside him, hands shaking, pressing against the wound. “Joel! Stay with me, stay with me—please—”
His breaths were wet, bubbling, slipping away. Lena knelt on his other side, tears streaming. “Hold on, Joel, please—”
But his eyes unfocused. His chest stilled.
He was gone before I understood what had even happened.
The men stared in frozen shock. Then the leader snapped out of it. “Get the body. Now.”
Body.
Not person. Not victim.
Body.
They grabbed him—grabbed Joel—by the arms and legs and hauled him like trash, tossing him into the bed of a truck. I screamed until my voice cracked, lunging for him. Tom caught me, pulling me back as engines roared to life.
The lights swept over us one last time, then vanished into the trees.
Silence swallowed everything.
Blood soaked the grass. Rita was sobbing. Lena held her face in her hands. Dave stared at the ground like he had aged twenty years in a minute.
No one slept. No one spoke. We huddled together, waiting for daylight, terrified the trucks might come back.
In the morning, a ranger found us. New officers arrived—real officers, calm ones, confused ones. They asked questions. Took notes. Promised justice.
Later we learned the truth: the men who raided us were from the local sheriff’s office, acting on rumors, fueled by power, and completely out of control. The leader claimed the gun “went off” during a struggle. The trial dragged on for months. In the end, he walked free with little more than a slap on the wrist.
Joel didn’t get a second chance. He didn’t get anything.
Years have passed, but that night still lives in me—the footsteps through the darkness, the sudden blast, the moment I realized the world isn’t always safe, even in beautiful places. Especially in beautiful places. Whenever I think of the river at Briar Bottom, I still hear echoes: the lights, the shouting, Joel’s last breath.
And the sound of trucks rumbling through the night.