(Don't read if easily creeped out... no, seriously.)
(Seriously, I just wrote this down to get it off my chest and out of my head.)
(Okay...)
I went to a sort of summer camp up in some forested area. A few of my friends were there with me but for whatever reason they didn't know me, I just knew them. Sad, yes. So we all settled into our cabins for the night. I thought it strange that there was a spikey wooden barricade outside the camp and a heavy gate. I was unpacking and in a drawer by my bunk I found a journal which had a bunch of creepy writings in it about The Wood's Man.
Apparently he looked like he was made of bark and twigs and he had a habit of camper-snatching. Original, right? The next day we go on a hike in the woods and somehow I get separated from the group when I stop to look at weird scratch marks on a tree. I'm all alone and it's getting dark. I try to retrace my steps but the path doesn't seem to go the way I remember it and I just keep going in circles no matter which way I turn at the fork. I realize I'm being pixie-led and stop in the middle of the fork. Branches are snapping somewhere off the path and I know I'm being watched.
I begin to hear wailing like someone injured--pleas for help in the distance. No signal on my cellphone (of course) and no real weapons I can use on it besides a pack of matches. It came out of the darkness like a puppeteered scarecrow and came towards me. It was inhumanly tall and had long twig-like fingers. I lit a match and it staggered back into the dark. I ran and ran until I came to a clearing. There I ripped my shirt, found a good-sized stick and made a makeshift torch.
When I lit it what I saw in the clearing was downright creepy.
Sort of melted into the circle of trees were people--- their faces and bodies were twisted and had become part of the trees. Some of them were still able to move and the ones that could still make noise were crying softly. Needless to say, I flipped my shit and ran back to the path which I followed back to the camp as the sun came up.
No one missed me or cared that I was gone and when I asked people about it they were friendly but flat out denied I was missing. There is another hike scheduled for later in the day. When I refuse to go the counselor tells me I can either join them or be sent home for being a 'troublemaker'. So, I raid the cabinets for lighters, fill my water flask with kerosene from the lamps, and prepare to go. Fine. I'll STAY and be a troublemaker.
So we start on the hike, this time a different trail, and come to a river/spring that is coming from some cave. There is a rusty old school bus sunken in the water which makes little sense to me as there are no roads near by. Everyone takes off their shoes and wades into the water. A few kids wander into the mouth of the cave and I follow them, careful to keep my pack from getting wet. Inside we find all these little metal tablets with our names covered in runes adorning the walls along with soggy photos and newspaper clippings of us--the campers.
Now, seeing your baby photos stuck to the wall of a cave out in the wilderness with some creepy animated bundle of sticks chasing you is a little more than disconcerting. The campers seem enthralled with their tablets and I can't help but look at mine. Before I know it, it's already dusk. Time got messed up. I see pictures of my friends and grab them before leaving the cave, ushering the other campers out with me.
Outside, the remaining older campers are all facing the same way and standing perfectly still. The counselor is gone. I try to shake them out of their trance but they ignore me. The sun is setting. I try showing them their photos. The other half of the campers are freaking out. They're all younger than me and so I use that to my advantage and say in an authoritative tone,
"Quick! Gather sticks in a pile for a bonfire!" The moment I say that, the entranced campers turn all at the same time and begin walking towards us in a synchronized fashion like someone was pulling their strings.
"Okay, plan B... RUN!" I figured if we couldn't stay and fight it, we might as well get all the campers, even the zombie ones, back to the campsite which was more defendable. I run alongside them and urge them on, making another torch as I do and taunting the zombie campers in order to keep them chasing us. Once back at the camp, I get the lucid campers to help me shut the gates. The zombie campers throw themselves at the gates trying to get in. I tell the younger group to go inside the cabin and wait.
A vaguely human-shaped thing made of sticks and bark lumbers out of the edge of the woods and pauses by the gates. The zombie campers turn and face it. It takes off it's head revealing the counselor.
He laughs and calls to us, "It was just a prank! It's okay. You passed the test. Now let us in."
I'm not so sure, "Yeh... how about that freaky orchard? How'd you swing that?"
He looks confused, "The what?"
A tall figure steps from the edge of the forest. Legs made of small trunks and uprooted stumps, long branch-like arms and a face made of bark that resembles some sort of tribal mask. The camp counselor turns around and starts screaming. The zombie campers walk towards him and drag him into the woods.
That's about when I wake up.
Funtimes y'all.
