Topher Nightshade vs. The Camp of The Undead Apocalypse

by Drew Hayes

  “Come on, Kay, we’ve done investigations in places way scarier than this,” Topher reminded her.

  “Yeah, but this is a summer camp. Give me one example of when summer camp plus paranormal doesn’t result in murder.”

  Neither of the men could think of an example to disprove her theory, so Auggie just changed the subject. “You knew what you signed up for. What did you imagine investigating a purportedly haunted camp would be like?”

  “I don’t know . . . a spa? I was sort of only halfway paying attention when you told me.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Topher assured her. “Spirits aren’t violent by nature; they’re just lost and confused. As long as we respect them, they’ll respect us.”

  “I know the deal with ghosts, Topher. I’ve been to like a shitload of haunted places with you. I’m scared of masked killers.”

  “Oh, well, then, you’ll still be fine. Those movies all happen in summer. This is March. Still technically winter, so we’re fine.”

  Auggie braced for another round of objections, but to his surprise, Topher’s logic placated the messy-haired young woman.

  “Huh, I didn’t think of that. All right, I’m in, but let’s still avoid doing anything too killer-tempty. Just in case.” Kay took out a phone that couldn’t possibly have service and opened its camera function. She may as well get some good shots of the entrance and the sign while the place was good and creepy.

  “So, you never said anything, but what do you think?” Topher asked, walking over to Auggie. “Don’t tell me you can’t feel the spiritual energy rippling through the air.”

  “I don’t feel energy, Topher; I just feed it into the machines.” Auggie noticed his friend’s face beginning to fall and quickly backpedalled on instinct. Topher knew Auggie wasn’t a believer; that didn’t mean he should rain on the blue-haired man’s parade. “But I’ll say that this area does look like it has a high amount of potential. Even if we don’t capture anything, the scenery and ambiance will still lead to a very interesting episode.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist; I’ve got a great feeling about this place. I bet we capture all kinds of evidence. Heck, by the end of this weekend, I might even be able to make a believer out of you.”

  “Topher, I respect you and what you believe, but I’m a man of science. You could spend the entire life of our sun trying to convince me that ghosts and spirits are real, and it still wouldn’t succeed. I’m simply too rational to accept supernatural entities as real,” Auggie said.

  It would be roughly four more hours until Auggie was not just a believer in the supernatural, but bitterly setting himself on trying to fight it.

  Chapter 3

  For a camp two decades’ abandoned to the wilderness, the area wasn’t nearly as derelict as they had been expecting. It seemed the current owner employed some sort of property-management company to keep the greater forces of nature at bay. The walkways were grassy but not overgrown; the fence encircling the perimeter was well-maintained; even the gates had been easily unlocked and driven through with a minimum of pushing from Topher.

  The cabins hadn’t held up quite as well, the duo of time and weather battering them heavily. Local wildlife certainly hadn’t helped much either, judging by the claw- and tooth-marks present in the wood at intermittent intervals. They were all still standing, though some could more accurately be described as leaning, which spoke to either the proficiency of the builders or the weakness of the local elements.

  “Let’s do some opening shots there, and there, and by the dock,” Topher rattled off excitedly as he, Auggie, and Kay meandered through the area. This was their initial assessment, a chance to scan for locations that would be ideal to film. While Topher looked for places ghosts would be most likely to congregate, Kay checked for locations where she could get eye-catching images and video even through the lens of the night vision cameras. Auggie was on watch for spots with high capacities for danger or structural integrity issues. Topher and Kay were both led by their guts (and perhaps with Kay, the flammable contents therein), so it was up to him to determine if an area was safe to shoot in or not.

  As Topher talked, Auggie scribbled in his notepad, and Kay snapped pictures on her phone. Some would undoubtedly be stills for the lead-in, but many would just serve as reminders of where she wanted to look once the sun set. Whenever possible, they tried to stretch this out to a two-day process so they had ample time to check lighting and set up equipment. Topher had, unfortunately, only managed to book them the one night, and with what he’d had to pay, Auggie refused to go back to try and haggle for another. They’d made it work in one night before; they’d just have to do it again.

  “And we’ll do some checking around there,” Topher said at last, gesturing to a dilapidated cabin with one partially caved-in wall. Auggie scribbled a furious note not to let that happen. “Okay, that’s probably enough to start. You guys ready to set up home base? We’re going to the use the old main hall. It’s got offices, a lunchroom, I think even a garage. Plus, they keep the power running for the maintenance crews, so we should have all the outlets we need.”

  “I’m ready,” Auggie said. “These bugs are particularly aggressive, so I’d love to put something between them and me besides my insect spray.” To punctuate his point, he pulled a small can from the fanny-pack draped across his hips and let the aerosol dance across his skin with a thin “psssst” sound.

  “That stuff is terrible for you. There are all sorts of chemicals in it,” Kay lectured. She took a flask out of one of the cowboy boots she wore beneath her willowy skirt and knocked back a few hefty glugs.

  “Do I even need to point out the hypocrisy of your statement while you’re ingesting alcohol, which, by its very purpose, is toxic to your blood?”

  “This is water, smartass. I just didn’t have a canteen. Dehydration is a serious concern in any outdoor environment, so I thought I’d play it safe.” Kay screwed the cap on and stuck the flask back in her left boot.

  A soft blush ran over his skin as Auggie blinked in surprise and just a touch of embarrassment. “I’m sorry, that was presumptuous of me. You were being prepared, and I leapt to conclusions.”

  “Apology accepted,” Kay replied. She reached down and pulled a different, much larger flask from her right boot. “Anyway, this is my walkin’-around vodka flask. Want some?”

  Auggie’s mouth opened and closed several times, nothing actually coming out of it besides strangled sounds that seemed halfway between a choke and a scream. Finally, with a frustrated flourish of his hands, he gave up and stormed off toward the main hall they were going to make home base.

  Once Auggie was over halfway to the hall, Topher turned to Kay. “Be honest, how much of that is you just messing with him?”

  “Depends on the day. Like, sixty percent on the high ones, maybe fifteen on the low ones,” Kay admitted readily. “He just makes it so fun.”

  “Try not to go overboard tonight. I think he’s already pretty annoyed with me for booking this place at the last minute.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll ease off for a bit.” She took a deep draught from the right-boot flask and then noticed Topher staring at her. “What? I’m already in trouble for it. May as well do the crime if I’m going to do the time.”

  That made a strange bit of sense to Topher, who took it as a cue that he should probably stop talking to Kay and get to work. “Let’s go. He’ll probably have calmed down by the time we get there,” Topher said. The two headed up the same path Auggie had stormed only a few moments prior.

  Neither was aware of the entity that stayed behind, having witnessed their whole conversation from the unseen vantage point directly in front of them. Clinton shook his head as they walked away, uncertain of what to tell the other two. It was possible that them showing up a few hours before the fog would supposedly stop growing was a coincidence.

  Possible, but damned unlikely by Art’s reckoning.

  * * *

  From a
quarter of a mile away, concealed by brush and shadows, another person watched as Topher and Kay headed toward the main hall. This one didn’t look just at them; it also kept an eye on the ghost of a former counselor. A heavy, purple coat rested on the ground, mere inches away from her feet. The sun warmed the late-winter air so much that the garment was too heavy during the day, yet the bitter winds under the moon necessitated wrapping it closely around her body. This simultaneously made it a burden and a life-saving blessing.

  She licked her lips once, wishing she’d thought to bring chapstick. Rations, weapons, books of magical rites, flashlights, bug-spray, holy water, lighters, and a homemade concoction she called “burn juice” had all been stuffed into her duffel bag, along with a few other odds and ends, but it had never occurred to her that the dry, chilly, climate would leave her lips cracking within the first few hours. For all her knowledge and power, she was still a city girl, and wild environments had dangers she was not prepared for.

  The intruders were a complication she hadn’t expected. Part of her wondered what the odds were that some idiots would come along on this day, of all days, but then she thought better of it. Coincidences like these seemed to happen more often than not. Fate denied any hand in it when she pressed him, but with that slippery bastard one could never be sure what to trust. Her pet theory was that shitstorms, like magnets, exerted a pull in all directions across space and time, gathering as many witnesses as possible for the show. Based on what she knew, tonight was going to be a hell of a spectacle, so it wasn’t surprising that a few yokels had gotten sucked in.

  The downside of this was that she was going to have to put in at least a cursory effort to keep them safe when the shit hit the fan. The upside, though, was that these definitely looked like the sort of people who would have brought chapstick. So it wasn’t a total bust.

  Moving carefully, she picked up her purple coat and began sneaking around toward the main hall. Hiding from the humans would be easy; most were willfully deaf to the world around them. Staying concealed from the spirits was a trickier task, but she’d had plenty of practice. After several days, none of them had become clued to her presence, which was how she liked it. If everything went according to plan, she could stay in the shadows, do her job, and slip away before anyone ever knew she had been there.

  * * *

  Unlike many of the cabins, the camp’s main hall had weathered neglect with some semblance of dignity. True, there were creaks and groans enough to match a retirement home in the morning with every step one took, but the walls were sturdy and the maintenance staff had kept the greater bulk of dust and bugs from overtaking the building’s interior. Additionally, the power outlets still worked, which Topher had been promised during negotiations, but Auggie had refused to believe without proof. This made setting up their home base much easier, since they didn’t have to rig up the portable generator stowed in the back of the SUV.

  In the central room, which had once served as a dining hall, sat a dozen or so wooden tables, two of which now hosted an impressive array of gadgetry connected to various charging cables. These were clustered tightly together, bound by the logistics of running power strips rather than by any sense of space conservation. Nearby, a different table was loaded down with monitors, remote receivers, and other observation equipment.

  This was the hub where Auggie would sit while Kay and Topher tromped about, coordinating their various endeavors in order to maximize time, safety, and usable footage. He’d also keep an eye on the cameras set up to record theoretical hot-spots, letting Topher know if a surge in activity warranted further investigation. From Auggie’s perspective, a “surge in activity” was defined as one of Topher’s devices going off, or literally anything visual occurring. He’d learned after years of practice that either of those events would get Topher excited, and an excited Topher always made for entertaining film.

  Two tables away from Auggie’s hub were a small laptop and a portable video camera. Kay liked to keep her space minimalistic; she said all any artist needed was their tools. Of course, the backpack lying next to the table contained myriad glass and plastic bottles, but one could theoretically make the argument that these could be likened to paints for the brush of her camera wielding: they weren’t the tool but still enabled the art. One could also make arguments about high-functioning alcoholism.

  This three-sectioned area constituted home base, the same setup the three investigators had fashioned in nearly every location they’d worked at together. Sometimes they had more space, sometimes less, sometimes barely enough power to keep the monitors going, but they always situated themselves in a similar way: Topher’s toys, Auggie’s hub, and Kay’s laptop, each separate, yet equally vital to the process of producing Specter Quest. This did not mean they were the only components, however.

  “Topher, could you please turn off your mic while doing that? I keep hearing you grunting in my ear,” Auggie complained.

  “Sorry,” Topher said, reaching for the small box attached to his hip and flicking a switch. That done, he turned his attention back to his current activity and pre-shooting ritual: doing bicep curls. Despite what many would think, this wasn’t about getting pumped to look big on camera. Topher just liked to burn off his excess energy before shooting. He loved investigating, loved being out there in the thick of it, searching for proof of a paranormal afterlife. All of that was well and good when it was actually go time. In the hours leading up to filming, though, his growing excitement would often get in the way of all the prep work, so he’d taken to lifting weights as a way to keep himself grounded.

  Auggie flipped a few more switches and then took off the earphones he’d been wearing. “Sound checks out. I’m about ready to go place the remote cameras. Did you two finish picking positions?”

  “We picked four spots,” Kay told him, bringing over a small map. “One by the gate, one overlooking the cabins, one at the path into the woods, and one at the dock, looking out over the lake.”

  “Why the lake? With the wind and water movement, it will be nearly impossible to quantify any movement as unnatural,” Auggie pointed out. “And the island is too far away to get any good images.”

  “I know, but when I took pictures earlier, I noticed something.” Kay pulled out her phone and opened the camera function, swiping to the photos she’d taken earlier in the day. “See? Everything comes out clear, except for the island. No matter what angle you’re looking from, it always seems blurry.”

  “What does that mean?” Topher asked, perking up at the conversation.

  “Fuck all if I know. It’s just weird, so I thought we could put a camera on it. We’ve got six of them anyway, why not stick it out there and see what it gets?”

  “Could we go out and look at the island firsthand?” Topher set the large free weight on the ground and walked over to look at the small aerial map of the camp.

  “Absolutely not,” Auggie said. “We don’t have any of our own boats, and I wouldn’t cross a bathtub in the leftover equipment here. The camera is fine, but we’re not putting in the time and risk to cross a lake on the basis of blurry pictures.”

  “If we had more time, we could also set one up here,” Kay pointed out. Her finger rested on the side of the map, indicating a hiking trail that ended on a cliff overlooking the island. “Bird’s-eye would be awesome, but if we want to be back and shooting at a decent time, there’s no chance.”

  “We could take the SUV,” Topher suggested.

  “Up an overgrown trail that may or may not be blocked with trees and debris? Absolutely not.”

  “Come on. The dock is already far from the island; once night hits, I doubt we’ll see anything good,” Topher pleaded. “It won’t take too long.”

  “That’s what you said about those tunnels under the old museum. Remind me, which of us got lost and spent half the night walking around the same corridor?” Auggie asked.

  “It’s just the one—”

  “Cliffs over the haunted burial
grounds, fields around the haunted plantation, and the stacks at the haunted library. I can keep going,” Auggie said.

  “Yeah, you really are pretty shitty with directions,” Kay agreed.

  “Kay could do it,” Topher said weakly.

  Auggie snorted and shook his head. “Look, I think I packed an extra telescopic lens for Kay’s camera. If I can rig it on to one of the remotes instead and put it on the dock, will that be good enough for you?”

  “I guess that would give us some good shots,” Topher agreed.

  “Wonderful. You said this place had a garage, right?”

  “Sure, past the offices and through the last door on the left.”

  “Let’s hope there are still tools around; it will take some finagling to get that lens equipped in time.” Auggie headed off in the direction Topher had pointed, his measured steps echoing off the wooden interior of the building. He was gone for less than a minute when Topher and Kay heard his voice rebound toward them from across the building.

  “What the . . . oh, hell no.”

  After exchanging a quick look of shared curiosity, Kay and Topher wordlessly dashed down the hallway, emerging in the garage to find the source of Auggie’s surprise and indignation.

  “Holy shit, someone left a car here.” With a gift of encapsulating honesty usually only possessed by toddlers and idiots, Kay perfectly summarized what was resting on the bare concrete slab before them. Though dirt and time had dulled the sheen of the once bright-orange paint job, the color still leapt out at them, demanding their attention. As did the rebel flag emblazoned across its roof.

  “That is really not okay,” Auggie said, taking in the spectacle with an expression somewhere between shock, anger, and disbelief.

  “It’s the General Lee,” Topher said, walking around the Charger slowly, taking in the sight as a whole.