by Gary Chesla
“It was a good day.” Kelly said as she leaned back in her seat. “Good but weird.”
“That sums it up pretty well.” Mike laughed. “This place and these mountain people never cease to amaze me.”
Mike drove to the next juncture and turned left.
“You mean you heard other strange stories at the park before.” Kelly asked.
Mike laughed. “Yes, but never as strange as old Milly’s story.”
“You mean you have never seen teenage zombie chicks at the park before.” Kelly chuckled.
“No this was a first.” Mike laughed. “I hope that sight doesn’t keep me up at night.”
“It better not!” Kelly said in a tone that told Mike that he should probably not repeat any of the other “teenage zombie chick” clichés that were flashing through his mind right about now.
“The weirdest thing that happened here at the Park before today was the summer before we got together.” Mike said. “I have been coming here for fifteen years. That summer all the locals were worked up. The park staff came around every day in the morning and again at night. They seemed to be counting how many campers were in the campground.”
“Why were they doing that? Couldn’t they just look at the campground registry and know how many campers they had?” Kelly asked.
“I asked a couple of times, but they seemed to dodge the question like they didn’t want to answer.” Mike replied. “So one day I pulled this one young park worker to the side and asked out right what was going on.”
“This should be good.” Kelly laughed.
“She didn’t want to talk at first.” Mike said.
“A she!” Kelly said slyly. “So you charmed it out of her?”
A little voice in the back of Mike’s mind whispered. “Don’t go there Mike!”
He laughed. “No, I wore her down with all my questions. Finally she said they didn’t want to panic anyone, but there had been reports of a huge bear in the Park. She said she had even seen some of the bear’s tracks near the campground herself. The Park Rangers were coming around to be sure no one was leaving any food lying around that could attract the bear. She asked me to please not say anything that would scare the campers, but to just keep my eyes open and make sure no one let food out lying around. She said normally a bear wouldn’t bother anyone, but they really liked people food.”
“That sounds scary.” Kelly said.
“It was on the last day of that trip I saw her at the campground office. She called me aside and said they had captured the bear. They had him in a bear cage down behind the welcome center. They were going to take him further up into the mountains the next day and turn him loose where he couldn’t bother anyone.” Mike said. “So after dinner, I decided to take a walk down behind the welcome center and take a look at this monster, since he had all the park workers scared to death.”
“Was he scary?” Kelly asked.
“When I walked around that cage and looked inside….” Mike paused.
Kelly watched Mike’s face as the lights from the instrument panels reflected off him, waiting for him to go on.
“I saw him and I wanted to pick him up and hug him and scratch him behind his ears!” Mike laughed.
“What?” Kelly asked sounding surprised by the unexpected twist in the story.
Mike laughed. “The little guy was smaller than Kimmy’s teddy bear Fred.”
Kelly started to laugh. “So you’re telling me these people down here have a tendency to exaggerate a little?”
“The little guy was so cute.” Mike laughed. “Kimmy would have wanted to take him home and make a pet out of him.”
Kelly laughed but let out a short scream as Mike jerked the wheel sharply to the left as two bodies staggered out onto the road. Their hands raised as they reached for the RV.
Kelly quickly looked back to make sure Kimmy hadn’t been thrown off the couch. Fortunately when Mike jerked the wheel to the left, it had pressed Kimmy into the back of the couch instead of throwing her off onto the floor. She always slept like a log and the sudden movement of the RV hadn’t caused her to wake up.
“God damn kids!” Mike shouted.
“What the hell was that?” Kelly yelled, surprising herself at her use of a profanity. Only Mike and Kimmy used profanity. Kimmy didn’t know what she was saying, she just repeated what Mike said and thought it was funny.
“Two of those damn teenagers dressed like zombies again.” Mike replied sounding agitated. “They are going to get themselves or someone else killed out here in the dark with their pranks. Who the hell are they planning on scaring out here anyways?”
Mike slowed down and watched the shadows at the edges of the head light beams, watching for more of the kids so he didn’t hit any of them.
As they watched the shadows flicker in the light beams and quickly disappear again into the darkness as they drove by, Kelly began smelling the air. “Mike, do you smell something burning?”
Mike sniffed the air. ”I smell it too.”
Then he saw the night sky glowing through the trees up ahead. Up ahead where the campground would be.
They both stared. As they got closer to the campground they could see the flames reaching into the sky. In many areas the flames reached as high as the tree tops.
“What’s going on at the campground?” Kelly asked sounding nervous.
They both looked in disbelief as the road began to circle around the campground. The entrance to the campground was two hundred feet ahead where they would turn in to go to their site.
Many of the camper trailers and RV’s were on fire. More of the zombie characters were staggering through the maze of flames and campers.
“What the hell did they do?” Mike shouted. “It looks like their pranks got out of hand. The fire has spread to a lot of people’s campers. I hope to hell nobody got hurt.”
Mike and Kelly could see people lying on the ground, scattered throughout the campground, but they couldn’t tell if they were injured campers, or those damn kids lying around waiting to scare someone
Kelly looked at the shadowy figures staggering through the flames. “How many kids do they have dressed like zombies for this haunted trail? There has to be hundreds of them running around.”
Mike turned the wheel and guided the RV into the entrance of the campground. Their campsite was down the short road on the left.
Mike hit the brakes and stopped. There was a body on the road. He grabbed a flashlight and opened his door.
“Where are you going?” Kelly asked. The whole scene was making her nervous.
“There is a damn kid lying on the road. I’m going out there and kick his or her ass and get them out of our way. This shit is going too far.” Mike yelled.
The smell hit him full force as he opened the door. A mixture of burning wood, RV’s and something that made him gag.
Mike slammed the door and walked to the front of the RV. He started to yell. “Get the hell off the road! You want to get yourself killed? This isn’t a game!” Mike yelled over the screaming and cries echoing throughout the campground.
He turned on the flashlight and shined it on the legs of the figure on the ground. Blood pooled out all around the figure.
He shined the light further up the length of the body. It was soaked in something red. When he saw the midsection was ripped open and intestines spilled out beside the body, the sickening smell made him cover his mouth in an effort to keep his dinner down. He moved to the head. It was a blond girl. He was surprised she wasn’t wearing a mask.
Half her face was missing. Her remaining eye was open and stared lifelessly into the dark.
“Come on get up and get out of here.” He yelled. He was pissed, but he was sort of impressed at the quality of their ghoulish costumes. The body looked so lifelike. This getup was much better than ones he had seen those girls wearing earlier today.
He studied the face. He bent down and touched the face. He was shocked the face felt warm and so real.
His foot
slid in the blood on the ground where he was hunched down. He had to put his hand on the ground to keep from losing his balance.
The thick warm liquid covered his hand.
He held his hand in the light from the flashlight and looked at his hand.
He moved his fingers and rubbed them together as he looked at the red liquid. It felt like blood. It looked and felt just like the blood he had gotten all over his hands the last time he had shot and gutted a deer during hunting season.
“What the hell?” Mike said out loud.
In the shadows of the light beam at his feet he saw motion.
He moved the light on the girls face again. The eye that had been open and a bright blue color a minute ago was now a milky white color.
The eye started to rapidly move around in the eye socket. Next the girl’s jaws started opening and closing. The head snapped in Mike’s direction. The girl’s mangled face was now staring up at him. Blood started to seep out of the girl’s mouth as it opened and closed.
Her color had changed.
The healthy glow of her skin had become a dull gray color. A low growling sound started to come from her throat.
Mike jumped upright and took a step back as her arms started to flail in the air. Her legs started to move. Whatever had ravished her midsection must have broken her spine, as the upper and lower body began moving erratically, but as much as she tried, both ends didn’t seem to be able to work together and she couldn’t get up.
Mike stood, shocked at what he saw.
He looked around the campground at the bodies that were illuminated by the fires.
The other bodies that had been lying motionless were all starting to move.
He shined the light down on the girls face again. The look of pure evil and hatred reflected back at him as it growled and started to flail violently again on the ground in front of him.
Mike had seen enough. Prank or, or, or who knows what this was, it was just too much.
He wiped the blood from his hand off on his shorts. He would have to change these shorts when he had a chance.
He ran back to the driver’s door of the RV, threw it open, got inside and slammed it shut.
“Lock your door!” Mike shouted.
“It is locked!” Kelly replied stunned by Mike’s body language.
“Check it again!” He shouted.
“What’s going on Mike?” Kelly cried.
“I don’t know, but we going to get the stuff we left at our site and get the hell out of here.” He shouted.
Kelly stared in stunned silence as Mike turned the wheel wide so he could drive around the girl on the road.
He drove the fifty feet to their camp site and pulled onto the pad.
“Stay here and keep the doors locked.” He yelled as he got out of the RV and slammed the door behind him.
He started to walk towards the cooler when he heard a weak cry coming from Chuck’s campsite next door.
He shined his flashlight in the direction of the sound.
Next to the dying coals of Chuck’s fire pit were two bodies.
Mike moved cautiously over to the bodies, keeping the light on the bodies as he moved.
He stopped as he recognized what was in front of him. Chuck was lying next to his wife, Sue.
They were both bloody and mangled. Sue’s head had been smashed in. Chuck laid next to her. He looked like he had gone through a shredder. His one arm outstretched above him. Mike gasped when he saw a large bloody rock clenched in Chuck’s hand.
Mike moved closer. Chuck tried to move his head when Mike shined the light on his face. A clear brown eye looked up at Mike. Chuck’s other eye had been ripped from the socket.
“Chuck?” Mike said sadly.
“Mike is that you?” Chuck whispered. He could barely speak as he struggled weakly to move his mangled body.
“My God Chuck, what happened?” Mike asked softly as he knelt down next to Chuck’s body.
“You have to get out of here!” Chuck struggled to speak. Blood started to run out of the corner of his mouth. “Take Kelly and Kimmy and get as far away from here as you can.”
“What happened?” Mike asked again, holding the light on Chuck’s face.
Chuck coughed and the blood started to flow more freely out of his mouth. “Right after you left to go to dinner we were sitting by the fire. All these zombies started to come across the road. We started to laugh. We thought it was all those kids coming over to the campground to give the campers a thrill.”
Chuck coughed again. This time he sounded much weaker.
“But it wasn’t the kids!”
“Who were they?” Mike asked.
“No!” Chuck struggled. “What were they?”
“What?” Mike asked.
“They aren’t human.” Chuck whispered weakly. “They came into the campground and started attacking everyone. They tore people apart. They stumbled into things, knocking tables, chairs and hanging blankets into the fires. The fires started to spread and started to catch the tents and RV on fires. The screaming and cries were horrible.”
Chuck coughed and spit blood down his chin. His eye closed and he stopped moving.
“Chuck?” Mike said, thinking his friend was dead.
Chuck’s eye opened as he gasped for air. “They attacked Sue. They bit and tore her up something terrible. I managed to pull her into the RV and she died in my arms.” Chuck sobbed.
Mike looked at Chuck and Sue by the fire pit. He started to think. “If Chuck pulled Sue inside the trailer, why are they laying out here? This doesn’t make sense.”
Mike looked at the Bloody rock again in Chuck’s hand.
He didn’t know what to believe. Everything he was seeing was unbelievable. Nothing he was seeing made any sense.
Chuck started to struggle and began to speak again.
“When these things kill you, you don’t stay dead. I was holding her for about ten minutes as I listened to the horrific sounds coming from everywhere out here.
Then I felt her moving in my arms. She was dead, I know she was dead. Her heart stopped and she wasn’t breathing. Her body was getting cold in my arms. I looked down, my heart was racing. My Sue was moving.
When I looked down, what was moving wasn’t my Sue. The eyes were a milky white. Her skin was a sick gray color. The look on her face scared me. She started to attack me. She was biting me. She ripped chunks of skin out of my arms. I struggled to get away from her, but I couldn’t. She was so strong. My Sue was never very strong. I managed to get free when she ripped half my arm off. I got the door open and fell out on the ground. She was on top of me before I could believe it. I grabbed a rock from beside the fire pit. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to.” Chuck’s weak voice drifted off.
He coughed again. I tried to sit up. All the bodies that been scattered around the campground when I pulled Sue into the trailer, they all started to move.”
Mike thought of the blond girl he had stopped for at the entrance.
“The dead got up and started helping those things attack the campers that were still alive.” Chuck looked weaker. He struggled again and spoke his final words. “Mike. Run while you can. Go before it is too late.”
Mike looked down at his friend. His eye remained opened, but Chuck no longer moved.
Mike turned off his flashlight and stood.
He turned and looked around the campground. He could see the dark outlines of bodies in the glow of the fires. They bodies were everywhere. Some were staggering around and many others began to get up from the ground and make their way across the campground.
Mike was stunned. He didn’t know if he was having a nightmare or if he had just woke up in the middle of the night to see a horror movie on the screen of the TV he forgot to turn off before falling asleep.
If he was dreaming, Kelly’s scream from inside the RV had just woke him up. He looked back at the RV. The flames from a fire burning on the other side of the RV showed a dark figure banging at Kell
y’s window.
He ran over to the RV and grabbed the handle on the driver’s door and pulled.
The door didn’t budge. Kelly had followed his instructions and locked the door after he got out.
Mike put his face up to the window and yelled. “Kelly. Let me in!”
Kelly stared, frozen at the sight of the figure trying to get in through her window.
Mike yelled again and started to bang on his door.
The banging got Kelly’s attention, but she screamed, thinking it was another crazed figure trying to get in the other side of the RV.
She looked at the driver door as she screamed.
Mike called out her name. “Kelly. It’s me Mike!”
After a second, Kelly recognized Mike’s voice and jumped across to the driver’s seat and opened the door.
Mike jumped into his seat, pushing Kelly off the end of the seat and onto the floor.
He slammed the door a second before a face slammed into his window.
Mike turned the key that was still in the ignition. The RV roared to life. Mike threw the gearshift into drive and hit the gas. He didn’t try to back out of his campsite. He drove over the grass at the back of his campsite and onto the road. He gunned the engine and sped down the road that circled the campground. The road that would eventually take him past the welcome center and to the road he would follow out of the park.
The bumpy drive over the small ditch between the campsite and the road had bounced Kimmy off the couch and onto the floor.
She scrambled to the front of the RV and desperately grabbed Kelly’s arm as Kelly was pulling herself off the floor and onto her seat.
Mike sped down the road past the edge of the campground. Mike had struck a half dozen staggering figures that had walked out onto the road in front of him.
Kelly screamed. “Mike you’re hitting those people.”
“They aren’t people!” Mike shouted back as he struggled to keep the RV on the small curvy park road.
“What are they?” Kelly cried. She was scared and confused. She couldn’t understand what was going on. It was all happening so fast. She hugged Kimmy and held her face against her shoulder so she wouldn’t see the figures bouncing off the front of the RV or the blood that now flowed across the windshield.