Campfire Ghost Stories
by Jo-Anne Christensen
Stories Told by Firelight
The Scratching
One summer evening, a teenaged couple who had told their parents that they were going to a movie drove up to a place called Lookout Point. There were several other cars parked at the roadside turnout with the unforgettable view. The boy drove deliberately ast them all and turned down a hidden, overgrown little trail into a dark, remote place where the girl had never been.
"Why can't we just park back there, with everyone else?" she asked nervously as they drove along and branches whipped agianst the windows of the car.
"There's bound to be someone who knows us back there," the boy explained. "Do you want your parents to find out we didn't go t the movie?"
The girl had to admit that she did not. So she put away her objections, freshened her lipstick, and told herself that even if something frightening was to happen, her boyfriend was there to keep her safe.
half an hour later, however, he was determined to leave the car.
"Where are you going?" the girl cried when the boy reached for the door handle.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he complained as he pulled free of her clinging hands. "Let me go; I'll be just a minute."
With a mocking grin, the boy stepped out of teh car. He slammed teh door behind him and vanished into the deep shadows within seconds.,
He'll be just a minute, the girl thought. He'll be right back. But her boyfriend did not return immediately and it became more difficult for her to keep her fears at bay. She was unaccustomed to the night noises of the forest and imagined that each one represented a threat. Every rustling of the bushes was a wild animal, ready to pounce; every sigh of the breeze was the wheezing breath of the escaped, knife-wielding murderer who was said to stake out such desolate places in search of easy prey. Finally, she could not stand to be alone in the company of her imagination any longer.
"I'll give you one more minute!" she called out the window to her boyfriend. "One more minute, and tehn I'm leaving!" She started teh car's engine for emphasis, and slid over to the driver's seat. There, she watched the seconds tick by on the dashboard's digital clock.
The minute passed and the girl grew indignant. He knows that I'm nervous out here, she thought. How dare he deliberately frighten me! As she rolled the window up, she screamed out into the darkness that what she was about to do was her boyfriend's own fault. Then she put the car into gear.
But the ground was soft and the tires spun hopelessly, managing to do nothing more than send up a spray of mud. The girl tried to drive forward and then in reverse. The car wouldn't budge either way. Finally, she gave up. She turned the motor off and collapsed tearfully against hte seat.
"Alright, I'm sorry!" she sobbed through the small window openeing. "Now, please come back! You've scared me enough!" But there came no answer from the shadowy, tangled brush.
There was no answer-but there was a sound. A scratching sound. The first scratch caught the young girl's attention. Teh second time she heard it, she was able to pinpoint its origin. It was coming from the roof of teh car. Something, or someoen, was on the roof.
Cold terror jolted through the girl's body. In a flurry of frantic motion, she checked all of the door locks and rolled up the window that she had left just slightly open. She froze then and tried to stifle the sound of her own jagged breathing so that she could listen.
Scratch. It was definitely coming from the roof of the car.
The girl reasoned that the sound might be nothing more than a low branch of one of the many towering trees that surrounded the car, or perhaps a rodent or other small animal. None of this reasoning made her feel better, though. None of it could stop her from hyperventilating or slow her racing pulse. The problem was that, even if she could explain away the creepy scratching, she could not find a logical way to explain the continued absence of her boyfriend, who had now been gone for nire than half an hour.
Unless, she thought...unless he's having some fun with me.
The very thought infuriated her. Anger felt better than fear, so the girl nurturd it. Every time she heard the scratching noise, she imagined her boyfriend hidding behind a tree, using a long branch to scrape the roof of the car and frighten her out of her wits.
As the girl's outrage grew, so did her resolve to not let teh boy get the better of her. She was still too anxious to leave the car, and not eager to make the long walk back to the public road, but there was no reason that she should not have a decent night's sleep. The girl crawled into the back seat, where she wrapped herself in an old blanket and eventually fell into an uneasy state of unconsciousness.
The dreams that she had were terrible. Monsters with wild eyes stared at her through the car windows, and their faces were twisted into expressions of sneering laughter. The long, broken claws of some unseen creature scraped time and time again across the roof of the car, leaving a trail of dull, gray scars in the metallic paint. The girl even dreamed that she was again trying to drive the car abck to the road. In her dream, as in reality, she was unsuccessful; but in her dream it was because her boyfriend had punctured all four of the tires with a long, jagged knife.
When she finally woke, the girl was tremendously relieved to see the pale light of dawn. Knowing that there was nothing to be afriad of by the light of day, she opened the car door and swung her legs out into the fresh morning air. She was just about to stand up when she saw something familiar only a short distance away from her feet.
It was a navy-blue sneaker, one of her boyfriend's shoes. It lay on the ground, resting by the gnarly root of a tree. The girl could see that its white shoe lace was still neatly tied. The girl stood up. But before she could reach for the mysteriously abandoned shoe, or do anything else, she was startled by the sound of a vehicle that came crashing through the underbrush toward her.
It was a police cruiser. The two officers had obviously not expected to encounter anothe rvehicle in their path, for they wore expressions of shock. They brought the cruiser to a sto ponly a few yards behind the car in which the young girl had just spent the night, and the one who had been driving leapt out.
"Come here!" he shouted. "Walk to me, quickly. And whatever you do, don't look back!"
"I know we shouldn't have parked here," explained the girl, "but the car is stuck and..."
"You're not in trouble!" the officer assured her. "Just, please, come here and don't look back!"
As the girl drew closer to the cruiser, she was better able to read the emotion that was written on the faces of the policemen. It wasn't annoyance at having to spend a night searchign for a couple of stupid teenaged kids. It was horror. Suddenly, the girl's knees were weak, and her stomach had formed a cold knot below her ribs.
She found herself thinking about the lone shoe, and despite what the police officer had warned her, she turned around.
It was then that the girl saw where her boyfriend had spent the night. He was bound, gagged and hanging upside-down from the branches of a tall tree. His body had been suspended directly above the roof of the car.
He wa dead; that was obvious. It was also obvious that he had not died immediately. The girl culd see that her boyfriend had survived long enough to free one of his hands from the loops of thick rope. He had used that hand to try to signal for her help.
Just then, a slight gust of wind caused the corpse to sway ever so slightly. The dead boy's fingernails, which were worn, and broken, and embedded with metallic auttomobile paint, dragged slowly across the roof of the car.
The familiar scratching sound was the last thing the girl heard before she fainted.
by Jo-Anne Christensen
Stories Told by Firelight
The Scratching
One summer evening, a teenaged couple who had told their parents that they were going to a movie drove up to a place called Lookout Point. There were several other cars parked at the roadside turnout with the unforgettable view. The boy drove deliberately ast them all and turned down a hidden, overgrown little trail into a dark, remote place where the girl had never been.
"Why can't we just park back there, with everyone else?" she asked nervously as they drove along and branches whipped agianst the windows of the car.
"There's bound to be someone who knows us back there," the boy explained. "Do you want your parents to find out we didn't go t the movie?"
The girl had to admit that she did not. So she put away her objections, freshened her lipstick, and told herself that even if something frightening was to happen, her boyfriend was there to keep her safe.
half an hour later, however, he was determined to leave the car.
"Where are you going?" the girl cried when the boy reached for the door handle.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he complained as he pulled free of her clinging hands. "Let me go; I'll be just a minute."
With a mocking grin, the boy stepped out of teh car. He slammed teh door behind him and vanished into the deep shadows within seconds.,
He'll be just a minute, the girl thought. He'll be right back. But her boyfriend did not return immediately and it became more difficult for her to keep her fears at bay. She was unaccustomed to the night noises of the forest and imagined that each one represented a threat. Every rustling of the bushes was a wild animal, ready to pounce; every sigh of the breeze was the wheezing breath of the escaped, knife-wielding murderer who was said to stake out such desolate places in search of easy prey. Finally, she could not stand to be alone in the company of her imagination any longer.
"I'll give you one more minute!" she called out the window to her boyfriend. "One more minute, and tehn I'm leaving!" She started teh car's engine for emphasis, and slid over to the driver's seat. There, she watched the seconds tick by on the dashboard's digital clock.
The minute passed and the girl grew indignant. He knows that I'm nervous out here, she thought. How dare he deliberately frighten me! As she rolled the window up, she screamed out into the darkness that what she was about to do was her boyfriend's own fault. Then she put the car into gear.
But the ground was soft and the tires spun hopelessly, managing to do nothing more than send up a spray of mud. The girl tried to drive forward and then in reverse. The car wouldn't budge either way. Finally, she gave up. She turned the motor off and collapsed tearfully against hte seat.
"Alright, I'm sorry!" she sobbed through the small window openeing. "Now, please come back! You've scared me enough!" But there came no answer from the shadowy, tangled brush.
There was no answer-but there was a sound. A scratching sound. The first scratch caught the young girl's attention. Teh second time she heard it, she was able to pinpoint its origin. It was coming from the roof of teh car. Something, or someoen, was on the roof.
Cold terror jolted through the girl's body. In a flurry of frantic motion, she checked all of the door locks and rolled up the window that she had left just slightly open. She froze then and tried to stifle the sound of her own jagged breathing so that she could listen.
Scratch. It was definitely coming from the roof of the car.
The girl reasoned that the sound might be nothing more than a low branch of one of the many towering trees that surrounded the car, or perhaps a rodent or other small animal. None of this reasoning made her feel better, though. None of it could stop her from hyperventilating or slow her racing pulse. The problem was that, even if she could explain away the creepy scratching, she could not find a logical way to explain the continued absence of her boyfriend, who had now been gone for nire than half an hour.
Unless, she thought...unless he's having some fun with me.
The very thought infuriated her. Anger felt better than fear, so the girl nurturd it. Every time she heard the scratching noise, she imagined her boyfriend hidding behind a tree, using a long branch to scrape the roof of the car and frighten her out of her wits.
As the girl's outrage grew, so did her resolve to not let teh boy get the better of her. She was still too anxious to leave the car, and not eager to make the long walk back to the public road, but there was no reason that she should not have a decent night's sleep. The girl crawled into the back seat, where she wrapped herself in an old blanket and eventually fell into an uneasy state of unconsciousness.
The dreams that she had were terrible. Monsters with wild eyes stared at her through the car windows, and their faces were twisted into expressions of sneering laughter. The long, broken claws of some unseen creature scraped time and time again across the roof of the car, leaving a trail of dull, gray scars in the metallic paint. The girl even dreamed that she was again trying to drive the car abck to the road. In her dream, as in reality, she was unsuccessful; but in her dream it was because her boyfriend had punctured all four of the tires with a long, jagged knife.
When she finally woke, the girl was tremendously relieved to see the pale light of dawn. Knowing that there was nothing to be afriad of by the light of day, she opened the car door and swung her legs out into the fresh morning air. She was just about to stand up when she saw something familiar only a short distance away from her feet.
It was a navy-blue sneaker, one of her boyfriend's shoes. It lay on the ground, resting by the gnarly root of a tree. The girl could see that its white shoe lace was still neatly tied. The girl stood up. But before she could reach for the mysteriously abandoned shoe, or do anything else, she was startled by the sound of a vehicle that came crashing through the underbrush toward her.
It was a police cruiser. The two officers had obviously not expected to encounter anothe rvehicle in their path, for they wore expressions of shock. They brought the cruiser to a sto ponly a few yards behind the car in which the young girl had just spent the night, and the one who had been driving leapt out.
"Come here!" he shouted. "Walk to me, quickly. And whatever you do, don't look back!"
"I know we shouldn't have parked here," explained the girl, "but the car is stuck and..."
"You're not in trouble!" the officer assured her. "Just, please, come here and don't look back!"
As the girl drew closer to the cruiser, she was better able to read the emotion that was written on the faces of the policemen. It wasn't annoyance at having to spend a night searchign for a couple of stupid teenaged kids. It was horror. Suddenly, the girl's knees were weak, and her stomach had formed a cold knot below her ribs.
She found herself thinking about the lone shoe, and despite what the police officer had warned her, she turned around.
It was then that the girl saw where her boyfriend had spent the night. He was bound, gagged and hanging upside-down from the branches of a tall tree. His body had been suspended directly above the roof of the car.
He wa dead; that was obvious. It was also obvious that he had not died immediately. The girl culd see that her boyfriend had survived long enough to free one of his hands from the loops of thick rope. He had used that hand to try to signal for her help.
Just then, a slight gust of wind caused the corpse to sway ever so slightly. The dead boy's fingernails, which were worn, and broken, and embedded with metallic auttomobile paint, dragged slowly across the roof of the car.
The familiar scratching sound was the last thing the girl heard before she fainted.
