Fact or Fiction

Fact or Fiction?

By: The Lone Wanderer

I love the mountains

I love the rolling hills

I love the flowers

I love the daffodils

I love the fireside

When all the lights go low

Boom de adda

Boom badoom

Badoom

The song rang in my ears as the endless amounts of choruses were sung. The campers, who where gather around the camp fire pit, had big grins on their faces. The day had been a pleasant one so far, and free time was just about here. I personally hoped to play my favorite game- Hide-in-go seek in the woods. Sure, it may seem boring, but when you actually have a large woods to hide in and you have daring campers who would do anything to hide safely, you have a game that will last for hours.

The song continued to go on as I thought about where I would hide. Would I hide in the old sycamore tree? Or, would I hide in the single spot of light in the dense woods? Would I hide in the abandoned badger den? Or, would I hide in the thorn patch? Even if I got a good hiding spot, I would still have to make an emergency exit plan.

Finally, the song was done. My best friend, Walt, was looking around, wondering when the songs would end. He never was interested in singing; he would rather hold a baseball bat or run a mile. He was the athletic type. For a good part of the summer, he was the empire on his baseball team. He was big for his age. He had the athletic body, and no one questioned his strength. You could have easily confused Walt with a seventh or eighth grader. The truth was, however, that he was only a fifth grader. He was ten, but he didn’t look it.

The counselors finally made it to the front of the crowd. One by one, they announced their free time activity. Archery, swimming, soccer, capture the flag, and canning. Then, there was only one counselor left. I waited patiently for the activity to be announced. Her lips started to move. ‘Hide-in-seek’ she announced.

I got off my seat and then walked towards the entrance to the woods. I waited for the counselor and some others to get her. Walt, Elliot, the Irving twins- Nathan and Patrick, and Megan. There were others, but I wasn’t interested in them.

We all got to the two trees that were home base. We quickly decided who the tagger would be. Though Patrick was the fastest person in the world, he did know where people hid. I immediately scrapped all my plans for hiding and started to think of someplace new. I rarely went to the back of the woods, so I decided that would be a good place to hide.

I went over to Walt and told him of my plan. He nodded in agreement. He truly was in the mood for a challenge. The back of the woods was guarded by a mass of thorns, and no one truly dared to go through them. There were a few gaps in the thorns, however, and one these were found, one could travel without pain. It was a brilliant plan, plus I was in the mood to explorer a little.

Patrick started to count. I took off, with Walt closely following. Megan, the camp owner’s daughter, quickly ran into the nearest patch of trees. She probably was going to hide where the trees created a canopy, but where far apart. Nathan zoomed towards the frog pond and leaped behind a bush. I knew he was going to keep going. Once Nathan started to run, you couldn’t get him to stop. Elliot ran towards an oak tree and started to climb it. She could climb fast and once she got up there she would stay. No one could climb like her.

Walt and I continued to go deeper into the woods. We found the gap in the thorns and continued on. We finally reached the fence that marked the back of the woods. Walt then pointed ahead at a gap in the fence. I looked on and noticed that someone had been here before.

“Walt, do you want to go on?” I asked. I really didn’t care if we continued or not.

“Sure,” he said. We walked past the gap in the fence and looked around. We saw a tree and in red were the words ‘Beware’. I didn’t really think that was creepy. The grads here probably did that to scare others. But, Walt then stopped me and pointed at the gun.

There were bullet shells all over the place. Some were fresh while others where a couple of decades old. A dried trail of blood leads away from the bullet shells. Walt and I decided to follow, even though it was not safe. I guess the old saying curiosity killed the cat was partially true.

Walt and I walked on for a few more minutes. Then, all of a sudden, we heard a rustling in some bushes. We stopped in our tracks. We looked around and we saw nothing. Suddenly, a pale white man came stomping out of the bushes. He had a gun in his right hand and the head of some animal in the other.

“Get off of my land!” he shouted. Walt and I ran out of there. The crazy guy continued to follow us. I wanted to get out of there fast, for I fear for my life. He had a gun, and he was crazy. Gun + crazy guy = crazy guy shooting gun at kids.

Walt and I finally passed the hole in the fence. We continued to run. We ran past Elliot, who had decided to finally come out of her tree. We ran past Nathan, who was tired from running all over the place. We then ran past Megan, who was brushing a horse. We then saw Patrick. He was standing at home base with his hands in the air yelling ‘Ollyollyoxenfree’.

We got to the trees and sat down. We had managed to not be found and yet we had almost lost our lives. He turned out that everyone had been looking for us for the past ten minutes. We had ventured far into the woods and saw a crazy man. I never thought about going that deep again.

After that day, Walt and I talked about what we saw. We both agreed that the man was very pale and looked almost transparent. Plus the trail of blood had been dry for some time. Not only that, but once we started to run, the man didn’t follow us and when we looked back it was like he was gone.