So, most of you who read this also are regular listeners to Here’s Johnny. On this week’s episode, I had mentioned that I was going to rank the Halloween multiverses. I have decided to postpone that one week, so that I can watch the new Halloween film and thus be able to rank all of them fairly. But, tabling that idea left me struggling to determine what I would write about this week. After brainstorming ideas that would take too much time with how little time I had left to write (best slasher icon, why do horror and heavy metal go so well together, who is the best scream queen) I decided to tell a story. This is a true story, one that I have never told anyone. You may read this and think it far too fantastical to exist in this world of ours, but I swear every word is true. So, let’s get started shall we?
The summer going into my eighth-grade year I spent at my grandparents’ camper at a camp ground in central Ohio. The campground had miles of paths, a giant lake, and more than enough secrets to entertain a boy for a summer. I had come prepared for my summer away from home, my Gameboy Advance with Pokemon Ruby and Zelda: The Minish Cap, several books from Harry Potter to the Darren Shan novels, and most importantly my hunting knife. The knife had been a gift from my great-grandfather, and I cherished it. It was about ten inches long, sharp enough to slice hair, and gave me the courage to not fear anything I came across out in the woods. My grandparents let me do as I wanted, as long as I kept my room in their camper clean and returned back an hour after sundown. But as anyone who can still remember what it was like to be a young kid, not yet interested in the opposite sex but instead more interested in adventure can tell you, being forced to not truly enjoy the dark woods was awful. After a month of begging my grandparents to let me take my tent and sleeping bag out into the woods for a night, they relented. And I knew exactly where I wanted to make camp.
During my second week at the campground, I had found something awesome. I had left the designated path (of course, nothing fun is ever found on the path) and decided to head towards what I thought was an open clearing far off into the woods. It was barely visible from the path, and only because the sunlight lit up the area far more than the woods around it. I used my hunting knife to mark a path in the trees drawing arrows to the next tree with an arrow, so I would be able to find my way to the opening and more importantly back to the path. After about forty minutes of trail blazing I made it to the clearing. I had hoped to find blackberry bushes (for you city dwellers, blackberry bushes grow on the edges of dense woods and I had high hopes). But that was not what I found. What I had found was an old cemetery plot. When I say old, I mean it. Most the of tomb stones were faded with age, the ground had been disturbed by a knarly old tree in the middle. And because of that, some coffins were barely sticking above ground. I was in shock. I started to walk around the clearing, counting about fifty tombstones and about six coffins peaking from beneath the dirt. It became apparent that I was not the first to discover this graveyard. I found the remains of an old fire pit, with what looked like a Mountain Dew can from decades ago. After finding this cemetery, I returned to it every day. I would try my best to decipher tombstones, go up and touch the century old coffins, and lean back against the tree to read or play games. It was my own secret place, one that gave me what I truly wanted when wanting to spend the summer with my grandparents, dead silence.
Since finding the graveyard, I wanted to spend the night there. Writing that sentence now makes me feel like such a fool, but again I was a kid who didn’t care about anything except having the best story to tell when eighth grade started. Since I wasn’t interested in sexual escapades (yet), to me, having my own graveyard camping story was the best thing I could have imagined. Before I set out for what would turn out to be the most terrifying night of my life, my grandpa made me promise him three things. First, that I would not start any fires. Second, that I would take one of his long-range walkie talkies so that if something went wrong I could get ahold of him on the other end. And third, that I would not return until dawn. See, my grandpa knew something that I didn’t as a thirteen-year-old kid. He knew that I was destined to come back, whether because I was cold, scared of the wind in the trees, or maybe just because I was bored. He made me promise to not come back, and that in a worst-case scenario he would come to me and finish my night. He was an incredibly smart man and I miss him to this day.
Around three hours before sunset I set out to make camp. It was about an hour hike to the path, and then about forty minutes to make it to my graveyard. I was so excited! As a huge fan of Indiana Jones, I felt like that night was going to be my own grand adventure. I made it to the graveyard about an hour before dusk. I spent the remaining daylight setting up my camp. I had decided to use the tree to cut the wind to the front of my tent, thus forming a corner for me to sit in between the graveyard and my tent (didn’t want any creature sneaking up from behind). This meant though, that my view from my base camp was the coffins. I was a little unnerved, but they were still more or less buried in the dirt and I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. My grandpa radioed in around 9:30, letting me know he was going to bed and that he was proud of me. He told me to radio if I needed him. I knew that there was no way that that was going to happen. Not only would my pride be destroyed, but to make my seventy year old grandfather come find my camp at least two hours from his bed was unthinkable. After saying he would have breakfast ready for me, we signed off. And that was when I was tested…
I played Zelda until my battery started blinking and decided to cut the light and get some sleep. This was around midnight. As I lay there in my tent, I felt so proud. What a great night and more importantly what a great story. I started to drift to sleep when I heard a noise that sometimes I still hear when I least expect it. A creak. A creak of something opening that should never open again. I lashed out in the darkness looking for my flashlight and more importantly my knife. Getting one in each hand, I slowly opened the door to my tent. I shined the flashlight out in the dark in the direction of the creak. And my heart stopped. One of the coffins, one of the ones that was more out of the dirt than in, was partially open. I couldn’t breathe. I thought for a second that maybe my eyes were deceiving me. I figured the only way to confirm would be to turn the light off, count to ten and look again. So, I shut off the flashlight, and before I made an eight count I heard another creak. Immediately I turned on the light, and saw that the casket had opened more, now open about an inch. I could not believe what was going on. This wasn’t X Files, this wasn’t Tales from the Crypt, hell this wasn’t even Harry Potter. Things like this didn’t happen and it sure as hell wasn’t happening to me. I wasn’t sure how much battery my flashlight had in it, but I knew it didn’t have enough to last me until dawn. So I decided to act. I had some rope in my camping kit, and as boldly as only a kid can act I walked to the casket, wrapped the rope around it pulling it completely shut again, and tied the tightest knot I could. I made my way back to the tent, checked my watch to see that it was now 3am. I had to last just three more hours to meet the sun. I felt confident that what I had done would keep me safe.
I don’t know when I fell asleep that night, but I did. I woke when my watch alarmed at 6am. I opened my tent, feeling safe because the sun was out and I had survived the night. But it was then I saw the effigy that is still burned in my mind. The coffin had opened fully, and it was empty. The rope was laying in front of my tent, formed into a smiley face. And the nose of that smiley face was my knife, which I had fallen asleep grasping. Comprehending all of this was far too much for me. I grabbed my knife, hastily packed up my supplies into my backpack, and got the hell out of there. I didn’t go and examine the coffin, and I didn’t grab my rope. I turned back around when I was at the edge of the clearing and promised I would take that story to the grave. My grandpa was up making breakfast and he was very proud that his grandson braved the night. I didn’t tell him any details, just that it was an uneventful night. I think back on that night a lot. Part of me wonders what really happened. Did I imagine the events? Did my elderly grandpa decide to pull a terrifying prank, did a mad man stumble across my camp and decide to mess with me, or did something crawl out of that coffin and pay me a visit that night? I will never know for certain. All I know is that I have been back to that campground several times since. I have even walked the trail that would lead you to the clearing if you knew where to look. But I have never and will never return to that clearing. Sometimes, it is best to let the past rest.