Amid the Ruins
PART 1: What Happened to all the Children.
Two years earlier...
“Amilee, how’s it look?”
I pulled the binoculars away from my eyes to peer back down the massive spruce trunk, just barely able to make out my Father’s figure under the thick, green foliage. Looking back through the glass peepholes again, I scanned the faded orange horizon for signs of life.
“Nothing!” I shouted back, trying to conceal the disappointment in my voice. “There’s nothing out here.”
I could see all the way to the river, and some of the mountains beyond, but nothing more. No rescue helicopters circling the area, no search teams combing the woods, searching for us or our remains... Nothing. Come to think of it... It’d been weeks since we’d seen anyone on the trails, seen any cars or anything - and that was before we got hopelessly lost in Mount Rainier forest.
... It was almost like the rest of the world had blinked out of existence when we did.
It was stupid... Two weeks ago, me, my Dad, Mom, and little sister and brother, and our dog, Sam, packed up a month’s worth of food, tents and a sleeping bag, and headed up here to the mountains to do some ‘family bonding’ camping. We did achieve that, but we got all turned around in the woods, and the van broke down in a small clearing.
We had a flat tire, and no means to fix it. Atop the outdoorsy camping we had planned, we were also planning on heading up to my Grandparent’s cabin further up the mountian... We set out trying to find it on foot, with no map, and no trail...
We did not find it.
We didn’t find anyone.
From the view above the trees, you could see a frustrating combination of everything and nothing for miles. No roads... Just mountain after mountain; covered in lush foliage.
Surely there were other cabins around in these woods? Hell, I even remember seeing a sign for a summer camp 12 miles north of where we were stuck. But with our supplies dwindling, we were starting to have less and less options...
Our phones had died weeks ago, and the other night after a bad rainstorm, the car battery died. We had nothing, and the cooler months of fall were approaching quickly.
As of September 14th, we’d been out there two and a half weeks, and we had a week’s worth of supplies left. I pretended to be asleep that morning, blinded by the sunlight in the small tent I shared with my siblings, while my parents had a squabble outside.
I winced as their words at one another became more venomous and harsh. It sounded like they were trying to hurt each other at this point.
“You need to make it down to that camp today, Markus.” My Mother scolded my Dad. “It might just be our last damn chance to get off this rock. That car is in worse shape every day, and if we don’t do something soon... All they’re gonna find is our bones.”
That shook me to my core. I was fearful of what might happen to my siblings. I’d protect them... No matter what.
Later that morning, I got up and volunteered to head down the mountain to search for the summer camp marked on our heavily water damaged map. My parents had a fit over this suggestion, of course, in which I reminded them that I was on the track team in school, and weather they liked it or not, I was more physically fit and capable to do this than them.
Regardless... My Mother forced herself on me to come with. We left Dad and Sam to watch over Charlie and Lilly while we made our way out with a water bottle to share and some canned goods for lunch later.
She was so stoic and frustrated, I remember. I tried many times to start a conversation, but almost everything irritated her, and pulled her eyebrows together in a knot of annoyance until I lapsed back into the deafening silence.
I checked the map many times while we headed down, and I felt like the twelve miles had passed some time ago... Maybe we were furhter off the mark than we originally thought. When I suggested this error to my Mom, she only grew more agitated, snatching the map from my hands, glaring at it for a few minutes before insisting I was reading it wrong, and then turning in a different direction and stalking off. I could understand her irritation and frustration, sure, but she flat out acting like a stubborn two year-old.
Noon had come and gone, and small stars started to speckle the blackening sky. We were out here alone, not equipped for nightfall at all. No matches, sleeping bags, or even a flashlight to guide us. We sat on the prickly pine needle floor of the forest, listening to the branches creak and sway in the soft, chilling breeze. Something just felt unnerving about it. We didn’t sleep - couldn’t sleep. It was impossible to when all night, you could feel the eyes of the unseen glaring at you.
Dawn’s light guided us into a larger clearing, which gave way to a trail marked with a nice trail marker.
“Nature trail - Camp”
Two arrows pointing at two respectful paths. We started heading in the direction of the camp, walking several minutes before the thick trees pushed back to shroud a large circular clearing around several large log cabins and a lodge.
But as we both stood frozen at the opening of the trail, something felt very, very wrong. The camp was trashed...
“Are we in the wrong place?” I asked my Mom hesitantly, holding the map up against the sunlight to be sure.
“Yeah...”
I looked back, surprised by the scene. It looked abandonned in a heavy state of disrepair and chaos.
Trash was matted under the bushes surrounded the clearing, some windows on the cabin were broken, and the door to Cabin Three had been kicked in, leaving the large, bronze painted splintering chunks to hang haphazardly from the bent hinges.
Hesitantly we climbed up the stairs to the wrap around porch of the cabin, glass from the window crunching under the soles of our hiking boots as we creeped slowly to the door.
I looked in first, noticing in confusion that the cabin was no abandoned, but frozen in time. Suitcases still sat atop the mattresses, some were left open, their contents dragged across the floor and out the door by some creature. Everything was left behind.
“Hughhhh.”
We both jumped, startled, we spun around and spotted someone moving around in the trees across the clearing. I sheilded my eyes from the sun and could tell it was a person.
“Hey!” I cried out, hoping for more answers to the newly presented questions... Where were the children? The counselors? Why was the place trashed? Had they been robbed during the camp?
The figure’s distorted body jerked in the bushes, then slowly turned in our direction, stumbling before making it’s way towards us. “Hey there!” I shouted again, trying to figure out who it was.
Before I could process what I was seeing, it was too late... The ‘person’ that emerged from the trees was no person... But it was, or had been... A counselor.
Half the woman’s face was missing, and what was still there was coated in sticky blood and hanging muscle, and matted long blonde hair. One eye was missing, the other one a glassy milk color. The exposed skin under the sleeves of the olive green camp polo was lightly charred and torn, old, dried blood stains trailed from ancient cuts.
The creature’s partially detached jaw snapped at us as it stumbled forwards, crippled by what looked like a twisted ankle, the skin around the joint sollen purple and bleeding.
By no means was this a joke... And if it was, it was fucking cruel.
My Mom was frozen in shock. I had to painfully yank her arm to tear her away, to get her to move before the creature’s slowly extending arms could reach for her, it’s dead eye following her as she stumbled out of the way.
“We have to fucking go! Oh my God!” I shrieked, grabbing her and yanking her towards the lodge. “We- we’ll see if there’s a phone, anything! We have to call the police!”
“And tell them what?!” My Mother retailated hysterically. “That we found a trashed camp with a dead woman walking around?”
It sounded insane...
My heart was beating so hard I thought I might pass out. I grabbed the lodge’s door handles and yanked hard before noticing the wooden beam fed through the door handles. I froze, looking at the stumbling dead woman over my shoulder, mindlessly making it’s way closer.
Everything about the situation screamed no at me. I hesitantly pulled the board free, letting it clatter on the ground beside me before reaching for the handles and ripping open the doors. Dusty pale sunlight drifted in... And the smell hit me before anything else did. My eyes adjusted to the dim darkness and I saw them all inside...
All the missing campers.
Their tiny bodies were sitting, backs pressed against the walls, ribs exposed, faces boney and skeletal looking. It took me another moment to realize that they were all dead... Their fragile faces resting peacefully.
Tears formed in my eyes as I noticed the similarity each child shared...
They all had rusty red stains down their foreheads, trailing from small holes in their skulls. All these children had been murdered, shot dead after being rounded up in the cafeteria.
Nothing added up... This gruesome murder scene and the dead woman outside...
I choked on the stale air that reeked of rigomortis, and hurried past the nearest corpses to the kitchen, grabbing the phone on the wall, checking it, and of course... It was dead.
My mom locked the kitchen door, and began to break down. She leaned over the long island, pressing her forhead against it, sobbing violently. I turned and ran to the nearest trashcan, to hurl up the last of whatever remained in my stomach.
I was almost all puked out, and she was almost cried out, when we heard a loud knock on the kitchen door. Immediately we froze, breath hitching in our throats and we freeze. I gently reach for the drawer closest to me, sliding it open to see all the carving knives. I silently pass one to my Mother, still staring at the door, waiting for it to explode.
We both jumped and whimpered in surprise when another bang came, this one half hearted and unmotivated.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered almost silently. I met her shocked, terrified eyes. All she could do was shrug. There was no other exits in this kitchen aside from that door, and the one marked pantry that we had yet to open.
I stepped quietly around some broken jars on the tile towards the pantry door, turning the knob quietly.
Light rushed in to illuminate row after row of packed shelves. Enough food to last us years, easy. I gasped in surprise, the thing at the door briefly forgotten.
“Mom...” I whispered, I wanted to point but all I could do was stare. She came to my side and stared in awe with me. “We’re gonna need more food..” She murmured, almost sounding ashamed as she shrugged the duffle bag of our current supplies over her head, heading towards the nearest shelf.
“Watch that damn door.” She warns me, giving me a concerned look before she starts stuffing the bag with as many canned goods as she can.
I nod slowly, not realizing I am shaking until I have braced myself for attack in front of the door, my fingered curled white-knuckle around the handle of the knife. My heart is racing, and all I can think about is what lies beyond that door.
“Amilee, how’s it look?”
I pulled the binoculars away from my eyes to peer back down the massive spruce trunk, just barely able to make out my Father’s figure under the thick, green foliage. Looking back through the glass peepholes again, I scanned the faded orange horizon for signs of life.
“Nothing!” I shouted back, trying to conceal the disappointment in my voice. “There’s nothing out here.”
I could see all the way to the river, and some of the mountains beyond, but nothing more. No rescue helicopters circling the area, no search teams combing the woods, searching for us or our remains... Nothing. Come to think of it... It’d been weeks since we’d seen anyone on the trails, seen any cars or anything - and that was before we got hopelessly lost in Mount Rainier forest.
... It was almost like the rest of the world had blinked out of existence when we did.
It was stupid... Two weeks ago, me, my Dad, Mom, and little sister and brother, and our dog, Sam, packed up a month’s worth of food, tents and a sleeping bag, and headed up here to the mountains to do some ‘family bonding’ camping. We did achieve that, but we got all turned around in the woods, and the van broke down in a small clearing.
We had a flat tire, and no means to fix it. Atop the outdoorsy camping we had planned, we were also planning on heading up to my Grandparent’s cabin further up the mountian... We set out trying to find it on foot, with no map, and no trail...
We did not find it.
We didn’t find anyone.
From the view above the trees, you could see a frustrating combination of everything and nothing for miles. No roads... Just mountain after mountain; covered in lush foliage.
Surely there were other cabins around in these woods? Hell, I even remember seeing a sign for a summer camp 12 miles north of where we were stuck. But with our supplies dwindling, we were starting to have less and less options...
Our phones had died weeks ago, and the other night after a bad rainstorm, the car battery died. We had nothing, and the cooler months of fall were approaching quickly.
As of September 14th, we’d been out there two and a half weeks, and we had a week’s worth of supplies left. I pretended to be asleep that morning, blinded by the sunlight in the small tent I shared with my siblings, while my parents had a squabble outside.
I winced as their words at one another became more venomous and harsh. It sounded like they were trying to hurt each other at this point.
“You need to make it down to that camp today, Markus.” My Mother scolded my Dad. “It might just be our last damn chance to get off this rock. That car is in worse shape every day, and if we don’t do something soon... All they’re gonna find is our bones.”
That shook me to my core. I was fearful of what might happen to my siblings. I’d protect them... No matter what.
Later that morning, I got up and volunteered to head down the mountain to search for the summer camp marked on our heavily water damaged map. My parents had a fit over this suggestion, of course, in which I reminded them that I was on the track team in school, and weather they liked it or not, I was more physically fit and capable to do this than them.
Regardless... My Mother forced herself on me to come with. We left Dad and Sam to watch over Charlie and Lilly while we made our way out with a water bottle to share and some canned goods for lunch later.
She was so stoic and frustrated, I remember. I tried many times to start a conversation, but almost everything irritated her, and pulled her eyebrows together in a knot of annoyance until I lapsed back into the deafening silence.
I checked the map many times while we headed down, and I felt like the twelve miles had passed some time ago... Maybe we were furhter off the mark than we originally thought. When I suggested this error to my Mom, she only grew more agitated, snatching the map from my hands, glaring at it for a few minutes before insisting I was reading it wrong, and then turning in a different direction and stalking off. I could understand her irritation and frustration, sure, but she flat out acting like a stubborn two year-old.
Noon had come and gone, and small stars started to speckle the blackening sky. We were out here alone, not equipped for nightfall at all. No matches, sleeping bags, or even a flashlight to guide us. We sat on the prickly pine needle floor of the forest, listening to the branches creak and sway in the soft, chilling breeze. Something just felt unnerving about it. We didn’t sleep - couldn’t sleep. It was impossible to when all night, you could feel the eyes of the unseen glaring at you.
Dawn’s light guided us into a larger clearing, which gave way to a trail marked with a nice trail marker.
“Nature trail - Camp”
Two arrows pointing at two respectful paths. We started heading in the direction of the camp, walking several minutes before the thick trees pushed back to shroud a large circular clearing around several large log cabins and a lodge.
But as we both stood frozen at the opening of the trail, something felt very, very wrong. The camp was trashed...
“Are we in the wrong place?” I asked my Mom hesitantly, holding the map up against the sunlight to be sure.
“Yeah...”
I looked back, surprised by the scene. It looked abandonned in a heavy state of disrepair and chaos.
Trash was matted under the bushes surrounded the clearing, some windows on the cabin were broken, and the door to Cabin Three had been kicked in, leaving the large, bronze painted splintering chunks to hang haphazardly from the bent hinges.
Hesitantly we climbed up the stairs to the wrap around porch of the cabin, glass from the window crunching under the soles of our hiking boots as we creeped slowly to the door.
I looked in first, noticing in confusion that the cabin was no abandoned, but frozen in time. Suitcases still sat atop the mattresses, some were left open, their contents dragged across the floor and out the door by some creature. Everything was left behind.
“Hughhhh.”
We both jumped, startled, we spun around and spotted someone moving around in the trees across the clearing. I sheilded my eyes from the sun and could tell it was a person.
“Hey!” I cried out, hoping for more answers to the newly presented questions... Where were the children? The counselors? Why was the place trashed? Had they been robbed during the camp?
The figure’s distorted body jerked in the bushes, then slowly turned in our direction, stumbling before making it’s way towards us. “Hey there!” I shouted again, trying to figure out who it was.
Before I could process what I was seeing, it was too late... The ‘person’ that emerged from the trees was no person... But it was, or had been... A counselor.
Half the woman’s face was missing, and what was still there was coated in sticky blood and hanging muscle, and matted long blonde hair. One eye was missing, the other one a glassy milk color. The exposed skin under the sleeves of the olive green camp polo was lightly charred and torn, old, dried blood stains trailed from ancient cuts.
The creature’s partially detached jaw snapped at us as it stumbled forwards, crippled by what looked like a twisted ankle, the skin around the joint sollen purple and bleeding.
By no means was this a joke... And if it was, it was fucking cruel.
My Mom was frozen in shock. I had to painfully yank her arm to tear her away, to get her to move before the creature’s slowly extending arms could reach for her, it’s dead eye following her as she stumbled out of the way.
“We have to fucking go! Oh my God!” I shrieked, grabbing her and yanking her towards the lodge. “We- we’ll see if there’s a phone, anything! We have to call the police!”
“And tell them what?!” My Mother retailated hysterically. “That we found a trashed camp with a dead woman walking around?”
It sounded insane...
My heart was beating so hard I thought I might pass out. I grabbed the lodge’s door handles and yanked hard before noticing the wooden beam fed through the door handles. I froze, looking at the stumbling dead woman over my shoulder, mindlessly making it’s way closer.
Everything about the situation screamed no at me. I hesitantly pulled the board free, letting it clatter on the ground beside me before reaching for the handles and ripping open the doors. Dusty pale sunlight drifted in... And the smell hit me before anything else did. My eyes adjusted to the dim darkness and I saw them all inside...
All the missing campers.
Their tiny bodies were sitting, backs pressed against the walls, ribs exposed, faces boney and skeletal looking. It took me another moment to realize that they were all dead... Their fragile faces resting peacefully.
Tears formed in my eyes as I noticed the similarity each child shared...
They all had rusty red stains down their foreheads, trailing from small holes in their skulls. All these children had been murdered, shot dead after being rounded up in the cafeteria.
Nothing added up... This gruesome murder scene and the dead woman outside...
I choked on the stale air that reeked of rigomortis, and hurried past the nearest corpses to the kitchen, grabbing the phone on the wall, checking it, and of course... It was dead.
My mom locked the kitchen door, and began to break down. She leaned over the long island, pressing her forhead against it, sobbing violently. I turned and ran to the nearest trashcan, to hurl up the last of whatever remained in my stomach.
I was almost all puked out, and she was almost cried out, when we heard a loud knock on the kitchen door. Immediately we froze, breath hitching in our throats and we freeze. I gently reach for the drawer closest to me, sliding it open to see all the carving knives. I silently pass one to my Mother, still staring at the door, waiting for it to explode.
We both jumped and whimpered in surprise when another bang came, this one half hearted and unmotivated.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered almost silently. I met her shocked, terrified eyes. All she could do was shrug. There was no other exits in this kitchen aside from that door, and the one marked pantry that we had yet to open.
I stepped quietly around some broken jars on the tile towards the pantry door, turning the knob quietly.
Light rushed in to illuminate row after row of packed shelves. Enough food to last us years, easy. I gasped in surprise, the thing at the door briefly forgotten.
“Mom...” I whispered, I wanted to point but all I could do was stare. She came to my side and stared in awe with me. “We’re gonna need more food..” She murmured, almost sounding ashamed as she shrugged the duffle bag of our current supplies over her head, heading towards the nearest shelf.
“Watch that damn door.” She warns me, giving me a concerned look before she starts stuffing the bag with as many canned goods as she can.
I nod slowly, not realizing I am shaking until I have braced myself for attack in front of the door, my fingered curled white-knuckle around the handle of the knife. My heart is racing, and all I can think about is what lies beyond that door.