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Dear Reader,

It was supposed to be a fun family outing, a quick little get away.  That’s what it was supposed to be, but that wasn’t how things worked out.

I am getting ahead of myself, for you to understand my story, for you to attempt to fathom the terrible fate that befell my family, you must first meet them.

Sara was the oldest and at 15 you couldn’t tell her much she didn’t already know.  Then there we Jacob, he was 14, and I guess what the girls would call handsome.  Jacob was big for his age but bigger in his own mind.  There was me, I am really nothing special, just your average kid.  Oh, and of course there was mom and dad.  You know the ones, laughing at their own stupid jokes, droning on about keeping the campsite tidy and yelling “Be careful with that flaming marshmallow”.

Yeah, that where this all started, with a simple camping trip.  We were at our favorite campground, in our favorite spot.  Looking back maybe that should have been a red flag.  You see our favorite spot was very popular, and we were shocked to find it was unreserved when we planned our little impromptu camping trip.  We just counted it as our good fortune and went off to enjoy ourselves.

Things were great the first day, we set up camp, swam, rode our bikes, and ate hotdogs roasted over the fire. 

Later that night Sara walked to the bath house, for a shower.  We heard a scream, and ran in that direction.  We got there in time to see Sara run out wrapped in a towel.  She was babbling about something cutting her.  She was bleeding, but Mom said it was probably just a piece of rough plastic from the shower curtain, and she would be ok.

Late that night I woke to a noise outside our camper. I sat up to listen, but no one else stirred.  Maybe I imagined it, or it was an animal foraging pieces of carelessly dropped hot dog buns.  No, there it was again, a scratching noise, followed by a thump and what is that?  Is it dragging something?  I couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t bring myself to look out the window.  I pulled the covers up to my eyes and listened.  The next thing I knew the first rays of dawn crept through the small openings around the curtains of our old camper.  Something was moving outside.  Mustering the courage that seems to accompany daylight I slowly pulled back the curtain.  Mom was making breakfast.

When I walked outside, mom asked if I had seen Jacob.  I hadn’t, he was probably up early for a run.  When he hadn’t come back by that afternoon, the police were called and a search party was formed.  There was no trace of him.

Our family was worried and there was no chance of enjoying the rest of the trip, but my mom would not think of leaving.  So we stayed. 

That evening my sister walked down to the water to watch the sun set.  She took a towel and a book with her.  That was all we found, when she didn’t come back to camp, just her towel and a book.  No Sara, not a sigh of what had happened.  

The police were again called and a search party again formed, and again they turned up nothing.  There were mumblings about runaways or suicides, but no one really knew what to think. 

We stayed; I guess we had no choice.  What if they found their ways back to camp?  What if they were simply lost in the woods?  We couldn’t leave them. As much as every cell in my body wished we could just go home, I knew we had to stay. 

That night Mom and Dad walked together to the bath house.  Almost from the second they left I felt something.  I’m not sure I can really describe it, it was just something in the air, a thickness. I waited and listened.

The screams pierced the night in a thousand places.  They seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I wanted to run, but where could I go?  Into the water?  Into the woods?  Past the bath house toward the main road?  None of these sounded like good options. There was nowhere to go and nothing left to do but wait.

This letter was my only hope to get our story out and warn others.  What is that?  The scratching has started again.  It sounds as if there are more of them now. I have to hurry I know there isn’t much time left for me, but maybe I can save others if I can just warn them.  They are at the door, the scratching is so loud, I can’t take it.  My time is up but I have to focus. Listen to me no matter what, no matter how perfect you think it is, you have to STAY AWAY from campsite site num^FDA