Tell a ghost story

This is a true story.

Have you ever had the feeling like you were being watched? That little feeling that goes up the back of your spine like something isn’t quite right and you need to be careful? I did, and I didn’t listen to it.

When I was 18, I went camping in the woods with my friends. It was going to be my first time drinking alcohol. A lot of my friends were already experienced with it and were really excited to get me in on the fun. We brought full bottles of whiskey, beer, wine, probably enough alcohol for a wedding. We were going to travel there on Friday, stay the night, then make our way back on Saturday with the hugest hangovers anyone has ever experienced.

We arrived at the camping area we chose and got set up; it was a little clearing in the woods right next to a lake. It wasn’t an official camping site, just somewhere which was popular in our school for camping and drinking. We started having a barbecue and also got started on the alcohol. As the sun was starting to go down, I felt as if I was being watched. I asked my friends, “Hey, does anyone else feel like we’re being watched?”, and all my friends just told me I was being paranoid and to just drink more.

It got dark and we had a fire going. One of my friends said that there was a farm nearby and we should go and push over cows. All of us, being young, dumb and full of strong liquor, were very eager for this plan and we set out into the woods in the pitch black trying to find the farm nearby so we could push over those sleeping cows.

After about 10 minutes, one of my friends stops and says, “Shhh! Do you hear that?” and we all stopped and listened. We heard nothing, but we were all on edge at what our friend said. We started walking again in the dark, and that’s when we noticed we could hear footsteps off in the distance that weren’t coming from us. Every time we would stop, the other footsteps would stop and whenever we would move, the footsteps would move as well. They were definitely human footsteps. They sounded like 2 legs, and kangaroos do not sound the way that humans do when they walk.

We were all freaking out and decided to run back to our campsite so we could at least be somewhere with light if someone was going to attack us. We could hear running coming from whoever was watching us as well, and that just pushed us to run faster and harder.

We got back to the campsite and noticed that all of our tents had been cut up and all of the stuff inside them had been pulled out and thrown all over the campsite. Our food was all in the dirt, my friend's backpack was in the fire and one of our cooler boxes was floating away in the lake. This definitely wasn’t an animal, the cut marks on the tents were too clean, one clean cut from corner to corner. They did that to all of our tents, not just one.

We stayed near the campfire. One of my friends broke one of our camping seats to use the metal in it as a makeshift weapon just in case. We could hear walking around us, but we couldn’t see who or what was stalking us. We’d shout in the direction of the walking, but we’d never get a response. After a while we heard them walk away, but we couldn’t relax so we stayed up all night until the sun came up. We cautiously packed up our things and headed back to our cars and got out of there.

I still wonder now: how long were we being watched? Who was watching us? It was a really isolated place, so how did they find us? What if we didn’t go walking and just stayed at the campsite and slept in the tents? Would I have survived the night? If you ever get the feeling you’re being watched, it’s probably a good idea to listen to that.

George

Vocabulary

spine (noun) – the row of small bones that are connected together down the middle of the back

get in on (phrasal verb) – to take part in an activity

clearing (noun) – an open space in a forest where there are no trees

on edge (adjective) – to be nervous, excited or easily made angry

freak out (phrasal verb) – to become upset, scared, shocked, etc.

makeshift (adjective) – used temporarily for a particular purpose because the real thing is not available