Praying for Daylight

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Title- Praying for Daylight
Pairings- n/a
Ratings- R
Warnings- Language, violence.
Word Count- 1,917

His heart pounded as he edged his way through the broad array of trees. Zac found it funny how the vast forest looked so unobtrusive by the light of day. Now, by moonlight, as he carefully maneuvered his way around the unbeaten path, praying to go undetected; these trees seemed so menacing, holding years of secrets and nightmares he never could have imagined.

Only hours ago he’d been seated around the campfire, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, laughing and joking with his fellow camp counselors. They’d all been so carefree. Not even his mother’s disapproval at his choice in summer vocation could dampen his spirits. Now, all he could think about was how right she was. Running off to some back hills camp in the woods was not only completely unpractical but also incredibly dangerous.

He stilled, listening for any sign of his pursuer, for a moment while clenching his eyes shut, biting his tongue and shaking his head fiercely as if that could wash away the horrors he’d seen tonight. He knew if he were to survive, this would be something he’d never be able to forget. Those images would forever be etched into the deep recesses of his mind, haunting him until the day he did die.

The images of the broken and bloody mangled bodies of his campmates flickered through his mind— causing his heart to shutter and then restart pounding tenfold. He worried for a moment that his pursuer might be able to hear it, causing his breathing in turn to speed up as well. He worked to reign in the panic to keep his breaths calm and even, even if he couldn’t control the pounding of his heart, and then he carefully carried on, hoping and praying that by the grace of God he might make it out of here alive.

Everything had seemed so normal earlier. Beth, James, Holly and Mark had been in the middle of a game of Monopoly when he’d gone to take a shower in the bathhouse. Tara and Mike had run off to suck face, as usual, and Andy, Todd and Jake had gone to make sure all of the buildings were locked up and secure for the night.

Then the lights had gone out right in the middle of his shower. He’d fumbled around, trying to wash the soap from his hair and body, and hastily dressed in the dark. When he’d gone to find the rest of the gang, it was as if he’d walked into another universe. The music that had been playing was gone along with the sound of his new friends’ laughter, masking the night in silence.

At first he’d thought they’d gone to investigate the power outage, but the longer he’d sat in his cabin, laying in bed waiting for their return, the harder his heart begun to pound. Something felt off about this. Surely they wouldn’t have all gone to check, and even if they had, they should have been back by now.

For a few torturous moments, he’d debated whether he should stay where he was or go look for them. His brother, Taylor, would have called him a pussy and told him to go find the others. His mother would’ve told him to stay put and wait for them to come back. Since this whole trip had been his own form of rebellion against his mother’s overprotective and often overbearing need to dictate the course of his life, he’d decided to take the mental equivalent of Taylor’s advice.

He’d searched the main cabin, thinking maybe he’d been mistaken in his assumption that the absence of noise meant they were all gone, but when he’d arrived there, flashlight in hand, he found the large room empty, as he’d suspected. The Monopoly board had been left out, the pieces still in place, as if they’d planned to return to finish. He’d frowned, deciding to check the girls’ cabins in case they’d gone to bed while the guys went off to sort out the electrical issues.

Again, he’d come up empty. Their belongings were strewn around the room, probably the way they’d left it this morning before they’d all gone off for another day of orientation with Bill and Nancy, the owners of the campgrounds. He’d wondered idly when Bill and Nancy would be back from their trip into town for supplies as he headed to check out Mike, Andy, Todd and Jake’s cabin. He’d thought maybe he would find Mike and Tara at the very least since they’d run off to grope each other earlier. He doubted they’d even noticed the sudden darkness. He’d heard Andy and Jake complaining about walking in on the couple in a compromising position their first night here.

With these thoughts in mind, he’d cautiously entered the other guys’ cabin after knocking loudly and pausing for several seconds before proceeding. At first glance, the place looked empty. All the beds were untidy and clothes were thrown around. Then when he looked again closer, he could make out the shape of a lump in what he thought was Mike’s bunk.

He’d been relieved for a moment, thinking his solitary sentence had ended, but as he’d approached the bed, he’d realized several things all at once – like the way the lump was too still and the angle seemed off. Then he noticed the dripping sound. It hadn’t rained since they’d been here, so it wasn’t a leak in the roof, and there was no running water in the cabins, so it was with trepidation that he’d moved closer to Mike’s bunk.

Then he stepped in something that caused his feet to slide – one forward and one back, nearly causing him to fall forward onto the bunk. He’d been horrorstruck for a moment, thinking his near spill would rouse Mike – and possibly Tara - and cause them to accuse him of being some kind of pervert, but no exclamations of surprise came, and when he looked down to see what he’d slipped in, the pieces began to click into place.

The floor under the bed was soaked in what he knew instinctively was blood, though it shown black by the light from his flashlight. He’d swallowed hard and reluctantly pulled back the sheets on Mike’s bed. What he found there caused his stomach to wrench, and he spun, falling to the floor as the contents of his dinner made a second appearance. When his stomach was finally empty, he turned slowly with tear and terror filled eyes to look again, praying this was all just some sort of sick joke, but the scene had not changed.

Mike still lie, eyes wide and fearful and mouth hung open in a silent scream with a wide gash in his throat, soaking the bed around him, while Tara lie on top of him, skin bare except for the blood seeping from the garden spade jammed into the back of her neck. Zac’s stomach heaved again, but this time there was nothing to expel.

With shaky limbs, he crawled away from the bed, tears spilling down his face as he wondered what the hell was going on here. He knew, intuitively, that whatever this was wasn’t good and he needed to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible; yet, a part of him insisted that he look for the others. There was someone here – someone who had committed a grisly crime, killing his friends and leaving their battered remains behind for someone to find – and if the others were still here, and part of him hoped like hell they weren’t because he feared that if there were, he might be finding more bodies that looked like Mike and Tara’s, but, still, he had to be sure. He couldn’t just leave someone behind – though he feared that was what had happened to him. Either way, he had to be sure. He couldn’t live with someone else’s blood on his hands.

He wiped his face, brushing away the tears, and tried to put on a brave face. He switched off his flashlight, knowing that he had to be careful as he ventured out into the night. He quietly checked the rest of the buildings, feeling relieved when he found no one because finding no one was better than finding another of his friends dead.

The relief only lasted until he reached the last building – the dining hall and kitchen. It was there that he realized that the rest of his friends hadn’t left him behind after all. The bodies of his new friends lay scattered around the room. Some looked like they had been killed where they dropped while others had been brought here, but they were all bloody and mangled, obviously meeting a painful, gruesome end – not the same as Mike or Tara, but equally as awful.

The room smelled thickly of blood, and Zac was thankful his stomach was already empty. He wasn’t sure how he was able to think at all, given the terror that seemed to quiver through his body, but he realized that if whoever had done this had brought bodies here, then they may be coming back. After all, Mike and Tara’s lifeless bodies weren’t here.

If whoever did this was coming back here, he knew he had to get as far away from here as possible. With that thought in mind he began to make his way back to his cabin to grab the keys to his car. He wished he could call someone, but he already knew the phone in the main office would be useless. The power outage, obviously, wasn’t just a coincidence, and his cell phone was useless out here. He just prayed that his car hadn’t fallen victim to tapering as well.

Zac was about a hundred yards away from his cabin when he spotted him. The man was maybe fifty feet ahead of him, seemingly headed toward Mike’s cabin – presumably to collect his victims - with his back to Zac. There was a flicker of hope in Zac’s heart that this was one of his friends, but Zac already knew that was impossible. All of his friends were dead. He’d seen their bodies.

He recognized nothing about this man, but he could tell from his stance – even this far away – that this was not someone he wanted to approach. Everything in his mind instinctively screamed ‘DANGER!’

With that warning in mind, Zac made to slip off quietly toward his cabin, but since his eyes were trained on the stranger’s back, he wasn’t watching his step, so he didn’t see the branch until it snapped beneath his feet.

The cracking sound caused the man to turn immediately and look directly at Zac. His face was covered with a mask, but Zac didn’t need to see it or his eyes to know that he was facing someone – something – evil. Only something evil could do what was done to his friends.

He was frozen with fear for only a moment before the survival instinct he’d heard so much about kicked in. He knew where the keys to his car were, but getting to them wasn’t possible at the moment. Right now, getting as far away from the man who had began to stalk toward him was most important, so he turned and ran headlong toward the dark trees where he would spend the rest of the night, hoping and praying that he might live to see the new light of day.