“It was a windy day in the Saratoga woods. The wolves were howling as the silk white moon shone brilliantly through the looming pine trees as they swayed in a trance like pattern”, droned Otty as I packed my stuff.  Okay, so that’s usually how a horror story setting would be if  you believed in ghosts..Truth is today was the day we were going camping and my obnoxious cousins were already rambling about the tons of “ghosts” and “spirits” that the woods had to offer. If you asked me, today was a sunny yellow Friday perfect for camping! All Otty was doing was giving me a migraine! Except one thing it was the thirteenth, not that that would affect OUR trip in any way…

The old minivan drove smoothly down those windy roads where the dusky sunlight illuminated through the trees and gave the way almost a golden glow. The minivan or the rust bucket as I like to call it, finally came to a halt in a moor-y terrain Big Basin Camp.I helped pitch the tent and helped collect the firewood. Not a minuet too soon and my cousins were already cooking up great ideas for a spooky campfire. Was it really too much to ask for a simple smores and song routine?!, in my case, it was…The afternoon trek to mountain seemed hours away as the sun slid behind the golden Californian valley. Dozens of stars prickled the night sky and In an eyes blink we were all round the campfires as the flame crackled warm to the touch.

“On a night like tonight, not too long ago”, Otty started narrating in a fake ominous tone, “a family of three came here to this camp, as their daughter was lonely and bored. Rosie was her name; she was a timid girl with bright cinnamon locks which curled down to her ears. She always wore a blue gown and almost never laughed. So her family decided it was time for some fresh air and some new experiences. But they were in for a hair raising experience that would haunt them for a life time... or maybe two! It was one afternoon by the lake, where eleven year old Rosie was hysterically laughing with no one around. As this wasn’t the first time this was happening, her parents were beginning to get concerned. One day they confronted her and demanded the reason for this absurd laughing. To which Rosie replied that her friends were very funny and had nice jokes. This alarmed the parents, very much. One day in particular Rosie said her friends wanted to show her a fun place to play. Her parents consented to this for they wanted to unveil the mysterious and probably psychotic behavior of their daughter. They planned to see for themselves who these “friends” really were. They started following her. After a while something strange started to happen. The closer they seemed to get to Rosie, the further she seemed to get. It wasn’t long before thick fog covered this very camp with absolutely no visibility. Then they heard it; the ear piercing scream. No one knows what happened after the fog cleared .That was the last anyone’s heard of eleven year old Rosie. All they knew is that no one’s heard or seen of that girl ever since. But some avid, hysterical campers do say that, every fortnight she appears in search of her parents and when she does not find them, she takes her revenge on the campers who have fun in the place where she disappeared”, concluded Otty.




He paused to see the effect he had on the rest of us and indeed the rest of my cousins had looks of mild fear in their eyes. I won’t lie, but I felt a faint chill too. But it was cold in the woods so I waved it off because it was probably just a gust of chilly wind. Flame danced slowly until it was no more than burning embers. AT LONG LAST, I thought to myself, their fantasy fable is over! We all got our sleeping bags and as usual all kids were packed into the biggest tent for extra ‘fun’. If you ask me there’s nothing fun about sleeping in a tent filled with nonsensical hooligans.They kept me up all night long, attempting random outbursts, scream by scream to scare each other, giggling and cackling like hyenas!

I finally managed a few seconds of shut eye when I heard it, laughter; AGAIN?  This time I’m going to be strict and give them a piece of my mind. “Would you all stop screaming? You are not scaring anyone, you’re just being plain annoying”, I yelled. I opened my eyes when no one responded. They all seemed to be fast asleep. But I knew them too well to buy any of that. “Alright fun’s over, stop acting and tell me who was it?”

I heard hard, no give away giggles. They were all breathing evenly too.  This couldn’t be right, they were all genuinely asleep. If that wasn’t them then where did the laugh come from, I thought? Otty’s story came back to me; laughing Rosie. There’s no such as ghosts, I chided myself for even letting that thought in my head.  I must be insane to even believe Otty and his hare brained stories for even a second. I pulled myself together, it was already four in the morning and I needed some sleep if I even wanted to  do ‘T’ of the trekking.

I stepped up with a flashlight and some socks, unzipped the soggy plastic and stepped outside into what felt like gooey putty. The dew on the mud made it even more slippery. It was unusually chilly. My breath was forming puffs in the air as I muttered to myself, “I can’t believe I ruined my sleep for this”. I walked to the still cracking coals and settled on the balls of my feet and held my palms against the warmth.

I must’ve dozed off then because when I opened my eyes the coals were damp and the air was almost freezing. I turned around to go back to the tent when out of nowhere a thick, dense fog surrounded my ankles. I heard someone laughing around me again. And this time, I could feel the raw fear starting to gnaw at me. “Guys if this is a prank, I’ll beat you all up”, I shouted feebly, knowing full well that there was no way my cousins could have produced this fog.  The dense fog rose to my chest as the hysterical laugh sounded right behind me. I could not move a muscle, in spite of trying very hard to run.  

I held my breath hoping this would all make sense somehow and closed my eyes. All of a sudden the laughter died away and I could not help relaxing a bit. The fog also started to thin ever so slightly. I laughed out loud, in relief and at myself for being stupid. But the sound of my voice was muffled by an ear piercing wail right beside me, when suddenly someone grasped my hand. I could only make out the hem of a withered blue frock and a flash of ebony locks before I heard a whisper, “Will you be my friend?”