Halloween Story (cat lovers, do not read)

Wow, it was a nuclear reaction that killed all those people and buried 'em in the bog? What a surprise ending. GROG never saw that one coming.

I like how GROG always pretends to be a dumbass.

It IS an act, right????

Off to your separate corners now.

GROG - Go design a mug or something.

Cammo - Go write a story or something. :wink:

People of the Bog
Part 5

Enough questions. Here are some answers.

Bogs were the places where prehistoric peoples got the fuel to heat their homes. Peat is an early stage of coal, when dried it burns long and well - better than wood. One of the reasons so many Bog People have been found these days, in fact, is because today almost 90% of the bogs in England have been dug up for their peat and utterly destroyed. More than one Bog Body was found dangling at the business end of a front end loader. It’s still a big industry; peat is used to heat whiskey stills. It gives Scottish whiskey its strong distinctive flavor. The best Irish linen has a peaty fragrance, from the fires lit in the cottage hearths where it’s spun. It’s a very important fuel.

Without dried peat to burn, primitive northern cultures would have frozen to death in winter.

Also, peat was and still is used to add to farm soil. It helps retain moisture, and is a great fertilizer. Without peat, your crops could die. Peat is still sold in all plant nurseries, it’s valuable to gardeners.

Bogs were extremely important to iron-age peoples for one more reason.

Two thousand years ago they were the most vital places in Europe. They were storehouses of something more than just peat, an enormously valuable substance, the material that formed the axes they built their homes with, a magical substance that their knives and farming tools were made from.

The most expensive material ever seen in those days, used as trade goods all over Europe, lusted after by everyone, for enough of this metal could make kings of fools. Or more often, fools of kings.

Because bogs were where the iron-age people got their iron.

Streams and groundwater springs hold fine dissolved iron. Running into a bog concentrates the iron by two processes; the low oxygen environment and actions of anaerobic bacteria. The bacteria can be detected on the surface by the iridescent oily film they leave on the water, a sure sign of bog iron. In Iceland the shiny film is called jarnbrák (iron slick). When layers of peat are cut and pulled back using turf knives , pea-sized nodules of bog iron can be harvested. The iron nodules are very pure, and because of the high carbon content of the bog they make extremely high-grade, expensive, hard iron. They are also a renewable resource. Approximately every 30 years the same bog can be re-harvested when the iron nodules have reformed, similar to farming pearls.

Most iron during the Viking and prehistoric Iron Age was made from Bog Iron.

Ned Kelly is resident keeper of Irish antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland. He has examined Bog Bodies, but more importantly the locales where the Bog Bodies have been found. After a lot of research, it turns out that a great many of these bodies were staked down on borders; tribal or political fences between you and your neighbor.
"Bodies are placed in the borders immediately surrounding royal land or on tribal boundaries to ensure a good yield of corn and milk throughout the reign of the king." Said Kelly, and further, “The Oldcroghan body is on the border of what was the royal estate of the O'Connors in the Middle Ages. When I looked at the Clonycavan Man, he is buried on the border between the modern counties of Meath and West Meath, which were also very significant tribal boundaries in the early medieval period. Now, I think that's not coincidental.”

Keep in mind that streams and bogs are natural borders. All over the world, rivers and lakes separate countries. The 49th parallel that divides Canada from the USA is basically a continuation of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. It may in fact be entirely coincidental that some bogs are both a grave and a border; it’s tough to find a bog in Ireland that wasn’t a border at some time. And Kelly’s milk-yield connection makes no sense at all, especially as the bodies were buried with no personal effects, no riches as offerings. Mr. Kelly could be wrong about part or all of it.
However, Kelly opened up an enormous can of worms in making his statements, because he finally acknowledged a fact that has been obvious to virtually everyone (except senior historians) who have examined the Bog Bodies. The bodies were not of criminals, but from the pampered upper classes.

And the bodies had intentionally been used as nightmarish scarecrows to ward off poachers and trespassers.

Because nothing else makes sense.

They were engineering undead monsters out of unfortunate young men and women.

Then staking their bodies and souls to the earth for eternity.

To guard their bogs, the source or all the riches the village enjoyed.

Possibly the whole village took part, witnessing the spectacle of public torture and execution. Why not? The more public the death, the more effective the intended haunting would be.

Or perhaps it was something done and witnessed only by the priests and kings of the land. Was the person picked at random, short straw loses, from the young village princes?

Or – was the Bog Monster the eldest son of the king? The defacto next owner of the land, interred there to protect his iron? And was this whole tradition started from even earlier stone-age traditions of sacrificing your eldest child in order to ‘own land’; each side of a border had to place a family sacrifice on their side, to seal the deal.

The only time iron pellets could have been stolen was by night. What was to stop someone from poaching these enormously valuable pellets by dressing in stealthy black and creeping to the heart of the bog? What but lurking monsters, real or imagined?

Because once it was known that a bog had been haunted by the biggest, toughest, healthiest male the village had (or the son of the king) who had been made into a restless, violent thing that haunted the bogs every night pulling unwary visitors into the depths, protecting the bog, HIS bog, from anyone silly enough to go near them, nobody in their right minds would think of thieving. Nobody would venture into the bogs by night to steal the iron pellets forming there. Would you? Maybe the village priests or headmen would help things along by going near the bogs some nights and making noises, screams, moans. It’s an interesting idea.

Vampire and revenant stories are probably survivals of the tales told to villagers about these Bog Monsters. Keep away from the Bog, because IT WILL GET YOU. Nuff said. They were suggested by real observed facts of uncovered corpses, things that already scared villagers like buried bodies being uncovered by dogs at night, thus leaving what looked like freshly un-dug graves. Graves of the restless undead.

If you’re interested in this incredibly morbid stuff, look up the book;

Vampires Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality, by Paul Barber. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988

So the Bog Bodies were monstrous scarecrows, inciting fear for thirty years among the peasants, until the next iron harvest and the next needed execution. Probably rights to certain bogs were always being purchased, like a real estate market. The 30-year cycle was a time for drawing new borders and firming up boundaries. And torture of course.

It’s interesting what greed will do to people.

You see, the problem is - maybe, just maybe, it worked.

Over and over in modern times ghost researchers have found that poltergeist activity, in other words violent spirits, were the result of recent accidental or suicidal deaths of young men. Men in their 20’s, taken before their time. Maybe the tortures and the quick killings actually did trap souls just as they intended, forever dooming the ghosts to wander the bogs, angry and dangerous. Thousands of years of killings. Why would they have continued the tradition if it didn’t work? They say the bogs are still gloomy places, dark and unhealthy. Sherlock Holmes roamed the moors, where the bogs lay in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. When these bodies are dug up in modern times, people say they get a creepy feeling - as if someone is watching them. The old bog lands are unsettling, haunted by deep shadows and quiet damp cold air that pushes you back from the marshy edges.

There’s something else, though.

The term Bog Man has Old Norse (Iron Age Viking) origins, and is so similar to a current word it’s almost too obvious to have been associated with it. It’s a very old word we continue to use these days to describe something that waits under your bed to grab your leg when you turn the lights out; oddly similar myths to those built up around the bog rituals. Very old myths indeed, that still seem to haunt us.

Because we still call the monster under the bed the Boogieman.

Or, as it was pronounced in England; Bog-ee-man. The Man in the Bog. They’re even called Boggarts, or Boggies in Scotland.

One more thing. “Boogieman” is in turn the ancient source for another word we still use to scare with, the most frequently used scare word of all time, maybe the oldest scare word in Western Civilization. It is the word kids use to jump out and scream at each other with. Because Boogieman, as far as anyone can tell, is where we got the word

boo.

the end

All contents copyright Cam MacMillan 2007. All rights reserved.

**Race Day

Part 1**

It was the last week of my senior year at high school and some strange things had been happening.

Hard to describe, but there was this general feeling of doom and destruction. The whole world of school and home was coming to an end, and a lot of kids just didn’t have too much in front of them. It was all over for them. They’d have to put those fake smiles on and walk out into the world with nobody to blame or rely on anymore. It was sobering as heck.

But more to the point, the senior class was getting a bit out of hand. There were parties that went on all night, kids were not turning in any work of any kind, the guy beside me in math class was asleep for the whole class and nobody noticed, girls were dressing really strangely, you’d see odd things happening at night and first thing in the morning. I think one girl was trying to sleep with every male teacher on staff and had worked her way through about half of them.

Tuesday of the last week had come and gone. I was walking out to the car after school and noticed something more odd than usual. It seemed like every senior was standing in a big crowd in the middle of the road. They were jostling around, waving their arms, yelling. I went over to the group.

“What’s going on?” I asked Roscoe.
“Race day,” he said.
“What the fuck is Race Day?”
“Y’know, the big Race.”
“What big race?”

“Don’t you know? I thought you’d be in it for sure.” He looked at me like I was the crazy one, “It’s the big end-of-school race. I think Maggie’s putting it on.” Maggie was like the head organizer for just about everything that happened. Big gal, strong, big voice. Maggie.

“You gotta pay something?” I asked, getting more interested all the time.
“I don’t know. It’s Maggie and her friends’ show.”
“You going?”
“Nah. Mom’s using the Scout.” Roscoe looked a bit ticked off.
“That sucks. Lemme see what’s happening.”

I walked into the thick of it. People were yelling out names, and there was Maggie right in the middle of it, writing stuff on a clipboard, handing out envelopes. She looked busy, but I managed to ask her if I could sign up, yes you can, and if you’re signed up Cam you need two passengers, a navigator and a riddle man.

“What’s a riddle man?” I yelled. This was getting complicated.

“We give you a riddle, you solve it and you drive to that spot. We give you another riddle, and it goes on to the finish.”

“Where’s it finish?”

“That’s what you have to find out!” she laughed. “First one there wins! It’s a Road Rally!”

“You IN?” Richard asked. And he looked right into my eyes. I know a dare when I see one. And Richard had beaten me on a ski race last January, so it didn’t take too much brains to see what he was really asking.

Cause Richard was the fastest witted bastard I’ve ever met. And he loved speed sports. His reflexes were right there every time. His dad was a motorcycle racer back in the Indian days. His brother Peter had died in a motorcycle accident a few years before, and the dad had actually outlawed motorcycles in the family after that. There were still cars, though, and Richard took every turn squealing in his girlfriend’s car, the speedometer disconnected to fake her dad out at the end of a night spent humping and making runs up to Abean County and back. He was slick and dangerous, strong as hell, played great guitar, always wore a leather jacket before they became popular and combed his black hair neatly. He looked exactly like “Reggie” in the Archie comics. Richard.

What he meant is, I’m gonna beat you again. Remember that ski race that started on top of Mount Tremblant, he was saying, remember how it started with 8 guys and ten feet down the first double diamond slope everybody wiped out but me and you? And remember how you wiped out too, but actually rolled out of the fall and kept coming, three seconds behind and then we took two routes, you following the trail and me cutting off trail and tracing a line down the middle of the powder at the base of the chairlifts, using the lift towers as turning slaloms, illegal as hell but fast on the crunchy top on a powder base? Remember that? And at the bottom you thought you had beaten me by taking the side of the mogul trails, the flat parts beside the trees and just tucking and heading straight down the run, torpedo style? But you got to the bottom, so aching and tired you couldn’t stop, banked the snow, tried to stop, but finally just laid down and slid in to a stop? And there was me, Richard, at the bottom already, first place, and I looked down at you and said

“Where you been,” nonchalantly?

“Yeah, I’ll sign up.” I said, looking right at him.
“Good. I’m in too,” Richard said.

Cam, thanks for the bump. I read the entire thread at 2 am working night shift by myself :o Great stories.

I have a cat-lovers-beware story of my own. We had a sweet old long-haired female cat for many years. When my daughter brought home a rooster and a boisterous new kitten, Kory decided she had had enough and moved across the road to my parents house where there were no other pesky animals. This arrangement worked out just fine until the black cat from hell showed up. He was terrorizing Kori and I knew I needed to do something. I borrowed a Have-a-Hart trap with the intention of relocating the beast several miles away but just couldn't catch him. Finally, I reluctantly had my Missouri mountain man brother send me a foot trap. I am an animal lover, but sometimes you have to protect your own and I didn't see any other options. I carefully staked the trap to the ground and set it just like he instructed, brough Kori in the house, and went to bed. The next morning, sure enough, Cujo was in the trap - huge, rippled with muscles, eyes blazing like fire, and lunging at me. It took 3 shots at close range with a shotgun to kill that son-of-a-bitch. I made damn sure I cut off his head with a shovel before I buried him, I didn't want a repeat of Al's Black Bastard haunting me from the fence for the rest of my life!

There are those few who learn from observation. The rest of us need to piss on the electric fence and find out for ourselves.

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2008-10-24 06:41 ]

OK, I finally finished reading this entire thread. Cammo, If you haven't really written a book to date, you need to do so because you are a great story teller. Let's call it TBOC. :lol: Love your stories and have enjoyed them all so far.. Some how you need to get a CAT back into this thread. It is almost Halloween.

:o But MadDogMike, how the hell can you be an animal lover after writing this? :(

I have a cat-lovers-beware story of my own. We had a sweet old long-haired female cat for many years. When my daughter brought home a rooster and a boisterous new kitten, Kory decided she had had enough and moved across the road to my parents house where there were no other pesky animals. This arrangement worked out just fine until the black cat from hell showed up. He was terrorizing Kori and I knew I needed to do something. I borrowed a Have-a-Hart trap with the intention of relocating the beast several miles away but just couldn't catch him. Finally, I reluctantly had my Missouri mountain man brother send me a foot trap. I am an animal lover, but sometimes you have to protect your own and I didn't see any other options. I carefully staked the trap to the ground and set it just like he instructed, brought Kori in the house, and went to bed. The next morning, sure enough, Cujo was in the trap - huge, rippled with muscles, eyes blazing like fire, and lunging at me. It took 3 shots at close range with a shotgun to kill that son-of-a-bitch. I made damn sure I cut off his head with a shovel before I buried him, I didn't want a repeat of Al's Black Bastard haunting me from the fence for the rest of my life!

:o It took 3 shots at close range with a shotgun to kill that son-of-a-bitch. Kill it? Christ, you blew it to kingdom come, what the hell else was left to bury, but the bits an pieces? Were you expecting to see the son-of-a-bitch walking along the fence in pieces. :lol: Just joking with you, don't get all pissy on me now. :o

On 2008-10-25 02:26, tikipaka wrote:
:o But MadDogMike, how the hell can you be an animal lover after writing this? :(

I am an animal lover (I guess cats qualify as animals) I'm not saying this was my proudest moment, I just thought it fit in this thread :P

On 2008-10-25 02:26, tikipaka wrote:
:o Kill it? Christ, you blew it to kingdom come, what the hell else was left to bury, but the bits and pieces?

This was no regular cat but some sort of beast that came from Hades after ripping Cerberus a new butthole. After the second shot it was still trying to kill me! :lol:

Mike is a cat lover, he just hated that thing!

Race Day
Part 2

“That’s great! We have two guys signed up who don’t have a car. They can be with you, Cam! Andy and Drew!” Maggie yelled, all jolly now.

Holy CRAP!

Andy and DREW?

Andy was an OK sort. Tall guy, greasy blonde. Into motorcycles too, mainly cause his lanky English dad was some sort of war hero and had liberated a German courier bike that he kept in A1 condition and rode all over. The dad wad a notorious ladykiller, too, married to an icy blonde lady known for her devastating looks and excellent chocolate trifle, of which I still have the recipe. Andy rode the bike all the time, had a great looking older sister, and liked the Kinks. Always jovial, a cool head, up for anything and never trying to prove anything to anybody. You can’t make this stuff up. From what I hear, Andy went into mining later and made a small fortune on drilling parts of the Alaskan Pipeline.

DREW was completely different. He was the son of the biggest landholder and real estate developer in the County. He was spoiled rotten, and was the most effeminate guy I’ve ever seen. He wasn’t faggy is what I’m saying. He was female. He was so femmy he made most other girls look butch. No guy in school hung around with DREW, just girls. I suppose they discussed feminine products together. The funny thing was, DREW had a brother Tony who was as macho as DREW was fem. Tony was thickset, quiet, played football, was freckle-faced, and always grinned like a kid with a frog in his pocket. The theory was that Tony had been given all the guy chromosomes and there was only one left over for his brother; just enough to give him a dink, but no more. DREW was medium sized, with straw blond hair that hung in little curly rings all around his ears. He was always draped across whatever he was sitting on, like he was tired or disgusted with life, and his legs were always crossed, tucked together like a 1950’s calendar girl wearing a short skirt. His eyes were rimmed with long lashes. DREW.

“Uh, alright. Fine. I’ll take ‘em.” I said, looking at Andy and DREW standing there beside Maggs. DREW couldn’t be too bad. He hadn’t ever said anything bad to me, mainly because we hadn’t said a single thing to each other during high school.

Richard smiled, and turned away. Everybody started breaking up into groups, and I realized the race was starting right now. No prep time, no questions.
“Um, c’mon you guys.” I said, “My car’s at the front. When do we start?”
“I think she shoots a gun off,” DREW said.

We heard a BANG.

We ran to the car.

My parents’s new Silver Honda Accord. Hereafter known as the Silver Bullet.

I had trouble unlocking the doors, but finally pointed Andy to the front seat and shoved DREW in the back. Then we both realized DREW had the envelope with the riddle.
“What IS IT!?” Andy yelled.
We turned around in our seats and stared at DREW.
“What’s what?” DREW said, looking out the window, disdainfully. Andy glanced at me.
“The RIDDLE!” he yelled.
“Oh.” DREW ripped open the thing, very neatly, and slowly said …

“Jack and Jill went up the ____
To fetch a pail of FANS.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.
“They went up the hill,” says Andy.
“Oh, the Hill. But what about the … Northern Fans!”
“Huh?” DREW asked from the back.

“The Hill, and the Fan Company! I know where it is! “ I yelled. Gas it, crank a U-turn and we shot down Maple Street.

“Where you going?” Andy shouted.
“The Hill, there’s a fan company up there!”
“Why are you going this way?”
“What do you mean?”

“You go DOWN Main, not up, and take the road behind Creswell’s Drug Store!”

Damn. Andy was right. I was used to going the other way, from our house. I took a left and another left, back the other way, the Silver Bullet going right through two stop signs.
“You’re right, hey, you do directions, I’ll drive and DREW, you do the riddles.”
“I think that’s what we’re supposed to do.” DREW said, his little voice packed with as much sarcasm as he could put into it.

The old army base at the top of Wooler Road was called “The Hill” and there was a Fan Company up there. They made giant industrial fans, the ones built into warehouses up on the roof. A friend had worked there last summer spray-painting the things. I didn’t think anybody else even knew it existed.
“DREW, turn around and look out the back window!” I shouted back at him.
“Why?” his tiny little voice came from the back seat.
“For cops!”
“There aren’t any,” he said.
“What d’ya mean?”

“I mean all the cops in the County have been told this race is being run today, and they’re not going to arrest anybody for going too fast.”

“YOU’RE FUCKING JOKING!”

“No. Maggie worked it out.”
“Andy! We GOT IT!”
“YEEEEEE- HAH!” we both screamed, just as I hit the downside of the town’s 5-way intersection, diving through the stoplight, the Bullet pitching forward 20 degrees, braking and steering to the right, fishtailing to the left, behind Creswell’s and pumping the gas while shifting down for grip up the old road that formed a one-lane alley that switchbacked up and around the older buildings on Main. Forty-fifty-sixty miles per hour, shift to third, engine screaming and sixty five seventy shift to forth, break out onto the Hill road, all pavement now, nobody behind me, nobody coming, drive on the line for safety, seventy five eighty, shift again into fifth, those lovin’ Silver Bullet Accords had gears to spare then, eighty five ninety ninety five and BRAKE a hundred yards before our turn and hit the gravel bit of a skid no problem and steer south, then down a lane, big sign Northern Fans there it is pull to a stop, somebody in a car - Maggie’s friend Amy, she’s cute, there she is, Andy jumps out, I pull around and he jumps back in with an envelope she’s handed him.

“We’re second!” he says.
“WHAT? Who got here before us?”
“Richard!”

Here's my theory - when riddle #7 leads you to the pond on old farmer Tucker's abandoned ostrich farm, the swamp-thing comes up to greet you guys. I haven't decided yet if Drew uses his feminine charms to seduce the monster into eating Richard, or if the swamp-thing eats Drew and rids you of the annoying little priss.

"I haven't decided yet if Drew uses his feminine charms to seduce the monster into eating Richard, or if the swamp-thing eats Drew and rids you of the annoying little priss."

Actually, these are all way better ideas than what actually happned!

The whole story, by the by, is true in every detail....

**Race Day

Part 3**

Rats. Richard was the guy who had worked there last summer. He had known where to go right away. Bad luck right off, but we pulled out and DREW grabs the paper and reads

“Peter Peter Pumpkineater,
Had a Lighthouse and couldn’t keep her!”

“Oh no.” said DREW.
“Lighthouse?” Andy looked mystified.
“It’s the lighthouse at Point Peter.” DREW told us.
“Where’s that?”
DREW rolled his eyes and drawled out “It’s at POINT PETER! At the bottom of the County. It’ll take us half an hour to get there.”

I checked the gas gauge. “I’ll do it 15 minutes,” and just as I swung the wheel six other cars burst into the lot, all around us. People were already jumping out, running to Amy and I had to turn around to the left, to another sideroad to get back to the gate. Watch the oncoming, screaming out onto the highway going west, gas it, forty, fifty sixty seventy miles an hour.

“We take Highway Ten all the way down, right?” I shouted.
Andy looked at me, shrugged his shoulders. He obviously had never been there. I had only been there once. DREW leaned forward and drawled, lazily,
“Ten all the way down to Huysmans Corners, that’s where the General Store is. Then left on the shore road right to the point.”

Seventy five eighty eighty five ninety ninety five.

“Do we have a map?” I asked.
“Dunno.” Andy said, scrounging around in the car, then “No maps, mon. Do we have any TUNES?”
“Oh, uh, I might have some tapes in the center arm rest. Just open it up here…”
Andy flipped up the armrest and skept scrounging. He finally pulled out a tape, smiling, but then his face looked worried when he read what it was.

“Burl Ives Sings Christmas Classics! Cam, this isn’t TUNES!”

One hundred. One hundred two.

“Ah, sorry, this is my mom’s car.” I tried to change the subject, “Look, we should apply some scientific method here. We have no map, right?
“Right.” Andy said.
I could feel DREW rolling his eyes in the back and adjusting himself to the seat’s contours already.
“This car has a fifth gear. That means it can cruise at one-o-five. And we have lots of gas.”
“Yeah? That’s pretty cool, mon.”
“Yeah, and that means we can get those guys on the straightaways, like right now to Point Peter. But they got a head start of like a minute of two.”

We were approaching the General Store, there it was right outside the Cherry Valley cemetery. Nobody else on the road, lots of light, the General Store was a great landmark sitting on top of a gentle rise, like something from the Waltons. I gear down, engine do the braking, and then hit the turn to the left while accelerating back up for traction, forty, fifty, sixty.

“What’s Richard driving? His dad won’t let him drive the car.”
“He’s with Tommy Lewis. Maybe Tommy is driving.” DREW piped up.
“Nah, Richard’s driving. Trust me. Maybe he’s using Tommy’s car.”
“If he’s using Tommy’s car it’s a first,” Andy said, “cause Tommy never lets anybody drive it. He rebuilt that engine by himself. Well, with his dad.”
“Then lets hope Tommy is the worst fucking garage mechanic on Earth, cause here’s the priority list:

Priority One,
We gotta win this race.”

There was a pause, then DREW asked “What’s Priority Two?”
“I don’t know.” I said.
“Priority Two is TUNES!” yelled Andy.
“Good on ya! Where we gonna get tunes? You know, I could make a pit stop if it meant tunes, but they gotta be really good.”
“What we need is some Led Zep.” DREW said from the back.
Andy and I glanced at each other.
“YEAH, MON.” Andy’s eyes started getting big, like a starving man at a banquet. “Led Zep would go down real GOOD right now.”
“Man, don’t say Led Zep. We can’t get any. It’s gonna drive us crazy.”

“Led ZEP! LED ZEP LED ZEP!” DREW yelled from the back, “Priority Two is Led ZEP!”

“Okay, Priority Two is to acquire a Led Zep tape by any means possible whatsoever. I’ll stop if you guys know where we can get one. And Priority Three is a STORY.”

“What do you mean, mon?” asked Andy, interested.
“Until we get the music happening, each one of us has to tell a story. It’s gotta be something funny or strange that’s happened to you. Andy starts.”
“Aaaaah, I don’t know any stories, mon,” but he was thinking…

Seventy eighty ninety still nobody in sight, where were the other cars?

“Alright” Andy says, “Got one. You know Sam Campbell?”
“Oh yeah, sure. We’re best friends.”
“Well, Sam lives on a farm, right?”

He sure did. Saying Sam lived on a farm was a bit of an understatement. His dad was the top feed corn producer in the County, he owned thousands of acres and rented a few thousand more each season. Endless fields of corn waving in the breeze all around their house.

“Well, they have cats, y’know? To kill the rats and mice. Can’t have rats in the corn silos.”
“Nope. Sure cain’t.” I said, imitating a hick.
“So Sam’s dad has cats. Lots of cats. Hundreds of cats all over the place.”

I knew exactly what Andy was talking about – Sam’s yard was crawling with cats, it was like a creepy cat zoo.

“There’s so many cats” Andy continued, “they don’t know how many cats they have. And they keep breeding all the time, mon. And they breed with their brothers and sisters, its disgusting, so they’re all retarded. The Campbells don’t care, cause the cats only eat mice, so who cares? But those cats are so retarded and crazy they’ll attack anything. Sam’s been brought up to think of them as vermin, like little furball mice vacuum cleaners. They’re just trash to him, like garden weeds, y’know?”

“Yeah? Where the heck is this story going, Andy?” DREW asked, leaning between the front seats now.

“I’ll tell you, mon, listen up! So I went over there when his parents were gone to some convention, I had a little half baggie and wanted to see his place, and we went out into his barn at the side.”
“I know exactly where that is.” I put in.
“Yeah, it’s that old place, y’know? And he opened the door and all these CATS came out. It freaked me out, mon, and we hadn’t even smoked anything yet. So we lit this BIG FAT JOINT, mon, a really BIG spliff, and we were about half way down it and then this little kitten crawled up to Sam’s leg and bit him, mon. Bit him right on the ankle. He dropped the joint, and I had to scramble for it to make sure we didn’t burn the place down, and then I found the joint,”
“Good,” said DREW, “this story has a happy ending.”
“…and when I stood back up Sam was holding onto the cat and he was STEAMED, mon. He was really mad. He took the cat and threw it as HARD AS HE COULD right at the wall, mon!”
“Yuck!”
Andy nodded at us, wisely.
“Yeah, it was freaky, mon, especially on that good Columbian, but remember that cats were like bugs to Sam. He didn’t think twice about killing one.”
He paused for the effect.
“That cat hit the wall, SPLAT! You could hear it crunching all up, then it sort of slid down to the floor. I couldn’t stop looking at it, that little kitten looked up right at me, then it sort or took a breath, huuuuuuh….” Andy was making a cat dying face, trying to take its last breath. “Huuuh, then it shut its eyes, it was just like those gangster movies where the bad guy gets it in the end and he’s slumped against a wall with cops all around him, that cat, little Puffy, took its last breath, and a tiny bit of blood appeared at its lips, then its little head sort of slumped down, and its whole body relaxed. Dead.”

“Whoa.” DREW said. He had really got into the story.

“Yeah, and then I looked up at Sam, mon, we were really stoned, and he was lighting another match, to fire up the doob again. He didn’t care, it was just another cat.”

“Did you smoke any more?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. A joint’s a joint.” Andy smiled.

Ninety ninety five and we could see the lighthouse.

OK, Cammo is consummate professional writer...immaculate punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc. But Drew's name is always in upper case letters, I'm thinking there must be some significance. Maybe it's an acronym for Dorky Rascal (who) Eats Wookies or some such thing.

**Race Day

Part 4**

It was built on Point Peter - the southernmost tip of the whole island; a treacherous strip of rock that jutted out into the water, the death of many ships and men and now a tourist park with ice cream stands in the summer and maybe the best seafood restaurant in the County.

We turned off the highway, bouncing onto a tree lined road that led right to the Point, potholes everywhere, and I slowed down to twenty for the first time. Then we broke out onto the gravel parking lot. It was peaceful. You could smell the water, and the feeling of casual activity that hung over all docks flooded into the car through our open windows. Maybe this was the last stop. Maybe the party was here.

We looked around, but nobody was in sight.
“Go to the lighthouse, Cam.” DREW said, but he looked as mystified as us.
I drove by the restaurant, “Admiral Dent’s”, we looked inside, vacant except for the lady at the cash register. There was a t-shirt store next to it. Closed. I picked up speed and drove to the lighthouse – the road tilted downwards, and got narrow. We stopped at it’s tiny parking lot and got out.

Nobody.

“I don’t GET IT, mon.” Andy said.
“Yeah, what? Did we do this wrong?” The directions were pretty clear, though. Then we all heard a noise, and looked down at the lighthouse, below us, built over the rocks. Somebody was scrambling over them, right at us. He slipped, then we all saw it at the same time –

He was carrying an envelope.

“It’s TOMMY!” yelled Andy.

“Hey, they’re at the lighthouse! Right at it!”
"I’ll go, mon.” and off Andy went. He ran down the little path, hit the rockls, and sort of loped across them, much more athletic than Tommy coming back the other way. They met just below us, a few hundred feet, and Andy stopped for a second to say something to Tommy. Tommy stopped too, caught his breath, said something, then turned away. Andy shrugged his shoulders, and loped on.

Then Tommy was right beside us, and I had been wondering something and yelled at him,
“Where’s your guys’ car?”
He didn’t answer, so I yelled again as he ran panting up the road away from us, “You gonna RUN the whole way back?”

There was an uncomfortable pause, then DREW and I looked at each other. The thing with DRTEW was, I was finding out, the guy was no dummy. He didn’t fall off the turnip truck last week. He had been wondering the same thing.

“Where’s their car?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re hiding it.”
“Why would they do that?”
“So we wouldn’t see where they were going. Maybe Richard dropped Tommy off, then went back up the road and is hiding the car.”
“But we saw him anyway.”
“Yeah, we were lucky.”

Andy has vanished behind the lighthouse, but appeared again now, coming back at us.

“I was thinking…” DREW said slowly.
“Yeah?”
“Um, nothing. Let me think some more.”

I let him think, which I supposed meant don’t talk to him, and Andy finally came up the path. He was pooped.

“I… got …. it …. mon,” waving the envelope.

“C’mon.” We got in the car and I had to back up the road, watching for Rally cars behind, and at the top spun the car around and gunned it. This car is gonna need a good wash at the end of today, I was thinking as I drove for the exit road.

“What’s it SAY?” DREW asked.
Andy was fumbling with the paper, and read

“The road to the Town of the King
Needs a….

“HEY! WHAT the HELL IS THAT!” I yelled, and slammed the brake pedal. The car slid sideways to a stop.

I shut off the engine, and got out.

Somebody had piled all the picnic tables in the park on top of each other, right in front of the exit road.

Well, I won’t tell you what all of us said at that time, you’ll have to imagine this part all for yourself, some words are better forgotten. We realized where Richard had been while Tommy was getting the clue; arranging picnic tables with their mysterious third Rally team member, their car safely on the OTHER side of the barricade, ready to go. We couldn’t go out the way we had come in – it was a one-way, one lane road and more Rally cars were due in. Andy and I got busy tearing the tables down, we didn’t trust DREW with any heavy work and he didn’t seem too inclined to help anyway, he kept looking at the road we had come in on, we had got the first table down when DREW said

“Our names aren’t on the envelopes.”

Andy and I stopped, wiped the sweat off our faces and said

“Yeah?”

“So we’ve got two extra envelopes now. And to win the race, we have to bring in the clue slips, y’know. Not the envelopes.”

“So?” I didn’t get it.
Then Andy said, more to the point, “What do we do with the envelopes?”

“We give them to the lady at Admiral Dent’s.”

Something brilliant was happening here, Andy seemed to be catching on but …

“With slips of paper that we’ve written, see? Fake directions.” DREW looked at us like we were barely intelligent chimps in a zoo.

“Holy CRAP! Hey, she could wave them at the next cars coming in!”
“Yeah, we could tell her they’re messages to our friends and they’re expecting them!”

“Go! Fast! Drew, DO IT!” and off he pranced to Admiral Dent’s.

Andy and I went back to work on the tables, two more to go.

“Hey, what did you say to Tommy?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“When you passed Tommy, what did you say to him? On the rocks?”

“Oh.” Andy smiled. “I asked him if he had any TUNES! Any ZEP!”
“Oh.” Funny. “Did he have any?”
“Nope.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Nope.”
One more pic-a-nic table to go. We were bushed.
Andy thought for a second. “But you know what? He looked sort of worried.”
“Good.”

Then the final table was out, DREW was running back, we all jumped in and gassed it and drove as quick as the potholes would allow, back onto the backktop, thirty forty, and

“DREW, you are amazing. That was brilliant, mon.” Andy nodded his big head back at him.
“Yeah, you’re promoted to, ah, Vice President of Dirty Tricks.”
“How about just ‘Prince of Evil’?” DREW said, stretching lazily.
“That too.”
“HEY! Where are we going?”
“OH YEAH!” Andy said, pulling out the paper, reading

“The road to the Town of the King
Needs a Fairy, a River, and a Spring.”

“Oh, no.” said DREW.
“A Fairy?” Andy asked, glancing at me and looking up. “And the Town of the King?”
“Kingston. Right DREW?” I said.
“Yup.”
“Oh, no, the ferry to Kingston?”
“Yup. Kingston Springs Fisheries is right beside the Ferry. And you cross the river on the ferry.”

“It’s at the other end of the County!” DREW whined. “Oh, NO!”
“Look, DREW, we’re not such bad company, y’know, and if we had some tunes this might actually be sort of enjoyable, so…”

“HEY!” DREW shouted, I got some TUNES!”

Andy literally shook in his seat of a second, then whipped around and said
“How did you get TUNES?”
“At the restaurant, the lady looked like she knew something was fishy.”
“Well, yeah, it IS a seafood restaurant.”
“So I just bought something, you know, as a bribe.”
“The Prince of Evil.” Andy said, smiling.
“Yeah, so she had a little collection of tapes they sell. Here’s the best one.”

And DREW pulled a tape out of his shirt pocket, then handed it to Andy, who read

“Bob Denver, Back Home Again.”

Recently my ex told me a guy she had been dating murdered her cat with rat poison after she broke up
with him. Nice.

Race Day
Part 5

“DREW! How could you!”
“Hey, it was better than anything else they had,” he sniffed.
“This isn’t tunes, mon.” Andy held the tape like it was a rancid fish.
“Do you want to listen to Nana Mouskouri? That’s all they had, that and some AC/DC tape.”
“THEY HAD AC/DC!” Andy almost got mad there, it was the closest I’ve ever seen him to loosing his cool.

Luckily, something happened.

Over the hill in front of us burst a caravan of 6 cars, all going at rocket launcher speeds right at us. We just had a fraction of a second to see them up close as they flew by, going to the lighthouse.

“Barry! Alex! Bruce! Um… who’s… Vickie! Jordan! Wow, lookit ‘em go!” Andy called out. They were bunched up, all staying together in a pack, maybe they didn’t realize until now that people were ahead of them.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” DREW said.
“Alright,” Andy mumbled, fiddling with the tape’s wrapper, “Don’t get all sulky, we’ll play your tape. What the heck. AD/DC, jeeez, mon.”
“Really. I have to go to the bathroom.” DREW said again.
“Do we have to go to a real bathroom? I mean, is it, y’know, number one or two?”
“I’d rather not discuss the details.” Really sniffy now.
“Okay, the General Store is right up here. We should get a map.”
“Maybe they have real tunes.” Andy put in.
“Yeah, I wanna get a drink. Maybe an orange juice. We have to do this fast, though. Like we got 1 minute for this stop. Take care of everything and back in the car at a count of sixty. I’m not kidding.”
DREW didn’t saw anything.
We screamed into Huysman’s, throwing gravel everywhere, shut off the engine and dashed into the store.
‘Where’s the bathroom?” DREW asked politely.
The man behind the counter didn’t even look up, he just gestured to the left and said “Outside.”

Andy and I raided the place for maps (a badly printed tourist map was available, but it was free) drinks and a box of Bugles. Then we ran outside. DREW wasn’t in the car, so we ran to the bathroom at the back and banged on the door –

This was taking way too long, but I heard a FLUSH and yelled

“DREW! C’MON! GET THE LEAD OUT!”
“Or whatever.” Andy said.
No noise from inside.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Andy said, “what will those other cars do when there’s only two envelopes at the restaurant?”
“Oh. Don’t know. Look around?”
“Would you look around? The other guys got envelopes, but not you. Wouldn’t you be mad? Maybe try to read the other guys’ ones? Maybe start a fight?
I grinned. “That would be great.”
“DREW! You in there?” Andy yelled this time.
We heard a faint “Leave me alone.” It was DREW all right.
“GET GOING!”
Another flush.
“He’s been in there a LONG TIME, mon.” Andy said, “what did he eat for lunch, a whole turkey?”
We waited, then I yelled again “DREW, we’re leaving in like ten seconds!”
“Ten!”
“Nine!”
I paused, and said to Andy, “You think this is working?”
“Nah, but …, um, EIGHT, MON!”
“Yeah, SEVEN!”
Another flush.
“Six!”
“Five!”
"Four!”

Then the door open, the smell hit us like a two-by-four to the head, and DREW dashed out, we ran with him to the Silver Bullet, revved it up and spat gravel again swerving to the asphalt, twenty, time to really lay down some miles, thirty forty fifty, push it to seventy, eighty, Any is going over the map and yelling

“We can follow this all the way over! Past the ten turnoff and then up on that road that follows the fishing docks in Wellington, we’ll bypass town that way, mon! This map is great!” And that’s what we did, ninety ninety five, the early summer grass blurring past, rolling lime green hills like a giant roller coaster that had been pulled by eternity into long low hills, up and down postcard views of a dream Ireland, one-o-five, watch that next hill, down too one hundred, level out, keep an eye on the side roads,

“Richard is gonna beat us. He’s at least ten minutes ahead.” DREW said.

I thought about it, but didn’t slow down.
“We’re second, right? I hope we are. Then we got a chance. Even if they’re way ahead of us, if we were third we’d be losing. But we aren’t. And here’s the thing with Tommy’s car – it’s built at home. They’re gonna throw a rod, or break a fuel line, or forget to screw down the brake liner doohickey thing and kapow, they’re out.”
DREW didn’t say anything.
“I hope not,” said Andy.
“What ya mean?”
“Hope they don’t kill themselves. Maybe they’ll just get a flat tire.” Andy smiled.
I didn’t want to set Andy straight on what happens to a car going a hundred miles an hour when it blows a commercial tire.

“We got trouble!” DREW yelled out.
Now what? Was there a…
“There’s a car behind us!”
I looked in the mirror. Nobody.
“What do ya mean? There’s nothing back there.”
“It’s way back, but its going fast.” DREW said, looking outy the back window.
“It’s too far back,” I said hopefully, “and it can’t catch us. What kind of car is it?”
DREW looked for a long time, then said, “Blue.”
“No, I mean…”
“He means…” Andy was looking back now too. Then something clicked, and Andy said

“It’s Bruce Cronk.”

No.

“You sure?”
“Yeah, he drives a blue Nova. He passed us going trhe other way when we left the lighthouse, remember?”
That was bad. Bruce was regarded as the driver’s driver in the County. Leave it to Bruce to be the only one not fooled by our fakery bakery envelopes, and had somehow gotten a real one and was after us in his retooled hotter than hell Blue Nova, known all over as the ‘Sonic Broom’ because it swept aside all other cars.

Up to a hundred and five, Andy said the final turn to the north was coming up in a few miles, Sonic Broom behind maybe two miles now, flat country road, no potholes, the Bullet tops out at one-o-seven, can’t go faster, level off, gear down fast, take the turn, onto the access road, back up the seventy, turn again and we’re finall heading north, Cronk has cut the lead down to less than a mile, man he must have taken those corners fast, that guy is dangerous, don’t let him push you into making mistakes, flat road again, the needle goes up, the ferry is maybe ten miles away, that’s seven minutes, faster, the Sonic Broom is in the rearview now, driving way too fast, now it’s a real race, still back there, boith Andy and DREW looking out the back, I’m the only one watching the road, the ferry is down below us now, there it is, Cronk looks like he wants to pass, don’t do it on this road, if he tries to I’ll slow down and let him…

WHAM! The blue Nova turns in the air, an explosion of gravel all around it, clouds of brown smoke, can’t see the car anymore, DREW yelling something

“STOP THE CAR!”

Gotta slow down, don’t brake hard, keep off the shoulder, the car stops.

“What’s going…” I start to say, but
DREW yells, “Turn around! They went off the road!” So I spin it around, go back to the Nova and there it is on its side, crumpled in the ditch, clouds of dirt still swirling, and people are screaming inside. DREW pushes out of our car, runs to the Nova and tries to climb up the side to open the door, Andy and I are trying to help now too but the door won’t move, it’s all smashed in, the handles have been sheared off but the back window is open, I pull myself up and look in and there’s a girl down there in the dark, she’s lying on her back up against the front seat and she’s screaming

“The GLASS! THE GLASS! EAAAaaaah!”

and wiping her arms, all covered in blood. I look around, DREW is beside me now looking in, and the whole back seat is covered in shattered glass and big thick pools of blood, deep red splattered all over the seats, everywhere glass, the girls seems to be blinded, she can’t open her eyes, and every time she moves the crushed glass seems to cut into her more. I get a wave of nausea, but lifeguard training kicks in and I drop to the ground and tell Andy

“Call this in. See that house over there? Tell ’em to send an ambulance.”

Andy nods, then suddenly runs to the house. I turn back to the car, just in time to see DREW’s body dropping into the back of the car through the open window. Pull myself up again, and peer down through the window and DREW is pushing the door from the inside, trying to open it, putting everything he’s got into pushing that door. There’s a smell of gas, and the girl is still screaming, and I yell at DREW

“Watch out for the glass!” while trying to pull on the door from my side.
DREW takes a breath, looks right up into my face and says

“Cam, there’s no glass.”

He looks right at me, and something in his calm voice snaps in my head, and I look down at where he’s standing and the glass starts vanishing.

The whole inside of the car is covered in big shards of sharp blue auto glass, but as I looked at each shard, it just fades away like a really cheap movie effect. And then the blood on the inside starts to move. It looks exactly like it’s going down a drain, or like it was filmed in reverse, instead of flooding the car it was drying up, not leaving a mark or a stain where it had been, totally clean, just like it had never been there. One part of my brain was analyzing what was happening, saying that the panic had hypnotized you and shown you exactly what you expected to see, but the other part of my brain was busy watching the edges of the blood move over the fabric of the chair, I can still see it happening after all these years, and being horrified at what I was watching, but DREW had given up on the doors and was holding onto the inside handles, BAM, and was trying to kick, BAM, the back window out, BAM a crack started, BAM and the smell of gas was stronger now, was I imaging that too? BAM the window was cracked, and I watched as DREW actually kicked his shoe right through the back window, BAM, a big hole now, and I took my jacket off, glass was really all over the ground now, and tried to pull the auto safety glass away from the window from the outside, my hand wrapped in my jacket but DREW was yelling at me to back off as he kicked it again, and again, and now there were just shards around the edges and he was handing out the girl,

it was Christine. She was in my chemistry class,

and helped her out, the jacket laid across the glass edge, DREW inside going for the other people, I told Christine to lie down with her feet up, she’s white, in shock and needs to get some blood back in her head, and another head appears at the back window, a girl I don’t recognize, pull her out, where‘s Andy? And there’s a pause and somebody’s talking in the car, up to the window, it’s Bruce in the front seat and the smell off gas is really strong now, it’s unhealthy, where is that ambulance? DREW is talking to Bruce and he’s yelling at him to get up, Bruce is a bug guy and he looks locked into the front seat,
“Lean the seat back!” I yell, and DREW works on that, Bruce seems to be whimpering, maybe he’s got something broken, I know how that feels, you can’t breath in the car anymore the gas is almost blue in the air, but the seat leans down, Bruce doesn’t scream so no broken bones, and DREW says that if Bruce doesn’t go now he’s a dead man.

I try to distract him and say “Hi Bruce!” and gesture to him. C’mon out the back. DREW tells him to grab his arm, and pulls him to his feet, good so far, then tells him to put his knee on the stick shift and crawl up. He does it, and when Bruce reaches the back window, is it big enough? Bruce is a big guy, he puts his head out and breathes fresh air and then he’s outside, I hear an ambulance, but DREW is having a hard time getting out. I reach down and grab DREW’s arm and he’s shaking in muscle spasms, it’s happening to his whole body, and DREW’s face is mottled white and a weird purple, he’s having trouble talking and I sort of ease him out, onto the ground and tell everybody to crawl away, away from the car, then there’s an ambulance right beside us and somebody is yelling, Andy is beside us yelling too,

And I stand up and it’s Jerry Henderson driving a paramedic van.

Jerry is the the town do-it-all, he had three jobs but the main one I guess was being a paramedic, we had a few run-ins the summer before in a sailing regatta race when Jerry’s crew had actually quit at different times in the race, he had quite a few anger problems and the crew had actually just jumped over board, swum for shore and hitchhiked home, a first in a just for fun opening day regatta race. Here was Jerry now, yelling at Andy, and it seemed he thought that we had caused an accident, or had forced them off the road or something.

“We didn’t cause the accident,” I jumped in, yelling at Jerry, “ we were ahead of them and they hit the shoulder, we came back to HELP THEM!”
Jerry was one of those guys who likes to yell. “You’re in this the whole way, MacMillan, you were out joyriding, I seen you and your friends, and you just about killed these kids!”
“We saved their lives! Didn’t you see us, we were pulling them out of the car! You got worms in your brains or something!”
“Yeah, and where’s the foam, mon!” Andy looked annoyed.
“I’m calling this in a 616, that’s a head on collision caused by drunk driving! And you can’t move anybody away from a crash scene, if they have broken ribs they’ll hemorrhage!”
“We aren’t drunk! It’s for o’clock in the afternoon! And they aren’t hemorrhaging!”
“Yeah, and where’s the foam, mon!”

“What’s the foam?!” I yelled at Andy.

“The foam, you shoot it all over the engine so it doesn’t go up, you know, that white foamy fire retardant stuff,” And Andy looks at Jerry, “Where’s the foam?”
Jerry looked sheepish for a second “We don’t have any.” He said.
“You got a fire extinguisher? What about these three, they’re all in shock…”
“What you know about shock, kid?”
“Fuck man, I’ve taken five years of Red Cross Lifesaving and I know shock when I see it! You’re welcome! DREW says you’re welcome! He’s the one who pulled them out!

“Oh.” Jerry looked at DREW, who was still sitting on the ground beside us. “So,” Jerry said,

“DREW saved everybody.” His voice was arrogant, dripping with disbelief that DREW could do anything for anybody. And he looked right at me, his eyes saying, DREW is a fag. Everybody knows he's a fag.

And it caught me for a second. Maybe he was right. Maybe we shouldn’t have pulled those guys out. Maybe we were stupid, maybe we didn’t have the slightest idea what we were doing. Maybe DREW was the wrong guy to…

Then the car went up.

** Race Day

Part 6 **

We heard a WHUMP, like a giant hammer swathed in cloth hitting the car, once, then a split second later the blast. It was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard, way up there in the ear’s red line zone, louder than anything you’ve ever heard. The whole thing exploded in a giant fireball about sixty feet behind us, it wasn’t the blast, it was the HEAT of the thing that threw us all down, everything went slow-motion, and even though our backs were turned we knew what was happening and could feel the fire growing behind us, just touching our backs as we fell, like somebody had lobbed a few thousand blow-torches right at us. The car was on it’s side, the bottom facing away, so we were shielded from the worst of it, but there we were hitting the ground and trying to turn around to watch the thing, and could see the fire pushing through the car, over the seats, out the windows we had just left, the fire turning into black gushing streams of deep black smoke that smelled of rubber and burning plastic. I followed the smoke up into the sky, and there it was, mushrooming out into a flat ball for everybody in the whole damn county to see, and it would keep burning until every scrap of oil, gas and vinyl was turned to charred black carbon.

That’s what it took. Face down, watching that car gush heat, us there on the ground face down chewing dirt, the burning feeling on our necks and back, that’s what it took. We all had time for a minute there to think. It’s corny, but I guess we all grew up a bit, if growing up means aging a few years in about 50 seconds.

When we got up, slowly, careful that there wasn’t going to be another explosion, and we were quiet. Big clouds of black were still pouring out of the car, it was horrible but hard to look away from, but Andy walked right up to Jerry, stared him down, and spoke for all of us when he said

“You’re an ASSHOLE, mon.”

then just turned away. I got up, and was so mad I could hardly look at Jerry, but Drew was alright, he was getting up too, and we both went over to Bruce to see if he was okay.

“Yeah,” Bruce said, “but my dad’s gonna kill me.”

And we left them there like that, a police car was coming down the road, siren going, some fire trucks behind it, and we just got in the car real slowly and drove away, towards the ferry.
“That guy was an ASSHOLE,” Andy said, “I mean, really, you guys were great, you saved their lives! Bruce and those girls would be…”
“I didn’t do anything. Drew did it. I panicked.” I looked back at Drew, but he still looked like he was going to pass out. “Man, you should have seen what I saw, it was crazy, but Drew climbed right in. Couldn’t have done it.” Then I tried to smile. “Drew is like some kind of superhero. He pulled those guys right out of there all by himself. He punched out the back window so they could get out.”

“Can we stop?” Drew asked, weakly.

“Yeah, sure.” I was only driving about 25 miles an hour, so I stopped. Drew staggered out of the car, and threw up.

“He probably breathed a bit too much gas.” I said.
“Yeah, he’s really throwing up, mon. That’s a lot of stuff coming out.”
“Should we help him?”
“Doesn’t look like he needs any help, mon.”
“Andy, Drew pulled those guys out. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I was just helping. He did it all. Understand? And that’s what we’re going to tell people, too.”
“Yeah, I understand, Cam.”
“He still throwing up?”
Andy checked. “Yup. A lot of stuff has come out of that guy today. Still coming out. Didn’t think he had it in him, y’know!”
“He doesn't,” I tried to smile again, “anymore.”

I looked down at my hands for the first time, sitting there waiting for Drew, and they were shaking. Andy noticed but didn’t say anything. Finally Drew got back in, mumbling “Sorry.”
“No problem, mon, it’s good for you.”

I started the car, we rolled down the windows and drove slowly beside the water right to the ferry. Another friend of Maggie’s was standing there, she reached into her car as we stopped and all got out.
She handed us an envelope.
“Um, I think the race is over, Lydia.” Andy said. Then he told her what had happened. She was surprised, but just looking at us she knew we were telling the truth.

“The next clue is sort of hard, it’s the last, but I’ll tell you…” she started to say, but Andy was reading the note:

“A square and a box,
In a field with a fox.”

“It’s Fourfield Resort, it’s outside Woodrose Road.” She told us, “You’d better get over there and tell Maggie what’s happened.”

We got back in the car, drove away and then Drew said
“The road’s going to be closed. We can’t go back that way.”

And we could see the fire trucks from where we were, miles down the road ahead of us.

“We’ll go to the left, up to Lake on the Mountain, then down the other side. We’ll come out about a mile away from Fourfield.” But my heart just wasn’t in it. I drove real slowly, thirty five miles an hour the whole way, we turned left and there they were, we could see them now, a whole line of cars behind the crash site, stuck until things were cleaned up.
“See mon? Foam.” Andy pointed. Firemen were pouring foam on the car as we turned away.

It was a beautiful drive now, slow and easy, windows open, Drew was taking fluids, and when we got to the very top where the lake was I stopped the car. We all got out to look at the view, the town spreading below us, trees, a tiny church steeple over to the right. Peaceful. Then we got back into the car and drove real slowly down, winding through the turns down into the forest land, and out onto the long fields.

“In a field with a FOX?” Andy said.

“Yeah, what’s that mean?”

“It means, you know, the guy who owns Fourfield’s name is Fox.” Drew said from the back. It was the first thing he had said to us for a long time.
“Oh. OH.”
“Who knows stuff like that?”
“County kids. People who were born here.” Drew’s voice sounded sort of sad.
“Oh.” I wasn’t born in the County, we had moved there a few years before. Maybe being born there wasn’t something Drew was proud of, I’d never thought of it before. It was a small place, maybe to some kids it seemed like a jail they’d never get out of.

We came to a slow stop at a ‘T’ intersection, and just as I was about to turn right, a car blurred past us. It almost hit us, it was going so fast, and it went right through the intersection, pounding the mound of dirt that had built up there, actually launching the car a few inches in the air right in front of us. Then it was gone.

“Richard.” I whispered.

We just sat there. Because it was almost impossible, he must have been a half hour ahead of us, but Richard had had misunderstood the clues. He had been going in the wrong direction.

I turned the Silver Bullet right, we didn’t say anything, and I drove the normal speed limit right to Fourfield Resort. There were a few cars out front, and when we arrived Maggie was standing there with a few friends, and they were taking photos with little instamatic cameras, and Maggie handed me a silver beer stein.

“You WON!” she yelled.

“Yeah, thanks.” I said.
“Hey, Maggie, I don’t think they’re gonna let us hold these races anymore.” Andy said, then, "We're going to the bar," nodded at us and we all turned away.
“I think Drew should have the winner cup.” I said, and tried to hand it to him, but he wouldn’t take it.
So we just went into the Resort. My hands were still shaking, they’d spasm a bit and I’d hold them together, then they’d start shaking again.

Inside, we walked up to the bar. Nobody was there, but somebody was unpacking boxes in the back.
“Hey, you OPEN?” Andy knocked on the bartop.
“Yeah, what you guys want?” A kid not much older than us was serving, must be the owner’s son.

“I’m buying.” I said. “Jack Daniels on the rocks for me.”

“Beer.” Andy smiled.

“Johnnie Red.” Drew finally grinned too.

*the end

All Contents Copyright Cam MacMillan 2008*

[ Edited by: Cammo 2008-11-01 17:30 ]

Great short story Cam! I was sure DREW was an alien from a testosterone-deficient solar system who had been sent done to the Race to capture the winner and bring him back where he would be hardwired into the cosmic awareness and feed lifegiving macho-hormone back into the culture :lol:

"I was sure DREW was an alien from a testosterone-deficient solar system who had been sent down to the Race to capture the winner and bring him back where he would be hardwired into the cosmic awareness and feed lifegiving macho-hormone back into the culture."

That's exactly what happened!

Angie’s Ghost Story Part 1

There are four types of people that are beloved by all Canadians.

They are; hockey players, figure skaters, blues guitarists, and people who tell ghost stories. That’s it. Everybody else on Planet Earth is second rate compared to these four.

If there was a person born in Winnepeg who could score 4 out of 5 shots on net, also do a triple twirl, play Hesitation Blues on a ’55 Fender, and follow it up with a scary story about how he was almost killed by the Red Creature of Green Lake, man, I swear that guy would be declared a national monument and encased in plastic for future Canadian generations to worship.

The hockey and skating are easy to explain - Canada is a giant ice cube for 9 months of the year. The guitar music just seems to be the best thing to drink beer by during those months. And the ghost stories are honed by countless hours of sitting around campfires with nothing to do but try to scare your friends. Later in life this turns into an impulse to scare would-be girlfriends, and still later it seems to blossom into a national obsession with the occult.

I can’t play hockey worth crap, (I’m more of a skier) and guitars are WAY too complicated, but ghost stories make up for it all. Ghost stories are fun. Real ghost stories are the best, especially if they start with the sincere words “Don’t tell anybody this, cause they’ll think I’m crazy, but this one night...”

So get a hot brandy again, turn the lights down low, and curl up next to the glowing screen.

It’s October Storytime with Uncle Cammo, and this one you don’t want to miss...

WHOOOHOOOOO!!!!! Another Cammo Ghost Story :o

You tell it brother! :)

Thanks Mikester - here goes....

**Angie's Ghost Story Part 2 **

We were all looking forward to Andy and Angie getting married. Andy was everybody’s best friend, still one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met, I’d known him since first year of college and as roommates and later co-workers had been through more interesting adventures than we probably deserved. Andy had run through, I think, 17 girlfriends and I mean Serious Grade-A Girlfriends, you know what I mean don’cha, so when he decided to tie the knot, ring the bells, exchange vows with Angie everybody was surprised.

Mainly because Angie was a DORK.

She was just ... a dork. She didn’t have much of a sense of humor, she looked sort of weird, she was too skinny, and she had these really really close friends who were all dorks too. When anybody said something funny, and other people started laughing, she’d look around in a panic, wondering what was so funny and - how hard should she laugh? Then she’d force a too-late smile, and her expression would glaze over. Most of the time she just sat there with her head drooping, retard-ish. In retrospect, I think she was trying to look intellectual. It didn't work. I asked another friend about her, very carefully, you have to be real sensitive these days about pending marriages, and I put it as gently as possible.

“You think Angie is a total idiot, or what?”
“Nah,” he answered, “you just have to get her drunk.”
“Oooh.”

And this was the night I was going to test the ‘drunk’ theory. We had gone out to a Greek restaurant with Andy and Angie and a big group of friends, their wedding was just a few days away and we were all getting into the spirit of it. Angie had drank only one glass of Retsina wine, so when we got back to their place I raided the cupboard and fridge for booze. It wasn’t hard, they were pretty well stocked.

Then we started telling ghost stories. I don’t know how it started, but we had a fire going in the fireplace and nothing was on TV, so it just happened. After a few good ones, I told about the time we saw a ghost at a family picnic. We had actually talked to the guy, sat around with him in full light of daytime. Only later we found out that he had died in his sleep the night before. Other people had seen him at the picnic, too, so we didn’t feel so odd about it. Then our friend Dave told us about a haunted summer camp (just one of the cabins was haunted) he had worked at.

Angie drank constantly, the scarier the story the more she gulped back. It was kind of weird. She got more reclusive as the night went on, more withdrawn. The experiment wasn’t working, she wasn’t becoming less shy, but more so. What did it take with this girl?

Then Andy told us a story about his uncle, who had some weird experiences in Holland during the war.

And suddenly Angie got all excited. Us telling true ghost stories was nothing to her, but ANDY telling one about a family member was totally different. Her eyes lit up when Andy was talking, she seemed about to interrupt him every few seconds, her arms waved around like she was going to grab him.

When he was finished she finally opened her mouth and out rushed the biggest mother of all ghost stories I’ve ever heard. It was all her pent up energy put into the scariest freaking narrative I’d heard, and man it gave me goosebumps on goosebumps. Just thinking about it now has me looking around the room at the shadows.

At the time, I believed every word she said, half of the scariness of her story was how sincere she was at the time describing it all, but later just for interest’s sake I looked up some of what she had described and found out that all the basic facts were true. What she told us was real.

And the goosebumps started all over again.

So here is her story, we asked her lots of questions but I’ve passed over all those. This is exactly what she told us, as close as I can remember to her own words.

And oh yeah; after Angie ripped this story out we all agreed she was NOT a dork.

Someone PM GROG after Cammo post whole story.

Hey GROG, this gonna be LONG story. You not read it all at once, your eyes get tired and fall out.

**Angie's Ghost Story part 3 **

My name is Angie Nettleton. This all happened at least 30 years ago, when I was in my junior year of high school in Ottawa, that’s the capital of Canada.

Summer jobs are hard to get in Ottawa and I hadn’t had a job before, so it was really hard getting something that actually paid real money. There were lots of volunteer jobs at museums and stuff, but who cares? I didn’t want one of those. I wanted to make moolah. There was a ‘temp’ agency that specialized in high school kids, it was connected with our school’s guidance department, and my guidance counsellor kept telling everybody that they had the best jobs. I put my name in with them, and Mr. Claren, our guidance guy, said he could get me a great job, a really amazing, high paying job with a government agency really fast. That’s what I wanted.

But Mr. Claren never called me. Ever. I waited and waited. And all the jobs I tried for were either messy, cheap, or not available by the time I got there. The last thing I wanted to do was babysit my sister for a dollar an hour all summer, like I had done the year before.

On the last day of school I went by Mr. Claren’s office and he looked up at me, kind of surprised. He had been trying to find me, he said. He had a perfect summer job all lined up for me at a youth hostel in downtown Ottawa. This hostel was a giant luxury hotel designed for other high school and college-age kids, and it was funded by the federal government, so it paid double minimum wage, almost 12 bucks an hour. To me that was like millions of dollars in gold bullion. And it was only 4 days a week, plus they paid overtime on weekends.

It was like winning the lottery.

Next Monday morning I went off to work, my parents lent me their old Volkswagen to boot around in and at 9:00 am I was standing there on Nicholas Street in front of the Ottawa Youth Hostel. It was huge. It was a giant, old building. It looked like a rich guy’s home from the 1800’s, only bigger. This was the place. I walked in, and there was a strange little desk in the front hall with some ladies standing around looking official. They were Mrs. Aldon, who was in charge and Cindy, who was my age, and had worked there for the last couple of weekends. Mrs. Aldon told me that I had to wear this simple blue uniform that looked sort of like an old fashioned dress. I didn’t mind. Everybody had to wear them, and it meant I wouldn’t get my regular clothes dirty. Cindy showed me where I could change, and then gave me a tour.

Nobody was in any of the rooms, because it was Monday and the first real day of summer, so Cindy and I had fun exploring the place for a while.
“Can you BELIEVE how much we’re making at this job?” Cindy kept saying as soon as Mrs. Aldon couldn’t hear us.
“What do we have to do, anyway?” I kept asking.
“I don’t know. Nobody’s told me yet!”

Cindy was SO happy.

It turns out that it wasn’t a rich guy’s house, it was an old jail. Cindy explained that they didn’t want the kids staying there to know, but the whole place was the old Carleton County Jail, and the rooms were the jail cells. There was construction work being done on almost all the floors, redoing the rooms to make them better. Some of them were in pretty bad shape still. Cindy said that our job was just to avoid cleaning up before the weekend started, and sit at the desk downstairs, listening to the radio, making sure nobody snuck in. It was easy. She said it was the best job she’d ever had. As long as we didn’t screw up, we both had it made in the shade.

She took me up to the different rooms, and the first thing I found out was - the elevator didn’t work. It was being fixed. Actually, sometimes it worked, sometimes not, but we weren’t allowed to go inside it in case it froze up between floors. So we walked up and down the stairs, and room after room looked exactly the same, beige walls, carpet on some of the floors, wood floors otherwise, double beds, huge shared bathrooms. It wasn’t very luxurious.

We tramped up and up into the hotel, all the lights were on in every hallway, but it was deserted. Sometimes we’d see some paint cans left behind, or some equipment covered in canvas, some walls were being torn down, but that was about it. It was pretty boring.

Then she took me to the 8th floor. We weren’t supposed to go up there, she said, but I had to see it, because she said it wasn’t fixed up at all. It was still exactly like the original jail. Nobody was allowed on the 8th floor. Mrs. Aldon didn’t want anybody hanging out there, because it was “dangerous”. We trudged up the stairs, and the first thing I noticed was that even the door leading off the stairs to the 8th floor was old and beat up. It was a really filthy dirty, thick wooden door with big iron hinges. I didn’t want to touch it. It looked like it was locked, but Cindy just walked right up and pulled it open.

And - it was the must disgusting, horribly dark and smelly room I’d ever seen. It wasn’t a hallway we were looking into, it was a big brick wall. A gaslight was mounted up high, next to the curved ceiling, burning and giving off the only light. I looked at it because it was the first gaslight I’d ever seen. The floor was wet. There were pools of oily water all over, the walls were almost black with dampness. The whole place reminded me of the inside of an old garbage can. It was really dark. I didn’t see any windows, but there must have been some. And it was cold. It seemed air conditioned in there.

“Wow!” I said, “They sure fixed the rest of this place up a lot! I mean. if this is what it looked like...”
“Yeah, come on in, check this out!” Cindy went inside, around the corner to the left. I followed her just to keep her in sight, I didn’t want to get lost. And it was even colder inside.

There she was - Cindy was standing in front of some other doors, they looked like a long line of old jail cells, and here they were, windows - it was a bit lighter inside now.

I stopped, because something moved way back at the far end of the hall. It was somebody working, he seemed to be wearing a big dark coat. He was crouched over something. We must have surprised him, he looked up at us and his face was angry, I could see his mouth starting to open and his eyes glared right at me.

“Hey, Cindy, we shouldn’t be up here.” I said, pretending that we had stumbled onto the floor by accident. I didn’t want the guy in the coat to think we were goofing off and disobeying the rules. The last thing I wanted was to get fired on the first day.

“Yeah, duh. Why, what’s wrong?” Cindy asked, looking back at me.

I jerked my head, looking past her over to the worker, trying to get her to notice him, but when I looked right at where he was suddenly he looked like he didn’t have any feet. Then his head sort of looked funny, like his neck was too long, and his coat didn’t seem right either. I tried to make sense of what I was looking at, and then realized that it wasn’t a person at all, it was a short ladder with a broken chair next to it. The coat was just a big stain on the wall. I kept looking at where the face had been, and the eyes were some light colored bricks on the wall behind them. The more I looked at it, the less it looked like a person.

“Hey, what do you see?” Cindy asked me. She came up beside me, paused, then walked back down the hall towards the end. There was nothing there. It was totally silent.

“C’mon, you gotta look at these.” She shrugged her shoulders and ran back to the jail cells. I went over to them, but wasn’t too interested now.

“See? This is where they kept the murderers and rapists! How cool is THAT!” she said, pointing. There were cells in the center of the room, they went down the whole building, they were all locked up, but Cindy went right up and opened one. The sound of the lock echoed in the room.

“They’d probably put them in here for years. Yuck. Let that be a lesson to you, Angie. Aldon’ll put you in here if she doesn’t like you.”

Yuck is right, these cells were hardly big enough to stand in. They were a bit bigger than my closet at home, and just as filthy as the rest of the place. What was all the black gunk on the walls and floor, anyway?

“Yeah, jeez, these are really interesting but lets get out of here, if Mrs. Aldon catches us...” I started to say.

“Aaaaah, she never walks up past the first floor,” Cindy said, “she’s too fat. But lets get back down. I just wanted you to get the full tour. You scared?”

“No.”

OK, slow down Buckwheat!!! I'm haven't had a chance to read Parts 1 & 2 and you've already posted Part 3!!!

** Angie's Ghost Story Part 4 **

Absolutely nothing else strange happened that first week. We got to stay up late, our hours were different but Cindy and I hung out a lot when we traded off shifts and we both had the whole weekend from 5 ‘til midnight. We were supposed to be cleaning up, but Friday became our meet n’ greet day, with people arriving that had to be signed in and shown to their rooms. It was fun. We’d just give everybody these keys with little paper circles wired to them with their room numbers on them. When they came in and out, they just flashed us the keys to show us they belonged here.

“Hey,” I asked Cindy, “Why can’t one friend just throw his key out the window to another friend, and then he’d show that key, the same key coming in?”
“Oh, yeah. I never thought of that.”
“Hundreds of people could come in that way, all on the same key.”
“Yeah, you’re right. You think anybody’s doing that?”
“I hope so. Who cares?”

We hardly watched the keys after that. Like I said, it was SUCH an easy job.

The next week on Wednesday I had the five to eleven shift, all by myself. It was the first time I got to handle the front desk by myself, but I had Mrs. Aldon’s number (Cindy’s too) to call if anything went wrong. Nobody came in on Wednesdays, so it was pretty boring, except for these two backpackers from Australia who kept coming and going all night. They were looking for a fun bar. They were out of luck - Ottawa doesn’t have any fun bars downtown.

At about ten I heard the elevator moving. Sometimes foreign people tried it even though it had a “Do Not Use Elevator” sign on it. Maybe they should have printed the sign is some other language than English, but they didn’t do that sort of thing yet in those days. I heard it coming down from way up above, it took forever to come down, and then the door opened. I was reading a book, so I didn’t look up when somebody got out and walked down the hallway to me. I could hear them struggling with their luggage, the footsteps and breathing coming right up to me. Maybe they were going to ask a question, so I turned around and looked up.

Nobody was there.

Now I heard them, I tell you. I sat there wondering what had happened, looking around at the front door, had they gone out that way? And thinking, gee, maybe I imagined hearing them?

Then the elevator door closed. And it went up again.

Now that wasn’t creepy. Maybe somebody pushed a button to order it. So I got up and looked around the front hall, all around the place, while the elevator went back up. Nobody was there. Nobody had gone out the front door, and there was just no place to hide. Then I decided that what had happened was that somebody had gotten ON the elevator, not off, and I had heard it wrong. They were going up to their room now, so I looked at what floor the elevator was going to. It took a while, but it finally stopped.

At the 8th floor.

So I don’t know why, but I pushed the button to call it back. It started coming down right away, and when it got to the third floor I started getting scared for no reason and went back to the desk. The elevator finally stopped at our floor, I could hear it, but the doors didn’t open. Don’t use that thing, I thought. It’s broken. The doors don’t work. Nothing happened. So I started to read again.

It was my mom’s old copy of a Nancy Drew mystery, it was the first thing that came to my hand when I grabbed it off the shelf right before coming to work, which was funny, everything considered. I felt like Nancy solving a mystery. She was in Hong Kong in this one, and she was trying to find out what happened to a friend of her dad’s, her dad is a bigshot lawyer, you see, and...

Then the elevator doors opened.

I held my breath. If anybody got out of that elevator, or if I heard some sounds, I’d yell my head off.

Nothing happened. I sat there, looking down the hall, staring at the edge of the elevator door. It was completely quiet. Then the doors closed.

I got up and turned on our little radio full blast, to the clearest station I could get. Then I sang along with some of the songs, and got up, walked around a bit, and sat back down. Nothing happened until the Australian guys came back, and MAN was I glad to see them. I asked them where they were from, whaere they were going, what groups they listened to, they probably thought I was hitting on them but I kept on going blabbing for as long as they could stand it. There was nothing for them to do either, so they sat around, bleary eyed drunk and talked about how much they hated Canada because there weren’t any fun blokes to Charley a Foster with, or whatever they say in Australialand. So we sat around until eleven, and I said g’day to them and locked the front door behind me.

That was the last fairly normal night I spent at the hostel.

OK, post away - I'm caught up. Gettin' spooky!

Angie's Ghost Story Part 5

The next day I showed up at five again, and said hi to Cindy as she was getting ready to leave. When I told Cindy about what had happened, it suddenly didn’t seem too strange at all.

“So, like what, the elevator didn’t work? Duh, you knew that. So what?”

“So nobody was on it!”

“Maybe they were, you didn’t look inside, did you?”

“Nope.” No way was I going to look inside that elevator. But she was right. Nothing had actually happened.

“Hey Angie, I’m looking for my bag. Can you help me, I thought it was on the table here.” She carried a canvas summer bag with her things in it. She stuffed it under the desk usually, which is where she was looking. I helped look around, and asked,
“You think somebody stole it?”

“Nah.” Then she thought. “There was nothing inside it anyway. I was talking to Bridgett, came back here and it was gone. I don’t know, maybe somebody lifted it.”

So we looked around and it was nowhere. I thought about asking Bridgett, she was one of the full time workers who seemed to be in charge of the big kitchen behind the offices. They had cheap breakfasts and sandwiches for sale, but they didn’t advertise so almost nobody seemed to buy them. Bridgett was back there, talking to a lady I hadn’t seen before. I waited for them to stop talking, and looked around at the clean walls and counters. And there was Cindy’s bag. It was on top of the refrigerator. I looked at Bridgett, back at the bag, and decided to go get it. I walked over, and could just barely reach up to get it. I snagged the handle and pulled it down. Bridgett just kept talking, she didn’t seem like anything was wrong. She sure didn’t seem to have put it there.

I walked out and gave the bag to Cindy, told her where I found it, and she looked through the inside. It was all messed up, she said, like somebody had shook it hard. Her compact mirror inside was actually cracked.

We didn’t know what to think. So she said goodbye and left.

I sat down at the desk. Mrs. Alton seemed to have left. All by myself again. And then I noticed that the radio was gone. That was really strange, because I remember listening to it when I came in, and it was plugged into the wall behind a big shelf behind me, so it would be hard to pull out. Almost impossible to pull out. Maybe it was back in the kitchen with Bridgett again. So I locked the front doors quick and ran back to the kitchen, and almost ran into Bridgett.

“Whoa! Where ya going?”

“I’m looking for the radio, it was behind the desk a minute ago, but it’s not ... you don’t know what happened to it, do you?”

She looked at me for a long time with a funny expression, then she asked -
“You here by yourself?”

“Yeah, I locked the front door when I left the desk, it’s OK. I should get back out there.”

“I’ll go with you.” she said in a flat voice.

We walked back out to the front and she stopped. Then she pointed down to the floor.

The radio was sitting on the floor, in the middle of the hallway, right in front of the desk. It’s cord was all tangled up.

“HEY!” I said, “Who’s been fooling around with it!”

Bridgett shrugged her shoulders.

“Jeez, if I find the creep who’s been screwing around with the radio, I’ll...”

“Are you always here by yourself?” Bridgett asked.

I explained while picking up the radio, that this was my first real week and that Cindy and I shared some hours, but yesterday was the first day I was by myself and...

“I’ll make sure you two are always on shift together,” she paused for a second, “...because the front door shouldn’t be locked during our open hours.”

I apologized, I really didn’t want to get fired for something like that, but she said it was alright, last summer they always had two girls on duty all night, she didn’t know why Mrs. Aldon didn’t do it that way again, and everything was just fine. Then I opened the front door for her and she left.

Other guests kept coming and going, but I worked on getting the radio turned on, cause no way was I going to be without a radio that night. It was hard, because I had to move the shelves out and stick the plug in , and then jostle the shelves back so the plug stuck out of this little slit that had been sawn out for it. Then I turned it on.

It didn’t work.

So I unplugged it again, this time I left the shelves out so I could plug it in easy, then looked around for a screwdriver. There was one in the junk drawer of the kitchen, and I unscrewed the back of the radio to see if there was something wrong with the plug inside, maybe it had been yanked loose. There were a lot of screws, big ones and little ones, some were set inside these narrow holes like they didn’t want you to get the back off, but I worked at it and finally pulled the back off.

And it was destroyed inside. Everything was broken and wrecked, like somebody had smashed it with a hammer, or ripped stuff out with pliers. But that was impossible. It had taken me more than a half hour just to get the back off, and the radio had only been missing for minutes. And it was the same radio, wasn’t it? That had me wondering if it really was the same radio at all, maybe there were two radios and somebody had wrecked one, and had switched it to fool me. Somebody was playing a joke on me. Maybe cause I was playing it too loud the night before. It was really strange, and I sat there wondering, then remembered Cindy’s bag getting wrecked too. It was like the same thing. So Cindy couldn’t have messed up the radio, it was somebody else.

Or was Cindy using the bag as a decoy, to make me think she wasn’t the one who did it cause it happened to her bag too?

Hey, I was only a kid and it was pretty confusing.

Are Mike and I the only ones reading this? Cause these are some of the best spooky stories I've ever read! Where is everyone? You're misisng it, guys! Cammo, you definitely have a gift. More on the haunted jail/hostel please!! >=O :lol:

Kiki Von, I haven't been keeping count but usually lots of people read 'em. GROG, for instance, but he doesn't admit it in public. Keep in mind that this whole story is true and was told to me - like 16 years ago - about something that happened to Angie in as far as I can figure out - 1980.

I'll post tomorrow, my eyelids are heavy and I'm getting sleepy....

sleepy....

ZZZZzzzzzzz

GROG never check this thread.

GROG never checks . . . except for today. Oh, and yesterday. Hehe ~ busted!
Cammo, I love that they are true stories. It's your gift as a storyteller that I was referring to. Thanks for sharing.

Angie's Ghost Story Part 6

That same night at about nine, just as it was getting dark, one of the guests - a girl - came up to the desk and told me she wanted the crying to stop.

“What crying?” I asked.

“Somebody on the floor under me is crying and yelling really loud. It’s driving us crazy, one of my roommates is trying to get some sleep and I’m getting ready to go out and it’s driving us nuts!”

Her room was on the fourth floor, so I just left the front door open and walked up with her to the third. We went to the right, down three doors and stopped. We were right under her room. At first there was no sound at all, which is what I expected because there was almost nobody in the hostel. We stood there listening really hard, in dead silence.

Then I heard something. It was somebody breathing, or sobbing, quietly. I looked over at the girl, she nodded her head and pointed at her ear. “Listen,” she whispered and moved down the hall, “it’s louder over here.”

So we shuffled down the clean lighted hall, listening. It did get louder, it was a lady crying and getting all choked up trying to sob between the crying. We tried walking around and listening to the doors, I put my ear on some doors but it wasn’t coming from any of the rooms. It was loud now, we didn’t have to strain to hear it, and I could actually feel my feet vibrating with the sound. Then I got an idea. I kneeled down and listened to the floor, just like Nancy Drew would. Nancy would have been proud.

It was coming from underneath us, the next floor down.

“C’mon,” I said, “it’s on the second floor, lets go.”

“Um, she sounds really sad and angry. You can handle it by yourself, right?” The girl looked at me, and tried to smile.

“What do you mean? I’m not going down there alone, c’mon!” I headed to the stairs. She wasn’t following me.

“Look, what’s your name?” I asked her, getting a bit mad.

“Stephanie.”

I pointed to myself, “Angie. And how old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Well, I’m only seventeen, so you gotta come with me.”

“Why? You work here! Go take care of it, that’s what they pay you for.”

The whole time we were talking, the sobbing kept up. It would stop for a second, then start again, Stephanie was right. It was really annoying.

“They pay me to sit downstairs and... jeez! I forgot, I left the front door open, we got to go back down there.” We headed to the stairs, and ran down them back to the front hall and my desk. It felt better there. Stephanie looked at me, she didn’t seem to want to go back upstairs.

Then we heard the crying again. Now it was coming from the kitchen area. That was really weird, and the first thing I thought was that whoever was crying had come downstairs ahead of us. They must have.

She was listening, probably wondering the same thing, and then Stephanie asked me -
“You want to go see where she is?”
I thought for a second and asked her, “You coming?”
“Yeah, I guess.”

And we slowly, really slowly moved down the hall together.

It came from the end of the hall, past the kitchen, where the offices were. Then we passed the offices, and turned to the right down another short hall.

“Where are we? What’s this part of the building?” Stephanie asked.

“I don’t know. Never been here, maybe its the maintenance room?” There was a door at the end, the sound was definitely coming from the other side. I hoped it was locked, but when I tried the handle, slowly, it turned and opened a bit.

Then the crying stopped.

I opened the door, and on the other side was a flight of stairs leading down. I actually looked around for a light switch, because there was a light right over our heads, and yup, there was the switch, and I flicked it on. The stairs weren’t too long, they led down to what looked like a dirty bottom floor. It was dark down there.

And the crying started again, but now we could hear that it was right below us, in the dark room.

Then the sobbing got even louder, and it turned into loud grunts and cries of pain. We couldn’t move, we were so scared. Then the cries turned into screams. They were so loud it sounded like somebody was yelling right into your ear, only louder, it seemed so loud the walls were shaking. I still had my hand frozen on the light switch, but when the second round of screams started we both jerked back at the same time and ran all the way to the front hall, and out the front door, onto the street and it was raining, so we paused and then ran to the bus shelter that was half a block down, and Stephanie grabbed me hard and yelled

“WHAT the FUCK was THAT! SHIT that was scary! Who the fuck was down there, huh? You hear those screams?!”

I was pretty much too scared to talk, but said something like I don’t know, I’ve only been working here for a week, I’m not going back in there, you go back there, I’m calling my mom to tell her I’m coming home early, forget this fucking place.

Well, we stood out there and noticed that there was a somebody else in the bus shelter with us, that’s how scared we were, it was some older guy who was staring at us like we were dangerous or something. Stephanie looked at him and said the first smart thing I had heard all night.

“You gotta smoke?” she asked him.

He looked at us, said something like we shouldn’t be out late at night, then reached in his coat pocket and brought out some cigarettes. Stephanie showed me how to light it and I took my first ciggy puff, but didn’t bring the smoke into my lungs cause Steph said it would make me sick the first time. It was sort of fun, and calmed us down right away, and the man didn’t ask us any more questions. But he sure listened to us all right. I don’t know if we made any sense.

“Here’s the thing. I gotta call the cops.” I decided, suddenly.

She thought for a second, smoking. “Yeah, you probably should. But, like, look, you think it’s still crying?”

“That’s what I was thinking. See, it couldn’t be for real, cause you heard the noise up on the fourth floor. It must have been right under you then, the floors are too thick to hear something that’s three, no, five floors down.”

“You mean four floors down.”

“It’s below the first story, in the cellar. So five floors.”

“Four.” She counted off the floors on her fingers for me, “Floor three, two, one, cellar, four floors...”

“So what? Who cares? You can’t hear that far, and when you came down we didn’t hear anything on the first floor, right? So it wasn’t coming from there.”

“You have any security guys on staff there?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me. I’m the security girl.”

“Then you got problems.” she said, and then, to our friend in the bus stop, “thanks for the smokes, bye.” And we walked back. I didn’t want to go in, but Stephanie’s friends were waiting for her at the front, two other girls, and they were asking questions as I sat at the desk looking at the telephone. Should I call the police?

Then I decided to just call Mrs. Aldon. It rang only two times, and she picked up right away. I explained that we had heard some strange lady crying, and had gone back past the offices, and the sound was coming down the little hall, and...
“You didn’t go in the basement, did you?” she asked.

That was funny. Why would she ask that?

“Uh, no, we didn’t want to. But that’s where the sounds were coming from.”

“Don’t go down there. I’ll lock the door from now on.” then she paused, “there aren’t any lights in the basement and it’s dangerous.”

Jeez, why were there so many places at the hostel that were “dangerous”? What was this, downtown Ottawa or the freaking Lower Amazon River?

“Should I call the police if I hear any more screams?”

She didn’t say anything for a while, and I though the connection had gone dead, but then she said “No. I’ll take care of it,” which I thought was a really weird thing to say. Then she asked me if I wanted her to come back out there. I said no, I didn’t want to be any trouble or seem like I couldn’t do anything by myself. Then we hung up.

“What did she say?” Stephanie asked.

“Nothing. She really didn’t say anything. She said don’t call the cops.”

Stephanie and her friends left pretty fast, they were planning to get back before eleven and wanted to go just about anywhere but the hostel before then.

I sat there looking at the radio. More people were coming and going now, and I was checking their keys for something to do, but once in a while I was alone with that radio and I’d sit there hoping the sobbing noise wouldn’t come back. The only things I could think of was that a crazy person was loose in the hostel, or that somebody was trying to scare me, or that somebody was really hurt in the basement and I should go help them. The night went on and on. It was impossible to read my Nancy Drew book, I kept reading the same sentence over and over.

I got pretty scared, and just hung out on the steps outside for a while. Then the Australian guys came back in, just after ten, and other people came back too, and I was out of there at exactly eleven, locking the door and running down the steps to my car.

In Mexico, they have the legend of "La Llarona" (The Cryer). La Llarona drowned her kids in a well and then committed suicide. After her death, you could hear her crying for her children.

Maybe La Llarona got a greencard and migrated to Ottawa?

Fer cry'n out loud, Mike!

EDIT - Ooops, that was supposed to be a PM

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2009-10-14 21:26 ]

Oh, for cryin in the sink!

I'm not posting these installments during the day anymore.

From now on they get posted as soon as it gets dark each day.

And Mikester - this haunting has nothing to do with a crying spirit searching fer whatever crying spirits search for, ....

On 2009-10-15 06:59, Cammo wrote:
I'm not posting these installments during the day anymore.

From now on they get posted as soon as it gets dark each day.

Even BETTER!

On 2009-10-15 06:59, Cammo wrote:
And Mikester - this haunting has nothing to do with a crying spirit searching fer whatever crying spirits search for, ....

whew :blush:

(EDIT - deleted my banner :) )

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2009-10-15 23:06 ]

Angie's Ghost Story Part 7

The next day, Friday, Cindy and I arrived at the same time and Mrs. Aldon was waiting for us at the front.

“Would you two please step into my office first?” she asked. So we walked down the hall, past the kitchen, and I noticed Bridgett was watching us. It was strange, I had no idea what Mrs. Aldon was going to do. Maybe fire me. It was just like going to the principal's office.

We stepped into her room, she looked at us both, then she closed the door behind us.

“You had some interesting experiences last night. Could you please tell me what happened?” she asked. Simple as that.

Cindy started talking about the bag, I pitched in with the radio story, then told her all about the sobbing. Cindy didn’t seem to believe me, but Mrs. Aldon kept asking if the other girl, Stephanie, had heard it too and I kept telling her yes. I couldn’t understand if she believed me or not. Cindy probably thought I was crazy. Finally I told her about running outside, but not about the bus stop and the smoking, I just said that we had stopped outside the front door.

“Angie,” Mrs. Aldon asked me very seriously, “do you still want to work here?”

Oh no. Here goes. This is where she fires me.

“Um, yeah, sure!” Then I thought about it. “If people would stop playing jokes on us. Yeah. This is a great place otherwise.”

She turned around and looked at her bookshelf for a second. Cindy glanced at me, shrugging her shoulders, making a face and looking puzzled. Then Mrs. Aldon turned back to us.

“This used to be a jail. There were a lot of... bad people here. And sometimes people hear noises. You know what I mean?”

“You mean it’s an old building and the roof creaks and stuff?” I asked.

“Sort of. Well... yes, but sometimes people hear lots of noises. You know, strange noises they can’t explain. Really strange noises.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. Cindy looked totally blank.

We were probably the dumbest kids she had ever hired.

“Do you understand?” she asked.

“Um, yeah. I guess so.” I said, slowly.

“Well, could you explain it to me, cause I don’t get it at all!” Cindy said, “Who was screaming last night is what I want to know! A whole bunch of people heard it! Who was in the basement? I mean, if it really happened, it’s scary!”

“What do you mean ‘if it really happened’! I was there! It happened just like I said!”

“Girls, Angie, I believe you.” Mrs. Aldon looked tired now.

There was another pause.

“You see, sometimes in places where really bad people die, or something bad happened, sometimes, people hear noises afterwards. That’s what I mean.”

“Oh.” Cindy said. “You mean - ghosts?”

And Cindy got this look on her face, it started screwing up, and I didn’t want to look at her, but I looked out of the corner of my eye at her and she was looking at me and we both laughed out loud. We laughed really hard, which wasn’t a nice thing to do but I couldn’t help it. Cindy was really funny, she still is, she cracks me up.

“Since you both find it so humorous,” Mrs. Aldon said, “I’ve decided to put you both on staff together at the same time. If anything ... funny ... happens you won’t be alone.” She looked at both of us, expecting an answer.

“Um, yeah, yes, that would be fine. Thank you Mrs. Aldon.”

“Yes, thank you very much.” We tried to stop snickering and left the room. On the way out Cindy started laughing again, and I saw Bridgett watching us. She was smiling because we were smiling, I thought.

"From now on they get posted as soon as it gets dark each day"

"Posted: Today; 07:04 am"

OK, I waited up all night :lol: :D

This already part 7, which longer than any of Cam' other stories which were only 6 parters. It seem like this still just beginning of story, so must be in for 15 or 20 part story.

"The best-laid plans of mice and men...etc."

"This already part 7, which longer than any of Cam's other stories which were only 6 parters. It seem like this still just beginning of story, so must be in for 15 or 20 part story."

You gotta hand it to GROG, him narrative-savvy. Yup, this is gonna be right in that ballpark.

(See ya tonight, and watch out for the mysterious disappearing Shout! Is it a ghost or a programming bug?! Only Hanford knows!)

I have seen the mysterious disappearing SHOUT! too, Cammo. And a 20 part ghost story? Bring it on, I say. :) By the way, the farmhouse story was my favorite so far! Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. =:0

Lookin' pretty dark out there...

** Angie's Ghost Story Part 8 **

Lots of people came in that night, it was our first really crowded summer night and there wasn’t much time to talk, we were handing out keys, charging people, showing them where the bathrooms were, people were dropping off their baggage and coming back later, it was a lot of fun. Finally it got slower at about 8:30, and we sat there with nobody around. I didn’t want to read my Nancy Drew, cause Cindy would make fun of me. And there was too much to talk about now anyway.

“I knew this place was haunted when I first saw that 8th floor, and all that oil on the floor and the gaslight, it looked like a horror movie or something.”

The problem was, Cindy wasn’t listening to anything I was saying.

“What are you talking about? Huh? You are one Crazy Canary. You know all I’ve been thinking about?” Cindy told me, “did you see what Mrs. Aldon was looking at on her bookshelf?”

“What? Books?”

“Yeah, she had books about the jail, did you see ‘em?”

“No. Is that what she was looking at when she was turned away from us?”

“Yeah, I think she was going to pull one down and show it to us. But she didn’t. I don’t think she wanted us to see it. And you know what? I’m gonna go get it. Goodbye!” She got up.

“What, in her office? Isn’t it locked?”

“I’ll see.”

She ran down the hall, I saw her trying the knob, then she looked back at me, smiled, and went right in. The light popped on, she was in there for a few minutes, then she came running back holding a little dark book.

“Carleton County Gaol, 1865-1972,” she said, holding it up in the air like it was a trophy, “ta - DAAAAAAA!”

“Are there any pictures?” I asked. I always want pictures. If a book doesn’t have pictures, chuck it.

She flipped through it. “Yeah. Some, look, that’s our place! Told ya!” There was an old photo with a horse and buggy out front of our building. It was taken so long ago that there were no other buildings around it, so it was kind of weird.

“And that’s us! Look!” Cindy pointed to two ladies in front of the place, dressed in big skirts. I laughed, then we opened the book and read.

The County Gaol, or Jail, was built to hold criminals tried in the court next door, but it ended up holding poor people who couldn’t pay their loans, old people, crazy people, drunks, prostitutes suffering from VD, children of the prisoners, and a lot of Irish immigrants. The whole cellar area was a holding area for immigrants, it had no bathroom, they were tossed down there to see if they had diseases, and if they died they were burned out back and thrown in a pit. Thousands died there.

But the story got better.

They had lots of solitary confinement cells, (we didn’t know where those were) and the place was equipped with a full functioning gallows, which is an old name for the place where they hang people. Three prisoners were hanged here, one seemed to start haunting the jail as soon as he died. No prisoner was allowed to wear clothes, they only got blankets that were also used as bedding. Nobody ever washed. Ever. The place had been crawling with rats, lice and cockroaches. They stuffed more than three people in each of the cells, and like I said the cells were about as big as my closet. If you complained they’d beat you with sticks. Once you were in there most never got out until they died. And you got to go to the bathroom only once a day, I’m not kidding. Almost everybody tried to commit suicide, so the whole place was rebuilt inside to prevent suicides.

This is now, believe it or not, the biggest youth hostel in Ottawa.

The connecting passage between the court next door and the jail was underground, and that’s where the guards would regularly rape the female prisoners. If the women protested they’d kill them and bury them out back. Nobody knew how many people were buried in the courtyard, or under the parking lot nowadays, or in the cellar, but they dug up a LOT of bodies when they were digging a sidewalk in the 1970’s, about 140 at last count.

“A hundred and FORTY?” Cindy said, “That’s gotta be WRONG!”

We were sitting in absolutely the most horrifying torture chamber and giant graveyard you could imagine. The home of justice for the entire country. Ottawa’s, the capital of Canada’s, oldest central jail.

It took a while to get through that book, we kept flipping forward, and most of the good info was in the notes at the back. We just couldn’t believe it.

“Why the heck did they make this place into a HOSTEL?!” Cindy asked me, “The whole place should be torn down in shame! Why don’t they dig up the parking lot? Isn’t anybody interested in how many bodies are out there? It says here there could be thousands!”

All I had for her was more questions.

The End

That was a good story Cammo, tell us another one.