I had the hardest time falling asleep, tossing and turning and every few minutes looking over at Kevin’s side of the tent to make sure his little light was still on. When that light went off, I wanted to cry. I laid there in the dark wrapped so tightly in my sleeping bag I looked like a butterfly trying to escape a cocoon. I didn’t care though, somewhere out there, was that woman. Not that a sleeping bag could protect me from her or anything but still.
The warmth of the bag started to make my eyelids very heavy and finally I managed to close them, only to open them up again at the sound of my name being whispered into my ear.
“Nick…” It was dark, very dark and quiet. I looked over to my left and Brian was sound asleep hugging what looked like his box of Corn Flakes.
“How odd.” I was just about to take the box out of his hands when I heard my name again, this time followed by a small giggle.
“Who is it?” I whispered back at the voice, not really wanting an answer but almost certain it was Mary Beth. The sound of a child laughing confirmed that, followed by a shadow of a child running across the outside of my tent.
I walked out, not sure why I would do something so stupid but again I felt as if I were in some kind of trance. When I unzipped the tent, a burst of cold air hit me so fast it almost gave me a brain freeze. Was it actually snowing out here? Impossible it was the middle of summer.
But there it was, a soft covering of snow all over the ground as the smallest of snowflakes began to fall around me.
“Nick…come and play with me.”
I rubbed my arms to try to keep myself warm as I walked towards the voice. I still couldn’t see her but I knew I was getting close. I walked around my tent still looking as the snow began to mound and stick to the trees and grassy surface all around me.
“Mary Beth is that you?” I asked in a whisper so as not to wake everyone up.
“Boo!” She said jumping out from behind me and giggling as she fell to the ground.
I jumped and let out a small scream which I knew would bring my band mates out but none of them came running. “What are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be out here this late at night all alone.”
She smiled up at me as she grabbed some snow and hit me in the head with it, “I’m not alone Nick…Casper is here with me.” That’s when I saw him, in all the commotion I hadn’t realized he was standing there staring at the two of us.
“What’s going on?” I asked the ghost who offered me a small smile.
“Come on…I want to show you something.”
“Is this another trick?”
He smiled again and this time lifted Mary Beth onto his shoulders, “No, no tricks…I promise.”
“Okay, where are we going then?”
“You’ll see.” He seemed so happy, not anything like the Casper who visited me when I was awake and yes I did realize I was sleeping. The snow on the ground was a dead giveaway.
Mary giggled the entire time as we walked closer to the path that led back to Mary’s family. “I used to live here a long time ago Nick.” He said to me as we left the safety of my campsite. I took one look back at the tent. It all felt so real, everything did.
“Really?”
“Yes, long before this was turned into a campground. This all belonged to my family.”
“How long ago was that exactly?”
“It’s hard to say, time kind of stands still after awhile. Let’s just say long before you were born and leave it at that okay?” I nodded at him but was still confused.
“When I needed to get away from everyone I used to hide here.” He said now walking us into Mary’s campground where their tent was set up, the snow almost up to my ankles now.
“Here?”
“No, just beyond this place…through those trees.” He pointed off into the distance, “Mary has gone there with me and she loved it. Didn’t you Mary?”
Mary nodded and winked at me, the same way Howie would. “Come on…” He suddenly started running which totally took me by surprise.
“Wait for me!” I shouted after him but he was gone through the trees before I could say anything more.
From the running, I was out of breath and stopped for a second, bent over with my hands on my knees. The air was so cold around me that the warmth of my own breath felt good on my nose.
I stood up and started walking towards the trees feeling the cold wind blowing my face a shade of red as I continued on. It’s a good thing you couldn’t catch pneumonia by dream otherwise I’d be in bad shape. When I reached the first tree I paused, just something told me not to go in there. I felt a huge sense of dread come over me and almost turned around and started to run but the giggling coming from just beyond my sightline made me change my mind.
“Nick are you coming or not?” He shouted to me above Mary’s laughter.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, “You can do this Nick…it’s only a dream.” I chanted to myself as I stepped through the trees and into the woods.
I walked for a few minutes before hearing the splashing of the water and then suddenly the snow went away and was replaced by a warm, bright sunny day. I was thankful for that because I could barely control my shivering.
“It’s about time you showed up.” Casper said as he swung on a tire out in the middle of the lake. He was dressed in a swimsuit but not the kind we wore nowadays. More like the kind you see in old movies that go all the way down past the knees. Mary was dressed the same way, in an old fashioned bathing suit.
“You like it?” He asked me as he jumped off the tire and into the lake, making a huge splash that hit my face and trickled down the front of my pajamas.
“Yeah…” And I did. It was like I was dumbstruck by how awesome it would have been to live in a place like this.
“This lake was yours?”
“Is mine…yes, whenever I was stressed out, I’d come out here and jump in the water. Kind of made everything make sense you know what I mean?” I did know exactly what he meant because I did the very same thing. When my family got to be too much, arguing about me and all the ways they could spend my money, my refuge was the ocean. I’d ride my bike about two miles to the beach and just sit there staring at the waves.
He was now sitting beside me, wiping himself off as Mary Beth kicked her feet in the water, laughing as the small guppies tickled her heels. “What happened to you…if you don’t mind me asking?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why are you a ghost?”
“Well duh Nick isn’t it obvious by now?”
“Not really, should it be?” He laughed and stood up, bending his knees slightly ready to make a running start off the deck and into the water.
“Yes it should be…I’m a ghost because I died.” He laughed, ran full speed and did a cannonball.
“Kids…I knew I’d find you both here.” I turned at the sound of Sarah’s voice. I mean it looked like Sarah but clearly this was the same woman who was Casper’s mom in my other dream. She glanced over at me briefly but then paid me no mind. “Come on now, it’s time to get out of the water, if dad knew you were still out here swimming he’d be mad.” She laughed but it sounded like a nervous one.
“Awe come on mom…just five more minutes.”
“Casper you said that about an hour ago! Besides look at your sister’s lips, they are starting to turn blue and you are going to turn into a big old raisin.”
“But mom…”
“But mom nothing…let’s go!”
I wish I could accurately describe the way I was feeling. It was kind of like going to see a movie in an I Max theater, where all the action is going on around you, only thing was, you could reach out and touch everything. Smell it and taste it.
“Okay mom…we’ll be right there.”
“Casper you better be… I mean it, or else it won’t be me who comes to get you next time.”
“I know mom and I promise.”
When Sarah left the clearing I looked at my friend, funny how I considered someone dead my friend, and asked, “Sarah is your mother?”
“Sorry Nick, I have to get back…” Then he turned to Mary Beth, “Come on Mary you heard mom.”
“Okay Casper.” Mary turned and took her feet out of the water as Casper helped her put her shoes back on her feet.
“I’m confused Casper, what’s going on?”
He was just about to tell me something when Matt’s voice clung in the air like a roar of a lion. “Kids get back here right NOW!”
“I’m sorry…I have to go.”
“But wait!” Casper grabbed his sister’s hand and started running back through the trees and just like that he was gone and I was left all alone in the woods. “Casper! Come back!!”
I started to run towards the woods the way I came when more laughter made me turn around. I felt my heart beating in my chest when I saw him in the water splashing his arms and laughing. “Brian?”
“Frack what are you waiting for…come in and play with me.”
“How did you get here?” I smiled at him, suddenly relieved I was with someone alive who wouldn’t be ripping any heads off of anything.
“I followed you bonehead…Now come on…the water is so warm.”
“I’m not wearing a bathing suit.” I said motioning to my pajamas that were already soaked to the bone.
“So what? Who’s going to care? It’s not like I’m going to tell Kevin on you or anything.”
“I don’t know Brian…I think maybe we should just go back…”
“Nick, why are you suddenly so afraid of the water?”
“I’m not afraid…”
He laughed at me and splashed water my way, “Yeah right.”
“Okay fine…” I was a man on a mission now, and that mission was to prove my stupid best friend wrong. Who cares if it was a dream or not! I could even wake up and tell him I beat his ass at underwater basketball or something.
I did the same thing Casper had done moments earlier; I bent my knees slightly and readied myself to jump into the water. “Nick no!!!”
“Huh?” I looked at Brian confused, “Thought you wanted me to jump in.”
“I do…come on we haven’t got all day.”
“NICK, STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!” I turned to the sound of AJ’s voice and saw him running at me full speed.
When I turned back to Brian he reached up and grabbed my arm, “Time to hold your breath Nick!” He said in a mean, other worldly voice as he pulled me down into the lake and then under the water.
I struggled with him to break free but he was holding on to me so tightly I couldn’t move. Instead, I tried to focus on waking myself up, isn’t that what they used to do in those Nightmare on Elm Street movies? Wake up before Freddie kills you? Only this time it wasn’t Freddy but my best friend.
I tried to turn myself around to face him, maybe plead with him if I could talk but when I did he wasn’t there anymore. He was replaced with that woman; she was just below me and holding my foot as I tried my best to swim to the surface. I was beginning to panic now and had a harder time moving when I felt a pair of arms lock with mine and pull me towards the top. The woman’s grip on my foot loosened and together we made our way back to the surface.
“Kid…Jesus Nicky, can you hear me?” It was AJ’s voice I heard in my ear as he started pounding on my back and I mean ouch…he was hurting me.
“Nick!!” He kept slapping at my back and rubbing at my arms.
Sitting across from me was Mary Beth just watching everything and Casper holding a protective hand on her shoulder. I wanted to speak but I couldn’t, what I wanted to do was smack AJ for basically beating me but all that came out was a giant water filled cough.
“Oh thank God…Nick please talk to me!” I rolled over on my back and closed my eyes thinking that when I opened them I’d be back in my tent still cocooned into my sleeping bag but boy was I wrong.
“Nick, don’t make me beg God dammit! Open your damn eyes now!” For the first time in my life, I did what AJ wanted me to do and I opened my eyes, still trapped in this dream that seemed more and more real by the minute.
“A…J.” I was barely able to get out because I was shivering so violently.
“AJ!” Someone else yelled seconds after I said it.
“Kevin…hurry!”
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know I followed him out here and he just kind of fell in the water.”
“What?”
“Bri…br…br….” I was trying to say that Brian pushed me in but I just couldn’t do it.
“I kept yelling at him but I think he was sleep walking.”
“He slept walked out here and jumped into the lake?”
“Yeah that about sums it up.”
“Nick, are you okay?”
I nodded as he placed his jacket on me and picked me up like a wet noodle. “This isn’t funny anymore.” He was talking to someone besides AJ because AJ was staring at me intently, like I was some kind of freak.
“My God what if AJ didn’t follow him?” It was Brian and sad to say I suddenly was terrified.
“Don’t…please….”
“Nicky hang on we’re almost there.” Kevin said as he continued walking with me in this weird, half carrying me half not type way. I glanced back to see that both Casper and Mary Beth were watching as we walked away from the lake and back to our camp.
I didn’t say one word the rest of the way but Kevin did, he must have asked AJ a million times what happened. “So, run through this with me again…you were out peeing and you saw him come out of the tent and start heading towards the lake?”
“God Kevin how many damn times do I have to repeat myself.”
“Just once more, I’m trying to make sense of this.”
“Yes, he came out walking like a damn zombie. I must have said his name a thousand times but he didn’t answer me so I thought I’d follow him and sure enough he ended up at the lake.”
“And he was talking to himself you said?”
“Yes he was and then fell in. I kept calling his name but he didn’t hear me or wasn’t listening.”
“Did you hear him Nicky?” Brian asked me as he gently grabbed hold of my hand like I was a three year old.
I know it wasn’t really him that pulled me in the water and tried to kill me, but I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him let alone speak to him. Hell I could barely stand which was evidenced by the way I was being dragged along as we finally got back to the tent.
“Get him some dry clothes before he catches pneumonia…” Kevin barked at Brian who ran to my bag and pulled out a clean tee shirt and shorts.
“At least it stopped snowing.” I said once I was finally able to put more than two syllables together at one time.
“Snowing?” Kevin asked me as he pulled my wet shirt over my head.
“I can dress myself.” I insisted which made him draw back. Maybe he realized it was creepy too.
Kevin stood up and walked out of the tent for a minute, the poor guy, I think I have aged him by twenty years alone on this trip. Brian gave me a small smile and mouthed the words be right back to me which left just AJ and I in the tent. I was still kind of confused about what the heck had happened and if in fact it was real or not. I was still hoping to wake up any second.
What AJ did next kind of helped me think it was a dream, he pulled me into a hug, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again you knucklehead. You understand me?”
“AJ thanks for saving me.”
“You weren’t breathing Nicky, not at all. I really thought you were…I mean…”
“I’m okay now.” I smiled at him.
“Nick, what happened out there?”
“Brian pulled me under…it wasn’t Brian but it looked like Brian.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, but don’t tell him okay? I don’t want to freak him out.”
Kevin and Brian both walked back into the tent a few minutes later. I wasn’t happy with the look on Brian’s face. Something went down out there and I wanted to know what it was.
Kevin squatted down next to me, “Are you going to be okay Nick?”
I nodded at him so he smiled and tousled my hair. “Good” he said, “I want you to get some sleep and relax. I’m going to find Grim and get us out of here right now.”
My eyes grew big and I grabbed his arms, “Kevin you can’t! You can’t leave!”
“I have to.”
“No!”
“I’m not leaving you alone the guys will look out for you.”
“You can’t go; if you go your life will be in danger!” I decided maybe now was the time to tell Kevin everything even though Casper told me not to. Kevin was a very stubborn guy and I knew that if I didn’t open up to him right then and there he would have gone no matter what.
“Nick, what are you talking about?”
“You just can’t…okay? I will explain everything but you have to stay.”
“No Nick, then I’ll listen to you later.”
“Kevin please!”
“Enough!” He screamed at me, when he was beyond stressed he got like this and I had done it, managed to pull Kevin Richardson beyond his breaking point.
“Don’t go alone.”
“I won’t, I am going to Matt’s to see if he wants to hike it with me. He knows a lot about the woods.”
“Please Kevin.”
“Nick, get some sleep.” He looked at his cousin and then walked out of the tent.
“Brian you can’t let him go.”
“He’s not going to listen to me Nicky; you almost died out there tonight. I’m beginning to think maybe he should go for help.”
“But why didn’t he just ask when we passed their camp?”
“We didn’t pass their camp.”
“Yes we did on the way to the secret lake.”
“What secret lake?”
“The one AJ pulled me out of. Casper told me it was where he used to go to relax and hide from things.”
“Nick that was the same lake we were at before. It wasn’t a new one.”
“No you’re wrong…it was a new lake right past where Mary Beth’s family was staying.”
AJ and Brian looked at each other confused and I just was at my wits end, “That’s it!” I screamed jumping up and putting on my sneakers. “I’ll show it to you if you don’t believe me.”
“Nick lay the hell down, you’re not going anywhere.”
“NO! I am tired of no one believing what I have to say!”
I was determined to show them this lake and so help me if it wasn’t there. I think I would commit myself to the nearest insane asylum. They looked at me and shook their heads but still followed me out of the tent and back towards my nightmare.
All of us forgetting about Howie… who was nowhere to be found.
Okay, I hope this works lol this is the third time i'm trying to post this chapter now. Ugh! Anyway like I have said the other two times! I really didn't think I was going to get this one done in time so yay to me! It's getting harder to update every week with three stories going on at once not to mention real life etc...so don't get mad if I skip an update form time to time okay? I will try my best, I promise.
