CAMP AUGUST PEAK
An Original Listener Terror
Written by Gloria Rowe, age 10
Concept by Gloria Rowe & Rowan Hybarger
Natalie’s parents decided to take a family trip to the Northwest to visit their lake house. The lake house wasn’t pretty or made for beauty — it was a big, cozy cabin, great for a weekend.
Natalie’s family, one afternoon, decided to take a hike to a big silver waterfall near the top of Mount August. It was summer, and Natalie was sweating the whole hike and was dying to swim in the spring at the waterfall or the big lake. On the way up, her dad, Henry, got a notification on his phone about a mile up. The weather app dinged about an incoming storm. So, they decided they would go to the waterfall, take some photos and head back down as quickly as possible. So, Natalie and her parents hiked home and were offered some water from a passing hiker on the way down the mountain. Natalie saw ‘Dubinsky’ embroidered on his backpack.
Once they returned home, Natalie was still scorching hot. She begged her parents to take a quick swim, but they told her no because the storm was too dangerous.
That night, Natalie sneaked outside through an old, creaky glass window in her room. She left a sticky note on her pillow that said: “Don’t worry. Be right back.” She snuck over to the lake and told herself she would only stay for five minutes. As she was just about to make her way out of the lake and head home, she found herself being sucked in by a mysterious current. She was wearing her nightgown, which made it nearly impossible to swim against the pull. She found a large rock in the middle of the lake, and tried to grab it, but it was too slick.
The next day, her parents found her face down in the lake. The official report from the coroner says that she drowned, but not everyone believes this. Some people think she was struck by lightning and some think something even more mysterious occurred that night.
***
Ten years later, the whole area was turned into Camp August Peak, a sleepaway summer camp with lake activities, zip lines, and more. But, on the edge of the forest stood Cabin 17. Once Natalie’s family’s lake house, now the very last cabin picked every summer. This cabin was filled with rumors, but the only one that they tell during campfire time is this one:
In cabin 17, the ghost of Natalie Cromb is said to come back looking for her belongings left behind before the camp was built. Natalie loved to crochet dolls and had a cute chest full of her favorite colored yarns. She had left it behind the day she drowned. And is said to come back looking for it every year.
The older campers get carried away with the ghost stories, and the scariest one they tell is about one of the ways people believe she died. There was said to be a camp director that had originally wanted the Cromb’s land, even before Natalie’s death, and some even go so far as to say that he murdered Natalie to drive the Cromb’s away and take their land. His name was Sam Dubinsky, the first director of the camp. And now he had an eighteen year old son, Peter, who is a camp counselor this year. For cabin 17.
Sophia had arrived late and was one of the last people to sign up. So like the other late arrivals, she was placed in Cabin 17. Her parents had recently moved her to a new home in Washington and were still unpacking all the boxes. So they had taken her to the closest camp.
Sophia had been to many camps before and she knew the deal: make friends, do ALL the activities, and to eat junk food. So that’s what she did: Sophia ate until she was full, made three new friends, and she had done almost all the activities, except the zipline, because she was still too scared.
On Sophia’s third night she had almost fallen asleep when she felt a quick surge of hunger. She pulled the covers off and slipped on her bunny slippers. She walked over to the counter and snatched up a bagel to eat. She thought about spreading on some cream cheese when a strange object caught her eye.
Over by the back shelf of the room, tucked into a book bucket was a big thick chapter book. It had a shiny silver spine and a dark red cover. She grabbed her half eaten bagel and tiptoed over the sleeping kids, trying not to wake them. She grasped the book and felt the hard cover as she pulled it out. She waited a second, feeling as if something strange should happen, but she popped the last bite of bagel in her mouth and walked over to her bunk to read it. She sat down and opened the cover. It was very heavy and the cover was very thick. She opened it and laughed at the content inside. It was just a children’s book with stories like Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. She giggled once more and dropped the book on the floor.
As she dropped the book, a black and white strip toppled out of the book. It looked like it had come from an older camera and had four photos on it. There were three people pictured, and one was a young girl about eight or nine and had long hair down past her shoulders. There was a mom and a dad hugging her in the second photo, and in the third and fourth was her in a big puffy nightgown.
She then remembered the scary story that a fellow camper, Phineas, had told that afternoon about Natalie, the young girl who had died in the lake mysteriously. She remembered his creepy laugh when he told it, but then she shook it off. She looked at the background of all the photos and it looked just like the window behind her bunk. She squeezed over her bunk and looked at the picture and back up to the window. They looked the same except that it was a bit rusted now.
She lowered the blinds and the room grew darker. She raised them back up and looked back at the photo. Nothing. She glanced back over at the book and shook it hard. As if planned, another strip slid out. This time it looked brand new, like it had been made seconds before. And unlike the other this one was in color. Everything was colored, the kids laying around her, the book, but what really caught her eye was that a young girl was pointing at a vent above her bed. She looked closely at the girl. She looked pale, almost see-through. The last photo scared her most of all: she saw herself, lowering the blinds like she had done moments ago. She shook for a minute before putting down the two strips still clutched in her hands. She walked over to the vent and grabbed both corners.
Sofia pulled and pulled, but it didn’t budge. It just shimmered and scraped against the cabin wood making a wretched sound. She cringed and searched for anything that might help. She peered down at the picture, and in the fourth column it showed the girl pulling off a piece of yarn behind the curtain.
That’s what’s holding it up! she thought.
She reached under the blue raggy curtain and slipped a knot loose. Of course the vent didn’t just fall off, but it loosened enough she could pull it off.
Inside the vent was a small wooden chest, filled with the softest yarn she had ever felt. She lifted the soft yarn between two fingers and placed it down, admiring them. The third yarn was thick and tough. It was the consistency of a rope and was as thick as her wrist. She wrapped it in a loose bow and placed it down.
After a while she had settled down in her bed when a loud bang echoed throughout the room. Two kids woke up, Audam and Stephanie, her two newest friends. Steff wobbled around looking for Sophia and grabbed her wrist before settling down next to her.
“W-Whats that noise?”
“Umm its the wind, go back to bed,” Sofia said.
“Uhh…okay”
Audam had already fallen back asleep and so did Steff. Sophia grabbed a lantern from under the bunk and lit it just enough to see a little. Under the window, the chest was spilled open with all the yarns scattered around randomly.
She looked for the thick bow she had made but she didn’t spot it. She sat up in her bunk and got out of bed. The knot she had made and the excess was being dragged around the room, but no one was there. When the yarn reached the counselor’s bunk — Peter Dubinsky’s bunk — Sophia got up and sprinted over to his side. But the knot had been untied and remade around his neck. He tried to scream but the rope got tighter and tighter. Sophia tried her best to unravel the thick yarn but Natalie’s ghost was too strong. Peter’s chest stopped moving and Sophia ran and hid under the covers. She hoped this was a dream, but she never woke up from one.
No one knows what happened to Sophia that night. After Peter Dubinsky had been taken to the hospital, she refused to talk to anyone.
So, no one knows the rest of the story…
…except for Natalie Cromb herself.