Ghosts. I never used to believe in them. Until this weekend. I’ll tell you now that my experience won’t be extremely exciting to read, but it’d be kinda cool if you read it anyway.
See, I’m a Boy Scout. Yes, I am also the most immoral Boy Scout of all time (not including Kelan and Calvin, who join me in my awful yet hilarious actions). I had to take a seminar on first aid to earn my American Red Cross certification, which required me to spend 18 hours in a class room listening to nothing but boring lectures.
So I went off to the local scout camp with four other guys and some dads to get our certification. The camp is a summer camp, but is used by troops year-round for everything – in this case, we used one of the log-cabin-lodges to teach a first aid seminar.
Anyway, I endured first aid all afternoon Friday, all day Saturday, and a few hours of Sunday morning. At night, however, I walked around in the deep woods that the camp is built in. The camp is literally in the middle of a forest, they’ve just cut down a few trees to make paths, and some to make space to put buildings and a dining hall.
Well, this camp is huge. I mean fucking huge. Hundreds of acres. Kids get lost in the woods here all the time. Thankfully I didn’t get lost, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as scary as what I experienced.
One of the guys at the seminar was 17, his name’s Nathan. Nathan works as a camp counselor during the Summer, and has since he was 13. It’s his life, his passion. Well after working somewhere long enough, you eventually get to learn a few secrets about the place.
Gerber Scout Camp has many secrets. Some dangerous. Gerber is haunted. Gerber is very, very haunted.
Camp Gerber used to be a normal family campground before the scouts bought it. The first ghost (yes, there are multiple ones) was spawned from this campground. The camp is on a small lake. On the beach of that lake was a swingset. There was a three year old girl whose parents let her play on this swingset as long as she promised that she would go back to the trailer at seven o’ clock, and lock the door before she went to sleep.
One day she didn’t lock the door.
She was abducted by two men. They snuck into the trailer, and took her down to the waterfront. There, they raped and killed her.
Her ghost still haunts the waterfront.
The concrete blocks that the swingset was set in were left in the ground by the new owners of the camp. Sometimes a few counselors would go down to the beach at night near the blocks, and could hear the sounds of the swings creaking, and the little girl happily laughing.
Then a few years back, the camp had the blocks removed. Bad. Fucking. Move.
Now if you go to where you used to hear the sounds, you instead will hear the sounds of the girl shrieking in agony and terror, and the laughter of her rapists.
Counselors will often see her wandering the beach, and if you ignore her, she’ll leave you alone. Everyone abides by this rule.
But one night, Nathan found out what happens when you piss off a ghost. It was about eight o’ clock, and Nathan was with three other guys (all of them around 15 or 16 at the time), and they had been tasked with cleaning up all of the water toys on the beach that had been left out.
When they got to the beach, they saw the little girl playing with the toys. Harmless enough. Ghosts are white, yet you can pick out the details in them. It’s difficult to explain.
But one of the guys Nathan was with decided to yell at her. He screamed at her to get the fuck away, etc.
Then she turned around, and the image that Nathan described to me is burned into his mind.
The little girl turned around with a furious look on her face. Her eyes were blood red. Her teeth were bared. She screamed and ran toward them.
All four guys ran for their lives, because if she caught up to them, they might lose their lives.
She chased them for a mile. The boys ran all around the entire lake, through a few trails, and finally to the cabin where they were staying, which was filled with other people. She kept up with their pace the whole time.
When they reached the porch of the cabin, they looked back to see her slowing down. She stopped about ten feet from the cabin, and stood still for a few seconds. She then turned around, and walked into the woods until she disappeared.
No one knows what would’ve happened to the four of them had she caught them.
None of them like to think about it.
The second ghost is a Native American tribal chief. Simply dubbed “The Chief” by the camp staff. Three tribes used to own the land Gerber is on. The Ottawas, Chipewas, and the Pottawatamis. The Chief is a tall American Indian who is in full regalia. He appears the night before something big happens on camp. The camp director was arrested for photographing and distributing child pornography about a year ago. His name is Scott Herrick. Google him for proof.
The Chief showed up the night before Scott was arrested.
Before every big storm to hit the camp, the Chief appears.
When the dining hall collapsed under heavy snowfall in the Winter, he was seen the night before.
The Chief is peaceful, or rather, he’s passive. He won’t respond to anything you say, he will just pace in circles for hours.
Nathan saw the Chief the night before Scott was arrested. He also saw him on another occasion, for a reason I can’t remember.
Well back to me.
On Friday night after we finished a few hours of training, Nathan and I went for a walk in the woods with a flashlight until a little past midnight. He told me the ghost stories. I nearly pissed myself.
On Saturday, we went fucking ghost hunting. Nathan decided he wanted to say hello to the little girl to see if she really was friendly. We had another one of the Summer staff with us when we went out at 11. Kevin is his name, age 19.
We walked down to the waterfront, and waited for a while. No ghost. We then walked through an area known for activity with the Chief.
I heard some fucking weird shit.
Nathan told us to be quiet when walking through one part of the camp, because the Chief demands respect, otherwise he’ll fuck with your head.
He fucked with our heads anyway.
I heard murmuring in the bushes. There were no other human beings in the fucking camp, they were all asleep in the cabin.
Also, we forgot our flashlight for this outing, so it was all night vision.
I heard weird Indian chants. Rustling in the bushes. It was honestly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, solely for the fact that I had no clue what the Chief might do next.
We never saw the ghosts. After the noises stopped, we headed back down the trail and went to the cabin.
How I slept, I do not know.
But I do know that as an atheist, discovering the existence of ghosts has significantly warped my perception of reality. There’s some weird shit out there. Be careful.