A few weeks ago my friends and I all requested off of work for our vacation. Every year we all get together, pack up our cars and we go camping. It all started when we were kids, and we all met at summer camp. Our summer camp was eventually closed down due to a double murder-suicide that took place in the woods there. Apparently this guy took his family camping there, with the intent that he was going to slaughter them. He offed his wife and his daughter, and then shot himself. I was really young, so my parents never gave me the details. All I know is it was gruesome. We asked for one full week off of work. We went to our usual campground, Hidden Paradise. This was a campground my folks used to take me and my brother to when we were young. It was amazing there, there was a huge lake with a water trampoline and other fun water activities, there was a cage right when you pulled in with reindeer in it. They were pets and very well taken care of. My brother and I loved going to Hidden Paradise.
Hidden Paradise was in a very small town in Indiana called St. Paul, it was about an hour away from were we lived. It was the sort of town that you'd miss if you blinked. It was very small, they had one store, it was like a family owned gas station. I don't even know if they sell alcohol there. My friends and I packed up our cars and we set out. The drive wasn't too bad, we took the interstate most of the way. I was driving my car with my fiancée next to me. I happen to be the only girl in our group of friends, but one of our friends brought his new girlfriend along, so I was excited to have someone I could relate to. Sometimes I get tired of hearing farts and burps and boy talk.
When we arrived in St. Paul we stopped at the family owned store to pick up some firewood. It's against the rules to bring in your own, to prevent you from bringing in wood eating bugs and such. The price for the firewood was outrageous but it's a tiny store in the middle of nowhere, so it was our only option. We made our way to the campground, the first thing that caught my eye was the fact that the reindeer were gone. I shrugged it off. When we pulled up to pay for our campsite and our cars, I noticed how vacant the place was. It is February, so the place being a little empty made sense but when we booked our site online there were only 3 available out of the 40 sites. Anyways we settled in, pitched our tents and got a campfire going. Winter this year has been very mild, it's been in the 50s and 60s so we decided it wouldn't get too cold for us to stay in tents. Hopefully.
We checked in around 11am, so we started cooking a light lunch on the fire. Brauts, cheesy dogs, and burgers. My favorites. It was only 11am, but we had a whole week off so we all had a few beers. As we started eating, a family pulled into the site next to us. The older gentleman, I'm going to assume is the husband and father, said hello and we greeted him back. They started setting up their site but I wasn't until at least an hour after they had been there that they got their kids out of the car. There were three of them. They were really pale and skinny. They looked to be about 13, 9, and 7. I'm bad at guessing ages, so I'm probably way off. I'm 24 and I look like I'm 16, I can't even buy I pack of cigarettes without the cashier chuckling and going "yeah I'm gonna need to see some ID"
It was around 3pm when my friends and I decided to go on a hike. I realized I never introduced my friends, I'm all over the place right now so forgive me. Our group consisted of my fiancée, Michael and our friends Charlie, Eric, Matt, Jake, Benny, and Benny's new girlfriend Tara. There were 8 of us including me, my name by the way is Jane. We all set out for our hike, we packed some snacks, water, and a bowl of our favorite recreational drug. We hiked for about two hours when we stopped to have a snack and catch our breath. We had much more of the trail but we all decided to turn back and start making dinner. By the time we returned, the family next to us was gone. All of their stuff was still there of course but we didn't see anyone else on the trail, and the water is far too cold to swim.
So far our first day at the site was pretty uneventful. We ate our dinner and started to play some music. Our friend Matt is a killer guitar player, and Tara is an amazing singer. That's when we decided to break out the liquor. We brought some makers mark, my drink of choice, some tequila, some rum, and some gin. We're not alcoholics, we just like to have fun. Obviously we didn't mix darks and lights, I didn't want to puke my brains out in the woods. I took a few shots of Makers and then I had about 4 beers. I was drunk, but not too drunk. I'm very good at handling myself when I drink, and I know my limit. That's when things started to get weird. I started to feel very fuzzy, I turned to look at Michael and I noticed he was starting to doze off. I looked around my friends and everyone was starting to slump over and sleep. Then everything went black.
When I woke up I was in my tent, with Michael to my left still asleep. I searched around for my glasses (I usually put them in the mesh pocket on the inside of the tent when I go camping, so I don't roll over and crush them in my sleep) they were in the pocket. I put them on and searched for my cellphone. I checked the time and it was 10am. I woke up Michael and he was just as confused as I was. How did we get in our tent? Why did we both black out last night? We left our tent to check on our friends. Everyone was there.. Unharmed. Matt and Eric were making eggs in a little skillet over the fire, and everyone else was still asleep. I asked them what they remember from last night and they acted as if nothing weird had happened. They told me we all went to bed around 2am and that they saw me and Michael walk into our tent. That's definitely not how I remember it happening. Michael and I drove to the office of the site, they have some snacks for sale there and some other random things. I bought some candy and Michael bought some chips. When we were checking out I asked the woman working about the reindeer that we're missing when we came in. She told us that a few months ago, some guy from a wedding party got too drunk, hopped the fence, and slit the animals throats.
I was shaking. I've been very drunk at times and never have I had the urge to slaughter a defenseless animal. We're back at our campsite now, all of our friends are awake and nobody remembers last night the way that Michael and I do. It might just be all in my head, but something feels off.
Submitted February 28, 2017 at 09:25PM by utrademo http://ift.tt/2lmEa8M
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