Campfire Story

                                       CAMPFIRE STORY

         The campfire was dying down. Scout Leader Will looked up as if he heard something.  “What was that?” he asked. 

         One of the boys said, “I didn’t hear nothing.”

         Will looked around at the faces of the boys, lit by the firelight.  “Oh, no!” he said suddenly.  “I forgot!  This is the night --”

         “The night that what?” Joey asked.

“Don’t worry about it, Joey.  Nothing will happen.”

         “Why should anything happen?”

         “This is August thirty.  Do you know what happened here on August 30 ten years ago?”

         Several of the boys answered, “No.  What?”

         “Ten years ago, this very night, in these woods.  There was a murder and the killer was never caught.  It was a terrible thing.  I shouldn’t tell you guys about it.

         The boys said, “Tell us!”

         “Well all right.  This person, we never found out who he was, was camping in these woods, right by this brook.Somebody killed him and cut up his body.  There were pieces of him all over the place.”

         The boys were interested though shuddering a little.

         “They hunted around and found most of him, everything but his head.  The head was never found.  They just put the parts they found in a box and buried him without his head.”

         The boys were really shuddering now.  Will went on, “But the thing is, ever since, people camping out here see him sometimes.  He looks like he sort of put himself back together somehow and he walks around in the woods, looking for his head.”

         “That’s just a story,” Joey said.  “It’s a scary campfire story, but it’s a good one.”

         Will nodded. “Well I guess the part about him walking around is a story, but there really was a man killed in these woods, not far from here, by this brook near the willow trees.”

         “You said people saw him.”

         “On August thirty, the same date it happened.  They said he couldn’t talk because he had no head; he just made a gurgling sound in his neck.  I never saw him myself but I know people that swear they have.”

         One of the boys said. “That can’t be true.”

         Will said, “I guess not.  I hope not.  It’s a hell of a story just the same.  They said he wasn’t looking just for his own head. He just wants a head. Anybody’s head would do.”

         The boys looked around at each other in the fading light of the last embers of their fire.  Will told them, “Well, guys you better be getting to bed.  We want to get up early while those trout are still hungry.”

         The boys crawled into the tents and Will made sure the campfire was out.  It was a nice night.  Will decided to sit out here a while.  The boys were settled for the night.  They weren’t really scared by the silly ghost story.  Will knew they didn’t believe it.  They knew he made it up as he went along.  He leaned back against the stump and thought how nice it is out here in the woods at night.  How quiet.  The smell of the campfire, the silence of the woods.  He dozed in the warm stillness of the summer night.

         He was still there lounging by the dead campfire when the boys came out of the tents in the morning.  Henry saw him first.  He called the others.  The boys stood looking at their scout leader.  One of them said in a small voice, “Where’s his head?”