Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20141227231837

Summer Break

You know how sometimes you can have really horrible days descend without a hint of warning.‭ ‬Sometimes you wake up with this strong sense of foreboding and just know that it’s all going to turn sour once you step out the front door.‭  ‬And yet on other days,‭ ‬it all seems to be roses,‭ ‬rainbows and smooth sailing until your rollerblade hits a puddle that turns out to be a deep pot hole,‭ ‬someone allows some portal to open up to some dark,‭ ‬hellish dimension,‭ ‬leading to some local citizens to be consumed by some monstrous dark god,‭ ‬or your art supplies are late due to said deity messing around with the weather,‭ ‬causing massive state-wide delays with the postal service. As was typically the case,‭ ‬this particular descent into the abyss started out as a pretty decent day.

It was July 25, 1988.

The family station wagon rolled to a halt near a crowd of fidgety kids and their harried parents. Piles of luggage was haphazardly stacked in the broad parking lot just downhill from the university. Through the windshield, I could see many other middle schoolers like myself and more were still arriving. Pulling open the door, I got out, while my dad opened the back and began unloading the stuff I needed for my two week stay at Camp Kim Tu; plenty of light summer clothes, sun lotion, Deet bug repellent and various books for when I wasn’t doing journal entries and writing exercises. I helped carry my sleeping bag and back pack full of reading and writing material.

Across the street, we hurried just as the gray Geology bus which would take me to Writing Camp, came slowly to a stop in front of the excited crowd.

It was a fine weekday morning and a cool breeze was blowing across the parking lot, but I knew it would soon grow stiflingly hot and muggy once we reach Willow Creek.

I got on the bus early with my stuff and an extra journal they handed me. Sitting down, I tried to relax through reading, while trying to ignore the heavy thumps of the suitcases being heaved into the lower compartments. I was glad I stowed my delicate camera and binoculars in my back pack and not in my suitcase, which had already been buried into the already massive collection of baggage.

I find myself wondering about the accommodations. Would the cabins be like the quaint ones featured in the 1961 Walt Disney film--The Parent Trap or those squalid tents of “The Swamp” in the M. A. S. H. TV series.

My worried musings were soon interrupted by a larger crowd of jostling kids onto the bus, sitting twos or threes to a seat.

A slight bump next to me caused me to slide over a bit. Turning slightly, I noticed a girl much more shorter than I was. she looked like she was of elf descent or maybe even pixie--a slender build with delicate features--small upturned nose, narrow chin, and really high cheekbones, a shoulder-length mop of frizzy ash-blonde hair topped with a beanie covered entirely with colorful pins and badges. This kid was eating a huge sandwich, the double-decker kind you see Dagwood or Garfield chowing on. She stopped chewing as soon as she noticed me, a friendly grin played at the corner of her mouth.

“Hey, there,” she offered a hand slightly smeared with mustard and sauerkraut. “I’m Bonnie Turley.”

I smiled shyly as I shook her hand. “Olivia Satoui.”

“Cool,” Bonnie took another bit of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes. “So are you from Murrelet? I’m from Murrelet. Sunnybrae section to be exact.” I shook my head. “I’m from Curtisville.”

Bonnie stared. “Curtisville?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “It’s pretty boring at times, but at least the weather’s nice and there’s a beach and some walking trails near where I live.”

Bonnie continued to stare. “Curtisville?” Bits of sandwich fell from her wide opened mouth into her lap.

“Uhh, yeah,” I wrinkled my nose suspiously. “What of it?”

“Oh, nothing,” Bonnie mumbled. Her pale face flushed red as she quickly collected her spilled crumbs in a napkin. “It’s just...it’s just...”

“What?” I asked impatiently.

Bonnie’s brows knitted together as she chewed her lip. “Well, it’s just...aren’t you afraid of living there...with all that creepy stuff that’s been going on?”

“Huh?” I blinked in confusion for a minute, until I realized exactly what kind of ‘creepy stuff’ she had been referring to--the mysterious events two years prior--the violent, erratic weather, the mysterious disappearances, bizarre accidents and suicides, finally culminating in the horrifying massacre and arson death of the most richest and reviled family in all of Curtisville.

No one ever figured out who did it or why, although there were various suspect theories from Russian mobsters to disgruntled ex-business associates.

As far as I was concerned, I’ve had just about enough of the various news agencies and gossip hounds chewing over the weirdness that had been going on, and making my home town sound like something from a horror movie when it was really supposed to be a nice place to live. I just needed to get away--some place nice where I could spend a couple wonderful weeks hiking along scenic mountain trails, toasting s’mores and singing around a crackling campfire and trying to get some useful pointers on how to finish my long-stalled story about a haunted Japanese hotel. Heck, it was a million times better than having to do chores around the house and worrying about whether Sophia Lumley was about to pay me one of her surprise visits. More about her later.

“Oh, all that creepy stuff,”I shrugged, trying to sound casual. “I think that’s all just a bunch of random events--nothing at all supernatural.”

“Yeah, but still it’s rather odd,” insisted Bonnie. “It’s like something out of a Stephen King novel--a whole town under some weird curse that makes it the epicenter for nearly kind of paranormal activity imaginable.”

I snorted scornfully. “Not now it’s not, everything’s been going fine where I am--nothing sinister or weird so far.”

It all started to go downhill from there. 