Fiction, campfire ghost story, 2600 words. Mildly edited from printed version in “Carolers.”
“Detective?”
“Sorry to bother you, director. Is it alright if I come in?”
“Sure, absolutely. How can I help you?”
“Something just isn’t adding up, Doug.”
“The interviews with the kids? Were they able to provide any useful information?”
“I need to hear it again, Doug. All the way through, every detail.”
“It’s a ghost story, sir. If the counselors gave you a different version—”
“They all knew a ghost story to keep kids from sneaking out. They had some of the details, but the way you told it… ”
“I’m a camp director, sir. I apologize for maybe glorifying—”
“But the children truly believe it, you know. Some said they’ve seen her. The counselors told us they were forbidden from telling campers the story. Some of them believe it, too.”
“It’s forbidden to tell because it’s too scary. Most of the time, the counselors exaggerate to make it worse. We had several campers refuse to return simply because they had heard The Lady of the Lake.”
“But the details! I did some of my own research… Please, Doug. Something’s not quite right, and I need to hear it again. Just the way you would tell it around the campfire.”
“Very well, detective. But I will reiterate once again, as I’ve said before: these cases are unfortunate. I went through all our processes and procedures. We did everything we could to prevent this. We are just the unluckiest camp in the world.”
“I know, I know. Please, the story.”
In 1964, a young girl attended Camp Fortingale.
“Lilliana Lockwood.”
“Excuse me, detective?”
“She was the first. I found the report from 1964. Her name was Lilliana Lockwood.”
“That’s probably how the story was created.”
“You were a camper too, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t remember Lilliana. I was just an oblivious little boy.”
“Sorry to interrupt. Please continue.”
In those days we were a performance arts camp. This girl’s parents hoped she might be a fine pianist, but really they sent her to make friends. She had none of her own at home. Unfortunately, she didn’t make many here, either.
They say she was an outcast: couldn’t follow social cues, didn’t laugh at the right times, and couldn’t hold a conversation. Even the best counselors weren’t sure how to get her involved in activities and games.
She loved the outdoors, and went missing several times only to be found returning from a long walk in the woods. She loved birds, and the other children made fun of her for it. And she was no stranger to the infirmary; prone to fits of narcolepsy and insomnia, she was given sleeping pills and set to strict probation. The girl was not allowed to wander the woods as she liked. Staff feared she might fall asleep out in the bush and awake in the darkness.
Kids called her a vampire and thought she was nocturnal. The rumors were based in fact. The sleeping pills didn’t work. Her counselors would stay awake in hopes of seeing her to sleep. But this was a game to the girl, a game she always won. As soon as her bunkmates were down, she crawled out of bed and walked to the beach. That first search was frantic: perhaps the medication had caused her to sleep walk. But by the fifth consecutive night that her bed was found empty, her counselors knew exactly where she was: listening to the loons on the beach. The staff were disturbed by the young girl contented to sit on the beach, alone, at night. She was so often dragged back to her cabin that staff gave up. They left the girl alone and stayed in bed. And so she would sleep through her activities by day, and sit on the beach at night. It seemed everyone at camp was content to grant her this schedule. It didn’t take long for most people to forfeit hope that she would change.
“Doug— sorry to interrupt. When did you first hear this story again?”
“When I was a fourteen. I was a camper in Willow cabin. My counselors told us when they caught wind of our plans to sneak out.”
“Right. Sorry, continue.”
“Does something not add up with your research?”
“No, the report mentions the odd sleeping pattern, and the pills. Not the birds, but the detective at the time hated paperwork. Very brief, no extraneous details.”
“That could’ve been an added detail, the loons. Ghost story flair.”
“Perhaps. Please, as you were.”
A few days after the sleeping pills were prescribed, the girl was seen spitting them in the toilet. She could hide the medicine under her tongue, swallow in earnest, then discard the pills before bed. This was the final straw for an underpaid, around-the-clock camp nurse. And so by the third week of camp, the girl had become part of the scenery. No one tried to give her medication. No one checked in to see how she was feeling. No one asked how many birds she had counted that day.
They should’ve noticed much quicker that she had disappeared. If she were any other camper, the staff would have noticed right away. The lifeguards would have scanned the water, the rest of the staff would have combed the camp. Maybe the police would have brought the dogs.
It was nearly dinner time when her counselors realized she had not been seen all day. She had not joined them for breakfast. She had not joined them for lunch.
They searched the cabins, they searched the trails. They patrolled the swimming area. They counted the boats. A kayak was missing. The waterfront director took the power boat to circle the whole lake. She came back with only the empty kayak.
A dive team was called. Sea planes and helicopters searched for any pattern in the lake that might tell the story. They guessed the obvious: she had taken out the kayak to get a better look at the loons she loved so much. It had been a new moon that night. She couldn’t see well. Maybe she panicked. No one dared suggest it was purposeful.
Her body was never found. But it wasn’t the last time she was seen.
The next summer, the camp was awakened in the middle of the night by screaming. It started as a single, lone, ear-piercing high note that was quickly joined by a chorus of terrorized children. Nearly two whole cabins of barely-teenagers had snuck out without rousing their counselors. The boys cabin met the girls cabin on the beach. Many first kisses were shared before one camper noticed they were being watched.
They told their counselors they saw a girl standing on the lake. Right on top of the water, just outside the swim area. Her nightgown was white and danced like seaweed does under the water. She stood watching them. A few of the children requested to leave camp that instant.
The staff were baffled. That night was a new moon, as dark as the night gets. And the loons did not howl.
“Maybe we’re onto something, detective. Kids are always fearful of the loon calls, at first. Makes sense that someone might think to tell the kids that hearing loons is a good thing.”
“Good observation. So you learned of her as the daughter of Fortingale Lake, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s how she was known when I was a camper.”
“And you were a junior counselor before becoming full time cabin staff?”
“Correct. I’ve been here a long time…”
“Please continue. How did the story change as you grew up?”
The daughter of Fortingale Lake haunted camp through the seventies and eighties. She was spoken of in whispers around the fire. For years after the disappearance, the beach became a nonstarter as a nighttime meetup spot. Staff retreated to the woods for their gatherings, and on the last night before going home, campers agreed to meet at the soccer field once they snuck out. But campers become counselors, and counselors enter society, and soon history becomes myth and legend.
Yet Fortingale Lake’s daughter was blamed when the baseball coach drowned. There was a rowdy happening, far past curfew, where the counselors took off their clothing for a late night swim. One young man dove and never surfaced for air.
“Antony Sanchez, 1974. Were you there that night?”
“No, I had snuck off to the lodge with a female counselor…”
“What about the others?”
“Well, young Jeremy Doogle—”
“1982. How is the story told?”
Jeremy Doogle was in Tadpole, the youngest boys cabin on camp. That summer Tadpole cabin constantly fought, the boys didn’t get along at all. The counselors decided to sneak out after curfew. Maybe they didn’t even know about Fortingale’s daughter by then. They thought it would be a great bonding experience. So the boys took toilet paper and teepee’d one of the girl’s cabins. But they got caught. They scattered and ran away, separating into smaller groups. When they all got back to the cabin, two of the boys were terrified: crying, distraught, pale. They told their counselors they had seen a grey lady with a flowing white gown on the beach. They all ran, but they had lost Jeremy. It was a dark, moonless night with curiously quiet loons. The counselors looked for a long time before waking up the campus head. They searched everywhere. His body was found a day or two later across the lake.
Fortingale Lake’s daughter had grown up into a lady. Every sighting after Jeremy confirmed she was an adult. A new generation told stories about The Lady of the Lake, not Fortingale’s daughter.
“Were you at camp when Jeremy drowned?”
“That was during my river rat phase. I spent a few summers as a rafting guide up north.”
“So when you returned, did you hear the stories?”
“Of course. I didn’t think much of it; there was a whole new generation of campers and counselors. That the name changed didn’t mean anything to me. It was just the same ghost story.”
“And what job did you have in 1997?”
“I was boys campus director. That one should be the most well documented.”
“Yes. Please, humor me.”
New stories emerged about the other drowned. As always, there were believers and non-believers. The story changed countless times. But after Tara Sinclair, everyone agreed that The Lady of the Lake was the most legitimate. Her sightings were given the most credence. Tara’s co-counselor, Julia Montgomery, claimed that they were out late one night on the beach. They were just talking; it had been a difficult summer. Julia says that a grey lady came right out of the water and grabbed Tara. The girls screamed, but the Lady dragged Tara by the foot across the beach and into the lake.
Julia spent years in and out of psychiatric care. She is said to listen to an album of loon calls on repeat every new moon.
“Do you remember the night Tara drowned? Remember how Julia was inconsolable?”
“It was my night off. Didn’t find out until the morning.”
“Right. And how would you end the story?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you were telling the ghost story. Some of the older staff told me you know the story best. I believe it. If you were telling it to them, how would you end it?”
“Detective. I have told you what I know. This is hardly appropriate in the wake of—”
“How would you end the story? To really scare your audience? How do you keep the campers from sneaking out? If you’re a counselor and you’ve got some hormone-raging teenagers you’re worried about?”
The Lady of the Lake is often dismissed, regardless of how many would come forward and claim they’ve seen her. But it is true. There have been four drownings, four deaths at camp associated with this specter. Sometimes the story is exaggerated and fantasized. I’ve heard she’s been seen dancing on the lake in satanic rituals with the other drowned. Some say she roams camp at night trying to lure campers out of bed. Some believe she wears the head of a loon; some think she devours the people she steals. I don’t believe any of this. I think she just wants friends.
I tell everyone I know: beware the moonless night. The sound of loons is a comfort. She does not need any more friends.
“You’ll need to update the story. There have been five now.”
“Are we done here, detective?”
“Do you believe in her?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is she real? Have you seen her?”
“Detective…”
“Have you seen her?”
“How can anyone be sure what they might’ve seen once or twice? There were times I was barely sleeping at camp, staying out late and partying…”
“I think you’ve seen her.”
“I don’t intend to be mocked. I’ve been at this camp for a long time. It has a life of its own. The buildings all have their own personalities. The place breathes. You can feel it in the trees, the way they creak with the wind. If you stand outside under the stars; if you’re here when two hundred kids are sprinting around, laughing, playing. At the end of the summer when everyone’s hugging and crying… Call me crazy. This place has a heartbeat. And the trees, the cabin, the ground… we’re all mourning this latest loss. Maybe Camp Fortingale is haunted. Do you intend to indict a ghost? We’ll be closed down on our own. Parents talk, and five drownings since 1964 is not reassuring anyone.”
“I do not intend to indict a ghost, or shut you down. But please, at one point you thought you saw her? What was it like?”
“Detective…”
“Five! Five kids! Gone! All accidents?”
“Okay, once, I thought, oh, I don’t know… I thought I saw her once. When I was a counselor. Second year with the Marmots— a middle school cabin— I was walking back one night after drinking too much. And maybe indulging in a few other pleasures… It froze me. Sobered me up right away. There she was. You’ll think I’m crazy. But she was out there, just standing in the middle of the lake. I thought it was a boat. I thought I was crazy. But I realized… the flowing white gown… My heart stopped. I ran. I ran back to my cabin. I don’t think I slept that night. I watched out the window. It was terrifying. You know, and then time passes. You walk back alone again, one night, you don’t see anything… You stay out late a few more times… You have doubts. You wonder how high you really were that night…”
“I’ve read all the reports. Maybe it really is a ghost.”
“You’ve got a theory, detective?”
“I do. And you might think I’m the crazy one. But I don’t think Lilliana ever drown. In fact, I think she’s still alive. Ghosts don’t age, Doug. She should’ve never grown up. I think she’s still alive. I think she’s living in the woods on camp. She doesn’t want more friends. She wants people to know about her. No one missed Lilliana Lockwood. People fear The Lady of the Lake. Now, the floating on the water I can’t explain. But how large is this property?”
“Forty acres.”
“And beyond that?”
“Wetlands. Protected lands, wildlife areas.”
“Wilderness. I think she’s out there. And you know what Doug, how long have you been here?”
“Why, detective?”
“I think she’s always had one friend. I think you’re protecting her. And I think I can prove it.”
Zack Smith, 2023