Butcher In The Cabin

1. How It All Begins-3

He had on a dirty and ripped pair of jeans and an old, worn-out, and torn shirt. He seemed to be slightly taller than me, his build was that of someone that was malnourished; his skin was leathery, almost inhuman looking. His facial expression was very odd to me; it was hard to tell if he was crying or laughing. I jumped up, frightened from the sight of the boy, and I was now on my feet with my back to him.

I did a quick spin around to meet this stranger face-to-face. However, he was nowhere to be found. After gathering myself, I decided to have one more glance around the place; still, there wasn’t a soul around. So I shrugged and chalked it up to nothing more than a bad dream like last night. To my surprise, I happened to notice that I had stayed out too late.

If I didn’t get home soon, my a*s would be in more trouble than it already was. Without even thinking about anything else, I grabbed my comic book and made a run for it back home. I ran and ran as fast as I could, but let’s face it, I knew I was a dead man. There was my home right in front of me. I didn’t stop or slow down. I bolted straight on in the front door, apologizing as I ran in the house like a madman. I was expecting to get yelled at for being late, but there wasn’t anyone in the living room. I then heard voices coming from the kitchen.

That’s when I decided I would try and pout my way out of trouble. So I slumped over and slowly walked into the kitchen, but instead of getting yelled at, I was completely ignored. No shouting, no yelling, no nothing. I walked further into the kitchen, and still, they treated me like I wasn’t even there. The hell with it, I thought to myself and just walked on to my room. I figured this would be the perfect chance to sneak away and not have to deal with my parents.

“Sam. You’re grounded. There won’t be any supper for you. Clean up and go to bed!” It was my dad.

“Shit.” And here I was thinking my mom and dad had completely ignored me; guess I was wrong. I answered the best way I knew how. “All right, Dad. Sorry about being late.”

My dad answered me back calmly, “It’s fine. You just need to get your rest. You have a very long day tomorrow, and it starts very early.” Well, at least on the bright side, I didn’t get yelled at. Don’t get me wrong, though, I still wasn’t a happy camper, but I also knew not to start a fight with my dad. I didn’t answer back. I went to the bathroom and cleaned myself up and got ready for bed.

As I lay in my bed, I could hear my parents talking. Usually, they were pretty quiet when I was trying to sleep, but this time they seemed like they didn’t care, and I was the topic of their conversation. They talked about the things they were going to do while I was gone. You could hear the excitement in their voices, to be honest, that pissed me off badly. I grabbed my covers and pulled them over my head. That way I couldn’t hear what they were saying about me anymore.

Then this idea came to my mind. All I had to do was stay up for the rest of the night. It was a stupid idea, I know, but at that time it seemed perfect to me. In my mind, I was going to show them who was the boss, but that plan soon fell to pieces as my eyes began to shut and sleep took my body over. I swear, though, before I fell asleep, I heard a faint voice that said, “See you soon.” It was followed by a chuckle. Then off to sleep I went.

That night I got a good night's sleep. I didn’t have a nightmare, and I can say that I really needed that. Before I knew it, the night was over, and the rays of daylight made their way through my curtains. I could also hear faint sounds of footsteps moving around downstairs, which let me know my parents were also awake. If I had to take a guess, I would say my mom was making breakfast, and my dad was more than likely getting my bag packed up and ready to go. As for myself, I did my best to stay under my covers, that didn’t last either.

It wasn’t long before my mom yelled out to me, “Sam. Wake up. It’s time to eat and get ready to go now.” And of course, as bad as I felt, I got myself out of bed, got dressed, and proceeded to make my way downstairs and into the kitchen. My mom acted like she was in a huge hurry; she had everyone’s spot set at the table and hurried me down onto my chair. My dad also rushed into the room and took his place at the table; then my mom took her seat too.

I took one last chance to try and beg them not to make me go.

“Mom? Dad?”

They stopped eating for a brief second to look up at me and ask, “What?”

I knew this wasn’t going to end well, but I had to at least try. “Please, don’t make me go. I have—”

Before I could say another word, I was cut off by my dad, “You’re going. End of. Now eat your food. We have to leave here in a minute or two.”

Again, I just lowered my head and started eating, there wasn’t a point in saying another word. Before I knew it, my mom and dad had finished their food, and I had barely taken a bite. What came next was unexpected. My parents pretty much rushed me out the door—hell, I didn’t even get to finish my food. It wasn’t like we were late or anything like that, but that didn’t stop them from pushing me out the door and into our SUV.

“Is his bag in the back?” my mom asked my dad.

“Yes, dear. He’s all ready to go,” my dad responded.

“Hey! What about me? Why are we in such a hurry?”

Of course, they ignored me. Again they talked among themselves and left me out of the conversation. Off we went toward the meeting place so my happy a*s could be sent off to summer camp, or hell, however you want to look at it.

I couldn’t help but think about the place I was going. I just couldn’t shake this bad feeling. I knew something bad was going to happen. And then my mind shifted, I started thinking about the nightmares I had been having; they had been intense and scary. I wondered about the boy I had seen standing over me yesterday. Was he real? Or just part of my nightmares? And why me? Why was this happening to me? I have never had nightmares in my life until now. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about everything as I was already there. I could see three buses in line waiting to take me to my destination.

The vehicle stopped, and my dad looked at me and said, “We’re here, son, grab your bag like a man, and walk over to the buses.”

“Yes, sir,” I said as I reached over and grabbed my bag. My parents got out of the vehicle to bid me farewell. I put my arms around my mom and gave her a hug, then I turned toward my dad and did the same to him. I also told them both that I loved them. You could see the surprised look on their faces. I was even surprised. I, for some reason, felt that would be the last time I would see them again.

“Have fun, and we will see you in a few months, dear,” my mom said to me.

I stood there and didn’t say a word back. I watched as they both got back in the vehicle and drove off. I so badly wanted to run after them, but I didn’t. I did as my dad said, I turned around and made my way to the buses. I had a lot of bad feelings as I walked closer, but those feelings went away when I heard an all too familiar voice.

“Hey, dumbass!” I turned around to see Tommy walking my way.

“Hey, Tommy.” I was happy to see at least one of my friends there.

“Glad to see a familiar face,” he said.

“Yeah, I know the feeling, Tommy.” We both paused for a second and then busted out laughing. We started talking again after we caught our breath.

“Hey, Tommy. Have you seen any of the other guys around yet?”

“Nope, just got here myself. You?”

“Same here,” I replied.

Now let me tell you a little bit about Tommy because I’m sure you’re curious. First and foremost, he’s a hardass, and what I mean by that is that he’s been through a lot of s**t and had to earn his status as a jock. He’s athletic and on the smart side and actually the first black friend I’ve ever had.

We talked for a while before another familiar voice interrupted the conversation. “Hey, look who it is, Sam and Tommy. What’s up, losers?” We couldn’t help but to start cracking up, because we knew exactly who it was.

“How’s it going, Chubs?” Tommy yelled out first.

“Chubs, my friend. What’s happening?” I shouted. We walked up to him and both gave him a high five.

“It’s going good, guys,” he smiled. “Nice to see you guys here as well. Who knows, maybe this year we can take on the bullies,” he laughed. It was nice to have almost the whole g**g here, still there was one of us that was missing. But still, seeing friendly faces put my mixed emotions at ease, yet curiosity had gained the upper hand in me.

“Has anyone seen John Boy?” I asked. Tommy and Chubs just looked at me and gave a faint smile. “What’s wrong, guys?” I could tell something wasn't right.

“Let’s talk about it later.” Tommy replied.

“Yeah, I agree with Tommy.” Chubs then lowered his head looking down at the ground. He gave a fake laugh before looking back up at me and saying, “Looks like we will be the three amigos this time around.” Just like Chubs to make a remark like that, always the jokester.

Ah, Chubs, one friend I will always remember. His real name is Billy McNown; he was a heavyset young man and always the camp clown. He played more pranks on more people than I could count, trouble always seemed to find that kid. I swear he pissed off the bullies just for the hell of it whenever he needed a good laugh.

That would probably explain why Tommy, John Boy, and myself became really good friends with him. We all had two things that brought us together as friends: our hatred for summer camp and the camp bullies. And “Chubs” just seemed like a good nickname for Billy, and it stuck with him through all the years at camp.

As for John Boy, he was my very first friend that I made so many years ago. He was like me: shy and not very social, he had a love for comic books like I had. The funny thing is, we started off hating each other at first, but later on we had earned each others respect and trust at the end of our first year of camp.

Tommy? Well, he became mine and John Boy’s good friend the second year of camp, and then Chubs, and so on and so forth. Looks like John Boy wouldn’t be around that year though, and I had a feeling either Tommy or Chubs knew why. Perhaps they both knew something and didn’t want to say. I just had a feeling both of them were hiding something, and I was going to find out, it was just a matter of time.

Me being me, of course, I had to ask, “Hey, guys, do you know something about John Boy that you’re not telling me?” Tommy and Chubs both gave me that “shut the hell up” look. Right then and there, I knew I had better not push my luck with them on this subject. I backed off and started talking about something else. I look back on that now and wished I hadn’t backed off at all; things might have ended differently if I had pushed them into telling me everything at the time.

But you can’t change the past, can you? We talked for what seemed to be hours about how our winters went and about school and how we were all dreading the bus ride to camp. Hell, we even talked about how hot some of the women counselors were. Before we knew it, the parking lot had filled up with all the other teens and kids that were also heading for camp.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the geek squad.” Followed by laughter. Then we heard another voice, “Hey, guys. Looks like we get another year with the crybabies.” Then more laughter ensued afterward.

“Who said that?” Tommy yelled, while Chubs and myself looked around in the crowd of kids to find out who was saying that to us.

“Up here, dweebs.” We heard banging noises coming from one of the buses, and that got our attention. “Looking for someone, nerds?”

There, preparing for our demise, right in front of us on the bus hanging out the windows, were the bullies. To the left was Jimmy—we didn’t know his last name, but he preferred to be called Spike because it sounded cool.

To the right was big Tony Parks, and in the center, like always, was Johnny Goodman, the leader himself of the bullies. All were star football players, all were big-time assholes. Every teen and kid in camp wanted to hang out with them, which, in turn, made all of them Johnny’s pawns.