Next To The Campfire

• Djordje Ivaneza, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

“Allen!” screamed Alissa as Allen threw his birthday cake at her face.
“Allen you shouldn’t of done that,” ordered Allen’s mum while he and his mates were laughing at his sister.
"Hey Allen, are we still going camping?" asked Johnny
"Yeah we are," answered Allen.

Allen and his friends James, Johnny and Max were all going camping tonight celebrating Allen's birthday. Allen and his friends are seventeen and they live in Los Angeles. Allen is a skinny boy with brown hair and brown eyes. James Allen’s friend from school has short brown hair and hazel eyes. Then we have Max which has black long hair and round glasses and lastly Johnny which has black spiky hair and big round eyes.

One hour later they were at the campsite
"What a long drive," complained James exhaustedly. They all unpacked their things and got a campfire ready for the night. They talked for one hour until night fell and it was getting dark.

They all sat around the campfire and told ghost stories until they all got tired so they decided to go sleep in their tents.
"Goodnight,” whispered Johnny and they were fast asleep. Allen suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, he was hearing tapping noises from outside. He decided to go outside, when he got out of the tent the noise stopped, Allen was confused.

Allen then decided to wake everyone up,
"I can't see anything, I'll go get a flashlight so we can rebuild this campfire," said James. James got the flashlight and everyone went looking for wood. After searching for five minutes they had found little wood.
"Hey guys, what’s that light over there?" asked Johnny
"Let’s find out," answered Allen. So everyone moved to the light, it was a house.

They went inside through an old wooden door that creaked loudly as it opened. As they went inside a huge gust of wind flew by them and slammed the door. Johnny reached for the door and turned the knob.
"Where locked in," said Max
"Do you guys hear that?” asked Max
"What?" asked Allen
"The voices,'' he answered.

They followed the voices until they got to a room, Allen grabbed the knob and slowly twisted it. He opened the door and it creaked loudly, the voices suddenly stopped as the door opened. They stepped inside and saw a long table with skeletons dressed in middle aged clothes it looked like they were having an event and something tragic had happened. The skeletons looked old and were all dirty and they all had a cup in their hand.

"This is terrifying, can we go?" asked James
"Yeah let's go," answered Allen. As they turned for the door it had vanished, suddenly a hand grabbed them by the mouth so they couldn’t breathe, and they all fainted. They suddenly woke up breathing hard, they were at the campsite and next to the dead campfire was a rotting skeleton hand.