Off Season This one isn't a ghost story. Nothing happened…
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Off Season
This one isn't a ghost story. Nothing happened that I can't explain, except for one part, and that one part is the reason I've never really shaken it. Seven of us went, and all seven of us still talk about it, and none of us has a good answer for that one thing.
It was a few years ago, in December. A friend of mine had grown up going to a beach town out on the coast, one of those places that's alive in the summer and closed the rest of the year. He described it like it was paradise. A cabin near the water, a little harbor, fish and chips, a lighthouse. Seven of us split the cost of a cabin at the state park for a couple of nights. We were young and it was cheap and we wanted an adventure. We got one.
The first thing that was wrong was how empty it was. Not quiet. Empty. We drove into the town and there were no cars. No people on the sidewalks, no lights on in the houses, nothing moving on the road but us. In the whole campground there was one other vehicle, a sheriff's patrol car, parked up near the entrance. I remember being glad it was there. It made the emptiness feel supervised instead of abandoned.
The campground itself was half underwater. The winters out there are just months of rain that never stops, and the whole site had flooded. The picnic benches were stacked and chained together. Every building was locked except one bathroom. We couldn't really walk anywhere without wading, so we were more or less stuck in the cabin unless we drove. But we were together and it was funny at first, and we made the best of it.
So we drove into town to look around. We got lunch at the one place that was open, a little fish and chips shop, and we walked out to the lighthouse in the rain. And that was where we saw the first person. Other than us and the sheriff's car, the first living person in that whole town.
He was walking down the middle of the road by himself. Soaking wet, moving badly, like something was wrong with his leg. He was talking, but not to anyone. We were maybe sixty feet away and something about him made all seven of us go quiet at the same time. Then he stopped, and he shouted something none of us could make out, and he went down. Hard. Straight down onto the road, and he stayed there, moving. We called for help and we left. That was enough of the town for one day.
We went back to the cabin and tried to reset the night. We made dinner, we put on music, we laughed about the lighthouse guy because laughing about it was easier than the alternative. And for a couple of hours it was actually fine. It felt like a trip again.
Around eight, a car came down our road too fast. An old beater, engine knocking, and it parked crooked in front of the closed bathrooms and just sat there. Nobody got out. It sat with the lights off for about forty-five minutes, and then it drove away. We told ourselves it was nothing. Somebody lost, somebody turning around. But everybody had gone a little still.
Later, two of us walked over to the one open bathroom to shower before bed. It was past ten and it was raining hard. And there was a woman sitting on the bench outside the showers. Mid-thirties, dressed for a summer night, not a December one, sitting perfectly calm in the rain like she'd been waiting there a long time. I was young and stupid and I actually asked her how the showers worked, because I assumed she was a camper. She looked at us and she smiled and she said something I still don't fully understand. She said, "You two aren't supposed to be here yet." Not angry. Almost gentle. Then she went back to looking at the road.
We showered fast and we did not talk. When we came out she was standing much closer to the door than she had been, and I told her to leave us alone, and we walked back quickly. And as we walked, the beater car came down the road again, pulled into the same crooked spot, and a man got out and started arguing with her. He looked at us the whole time he was talking to her. Then she got in his car and they drove off, and we told ourselves, again, that it was nothing. Just people. Just a bad little town in the off season.
Everyone went to bed except me and one friend. We stayed up talking, low, the way you do when you don't want to admit you're on edge. And around three thirty in the morning, we heard the engines. Not one car. Several. Three big trucks and the beater, all of them coming down our road together, and they parked in a line by the bathrooms, and men got out with flashlights.
They started going cabin to cabin. Shining the lights in the windows. Trying the doors, testing the windows, moving down the row toward us. They were on the second cabin before we understood what we were watching. We woke everyone up. Seven people, every light on, and we made ourselves loud and visible on purpose, and when the men saw how many of us there were, they stopped. They stood in the parking lot and talked and pointed at our cabin, and we packed everything we owned into our cars in about four minutes flat.
We had to drive past them to get out. They pulled in behind us and followed us all the way from the campground to the highway, headlights right on our bumper, and then at the on-ramp they turned around and went back. We called the sheriff the whole time. The number for the patrol at the campground, the one whose car we'd seen parked there since the first afternoon. It rang and rang and no one ever answered. Not once, all night.
Here's the part I can't explain. A week later, still rattled, I called the county to report what had happened. I wanted it on record. I told them the campground, the dates, the patrol car. And the man on the phone was quiet for a second, and then he told me that campground had been closed for the season since the end of October, and that there had been no patrol assigned to it, no car, no deputy, nothing out there at all. He was certain. I described the car. He said it plainly, like he'd said it before to someone else.
There was no one out there. There hadn't been anyone out there for months.
#entertainment
This one isn't a ghost story. Nothing happened that I can't explain, except for one part, and that one part is the reason I've never really shaken it. Seven of us went, and all seven of us still talk about it, and none of us has a good answer for that one thing.
It was a few years ago, in December. A friend of mine had grown up going to a beach town out on the coast, one of those places that's alive in the summer and closed the rest of the year. He described it like it was paradise. A cabin near the water, a little harbor, fish and chips, a lighthouse. Seven of us split the cost of a cabin at the state park for a couple of nights. We were young and it was cheap and we wanted an adventure. We got one.
The first thing that was wrong was how empty it was. Not quiet. Empty. We drove into the town and there were no cars. No people on the sidewalks, no lights on in the houses, nothing moving on the road but us. In the whole campground there was one other vehicle, a sheriff's patrol car, parked up near the entrance. I remember being glad it was there. It made the emptiness feel supervised instead of abandoned.
The campground itself was half underwater. The winters out there are just months of rain that never stops, and the whole site had flooded. The picnic benches were stacked and chained together. Every building was locked except one bathroom. We couldn't really walk anywhere without wading, so we were more or less stuck in the cabin unless we drove. But we were together and it was funny at first, and we made the best of it.
So we drove into town to look around. We got lunch at the one place that was open, a little fish and chips shop, and we walked out to the lighthouse in the rain. And that was where we saw the first person. Other than us and the sheriff's car, the first living person in that whole town.
He was walking down the middle of the road by himself. Soaking wet, moving badly, like something was wrong with his leg. He was talking, but not to anyone. We were maybe sixty feet away and something about him made all seven of us go quiet at the same time. Then he stopped, and he shouted something none of us could make out, and he went down. Hard. Straight down onto the road, and he stayed there, moving. We called for help and we left. That was enough of the town for one day.
We went back to the cabin and tried to reset the night. We made dinner, we put on music, we laughed about the lighthouse guy because laughing about it was easier than the alternative. And for a couple of hours it was actually fine. It felt like a trip again.
Around eight, a car came down our road too fast. An old beater, engine knocking, and it parked crooked in front of the closed bathrooms and just sat there. Nobody got out. It sat with the lights off for about forty-five minutes, and then it drove away. We told ourselves it was nothing. Somebody lost, somebody turning around. But everybody had gone a little still.
Later, two of us walked over to the one open bathroom to shower before bed. It was past ten and it was raining hard. And there was a woman sitting on the bench outside the showers. Mid-thirties, dressed for a summer night, not a December one, sitting perfectly calm in the rain like she'd been waiting there a long time. I was young and stupid and I actually asked her how the showers worked, because I assumed she was a camper. She looked at us and she smiled and she said something I still don't fully understand. She said, "You two aren't supposed to be here yet." Not angry. Almost gentle. Then she went back to looking at the road.
We showered fast and we did not talk. When we came out she was standing much closer to the door than she had been, and I told her to leave us alone, and we walked back quickly. And as we walked, the beater car came down the road again, pulled into the same crooked spot, and a man got out and started arguing with her. He looked at us the whole time he was talking to her. Then she got in his car and they drove off, and we told ourselves, again, that it was nothing. Just people. Just a bad little town in the off season.
Everyone went to bed except me and one friend. We stayed up talking, low, the way you do when you don't want to admit you're on edge. And around three thirty in the morning, we heard the engines. Not one car. Several. Three big trucks and the beater, all of them coming down our road together, and they parked in a line by the bathrooms, and men got out with flashlights.
They started going cabin to cabin. Shining the lights in the windows. Trying the doors, testing the windows, moving down the row toward us. They were on the second cabin before we understood what we were watching. We woke everyone up. Seven people, every light on, and we made ourselves loud and visible on purpose, and when the men saw how many of us there were, they stopped. They stood in the parking lot and talked and pointed at our cabin, and we packed everything we owned into our cars in about four minutes flat.
We had to drive past them to get out. They pulled in behind us and followed us all the way from the campground to the highway, headlights right on our bumper, and then at the on-ramp they turned around and went back. We called the sheriff the whole time. The number for the patrol at the campground, the one whose car we'd seen parked there since the first afternoon. It rang and rang and no one ever answered. Not once, all night.
Here's the part I can't explain. A week later, still rattled, I called the county to report what had happened. I wanted it on record. I told them the campground, the dates, the patrol car. And the man on the phone was quiet for a second, and then he told me that campground had been closed for the season since the end of October, and that there had been no patrol assigned to it, no car, no deputy, nothing out there at all. He was certain. I described the car. He said it plainly, like he'd said it before to someone else.
There was no one out there. There hadn't been anyone out there for months.
#entertainment
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