Monster Camp

Naomi was only just rousing out of her deep sleep when the scream rang out. She sat right up in bed, and then immediately regretted picking the bottom bunk. She swore quietly under her breath, a hand over where she'd bumped herself as she slipped out of bed. The bump wasn’t doing anything to help the headache that was already brewing from what she’d drank. She’d turned down the joint, not knowing if the smoke would damage her lungs like a cigarette might. Hand still on her forehead, she rushed to the door, walking out still in just her pyjama shorts and tank.

She spotted Eliza walking back, letting her hand drop to her side again as the pain ebbed off a little. "Hey, was that you? What's up?" She asked, noticing that traumatised look in her eye. As she spoke she looked around, and the first thing she noticed was that empty car park. What the fuck was going on with that? Had the counsellors all just left?
 
"It was Claire..." Eliza said looking at Naomi, but not really seeing her. "Supposed to tell everyone to go into the counselor's bungalow.... and to stay there. And need to get Abel." Her normally lively tone was a little off, a little slow.

She looked at Naomi, now. "Sunshine... it was... it was awful." She frowned. "Can you go knock on the doors? Tell everyone to meet in the counselor's bungalow?" Had she already said that? "I need to go get Abel." And then she just... wandered off, to go pound on the door where the counselor's slept. "Abel, Justin!"

What did she say? Mangled dog? "Emergency!"
 
Nico heard the scream as he was getting his shoes on. "What was that?" he asked the bungalow at large, not waiting for an answer as he quickly finished tying his shoelaces and hurried out the door. He wasn't sure if anyone was even up yet, but he wasn't gonna wait for them.

He saw Eliza talking to Naomi, both looked shaken up, but it clearly hadn't been either of them who had screamed. No... that was Claire. What was she looking at? Nico jogged over, eyes going wide as he saw the dog's body. "Holy shit," he breathed, trying to get closer. "That's sick. What happened?"
 
Abel and Justin were already getting dressed after hearing Claire's horripilant scream and the albino opened the door in a hurry when Eliza knocked.
"The hell's going on?" Justin asked, Abel didn't ask, he ran up to where the scream had come up and pulled Justin along.

"Nico go back to the bungalows for frag's sake!." He said, Abel, shoving the kid back towards the rest and rushing up to Claire.
"WHAT THE FUCK"
Both men stared at the lack of vehicles and the dog's corpse, stabbed with a tree branch and half eaten... and the goop everywhere.
"I... What the hell?." Abel managed. There had no other explanation for this than the fact that monsters must have been responsible for it. The goop, mainly, was what gave them away.

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Klaus was already asleep, occasionally dozing off on his bed from time to time as he had taken a nightly walk and he hadn't really been able to reconcile his sleep afterwards. When they heard the scream, clearly Claire's, he jumped from his bed and left the bungalow, he was already dressed, strangely enough.
Eliza and Naomi, as well as Nico, were outside already... he yawned and looked at them.
"What's going on?..."
 
Izzy probably would've overslept if it were not for the commotion. She had almost jumped out of bed before remembering that she was on the top bunk. She pulled her trademark beanie over her bedhead and quickly climbed down. Her other two roommates were already up. Naomi seemed almost as confused as herself. But Eliza...something about seeing her so shaken up gave the younger girl a bad feeling.

Morbid curiosity drove her to rush past the two older girls and out of the bungalow. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"Wh-" She could feel her breathing hitch up. Her stomach turned. She shut her eyes tight, rubbed them with the back of her hand, opened them again. Sunshine's body was still there. That and some sort of disgusting looking gooey substance spread over the ground. She didn't even notice all the missing vehicles. Probably because at this point, she was more concerned with not losing everything she'd eaten and drank last night.
 
Claire blinked when she heard Nico's voice. "Go, back to the bungalows." She instructed. Her voice was calm, but she looked near hysteria. It was clear what had done this, although what had happened to the vehicles was a mystery. She heard Abel's voice and saw Justin and Abel and breathed a sigh of relief because she was barely holding it together and she needed another adult. "I came out here, and this was just..." She indicated to Sunshine, unable to look at the poor dog anymore.

"And Hope." Deep breath. "I can't find Hope." Deeeep breath.

Finally Nina was coming to inspect what was happening. She saw the counselors gathered around something and as she got closer, her normally cheerful face... broke. "Sunshine!" She yelled and ran the rest of the way to her pet, her best friend. "Oh my god." She cried and Claire thought this was the worst part of all because she'd never seen Nina without a smile.

The camp director reached a hand forward, like she wanted to touch the dog, but then she retracted the hand. "Sunshine," Nina sobbed, and Claire helped to pick the woman back up. She was pretty sure Nina loved that dog more than she liked most people, which... said a lot since the old woman was always so friendly.

Nina was going to be useless.

Eliza... was calm. She looked completely horrified, like she might throw up, but she was surprisingly calm. "A monster ate Sunshine," She informed Klaus.
 
The world pounded at his skull. His eyes would open, everything around his bed foggy and blurred. It felt like a jackhammer was going off in his brain, completely with shouting. No...wait...the shouting was...

"Shit..." Tony would mumble, sitting up from his bottom bunk and looking around his bungalow to find his clothes. Hungover and honestly pissed off, it took him awhile to remember where he'd put his suitcases, dig them out from under his bed, brush his teeth, and get ready to greet the world. And boy oh boy, did he wish he hadn't even bothered.

Things had gone to shit. Like, really to shit. It didn't take him long to gather what was going on. Missing kid, missing counselor, dead dog, lots of damage to the vehicles. "Christ on a cracker..." Tony half-choked, hand covering his mouth and he joined the group. This was...shit. He'd seen some things before, not a lot, but when you go near the fences, sometimes you come across bodies. It was a fact of life by this point. But it was one thing to see it fresh, and on top of that, a harmless little mutt. "Poor fucker..."
 
Nico didn't listen to Claire, but he did take a step back when Nina came rushing forward. Her hysteria sombered him up a note, and he felt a bit bad for his earlier reaction. Not like she had been there to see it, anyway.

And Hope was missing, too? That was- wait. Hroth. "Has anyone seen Hroth?" Nico asked the group in general. "He went into the woods last night, did he ever get back?" A dark part of him knew the answer. For the first time, he felt a jolt of fear, and he looked around warily, as if waiting for something to lunge at them from the shadows.
 
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Abel didn't really feel bad the the dog itself. It was good company but at the end of the day it was just an animal. However, the problem came when Nina arrived and obviously her sentimental link to the poor animal was pretty strong and she would suffer. Oh lord, or whatever catholics say.

"Er... we can't leave it there. We'll organise a proper burial and everything, Justin, go get Klaus. He used to go hunting a lot, I don't think he'll mind unsticking the branch from the dog." He whispered to the other counselor.
The albino gave Claire a look, Hope was nowhere to be seen... and he didn't know how to help Nina at all. Claire would most likely be better at it, he wasn't very emotionally involved with the dog situation. He was more emotionally involved with the fact that they were trapped and these tracks were clearly monsters.
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"What??, monsters don't kill animals, that's weird as heck." Sometimes they did eat a lonely cow or sheep, but dogs?, monsters didn't kill dogs in Klaus' experience... he walked right to the place where all the commotion was going on, finding Justin halfway there.
"That's so fragging weird" He commented, completely unaffected by the impaled and half eaten corpse.
"What?" Abel asked
"Monsters don't kill dogs, this is super weird"
 
Mangled dog, missing people - it was almost too much for the young girl to take. Not to mention she was just starting to register that every vehicle in the vicinity was gone.Were these really the work of a monster? More than one monster? Izzy chewed on her bottom lip.

"Hroth...? I don't think so? Did he even return to his bungalow?"
 
Eliza looked at Klaus and snapped, "I know what I fucking saw, okay and there was that gooey stuff all around him. A monster ate the dog, I don't care what you think monster's normally do. It's not 'weird'." She glared as he turned and headed toward the dead dog. "Claire said we should stay over here," She called out, as well as informing the rest of the campers. Her head was pounding. She needed food and water, though she doubted she'd be able to eat now.

She took a few deep breaths and turned to look at Nico. Come to think of it, "No, I haven't seen him since he wandered off last night. Isn't he in your bungalow?" If she remembered the list, correctly. Eliza took a seat on the porch of the bungalow and ran a finger through her thick curls. She was so not ready to die.

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Claire managed to get a brokenhearted Nina over toward the campfire and seated on one of the logs there. When her crying had quieted some, she went into the offices. She was gone for about ten minutes before she returned and headed for Abel's side, avoiding looking at the dog. Pulling the other counselor to the side, she'd ask in a whisper "What are we going to do? I don't know if you noticed, but all the cars are gone, except for the bus and it doesn't look in good shape." She made sure to lower her voice even further, speaking directly into his ear so he would be the only one to hear the news she shared next, "All the phones and computers are missing in Nina's office. We don't have a way to contact any help and... I'm not sure that heading into town, on foot, is exactly the best idea."
 
"No, Hroth was with David and Anthony, I'm with Klaus and Leon," Nico answered, shaking his head. "You guys... I don't think he ever came back." Was it even possible to survive a night out in the woods with monsters? Nico wasn't optimistic about it. Although then again, it didn't look like camp was much safer. The situation hadn't fully sank in yet, it still felt like a video game or an action movie, but it was starting to. Could Hroth really be dead? The guy had been annoying, sure, but that was messed up. And hadn't there been another counselor, too? Where was she? Nico looked over to where Claire and Abel were talking in whispers the kids couldn't overhear. They were trying to appear calm, but it wasn't working. How screwed were they, exactly?
 
Abel looked at Claire and listened to her. He was biting his nails. "I-i have no idea?, this wasn't in the goddamn job description. What im concerned about is why arent we all dead by now?, there's no doubt that was monsters and if they could be stopped by wooden walls they wouldn't be captured behind electric fences!. Frag..." He said, looking at her. "And they aren't vampires, its not like daylight stops them. This is fragged up, and I have no idea of what we could do. Maybe get everyone a baseball bat so they can at least try to defend themselves. Frag..." he gulped, but the fear and nervousness didn't make it to his eyes.
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Meanwhile Klaus walked up to the dog, cringing for a couple of seconds before attempting to take the branch off the dog's body. To un stick it from it. It took some pulling and moving but it ended breaking and Klaus threw the branch away. They could move the dog now. It was gross. But he had had to skin animals before so it wasn't that disgusting compared to other stuff.
 
WHAT IS THAT FOCKING NOISE, His head pounding like a marching drum as the noises outside his bungalow only grew louder. Leon was the last to wake up from all the kids, not through lack of trying. His eyes felt puffy, and the stabbing pain behind his corneas only worsened when the light of the window would cascade in. The noises outside didn't get any better to his dismay, so with a final huff and silent tantrum in his bunk, he begrudgingly would get up.

Shambling over to the area everyone else was huddling around, attempting to shield his eyes from the tyrannical sun with little success. His head hazy, trying to remember the last point of the night before he blacked out. He couldn't recall, possibly some time after Tony's story. Tony's story... What was it about again? He couldn't remember fully, and he wasn't sure he cared, more focused on the pain and suffering he was currently in. Stumbling a couple of times walking across the camp, like a zombie in one of those old movies he liked.

Upon reaching the rest of the group, he would continue shambling around the taller kids to get a better look. It would take a few moments to register what was fully going on, but once realized he would quickly shift his gaze all about the scene. The dog, the counselors, the slime trails soon after that. It was all to unbelievable, he must still be experiencing some cross-faded nightmare.
 
Tony honestly didn't give two shits if there were counselors around. The sight in front of his had him shaking, his stomach doing roller-coaster drops in his stomach. "Fuck dude...Nah, this is too heavy. I'm not doing this." Reaching into his pockets with quivering hands, he'd find his lighter, and one of his last remaining cancer sticks. He'd fumble, repeatedly, trying to get it to light. Once he finally did, however, a look of further dismay washed over his face. It wasn't helping him. It wasn't calming him down. And all that smoke entering his body had another side effect.

Turning away from the group, Tony would dash around the corner of the closest building, and empty his stomach on the ground. Twice. The second time resulting in nothing but acid and bile coming out of his mouth, burning his throat and tongue. "No...God damn it, no. Why did that fucking asshole have to take my phone." Another, deeper drag on his cigarette was about the other thing he could think of doing. At this moment, his mind was racing with a thousand and one thoughts, but only one was really important, superseding his previous number one goal of getting laid.

Survive. Do whatever it took to survive. Help had to come eventually. The break, there had to be damage right? a way they got in? in the fence would be noticed eventually. Help would come. It had to. The camp was legit, and being this close to monster territory, it had to do timed report-ins, right? Thats how it worked in America anyway. Why wouldn't it be that way here? It absolutely had to be. People would come. He'd get out of here.

No matter the cost.
 
This was... a lot to take in. "What do you mean he never came back?" Sure, he'd been weird and completely awkward, but he was still a person and, as far as she knew, not a bad person. They were going to die. She had very few survival skills that she could think of, beyond thinking quick on her feet. She wouldn't last long. The panic started building in her chest and she was seconds away from hyperventilating.

She looked to the counselors, looking for a sense of calm and all she caught was Klaus pulling the branch out of the dog. "Oh, god." She felt a tugging in her stomach and had to swallow down the bile.

Claire sighed. They needed to be strong. Nina was a wreck and Justin needed direction--sometimes she really just thought he was a cardboard cutout who could walk and talk. "Come on," She muttered and wandered over to where most of the children had gathered.... just in time to witness Tony throwing up. Great.

"Come on, let's move into the dining area. All of you." She gestured the group at large and let Abel lead the way while she stayed behind to get a head count.
 
"Oh...oh god..." Izzy was going pale. Because from the sound of it, it wasn't just the dog. Hroth had never returned from the forest. Hope had disappeared. The dog impaled on a branch could have been a warning. They were next, weren't they? Weren't they? The girl's anxieties and fears showed in the form of little things she couldn't help - the short rapid wheezes, the blinking, and the twitching. She needed some time by herself. But at the same time, she didn't want to be alone.

She had watched enough horror movies (and lost enough nights of sleep) to know where this was going.

As Klaus started pulling the dog's carcass off the branch, Izzy turned away. She just wanted to leave. So when Claire told them all to head to the dining area, Izzy was the first to follow Abel to the place.
 
"I mean he didn't come back, do I look like I'm joking?" Nico snapped, a bit harsher than necessary. "And if those things did that to the dog..." he looked over to where Klaus was dragging Sunshine's body off, and didn't finish his sentence.

He saw Claire taking a headcount and fell back to talk to her. "Hroth is missing," he said, voice smaller than he had meant it to be. "He ran into the woods last night while we were playing truth or dare, nobody's seen him since." Eliza's panic was starting to set in, he could feel it, squeezing around his chest like a rubber band. His voice got higher and higher as he started to ramble. "Sh-should we go look for him? We have to at least go and look, right? I mean, what if he's still out there, what if he's hurt, or- or-"
 
Naomi could barely bring herself to react to what was going on around her. She felt so distant from the whole situation. She didn't make any move to go and see the dog, the look on everyone else's face was telling enough. How was this all happening? Two people were missing, but anyone could see that the word 'missing' was really just a disguise. Considering the other things - the vehicles and the dog - they were most definitely dead. Naomi would bet on it.

She slipped her head into her hands, starting to slip out of the daze. "Fuck," was all she could think to say. What the hell were they going to do? Just sit there and wait for help? That was one of the dumbest ideas she could think of. They would be fish in a barrel, an all-you-can-eat buffet. They had to find a way to get out.

She pulled her head away and looked to Nico. She shook her head. "No way. I don't think monsters take prisoners," she muttered. "We need to get somewhere safer than out in the open. Then we can figure out how we're going to get to the city." She was trying to be cool and levelheaded, but she wasn't sure how well it was showing on the outside. Walking too fast to be calm, she rushed off to the dining area, not caring that she was still in her pyjamas and slippers.
 
Abel took everyone to the dining area. He seemed nervous, no more singsongs, no more waltzing around.

"Alright, are we all here?" He was pretty sure they were missing somebody. David was there, Leon, Anthony was on his way, the three girls... the gamer wannabe...

Meanwhile, where Klaus was unsticking the half of the dog's body that was left from it, a huge, goop made creature's snout appeared from between the trees. It had smelled the open wound on the dog's body and it had been led there by it.
Klaus' mouth fell open and he stared, but there wasn't fear in his eyes. Instead, he kicked the dog's body towards the beast gently only to see it swallow it.
The last thing the teen did before screaming, pretending fear and surprise, was to exchange a look with Abel, that was the only one who could see what was going on with the monster and him. After that the scared boy ran towards the group.

The monster opened its gigantic jaws and let out a deafening scream towards the campers, exploring the terrain with it's voice as it bounced against the objects and brought information back to it.
 
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