One of my favorite parts of being a Boy Scout – and there are a lot of them – was the campfire ghost stories. One of the Scoutmasters, Mr. Cain, told the absolute best ghost stories. For years he spun tales that always amused and spooked us. He’d always tease us that someday he’d tell us the story of the Blue Ridge Mine… I was lucky enough to be on the trip where he actually told the story of the Blue Ridge Mine, and damn if I can’t remember any details of it – except I remember listening with rapt attention and being terrified. In fact, there are very few concrete details I could tell you from any of the stories he frightened us with. And maybe that’s the point – the best campfire ghost stories are experienced, not remembered for their particular details.

…I do wish I remembered more about the Blue Ridge Mine, though…

The seven boys and their Scoutmaster sat around the blazing campfire roasting marshmallows and making smores, the fire casting their shadows across the four dome tents beyond.

“Tell us the one about the haunted cemetery!” Ryan requested

“Stupid,” Jacob countered, “All cemeteries are haunted. Duh. I wanna hear the one about the family that moved into the abandoned mortuary!” he said, neglecting for a moment his perfectly-browning marshmallow, which promptly caught on fire.

“Ha!” Aiden pointed at Jacob’s immolated marshmallow. “No! Let’s hear about the ghost ship!”

“Last trip you promised this trip you’d tell us about the Lost Dutchman’s mine!” Logan pointed out.

“No, no, no, Mr. Granger, Tell us about the ghost submarine,” Ethan countered.

“How about the ghosts that come up from the sea at low tide?!” Tyler asked and promptly bit into his smore.

“All good suggestions, boys,” Mr. Granger started. “But seeing as we had a great hike in here today, I want to tell you boys a really special scary story.”

“Are there dead bodies?” Aiden asked.

“Shut up!” Ryan admonished. “Let him tell it!”

Mr. Granger waited patiently for the boys to settle down before he said a word. And they did calm down – there was a ghost story at stake here. And a special one? After a moment, all six boys sat peering at Mr. Granger with rapt attention their eyes lit by the dancing flames, the only sound the popping and crackling of the fire.

“When I was back in scouts we went on a backpacking trip to these very mountains. A lot has changed, of course – GPS, satellite phones, Ryan’s sleeping bag that’s the size of my water bottle!” Ethan shoved Ryan just because. “But a lot hasn’t. It’s still the same idea: we packed everything we’d need on our backs, and we’d pack it all back out. That first day started a lot like today’s hike, but instead of Aiden and Jacob leading the pack like they did today, it was me and my best friend Jesse.

“Jesse was a small kid for his age, but he just never stopped. It was like he tried to make up for his size with his drive. That day it was all I could do just to keep up with him. We’d outdistanced everyone by a good mile – something none of you are going to do, alright?” he said pointing around at each boy in turn. “We had made it up to the ridgeline that we’ll see tomorrow afternoon. The view was gorgeous, I was exhausted. I could see the trail dip back down into the forest. So I yelled for Jesse to stop for a minute, I needed to take a break. When he did I asked him, ‘Jesse, what’s going on? You’re always a fast backpacker, but this pace it’s… it’s unsustainable. What gives?’ Jesse stared out at the forested valley below us and didn’t say anything for long minutes. Then he finally said, ‘Dave, I have a feeling I’m going to find my purpose out here this trip and I just want to get to it.’ I told him that sounded really mysterious and vague, but also to just, you know, slow the heck down!” the boys laughed at that.

“But he didn’t slow down, and I had no idea how far ahead of the rest of the group we’d gotten. Really, I was just trying to keep Jesse in sight. When I finally noticed that the sun was started to get a bit low, it dawned on me that we’d moved so quickly and covered so much distance, but we never saw the campsite we were going to be staying at. Clearly, we’d made a wrong turn somewhere and now we were lost and the sun was setting and we didn’t have time to backtrack before it would get dark. I called for Jesse to stop and I told him my concern. We both agreed the best thing to do with the fading sunlight would be to pitch our tent right off the trail and then we’d get up at dawn and backtrack to find the others.

“We didn’t build a fire, but went to bed just as night fell so we could get an early start. But we didn’t know how early a start we’d actually get…”

“Oooooh,” Logan cooed theatrically. A chorus of “shut ups!” and accompanying shoves and even a charred marshmallow descended on Logan.

Once again, Mr. Granger waited for the boys to settle back to attention before he started up again. “We were awakened a few hours later by a noise outside. As I said, we pitched a tent, but we didn’t have a rain fly on – kind of how we’re all set up tonight. And, like tonight, it was a full moon and at that time the moon shone down into our tent. We heard scratching outside the tent, like something was pacing just out of sight. You could hear the soft crunch, crunch, crunch of something big and heavy trying – and failing – to be as quiet as it could. It was definitely stalking us.

“’Are you hearing this?’ Jesse whispered to me. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘What are we going to do?’ ‘Don’t worry,’ Jesse said, ‘I’ve got a plan…’ But before he could tell me what the plan was, something enormous smashed into our tent right between us! I grabbed for my pocket knife and cut a hole in the tent wall and managed to wriggle through it into the night. Free of the tent, I backed away to the trail with my socks and boxers and terrified. The tent, now collapsed writhed with Jesse and the… thing wrestling in the canvas. ‘Jesse!’ I yelled. ‘Run, Dave! I’ll keep it occupied. Just run!’

“And I did. My wool socks didn’t do anything to protect against the rocks and sticks on the trail, but I didn’t feel the pain as I sprinted with everything I had back down the trail. In the distance I hear a piercing howl and I knew the creature had broken free of the tent – now it would be coming after me! I worried about Jesse, but I knew if I didn’t keep running we’d both die up here. So, I swallowed my fear and my aching feet and my searing lungs and I ran and ran and ran. I was sure I could hear the thing’s breathing getting louder as its unflagging stamina would easily outpace me running blindly through the forest in socks. But I kept running and running and running until, whoa! I missed a step and fell hard, sliding off the trail. I started rolling down the steep hill. Unable to even slow my descent I covered my head and just kept rolling and rolling, plummeting down the dark hillside, praying I wouldn’t hit a boulder or tree.

“But I didn’t. With a thud that knocked the wind out of me, I crashed into a tent! ‘What the heck?’ I heard from in the tent. I still had the wind knocked out of me and I was bruised all over so I couldn’t move or respond. But I heard the tent zipper and a light beam fell on me… it was my Scoutmaster! Somehow my run and fall literally dropped me into where they’d set up camp. Everyone asked where Jesse was, and I told them all about the thing that crashed into the tent and how Jesse yelled for me to run and I did, and the fall… I don’t know how much of it all they believed.

“Until the next day when we all ventured up the trail to find Jesse – in the daylight, of course. And we found the tent right alongside the trail like I said. The canvas was shredded by massive claws or teeth or both. But there was no sign of Jesse. Some blood, but not enough to have been fatal. The rangers were called in and they did a full search with dogs and helicopters and it lasted weeks until they finally had to give up. They never found Jesse.” He paused, then continued more quietly, “They say, up here in these hills when the moon is high like this you can still wake up in the middle of the night and hear a lonely voice of a boy calling, ‘Run! Ruuuuuuun!’” he dragged out the vowel, then more quietly, “’Ruuuuuuuuuuuun.’” And in barely a whisper, “’Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuun….’”

“OR HE’LL GET YOU!” the assistant scoutmaster burst out of the darkness and yelled, grabbing Ethan by the shoulders from behind. All the boys screamed which turned into raucous laughter and teases of “You were scared!” and “Was not!” “Was too!”

After a few minutes, Mr. Granger said, “Alright, boys, let’s get ready for sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead tomorrow.” Eventually Ryan and Jacob headed for their tent, followed closely by Aiden and Tyler heading for theirs. A few minutes later, Logan and Ethan got up and headed for their tent.

“I’m going to turn in too, Dave,” the assistant scoutmaster announced, standing and stretching.

“Nice entrance, Paul,” Dave told him.

“Thanks. You coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll be along in a few.”

“You’ve got your flashlight?”

Dave clicked on his black flashlight and shone it in Paul’s direction.

“Cool,” Paul said, yawning and heading to their tent.

Dave stared contemplatively into the dying fire with the last scout directly across from him. Finally the boy spoke, “I liked the ending better this time, Dave.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s way better than what really happened.”

“’He stood on the edge of the cliff and it gave way beneath him’” Dave recalled.

“You can still go with that ‘they never found his body’ part.”

“Well, Jesse, we didn’t.”

“’And on nights like these,’” Jesse intoned dramatically, “’They say he sits among scouts at campfires!’”