This Camp is Doomed: A Dennith Grange Misadventure

Only the birds were frequent visitors to Camp Buttress. Each morning a pair of ravens would leave their pine-tree perch and circle the boundary. This autumn morning was no different. The pair flew above the treetops, beyond which lay a plump line of gold-rimmed cloud. The sky had begun to brighten, but down below, the camp stayed dark. Nothing moved, not even the blades of grass that grew long on the lawn. The only sound to be heard was the ceaseless dripping of a broken tap.

Hoping to spy their breakfast – a moth, a mouse, a spider – the ravens swooped down and landed on a splintered windowsill. Inside the camp, it was darker still. Dawn could not reach through the dirty windowpanes. The dining tables were covered in a sticky dust. Old cobwebs, long since abandoned by their spiders, hung along the ceiling beams like bunting.

And then a light switched on. The fluorescent bulb made a low buzzing sound. It was now possible, in the yellow light, to see the faded quality of the floor, and the dust and dirt that had gathered in bunches along the mouldings.

The first footstep was gentle, but definite; it sent a vibration through the sagging floorboards.

Pat-creeeak.

This first footstep was followed by a second, and a third.

Pat-creeeak.

Pat-creeeak.

The small rectangle of light that illuminated the corridor became disturbed. It was at this point that the ravens departed. They did not stay to see the shadow that was forming there. It grew bigger as the steps approached, bigger and bigger, until all the light in the corridor was consumed by a looming, twisted shadow.

A haunted shadow.

A shadow with glinting silver circles for eyes.