Fencing

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"...and they say that to this day, you can still hear his footsteps in the night when the moon is full... The Phantom Fence-Stringer!"

For a moment, there was silence.

"That's it?" The fire had died down considerably, casting those gathered on the other side of it more in shadow than in light; Evan's laid-back drawl was recognizable enough, though, especially as strained by abject terror as it currently wasn't. "No. That's just dumb, Bran."

Brandon slouched back and crossed his arms. "Oh, like you could tell one better?" He glared around the circle at everyone he could see. Liz was visible enough on his right, with Ken sitting primly on a square of blanket beside her; Camellia was sitting with her back propped up against a stump on his left. Patty on Ken's other side, and Mara and Evan across the circle, were almost invisible. Everyone else looked bored, though. Except Cam, who mainly looked embarrassed for Brandon.

"Of course I could tell one better," Evan replied. He reached out to throw another log on the fire, and the flames kicked up enough to illuminate his grinning face. "Hell, Patty could probably tell a scarier campfire story than you can, and she can't even tell a knock-knock joke without messing it up."

"I know a good one where it's a rabbit," Patty chimed in helpfully.

"Exactly."

"Look," Brandon replied, glaring across the circle at Evan. "It was my idea to go camping, and my idea to go camping here in what is, like, the spookiest forest in the world. So if none of you have big enough imaginations to be the least bit scared when I tell a totally awesome ghost story? Hey, that's not my problem."

Mara shifted uneasily. "Look, I think maybe we're all getting a little too involved in this whole 'scary story' thing, so why don't we -- "

"I've got one."

Ken had been pretty quiet all day, so when he spoke up now, everyone looked toward him. He was still sitting on his blanket, shoes removed and set carefully by on the grass. He was staring straight ahead, whether into the fire or beyond it, Brandon couldn't tell.

"I've got a story I could tell," Ken went on evenly. "It is a tale of sorrow and vengeance, of horror and loss. It is not -- " His eyes narrowed. " -- for the faint of heart."

"Showoff," Brandon muttered.

"It begins on a night much like this one..." Ken began...


"...and the heads were still there," he finished up some time later. He rose from his seat, calmly slipped on his shoes, and nodded to the rest of the group. "It's pretty late, so I think I'm going to turn in now. Good night, everyone." A flashlight clicked to life in his hand, the circle of light dancing ahead of him as he made his way across the campsite and into his tent.

For a moment, silence.

"So," Evan said finally, in an almost unrecognizable voice. "I'm never sleeping again. How about you guys?"




The opening bit came to me when I first saw this rerun come up yet again; the rest was written after a night spent watching about four episodes of the anime series I'm currently working my way through on Hulu. All the character names and personalities in the story are at least partially based on characters from this particular series, although I had to take some liberties since I'm not *actually* writing about, say, the hilariously neurotic son of the Grim Reaper.

At least I'm not taking the liberty of putting up a rerun without even admitting it's a rerun, though.

Devices

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"But Mr. Phillips?" Stevie held up his own compass, a birthday present from his parents. "I think -- "

"Bob," the scoutmaster replied, still wearing the little smile he'd had on for almost this entire trip. "Call me Bob, sport, remember?"

"Um. Bob." Stevie looked again at his compass. "I think actually camp is south of here."

"What, sport?" the scoutmaster smiled. "Let me see that." He snatched the compass away and glanced at it briefly. "Nope, you're mistaken." The compass disappeared into his pocket.

"Hey -- " Stevie cried.

"Your compass must be broken, sport," Phillips replied cheerily. "Come on, boys! We've got maybe an hour before we get back to camp, so let's keep at it!"

"He said that an hour ago," Jed muttered, and several of the other boys nodded. None of them had any idea where they were, though -- especially now that Stevie's compass was gone -- so they pushed on.

Their usual scoutmaster was Kevin Lee's dad, a wisecracking used-car salesman who they all deeply admired for his ready willingness to use the word "fuck". Mr. Lee had gotten sick right before the camping trip, but rather than calling the whole thing off (thereby crushing the months-long dreams of a dozen ten-year-old boys), somehow a substitute scoutmaster had been procured. Nobody was sure how that had worked -- Kevin said he thought maybe his dad had asked around some of the other troops in the area -- but they did know that when they'd arrived at the state park Saturday morning, a cheerfully smiling stranger had been waiting for them. The smiling stranger had greeted them all, introduced himself as "Bob Phillips -- just call me Bob", chatted with their parents; then he had gathered up the boys and led them all into the woods. They'd quickly set up their tents at the campsite, and then "Bob" had announced that it was time for a hike.

Now it was Saturday night coming on, and they had been walking in what felt like circles for a couple of hours.

"'Just a little farther, boys,'" Matt said from his place near the back of the troop, mocking the scoutmaster's voice and constant smile. "'I got no idea where I am, but I figure you're too stupid to know that, so I'll just keep saying that it's -- '"

"Just a bit more now, boys," the scoutmaster's voice floated back to them. "The place we're going is just... over... this hill."

Kevin and Matt looked at each other. "The place we're going?" Kevin asked. "Weren't we heading back to the campsite?" Matt shrugged uneasily, looking up at the sky. It was nearly dark in the forest by now.

By the time "Bob" led them into a clearing and announced that they had reached their destination, most of the boys were too exhausted to argue. They all set to work putting down their sleeping bags, except for Wally, who had left his in his tent back at the campsite; Wally limped over to the scoutmaster, explaining the problem and trying his tired ten-year-old best not to cry.

The scoutmaster's calm little smile never faltered as he put a heavy arm around the boy's shoulders. "That's all right, sport," he replied cheerfully. "You can bunk with me."

Fireside

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"Daddy? Did you like to go camping when you were little?"

Mike chuckled. "Well, I wouldn't really call this camping," he answered, glancing back maybe twenty feet at the house. "But yeah, I loved camping. I wanted to be in the Scouts, but I never did get to join, so most of the time it was just me and your uncle Steve."

Angie was sitting on a rock by the fire he had built for them, swinging her legs back and forth. The marshmallow on the end of her stick was looking pretty blackened by this point, but she looked more interested in his stories than in marshmallows. "Did you get to go far away from your house, daddy?"

"Oh yeah." He sat down next to her on the rock and stirred the fire with a branch. "Steve's house was right by some woods that his parents owned, and we would go out there and set up our tent and tell each other ghost stories. The woods weren't too big, but once or twice we probably went nearly a half-mile before finding a good spot." He gazed into the fire for a few seconds. "It made us feel grown-up, being out there all alone like that."

"Weren't your mommies worried you'd get hurt?" Angie asked. "Mommy won't let me go where she can't watch me, ever!"

Mike smiled. "They were worried some, I guess. But I think it's different with little boys. They're meant to go play rough and get scratched up a little bit sometimes."

Angie put down her stick (the marshmallow at the end now reduced to a lump of carbon) and looked at him with wide eyes. "But I like going out in the backyard and playing and camping, too! I don't want to stop just because I'm not a boy!"

"Well, sweetie, I don't know," he answered slowly. "I guess when you get older you'll just... kind of stop wanting to play in the woods."

She pouted. "But you never did. You still like playing in the woods with me, even if you do tell mommy that you're just here to make sure I'm okay." Mike laughed at that, and she frowned. "It's true!"

"It is true, and that's why it's funny. And," he added in a lower voice, "you probably shouldn't tell your mom about it, okay, Angie?" She looked confused for a second, then understanding flashed across her face and she giggled. "Most little girls just stop wanting to sit around campfires with their dads when they get older. That's just how it is, I think."

"Well, I'm never going to stop. I'm going to play camping with you in the backyard forever, daddy. Right?"

He smiled again, but much more briefly this time. "Sure, honey. Forever."