That Day…at Camp




Picture this, children screaming and running in terror, all the instructors missing, and no one has a clue on what is happening or what to do. This picture came true for a camp in western Massachusetts named Mah Kah Nah. The date this happened was July 18, 2012 and it will never be erased from the minds of the lucky three children who escaped. At the beginning of the day, there were about seven camp instructors and around twenty children including me and the other two survivors. To this day, I still have nightmares about the events. I still keep in touch with the other two and they both say they will never forget that week.

To understand the 18th of July completely, we need to talk about that week. To begin, it was the sixth week of the camp and there were about two more weeks left that us children had to attend. On this week, the 18th of July landed on a Monday, and I can see why it happened now. Every other Sunday, every person in the camp, instructors and children, gathered around a huge pit in the football field to sit by a fire. Since we acted up last time, the instructors agreed to not have the fire this Sunday, even though it was the week to have one. To a handful of kids, the fire was the most relaxing activity throughout the camp. They said the sound of the wood crackling and the smell of the fire really relaxed them. If you think about it though, they were right that noise of the fire does relax someone if there are not any noises distracting them. What started off as a prank on the instructors and the kids for not having a fire that week, turned into a complete nightmare.

At the start of the day on the 18th, I bumped into one of the kids pulling the prank and he said beware tonight. I didn’t know what he was talking about until now, every time I look back at the night. I walked into the breakfast room and sat down next to one of my close friends at camp named Tony. As we ate breakfast, I brought up the prank that was going to happen later, because, well, everyone knew about it. We talked about the kids pulling the prank and how they call themselves “night watchers” and we had no idea what it meant. Throughout the day, everything seemed normal until the so called “night watchers” did not show up for the 4:00 p.m. game of flag football. Some of the instructors went out looking for them at 4:45 to check were they had gone. At 5:45 the other instructors stopped the game and began to become nervous due to the fact that the two instructors had not come back yet. As we all started for our cabins the lights around the field went out and the cabin lights went out.

We all could tell that this was the beginning of the little prank until we heard screaming and only one of the two instructors ran towards us with blood all over her hands. She claimed that they were starting back from the lake house when they heard footsteps behind then and when they turned around they were hit by a shadow. She then said that she ran away as fast as she could, but the other instructor was not so lucky. As the head of the camp helped her out, there was more screaming from the far cabin. This time, when the rest of us got there, the children were gone and there were no traces of them. The head of the camp was so confused and ordered all of us to the cafeteria and for us to stay there together as a group. On our walk there, I heard a loud bang and fell, as I looked up ahead of us a number of the kids and instructors fell and never got up.

The rest of us ran to the nearest cabin and locked the doors so nothing could get in. Our instructor that was with us lifted up the cabin phone and called the police. The person on the other end was instructed to send cars and help but the response time for the nearest car was at least an hour. There is supposed to be security on site but they quit a week ago because there was too many prank calls. As soon as the instructor, David, was telling the name of the camp, the line went out and he only got in the word Mah. After the phone line went out, the power was cut and it instantly became pitch black in the cabin. The only light came from outside and that was the lamp across the walk way. We all shuffled around till we heard a new and different type of noise, so we stopped and it too stopped with us. We had no idea what it was but we knew, it could be bad for us.

There was about seven of us total in the cabin when the noises disappeared, but I got that weird feeling something was wrong. I started calling out for Dave, but there was no response, the only thing I heard was two voices call out my name. We kept talking to each other until we finally met in the middle of the cabin. That’s when the power came right back on, and we noticed a terrible site, that we could not come to bear. There they were, the other four people in the cabin, lying on the floor showing no signs of movement. We were puzzled that David was no were to be found, but we had no time to sit around and think because we heard loud footsteps on the porch.

We ran outside after climbing through the back window and gathered around were the fire pit was. The strange thing about the pit was that a fire had started up. As we looked at each other, we realized that we were not the only ones looking at the fire. The three of us stood together to protect ourselves when Zach (part of the night watchers) walked up to us with a scared, bloody, and mentally poor face. He looked at us, started to cry and said “you’re welcome, you’re welcome for not killing you guys” and he flung himself into the fire. The police showed up shortly after and put us inside the cars for protection as they searched the rest of the camp.
The next day came and the police came over to ask us a few questions about the night before. We told them about the prank that was going to happen and why the group of kids were going to pull it off. They understood and then asked us if we knew about Zach’s problem. We all shook our heads no and they said that he overdosed on his prescription pills for ADHD and went insane. They said they found three bodies in his cabin, a few in the cafeteria, and about four in the cabin we hid inside. As they were explaining how they couldn’t find the rest of the kids and instructors, I jumped in and said the three bodies in Zach’s cabin were supposed to help him with the prank. The cop then asked what the prank was going to be. I looked at the other two and told the cop that they were going to duct tape the instructors’ cabin shut when they went inside to sleep. The officer chuckled and said, “Well I guess a measly little prank had gone wrong and turned into a nightmare.”
A couple years after the accident at the camp, the others and I met at the camp’s main office to mourn on the 10th anniversary of the event. Every year on the 18th of July, the three of us meet together at the gravesite of those who were murdered to give our condolences. The only grave that we don’t visit is Zach’s as we feel that if we don’t go to the grave, then we won’t have to remember the night he caused fear to enter our lives. Then again, we always go by it on our way to the main office to greet the new children that will be attending Mah Kah Nah.