The candle in the window

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."

I was camping with my scout troop, and we knew the cabin existed but had no clue what lay in store for us that night. As the night wore on, the wolves howled an eerie sound, something we had never experienced when camping in this area before,

The fog was starting to settle in, I had Jason, an older scout tell a campfire ghost story. I said remember we have ten-year-old's on this camping trip with us. Jason said all the better. We had an old black cauldron that my grandparents used to make apple butter with on the trip with us.

We rigged up twenty pounds of dry ice and mixed in twenty gallons of water to create an even denser fog setting. Jason had his guitar with him and was thinking of how he was going to deliver his story. We heard several owls hooting in the background with Jason's guitar. As Jason continues to play his guitar, we hear a blood curdling scream coming from the cabin.

We all look and see it at the same time, a candlelight in the window. But how long has that been on because it's been dark for hours. We go to investigate and that's when we see a young girl's body hanging by her feet, with her blood draining from her headless body. We see her mother hanging by her feet, still alive until we see the person with the machete take her head with one swipe.

We all run back to camp and douse the campfire to abandon camp. We get in our vehicles but none of our vehicles will start so we can get to safety. What has happened to our vehicles? We look and see that while we were distracted with the cabin, our batteries had been removed and we weren't going anywhere.

We are stuck at this campsite with no way out, but hey it's 2022 we all have cell phones, right? Nope they have disappeared too. What the hell is happening? Jason screams because the headless woman is now behind me with a machete trying to kill me. I took off running as did the boys trying to avoid this woman. She said to me "stop, I promise I will make this as painless as possible on you." I looked at her and said, "woman you are crazy if you think I am going to stand here and willingly let you kill me."

Eventually the old man joined in the fray in an effort to kill me. I was running all over the campground trying to escape. Eventually the boys ran into the woods in different directions and hid. After an hour of being chased by these two people I collapsed in exhaustion. They strung me up by my feet so all of the blood could flow to my head. Jason came from behind and spiked the old man with a pitchfork in the back. The old man let out a blood curdling scream. About that time the old woman comes at me with the machete and swings at my head. I was able to pull myself up to keep from being hit in the neck.

After a second attempt missed my neck, they went after Jason, who took off running. By that time, Mike came up to try and cut me down but was unsuccessful, because the old man grabbed him from behind and was trying to tie him up as well.

Stephen came behind the old man with a sword and ran it through his heart. The old man turned and looked at him but gave chase. Eventually, Stephen was captured by the old man. It looked as if we were all goners, then the young girl came out and cut me down from the tree. Her head was still attached to her body. The old man then started laughing as did the girl and the woman.

It seemed this was their annual Halloween prank they played on scout troops every year. They didn't realize however that we had boys as young as ten. When we were able to gather all of the boys together, some had wet themselves, others had soiled themselves. The family felt bad and made smores for the boys with hot apple cider. They apologized to the younger boys, some when they realized it was a joke, laughed, some didn't.