The Snipers of the Apocalypse

Misadventures Part 2- "Ghost Stories"

We were all gathered around our camp fire. It's not that late, probably only 9:00 or so. None of us were really tired, but we decided that a break from the road would do us some good. For the past 20 minutes we'd been talking about everything that's happened since we became Operation Bite Mark, all the ups and downs that came with it.

"Alright, I'm bored of talking about this. I have an idea." Addy piped up as she ate a couple of pistachios from a bag we found next to a dead family.

"What's up?" Garnett asked, grabbing a couple pistachios for himself.

"Ghost stories!" She said enthusiastically. I grinned, I love ghost stories- both true and fiction.

"Oh, so instead of talking about one type of horror, you wanna talk about another?" Murphy questioned before shrugging. "Well, at least ghosts aren't real."

"Yes they are." The rest of us spoke in unison.

"Okay, change my mind then." He challenged.

"I've got one." I perked up.

"Go for it." Warren smiled as everyone leaned in closer.

"Alright, so-" I ate some pistachios. "When I was younger I grew up in a crazy haunted house. Shadow figures, voices, things moving- the works." I looked around at everyone to make sure they were still listening- they were, closely.

"One night, when I was 9 or 10, I woke up to my dad standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I remember sitting up and asking him what he was doing. All he told me was, 'there was a black thing above you.' I remember being so freaked out I jumped out of bed and ran to him. I made him let me sleep with mom and him in their bed that night."

"Oh, big whoop- your dad saw a shadow." Murphy spoke nonchalantly.

"I wasn't done. When I woke up the next morning I had 3 long scratches down my back. They weren't bleeding, but they burned like hell. I noticed them when I got in the shower and called my mom in to look at them, she couldn't explain where they'd come from. Where they were, there was no way I could have done it myself. They were too far apart for the cats to have been the cause, and I slept with my back to my dad. He bit his nails, so there was no way he could have scratched me in his sleep either- even then he would have had to scratched me hard enough to break through my shirt with how red they were."

"That's crazy." Mack stated, eating another nut.

"Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go all night with the shit I experienced there."

"Boo!" Murphy gave me a thumbs down. "Nope, still don't believe. Who's next?"

"I've got one." Warren spoke up, adding more twigs to the fire. "When I was a teenager, around Alrrami's age, I spent the night at a friends house. We had just graduated high school and were having a little party, just us and a few of our other girlfriends while her parents were out of town for the weekend. We had a couple drinks, played some games, reminisced. Before we knew it, it was 3am. None of us were tired, so we decided to make a late night snack."

"Was it pistachios?" I joked as I ate another one, causing chuckles from my chosen family.

"No, it was actually one of those frozen pizzas. But, that's not the point. As we were putting the pizza in the oven, we heard footsteps upstairs. Every single one of us stopped what we were doing and looked up, trying to figure out what we had just heard. All of us were in the kitchen, and there was nobody else home. Even her younger brother was at a friends house for the weekend."

"Big deal, it was probably a raccoon." Murphy retorted.

"Oh no, it was no raccoon. It sounded like a full grown man walking down the upstairs hallway."