101 Real Stories

65. Camping in Mountain

It was summer vacation during my under graduate. We 7 guys decided to go to camping together. 

Arakawa used to live in rural area and he said he knew a nice place for camping. We got 2 cars ready to go to that place. We were heading to the mountain. 

After 3 hours in the highway, about 1 hour of drive, we were now on the mountain and we went up for half an hour and there was no proper road anymore. It was just a place where people walked so much and a car could barely pass through the way. And it was full grass land. 

Even after complaining how narrow the place was, we still drove our cars 30 minutes further and we could now see river flowing by. It was surrounded by mountains and it was a quiet and beautiful place. There was nothing other than nature's beauty except for one thing. There was a building on one of the mountain, further away and it looked like a school building. 

We had lunch and we were playing in the river as if we were kids and it felt like just a moment until it got dark. 

It was about 10 at night. Beer and side snacks was over so Arakawa and other 2 guys went to buy some. So rest 4 of us were just killing time having some random conversation. There was of course no street light around so the star in the sky looked very beautiful and we could hear the soothing sound of river. 

Just then, one of our friends, Kazuya said "what is that?" and pointed towards the school building. We looked there and we could see some torch light going around in the building. 

"Are they doing courage test?"
"But there's only one torch light,"

That light once fell upon our direction and quickly turned away and went one way until it just went off. We settled with it being some security or something even though we all knew that's weird because Arakawa had said that it was an abandoned school building. 

If other times, we would be excited about it but for some reason, we were all quiet at the time. 

It was already past 12 but the 3 who went for beer and snacks were still not back. So we decided 2 of us would go looking for them. I and Kazuya stayed and rest 2 went looking for them. 

Car light disappeared soon and it was just two of us with complete silence. 

"Sorry but can I go to sleep?" Kazuya said and he looked very tired. He headed to the tent and was fast asleep. 

I was alone in front of the fire and just waited for them. Just then, I noticed it. 

It came from the same way the car head light went off. It was a little glimpse of light at first. Soon, it came closer but I realized that was not car head light. I got creeped out and quickly put out the fire and went to the tent and into the sleeping bag. I looked at the light through the tent. 

The light was clearly coming closer to us. Is it the same security person earlier? But why is he roaming in this area at this hour? Just then, I could see the light pointing at the tent. I quickly faked sleeping and didn't look towards the light. 

I heard the tent zip being opened.

"Not here," as voice said, I felt goosebumps all over. It wasn't some security person. It was a voice of granny. Soon, I heard her footsteps going towards Kazuya's tent. 

"... no ... whe ... kid ..." I heard only little and couldn't make out what she was saying. I was not able to sleep at all. 

When it was start to get bright outside, I walked out of the tent but there was no one around. 

It was soon after that when the 2 cars came back. 

They were late because of tire puncture and getting lost in the way. I told about what happened at night but they didn't believe it. I didn't feel like it but we stayed one more night there but nothing happened the other night. 

During way back, I told Kazuya, "it's good you were asleep first night,"
"I was actually awake," he said. Seems like he didn't say anything on it to not to make a big deal out of it. It seems that granny went to his tent and swayed him. He felt weird and barely opened his eyes to see the old granny in front of him. He got scared and pretended to be asleep at the time. She spoke somethings but he could only understand one of the things she said. 

"Do you know where my kids went...?"

Few years have passed since that incident and when it's summer time, I always remember it and think of that granny. May be she was just a helpless person, but it was scary for me at the moment.