My scoutmaster sent us on a suicide mission without realizing it

It’s unfortunate that kids have to pick up the slack that uncaring adults should have dealt with themselves. That’s what got Kurt and me into trouble in the first place.

We were at Boy Scout summer camp. Two of the younger kids, Dylan and Joey, were off earning their “wilderness survival” merit badge, which entailed spending 24 hours in the wild without contact. They were given a few items to help: two pocket knives, some water bottles, a few protein bars, two flashlights, and a bundle of twine.

It was 2 AM when Dylan ran back to the campsite. He went straight to scoutmaster Rusty’s tent and woke him up. Then Rusty went straight to our tent and woke us up.

“You boys need to get up and find out what’s wrong with Joey. He’s been spooked by somethin’,” Rusty said, his voice gravelly and tired.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Huh? What are we supposed to do?”

“Get out there and find him. Make sure he’s okay. Dylan says that he found a big spider and, well, you know how he is about those things.” He glanced between the two of us.

Kurt mumbled something about Joey being a pussy under his breath.

I spoke quickly to cover Kurt’s comments. “Wouldn’t that disqualify him from the merit badge? And where’s Dylan?”

“He don’t want to admit it, but I think it spooked him, too. He won’t leave his tent now.” Rusty rested a hand on his red, wrinkled forehead. “In any case, Joey can’t be out there alone. Merit badge be damned.”

Just like that, our boots were on our feet, and our feet were trudging through thick underbrush. Kurt was more pissed about the situation than I was, finding his sleep more valuable than a couple of whining 15-year-olds. To a near-18-year-old, a younger scout may as well be an ant.

As we followed the trail towards where their shelter should be, the forest opened up, and low vegetation thinned into a barren floor of pine needles. The tall trees were sparse enough that we could make out some moonlight, though not enough to rely solely on it. Once our flashlights revealed a large rotting log that served as the shelter’s landmark, we turned off the main path and walked perpendicular to it, deep into unmarked woods.

“This kid’s always on my nerves, man. I swear,” Kurt blurted out.

“Isn’t he 14? You were obnoxious then, too.” My voice echoed into the trees.

“Joey and that ugly ass yellow sweater.” He looked at me with disdain. “Whatever. All this over a single spider… so dumb.”

“We’ll just grab him and get back, easy. No more than 20 minutes,” I said, trying to convince myself not to be annoyed too.

After nearly 15 minutes of walking off the path, far more than we had anticipated, Kurt’s light finally settled upon a depressed roof of twigs and pine leaves. It barely stood upright, supported by a slender pine tree at its center. It was just ahead.

“Joey?” We both called out in unison.

No reply.

Aiming the flashlight into the shelter from a distance revealed that it was empty. We panned out, sweeping the area with our yellow cones of light, calling for Joey. As Kurt squatted down to inspect something, I approached the tent.

Kurt yelled out. “What the hell? I just found Joey’s flashlight, it’s dead! It’s just sitting out here on the ground!” He was about 20 feet away from the shelter.

I lowered my light to get on my hands and knees, crawling into the dark tent. In the black, I could hear faint scuttering. Kind of like leaves rustling in a light wind. When I was deep inside, I aimed my light forward again.

There was a large ball sitting on the ground of the shelter with an open pocket knife beside it. It was the size of a soccer ball, and its surface looked like hardened sand. Three cuts were visible along the top of the object. Two shallow, timid scrapes, and a longer, much deeper one that revealed a hollow interior. I picked up the knife.

When a set of spindly, black legs protruded from the hole, I flinched. Several spiders began to pour out from the hole, as if responding to the invasion of light. From my knowledge at the time, they looked just like harmless cellar spiders.

Then I felt a tickle. I looked down. One was crawling across my hand while I gripped the knife. I raised my hand and jerked upright, slamming my head into the roof of the shack. Dozens of them fell from the shaken leaves above, raining down all over me. I yelled out in surprise and tried to scoot back to the entrance.

While moving back, I aimed my flashlight at the interior of the shelter. Practically every surface was obscured in a tangled mess of tiny black limbs. They were everywhere. The walls, the floor, everything.

I screamed and rolled out of the shelter, quickly standing up and patting myself down vigorously. Kurt ran over to see what was wrong.

“Don’t tell me you saw a spider,” he said jokingly, his light blinding me.

“Why don’t you see for yourself, asshole!” I shouted.

Kurt aimed his light into the tent, revealing the immense mass of spiders. He jolted and lowered the flashlight to the ground, revealing the waves of spiders flooding out of the shelter and towards us. They were already on our legs.

​

We frantically kicked and stomped while running away from the shelter. All I could hear was the sound of our boots crunching and our breaths heaving.

Eventually, we gathered the courage to stop.

Kurt waved his light around. “Where the hell are we?” He looked at me.

“Where’s Joey?” I sputtered, hunching over to catch my breath.

We both realized how screwed we were at that moment. The shelter was no longer within our sight. No trail marker, landmark, anything. We sat down.

“Let’s think. He wasn’t at the shelter, right? And I found his flashlight, so he doesn’t have that. How long was he even alone for?” Kurt itched his ankle aggressively.

“It took us about 30 minutes to get there… at least 30 for Dylan to get to camp… I mean, he must have been out there for over an hour,” I said, twiddling the knife between my fingers.

“Rusty’s gonna be so pissed!” His fingers dug into the dirt.

I couldn’t help but stare at Kurt’s hands. “I figure the two of them must’ve found a big ass spider egg. One of ‘em opened it up, they both freaked, and Dylan couldn’t handle it.”

He squinted at me. “So… what? You think he got eaten by spiders? Seriously?”

Snap!

We both turned our heads towards the dark. Shining our lights revealed empty woods.

“You heard that, right?” Kurt said, itching his ankle again.

“Yeah.” My voice was quiet. “What are you itching yourself like that for?”

He lowered his sock. “I, uh, think I got bit by one of ‘em. Nasty, right?” His ankle was inflamed and pink, centered around a tiny red dot that leaked fresh blood.

“Jeez. We’ll have to fix that when we get back,” I whispered, staring at his spindly fingers. They were just so long.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to recuperate after seeing the spiders. When we got comfortable, we turned off our lights so we could better see the sky.

I saw movement from the corner of my eye.

I looked right at Kurt. In the darkness, I could only just make out something big, looming, close behind him. The back of my neck tingled. I grabbed my flashlight, turned it on, and pointed it at him.

“Gah! What was that for?!” Kurt shouted, raising a hand to block the light from blinding him.

The figure jumped away from the light and sound, only revealing a single hairy, black leg as it disappeared.

I jumped to my feet. “Did you see that thing?!” My hands were shaking. “What the hell was that?”

Kurt turned around, finding nothing within sight. “What? See what?” He turned on his light, scanning behind him. “Are you messing with me? I’ll kill you, man!”

“I’m not joking! There was something behind you. It ran away when I turned on the light,” I said, noticing the tiny black hairs protruding from the back of Kurt’s hands.

He didn’t believe me. Thought I was just messing with him, the same way he would with me. Regardless, that got us on our feet walking again.

The darkness beyond felt oppressive. Invasive. Like it could swallow us whole at any moment. I pictured Joey being pulled away into the dark by an invisible hand. Into non-existence. Like he was never really there to begin with. I shuddered.

Suddenly, Kurt’s light went out. The darkness overtook him.

“Damn it!” He shouted, banging the light with his palm.

I turned my flashlight towards him. My stomach twisted into a sick knot.

Six pure black, bulbous eyes reflected the light, looking straight down at Kurt. A pair of dark, hairy spikes were aimed right behind his shoulders, about to pounce. It was hanging down from the tree behind him.

I screamed.

Kurt’s eyes widened, and he looked up just to see the mandibles swing shut, puncturing his back and protruding from his chest, spraying blood at me. His body was lifted from the ground and pulled up into the tree in a near instant.

“Gah! Oh, Jesus, oh my god, HELP ME!” The words shot out to me in punctual, screaming bursts from the darkness above. “HELP M–”

The screaming stopped. The sound of wet crunching replaced it. No matter how high I aimed my light, it faded before I could find the source.

Something fell from the tree and landed in front of me with a sick thud.

Kurt’s pale, horrified, disembodied head. It had been torn off from the neck. Ripped strands of flesh and gore splayed outwards from the bottom, like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

My world was spinning. I was going to be sick. I ran as fast as I could. It didn’t matter where.

I don’t know how long I had been running for when I finally found it. The pine needles tapered away into a narrow, rocky, dirt path. I found a reflective neon trail marker on a tree. My pace slowed, and I caught my breath.

Relief.

I recounted the night’s events in my head as I walked. I figured Joey ended up the same way Kurt did. I thought about his flashlight. Dead. That’s what happened to Kurt’s light, too. I thought about the egg. How they came out when I shined the light.

It was somewhere, waiting for me, in the darkness. Waiting for my light to go out. For me to lose my lifeline.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked down the trail, into the blackness beyond my light. Oppressive. Invasive. An invisible hand…

I spun around on my heels, staring down the opposite end of the trail, shining my light.

It was enormous.

Eight hulking, thick, hairy legs protruded out in all directions from a monstrously heavy torso. The six black eyes stared straight at me without a single shred of consciousness. Its bloody mandibles were poised to strike. Its body was wide enough to block more than the whole path.

It was close enough for me to see the dark red mucus that dripped from its mouth.

The flashlight fell from my hand. The beast leaped forward, and I grabbed the pocket knife from my shorts.

I collapsed onto the ground and was plunged into complete darkness.

Blindly swinging the knife, I felt it plunge into fuzzy, soft flesh. The creature made a horrible, high-pitched screech. The weight of its body was immense as its spiked legs pinned my other limbs to the ground. Putrid liquid dripped down onto my face.

I stabbed again and again. I felt the hot breath of the creature reach close to my face. A stinging pain radiated in my cheek as a mandible impaled through the thin skin, the tough spike shattering my teeth. I pulled the knife out of the sternum and slashed at the head in a last attempt, feeling death at the door.

Suddenly, a torrent of hot fluid rained over me, soaking into my clothes and the pores of my skin. It tasted like blood. Metal. Coppery. Hot and vile. I spat it out, shards of teeth coming with it. I felt its legs go limp.

I dragged myself out from under the mass, my nails chipping as they dug into the gravel. I grabbed my flashlight and stood up on my weary legs.

The spider’s huge body was crumpled and bleeding. Its eyes were cloudy and dull. The legs all shot straight outwards like an eight-pointed star. It was only then that I had the chance to notice it.

A long, yellow strip of fabric, draped over one of the front legs.

A yellow sweater?

No. It couldn’t be. I ran straight back to camp, my mouth shattered and aching.

It was 5:20 AM when I returned. Rusty had been woken up by Dylan about an hour after we didn’t come back. He was scared something was wrong. After that, the whole campsite came to life as rumors spread amongst the troop about our whereabouts, becoming more hopeless and terrifying as the hours ticked by.

Rusty hadn’t left the site to look for us himself, but he had called the forest rangers hotline to report us missing. They were still sweeping the forest when I returned.

I tried to tell him what really happened, but it all came out in garbled nonsense through my broken teeth. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t have believed the story anyways.

It’s been a couple of days since. I was prompted to write all this out by the psychologist assigned to my case since I still can’t talk. The state police got involved after Kurt’s head was discovered. They haven’t found Joey. I know they won’t.

They don’t believe my story. Not yet. But they will. I’ll be the living proof.

I can already see the black hairs growing on the back of my hands.