Campfire Stories

By Joseph Cubbage

Campfire Stories is a collection of short stories as told by a group of friends while they sit around a campfire. These friends, The Chosen Family, have turned story time into a game. They must decide if each story is true, fiction, or embellished. Can a killer get right with his God before going to prison? Can true love survive a pandemic lock-down? Will a book found in the floor boards reveal a traumatic past? Will a family's dog lead a detective to a town's secret? Can a missing camper, a broken leg, or a pretty redhead bring an end to life-long friendships? Throughout the camping trip and story hours, there is something stalking them in the woods just outside of camp. At first the campers brush it off as other campers "fooling around." But one of them believes it is something far more dangerous and unbelievable. By day the campers and their families play in the water, eat, drink, and relax. Each night, however, is creepier than the one before. By the end of the weekend, they cannot wait to get out of those woods and never go back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885054546

Book preview

Campfire Stories

JOSEPH CUBBAGE

Copyright © 2022 Joseph Cubbage

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

This is a work of complete fiction. All characters and events are fiction. Any resemblances to real people are coincidental.

ISBN 979-8-88505-453-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88505-454-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

This is for the Chosen Family

Contents

The Right of Reconciliation

A Classic Love Story

From the Ashes We Can Rise

Two Guys, Two Beds

Bianca

Adrenaline Rush

The Dog and the Apple Tree

The End of a Tradition

The Diary in the Floor

For Seth

The Interview That Changed Her Mind

Casa Della Nonna

The Beast Within

A Note from the Author

The first weekend in August every year was Annual Camping weekend. The group of friends who referred to each other as Chosen Family had been doing Annual for years. It was a weekend of family time, drinking, hiking, drinking, fishing, drinking, kayaking, and most importantly, relaxing. There was no cell service where they camped. No texts. No work emails. No apps. Just the great outdoors and family time. Real, in-person, face-to-face interactions. Conversations where you could actually see the other person’s facial expressions, hear the tone in their voice, feel their laughter. It always proved to be a fantastic time and was looked forward to by all. After packing up and leaving on the last day, everyone always said, I can’t wait for Annual next year!

One of the newest traditions was to tell campfire stories after the kids went to bed for the night. The stories could be true, embellished, or straight-up fiction. The game was to have everyone guess if the story was true or not. The Chosen Family had been friends for years. Decades, in some cases. So everyone knew each other’s personal stories fairly well. That was what made the campfire stories game so fun. You tried to come up with the best story you could. The point was to try to surprise your closest friends. To try to tell them something they had never heard before.

That first night of Annual, everyone was tired and worn out from setting up camp, but that wouldn’t stop story time. The campers made fresh drinks and grabbed fresh beers. They gathered up snacks, and everyone sat around the fire Corine had built up to a roar. The evening was still quite warm, but you couldn’t tell campfire stories without a campfire.

Aw, it’s so good to finally be out here! Nicole said as she settled into her camp chair with a full cup of rum drink. She lit a cigarette and added, It always seems like such a long wait to finally get to Annual every year!

Yeah, it does! her husband, Shawn, exclaimed.

I love this weekend more than any other weekend throughout the entire year! This is better than Christmas! Trevor exclaimed.

Hell yeah, it is! Zach agreed.

I just want to say before we get into the stories that we love you all so much, and we’re so happy to be out here with you all, Eva said, raising her cup.

Everyone cheered each other and agreed wholeheartedly that there wasn’t anywhere else any of them wanted to be in that moment.

Well, speaking of stories, shall we jump right in? Cole asked.

Shit, yeah, we should! Damon exclaimed. Who’s going first?

You go first, babe, Corine, Damon’s wife, said. You always have the best stories. I keep telling this guy he needs to write some of this shit down. I tell him he should write a book.

I can’t write, baby. I can tell stories, but I can’t write ’em down. Damon chuckled, lighting a cigarette.

That was what made camping so fun, sitting around a roaring campfire, drinking ice-cold drinks, and smoking cigarettes. Beer, liquor, and smokes all tasted so much better in the woods. Pot pipes were passed around for an added bonus.

Yeah, man, you go first, Zach said as he let out a lungful of smoke.

Everyone seemed to agree they wanted Damon to go first.

Damon said, All right, here we go. I call this one…

The Right of Reconciliation

Luke sat in a pew at his local Catholic church. He was waiting his turn for confession. It had been a long time since he had confessed his sins. Luke had been raised Catholic. He went to Catholic school through the eighth grade. Because of money and Luke’s insistent begging, his parents had ended up sending him to a public high school. As a kid, Luke believed it all. Catholicism was all he had ever known. His whole family had been devout Catholics, so that was all he was ever taught. He grew up with bedtime stories from the Bible. His family was at Sunday mass ten minutes early every week. His sisters sang in the choir. His father was a regular lector. Luke’s family life and childhood had been wonderful. He grew up in the eighties, playing outside all the time. He and his friends hung out in person. There was no internet, at least not internet the average household could afford. There were no devices and no social media. Luke and his friends rode bikes, played basketball in the alley behind his house, and walked to the corner store for penny candy and sodas. They rode the trails at the local state park.

When they wanted to talk, they didn’t send a little video chat. They rode around the neighborhood until they found the house with all the bicycles in the front yard. That was usually Brandon’s house. Everyone loved hanging out at Brandon’s house. He had cable, the best snacks, and name-brand soda! Brandon’s dad worked all the time, and his mom was always in her room. They later found out his mom was a heroin addict and that’s why they never saw her. Brandon’s dad was a law professor and made big-time money, so she had an endless supply of dope. With his dad gone all the time and his mom high all the time, that left Brandon to his own devices. Which meant he could host all the neighborhood boys and spoil them with snacks and soda. It made Brandon the cool kid on the block, and Brandon ate it up. Brandon was an only child, and he got little to no attention from his parents. They were both good people at heart but just never had much time for their son. Brandon got the attention he so desperately wanted from his friends, and he was just fine with that.

High school had been one hell of a culture shock for Luke. He went from a small private school his eighth-grade class had only eighteen kids in it to a freshman class of over four hundred kids. Luke began to meet new friends, and his old friends started to drop off. Luke started to hang around the party crowd and got into drinking pretty heavily. He dabbled with drugs a bit but always preferred the booze over anything else. This new lifestyle led him away from the church. It wasn’t seen as cool to go to church. He struggled with his faith for a while. He had always believed in the Holy Trinity. He had always believed what he had been taught by his parents, in school, and at mass. Luke desperately wanted to keep believing, but his friends made it all sound like BS stories made up by powerful men to control the masses. What a wonderful idea—live your best life, but if you stumble along the way and sin, you could simply do penance and all would be forgiven. Drank too much and caused a scene? Repent and all was forgotten. Got in a fight? Repent and all was forgiven. As Luke thought on it more and more, it did all start to seem too perfect to be real. He loved and respected his parents more than any other people in the world, although he certainly didn’t show it. Luke was quickly becoming an agitated teenager.

Everything set him off in his early high school years. He’d rebel against any form of authority. He caused his parents numerous sleepless nights. Luke later apologized to his parents for his unnecessary behavior. Luke, to this day, felt bad about what he had put them through—vandalism, theft, fights, drunk driving, possession of a controlled substance. That one got him thirty days in juvie. Every drive home from the police station had been a silent and awkward fifteen minutes. The look of utter shame and disappointment on his parents’ faces had killed him, but it never changed anything. Luke had to hold face in front of his friends. He couldn’t show any weakness. Someone would suggest something, and if you said no, you were called a pussy and shunned. Sometimes even beaten bloody for not going along.

Luke remembered one time, one of his friends had suggested they break into a church and steal the communion wine. Most everyone thought that was a great idea, except for Luke and another guy named Ray. Luke didn’t vocalize his concerns or ill feelings about the idea. He had every intention of going along with it. Ray, however, did speak up. He said breaking into a church was going too far. Sure, petty thefts and harmless vandalism was fun, but breaking into a church seemed too out there. Ray said there was just something too evil about it. He had said he didn’t want that on his conscience or his soul. Their self-appointed leader, Samuel, disagreed wholeheartedly with Ray. He told Ray if he didn’t go along with it, he’d be out of the group. Samuel reminded them all the only way someone was able to leave the group was to be beaten out of it. Ray told Samuel he could fuck off. That sent Samuel over the edge, and he beat Ray to death. That was the first time Luke had ever seen someone die.

Watching Samuel beat Ray to death changed Luke’s world. He finally saw the life he had been living. He never saw the crimes they had been committing as much more than innocent teenage tomfoolery. When you’re in that life, you don’t see what you’re actually doing to the people around you. You can’t comprehend that you are hurting people. Even something like egging your crazy neighbor’s house was a hurtful act. It seemed like a harmless prank, but it affected someone else negatively. It had an impact on their life. A lot of those minor crimes could and sometimes had rippled effects. Luke didn’t want to be that guy anymore. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Luke couldn’t imagine what Ray’s family had gone through since their young son had been ripped away from them in a fit of rage. His young promising life ended because of someone else’s ego. Luke didn’t think Samuel had intended on killing Ray, but he did. He could have stopped punching and kicking Ray when he fell to the ground. Samuel could have walked away from Ray as he writhed in pain on the sidewalk. But he didn’t.

He looked at the other boys and said, This is what happens when you motherfuckers talk back to me! And then he kept beating Ray. When Samuel was content with the amount of beating he had given Ray, he walked away and rubbed his throbbing knuckles. He didn’t say another word to the other boys. He just left. Luke and the other boys stood on that street corner in shock. Slowly, one by one, they ran off. When Luke got home that night, he burst into tears and told his parents everything. They called the police and rushed Luke downtown to the police station. He told the cops everything. Luke admitted to every crime they had ever committed. He was so scared of Samuel at that point, he just wanted to see the guy go to jail. No one should be allowed to just walk away from something like that. Prosecutors brought minimal charges against Luke, and he got handed probation and community service. His testimony against Samuel saved his own ass from going to jail. Luke was more than happy to testify against that monster. That’s exactly what Samuel was, a coldhearted monster.

Samuel ended up being convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Samuel was seventeen years old when he went to prison, never to see the outside world again. When some of his fellow inmates found out he had beaten a Black teenager to death, they returned the favor. Samuel ended a young man’s life in a fit of rage, and his own life ended in the same fashion. Two young men gone too soon for choices someone else made. Luke got out of that friend group immediately. The friend group—they would never call themselves a gang even though that’s exactly what they were—disbanded without Samuel. No one wanted to be associated with anyone who had been associated with Samuel. They all went their separate ways.

That night had changed Luke’s life. He devoted himself to Jesus and the church again. He worked with youth to hopefully keep kids from going down the same path he had. Luke’s twenties had been a decade of job-hopping. He’d work a job for a couple of years, get fed up with a boss or coworker, and quit. He’d find an equally crappy job, and the cycle would repeat. Luke kept going to church through his twenties. He kept working with the youth groups too. It had really made him feel like he mattered and he could make a difference in someone’s life. That all changed in his thirties. He began to grow distant and jaded with everyone in his life. He watched as friends, cousins, and his sisters all got married and started having families. As their lives grew busier, they had less time for him. That was when he started to become even more introverted. That’s when the loneliness started to feel right.

Now forty years old, he sat in that pew, waiting to confess his biggest sin ever. He had always held on to his faith, but he was not a regular at Sunday mass. In fact, he never went anymore. It wasn’t that he had walked away from the church again. He was just too lazy and preferred Sunday football over Sunday mass. Luke was single with no kids and no pets. It was just him, his apartment, and his truck. He worked Monday through Friday as an equipment operator in a gravel pit. Luke loved his job and his life. He had grown into a loner and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He didn’t trust anyone. Luke enjoyed being alone and being left alone. That’s why scooping and screening gravel was the perfect job for him. As soon as he climbed into that front-end loader and slammed the door shut, the outside world was gone. He cranked up the tunes and just dug. And he got paid damn well for it! Getting the equipment operator job sealed it all for him. He was a loner, through and through. He was happiest alone.

Luke picked up the Bible from its resting place in the back of the pew in front of him. He thumbed through the pages, not looking for anything in particular. The pages felt nice rippling against his thumb. Luke stopped flipping pages on the book of John. A verse jumped off the page at him:

I f we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Luke closed the Bible and held it to his chest. He looked around the large church. The stained-glass windows were lit brightly by the hot summer sun. Jesus looked down at him from his cross above the altar. Luke whispered to Jesus, I’m sorry. I truly am sorry.

Jesus didn’t respond. He just kept looking at Luke. Luke didn’t mind not being answered. He knew he wouldn’t get an answer.

Luke still struggled with his faith every day. He was alone all the time, which provided him with ample time to just think. He thought about all kinds of things, but faith, God, and religion seemed to dominate his thoughts most days. He had such a roller-coaster ride with religion and faith, he couldn’t seem to get it out of his mind. None of it bothered Luke. He did enjoy thinking about things like that. Sometimes, when he was mulling over his feelings toward divinity, he would feel something. He’d get a feeling like he wasn’t alone, a feeling like he was immortal. Not immortal in his current form but immortal once he was done with his current form. It was always a comforting feeling but also so overwhelming. He could never explain how it was possible to feel comfort at that level and be so overwhelmed at the same time. Luke had tried so many times to give himself completely to God, but he just couldn’t do it. He didn’t trust himself. He didn’t feel worthy of God’s love. He didn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love.

It was finally Luke’s turn to confess. Father Brian called Luke to the confessional. Luke entered and sat down with a sigh. He still had the Bible clutched to his chest.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, Luke started. I killed a man. He heard Father Brian gasp. I am going to turn myself in after I leave here. I just need to get right with God first. Luke clutched the Bible tighter. He could feel the power of those words through the binding of the book.

Please, son, tell me more, Father Brian said.

I didn’t mean to kill him, Luke said softly. I didn’t even know he was dead until this morning when I heard it on the news. Luke paused and took a deep breath. For some reason, he felt as though he had to get through this without crying, even though that’s all he wanted to do in that moment. This past Friday night, after work, I stopped at a tavern for a steak and a beer. I had just gotten paid, and I wanted a good steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I wanted a couple of good draft beers to go with it. I could have and should have just skipped the bar and hit the store on my way home. But I didn’t want another frozen pizza and same old six-pack. I didn’t want to stand over the stove cooking something else. I just wanted a good medium-rare steak and the fixins’. I wish I would have just gone home. I go to this tavern all the time, Father, and nothing bad has ever happened there. I could have never expected what happened the other night. Halfway through my delicious rib eye, I heard a woman tell a man to leave her alone. I tried to ignore it and just eat my dinner, but I couldn’t. This man was harassing that woman. He wouldn’t leave her alone. He seemed to be pretty drunk, but that’s no excuse for anything. They had my full attention at that point. He kept asking for her number, asking her to give him her Instagram so he could check out her page. He kept asking for her Snapchat so they could chat. It was beginning to infuriate me.

Luke paused for a moment. He took a deep breath and clutched the Bible closer to his chest.

Most who know me know I can have a short fuse, Luke continued. "I try to control my temper, but sometimes, it gets the best of me. After about ten minutes of listening to him badger that woman, I finally told him to leave her alone. He cussed me out and told me to mind my own business. I simply told him she didn’t want to give out her info and he should move on. I was trying to be nice about it. He escalated the situation when he grabbed her butt. It was like he did it just to see what I would do. She smacked him across the face, and he shoved her. I flew off my barstool so fast I sent the stool flying. I grabbed that guy by the throat and pushed him away from her. He took a swing, and I ducked it. The bartender yelled if we were going to fight, we needed to take it outside. So we did.

We got out to the parking lot, and he swung on me again. I tried to juke it, but he caught me on the chin. It hurt, but it didn’t knock me off my feet or anything. I countered with a right and connected with his jaw. I heard his jaw break. Blood flew out of his mouth. But he didn’t go down. He only got angrier. He advanced on me, and I hit him again. He staggered and came back at me. I hit him again. And again. And again. He was out of it and clearly hurting, but he kept coming at me. I pulled back and punched him in the nose with every ounce of strength I had. He flew backward and crashed to the pavement. He was out cold, or so I thought at the time. I ran back inside, paid my bill, and went home. I figured the guy would get a night or two in the hospital and be mostly fine. Come to find out, I killed him. I drove his nose bone into his brain, and he was dead before he even hit the ground.

Luke let the tears out. He knew that Friday night, as he beat that man, he was doing wrong. He should have never let it get to that. He should have told the son of a-bitch to go find a different bar. He shouldn’t have beaten the man like that.

My son, Father Brian began. You have sinned, but Jesus will forgive you. Give your heart and mind fully to the Lord and all will be forgiven. Your eternal soul is safe with the Lord.

Thank you, Father, Luke sobbed. What do I do now?

Father Brian gave Luke his penance. Luke said he would do his penance before he went downtown to the police station. He asked Father Brian if there was anything else he should do. What else could he do to get right with the Lord? Could he ever get right with the Lord?

Pray. Pray for forgiveness and guidance. The Lord will always guide you down the right path. If you give yourself fully to the Lord, you will not lose your way again, Father Brian said.

Thank you again. I am going to go turn myself in now, Luke said, wiping tears from his face with his shirtsleeve.

God bless, Father Brian said.

Luke took the Bible with him. He didn’t know if that was a sin or not, but he assumed Father Brian would have given him the Bible if he had asked. The Bible felt safe and comforting clutched to his chest. He arrived at the police station and walked in. He went to the information desk. An older man asked how he could help.

Where do I go to turn myself in for murder? Luke asked calmly. The man’s eyes got huge, and he looked shocked. It probably wasn’t every day that someone walked in and said they killed someone.

The older man didn’t say anything. He picked up his phone, smashed a few digits, and said, Get down to the front desk now.

A minute or so later, a detective approached Luke. He asked what he could help him with.

I killed a man, Luke said. I want to turn myself in.

The detective looked shocked as well. Follow me, he said and turned away from Luke.

The man behind the counter had called a couple of uniformed officers over, and they escorted Luke into the precinct. The detective and the uniforms led Luke into an interrogation room. Luke told them the whole story from beginning to end. He explained how he hadn’t intended on killing the man. It was just a brawl in a tavern parking lot. Shit like that happened every weekend. He told them he was sorry and was ready for his punishment. He wanted to get in front of a judge as soon as possible and get put away. He didn’t deserve to be free anymore.

Luke was placed under arrest for aggravated murder. He refused bail. Luke called his sister and told her everything. He wanted her to have all his possessions. He would be going away for a long time.

Luke sat down on the bunk in his cell. The reality and finality of his situation was sinking in. All along, he had just wanted to get right with God and confess his sins. He wanted to do the right thing and turn himself in. As a sixteen-year-old boy, he watched as one boy beat another boy to death. Luke never thought he would ever do something like that. Watching someone lose their life at the hands of someone else had been more than traumatic, and it had stuck with him. He still had nightmares about it. He could still see Ray bloodied on that sidewalk. He could still hear Samuel curse at them and walk off like nothing had just happened. Now, twenty-four years later, he sat in a cell for doing that same damn thing. He sat in a cell because he let rage get the best of him and beat another man to death. He hadn’t set out to kill the man. He just wanted to teach the asshole a lesson. He guessed in some sick twisted way, he had taught someone a lesson. Himself.

Luke was by no means proud of himself. He should have stayed out of it. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t just sit there and let that drunk put his hands on a woman who didn’t want it. He just couldn’t let that shit happen right in front of him and not do anything about it. As he sat in that cell, countless ways he could have handled things differently wandered into his mind. He could have asked the woman to join him at a table. He could have politely suggested that she leave the bar and find a different place to drink. He could have asked the bartender to tell the drunk to leave. He could have simply left and gone home. He could have done a million things differently. A million different possibilities and not one of them would have ended with him sitting behind bars. None of them would have ended with a man losing his life. But the one choice he had made did end up with one man dead and the other in jail. That probably happened a lot more often than people were aware of.

Luke couldn’t believe where his life had ended up. He went from a troubled, alcoholic youth, to a lost twenty-something, to a getting his life together thirty-something, to a happy, mostly well-adjusted forty-year-old. A forty-year-old was now sitting in a rank jail cell, wondering how long he’d end up in prison. He tried to convince himself he didn’t care how long. He deserved whatever he got. But the truth was, Luke was scared to death. His heart thumped, and he had a pit in his stomach. He muscles felt tight from stress and nerves. He knew he had done the right thing; they’d hopefully go easier on him for turning himself in. He was, after all, standing up for himself and that woman. The man swung first. The man swung on him twice before he even swung once. Luke hoped all that would help his case. He knew he’d go away for a while for what he had done. He just hoped he wouldn’t be gone too long. He hoped he could survive his sentence and try to recreate some form of a normal life again once he got out. His old job wouldn’t be waiting for him. He knew that for sure. Luke knew people around town that could help him get work once he got out. It was far too soon to worry about any of that. At that moment, all that mattered was how long would he go away.

He hadn’t been arrested since he was a kid. Luke had been a law-abiding citizen his whole adult life. Not even a speeding ticket. His juvenile record was closed at eighteen. The courts did give Luke some leniency. He was charged with a class B felony for manslaughter. They dropped the aggravated assault charges and disorderly conduct. He got the max for a class B of ten years, but they gave him the possibility of parole in just three years. When the judge’s gavel hit the bench to close out the trial, Luke knew it was all over. Tears flooded down his bearded cheeks. His hands shook in his cuffs. Sweat soaked through his shirt under his arms. That was it. Up to ten years in the state pen. He deserved it though. His attorney assured him he’d be out in three years. There was no way in hell he’d do the full ten unless he fucked up in prison. His attorney told him to keep to himself and stay out of trouble and he’d be out in no time. Luke could do that. He’d spent his whole adult life keeping to himself. The one night he strayed from that, he ended up in prison.

******

Dude! You give us that story and just end it with him going away? Shawn asked. What happened after that?

I don’t know. He’s in prison now. That’s all I know, Damon responded.

Clearly a made-up story, Trevor said. I can’t believe you memorized a Bible verse for that story! Nice work, man.

Yup, fiction, Marie, Trevor’s girlfriend, said.

I agree. Made up, Nicole said.

That’s three for made up, Damon said.

Totally made up, Matt said.

That’s four, Damon said, smiling.

Total fiction, Shawn said.

Five, Damon said, almost giddy.

The rest of the campers all agreed it was a made-up story. Everyone except for Corine. She already knew that story, so she kept her two cents out of it. Damon did have a way of weaving a tall tale. He was good at little details but did lack greater substance sometimes. But, oh well, these were just campfire stories after all.

It’s embellished. The events are true. I just added my flair to it since I wasn’t there for any of it, Damon said.

No fuckin’ way, dude! Shawn said. I’ve known you for twenty years and never heard that story. You would’ve told me something like that by now.

It happened to our neighbor just about a year ago. Corine knows it’s true, Damon said.

It is mostly true, Corine said. At least the last part where Luke beat a guy to death. I’m not sure where my man here came up with the rest of that story.

I did embellish a lot of it, Damon said. Since I grew up in the eighties, too, and had a rich friend with an addict for a mom, I added that in. Luke did tell me that story about Samuel and Ray. That shit really did happen to him. He was a good man, but a deeply disturbed man. Dude walked around with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I hope he is doing okay in prison.

Jesus, that’s some heavy shit, Zach said, shaking his head.

Yeah, man, that’s some disturbing stuff, George said. Nice work, brother.

The group judged each story on content more than anything else. They all wanted to make each other think. Or they tried to scare each other or make each other laugh. Their stories could be on the heavy side sometimes. That was the beauty of the game. Anything goes. Where was there a better place to tell heavy, funny, or scary stories than next to a firepit in the middle of the woods?

Thanks, guys, Damon said. So who’s next?

I’ll go next, Eva said and pulled out a notebook. "I wrote some stuff down so I wouldn’t