M. A. Whatley

In the year of our Lord, two-thousand and two (Or maybe three… Four? Somewhere around there.), my two best friends and I, all around age eleven I believe, boarded a van headed to church camp. (Why don’t they have church camp for adults? NOW is the time when I need five days away from life and to savagely beat people with pool noodles in a jousting contest…)

For context, I must share where the story began: Arts and crafts.

Y’all remember back when they had those little plastic things that you’d paint and they’d make a sun catcher? (That was great. Do they still make those?) Anyway, apparently a cheap way to keep approximately eight-hundred and fifty grimy children occupied was to buy a huge bucket of them that were about the size of a silver dollar.

Just so you know, anytime I have to do something, I’m gonna work on it until it’s as close to perfect as I can possibly get it. (Which is probably why it’s taking me so long to work on my dang books…) So I spent WAY too long on this thing and I’ll tell y’all, it was a thing of BEAUTY!

I can specifically remember that it was a rainbow coming out of a cloud, and I worked painstakingly to swirl just the right amount of lavender and white together to make the cloud. It was glorious. And then I looked up and approximately eight-hundred and forty-nine children had disappeared without a trace. I was all alone.

Well, there was one girl left.

Now, this girl has nothing to do with the story, she simply aggravated and fascinated me and I wanna talk about her for a minute. She had albinism. There was another person with albinism at the camp, too. A boy. I think they were siblings. The only reason I say that instead of just thinking there happened to be two kids with albinism was because they had the same eyes…

Every other time I’ve ever seen someone with albinism, they had red eyes. Which is neat. But these kids had lavender eyes. A lovely shade of pale purple. I’d never seen anything like it before, or since, and it was amazing. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Her eyes were near about the same color of the cloud on the sun catcher I’d painted.

The sun catcher that she then ruined!

There they were, eight-hundred and fifty tiny sun catchers, all very obviously still wet, laying on a table to dry. A few stragglers leaned over the table to admire the other children’s work. And this girl was apparently so entranced by my masterpiece that she picked it up and held it completely vertical to get a good look at it.

I lurched forwards as if I were about to intercept a bullet meant for a loved one.

I carefully snatched it away from her and laid it back down on the table, but the damage had already been done. The paint had run and the whole thing was screwed up.

When I got home, my mom assured me that it was still beautiful, but that’s just because she didn’t get to see how amazing it had been before my artwork was so viciously sabotaged.

I’m still angry about it to this day.

Anyway, back to the story!

My heart now shattered into a bajillion pieces, I got in the lunch line. Lunch had been announced a very long time prior, but I was busy. So now I was the very last person in line. Nobody joined after me. I actually remember a staff member asking what the heck happened to make me so late. I was literally the last child to receive a tray of food.

The girl in front of me is the protagonist of this story.

For I, dear readers, am the antagonist.

We struck up a conversation, both being extremely bored and hungry as we waited our turns. By the time we got our food, most of the other kids had finished eating and moved on with their day. And so, I and my new friend sat together while we ate so neither of us would be alone. I remember my friends coming over and asking worriedly where I had been, since I had apparently entered a wormhole and inexplicably lost several hours of my life. Once I told them that I was, indeed, a huge dork who slaved away only to have my work destroyed, they went off to wherever we were all supposed to be at that time.

And so I sat with this girl and talked. We laughed and made jokes. The kind of jokes that old friends make. The kind that were really stupid, but you found so funny that you then keep bringing it back up and dissolving into giggles again.

The giggles would not last long, my friends.

I wish very much that I could remember what these jokes were, because this was the catalyst that turned this fun summer camp adventure into a living horror story.

The only thing I can remember was that the jokes had something to do with vampires. I think garlic bread was involved. I imagine it went something like this:

Me: Oh, I hate garlic bread!

Her: What? Why? How can someone hate garlic bread?

Me, shrugging: I don’t know. I guess it’s cause I’m a vampire.

*Giggles ensue*

She sat with me at dinner, and I referred back to the joke. She laughed. I think over time I added onto it, mentioning more and more things that vampires stereotypically do not like. And always, it was a joke. There was laughter.

She was in a different cabin from us, so I only got to hang out with her during the times in-between activities, because the cabins all had their own schedules. Somehow, I always seemed to be around her when no one else was there. My friends were somewhere else, and I don’t know if this girl had any friends there, since I don’t remember her ever being with anyone.

The next day, a few more references to vampires were made. She laughed, but now the laughter was perhaps a bit more forced. She seemed nervous. Instead of a smile, now I’d get more of a grimace in response. I didn’t think much of it. It was all a joke, and she knew that. She was just playing along, acting out her part.

Note: If anything, I am a robot. Not a vampire. I do not understand the emotions of humans. So while true living creatures may have put together what was wrong here, I could not. So in case you were curious: Yes. I have always been this socially inept.

We had split up to join our cabins in their next activities. We had just finished the last one for the day, and the sun was setting. I was walking next to one of my friends, heading to dinner, when I saw the girl walking on the other side of the road to the cafeteria.

“Watch this,” I muttered to my friend, then called the girl’s name. She turned to look at me, and I grinned and waved at her, expecting one of those faux-nervous glances.

Never again have I witnessed someone literally burst into tears.

She ran, arms flailing wildly.

She was fast.

Hysterical laughter exploded from my friend, but my stomach had dropped down into my shoes.

It was a joke… An inside joke between friends…

I never even did anything. It was all talk.

I never expected her to really believe me…

And then the feds got involved.

I remember leaving my friend to try and go fix the problem, and when I crested the hill, I saw her. She was snitching on me to a camp counselor. Just as I stopped to nervously watch from the shadows, she threw her finger towards me, pointing accusatorially.

“S-She’s a v-v-vampire!” the girl wailed.

The counselor turned to stare at me.

I was sure I was in trouble.

I mean, what would be the odds of a vampire hunter being stationed at a church camp? That would be highly unlikely. At least, that’s what my logical brain told me. So that wasn’t what had me worried.

I thought I would get reprimanded for terrifying someone so thoroughly. There was only one more day at camp, and I didn’t want to have to miss out on any of the fun. I didn’t scare her on purpose!

“You’re just being silly, she’s not a vampire! They don’t exist!” He said cheerily, then meandered away.

People, this girl was absolutely devastated.

It was the part of the movie where the main character actually locates someone of authority who could help, but then gets blown off. I walked towards her out of the shadows, and she looked ready to frigging faint.

I emphatically assured her that I was, in fact, not a vampire. That vampires do not attend church camp. You know, because of the crosses. I apologized for scaring her. I told her that it had just been a joke, and I thought she knew that. She wiped her teary face and whimpered, “Okay…”

We stared at each other for a long moment, and then I awkwardly turned and walked away without another word. I didn’t speak to her again that night.

The next day, everyone was eating lunch, and we’d soon be loading into the vans to go home.

I sat with my friends, and saw her walking by with a tray, alone, once again. I called her name. She turned and looked at me.

“Why don’t you come sit over here with us?” I asked, and she smiled.

“Okay.”

You know at the end of the movie where everyone who had been fighting makes up and it’s all wholesome? This was like that. Like the end of Mean Girls. I quietly apologized once again, and she accepted my apology.

The meal we were eating?

Spaghetti.

With garlic bread.

I picked up the bread and took a big bite, then smiled at her. She playfully made a cross symbol with her fingers. We laughed. We hugged. We waved at each other as we climbed on our respective vans.

All was well.

Roll credits.