When I speak of horror, certain images form in my mind. The most prominent one is from my childhood. No mere monsters under the bed or in the closet, the monster I faced was far more real and terrifying. The horror I speak of wasn't a modern day one like an overbearing mother or a sexually perverted father but something more tangible, something more real, something old, something from the gray history of time before man learned how to use fire, something that changed my life forever. It was something utterly evil.
During my early school years, my parents used to send me to Camp Columbus for the summer. The camp was one that only children and their parents would find as an interesting place to spend the summer. I remember it quite clearly. It was located in what is called the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. The area reflects it's name very well. the land for the most part is covered in thick dirty-white sand. The only trees that survive in abundance throughout this desolate landscape are scraggly pine, usually no taller than twenty feet. In the center of this area is a large swamp. The camp itself wasn't large. It was oval in shape and surrounded by those scraggly pine trees on three sides. Old stumps and fallen trees that were bleached white from age dotted the dark and murky lake on the southern portion of the camp. An ancient dirt road led into the camp from Highway 35, eight miles to the east. The whole camp was really nothing more than an island surrounded by swampy marshlands. The cabins actually sat in the muck of the swamp so as to give more playing space in the central part of the camp. They were raised out of the smooth algae-encrusted mud by old and crumbly cinder blocks. Normally, we kids loved to play in mud, but the mud on the sides of and in back of the cabins was considered too disgusting even by seven year old standards and so remained smooth and untouched.
Camp was fun. We used to weave baskets from straw, make leather wallets (my father still uses the one I made), catch rattlesnakes, and go on hikes through the swamps. I always enjoyed those hikes. I used to pretend that I was some famous explorer charting out an untamed land. At night, seated around a large bonfire, we would hear stories of the surrounding land. There were stories of the Indians who built strange mounds in the earth, of battles between the Redcoats and the Yankees during the Revolutionary War, and of course the inevitable ghost stories. I always enjoyed the ghost stories. Being a child of modern society, however, I took them for what they were - just stories. How wrong I was.
One ghost story in particular was the most famous. It was about the Jersey Devil. The Jersey Devil had lived in the Pine Barrens since before the Indians. he was said to stand a muscular nine feet tall. While the upper half of the body resembled a human, the lower half looked like a shaggy horse with cloven hoofs. It had a long prehensile tail tipped by a fluff of hair. The upper human half was supposed to be very hairy, with a face similar to an ape's. The creature was said to glow an eerie white and was only seen at night. The Jersey Devil had many legends surrounding it. The stories mostly dealt with it sneaking into houses and stealing young children for a ghastly moonlight feast. It was supposed to be able to teleport anywhere at will in order to commit some wretched deed.
The night that I felt true horror was a hot and balmy one. I was asleep in the top berth of a bunk bed. There were eight other sleeping kids and a camp counselor in the cabin. My bunk was along the rear wall, and, next to me, high on the wall, was an oblong screen window. It was the best place in the entire cabin because the cool night wind always blew across my face, caressing me to sleep. For some unknown reason, I awoke around midnight. The air was still and sticky. As I tried to find a conformable position in order to fall back asleep, I turned towards the screen window. What I saw was something from a nightmare. A glowing white face filled the window. It looked like the gorilla I had seen at the zoo the year before. Two large yellowed fangs protruded from it's lower lips. A thick white fur of about an inch long covered the entire head. I was unable to move as it's eyes bored into mine. I will never forget those eyes. They glowed red. There were no pupils, just two red orbs staring at me. As we looked at each other, I somehow fell out of bed. I don't really remember what happened after that, but I got the impression that the monster tried to say something as I fell. When I landed on the wooden floor, my vocal chords never had so much abuse. I screamed as loud as I could, waking up the entire cabin. For about ten minutes, I screamed. Finally, the counselor succeeded in calming me down. I told him what I had seen. Everybody just laughed and said I had a nightmare. I was so convinced that what I had seen was real that I had the counselor look behind the cabin. Out back, we found something that mocked every sense of reality. The mud by my window was unblemished, except for two footprints, two footprints that were sunk down six inches into the muck, two footprints that could only have come from the hind legs of an unshod horse.