text: Have you ever gazed up towards the skies in the dead of night? It won't work in cities, and it seems only a few are able to see it at all; I've only managed to see it maybe once or twice of what must be hundreds of times I've tried by now. Nothing fancy really, in fact if you weren't paying close attention, you might even mistake it for a bright star or one of the hundreds of satellites that now orbit our Earth. But, if you pay close attention, and you're extremely lucky, you just might see it - a small red light, no bigger than a thumb when pressed against the sky. I know what you're thinking - I'm just uneducated, and the light I saw is indeed the reflection from one of our satellites, or a distant star shining brighter than normal. For a long time, I thought the same - I didn't even give it a second thought the first time I saw it. I must have been around fourteen years old when it happened. I was away at a small summer camp for my church youth group. We had all played capture the flag during the day, so the campers were worn out, and decided, perhaps unwillingly, to call it a night earlier than usual. For me, this was a perfect opportunity to run off into the woods and do something naughty with one of the girls I had known. If you've ever been to a church camp, you understand this isn't at all unusual - with the vows of semi-voluntary chastity waging a never-ending war against one's newly blossoming desires, escapades like mine were almost certain to take place at some point during those trips. Older kids even used to make an effort of staying up to point and giggle when witnessing red-faced freshmen duos reappearing, awkwardly separated, from the thick woods that bordered the campsite. This time was no different - Susannah and I had been getting closer and closer to one another over the course of the two days we had been there so far. Susannah was the daughter of one of the youth pastors at that church, which meant of course that she was far more adventurous than her peers. Shared lunch tables turned to hand holding and hand holding turned to... well that's not really the point of the story. Anyways, that night after some of the campers had gone to sleep, Susannah and I snuck out per our plans and headed to a spot we had both discussed as the meetup spot during the day. I brought along one of my longer jackets - taking a full sleeping bag would have been way too obvious, and she was just supposed to bring her wide-eyed excitement. As I hurried through the forest, careful not to make too much of a ruckus on my way, I was greeted by an unusually dark night. A light fog had formed as was usually the case, but the skies that managed to pierce through the canopy above seemed clear and yet starless altogether. When I had finally stumbled to the meeting spot, I was expectedly alone. Being the good gentleboy I was, I had decided to leave earlier than we had planned so Susannah wouldn't have had to be kept waiting, and to further decrease the suspicion of the counselors. I set up the long-jacket picnic blanket and assumed my most striking fourteen year-old pose I could muster as I lay down and observed the sky above while I waited. The sky was still just as odd as it had appeared during my romp through the woods - cloudless and unusually dark for this time of year, and this area out in the country; but, there was one star that shone brightly amidst the rest. The star was somewhat larger than the small white dots that generally speckled the area, and its red hue seemed to cast a perfectly devious atmosphere over the equally devious scene about to unfold. I took turns between staring at the sky, thinking anxiously about the activities I was about to engage in, and gawking at my watch. When our original meeting time had finally arrived, I felt my body tense up and my hands begin to clam. Not now, dammit... I changed positions a few times, fixed my hair, and perched myself perfectly awkwardly against the now-slightly-damp jacket. But, as I waited, Susannah never came. After a few minutes, I checked my watch, and sure enough it had been ten minutes past when we said we would meet. My hormones wouldn't be so easily quelled though, and I gave Susannah the benefit of the doubt as I continued to wait. Eventually half an hour had passed, and I hadn't so much as naughtily held hands - much less enacted the plans I had fantasized about. Once an hour had passed, even my hormones couldn't fight my growing annoyance and the onset of drowsiness that had finally caught up with me. I stood up atop the wet jacket, and threw it over one shoulder as I made the hike back towards the cabin. At this point, I could care less if a counselor saw me - it wasn't like I had really done anything anyways. I trudged back towards the cabin, into the boys' room, and plopped into bed all without hassle. Another uncomfortable night with my biology painfully reminding me of my adventurous failures. \ The next morning, I woke up with the previous night's events weighing heavily on my mind. I planned to confront Susannah, but I thought it more than likely that she had simply been overcome by the demons of exhaustion that plague us all. The boys showered, dressed, and made our way over to the mess hall for breakfast as per usual. When we arrived, we saw some of the girls crowding around Mr. Knightly, one of the senior camp counselors, by the worship stage. We figured they were just discussing girl drama, and didn't really give it a second thought. I grabbed a plate and lined it with all the usual assortments of camp breakfast food - eggs, mini sausages, pancakes, and all with a healthy helping of syrup drizzled on top. It wasn't until I went to sit down that I noticed something was off. I meant to sit with Susannah at breakfast and talk to her then, but she seemed nowhere to be found. I looked for her clique, and that's when I noticed they were the girls talking to Mr. Knightly. I set my food on a nearby table, grabbed a sausage to snack on for good measure, and headed towards the group to see if I could overhear what they were talking about. Sure enough, the girls were asking somewhat frantically about Susannah's whereabouts. They saw me approach and, knowing of our obvious involvement together, asked me to confirm her disappearance. My face must have flushed with blood, but sparing the counselor some of the more vivid details, I could at least let him know that I hadn't seen her since the day before either. Mr. Knightly seemed distressed by all this news and let us know that he'd immediately make an announcement, and that we'd go on a search of the grounds to find Susannah as soon as the kids had had their breakfasts. Once the time had come, we ventured off into the woods, separating into small groups - each comprising a counselor, a walkie-talkie, and about seven neurotic high schoolers. I had the dreadfully ironic misfortune of being in the group that would end up visiting my forest hideaway. I was delighted when we reached the spot, and there were no bedraggled corpses that the worst of imagination had conjured up. That being said, guilt at my likelier and likelier responsibility for Susannah's disappearance had definitely begun to creep up on me. God was punishing us, the avidly religious forefront of my mind kept repeating. When we had cleared our section of the woods, we communicated with the other teams, and eventually backtracked our way to the cabin. That night was somber, we ate in near-silence and even those of us who hardly knew Susannah had faces painted with dejection. Susannah's family had driven in from the city and were exchanging heated words with Mr. Knightly and the rest of the counselors. After dinner was over, we were given another announcement from Mr. Knightly about how our parents would be collecting us the next day instead of at the end of the week as previously planned, and how the county sheriff's office would be coming in after we left to do a thorough investigation of the area. He reminded us to remain calm, and assured us we'd see Susannah at church that coming Sunday. We never did. \ What made matters worse was the fact that no body or evidence was ever found relating to her disappearance. Initially, there were some torn fabrics that were brought to the family's attention, but her mother immediately knew she had never bought anything like the floral material they had found. It was as though Susannah had vanished - she had been there the day before... and then she simply wasn't. The lack of news devastated her family - her mother, perhaps most of all. During the first Christmas after Susannah's disappearance, her mother had begun announcing delusions of a rapturous nature regarding her daughter. It wasn't a tragedy, but a miracle that she had gone missing - she claimed to have visions in the night of her daughter standing with Jesus, telling her everything was alright. The rest of her family must have known, but I guess they decided to go along with her superstitions; after all, they couldn't disprove her mother's claims, and it would have been heartless to unknowingly insist upon her cruel fate as an alternative. The years treated me poorly as well. The guilt of having potentially led Susannah to her demise was birthed in my consciousness, and then slowly found its way deep into the annals of repression and denial over time. High school came and went, in college I had my fair share of rebellious behavior, but I avoided anything having to do with Susannah - including my hometown - for years. That is, until I saw the light again. \ I was nineteen the second time I saw it. That time was different; that time, I couldn't mistake it for a star. My freshman year of college was full of surprises. I never gained fifteen pounds and I felt surprisingly adequate in most of my classes, which in its own way was surprising to some around me. Though, perhaps the greatest source of surprise for me was in learning about myself. My life wasn't exactly modest, and I wasn't prudish by any means; but, as many of us raised in strict, Biblical families can attest to, there's a certain indelible mischief that awakens on the precipice of one’s eighteenth birthday. Some never know this desire; some learn of it early on, and cooperate with it to satisfy their needs; these days, most of us meet this inner fiend in our dorm rooms, as though it greets us within our first inhalation of college air. What's that taste? Freedom. I went into college somewhat reserved. I had a plan, and unlike the strugglers around me, I was capable of executing it. Every day for me started at 7:00 AM; my first classes, an hour later. Some may have thought it taxing, but at the time, I found it exhilarating. I had always had a fascination with efficiency and the capabilities of man, were he to live up to his potential. I didn't take the free-ride classes either - my freshman schedule was booked with advanced calculus, chemistry, biology, and physics all at once. Up until this point, I had been subject to the rules and guidelines which governed which courses I could and couldn't take concurrently. I wanted to push myself beyond those rules and guidelines - to succeed in a way not previously possible, and to indulge in the fruits of that success. Surprisingly, I managed to make it through, getting commendable marks in each of my classes, whilst also feeling a tremendous burden that I might not have been ready to admit to. I believe it was this burden that pushed me into drugs and alcohol my second semester - two vices I had had almost no experience with. My maternal uncle and grandfather had both died, lips on the bottle, and my mother was a vehement prohibitionist as a result. Alcohol to our family was like pork to a Hassidic Jew, drugs were despised even more. Perhaps this abstinence was what drove me to indulge these demons, perhaps it was meant to be. It wasn't too difficult to find a source, though I thought it definitely would be. As soon as I began looking, it seemed many of the relatively small group of church friends that had attended university with me had begun seeking the same nefarious affairs, and even earlier than myself. It only took discussing my desires with two of my friends, John and Abraham, before I was offered the chance at turning my fantasies into reality. According to Abraham, there was to be a party - one in which all affects one could hope for would be present: booze, drugs, girls, what not to love? I agreed, nervously, but quickly just the same. My mind had been made up, there were no more decisions for me to rifle through. The night of the party came more quickly than I had expected, my anxiousness to experience an entirely new reality seemed to cast a haze over the rest of my activities in the preceding days. I donned my grungiest jeans, and made an effort to tousle up my fresh crew-cut in an attempt to look less like the bible-beating nerd I was doomed to appear as. I caught a ride with Abraham, who intended not to drink, as a girl he really liked, and planned to make an impression on, was certain to be there that night. When I breached the doors, I was greeted by a sight unlike any I had witnessed before. It reminded me of those presentations they give to teenagers to try and scare them away from the very situation I had volunteered myself into. The smell of skunk and sweat permeated the air, and haughtily dressed boys and girls thrust their hips and chests against one another in a surreal dance that filled the room. Lights flashed in every color, and the music, though loud, seemed to gently blend into the trance of the entire occasion. There was a table at the end of the entrance hall adorned with every spirit and concoction my young mind could have fathomed - vodka, whiskey, tequila, beverages I had only seen on TV or in health classes. Abraham had quickly abandoned me in search of his temptation. I looked around aimlessly and met the eyes of one of the girls who had owned the venue we were debauching; she seemed kind, though certainly inebriated, and noticing my confusion, politely offered me to have whatever I'd like. I reached for a cup, filled it halfway with Vodka, and began to sip. Certainly, nobody was drinking this for its flavor. I began to swim awkwardly through the crowd, making a vulgar attempt to dance as I walked, looking for some girl to indulge me in the real reasons I had attended this gathering. I was offered a hit of something that smelled so pungent, it watered the eyes without needing to smoke it. I accepted; this was after all what I had wanted. The smoking circle I had managed to invade passed around the little pale idol as we all gave worship to it with our lips and with our lungs. One of the girls liked a joke I made and we got around to talking one-on-one by the end of the rotation. She was cute, only slightly shorter than me, and seemed to be almost as new to this experience as I was. Her hair was a bright blonde, and she wore a tight red tube top you could tell she felt uncomfortable in. Eventually the raucousness of the night, or my charm, or some combination of both had managed to convince her to find a secluded place where we could "hear each other better." We investigated the house for empty bedrooms, but found them all locked or occupied, so I faintly suggested we might head to some of the woods that bordered the house's rear edge. We talked and giggled awkwardly as we snuck our way out beyond the fence. I could tell she was just as nervous as I, and I tried to joke more to lighten the mood. As we approached the line where the trees began, she seemed to tense up - I assured her everything was fine. As I talked, I faced the house, and as I glanced towards one of the windows on the second floor, I saw a light coming from within. It wasn't a glare, it wasn't a reflection, and it wasn't one of the many colored lights that dotted the house. This light was different, it was brighter, and it was unobscured by any of the other colors that flashed and blended throughout the scene. I stared at it for at least ten seconds just to make sure it was truly there. I blinked and it remained, though when I looked back at the girl, it disappeared behind her. My stomach turned immediately, and I was instantly reminded of Susannah all those years prior. Not wanting to upset the girl that I was with though, I brushed it off. She reluctantly agreed to follow me deeper into the woods. There was a clearing we reached after a brief walk. The stars shone through, and the red star was nowhere among them. I felt vindicated in my decision to bring this girl along after all. I stared back at her, and a smile had been painted on her face. My arms subtly wrapped around her waist, and instinctually, we both leaned in to kiss one another. It was passionate, fiery, but it was short. She said she needed to use the bathroom, and I agreed to wait while she found a nearby spot in the woods. Finally, after so many years, I would seal the colloquial deal. I waited. But she didn't return. After not too long, my giddiness got the best of me, and I decided to search after her in the direction she had vanished. Nothing. I called out for her, realizing I hadn't asked for her name in the most unpleasant of ways. "Where'd you go? ... Hey!" I shouted, but there was no response. There hadn't been a scream, there hadn't been a scuffle, there had only been silence. She walked out into the woods, and she never returned. A better man than I would have ran back to the party and asked for her friends, but I knew how that would have looked. The stranger arrives to the party, takes some girl to the woods, and the girl doesn't return. Plus, I figured there was still a chance something anomalous might have happened to her. She could have tripped and fallen, or passed out from the cocktail in her system, any number of random events could have taken her, and I most certainly was not going to involve myself in a situation that could so deeply damn my reputation. I found Abraham, who looked distraught - he had been unable to find the girl he had been looking for. I assured him it was just the party that likely scared her, and it had nothing to do with him. We drove home, and discussed the blues of relationships drunkenly along the way. I don't know how I did it, but the soul-crushing fear that had begun to well up within me didn't manage to appear in my demeanor. That night, I was restless. Dark memories tucked deeply away to be forgotten had surfaced. Things I had convinced myself were nothing more than childhood fancy, once more paced into my threshold of unmistakable reality. The star had not been a coincidence, and only a fool could dismiss such a clear modus operandi. Twice, I had seen the star; twice, I had found myself without a lover. My head raced; my heart raced. I stared blankly through my ceiling. After about a week passed and my inward self matched my outward appearance once more, I decided I needed to investigate the anomaly which now certainly plagued my mind, once and for all. I wasted no time questioning where my search would have to begin; that answer was clear to me - home. \ I decided to skip out on a week of classes. That's all it would take, I assured myself. When Friday came, I loaded the back of my 2005 Impact Orange Wrangler with a week's worth of clothes, some beef jerky, and some generalized camping supplies in case I'd need to stay out overnight near the old campsite. The drive was slow and steady, and my mind raced all the while. Feelings I hadn't had to confront since starting high school quickly boiled their way to the surface of my conscience. My phone died pretty soon after I started driving, so I relied on the staticky radio stations that came in and out of range periodically. I watched closely for the road signs as this would also be one of the first times driving home from out-of-town on my own. Eventually I saw the exit sign loom against the tan, dry, dying grass backdrop. Bear Creek, the campsite I'd unknowingly tried to forget, was now feeling closer and closer to me with every shallow breath I took. The woods looked different now, these four and a half years later. They seemed smaller, less inviting, and stripped of the adventure they had once held for me. Many of the small streams and offshoots of Bear Creek had since dried up; the camp itself had closed shortly after Susannah's disappearance. You could feel a certain melancholy in the air there, as if the sum total of emotions and nervousness that had been present that day had left some sort of stain on the air itself. Rain began to softly poor, and the horizon therefore greyed, as I veered into the small parking lot next to the trailhead that led into camp. A small, wooden, "Welcome to Bear Creek" had been overwritten by, "KID KILLERS" in bold red spray paint. The place had seen better days. I strapped on my camping pack, donned a navy blue rain jacket, and ventured off down the trail to meet whatever fate had in store for me. There was something odd about the whole occasion, however. I couldn't have possibly known what would lie in store for me, but for whatever reason, I knew I would find something. It was simply impossible to me that my heart could have been so misguidedly pulled towards this ethereal site. The surrounding atmosphere only confirmed this ominous sensation. Sure enough, I did find something - though now I wish I would have let the star be, undisturbed - a force of nature to be reckoned, not reasoned with. I made my way first to the cabin which had become boarded and vandalized with every curse word imaginable. The soft, homely appeal of the building had been replaced with a visage that warned others to keep away if they valued their lives. It wasn't difficult to break into the building - I climbed through one of the broken windows that led into the boy's sleeping room. The room was damp and musty, black mold dotted the ceiling, and small twigs and leaves had found their way into the cabin. I searched the rest of the building, which didn't take me long - I didn't know what I was looking to find, but the whole ordeal felt therapeutic in a sense. A part of me had never come back out of lack of reason to do so; a part of me had been too scared. After I had searched the cabin, I mustered the courage to search where I knew I needed to go - to the place where I least wanted to look - to the clearing beneath the stars. The rain picked up as I started down that old familiar path through the woods. I could feel the thunder as it shook me from within. The ground had become wet and soggy, and my shoes sank in places where it wasn't covered in dead brush. I imagined Susannah walking through these same woods all those years ago, frightened in the way only the mind can frighten when presented with a playground as fascinating as the woods at night. I imagined her treading through the forest, and finally reaching the clearing - maybe she had woken later in the night after all; maybe she had reached this place, only to find me missing. I shuddered at the thought. I brushed aside the last bit of branches blocking my view. There it was, still and silent, pattered on the edges with the occasional splash of rain that trickled down from the canopy above. I walked out to the center of the clearing, it was almost completely dark by now. I looked up, and there were no stars to behold, only sullen grey clouds and the water they poured over me. Thunder rumbled once more, and seemed to be getting closer to where I stood. I considered my position amongst the trees, but decided to stay, if only for a few minutes longer. I looked up to peer at my position in the rain once more, but this time, the bright red hue shewed even through the thick clouds above. "What're you doing here?" I heard a familiar shout from the edge of the clearing. I squinted my eyes, It was Abraham. "You hear me, Zach? I asked what you were doing here." I was startled. Caught off guard, my hands shook as I looked at him, trying to come up with an answer. "I uh- needed to get away. Homecoming, you know?" "This isn't home," his shouting continued as he began to pace along the outer perimeter. "This is where Susannah disappeared from. Remember?" His question seemed to mock me, and he must have seen the startled reaction that reflexively painted my face. The red star seemed to grow brighter. "I remember fine. What are you doing here, then?" "I know, Zach. I know about Hannah - did you know that was her name?" "I don't know what you're talking about." "Oh, sure you do! Remember that party, Zach? I didn't see Hannah that night, but her friends said she had come with them. They didn't know where she had gone though! They told me some stranger had taken her into the woods. They lost the two of them after that. Hannah never came back though. Sound familiar, Zach-o?" My shaking intensified. The light had grown much brighter by now; the entire clearing was illuminated with the dark crimson glow of that terrible star. "You don't understand!" I started, trying with whatever I could to explain the situation to Abraham. "There's a red star that-" "I understand perfectly! And it's starting to make even more sense now! You were interested in Susannah that year too weren't you? I saw you get up that night, I saw you leave the boy's room. I didn't think anything then, but I know now. "Tell me, Zach, is there some sick urge in your head? Is there anything that helps you pick your victims, or is it all just random chance?" "Shut up!" I gazed at that vicious star that had now consumed almost everything it had touched. "Why'd you pick Hannah?! You couldn't have known, Zach! How did you know she was the girl I had fallen for?! How did you get her to trust you so quickly?! Just some predator instinct you have?" "I said, shut up!" "That's what you did, right? You shut them up - Hannah and Susannah - you shut them up well! Where'd you hide the bodies, huh?! ... Oh God..." "SHUT UP!" "It's here, isn't it... They're here... that's why you came!" "SHUT UP!" The star flashed. Brighter than I'd ever seen. It overtook my vision completely, and replaced it with bloody, red light. Purer in color, and brighter than even the deepest depths of my imagination could have conjured. It flashed. And, when it had finished flashing, Abraham too was gone. I don't know where the star takes them, or what it wants with me. I never got the answers I was looking for. But, I don't think I'll search for them again. If you ever see the red star, especially if you see it where it doesn't make sense - in your room, in the backseat of your car - if you see that star, don't think, don't plan; run, just run.