It was a cold, stormy night in the small town I grew up in. Johnny, Colby, Sarah and I were hiking in the woods, looking for a place to camp for the night. The strong winds were taking us down, however we couldn’t give up until we got to where we needed to be. We were seventeen at the time, and good at figuring things out. Johnny was scared of everything, heck i don't know how he agreed to go with us. Colby, on the other hand, was very brave, and nothing scared him. It was his idea anyway. Sarah is Johnny’s sister, therefore Johnny was very protective over her, since she was only thirteen years old. We finally found the perfect camp spot, or so we thought. “This will be perfect! There's enough room for all of our sleeping bags to fit around the fire,” Colby said as we were getting settled in.

 “Whatever, there's probably a million bugs just waiting to eat us alive!” Johnny said, while helping Sarah. 

Sarah didn't talk much, but Johnny was the complete opposite, he always said what was on his mind. I started the fire. It was starting to get warm really quickly. “Bang,” “What was that?” Colby asked.

 “Oh stop, you're just trying to scare Johnny and Sarah.'' I said.

 “No, actually i can hear something moving.” Colby said.

 “This isn't funny Colby, Sarah is getting scared.” Johnny said, looking frightened.

 “Colby and I will go check it out, you guys stay here and watch our stuff.” I said while tugging Colbys arm. We headed over to where Colby said there was noise, but didn't see anything, so we went back to camp.

 “See! I told you there was nothing” Johnny said, “i told you” but Colby didn't say anything, he just rolled his eyes. Everything was going great, we were roasting marshmallows watching the flames lick against the tiny, sugary puffs. telling scary stories, and kind of forgot about the loud noise Colby heard…  until we ALL heard something. It sounded like something crunching leaves, and I swear I could hear a plastic bag moving around like the crinkle of wrapping paper Immediately, Sarah started crying, and Johnny was on the verge of tears. Colby and I were calm, but definitely scared. We stayed quiet for a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours. I went to investigate. I tried to go alone, but Colby insisted on going with me. We walked around with flashlights, but it was so dark and dim they didn't really help. We were both sick of Johnny’s complaining, so we sat by a tree. Colby jumped up as soon as he sat down. 

“What is that?!” He said, sounding scared. 

“What?” I yelled.

 “I sat on something mushy”. They pointed their flashlights at the ground, discovering a large blue tarp with flies all around it. It smelled like rotten fish. 

“Oh my gosh! We need to go and get Johnny and Sarah.” I said, but Colby said they would definitely be way too scared. I knew I needed to lift up the tarp. I ripped it off as fast as I could. 

“No way! There's no way!” we said simultaneously. 

“I can't believe he's dead.” Colby said while starting to cry. Underneath the tarp was our science teacher, Mr. Neilson. He was the one who gave us the idea to go camping. 

“This has to be some kind of sick and twisted prank.” I said to Colby, but he was in shock, and ran back to the camp spot. I followed him, but he got there before I did, and told the others what he saw.

 “There's no way you're not lying,” Johnny said, while laughing. 

“I saw him earlier… but i just thought it was another man trying to camp.” Sarah said. 

“Maybe he was trying to warn us,” she continued. We were all terrified now. Too scared to move or speak. Johnny was so scared that he fainted. We realized we needed to get out of the woods as soon as possible. We knew nobody would ever believe us. After 20 minutes of packing up our things, we noticed the sun started to come up. We decided to stay for a little while to see if anyone would come around. I must have fallen asleep… because i woke up and everyone else was sound asleep. It was definitely morning. I went to go and see if the body was still there, and it wasn't. I know it wasn't a dream though. I ran back and woke up the others and told them the body was gone. Thank goodness, they remembered what i was talking about. We assumed that the body was just a prank played by the school staff, and honestly didn't talk about it much after that. We finished packing our things and headed home. We all went our separate ways so we could get ready for bed, since we had school early in the morning the next day. We didn't say anything to anyone. The next morning I got to school and found Johnny and Colby. They were pale as can be.

 “What's wrong?” I asked. 

Johnny looked at me, like he was gonna puke and said 

“Dude, didn't you hear the news this morning? Mr. Neilson was found dead in the middle of the woods last night.”