Who Sleeps Next To You?

A true horror story that happened to me when I was 11. A bit long, read at your own risk!

It was a rainy winter night at Quinta Camp the day it happened for the first time. I was one of the oldest and had therefore been left "in charge" of the wild little pack of 9 year-olds we called a group. We were huddled all together in a small wooden cabin, telling each other 'scary' stories which mostly consisted in moving plates an scary clowns. It was a big deal back then.

"Alright, piggies, time for bed!" I said, heaving the heavy blanket from me and picking up empty chocolate mugs.

"But why?" one of them said, looking at me trough sleepy beady eyes.

"Because at night the monsters come out to play," I chuckled darkly, taking a step forward. "And those who are not asleep end up as their snacks!"

Through gleeful laughter and a choked cackle or two, I finally got the lot of them in bed. I was just about to climb up to my own bunk when Lisa, one of the youngest, came up to me, holding a Teddy in one hand.

"Can I sleep with you, Renata?" she asked, rubbing her shoe against the floor. "I'm scared of the dark."

Needless to say, I'm scared of the dark too. "Why sure, Lisa. Come on up, we'll bunk together," I said, helping her into the bed and then climbing up after her. She wasn't particularly wide and fit quite nicely in a small corner of the bed.

And so went by our first night at camp.

The next morning I woke everyone up and slowly but steadily proceeded to the dining cabin, where steaming plates of pancakes were waiting for us. We finished them perhaps too quickly and got ready to begin with the day's activities. The rain has left a muddy mess of a field, but of course, that didn't stop us.

When life gives you mud, make mud pies. And perhaps throw a few of them around. If they land in someone's hair, that'll be their problem.

So exhausted and covered in mud, we decided to make a vote on who the mddiest people were and leave the showers for them. The wind was howling outside and a blizzard was beginning to whip up. The moon cast shadowy figures through the windows, and many a little girl were feeling uneasy.

"Just close your eyes and go to sleep," I said, dragging myself as I put on my pajama top, sweats, and jumped in bed. I was asleep practically as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Somewhere in the night I heard the creaking of metal and the mattress bending to the weight of someone besides me. Assuming it was Lisa, I slightly moved to one side to allow her to curl up next to me. As she did I closed my eyes and let sleep drift me away.

You know those kinds of days when you wake up and you can feel every joint in your body creak amd groan in complaint as you move? Well, that's what it felt like as I stirred in bed. Yet suddenly, I felt the person next to me jump up and descend rapidly down the stairs, almost quite frantically, disappearing from beside me.

Only, too tired to care, I decided to close my eyes and take advantage of the newly gained space. I was tired!

Around nine or eight we were bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for another day of joint-crushing activites. I walked up to Lisa and fixed her pony tail, when a thought came up.

"Lisa, why did you run out from beside me so bluntly in the morning? You can sleep with me if you want you know."

She looked at me with a rather unpleasant expression and said, "I slept with Edna last night, Renata."

Had I known any better, I probably would have freaked out. But being the stubborn little subordinate I was, I simply decides it was some other girl who was just too embarrassed to admit she was scared of the dark.

And so went by our second day at the Camp.

On the third and most unpleasant night I decided to go to sleep earlier and left the girls to playing with barbies and braiding their hair, since, well, mine is clipped short. As I began dozing off, I felt the pressure of another person next to me and assumed it was the same girl as before. So naturally, I scooched over and wobbled my body to a corner so she could fit better. Before long I was asleep.

The morning was different though. As I began to feel the morning in my eyes, I made an attempt to move, but I was far too tired to even wiggle a finger. I decided to sleep five more minutes. However, minutes passed and I still wasn't able to move. I felt an extremely heavy pressure in my chest, as if someone had laid on top of me, on my arms, my fingers, each of my toes. I couldn't even breathe right.

"Renata, wake up! We're late!" I heard, but I couldn't respond. At all. It was like I was frozen. I strained to scream, to ask for help, but all I could do was whimper slightly like a drunken Labrador while about ten or fifteen little girls shook the bed until it rattled.

I felt hot tears on my eyes. I'll stop struggling, I thought. Maybe I'm just having some kind of spasm from the cold. But as I stopped moving, tried to recover my breathing, I began to feel something qute disturbing.

Someone's breath on my neck.

But it wasn't the typical hot morning breath of a sleepy little nine-year old, it was cold, creepy. Almost distant. And I couldn't hear anyone breathing or moving on top of me. Just breath.

Finally after ten, malle fifteen centurias later, someone called the nun and had her take a look at me. Once she touched me...

It was gone.

I sat up and began coughing 'till my heart splurted out of my throat, wheezing and, I'm not going to lie to you, on the brink of wetting the pretty cotton sheets beneath me. I began sobbing frantically, terrorized. I remember the nun taking me to her office.

"Tell me what happened, dear," she pleaded, her voice gentle.

And I did. I told her everything through sob and through snort, and she listened quietly with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Hmm," she finally said, looking at me seriously. "You had a soul on your back."

Needles to say I nearly shot the glass of water from my nose at the news. "W- what?"

Then she explained that long ago, cheesy as it may sound, a little nine-year old girl was caught in one of the blizzards outside and died in the snow. They found her body next to one of the swings the morning after. Some say she's still here, and when blizzards pick up she sneaks into the nearest cabin and looks for the girl in charge. She said she probably picked me because I was like a 'beacon of light' for little girls. Or something like that. She said it could happen to anyone.

She said it had also happened to her not too long ago. It also happened to my cousin when she was 10.

Moral of the story?

Always know who sleeps next to you....