Real-life camping horror stories

A spooky tale to retell by Matt Weinhold
One day, little Billy’s mom gave him five dollars and sent him to pick up some liver from the butcher for that night’s dinner. Before setting off on his errand, his mom warned him saying, “Whatever you do, don’t lose that money. It’s our last five dollars and if you lose it, we’ll go hungry,” Billy promised his mother he wouldn’t lose the money and headed off to the store.When Billy arrived at the supermarket, he noticed a sign in the window of the malt shop next door: ICE CREAM SUNDAE SALE! ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR A DOLLAR! Billy smiled and licked his lips. I love ice cream sundaes, he thought and pulled the five-dollar bill from his pocket. Hmmm, if I spend a dollar on ice cream, I’ll still have four dollars for liver. That should still be enough. And I hate liver. Billy walked into the ice cream store and slapped the five-dollar bill on the counter. “All You Can Eat Ice Cream Sundae please!” The soda jerk set down a giant sundae and Billy started digging in.After a couple of hours, Billy had eaten almost four ice cream sundaes when he glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost 5 o’clock! And the store closed at 5 o’clock! Billy wiped his mouth and hands and ran out of the malt shop as fast as he could.

He got to the entrance of the supermarket just before closing and scurried up to the meat counter. The butcher looked down at him grimly. “What’ll ya have, kid?” “Four dollars’ worth of liver, please.” The butcher sliced up the dark, glistening strips of meat and wrapped them up. “Her ya go! That’ll be four dollars.” Billy reached in his pocket for the money but was horrified to find it was gone! He frantically searched all his other pockets but to no avail. “What’s the matter?” the butcher grunted. “I…I lost my money.” “That’s tough. No money, no liver.” Billy suddenly grinned. “Wait a minute. It’s in the malt shop! I forgot to get my change! Please, mister; can you stay open for a minute more? I swear I’ll be right back.” The butcher frowned with suspicion. “All right, but make it snappy!” Billy ran out of the store as fast as he came in.Billy ran back to the malt shop but was greeted with a locked door and a CLOSED sign in the window. Billy screamed, “Please open up! I need my money or my mom will kill me!” and banged on the door. The only response was silence. If things weren’t bad enough, Billy looked back at the supermarket and saw the butcher get in his car and drive off. Now I’m really in trouble, Billy thought.Billy walked slowly back home trying to come up with an excuse until he happened to pass the local cemetery. He stopped and suddenly remembered something he’d learned in school. “Hey, cows aren’t the only ones who have livers. So do people!” Billy decided to sneak into the cemetery, dig up a body, cut out its liver and bring the organ home for dinner. “It’s a perfect plan. I won’t get in trouble and Mom will get her liver. Of course, I won’t eat any. I hate liver!”Billy climbed over the fence of the cemetery, grabbed a shovel sticking in the mound of a fresh grave, and started digging. In no time at all, Billy’s shovel soon hit the lid of the coffin and he reached down to clear away the remaining dirt. Using the edge of the shovel, Billy pried open the lid of the casket and instantly gasped at the horrible stench. Covering his nose with his jacket, he peered down at the face of the corpse in the fading light of dusk. It glared at him with milky white eyes, almost seeming to comprehend what grisly fate Billy had in store for him.

Billy pulled his Boy Scout knife from his pocket and got to work. He fished around inside the dead body and after vomiting several times from the smell, managed to find the liver and yank it from its host. Billy threw up one more time, and then wiped off his hands the best he could and wrapped the liver in some newspaper he found. As he climbed out of the grave and started filling the hole back in, he caught a glimpse of the dead man’s face one more time. It looked positively furious. Billy shuddered and continued filling the hole back in.

By the time Billy arrived home, his mother was pretty angry at his being late for dinner. “Your father and I have been worried sick. Please don’t tell me you lost the money.” Billy forced a smile. “No I got the liver, and it’s…really fresh.” Billy’s mother sighed with relief. “Thank goodness, now I can make dinner. Why don’t you go upstairs and get cleaned up. You’re filthy. What have you been doing?” Billy mumbled, “Nuthin’ just diggin’ holes.”As the family sat around the dinner table, a strange feeling of dread hung over him like a cloud. He couldn’t seem to get the face of that corpse out of his mind. He said he wasn’t feeling well and excused himself to go lie down.Billy lay in his bed, covered in sweat and staring at the ceiling. That face! He could still see that face crystal clear in his mind. That terrible, dead face that shot hatred from its eyes. Why did it look so angry? It was dead. It didn’t need its liver. It was dead…wasn’t it?

At that moment, Billy heard a faint scratching at his window. His heart turned to ice, as the scratching gradually grew louder. He tried to scream but the sound got stuck in his throat. “This isn’t happening! This can’t be happening!” he shrieked in his mind just as a moldy, dirt-covered hand reached over the edge of his windowsill. The scratching soon turned into low moaning words that dripped with spite.

“Give me my liver back!”

Another hand now clawed its way into the window frame and again Billy heard those nightmarish words,

“Give me my liver back!”

A hideous decaying face finally rose into view, its jaw dislocating as it gurgled its rage.

“GIVE ME MY LIVER BACK!”

Billy blinked and wiped his eyes, trying to erase the creature from his vision but each time he did, the shuffling monstrosity seemed to leap closer. Just as the walking corpse was upon him, Billy clenched his eyes shut and waited for its rotted teeth to bite into his soft flesh. But the bite didn’t come. Billy slowly opened his eyes, and scanned his room for any evidence of the thing. Nothing! Relieved, Billy thought, Maybe it was just a dream. He gently hopped out of bed and after one last inspection, headed off to the bathroom.But when Billy opened his bedroom door, he found himself face to face with the monstrous walking corpse.

“GIVE ME MY LIVER BACK!”

The next morning, Billy’s mother called up to his room. “Billy! Get out of bed sleepy head! You’ll be late for school!” After a few minutes and no sight of Billy, she went upstairs.

She creaked open his door and saw his still form tangled in the bedsheets. “Billy?” As she got closer to his bed, she noticed that the sheets seemed to be soaked with dark red liquid. “B-Billy?” Nervously pulling back the crimson-stained linen, she finally saw her son. She gasped! Her son stared lifelessly at the ceiling; a gaping hole gouged out of his abdomen. She reeled back, falling onto the bed and suddenly noticed five words scrawled in blood on the sheets.

“I GOT MY LIVER BACK”

Matt Weinhold is a writer on Style Network’s The Dish.

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