Cry in the Night

A Cry in the Night is a scary true story about a group of counselors at a summer camp who hear a voice crying out for help in the middle of the night.

This is a true story and even now, years later, I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

When I was 19 years old, I worked as a counselor in a summer camp. It was really gorgeous, with wooden cabins and a lake, but it was in the middle of nowhere. The camp was surrounded by a dense woods. There was nothing but trees and canyons and the closest town was over 20 miles away.

One night, when everyone had turned in and was sleeping soundly, I was suddenly awoken in the middle of the night. It was one of those times where you wake up and you have the feeling that something is not quite right.

My heart was racing for no apparent reason. I just lay there quietly, listening intently. The whole cabin was wooden, with fly screens over the windows, so I could hear the sound of crickets and the breeze blowing through the trees.

That’s when I heard it… a very faint cry for help. It sounded like it was coming from the woods. It was the cry of a young girl lost somewhere out in the woods.

I quickly got out of bed and woke my roommate who was another counselor. I told him to listen and when the cry came again, we both heard it. We quickly got dressed, grabbed our flashlights and hurried outside in the direction the sound was coming from.

It was intermittent, but I could clearly hear the girl’s voice saying “Help!” or “I’m lost!” quite regularly, and quite a way into the woods. She sounded like she was in a lot of distress. The quicker we found her the better, so we could get her back to camp safely.

It was dark as hell that night, and all we had to light our way were two puny flashlights. The girl was out there in the pitch black with no way of seeing anything at all.

The boys’ cabins were on one side of the lake and the girls’ were on the other. On the way, we ran into a female counselor. She had heard the cries too from her side of camp. All three of us headed into the woods together, shining our torches left and right and calling out to the lost girl.

We were reluctant to go too far into the woods because we didn’t want to get lost in the darkness. Whenever we called out to the girl and heard her respond, it sounded like she was quite far in.

After walking for about five minutes, we could hear her crying and sniffling, so we knew were were close. It sounded like she was only a few feet away and we could hear her saying “I’m scared! Where am I?” in a low voice.

We kept trying to reassure her and just when we felt we were right beside her, she suddenly went silent. “We’re here! Where are you?” we called out, but there was no answer.

Then, in the distance, we heard her voice again, crying “Help me! I’m lost! Come quick!”

We started toward the sound of her cries and just when we felt that we were right on top of her again, she went silent. We called out to her. We waited for her reply. Nothing.

Then, from even farther away, we heard her voice again: “Help! Why can’t you help me!?”

Something didn’t feel right. We all looked at each other and without a word, we decided to head back to camp. We called out to the girl and told her we were going to get help and we would come back with a search party. We could still hear faint whimpers and crying sounds from her, so we told her to sit tight and we would be back soon.

The three of us sprinted back to camp and rang the big bell at the main office to alert the whole camp that there was an emergency. The camp manager switched on the flood lights and we all met in the quad for a roll-call and a head-count.

They started by calling the names of the counselors. We were all present. Then, they called the names of the campers. All of the kids were present. Nobody was missing.

They went through the roll twice and three times. Every single person that was meant to be at the camp, was checked off and present. But what about the voice of the girl?

The camp manager and the other counselors thought it was a false alarm and said that what we had heard must have been just the echoes of our own voices. They dismissed everyone and sent us back to bed.

The three of us knew what we had heard and it wasn’t an echo. It was creepy as hell. The voice kept leading us into the woods, further and further. Someone or something was luring us deeper into the woods and to this day, I have no idea what it intended to do to us.

This was by far the creepiest thing I have ever experienced. Myself and the female counselor believed it was something paranormal, but neither of us could explain it. The counselor who was my roommate refused to talk about it, and whenever we brought it up, he would say it was just voices echoing, but when I looked in his eyes, I could see that he was scared to death. He just wanted to convince himself it didn’t happen.