We were all gathered around our camp fire. It's not that late, probably only 9:00 or so. None of us were really tired, but we decided that a break from the road would do us some good. For the past 20 minutes we'd been talking about everything that's happened since we became Operation Bite Mark, all the ups and downs that came with it.

"Alright, I'm bored of talking about this. I have an idea." Addy piped up as she ate a couple of pistachios from a bag we found next to a dead family.

"What's up?" Garnett asked, grabbing a couple pistachios for himself.

"Ghost stories!" She said enthusiastically. I grinned, I love ghost stories- both true and fiction.

"Oh, so instead of talking about one type of horror, you wanna talk about another?" Murphy questioned before shrugging. "Well, at least ghosts aren't real."

"Yes they are." The rest of us spoke in unison.

"Okay, change my mind then." He challenged.

"I've got one." I perked up.

"Go for it." Warren smiled as everyone leaned in closer.

"Alright, so-" I ate some pistachios. "When I was younger I grew up in a crazy haunted house. Shadow figures, voices, things moving- the works." I looked around at everyone to make sure they were still listening- they were, closely.

"One night, when I was 9 or 10, I woke up to my dad standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I remember sitting up and asking him what he was doing. All he told me was, 'there was a black thing above you.' I remember being so freaked out I jumped out of bed and ran to him. I made him let me sleep with mom and him in their bed that night."

"Oh, big whoop- your dad saw a shadow." Murphy spoke nonchalantly.

"I wasn't done. When I woke up the next morning I had 3 long scratches down my back. They weren't bleeding, but they burned like hell. I noticed them when I got in the shower and called my mom in to look at them, she couldn't explain where they'd come from. Where they were, there was no way I could have done it myself. They were too far apart for the cats to have been the cause, and I slept with my back to my dad. He bit his nails, so there was no way he could have scratched me in his sleep either- even then he would have had to scratched me hard enough to break through my shirt with how red they were."

"That's crazy." Mack stated, eating another nut.

"Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go all night with the shit I experienced there."

"Boo!" Murphy gave me a thumbs down. "Nope, still don't believe. Who's next?"

"I've got one." Warren spoke up, adding more twigs to the fire. "When I was a teenager, around Alrrami's age, I spent the night at a friends house. We had just graduated high school and were having a little party, just us and a few of our other girlfriends while her parents were out of town for the weekend. We had a couple drinks, played some games, reminisced. Before we knew it, it was 3am. None of us were tired, so we decided to make a late night snack."

"Was it pistachios?" I joked as I ate another one, causing chuckles from my chosen family.

"No, it was actually one of those frozen pizzas. But, that's not the point. As we were putting the pizza in the oven, we heard footsteps upstairs. Every single one of us stopped what we were doing and looked up, trying to figure out what we had just heard. All of us were in the kitchen, and there was nobody else home. Even her younger brother was at a friends house for the weekend."

"Big deal, it was probably a raccoon." Murphy retorted.

"Oh no, it was no raccoon. It sounded like a full grown man walking down the upstairs hallway."

"What'd you guys do?" Garnett questioned.

"We looked. No one was up there, not even any sign that anybody was up there to begin with. Everything was how we had left it. So, we went back downstairs, ate our pizza. Then we heard it again. This time coming down the stairs towards us. One of my friends started freaking out saying she saw a shadow, so we got the hell outta there."

"Boring." Murphy scoffed.

"I've got a scary one." 10k spoke. We all looked at him expectantly.

"It was the year before Day 1, Pa and I were out hunting. We had a small one-room cabin we would stay in because the area we liked to hunt was miles away. One day, Pa and I were getting ready to skin a deer we'd just killed. We had already bled it on the porch so it was simple from there. It was dark out so Pa and I went inside to grab a few lanterns and the tools we needed."

"Lanterns? What, did you grow up without electricity too?" 10k brushed off Murphy's comment and continued his story.

"We were on opposite sides of the cabin when we heard a scream coming from right outside. It sounded like a woman screaming for her life. Pa told me to stay inside while he grabbed his gun and went to investigate; I did as I was told and watched him leave. Just as he closed the door there was another scream. I stood by the window and watched him disappear into the woods. 2 minutes later, there was another screamed followed by a gunshot- less than 10 seconds later Pa came running inside and slammed the door behind him."

"What happened?" Doc asked.

"He looked shaken up. Told me to grab my things and that we were leaving. Left the deer and everything. He didn't tell me what happened until we got in the truck and took off. Said the scream was no woman, said it was a demon that looked like a woman. He told me he saw a girl in a white torn dress, but when she turned around her eyes were black, she didn't have a nose and her mouth went from one ear to the other. Her teeth were sharp like fangs. When he got too close she screamed and ran towards him faster than lightening. He shot her and she evaporated. He ran back and we left."

"Oh, please. That was probably some story he told you so you wouldn't wander into the woods at night by yourself." Murphy shot down.

"Heard it with my own ears." 10k retorted.

"I've got one." Doc spoke up. "When I was a psychiatrist, I would stay at the office until well after midnight, a lot of us would. You know, sorting files or whatever. We were all normally gone by 2. One day during my break, I was talking to one of the over night janitors, and he told me a story about how every night at exactly 2:02am he could hear a child crying."

"Ugh, I hate child ghosts. They freak me out." I muttered, earning nods of agreement from the group.

"I know, right?" Doc agreed before continuing. "I of course didn't believe the guy, but curiosity got the best of me. I stayed that night, waiting. 2am hit and I watched the second hand on the clock, listening. Just like the janitor had said, the instant that hand struck 2:02, I heard a little boy crying in the office next to mine."

"Did you look?" Warren questioned.

"Hell no I didn't look! I got my ass outta there as fast as I could. No way in hell there was a little kid there that late."

"It was probably just your imagination. You expected it to happen, so you imagined it did."

"I know what I heard, Murphy. Sent chills over my whole body."

"Can I go next?" Mack asked, we all nodded.

"One night I was at a hockey game, it went into double overtime and we didn't end up getting to the locker room until 11pm. I ended up hitting the shower and a couple other guys did the same. There were two guys from my team and three from the other. By the time we all got out, everybody else was gone."

"Is that your story? Your friends disappeared?" Murphy mocked, Mack ignored him.

"We got changed and ended up talking for a while. The only lights that should've been on were the lights for the locker room and the hallway lights that led to the exit. When we walked out, that's how it was. Everything else was dark. As we were walking along the stands, all of the rink lights turned on, and the goal buzzer went off over and over again- constantly. One of the guys shouted for us to look and pointed up to the ref booth. There was a black- no, blacker than black shadow standing right by the window. As soon as we saw it, it disappeared and everything shut back off. I've never ran so fast in my life."

"It was probably just a reflection and a coincidence."

"You want scary? Let me tell you what happened to my brother and I when we were at the arcade." Addy started, leaning towards the fire. "We were playing ski-ball when we saw it. Behind the game, where the maintenance was, we saw someone move. We didn't think anything of it since we assumed it was someone back there fixing the game next to ours. But then we saw it again, just pacing back there. Just then one of the workers came up to us and asked if he could help with anything since we were just standing there. We asked him who was back there and he said 'nobody, why.' So we were like, 'well there's someone back there we can see them. Are they fixing the game?' The guy just shook his head and told us that game was being replaced; we insisted there was somebody back there, so to try to prove us wrong he led us to the access door and opened it. There was a woman crouching in the back corner. He was all like, 'hey lady, you shouldn't be back here, this area is employee's only.' Then, she just disappeared and this cold breeze came from the room. All of us were so freaked out- he went to find his boss and my brother and I asked our parents if we could go home. The arcade shut down that week with no explanation. Rumors around the town said that they found the corpse of a girl in the janitors closet that night."

"Lame." Murphy muttered.

"My turn." Cassandra grinned. "So, when I was a little girl my mom always told me this story about how if you say, 'Innada, I stole your husband' three times at exactly 1:58am in the woods by my house, the spirit of Innada herself would appear before you, and scratch your chest- right where your heart is. I guess when she was alive her husband had a mistress, and when she found out he was going to leave her for the mistress- she poisoned his tea and shot herself. It's said that her spirit is cursed for eternity to find her husband's mistress- and kill her."

"So?" Murphy muttered.

"So, when I turned 17 my friends and I decided to try it. We waited until 1:58am, turned off our flashlights, stood in a circle and chanted; Innada, I stole your husband. Innada, I stole your husband, Innada, I stole your husband!"

"Did anything happen?" 10k asked.

"There was this loud snap, and one of my friends screamed. We got out of there as fast as we could and ran all the way back to her house. Once we were safely inside, she pulled her shirt down. She had three, deep scratches across her chest- right where her heart was."

"She Probably did it to herself." Cassandra shook her head at Murphy.

"Her right hand was broken and in a cast at the time, the scratches were going from left to right. No way she could've done it."

"My turn." Garnett spoke as he handed me the bag of marshmallows he pulled out. I took a couple and offered them to 10k who put one on a stick and roasted it. I did the same as Garnett started his story.

"It was my first year in the National Guard. I was helping move injured men into the medical tent when a thunder storm came outta nowhere. I decided to stay and help the nurses stitch them up. It got dark out fast. As we were laying on our cots trying to get some rest, a man came in declaring he was 'Sargent Major Styx.' Not one of us had ever heard of this guy before but we stood to attention anyway. He told us that the storm was picking up and we had to move the injured men out of the tent now. We were confused but did as we were told, carrying them to the trucks and laying them however we could fit them- Styx even helped. Right as we got the last guy into the truck, a tree fell onto the tent. We looked around for Styx but never found him. The storm cleared by the next morning and we called it in. The people we talked to said that Sargent Major Elliot Styx died in battle days prior."

"Blah, blah, blah." Murphy roasted a marshmallow.

"Fine, you wanna here a better story Murphy? Let me tell you about what happened last night while 10k and I were on watch duty." I smirked, eating my perfectly roasted marshmallow.

"What, did you two make out or something?" Murphy mocked. My face turned beat red, and so did 10k's, but I ignored it and told my story.

"Last night, an hour before shift change, 10k and I were sitting by the fire. Out of nowhere we heard a zombie close to your tent." I pointed to Murphy.

"Okay, there was a zombie? Welcome to the apocalypse."

"Except, there wasn't a zombie."

"What?" Murphy asked. I noticed 10k get up and walk to the truck while I had everybody's attention.

"There wasn't a zombie. We looked everywhere. Nothing. And then, we heard it again- right behind us. We turned around, and-" 10k grabbed Murphy's shoulders as I screamed, causing him to yell and jump up, almost tripping into the fire. The rest of us let out hearty laughter.

"What the hell, kid? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" He shouted, 10k laughed and sat back down next to me.

"Hey, you didn't believe any of the stories we told so I had to make one up. There's more than one way to scare someone." I high-fived the male sniper. "Thanks for going along with that."

"I'll take any chance I can to scare Murphy." He grinned, everybody else chuckled.

"I hate all of you, I'm going to bed." Murphy huffed, walking over to his tent and disappearing inside.

"Oh my God, what you two did just there? That was amazing!" Addy applauded us. Everybody else joined in and I stood and took a bow.

"I've been told I'd be a great actress." I smiled and looked to Warren when she dusted off her pants and stood.

"Alright, this was fun but I'm gonna hit the hay. Goodnight everybody." We all waved as she walked towards the truck.

"I think we should all get some rest." Garnett stood as well. "Mack and Addy, you good with first shift?" The young couple nodded and grabbed their weapons, doing their first perimeter check of the night.

The rest of us went to bed soon after, enjoying the cool night breeze and the quiet. Well, the quiet we had after Murphy threw himself out of his tent saying he'd heard something.