A Montana Ghost Story
Based on a true story.
A hush settles around the campfire. Clouds drift in front of the moon, and an eerie shadow grows. The conversation quiets, and young nieces and nephews begin to drift down from their sugar-induced high. The last of the bag of marshmallows is cremated in the campfire, and the children's eyes grow wide. Finally, one of them works up the courage to ask.
"Uncle Dennis, will you tell us the Holland Lake story."
Holland Lake. Two words that send a chill down the spine of every member of our family. For us, it is the camping ghost story to end all ghost stories. The Night at Holland Lake.
Ghost stories are what camping is all about. No sights seen during any vacation are as vivid as the ones pictured in your mind while listening to ghost stories around the campfire. As you hear the words, that two-headed, one-armed crazy man with an ax comes to life. The campfire snaps, and your body tingles. You think you hear something sneaking behind you.
Children love ghost stories, especially ghost stories with kids in them. Come up with a creative combination of kids, dogs and a boogeyman or two, and they’ll be afraid to sleep for weeks. In fact, many horrifying ghost stories are the result of camping with kids. What better way is there to thank Little Johnny for being a pest during the trip? Build a campfire, then tell Johnny how Aunt Emma was kidnapped by creatures from outer space when she was jumping on her parent's bed. Odds are good Johnny will never again practice his double somersault on the beds of your moving motorhome.
Holland Lake. The true story of the most terrifying night we ever had while camping. It's a ghost story packed with kids. My parents were convinced that the creatures who landed in our camp and robbed our large family that night were, in fact, Aliens from outer space.
“Who else could it be?” my Dad has asked since that night. “No human in their right mind would dare camp anywhere near a family with nine kids”.
It was the first time we camped at Holland Lake, a picturesque little spot in Montana's Swan Valley. Montana in those days was the same laid-back place it is today, a state where adventure was everywhere and crime wasn’t a huge issue. In fact, the week before our camping trip two Montana mountain men had kidnapped a female jogger. In true Montana style, the story was carried in the sports sections of newspapers all over the state.
On that fateful night at Holland Lake, our camp was guarded by Casey and Maggie, two of the dumbest Irish Setters ever to walk the face of the earth. Maggie had a physical problem which made her turn slightly each time she took a step. Tormented by nine kids, Maggie spent her entire life trying to run away from home. The best she could manage was to continually circle the house in a clockwise direction. My sister Mazie swears it was Maggie's nonstop circling of camp that caught the Aliens' attention that night.
Casey, however, had no desire to leave home. She discovered early that lots of food was dropped under the table of a big family. Casey lived under the table, waiting for scraps. The night the Aliens raided our cooler at Holland Lake, Casey didn't bark or chase them. She simply ran under the picnic table and waited for food.
Due to sleeping arrangements, the story of Holland Lake was told from many viewpoints. Our family had outgrown our camping trailer. Sleeping arrangements on camping trips were determined using a bizarre formula that combined age, weight, how many siblings you had fought with during the day, and the estimated number of times you would have to use the toilet each night. As a result, kids were scattered on the ground in sleeping bags from the lake shore to the campground road.
With sleeping kids strewn through camp, we didn't notice the Aliens arrive. Nobody gave a second thought when they saw moonlit figures creeping about looking for food. When Dad marched out of the trailer to tell everyone to get to sleep, he discovered that we already WERE sleeping. So the search was on!
Nothing gets the blood pumping like searching for camp robbers at midnight in the thick brush of the Montana wilderness. It wasn't long before we found them--long-haired creatures on the moonlit beach, crawling on their hands and knees, sifting sand with their fingers. Who were they? Where did they come from? What were they looking for at the edge of the water?
My sister and I followed Dad and my uncle as they moved in to investigate. As they approached the beach, Peggy and I stepped back into the cover of the underbrush.
A branch snapped and the bushes rustled. There was a shout. A blood-curdling scream pierced the night. Then suddenly it was silent.
What happened that night in the mysterious darkness of Holland Lake? Who bonked the Alien on the head with the flashlight? How many more were hiding in the campground's thick underbrush? When Peggy and I peeked at the beach, we saw the Alien lying there, bleeding on the ground. How did it then manage to jump up and swim away? Did it make it to the other shore? And would it be long before they came back to get us all?
Terror spread like wildfire among the campground. Awakened by the screams, RVer's stumbled out of their rigs carrying the largest assortment of guns Holland Lake had ever seen. The Aliens had been caught red-handed stealing food, beer, and baby formula out of a camper's cooler. Now other campers had come to life, excited for a chance to run through the darkness hunting the Aliens. Frontier justice was alive and well in the Montana forest. The bushes were crawling with gun-toting campers ready to shoot at whatever moved.
Peggy and I waited in the Vista Cruiser with eyes wide open, ears perked, and doors locked. But as hours passed and nothing happened, we started to relax. Even Maggie stopped circling the camp. We slowly drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Suddenly a thunderous series of moans from the bushes jolted us awake. The Aliens had returned!!!
“They’re back! Over here, help! They are back!” My sister honked the Vista Cruser’s horn to alert the searchers, and we screamed for help. From every direction, would-be-heroes ran to our aid.
“They’ve found them,” the voices shouted in the darkness. “They got ‘em!"
The furious moans continued as the armed campers surrounded the sound. More moans and guns were aimed. The campers were ready to blast the Alien.
Suddenly, the only camper to bring a flashlight instead of a gun appeared in the darkness. Her spotlight found the moaning Alien. Another groan, and the guns slowly lowered. There was a snicker, followed by a roar of laughter. In the spotlight, a kid in his underwear who was sick from nerves was hunched over vomiting while surrounded by a posse of gun-toting Alien hunters.
They didn't shoot him. They just laughed and everyone went to bed.
The morning arrived without anyone finding the Aliens. We never found who owned the hat floating near the beach the next morning. What did we find? We found another campground, far away from Holland Lake.
Those in our family who slept through Holland Lake never knew what really happened that night. It was up to those who survived the terror to make the Holland Lake campout a family legend. The story of that scariest of nights has grown to become one of our favorites.
Because every time the sky grows dark and the campfire glows, our nieces and nephews listen. They listen to the breeze rustling through the trees. They hear spooky sounds in the darkness behind them. They feel the spirit of Maggie begin to circle the camp. As night falls, their imaginations come to life, and visions of Aliens and boogeymen fill their heads.
There around the campfire, the legend comes to life as the story is told. And in the darkness, a new generation of children will share in the terror of the Night at Holland Lake.