Jeff sat on the bench, waiting for the bus to take him to his job at the newly opened Rugged Retreat summer camp. Grey strands had infiltrated his otherwise jet black hair like a commando team, and he'd only recently noticed their presence. His loose t-shirt and jeans covered over the extensive muscle mass he'd acquired over the years, and his slouched posture helped further conceal his physical capabilities.

The large bus, diesel engine roaring loudly, muscled its way down the street and slowed to a stop in front of the bench. The door hissed open.

"Climb aboard," the driver invited with a friendly smile.

The explosive release of air brakes shook Jeff back to his senses, and he quickly looked around as he suddenly found himself no longer sitting on the bench facing the bus but standing with his back to the door.

"Have a good one," the driver called out before shutting the door and putting the bus in gear. Jeff was about to chase after the bus when his phone rang. Letting the bus go, he pulled out his phone and answered it.

"Yeah," he said.

"Jeff," a relieved voice sighed. "I was worried you wouldn't answer."

"Why wouldn't I answer?" Jeff questioned. "And, if you'll pardon the question. Who are you?"

"Are you alright?" the voice questioned. "You sound a little foggy."

"Just a little disoriented," Jeff admitted. He closed his eyes and rested a hand on his forehead. "Is this Mike?"

"Sure is, and you better recognize your best friend," the voice on the phone laughed.

"Do you think you could give me a ride to work?" Jeff asked. "I spaced out for a minute and missed the Monday bus."

"What are you talking about?" Mike questioned. "This is Tuesday morning."

"Very funny," Jeff replied, switching his phone over to the calendar to check the date. Tuesday. "What in the world?"

"Where are you?" Mike asked.

"At the bus stop near my house," Jeff explained.

"Stay there," Mike ordered. "I'm on my way."

It took only six minutes for Mike to pull up in his battered but still functioning truck. The door screeched horribly when he got out, but Jeff wasn't paying attention. He was sitting on the bus stop bench, staring blindly at the sidewalk. Jeff's thoughts were water swirling around a drain, all of them being pull into the void of the one question he couldn't answer – how could he have lost an entire day?

"Jeff!" Mike called for the second time, rousing his friend from his concentration. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah," Jeff agreed. He shook his head to try and clear the confusion, but it didn't help. "Let's go."

The two friends headed back to the truck and climbed in. The bench seat of the truck was faded, and the splits in several locations revealed the yellow foam underneath. No traffic cluttered the street this early in the morning, so it was easy for the truck to pull away from the curb and head immediately toward Mike's house.

Mike had met Jeff back in high school, when they'd both ended up in detention together. Mike had usually been able to talk his way out of most problems, but setting off firecrackers during the Principal's assembly speech had been beyond his ability to evade. Many years and many adventures had gone by since then, but Mike's clean shaven face and short, curly blond hair let him retain a much younger look than his forty-two years. His usual smile was gone, and his eyebrows were mashed together with worry.

"When I called you today, I was concerned you wouldn't answer because you haven't answered your phone since you went to work," Mike explained.

Jeff checked his phone. "No missed calls."

"What is going on?" Mike demanded of the empty air, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

"I think there's only one way to find out," Jeff suggested. "We need to go back to the campgrounds. Maybe we'll find the answers."

"Sounds as good an idea as anything I can think of,' Mike agreed, changing lanes and turning at the next intersection in order to head toward the Rugged Retreat campgrounds.

***

"We need to call the police," Mike concluded, staring out the windshield. "We need to call them right now."

"Not yet," Jeff denied. He reached across the front seat of the truck and grabbed Mike's hand to keep him from dialing any further on his phone.

"What do you mean not yet?" Mike shouted. "Don't you see what's out there?"

The campgrounds resembled a slaughterhouse. Spilled blood left puddles of red in the parking lot and across the fields. Bodies were everywhere, fallen in the grass, across the tops of picnic tables, and one even draped over the limb of a tree. Worst still, not all of the bodies were whole, pieces were missing, and in some cases, pieces were all that remained.

"Yes, I see it!" Jeff yelled back. "If we call the cops, they're going to want to pin this on someone, and who do we know was supposed to be working here yesterday and isn't among the dead? ME!"

"You don't have any defensive wounds, and you're not covered in blood, so it's unlikely you're the culprit," Mike argued.

"Unlikely, but not impossible," Jeff countered. "I could've had accomplices for all they know. Besides, what's my alibi? That right, I've got a giant hole in my memory that conveniently covers everything that happened here. If you were a cop, would you believe that?"

"Probably not," Mike admitted quietly before pressing the issue. "That being said, what if the cops were to show up while we're poking around in the middle of a massacre?"

"You can leave if you want, and I wouldn't blame you if you did, but I have to find out what happened," Jeff offered. He exited the truck and slammed the old door behind him to make certain it latched.

"I must be out of my head," Mike muttered as he followed his friend and offered a word of advice. "Don't touch anything."

"No kidding," Jeff said. "Watch where you step too. Don't want to leave footprints in the evidence, or take any with us."

"It's like those mystery shows on TV," Mike rambled. "The cops always show up just as some stooge has wandered into a crime scene and stupidly picks up the murder weapon."

Jeff chuckled slightly, but it was forced as he was concentrating on keeping his stomach from expelling its contents at the sight of the human remains everywhere around him. The smell wasn't helping any either.

"Let's try," Jeff began but had to pause for a moment and swallow some bile in the back of his mouth. When the queasiness faded, he continued, "Let's try the cabin over there. It was supposed to be where I would've been working."

Picking their waycarefully across the killing grounds, Jeff and Mike reached the isolated cabinresiding on stilts in the shallows of the mirror still waters of a lake andwent inside. The pristine interiorshowed no sign of the violence graphically displayed in the rest of thecamp. They dug through the papersstacked on the small table in the corner being used for a desk, and in all thecabinets in the cramped kitchen. Theydidn't find any answers, and when they entered the back room where a single cotand a storage trunk were located, they opened the trunk and found only morequestions.

"What is all this?" Mike demanded, looking over the assortment of leather-bound books, potion bottles, and numerous bladed weapons filling the trunk to near overflowing.

"What makes you think I know?" Jeff questioned in return.

Heading back into the kitchen, Jeff put on a pair of rubber gloves he'd previously discovered under the sink and began pulling items out of the trunk. Knives of flawless quality and gleaming blades were the majority of the weapons, but he also found a hand axe. A shovel and large hammer were in the corner of the truck next to a half dozen wooden stakes. Removing a book with the least amount of dust on it, he flipped it open and skimmed over a few pages.

"Here we go," Jeff said. "This book is in my handwriting. The last entry says I was correct in my suspicion. There is a great danger here, in the cave north of the camp. There's a map reference number."

Jeff turned the page and then back. He examined the edge of the paper to see if he'd turned two pages instead of one, then he checked near the spine to see if anything had been ripped out.

"Well?" Mike urged.

"There's nothing else," Jeff answered, tossing the book forcefully to the floor. "If I ever get my memories back, I'm going to be sure to write better notes about life threatening dangers."

"Perhaps you were vague on purpose," Mike offered. "If someone found your stuff, those knives and stakes could be interpreted as camping equipment, and the books as nothing more than entertainment. The journal could be your attempt a writing a fantasy story. Each of these items could be explained away, but if you wrote clear details on whatever might've been responsible for that murder spree out there, it could be seen as incriminating evidence. Maybe your past self knew what he was doing more than you know."

"Alright then," Jeff accepted. He knelt down and began strapping the various blades to his person.

"What are you doing?" Mike questioned.

"If the threat is still there, I've got to deal with it," Jeff responded without halting his preparations.

"You don't know about your work," Mike reminded. "Even when you had all your memories and skill, you were still sent packing with a giant hole in your memory."

"True, but whatever it was didn't kill me," Jeff countered. "Not even a scratch."

Jeff sighed, lowering the knife he was holding and looked toward his friend.

"I know this is probably crazy," Jeff admitted. "I know I may end up dead this time around, but I have to know what happened. Did I awaken something in that cave? Did all these people die because of something I set into motion? I have to know."

"I'll go with you," Mike decided.

"I appreciate the offer, but no," Jeff declined. "Give me a head start, then call the police. If I should fail a second time, whatever is waiting up there may be unleashed upon the world, if it hasn't been already, and they need to start getting ready to form some kind of defense, assuming there is one."

Jeff finished dispersing the weapons and gear across the various harnesses he pulled from the box and strapped around his chest, arms, and legs. He stood up and shook Mike's hand.

"Thanks for being a good friend," he told Mike softly.

Jeff marched down the worn and slightly warped planks of the dock behind the cabin and began to untie the rowboat secured there. He finished as Mike joined him.

"I already called the cops," Mike announced, climbing into the boat. "Let's go face down a monster before they get here and arrest us both."

Jeff opened his mouth to object, but Mike cut him off.

"I don't want to hear any objections," Mike snapped. "I called the cops, I left the journal behind with a note to the police explaining where we'd gone. The warning has gone out. There's nothing more I can do here, but I might be able to keep you from getting killed, so let's stop yapping about it and get to it."

Jeff couldn't help but smile. Accepting his friend's assistance, Jeff joined him in the boat and began rowing toward the far shore where the cave and the possible location of a monster waited for them.