"...And then, the campers were never to be seen again," Stacy finished, looking around dramatically.

I actually shivered, and that was definitely not due to the temperature. It was quite toasty around the fire, and I was wearing many layers to avoid the chill of the night.

Suddenly, a figure jumped at us and screamed, "Boo!"

My heart leapt out of my chest and a few of us screamed. But nobody screamed as loud as John who was sitting next to me did, and I could've gone deaf.

Ben emerged from the shadows, laughing his ass off. "Dude, you should've seen y'all's face!"

"And...and John...his scream," he said, between fits of laughter.

John looked incredibly embarrassed. But then he said, "No that was Hailey!"

At that point, everyone looked at me, clearly not believing him, and I laughed. Of course he'd say that.

"...and we're practicing a ventriloquist act for the talent show on Monday, right?" he continued, looking at me for help.

"Yeah, of course!" I said, in a very convincing way. "We've been hiding that talent from all of you for a long time now, because we're actually aliens for Mars and that would've blown our cover."

Our friends were laughing up a riot at this point, and I was having fun.

"Marsha!" John exclaimed, making up a name for me and pretending to scold me. "There goes our cover, damn it!"

I couldn't keep a straight face anymore and dissolved into a fit of giggles, playfully hitting John on his shoulder.

__________

June 16th Prompt:

Campfire, scream, a small lie gets bigger and bigger