There was a girl named Mila whose parents were sending her away to Summer camp. She had heard vague rumors from the other kids at school about strange things that went on at the camp. She pleaded with her parents to let her stay at home for the Summer, but they forced her to go.
“You’re 12 years old now, Mila,” her father said sternly. “You need to get over this kind of nonsense and act like an adult.”
When Mila arrived at the camp she was shocked to find it in such a dilapidated state. The wooden cabins were infested with termites, the bunk beds were lumpy and uncomfortable, the bedsheets smelled revolting and the mattresses were covered with big yellow stains.
There was only one toilet in the whole camp and it was outdoors. It was little more than a wooden hut with several stalls inside. They looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in months and the stench was atrocious.
Worst of all, the door of each stalls had a hole in it, cut in the shape of a heart. You had to stuff the hole with toilet paper every time you went to the bathroom or else the other kids would be able to peek in and watch you poop.
Despite the deplorable conditions, Mila managed to make friends with a few other girls. Late one night, after lights out, Mila and her friend Svetlana went out to the toilet. Mila decided to wait outside for her friend to finish. She strolled around, listening to the wind blowing through the trees and looking up at the stars.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a shadow moving towards the forest. She only caught a glimpse of it for a second before it disappeared into the trees, but it seemed be the shadow of a man.
She dismissed it as a trick of the light and went back to the outdoor toilets. Mila knocked on the bathroom door and told her friend to hurry up. There was no answer. She opened the door and went inside, but all of the stalls were empty.
Mila was a little offended because she assumed that her friend had gone back to the cabin without her. However, when she got back to the cabin, she found Svetlana’s bed empty. She still hadn’t returned and nobody knew where she was.
The girls waited for an hour, but then they started to get worried. Mila woke their counselor and told him Svetlana had disappeared. The entire camp was roused out of bed and all of them went to look for the missing girl.
The counselor went into the toilet with a flashlight and searched each stall, but there was no sign of Svetlana. On the floor, he happened to notice a playing card. It was the Jack of Hearts.
The counselors spent all night looking for the missing girl, but she was nowhere to be found. Someone suggested that she might have run away from the camp. Her parents were called and they were worried too.
The next morning, when the girl still had not shown up, they called in the police, but they also failed to find her. The other kids were terrified by the girl’s disappearance and many of them wanted to go home. Some children called their parents and persuaded them to pick them up.
The staff at the Summer camp tried to calm everybody down. It was decided that, after lights out, nobody could go to the toilet unless they were accompanied by an adult. The counselors wanted to make sure that the other children didn’t mysteriously disappear as well.
That night, a girl named Aneska desperately needed to go to the toilet. She told one of the counselors. After a lot of grumbling, the counselor got out of bed and agreed to accompany her to the toilet. The girl opened the door and went in while the counselor waited for her outside.
After a while, the counselor sensed something was wrong. He decided to check on Aneska, so he opened the door and peeked inside. To his astonishment, the toilet was empty and the girl was gone. All he found was a playing card lying on the floor. Again, it was The Jack of Hearts.
The police were called back to the camp and when they arrived, they had a dog with them. A policeman took a pair of Aneska’s dirty underwear and held it out so the dog could sniff it and pick up her scent. The dog tracked her as far as the toilet, but it refused to go any further. It seemed to be afraid of something.
All of the children called their parents and asked them to come and take them home. Mila managed to contact her parents, but they said they were busy and couldn’t come. No matter how much she begged them to pick her up, it did no use. She was left to fend for herself.
Most of the kids in the camp were taken home by their parents. By the end of the day, there were only seven children left – three boys, three girls and Mila. Their parents had been unable to come. All of them gathered in one cabin to spend the night. As a precaution, two of the counselors would also sleep in the cabin to watch over them.
Nobody was allowed to go to the toilet outside. If any of them needed to pee or poo, they would have to do it in a porcelain pot that was placed in the center of the room. They had to lift the lid, do their business, then put the lid back on so it didn’t smell too bad.
That night, Mila lay awake in bed, shaking with fear. She was terrified that she would be the next to disappear and she dreaded having to go to the toilet in front of everybody. Eventually, all of the children drifted off into an uneasy slumber.
The next morning, when they woke up, there were two empty beds. Two of the girls had mysteriously gone missing. Their names were Lishka and Galina. On the floor lay two playing cards. Both of them were The Jack of Hearts.
The police arrived and began interrogating the two counselors. After hours of questioning, they determined the counselors didn’t know anything. Another search of the area was conducted, but it proved fruitless. There was no trace of the missing children and the police left empty-handed.
One policeman decided to stay behind to protect the remaining kids. The only ones left now were three boys, a girl named Katka and Mila. When they were going to bed, the policeman came into the cabin and locked the door behind him. He put a chair in front of the door and sat down on it. He planned to stay awake all night to make sure nothing happened.
He told the boys that they didn’t need to worry. The kidnapper was only targeting girls. He said Mila and Katka were the ones who were in danger and if the kidnapper came back, he would probably try to abduct them. The two girls started crying, but the policeman assured them that he would do everything in his power to make sure they were safe.
In the middle of the night, Katka needed to go to the toilet. The policeman told her to poo in the pot, but she refused and began to throw a tantrum. Eventually, the policeman gave in and agreed to escort her to the toilet. He didn’t want to let Mila out of his sight, so he told her she would have to come with them.
He unlocked the door, slowly stuck his head out and looked both ways. Everything seemed quiet. He told the boys to lock the door behind him and cautiously led the two girls towards the outdoor toilet. He kept looking in all directions, making sure nobody could sneak up on them.
Eventually, they reached the toilet. Mila and Katka were trembling. The policeman told them to wait at the door while he checked all of the stalls. He turned on his flashlight and took a look around. At first, everything seemed normal, but then he heard a rustling noise and he saw one of the stall doors slowly creaking open.
Suddenly, there was a loud hissing sound and a shadow flew out of the stall. It was a man dressed in a dark red bodysuit and mask. He caught hold of Katka by the hair and started to drag her away. Mila screamed. The policeman tried to protect the girls, but the shadowy figure grabbed him by the neck and began to choke him.
Gasping for air, the policeman ordered Mila go to back to the cabin and get help. The young girl ran as fast as she could, screaming and shouting. The camp counselors grabbed their flashlights and rushed out. The three boys in the cabin also came running to see if they could help. Mila pointed them towards the toilet.
When they got to the outhouse, they saw the policeman lying on the ground. There was a strange man standing over him, his hands wrapped tightly around the policeman’s neck. Katka was lying unconscious on the ground beside him. The policeman struggled and managed to pull out his gun. He pulled the trigger and a bullet ripped through the man’s shoulder.
With a roar, the man let go of the police officer, grabbed Katka’s limp body and took off running. The counselors pursued him, with the three boys and Mila close behind. The policeman stood up, took careful aim and fired at the man, but he missed. Before he could get off another shot, the man had disappeared into the woods.
Everyone started to look for the crazed kidnapper. They scoured the woods with their flashlights. Mila stayed close to the policeman. Tears were streaming down her face. All of a sudden, she happend to spot a trail of blood in the bushes. She pointed it out to the policeman and he told her to be quiet.
Peering behind the bushes, he saw that there was a wooden hut camoflaged by the leaves and undergrowth. He called the counselors and together they approached the hut and slowly opened the door. When they saw what was inside, they were horrified and disgusted.
The dead bodies of five young girls hung on the walls. They were naked and their heads dangled at odd angles. They had all been strangled to death and their necks were broken. Mila started crying. She recognized the girls. They were her friends, Svetlana, Aneska, Lishka, Galina and Katka.
The policeman immediately contacted his superiors on the radio and reported what he had found. As dawn approached, the woods were swarming with police officers. They searched and searched, but they never managed to track down the killer.
The policeman called Mila’s parents personally and shouted at them down the phone, demanding that they come and pick up their daughter. Mila was finally able to relax and breathed a sigh of relief. After this, the owners of the camp were forced to close down and the surviving children were sent home.
In the end, the Summer camp had to close down for good. A lot of money changed hands and the owners had to pay compensation to the parents of the dead girls. The authorities tried to have the whole incident hushed up, but rumors began to spread and pretty soon it was being reported in the tabloid newspapers.
The murderer was never caught. The papers gave him the nickname “The Jack of Hearts” and they say he is still out there in the woods, biding his time and waiting for more young girls to wander into his clutches.
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