In the kind of wild campsite they liked to frequent, toilets were at a premium and not to everyone’s taste. Think basic. Think no flush. Think sawdust and constipation.

Drinking helped relax things but also added to the need to make a visit. Four pints was a typical threshold for the floodgates to open and then visits became increasingly urgent and frequent. But drink also made toilet-goers forget the warning sign at the entrance to the campsite:

‘Beware the giant bearded tree man in the forest who will hold you like a leaf and snap you like a branch.’

‘What a silly sign!’ hadn’t Harriet said, but no one had seen Harriet for days.

Peter Perves needed immediate relief and made his way as quickly as possible across the campsite field to the toilet, rolls of paper falling out of his pockets.

The sky was a dagger moon shrouded by gesticulating clouds and Peter Perves thought if he whistled everything would be okay. It was only when he got to the trees near the toilet that he felt it odd that his whistle was being returned in a loud shrill echo that made his cheeks smart and his skin crawl. He looked into the trees to see where the whistle was coming from and his head was plucked clean from his body. A tiny scream was emitted and repeated.

‘What the fuck was that?’ shouted Marjorie from inside the tent.

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Simon.

‘You mean you didn’t want to hear any fucking thing!’ shouted Marjorie.

‘Shush, I can hear something coming closer,’ said Spenser.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Simon.

The sound was of ridiculously fast running getting louder and nearer.

Spenser, who had troublesome IBS, farted.

‘I heard that!’ said Simon.

Peter Perves’ head suddenly appeared in the gap of the tent’s entrance.

‘Thanks be to Christ,’ shouted Marjorie. ‘We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you?’

‘I wasn’t wondering,’ started Simon, when Peter Perves’ head dropped and then bounced along the tent floor and onto Spenser’s lap.

‘Spenser shrieked and farted: ‘what on earth do you think you’re doing, Peter Perves?’

‘He’s not trying to do anything,’ shouted Marjorie.  ‘He’s dead!’

‘I can see that,’ said Spenser. ‘But why did he land on my lap?’

‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense,’ said Simon, and he snatched Peter Perves’ head from Spenser’s lap and kicked it out of the tent.

Spenser watched Peter Perves’ head land in the field outside the tent, and then he farted.

‘Stupid fucking thing to do!’ shouted Marjorie.

‘I can’t help having IBS,’ said Spenser.

‘No, I mean it was a stupid fucking thing for Simon to kick Peter Perves’ head out of the tent,’ shouted Marjorie.

Marjorie was right, it was a stupid fucking thing to kick Peter Perves’ head out of the tent, and the next day the friends’ body parts, including Spenser’s troubled bottom, were hanging from the branches of a giant tree.

‘Should have read the sign!’ Marjorie might have shouted if she still had a body, or if she was a kind of ghost that actually spoke.

But she wasn’t any kind of ghost: ‘Ghost stuff’s all bloody nonsense,’ Marjorie had often shouted, though Peter Perves and Spenser had always believed in such things.

Years later, as trees swayed in the surrounding forest, local boys played on a football field that had once been part of a campsite. The whistle blew for a penalty, and a small boy swore that the ball winked at him as he kicked it towards the goal.

*

Wild Camping appeared in Sonder Magazine in September 2022 https://sonderlit.com/product/issue-vi-odd/

The picture is by Jonny Voss