"Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Not really." I replied with a tinge of weariness.

"Well I didn’t either until last summer."

With an intense look in her dark green eyes, Samantha Peden takes a seat in front of me and begins to weave a mysterious tale.

Samantha, better known as Sam, is your average 19-year-old college sophomore. She does many of the things people her age do and, threw her own admittance, has had your normal experiences with one extraordinary exception.

In the summer of 1999, Sam worked as a counselor at a youth camp in the woods of Lakee, Texas. "I was always the counselor that had to check out all the weird things." Says Sam, "Either they were too lazy or too scared." From raccoons running loose and wreaking havoc in one of the buildings to finding out why half the girls in cabin three are crying, Sam did and saw it all.

"I don’t know why I volunteered to go do all that stuff. I’m not the most courageous person in the world and the surroundings don’t exactly bring out the hero in you."

The campsite is set deep in the woods of Lakee and reminds one somewhat of one of those old horror movie sets. The campgrounds are very spread out and enshrouded with trees. And at night it is very "intimidating."

"In the woods it seems as if the nights are even darker so it’s no fun walking around there by yourself. You hear a lot of scary stories about the woods at night so walking around by yourself is a definite no, no."

Sam wasn’t alone on this particular night as she begins to recall one of the "scariest nights" of her young life.

"After a camp dance, me and one of the other counselors decided to head for the weight room and get a quick workout in." The small barn-like building containing the gym is located so far away, its almost separate from the rest of the camp's buildings. To get there, one must go through the trees on a narrow path, walk over a brush and up a small hill to a clearing, and finally a five-minute walk down the hill to the sports center.

As they reached the clearing, they noticed that the lights were on inside the gym. "My first thoughts weren’t really those of concern. Someone forgot to cut the lights out from earlier in the day or one of the counselors left the dance early to workout, either way somebody’s in trouble." As they got closer, the outline of what looked to be a person could be seen moving around through the window.

"That actually helped to calm any kind of fear or nervousness I might have had." But just before she reached to open the door, all that built up confidence was shattered by her companion.

"Just before I opened the door, he turned to me with a devilish grin and said; ‘Wouldn’t it be spooky if no one was in there?"

"Yeah." She replied with a nervous giggle.

What if no one was in there when she opened the door? Who or what did they see? Did they really see anything? What, if anything, does that mean?

With her hands shaking with such ferocity it rattled the doorknob, she turned it and the door slowly creaked open. Sam’s wirey but surprisingly strong frame stepped into the weight room practicing extreme caution. To her surprise, relief, and fear…no one was there. The place is completely empty.

"We looked around but it was disserted."

I assumed that after such a strange experience Sam would pack it up and try and get back to the main camp area as soon as possible but…

"So then we just decided to work out you know?"

"Actually, no I don’t," was my answer to her rhetorical question in my mind. The journalist in me made me respond with the more professional yet still obvious follow-up; "Why?"

"Well I would like to say it was because I was just so brave, but the truth is, I was simply too scared to go outside. Who knows what was out there."

"Yeah, that makes a lot of sense," I comment briefly and the story continues.

After one tense workout session, it was time to make that dreaded trip to the main lodgings of camp. Lights out in the gym and flashlights on outside.

"We're probably just imagining things," Sam remarks in an attempt to put both the traveler's minds at ease. "Of course I didn't believe that," she now admits with the smile of a person who can look back and laugh at herself and her past discretions. "I figured I needed to at least try and say something positive."

Without incident, they made it past the clearing and up the hill. Unfortunately problems arise as soon as they attempt their downhill dissent. Both flashlights go out and the mood goes from just being nervous to out and out fear in a hurry. The fright factor is now at its highest possible level and there's only one way out of this: Run!!!

Sam and her partner took off into the woods running has fast as they could, running for their lives!

"What were you thinking as all of this was happening," I had to interrupt and ask her.

"I was just trying to get to some people, any people. And to be honest with you, I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I was almost waiting for something to reach out and trip me up like you see in those scary movies. My heart was beating a thousand times. I thought I was a goner for sure." The fear that possessed Sam at this time, no matter what the specifics were, was real. You can see it when you look into her eyes as she recounts it.

It is said that harrowing situations change people in to in one of two ways; either they become reckless in their behavior and attitude, or they become introverted and extremely cautious. In the case of Samantha "Sam" Peden, its difficult to get any kind of solidified reading.

Today she is a very outgoing person with an active social life. She is a member of a sorority, plays on the school basketball team, and has a boyfriend she is madly in love with.

"How has this experienced changed or molded you as a person?"

"First it's obviously made me be more careful. I still have fun but its things like never walking around alone at night and I'm so glad I didn't that night, just being smart. It's also helped me appreciate my life that much more. This was one of the scariest experiences of my life, and even if the fear was all imagined, frankly I was in fear for my life, I didn't know what was going on. I have lived a very charmed and blessed life and that night definitely opened my eyes to that fact."

"Oh yeah, and of course that’s why I'm never going back to summer camp."

I also think I'm a little more open to the notion of ghost now, how about you?