Camp Nowhere

I turned and saw the other campers crowded behind us. Their faces were angry. They muttered quietly to each other.

  “Drew the Shmoo!” a boy shouted.

  “Get him! Get him!” another camper urged.

  And then someone heaved a rock. It hit Drew in the back. He cried out and staggered forward, almost falling into Uncle Brian.

  The campers cheered gleefully.

  Why are they so angry at Drew? I wondered. What is going on here?

  With a growl, Drew reached down to pick up the rock. He pulled back his arm to heave it at the cheering campers.

  But the counselors quickly surrounded him. They grabbed the rock away. Two counselors gripped Drew tightly by the shoulders.

  He tried to squirm free. But they held him in place.

  Uncle Brian scowled at Drew, his tiny black eyes cold and angry. “If you think you’ve seen trouble before…” he rasped. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

  I glanced at Charlotte. She was trembling, biting her bottom lip. I knew we were both thinking the same thing: Drew told the truth. Uncle Brian is evil.

  A chill rolled down my body. What was going to happen to us now?

  “Drew, listen to me.” Uncle Brian said. “You know what you have done. You know it cannot be allowed.”

  Drew furiously struggled to twist free from the counselors who held him. “I hate you! I hate you all!” he screamed. He spit at Uncle Brian but missed.

  Uncle Brian stood his ground. His scowl grew even angrier. “Do you think we can allow you to break the rules?” he boomed, glaring at Drew. “Did you really think you could get away with this?”

  “I don’t care!” Drew screamed. “I hate you! You’ve all been so horrible to me. Just because I’m not like you. Just because I hate this camp!”

  With a desperate lunge, he broke free. He ducked past the counselors and started to run.

  But Uncle Brian moved with surprising speed. He leaped at Drew and tackled him to the ground.

  Will helped Uncle Brian to his feet. Three other counselors held on to Drew.

  “I don’t care! I don’t care!” Drew wailed. “I want this to end. I want it all to end! I don’t care what happens to any of us!”

  “Hold him tight!” Uncle Brian ordered breathlessly. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. “I’ll deal with him in a minute.”

  The counselors dragged Drew away from Uncle Brian. They backed him up against a tall stack of canvas tents.

  Behind us, the campers cheered and hooted.

  “Okay, break it up,” Uncle Brian shouted. He waved them away. “The fun and games are over. Everything is okay now. Back to your cabins. Go!”

  Still laughing and cheering, the boys spread out, making their way to their bunks.

  As I watched them leave, a wave of fear swept over me. We were alone with Uncle Brian now. What was he going to do to us?

  Was he going to lock us up with Drew?

  Drew told the truth, I realized. Drew tried to warn us that we were in terrible danger.

  We had finally listened to him—too late. What were the shadowy forms that captured us? Who was playing the Indian drums that pounded so close while we were covered in blackness?

  It was all too puzzling, too frightening. My head spun.

  I gazed up to find Uncle Brian stomping toward us, his fists swinging at his sides. “Now it’s your turn,” he boomed.

  I took a deep breath. I forced myself to speak. “Tell us. What is going on here?” I choked out. “Are you really holding all of these campers prisoner?”

  Uncle Brian narrowed his eyes coldly at me. “Yes,” he replied. “I am.”

  25

  I gasped.

  “You can’t do this!” Charlotte screamed.

  Uncle Brian raised a hand to silence her. “I should explain,” he said, lowering his voice. “The campers are not exactly prisoners. We’re all prisoners, in a way.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice shrill and trembling.

  Uncle Brian crossed his beefy arms in front of him. “It’s sort of a long story,” he said, sighing.

  “He won’t tell you the truth!” Drew shouted from behind us. He had three counselors holding him in place.

  “Yes, I will,” Uncle Brian said. “It started a long time ago, many years before Camp Evergreen was built. This had been Native American land for hundreds of years. When the natives were forced to leave, they left spirits behind. Spirits to protect the land.”

  The drums, I thought. The drums we heard…. Were they played by Native American spirits? Was it possible?

  “No one knew it at the time,” Uncle Brian continued. “But Camp Evergreen was built on their sacred grounds. Twenty-five years ago, when we all arrived to start camp for the first year, we had frightening visitors.”

  Behind us, Drew let out an angry cry. “Do I really have to hear this again?”

  “Yes, I want you to hear it,” Uncle Brian replied sharply. He turned back to us. “Angry spirits came out of the woods. They covered the camp in shadow. They planned to murder us all—campers and counselors. And take back the land they were there to protect. But I made a deal with them to keep us alive.”

  “A deal?” I asked. “A deal with the angry spirits?”

  He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Try to understand. The spirits cast a powerful spell on us. Under the spell, Camp Evergreen disappears—except for two days a year. For most of the year, all of us—all of us—sleep a deep sleep.

  “We wake up when our two days come around,” he continued. “We’re not any older. We all enjoy two wonderful days of summer camp. We eat all we want, and play sports, and enjoy the outdoors. We don’t even feel as if we’ve been asleep for three hundred sixty-three days.”

  My friends and I stared at Uncle Brian in silence. Could he be telling the truth? I glanced behind us and saw Drew squirming uncomfortably, a scowl on his face.

  “The spirits allow us to live,” Uncle Brian continued, “as long as we follow two rules. One, we must keep the land untouched. As clean and perfect as when we found it.”

  He sighed. “The second rule is that we all must stay. If anyone leaves the camp and tries to return to the real world, the spell will be broken. We will all disappear forever.”

  Uncle Brian turned and glared at Drew. “Everyone here loves Camp Evergreen. Everyone loves being able to go to summer camp forever. We all are willing to follow the rules of the spirits. Everyone but Drew.”

  “I never wanted to go to camp in the first place!” Drew cried. “My parents forced me!”

  “We knew Drew would try to escape,” Uncle Brian said, turning back to us. “That’s why we locked him up when you arrived. We have to stay together. We can’t let anyone leave. Do you understand? Do you kids understand what you almost did by helping Drew escape?”

  “We—we almost killed everyone!” Charlotte murmured.

  Uncle Brian nodded. “Yes. You didn’t know what you were doing. But if you had gotten away we would have all perished.”

  A thought flashed into my mind. A frightening thought. My throat tightened. I took a deep breath. “Uncle Brian,” I said softly. “Does this mean that my friends and I will never leave?”

  26

  A strong gust of wind burst through the campgrounds. In the woods around the camp, the trees creaked and bent.

  Uncle Brian raised his eyes to the gray sky. I could see a pale line of pink through the tops of the trees.

  “It’s almost dawn,” he said. “In a short while, Camp Evergreen will vanish for another year.”

  “And will we vanish with it?” I demanded.

  Uncle Brian nodded his head sadly. “Yes,” he whispered.

  I swallowed. “And we’ll sleep three hundred sixty-three days a year? And be trapped here forever?”

  Uncle Brian nodded again. “I can’t let you go. I can’t take the chance that you will tell someone about us. If you say one word, we will all die. All of us.”

  I glanced at my fr
iends. “We’ll take a solemn oath,” I said. “We’ll swear on our lives, on the lives of the Native American spirits. Never to tell.”

  Uncle Brian stared hard at us. “I’m sorry. I cannot allow it. I don’t know you well enough. I have no choice.”

  “Please—” I said. My friends joined me, begging with him to let us go.

  Uncle Brian raised his eyes to the sky again. “Dawn is almost here. Time for us to go back to sleep.”

  “Nooooooooo!” Drew’s deafening howl of protest made me jump.

  “No! I won’t! I won’t do this anymore!” he wailed.

  And with a cry, he burst free from the counselors. He leaped forward and grabbed me from behind.

  “Hey—!” I cried out in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  I tried to wrestle free. But he tightened his arms around my waist and wouldn’t let go.

  I quickly realized Drew’s desperate plan.

  I felt him jam his hand into my pocket. He pulled out my plastic lighter. Then he gave me a hard shove and sent me stumbling forward into my friends.

  “Drew—stop!” Uncle Brian ordered.

  Too late.

  Drew had the lighter flame high. He swung his hand—and set a shrub on fire.

  It took only a couple of seconds for the shrub to burst into flames. The flames rose high. And lapped at the side of a cabin.

  “Stop him!” Uncle Brian screamed.

  Drew’s wild eyes reflected the dancing flames. “Let it burn!” he cried. “Let it all burn!”

  27

  The flames leaped high off the shrub and licked at the cabin wall.

  His dark eyes wild, Drew tossed back his head and screamed again. “Let it burn! Let it burn!”

  If the camp burned, the sacred ground would be ruined. The bargain with the spirits would be ended. All of us would die.

  I didn’t wait to think about it. “Hurry! Help me!” I shouted to my friends.

  I grabbed a canvas tent off the top of the stack. I tugged it free and spread it open.

  Marty and Charlotte grabbed the other end. “We’ve got to work fast—before it spreads!” I shouted. I pulled the tent to the shrub.

  We tossed the canvas over the shrub. Pulled it down over the fire.

  The flames danced out around the edges of the tent. I pulled the canvas tighter.

  Smothered the fire. Smothered it.

  “Yesss!”

  Thick, sour smoke sizzled up from under the canvas. But the fire was out.

  Choking on the black smoke, Charlotte, Marty, and I staggered back.

  “Thank you. Thank you!” I heard Uncle Brian exclaiming.

  My chest burned. Tears ran from my eyes. I sucked in breath after breath, trying to clear my lungs.

  When I looked up, Uncle Brian appeared to be fading. I could see the cabin and the stack of tents right through his body!

  And then the cabins and trees, the faces of the counselors, Uncle Brian, Drew, the ground itself—they all began to shimmer, as if made of glass.

  “Run to the river,” Uncle Brian called. His voice sounded muffled now, already far away.

  I could see the pink sky through him. As he faded from view, he seemed to be blending in with the sky.

  “To the river,” he called. “You saved us—so I’m letting you go. Keep your promise. Keep our secret. Hurry. You must go down the falls to return to your lives.”

  The falls? But there are no falls, I thought.

  “Come on—run!” I felt Charlotte pulling me away.

  The five of us started to run, our shoes thudding over the hard ground. After a few seconds, I turned back.

  And stared at a black cloud. A heavy mist washed over the camp. Over Uncle Brian and the counselors, over the buildings, the lake, and the trees.

  A few seconds later, the mist floated away.

  The camp and everyone and everything in it had vanished. The woods stood dark and silent.

  My friends and I didn’t speak. We stared in amazement at the dark, empty spot. My whole body trembled. I forced myself to turn away.

  And then, without saying a word, the five of us were running. Running full speed through the trees. Jumping over fallen branches and upraised roots. Pushing through tangles of tall shrubs and weeds.

  Thrum…thrum thrum…

  The drums, soft and distant, started their steady beat as we ran. And we heard the chant of low voices all around us.

  Were the voices saying good-bye? Or warning us that we were doomed?

  The sky brightened from gray to pink. The ground shimmered under a heavy morning dew.

  We ran silently, as if in a dream, as if floating to the river. And when we heard the soft trickle of the water when the river came into view…we gasped in shock.

  A roar of thunder greeted us.

  No. Louder than thunder. An endless roar.

  I turned to the sound—and let out a cry as I saw the falls.

  A steep wall of raging white water. Straight down. Straight down from a high rock cliff. Sweeping straight down with such force that curtains of water and mist shot off in all directions, so thick they cut off the sun.

  “The falls!” I screamed. “They’re here! They’re really here!”

  Had it been here all along, hidden by the ghostly camp?

  Charlotte grabbed my arm. “But we can’t ride down that!” she yelled. “It—it’s too steep!”

  “It’s impossible!” Marty agreed, shaking his head.

  “It’s straight down!” David shouted. “We’ll be killed!”

  “We don’t even have life jackets!” Erin cried.

  Standing near the shore, we were soaked by spray off the plunging falls. Erin wiped water from her face. Her eyes were wide with terror.

  “How do we get up to the top?” Erin cried. “Maybe we could just cross the river down here.”

  “No. We have to do it!” I shouted, shielding my eyes as I stared at the raging white wall of water. “We have no choice. Uncle Brian said we have to ride the falls to return to our lives.”

  “But we don’t have canoes!” Marty shouted.

  “We have to climb up there!” Charlotte cried. “Russell is right. We have to try!”

  Marty shouted something. But I couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of the falls.

  Huddling together, we followed the shoreline. The rocky ground was wet and slippery. Spray from the falls filled the air with steam. The trees dripped water as we hurried beneath them.

  The ground sloped up sharply. We leaned forward, forcing ourselves to climb. My legs ached. My chest throbbed with pain.

  Soon, the roar of the falls was behind us. A narrow dirt path curved through the trees. We lost sight of the river, but we continued to climb.

  “Where is it taking us?” Erin asked breathlessly.

  I struggled to catch my breath. “I hope we’re not lost in the woods again.”

  The path curved again—and the trees opened to reveal the river. White-capped waves bounced in a wide channel.

  I knew at once where we were. We had climbed to the top. We were staring at the rapids that led to the falls.

  We stumbled to the river edge. My eyes searched the rocky shore.

  Yes! Yes!

  Our canoes!

  Were they right where we left them? Had they been there all along?

  Waves tossed high in the rapids. White spray flew up from the waves as they slapped hard against the jutting black rocks.

  I was drenched by the time I reached the canoes. I grabbed paddles. Turned and saw David already pushing a canoe toward the water.

  He shouted something, but I couldn’t hear.

  A high wave crashed over us, rocking the empty canoes.

  We’re not going to make it, I thought, staring toward the steep wall of raging water. No one could survive it!

  My ears rang from the roar of the plunging water.

  Charlotte and David were already in one canoe. Swinging my paddle over the side, I climbed in and took m
y place between them.

  I turned and saw Marty pulling Erin into the other canoe. Her face was twisted in terror. She didn’t want to go.

  He was shouting, pleading with her. Finally, she dropped into the front of the canoe, her eyes shut, her whole body tensed against the rocking waters.

  A moment later, we were in the water, tossed from wave to wave. “Ohhhh!” I let out a cry as the paddle flew from my hand.

  I watched it smack against a rock. Then bob in the tossing water until it went flying over the falls.

  Our canoe went into a hard spin. Then rose high on a white-water swell. “The paddles are useless!” I screamed.

  I didn’t know if anyone heard me.

  A second later, I was screaming. Screaming louder than I’d ever screamed in my life.

  But I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear my own scream. The raging explosion of water drowned out all other sound.

  The canoe tilted forward—then down.

  I tried to pull back. But my body jerked forward. I felt myself lift off the seat.

  Felt myself start to fly. Fly from the canoe.

  But then I hit back down hard.

  And fell with the canoe…plunging faster than a roller-coaster car…

  My scream burst from my throat as the canoe shot straight down. And then my breath cut off in a rush of freezing white water.

  I heard the smaaaack of the canoe.

  I flew up again. My arms shot up as if trying to grab the sky.

  And then I tumbled forward. Out of the canoe.

  I saw Charlotte flying, too. Her mouth open in a silent scream of horror.

  We hit the water at the same time. The slap took my breath away. Sent a raging stream of pain shooting through my body.

  The powerful current pulled me down—so hard I couldn’t raise my arms or kick my feet. The pain swept over me…

  Down…deeper into the dark, swirling water.

  Drowning…I knew I was drowning.

  The force pulled me, pulled me deeper…deeper.

  Battered one direction, then the next.

  Like a rag, I thought.

  It’s snapping me around like a limp rag.

  I’m not strong enough to fight it.

  The falls defeated us, I knew.