Welcome to Camp Nightmare

  Jay and Roger walked a few steps ahead of us, shoving each other with their shoulders, first to the left, then to the right.

  Suddenly, Jay turned back to Colin and me. “Tonight’s the night,” he whispered, a devilish grin spreading across his face.

  “Huh? Tonight’s what night?” I demanded.

  “Ssshhh.” He raised a finger to his lips. “When everyone’s asleep, Roger and I are going to go check out the Forbidden Bunk.” He turned to Colin. “You with us?”

  Colin shook his head sadly. “I don’t think I can, Jay.”

  Walking backward in front of us, Jay locked his eyes on mine. “How about you, Billy? You coming?”

  10

  “I — I think I’ll stay with Colin,” I told him.

  I heard Roger mutter something about me being a chicken. Jay looked disappointed. “You’re going to miss out,” he said.

  “That’s okay. I’m kind of tired,” I said. It was true. I felt so weary after this long day, every muscle ached. Even my hair hurt!

  Jay and Roger made whispered plans all the way back to the tent.

  At the bottom of the hill, I stopped and gazed up at the Forbidden Bunk. It appeared to lean toward me in the pale starlight. I listened for the familiar howls that seemed to come from inside it. But tonight there was only a heavy silence.

  The large plastic tents were lined up in the bunk area. I crawled into ours and lay down on top of my sleeping bag. The ground was really hard. I could see this was going to be a long night.

  Jay and Colin were messing around with their sleeping bags at the back of the tent. “It seems weird without Mike here,” I said, feeling a sudden chill.

  “Now you’ll have more room to put your stuff,” Jay replied casually. He sat hunched against the tent wall, his expression tense, his eyes on the darkness outside the tent door, which was left open a few inches.

  Larry was nowhere in sight. Colin sat quietly. He still wasn’t feeling right.

  I shifted my weight and stretched out, trying to find a comfortable position. I really wanted to go to sleep. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until after Jay and Roger returned from their adventure.

  Time moved slowly. It was cold outside, and the air was heavy and wet inside the tent.

  I stared up at the dark plastic tent walls. A bug crawled across my forehead. I squashed it with my hand.

  I could hear Jay and Colin whispering behind me, but I couldn’t make out their words. Jay snickered nervously.

  I must have dozed off. An insistent whispering sound woke me up. It took me a while to realize it was someone whispering outside the tent.

  I lifted my head and saw Roger’s face peering in. I sat up, alert.

  “Wish us luck,” Jay whispered. “Good luck,” I whispered back, my voice clogged from sleep.

  In the darkness, I saw Jay’s large shadowy form crawl quickly to the tent door. He pushed it open, revealing a square of purple sky, then vanished into the darkness.

  I shivered. “Let’s sneak back to the bunk,” I whispered to Colin. “It’s too cold out here. And the ground feels like solid rock.”

  Colin agreed. We both scrambled out of the tent and made our way silently to our nice, warm bunk. Inside, we headed to the window to try to see Jay and Roger.

  “They’re going to get caught,” I whispered. “I just know it.”

  “They won’t get caught,” Colin disagreed. “But they won’t see anything, either. There’s nothing to see up there. It’s just a stupid cabin.”

  Poking my head out the window, I could hear Jay and Roger giggling quietly somewhere out in the dark. The camp was so silent, so eerily silent. I could hear their whispers, their legs brushing through the tall grass.

  “They’d better be quiet,” Colin muttered, leaning against the window frame. “They’re making too much noise.”

  “They must be up to the hill by now,” I whispered. I stuck my head out as far as I could, but I couldn’t see them.

  Colin started to reply, but the first scream made him stop.

  It was a scream of horror that cut through the silent air.

  “Oh!” I cried out, and pulled my head in. “Was that Jay or Roger?” Colin asked, his voice trembling.

  The second scream was more terrifying than the first.

  Before it died down, I heard animal snarls. Loud and angry. Like an eruption of thunder.

  Then I heard Jay’s desperate plea: “Help us! Please — somebody help us!”

  My heart thudding in my chest, I lurched to the cabin door and pulled it open. The hideous screams still ringing in my ears, I plunged out into the darkness, the dew-covered ground soaking my bare feet.

  “Jay — where are you?” I heard myself calling, but I didn’t recognize my shrill, frightened voice.

  And then I saw a dark form running toward me, running bent over, arms outstretched.

  “Jay!” I cried. “What — is it? What happened?”

  He ran up to me, still bent forward, his face twisted in horror, his eyes wide and unblinking. His bushy hair appeared to stand straight up.

  “It — it got Roger,” he moaned, his chest heaving as he struggled to straighten up.

  “What did?” I demanded.

  “What was it?” Colin asked, right behind me.

  “I — I don’t know!” Jay stammered, shutting his eyes tight. “It — it tore Roger to pieces.”

  Jay uttered a loud sob. Then he opened his eyes and spun around in terror. “Here it comes!” he shrieked. “Now it’s coming after us!”

  11

  In the pale starlight, I saw Jay’s eyes roll up in his head. His knees collapsed, and he began to slump to the ground.

  I grabbed him before he fell and dragged him into the cabin. Colin slammed the door behind us.

  Once inside, Jay recovered slowly. The three of us froze in place and listened hard. I was still holding on to Jay’s heaving shoulders. He was as pale bedsheet, and his breath came out in short, frightened moans.

  We listened.

  Silence.

  The air hung frozen and still. Nothing moved.

  No footsteps. No animal approaching.

  Just Jay’s frightened moans and the pounding of my heart.

  And then, somewhere far in the distance, I heard the howl. Soft and low at first, then rising on the wind. A howl that chilled my blood and made me cry out. “It’s Sabre!”

  “Don’t let it get me!” Jay shrieked, covering his face with his hands. He dropped to his knees on the cabin floor. “Don’t let it get me!”

  I raised my eyes to Colin, who was huddled against the wall, away from the window. “We have to get Larry,” I managed to choke out. “We have to get help.”

  “But how?” Colin demanded in a trembling voice.

  “Don’t let it get me!” Jay repeated, crumpled on the floor.

  “It isn’t coming here,” I told him, trying to sound certain, trying to sound soothing. “We’re okay inside the bunk, Jay. It isn’t coming here.”

  “But it got Roger and —” Jay started. His entire body convulsed in a shudder of terror.

  Thinking about Roger, I felt a stab of fear in my chest.

  Was it really true? Was it true that Roger had been attacked by some kind of creature? That he’d been slashed to pieces?

  I’d heard the screams from the hillside. Two bloodcurdling screams.

  They’d been so loud, so horrifying. Hadn’t anyone else in camp heard them, too? Hadn’t any other kids heard Roger’s cries? Hadn’t any counselors heard?

  I froze in place and listened. Silence. The whisper of the breeze rustling the tree leaves.

  No voices. No cries of alarm. No hurried footsteps.

  I turned back toward the others. Colin had helped Jay to his bunk. “Where can Larry be?” Colin asked. His eyes, for once not hidden behind the silver sunglasses, showed real fear.

  “Where can everyone be?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and starting to pace back and fort
h in the small space between the beds. “There isn’t a sound out there.”

  I saw Jay’s eyes go wide with horror. He was staring at the open window. “The creature —” he cried. “Here it comes! It’s coming through the window!”

  12

  All three of us gaped in horror at the open window.

  But no creature jumped in.

  As I stared, frozen in the center of the cabin, I could see only darkness and a fringe of pale stars.

  Outside in the trees, crickets started up a shrill clatter. There was no other sound.

  Poor Jay was so frightened and upset, he was seeing things.

  Somehow Colin and I got him a little calmed down. We made him take off his sneakers and lie down on his bed. And we covered him up with three blankets to help him to stop trembling.

  Colin and I wanted to run for help. But we were too frightened to go outside.

  The three of us were up all night. Larry never showed up.

  Except for the crickets and the brush of the wind through the trees, the camp was silent.

  I think I must have finally dozed off just before dawn. I had strange nightmares about fires and people trying to run away.

  I was awakened by Colin shaking me hard. “Breakfast,” he said hoarsely. “Hurry. We’re late.”

  I sat up groggily. “Where’s Larry?”

  “He never showed,” Colin replied, motioning to Larry’s unused bunk.

  “We’ve got to find him! We’ve got to tell him what happened!” Jay cried, hurrying to the cabin door with his sneakers untied.

  Colin and I stumbled after him, both of us only half awake. It was a cool, gray morning. The sun was trying hard to poke through high white clouds.

  The three of us stopped halfway up the hill to the mess hall. Reluctantly, our eyes searched the ground around the Forbidden Bunk.

  I don’t know what I expected to see. But there was no sign of Roger.

  No sign of any struggle. No dried blood on the ground. The tall grass wasn’t bent or matted down.

  “Weird,” I heard Jay mutter, shaking his head. “That’s weird.”

  I tugged his arm to get him moving, and we hurried the rest of the way up to the lodge.

  The mess hall was as noisy as ever. Kids were laughing and shouting to each other. It all seemed perfectly normal. I guessed that no one had made an announcement about Roger yet.

  Some kids called to Colin and me. But we ignored them and searched for Roger, moving quickly through the aisles between the tables.

  No sign of him.

  I had a heavy, queasy feeling in my stomach as we hurried to the counselors’ table in the corner.

  Larry glanced up from a big plate of scrambled eggs and bacon as the three of us advanced on him.

  “What happened to Roger?”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Roger and I were attacked.”

  “We were afraid to go find you.”

  All three of us bombarded Larry at once.

  His face was filled with confusion, and he raised both hands to silence us. “Whoa,” he said. “Take a breath, guys. What are you talking about?”

  “About Roger!” Jay screamed, his face turning bright red. “The creature — it jumped on him. And — and —”

  Larry glanced at the other counselors at the table, who looked as confused as he did. “Creature? What creature?” Larry demanded.

  “It attacked Roger!” Jay screamed. “It was coming after me and —”

  Larry stared up at Jay. “Someone was attacked? I don’t think so, Jay.” He turned to the counselor next to him, a pudgy boy named Derek. “Did you hear anything in your area?”

  Derek shook his head.

  “Isn’t Roger in your group?” Larry asked Derek.

  Derek shook his head. “Not in my group.”

  “But Roger —” Jay insisted.

  “We didn’t get any report about any attack,” Larry said, interrupting. “If a camper was attacked by a bear or something, we’d hear about it.”

  “And we’d hear the noise,” Derek offered. “You know. Screams or something.”

  “I heard screams,” I told them.

  “We both heard screams,” Colin added quickly. “And Jay came running back, crying for help.”

  “Well, why didn’t anyone else hear it?” Larry demanded, turning his gaze on Jay. His expression changed. “Where did this happen? When?” he asked suspiciously.

  Jay’s face darkened to a deeper red. “After lights-out,” he admitted. “Roger and I went up to the Forbidden Bunk, and —”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a bear?” Derek interrupted. “Some bears were spotted downriver yesterday afternoon.”

  “It was a creature!” Jay screamed angrily.

  “You shouldn’t have been out,” Larry said, shaking his head.

  “Why won’t you listen to me?” Jay screamed. “Roger was attacked. This big thing jumped on him and —”

  “We would have heard something,” Derek said calmly, glancing at Larry.

  “Yeah,” Larry agreed. “The counselors were all up here at the lodge. We would’ve heard any screams.”

  “But, Larry — you’ve got to check it out!” I cried. “Jay isn’t making it up. It really happened!”

  “Okay, okay,” Larry replied, raising his hands as if surrendering. “I’ll go ask Uncle Al about it, okay?”

  “Hurry,” Jay insisted. “Please!”

  “I’ll ask Uncle Al after breakfast,” Larry said, turning back to his eggs and bacon. “I’ll see you guys at morning swim later. I’ll report what Uncle Al says.”

  “But, Larry —” Jay pleaded.

  “I’ll ask Uncle Al,” Larry said firmly. “If anything happened last night, he’ll know about it.” He raised a strip of bacon to his mouth and chewed on it. “I think you just had a bad nightmare or something,” he continued, eyeing Jay suspiciously. “But I’ll let you know what Uncle Al says.”

  “It wasn’t a nightmare!” Jay cried shrilly. Larry turned his back on us and continued eating his breakfast. “Don’t you care?” Jay screamed at him. “Don’t you care what happens to us?”

  I saw that a lot of kids had stopped eating their breakfast to gawk at us. I pulled Jay away and tried to get him to go to our table. But he insisted on searching the entire mess hall again. “I know Roger isn’t here,” he insisted. “He — he can’t be!”

  For the second time, the three of us made our way up and down the aisles between the tables, studying every face.

  One thing was for sure: Roger was nowhere to be seen.

  The sun burned through the high clouds just as we reached the waterfront for morning swim. The air was still cool. The thick, leafy shrubs along the riverbank glistened wetly in the white glare of sunlight.

  I dropped my towel under a bush and turned to the gently flowing green water. “I’ll bet it’s cold this morning,” I said to Colin, who was retying the string on his swim trunks.

  “I just want to go back to the bunk and go to sleep,” Colin said, plucking at a knot. He wasn’t seeing double any longer, but he was tired from being up all night.

  Several guys were already wading into the river. They were complaining about the cold water, splashing each other, shoving each other forward.

  “Where’s Larry?” Jay demanded breathlessly, pushing his way through the clump of shrubs to get to us. His red hair was a mess, half of it standing straight up on the side of his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.

  “Where’s Larry? He promised he’d be here,” Jay said, frantically searching the waterfront.

  “Here I am.” The three of us spun around as Larry appeared from the bushes behind us. He was wearing baggy green Camp Nightmoon swim trunks.

  “Well?” Jay demanded. “What did Uncle Al say? About Roger?”

  Larry’s expression was serious. His eyes locked on Jay’s. “Uncle Al and I went all around the Forbidden Bunk,” he told Ja
y. “There wasn’t any attack there. There couldn’t have been.”

  “But it — it got Roger,” Jay cried shrilly. “It slashed him. I saw it!”

  Larry shook his head, his eyes still burning into Jay’s. “That’s the other thing,” he said softly. “Uncle Al and I went up to the office and checked the records, Jay. And there is no camper here this year named Roger. Not a first name or a middle name. No Roger. No Roger at all.”

  13

  Jay’s mouth dropped open, and he uttered a low gasp.

  The three of us stared in disbelief at Larry, letting this startling news sink in.

  “Someone’s made a mistake,” Jay said finally, his voice trembling with emotion. “We searched the mess hall for him, Larry. And he’s gone. Roger isn’t here.”

  “He never was here,” Larry said without any emotion at all.

  “I — I just don’t believe this!” Jay cried.

  “How about a swim, guys?” Larry said, motioning to the water.

  “Well, what do you think?” I demanded of Larry. I couldn’t believe he was being so calm about this. “What do you think happened last night?”

  Larry shrugged. “I don’t know what to think,” he replied, his eyes on the cluster of swimmers farthest from the shore. “Maybe you guys are trying to pull a weird joke on me.”

  “Huh? Is that what you think?” Jay cried. “That it’s a joke?!”

  Larry shrugged again. “Swim time, guys. Get some exercise, okay?”

  Jay started to say more, but Larry quickly turned and went running into the green water. He took four or five running steps off the shore, then dived, pulling himself quickly through the water, taking long, steady strokes.

  “I’m not going in,” Jay insisted angrily. “I’m going back to the bunk.” His face was bright red. His chin was trembling. I could see that he was about to cry. He turned and began running through the bushes, dragging his towel along the ground.

  “Hey, wait up!” Colin went running after him.

  I stood there trying to decide what to do. I didn’t want to follow Jay to the bunk. There wasn’t anything I could do to help him.

  Maybe a cold swim will make me feel better, I thought.