09 - Welcome to Camp Nightmare (2 page)

He saw me coming—and quickly climbed into the bus. He slid into the driver’s
seat, pulling a green sun visor down over his forehead as I stepped up to the
door.

“Is someone coming for us?” I called in to him.

To my surprise, he pulled the lever, and the bus door slammed shut in my
face.

The engine started up with a roar and a burst of gray exhaust fumes.

“Hey!” I screamed, and pounded angrily on the glass door.

I had to leap back as the bus squealed away, its tires spinning noisily on
the hard dirt. “Hey!” I shouted. “You don’t have to run me over!”

I stared angrily as the bus bounced onto the road and roared away. Then I
turned back to Mike. He was standing beside the four girls. They were all
looking upset now.

“He—he left,” Mike stammered as I approached them. “He just
left
us
here in the middle of nowhere.”

We gazed down the road at the bus until it disappeared over the darkening
horizon. We all grew very quiet.

A few seconds later, we heard the frightening animal cries.

Very close. And getting closer.

“Wh-what’s that?” Mike stammered.

We turned in the direction of the shrill cries.

They seemed to be coming from across the platform. At first, I thought that
Jay and Colin and their friends were playing a joke on us, making the animal
cries to frighten us.

But then I saw the scared, wide-eyed expressions on their faces. Jay, Colin,
and the others had frozen in place. They weren’t making the noises.

The cries grew louder. Closer.

Shrill warnings.

And then, staring into the distance beyond the platform, I saw them. Small,
dark creatures, keeping low, rolling rapidly along the flat ground, tossing
their heads back and uttering excited shrieks as they came toward us.

“What are they?” Mike cried, moving close to me.

“Are they prairie wolves?” Dori asked in a trembling voice.

“I hope not!” one of the other girls called out.

We all climbed onto the concrete platform and huddled behind our trunks and
bags.

The animal cries grew louder as the creatures drew near. I could see dozens
of them. They scurried toward us over the flat ground as if being blown by the
wind.

“Help! Somebody
help
us!” I heard Mike scream.

Next to me, Jay still had two of the red pebbles from his stone-throwing
competition in his hand. “Pick up rocks!” he was shouting frantically. “Maybe we
can scare them away!”

The creatures stopped a few yards from the concrete platform and raised
themselves up menacingly on their hind feet.

Huddled between Mike and Jay, I could see them clearly now. They were wolves
or wildcats of some sort. Standing upright, they were nearly three feet tall.

They had slender, almost scrawny bodies covered with spotty red-brown fur.
Their paws had long silvery claws growing out of them. Their heads were nearly
as slender as their bodies. Tiny red weasel eyes stared hungrily at us. Their
long mouths snapped open and shut, revealing double rows of silvery, daggerlike
teeth.

“No! No! Help!” Mike dropped to his knees. His entire body convulsed in a
shudder of terror.

Some of the kids were crying. Others gaped at the advancing creatures in
stunned silence.

I was too scared to cry out or move or do
anything.

I stared at the row of creatures, my heart thudding, my mouth as dry as
cotton.

The creatures grew silent. Standing a few feet from the platform, they eyed
us, snapping their jaws loudly, hungrily. White froth began to drip from their
mouths.

“They—they’re going to attack!” a boy yelled.

“They look hungry!” I heard one of the girls say.

The white froth poured thickly over their pointed teeth. They continued to
snap their jaws. It sounded like a dozen steel traps being snapped shut.

Suddenly, one of them leaped onto the edge of the platform.

“No!” several kids cried out in unison.

We huddled closer together, trying to stay behind the pile of trunks and
bags.

Another creature climbed onto the platform. Then three more.

I took a step back.

I saw Jay pull back his arm and heave a red rock at one of the frothing
creatures. The rock hit the platform with a
crack
and bounced away.

The creatures were not frightened. They arched their backs, preparing to
attack.

They began to make a high-pitched chattering sound.

And moved nearer. Nearer.

Jay threw another rock.

This one hit one of the advancing creatures on the side. It uttered a shrill
eek
of surprise. But it kept moving steadily forward, its red eyes
trained on Jay, its jaws snapping hungrily.

“Go away!” Dori cried in a trembling voice. “Go home! Go away! Go
away!”

But her shouts had no effect.

The creatures advanced.

“Run!” I urged. “Run!”

“We can’t outrun them!” someone shouted.

The shrill chittering grew louder. Deafening. Until it seemed as if we were
surrounded by a wall of sound.

The ugly creatures lowered themselves to pounce.

“Run!” I repeated. “Come on—run!”

My legs wouldn’t cooperate. They felt rubbery and weak.

Trying to back away from the attacking creatures, I toppled over backward off
the platform.

I saw flashing stars as the back of my head hit the hard ground.

They’re going to get me,
I realized.

I can’t get away.

I heard the sirenlike attack cry.

I heard the scrape of the creatures’ long claws over the concrete platform.

I heard the screams and cries of the frightened campers.

Then, as I struggled frantically to pull myself up, I heard the deafening
roar.

At first I thought it was an explosion.

I thought the platform had blown up.

But then I turned and saw the rifle.

Another explosion of gunfire. White smoke filled the air.

The creatures spun around and darted away, silent now, their scraggly fur
scraping the ground as they kept low, their tails between their furry legs.

“Ha-ha! Look at ’em run!” A man kept a rifle poised on his shoulder as he
watched the creatures retreat.

Behind him stood a long green bus.

I pulled myself up and brushed myself off.

Everyone was laughing now, jumping up and down joyfully, celebrating the
narrow escape.

I was still too shaken up to celebrate.

“They’re running like jackrabbits!” the man declared in a booming voice. He
lowered the rifle.

It took me a while to realize he had come out of the camp bus to rescue us.
We hadn’t heard or seen the bus pull up because of the attack cries of the
animals.

“Are you okay, Mike?” I asked, walking over to my frightened-looking new
friend.

“I guess,” he replied uncertainly. “I guess I’m okay now.”

Dawn slapped me on the back, grinning. “We’re okay!” she cried. “We’re all
okay!”

We gathered in front of the man with the rifle.

He was big and red-faced, mostly bald except for a fringe of curly yellow
hair around his head. He had a blond mustache under an enormous beak of a nose
and tiny black bird eyes beneath bushy blond eyebrows.

“Hi, guys! I’m Uncle Al. I’m your friendly camp director. I hope you enjoyed
that welcome to Camp Nightmoon!” he boomed in a deep voice.

I heard muttered replies.

He leaned the rifle against the bus and took a few steps toward us, studying
our faces. He was wearing white shorts and a bright green camp T-shirt that
stretched over his big belly. Two young guys, also in green and white, stepped
out of the bus, serious expressions on their faces.

“Let’s load up,” Uncle Al instructed them in his deep voice.

He didn’t apologize for being late.

He didn’t explain about the weird animals. And he didn’t ask if we were okay
after that scare.

The two counselors began dragging the camp trunks and shoving them into the
luggage compartment on the bus.

“Looks like a good group this year,” Uncle Al shouted. “We’ll drop you girls
off first across the river. Then we’ll get you boys settled in.”

“What
were
those awful animals?” Dori called to Uncle Al.

He didn’t seem to hear her.

We began climbing onto the bus. I looked for Mike and found him near the end
of the line. His face was pale, and he still looked really shaken. “I—I was
really scared,” he admitted.

“But we’re okay,” I reassured him. “Now we can relax and have fun.”

“I’m so hungry,” Mike complained. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

One of the counselors overheard him. “You won’t be hungry when you taste the
camp food,” he told Mike.

We piled into the bus. I sat next to Mike. I could hear the poor guy’s
stomach growling. I suddenly realized I was starving, too. And I was really
eager to see what Camp Nightmoon looked like. I hoped it wouldn’t be a long bus
ride to get there.

“How far away is our camp?” I called to Uncle Al, who had slid into the
driver’s seat.

He didn’t seem to hear me.

“Hey, Mike, we’re on our way!” I said happily as the bus pulled onto the
road.

Mike forced a smile. “I’m so glad to get
away
from there!”

To my surprise, the bus ride took less than five minutes.

We all muttered our shock at what a short trip it was. Why hadn’t the first
bus taken us all the way?

A big wooden sign proclaiming camp nightmoon came into view, and Uncle Al
turned the bus onto a gravel road that led through a patch of short trees into
the camp.

We followed the narrow, winding road across a green river. Several small
cabins came into view. “Girls’ camp,” Uncle Al announced. The bus stopped to let
the four girls off. Dawn waved to me as she climbed down.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the boys’ camp. Through the bus window I
could see a row of small white cabins. On top of a gently sloping hill stood a
large white-shingled building, probably a meeting lodge or mess hall.

At the edge of a field, three counselors, all dressed in white shorts and
green T-shirts, were working to start a fire in a large stone barbecue pit.

“Hey, we’re going to have a cookout!” I exclaimed to Mike. I was starting to
feel really excited.

Mike smiled, too. He was practically drooling at the thought of food!

The bus came to an abrupt stop at the end of the row of small bunks. Uncle Al
pulled himself up quickly from the driver’s seat and turned to us. “Welcome to
beautiful Camp Nightmoon!” he bellowed. “Step down and line up for your bunk
assignments. Once you get unpacked and have dinner, I’ll see you at the
campfire.”

We pushed our way noisily out of the bus. I saw Jay enthusiastically slapping
another boy on the back. I think we were all feeling a lot better, forgetting
about our close call.

I stepped down and took a deep breath. The cool air smelled really sweet and
fresh. I saw a long row of short evergreen trees behind the white lodge on the
hill.

As I took my place in line, I searched for the waterfront. I could hear the
soft rush of the river behind a thick row of evergreens, but I couldn’t see it.

Mike, Jay, Colin, and I were assigned to the same bunk. It was Bunk 4. I
thought the bunk should have a more interesting name. But it just had a number.
Bunk 4.

It was really small, with a low ceiling and windows on two sides. It was just
big enough for six campers. There were bunk beds against three walls and a tall
dresser on the fourth wall, with a little square of space in the middle.

There was no bathroom. I guessed it was in another building.

As the four of us entered the bunk, we saw that one of the beds had already
been claimed. It had been carefully made, the green blanket tucked in neatly,
some sports magazines and a radio resting on top.

“That must belong to our counselor,” Jay said, inspecting the radio.

“Hope we don’t have to wear those ugly green T-shirts,” Colin said, grinning.
He was still wearing his silver sunglasses, even though the sun was nearly down
and it was just about as dark as night in the cabin.

Jay claimed a top bunk, and Colin took the bed beneath his.

“Can I have a lower one?” Mike asked me. “I roll around a lot at night. I’m
afraid I might fall out of a top one.”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem,” I replied. I wanted the top bunk anyway. It would
be a lot more fun.

“Hope you guys don’t snore,” Colin said.

“We’re not going to sleep in here anyway,” Jay said. “We’re going to party
all night!” He playfully slapped Mike on the back, so hard that Mike went
sprawling into the dresser.

“Hey!” Mike whined. “That hurt!”

“Sorry. Guess I don’t know my own strength,” Jay replied, grinning at Colin.

The cabin door opened, and a redheaded guy with dark freckles all over his
face walked in, carrying a big gray plastic bag. He was tall and very skinny and
was wearing white shorts and a green camp T-shirt.

“Hey, guys,” he said, and dropped the large bag on the cabin floor with a
groan. He checked us out, then pointed to the bag. “There’s your bed stuff,” he
said. “Make your beds. Try to make them as neat as mine.” He pointed to the bunk
against the window with the radio on it.

“Are you our counselor?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m the lucky one.” He turned and started to walk out.

“What’s your name?” Jay called after him.

“Larry,” he said, pushing open the cabin door. “Your trunks will be here in a
few minutes,” he told us. “You can fight it out over drawer space. Two of the
drawers are stuck shut.”

He started out the door, then turned back to us. “Keep away from my stuff.”
The door slammed hard behind him.