Phil and the Ghost of Camp Ch-Yo-Ca (2 page)

IT SEEMS LIKE A
GOOD TIME
to take your stuff to one of the cabins.

The question now is which one you should stay in.

“What do you say, John Luke? We have our pick, don’t we?”

“Yeah.”

You gaze at the five different cabins where the boys normally sleep. You’ll check the girls’ cabins in the morning.

“That’s the cabin Isaiah said the kid saw something in.” John Luke gestures toward it. “We could sleep in there.”

“Where do the adults stay?”

“The director’s cabin.” He points to a sixth cabin that looks the same as the others. It appears to be empty.

“Is that one any nicer?”

“Yeah, a little. And sometimes the crew stacks extra mattresses in there to make the beds softer.”

“Let’s stay in there!”

“But we didn’t hear anything about ghosts showing up in that cabin.”

You doubt you’ll see a ghost regardless of which cabin you pick, or even if you stay outside under the stars.

Hey, there’s a thought.
“We could spend the night outdoors. I brought bug spray.”

John Luke smiles. “Could be fun.”

“It’s a nice evening. We could talk for a while. Get some rest. Wake up new men.” For you, this is more about bonding with John Luke than finding ghosts anyway. “So what do you say?”

Do you spend the night in the cabin where a ghost was spotted?
Go here
.

Do you choose the director’s cabin?
Go here
.

Do you sleep outside?
Go here
.

YOU OPEN THE DOOR
but don’t see anything. But that’s impossible because something was knocking just a sec
 
—

Wait a minute.

You look down and instantly know what’s been making this racket at the entrance to the cabin.

It’s a duck, and it’s staring up at you.

“Go on, get!” You try to shoo it away with your foot.

But the mallard just stays there, gazing at you.

It studies you like you’ve done something wrong.

“Come on, get out of here.” You bend over, trying to wave it into the wilderness.

This mallard, however, doesn’t want to budge. Instead it bites your hand. Actually, it doesn’t bite but rather snaps at you with its beak. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it doesn’t really hurt.

Then the duck does it again, and this time you feel something sharp against your skin.

“Ow! Get out of here.”

You think about kicking it, but due to the publishing regulations established in 1475, no animal may be unjustly harmed or booted out into the darkness for the sake of great literature or even somewhat-amusing fiction. So you simply guide it away from the doorway with your foot.

You close the door and go back to bed.

About half an hour later, the tapping starts up again. And just like last time, you have barely fallen asleep, so this really annoys you.

You return to the door and find the duck there again. Regarding you with an unflinching gaze. You’ve never seen a mallard stand still for so long and look at you like that.

You stretch and glance around.
Am I dreaming?

But the balmy night air. The noises of the forest. The sound of John Luke turning on his mattress. You’re awake. Wide-awake.

You reach down and pick up the duck, cradling it in your arms so it won’t move. Then you head to the woods behind your cabin and set the duck on the grass.

“Okay, go on, buddy. Go find your brace of ducks. I’m sure they’re somewhere around here.”

The mallard just stands there, still staring at you, not moving. Something’s clearly wrong with it. But you’re not gonna
check it over nor bring it to the vet. What kind of Duck Commander would bring a duck to the vet?

You hope you can end this little story nugget right here. You walk away and assume you’ll never see the duck again.

Oh, but that would be too normal, wouldn’t it?

Goodness knows you only want to sleep. It’s around one in the morning when you return to bed.

Sleep almost finds you. You’re so close. But then . . .

Tap-tap-tap.

Not again.

Tap-tap-tap.

This is almost enough to make you curse, but you’re not a cursing man. You gave that up when you turned your life over to God. But this duck sure is trying to provoke your tired soul.

You sit up and shake your head.

It’s time.

The duck had its chance. Twice now.

You open the door and come face-to-face with the mallard. But then you see another and another and . . .

There have to be about a hundred of them, all standing in front of your cabin. All facing you. All glaring at you.

Hundreds of ducks looking you straight in the eye as if you’ve done something wrong.

Hundreds of angry ducks.

Do you wake John Luke and get out of here?
Go here
.

Do you deal with the ducks right here and now (even though it’s not duck-hunting season)?
Go here
.

EVEN THOUGH MISS KAY ENCOURAGES YOU
to head to the hospital with John Luke, you decide to stay home until morning. You don’t need to be rushing to the ER in the middle of the night. There’s no reason. You got some deep bites from an animal, sure. But you’ve had worse. Miss Kay helped you clean it up and get it bandaged, and you feel normal now. Just a bit warm.

“I don’t want your arm to get infected,” Miss Kay says.

“Oh, I’m fine. I don’t want to wake up John Luke.”

You convince her to head back to bed, and you take a seat in your recliner. “I’m gonna read for a while and see if I get tired.” It’s a little after two, but you’re still wide-awake.
This is the problem with being woken up in the middle of the night.

You pick up a history book that you’re halfway through. As you do, you can feel yourself shivering.

That’s weird. It’s not that cold in here.

You focus on the text, and suddenly you can see the individual dots of ink that make up each letter. Your heart begins to slow, and now you’re feeling tired. So tired that it’s hard to keep your eyes open.

Also, you have this weird craving for meat. Like a big, juicy steak. A rib eye. A New York strip.

Or maybe a plump pork chop. Or how about some ribs?

Your mouth is watering.

And you have no idea why because you had a big Sunday night dinner.

You blink, and everything turns red. The pain in your arm is throbbing, and you feel like you might explode.

It might be time to go to the hospital. But when you stand, you notice something really strange.

No, it’s beyond strange. It’s cuckoo land.

Your bare feet are . . . not feet anymore.

They’re paws. Wolf paws.

You’re changing before your very eyes. Your hands, your arms.

The full moon . . . the howling in the trees . . . the big creature biting you . . .

You know now what all this means.

So werewolves
do
exist. If only you could tell the boys. You bet they’d love to go hunting after them.

Maybe in a short time they’ll be hunting after you.

You let out a roaring cry and know the end is near.

In fact . . . it might already be here.

Am I a wolf yet?
You stumble into the bathroom to examine the situation. Yep, fur covers your arms and legs . . . and feet. Your feet
 
—uh, paws
 
—are really furry, in fact. But that’s it.
Man, I always thought turning into a werewolf would be a lot more interesting than getting hobbit feet.

THE END?

Start over.

Read “The Shadows That Follow Us: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

YOU STAY ONSHORE
as John Luke rolls up his pant legs and wades into the lake after the floating feathers. It takes him a while to retrieve them, but he manages to avoid getting completely wet. Soon he’s holding all four in his hands.

As he steps onto the beach, the strangest thing happens.

You get a whiff of something really bad. Like
death
bad.

“John Luke, you smell that?”

“Yeah. I think it’s these.” He holds the feathers as far from his body as possible.

You go over and smell the feathers in his hand. They reek worse than anything you’ve ever experienced.

“What’s wrong with those things?”

John Luke jerks his head back even farther from the feathers. “Ugh. The feather we found in the gym didn’t smell.”

“Chief Stinkum.” You raise your eyebrows.

He laughs but examines the feathers suspiciously.

You don’t find any other feathers in the area, so you head back to the cabins. For some reason John Luke keeps sniffing the plumes in his hand, then holding them far away again.

“Do you like that smell?” you finally ask.

“Only three of them stink.”

“Okay. Throw them away.”

“But don’t you see, Papaw Phil? Three of them stink. One doesn’t.”

You stop as John Luke holds the feathers up, three in one hand and one in the other.

“It’s the legend! Of Chief Stinkum’s four sons. These three smell horrible, but this one doesn’t.”

“So did someone at camp spread stink sauce all over those three? To have some fun with us?”

John Luke shakes his head and peers into the trees and bushes as if someone might jump out. Perhaps the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Or maybe General Custer, preparing for his last stand.

Or maybe a guy ready to put the two of us in white straitjackets.

“Well, you keep those sealed up tight, John Luke. Something to remind you of the camp. Or a really bad outhouse.”

You turn to John Luke when he doesn’t reply. He seems to be in some kind of trance.

“You okay, John Luke?”

He nods but doesn’t say a word.

Later that night, after falling asleep in a bottom bunk across from John Luke’s bed, you’re awakened by a strange sound.

Someone’s yelling outside the cabin.

You sit up and call into the darkness, “John Luke, you hear that?”

He doesn’t respond.

The voice outside keeps wailing. “Heyyyaaaa heeeyyyyyyyaaaa
heeeeyyyyyyaaaahhhh
.”

It sounds like someone trying to do a chant. Except they’re really bad at it.

Like those pale imitation duck calls compared to Duck Commander calls.

You pat the bed across from yours, expecting to find John Luke and shake him. But the bed is empty. The blanket is pulled back.

“John Luke?” you call again.

The
heyyyaaahh
sound outside continues.

You stumble around until you locate the light switch. But John Luke is nowhere to be found.

The chant changes wording a little but remains loud as ever. “Oh-way oh-way way-oh!”

This is crazy. Someone’s outside your door pretending to be a warrior or rain dancer or something. Except he sounds a lot like Kermit the Frog.

You open the door expecting to find someone you know playing a prank. Maybe one of your sons. Instead you see a fire burning in the middle of the camp with someone else dancing around it.

That’s not someone else
 
—that’s John Luke! Is it really him?

He’s wearing only jeans with his face and chest painted red. The four feathers are stuck in his hair.

“Staaaankkkkk-oohhhhhh wannkkkkk-oooooohhhh.”

He’s got something in his hand, something resembling a spear. But when you get closer to him, you see it’s only a long stick.

“John Luke, what are you doing?”

But he doesn’t hear you. He’s in another world. He stops dancing around the fire and holds the stick over his head.

“Waaaaackkkemmmmm wackkkkkeeemmmmm wooo-eeeeeeee.”

You approach to take the stick away from him, but he catches sight of you and his eyes widen. Then he jumps across the fire
 
—
through
the flames
 
—and runs full speed into the woods.

“Aaaaaaeeeeee aaaaaaeeeee aaaaaaaaahh!” he screams as he heads into the darkness. “Saaaackkkkkaaaaa blacckaaaaa bbb
 
—”

He’s cut off by a loud and sudden thud.

The chanting is no more.

“John Luke?”

You rush into the woods and find him about fifty yards in. Looks like he ran into a tree and knocked himself out.

You pick Chief John Lukem up and carry him back to the cabin. As you pass the fire, you pull the feathers out of his hair and throw them into the flames. They burn quickly.

John Luke’s eyes open while he’s still in your arms.

“Chief Stinkum?” he asks in mumbled words.

“That’s me. And I’m gonna make you smell real nice. You just take it easy.”

You’ve seen enough of this camp for one night. You decide to take John Luke to the hospital to get his head checked for a concussion.

You’ll also ask if they can maybe give him a shower. Cause woo-hooo. The boy really stinks.

THE END

Start over.

Read “The Shadows That Follow Us: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”