by Dann Gershon
“Thanks, boss.” Nurse Knockwurst and Bucky walked into the kitchen together. They both eyed the large bowl on the table, but re-mained standing. Bucky would have preferred a good steak or some fried chicken, but he knew the drill. He had been serving under Big Al for over ten years and he knew better than to question orders.
“Have some of this grub,” Big Al said between swallows. “It’s good.”
Bucky tossed a wolf mask on the table. “We have a problem, boss. The Fleet kid escaped. We went by the infirmary to check on the mummies and he was gone.”
“Imbeciles!” Big Al roared. “Did he take the mummies with him?”
“That’s the weird part,” Bucky replied quickly. He cast a nervous glance at Nurse Knockwurst before he continued. “They’re right where we left them, taped to their cots.”
“What are you getting at?” Big Al asked.
“If the mummies didn’t help that boy escape, who did?” Bucky replied. “Somebody had to help him. I taped him to his cot just like the others.”
“Maybe he’s stronger than he looks,” Curly suggested.
“The tape wasn’t torn,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “It was cut.”
Big Al considered the situation from all angles. It was pos-sible that the werewolves had attacked the infirmary, but unlikely. If they had, the tape would have been torn to shreds, along with the Fleet kid. Vinnie and Einstein seemed to get on well enough, but the incident had occurred in broad daylight, which eliminated the vampire as a suspect. Nev-ertheless, someone had to have helped the boy to escape. Eleven campers were missing and unaccounted for. In this type of operation a few casualties were to be expected, but eleven was more than the norm. Perhaps one of them was responsible for the escape. But why would they take the Fleet
5 kid and leave everyone else behind? That was the million- dollar question.
“Did the boy have any visitors?” Big Al asked the nurse. “One,” Nurse Knockwurst replied. “He was very chummy
with the camp mailman.”
Everyone but the cook laughed.
“We don’t have a camp mailman,” Curly said, scratching his
head. “Do we?”
“That’s the point, you twit!” Nurse Knockwurst shouted.
“The little brat made it all up. He invented this imaginary friend
named Greeley to annoy me. The boy is disturbed.” “Did you say Greeley?” Big Al asked, his tone strange. The nurse nodded.
“Name mean something to you?” Bucky asked.
“As you all know, Earth has been visited by extraterrestri-
als for thousands of years,” Big Al said, avoiding the question.
“For the most part, the visits went unnoticed. This all changed
after two UFOs crashed in a town called Roswell. Both crews
followed standard operating procedure and jettisoned their
escape pods, leaving drones behind to fly the ship. The drones
were found at the crash site.”
“Which type?” Curly asked. “Pale and skinny with big eyes
or short and green with big heads?”
“It’s not important,” Big Al grumbled. “What is important is
the cover-up that followed. The government claimed that the
crash and the discovery of alien life would set off a wave of
panic, which was absurd. The real reason for the cover-up was
that the government, along with several large corporations,
was interested in the advanced technology, so they made a deal. They agreed to cover up all future alien activities on the
planet in exchange.”
“In exchange for what?” Curly asked. “Plasma televisions
and cell phones?”
“The right to visit the planet and abduct a few of its citizens,”
Big Al replied, staring at the cook. “Naturally, there were con-
ditions. A quota was placed on the number of abductions and
all visits were limited to isolated, pre-approved locations.” “Places like Camp Creepy Time,” Bucky said.
“That is correct,” Big Al confirmed.
“I’m confused,” Curly said. “What does any of this have to
do with the Fleet kid’s imaginary little friend?”
“Greeley might not be imaginary,” Big Al replied. “He could
be a ghost.”
“What makes you think that?” Bucky asked.
“Because I’m the one who killed him.”
Cha p te r
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Day Six — 8:28 P.M. instein and Roxie hiked to C-Block to liberate his stash of Twinkies. She had spent the last two hours trying to talk him out of it, but to no avail. Einstein was starving and irrational. As they approached the cabin, they heard an eerie howling sound in the distance. The closer they got to the cabin, the louder the howling became.
“Sounds like a pack of wild animals,” Roxie whispered. “That would be my bunkmates,” Einstein replied, shaking his head in disgust.
Einstein stepped onto the patio and peeked through the window to make sure that the coast was clear. What he saw shocked him. Inside the cabin, there were seven werewolves sitting in a semicircle, eating his Twinkies and howling with delight.
“HEY! Those are my Twinkies!” Einstein growled as Roxie pulled him away from the window and out of sight.
“Are you nuts?” Roxie asked.
Einstein sighed with a hint of desperation. “I’ve been haunted, hazed, and haven’t eaten in three days. And now this.” He pointed at a werewolf with a cream-covered nose and shook his head. “It’s Twinkie torture.”
“You’re losing it, Fleet.”
As they watched through the window, the tallest of the werewolves stood up and took his place at the center of the semicircle. “Hey, Wally,” he shouted across the room, “toss me another Twinkie.”
Wally didn’t seem to hear the request. Like the others, he was completely caught up in a heated debate. The werewolves seemed to be divided as to who would win in a mano a mano battle of the camp monsters. Apparently the Wolfman never did battle with the Mummy or Dracula in any of the old mov-ies, so there was no real point of reference as to the outcome. The closest he had come was a cameo appearance�
�in a 1971 flick called Dracula vs. Frankenstein.
“You guys make me sick,” the tall werewolf snarled. “Are you werewolves or a bunch of little wussies?”
Wally looked up and shook his head. “I used to be like you,” he said, sighing. “Angry all the time. Mad at the world. But after seven years of counseling I’ve learned to deal with those issues. You need to take a deep breath and embrace your in-ner werewolf.”
“Embrace this,” the tall werewolf growled. He picked Wally up and hurled him headfirst through the window. “Now, will someone toss me another Twinkie?”
“Is that Billy Armstrong?” Einstein whispered, visibly shocked by the change in the boy’s appearance. His entire body was covered with thick brown fur. Muscular arms bulged
100 out of the sawed-off sleeves of his plaid shirt. His calf muscles were just as thick. He looked like a hairy bodybuilder. Large fangs protruded from his mouth, yellow as ever and in need of a good brushing. The wind gusted and the smell of Billy’s feet filled the air. It was definitely Billy. “Maybe he’s been taking steroids or something. We’ll report him to camp management and request immediate counseling.”
Roxie stared at Einstein in disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Do you have a better explanation?” Einstein demanded.
“Just an obvious one,” Roxie replied. “The campers are turn-ing into monsters.”
Einstein laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a monster theme camp. The kids are wearing costumes. Think of them as char-acter campers.”
A flock of bats swarmed overhead. Einstein looked up and gasped as one of them waved its wing at him. It had a familiar human face and a bat body. It was Vinnie. “Vat’s up, Einstein?” the vampire shouted as he flew by.
“Does that look like a costume to you?” Roxie asked.
Einstein was speechless. He looked back at the cabin and saw his old bunkmates for what they were. Werewolves. It sud-denly dawned on Einstein that he was in a world of trouble. He didn’t have the slightest clue why this was happening, but now wasn’t the time to think about it. The only thing that mattered now was an exit strategy. “We have to escape immediately,” he whispered.
“Get a grip, Fleet,” Roxie replied. “It’s ten miles to the nearest road and another twenty to the nearest town, all of it through a desert full of nocturnal predators. You wouldn’t last an hour out there. I say we hide out for the night. If you still want to make a run for it, let’s do it first thing in the morning. At least we’ll stand a fighting chance.”
“Where do you suggest we go?” Einstein asked.
“To the old caretaker’s cottage out by the barn. We need to talk to a mutual friend.”
“What mutual friend?” Einstein questioned.
“Greeley.”
Her answer took him by surprise. No one could see the ghost other than Einstein. He was beginning to believe that Greeley was just a figment of his imagination. Obviously he was wrong on both counts. Before he could ask her to elabo-rate further, the howling of werewolves echoed through the desert night. The meeting was adjourned. They had polished off what was left of Einstein’s Twinkies and were ready for the hunt. His questions would have to wait.
“Let’s go, Fleet!”
Einstein and Roxie quietly retreated, quickly putting as much distance between themselves and the werewolves as pos-sible. Once they were a safe distance from the cabin, Einstein stopped to catch his breath. He put his hands on his knees and sighed. “I can’t believe the werewolves ate my Twinkies.”
101
Cha p te r
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Day Six — 9:01 P.M. he caretaker’s cottage was a stone’s throw away from the old barn, just where Roxie said it would be. Some would describe it as rustic and cozy. Einstein thought it was cramped and claus-trophobic, especially in the darkness. A large picture window faced the desert, but it was caked with a thick layer of dust and grime, making it impossible to enjoy the scenic view. Two easy chairs were positioned to face out the window, which seemed absurd under the circumstances. A smaller picture window had a direct view of the barn. A full moon lit up the desert but did very little to help the visibility inside the cabin. Instead it illuminated the room with a ghostly aura, which was only ap-propriate since the cottage was Greeley’s home.
Einstein paced back and forth across the room, lost in his own thoughts. Roxie could see Greeley as clear as day and ob-viously knew the ghost, but had never bothered to mention it to Einstein. The question was why. Nurse Knockwurst didn’t see the old man even though he was standing right in front of her. Or was it just an act? It was obvious that Roxie and Gree-ley were working together. But were they in bed with camp management? Someone had turned the campers into monsters and Einstein didn’t know whom to trust. If he was going to survive, he had to stay alert.
“Be prepared, old boy,” Einstein mumbled to himself. “Be prepared.”
“What was that, Fleet?” Roxie asked.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Sit down and take a load off,” the ghost said, pointing at one of the chairs. “Mi casa es su casa.”
Roxie walked over to the smaller window and rubbed a small section clean with a rag, scanning the area for any sign of activity. She handed Einstein her rhinestone-embedded cat glasses and told him to put them on. “Take a look.”
He put on her glasses and looked outside. Everything was washed in a soft blue tint, but he was able to see perfectly. They were night goggles.
“If you want to zoom in on anything, push the red rhine-stone at the top left corner,” Roxie instructed. “The pink one beneath will adjust the focus.”
“Where did you get these?” Einstein asked.
“Standard issue field glasses, courtesy of IMPS,” Roxie replied.
“IMPS?”
“Intergalactic Monster Police Squad,” Roxie replied. She pulled out a cheesy-looking badge and showed it to Einstein. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. The tin-plated shield looked like a prize they’d give away in a box of Cracker Jack. “I’ve been after Big Al and his gang for the last three years. This is the�
��closest that I’ve ever come to catching them.”
“You work for the government?” Einstein gasped.
10 10 “You could say that,” Roxie replied.
“Well, that explains everything.” He had long suspected the existence of covert government agencies that operated under the radar—shadow organizations funded by two-hundred- dollar staplers and five-hundred-dollar toilet seats, all at the expense of unsuspecting taxpayers.
“What are you talking about, Fleet?”
“I’m talking about the unlawful use of experimental drugs to transform kids into monsters! I’m talking about a secret lab-oratory hidden in the middle of the Mojave Desert that was supposedly a summer camp! I’m talking about a subversive government plot funded by corrupt corporations to exploit in-nocent youth for the almighty buck! I’m talking about a major conspiracy right here at good old Camp Creepy Time!” Einstein shouted. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
“Are you following any of this?” Greeley whispered to Roxie.
“Yeah,” Roxie whispered back. “He thinks we’re the bad guys.”
The ghost turned to Einstein and looked him in the eye. “This isn’t your fight, son. You want to go home, I’ll take you. How does eight in the morning sound to you?”
“It sounds great,” Einstein replied unenthusiastically.
He had planned to ask Greeley to g-mail him to the local authorities and call in the cavalry, but that was no longer an option. If the government was involved, he had no doubt that the local authorities would be as well. They would lock him up and throw away the key. He would disappear and never be heard from again, another casualty in the war for truth and jus-tice. If he could get home, Einstein could get to his computer and send out a blog on The Smoking Peashooter about the danger-ous plot being hatched in the middle of the Mojave. All he had to do was make it through the night. At this point there was only one person whom he could trust and that was himself. “If we’re going to spend the night together,” Einstein announced to the others, “I’d like to propose a few simple rules.”
