Swamp Scarefest

by B. A. Frade

  “There. Now there really is a message. Enjoy, Scaremaster.” She put air quotes around “Scaremaster.”

  I read what she’d written.

  Dear Scaremaster,

  I made a face.

  Dear Scaremaster,

  Ooh, I’m so frightened by you! Oh, wait. No, I’m not, because you’re just a stupid blank book.

  Yours truly,

  Liv

  “Ha-ha.” I started to close it.

  Suddenly, something on the page moved. I thought it was a bug or some sand trickling off the paper. But when I went to flick it away, I saw what it really was. I blinked uncomprehendingly. My mouth turned dry. I licked my lips.

  “Liv,” I croaked.

  “What?” She looked at me and laughed. “What’s up with you? See a ghost or something?”

  “No. I saw… this. It’s a message. A real message. It just… appeared here underneath what you wrote.”

  Liv, still grinning, gave a snort that Snort would have been proud to call her own. “Sure it did.”

  “I’m not kidding, Liv. Look!” I shoved the book under her nose to make her see what I was seeing: scratchy, dark red handwriting scrawled on the previously blank page.

  You’ll be sorry you insulted me, Olivia, it read. So, so sorry.

  Her smile faded. She stared at me, perplexed. But a moment later, her expression changed to irritation. She took the book from me and slammed it closed.

  “Knock it off, Aidan. I did the lemon-juice-and-water invisible ink trick at Camp Leech too.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Mix lemon juice with water, use a Q-tip to write a secret message, let it dry, then add heat and voila! The message magically appears!” She tsk-tsked me, shaking her head. “I expected more from you, I really did. Though a solid high five for the weird handwriting and for planning the prank so far ahead. That is truly unlike you.”

  “I didn’t do the invisible-writing experiment at camp. I made a duct-tape wallet instead, remember?”

  Liv looked unconvinced. “You could have learned to do it anytime. Or maybe when I was at soccer, Mom taught you how.”

  “But she didn’t. And I didn’t write that. Seriously, I didn’t.” I stared at the book. An idea nudged my brain. I bit my lip and looked up at Liv. “Do you… you don’t think the Scaremaster did, do you?”

  My suggestion sounded foolish to my ears, and yet… I thought I might have been onto something. Liv didn’t.

  “And he still thinks he can get me, folks.” Liv regarded me with mock sadness. “I admit there is one thing I can’t figure out, though.”

  “Only one?”

  “Yeah. Which of my insults am I going to be sorry for?” She laughed and suddenly side-armed the book at me, Frisbee throw–style. “Catch!”

  “Hey!” I flinched, and Tales from the Scaremaster sailed past me into the lake.

  “Woof!” Snort had been wandering around the shoreline, minding her own business. But when she saw the book fly into the water, her intrepid retriever instincts kicked in. Before we could stop her—a campout is so much nicer when one isn’t sharing a tent with a wet dog—she bounded into the lake and grasped the sinking book in her teeth. Head held high, she trotted back out, laid the book at our feet, and shook herself violently, showering us with flecks of muck-infested spray.

  “Snort, quit it!” Liv fended her off with one hand and picked up the book with the other. And immediately dropped it again. Eyes wide, she scrabbled backward, her mouth an open O of shock. “What th—”

  And there it was at last. The same freaked-out reaction I’d had when I first touched the book. “Now do you believe me?”

  “Wait. Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait,” Liv muttered. She grabbed a loose strand of hair and started twisting it furiously around her finger—something she does when she’s thinking really hard. “That book should be as wet as Snort’s fur. But it isn’t. Why isn’t it?” She paced back and forth, then snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Mom taught you another concoction that keeps things from getting wet! That’s it, isn’t it? Right? Right?”

  Her voice had such a desperate edge to it, I wanted to tell her yes, Mom had shared a super-secret potion with me instead of selling it to a corporation or the government for gazillions of dollars. Instead, I sank down into the sand next to the book. My heartbeat roared in my ears as I stared at the cover.

  How had that writing appeared? Who… what… was the Scaremaster? Where had the book come from?

  There was only one way to get answers. With trembling fingers, I reached for the volume.

  “Are you crazy?”

  Liv’s foot slashed forward as she tried to kick the book away from me. I jerked back to avoid being hit. She just clipped the book’s cover, though, and flipped it open instead of launching it down the beach. She stared down, and then her eyes darted back and forth across the page. When she looked up again, she looked well and truly panicked.

  “What?”

  “There’s… more.”

  I stood up and moved next to her, my feet making squidgy sucking sounds in my wet sneakers. Sure enough, beneath the first sentences were new ones written in the same dark red script.

  You want to know how you insulted me, Olivia? You called me slimy. You called me swamp trash. You said you wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. You threw me into the lake. And you had the gall to write in me and call me stupid. You’re not very nice, Olivia. But guess what?

  Neither am I.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  You’ll find out soon enough.

  The words bled up through the page right before our eyes.

  Liv gripped my arm. “Okay, Aidan, I’ll admit it. You got me. Best prank ever. I won’t even ask how you’re doing it. Just… stop doing it.”

  I pulled her a step away from the book and gave her a pleading look. “Liv, you’ve got to believe me,” I said hoarsely. “I’m not doing it.” I risked a glance over my shoulder. “It is.”

  “It,” she repeated. She stared back at me with wide, frightened eyes, then followed my gaze to the open page. “What, exactly, is it?”

  New sentences materialized.

  It is me. Me is the Scaremaster. And you two? Oh, you two are in trouble.

  Chapter Seven

  Liv gave a little squeak. Mind racing, I decided to test a theory. I put a finger to my lips and shook my head, then pantomimed writing and shook my head again. Thanks to that twin thing we have between us, Liv got my message immediately: Keep quiet and nothing new will appear.

  My theory was dead wrong. A sudden breeze flipped the book to the next page. A second later, more bloodred writing crawled over the blank paper.

  The silent treatment won’t work, Aidan, the Scaremaster chided me. You can’t stop what has already begun.

  My heart raced so fast then I thought it would leap out of my chest. I was scared, confused, freaked out… but there was another emotion poking its way into my brain too: exhilaration. My heart was racing because nothing this thrilling had ever happened to me before. Sure, the thrill was terrifying. And yet, I didn’t want it to end. Not immediately, anyway.

  One look at Liv’s face, though, and I changed my mind.

  “Right. We’re done here.” I grabbed the book from off the ground, jammed it in my slingshot, pulled back on the band, and snap! Bye-bye, book. Tales from the Scaremaster soared out across the open water, hit the surface with a splash, and sank, never to bother us again.

  Or that’s what would have happened if not for Snort. Once again, she galumphed through the shallows and then paddled through the weedy depths despite our yells of “No, Snort! No!”

  Moments later, both dog and book were back at our feet. Correction: dog, book, and a soggy, swamp-water-filled plastic grocery bag that gave off a truly nasty smell. Snort shook herself violently, spraying us with droplets, and panted up at us with a toothy, wide-mouthed smile that said, “Again, again!” The bag trick
led green-and-brown water. The book just lay there. Waiting. And yes—completely dry.

  “Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “You take Snort back up to camp. I’ll fling the book into the water again, or bury it with that grocery bag, or—”

  “No,” Liv mumbled.

  “Huh?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

  She chewed on her lip but didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she toed the book with her foot. “I’m starting to think we can’t get rid of it. Not by throwing it back in the lake, anyhow. After all, that’s where it came from in the first place, right?”

  “Yeah, in the bucket. The bucket that weird lady at Meyer’s gave me,” I added, shifting uneasily as that little detail came back to me.

  Liv furrowed her eyebrows. “You think she’s in on… this?” She nudged Tales from the Scaremaster with her foot again.

  I lifted my shoulders and let them drop. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Okay.” Liv twisted a lock of her hair. “Here’s what I think. I think we’ll feel better if we know where this thing is.” She pulled out her pen and waved it through the air like a magic wand. “When I wrote in it, it responded. Maybe we can ask it questions. Get some answers. So let’s take it back to camp.”

  I stared at Liv in surprise. “Really?”

  “Really.” Liv stuck the pen in her ponytail again. “I mean, I’m freaked out by the book, for sure. But remember that thing Mom used to say?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific. She says a lot of things.”

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” She reached down and picked up Tales from the Scaremaster, holding it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. “In the end, this is just words on paper, right? So what harm can it do to read it?”

  “Assuming there’s more to read,” I reminded her.

  She scrunched up her nose. “Something tells me—”

  “There will be.”

  She nodded somberly. Then she gave a hesitant smile. “So we’re doing this. We’re going to see what the Scaremaster has in store.”

  “We are. I mean, it’s just a stu—just a book.” I started to say “stupid book,” but caught myself. I didn’t want to give the Scaremaster any more reasons to be angry. I had a feeling that would be a bad idea. “We can handle it because it’s just words on paper.”

  “Which we’ll be adding to ourselves.” I could tell Liv liked the idea of being in control and getting answers. I hoped she was right about the Scaremaster giving them. “And besides,” she added, “we are on a campout. Gotta have scary stories on a campout, right?”

  “Right! Scary stories—and s’mores!”

  We did an exploding fist bump. But to be honest, our boom lacked our usual enthusiasm. I was still feeling a bit creeped out, and because I can read my sister like a—well, like a book—I knew she was too. But neither of us backed out of our plan.

  We were about to leave when I remembered the reason I’d come to the lake in the first place.

  “Hold on.” I picked up the bucket, waded ankle-deep into the lake, and filled it. As I straightened, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I shielded my face against the lowering sun and scanned the lake and the island. But everything appeared exactly as it had before.

  “What are you looking at?” Liv wanted to know.

  “I thought—”

  I cut off because the thing that had moved, moved again. A log? A big turtle? I couldn’t make out what it was, only that it was swamped in the water near the island and rocking gently when a ripple nudged it.

  “Looks like an old rowboat.” Liv was shielding her eyes to look at the object too. “Was it there before, when Snort swam out to get the book?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. My attention was on Snort and the creepy book, not the water around the island.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t see it either,” she said. “Maybe the storm dredged it up last week.”

  Something occurred to me. “You think the book was on the boat, and they came up to the surface together?”

  “Mmm, maybe,” Liv replied, not taking her eyes off the boat. “But I don’t think so. The rowboat looks completely waterlogged. If they were connected somehow, it would be dry too, like the book, don’t you think?”

  “I guess that makes sense. Still… it is a little coincidental. Not that it matters if they are connected, though, right? We’re here, the rowboat is out there, and between us is wide-open water. The boat will probably sink by morning, anyway.”

  We turned our backs on the lake and headed to the campsite with the bucket of water and the book. We were both hungry, but before we dug in to the food, we got the fire going and brought out a flashlight because dusk was falling and… well, because we were going to read a weird book written by someone or something called the Scaremaster. A flashlight and a cheerful fire seemed necessary. Plus, we couldn’t have s’mores without a campfire, and Scaremaster or no Scaremaster, we were definitely having s’mores.

  Liv broke out the sandwiches and pickles. I took off my soggy sneakers and leaned them against the fire pit to dry. Liv made a face and moved them to the far side. She sat down, I wiggled my bare toes in her face, she batted my foot away, I stuck it back in her face—anyone watching us would have seen two kids goofing around without a care in the world and no hint of the apprehension simmering just below the surface of our antics.

  As we ate, we added sticks, then branches, and then two big logs to the fire. One log must have been damp because it gave a drawn-out, wheezy whistle and then a sudden pop. Sparks shot into the darkening blue-black sky. The wind kicked up, carrying with it the sound of waves lapping on the lakeshore and other forest noises I couldn’t quite identify.

  In other words, it was the perfect time to take another look at Tales from the Scaremaster.

  Snort settled by our feet. We sat side by side with the closed book between us. The gold leaf shone dimly in the firelight.

  Liv held up her pen. “Ready?”

  I clicked on the flashlight and edged closer to her. “Ready.”

  “Then here goes nothing.”

  Chapter Eight

  Liv took a deep breath and opened the book to a blank page. Pen poised, she looked at me. “Well? What should we ask?”

  “How about, ‘What are you?’”

  She nodded and wrote it. Then we waited, eyes glued to the spot below. The answer came after what felt like forever.

  Do you really want to know?

  Liv and I exchanged glances. I shrugged and nodded. She pursed her lips, but wrote Yes.

  The reply came instantly this time, as if the Scaremaster had anticipated our answer.

  The ancient creatures of nightmares—vampires and witches, ghosts and zombies, werewolves and nameless monsters that lurk in the shadows—all began as stories whispered in the darkness. But ask yourselves this… who first told those tales?

  Liv swallowed hard. You? she wrote.

  Moments ticked by, but the page remained blank. Then—

  Not all questions get answers, my dear, just as not all stories have happy endings.

  The writing paused before adding:

  Your story, for instance.

  Liv gasped. “Our story?”

  Read it.

  Snort gave a low growl, yanking my gaze from the book for a split second. I looked back again to find sentences worming across the page, the spidery writing filling every inch.

  I chewed my lip. “Should we read it?” I asked in a hushed tone.

  “Maybe we should stop here.” Liv whispered too, her voice shaking.

  Two sentences bled through the very top of the page:

  You can’t stop what has already begun. Finish it, or there will be no end.

  Liv whimpered. “Aidan…”

  “It’s okay. It’s—it’s just words on paper, remember?”

  I repositioned the flashlight, cleared my throat, and started.

  There’s n
othing the Scaremaster likes better than finding children alone in the dark.

  “Hey! Who is he calling ‘children’?” I interrupted my own reading, before Liv shushed me. I turned back to the book.

  Except, of course, terrifying those children. Tonight, those children are twins Olivia and Aidan. They’ve come to the lake for a fun, end-of-summer campout because they were bored at home. Well, I’ll make sure they’re not bored tonight. But I’ll be the one having the fun. You see, Olivia and Aidan think my book is all that’s in store. Won’t they be surprised when my special friend shows up? Who is this special friend? They’ll have to wait and see. It wouldn’t be any fun to reveal everything at once.

  The damp log fizzed and popped again, making Liv and me jump. Liv gave a nervous cough.

  “Want to keep going?” she whispered.

  Did I? All that stuff we’d said about it just being words on paper still made sense to me. And yet, after hearing the Scaremaster’s latest words, I wondered if Liv hadn’t been right and we should still just slam the thing closed, chuck it back in the lake, and run straight home before… before something else happened. Something like the Scaremaster’s special friend showing up while we were alone in the dark.

  As I thought about what to do, the line at the top of the page jumped out at me. I swallowed hard.

  “We have to keep going, Liv, remember?” I croaked. I pointed to the sentence and whispered it aloud, “‘You can’t stop what has already begun.’”

  She looked at me, her dark eyes wide, and nodded her understanding. We’d started the Scaremaster’s story. Now we had to finish it.

  Liv took over reading. “‘Who is this special friend?’”

  “I already read that part.”

  “Sorry. Hold the flashlight steady, will you?”

  I adjusted the beam. “Is that better?”

  “Good. Okay.” She peered at the page. “‘It wouldn’t be any fun to reveal everything at once.’” She stopped.

  “Why’d you stop?”

  “Because the writing ended.”