by Jeff Norton
‘Homesick, eh?’ asked Melissa.
‘I’m not needy and I’m not homesick,’ I said. ‘But we need to get out of Camp Cannibal before it’s too late. Ernesto, please, can you dig us out?’
Melissa the moose pressed her head into the chain-link fence. It rattled all the way along into the darkness. ‘Do you think Nesty and I’d be playing nosey-nose at the fence if he could?’
‘Good point,’ I said. This moose had a lot of sass, but she also talked a lot of sense.
Nesto clawed at the ground. ‘It’s all concrete under there,’ he said. ‘And the top of the fence is electric. Believe me, I tried.’
‘Then we’ll go across the lake,’ I suggested. ‘I spotted a canoe down there during the BBQ today. That’s how we’ll slip away.’
Melissa the moose bellowed softly. ‘These woods are vast, but my herd knows them well. I can meet you on the other side of the lake, guide you through the forest to the nearest town.’
We went back to our tents and changed out of our PJs into more escape-from-crazy-cannibal-camp attire, which for me included a backpack of essentials (slow releasing energy snacks, first-aid kit, Sani-Gel) and a warm hoodie.
We slipped through the trees and found an overturned canoe and two paddles. I turned the canoe upright and, with Nesto’s help, silently launched it into the water. Corina supervised.
I did my best to inspect it for spiders or any flesh-hungry insects, but Corina insisted that we deal with any creatures en route. She was right, it was only a few hours until sunup, and we needed to put as much distance between us and the camp as possible. I was convinced they’d come looking for us. I don’t think Camp Nowannakidda would want their ingredients to escape.
As quietly as possible, Nesto and I paddled the canoe across the still lake until we beached on the soft sand of the western shore. I looked back to the waterfront of the camp and promised Amanda, ‘I’ll come back for you, sis.’
* The last time I was up in a tree with Corina, she pushed me off and I crushed the town drug dealer. Corina turned him into a vampire to stop him from being my murder victim. She was that kind of friend.
19
In Which We Get Our Moose On
Standing on the beach, I heard a whisper on the wind.
‘Nesty and freaky friends, over here.’
I scanned the darkness beyond the beach, expecting a moose to nudge its huge head out of the woods. But instead, a girl with auburn hair, wearing a plaid dress, skipped onto the sand and gave Ernesto a moose-sized hug. Melissa.
‘Isn’t he cute?’ asked Melissa, turning to us. ‘I mean, I think I prefer him in scales, but this’ll do too.’
I couldn’t tell in the moonlight, but I think Ernesto was blushing. I looked at Corina and she looked paler than ever.
‘I’m thinking about puking,’ she said.
‘You’re right, Nesty,’ said Melissa, ‘she is frosty, even for a vampire.’
‘You told her?’ Corina asked.
‘Don’t worry, sister,’ said Melissa. ‘Nesty told me everything. About you, him, the neurotic zombie and that awful camp that wants to turn you all into doughnuts.’
Melissa led us deep into the woods, forging an expert path through the trees and bushes. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘it’s the same for our herd.’
‘Moose doughnuts?’ I asked.
‘Now I will barf,’ threatened Corina.
‘More like steaks, fillets, burgers,’ explained Melissa. ‘Hunters come up to these woods and shoot us moose to put us on the menu.’
‘You see,’ said Corina. ‘This is why I’m a vegan.’
‘I like her,’ said Melissa.
‘She’s pretty cool,’ said Nesto.
‘Frosty though?’ said Corina.
‘How ’bout you, Adam?’ asked Melissa. ‘You like Corina, don’cha?’
Like her? I was crazy about her. But I wasn’t going to admit it or I’d never hear the end of it from the chatty chupacabra, sassy weremoose, or the sometimes vicious vampire in question.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ I said instead. ‘Corina’s nice.’
‘That’s the last thing I am, zom-brain,’ scoffed Corina. ‘If you can’t say anything interesting, don’t bother.’
‘Awkward,’ said Melissa, and she and Ernesto shared a giggle in front of us. They held hands and trudged through the forest, with Corina and me trailing behind.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ I finally said to Corina. ‘You’re not nice, you’re—’
‘Oh, thanks for that,’ she said.
‘Whoa, no, what I meant was—’
‘Zip it, zom-boy,’ she said. ‘Let’s just get out of here, save the campers from the cannibals and get back to our normal lives as not-so-nice, nice monsters in hiding.’
‘Wait, Corina, you’re not a monster. You’re super cool and sometimes that much coolness is hard to classify.’
‘Really?’ she asked, finally stopping to turn around.
‘Yes, really,’ I admitted. ‘I think so, Nesto thinks so, all the kids at school think so, though they’re too scared of you to admit it. The only “people” who don’t seem to think so are your parents, so don’t let their blindness stop you from seeing how great you are. You’ve been insanely hungry on this whole trip and you haven’t even eaten one person. That’s worthy of a greeting card!’
She threw her arms around me. I braced myself for lift-off.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked. But we didn’t fly, we just stayed on the ground.
‘I don’t know,’ said Corina, holding me tight. It was a real hug, not a form of transportation. Wow!
‘Um, guys,’ I heard Ernesto call.
‘Hey, Nesty,’ I called back, ‘now we’re having a moment.’
‘Could use a little help here,’ he replied.
Corina opened her arms and I looked over, then up, to see Nesto hanging in the air.
He was held up, tangled in the antlers of a very large, and very angry-looking moose.
‘Daaad.’ Melissa sighed. ‘Put him down.’
20
In Which We Hit the Road
We were surrounded by muscly moose.* I counted at least ten and we had no obvious route for escape. Melissa was still in human-girl form, pleading with her father, and Ernesto was perched precariously on top of big papa’s antlers.
‘All humans are hunters,’ the daddy moose grunted. ‘And you are forbidden from cavorting with these …’ He snorted and took a good look at Corina and I. Then he sniffed us with his bulbous snout. ‘…What exactly are these … creatures?’
‘Chupacabra,’ said Ernesto with a wave.
‘Bless you,’ said the papa moose.
‘Isn’t he sweet?’ said Melissa. ‘He’s not a hunter. And he’s got manners.’
The big moose shook his head (shaking Nesto inside the antler cage) and muttered under his breath. But he slowly lowered his head and Ernesto climbed off the antlers.
‘We’re different like you,’ Nesto said. ‘I’m a chupacabra, which is kinda like a Mexican weremoose, I think. And Adam here used to be human, but is now a zombie, but not the rampaging, flesh-eating kind. And Corina’s a vampire.’
‘Vegan,’ she added.
‘You have very strange friends, Melissa,’ the alpha moose said. ‘I’m worried their strangeness is contagious.’
‘I’m helping them escape,’ she said.
‘The people who run the camp we were at,’ I explained, ‘are kind of like hunters. They trapped us inside and unless we stop them, they’re going to turn the kids into food. We need to get far away from here, get to our parents and get help.’
The moose surrounding us all grunted and snorted.
‘The herd will help,’ said Melissa’s father. ‘We’ll lead you as far south as we can.’
‘That’d be great,’ I said.
He crouched down and said, ‘Melissa, climb on. You ride on me.’
Three other moose followed his lead. Nesto, Corina, and I each clambered onto a moos
e. It was time to travel in a pack, in a herd.
My moose was Melissa’s uncle, Gordy, and he explained that the weremoose originated a bunch of years ago when radiation leaked from a nuclear plant way up north.
‘My dad, Melissa’s grandmoose, was innocently grazing when he wandered into some glowing sludge,’ he explained. ‘On the next full moon, much to his shock and surprise, he mutated into a person. Gramps never could choose between his life in the wild and life in the town, so he didn’t. He led a type of double life, married the daughter of the town grocer, and started a herd of his own.’
I got the herd’s whole story, from migration patterns to dodging hunters.
Aside from being full of doughnut-chomping cannibals and surprisingly friendly weremoose, my major observation of Canada was that it’s a really, really big place.
I mean, I knew it was big from the TV weather map because it’s where all of our bad weather comes from (cannibals plus cold snaps – that’s two strikes against you, Canada!), but you only truly know how big a place is when you ride a moose for hours and hours through the woods.
‘Are we there yet?’ asked Nesto, pretty much every hour, on the hour.
Finally, up ahead, we heard the rush of the occasional car or truck. We pushed through the forest and found the main road.
‘We leave you here,’ said papa moose, whose name was Tom but insisted on being called sir.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, as the moose retreated from view.
‘Bye, Melissa,’ said Nesto.
‘Bye, Nesty,’ she said, joining her herd in the forest. But a moment later, she popped her head back out, in full moose mode, and added, ‘Be careful, okay.’
With our moose escort gone, it was just the three of us at the side of the wilderness highway. Nesto immediately ignored Melissa’s advice and walked to the tarmac and stuck out his hitchhiking thumb.
‘Whoa,’ I protested. ‘Put that away.’
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘No more moose. We need a lift.’
‘We can’t hitchhike. That’s like asking to get abducted and murdered,’ I said.
‘You mean, abducted and murdered like we would be in the place we just escaped from?’ asked Corina.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘There’s no need to jump from the fire and into the frying pan.’
‘Unless there’s bacon in that frying pan,’ said Nesto. He sniffed the air. ‘Wait, I think there is.’
He turned his head southwards and sniffed the morning air. ‘This way!’
We walked, single file, down the two-lane highway for about a mile, which is 2,042 steps (not that I was counting – okay, I was), until we found a roadside DINE (the R was broken) that boasted fresh mooseburgers.
‘That’s so wrong,’ Ernesto fumed.
As we opened the glass doors to step inside, I noticed a plastic sign taped to the window: SOLD, Soon to be another Can Nibble Donut Shop.
The diner was bustling with clad-in-plaid locals and truckers topped in baseball caps that had nothing to do with baseball.
‘Just take a seat where ya can find one, kids,’ said a rotund, bearded man from the kitchen. He looked like Santa Claus in the off-season.
We took a booth. It was red plastic over a cushion, held together with strips of clear duct tape. Half of the lights were out and the black-and-white chequered floor was more like black and beige now. This place had seen better days.
But then again, so had I.
A chirpy woman in an apron and a name tag that read Shelly approached the booth with a coffee urn and pulled it back. ‘You kids are too young for coffee.’
‘Then I’ll take theirs,’ insisted Corina, not taking no for an answer. ‘In fact, Shelly, you can just leave that right here.’
‘Any food for you, boys and girl?’ she asked.
‘Not the mooseburger,’ said Nesto. ‘I’ll have a plate of fries, Shelly.’
‘Sorry, kid,’ Shelly said. ‘We don’t cook lunch until eleven.’
‘I’ll take them raw,’ he said.
‘Frozen fries,’ she jotted down.
‘Can you put some gravy and cheese curds on them?’ I asked.
Nesto looked at me like I was crazy.
‘Trust me,’ I said, turned back to our waitress. ‘Grapefruit and muesli for me, and Corina’s fine with the coffee.’
‘Black as night, as sugary as candyland,’ she ordered.
‘Oh, and a milkshake,’ added Nesto. ‘With three straws.’
‘Two,’ said Corina.
‘One,’ I clarified. ‘But I’d like a bottle of water. Bottled at the source, not a bottle that you fill up from the tap.’
Shelly rolled her eyes, which looked like it took a lot of effort. ‘You kids have money to pay for all this?’
‘Ooh,’ said Nesto, shifting awkwardly on the bench.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Mom gave me an advance on my allowance. Do you take American dollars?’
‘More Yanks, eh?’ she said. ‘Just like them over there. You know ’em? Ha! Just kiddin’, eh.’
I looked over at two truckers inhaling plates of eggs, bacon, and something that resembled toast. One wore a King-of-the-Road trucker cap and a T-shirt that boasted USA A-OK. The other guy was clad in plaid. I just hoped their driving skills were better than their fashion skills.
‘Um, Shelly?’ I said. ‘Do you know which truck belongs to them?’
‘The one with the logs,’ she said, disappearing to log our order with Santa in the kitchen.
Outside, at least a dozen trucks were lined up in the parking lot, but only one had long rows of felled trees on its trailer.
‘What are you thinking, zom-boy?’ asked Corina.
‘I’m thinking we just found our ride.’
* I’ve always thought the plural of ‘moose’ should be ‘meese’.
21
In Which We Ride a Tree
We kept a close eye on the truckers and kept pace with their eating (which was hard) in a contest to the finish. As they were paying, I left a handful of bills on the table and we slipped out of the DINE and rushed towards the tree truck.
I noticed it had New York state plates, so although it wasn’t Ohio, it was, at least, the right country. There was nobody we could talk to in Canada. I feared they were all complicit in their cannibal Can Nibble treats. We had to get stateside to talk to someone we could trust.
I pulled myself onto the back of the trailer and climbed up the horizontal logs. Of course, I was worried about splinters and insects, but I had to keep focused to reach the top of the pile. Nesto and Corina quickly followed and Nesto straddled a tree trunk like it was a pony.
‘Giddy up, tree!’ he said.
‘Shhh,’ I warned. ‘Keep it down.’
‘Is this safe?’ asked Corina.
‘Worrying about safety is my department,’ I said. ‘But if we’re going to get to safety, this is our best bet. But please, hold on.’
Suddenly, a police car zoomed past, heading north, with its sirens blaring.
‘Duck,’ I said.
‘Oooh, where?’ asked Nesto.
I waved him down. ‘Haven’t you just eaten enough?’
‘I don’t know where my next meal’s coming from. Excuse me for living.’
‘And you want to keep living, right? If the camp leaders woke up this morning and noticed we’re not there, they could hunt us down. We’re fugitives.’
‘Cool,’ said Nesto.
‘Actually, Adam, that is pretty cool,’ agreed Corina.
The two truckers walked across the tarmac towards their cab.
‘Flip ya for the wheel,’ the King said.
‘Nah, you take it. I wanna play on the CB.’*
‘So long as it’s not Name That Tune,’ complained King trucker.
Mr Plaid laughed. ‘You spoil all the fun.’
The King jingled an enormous pile of keys in his hand. ‘I’m thinkin’ straight shot to the border, get some home cooking on American soil.’
The truck rumbled to life and pulled onto the two-lane highway. The wind swept our hair and the three of us did our best to stay low, crouching amid the timber.
It must have been the fresh air, the sleepless night, or the rhythmic rumbling of the semi-trailer, because I fell fast asleep.
*
The landscape around me was turquoise and vast. I was all alone, until out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something move. I turned around, but nothing.
Whoosh.
There it was again. And then behind me.
Suddenly, the smooth blue surface I was standing on, which reminded me of the kitchen counter at home, was overrun by slimy spheres, zipping and jumping all around me like kernels about to pop. I took a closer look – they were germs … but they were alive with bulging eyes and jabbering mouths. I recognised them from my science textbook.
‘Get away!’ I shouted as salmonella slipped past me. ‘Ick! Leave me alone.’
But the more agitated I got, the closer they came. A dozen E. coli ran rings around me, like a real-life ‘ring-a-ring o’ roses’. And I was going to be the one to all fall down.
The surface of this place, a planet perhaps, was now covered in germs. They spread and multiplied as far as I could see. And then something blocked out the light.
At first I thought it was a spaceship, white and angular. But as the strange ship got closer, I saw it for what it really was: a giant spray bottle.
A hand gripped the trigger and a spray showered from above.
‘NO!’ I shouted. ‘I’m not one of them!’
But the antibacterial spray doused me and swept me away in a tumbling river of chemical cleanliness. The germs shouted and complained as we were all pushed off the flat surface of this strange world and down, down, down in an endless waterfall cascade of cleaning product.
‘Adam,’ called a voice, a girl’s voice. Corina’s voice. ‘Adam.’
And suddenly I was somewhere else.
*
‘I don’t want to be cleaned away!’ I shouted.