Camp Creepy Time_The Adventures of Einstein P. Fleet

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Camp Creepy Time_The Adventures of Einstein P. Fleet Page 8

by Dann Gershon


  “Sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the  cot,” Greeley replied, suppressing a soft chuckle. He eyed the  welt marks that covered Einstein’s face and arms with genuine  concern. “What happened to you?”

  “I attempted to escape,” Einstein replied. As much as he  hated to admit it, he was actually happy to see someone other  than Nurse Knockwurst and the mummies, even if it was a  ghost or just a figment of his own imagination. “Camp man-agement roughed me up a bit as an object lesson to the others.  I’m thinking about filing a lawsuit.”

  “You don’t say,” Greeley said with more than a hint of sar-casm in his voice. “Looks like the work of some real pros. What  did they use on you? Lit cigarette butts?”

  “Trained killer bees,” Einstein replied, yawning to show his  indifference to the matter.

  “Killer bees, huh? Well, I bet that hurt like the dickens.”

   “I’ve been trained to endure pain,” Einstein told the post-man.  “Last  summer  my  parents  sent  me  to  boot  camp  in   Bosnia.”

  Greeley ignored the comment and pointed at the bandaged  campers. “That lady sure does enjoy her work. Back in my day,  we didn’t have a camp nurse or an infirmary. If you got hurt,  you were lucky to get a Band-Aid.”

  “You went to camp?” Einstein said, somewhat surprised. He  tried to picture Greeley roasting marshmallows and singing  songs around a campfire, but it wasn’t easy.

  “I guess you could say that,” the ghost replied. “I used to  own this place. Built it from the ground up in 1962.”

  “You owned Camp Creepy Time?” Einstein asked skepti-cally, wondering if Greeley was telling the truth or just having  a senior moment.

  “It was called Camp Sleepy Time back then,” Greeley said  softly. “There was a stable full of horses and riding paths. We  taught all the kids to ride and put on a rodeo at the end of every  summer. The lake was stocked with all sorts of fish and the  swimming pool was always clean. We had a crafts center with  artists who taught the kids how to paint and build birdhouses.  The kitchen was clean and the grub was top-drawer. You should  have seen this place back in the day. Sleepy Time was a great  place to spend the summer, and then it happened.”

  “What happened?” Einstein asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Greeley replied, his eyes  filled with anger. “I lost the camp along with everything else  that I owned and became a postman.”

  “From the sultan of Sleepy Time to a slave of the United  States Postal Service,” Einstein said, feeling sorry for the old  man. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  The ghost nodded.

  “Why are you still here?”

  “To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  don’t  know,”  Greeley  replied,  scratching his head. “One minute I was standing around mind-ing my own beeswax and the next minute I was dead, run over  by my own pickup truck.”

  “Sentenced to death without parole,” Einstein said, thinking  out loud. “That’s a tough break.”

  Greeley  patted  Einstein  softly  on  the  head.  “You’re  all  right, Houdini.”

  Einstein handed the ghost an envelope that contained his  latest letter. “Can you mail this for me?” he whispered.

  “Regular or priority mail?” the dead postman asked. It was  clear that Greeley took his job quite seriously, although Ein-stein had his doubts about whether the letter would ever reach  its destination.

  “Regular would be just fine, thanks.”

  Greeley licked his thumb and rubbed it across the seat of  his trousers. He held the bony digit a few inches from his face,  inspecting it carefully to make sure it was covered with a suf-ficient amount of dirt to create a smudge mark on the corner  of the envelope.

   “You’re all set,” Greeley announced as he ground his thumb-print into the paper.

  “Do you mind if I ask you another personal question?” Ein-stein asked, without waiting for Greeley to answer. “How can  you deliver a letter without using a stamp?”

  “Nothing to it,” Greeley replied. “I use g-mail.”

  “You have an account with Google?”

  The old postman looked confused. “I use ghost mail. It’s the  same principle as e-mail, but it’s guaranteed to be spam free  and you don’t have to pay a dime. Being dead has its perks.”

  5 Einstein thought nanotechnology was the next great inno-vation, but a technology based on the metaphysical? He had a  thousand questions for the old man. “How does g-mail work?”

  “Just like that gizmo they used on  Star Trek,” Greeley replied.  “I can move anything I touch from one location and transport  it instantaneously to another.”

  “Would you do me a favor?” Einstein whispered. “Sure, Houdini. What do you need?”

  “Beam me up, Scotty! I want to go home.”

   “You’re  not  going  anywhere  in  your  condition,”  Nurse

  Knockwurst said, cutting in on the conversation. She placed  her hand on the boy’s forehead to see if he was running a fever.   “You’re delirious.”

  “I feel fine.” “Really?” Nurse Knockwurst asked. “Then why have you  been jabbering to yourself for the last five minutes?”

  “I’m talking to Greeley, the camp mailman,” Einstein said  indignantly. “And if you don’t mind, we were having a pri-vate conversation.”

   “Isn’t that cute,” the nurse said loud enough for everyone in  the room to hear. “Einstein has an imaginary friend.”

  “He’s not imaginary. He’s a ghost.”

  “What’s the difference?” Nurse Knockwurst said as she  jammed a thermometer into Einstein’s mouth. She strolled  back into her office, returned with a standard-issue werewolf  costume, and tossed it to Einstein. “Bucky brought this by  while you were sleeping. Try it on and see how it fits.”

  “I’m not feeling up to playing dress-up just yet,” Einstein  said, brushing the wolf suit aside.

  She yanked the thermometer out of his mouth and checked  the reading. “Your temperature is normal. Unfortunately, you  are not.” Nurse Knockwurst threw another handful of salt  tablets on the bed and glared at Einstein. “I’m tired of play-ing games. I’m going out for twenty minutes and if you’re not  wearing that wolf getup by the time I get back, you and yo
ur  imaginary friend are both going to regret it.”

   “Don’t listen to her, Houdini,” Greeley warned.

  “I wasn’t planning on it, but thanks anyhow for the advice,”  Einstein replied as he watched Nurse Knockwurst head for  the door.

  The nurse stopped in her tracks and, without bothering to  turn around, screamed at the top of her lungs, “Will you please  stop talking to yourself? It’s driving me crazy!”

  Nurse Knockwurst mumbled something under her breath  and then stormed out of the room.

  “There is something wrong with that woman,” Einstein  whispered.

  “You have no idea,” the ghost replied.

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  Day Four — 8:13 P.M. urly’s bad cooking was one thing, but the aftereffects were  something else altogether. Diarrhea (or “Curly’s Revenge,”  as it was commonly referred to by everyone trapped at Creepy  Time) had spread through the camp population like wildfire.  The bathrooms at the dining hall were insufficient to deal with  the crowds that inevitably gathered after each and every meal.  Some days it was so bad that the lines were stacked up all the  way back to the fire pit outside the cafeteria.

  One camper who was in dire straits ran back to his cabin  to find a toilet that was not currently in use, but he was dis-appointed. Not only was the bathroom occupied, but there  was also a line of fidgeting campers waiting for a chance to  use one of the two stalls. Unable to hold it, he decided on  desperate measures.

  “Throw me some TP,” he screamed at the guy in the front  of the line.

   “You’re not thinking about going out there,” the other  camper replied, pointing toward the moonlit desert. “What  about Godzilla?”

  Every summer camp develops its own particular brand of  campfire lore that is intentionally invented to scare the wits  out of the campers, and Camp Creepy Time was no excep-tion. During the first few days there, many of the kids claimed  that they had seen a pony-sized spider covered in matted red  fur. The descriptions of the creature varied, but a few of the  facts remained constant. It had several bulbous eyes that were  perched on the tip of tentacles that sprouted from the top  of its head. Rows of large yellow fangs jutted out its mouth  like a great white shark’s, and its jaws were so powerful that  they were capable of shredding steel. The stories spread and  began to take on a life of their own. Einstein theorized that  the creature was some type of indigenous spider mutated by  toxic waste. Naturally, the toxic waste had been dumped in the  desert by either the government or by a large conglomerate  with no respect for Mother Nature. There were several names  for the creature, but only one stuck. Godzilla.

  “I don’t care if King Kong is out there,” the boy screamed.  “Just toss me some TP and I’ll take my chances.”

  The boy caught the roll on the fly and headed for the pri-vacy of the desert. He squatted behind a large tumbleweed and  sighed loudly with relief. The rustling sound a few feet away  told him that he wasn’t the only desperate soul.

  “Food really sucks here, doesn’t it?” he said, trying to make  light of an embarrassing situation.

  There was no answer, but someone was definitely there.

  “Beats my mom’s home cooking,” the boy added, hoping  a bit of humor would break the ice. “If you consider Chinese  takeout home cooking.”

  The joke didn’t elicit a response and the silence was starting

  to make the boy nervous. He supposed that one of the other  campers was playing a practical joke on him, but this wasn’t  funny. No one likes to get caught with his pants down, espe-cially at a time like this.

  “Take a hike!” the boy shouted angrily. He stood and pulled his pants up, deciding that waiting in  line was a better option than being spied on by some camp  pervert. As the boy started back for the cabin, he heard the  sound of something large shuffling through the underbrush. It  was heading straight for him. He started to run as fast as his  legs would carry him, but it wasn’t fast enough. The camper felt  something wrap around his feet and he tripped. He screamed  at the top of his lungs as he was dragged into the brush. Then  there was silence.

  “Did you hear that?” one of the campers said to another  camper waiting to use the latrine. “Poor guy sounds like he’s  dying.”

  The camper nodded in agreement and grimaced. “Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.”

  0

  Cha p te r

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  Day Five — 6:25 P.M. orman Fleet was in the middle of watching the nightly news  when he heard the doorbell ring. He went to the front door  to see who it was, but there was no one. Once again, a white  envelope addressed to “The Fleet Family” was sitting on the  welcome mat. It was another letter from Einstein. Aside from  the content itself and the fact that no one ever saw the deliv-ery person, there was something very strange about the whole  thing. The letters showed up on the doorstep without a stamp  or any other visible means of payment. Norman Fleet supposed  that a five-star camp like Creepy Time must have contracted  with an upscale private delivery service and let it go at that.  Nonetheless, it was a bit odd.

  He took his son’s letter to his favorite easy chair. Norman  adjusted the footrest and leaned back as he opened the goo- stained envelope, eager to hear about camp. A smile came to  his face as he recalled his own childhood memories of roasting  weenies and marshmallows over an open campfire and singing  songs under a sky full of stars. The smile quickly vanished as he  read the first few lines of the letter.

  Dear Mom and Dad, Help!!!!!!!!

  Camp management continues to torture us on a daily basis. Just yesterday, we were forced (at gunpoint) to run half naked through a field while the staff placed bets on which one of us would drop first. After being ordered to strip down to our underwear, our bodies were coated in honey. Little did we know that the counselors had trained enor-mous wasps to attack on their command. My earlier dispute with camp management naturally made me a prime target. As a result, I was stung over 600 times (a new camp record) and have spent the last two days in a coma.

  The warden and his lackeys have imprisoned me in the camp infirmary and placed me under around-the-clock surveillance (excluding bathroom breaks). Nurse Knockwurst (aka Dr. Frankenstein) is as sadistic a fiend as this camp has to offer. Aside from being mentally unstable, I
suspect that Nurse Knockwurst is wanted in several states for practicing medicine without a license. Everyone who ends up in her infirmary is treated like a lab rat. Two campers have been subjected to some type of bizarre medical experiment and are slowly turning into mindless zombies. In all fairness to the camp nurse, they may

  have been like this before arriving at Creepy Time, but at least they weren’t bound to their cots.

  Nurse Knockwurst’s insistence on the liberal use of salt tablets for any ailment is in line with camp policy. In response to her daily efforts to force-feed medicine against my will, I have gone on a hunger strike. I will not eat again until Nurse Knock-wurst’s reign of terror is put to an end or camp man-agement adds Twinkies to the menu.

  On top of everything else they forgot to mention in the brochure, it appears that we have a resi-dent ghost at Creepy Time. His name is Greeley. The cantankerous old coot claims to be both mail-man and master of the manor. I suspect that he is just some dead guy with delusions of grandeur. Of course, since I’m the only one who can see Greeley, it may be my own problem.

  There is something rotten at Creepy Time, aside from just the food. A few desperate souls decided to make a break for it and have been missing ever since. The word is that someone or something ate the missing campers, but I suspect that camp management planted the story to deter future attempts at escape. If I survive my stay in the infirmary, I plan to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, please send some more Twinkies. It’s hard to think on an empty stomach.

 

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