by Dann Gershon
A moment later he was vaporized.
1
Cha p te r
T
Day Eight — 2:31 P.M. hey stood next to the police cruiser and stared slack-jawed at the dark sky, dumbfounded by a black funnel that had formed overhead. It had appeared suddenly and from out of nowhere, like a tornado. Claps of thunder were followed by huge streaks of lightning that could be seen for miles.
“What is that?” Shirley Fleet screamed. “I don’t know,” Mr. Armstrong shouted, “but I’m gonna get my camera.”
Suddenly, everything stopped and an eerie silence swept across the desert. The black swirling cloud disappeared and the funnel became completely transparent, like a long tube of glass. The tube reached into space for as far as the eye could see, like an escalator to the stars.
“You ever see anything like that before?” Norman asked the chief.
“Only on television,” the stunned policeman replied.
As Armstrong began to snap pictures, an oblong silver disc shot through the tube and disappeared into space. Moments later, the skies cleared and the funnel was gone. “Ladies and gents, you’re looking at the next cover for The National Enquirer,” Armstrong said, showing the digital display on his camera to the group. “I just got me a picture of a genuine UFO.”
The tears rolled down Norman’s cheeks as he choked back a sob. Shirley hugged him and held him tight. “He’s gone and it’s all my fault,” Norman whispered to his wife. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself.” They stood arm in arm staring at the empty sky, saying a silent prayer for their son.
“What are you looking at?” Einstein asked, standing be-hind them with Roxie at his side. After transporting them there, Greeley had promptly disappeared. Einstein would have enough explaining to do without adding a ghost to the mix. Camp Creepy Time would never be the same once word spread about what had happened. It wouldn’t be another Roswell. It would be worse, especially for the campers.
“Einstein!” Shirley screamed, wrapping her arms around him. She squeezed Einstein so tight that he couldn’t breathe.
“Mom, you’re crushing me!”
“I don’t care!” she sobbed. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Norman Fleet joined in on the hug. After they were done crushing him and messing up his hair, Einstein broke away and introduced them to Roxie. The Fleets exchanged a brief, but confused, look at each other. “The alien agent from PIMPS?” Norman Fleet said, giving his son the eye.
“IMPS,” Einstein replied, correcting him. He looked at his father and smiled. “You didn’t take all that stuff I wrote seri-ously, did you?”
Before Norman could answer, the chief walked up. “I’m Chief Chester of the Saugus Police Department,” he said to Ein-
01 0 stein. “Your parents have been worried sick about you. Heard a lot of talk about alien abduction, ghosts, and monsters. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Einstein wished he had never written the letters, but what was done was done. Now it was time to do some dam-age control. “The camp came down with some type of rare plague, I’m afraid,” Einstein lied, “but everyone seems to be on the mend.”
“Where are your counselors, young man?” the chief asked. Einstein pointed to the sky. “Swept into space by the tornado.”
“All of them?” Chief Chester asked.
“All of them except for Roxie,” Einstein told the police-
man.
“She looks a mite young to be a counselor,” the chief said
suspiciously.
“I’m in the counselor training program,” Roxie replied, smil-
ing at Einstein.
As Chief Chester prepared to continue his interrogation and
get to the bottom of things, he was interrupted by the sound
of cheering. He saw a group of campers hiking toward them.
From a distance, they all seemed to be dressed in costumes. As
they approached the police cruiser, Chief Chester rubbed his
eyes to make sure that they weren’t playing tricks on him. If
the campers were on the mend as Einstein suggested, they still
had a long way to go.
“It’s my Billy!” Armstrong shouted.
“He-he’s a werewolf,” the chief stuttered.
“Yeah, isn’t it great!” Armstrong replied. Sure, his son was a werewolf, but he didn’t seem any worse for it. His acne was less noticeable beneath the facial hair and his foul temper seemed to have improved. All things being equal, Armstrong decided
that he hadn’t lost his boy; he’d gained a meal ticket. One by one the rest of the campers showed up. There was
a great deal of cheering and several high fives. The mummies
lifted Einstein over their heads and paraded him around the
police car. “Mmmmm!”
“You want to explain all this?” Norman Fleet shouted at
his son.
“I thought I already did,” Einstein replied.
“Hey, let’s take a group photo!” Mr. Armstrong shouted.
“Everyone gather around and smile at the birdie!”
“CAMP CREEPY TIME!” the campers shouted in unison. “A genuine UFO and a camp filled with monsters!” he
shouted as he snapped away with his camera. “This must be
my lucky day!”
0
Cha p te r
T
Day Nine — 5:31 P.M. he campers sat around a roaring fire, toasting marshmallows and singing songs. It was the last night at Camp Creepy Time and it called for a celebration. Einstein was smack-dab in the middle of it all, barbecuing hot dogs and burgers. He had gone from a sheltered introvert to the life of the party.
“Will you look at that,” Norman said, nudging Shirley. “I don’t believe it. Maybe Einstein was abducted after all and they left a clone in his place.”
“I told you a little sunshine and fresh air wouldn’t kill him,” she replied.
Norman rolled his eyes and gave her a look.
“Well, he’s not dead, is he?” his wife said in her own defense.
Einstein tried to keep up a cheerful facade, but it wasn’t easy. Greeley’s prediction had come to pass. Camp Creepy Time had become a regular Roswell. Wi
thin hours after the spaceship had passed through the wormhole, an army of FBI agents and men dressed in black suits had arrived with truck-loads of high-tech equipment. They swarmed over every inch of the camp like ants, looking for clues as to what happened. A team of doctors and scientists examined all of the campers, poking and prodding them to make sure that the “plague” was contained. The side effects of the illness seemed to have myste-riously reversed, but none of the medical experts had a clue as to why. The kids were promised that once they had received a clean bill of health from the government medics, they would be allowed to leave. Rather than trust the government with their fate, Einstein and the others had agreed to keep the antidote a secret. They divvied up the doses and kept their mouths shut. The feds could interrogate them and these quacks could exam-ine them until they were blue in the face, but they wouldn’t get the real story out of any of them and they couldn’t keep them locked up at Creepy Time forever.
“How about a couple of burgers?” Vinnie said, bringing Einstein back into the moment. The little vampire had almost completed recovered, except for the two small fangs. He no-ticed that Einstein was staring. “If they don’t go away, my father is going to file them down when we get home,” he whispered.
Einstein reached into his pocket and secreted a black tablet into the center of the patty. “How would you like those bad boys?” he asked.
“Blood rare and mooing, of course.”
Einstein spotted the Whammy sisters with their parents and another man, who looked like an attorney. Like the others who had been captured and cocooned by Godzilla, they were re-covering the slowest. If it weren’t for Greeley, they wouldn’t have recovered at all. The old ghost had gone out to the desert and cut them loose, then administered a healthy dose of the antidote. Most of the campers seemed to be doing just fine
05 except for the Whammy sisters. Apparently their witch noses looked just like their original hooked beaks and their parents were livid about having to cover the cost of two new nose jobs. They were threatening to sue. Einstein made a mental note to make sure that they got more of the antidote as soon as possible.
Billy Armstrong was standing next to his father, who was screaming bloody murder at a group of FBI agents. The fact that Billy’s canines were still sharp and yellow didn’t seem to bother Mr. Armstrong as much as the fact that they had con-fiscated his digital camera and his photos. The agents tried desperately to calm the man down and maneuvered to stay upwind from the argument. Billy bit one of the agents in the leg and had to be muzzled.
“Where is Roxie?” Vinnie asked as he slathered his ham-burger bun with ketchup. “I haven’t seen her all day.”
Einstein had been wondering the same thing and he was worried. It was only a matter of time before they examined Roxie and discovered that they had a real live extraterrestrial on their hands. “Take over for me, will you, Vinnie?” Einstein asked, removing his apron and handing him the tongs. “I’m going to go find her.”
Vinnie put on the apron and asked the next camper what he was having. Manny looked at the hamburger and pointed. “Mmmmm! That burger looks good!”
“Want a burger, mister?” Vinnie asked the next person in line.
The man, dressed in a conservative navy suit, shook his head. “I’m looking for Einstein P. Fleet,” he said. “Do you know where he is?”
“You just missed him,” Vinnie replied, flipping a burger. He pointed at a couple standing about fifty yards away. “His par-ents are over there. Maybe they know.”
The man walked up to the Fleets and introduced himself. “I’m not sure if you remember me,” he said. “I’m Agent Smith with the FBI. I was the one who handled the Wilson case.”
“We’ve apologized and paid the damages.” Norman sighed. “Now what?”
“Relax, Mr. Fleet,” the agent said. “As it turns out, your son had it right. Wilson was a deep cover agent. If it hadn’t been for Einstein, we would have missed him altogether.”
“You’re kidding,” Shirley said.
“I couldn’t be more serious, Mrs. Fleet,” the FBI agent re-plied. “On behalf of myself and a grateful nation, I’d like to thank you. Your son is a real hero.”
“Does Einstein know about this?” Norman asked.
“Not yet,” Agent Smith replied, “but I’m sure he won’t be surprised. Knowing your son, he’ll probably wonder what took us so long. Einstein is quite a character.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Norman laughed. “Does this mean we get our money back?”
“What’s going to happen to this place?” Shirley asked, ig-noring her husband.
“That’s up to Einstein,” the agent replied. “The bureau was just informed that he bought the place a few minutes ago. In fact, that’s why I wanted to speak with him.”
0 “What are you talking about?” Norman groaned. “Einstein doesn’t have any money.”
Agent Smith couldn’t help but laugh. Obviously, the Fleets didn’t know their son quite as well as they thought they did. “We estimate that The Smoking Peashooter has over eight million active users. Each user pays ten dollars a year for membership. You do the math.”
“You mean Einstein’s a millionaire?” Shirley gasped.
“And then some, Mrs. Fleet,” Smith replied. “Please tell him that I’d like to speak with him when you see him. We’d like to know what he intends to do with the camp.” The agent said good-bye and walked away, leaving the Fleets standing there in a state of shock.
“I don’t believe it,” Shirley said to her husband. “No wonder Einstein didn’t want to go away for eight weeks. He was run-ning an empire from his room.”
“And we thought he was crazy,” Norman added.
“Poor people are crazy.” Shirley laughed. “Rich people are eccentric.”
“What’s the difference?” he asked.
“Money.”
Cha p te r
E
Day Nine — 6:10 P.M.
instein found Roxie sitting outside what was left of the care-taker’s cottage. Her eyes were swollen and puffy. She saw Einstein and looked the other way.
“
Is this your bunk assignment?” he asked, taking a seat be-
side her.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis, Fleet,” she replied without
turning around, “and you don’t need to know.”
“Aren’t you going to go to the farewell cookout?” he asked.
“You’re missing all the fun. It’s a real circus down there.” “Cookouts are for weenies,” she replied.
They sat together and watched the sunset. Slowly, the day
turned into night and stars filled the sky. Einstein knew that
she wasn’t looking at the bright balls of light. Roxie was think-
ing about her brother, hoping that he was still alive and burn-
ing just as bright.
“You saved my life,” she said. “I owe you one, Fleet.” “Now that you mention it,” Einstein said, “you still owe
me a buck. Are you planning on paying up or welshing on
our bet?”
“Welshing,” Roxie said. “If you want your money, you’ll have
10
to turn me in for the reward. I’ll bet you could get more than a buck for a real live alien.” “Don’t be so sure,” Einstein said. “An alien that looks like a human is a tough sell. I could probably get more for Greeley.”
“Where is he, anyhow? I haven’t seen him all day.”
“He went to check into something for me,” Einstein replied, looking at his watch. “That old coot should have been back by now.”