Clone Camp!
Page 9
“Maybe it’ll all work out. You never know, Ethan’s parents might have a great sense of humor,” I suggested.
“You’re getting good at joking around, Katy.” Noah laughed, then handed me the Scaremaster’s book. “I’m coming back every summer to this camp—if you are.”
I tapped the logo on my Camp Redwood Vines hat and said, “I’ll be here. I heard they don’t like jokes over at Camp Edwards.” I added with a wink, “And they have a lame recreation center.”
Ethan picked the perfect spot. We all took turns shoveling. The hole had to be deep.
Becky was the strongest of us all, and gradually, we gave all our turns to her. She finished fast. I gave the book one last check to see that the pages were blank, then tossed it in. It landed at the bottom of the hole with a thud. Becky immediately began refilling the hole, humming a song I didn’t recognize but assumed to be from the army.
“Do you want to join the military like your dad?” I asked, feeling like the answer was obvious.
“No,” she said, surprising me. “What made you think that?”
“No reason,” I quickly replied.
“I want to be a kindergarten teacher like my mom,” she told me as she finished up. “I love little kids.”
I never would have guessed that!
Even though the last few days had been terrible, and scary, and could have been a disaster, something good had come from the Scaremaster’s story. I was glad I had gotten to know Becky and Ethan. And then there was Noah—he and I were going to be friends for life.
Ethan covered the book’s burial spot with heavy stones so no one would see the fresh turned dirt and come to explore.
“It’s like it never existed,” Noah said with certainty. “The grass will grow back quickly. Besides, no other campers are brave enough to explore the cemetery.”
“We should spread a few rumors to keep them away.” I winked. “Just in case.”
“So what do you want to investigate next?” Noah asked me as we all walked together to the kitchen for KP.
“I’m not sure,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the mound of dirt and rocks covering Tales from the Scaremaster.
“Well, I’m sure there’s some mystery at camp ready for you to solve, or some big secret,” he suggested. “You could start a newspaper or blog.”
“Maybe,” I said, not committing to anything.
In truth, there was one more secret at camp. A big one. But I wasn’t going to investigate it. Not ever. I wasn’t even going to tell anyone. Not even Noah or Becky or Ethan…
Before we buried the book, when I looked inside to check that the pages were blank—they weren’t blank at all.
Inside, the Scaremaster had started a fresh story. It said:
Once upon a time, there were twin brothers.…
Epilogue
“Dude!” twelve-year-old Ryan called across the crowded costume shop to his brother. “You gotta see what I found!” He grabbed things off the shelf until his arms were full. “Where are you?”
The costume shop was a small space. Tall display shelves formed mazelike tight aisles. Merchandise was so packed in it made the store feel dark and crowded. And extra awesome!
“Over here. In makeup.” Tyler gave what they called the “family whistle.” One sharp burst followed by three softer tweets.
Ryan listened closely to pinpoint the sound, then started to run toward his brother. His straight brown hair flopped down over one eye as he dashed through the shop.
“Excuse me.” A young woman with long black hair appeared in the aisle. Ryan had been moving so fast he didn’t see her until it was almost too late. He managed to stop in time, but it was a serious near miss that could have been a big crash. He fumbled the things in his hands but didn’t drop them.
“No running,” she said, pinning him with her bright blue eyes. Her voice wasn’t raised, like when he got stopped by the principal at school; rather, it was calm and firm. “We don’t act like monsters in my shop.” The woman handed Ryan a plastic basket with two handles. “Put the items you wish to buy in here.”
Heaving a heavy sigh, Ryan dumped everything he was carrying into the basket. “Now can I—”
She held up a hand. “Let me see what you have.”
The shop owner took her time going through the items Ryan had chosen. “Dirty torn shorts, muddy ripped T-shirt, red colored contact lenses, fake peeling skin, bandages…” She neatly stacked it all in a pile, then handed the newly organized orange basket back to Ryan. “Zombie, right?”
“My brother and I are going to the school Halloween dance,” Ryan told her, feeling a surge of happiness. Halloween was his favorite holiday. “We’re going to have the most amazing costumes!”
“Well,” she said, “you’re certainly off to a good start.” Her blue eyes seemed to shift to green when she told him, “You’ll find your brother at the end of the next aisle to the left.”
“How did you know—?” Ryan started to ask.
“Twins,” she said with a small smile that twinkled in her eyes, making them seem yellow. “He looks just like you.”
“Of course,” Ryan said with a small nod. Being a twin was a good thing and a bad thing. It was annoying when people mixed them up. But epic when they mixed themselves up on purpose.
“Go on,” the woman said, pointing the way. “I’m sure you two have a lot of planning to do.” She paused, still blocking his way for a few heartbeats, then stepped aside so he could pass.
Ryan shivered. There was a spark of something in the woman’s now-brown eyes that was making him nervous. She was nice, so he didn’t know what was giving him the chills.
Using his “best manners,” just like his parents taught him, he said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and walked away. Once out of her sight, he took off running again.
“What took you so long?” Tyler asked when Ryan found him, exactly where the woman said.
He looked back the way he’d come, but she was gone.
“I found some cool stuff,” Ryan told Tyler, holding out the basket.
Where Ryan moved at top speed all the time, his brother was a turtle. Tyler took his time looking through the basket before saying, “Are we going to match again this year?”
“Of course,” Ryan said, bouncing on his toes. “We match every year!”
“Oh.” Tyler turned his attention back to the makeup. “I was sorta thinking you could be a crawler and I’d be a boney.”
Tyler had spent a lot of time on the Internet reading about zombies over the past few months. He’d been the one to find this store. They’d had to take a bus there, but the online comments said the man who owned it was an expert in monsters and would have everything they needed. The reviews must have been wrong, because it seemed that the woman Ryan had met owned the store, and neither saw any men working there.
Ryan told Tyler, “Let’s both be crawlers.” Those were the kind of zombies with bad injuries that made them hobble along. “We can put fake blood all over our legs.”
“I really wanted to be a boney,” Tyler countered. Boneys had their skin peeling off so that the bones showed through.
“Whatever,” Ryan said. It didn’t matter what kind of zombie they were, as long as they were the same kind. They could freak people out by appearing in two places at once! It was going to be a historic Halloween, one that people remembered forever.
“Pick the makeup,” he told Tyler. “I’ll wear whatever you choose.”
Tyler turned back to the makeup display. “Boneys,” he said, more to himself than to Ryan. “We need white and red and black.…” He surveyed the selection. “Liquid latex, eye liner, green slime, and dark purple paint for bruises.” All that went neatly into Ryan’s basket.
Ryan tried to be patient, but it was hard. When Tyler finally finished, he snagged the basket and ran to the register.
The woman with the changing eyes rang up their items.
When they heard the price, Tyler looked to Ryan. “
We don’t have enough money.”
Ryan fished a combination of dollar bills and coins from his pocket. “We have all this!” He dumped his stash on the counter.
“I counted it last night,” Tyler said, pinching his lips together. “We are going to have to put some stuff back.”
Ryan sighed as Tyler started separating the items into two piles. Most of the things Ryan had picked were ending up in the put-back pile. “Can’t we keep any of it?” he moaned.
“I don’t think so—” Tyler was distracted, adding totals in his head. “Makeup is the important thing. Plus, it was my idea to come here.…” he reminded Ryan, as if to say that meant he got first dibs on what they bought.
“But—” Ryan started to argue when the woman at the counter cut in, saying, “I have a solution for your problem.”
They looked up at her. She crooked a finger. “Follow me.”
The boys glanced at each other, then took off after her. The woman led them through the store and down a hallway to the back of the storage room. In the farthest corner, there was a door. It was made of intricately carved heavy wood with a polished brass handle.
The hinges creaked as the woman stepped inside.
“This is where I keep the discount items,” she told them. “Only my most special customers get to come in here.”
That thought made Ryan shiver. And that was soooo cool! He loved being scared! The room was creepy. The woman was creepy. He couldn’t wait to see what she had hidden back here.
The instant they stepped aside, Ryan dashed over to a shelf filled with items that had a small sign on it. “Seventy-five percent off,” he exclaimed. “Check it, Ty!” They both excitedly started searching through the items. “There’s everything we want!”
The woman moved to the side of the room and sat in a chair that Ryan hadn’t noticed at first. This wasn’t just a discount room; it was also her office. A large throne chair, carved similarly to the door, with interwoven circles and strange squiggled patterns, sat behind a clean, polished desk. The smooth surface reminded Ryan of Tyler’s desk at home and was nothing like his own cluttered workspace.
Ryan and Tyler started pulling things from the discount shelf, with Tyler organizing what they wanted to buy in a pile.
“You’ll find expired fake blood, opened packages of peeling skin that were returned, and damaged bone pieces,” the woman explained. “I can’t sell any of it in the regular store.”
“This is great!” Ryan cheered. Then he turned to see there was a box on the top shelf. “What’s in that?” he asked her.
“I’m glad you asked,” she said with a small smile. She rose from the desk and stood on her tiptoes to bring the unmarked cardboard box down. She set the box on her desk. “You can have anything in here for free.”
“Really?” Ryan asked. “All this?”
Tyler stopped searching through the discount shelf and came to look. “Free is even better than discounted,” he said.
Inside the free box were torn and dirtied costumes, similar to the ones Tyler had forced Ryan to put back. There seemed to be two of everything they needed: shorts, ripped T-shirts, colored packages of contact lenses, and long strips of loose bandages!
Ryan felt weird asking but she had said “anything” and he really wanted to take it all! “Can we—” he began.
The woman interrupted, answering even though he never finished the question. “It’s yours.” She then took a ledger out of her drawer and turned her attention away from them, to her work.
Underneath all the old clothing, Tyler pulled out an old book. He leaned in and whispered to Ryan, “Hey, look. Do you think she meant this too?”
The woman was listening after all. She raised her head and said, “The whole box is yours. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.” She noted the book in Tyler’s hand. “It’s an old journal. I got it from a man who dug it up from a haunted cemetery. There’s only one like it in the world.” She came across the room and tapped the cover. “Draw your zombie costume designs inside.”
“Let me see it.” Ryan took the journal from Tyler. The book felt heavy in his hand and smelled like an odd combination of dirt and metal. He pushed back a little brass locking clasp on the cover and opened the pages. “It’s damaged,” he leaned over, and told Tyler. “There are these weird stains all over the first page.”
“Maybe that’s why she wanted to give it to us for free,” Tyler said. He took the book back. “It looks like marks from berries or grass.” Holding the book against his chest, Tyler said, “I like it. We should take it.”
On the bus home, Ryan carried the box. Tyler held the bag of discount makeup.
They were so excited to get home and explore everything they got that the ride felt like it was taking forever. To pass the time, Ryan took the journal out of the bag. He traced his finger over a strange triangle pattern etched into the cover, beneath some long scratch marks. He opened to the second page, the clean one after the berry-marked page, then made up a title and wrote it at the top.
“What else should I write?” he asked his brother.
“I don’t—” Tyler started, when suddenly, Ryan jumped up, grabbing Tyler’s hand and squeezing it hard. “No way! What the heck?”
“What is going on?” Tyler yanked back his hand.
Without another word, Ryan turned the book toward his brother.
He’d written:
AWESOME ZOMBIE COSTUME IDEAS
Under that, mysterious handwriting appeared:
Zombies, is it? Oh, the Scaremaster knows a thing or two about the undead. You shouldn’t have started this story. Now I get to finish it!
Read Ryan and Tyler’s story
(if you dare)
in
Zombie Apocalypse!
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You don’t have to read the
books in order. But if you want to, here’s the right order:
Swamp Scarefest
Werewolf Weekend
Clone Camp!
Zombie Apocalypse