“It—it’s the monster!” Alex shrieked.
But that’s impossible! I thought, struggling to my feet.
That monster is from a story. A dumb camp ghost story.
It can’t be here in the woods.
I helped pull Alex up. But the ground shook again, and we both fell to our knees.
KA-THUMP. KA-THUMP.
“It can’t be real!” I cried. “It can’t—”
My mouth dropped open in horror as a huge, hairy head raised itself in front of us. Its eyes glowed as red as flames—round, terrifying, glowing eyes set deep in an ugly, growling face. The creature glared furiously at us.
“Th-the monster!” Alex stuttered.
We were both on our knees, bouncing helplessly on the rolling, tossing ground.
Was it the ground? Or the monster’s chest?
The creature opened an enormous cavern of a mouth. It flashed rows and rows of jagged yellow teeth.
Slowly it raised its head, moving closer. Closer.
Opening its hairy jaws wide. Preparing to swallow us as we frantically struggled to scramble away.
“Harry—! Harry—!” Alex shrieked my name. “It’s going to eat us! It’s going to swallow us whole!”
And then—in a flash—I had an idea.
24
The huge monster uttered a low growl.
Its hairy mouth opened wider. An enormous purple tongue rolled out. I gasped when I saw that the tongue was covered in prickly burrs.
“Look out, Alex!” I cried.
Too late.
The ground tossed, bouncing us both into the air. We landed with a hard plop on the tongue.
“Owwww!” we both howled. It felt like a cactus!
Slowly, the prickly purple tongue began to slide, carrying us into the creature’s open mouth.
“We don’t believe in monsters,” I told Alex.
I had to shout over the bellowing of the hungry monster. The tongue carried us closer. Closer to the rows of jagged yellow teeth.
“We don’t believe in this monster!” I shouted. “It is just made up. Part of a story. If we don’t believe in it, it can’t exist!”
Alex’s whole body shook. He hunched over, making himself into a tight ball. “It looks pretty real!” he choked out.
The tongue dragged us closer. I could smell the monster’s foul breath. I could see black stains on its jagged teeth.
“Concentrate,” I instructed my brother. “We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.”
Alex and I began chanting those words, over and over.
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.”
The purple tongue carried us into the huge mouth. I tried to grab onto the teeth. But they were too slippery.
My hands slid off. I felt myself being swallowed.
Down, down. Into sour darkness.
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.” Alex and I continued to chant.
But our voices were muffled as we slid down the creature’s throbbing throat.
“Harry—it swallowed us!” Alex wailed.
“Keep chanting,” I ordered him. “If we don’t believe in it, it can’t exist!”
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.”
A glob of thick saliva rolled over me. I gagged as it clung to my clothes, my skin—hot and sticky.
The walls of the throat throbbed harder.
Pulling us down. Down.
Down into the vast, churning gurgling pit of a stomach below.
“Ohhhh.” Alex let out a long, defeated sigh. He sank to his knees. He was covered in thick saliva too.
“Keep chanting! It’s got to work! It’s got to!” I screamed.
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.”
“We don’t believe in you!”
Alex and I both opened our mouths in screams of horror as we began to fall.
Falling, falling, into the churning stomach below.
25
I shut my eyes.
And waited for the splash. Waited for the crash.
Waited to hit the stomach floor.
Waited.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing on the ground. Standing next to Alex in a grassy clearing.
The pine trees shivered in the breeze. A full moon poked out from behind wispy clouds.
“Hey—!” I cried. I was so happy to hear my own voice!
So happy to see the sky. The ground. So happy to breathe the cool air.
Alex started spinning. Spinning like a top. Laughing at the top of his lungs. “We didn’t believe in you!” he cried gleefully. “We didn’t believe in you—and it worked!”
We were both so thrilled. So excited that the monster had vanished.
Poof! A puff of imagination.
I started to spin with Alex. Spinning and laughing.
We stopped when we realized we were no longer alone.
I let out a startled cry when I saw the faces all around us. The pale, pale faces with their glowing eyes.
I recognized Sam, and Joe, and Lucy, and Elvis.
I moved close to Alex as the campers—the ghost campers—moved to form a circle around us. To trap us.
Uncle Marv moved into the circle. His tiny eyes glowed red as fire. He narrowed them angrily at Alex and me.
“Capture them!” he bellowed. “Take them back to camp. No one ever escapes Camp Spirit Moon.”
Several counselors moved quickly to grab us.
We couldn’t move. There was nowhere to run.
“What are you going to do to us?” I cried.
26
“We need living kids,” Uncle Marv boomed. “We cannot allow living kids to escape. Unless they carry one of us with them.”
“Noooo!” Alex wailed. “You can’t take over my mind! You can’t! I won’t let you!”
The ghostly circle tightened. The ghost campers moved in on us.
I tried to stop my legs from shaking. Tried to slow my pounding heart.
“Alex—we don’t believe in them, either,” I whispered.
He stared at me, confused for a moment. Then he understood.
We made the monster vanish by not believing in him. We could do the same thing to the ghost campers.
“Grab them. Take them back to camp,” Uncle Marv ordered the counselors.
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you,” Alex and I started to chant.
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.”
I stared hard at the circle of ghostly faces. Waited for them to disappear.
I chanted with my brother. Chanted faster. Chanted louder.
“We don’t believe in you. We don’t believe in you.”
I shut my eyes. Shut them tight.
And when I opened them…
The ghosts were still there.
“You can’t make us disappear, Harry,” Lucy said, stepping into the circle. She narrowed her eyes at me. They glittered cold and silvery in the moonlight.
“You made the monster disappear because it wasn’t real, just one of our ghost tricks,” Lucy explained. “We made you see it. But we’re all real! All of us! And we’re not going to vanish in a puff of smoke.”
“We’re not going away,” Elvis added, moving close to my brother. “In fact, we’re coming closer. A lot closer.”
“I’m taking over your mind,” Lucy whispered to me. “I’m going to escape Camp Spirit Moon inside your mind and body.”
“Nooo! No—please!” I protested.
I tried to back up. But the other ghost campers had me trapped.
“You can’t! I won’t let you!” I shrieked to Lucy, frozen in terror.
“Go away!” Alex shouted at Elvis.
The woods darkened as clouds swept over the moon. All around me, the ghostly eyes appeared to glow brighter.
I saw Elvis reach for my brother.
And then my view was blocked by Lucy. She floa
ted up. Up off the ground. Up over me.
“No! Stay away! Stay away!” I screamed.
But I felt my hair tingle.
I felt the cold sweep down over me. Down, down.
I felt Lucy’s ghostly cold. Felt her slipping into my mind.
Slipping down, down. Taking over.
And I knew I couldn’t escape.
27
“Get away, Lucy. I’m going first!” I heard a voice shout.
“No way!” a boy cried. “Move out of the way. Uncle Marv said I could be first!”
I could feel the cold sweep up from my body. I opened my eyes—and saw Lucy back on the ground.
Other kids tugged her away.
“Let go of me!” Lucy screamed, pulling back. “I saw him first!”
“Finders keepers!” another ghostly girl cried.
They are fighting over me, I realized.
They pulled Lucy away. And now they’re fighting to see who will take over my mind.
“Hey—let go!” I heard a ghostly girl cry. I saw her wrestling with another girl.
The ghosts were wrestling and fighting, shoving and clawing at each other. I saw the counselors join the fight.
“Stop this! Stop this!” Uncle Marv bellowed.
He tried to pull the fighting campers apart.
But they ignored him and continued to battle.
And as I stared in horror, they began to spin around me. Faster and faster. A ghostly circle of wrestling, fighting, shrieking campers. Boys and girls, counselors and Uncle Marv, spinning, struggling, clawing.
Faster. Faster.
They spun around and around my brother and me.
Until they became a swirl of white light.
And then the light faded. Faded to gray smoke.
Wisps of smoke that floated to the trees. And disappeared in the trembling branches.
Alex and I stood watching until the last wisp of smoke had floated away.
“They’re gone,” I choked out. “They fought each other. And they’re gone. All of them.”
I shook my head. I drew in a deep breath of fresh air.
My heart was still pounding. My whole body trembled.
But I was okay. Alex and I were okay.
“Are they really gone?” Alex asked in a tiny voice.
“Yes. Let’s go,” I said, taking his arm. “Come on. Hurry. Let’s get away from here.”
He followed me eagerly. “Where are we going?”
“To the highway,” I said. “We’ll walk past the camp to the highway. And we’ll stop the first car that comes by. We’ll get to a phone. We’ll call Mom and Dad.”
I slapped my brother on the back. “We’ll be okay, Alex!” I cried happily. “We’ll be home before you know it!”
We walked quickly through the woods. Pushing bushes and weeds out of the way. Making our own path.
As we made our way to the highway, Alex started to hum a song to himself.
“Whoa!” I cried. “Alex, what’s wrong?”
“Huh?” He stared at me in surprise.
I stopped and held him in place. “Sing that again,” I ordered.
He sang a little more.
Horrible! His singing was horrible. Totally off-key and sour.
I stared hard into my brother’s eyes. “Elvis—is that you in there?” I cried.
Elvis’ voice came out of Alex’s mouth. “Please, Harry, don’t tell,” he begged. “I swear I’ll never sing again—if you promise not to tell!”
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