Harper tore at the meringue-like covering on the rest of Regina’s body, then carefully laid Regina on the ground to give her room to breathe.
The captive girl fought to open her eyes. At the sight of Harper, she tried to move her lips to speak.
That’s when Regina spoke a single word that filled Harper with dread. . . .
“RUN!”
Harper’s heart pounded in her chest. Her breath quickened.
She looked out the mouth of the cave and saw a dozen glowing eyes floating through the forest. Hunting for her.
The ghost counselors are almost here! she thought.
Quickly, she hid Regina behind a nearby boulder and scavenged for a place to hide. But the only way open to her was farther into the dark throat of the cave.
Harper stood immobilized. She tried to move her legs, but fear had turned them to stone.
Director McGee, Counselor Fuller, and the rest of the ghost counselors entered the cave and hovered toward her. She was shocked to see that Nurse Betty and the bus driver were there too.
Even though the light from their eyes was near blinding, Harper could see that they were holding something. . . .
“Brodie,” she whispered.
His eyes were closed, and he looked unconscious. Even worse, his skin was paler than usual, like he had lost circulation. He seemed frozen inside some otherworldly spell. Harper was glad that he was still in one piece, but she was terrified of what they would do with him.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked Director McGee while holding back tears.
Director McGee hovered toward her and stopped a few inches in front of her face.
Then he said something that obliterated every suspicion she had entertained.
“Snacks,” he said. “We need snacks.”
What he did next was so unexpected, so terrible, that even Brodie couldn’t have dreamed up the twist. . . .
20
Junk Food
Harper watched in horror as Director McGee reached to the back of his neck and unzipped his skin.
Counselor Fuller did the same.
And all the other counselors did too.
They tossed their human suits to the ground. The eyeless masks and heaps of skin lying in a pile looked so creepy, so impossible.
Harper nearly fainted from fright.
Their natural bodies weren’t like anything she had ever seen. Their real skin was green and slimy, and they could mold themselves into any shape as if they were made of Play-Doh.
It was then that Harper realized they weren’t ghosts.
They were something else entirely.
She recalled the strange symbols on the tombstones and the odd language she had heard Director McGee and Counselor Fuller speaking at one point during their conversation by the fireplace. Then she remembered what they had said about taking campers to the next world.
That’s when it hit her. . . .
Impossible, she thought. They’re . . . ALIENS!
The truth blew her mind like a nuclear explosion.
She watched in horror as the extraterrestrials’ drooling mouths moved, and the antennas on the tops of their heads seemed to translate: “It’s time for you to take the next step.”
“Next step?” Harper asked, trembling with fear.
“Food preparation,” the creature that was Counselor Fuller answered, nodding toward the cocoons on the walls. “Earth is just a brief stop on our journey. We needed to refuel and get more snacks to last us until we arrive at the next planetary system that harbors edible life. The cocoons are seasoning the specimens as we speak, and we’ll soon transfer them to their individually marked freezers for food preservation.”
She pointed toward the gravestones outside the cave, and Harper realized that they weren’t tombstones. . . . They were name markers for some kind of underground cryogenic freezer.
Her head spun with questions. “You mean that Earth . . . is like a gas station on an intergalactic road trip?” she asked, remembering her dad pulling over to get gas and snacks on their family vacation earlier that summer.
“Exactly,” Counselor Fuller communicated through her antennas. “We’ve been fattening you up with the junk food of your planet so that you can be our junk food.”
A twist on a twist, Harper thought, wishing Brodie was awake to hear it.
Horrified, she took a step back.
Just then, the alien that was Director McGee hovered toward her. . . .
“For a hundred years, I’ve managed the operation on this planet,” he revealed. “Some of the ‘counselors,’ like myself, stay on Earth long term, sending out brochures, conducting the phone interviews with potential campers, informing human families that their kids have been chosen to come to Camp Moon Lake. Finally, I’ll be retiring after this week, and Counselor Fuller will be taking my place.”
Harper glanced at Counselor Fuller, who was now a giant green blob. Harper had trusted her entirely, but she now knew without a doubt that her instincts had been wrong.
“What about the parents of the kids you take?” Harper asked, her voice trembling. “Surely they would have exposed the camp by now.”
Director McGee shook his blobby head. “Our planetary agents swipe the minds of everyone who’s ever known or heard of our campers. The agents go into neighborhoods, schools, bedrooms, and extinguish all recollections and remnants. We leave no trace behind. It’s as if the campers never existed.”
Harper shivered at the horrifying idea of being erased from her parents’ minds. “Why don’t you take adults instead? They’re bigger, and th-there’s more meat on them,” Harper said.
“Human children are a delicacy, whereas adults are rather . . . tasteless. Besides, we need to leave the adults behind in order for them to continue growing the population. Which means more snacks for us. It’s better if we let things take their natural course, and we harvest in secret. All the stories of alien abductions you hear about in the news and tabloids—they’re all true. But those stories usually come out because one of our agents didn’t follow protocol.”
“So Camp Moon Lake is all just a big ruse? That’s why you keep everything a secret here?” she asked.
Director McGee nodded. “In the old days it was easy to keep the secrets of camp, but it’s gotten much harder in recent years with your species discovering more advanced technologies. Smartphones that take pictures and videos that can be instantaneously sent back to your families and friends. We’ve had to crack down on these things in order to preserve our cover.”
He moved toward Harper, and she took another step back.
She could tell she was running out of options.
“Don’t worry, though,” Director McGee said. “It will all be over soon. I promise you won’t feel a thing.”
He moved toward her again, and she felt all the muscles in her body tense.
Harper turned and sprinted out of the circle of aliens and deeper into the rocky tunnel, hoping she could find another way out.
“There’s no use running!” Director McGee called after her. “You can’t escape!”
But Harper only ran faster. She traveled deeper and deeper into the cave, passing beneath the canopy of cocoons.
All the while, she followed the eerie blue light up ahead. It was the same pulsing light she had seen from outside the cave.
As she drew closer, she realized that it was coming from a giant metal box. A machine of some kind.
The contraption had long translucent tentacles that were planted into the ground. It seemed to be sucking up natural resources—soil, minerals, and water—from beneath the surface.
But most intriguing of all . . .
It was pumping an enormous amount of exhaust into the atmosphere.
This is where the fog has been coming from the whole time! Harper realized. But . . . what is this machine doing?
She examined it for a moment and deduced that it was somehow connected to the floor of the cave through a network of wires. She glanced around at the
ceiling, the ground, and the walls covered with cocoons. Then she saw what looked like tinted windows—the kind you’d find in an airplane. But they looked camouflaged.
That’s when she realized she wasn’t standing in a cave at all. . . .
She was trapped inside the belly of the aliens’ spaceship.
21
A Twist on a Twist
This has to be a nightmare, she thought. At any moment, I’ll wake up, and I’ll be back home. And Mom will have breakfast ready downstairs.
She pinched herself, hoping to wake up. But she remained in the belly of the spaceship.
There was a mustardy odor in the air. The sour scent made her cringe. She suspected it was a stench the aliens had brought from their home planet.
Just as she was about to turn around, someone grabbed her shoulder.
“Ahh!” she screamed, raising her fist.
It was Brodie.
He looked just as afraid as she was.
“How did you escape? I figured you’d be marinating in a cocoon by now!” she said, then hugged him.
“I pretended to be unconscious and slipped away when they weren’t looking,” Brodie replied.
At the sight of him, Harper felt renewed hope. At the very least, she reasoned, if she was going to die, she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
“The counselors are aliens,” she said. “We’re inside their spaceship right now. We have to find a way out quick, or else they’re going to eat all of us!”
“I know. I heard them talking,” Brodie replied, almost as if he was more amused than afraid. “It’s like Stranger Things meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The good thing is that these aliens move slower than us, so we have an advantage. But I’ve already looked everywhere. The only way out is the way we came in.”
He pointed over his shoulder in the direction of what Harper had believed was the mouth of the cave, knowing now that it was really the door to the ship.
“There has to be another exit,” she said. “Or if we can find a weak spot somewhere on the ship, maybe we can destroy it. There might even still be a way to save the other campers.”
Harper began feeling along the walls, searching for a secret door or access point.
“The only way to do that would be to access the ship’s mainframe computer and destroy the antenna that notifies other orbiting ships that the food is prepared,” Brodie said. “It’s like a lighthouse that alerts them that the snack bar is open here on Earth.”
“How in the world would you know that?” Harper asked, fumbling along the walls.
When Brodie didn’t answer, she got a churning feeling in her stomach. She slowly turned.
“Because it’s the truth,” Brodie said, his eyes glazed over, possessed with something dark. “We need you, Harper. We need all of you.”
Then . . .
He reached to the back of his neck and began to unzip his human suit.
22
The Thing About Hope
Brodie threw his skin on the ground beside him. His gooey, green body wobbled as he hovered in midair. He looked disgusting, and from his moldy appearance, Harper wondered if he might be a thousand years old.
“Y-you’ve been one of them all along?” Harper asked, her voice shaking, realizing that she had no one left to trust. She did everything she could to hold back tears.
“I was assigned to keep an eye on you to make sure you’d be ready,” Brodie communicated through his antennas.
“Ready for what?”
Brodie hovered toward her. “To be my snack.”
The hairs on Harper’s arm raised, and she took a step back.
“The truth was right in front of you the whole time. But you humans are far too trusting,” Brodie continued. “And you’re easy to control when you’re afraid.”
“So everything’s been an illusion? The entire camp was created just to capture human kids to eat on your intergalactic road trips?” she said.
“Yes. Human children are the most vulnerable of your species. But to be fair, we’ve become masterful actors. While on our way to your planet, Director McGee sent a message to our ship, encouraging us to watch all your movies and TV shows to learn about your kind. Day after day, year after year, your satellites are sending your stories out into the cosmos, exposing yourselves to all intelligent civilizations. You might as well have a bright blinking neon sign posted on your world saying, ‘Free food!’ We aren’t the first to come here, and we certainly won’t be the last. But we haven’t been thinking big enough. . . . And once my mom takes over, we’ll franchise the ruse of Camp Moon Lake to a thousand other planets.”
“Your mom?” Harper asked.
“You know her as Counselor Fuller. She has big ideas. Director McGee has always thought too small. And once he’s gone, we’ll be able to harvest ten times as many humans as before.”
Harper couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It felt like something out of The Twilight Zone.
No wonder Brodie kept making movie references! Harper thought. It’s all he knows about Earth.
Brodie hovered closer to her. “While studying your genetic order, we discovered that out of all the human emotions, fear is the most powerful. If you can make humans afraid, then you can control them. That’s why we made up the story about the ghost girl—to keep you away from the cove, away from the truth. As part of the experiment, I even gave you a hint early on when I made up the story about the camp murders and then revealed that it was a lie. You should have known then not to trust me, but your desire to believe in me was your weakness.”
Harper thought of the politicians, world leaders, and all the crazy images her dad watched on the evening news. She suspected Brodie might be right. But then she felt something deep inside her that contradicted what she was thinking.
“Y-you’re wrong about one thing,” she stuttered, trying to maintain her poise.
“And what’s that?” Brodie asked.
“There’s something stronger than fear,” she challenged, then took a step toward him, boldly. “Courage.”
In response, Brodie’s antennas began to make a laughing noise. He opened his mouth, revealing hundreds of sharklike teeth. To Harper’s surprise, out of his throat came a shrill noise that sounded like it was spilling out from the blackest void in the universe. It was the same sound she had heard coming from the cove.
The breath in Harper’s lungs extinguished like a candle flame turning to darkness.
In a panic, she again felt around on the wall behind her. She knew her chances of escape were slim at this point, but she had to keep trying.
Brodie floated around her, like a beast circling its prey.
But then Harper heard a voice. . . .
And it was coming from inside her own head.
“Harper, it’s me. Regina.”
Regina? Harper thought.
“Yeah, I’m using this weird telepathic audio device I found in their control room. It’s letting me talk inside your mind.”
What?
“Just trust me. In a few seconds, I’m going to open a secret passageway behind you. I can see it on the video feed right now. But you have to jump through it right away so I can close it before Brodie gets to you.”
Nuh-uh. No way. I saw what you did to Darla on the trust fall.
“This is different. I promise I’ll catch you.”
How do I know you’re not one of them and this isn’t just part of the trap?
“Because I was in a cocoon! Tabitha’s one of them, and she tricked me into sneaking out of the cabin one night and then put me in there.”
You could just be making that up. Your name wasn’t on the camper list!
“Probably because it was a list of the alien campers. I’m human—I promise.”
But how can I know for sure?
“You’ll just have to weigh your options. But hurry—you don’t have much time. Five, four, three, two, one . . .”
Right then, a door in the wall behind Harper opened,
and she glanced down into the black void. It looked like a death sentence. But she didn’t have much choice. She could either stay and be Brodie’s snack or take her chances with Regina.
So she took her chances and stepped through the doorway.
Brodie rushed after her, but the door closed just in time to seal him off.
Harper tumbled down the chamber between the walls, and her body banged around like she was a rag doll. Finally, she landed in Regina’s arms.
“How did you escape?” Harper asked, standing to her feet.
“I crawled along the wall and fell into some kind of vacuum chute. I ended up here and saw you on the video feed,” Regina explained, pointing to the video monitors on the nearby wall. “I swear, my dad’s made me watch E.T. like twenty times, and I thought aliens were supposed to be nice!”
“Thanks for saving me,” Harper said, then glanced around at the dim chamber. It was round and had an arched ceiling. She figured the entire room was half the size of a basketball court.
“Hey, you saved me first,” Regina said. “As far as I can tell, this must be the mainframe of the Mother Ship. We better hurry. I’m sure they’ll find us soon.”
Harper suddenly felt a surge of hope.
“Brodie said something about an antenna that alerts alien ships that the earth food is ready,” she said. “If we can figure out a way to destroy it, maybe we can stop the operation once and for all.”
Regina pointed to one of a dozen video monitors. “Is that the antenna you’re talking about?”
Harper saw a live feed of the top of the zip-line platform. There was the cell tower, with its blinking light.
“That’s it!” Harper said. “I thought it was a cell tower, but it’s their antenna!”
Regina immediately went to the computer keyboard, which was made of strange holographic symbols that hovered midair. She examined it for a moment, then began typing away.
“How do you know what you’re doing?” Harper asked, starting to feel suspicious again.
“These computers run on a simpler code than you think,” Regina said.
Harper stared at her blankly.
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