Chapter 2: A Scramble in Camp Campbell
Two Days Ago,
"All-righty, campers, I hope you all had as much fun as I did helping with Environmental Camp because the sun is setting and we all need to get a good night's sleep. Because tomorrow we get to help out with… Aquatic Environmental Camp!" David said with sincere enthusiasm in his face, expecting cheers from the group, yet receiving only a couple of jeers.
"What the hell is this bull****?!" A young boy amongst the crowd screams out in anger. "Why do we have to pick up after somebody else's crap?"
"Well Max, since your last "prank," we've been requested by the government to focus our efforts on cleaning up the lake." David started explaining to him with a calm tone, "And since the Quartermaster has been missing for the last couple of days and my car has been "borrowed" by Mr. Campbell, we can't head to town and get the supplies we need." Now his voice was starting to have hints of worry. "But if we don't clean up the lake, they have threatened us to shut down the camp, and we can't have that happening this far into summer!" Now his voice, as well as his expression, had fallen into a full-blown panic.
Then almost immediately his face breaks off into his significant cheerful smile.
"Also, Mother Nature has been a huge part of our camp's history, so it's only right to take care of her."
Just before everyone started to head back, one of the campers rose their hand.
"Uh, David? I have a question. Where is everybody else?"
As the kid asks this, the others noticed something was off today. Other campers were missing from the general group. Quickly looking around, they could tell that about half the campers were not here. David was quick to respond.
"Well, some of the other campers have just been feeling under the weather lately; but I promise to you, by tomorrow morning, everything should be back to normal…"
…
…
Tomorrow Morning…
Max finally wakes up after a terrible nightmare involving somebody-no, something flying after him. Now that he's awake, and after trying to wake Neil up to no avail, he puts on his usual blue sweater over his shirt, he was ready for another day of trying to bring David down to madness and depression when suddenly, a wave of fatigue hits Max.
"What the hell…? Why am I so tired now?"
Max decided not to think about it, and heads out to the closest sink to try and splash some water on his face. However, Max notices something off about the camp this morning. When Max looks in the sky, he could tell it was close to noon, but nobody was out and about. No Nurf bulling Space Kid, no Arid trying to perform some tricks on her board, not even David was out with that stupid grin of his.
"Maybe they're in the Mess Hall, and I just slept in as well."
But when Max gets to the building and tries to get in, the building is locked… "from the inside?"
Deciding to leave that for later, Max finally heads to the outhouse and sees himself in the mirror, and the first thing that Max notices is his face just looks pale. The second thing is that there was a mark, no wait, two marks and they looked like… teeth marks? There was even a drop of blood still on his neck.
Vampires? No, Max isn't that gullible or stupid. At worst, somebody just has a fetish for biting people and this time they drew blood.
After Max did a double-take on how he looked, he thought that maybe his mind was playing tricks on him and that he was just still tired, so Max decided to head back to the tent to try and get some more rest.
When Max got back to the campsite, he notices some of the more active campers were finally starting to wake up. Among one of those is Nikki, who while usually was excited, positive and always trying to find adventure, (Even if it leads to some of us almost DYING!), today she looked as pale, as if the life was just sucked out of her, and that excited demeanor she usually had was gone, replaced by a grey, gloomy expression like a dead man (or woman, in this case) walking.
Another one of the people who had woken up was David, but he too looked as pale, if not worse than Nikki. However, he still had the cheerful smile, yet even that looked as if he was struggling to do, which just made this whole situation a lot creepier. It was as if David was a patient at a hospital and he was just told that whatever he had was terminal and David was trying to keep his joyful side up regardless of death hanging over him.
"Okay, kids. Since Gwen and some of the other campers are still feeling under the weather, the rest of us are going to head to the lake to get started."
As the kids give him dagger eyes, David was quick to defend himself
"N-Now, hold on kids, I tried to call the other campsites to try and give us a hand…"
Both Max and Nikki scowled at the thought of working with both the Wood Scouts or the Flower Scouts, each having their own reason to hate their guts
"… but the phone hardline was cut. I don't know how that could have happened."
Everybody turns to look at Max
"Okay, I know what all of you are thinking… but this time it's actually not me."
"Alright kids, let's not go around blaming others for bad things that happened. It might be just some rough weather."
Every camper there knew that was a bunch of baloney since there hasn't been raining in the last couple days and at worst it was just some heavy rain.
However, there was silence from around the camp, as everybody was thinking of the possibilities. Some people stuck to their guns, believing it to be Max doing to antagonize David. Others, however, believed it to done by the other campsites as a sabotage attempt.
"Well, we're burning daylight, so let's get started. AND… if we finish today, I swear as an honorary camp counselor, everyone who helps out gets one free week off any camp activities you want." David says as he put his hand over his heart making the official Camp Campbell salute.
Begrudgingly, what's left of the campers head to the lake. As much as they wanted nothing to do with cleaning the lake, a week off from camp activities meant a lot around here.
Suffice it to say, they worked all day into the night. And they HATED every second of it…
End of Chapter 2
