Read Online 09 - Welcome to Camp Nightmare by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) - Free Book Online Page A

get caught.”
    They slipped back, deeper in the bushes.
    Crouching low, I made my way away from the shore. When I was past the clump
of bushes, I stood up and began to run. I couldn’t wait to tell Colin and Jay
about what the girls had said.
    I felt frightened and excited at the same time. I thought maybe it would make
Jay feel a little better to know that the same kinds of horrible things were
happening across the river at the girls’ camp.
    Halfway to the bunks, I had an idea. I stopped and turned toward the lodge.
    I suddenly remembered seeing a pay phone on the wall on the side of the
building. Someone had told me that phone was the only one campers were allowed
to use.
    I’ll call Mom and Dad, I decided.
    Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
    I can call my parents, I realized, and tell them everything. I can
ask them to come and get me. And they could get Jay, Colin, Dawn, and Dori, too.
    Behind me, I saw my group heading toward the scratchball field, their
swimming towels slung over their shoulders. I wondered if anyone had noticed
that I was missing.
    Jay and Colin were missing, too, I told myself. Larry and the others probably
think I’m with them.
    I watched them trooping across the tall grass in twos and threes. Then I
turned and started jogging up the hill toward the lodge.
    The idea of calling home had cheered me up already.
    I was so eager to hear my parents’ voices, so eager to tell them the strange
things that were happening here.
    Would they believe me?
    Of course they would. My parents always believed me. Because they
trusted me.
    As I ran up the hill, the dark pay phone came into view on the white lodge
wall. I started to run at full speed. I wanted to fly to the phone.
    I hope Mom and Dad are home, I thought.
    They’ve got to be home.
    I was panting loudly as I reached the wall. I lowered my hands to my knees
and crouched there for a moment, waiting to catch my breath.
    Then I reached up to take the receiver down.
    And gasped.
    The pay phone was plastic. Just a stage prop.
    A phony.
    It was a thin sheet of molded plastic held to the wall by a nail, made to
look just like a telephone.
    It wasn’t real. It was a fake.
    They don’t want us to call out, I thought with a sudden chill.
    My heart thudding, my head spinning in bitter disappointment, I turned away
from the wall—and bumped right into Uncle Al.

 
 
15
     
     
    “Billy—what are you doing up here?” Uncle Al asked. He was wearing
baggy green camp shorts and a sleeveless white T-shirt that revealed his meaty
pink arms. He carried a brown clipboard filled with papers. “Where are you
supposed to be?”
    “I… uh… wanted to make a phone call,” I stammered, taking a step back. “I
wanted to call my parents.”
    He eyed me suspiciously and fingered his yellow mustache. “Really?”
    “Yeah. Just to say hi,” I told him. “But the phone—”
    Uncle Al followed my gaze to the plastic phone. He chuckled. “Someone put
that up as a joke,” he said, grinning at me. “Did it fool you?”
    “Yeah,” I admitted, feeling my face grow hot. I raised my eyes to his. “Where
is the real phone?”
    His grin faded. His expression turned serious. “No phone,” he replied
sharply. “Campers aren’t allowed to call out. It’s a rule, Billy.”
    “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.
    “Are you really homesick?” Uncle Al asked softly.
    I nodded.
    “Well, go write your mom and dad a long letter,” he said. “It’ll make you
feel a lot better.”
    “Okay,” I said. I didn’t think it would make me feel better. But I
wanted to get away from Uncle Al.
    He raised his clipboard and gazed at it. “Where are you supposed to be now?”
he asked.
    “Scratchball, I think,” I replied. “I didn’t feel too well, see. So I—”
    “And when is your canoe trip?” he asked, not listening to me. He flipped
through the sheets of paper on the clipboard, glancing over them quickly.
    “Canoe trip?” I hadn’t heard about any canoe trip.
    “Tomorrow,” he said, answering his