Tuesdays in the Tomb with Stine

by Nelson

Reader Beware; You’re in for a Scare!

Join us as DoubtFire ventures into the terrifying world of zombies, werewolves, egg monsters, and annoying siblings that is GOOSEBUMPS. 

Goosebumps #9 –
Welcome to Camp Nightmare

Back in the day, Welcome to Camp Nightmare was my absolute favorite book in the series. I’ve always had a fondness for camp-centered horror stories. I couldn’t really tell you if it stems from my love of Friday the 13^th movies or the Zeke the Plumber episode of Salute Your Shorts. Probably a bit of both. 

Nevertheless, I always got super excited anytime I was about to dive into a Goosebumps camp story, and there were quite a lot of them for me to dive into. But nothing, nothing ever compared to Camp Nightmare. Over twenty-five years later, it still manages to pack a punch. It takes one of the series’ trademarks, absurdly negligent parents and authority figures, and amps it up to unsettling levels. Our lead character and narrator is Billy, a kid headed off to Camp Nightmoon for the summer. He’s a bit of a rarity as far as Goosebumps narrators go. He’s the sole main character. No boy/girl duo this time out. In fairness, Billy does meet Dori and (really pretty) Dawn on the bus to camp, but they immediately head off to the girls’ camp and don’t show back up until the final act. Going forward, Billy’s got some bunkmates, but they’re just there to get bitten by snakes or beamed by fastballs before disappearing. I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

Camp Nightmoon isn’t really a haunted camp. It’s just a camp run by an insane man who insists on being called “Uncle Al” and a crew of teenaged counselors too irresponsible to get hired at Crystal Lake. In the opening chapter, the camp’s bus driver abandons the kids in the middle of the woods, and they’re nearly mauled by wolves before a gun toting Uncle Al shows up. After this, another bus shows up to pick everyone up and take them the rest of the way to camp. Uncle Al holds a big assembly and tells all the guys that the three big rules are to stay away from the girls’ camp on the other side of the lake, write home every day, and, above all else, avoid The Forbidden Bunk! With the rules laid down, Billy gets his cabin assignment. Despite the head counselor being clearly out of his mind, our hero is still eager to settle in for a summer of swimming, marshmallow roasting, and creepy stories by the fire. But that’s not the Camp Nightmoon way. About two seconds after meeting his three bunkmates, Mike, the nervous one, gets bitten by a snake, and absolutely no one but Billy cares. The boy’s bite swells up, and he gets all feverish, but Larry, the cabin’s assigned counsellor, says that there’s no nurse on site. Before long, Mike disappears. 

All of the campers in Billy’s bunk get picked off one by one. Larry KOs one with a baseball during a game of scratch ball, and, before he can recover, he and another kid go missing after an ill-fated trip to The Forbidden Bunk. Once everyone in Billy’s cabin is gone, all the counselors and Uncle Al act like they were never there in the first place, and the poor kid discovers a fresh crop of new guys settling into the bunk. Looking for answers, Billy runs to the main office to find that all of the phones are fake and that none of the campers’ letters home are actually being mailed. Then, Dori and Dawn show up to let our narrator know that they’re ready to make a break for it because Camp Nightmoon is most definitely Camp Nightmare!!

The girls wind up escaping, and the deranged Uncle Al gives all the boys guns loaded with tranquilizer darts and orders them to hunt the escapees down and bring them back. Unable to take anymore reckless insanity, Billy turns the gun on Uncle Al and pumps him full of tranquilizers. The maniac starts laughing and declares that Billy has passed the test. Then we find out that the whole thing has been an elaborate ruse to help our narrator get prepared to join his parents on a trip to a strange, unexplored land. What a relief. But, wait, there’s more. Camp Nightmare packs a double wallop right out of Rod Serling when we learn that the place Billy and his family are headed to is called Earth!

Honestly, Welcome to Camp Nightmare still holds up. There’s no other Goosebumps story quite like it. The characters aren’t being menaced by wacky witches or weird vampire zombie things; they’re just getting the hell beaten out of them. The story has this slightly sinister and dangerous quality to it, especially considering that it was written for twelve-year-olds. Maybe it’s just that liquid nostalgia pumping through my veins, but Camp Nightmare was and still is a top notch Stine story. 

I saw his features tighten in anger. I saw his eyes narrow, his copper colored eyebrows lower in concentration. 

With a loud grunt of effort, Larry heaved the ball as hard as he could.

It struck Colin in the back of the head, making a loud crack sound as it hit.