Summer Camp for Corpses E-Book

Arthur Leo Zagat

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Wonder Stories
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 54

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In Summer Camp for Corpses, Arthur Leo Zagat delivers a spine-chilling tale where what begins as a fun summer getaway turns into a nightmare of unimaginable terror. A group of unsuspecting campers finds themselves trapped in an eerie camp where the dead walk among the living. As night falls and the shadows grow longer, dark forces begin to emerge, turning the idyllic setting into a horrifying battleground. The campers must band together to uncover the twisted secret behind the camp and find a way to survive the night. This gripping, fast-paced story will keep readers on the edge of their seats, perfect for fans of thrilling horror and supernatural adventures.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Summer Camp for Corpses

I. — THE GIGGLING FIEND

II. — WHITE DEATH-FLAME

III. — "I'LL SHOW YOU—DEATH!"

IV. — THE DEVIL WINS A BOUT

V. — THE SHINING MONSTER

VI. — EVIL GENIUS

Landmarks

Table of Contents

Cover

Summer Camp for Corpses

Wonder Stories

By: Arthur Leo Zagat

Edited by: Rafat Allam

Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq Bookstore

First published in Horror Stories, Jun/Jul 1939

No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

Horror Stories, Jun/Jul 1939, with "Summer Camp for Corpses"

When little Nan Redloe told about that grinning, luminous face she had seen in the night, everyone laughed at her—but no one laughed when the thing struck; when the neat environs of Camp Orinol were turned into a shambles of blood and horror!

I. — THE GIGGLING FIEND

NAN REDLOE was the only girl in the male world of Camp Orinol. The flaming red top of her pert head came exactly three inches below the broad shoulders of John Corbett, youthful but hulking Head Councilor, Director and sole owner of the camp. He could have spanned her waist with his great hands—and would have gotten soundly slapped if he'd tried it.

The campers called her "Tiny." From eight-year-old Bantams to Seniors of sixteen they cussed her—and adored her. Tiny had fought her way up out of the squalid poverty of Tenth Avenue. She had won her nurse's cap the hard way, and it had left its mark upon her.

When a boy went to the infirmary with a bruise or a cut finger, he whimpered only till he saw the contempt in Tiny's cool grey eyes. But when a fellow really was sick, when he was burning up with fever, when his throat was dry and rasping, no hands could be more deft and tender than Tiny's, no voice more comforting.

She wasn't literally the only female there. A hundred yards from her infirmary, across the clearing behind the pine grove that screened it from Orinol's main precincts, was the big camp laundry. Here Meg Fulton, hairy-chinned and deep-voiced, presided over her two heavy-bodied, red-handed helpers. Pearl and Jennie lived in the long, low-roofed building where they worked. Meg ate there with them, but, for the sake of the proprieties, shared Nan's bedroom in the little hospital.

The three laundresses, however, were never in evidence. Tiny, on the other hand, was always around, in her green shorts and scarlet jersey. Unless some bedridden patient required her presence in the infirmary, she ate at the director's table. A pigmy among giants, she stowed away as much grub as any, and found time between bites to hand out sharp-tongued banter with the best.

This August evening, however, she wasn't grinning. She hadn't said a word since hurrying into Mess Hall five minutes late. But "Pop" Hamlin, seamed and leathery senior councilor who had been connected with the camp longer than anyone there could remember, was the only one who took notice of her distraction.

"Oh, Nan," he called softly. "What's troubling you? You look as glum as Typo Marx after someone's forgotten to turn in a ping-pong bat, or something serious like that."

Marx, the slim bespectacled youth who ran the office and acted as bookkeeper flushed. "If I didn't keep track of equipment," he said hotly, "you wouldn't have enough left to run camp on two weeks after opening day. Now, if I could get some co-op..." The rest was muffled by Corbett's big palm.

"Come on, wench," the latter grinned at Nan. "Pop's right. Give."

Tiny didn't look up from her plate. "It's nothing." There was an odd tightening in her voice. "At least... Oh, I couldn't really have seen it."

"YOU couldn't have seen what?" Pop Hamlin prompted. "Don't brood, kitten." Officially, Hamlin was in charge of Science and Nature Study; unofficially he was father confessor to the campers, and to the husky young athletes who were Orinol's junior councilors. "Get it off your chest and you'll feel better."

"But—" Nan hesitated, and now the tension that held her was clearly evident. "But I'm not sure—"

"I want to hear what you saw, Nan." Corbett spoke quietly but there was command in his low voice. "Out with it."

Nan's hands twisted. Deep in her eyes was crawling something very like fear, and that was altogether out of character for Tiny. "Skip it," she pleaded. "Please, John."

"Sorry," the head councilor said, "I can't." He stood four inches over six feet and he was built so beautifully in proportion that one didn't realize it. "If you've seen anything even a little out of the way around the place, I've got to know about it. I'm responsible for the health and safety of a lot of youngsters here, and so are you. Understand?"

"I—I understand," Tiny half-whispered. She glanced around almost furtively. The two rows of tables, one to each six campers with a junior councilor at the head, ran away down the wide, rafter-beamed tunnel of the Mess Hall, but the nearest was well out of earshot, especially in the din made by ninety-odd feeding males. "All right, John. I'll tell you."

"Do that, please."

A tiny muscle twitched in the girl's freckled cheek. "You know how dark it gets in among the pines between the infirmary and the campus, along about sundown, don't you?

"Well, I got washed up for supper pretty quick and decided to look around in there for an arrow which I'd overshot the archery target this afternoon. I was off the path, kicking around in the underbrush, when I thought I heard someone else doing the same thing. There shouldn't be anyone else around just at that time, so I stopped kicking, peered around. But the instant I'd stopped, the other noise stopped, too."

"You'd heard some trick echo," Typo Marx suggested.

"The bugle blew," Tiny ignored the interruption, "and I turned again to go back to the path and come on down. I heard a giggle behind me."

Her breath pulled in between her lips, sharply. The men at the table were looking at her now, and they were all motionless. It wasn't what she was saying that held them, it was something in her face. In her voice.