This month in Gothic Bite Magazine, I give you one of the Goosebumps Books on the list with number eight, Welcome To Camp Nightmare.

Original 1993 Summary

The food isn’t great. The counselors are a little strange. And the camp director, Uncle Al, seems sort of demented. Okay, so Billy can handle all that. But then his fellow campers start to disappear.

What’s going on? Why won’t his parents answer his letters? What’s lurking out there after dark? Camp Nightmoon is turning into Camp Nightmare. For real. And Billy might be next…

A Monster Mask Surprise

We enter this world through the eyes of Billy, our 12 year old, who is making his way to camp for the first time. On a bus with eighteen other boys and 4 girls, the boys are all set for the Camp Nightmoon while the girls are heading in a different direction.

As the story moves forward the kids get their first taste of fear when the bus driver springs quite a nasty surprise with a monster mask. They have made it to what seems to be the stopping point for the bus.

Just Where Are We?

Billy gets his chance to start learning more about the kids that are on their way to their summer vacations as well.  He learns from the girls, Dawn and Dori, that there are two versions of Camp Nightmoon, one meant for boys and one for the girls.

As they get their stuff situated at what seems to be a wait station, Billy gets quite the scare when the bus takes off, and the driver without a word leaves the kids there.

Soon the kids are surrounded by what seem to be demented prairie dogs and all hope seems lost until a gunshot by Uncle Al scares them away and the kids get their true introduction to Camp Nightmare.

The girls get dropped off first at their camp and the boy get unloaded and sent to their cabins. From there it is a worst case scenario of lame camp consular, snake bites, bears. The weird part is everyone keeps making weird statements, emphasizing that this camp is different.

Very different. In the night there are shrieks coming from a Forbidden bunk and something really bad is looming over the camp. 

Both camps it turns out, the girls are experiences the same weird instances at their camps and when there are multiple disappearances of campers just gone, they band together for better or worse to figure out what is
after them.

Conclusion

As a Sci-Fi nerd this one made me really happy with the twist ending. It is definitely not one you foresee coming unless by chance you are a fan of the Predator series.

Then it gives you a few chuckles. Overall I loved this one over a reread and it was an enjoyably unpredictable tale.  Horror mixed with a dash of Science Fiction, a perfect mix. Enjoy Boils and Ghouls and see you
next time!

Kendra Hale