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  THERE’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN A DREAM AND A NIGHTMARE. . . .

  All the girls in Bunk 9 at Camp Minnehaha wake up one

  morning having had the same terrible nightmare about a sinister

  boy in an abandoned cabin in the woods. All the girls, that is,

  except goody-goody Samantha Harmon. The boy in Sam’s dream

  was handsome, enchanting, and so real. Even though Sam knows

  it’s against the rules to venture into the woods alone, she sets off

  in search of her dream boy—and finds him! Dennis is just like the

  boy from Sam’s dream, and he seems really into her. But all is not

  perfect. Sam’s twin sister, Ali, is jealous of Sam’s new boyfriend,

  and Dennis can be a little intense. When he says he wants to be

  together forever with his dream girl, neither Sam nor Ali realizes

  just how long forever can be. . . .

  GO TO SLEEP . . . IF YOU DARE!

  THERE ARE MORE CREEPY BOOKS AT

  YOUR FAVORITE STORE!

  LOOK INSIDE FOR

  SPOOKY ACTIVITIES

  FROM

  P. J. NIGHT

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Cover art by Aly Turner

  Ages 8-12

  CREEPOVERBOOKS.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  YOU’RE INVITED TO A CREEPOVER is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Text by Lara Bergen

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5159-9

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5160-5 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012933332

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  CHAPTER 1

  “Who-whoo! Who-whoo!”

  Jennifer Howard looked up. Was that an owl? How could it be that late already?

  She kept moving, but she could feel a nervous knot growing tighter in her throat. She knew she shouldn’t be out in the woods so late, all alone.

  And yet she couldn’t turn back. It was as if something were leading her—pulling her even—steadily down the trail, the very same one she’d hiked with her five bunkmates earlier that day. Yes, there was the fallen tree on which Sam had somehow done a whole balance beam routine. And there was the amazing giant mushroom that her twin sister, Ali, had kicked. It lay there now, bruised and broken, and for an instant made Jennifer annoyed at her bunkmate all over again.

  And then suddenly she noticed something she hadn’t seen before. Right there, where the trail veered right at the stone marker, overgrown with ferns and other twisting, gnarled weeds, another path went straight. It was much narrower than the Old Stump Trail, but there was no doubt it was a path . . . and Jennifer’s feet, at least, thought it was the path she ought to take.

  But where did it lead? The brush was so wild and dense that Jennifer could barely see where it was safe to step. Plus whatever light was left in the sky was quickly draining away. There was nothing ahead of her but eerie, ominous shadows—and soon behind her as well. She pulled out her compass to try to get her bearings. Her hands were trembling and she fought against her nerves to keep them still. She waited for the needle to steady and find its way north. It finally stopped, and she discovered north was exactly the way that the trail led.

  Hey, she thought, her mood suddenly brightening. Directly north was Camp Hiawatha, their brother camp across the lake! What if the trail was a shortcut to the boys’ camp? That would be the find of the century. Wait till she told the other girls! Now she had to keep going, she told herself, if only to see if the trail took her there.

  She picked up her pace and pushed through the branches, trying not to get too tangled or scratched in the jutting roots or dead tree limbs. At last she burst out of the woods and into a clearing. She stopped at once and looked around.

  The clearing, she could see, was about the size of a softball diamond and bathed in a misty, greenish light. The only structure was a lonely-looking, small log cabin that had to have been a hundred years old. Jennifer briefly wondered about the person who built it and why. The door dangled, cockeyed, from its hinges beneath a roof that looked ready to fall in. Of the two windows that she could see, one was broken and one was roughly boarded up. Clearly, nobody had occupied this cabin for a very long time.

  And yet it somehow didn’t seem empty.

  Jennifer took a half step toward the cabin.

  Then paused. Something didn’t feel right.

  Her blood felt cold all of a sudden, as if her heart had turned to ice. I shouldn’t go any farther, she told herself, backing up, and before she knew it she was running away. But wait! She slid to a halt and her head whipped around in search of the path. All she could see was a solid black wall of trees.

  The trail had disappeared.

  Plus it was fully night now, she realized. Way too dark to see into the woods. The clearing was somehow still glowing, but all around it there was nothing but shadows and the dark spaces between the trees. Jennifer could only imagine what was in there, watching her. One step in the wrong direction could mean getting lost, or injured, or worse. And who knew how long it would be until someone found her. It could be too late by the time they did.

  Okay. No problem, Jennifer thought, holding up her compass and trying her best to keep her head. South. That was all she needed to know. But when she looked down, the needle was spinning. She guessed it was just her trembling hands. But no. Her hands weren’t shaking any worse than before. In fact they were still, she realized. The needle was spinning all by itself.

  Anxious, she tapped the side of the compass, but that didn’t seem to help. She gave it a shake and willed it to stop already and do what it needed to do. But the harder she stared at the needle, the faster and faster it turned. Jennifer listened and could even hear it making a tiny, frantic whirr.

  Now her hands were trembling. Her whole body was, in fact.

  “Who-whoo.”

  Startled, she jumped. Then she closed her eyes and caught her breath. It was the owl from the trail.

  “Whooo.”

  Or was it?

  She slowly turned back toward the cabin, not sure if her ears were playing tricks. Could it be that the call was coming from it?

  “He-hello?” she softly called. She took another step into the clearing, and this time she didn’t stop. There wasn’t just something in the cabin. There was someone. Maybe that someone could help her find her way back to camp!

  “Hello?” she called again as she reached the door. She listened, but there was no answer. She waited and almost knocked. But then she noticed the broken window there right beside her. What if she simply peeked in? She leaned over. What remained of the glass
was too caked with dirt and grime to actually see through. But the jagged hole would work, she guessed. She leaned in closer and peered through.

  Was it?

  Yes, it was!

  There was a person sitting in there with his back to her and a hooded sweatshirt pulled down low over his head. It was a boy. At least she thought so, but she wasn’t completely sure. . . .

  That is until he pulled the sweatshirt back and slowly turned.

  His face was pale and boyishly handsome, but it was his eyes—or lack of them, really—that Jennifer saw first. Where his eyes should have been, there were laserlike beams of greenish light. They shot straight toward her, and she shrank back. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. Her blood, her lungs, her whole body felt numb.

  Run! she tried to tell herself.

  But she was too terrified to move.

  Finally she managed to scramble away from the window, not knowing or caring which way she went. It didn’t matter to her anymore what might be lurking out in the dark woods. She needed to get out of that clearing, she knew, as fast as she possibly could. But she’d barely run ten yards when she felt a sharp tug on the back of her shirt.

  She stumbled back, afraid to turn, but she could feel a laserlike burn on the back of her head.

  “Don’t ever come back,” said a low, haunting voice in her ear.

  And that’s when the scream finally spilled out of her throat.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Ayghyhhh!!”

  Jennifer Howard woke up in a cold sweat and frantically looked around. It took a good minute for her heart to stop racing and for her eyes to assure her that, yes, she was fine and perfectly safe in her cozy wooden cot in Bunk 9.

  “Are you okay?” Megan Daugherty called down from the bunk above. She leaned over the side, and her long hair dangled like a blond curtain near Jennifer’s face.

  “Don’t tell me you had a nightmare too!” said Georgia Mallory, hopping out of her own bunk and plopping down on Jennifer’s cot, right on her legs.

  “Ow! Did I ever!” Jennifer answered. “I’m sorry if I woke you guys up. It was just so scary—and it seemed so real!” She covered her face with her hot-pink polka-dotted sheet. “I don’t even want to talk about it!”

  “Let me guess,” said Georgia. “It all started with you hiking, all la-di-da, down the Old Stump Trail. And then you came to this other little overgrown trail and took it.”

  “Yeah.” Jennifer lowered her covers a few inches to just below her nose. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Then did you come to this creepy clearing?” said Megan.

  “And was there a cabin?” Stefi Simon added. She was up in the bunk above Georgia’s with Bingo, her floppy stuffed black-and-white puppy, held tightly to her chest. “And a super, I mean super, creepy dude inside—with these freaky glowing eyes?”

  Jennifer stared at them all, her mouth open. “I don’t get it! How do you know what I dreamed? Was I talking in my sleep?”

  Georgia grinned and shook her head, which was covered in thick dark curls. “Unh-unh. You’re not going to believe this, but we all had the same nightmare! Exactly!” she said.

  Jennifer gasped. “No way . . .” She looked from Georgia to Megan to Stefi. They pretended to shiver and nodded back.

  Stefi crossed her heart and Bingo’s. “Yep. We totally did. We swear.”

  “Wow.” It took a few seconds for the crazy idea to sink in. “What do you think it means?” Jennifer asked at last.

  Megan shrugged along with Stefi. “I don’t know. Did he tell you, ‘Don’t ever come back’? As far as I’m concerned, that works for me!” she said.

  “No problemo!” said Jennifer, nodding. “I don’t care how many demerits Gwen gives us. I’m never hiking around there again!”

  “Well, luckily, I don’t think we have to worry since we go home in a few days anyway,” Georgia said. “Hey, maybe it’s some kind of supernatural ‘so long’ joke from good old Minne haha. What do you think?”

  “I think if it is, she has a terrible sense of humor!” Jennifer said.

  “Aghhhh! Let me go!”

  “Hey, it’s Ali!” Stefi exclaimed, waving Bingo.

  The girls all turned to the farthest bunk, where Ali Harmon, a redheaded girl in green striped pajamas was fitfully rocking from side to side.

  “Should I go wake her up?” Jennifer asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Georgia replied, wincing.

  “Yeah.” Stefi nodded. “You know how much she hates that.”

  Jennifer nodded. By now they all knew—all too well. Getting Ali up in the morning was like getting a chicken to lay an egg. She got up when she was good and ready, no matter how many hands-on-hips or demerits she got from their counselor, Gwen.

  “But look at her,” said Jennifer. Ali was thrashing now and yelling something they couldn’t quite make out. “I have to,” she said as she hopped out of bed.

  “Good luck!” Megan called down.

  Jennifer reached Ali and shook her shoulder. “Ali! Wake up! It’s okay! You were just having a nightmare. You’re perfectly safe.”

  Ali whimpered and stopped tossing, but her eyes stayed tightly shut.

  “It was just a dream,” Jennifer went on. “Don’t worry, Ali. You’re fine. Were you in the woods, and was a boy chasing you? Did he live in an old cabin and have glowing eyes? If that was your dream, then guess what? We all had the same nightmare last night!”

  “Huh?” Ali finally squinted up at her, though she still looked ninety-nine percent asleep. “What time is it?” she muttered groggily.

  “I don’t know,” Jennifer said. There was no clock or TV or anything else in their cabin that might tell them the time. Even their cell phones were off and wedged deep in their trunks. It was one of many Camp Minnehaha rules. Jennifer guessed. “Maybe seven o’clock?”

  “Ugh.” Ali yanked her covers up over her chin and flipped onto her side. “Then I’m going back to sleep. We don’t even have to be up yet. Why’d you have to wake me?”

  “You’re going back to sleep?” Megan slid down off her bunk now. “Ali! How can you even close your eyes? Aren’t you afraid that awful dream might come back?” she asked.

  “No,” Ali groaned. It was one dumb dream. She’d seen scary movies and read scary stories that were a whole lot worse.

  “And you don’t think it’s weird that we all had the same one?” Stefi went on.

  Ali eyed her over her shoulder. “No. Actually, what I think is weird is that you still sleep with a doll.”

  “It’s a dog,” Stefi quietly corrected her. “And his name is Bingo.” She kissed his head.

  “Oh, let her go back to sleep,” said Georgia with a weary wave of her hand. After four weeks in the same cabin at Camp Minnehaha, they were all used to Ali’s moods and tried to avoid them as best they could. Mornings were the worst, but some afternoons and evenings were just as bad. Honestly, they didn’t know how Ali’s twin sister, Sam, could stand living with her year-round.

  “Hey, so did Sam have the same dream too?” Jennifer asked Georgia. She scratched a bugbite on her knee.

  “I don’t know,” Georgia replied. She pointed to the neatly made bunk above Ali’s. “As usual, she was already gone by the time I got up.”

  That was something else Bunk 9 was used to: Sam’s waking up with the sun. She was always up and out of the cabin long before anyone else. If she wasn’t raising the flag, she was there to salute it first thing. Then sometimes she’d do yoga with the counselors, or help with breakfast in the mess hall. And she didn’t stop there. She kept going all day. None of them had ever known someone so full of energy and eager to try anything and everything.

  “You didn’t hear Sam cry out or anything, did you, Ali?” Megan asked.

  “Earth to Megan, can’t you see I’m sleeping?” Ali grumbled. “Or at least I was. Will you please leave me alone?”

  “Whatever,” huffed Megan. “Come on, guys, let’s get dressed and go e
at.”

  “Sounds good. Hey, has anyone seen my toothbrush?” Georgia asked as she grabbed her plastic bathroom tote.

  Ali lay there with her eyes clamped shut, tired, but still tense from her dream. And though she never would admit it to the other girls in her cabin, she actually was curious about what a shared nightmare might mean. Four weeks ago, in fact, it might have actually gotten her out of her bunk and sent her off to join the other girls. And there was a part of her still that wanted to—it just wasn’t strong enough. It was too late for that, she’d decided. And besides, the girls weren’t her friends; they were her sister Sam’s friends. Ali had given up on making friends at camp, just like she’d given up back at school. That was the thing about being Sam Harmon’s sister: There was simply no way on earth to compete with her. Nothing Ali said or did mattered, it seemed, when Sam was around. She got all the attention all the time, and Ali was used to it by now. She couldn’t remember a time, in fact, when Sam didn’t outshine her and make her feel small. There was only one way in which Ali stood out, and that was the birthmark on the side of her chin. It was like a sign that said SAM’S PERFECT, BUT POOR ALI’S A BIG MESS. Sure, people said they didn’t even notice it, but how could they not? Especially at camp, where they were always doing something active and she had to throw her hair up into a ponytail every day. The mark was the size and shape of a prune and the color of a bruise dipped in blood. It was all Ali saw when she looked in the mirror, and all she didn’t see when she looked at Sam. And she was sure it gave all the girls in the camp plenty to laugh about behind her back.

  CHAPTER 3

  By the time Ali got to the mess hall that morning, most of the camp had been there for a while. The long tables were just starting to empty, but the smell of bacon was still strong. This was where the girls ate all their meals, unless they had a cookout by the campfire or took their lunch on a hike. It wasn’t too different from Ali’s school cafeteria, except that everything—the tables and chairs, the floor, the walls—was made of wood. And just like her school cafeteria, it was a chamber of torture for her.