Camoflunks - S1 - Issue 2: Doom?

Early the next morning, Mark drags Rod out of bed to accompany him to arrange for weapons and vehicles needed for the battle. Eventually they reach a large shed with a sign that reads, "Supply Depot".

"Wait here," says Mark, as he steps inside the "Supply Depot".

Rod leans against the wall and says, "Fine."

Mark had explained on the way over to there, before every battle, the leaders of the competing teams have to "rent" equipment for their team to use with the camp "money" the teams have earned by doing chores like: cleaning the outhouses, mopping the cafeteria or collecting acorns, pine cones and sticks. The money is referred to as "camo-bucks" which Coach designed himself.

After a few minutes, Mark comes back out and says "Well, we're all set."

"Where's the stuff?"

"What did you expect? That we were going to carry it all? No, we'll grab it on the way to the battle."

"Oh...okay."

Rod, Mark and everyone else begin getting suited up in padded camouflage jumpsuits, combat boots, goggles and helmets. Each jumpsuit has a red band on both arms. A backpack filled with miscellaneous gear for each of them sits along the wall by the door. As Rod is finishing changing, some kid, struggling to get his other boot on with one hand, bumps into Rod.

"Watch it..."

Looking up, Rod swallows the insult he was about ready to loose, as he realizes that the shorter kid standing in front of him, with short and curly brown hair, blue eyes, glasses and a mole on the right side of his nose, is Leonard Skinner, Rod's friend since preschool.

"Leo!?"

"What?"

"They tricked you into coming here too?"

"Yeah I'm here, not that anyone tricked me into anything. Didn't you see me yesterday?"

"Um, no."

"When you and Mark went through the cafeteria, I waved at you."

"Well I wasn't paying attention."

Then with a stern face, Leo says "That's 'cause you have the attention span of a squirrel."

After an awkward moment of silence, they simultaneously burst into laughter. After they regain their composure, they notice that everyone else had left while they were busy chatting. Scrambling, they get the remaining parts of their uniforms on and run out the door.

As they're running, Leo asks Rod, "You got tricked into coming here?"

Rod slows a bit so Leo can keep up and replies, "Yeah, my parents told me it was a summer-camp, they conveniently forgot to add the 'boot' before 'camp'... You wanted to come here?!"

Leo gets an embarrassed look on his face and shrugs.




When they catch up, they get into the line forming in front of the Supply Depot and when they get up to the window-counter, Coach hands Rod what appears to be a large gun made out of pvc piping, tin cans and duct tape, with a large barrel and a spring-loaded plunger, while Leo gets a little hand gun, made of much the same stuff. They follow everyone else to the gate at the back of camp labeled "Battlefield", which leads into the fenced off twenty acres in which no one besides the participants is allowed during these events.

As everyone files in, Mark closes the gate, picks up a box sitting on the ground and opens it. Inside is an envelope and a red flag on a two foot pole.  He hands the flag off to the kid standing next to him and pulls a letter out of the envelope, after setting down the box, and reads it so everyone can hear.

"The red team bases today are: Hill Bunker, Port Island and The Bridge."

Everyone follows Mark down the path through the trees to a fork, where they turn left. While they're walking, Rod silently counts how many of them there are on the team, there are twenty kids per cabin and there are four cabins in each group, which means there are eighty people on each team! While they're walking, a guy about Mark's age walks up behind Rod and says "Hello!"

Rod nearly jumps out of his skin and turns around to look at the guy. He's gangly and abnormally pale, has greasy-black hair and gray, shifty eyes. Rod asks "Who are you, and could you not sneak up on me like that?"

Mark says "Rod, meet Shawn of red cabin three, he's the Doc's son."

Shawn grabs Rods hand and shakes his hand so hard, Rod is surprised that his arm doesn't pop off and says "Glad to make your acquaintance."

"I can tell." Rod mutters quietly to himself.

Eventually they get to another fork, there's a sign with two arrows, one pointing left and the other, right. Mark divides the team and sends one quarter down the right path, the arrow says "Port Island", while he leads the rest, down the left path, its arrow says "Hill Bunker."

They arrive at a hill with a bunker made of concrete bricks built in it, with the bunker's ends extending out past the hill itself and a wooden watchtower on top. The bunker has two heavy wooden doors, one at each end, and narrow windows.

Mark directs another twenty of the team to continue on the path past the bunker to hold the bridge and has everyone else load their weapons. In everyone's backpack there is a box of two hundred acorns, a snorkel, thirty pine cones with twigs stuck in the bottoms and a paint-fume mask. The acorns, Rod knows, are ammo, but he has no idea what the pine cones are for. He picks one up and turns it in his hands, trying to figure out what they are supposed to do and jumps when Mark tells him to be careful with it.

Rod asks "Why?"

"The pine cones are grenades."

"What!" Rod exclaims, and nearly drops the one he's holding.

Mark explains, "There are three types of them and everyone has ten of each. One is an itching-powder-bomb with a effect radius of five feet, which we call the 'Gnat swarm'. The second is a stink-bomb that effects a radius of ten feet and smells so bad you'll want to puke, we call that the 'Stink bug'. The last is a smoke bomb with a radius of five feet, that we jokingly refer to as 'Smoky bears'. "

"Besides the grenades there's also an itching-powder land mine call the 'Snake in the grass' which is basically two pieces of bark tied together with a detonator in between, and the subs carry dry-ice torpedoes called the 'Walrus' that has a blast radius of five feet and is made out of plastic bottles, all the explosives have only enough explosive material to go off and not enough to injure someone though they go off when they hit something and in the case of the grenades, they will also explode three seconds after you pull the pin. Try not to drop them please."

Rod says "Got it."

Just before he puts it back in his pack, Mark says, "Don't put it back."

Rod asks "Why?"

"Because the gun you have is a Badger V.42, which is a grenade launcher. It can lob one of those bad boys, fifty, a hundred or one-hundred and fifty feet, depending on how far you pull the plunger back. So you'll want to keep a grenade on hand."

"Sweet!"

"And Leo, your gun is a Squirrel V.52, it holds twenty rounds and has a range of sixty feet."

Leo asks, "What's your gun?"

"Mine is an Eagle eye V.10, it holds sixty rounds and has a one-hundred yard range." Mark says, hefting a sort-of rifle.

"Cool." Leo exclaims.

Mark goes on to tell them about the other weapons and the vehicles as fast as possible.

A large gun made from an old gas can and a plastic milk jug, with a wooden tripod attached to the bottom known as "The Beehive V.85" is a crank-operated rapid fire weapon that holds one-hundred rounds at a time and can fire up to seventy feet away.

Last of them is "The Scorpion V.3", a wooden crossbow that fires sticks, it has a range of thirty feet. Good for stealth because of how quiet it is.

As far as vehicles go, there are tanks known as the "Grizzly V.2" made from ride-on lawn mowers that have a large metal framed cube exterior and they're armed with a grenade launcher on the front and a machine gun turret on top. Its top speed is five miles per hour.

There are four wheeler's, which go thirty miles per hour.

There are motorboats, with platforms built on that have a grenade launcher turret mounted on them. They also have two machine guns on each side of the boat itself. All of which, makes the boats look like miniature battleships. Top speed is about twenty miles per hour.

There's an ultralight plane that can drop grenades and has a machine gun attached to the bottom. Top speed is thirty-seven miles per hour and the highest it can go is one-hundred and fifty feet.

There is a small unarmed helicopter that can go as fast and as high as the plane.

Finally there is the mini submarine, that Mark mentioned earlier, which fires Walrus torpedoes thirty feet through the water. The mini-subs top speed is seven miles per hour.

All the vehicles are only ever fueled up enough to go as far as one and a half miles and are designed by Doc, so that when hit in the right place or when explosions vibrate them enough, their engines will cut out and can't be started back up again, until Doc Otto resets them.

Though with the plane and chopper their engines won't die until five minutes after they've been hit, so that whoever's flying one of them has enough time to land, and on the plane the controls for the weapons lock.

Mark finishes summarizing, then stands up and says "Alright, twenty of you stay here and the rest, come with me. Let's go!"

Rod and Leo decide the safest place to be is probably with Mark, so they go with him. They continue down the path and go across the bridge.  As they walk along a stretch of the path, near the fence, Rod looks through the trees and sees, a little under half a mile away, across a field, a construction site. He asks Mark, "What do you think they're building over there?"

Mark replies, "Who knows?"

Eventually they approach a more heavily forested area, Mark crouches and everyone else does the same. They forgo the path and start moving through the bushes, as they get closer, they see movement, an enemy soldier with green arm bands. They're facing the Green Cabins.

The green team member patrols back and forth. As they move in, Rod prays that he doesn't see them before they get there. Suddenly, a stick flies out of the bushes from a crossbow and hits the Green in the back and he falls to the ground, feigning death.

One of their own comes out from the bush, reloading his crossbow. Everyone gets to their feet and they quietly rush in, while from the tree house above, that Rod didn't notice, a hail of fire suddenly rains down on them from a sentry with a Beehive.

Everyone ducks while Mark takes a shot at him. Two shots. The third time is the charm, everyone runs for it. Up ahead there are shouts from the enemy, now that they are alerted to the Red's presence. They emerge from the trees, into a solid wall of fire from the Greens. All around there are people from both sides falling to the ground and faking death as the Red team charges in.

One of the others tosses a Smoky, since Rod can hardly see a thing, he ducks behind a tree, Leo soon joins him. When things clear up, the enemy troops are all laying on the ground.

They get to the pier, where a boat carrying red team reinforcements arrives. Mark says "Alright boys, six of you stay here. The rest go back to hold the tree house. You, you and you come with me."

Rod and Leo stay to defend the pier, while some of them run off to the tree house. Mark, plus three others, rushes deeper into enemy lines. Minutes pass before anything happens, finally they see a tank rolling by in the distance, heading toward the tree house and the bridge. Two of their comrades run off to intercept it, one of them is Shawn, who shouts, "Leerooooy, Jenkiiiiiins!"

While the others are shouting at them to come back, Leo, looking out over the water, gets Rod to turn around just in time to duck for cover as a sub surfaces and the hatch is opened by a Green, wielding a grenade launcher, who dispatches everyone else on shore, before Leo shoots him. As that guy is being pulled out of the way, Rod and Leo run for the boat, when they get there they drop their weapons and take control of the ships turrets. Leo belts the sub with the Beehive, which doesn't do much good, then Rod uses the Badger cannon.

The grenade goes off in the water and the sub starts to sink. After a bit, the Greens from the sub drift to the surface, wearing life jackets. Once they've caught their breath, they pretend they're dead, just floating in the water.

Soon, Mark and one other guy run back, Mark holds the Green team's flag. Suddenly, an explosion goes off under the other guy, a landmine, but Mark just keeps on running, leaving the other guy on the ground behind him, scratching.

Mark asks "What happened here?"

Rod explains "That weirdo Shawn, and some other guy, ran off to chase a tank, then a sub surfaced behind us!"

"Drat! *Sighs* Oh well, let's get out of here!"

Mark starts the boat and they race across the lake. When they get to Port Island, Mark cuts the engine and they jump onto the dock and run across the bridge that connects the island to the shore and then through the trees to get to Hill Bunker. But when they get there, the tank they saw before is there, along with a half dozen Green foot-soldiers with Jeffrey Harty leading.

From their hiding place they watch as Jeff says something into a walkie-talkie, but there's so much noise they can't hear what he's saying. Mark mutters softly, "What are you doing, Jeff? What are you planning?"

From the sky they hear a buzzing, then a plane passes over. Suddenly, Rod says, "Here goes nothing!" and blasts the tank with a grenade as he and Leo charge in. Mark hurries after them, growling under his breath, "You dummies!"

Jeffrey sees them coming and ducks behind the dead tank. He pulls out a smoke grenade and pulls the pin, while saying into his walkie-talkie, "Look for the smoke!" then tosses the grenade to the other side and ducks back down.

The grenade lands and spews a cloud of smoke. Mark sees it and says "Jeff, you clever jerk."

Then the plane that passed over a minute ago swoops in and drops a bunch of bombs where the smoke is, right were Mark, Rod and Leo have taken cover.

The dust settles to reveal the three of them on the ground scratching all over. Jeffrey tosses a Stink Bug into the bunker. While everyone inside pretends to be gassed (which isn't hard, considering the smell,) the Greens put on their paint fume masks and rush in, in a matter of moments, Jeff and the rest of his men emerge with the red flag.

Jeffrey talks into his walkie-talkie and then waits. Soon a chopper touches down and the two remaining greens hop on. Jeff walks to where Mark, Rod and Leo are still itching like there's no tomorrow. He stoops down and takes back the green flag and says apologetically, "Sorry Mark, maybe next time."

Jeff jogs over to the chopper, hopping in the last seat and waves as it takes off.

Back at Red Cabin One, everyone changes back into their normal clothes and/or uses a spray bottle on any itchy spots, as Mark had explained, the itching powder doesn't work when wet.

"Now that's what I like to see." says a voice from outside of one of the screened windows.

Looking outside Rod sees a guy wearing jeans, a leather jacket and a blue fedora, chewing a toothpick. He has dark-brown hair, copper colored eyes and a five o'clock shadow, all in all, the guy looks and sounds like a character from a gangster movie.

"What do you want Mo?" Mark responds.

"I wanted to see the winners!" Mo says in a snide fashion.

"You wanna see them, go to the Green Cabins."

"Awww. You didn't win? Such a shame." Mo says sarcastically and walks away, chuckling.

"What was that about?" Leo asks.

Mark says, "Me and Mo have had a bit of a rivalry going on, pretty much ever since the two of us met."

"Why?" Leo asks.

"I'd rather not talk about it." Mark says, as he throws a dart over his shoulder, which lands dead center on the target attached to the wall... fifteen feet behind him.

That night, while everyone sleeps, Shawn stands by the edge of the fence, staring worriedly at the construction site, after a bit, he announces to no one in particular, "Doom."

Camoflunks - S1 - Issue 1: Boot Camp

Camp Adanarg.

Rod takes note of the fact that the “g” in Adanarg is slightly crooked. Of course, it doesn’t help that the letters seem to be simply glued to the moldy wooden sign hanging over the camp’s gate. Behind him, there's a pneumatic hiss from the bus that brought him there as it begins to drive off.

He watches it go until it is out of sight, then breathes a frustrated sigh as he turns his attention back to the termite nest of a sign and mutters, "Well Dummy, this is what you get when you tell your parents you want something to do over the summer." He shakes his head in self pity and makes his way toward the manager’s cabin.

Rod is thirteen, with longish red hair and green eyes. He is thin, but not unhealthily so. He is left handed and short, not that it matters much to Rod. Back at school, he was often teased about his height, at least whenever his friend Leo wasn't around. Leo is his best friend and about four-foot one, whereas Rod is four-foot eight.

As he steps into the manager’s cabin, he starts to think he is in the wrong place. Each thing he notices has absolutely nothing to do with what he saw before. One wall is covered with all sorts of Red Sox memorabilia, from posters to foam fingers to empty popcorn bins.

The next wall has what seems to be a map of the camp which has military tactical maneuvers scrawled all over. Last but not least is a closet door in one corner with a sign hanging on the knob that reads "DO NOT FEED THE LEOPARD!"

Just as he finishes taking all of this in, he notices a guy who could pass as a teenage version of any hot shot pilot from an 80’s movie or TV show, except for the green plaid shirt, overalls and work boots. Rod can't tell if the guy is a lumberjack, a farmer or just trying to make a fashion statement.

Rod turns around creeps to the door, hoping that he won't be noticed, so he could try hitch-hiking back home.

The guy gets up from behind a camouflage-painted plywood desk and asks if he can help him with something.

Rod sighs and turns to face the guy.
"Yeah, I just got here and I wanna know where I'm gonna be staying."

The guy, whose name tag says "Jeffrey Harty", grabs a clipboard off a nail on the wall and asks, "Name?"

"Rod Thomson."

"R-o-d T-h-o-m-p-s-o-n, right?"

"There's no ‘p’."

"Really?"

"Last time I checked, yeah."

Jeffrey quickly scratches out the “p” and says, "Cutting it a little close, aren't we? Any later and you would've been locked out!"

"Missed the earlier bus and then this one broke down on the way here."

"Again?! Sheesh, when are they gonna replace that thing? Oh, and red cabin one."

"What? Oh, red cabin one, got it." Just before Rod goes out the door he stops to ask, "Which way?"

"Left at the graffitied outhouse...I think."

"Um...okaay."

Behind the manager’s cabin, he finds a dozen outhouses scattered around. Lo and behold, the second furthest one has graffiti scratched all over it. The most notable messages being: "U mad bro," "Kilroy was here" and "WARNING Radiation Hazard!"

To the left of it and about a hundred feet away, stand cabins one, two, three, and four each with a red roof and door. He makes his way over to cabin one, up the wooden stairs and steps inside the door to find only one person inside, an African-American guy about as old as Jeffrey, with short spiky hair and brown eyes, wearing black denim jeans, a red t-shirt and sneakers.

"Name's Sanders, Mark Sanders," he says while throwing a dart at the target hanging on the wall and hitting the bull’s-eye. Not taking his eyes away from the target, Mark asks, "You new?"

"No, I'm thirteen!" Rod says sarcastically, grinning like a fool.

"Good! A sense of humor!",  the 16 year-old says. "You got a name, new guy?"

Rod smugly replies, "Thomson, Rod Thomson."

Turning around, Mark says, "Well, Thomson, guess I ought'a give ya the grand tour."

Dropping his things by an empty bunk, Rod follows him out the door.

Mark tells him about how the cabins are separated into 4 groups of 4: red, blue, yellow and green. Each group has an appointed leader, who is 15 or older.  Mark, as it turns out, is the red leader. The blue leader is Mo Pellagrini, Mark’s rival. The yellow leader is Joe Spivy and the green leader is Jeffrey Harty, from the manager’s cabin.

He shows Rod the baseball field, the cafeteria and the nurse’s office, where Rod meets the nurse's assistant, Mo's younger sister, Maggie. Maggie is pretty, not the stereotypical sort of prettiness generally attributed to nurses or their assistants, but pretty, nonetheless. At first glance, you'd think she's the depressed goth type: purple hair, indigo eyes, pale complexion, silver lipstick, a purple and black striped long sleeve shirt, gray short skirt, dark red leg warmers and high-heeled boots. Her behavior, however, says otherwise. She is constantly smiling and when she walks, it's more like she's half walking, half skipping.

Mark said, "Hey Maggie, where's your mom?"

"She's at a doctor's appointment... health problems, you know."

"Sorry to hear about that."

"Oh, don't worry. Her doctor just has her going on a diet and needs to check up on her every so often." Maggie says, waving her hand in a reassuring manner.

"Glad to hear it. For a moment I was worried it was something more, serious."

"Na' she's fine."
She steps in front of Rod and leans in so her face is inches from his and asks, "So, what’s your name, honey?"

At that moment, Rod’s face turns red as a tomato and the only thought in his head is "Name? What name?"

Thankfully, his mouth remembers for him, "R-Rod T-T-Thomson."

Maggie’s smile grows wider and Rod’s face redder.

"Well, it's nice to meet ya, Rod."

Then Mark asks, "Uh, Maggs, do you know where Coach is?"

Straightening, she says, "Probably down by the lake."

"Thanks! C'mon, Rod."

Before Mark closes the door, he sticks his head back in says, "By the way, I'm sorry I missed your birthday party yesterday.  How old are you now?"

"It's ok, Mark, honey. I'm 16."

"Hey, you’re as old as your brother."

"Only ‘til his next birthday, you know. Thanks for remembering, though."

Outside, Rod is coming back to reality and asks, "Why did she call me ‘honey’?"

Mark shrugs, "She calls almost everyone honey."

"Okay."

They head down towards the lake, where Rod notices the fence which goes around the lake and seems to surround the entire camp. Pointing towards a sign on the fence that reads "Beware of alligators", Rod asks Mark, "Are those signs for real?"

"Yeah, there's another lake nearby that has a huge alligator population."

Rod swallows nervously and again considers the possibility of catching a ride back to town.

Mark calls out to the guy sitting in a lounge chair by the shore, "Hey, Coach! We got a new recruit!"
As they drew closer, Rod sees that Coach is a guy about 50... maybe 60 years old with gray hair and eyes, decked out in camo and unsurprisingly, a Red Sox cap. Coach looks up from the book he's reading, which Rod notices is Ulysses. Coach smiles, "Hiya slugger! What's your name?"

"Name's Rod Thomson, Sir."

"Sir? That's my dad, young man. You can call me Coach."

"Ok, Coach. Nice to meet you."

"Glad to see new faces this summer. Seems like there haven't been that many in last the few years."

Rod ponders the rundown appearance of the camp and considers suggesting that some sprucing up might help, but thinks better of saying so on his very first day at camp.

Shrugging, Coach opens his book again. "See you later, boys."

They continue on their tour passing an obstacle course and eventually they get to a small shack surrounded by a bunch of junk and scrap metal. The sign over the door says "Lab." Inside, every kind of mechanical equipment imaginable lays strewn about among a dozen half-finished projects. At the back stands a guy in his thirties who looks like he's stayed out in the sun too long more than once. He has black, greasy hair; gray eyes and is wearing a lab coat over a grease-stained tank top, jeans and Nikes.

"Oh, hey Mark! Who's your friend, there?"

"This is Rod, one of the new kids."

"Glad to make your acquaintance. The name's Billy Otto, but you can just call me Doc. Oh, you know, since you’re here and all... Mark, could you tell Ernie that everything's ready for tomorrow?"

"Sure thing."

"See ya later, guys!"

Mark and Rod start back toward the lake. As they walk, Rod asks, "What exactly is Billy’s job here? Who's Ernie and what does he mean by ‘ready for tomorrow’?"

"Ernie is the manager. Ya know, Coach. He used to be a coach for the Boston Red Sox and he never lets us forget it. As far as the Doc goes, well, every week we do a small battle between the teams. Sorta like paintball, except we use acorns as ammo. Doc Otto’s job is to make the weapons, equipment and vehicles. Also, he makes sure that they keep working."

Wide-eyed, Rod asks incredulously, "Acorns? Really? And this is supposed to be tomorrow?"

"Yep!", Mark says with a huge grin on his face.

At this point, Rod really wants to leave, thinking to himself, "These people, are, crazy!"