Tennis Camp of the Living Dead

By Quentin Dodd

Stickley Smythe is spending the summer at Bright River Tennis Academy.  He's playing against top competition and learning from the best tennis coaches in the country. But something isn't quite right.   Everyone else thinks the camp is perfectly normal, but Stickley can't help asking questions, such as: "Why does the camp pro never go out in the sunlight?" "Why are they building coffins in arts and crafts class?" "Why do the villagers across the river fear the camp so much?" and, most importantly: "Why did he agree to come here in the first place?" As Stickley works to unravel the mystery, he realizes that he's staying at no ordinary summer camp.   Instead, he's stumbled upon the Tennis Camp of the Living Dead!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Snake Year Press
• Release date: Mar 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9780983994244

Quentin Dodd

Quentin Dodd is the award-winning author of Beatnik Rutabagas from Beyond the Stars, Tommy Frasier and the Planet of the Slugs, and many other books with even more bizarre titles.  A lifelong fan of cheesy monster movies and used bookstores, Quentin tries to write the books he always wanted to read but could never find.

Book preview

1

Stickley was going to have zero fun for the next two weeks. He knew it already. Yes, his older brothers had all gone to tennis camp. Yes, his older sisters had all gone to tennis camp. But he failed to see why that meant he had to go to tennis camp. He didn’t even like tennis.

It had been bad enough before, when he and his twin sister were going to go together. Now, though, Amanda was at home with a cast on her ankle and Stickley was on a bus flying deeper by the minute into the middle of nowhere. The sky was a mass of ominous black clouds. It was hard to imagine things getting worse.

Hi! A kid in the next row turned around and leaned over the seat back. Aren’t you excited? We’re almost there! He stuck out a hand for Stickley to shake. My name’s Davey. Davey MacNutt.

Hi. Stickley Smythe.

Oh, gee. Davey smacked his forehead. I shouldn’t have told you that. My name, I mean. I’m not Davey. I’m David. My motivation coach says that’s more intimidating.

Though they were probably the same age, Davey’s spindly frame made him look much younger and his hair stuck up like a cartoon character’s. Intimidating was not the word that sprang to mind.

We’ve been working on competitive psychology all spring, Davey continued. Has your motivation coach started that with you yet?

Look, I... Stickley began. The truth was, he wasn’t interested in talking. All he wanted to do was stare out the window and stay mad. He’d spent the past hour and a half getting madder and madder, and he didn’t feel like stopping. First he’d been mad at Amanda, then his parents, and finally, Tilden Smythe. This was all Tilden Smythe’s fault.

Tilden Smythe, Stickley’s grandfather, had come in second in the U.S. National Championship in 1947, and the Smythe family was still feeling the effects. Stickley’s parents had met on the tennis team in college, where they were both All-Americans. His oldest brother Oscar had played on the major-junior circuit before deciding that his future lay in antique dealing. Edith, one of his two sisters, played so ferociously that she’d been asked to star in a commercial for Pro-Tough tennis balls. James and Phillip, the next youngest, had just gotten tennis scholarship offers from the University of Malibu. Even his twin sister Amanda, whose love for tennis was lukewarm by Smythe standards, had won an armload of trophies and ribbons. All the Smythe kids, whatever their level of play, had one thing in common: Bright River Tennis Academy. The camp had been a Smythe family tradition stretching back to Tilden Smythe himself, and this year was Stickley and Amanda’s turn. Then Amanda had broken her ankle falling down the stairs last week and now Stickley was going by himself.

The bus drove past a tall barn that sat at the end of a field. The roof was made of red and white tiles, arranged to form a complicated circular symbol full of triangles, diamonds, and other shapes. The total effect was that of a giant angry eye that stared at the bus as it passed. Next to it, an old man in overalls watched the bus go by. The man spat on the ground and made an angry gesture with the first three fingers of his left hand, then turned his back on them.

Did you see that? Stickley asked.

See what? said Davey.

Stickley shook his head. Nothing.

My motivation coach says my goal for the year is to increase my opponents’ faults by twenty percent, Davey said. He thinks two weeks at Bright River, where nobody knows who I am, will really help me. What does your motivation coach want you to work on?

I don’t have one.

Davey nodded sympathetically. That’s okay. How about your swing instructor? Did you get assigned any drills?

I don’t have a swing instructor, either.

Oh. Did your nutritionist give you a menu?

No nutritionist.

"But your peer mentor gave you some advice, right? I mean, you’ve got to have a peer mentor."

Stickley shook his head.

Oh... okay, Davey said, wide-eyed. He hesitated for a second, then leaned in closer.

"Your parents believe in winning, right?" he whispered.

Sure, Stickley said.

Davey visibly relaxed.

I just haven’t done a lot of it. Stickley hoped that would be the end of the discussion. He didn’t feel like explaining his attitude to some random kid he’d just met on the bus.

Well, you’ve got to start somewhere, right? Anyway, Bright River’s going to be a great place to learn. You’ll be winning tournaments before you know it!

Davey was obviously trying to think of something nice to say. Despite his bad mood, Stickley was grateful for that. As a potential opponent, he hadn’t expected any sympathy from a Come On Melvin.

Come On Melvin was a private nickname, known only to Stickley and his twin sister, for a kid with an expensive outfit, a graphite racket, hysterical parents, and no sense that there was anything else in the world besides winning. It came from a match he had played two years ago, when he was eleven. Stickley hadn’t had a chance past the first thirty seconds, but his opponent’s parents kept screaming at the poor kid, even as he was beating Stickley into the dust: Come on, Melvin! You can do better than that! Dig deep! Focus! Come on, Melvin! It had stuck in Stickley’s mind ever since.

Outside, a streak of lightning struck someplace behind the wooded hills west of the highway. As the rumble of thunder reached them, fat raindrops began to spot the windows. Stickley leaned over and tried to raise his window. It stopped about six inches from the top and refused to budge any further no matter how hard Stickley pounded on it.

Looks like your window’s stuck, Davey observed. Want to sit up here?

That’s okay. I’m good. Stickley edged away from the window and reached over to pull his bag out of the path of the rain.

Here, let me take that for you. Davey leaned over and picked up the bag before Stickley had a chance to stuff it under the seat.

Davey read the faded label stitched onto the handle of Stickley’s duffel bag. Wow, a Müller bag. I didn’t even know they made these anymore.

Stickley winced. It was my brother’s. He got it when he came up here the first time. It just kind of got passed down to everyone else after that.

It’s a good bag, Davey said. All the pros twenty years ago used to carry these. But I guess you know that already. Otherwise, why would you go through the trouble to sew up all these little rips in the sides?

Yeah. Thanks. Not for the first time, Stickley wondered what it would be like to own something that wasn’t a hand-me-down. He suspected he’d never know. After all, he was even going to a hand-me-down camp.

Rain lashed against the windows and the bus swerved a little in its lane. This was turning into a real storm. Stickley looked up to where the bus driver sat hunched over the wheel. He wore an oversized Bright River baseball cap and a thick coat that would have made more sense on the deck of a cargo ship than a bus heading for summer camp. A line of heavy black stitches twisted through his stubbly hair and disappeared under his hat. He looked pale and unhealthy. Stickley hoped he wasn’t going to have a heart attack.

Stickley noticed that the driver’s window was stuck open, too. The left side of his coat was getting soaked.

Hey! Davey bounced up again. What do you think about meeting Borgo? Pretty cool, huh?

I don’t think I know who...

You’re kidding. You got this, right? Davey pulled a glossy brochure out of his bag. On the cover, a group of kids with tennis rackets on their shoulders walked down a wooded path. They were smiling and waving to another group, also with tennis rackets, going the other way.

Stickley had seen this before. He remembered seeing Amanda read it, then thinking he ought to read it, too, before heading off to camp. Apparently, he hadn’t remembered to actually do it.

Davey flipped to a page in the middle and pointed to a large picture of a smiling man in tennis whites. He had long hair and stood next to a trophy that was nearly as tall as he was.

Davey read from the notes under the photo. ".‘Radu Borgo: Three-time winner of the Central European Invitational. Personal tennis coach to Princess Elsa of Switzerland. On-set advisor for the films Rise of the Tennis Avenger and Return of the Tennis Avenger. Author of Why Don’t You Play Better Tennis?’ And he’s coming here to coach us."

Stickley took the brochure from Davey and looked closely. The photograph wasn’t right somehow. Radu was kind of blurry, though the giant trophy was in perfect focus. His sister Edith, who was a photography nut, could have said what had gone wrong in the printing process, but Stickley just shrugged and handed it back.

My motivation coach played him once. Radu Borgo beat him in straight sets. My coach said he’s got the most deceptive drop shot he’d ever seen. It was like playing a ghost.

That’s great. Stickley sank back in his seat. All of a sudden, he realized that he was the only normal kid on a bus full of Come On Melvins. Up to now, Stickley had managed to push this fact out of his mind by being annoyed with his family. But he couldn’t hide from it anymore. Stickley was going to have to play tennis with these people. A lot.

Stickley was going to get his butt kicked every single day.

The bus passed through more farm country, with scraggly fields that crawled right up to the edge of the highway. Lightning flashed again. An instant later, thunder rattled through the bus. The kids made mock-scared noises for a second and then went back to talking.

A minute or so later, Stickley saw a large wooden sign by the side of the road.

The sign had a border of white flowers planted around its base. It read Welcome to Vasaria, where decent people sleep well at night! Underneath were smaller squares showing the local businesses that had sponsored the sign’s construction.

As the rain ran over its surface, Stickley saw that something had been previously carved into the sign and later painted over. It looked like words. He squinted at the ragged letters until he could see what they spelled out:

GO HOME

Stickley stared. What in the world was that supposed to mean? Go home? He would if he could.

The bus driver hit the brakes with enough force to slide everyone forward in their seats. The turn signals glowed and the bus turned left, off of the highway and onto a smaller road hemmed in by tall weeds.

This road, Stickley noticed, was surfaced with gravel. This worried him slightly. Wasn’t tennis supposed to be a game where people ran around on an immaculate court in pressed white clothes? Should they really be taking a gravel road to get to a tennis camp?

Through the windshield, Stickley could make out the shape of an iron bridge stretching across a narrow river ahead of them. Beyond it, the road continued into the forested hills. Thick logs with ragged tops, as if they’d just recently been cut down, stood on either side of the entrance to the bridge.

The bus passed between them with inches to spare on either side. Stickley noticed that someone had carved columns of letters and symbols deep into the backs of the logs. He tried to get another look at them through the rusty iron girders, but was distracted by something in the forest. It was only there for a second, a flash of white in the deep shadows, he was sure he had seen it. It was a human figure, half-hidden behind a tree. Someone had been watching the bus go by.

Stickley slumped back in his seat. He’d have to remember to put all this in a letter to his sister. Before leaving, Amanda had made him promise to write every day. She and Stickley had never been