Bumping Geese 9: Welcome To Camp Nightmare

We're a little overdue again, with this one. But I thought it only fitting I start off Bumping Geese in 2021 in the most 2021 way possible.

By being a general disappointment to all involved.

That's not to say 'Welcome To Camp Nightmare' is a disappointment, though. It is... Well, let's talk about what it is.

I think this is my favourite cover so far

'Welcome To Camp Nightmare' is about going to summer camp. I don't know if we have summer camp in Australia. There's probably a niche industry. We have organisations like the Boy Scouts, who go camping, but I don't think I know anybody who has ever been to a summer camp. Our summer school holiday period overlaps with Christmas and New Years, so most families would rather be together around this time, not apart. This means everything I know about summer camp as a concept comes from US media and it's all kind of a weird concept to me.

That made this kind of a tricky one to break into. It wasn't a situation I felt engaged with or that I could relate to. For all I knew, none of the weird stuff in the book would be any weirder to me than summer camp already is in my eyes. As the story begins, the main character Billy is on the bus to summer camp, the bus is full of boys his age and a couple of girls who are attending a near-by and associated but different camp. Billy starts to make some friends and looks out at the empty scenery going past. Then all of a sudden the bus stops and all the kids and their luggage are thrown off the bus.

But not before the bus driver scares them all with a monster mask.

And for a few minutes, all the campers are left alone by an empty stretch of road in the middle of nowhere, no idea amongst them what happens next.

Is this the weird part? I don't know. Maybe this is how camp normally works. Billy's narration suggests it's weird, but he isn't sure and so neither am I.

But then some monster cat things show up and start to attack the campers, but before anyone can get hurt, there's a gunshot, the monsters leg it, and the campers meet Uncle Al. Uncle Al runs the camp and he has arrived to pick everybody up in another bus and take them to the camp.

Is this part weird? I mean, I live in Australia. I know for a fact that sometimes wild animals are strange and look monstrous, and sometimes they're definitely inclined to murder you. And a man with a gun? Seems normal if this book, like the rest, is set in the USA.

It's not NOT scary, but I also don't know how normal any of this is or isn't. So it was kind of difficult to get into the book.

But then we get to the camp and shit starts getting undeniably weird.

And with it, shit gets proper scary.

We quickly learn that Uncle Al and the camp counsellors take a stand-offish approach to caring for the children in the camp. Billy's friend Mike finds some snakes in his bunk and they bite him. Mike rushes off to find the nurse, but the camp has no nurse. One of the counsellors tells Mike to rinse the wound and bandage it (the counsellor offers bandages but does not otherwise help). Over the next few days, Mike's wound gets worse and then he vanishes from camp completely.

The camp has a "Forbidden Bunk" (bunk here means cabin, I think, as opposed to bunks as in beds, like where Mike found the snakes) and the children are warned not to go near it, not to ask about it, and also not to go out at night, lest they be attacked by bears or some kind of mysterious monster called Sabre. Well, two of Billy's friends do exactly that, but only one returns, in a state of terror, claiming some monster tore the other boy, Roger, into shreds near the Forbidden Bunk. Billy and his pals report the attack, but the counsellors don't treat it seriously and accuse them of lying. The boys insist it be investigated, and the counsellor agrees, only to return a day later and explain that nobody named Roger had ever been at the camp.

The tension continues to rise with, eventually, all of Billy's bunk-mates vanishing, and then being replaced by new kids to share his bunk. But those new kids also disappear, washing away down the river in a canoeing accident. One of the counsellors is there when this happens, but treats the loss with the usual indifference. Billy wants to leave, and hopes to contact his parents, but while sneaking around the camp, trying to avoid camp activities and counsellors, he learns the one phone in the camp is false and that the letters he and the other campers have been writing to their parents every day have been collecting dust in the camp office. Never sent. Never to be sent. Two of the girls Billy met on the bus sneak into the boy's camp and report similar disappearances, monsters, and strange goings-on at their camp across the river. Together, Billy and the girls discuss a plan to escape.

But before they can put any plan into action, the whole boys' camp is rounded up for a special hike, walked deep into the woods along the river, handed a rifle each and told that two girls have escaped their camp, and the boys are to hunt them down and shoot them. But the rifles only shoot tranquilizer darts, as if that somehow makes it okay.

Now, you and I both know that a twist is coming up. Before we get there, I want to praise this book. This is some scary shit. Monsters. Isolation. Missing friends. A sense of powerless in the face of the world, and the authorities, who seem not only cold, but complicit. One of the counsellors tells Billy and his friends that Uncle Al doesn't like to "coddle" the campers, but it's clear this really means "does not care if you all live or die."

And by the time they're all being marched into the woods, it seems like anything could happen. This could be a mass execution for all I know. This is by far the darkest Goosebumps book so far, and the most lethal by a long shot. I knew the twist must be coming, but I had no idea what to expect. How could this story get worse for anyone? How much darker can it get?

I was, to say the least, impressed. Despite the rough start, the book really sucked me in. The horror and tension was palpable. And I haven't really made it clear in the recap, but it's worth noting that outside Billy and his friends, none of the other campers seemed to care. Nobody else was worried. These horrors didn't seem to be affecting the other bunks. It adds an unsettling element and made me wonder how many of the campers were in on it too. Whatever "it" was. Sometimes they seemed shocked at what was happening and equally as in danger, but other times they seemed like they were deliberately isolating Billy and his buddies.

When Billy hears what Uncle Al wants and realises that it's his friends from the girls' camp he must hunt down, he refuses. He refuses to do anything Uncle Al tells him, and threatens Uncle Al with the gun. Uncle Al, in a rage, attacks Billy, and Billy fires on him.

But nothing happens.

And Uncle Al takes Billy by the hand, shakes it, and tells him he has passed the test.

Everybody at camp applauds. All his missing friends, he escaped girls, even his parents step out from their hiding places in the woods and they explain to Billy that the whole camp has been a test. You see, Billy's parents are field researchers for the government, and they want Billy to start coming on their science expeditions with them. But they go to some far away dangerous places, so Billy had to be tested. And it had to be a secret because, if he failed, he wasn't allowed to know about the secret workings of the government department his parents work for.

So I guess if he failed, he'd just get to be traumatised and gas lit for the rest of his life? Convinced monsters stalk the woods, that several friends of his died, and there's a camp run by psychopaths that nobody is doing anything about... Cool. Good plan, folks.

Anyway. Billy did pass, and he'll be going with his parents to an especially dangerous place. A place called...

Earth.

Yes, in a twist truly worthy of the Twilight Zone (and which does indeed appear in an episode of the Twilight Zone) this whole story has actually taken place on another planet. Another planet that just happens to resemble Earth culturally, biologically, and even linguistically. I don't think any of the aliens in the Twilight Zone were named, and that works better than trying to justify why your aliens are named Billy, Roger, Mike, Dawn, and so on.

I can't say I like this twist. It does leave a bad taste in my mouth. It's another one of these twists that nobody can predict because it isn't hinted at or signalled at all. They could all have just as easily been snowmen for all the difference it actually makes to the narrative.

But in a way, it's all still worth it. Everything up to that point was good, was gripping, was scary. It reads like RL Stine went as hard on horror as he could get away with, even ditching a lot of the goofy and comic elements that show up in his books. It reminded me of some of other memorable works of horror I've encountered in my life: 'Endurance' by JA Konrath, 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' directed by Tobe Hooper, and 'Wolfe Creek' directed by Greg McLean, but, you know, in a way that's not going to scar a person for the rest of their life.*

So, yeah, all in all, this was a good one.

It's also a good example of another classic Marxist complain about labour under Capitalism.

If you just, like, ignore the twist ending and take the narrative as it is presented up until the last two pages. Just like with the mummy book, we're treating this situation as a metaphor for labour.

And speaking of that last time: I explained how the Marxist analysis of Capitalism presents labour as inherently exploitative and as a political struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. So the question is, what's the alternative? How should it work under a Marxist model?

Well one such answer to that is to bring democracy to the workplace. 

If you think about it, while many of us say we "live in a democracy" because we have some sort of government made of elected representatives, the amount of democracy in our lives is actually tiny. Yes, we might elect a head of state (though not in Australia) and we might elect politicians, but do we elect the civil servants who do most of the work executing the will of those politicians? Generally no.

And for most of us, we might spend a third of our time in any given week working under what is, effectively, a dictatorship. For most of us, our workplace is not a democracy of any kind. And if you consider how much the decisions of your manager, of your company's board of directors, or corporate officers affect you, you might wonder why you don't deserve to have more say in that.

Take the camp Billy is attending - Camp Nightmoon - as an example. It's not a workplace, but Goosebumps is about children in, thankfully, a society where children do not regularly hold jobs. But we're using metaphors, and Camp Nightmoon is clearly a top heavy power structure. It's a dictatorship. Uncle Al makes all the decisions. Decisions like not hiring a nurse to oversee the health of the campers.

“Well, Camp Nightmoon is pretty wild,” Larry said. “And you guys had better be careful. I’m warning you.” His expression turned serious. “There’s no nurse at Camp Nightmoon. Uncle Al doesn’t believe in coddling you guys.”

But that has a profound impact on the campers. Uncle Bill might think it's best not to coddle the children, not to have a nurse, but I bet a lot of the children would rather have a nurse at camp and if they get hurt, the lack of a nurse affects them a lot more than it affects Uncle Bill. Why don't those people who are most at risk get a say in how that risk is managed?

In my younger years, I worked as a kitchen hand in a lot of different places. One place I worked, I had the misfortune of cutting myself with a paring knife. I was lucky it was just a small knife cut and not a cut with, say, the industrial can opener or a meat slicer, because this kitchen had no first aid supplies. Not one. I was told to put pressure on the cut with a paper towel until it stopped bleeding, at which  time I presumably would have gone back to work, had I not instead chosen to leave.

The person who ran that business wasn't a chef. He didn't work in the kitchen. The owner of that business wasn't even in the building that day. He's not going to cut himself with anything, but he's the one who decides whether or not the kitchen has a first aid kit.

You can extend this analysis to more than safety. Maybe you work for a company that builds websites. Maybe you're hired to build a website for a corporation that has been exposed as selling firearms to terrorist groups. You and your co-workers might find that reprehensible, and you don't want to assist that business in growing or advertising. But the workers who make that website don't get a say on whether or not the company takes that contract. The only person who does never has to write the copy that praises the business, or choose the pretty pretty photos of guns that are being used to execute civilians. The only person who makes that decision just cares whether or not the contract will be profitable. Why shouldn't you have the right to say no when the majority of the workers object to the work? Again, it impacts them the most.

And it is, of course, hardly a radical notion to suggest some employers care more about profit than the well-being or safety of their staff. Uncle Al is a great example of these petty business dictators.

“The two boys floated on downriver?” Uncle Al asked, staring hard at Larry, scratching the back of his fringe of yellow hair. Larry nodded. “We have to find them!” I insisted, trembling harder. Uncle Al continued to glare at Larry. “What about my canoe?” he demanded angrily. “That’s our best canoe! How am I supposed to replace it?”

And in theory, if a politician decides they will support a terrorist organisation, democracy affords us a mechanism to remove them, should the majority object. Many of us claim to like that. Most people in the Anglo-Sphere claim to be pro-democracy. But few of us seem willing to engage with the suggestions that we could, even should, have democracy in a lot more parts of our lives than we currently do.

There are two common counter-arguments to this suggestion.

The first is that if you don't like it, you can quit. Get another job. You do have a means to object. Like me, you can walk out the door. You can go build websites for puppies somewhere else instead of being complicit in terrorism.

But can you?

How many times have you walked out of a job one day and into a new job the next? I'm willing to bet that if you did, you'd organised that new job while still working the one you want to quit. When your capacity to buy food, pay rent, pay for medicine, pay for water is all dependent on having a job, you actually aren't free to just leave. The choice is actually between working and starving. That's not a choice. That's an ultimatum. That's coercion. Capitalism, in this way, is coercive, is violent.

The other argument is that if our workplace was organised democratically, the majority might still decide to do something bad. And, yeah, that can happen. To paraphrase, Henry David Thoreau: nothing has ever been right because it was supported by the majority. So yes, that's an imperfection, but you end up no worse off than the system we have now. In a democratically controlled workplace, you have an equal say in that decision. You not only have a say, your equality gives you a position from which to negotiate with your peers. Don't want to build the terrorist website? Okay. Well, you are as much the boss as your co-workers, so you can, perhaps, arrange to work on other contracts while those comfortable with terrorism work on that one. So even if the result is the same, your position is better. You are still better off.

A less common argument, but one I know you may be inclined to make, because I have made it myself, might be the social democrat argument that these problems can be mitigated through regulation. If our government, which we elect, keeps control over labour laws, then a workplace must have a first aid kit. A strong welfare system means labour is not coercive and you are free to walk away. I know these arguments well because I used to be the one making them.

But labour laws in Australia do require a first aid kit in a workplace, and there still wasn't one when I cut myself. And unless an inspector of some kind, acting for the regulating government bodies, visits that site and finds out, there is nothing the employees - again, the people who need it - can compel their employer to do to install one. But if the workers are in control, they don't need that external authority to enforce regulation because they have the authority to do it themselves.

I want to finish by saying that Marxist workers coops do exist. There are businesses owned and run by the workers in equal share. They do work. But the proof we have is limited to small businesses so far. The question "Would this be sustainable in larger corporations over an extended period?" is a question we don't have the answer to and is, at its heart, a bad question.

No anarchist, no communist, no socialist wants to democratise workplaces and stop there. This is not only just one particular approach to organising labour, it is also only one of many changes that would need to be made. We could have democratic workplaces, and solid welfare systems. This thing we call society, this curse called economics, this monster called money, we humans made all of it. The wheels spin because we turn them. We can change them. All of them. In as many ways as we like. As many times as we like.

So to ask how one left wing idea would work if you changed only that and nothing else is to fail to engage with the conversation in good faith. As such, I won't be answering it.

Oh, and if you're wondering where to start. Well, surprisingly, the Goosebumps has an answer for that, too.

“We have to get together. The boys and the girls,” Dawn whispered, peering once again over the tops of the leaves. “We have to make a plan.”

*That really only applies for 'Wolf Creek'. Personally, while it was an excellently made film, it was too intense, too real, and too visceral for me to get any actual enjoyment from. I had to break up my watching of it into two sessions. I've not had to watch a film that way before or since.