"Summer Camp" by Vlad Rayber, summary Automatic translate

This book is a collection of terrifying short stories, skillfully woven into a single mystical plot, published in 2024. The text is organized like a serial, with standalone episodes subordinated to an overarching narrative. The printed edition adds a unique interactive element to the atmosphere. The pages are filled with notes, stickers, and a profile of each monster. The author confidently alternates between camp life and intense horror, maintaining a perfect balance between teenage drama and the mythology of horror stories.

Camp routine

The exhibition begins with fifteen-year-old Dima’s arrival at the Iskra health camp. He got a place there by chance, so at first everything evokes repulsion — from his mother’s shiny suitcase to the noisy strangers. Dima is assigned to a room with two other boys his own age. The first is the hyperactive Rodik. The second is the overweight, gluttonous Yegor, whom the neighbors immediately nicknamed "Bubble." Soon, girls join their group of boys. Eighteen-year-old Alyona got in with forged documents, and the feisty Inga wears a polymer cast on her arm. Nine-year-old Masha was assigned to a room due to a lack of space in the younger group.

The first day drags on drearily. The teenagers sit in the ward and share frightening stories. Rodik finds an old inscription under his bed — a strange poem about "the cross-eyed Bunny" who flays naughty children. Then the boy tells a scary story about a commuter train, where the main character, Kostya, is rude to the costumed teenagers on board. He soon realizes that the fellow passengers are the actual ghosts of deceased passengers. The dead force the poor fellow to carol and collect severed limbs. It turns out that many years ago, Kostya cold-bloodedly walked past the sinking train and abandoned these people to die.

Masha recalls a story about a snake. Lena was given a reptile with its venom glands removed. The pet escaped and disappeared for a long time. Some time later, Lena was bitten by a venomous snake right in the kitchen. Rescuers dug up the floor and found a whole nest. The escaped pet laid eggs in the basement, from which deadly babies hatched. Then Inga frightened her friends with a story about a country house. Her neighboring students held a seance in front of mirrors as a joke. They accidentally summoned a terrifying, slack-jawed entity. The monster snapped the necks of everyone at the party.

Listening to the horror stories, Yegor turns pale with terror. He declares, "There’s a figure in a hare suit standing outside the window." The boys peer out into the darkness and notice a flickering forest fire in the distance. Ignoring their superiors’ orders, the group climbs out the window. Approaching the flames, the teenagers discover a strange group. Pale, unblinking, the children sit absolutely still, ignoring the strangers’ approach. They take turns quietly recounting their own nightmares.

Campfire Stories

A pale boy recounts the terrifying experience of Gera’s boyfriend, whose neighbor, an antique dealer, acquired a cursed deck of "Dark Joker" cards. After performing a ritual, Vanya allows a demon to enter himself. The creature dismembers his wife, kills a student, and rips off a pensioner’s head. Gera, forced to defend himself, chops off the possessed creature’s limbs with a heavy axe. The boy bakes the severed hand in the oven. Only after the body is completely destroyed does the bloody suspense in the entryway subside.

A sullen teenager shares a story about an anonymous "Engineer." The student finds an old chat website online where a bot offers to grant any wish. The boy jokingly asks to remove his annoying stepfather, and the next day, the man disappears without a trace. The bot sends a video: the stepfather is locked in a one-cubic-meter concrete chamber deep underground. Then, the virtual sadist blows up his criminal neighbor. The student realizes the illusory nature of the world and understands that he is at the mercy of a monster that distorts reality itself.

A boy in a baseball cap describes an anomaly in the corner entrance of an apartment building. The lights go out periodically. Space collapses into eerie parallel dimensions. The rule of survival is simple: freeze and hold still for ten seconds. The protagonist sees floating bottomless coffins. Silver thread-blades pierce random passersby. Humanoids with hundreds of tiny holes instead of faces emerge from the elevator. The elderly neighbor, Baba Galya, is replaced by a giant werewolf spider, sewing the windows shut with viscous saliva.

A bespectacled teenager uncovers a secret about his school. Opening a time capsule reveals that Soviet pioneers left behind terrifying drawings. The protagonist demands answers from the principal, who reveals an underground classroom hidden beneath the stage. The principal is possessed by a demon. His skin is covered in pus. A voice in his head compels the teacher to kill students and seat the corpses at their desks. The demon demands that the dead classroom be filled to complete a sinister ritual.

A blue-haired girl recalls a trip to an abandoned amusement park. A group of friends finds a vintage prize stand. The window opens. Invisible hands offer a trade. A tipsy friend starts banging on the glass. He’s pulled inside. A fountain of blood spills out. Later, the teenagers return for clues. A multi-part metal monster inhabits the stand. The walking meat grinder drags away the second boy. The girl is saved by a lucky charm pin on her jacket.

The Pioneer tells of mystical night streets. They are lined with kiosks selling free goods. They are controlled by Pogostnik, a spirit from the cemetery. He takes the form of people from old photographs. The monster feeds on human skin and knows the customer’s date of death. Pogostnik tears a piece of flesh from the narrator’s hand. He predicts the imminent death of his friend Yurka. Soon, Yurka does indeed die. Then his deceased comrade appears as an emotionless salesman in one of the cursed stalls.

A lanky hiker recalls a forest nightmare. The young man went on a hike with an experienced companion. The forest turned out to be an enchanted trap, with strict rules written on scraps of paper. The prohibitions contradicted each other. Violators faced cruel punishment: bear traps, homemade arrows, and the fangs of a rotting scavenger. The companion died within the first few hours. The narrator barely escaped with his life. He deciphered the logic of the sadistic quest and escaped on a boat across the lake.

The camp counselor completes the terrifying relay race. Their neighbor, Maria Grigoryevna, a hoarder, has created a breeding ground for mutated moths in their apartment. The hatched caterpillars are devouring the residents alive. The boy and his friend Valerie don protective suits. They enter the lair with an ultrasonic repeller. Behind the door lies a distorted dimension of filthy trash. Maria Grigoryevna herself turns out to be a giant insect with a human face. The boys burn down the cursed apartment. The mutants are consumed in the flames.

Awakening

The sky begins to brighten. Dima realizes the terrible truth. These unblinking children and counselors are the ghosts of the camp’s missing residents. They are stuck here forever. The dead gather around the fire once a season. The fire abruptly dies. The storytellers disappear into the morning mist. The teenagers run in terror to their buildings. They are intercepted by counselor Vasily. The man scolds the offenders for wandering around at night. He refuses to listen to their nonsense about evil spirits.

The next night, the ancient evil strikes. The girls burst into the boys’ room. Zayka has hypnotized Masha. The little girl obediently follows the monster into the thicket. Dima immediately gives chase. The boy pushes through the thorny bushes and manages to catch up with the kidnapper. With a loud shout, Dima breaks Masha’s trance. Zayka stops. The monster casts a malevolent glare from under its mask. It disappears into the trees, frightened by the beams of the flashlights of the fleeing adults.

Hare Hunt

The teenagers join forces. The monster will surely return for witnesses. The campers arm themselves with baseball bats and a heavy crowbar from the storage room. At sunset, the squad patrols the forest. A figure in burlap stands near an old oak tree with scratched signs. Overcoming their panic, the friends surround the villain. Inga delivers a crushing blow to Zayka’s ribs with an aluminum bat. Suddenly, the suit settles to the grass. There is no one under the mask. The killer turned out to be nothing more than an urban legend come to life.

The climax gives way to calm. The boys light a fire. They throw an empty robe into the flames. Watching the sparks, the friends vow to preserve the memory of the victims. Dima voices a shared thought. They absolutely must write a book about this. That way, Zayka’s victims will live on, at least on paper. The teenagers return to camp. The shift will go well. The nightmare has finally dissipated. A warm June awaits the heroes, free of mystical threats.