Camp Nightmare is a Calvin and Hobbes Dark Fic by OnTheEdge7830.
Calvin and Hobbes are sent to a day camp where everything is sickeningly sweet. Despite this, things go alright for them, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong, in fact.
After discovering the staff bathroom is filled with the partially-eaten corpses of children, the duo find themselves in a fight for their lives against the day camp staff, whose practices and origins grow increasingly sinister...
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Author Appeal: The duo listen to Nickelback in the bathroom.
- Big "WHAT?!": Calvin when he learns the news.
- Boom, Headshot!: Jerome's fate, thanks to the police.
- Cult: The day camp is just one installment of one of these.
- Disposing of a Body: Taken up to eleven - the staff bathroom has dozens of child corpses. partially-eaten child corpses.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The "day camp" is closed, Jerome taken care of, the other clowns sentenced to life in prison, and Calvin and Hobbes, though a little shaken, remain unharmed.
- Foreshadowing: Jerome's "JUST RIGHT!" line gives way at hints to his true colors.
- As is the fact that every one of the kids in the camp is six years old.
- From Bad to Worse: Two of them.
- Calvin finding bodies in the trash can shows how diabolical the camp truly is.
- The revelation that the camp is a very widespread cult.
- Godwin's Law: In-Universe - Calvin compares the camp to Auschwitz. Ironic, given that the camp is on par with that place...
- High-Pressure Emotion: Calvin, shortly before belting out a Big "WHAT?!".
- I'm a Humanitarian: The counselors eat little kids.
- Incoming Ham: Jerome's first words in the fic."Oh, WONDERFUL! He's six, right? That's the age limit! In other words, JUST RIGHT! I assure you, ma'am, your son will have a DEE-LIGHTFUL time here!"
- Make It Look Like an Accident:Jackie: Absolutely. We "accidentally" burn down the building, tell everyone we couldn't get the kids out in time, and we look injured, so everyone knows the building collapsed.
- Monster Clown: The counselors.
- Non-Indicative Name: Hugs and Snuggles Day Camp is far from what the name suggests.
- Off with His Head!: Jerome tries to do this to Calvin with a hatchet.
- Police Are Useless: Thankfully subverted. Calvin attempts to get a police officer to believe him, and he doesn't until Jerome comes crashing through with his hatchet, at which point he gets a shot to the skull.
- Room Full of Crazy: The basement of the camp is covered with the cult's symbol.
- Say My Name: Calvin's mom does this when telling him the news.
- Summer Campy: Hugs and Snuggles Day Camp. It doesn't turn out well.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Hobbes upchucks after discovering the bodies.
- Wham Line: The end of Chapter 2, revealing the Dark Fic nature of the story."Cool!" Calvin said. "But what's down there? It's so dark, I can't see anything. Hey! Cats have night vision, right? Use that!"
"Fine," Hobbes said. He looked down, then doubled over and threw up.
"What? What is it?" Calvin asked frantically.
"See for yourself," Hobbes moaned, clutching his chest.
Calvin grabbed a light bulb overtop a stall, extended it, and shone it inside the hole.
It was filled with bodies.- And then, shortly afterwards, in Chapter 3:
"Good." Jerome. "Do we know the story?"
"Absolutely," Jackie said. "We "accidentally" burn down the building, tell everyone we couldn't get the kids out in time, and we look injured, so everyone knows the building collapsed."
"Excellent!" Jerome said. "I bet those kids will taste good, too."- Then:
"But what does the skull signal mean?" Calvin said.
"I'll tell you what it means, Calvin!" came a voice. The duo turned around. Jerome and his cohorts were standing behind them. "It's only the symbol of our cult. It has branches all over the world. We are only this town's branch." - Would Hurt a Child: The camp counselors eat little kids.