YA horror novel with a corpse in a lake?

January 13, 2022 1:44 PM

Warning: I barely remember this book. In the 90s I read a paperback about a boy at summer camp. I don’t remember any plot, except that the boy was scared of a corpse (or maybe zombie) in the lake. I don’t remember if there really was something in the lake or if it was just a legend. The paperback was from the 80s or 90s. I think the cover was predominantly blue.
posted by Monochrome to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Boy's Life by Robert McGammon? The cover in that Goodreads is red but the original cover was mostly blue. The novel starts out with the main character doing the morning milk run with his father when they see a car plunge into the nearby lake. His father tries to save the driver of the car but fails.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 1:50 PM on January 13, 2022

Response by poster: I don’t think that’s it. I was pretty sure that, like some knockoff Friday the 13th, this was at a summer camp.
posted by Monochrome at 1:54 PM on January 13, 2022

In Hatchet there is a scene where he has to dive into the lake to scavenge supplies out of a crashed airplane. The corpse of the pilot is still in the plane. Could that be it?
posted by Syllables at 2:04 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Hatchet was very memorable for me. It was an intense read but it’s not the ghoulish scary story in this case.
posted by Monochrome at 2:16 PM on January 13, 2022

Best answer: Possibly Camp Zombie? If this is the book I think it is, there’s a scene with zombies in the lake. It stuck with me too!
posted by tan_coul at 2:27 PM on January 13, 2022

Response by poster: Yeah that’s it! Some searching led me to the Goosebumps book The Curse Of Camp Cold Lake and that was the cover I was thinking of. Yet my memory of the plot is definitely Camp Zombie. Thanks!
posted by Monochrome at 2:59 PM on January 13, 2022