Which is some bullshit for Proofrock’s number one slasher fan.
Jade clamps a cap on over the greasy mess her hair is now, shrugs into her coveralls so Meg Koenig will know she’s a county employee, and once it’s dark enough, she shuffles down to the sheriff’s office a full fourteen hours before she’s due. Because she’s such an eager beaver, yes.
For news.
SLASHER 101
Before I get started with this MAKE UP work for 40 PERCENT of my history grade, Mr. Holmes, let me just say once again and in writing that a certain Christine Gillette exclusive was NOT made up even one little bit. Okay so there’s no recording, but that’s just because I didn’t have space on my phone, but that doesn’t mean she’s making it up. A broke clock is still right sometimes. But don’t worry, sir. I found another Stacey Graves witness, surprise. I went to the most trustable historical personage in town, if badges mean anything.
I present now the honorable Sheriff Hardy, who I’m transcribing FROM THE
ATTACHED RECORDING, and if the sheriff goes over the page limit then feel free to give me extra points, I don’t mind.
This is him now. You’ll know me from my ALL CAPS.
“Oh, yeah, Camp Winnemucca? Camp Winn-e-MUCC-a. You’ve got to say it like that, kind of ramping up at the end. It’s an old Indian word, that’s how they talk. That’s gamey stuff for a school paper though, don’t you think? Oh, wait. The 50 year anniversary, right? You’ll be, what, a senior then? 50 years, [expletive]. I was hardly even in long pants. Don Chambers was still wearing the star. That’s Alison Chambers’s dad? Didn’t she teach you all gymnastics?”
YOU CAN TELL I’M MUTING HIS CUSSING, SIR?
“Anyway, it only ran for that one summer. Nobody had the heart to try it again after, well, [bleep], after what happened. It was supposed to be haunted, all that malarkey. ‘We shouldn’t have broke ground over there,’ blah blah blah, you know how people are. But the name is from the Indians. Same as the lake. My dad says when it was filling, all these bow and arrow Indians stepped out of the trees on the other side of the valley on their painted ponies, feathers braided into their manes.
The horses AND the half naked bucks. They’d come to see the creek they’d always known turn into something bigger. That’s when everybody started calling it INDIAN Lake, not Glen Lake like it was supposed to have been. And before you ask, no, there WEREN’T supposed to be any Shoshone still going free range. But Idaho’s a big [bleeping] place, little miss, pardon my French. There’s like to be folks out there haven’t heard about the auto-mo-bile yet. Any the hell way — strike that, sorry — I was going to say about “Winnemucca,” the word. It looks good on a sign, don’t you think? Like you’re going somewhere farther away than just across the lake. Back into history, like. To when this was ALL Indian land — “
I MAY HAVE LAID SOME SLASHER LORE ON HIM HERE. SUE ME.
“Sleepaway Camp, that’s it. But yeah, that article you found’s on the money. 4
teenagers. Let me see if I can get their names without looking… Stoakes, Howarth, Walker, and… TRIGO! And that’s 50 years ago, little miss. Winnemucca was a Shoshone though, bet that’s not in the article. Maybe your great great great grandpappy could have told you that. The SNAKE Indians, they were called back then. I don’t know that’s exactly what they called themselves. ‘Winnemucca’ in English comes out to Bad Face. Figure they named people different back then, don’t you?”
MY ANSWER TO THIS NOW AND ALSO IN MY HEAD THEN WAS
“YES,” SIR. WAY DIFFERENT. STACEY GRAVES’S DAD WAS “LETCH
GRAVES,” WHICH PRETTY MUCH SOUNDS LIKE A BORIS KARLOFF
CHARACTER ALREADY. BUT NOW WE’RE SKIPPING AHEAD LIKE YOU
SAID, FOR SALIENT DETAILS, AND ALSO BECAUSE THIS IS SO MUCH
REWINDING AND TYPING.
“I mean, I was ONE of the camp counselors. And I guess now I’m camp counselor for the whole [bleepity beep] county, right? Funny how that works. But the way they did it, each grade had their own counselor. It was supposed to keep the big kids from bossing the little ones around. So none of those 4 were my watch, nosiree Bob. They were 12, 12, 14, and 16, if I’m not mistaken. Well, Jefferson came to camp 14, but he turned 15 the second day of camp. That was the day we took the canoes out. But he didn’t die during that training, just got wet. Like all of us. That was the real fun of it. If you were wet at the end of that day, you got your badge.”