Summer Camp Horror Story

                I just read “Boys, Beer, Barf, and Bonding” by Bruce Hale to my seventh graders, and it reminded me of a Scout Camp experience that needs to be shared.  No, it’s not the one about how we convinced one leader to believe that a pair of Sasquatches was roaming the pastures.  It’s not the time we ditched the campfire activities during the Klondike Derby to help the military security police to locate a perpetrating trespasser either.  This isn't even the low-brow account of when Patrick sleepwalked and attempted to take a dump in front of my, Russ, and Jerry’s tent.

                This is one episode of the legendary eight day excursion to Hadrian’s Wall (English-Scottish border), where we had an epic battle with midges, where it rained at least eighteen hours each day, where we discovered the nuances of glow-stick war paint, where we cooked Dutch oven cobblers around the clock, won first prize for best troop campsite, earned more merit badges than any other troop, and successfully defended our site against raiders using pine cones and nylon parachute cord.

                One night, after our taste buds had given up on a nondescript, several-hundred-person dinner, and our sodium intake exceeded the saturation point, the staff thought they would tell a ghost story.  Usually, this was pretty hokey and I would skip out, but it was raining, and we were already in the massive lodge.  Sure, it smelled like body odor, corn chip toe jam, and chili, but it beat getting soaked.

                They told a story about the camp we were at, and a staff of counselors who started the camp forty years before.  They were a tight-knit bunch—brothers in everything they did.  Camp was a wonderful place until the next summer when a new counselor showed up who was extremely strict and didn’t tolerate any rule-breaking.  Shower times were monitored to the second, portions in the mess hall were appropriately measured, and schedules were followed without fail.  Camp was more of a chore with him aboard.  It didn’t take long before everyone—campers and staff members—grew to detest him.

                One night the staff decided to play a prank on him while he was alone in his tent.  It involved a hoax lynch mob, complete with torches and sheets and mud-painted faces.  The counselor came out to see what was happening, had the crap scared out of him (some say literally), and sought refuge in the lodge.  In a Lord of the Flies frenzy, the lodge caught on fire, and the disliked counselor was trapped inside.  Some said that just before the roof collapsed a flaming figure burst from the inferno and ran screaming into the lake.  He was never seen or heard from again.  The body was never recovered.  The camp closed, and wasn’t re-opened for ten years.  The fire was ruled an accident.  The counselor’s disappearance was never mentioned again.

                When it re-opened, the original staff came to hold a passing-of-the-torch (pun intended) ceremony.  The camp continued without interruption, and the original staff decided to hold their own reunion out on the island in the middle of the lake.

To make this story shorter and not too creepy, I’ll quickly blur through the rest of the details.  They’re sort of Friday the 13^th–esque.  Use your gruesome imagination.  While the former counselors were partying it up on the island, they start disappearing by ones and twos.  Finally a flaming dude attacks the remaining campers with a torch and an ax.  Several days later, one survivor is found drifting in a canoe without any paddles, without any arms.  All he can do is mumble the name of the missing counselor.  His wounds are bandaged and he is admitted into a psych ward at a nearby asylum.  He mysteriously vanishes without a trace. (Cue supposedly-creepy-but-really-cheesy music).

That was the story.

When we got back to camp, a few of us older scouts and one of the leaders decided to pull a prank on some of the younger guys, especially Thomas, because we were sick of all the whining and high-pitched nasally bellyaching.  Despite all the rain, bugs, and less-than-desirable conditions, the only thing keeping us from really enjoying ourselves had been the incessant complaining on the part of a handful of newer scouts.

The plan had been to down their tents or just sneak up and spook them, but then Russ suggested we use the staff’s story to create some real panic.  We decided that we would light one of us on fire and terrorize them.  Being well-versed in flammable materials, we covered a fire-resistant rubber military grade rain poncho with bug spray (a couple cans’ worth).  Russ put it on, and we lit him.  Soon he was chasing the young'uns through the campsite with a torch and (sheathed) hatchet, calling for their souls.

The flames lasted for about three minutes before all the repellent burned up; however, the howling lasted the rest of the night.  One kid wet himself.  The rest didn't sleep for the rest of the week.  Needless to say, the leaders weren't too happy (outwardly).  Inside, though we knew that a few of them applauded the hoax to keep the Tenderfoots in check.  Word got around the camp, and our patrol’s status was elevated to legendary.  Now, when “The Flaming Camper of the Lake” is told, it involves an epilogue involving us.