There's a Hole In You and Me Part II
Part I
June 1998
Dean waves as his dad drives away, a cloud of dust following the Impala down the dirt road and out of sight. He breathes in the scent of trees, grass, dirt, and the lingering smokiness of campfires. He’s missed this place.
“Dude, you’re late! What happened?” Dave claps him on the back in greeting and Dean grins at him, slinging his duffel over his shoulder and falling into step beside his friend.
“School’s on a weird schedule, Dad wanted me to stay ‘til the end of the year.”
“Well, you missed the bonfire last night. Remember Rachel?”
Dean grins as Dave enthusiastically describes Rachel’s newly acquired assets. He’s sorry he missed the annual Counselor’s bonfire, a night of stolen whiskey and marshmallows before the kids arrive for the summer. The counselors usually arrive a week before the Campers, but Dean missed it in favor of finishing out the year at school. It’s no big deal, since he’s already gotten the training a few times and he volunteers as a lifeguard during the year, but it’s always fun to have a week out here with no kids to watch.
Dave accompanies Dean as he drops his bag on his usual bunk in their Cabin, right beside Dave’s own bunk. They’ve been paired up every year since Dean first became a counselor, and he’s glad no one’s had the wisdom to split them up.
The part of the cabin where the counselors sleep is technically in the same room as the campers’ bunks, but there’s a curtain that can be closed between the two spaces. More importantly, the counselors have their own back door and a small porch leading to a barely-visible path.
Dave and Dean, along with almost all of the camp’s other counselors, usually hold their counselors-only bonfire parties down at a clearing by the creek, and this path leads directly to that spot. It’s the reason Dean’s glad Dave managed to secure Skunk Cabin again this year.
The campers start arriving about an hour after Dean’s finished putting his things away and greeted the rest of his fellow counselors. They all stand out in the big field next to the dirt parking lot, holding clipboards and looking responsible, reassuring anxious parents. Dave keeps nudging Dean whenever Rachel bends down to help a kid with his bag or something and Dean resists the urge to smack his friend upside the head.
They get their campers in order, bring them to the cabin and manage to keep straight faces as they answer the inevitable question of their cabin’s name.
“Oh, all the cabins are named after local wildlife,” Dean says, and hopes he’s the only one who can hear Dave’s soft snort behind him. “Definitely not because there’s a skunk nest under the cabin or anything.” The boys all eye the cabin warily.
The campers leave their bags unpacked and everyone heads over to the big hall for the Welcome assembly and dinner. Dean and Dave spend the walk over impressing upon the campers the importance of trying to win the “Cleanest Cabin” award. They hint heavily at bribes of candy and junk food if the boys win enough times.
***
Sam goes over the details of the case in his head as he walks up the dirt road to the camp. Mary dropped him off a little ways up the road, concerned her car might be recognized. They’re on a few Wanted lists at the moment. It’s time they changed vehicles - rule number 7 of hunting: never keep a house or car long enough to be recognized - but she waited until this case presented itself: the perfect case for Sam’s first solo job.
He breathes in deep as he walks down the dirt road, head tilted back and turning to take in the scenery, a ridge of craggy mountains barely visible above the trees. The trees are tall here - tall enough that Sam gets dizzy looking up at the tops - and eerily silent. He’s pretty sure there should be chattering squirrels or birds or something, but all he can hear is the distant roar of water and the occasional rustle of wind through branches. It’s not until he turns the last bend in the road that he even knows he’s arrived.
The noisy milling crowd of campers and parents is exactly what Sam expects and he heaves a deep sigh before pasting on an excited grin and making his way forward.
Sam checks in with his counselor pair, keeping his smile steady even when they ask where his parents are. If they really care, he’ll make something up. They don’t and Sam’s barely relieved, already listing the known deaths and finer details of the case in his mind. One every ten years, always in August, always here, but not always in the same exact location. Not always by the same means.
It’s a high pressure case, because the deaths only occur every ten years, so if Sam doesn’t figure it out they won’t have another shot for a decade. Sam knows he’s here only partly because of the case. Mary has a new lead on Yellow Eyes, and she refuses to take Sam on those cases. He stopped being pissed about it a long time ago; it’s the only time she ever treats him like a kid.
Sam follows his counselors and the rest of the guys in the group to their cabin. Raccoon Cabin, apparently, is the coolest cabin. At least, that’s according to the annoyingly cheerful guy with the dark hair leading them. The other counselor, Brad, rolls his eyes at the boys behind dark-haired guy’s back and the campers are practically wetting themselves with laughter. Sam can see the idolizing begin.
He shoves his duffel under his bed, checking that it’s out of sight. It has an extra compartment sewn into the bottom where he keeps his weapons and journal, but he can’t be too careful. He doesn’t bother changing, just waits on the steps while the other kids put their stuff away amid chatter and scuffles.
Most of the kids are only here for a week or two, to give their parents a break from their obnoxious whining about how boring summer is. Sam’s one of the few who are staying for the whole summer. He’s hoping at least it might mean they’ll watch him less carefully once they get used to him. For now he can at least make sure no one has any reason to pay attention to him, mostly by scowling at anyone who so much as looks at him. Works like a charm.
***
Dinner’s in the Mess Hall, also sometimes referred to as the Big Barn. From the enthusiasm of the counselors, Sam’s guessing the food won’t be this good every night. There are burgers and fries and not a single green thing in sight.
Sam watches the counselor’s table, wondering if any of them might have useful information about the history of the camp. He knows from experience that the most useful facts are often left out of the records, the stuff about who was fucking whose wife and whose suicide was really a murder. Sam figures there must some urban legends about this place - what better place for ghost stories than a summer camp?
There are twelve counselors, two for each cabin. Sam recognizes the two from his own cabin, Brad with the dirty blond hair and the other guy who smiles too much. Then there are the four girls at one end of the table, mostly talking amongst themselves and ignoring everything around them. One of them keeps glancing over to the other end of the table, like she’s checking if the dark-skinned guy in the blue shirt is watching her. Which, to be fair, he absolutely is, with no subtlety whatsoever. In fact, he’s being so blatant that the guy talking to him keeps rolling his eyes and finally elbows him hard.
Rolling-eyes guy is fair-skinned under a swath of freckles across his cheeks and straight nose. He has dark gold hair and a of self-assured smile that comes from a lifetime of being told what a winner he is. He’s exactly the kind of guy Sam hates on principle: never had to fight for anything in his life, never had to protect anything, never had to think further than the nearest cheerleader.
Next to him is another counselor, a girl with dark hair and blue eyes scanning the crowd of campers while her friend talks endlessly, gesturing animatedly. She catches Sam watching and raises her eyebrows, and Sam lets his gaze casually drift southward, aiming for the glazed-over stare of a horny teenager. He doesn’t look back at her face until he’s sure she’s moved on.
By the time dessert (root beer floats) is served, Sam has catalogued all the counselors with their various descriptive names and how much they probably know about the history of this camp. He spends the rest of the meal watching Freckles, as he’s dubbed the pretty boy counselor, licking ice cream off his thumb and teasing Shark Face (the blue-eyed girl) next to him. She gives back as good as she gets and Sam can’t take his eyes off the blush that creeps up under those freckles as the guy ducks his head. It’s a good act. Sam bets it works on all the pretty girls back home too.
***
After dinner is the Welcome Campfire out in the main clearing. The campers are all given a handful of marshmallows and instructed to find a stick. Sam lets his marshmallows burn to a crisp, going through the motions and keeping his eyes on the flame as he listens to the various conversations around him. It’s mostly useless chatter, kids discussing the possibility of snakes finding their way into the cabins or ticks carrying lethal diseases.
“I wouldn’t be too worried ‘bout snakes, if I were you. You know this place is haunted, right?”
That’s one of the counselors, the lovesick one who was sitting by Freckles, Sam guesses. He doesn’t turn around, preferring to listen in. Most of the campers scoff and laugh it off, but a couple start asking questions, and the guy’s voice drops into a lower register as he starts to tell the story.
“It started a hundred years ago, with the mysterious death of a young woman. Since then, every few summers, there’s been another inexplicable murder on the grounds. No one knows how they die, only that their bodies are found with an expression of absolute terror on their face. People say you can hear their ghosts at night, in the forest and crawling out of the lake, trying to warn the next victim.”
The kids have gone mostly quiet. The guy’s a good storyteller, his voice quiet and spooky over the crackling of the fire. When Sam turns around, there are more than a few scared faces in the crowd - the much thinner crowd, Sam notices. At least half of the counselors are missing.
As another counselor starts up her own story, this one about a haunted cave “not far from here,” Sam notices Freckles elbowing the guy who told the ghost story.
“Why do you have to tell them that story every time? If there’s a single nightmare tonight, I’m blaming you.”
“Dude, we have a legitimate scary story about this camp, it’s like our duty to pass it on. Besides, it’s not like there’s an actual ghost, and these kids can take it.”
Freckles scowls prettily at him.
“Yeah, there’s no ghost but there have been murders and -”
“Oh man, you still believe that serial killer theory? Dude, it’s just a coincidence. Maybe this is just a really nice place to murder people. There’s no serial killer.” He’s laughing as he says it, but it’s not harsh and Freckles just shrugs it off.
“Whatever. You hear a kid wake up screaming tonight, you go check it out.”
Sam turns away before they can notice him. Serial killer. Really. Civilians are fucking blind.
The other campers are completely oblivious, but Sam notices that the counselors are leaving in pairs, presumably to have some of their own fun. Sam considers trying follow, figuring he might overhear something useful, but the remaining campers are being watched even more carefully than usual.
They’re sent to bed around 9 and Sam waits for the other campers, hopped up on sugar and the excitement of being away from their parents, to fall gently into sleep before digging his duffel out and pulling out his journal. Keeping a record of all information is essential to seeing the whole puzzle and solving a case without mistakes. Mistakes get people killed.
Sam doesn’t have much to write, but he dutifully goes over what he already knows and adds the few new pieces of information he’s gathered before returning the journal to its hiding place and lying back. He can hear the distinct lack of movement, not even breathing, from behind the curtain and knows the counselors haven’t returned yet. Sam figures they’d probably get in a lot of trouble if a kid woke up right now, but then again, it must be a boring summer here at Camp Blackwater. The counselors probably have to find their fun where they can.
***
Dean and Dave make sure their campers are asleep before heading down to the bonfire, so by the time they arrive, the festivities are well under way. There’s a bottle of tequila being handed around the group, a cooler full of beers at Stan’s feet, and Dean can see Brad rolling a joint.
Stan grins at him and hands him a beer as he sits down. Dean likes Stan, even if he isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. He’s a good guy, always smiling and never looking to start trouble. Brad, on the other hand, has always rubbed Dean the wrong way. He’s got a mean streak a mile wide and never makes any effort with the more “difficult” kids. Right now, he’s handing a joint over to Rachel with a smile that’s a little friendlier than it needs to be.
Katie comes down the path and Stan stands with a groan - they each take a turn checking on all the cabins, the idea being that if there’s always one of them making the rounds, the kids are safe. They’re probably safe anyway, but nobody wants to take any chances.
Dean spends most of the evening trying to distract Dave from glaring at Brad, who spends the evening chatting with Rachel, leaning in close and occasionally laying a hand on her lower back. She looks flushed, pleased, if surprised, at the attention, and Dean can’t blame her - he doesn’t think Brad’s ever even talked to her before.
Fascinating though the social lives of his fellow counselors are, Dean excuses himself early. He manages to talk Dave into retiring early as well with a reminder that the first day is always the worst: confused campers, exhausted counselors, plenty of activities to keep everyone constantly occupied.
Dean falls into bed around one in the morning with an odd restless feeling crawling under his skin. He’s finally back at camp, surrounded by his friends and the familiar smell of dusty wood and green lakewater, but there’s something missing. Almost like... it’s all too familiar, and Dean’s on the edge of something about to mess it all up - and Dean sort of wants it messed up.
***
Dave shakes Dean out of his nightmare. The first year they’d roomed together, as campers back then, Dean had had to explain to Dave about his dreams. They happened about twice a week, sometimes more often, and Dean couldn’t seem to do anything about it. He doesn’t scream anymore, just mutters and tosses and turns, but Dave’s used to it all by now. A quick shake and a “Dude, get up,” is enough to pull Dean away from the fire in his mind.
At breakfast, Dean has to give a couple of kids “the Talk.” “The Talk” is always different: Dean’s unofficial role is the guy who can talk to the “troubled” kids, to the bullies, to anyone caught breaking the rules. He’d started doing it on his own, just wanted to get a kid to stop stealing everyone’s stuff from the lockers by the lake, but Ms. Hamilton, the camp Director - a woman with sharp black eyes and an impressively hooked nose - had picked up on it quickly.
When she’d called Dean into her office the first time, he was sure she’d somehow heard about the bottle of Captain Morgan he’d smuggled in, but instead he was greeted with a smile and an offer to be the unofficial camp “Mentor.” He remembers she was surprised he didn’t have any younger brothers and sisters, and Dean hadn’t bothered going into any details on that one.
Something about Dean’s natural, unassuming charm just makes it easy to get kids to listen to him, and this morning is no different. These kids were caught sneaking out early in the morning to catch a frog, the intention being to hide it in one of the girls’ beds. Dean explains how dangerous it is for kids to be out of counselor supervision, impressing upon them the importance of keeping their counselors in the know when they want to pull pranks.
***
Part III