Crystal Lake

A summer-camp in the forests of the Pine Barrens (New Jersey) motivates a group of youngsters to inquire about two supernatural entities --- a masked strangler and a chameleon-ghost (both Satanic).

Camp Crystal Lake was opening for the summer of 2020, and the new counsellors and coordinators expected to hoist a successful summer-camp flag in the forests of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, where Crystal Lake was located. This summer-camp was to be well-furnished, with impressive bunk-bed cabins fitted with high-quality beds and blankets and featuring stained-glass windows. The camp counsellors included Jake Sully, Tara Richards, Freddy Thompson, Nina Ramone, Angie Chung, and Sam Washington. The camp was to host a group of 50 youngsters this year/summer (2020), and there would be nature hikes, marshmallows, games, treasure hunts, and of course campfire ghost-stories!

Camp Crystal Lake opened its gates that summer to the youngsters who were brought in on school buses provided by the state. The Pine Barrens were considered a lush area of woods, rather expansive, and there were all kinds of folklore surround the forest, including one of the presence of a cryptic supernatural semi-animal creature called the Jersey Devil. As the youngsters were marshaled into their assigned cabins and unpacked their things before heading to the main cafeteria hall where they were greeted by the counsellors, the feeling in the air was one of great summer magic and energy. There was also an air of fun mystical/superstition imagination, since the Pine Barrens were widely-considered to be an area of great mysterious ghost-stories and spook-tales. The lake the camp was named after, Crystal Lake, was believed to house a strange underwater ghost who sang at night.

Camp Crystal Lake was going to be to the modern era of vacation minded Americans what arguably the World's Fair used to be to people from the early to mid to late 19th and 20th Centuries --- a venue of great socialization rhetoric/ideology. People in the 21st Century believed the summer-camp was the ideal venue to unwind and think about the social value of shared outdoor experiences in this new age of great networking energy (e.g., Facebook) that created a spiritual demand for nature-activities (camping, swimming, etc.). Camp Crystal Lake was meant to encourage youngsters to find vibrant things to do in their environments and appreciate the human magic of educational shared activities. When the counsellors told this year's batch of youngsters they'd be encouraged to offer up their original forest ghost-stories, some of the campers began cooking up ideas to add to the area's rich history of entertaining outlandish tales.

Camp Crystal Lake was rumored to be haunted by two eerie supernatural 'entities' --- one was a sackcloth-masked strangler named the Strangler(!); the other was a chameleon-ghost called the Thing(!). The Strangler and the Thing provided the campers a fun way to indulge their fascination with the macabre and the unusual. When the first night of campfire ghost-stories arrived, the counselor Jake Sully carried the spotlight with his featured stories about the Strangler and the Thing. Jake explained, "The Strangler spies on campers in Crystal Lake and might choke a negligent counsellor who's failing to carry out his/her duties in the care/treatment of the campers/youngsters; the Thing, on the other hand, is a shape-shifting ghost who entices out morbid curiosity about the visual appearance of evil!" Jake told the youngsters that Camp Crystal Lake was to be celebrated as a place where ideas about fear and wonder would be entertained.

Well, in the midpoint of the summer-session at Camp Crystal Lake, a handful of eager youngsters, led by Danny, Jenny, Timmy, Shelbye, and Cindy set out to sneak out of their cabins late at night and wander around the forest searching for the Strangler and the Thing. This group of defiant/daring youngsters called themselves the Rascals and were determined to find answers about the existence and purpose of the Strangler and the Thing. Well, the Rascals did indeed make contact and ended up coming face-to-face it's both the Strangler and the Thing who were convened near Crystal Lake on that full-moon night the Rascals sneaked out if their camp cabins to go searching for the two iconic supernatural entities. The Rascals discovered that the Strangler and the Thing wanted to converse/debate with them about the value of belief in the supernatural, and the exchange was quite special...

RASCALS: How long have you been in the forest?
STRANGLER/THING: Don't ask!
RASCALS: Are you 'guiding' us somehow?
STRANGLER/THING: We want you to care about life on Earth!
RASCALS: Why are you two 'beings' so strange?
STRANGLER/THING: We want you to think about fear!
RASCALS: Is Crystal Lake a place of mystery?
STRANGLER/THING: This place represents fear of the supernatural!
RASCALS: Why're you two 'beings' considered to be unfriendly?
STRANGLER/THING: We guide people with lessons about mortality!
RASCALS: Do you want us campers to celebrate you two as angels?
STRANGLER/THING: We're not angels but rather fireflies!
RASCALS: Crystal Lake will surely be a place of great tales.
STRANGLER/THING: Keep the magic mysterious and remain secretive!

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