Bible Camp Bloodbath
Page 6
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, and everyone stopped to listen. “This is about those children I murdered, isn’t it?” He laughed. “God,” he said. “When did it become illegal to have a good time?”
* * *
The police spent a whole day photographing the camp. They had a list of the campers and it was very difficult matching names to the bodies they found, or to the parts of the bodies. The counsellors were easier. In Tony’s office the police found photocopies of the counsellors’ ID cards, along with the background checks.
Eventually they had to ask the parents to provide photographs and then they had to ask the parents to come in to verify the identities in person. Every piece of paper was taken into evidence.
In the main building, there was a downstairs office. In the top drawer of the desk there, the police found a folded note: “To Mom, From Martin.” There was a boy named Martin among the dead.
The note read, “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone. If I don’t get away, then I promise I will haunt you!”
* * *
Tony pulled Martin by the hair, dragging the boy toward the beach and the sound of waves. The air smelled like salt and the moon looked lovely up above the ocean. Martin fought, but the harder he fought, the more it felt like his hair was being torn out of his head. He grabbed at Tony’s hands, and tried to hold on.
The water was ice cold and they didn’t go out very deep before Tony stopped and let go of Martin’s hair. Tony looked around and let out a sigh.
“Look at this,” Tony said. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It makes you glad to be alive, doesn’t it? Take a minute, enjoy it.”
Martin sat in the water with the waves coming up almost to his shoulders and then rolling past him. Every wave seemed to lift him up, just a little, and carry him back away from Tony, toward land.
“Okay,” Tony said, and he took hold of Martin’s head again, and forced him down under the water. He put all his weight into it, driving Martin’s face into the sand and rocks of the beach. The salt stung inside Martin’s nose, but he couldn’t struggle with Tony on him. He thought about his mother coming home to an empty apartment and he couldn’t help it, he took a deep lungful of water. It felt terrifying. He couldn’t stop. He breathed in salt water and the stirred-up sand filled his lungs. Above him, it sounded like Tony was singing something again and he could hear the waves too, sort of, but it was all fading. He thought about his mother’s face, smiling, and he held that picture in his mind for the rest of his life.
The End
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Doctor Priyadarshani Raju for her medical expertise regarding the practical aspects of murdering children, and the impracticality of using pieces of murdered children to murder an adult.
Also, thank you to Bryanna Reilly, Tim Maly, Jeff Grantham, Maggie Dort, Emily Horne, Ryan North, my mom, the Malagash Bible Camp, and Mike Saturday Lecky. Hail Satan.
Murder Index.
Adults: 49, 52, 56.
Beheaded: 57.
Boys: 34, 46, 48, 56, 57, 58, 70.
By axe: 46, 52, 56, 57, 58, 64, 65.
By drowning: 70.
By razor: 34, 49, 60.
Children: 34, 39, 46, 48, 57, 58, 60, 64, 65, 66, 70.
Disfigurement: 46, 52, 57, 64, 66.
Experiencing their first menstruation: 39.
Girls: 39, 48, 49, 52, 64, 65, 66.
Implied: 48, 60.
Looking for their missing brother: 46.
Offscreen: 48, 60, 65.
Puppetry: 64.
Via sledgehammer: 46.
With a knife: 66.
Worrying about their father’s immortal soul: 33.
Worrying about what their mother might do without them: 70.
About the Author
Joey Comeau is the author of Lockpick Pornography, Overqualified, and One Bloody Thing After Another. He lives in Canada and, with photographer Emily Horne, he makes the webcomic A Softer World. Google that shit.
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