Camp Stories – Thump Drag

Listen to the rain hitting the window and the wind howling around the cabin. Evil is often about on these kind of nights and often creeps into the safest places. This is kind of night is what the old time counselors call a Thump Drag night. That's because it is nights as this that a mean old man with a leg that drags and hits the ground with a thump from the other leg. Yes on nights like this listen carefully. If you don't Thump Drag may just sneak into the cabin and drag you away. So, you are thinking that if this might happen someone would have told you. This has been a secrete here since the first year the camp was open.

Before this was a camp for boys it was a farm forest. In the summer it was quiet except for the wind. In the fall it was a place to hunt squirrels and deer. That is just the way Caminate Jaquats liked it.

His house is just a short way from the camp boundaries. Everything about the camp upset Cam: announcements, bugle calls, big bells ringing, swimmers splashing, singing, and even the smack of a baseball. He was very upset. “Neighbors were quiet,” he complained, “then bunch of squealing, shouting, screaming, obnoxious boys moved in. Just got to get rid of them somehow.”

So Cam started to harass the camp thinking that if he made enough trouble the camper would leave. At night he could come into the camp and cut the wires to the speakers of the communication system. The next morning Norm, the camp wire splicing specialist would get the system working again. Cam saw that this was not going to cause the camp to leave. Evil plots only make sense to the plotters of evil.

He pushed the boats and canoes out into the lake so they would float to the other side. The next day a couple of counselors would round them up and bring them back. That was not making the camp leave. Most evil persons are cowards who harass hope that their plots cannot be traced to them.

He decided to steal the bell from the top of the office building so it could not be used to announce storms or fires if the power was out. There was an old ladder by the Mess Hall that the campers used for the Blue and White War for the winning Chief to climb and ring the bell. Cam leaned it to the side of the building and climbed up. As he reached the bell a rung on the ladder broke. Cam fell to the ground breaking his leg. He crawled home and was taken to a doctor.

The doctor was not very good at setting bones. When the leg healed it was stiff and he could not bend his knee. So now when he walked the once broken leg was dragged along. Cam became Thump Drag.

Though he was disabled, Thump Drag was more determined than ever to do something to get rid of the one thing that he hated the most. Late at night he would drag his lame leg through the camp looking for a way to get the people there to leave. All he really wanted was quiet and his hunting forest back. His mind cracked and he began to think evil thoughts.

“Maybe if I caught one of them and took them into the woods and tied them to a tree,” he thought. “Yep! Just leave them there all alone in the dark. Then I could growl like a bear or some beast. Hee, hee, that would scare the be jibbers out of them and send them all to the city.”

Night after night Cam would spy on the camp from the forest around it. He hoped that a boy would come close enough so that he could catch him and take him into the forest. He had picked out the tree the boy would be tied to. The ropes were already there. Near the base of the tree was an ant hill and a jar of honey so he could make a trail form the ants to the tree. He laughed to himself of how ant bites would make a boy scream. But no boy came close enough to catch in the evening. Once in the cabin they were watched carefully by the staff until they went to sleep. That's it just wait until the counselors left the cabin for their evening togethers and go in and get one.

Thump Drag made up a kit to carry for his diabolical plans. In a bag he had a gag to quickly stuff into a startled boy's mouth. There was tape to put over the boys mouth to hold the gag in place. He also had a rope to bind up the victim so he would be easy to carry away. Thump Drag thought he was so clever. This plan he was sure would get rid of the camp at last.

The law does not convict evil thoughts until they are acted up on. Thinking you want to rob a bank and making plans in your mind will not convict you unless your act. To this time there is not the proof needed to convict Thump Drag for even trespassing as no one has caught him in the act.

He snicks into camp at night when a storm can hide him to get his prey. He is chased out many times by the counselor who was on guard, but he is only seen in the weak light of a flashlight. As far as anyone knows he is still trying to carry out his plan. If you hear a thumb followed by a drag you will know he is going through the camp to find a boy to tie to a tree in the forest. It will be so until he is caught. Will it be tonight with the rain and the wind? Who can say? If it is tonight will get a boy from this cabin? Who can say?

If Thump Drag gets into the cabin and grabs one of you, please do not wake me as I need my rest and he only wants to take a boy not a counselor.