Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-5241980-20150605025925

Any criticism is welcome. This is a first draft.

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“Eastland Missionary Camp"



By Little Dog



From 1965 until 2008, the Eastland Missionary Camp in South Dakota served as a place for international missionaries to stay when they needed to take time off. The camp was generally considered to be a fairly quiet area, separate from the “noise of the world” as the founder, Reverend Henry Eastland liked to put it. Over the years, the camp also opened up facilities to allow for various churches to hold retreats on the grounds, primarily for children (myself included) whose parents wanted their kids’ summer camp experience to be a bit more spiritual.



Now, as we all know, horror stories and summer camp go hand in hand and as much as the various counselor and staff tried to prevent it, Eastland was no different. But the “Legend of Black Lake” as it was so called was different. Black Lake was a fairly large lake that covered most of the campground’s northwest side. It was right on the shores of Black Lake that the cabins set aside for church retreats were located so as to be separate from the various cabins scattered around the rest of the area used by the various visiting missionaries. This made it a prime spot for canoeing, fishing, and other aquatic activities.



If you were to ask the last owner of the camp before it was shut down where the lake had acquired its name, he would tell you that it was named for a missionary named Ezra Black who was one of Eastland’s first and most frequent visitors, supposedly a close friend of Reverend Eastland himself. This is the same story that the previous owner would tell you and it’s probably the same story that the reverend would tell you, had he not died only seven years after the camp’s opening. This story seems reasonable enough, but a very small amount of research shows that this may not be as true as it seems. The official records of the camp, though admittedly not kept very well for the first five or six years of operation, show no trace of an Ezra Black staying on the premises and in fact, show only one person with the surname ‘Black’ having ever been a regular visitor. Furthermore, neither the International Mission Board nor the North American Mission Board nor even Baptist International Missions Inc. has any record of anyone with this name. There of course exists the possibility that Ezra Black worked independent of any mission board, however considering the difficulties both legal and financial faced by independent missionaries, this seems incredibly unlikely.



This is where the ‘Legend’ plays in. There was a story told from camper to camper about Black Lake and how it really got that name. The story varies in each telling, but the basic story goes like this:



''There was a boy who came to Eastland Missionary Camp with his Sunday school class named Tom. The class was fairly small, only about twenty five children in all. They had planned to arrive on Monday and leave on Friday. ''

 

<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''One of the rules that has always been heavily emphasized at Eastland Missionary Camp is that children are not permitted to leave the cabins after dark without the express permission of a counselor or in the case of an emergency. Now, Tom was known for being a very big troublemaker and had already spent the first three days of the week causing problems for the staff and his fellow campers.''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''On the fourth day, Tom became upset when he was forbidden from going canoeing as punishment for inappropriate behavior. So he waited until everyone was asleep and snuck out to the shack where the canoes were kept. There were no locks on the doors, as the camp was in such a remote area, so Tom was able to fairly easily obtain one as well as a paddle. He moved several yards further down the shore so as to be far enough away from the cabins that he would not be heard, but close enough that he would be able to see if there was any movement from that area.''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''As Tom set out onto Black Lake he chuckled to himself at how clever he had been. The moon was full that night and cast the perfect amount of light onto the water. Tom paddled around the lake, observing all the various vegetation around and in the lake.''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''Suddenly, Tom heard a noise in the distance. Thinking quickly, he laid down flat in the bottom of the canoe, trying to determine what the noise was. He laid still for what seemed like an eternity, until he felt the canoe bump into something. Assuming he must have hit the shore, he sat up and looked around. To his surprise, the canoe had not landed on the shore, but on a small islet in the middle of the lake. ''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''Tom stepped out onto the islet. There wasn’t much to see on it, mostly just overgrown bushes and grass, but still he was intrigued and decided to explore a little. He walked around to the other side of the islet and sat on the sand, feeling a little drowsy.''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''Tom looked out at the water and noticed a shadow on the water that seemed to come from nowhere. Assuming there had to be a logical explanation, he stared at it, trying to determine the shadow’s origin. He stared for several minutes, so much that his eyes started to dry and go out of focus. He blinked and rubbed them before looking back at the shadow.''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">''The shadow seemed to have grown larger. In fact, as he stared it was clear that it was actively growing. More and more, faster and faster; soon it seemed that the whole lake was enveloped in pitch black. Tom ran back to the other side of the islet only to find the canoe missing. Afraid and alone, he was close to tears. He jumped as he heard a shifting in the water. He strained his eyes to find the source of the noise. His eyes locked onto something rising up from the water.''

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">That much is the consistent part of the story. The ending however, nobody seems to be able to agree on. I’ve heard the story multiple different ways, though in most of them some kind of monster or ghost of a serial killer rises up out of the water to murder the boy and the method of death has ranged from the boy being chopped into pieces to being eaten alive to being whipped or strangled to death with chains. But after hearing the story for so many years, only one version has ever really stuck out to me.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">In this version, the boy is found the next morning on the shore near the cabins soaking wet and near death. He is rushed to the hospital and lives long enough to recount the story before dying. The part that always freaked me out when I was younger was that the doctors supposedly couldn’t determine his cause of death.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Now, obviously this isn’t a story that can be validated. There are no records of such an event occurring and trying to find a specific boy named ‘Tom’ who attended the camp is nigh impossible as there have literally been hundreds of kids with that name who have been there. Not to mention the fact that I’ve heard the story told using the names ‘Bill’, ‘Joey’, ‘Tim’, and many others and that’s not even accounting for the versions which use a female protagonist or the version which uses a counselor.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Still, flight of fancy or not, the story fascinates me even to this day. Yes it’s a fond memory I have of the weeks in the summer I spent at camp, but there are two reasons that the story sticks out to me.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">The first is that after Eastland Missionary Camp shut down, it was completely sanctioned off. The entire perimeter is now blocked off with chain link fence and barbed wire. The property now belongs to the state, though I have no idea why they haven’t tried repurposing the land or selling it, albeit now there’s not much point considering how long the area has been in a state of disuse. But here’s the thing. I don’t claim to have an idea what this was, but there was one time I had decided to drive out to the area to see if I could recognize any of it. By the time I got there, it was already getting dark out. I stood at the fence and looked through and I swear I could see the movement of people with flashlights and quiet speech. It’s entirely possible that it was just a couple of thrill-seeking teenagers, but I also noticed two police cars parked on the side of the road about a mile back after I had left.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">The second is a talk I had with Reverend Eastland’s widow in 2011. She was 82 and in the beginning stages of dementia, but I still managed to find out a little more about the Reverend. According to the story everyone heard, he died from a heart attack in his home. But the talk I had with Mrs. Eastland has given me doubts. I asked her what she remembered about his death, primarily out of curiosity about the way the affairs of the camp were handled since it had been open for such a short period of time. She only said one thing to me on the subject.

<p class="MsoNoSpacing">“They found him on the shore of the lake.” <ac_metadata title="Eastland Missionary Camp (working title, rough draft, unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>