The girl who had found them, the murdered girl's bunkmate, had been taken to the country hospital in a state of nervous shock. Some claim she got better; others insisted that she was still in an institution somewhere, locked up in a padded cell and screaming about blood. The police had never solved the murders. Theories abounded, depending on who told the story. The murders were either committed by one of the other counselors in a jealous homicidal rage, or an escaped inmate from an insane asylum or by a Satan cult or some deranged derelict living in the woods still on the loose, still out there somewhere, or if you listened to Crazy Old Ralph, by vengeful ghosts or ravaging demons or by little green men from a UFO. The story varied according to how much Old Ralph had to drink, but then, nobody listened to Old Ralph anyway.

Old Ralph was the town geek. No small town was complete without one. Big cities had them too, more than their share, but in big cities, geeks completely wandered the streets talking to themselves and carrying all of their belongings in shopping bags, sleeping in parks or down in the subways. They were ignored by a population that considered them a nuisance and didn't really want to see them, lest they feel some spark of human pity. People in small towns noticed, maybe no one listened to them but at least they noticed them, which made for some kind of human interaction.

Old Ralph was happier in the town of Crystal Lake than he would have been in a big city. He had no friends except his imaginary ones and his long-suffering wife, but people noticed him and knew him.

Every now and then, he'd get tanked up and hear the call. He would mount up his old swim newsboy special, the kind of bike you don't see anymore. With sheet metal wrapped around the top frame rail, so that it looks like it has a gas tank. The kind with the big balloon tires and springs under the seat. He would ride out like Paul Revere, shouting the gospel, doing the Lord's work, a latter-day Reverend Jonathan Edwards, preaching to the sinners. A Puritan, warning of an Angry God. Nobody listened, but at least they heard him and because they heard him, they called the Sheriff and Officer Dorf would be sent to bring Ralph in to sleep it off.