“I think people are going to be pissed,” Stevie said. “But I think it will still happen. It also sounds like Todd Cooper killed Michael Penhale. That’s a pretty good motive for wanting him dead. But it doesn’t make any sense to punish him for killing an innocent kid by killing three other innocent people along with him.”

“Does it need to make sense?” Janelle asked. “Does sense matter in murder?”

“Not always,” Stevie said. “But I think it does when you have one this carefully planned. Someone researched the Woodsman. Someone brought supplies. Someone chased Eric Wilde through the woods for miles. Why do all of that if you just wanted Todd Cooper dead?”

There was no answer to this question.

“You know what Patty is, right?” Nate said after a moment. “It just hit me. She’s the final girl—that’s what you call the survivor in horror movies. It’s almost always a girl, and . . .”

“Nate,” Janelle said.

“No, hear me out. This whole thing is ticking a lot of the horror movie boxes. Murder at a sleepaway camp. A serial killer. A final girl. A kid who died because some teenagers were being irresponsible.”

“But this is real,” Janelle said.

“I’m not denying that,” Nate replied. “I’m just telling you the tropes.”

“Does this mean you know who did it?” Stevie asked.

“Jason Voorhees, and like I said before, he lives in a lake. And he’s been to space.”

They let this profound insight linger in the space between the moon and the surface of the water. A gentle drizzle began to fall, and there was a rumble of thunder in the distance.

“We should probably go inside before it pours,” Janelle said.

The trio walked up the dock and back into the campgrounds. Stevie and Janelle walked Nate to the treehouse, then continued on to their cabin behind the art pavilion. Stevie had become accustomed to the dark of the woods at Ellingham Academy—winter nights in the mountains of Vermont are very long, and very dark indeed. But at Ellingham, there were always lights in the windows or a fire in the hearth, and the walls of the buildings were made of brick and stone, built to keep out the elements. Here at the camp, the veil between the outside and the inside was much thinner. There was a thick moistness to the air, gluing everything together.

And, of course, these were murder woods.

Stevie shook off the thought and followed Janelle inside their cabin. There was one overhead lamp inside, which seemed to cast more shadow than glow. They each had a small reading lamp at their bedside. It wasn’t a lot of light. They set to work unpacking and setting up their cabin. Janelle removed a stack of citronella candles from one of her bags and began placing them around the room in what seemed to be a ritualistic fashion, though they were more likely to be in the places insects could access the bunk, including under the screen with the hole in it. Stevie arranged her medications on the top of her bureau. She had learned from her Ellingham experience that sometimes she needed something to help her rest when she was in a new place or things were especially stressful. She took a pill, washing it down with the warm remains of soda in the can. She dumped her suitcase out onto her bed and shuffled through the contents, stuffing them in drawers. Janelle opened the drawers of her dresser one by one, testing them for sturdiness and sniffing them.