Camp VHS: The Story That Never Was

Not quite there, sigh.

For the Stay a While Challenge, I wanted to craft a two-part story set in an isolated Iowa Summer Camp. The 3,000-word limit didn't allow for the necessary world-building, contextual character development, and savvy twist in the final act, so I sought to split Camp VHS's complete story into two separate submissions.

It didn't work out.

Tying two fiction pieces into a cohesive "Part 1" and "Part 2" was bloody (pun intended!) difficult, even with a hybrid 6,000-word limit. I also felt that the first submission would have a stupendously higher chance of placing in the Challenge because, well, Part 2 was Part 2.

Sequels always suffer.

Part 1 had no required knowledge to get readers up to speed; Part 2 would've had a snowflake's chance in hell as a standalone piece because of the secret killer-in-plain-sight setup — the classic "Final Girl" trope was to be flipped on its feminist head. One particular character may've seemed like the status quo 80s-esque innocent heroine at first, yet her true intentions were... deliciously demonic.

Judges would've had to read both, and since the Challenge was calling for ONE piece with a 3000-word maximum, a second submission (coupled with an altruistic take on trauma and revenge) felt moot.

I'd constructed a storyboard for both pieces, and the second serving of Camp VHS was superior, peppered with gravitas and twists galore. I tried salvaging my vision: cramming the storyline into one submission in a last-ditch attempt, but the pacing was too frenetic.

Now, let's deconstruct the story that never quite came together, shall we?

Camp VHS was set in a real town: Keosauqua. It's located along the Des Moines River and has a population of 947. I even researched the local radio station so I could refer to it correctly and name-dropped the mayor in the draft. I set all my fiction pieces in real-world locations; believability in fiction is underrated.

In the intro, three central female protagonists (Gloria, Tina, and Betty) are pumping iron at the local gym, before being picked up by their jock boyfriends and travelling 15 miles North to the campground:

Bucky's Gym in downtown Keosauqua was, well, not exactly bustling at 8 PM on a sleepy Tuesday night.

This truly is a fitness arena in the middle of fucking nowhere, in a rural dot on the map. Keosauqua is tepidly-named the "crown jewel" of Iowa's Des Moines River by several of its 947 inhabitants.

Okay, maybe not several. Melissa Mahon, the enthusiastic mayor, sings its praises each morning on 105.4 Van Buren County breakfast radio. Nothing of note ever happens in a place like this.

Only three people are inside, clad head-to-toe in matching high-cut neon pink leotards, complete with headbands and leg warmers. The graduates of Hairspray High 1982 performing step-ups to the beat of Olivia Newton-John's new smash hit: Let's Get Physical.

- Camp VHS draft

Bucky's Gym is, again, a real gym in Keosauqua! I wonder what it's really like?!

I wanted the vibe of this story to be campy and deliberately stereotypical. It was filmic, nostalgic, and driven by B-grade schlocky horror. This wasn't just a fiction piece; it was a story (borderline script) within a story. The concept centered around an unknown viewer watching this story on video, hence the titular VHS. Locations at the campground included: Rewind Forest, Pause Parking Lot, and Found Footage Cabin.

Characters were written in a self-referential style, regularly breaking the fourth wall:

The camera pans out as Betty leaps into thick brush. Surely this madman won't find her here? She winks at the viewer and whispers, "I got this!"

- Camp VHS draft

Betty was the aforementioned "Final Girl" of the piece. She had all the hallmarks of one: she was the only virgin in the friendship group, she wasn't the prettiest of the bunch, yet she sensed danger before the others cottoned on. She was a meld of Laurie Strode from Halloween, Julie James from I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Jill Roberts from Scream 4.

Betty wears dark-rimmed glasses, and her long black hair is replete with split ends. Not exactly the queen glamazon among the trio.

- Camp VHS draft

For any of you familiar with Scream 4, your instincts may've been piqued. Jill was positioned as the leading heroine of that film, only to reveal herself as one of two killers before the credits roll...

Betty saves Lance (her secret crush, or so the reader is led to believe) from Silas — the crazed clown killer clad in a dilapidated McDonald's uniform. Delivering the killing blow with Silas's own knife.

Silas is about to kill Lance when Betty drives a knife through his chest and twists it with unnatural skill. Silas gargles on his own blood, tilting his head to the side quizzically.

- Camp VHS draft

His "quizzical" head tilt, the surprise when she was the one to kill him, was a slight hint at this incoming revelation:

She outstretches her hand to Lance, and as police sirens ring out in the starry-skied distance, the two embrace and share an awkward kiss. Betty backs away and doesn’t feel it’s the right time, not straight after Tina’s death. Lance shakes his head, mouthing “I always loved you more” as Betty stabs him in the right shoulder!

- Camp VHS draft

Tina was rich. Tina was pretty. Tina was accepted into Harvard. She was everything Betty aspired to be.

What's worse, she was Lance's girlfriend. In the first semester of the group's final year at Hairspray High, Lance and Betty had a brief fling, which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Betty wanted to keep the baby, but Lance pressured her into an abortion. He chided her, threatened to out her in the senior yearbook as a "slut", and was fearful of losing his football scholarship, partly funded by Tina's mogul father.

Betty's breaking point came after her abortion at a clinic, revealed in a forthcoming monologue. She was fueled by revenge, yet maintained her sweet, gawky demeanor as she sought out a villainous partner.

In a partly written flashback scene, the reader learns that she'd met Silas in a rundown bar a month before graduation. He was an oddball mechanic, and she'd only been accepted into some shitty community college — Slash Dance University. Her quest for vengeance brought out a lustful side to her personality; she manipulated him into committing murders at the isolated campground, which was supposed to be swarming with kids over the Summer vacation period.

However, Betty had lied to her friends. She lured them to the abandoned site one night before they were set to take on camp counsellor duties, insisting there was a typo on their official "Welcome to Camp VHS, Counsellors!" confirmation forms:

"I've researched all the other Summer camps in the state, guys. We need to arrive on June 21, *not* the 22nd. I'm the brainiac of the group; don't you trust me?"

- Camp VHS draft

Silas was instructed to kill all of them, leaving Lance and Tina for last. Gloria and Teddy's deaths in the earlier portion of the story were collateral damage, and their scenes (which I never got around to writing, it's an incomplete story after all) were intended to flavor the popcorn-worthy slasher tone.

Now, here's Betty's aforementioned post-reveal monologue, alongside some additional narrative details:

"Silas would’ve done anything for me. He killed for me, baby. He wanted to get caught and become a famous serial killer, ha! What a loser. Can you say, DELUSIONAL?"

Betty paces back and forth, pointing the knife at Lance with her left hand, and fingering Silas’ gushing wound with her right. She smears his blood over her throat and tears at her singlet in a fit of rage, delicately carving a vertical wound on her shoulder.

"This motherfucking final girl is thickening the plot with an artful framing of victimhood. The cops will think I survived a horrendous assault, and they'll be so damn easy to fool. And remember, Lance darling, I am NOT the girl you treat as your slut!”

- Camp VHS draft

SASSY!

Lance holds both hands up in surrender as blood trickles from his shoulder. "I never meant to hurt you, Betty, I swear! I-I-I’m clueless, I’m gutless, I didn’t want to hurt Tina, and her mom loved me like her own. I never knew mine."

Betty rolls her eyes.

"Shut the fuck up, it’s my time to speak, this is my twisty third-act monologue, so take a seat. YOU forced me to give up the only thing that ever mattered to me — our baby. YOU never told a living soul about us because you were so fucking ashamed of sleeping with me. Well, well, well... look at me now! The lens is focused on ME. My name will be right at the top of the credits, bitch boy.”

Betty stabs Lance again, yet this time, in the testicles. “Final Girl super strength, baby. All of us so-called weaklings have it, though I’ve used it to cause fucked up shit! Why save the selfish when I can kill them?! No such animal as an innocent person, and you know this better than anyone.”

- Camp VHS draft

As you can see, this section would've been bursting with shock value; Betty's personality certainly took a crazed, self-indulgent U-turn.

I've decided to finish Camp VHS, my fruity and brutal concept, and submit it to a new publishing house specializing in horror for their 16-author short story anthology. The word limit is 6,000, and Betty needs her fully fleshed character arc in print! She and all her fictitious "co-stars" will (hopefully) be brought to life from the melting pot of my mind.

(c) Edward Swafford 2026

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