* This is a fictionalized account of some shit that actually happened. All the names, locations, etc. have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. – JG *
What was it in Kenton that made this all happen? Because we can go back and forth about this in the adult light of day but in the dark, at night, I simply can’t believe that 3 adults and 7 kids all from the same school district were killed in what amounts to an 11 month period and there wasn’t a cause, there wasn’t something that made it all happen. It wasn’t chance, and it wasn’t coincidence: Kenton is a village of less than 10,000 people. The statistical probability of all of these things happening in the stated time period with the geographical and population limits imposed is astronomical. I think there was a specific cause and I think it had something to do with Snakeland.
I like Snakeland because it makes sense to me. It represents a lot of things: our area’s proud industrial past turned into a big rusty hulk of shit, the brute force and ugly vulgarity of Metal, the Bad Place where the Bad Kids go to do Bad Things. It also represents the Haunted House, the Abandoned Castle, the eerie and empty Mansion on the Hill overshadowing the quaint little village.
I like things that make sense. I like Snakeland. I don’t like the murders of Katie Hoehner and the Janks Family. I don’t like the suicides of Rand, Tim, Carolyn, and Chris. None of it makes sense. Not so close to each other, not in Kenton, not without some hue and cry from the parents of Kenton, at least the parents of Kenton North students.
Why didn’t they say anything? It doesn’t make sense. Did it seem too crazy to them, as if it wasn’t, couldn’t be happening?
Why didn’t we say anything? Were we really that self-absorbed, that juvenile, that we could just forget? Or somehow not become terrified that we would be next?
Death lived in Kenton, NY for a while. I’m going to place it in Snakeland, and I’m going to find a good reason for it to be there.
