Crystal Lake Research Facility - August 2010
Carter stood with his hand resting on the cold steel door handle. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd first raised his hand, since he had frozen to the spot with his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the glass. There was an ache in his left elbow, and the sensation of the hefty weight in his grasp finally starting to register in his brain. He looked down at the black case, his fingers wrapping tightly around the chrome handle. Perhaps a little too tightly, based on the cramp flooding into his palm and knuckles. Carter let out a long exhalation, his chest shuddering as the stale air escaped in a wheeze, frosting up the glass set into the door.
"You've got this," he muttered to himself, doing very little in the way of reassurance. Summoning up what reserves of willpower he had left, he pushed down on the door handle and slid it open.
The morgue was cold, that much he could understand. Controlling the temperature was a great way to stop the spread of bacteria and stop the occupants from stinking out the whole facility. What he couldn't get his head around was how dark it was always kept. Maybe too much light could fuck with the specimens too, Carter reasoned, but there was no way it could be safe operating all their saws and drills with such poor lighting. He reached to the side of the door frame and groped at the light switch, flicking it upwards.
*CLICK*
Nothing.
*CLICK*
Nothing.
Carter sighed. Of course. Of course there'd be no working lights in the morgue when he had to come in here alone. Why would anything be simple and not pants-shittingly awful about this job? He cursed out the facility's maintenance teams under his breath, placing his hand on the edge of a table and slowly easing himself forward into the room. He picked his feet up high, treading softly and deliberately as he made his way through the morgue. He guided himself by the light of the corridor behind him and by the dim blue light bleeding in through the window. Feeble moonlight. Carter sighed again. All he needed was an ominous string quartet and his evening would be complete.
He took it slow, counting against his odds that he was going to knock something off one of the tables or step in something loose and soft and wet and...
Every step was a struggle to calm himself, get his breathing under control and stop the dread from chattering away in the crawlspaces of his brain. He rounded a corner and stopped in his tracks. Dead ahead, maybe a little over twenty feet away and hemmed in by a maze of empty steel tables, his target lay immobile on a gurney. A vast black island amidst the cluttered ocean of smokey greys, blues and silvers. From where he stood, Carter couldn't tell whether it was facing towards him or away from him. Hell, for all he could tell the massive lump might not have had a face at all.
He slunk in closer, sliding his way between examination tables to get within arm's reach of the target. He could make out its individual details more clearly now. Enormous well-worn boots on the ends of thick redwood-esque legs. Rotted clothes lying over the sunken musculature of a decaying corpse. His eyes traced over the outline of a gloved hand lying inert against the steel, clutched into a fist the size of a human head.
Over the whole cadaver was a veritable mesh of leather straps, cuffs and chains to secure it in place. Everything was locked and bolted, not a single inch of slack in any of the restraints. From what Carter recalled, the specimen had been dead on arrival and had been sequestered down in the morgue for the few weeks that had passed since then. Clearly the facility's security weren't taking even the slightest hint of a chance with this thing. Almost despite himself, Carter let his gaze explore further upwards and looked the monstrosity square in the face.
Skin and muscle ligaments seemed to collapse into the surface of a skull that was more battlefield than bone. Great craters and ragged scars ran across the monsters face. Expanses of flesh were burned, lacerated, putrefied or just plain missing. A few flat teeth jutted out of a receded jaw, and one milky-white sightless eye came close to bulging clear out of its misshapen socket. The sight was almost enough to make Carter wish they had left the damn thing's mask on. He looked across at the table immediately behind the occupied one, at the chipped and stained mound of plastic that had tasted bloodstains of countless victims. A shudder passed from the base of his skull all the way down his body into the floor. Maybe not.
Not wanting to spend any longer than was necessay, Carter got to work.
He set up the case on a nearby table and unlocked it, taking the small gun-like syringe out of its molded foam housing and started to screw in the specimen jar. To his amazement, his shaking hands didn't once drop the device or even accidentally impale his fingers on the glinting syringe tip. He searched over the body for a patch of skin that would serve as an appropriate harvesting ground, finally settling on an exposed stretch of its thick neck. He pressed the gun to the cool flesh and punctured it, gagging at the immediate release of smells. Ancient blood, formaldehyde, stagnant water. He shook his head, gripping the handle of the device tightly and thumbing the plunger. With a quiet sucking noise, the gadget drew a small amount of viscous black liquid into its chamber, gurgling away as it finished stealing a sizeable tissue sample.
He pulled the syringe out slowly, watching with idle curiosity and disgust as a tiny trickle of pungent grey liquid seeped down the giant's bulging throat. For the briefest moment he fancied he saw a small rush of movement, as though air was flowing down its neck and inflating its cavernous chest. After a few seconds of staring, he shook it off and began unscrewing the vial from the syringe before putting everything back into its container.
Hefting up the case, he gave one last look to the beast on the slab and turned on his heel, ready to finally get out of there. He took a step and his stomach dropped. The resistance felt very evident, something gripping his coat and holding it steady with inhuman strength. His pulse was beating away in his ears like a wardrum as he slowly started to turn, body rigid and eyes watering. His brain started recollecting all the names that had been passed around since the specimen had been brought in.
The Crystal Lake Killer.
The Campground Beast.
The New Jersey Ripper.
Jason fucking Voorhees.
He looked down at the still motionless corpse on the table, then moved his gaze down to the corner of the surface, where his coat had gotten pinched between two stretches of chain. His sigh was so forceful that he almost felt it rip up his throat. Tears had already started to wet his cheeks and he grit his jaw to keep from either laughing or crying. With a tug that was perhaps slightly more savage than it needed to be, he pulled his coat free from the chains.
Carter marched himself out of the morgue, slamming the door open on his way out. With stiff limbs he made his way upstairs into the main body of the facility, rounding on the storage and transport areas. Without even checking with the driver, he flung the case into the last crate to leave the building for the night, watching with detached disinterest as it was sealed up and hauled aboard a truck.
"Tell Dr Wimmer he can find someone else next time," he said, but even to his own ears his voice sounded strangled and quiet, he doubted the driver heard him. The truck pulled away and disappeared into the night, but Carter was already on his way to the exit. He passed by the same security guard he had seen day in and day out, never bothering to learn the man's name. Nick or Rick or something.
"Good night Mr Carter, see you tomorrow."
"No." Carter replied sharply. "Drinking."
He stormed out of the facility, halfway out of the car park before the door behind him had even had a chance to swing closed.
Left behind in a daze, Nick (or possibly Rick) watched him go with a puzzled look on his face. Sooner or later, all the techs started acting that way. He couldn't blame them. This place even gave him the creeps sometimes. Still, a job was a- He squinted at the stairwell door, hanging open where it should have swung itself closed. A vast black shape slumped in the dim light, turning a scarred and broken head his way. Nick's throat closed up, his lips drying and it was all he could do to mutter two words.
"Oh shit..."