Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash as the first story I ever published on this site way back in 2010! However, I always felt like it was my weakest effort as a fan-fic writer. As a result, I was never truly happy with the story and over the years I've gone back and revised it several times. Now, ten years after starting it and eight years after publishing the original version, I'm pleased to present what I'm calling the "Special Revised Edition" of Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash!
This edition features more chapters, a few new characters, and a significantly different ending than the one originally written (which itself was slightly different than the one presented in the comic series on which this fan-fic was based), as well as brand-new cover art, which can be viewed in my personal gallery and on my DeviantArt page.
But that's not all: along with two other stories I've previously published here getting revisions (Halloween: Vengeance and Children of Elm Street, which will also be completed soon), I am also currently working on a few new projects that I hope to have out in the next year. I don't want to give away what they are in case things don't pan out, but I am very excited to get back into the swing of things! As the late, great Chris Cornell says in the song, I've been away for too long!
FREDDY VS. JASON VS. ASH
By Jake Reed
Based on the screenplay by Jeff Katz
and the graphic novel published by Wildstorm Entertainment
and characters created by Sam Raimi, Victor Miller, and Wes Craven
Prologue
The Dead of Winter...
In the heart of New England, there is a place called Cunningham County, an underdeveloped slice of New Jersey woodlands (although one can argue that all of New Jersey is just as underdeveloped). At the center of this county is a town where terrible things happened, things so terrible that anyone who bore witness to them went insane and was locked up in a crazy house far away. Or in a wooden box six feet underground...
Welcome, my lords, to Isengard!
Well, actually, it's Crystal Lake, New Jersey, but the same horror stories can be applied. The locals have taken to calling it Forest Green, as if changing the name will erase the terrible history behind this Hell-Town. Trust me; nothing you can do will be able to take away the nightmares once you've lived, and nearly died, through them.
Nevertheless, they did their best to hide their horrendous past with brand new roads, super expensive lakeside condos, and they even built a new warehouse supermarket called Super-Mega-Ultra S-Mart, a supped-up version of one of the better second-rate chain stores, of which I am a department manager at the store in my home town, thank you very much. Shop smart; Shop S-Mart!
But getting good deals on your housewares or some cheap shirts made by the anonymous masses of some third-world country like China won't cover up the blood that has been spilled here in the last thirty years. You see, Crystal Lake, despite being one of the most beautiful waterside communities on the East Coast, is also the birthplace of an evil so foul, and foul-smelling, that it would give even the dreaded Deadites, a breed of the undead that have inherited supernatural powers that I hunt down and kill for a living, a run for their money. This being that I speak of is so evil and awesome in the terror that it spreads that the locals say Hell itself spat him back out: Jason Voorhees, an unstoppable, unkillable, and unsanitary monster.
But he wasn't always a monster. No, he was human once, even if only by loose definition of the term. To many, Jason was a monster to begin with: hideous, malformed, fat-headed; you name it, Jason was called it. Even as a child, Jason was always alone because of his deformed body with an oversized cranium and frail and weak figure. His teeth were stuck out at odd angles, and one eye was lower than the other. He was not very social (but I guess you wouldn't be either if you looked like that).
But there is a tragedy behind this demon. Hell, despite being the monster that he is now, he did not deserve the fate that befell him when he was six years old. In 1957, Jason drowned at the local summer camp where his mother, Pamela, worked as a cook. The two horny, pimple-faced teenagers who had been assigned to watch the poor boy had decided it was a better use of their time to go off and relieve the itch of their burning desire for one another.
Did they know the consequences of their actions? Most definitely. Did they care? Most definitely not. But just one year after the drowning, someone took care of those two anyway. That someone was Pamela Voorhees, who became depressed after the loss of her only son.
For the next twenty-two years, Pamela went to any-and-all lengths to prevent the camp from opening again to prevent the same tragedy that befell her from happening to anyone else.
She would poison the water, set fire to the cabins, anything she could do to ensure the camp stayed closed. But soon, she lost her mind and her mission became lost amid desires of revenge and that led to the Crystal Lake Massacre of '79. But she hadn't counted on someone fighting back; it ultimately led to her beheading.
But here is where the already thin line between fact and fiction vanishes entirely.
According to some, Jason, through some means either holy or demonic, never really drowned that day at the lake, and had managed to survive in the woods on his own for twenty-plus years. And when Pamela was killed, Jason, had witnessed her demise and began plotting his revenge.
For the next 19 years, Jason continued to punish those who returned to the camp. Having grown up isolated from humanity, he knew nothing of right from wrong. He had no concept of compassion or pity or remorse. He had no apparent motive other than to honor his deceased mother, possibly praying for her resurrection. He had no concept of remorse; he was just a faceless, soulless, and (dare I say it) efficient killing machine.
He killed many people, but the true victims were the people who survived, who would have to live the rest of their lives looking over their shoulder in terror, waiting for that final killing blow to come from behind and finish them off.
And his first victim was Ginny, a scrawny little pixie of a girl. She had somehow bested him, seemingly killing him in the rickety little shack that he had called his home, but that was only the beginning. Over the next week, Jason's body count continued. He stalked his way through Higgins Haven and slaughtered a path through the woods, killing anybody who dared cross his path. His reign of carnage ultimately culminated in a battle with little Tommy Jarvis. Not once, not twice, but three times was Jason's ass handed to him on a silver platter by that little pipsqueak. One of the things on my bucket list is track down that kid and get some tips on how to deal with ol hockey fuck if, Heaven forbid, I ever come across him again.
During this time, the town changed their name to Forest Green. After Tommy kicked Jason's ass the third and final time by chaining him to the bottom of the lake, the name was changed back to Crystal Lake, for some reason.
But Jason came back again and again, most curiously turning up in New York City. Of all places for that bastard to go, New York? I know, right!
Eventually, he was blown to pieces by a special task force assigned to do just that: kill him. But still the killings continued until Stephen Freeman and Stephanie Kimble, Jason's niece by a previously unknown half-sister, finally sent that bastard to Hell where he belonged.
But it being Jason, he wouldn't stay there for very long...
In 2003, Jason met his match in the maniacal Freddy Krueger, a former child molester/murderer who had been torched by the parents of the sleepy town of Springwood, Ohio. Afterwards, they weren't so sleepy anymore.
Freddy, who had once been human, became something much, much worse: the shit nightmares are made of.
The children still feared him, and that fear gave him the power to invade their dreams, and pick them off that way.
Seriously? I mean, what is more terrifying than a demon that kills you when you're most vulnerable? And no, I'm not talking about when you're on the shitter! Motherfucker kills you in your sleep! I mean, that's enough to make me shit my pants! And I've seen some fucked up shit!
But soon, someone with some major balls stepped forward and Freddy was banished to Hell. And while he was there, the children and parents of Springwood forgot about him, thus taking away his power.
And it was there in Hell that he found the mighty Jason Voorhees, using the bumbling idiot to kill the Elm Street children, and instill fear once again into the children of Springwood, returning Krueger to power. But little did Krueger realize that Jason is unstoppable and does not do well with following orders. Jason just kept killing and killing, taking almost all of Freddy's would-be victims for his own, with no end in sight.
Seriously, Freddy only got one kill in that entire mess! That is some bullshit, if you ask me! Someone cheated! And a lot of people lost a lot of money betting on the wrong horse, if I might add!
But in the end, Freddy all too late realized his mistake, and saw only one way out of his colossal fuckup: kill Jason Voorhees!
Yeah, like THAT'S a super easy task…
The pain was intense.
In truth, Jason Voorhees didn't have the mental capacity to grasp the concept of pain, but he knew something was wrong with his body as he struggled to maintain his hold on his enemy for a little longer. He had Freddy Krueger by the balls now, sort of. But the "pain" was overcoming Jason. His own machete – his own fucking machete – was sticking out of his shoulder. The dock the two of them were standing on was old; it creaked and groaned under their weight. But that didn't stop them from trying to kill each other.
At the current moment, Jason's right hand, now vacant of its black, grime-covered fingers, had been dug deep into the torso of Krueger, causing the scarred, demonic maniac to groan and scream in an equal amount of agony as his attacker; in Jason's other hand was Krueger's severed right arm, complete with the finger-knives that adorned that hand. In the battle of Freddy vs. Jason, it was at best a stalemate.
And Jason was still in pain, but he did not show any emotion behind that dirty, scratched hockey mask. He had no understanding of the concept of pain, but if he did, he would have been screaming his fucking head off.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw the flames get closer. Two teenagers, one male and the other female, were running from the fire. He saw them jump into the water a split second before something exploded. A wall of flame rushed towards him and Freddy. He didn't blink as the flames overtook him and his opponent, even as the force of the explosion sent them both flying through the air and into the water. Jason hit the water at an overwhelming speed and the impact shook him to his core. He sank into the dark oblivion, looking up at the yellow-tinted surface. He looked around for his enemy but saw no trace of the Bastard Son of 100 Maniacs.
His feet hit bottom. He stood on the littered floor of the lake, as he had done so many times before. The bottom silt kicked up, but it made no difference; it was nearly pitch black on the lake floor. The flames that floated on the surface of the water thanks to burning propane and other assorted debris was enough for him to see a sign that had, at one point, read "Camp Crystal Lake"; the words "Crystal Lake" had been crossed out and painted over so the whole thing read "Camp Blood."
Jason instinctively reached for his shoulder, trying to get the machete. His hand felt nothing but his bony shoulder; the machete was missing.
Something hit the back of his head. He looked over; Freddy's arm was sinking slowly to the bottom of the lake. He reached out for the severed limb and stared at it. The fingers seemed to move in the underwater current, almost making the arm seem alive. The arm seemed to flex in Jason's hand, becoming an extension of his own flesh...
Lori Campbell dragged herself out of the water and onto the burning, wrecked pier. The heat from the fires caused her to sweat profusely the moment she withdrew herself from the water.
Lori had, at one point, been an attractive seventeen-year-old girl with green eyes framed by flowing blonde hair. Now, she was still that same seventeen-year-old, but she was also an outright mess. Her breasts and stomach, which were normally hidden by very modest clothing, were partially exposed by the cold and wet, at least partially-ripped t-shirt she was wearing. Both the shirt and her breasts were also covered in blood that trickled down from four nasty-looking cuts just above her cleavage.
The shirt that attempted to cover them was frayed and shredded, clinging to her body and revealing all of her curves. Her blonde hair had been caked with dirt and blood, most of it her own. Her body felt bruised and weak as she crawled up onto the wooden boat dock. Then, she turned and helped her boyfriend Will Rollins clamber up beside her.
Will didn't look too much better, though. His calm and relaxed demeanor had now been shaken away by the last two days of his life. His short, spiky brown hair had also been matted down with dirt and blood, some of it his, but most of it Lori's or someone else's. His side had a small gash where he had been struck with a machete only minutes before. It wasn't too deep, or life-threatening, but it hurt like a son of a bitch and bled like hell. His face was covered with dirt and soot, which was surprisingly not washed off from the lake, but he didn't really take the time to clean himself before he thrust himself into Lori's arms.
Lori felt her heart flutter and her body become warm despite being soaked in cold lake water. The world around them was in chaos: the end of the pier had been blown apart and was dotted here and there with small fires. And Freddy and Jason... there was no way in hell that those two could have survived that explosion. And even if they did, they still had to deal with the flaming water. They'd either burn or drown down there.
Oh God, it's over.
It's over. It's over. That phrase was stuck in a loop inside her head. At that moment, at that precise second of realization, all of the exhaustion, all the fear, all the sorrow... it all came flooding out of Lori in a wave of overwhelming emotion in the form of heavy tears that streamed down her face and collected in a small puddle on Will's shoulder.
"We did it, Will," Lori breathed. "We won..."
A thud of footsteps alerted Lori to another presence. She looked up and the smile quickly vanished from her pretty face. A small scream forced its way out of her throat as her eyes caught a pair of massive boots taking long strides towards them, moving slowly and gingerly along the wood-planked dock. Lori's eyes drifted up the legs dressed in oversized, shredded pants and saw the glint of a machete held at the side of the monster before them. A blackened, charred left arm began lifting the machete upwards, over his head.
Will didn't look; he didn't want to look. It was Jason; it had to be. He had come back to finish the job. They were the last ones.
Once they were dead, it would all be over. For good.
Will finally got the courage to look up at Jason...
...only, it wasn't Jason.
It was Freddy Krueger, Springwood's most hated bastard, dragging his feet along the wooden pier. His body was smoldering and half of his shirt was gone, most of it burned away by the fire. The bits where the fire had not burned it away were blackened and ash-covered. His scarred and pitted skin glistened with black, oily water. His right arm was now a stump of flesh; he was mostly powerless without that glove of his, but he was still just as dangerous with that shiny machete raised high over his head.
Lori and Will began to stand and back way from the demon before them. Lori felt the heat of Krueger's tangible fury more than the heat from the fire less than three feet away from her.
"Lori, run," Will growled weakly as he reached down for a burning wooden plank; he collapsed to the ground inches away from the flame. Lori rushed in front of Will in a meager attempt to defend him, but there was nothing they could do except wait for death. This was the end for both of them, and they knew it.
Freddy knew it, too; as he advanced closer to them, he pondered maniacally just how much he would enjoy ripping Will to shreds, and then having his way with Lori before doing the same thing to her. He could picture it perfectly. Lori would be all his. She would feel his deadly embrace, and then she would just be dead.
First time tends to get a little messy, after all...
Freddy smiled and lifted the machete higher over his head, growling softly. "You… bitch-Ahh!"
Freddy arched his back in pain. Lori and Will were sprayed with blood, shocked as the red rain sprinkled them from head to toe. When they wiped the blood from their eyes, they saw why.
Freddy was in shock, too, as he felt something he had not felt in many years: the icy cold of death's embrace. He looked down and saw that his own claw, the four metal talons extending off of each finger attached to the dirty glove on his right arm, had been shoved through his back and made its way out of Freddy's gut. Blood dripped off the edge of the gleaming blades, pooling below him as he dropped the machete, which landed in the wood with a "thunk" in front of Lori.
Lori's eyes drifted behind Freddy to Jason's kneeling hulk, one hand on the shoulder of the arm where it had been severed by the very machete embedded in the wood. Jason, finally victorious, collapsed with a heavy splash back into the water.
Freddy, meanwhile, fell to his knees, stunned at having been impaled by his own arm. He reached up weakly with his remaining arm, a feeble attempt to grab the glove from his chest. The dock moved and buckled, causing him to away from his chest. He looked up from his claw and saw that Lori was standing over him, the machete held high in her hands, the blade and her body lit brightly by the flames.
Freddy wasn't dead yet, but this would be his Hell.
"Welcome to my world, bitch!" she screamed, throwing his own words back at him! Freddy inhaled sharply as she brought the machete down!
Freddy could feel the cold steel of the machete slicing through the flesh of his neck, his spine, and out the other side; just then, everything went sideways, followed by the splash of water!
Krueger's head sank to the lake bed like a stone, blood pouring from the neck until it settled upright in the silt, giving the appearance that he was buried up to the neck in the sediment. Freddy remained alive long enough to see his body land a few feet away on its back, the claw reaching up into the orange-glowing water, seeming to reach longingly for the surface. Freddy opened his mouth as if to take a breath, and finally expired.
Back on the dock, Lori lowered the machete to her side. She watched Krueger's body sink into the lake, disappearing in the dark water. The way she stood at the edge of the dock, with the machete still gripped tightly in her hands, her face flush with a myriad of emotions, not the least of which being rage and fear, the sight brought to Will's mind the image of a warrior princess. Someone who was beautiful and sweet, but strong, determined, and deadly.
That was exactly how Lori felt at that moment, at least until her body stopped swimming with adrenaline. She held the bloody machete at her side and began taking slow steps over to where Jason had fallen into the water. She was prepared to see his white hockey mask staring up at her from the water, the one eye left squinting out of the cracked eyehole at her, staring into her soul with something that may have been recognition, acceptance, or peace. She looked down at the glistening water and saw…
Nothing.
Jason wasn't there.
She raised her eyebrow and knelt down to the water. She dug the machete into the wood and leaned some of her weight on it like a walking stick as she peered over the side of the dock. Something was wrong, very wrong. This wasn't how she remembered-
SPLASH!
A hand shot out of the water and grabbed Lori by the shoulder, causing her to let go of the machete while another hand reached up and grabbed it away.
"WILL!" Lori screamed, her voice quivering, but there was no response. The machete drew back and thrust forward, finding its home in her right breast, in her lung. She stopped, frozen in fear and pain and felt herself being dragged forward into the water. The water splashed her face and instantly all was dark except for the white hockey mask rapidly rising from the darkness towards her...
"Lori, wake up!" Will yelled at his screaming wife. Lori snapped open her eyes in fright and looked up at Will. His hands were clutching her arms, trying to still them from thrashing about, and his face was inches away from her's, eyes filled with terror.
Lori caught her breath and let out a deep sigh. Her eyes darted over to the bedside table where a bottle of pills labeled "No-Doze" lay near the lamp. She opened the bottle and dry-swallowed two of the caplets.
Once the pills were down, Lori looked around the small bedroom of their small New York City apartment. Outside, the noise of the city droned on: the low rumble of cars passing on the streets below, the taxi drivers blaring their car horns in frustration; the high-pitched wail of emergency vehicle sirens rushing to their destinations; the bright lights of the city shone through their windows in the very early morning, illuminating a good portion of the apartment, while the dark blue sky stood as a surreal backdrop. Welcome to the City that Never Sleeps.
The alarm clock/FM radio that the two lovers woke up to was currently tuned to a classic pop station and blaring an old "Metropolis" song.
"The Darkest side of the night!
It burns like a fire for the wasted lives!
And there's no way you can fight!
Just show some respect, and try to survive!
On the darkest side!"
Lori hated this song; the first time she heard it, she had a nightmare of Jason Voorhees stalking her through Times Square!
"Did you have another nightmare, Lori?" Will asked her. Lori turned to her boyfriend and studied his face. His boyish features had matured; the stress he had endured showed clearly on his face. His hair was still short, but no longer spiky like it had been in his youth. He was also sporting a gentlemanly bit of face fuzz, too long to be stubble, but too short to be a full-on beard. He usually kept it shaved, but Lori liked how it felt when he was... well, you can guess.
Lori had been plagued with the nightmares for the last several months. A therapist had attributed the nightmares to post-traumatic stress disorder and had suggested going back to the place where the trauma occurred.
To Will, this translated as "go back to Crystal Lake," an idea he was vehemently against. And though Lori had tried many times to convince him otherwise, it always ended with him standing firm.
Lori felt Will's hands on her shoulders, massaging her back to help her relax. It was one of the few things that could calm her nowadays. As he moved his hands across her back, she felt her breathing become more and more steady until she was back to normal.
Lori looked across the room at the mirror of her vanity and examined herself. Her long blond hair had grown darker and was now somewhat of a dirty-blonde. The body she had when she was seventeen years old was still present, but it was more round and filled out, much like her face, where she showed some signs of aging but it only made her look wiser as opposed to straight-up old.
"Was it another nightmare?" Will repeated.
"Yeah, it was another one," Lori said as she looked back at her husband. "It was the one where Jason attacks me at the end." Will pulled his wife close to him as she let herself relax in his arms.
"It's okay," he said to comfort her. "It's just a nightmare, and not, you know, a nightmare." He placed extra emphasis on the second "nightmare" to stress the difference between a normal nightmare, and a "Freddy Nightmare." Thankfully, there hadn't been any of those in a long time, for either of them.
Despite Will's comforting words, Lori shook her head in defiance. "I don't think so, Will. I'm not sure they're really dead." Will buried his face in one of his hands and let out a long sigh and said.
"Lori, we've gone over this in therapy a hundred times," Will argued. "Freddy and Jason are dead." Lori stood and walked over to her vanity. She sat grabbed a brush and began brushing her hair as she studied the lines in her face.
"We saw them die," Will continued. "You cut off Freddy's head with Jason's machete!"
"I know I did, Will!" Lori snapped. She turned back to him and said, "But I have to know for sure. I have to know if Freddy and Jason are truly, finally dead!"
Will shook his head in refusal. "Did you ever stop to think that if we do go back, we might stir them up again? Especially Freddy? Christ, it's our fear that gives him power, remember? And you seem pretty fucking scared right now!"
Lori nodded her head in agreement, turning angrily to her husband. "Yes, William, I am pretty fucking scared! You're with me every night, but you don't see what these nightmares do to me!" Lori continued as tears began to flow down her cheek. "They claw at me night and day. Everywhere I go, I see them in my head, in my coffee, on TV. And I every time, I get this feeling in the back of my mind that eventually, one of them will come back and finish the job, if not both of them!
"We're loose ends, Will," she said between heavy sobs. "And one day, they'll come back to tie us up. Unless we go back to Crystal Lake, and make sure they're both dead for good!"
Will let out a heavy sigh of frustration and walked over to Lori, kneeling in front of her and placing his arms around her waist.
"Alright, you win," he spoke softly, laying his head on her lap and kissing her thigh. "We'll go."
"Thank you, Will," Lori replied, half crying as she stroked Will's hair. She closed her eyes and hoped to God that she was wrong.
Less than an hour and a half later, William shut the car trunk as Lori walked down from their apartment with the cooler. It was 6:30 in the morning on December 23rd, the day before Christmas Eve. The pair was dressed in their warmest clothes, but they could still feel the bitter chill of the winter wind.
"Hurry up, Lori. It's freezing and I wanna be on the road before daybreak." Will shouted.
"Hold your horses, Will." Lori replied as she opened the back door of the Mazda and stuffed the cooler in the back seat. Will turned up the radio and began listening to a weather report.
''Well, Steve, things are already a bit chilly this Christmas, but it's gonna get a bit colder when this snowstorm, at one point scheduled to hit tomorrow morning, arrives later on today. It looks like Jersey is gonna get the worst of it, so anybody heading down that way for the holidays would do well to take some caution."
''Like not going to Jersey in the first place?'' said a second deejay.
''Exactly," the first deejay joked back.
"Can you shut that off," Lori asked as she got in the car. Will turned the radio off as Lori buckled herself in.
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Will asked.
"If you ask me that again, William," Lori said as she pulled a slightly larger-than-average pocket knife from her coat's pocket. "And you too will know what it's like to have your balls in your mouth."
Hint taken, Will shut up and pulled out of the parking space.
An hour or so later, they were a few miles into the New Jersey border and the sun was now showing over the distant mountains. The orange glow shone down through the window and Lori could already feel its warmth. Will looked up from his driving and spotted a sign: "Convenience Store, next exit."
"Wanna stop for a drink, Lori?"
"Yeah, I could definitely use a cold beer."
"You don't drink."
"I know."
Will took the exit ramp and passed a sign saying, "Now entering Leonardo, New Jersey." Lori looked around at the small town and noticed a McDonald's-like place called "Mooby's". Outside on the front wall were two guys who looked like they were dealing, one tall and eerily identical to Freeburg; the other short and thick. The early morning glow cast an eerie shadow on the tall one. Lori looked closer. It looked like he was wearing a hockey mask on his face. Lori closed her eyes tightly...
The first hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder; the other grabbed the nearby machete and drew it back, thrusting it forward into her breast, through her lung, and out her back.
She opened her eyes again. They had passed the dealers and Will was pulling into a convenience store. The store had a white facade with a bright red stop sign over the door. The sign called the place "Quick-Stop". Next to it was a small video rental outlet, a mom-and-pop store. Will opened his door and got out, but Lori froze for a moment.
"Lori," Will said, calling her attention. Lori snapped back to reality and got out of the vehicle.
Inside, Lori took a quick look around. In the freezer section at the back of the average-looking convenience store was a woman who was, for some God-only-knows-why reason, looking at the expiration dates of every gallon of milk.
At the counter, a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and a short haircut whose nametag identified him as "Dante" stood with his head propped up on his hand, about to fall asleep watching the Milk-maid do her thing.
"Excuse me, but could you tell us how to get to Crystal Lake? I can't find it on my GPS."
Lori walked back to the freezer and pulled out a single long-neck of Bacardi and a Sprite. She turned to the Milk-maid, who hadn't moved, hadn't even glanced at their direction since they walked in.
"Crystal Lake?" the clerk asked, suddenly alert.
"Yeah," Will said. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm a convenience store clerk. I hear stories," Dante said.
"Okay, but do you know how to get there?"
"I do," Dante replied. He reached around and dug through a stack of papers for a road map. "Most people take the turnpike all the way around; it takes hours." He unfolded the impossibly large map and laid it down on the counter, covering the register, lottery tickets, and possibly the body of Jimmy Hoffa. "I can help you shave a couple hours off of that trip, but it's still a long drive.
"What you do is you just follow Main Street..." He pointed out to the road in front of the store. "That's this road out here... You follow Main Street northbound and turn right at the last street light. Follow the signs to and through Cunningham County and look for signs saying Forest Green."
Will let out a small chuckle. "Thanks, but we're looking for Crystal Lake, not Forest Green." Will said.
"Forest Green is Crystal Lake," Dante said as he grabbed the map off the counter and folded it up. Will looked at Dante with a questioning look and was about to argue when Lori walked up.
"Can we just get out of here, please?" Lori asked as she put up the beer and soda on the counter.
"That'll be six eighty." Dante replied without even using the register. "Take the map, too."
Will dropped seven on the counter. Before Dante could get his change, Will said, "Keep it."
Outside, Will started the car, map in hand. Lori walked up to the car and bumped a passing pedestrian. She turned fast. "Oh, I'm sorry."
"Shit, no problem, sexy," said the tall dealer from Mooby's. "You guy's lookin? If so, we're holding everything including coke, heroin, and your cock."
The fat one gave the skinny one a gentle nudge with his elbow and gave him a silent look of disbelief. The tall one look confused for a moment too long before correcting himself. "Oh, wait, I fucked it up. That's everything but coke, heroin, and your cock."
Lori was confused; he looked, and even sounded like Freeburg.
"Lori, let's go!" Will shouted as the engine roared to life.
The short fat one slapped the tall one on the shoulder and made a motion with his hands, not speaking a word, before walking into the store. The loudmouthed one simply nodded his head and walked after his companion.
Lori stared at the pair as they walked into the store and she got in the car. Will backed out and pulled into the street, heading north.
The road into Cunningham County was nearly frozen over. The sun was already setting, casting an eerie golden color on the pure white snow. Will's Mazda kept sliding even on the shallowest of turns. He really had to concentrate to keep the car on the road. Outside, the trees were covered in the white powder that glistened in the waning sun.
They passed a worn, weathered sign that read, "Welcome to Crystal Lake", though it was currently in the process of being demolished. The words "Crystal Lake" had been spray painted over with the words "Blood Lake." Someone had also scribbled out the population numbers with red paint and over to the side was the number "666," also in red paint. Next to the number, someone had made a crude red hockey mask. Lori sat silently as they passed the sign.
A pair of city workers were in the process of tearing down this sign, and a flatbed truck near them had another sign advertising "Forest Green: A Wonderful Place to Live."
Behind that sign was another one advertising "Forest Green Resorts," which made Lori shiver. The resorts, then known as Crystal Lake Resorts, were still under construction when she was here last and was one of the places where Freddy and Jason had battled it out.
She closed her eyes and suddenly pictured Freddy and Jason fighting each other, the brutal sounds of their bloody slashing filling her head, causing an incessant pounding that threatened to split her head open...
She forced herself to open her eyes again and looked over at her husband. "If I remember right, it should be right up here," Will said as he turned onto another road.
After several more miles, the lake came into view, peeking through the snow-covered pines. Even from a distance, Will could tell the lake was frozen solid.
The site was both familiar and alien to Will and Lori. This was where the old campgrounds had been, where they had brought Jason all those years ago, but none of it remained; granted, most of it had been demolished in an explosion they caused, but it was hard to believe that the dock where Jason and Freddy had their final battle had only been a few yards away.
Will brought the car to a stop near a set of large, two-story cabins. These cabins were unlike the old cabins at the campsite; these were newer, luxury cabins designed for vacationers. In fact, a couple of them were still under construction, with plastic tarps covering the sides and roofs of a few further up the road.
Will parked the car and they pair got out. He looked around and took in his surroundings. "This is it," he said with a sigh as he pulled on a New York Giants knit cap to keep warm. "It sure has changed, hasn't it?"
Lori could only manage a weak nod.
"Let's get this over with. I want to be back on the road again long before it gets too dark," Will quickly added, not even bothering to hide his unease.
Lori didn't respond; instead, her attention was focused on a nearby tree. At first, Will didn't understand what was so special about the tree, but Lori soon answered his unspoken question.
"Jesus... Right there was where Kia..." Lori could barely get the words out. Images filled her mind of Jason's lumbering form standing behind Kia, slamming that machete into her side and sending her flying against the tree where she hit with the force of a car going at full-speed, snapping her back in half as her innards spilled onto the ground from the gash the machete made.
Lori shook the image from her head as Will approached her from behind, taking her hand. "Hey, still with me?" he asked her.
Lori nervously nodded her head. "I'm fine," she insisted.
"Let's look around." Will said as he handed Lori an LED flashlight. "If you find anything, come back to the car and hit the horn. If I'm not back soon, get in the car and leave. Understand?"
Lori nodded and said silently, "Thanks, Will." She pulled a knit cap of her own over her long hair, leaving a foot of blond hair cascading down the back of her head and onto her shoulders.
Before she had a chance to walk away, Will put his arms around hers and held her close. She buried her face into his chest and felt a warmth wash through her body. She looked up at him and planted a kiss on his lips, long and gentle. She broke the kiss and went off to begin the search.
Will began his search behind the condo, though he wasn't entirely certain what he was supposed to be searching for. It was made a tad more frustrating because he kept imagining footsteps echoing behind him, but it was only his own; every footstep he took made a loud crunch on the snow below it.
CRUNCH!
Will's ears perked up. Was there actually another pair of footsteps behind him? He turned quickly and waved his flashlight around the trees but saw nothing. He shrugged it off as nerves and continued onwards.
Behind him, a dark figure watched as Will made his way back to the cabin. Two disfigured eyes stared out through the mask that enshrouded his face. His hand gripped tighter on his weapon as rage filled him again at the sight of the slightly older Will Rollins, one of the few people to have survived an encounter with his blade. Jason Voorhees sank back into the shadows and waited…
Lori wandered through the trees for what seemed like ages. Despite the heavy jacket she wore, cold crept up Lori's arms, covering her flesh in goose bumps. Darkness had fallen very quickly. Or maybe she had been out here longer than she thought.
The lack of natural light played hell with her eyes; for a moment, she swore she saw movement in the shadows of the trees, but she blinked, and they disappeared.
She took a moment to try to steady her breathing. "You're okay, Lori. There's nothing out here. See, it was all in your head. Let's just find Will, and go back to the car-"
"AGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"
A loud scream pierced the night and a flock of birds flew off into the sky. Lori froze and listened for it again. Nothing but dead silence.
"Will?" Lori said. "William!" Nothing.
A twig snapped in front of her. Then another. Another. A shadow moved across her light; not an illusion this time, and very large!
Frightened, she turned and ran, not caring about the twigs and branches that clawed at her legs.
She stopped to catch her breath after running for five minutes. The snapping twigs had long since stopped, but she still listened intently for any sound at all. Lori looked up and saw the bright headlights of the Mazda through the trees.
"Will?" she called. "Will! Where are you?" Not paying attention to where she was going, she bumped into a large tree. Startled, she turned around. Her flashlight brightly illuminated the blood-soaked tree.
Blood? She thought. She examined it closely and saw that there was a narrow hole in the tree where the blood was dripping from. Horrified, she looked down and saw a large red pool gathered on the snow at the base of the tree. A pair of bloody foot prints led away from the tree and into the woods.
"Will!" Lori's eyes went wide as she broke into a dead run after the footprints, which led her directly into the clearing where the car was parked. The stopped at the door, but then continued on to the nearby cottage. She tried to open the car door, but it was locked. She looked in the car, searching for the keys. Hoping they were in the ignition. They weren't.
Lori then turned and followed the footprints to the cottage; blood was pooling at the door, spilling over the first stoop and into the snow
Lori cracked the door and whispered, "Will, are you in here?" There was no response. She opened the door all the way with a "creak", and then she screamed.
Strung up on the rafters of the unfinished cottage was the nearly lifeless body of Will Rollins. He had been strung up by his spinal column, which was tied to the rafters, causing him to sway back and forth. His stomach had been cut open, causing his intestines to hang out and some to fall to the floor. His blue eyes stared straight down at Lori, making contact with hers.
"Lori..." Will muttered with his last breath. Then, he went silent.
Lori sank to the ground and started to wail. "No, this can't be," she sobbed. "We survived. We beat Freddy and …"
Her sobbing was interrupted by a loud pair of footsteps coming up behind her. She turned around.
Right behind her stood a large man, about 7'8" and wearing a hockey mask that had once been white, now a shade of tan due to the accumulation of all the blood and dirt on it. Portions of this mask had been hacked away, particularly in the lower left-hand side, where a good portion of his cheek had rotted away to reveal a row of rotting teeth. A sliver had also been hacked away from the top left side, presumably by an axe. In the thing's right hand was a two-foot long machete, the sheen dulled by rust. Or, was it blood...
"JASON!" Lori screamed at the top of her lungs as Jason swung his machete at her. Lori ducked at the last possible second, causing Jason to miss and embed his machete into the drywall. He struggled to remove his weapon of choice from the wall before finally freeing it and slamming his arm into a support beam with the backswing, splintering it.
Before Jason could react to anything else, a loud screeching like nails on a chalkboard filled the air. He turned to find the source of the familiar noise, but there was nothing... He gave his machete a mighty pull and freed it from the wall.
With Jason now free, Lori realized there was only one place to go: upstairs. She had reached the first step when a piece of rebar suddenly pierced her shoulder, embedding itself in the wall and pinning her on the spot. She screamed when she noticed Jason grip his machete and begin marching towards her. Lori, desperate to escape, lunged forward, felt the rebar move unnaturally through her flesh, scrape her bone, and was free. She cradled her shoulder, and hustled up the stairs, blood seeping through her fingers.
Once you've stared down death right in the face, and cheated the Grim Reaper of your soul, your life begins to change. And if you do it more than once, watching everyone you know get turned inside out like bloody sock puppets while that same evil forces you to do things you wouldn't imagine yourself doing in even your wildest acid trips and make you butcher your own loved ones limb from limb and hear it laugh at you while you realize that it's an act of mercy, you start to go down a very dangerous path.
Lori reached the top landing and tripped on something, perhaps her own shadow. When she tried to stand, she collapsed to the ground again. Undaunted, she began to crawl away, Jason slowly lumbering up the steps behind her. She looked over and realized that she was within touching distance of Will's body. She turned towards Will's body and whispered, "Will… I'm gonna kill them, Will."
She picked herself up with the help of the railing and turned to Jason, who was now approaching the top landing. Lori shouted, "I'm gonna make them both pay!" Jason was at the top step now. "Come on, you bastard!" she screamed at Jason.
You begin asking yourself, "Why me? What makes me so special? Why was I spared, and nobody else?"
And then, when all hope is lost, and you're staring Death in the eye, waiting for that final killing stroke, it hits you. You have, what some call, an epiphany. A eureka moment.
You realize that the only possible explanation for your survival is that you were "chosen" to by some higher power. That fate had commanded you be the hero in some kind of fucked up The Matrix "The One" kind of bullshit, and you are the one who will kill the villain and save the day.
Lori ran up more flights of stairs into the attic. "Come on, Jason! Come on!" she shouted as she reached the top step. She found herself standing in the doorway, watching Jason pause a few steps below her. She cast a backwards glance at the room; what she saw made her grin.
"I actually felt sorry for you, Jason," Lori said as she walked backwards into the room with a smug smile, disappearing into the blackness. Jason followed her in.
"I felt sorry for what those kids and the irresponsible counselors did to you. I felt sorry for what Freddy did to you." Jason looked around the room, searching for the voice. Lori was nowhere to be found.
"I hoped that after you killed Freddy that would be it; that you would stop your senseless killings. But I was wrong!"
A circular saw engine revved somewhere in the darkness. Jason froze and turned, searching for the source of the noise.
"You just kept killing everything and everyone!"
Suddenly, Lori burst out of the shadows with the circular saw held high. "When will it be enough?" She brought the saw down on Jason. The blade sliced Jason's necrotic flesh, sending chunks of dead flesh and coagulated blood into the air and painting the walls a dead shade of black. "When will it be enough, you fucking son of a bitch!"
Jason stumbled over to a window, holding his sides while Lori continued to slice him. Jason backed against the window; Lori tossed the saw aside and, with one swift kick, knocked Jason into the window. The glass shattered as his enormous hulking figure tumbled through the window towards the ground, where it landed with a dull thud and the crunch of snow as broken and shattered glass rained down on his corpse.
And with all the faceless schmoes out there counting on you to save them from annihilation, kill the killer, shut down the Matrix, stop Lord Zedd's monster with the Megazord, whatever it is "Chosen Ones" do, you start to believe it yourself.
Maybe you can do it. You start thinking, "Why not?" You've got the stones for it. Maybe destiny really is in your hands. Maybe you really are that special one that possesses that unique "please fuck up my precious little life with that destiny-has-chosen-you-to-be-the-hero gene" and this is just part of the grand master plan that fate has in store for you.
You can do it! Go get em! You are the Chosen One!
Lori ran over to the window and saw Jason lying motionless on the snow-covered ground, his head tilted at an awkward angle. Anyone who didn't know better would say his neck was clearly broken.
Lori knew better.
"Gotta make sure!" she wheezed. "Gotta finish it!"
She picked up the circular saw and ran downstairs. She stood with her back to the wooden door, holding the saw in hand and holding the door handle with the other. She revved the saw and quickly opened the door, turning on the spot.
Lori didn't even get a chance to scream before the machete sliced down through the air and made a sickening "schunk" as it sank into her skull.
Blood squirted onto Jason's mask. Lori dropped the saw, which died when it hit the floor. Lori took her hands and touched the machete that was embedded into her face. She felt the blood streaming down her face like tears. Lori gave a small squeak as Jason pulled out the machete.
Lori's beautiful face was now cleaved by a large gash down the center from the underside of her nose to the top of her head, revealing blood, brain, and skull fragments mixed in a jumble of flesh. She fell down to the floor with a loud thud.
Or not.
Sorry, kid. It wasn't you.
You were a trooper, though. When the time came, you gave it your all. You lasted longer than most, believe me. You and your boyfriend (husband?) actually made it to the sequel. Be proud of yourselves.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. You should have known that coming back is always a death sentence. Should've stayed home for Christmas, baby. Might have lived longer that way.
Might have...
I'm sorry, but there's only one ''Chosen One,'' and for better or worse, it's me. This life has brought me nothing but misery and heartache. I wouldn't wish this on anybody, but a part of me wonders what might have been if it had been you. You probably could have lived with it, maybe handled it better than I. God knows I've spent enough time trying to talk people out of believing in me. Not that it ever works.
But in the end, you can't outrun fate, plain and simple.
There was nothing but the sound of the wind picking up outside the cabin and the occasional cracking of ice-covered trees; everything was deathly silent. Jason buried the machete into the ground and grabbed at his crooked head with his rotting, blackened fingers. With one quick flick, he snapped it back into place with an unsettling CRACK!
He looked down at the corpse that lay in the doorway, and then at the second one strung up in the rafters; they needed to go. Others would soon return here, and as much as Jason wanted to kill them, too, they would have to wait for their turn to be punished.
These were his woods, and anybody who entered his woods deserved to be punished. They all deserved to be punished...
As Jason entered the building, the wooden door began to bulge. The bulge began to take on a deformed shape: a face. The face was covered in large burns and sported a very nasty smile. Freddy Krueger let out a loud howl as Jason carried off the bodies into the wilderness.
CH-CH-CH! HA-HA-HA!