Obligatory Disclaimer:
Jason Voorhees, Camp Crystal Lake and the Friday the 13th films are copyright to New Line Entertainment.
All of these characters are being used without permission. In a 'nice' way, though.
All other characters are copyright myself, and I would prefer it if I were at least informed if you feel the need to steal them.
I am making no money whatsoever from this fanfic.
***
CHAPTER ONE:
Two nights previously...
***
Stan was pissed off with his lot in life.
No matter how hard he tried, he just didn't seem to be going anywhere. And oh, he tried. Anything to stop Cheryl from nagging and complaining to him all hours of the day and night, if nothing else. His wife had seemed intent, over the last few months, on blaming him for everything - from the hole in the porch roof to him losing his job - even the hole in the ozone layer.
Well, he couldn't do much to fix the porch roof until they had some money spare, could he? He'd done his best; fixed an old tarp over the hole and nailed it in place, but it hadn't held, and the big thunderstorm they'd had couple weeks back had ripped it right off - and taken another big chunk of the roof with it. But that wasn't his fault now, was it?
And he'd been trying to get a new job. But there wasn't much work out there for a forty-something steelworker, especially since the plant had closed down, and he just wasn't much skilled.
Cheryl seemed to think that it was all down to his drinking, though. Stan just wished she'd realise that, if she didn't nag him so much, they wouldn't have all the rows when she would cuss him out, and he would leave and go down to the bar to relax and cool down. So what if he'd been drinking a little more since he lost his job? A man's got a right to be a little depressed over shit like that, right? And it wasn't as if he had a problem with it, like some people. Nah, he liked a few beers in the afternoon with his pals down at the bar, but that was just social drinking. And in the evening, too. It wasn't like he was getting out of bed in the morning and starting drinking right there and then.
Hell, most days he wasn't even up until noon anyway.
The worst thing about it all was the fact that Cheryl wanted him to quit going up to the lake to drink in the evenings every once in a while. Didn't the dumb bitch realise that that was the only time he actually got to think in peace and quiet? She said she wanted him at home more, to spend more time with her and the kids. Stan couldn't bear to be stuck in the house with them anyway, with all the noise and nagging he just felt like his head was going to explode.
When he had left to come up to the lake that evening, Cheryl had stood on the porch (right underneath the hole) and shouted after him that if he was going up to the lake to get drunk, then he shouldn't bother coming back.
Dumb bitch.
So Stan sat at the edge of the lake, leaning against the side of his pickup with a beer in his hand, looking out at the water and the reflection of the moon and stars on it. Looking at all this, he could almost believe that he didn't have a problem in the world; that his life was as calm as the lake itself.
Except that, at that point, the lake wasn't all that calm.
Something appeared to be churning up the waters there at the centre of the lake, underneath the surface. Waves spread out from a central point, and Stan could just make out clouds of mud and silt from the lake bed being kicked and churned up in great clouds under the water's surface.
"What the fuck...?" Stan asked, standing up and taking a wobbly few steps towards the lake to try to get a better look. He knew he wasn't drunk; it was still early, and he was only on his fourth beer. So what the hell was going on in the lake?
Something seemed to float to the surface; something long. A snake? No, there were no water snakes that big in the lake. As a second object floated to the surface, and then a third, Stan tried to get a closer look, standing right at the edge of the lake and using the moonlight as a aid to trying to see what was going on. He wished he had thought to get his torch from the back of his pickup.
Suddenly, there was a huge crashing of water as something large nearly leapt straight up out of the water and into the air at the centre of all the disturbance. Stan didn't expect that and he fell backwards in shock and landed on his ass. He sat there in the mud, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Any buzz he might have had from his beers was gone in a flash, he thought, and he counted himself lucky he hadn't pissed in his pants.
A man had just come up from under the water in the lake. A big man; well over the six, and heavy built with it. Stan wondered how he had ended up in the water; after all, he had been sitting there for a good hour or so, and he hadn't seen another living soul. What had this guy been doing down there, scuba diving or something? Even at a distance, Stan could tell that he was all muscle. His clothes were ragged, but still more or less intact, and looked as if they were some kind of old boiler suit or something.
By far the strangest thing about this man, though, was his face. Although the light from the moon only partially lit the area, when the light fell on the man's face it seemed smooth and almost featureless. Then when Stan squinted hard, he recognised a few features, and realised that the man was really wearing a white hockey mask. All he could see of those were two dark pools of shadow where the eye holes should be - and a set of breathing holes around the mouth area.
So what the hell was a man in a hockey mask doing in Crystal Lake in the middle of the night?
"Hey!" Stan yelled, trying to catch the man's attention. "Hey you! In the lake! Are you okay in there?" He wondered if he should have just gotten in his truck and high-tailed it out of there, but the guy might be in trouble. 'Local Hero Saves Man From Drowning' had a nice ring to it. Might even shut Cheryl up too.
The man had been looking around the lake while seeming to tread water, bobbing up and down in the water. Now, he turned his head slowly in Stan's direction, and even though he still couldn't see the man's eyes, he was certain that the man's gaze was now fixed upon him. A shiver ran down his spine; he was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was all alone out by the lake, and no-one was around for miles. If anything happened...
The man headed towards him.
Stan scrambled to get to his feet - partly in case the man needed help of any sort and partly in case he needed to get a quick getaway. The old stories were suddenly all coming back to him: all the murders that had happened at the lake and the camp sites nearby over the years, all the teenagers killed. Stan had thought it was all a load of bullshit himself, tales made up by whacked-out college kids on dope or crack or whatever the hell they took - but he was also remembering what the stories had said about the murderer... About how he had drowned in the lake as a boy, and had been stopped in the end by being drowned in the lake again...
The man, although having to wade through the water, was moving quickly and was now almost at the shore of the lake. He was getting closer.
Now that he was closer, Stan could make out more details about the man. Tall and powerful, and menacing - even more so now that he was closer. The boiler suit he was wearing was obviously old and dirty, even through the water, but it still held together. And the expressionless mask... The leather straps holding it to his head were clearly visible, as the man had no hair. The straps were digging into his scalp, causing bulges of skin along their edges. It almost appeared to have sunk into the flesh of the man's head, so tightly fitting was it.
Stan took an involuntary step back as the man approached. He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. "Hey..." he began, "What the fuck? You trying to give me a heart disfunction here or what?"
One of the man's huge, beefy hands shot out and grabbed Stan around the throat, cutting him off. As he struggled for air, Stan realised with breathless horror that he was being lifted, one-handed, into the air by this man, who still wasn't making a sound. He couldn't even hear his breathing. His eyes bulged in terror. All thoughts of Cheryl's nagging, his unemployment, everything, were gone as he stared into the featureless mask and dark eye holes of the man holding him in the air and calmly choking the life out of him.
The man cocked his head slightly to one side, as if considering something. Then he pulled his other hand back in a fist, and suddenly drove it forward, towards Stan's chest.
Stan felt a sudden, excruciating pain in his chest, and for a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He heard and felt a cracking sensation in his chest, and then it suddenly became even harder to breathe. He looked down at his body, still being held in midair... and saw the man's arm, buried in his chest up to his elbow.
The reason he couldn't breathe was because the man had punched his lungs out through his back.
The man pulled his arm back out of the ruin that had been Stan's chest. He was clutching something in his hand. Had he still been alive, Stan wouldn't have been able to recognise it, but it was his heart, ripped straight from his body.
The man released his grip on Stan's throat, and his body dropped to the ground heavily, landing in a heap. Without a second thought, the man tossed the crushed and bleeding heart on top of the body, then turned and walked into the woods.
Jason Voorhees was home.
Jason Voorhees, Camp Crystal Lake and the Friday the 13th films are copyright to New Line Entertainment.
All of these characters are being used without permission. In a 'nice' way, though.
All other characters are copyright myself, and I would prefer it if I were at least informed if you feel the need to steal them.
I am making no money whatsoever from this fanfic.
***
CHAPTER ONE:
Two nights previously...
***
Stan was pissed off with his lot in life.
No matter how hard he tried, he just didn't seem to be going anywhere. And oh, he tried. Anything to stop Cheryl from nagging and complaining to him all hours of the day and night, if nothing else. His wife had seemed intent, over the last few months, on blaming him for everything - from the hole in the porch roof to him losing his job - even the hole in the ozone layer.
Well, he couldn't do much to fix the porch roof until they had some money spare, could he? He'd done his best; fixed an old tarp over the hole and nailed it in place, but it hadn't held, and the big thunderstorm they'd had couple weeks back had ripped it right off - and taken another big chunk of the roof with it. But that wasn't his fault now, was it?
And he'd been trying to get a new job. But there wasn't much work out there for a forty-something steelworker, especially since the plant had closed down, and he just wasn't much skilled.
Cheryl seemed to think that it was all down to his drinking, though. Stan just wished she'd realise that, if she didn't nag him so much, they wouldn't have all the rows when she would cuss him out, and he would leave and go down to the bar to relax and cool down. So what if he'd been drinking a little more since he lost his job? A man's got a right to be a little depressed over shit like that, right? And it wasn't as if he had a problem with it, like some people. Nah, he liked a few beers in the afternoon with his pals down at the bar, but that was just social drinking. And in the evening, too. It wasn't like he was getting out of bed in the morning and starting drinking right there and then.
Hell, most days he wasn't even up until noon anyway.
The worst thing about it all was the fact that Cheryl wanted him to quit going up to the lake to drink in the evenings every once in a while. Didn't the dumb bitch realise that that was the only time he actually got to think in peace and quiet? She said she wanted him at home more, to spend more time with her and the kids. Stan couldn't bear to be stuck in the house with them anyway, with all the noise and nagging he just felt like his head was going to explode.
When he had left to come up to the lake that evening, Cheryl had stood on the porch (right underneath the hole) and shouted after him that if he was going up to the lake to get drunk, then he shouldn't bother coming back.
Dumb bitch.
So Stan sat at the edge of the lake, leaning against the side of his pickup with a beer in his hand, looking out at the water and the reflection of the moon and stars on it. Looking at all this, he could almost believe that he didn't have a problem in the world; that his life was as calm as the lake itself.
Except that, at that point, the lake wasn't all that calm.
Something appeared to be churning up the waters there at the centre of the lake, underneath the surface. Waves spread out from a central point, and Stan could just make out clouds of mud and silt from the lake bed being kicked and churned up in great clouds under the water's surface.
"What the fuck...?" Stan asked, standing up and taking a wobbly few steps towards the lake to try to get a better look. He knew he wasn't drunk; it was still early, and he was only on his fourth beer. So what the hell was going on in the lake?
Something seemed to float to the surface; something long. A snake? No, there were no water snakes that big in the lake. As a second object floated to the surface, and then a third, Stan tried to get a closer look, standing right at the edge of the lake and using the moonlight as a aid to trying to see what was going on. He wished he had thought to get his torch from the back of his pickup.
Suddenly, there was a huge crashing of water as something large nearly leapt straight up out of the water and into the air at the centre of all the disturbance. Stan didn't expect that and he fell backwards in shock and landed on his ass. He sat there in the mud, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Any buzz he might have had from his beers was gone in a flash, he thought, and he counted himself lucky he hadn't pissed in his pants.
A man had just come up from under the water in the lake. A big man; well over the six, and heavy built with it. Stan wondered how he had ended up in the water; after all, he had been sitting there for a good hour or so, and he hadn't seen another living soul. What had this guy been doing down there, scuba diving or something? Even at a distance, Stan could tell that he was all muscle. His clothes were ragged, but still more or less intact, and looked as if they were some kind of old boiler suit or something.
By far the strangest thing about this man, though, was his face. Although the light from the moon only partially lit the area, when the light fell on the man's face it seemed smooth and almost featureless. Then when Stan squinted hard, he recognised a few features, and realised that the man was really wearing a white hockey mask. All he could see of those were two dark pools of shadow where the eye holes should be - and a set of breathing holes around the mouth area.
So what the hell was a man in a hockey mask doing in Crystal Lake in the middle of the night?
"Hey!" Stan yelled, trying to catch the man's attention. "Hey you! In the lake! Are you okay in there?" He wondered if he should have just gotten in his truck and high-tailed it out of there, but the guy might be in trouble. 'Local Hero Saves Man From Drowning' had a nice ring to it. Might even shut Cheryl up too.
The man had been looking around the lake while seeming to tread water, bobbing up and down in the water. Now, he turned his head slowly in Stan's direction, and even though he still couldn't see the man's eyes, he was certain that the man's gaze was now fixed upon him. A shiver ran down his spine; he was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was all alone out by the lake, and no-one was around for miles. If anything happened...
The man headed towards him.
Stan scrambled to get to his feet - partly in case the man needed help of any sort and partly in case he needed to get a quick getaway. The old stories were suddenly all coming back to him: all the murders that had happened at the lake and the camp sites nearby over the years, all the teenagers killed. Stan had thought it was all a load of bullshit himself, tales made up by whacked-out college kids on dope or crack or whatever the hell they took - but he was also remembering what the stories had said about the murderer... About how he had drowned in the lake as a boy, and had been stopped in the end by being drowned in the lake again...
The man, although having to wade through the water, was moving quickly and was now almost at the shore of the lake. He was getting closer.
Now that he was closer, Stan could make out more details about the man. Tall and powerful, and menacing - even more so now that he was closer. The boiler suit he was wearing was obviously old and dirty, even through the water, but it still held together. And the expressionless mask... The leather straps holding it to his head were clearly visible, as the man had no hair. The straps were digging into his scalp, causing bulges of skin along their edges. It almost appeared to have sunk into the flesh of the man's head, so tightly fitting was it.
Stan took an involuntary step back as the man approached. He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. "Hey..." he began, "What the fuck? You trying to give me a heart disfunction here or what?"
One of the man's huge, beefy hands shot out and grabbed Stan around the throat, cutting him off. As he struggled for air, Stan realised with breathless horror that he was being lifted, one-handed, into the air by this man, who still wasn't making a sound. He couldn't even hear his breathing. His eyes bulged in terror. All thoughts of Cheryl's nagging, his unemployment, everything, were gone as he stared into the featureless mask and dark eye holes of the man holding him in the air and calmly choking the life out of him.
The man cocked his head slightly to one side, as if considering something. Then he pulled his other hand back in a fist, and suddenly drove it forward, towards Stan's chest.
Stan felt a sudden, excruciating pain in his chest, and for a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He heard and felt a cracking sensation in his chest, and then it suddenly became even harder to breathe. He looked down at his body, still being held in midair... and saw the man's arm, buried in his chest up to his elbow.
The reason he couldn't breathe was because the man had punched his lungs out through his back.
The man pulled his arm back out of the ruin that had been Stan's chest. He was clutching something in his hand. Had he still been alive, Stan wouldn't have been able to recognise it, but it was his heart, ripped straight from his body.
The man released his grip on Stan's throat, and his body dropped to the ground heavily, landing in a heap. Without a second thought, the man tossed the crushed and bleeding heart on top of the body, then turned and walked into the woods.
Jason Voorhees was home.