PRESENT DAY
Jersey State Maximum Security Hospital was an imposing structure; it stood against the cloudy sky like a sentinel standing watch. Its age-darkened bricks and barred windows gave Jessica Whitman a shiver. It made the errand she was on even more disturbing, but if she was going into the field of psychiatry, she was going to have to get used to place like this.
She was a young woman of 23, of medium height and slight build, her chestnut-brown hair falling to her shoulders in soft waves. She was excited to be entering her chosen field, excited to gain a bit of experience dealing with the criminally insane. But the subject of her visit today had fallen outside the normal bounds of what was considered insane.
Jessica gave a sigh and flipped through the file again; Elizabeth Voorhees, age 43, daughter of the equally demented Pamela Voorhees and sister to probably the worst serial killer in American history, Jason. Given away at birth, adopted by a couple who met their end at eleven-year-old Elizabeth's hands, and kept in this mental hospital ever since. There had been an incident of attempted rape by two other patients a week after Elizabeth had been committed; one had been killed in gruesome fashion, his penis and testicles ripped off and shoved down his throat; the other man was permanently paralyzed from the neck down. Elizabeth had been kept in solitary ever since.
Jessica entered the lobby and walked to the front desk. The woman sitting there gave her a small smile. "Hello, my name is Jessica Whitman, I'm here to meet Dr. Powers?" The receptionist's smile faded. "Yes...you're here to see...her." The woman picked up the phone, punching a few numbers. "Dr. Powers? Jessica Whitman is here to see you. Yes, I'll have her wait." She hung up the phone and gestured to one of the chairs in the lobby. "He'll be down shortly." Jessica sat down, flipping through the file again in her nervousness.
After a few minutes, an elevator dinged and the doors opened to reveal a small bald man in a gray suit. He walked over to Jessica. "Ms. Whitman? I'm Dr. Powers, please come with me." He turned abruptly back to the elevator. Jessica, puzzled, merely followed.
Inside the elevator, Dr. Powers stared at the doors, and Jessica found herself lost for words for once. "I understand you want to enter the field of criminal psychology, " he said quietly. " But I don't understand why you've picked such a subject to question." Jessica cleared her throat. "The case of Elizabeth Voorhees is very..unique. I'm just glad for the opportunity to speak with her." Dr. Powers turned to look at her, his face unreadable. "You won't be," he declared, and turned his attention back to the elevator doors. Jessica's brow wrinkled in frustration, but before she could respond, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
They were on the fifth floor, solitary confinement. Jessica could hear screams, babbling voices, the usual cliches of a mental hospital. Dr. Powers guided her to a room that was marked "Interviews". They walked inside; there was a table and two chairs, both chained to the floor. "Please sit. The guards will bring her in shortly." He left her alone, confused and slightly hurt at the man's abrupt demeanor. She sat down opposite the door, laying the file, her notebook, and a pencil down in front of her.
After about ten minutes, the door opened. A tall muscular guard stepped in first; he turned to lead the person behind him in. Jessica's eyes widened slightly at her first glimpse of Elizabeth Voorhees.
She was tall, perhaps six feet or so. Her hair fell around her face and down past her shoulders, and it was almost completely white. Her eyes were a stunning green color, clear and intelligent. And she was impossibly beautiful. Forty-three years of age? Jessica swore to herself the woman didn't look any older than she herself was.
Beautiful she may have been, but her eyes were cold and dead. No expression was on her face as she sat down opposite Jessica. She was shackled hand and foot, and the guard attached these to the chair. When he was finished, he turned to Jessica. "When you're through, just let me know. I'll be right outside." Fear suddenly shot through her as the guard exited, closing the door behind him. She was in here alone with a monster.
Elizabeth studied her silently, seeming to take in every inch of her. Her gaze unsettled Jessica, who suddenly blushed and looked down hastily at her papers. She cleared her throat. "Um, thank you for speaking with me today, Miss Voorhees. I'm only going to ask you a few questions." She flipped nervously through her notes, and so was taken completely off guard when Elizabeth spoke. "No one comes to talk to me," she said in a soft, inflectionless voice. "The doctors stopped asking me questions a long time ago. The orderlies bring my meals and my books. The guards take me to the showers and back. But no one talks to me. Until now."
Jessica froze; she dared to look up into the face opposite her. Elizabeth's head was tilted questioningly, but her face was the same. "I...I read about you. I found you interesting." Elizabeth continued to stare at her. "Interesting? That's a word I've not heard in quite some time. The doctors found me interesting for a while, until they learned there was nothing else they could discover about me. They wanted to know how I knew so much about my family without ever meeting any of them." Jessica stared back, feeling so much like a deer in the headlights but unable to do anything about it. "I found my birth certificate, along with a scrapbook the people who adopted me had made about my family. About how my mother killed all those counselors, until one of them killed her. About how that same girl was found the next day babbling about a boy in the lake. And about how that same girl disappeared two months later."
"Your brother-" Jessica began, but Elizabeth cut her off, her voice never rising. "-my brother, yes. Jason. I know what he's been up to all these years." Jessica swallowed. "Your brother is dead." Elizabeth tilted her head again. "Is he? Did you see the body?" Jessica shook her head slowly. "Of course not...I've seen his gravesite, though. And your mother's." Elizabeth blinked, her eyes finally moving off Jessica and to the side. A palpable feeling of relief flooded the younger woman. "Ah yes, the brood mare that gave birth to monsters. The only reason my father married her, in fact. He left her to deal with Jason and after Jason drowned, he came back to create me. But she only ever cared for Jason...the only child she ever had in her eyes."
Jessica tried to see if there was any sort of emotion in Elizabeth's words or her mannerisms...but there was none. She could have been talking about the weather. Jessica's written questions were forgotten, but a new one sprang to mind. "Your father, do...do you know who he is?" That brought those merciless green eyes back onto her face, and although fear again gripped her, she also felt a fleeting sense of...attraction? To a killer? Jessica tried to push that from her mind, but Elizabeth's eyes were fixed on her, unwilling to let her go just yet.
"Do I know my father? Yes, I do. His name is Elias Voorhees, or rather, that's the name he's taken for himself this time. For this purpose." Jessica tried to swallow again, but her throat was so dry, and she could only whisper her next question. "What purpose?" Elizabeth leaned across the table as far as the shackles would allow her, her eyes boring a hole through Jessica. "His purpose is to create killers. Merciless, soulless killers to bring the whole of humanity to its knees." She paused for a moment, still holding Jessica in thrall with her eyes and the sound of her voice.
"My father is a demon from hell. And he's looking to create his own hell on earth, courtesy of my brother and I."