Sorry it's been awhile. My Internet has been down for a long time. I was only able to get on from school and I didn't have long enough to submit my chapter. I love all the reviews I'm getting. I'm excited that I'm almost up to a 100!

Sergeant Chauncey Reeves had his police car parked near the side of the road leading away from the town and to the surrounding woods. He was one of the several officers assigned to be a roadblock to stop the occasional travelers and find out where they were going.

It was a pretty uneventful job so far, not too surprising for the day being a Sunday. He knew that with the end of school approaching, though, there would soon be the parade of ready vacationers leaving the town for some summer fun. But there was still another week of school yet, so it was doubtful that he would see too many today.

Chauncey reached over and petted his faithful police dog, Hunter, while still keeping an eye on the road.

Hunter was a German shepherd and the first ever dog to be positioned on the Crystal Lake police force. Hunter had graduated from training a month ago. Since Chauncey was the dog's owner, he had suggested that Hunter join the force that he was already on.

Chauncey scratched Hunter's ears and smiled. He had raised the German shepherd from when he was a puppy. Now, Chauncey was excited that his best friend was finally getting to work with him.

"Are you bored, boy?" he asked the dog.

Hunter sat up in his seat and yawned.

"I take that as a yes," Chauncey said. "Don't worry. Summer vacation for the kids is almost here, and there'll soon be travelers that we can warn."

Chauncey's expression changed to one of seriousness. Hunter sensed his owner's solemn mood and whimpered lightly. Chauncey ran his coarse fingers along the dog's black and brown coat. He thought of the reason why he had to warn any and all travelers.

Chauncey knew that as soon as he saw an approaching car, he had to turn his police car in front of its path and hopefully stop the group from heading off right to their doom. God forbid that Chauncey's conscience be shattered if he was the officer that allowed the travelers to even be near the forest of human death.

Also known as Jason's woods, he thought.

Chauncey studied himself in the rearview mirror. His fair hair made him look younger than his age of 28 years. He put on his sunglasses and adjusted them over his sensitive eyes. If he didn't wear any kind of sunglasses in bright light, Chauncey wouldn't be able to see a thing.

Suddenly, a loud bark from Hunter erupted in the air. The dog started to climb over him in an effort to get to his side.

"Hunter!" Chauncey cried in surprise. "What is it, boy?"

He pushed himself against the seat to make room for the dog. Hunter's tail slapped against Chauncey's face. At the same time, the dog was scratching at the window.

Chauncey attempted to straighten his sunglasses while opening the door to let Hunter out. The dog bolted out in a furry flash of action. He obviously had an urgent eye on something. Chauncey pushed his head out the door to follow Hunter. A car decided to turn the corner just at that moment.

"Hunter, come back!" Chauncey yelled. "We've got work to do!"

But the German shepherd had already headed off into the nearby woods. Chauncey heaved a sigh of annoyance. He sat back down in the car seat and slammed the door. The car was drawing nearer slowly, but surely.

Chauncey pulled the police car onto the road about a couple of yards in front of the car. He stopped and watched the approaching vehicle. The car was a shade of blue that gleamed in the sun. Chauncey readily awaited the warnings he was going to give these people that could save their lives.

Dawn awakened to the sound of something being dropped onto her bed. She mumbled sleepily and opened her eyes to see the welcoming figure of Jason standing near her. She sat up and brushed her tangled hair out of her face.

"Good morning, Jason," Dawn greeted him brightly.

She looked at the item he had placed on her bed.

"What did you bring me?"

She crawled over excitedly, waking up Princess along the way, and discovered what Jason had brought her.

Jason observed the child in her rumpled pink pajamas with two questions at the back of his mind. One was the uncertainty about how things would go today between them. The second and the most important one to him right now was the following.

How was he going to kill people and make sure Dawn wasn't around to see it?

For the time being, Dawn was unaware of Jason's doubt about having a human around him for so long. Jason did have compassion for her. That much was clear. But the unknowing of how long these good times would last was still lingering inside him. Unlike Jason though, Dawn seemed very confident about the way her stay with Jason would progress.

Dawn shouted a little in surprise at the object. It was a dead fish, still wet from being caught recently. Its blank, lifeless eyes were staring right at her. She scrambled off the bed and bumped against Jason.

"What's that doing here?" she asked him in a voice tinged with disgust.

She looked up at him for a reaction. Jason had already snapped out of his questioning thoughts about the day. He looked down at her with a spark of confusion in his glance. Dawn couldn't help but be a little worried about how Jason was responding.

"I know you gave that to me. But why? It's looking at me with creepy eyes."

Jason snatched the fish off the bed and held it near Dawn's mouth. The child wrinkled her nose and resisted backing away for fear of defying him.

"You want me to eat that?" she soon realized.

Jason clutched the dripping fish in front of her face and nodded. He didn't appear to think that it was a problem. Dawn smiled sensitively. She tried to reply in a way that wouldn't hurt the feelings she knew he had.

"Oh, I know now. You want to give me breakfast."

She placed a warm hand on his thick arm.

"That's so nice of you to get that fish for me. But people don't eat wet fish for breakfast."

When he still gazed at her with confusion, she headed over to her bags. She took out a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and showed it to him.

"This is something people can eat for breakfast. It's called cereal."

Cereal?

Jason just barely remembered eating something similar when he was a child. Back in the 50s, it didn't look anything like what Dawn was now crunching on.

Dawn finished up her cereal and asked Jason to feed Princess while she changed clothes in the bathroom. Jason tossed the supposedly unwanted fish back onto the bed.

Dawn held the clothes she was going to change into, a blue-strap top and jean shorts, and stared at the run-down bathroom. Its floorboards were sunken in and appeared like they would give way with even one careless step. The unstable foundation was true for the walls as well.

Part of the wall was already broken up. A large cranny tunneled away from that spot.

Dawn had enough sense to not poke around in this room. Especially if she knew what was hidden in that cranny. She remained near the door while getting dressed.

"Are you sure you can't go any faster?" Summer pleaded of Alan.

She squirmed around anxiously in the passenger seat next to him. Every minute that passed by to her seemed like an eternity.

Earlier that morning, she and Alan had tried once again to get a hold of James. It had ended with no response, much to Summer's great dismay.

Alan had insisted that they still shouldn't freak out, but Summer didn't want to hear of that. She had nearly dragged her husband out to their car to go and check up on James and Dawn.

"I'm going as fast as possible without causing an accident. You don't want us to crash before we get there, do you?"

Their car swept up clouds of dust on both sides of them. Alan slowed down for fear of the combination of dust and bright sunlight totally impairing his vision.

"What are you doing? Now, it'll take even longer for us to find out if our poor, little niece is okay."

Alan responded, clearly showing that he was agitated. Even though he had promised Summer that they would go to James and Dawn, he still was reluctant to consider this to be a stressful situation.

"You actually want me to speed on this dusty road? Look, I'm taking us to see them like I promised. Don't push me."

Summer sat back and sighed. It bothered her that Alan was similar to his reckless, older brother. Neither of the two brothers made a big deal over Dawn's safety.

She tilted her head slightly to look at him. Alan had dark, chocolate brown hair just like James. It was very sparse upon his head. Their eyes both had that coffee shade of indifference. His scruffy face reminded Summer of a man of drunkeness. Alan was nowhere near as insensitive as his brother though, which made Summer grateful.

"Oh crap," Alan muttered.

Summer bolted up in her seat.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Alan slowed down the car even more. He focused as hard as he could through the sunny windshield.

"There's a cop pulling in front of us. I think he wants us to stop."

Summer saw the police car halt in front of them. The police officer in the car looked right at them and motioned for them to do just what Alan had thought.

"What does he want? We didn't do anything."

Alan halted the engine. A part of him was grumbling that maybe they should have stayed home.

Women, he thought. They freak out over everything. It certainly doesn't help when there's a child in the family.

"Well, if we didn't do anything, then there's no reason to worry, is there?"

Dawn exited the bathroom after changing to discover that Jason had fed Princess all right. Princess was knee deep in a pile of kitten chow, feeding wildly on the fish. After tasting as much of the flesh as possible, she whipped it on the floor and rolled about in her food.

"You're not supposed to give her the whole bag!" Dawn laughed.

What Jason lacked in common sense made up in entertainment value for her.

She quickly added, "It's okay. I can tell you've never fed a cat before. No harm done. Don't feel bad."

Her instantaneous reassurance headed off Jason's hurt response. It was second nature for him to lash out at any laughter that was directed at him. He resisted any arising anger and stomped over to the kitten's feast.

He would remedy this situation.

He grabbed Princess and plopped her on the floor. He started shoving all the food into the cat food bag still leaning against the bed. He didn't do a very good job of it. His forceful motions caused most of the food to miss the bag.

Dawn poured out her sympathy for him. A part of him appeared to want to please her, and she felt flattered by that. She went over and wrapped her arms around his leg. Jason stopped after some of the food landed on Dawn's head.

"You don't have to do that. Princess will get full and slowly clean up whenever she gets hungry."

That satisfied Jason. He really had no interest in cleaning up anything anyway. However, Dawn soon brought up another thing that would really ignite some conflict.

"Jason, I don't mean to bother you. But wouldn't it be easier for us to play more outside if all those hurt people were gone?"

She went over to the window and pointed out at the piles of bodies, while keeping her gaze turned away from them.

"Whatever reason you have for punishing them is up to you. I just feel scared looking at them. Can't they go somewhere else?"

Dawn felt the tension bristling from Jason without even looking at him. Maybe she had gone a little too far with that request. Who was she after all to tell this powerful man what to do on his property?

Many mixed feelings were coursing through Jason after hearing that question. There was a battle inside him. One side was his compassion for this little child and the other side was his loyalty to killing for his mother.

How can she tell me to get rid of my dead victims? Those are all offerings to Mommy. Showing off how well I'm doing punishing those bad humans will make her proud of me. She wouldn't want me to clean them up, but...

Jason didn't know what to do. Wanting to please both his mom and Dawn was so new to him.

Jason rushed over to Dawn before she could take it back.

"Wait!" Dawn shouted.

But Jason seized hold of her and slung her over his shoulder.

She struggled frantically and cried, "I didn't mean that. You don't have to clean them up if you don't want to!"

Oh no! Dawn thought fretfully. I blew it! I talked too much! Why, Why did I do that?! He can still kill me whenever he wants to!

Jason's seemingly irritated state panicked Princess. She leapt from the bed just before Jason dropped Dawn onto it. He then strode over to the machete that Dawn thought he had forgotten about. He covered Dawn with his dominant shadow and held his weapon before her.

No! No! Dawn screamed inside her head.

Her eyes dilated in extreme horror, and her small frame trembled as Jason drew closer. The cowering kitten under the dresser sensed her fear of being on the border of death. Dawn wanted to smack herself for testing this giant too much.

Why did I ask so much of him?! Now he's going to kill me just like everyone else! I'm gonna die!