Chapter 1: A Cursed Namesake

The Voorhees name was cursed. At least that's what everyone in this town believed. I don't think there's a single soul within a hundred miles of Crystal Lake that isn't familiar with the legend of one Jason Voorhees and the various gruesome murders that occurred at the summer camp charmingly nicknamed "Camp Blood" on account of its "death curse". It was the same story every couple of summers: a group of kids decide they're going to invade the old, abandoned campsite for a weekend, and all but one or two are dead by Sunday, and everyone from one end of town to the other knew who was at fault. Jason Voorhees.

My family's distinguished title as the town rejects didn't make it much better. I'm not sure what my mom was thinking when she married my dad, or why in God's name they decided to stay in Crystal Lake when she did, but it really didn't give the family name all that much of a face-lift, nor did the day when I came kicking and screaming into the world.

Of all the namesakes that I could have been been born into, it just had to be Voorhees. And as a Voorhees that just so happened to have lived and grown up in the oh-so infamous town of Crystal Lake, I was not spared from the scrutiny of the Smiths and Millers of the rest of the town. During the school year, it came from my teachers and my peers. During the summer, it came from everyone else. It didn't matter if every other Voorhees and their cousin kept to themselves like my dad and I did, or that we didn't claim any sort of association with the Crystal Lake Killer that seemed to disappear and reappear every few years. Those who bore the cursed last name, Voorhees, were automatically condemned as either stetchy misfits, or just complete monsters.

Maybe that's why I started going to therapy, or maybe it was just my persistent dreams and the bouts of depression that seemed to come and go with each week that passed. After my mom died, keeping to myself made me feel more lonely than I ever remembered it being. At the very least, meeting with the guidance counselor of my high school, Shannon, offered the illusion that I had someone there that could help me sort out my problems, even though it was most likely more out of obligation, rather than personal interest.

And that's where my day started.

"And how are you doing this morning, Jedidiah?" Shannon asked in her typical, forced, cheerful voice.

"Same old, same old..." I groaned, letting my school bag drop from my shoulder to the floor with a dull thud, and plopping into the chair seated across her desk. It was way too early to be dealing with this, and I was sure that, behind her plastic, Barbie-esque smile, Shannon agreed.

Shannon tapped her pen nervously against the notepad in front of her, pursing her lips as she looked me over through a pair of thick-framed glasses, "Looking a little worse for wear this morning, I see..."

I brushed a piece of my fringe away from my face. That had to be the biggest understatement of the day. I'd woken up late, had zero time to shower, eat, or put together a decent outfit, so I was stuck in a frumpy pair of blue jeans and a grey shirt from the day before. I was sure I absolutely reeked of cigar smoke. Between my greasy black hair that was tossed in a mess and the worn leather jacket that looked like it'd been pulled from a garbage heap, I looked more like a street thug that just lost a fight with a drunk than a seventeen year old high school student that just rolled out of bed.

"One day I'll learn not to sleep through my alarm," I shrugged, trying to lighten the mood a little. Though, with Shannon, it usually didn't help all that much.

"I heard you got suspended again," she stated, "Fighting with the Sharp boys, again, are we?"

"When am I not?" I retorted.

Corey and Tyler Sharp: a pair of twins whose only fulfillment in life seemed to be making mine a living Hell. Nobody in all of Crystal Lake gave me as hard of a time as those two jerks, and they were almost always the reason why I'd be suspended. If they weren't insulting me over my name, they were talking shit to me about my folks; my dad in particular. My dad always told me to never throw the first punch, but I'd be damned if I let them talk shit about me and my family when they didn't even know me outside of school.

"I know they're not the easiest people to get along with, Jedidiah," Shannon continued, "But there are some things that you just have to learn to let go. Grit your teeth, and walk away."

I scoffed, "Maybe I would, if everyone else in this backwards town would do the same! Yeah, my last name is Voorhees. So what? My family and I have nothing to do with that psycho Jason, or anything that happened at Camp Crystal Lake!"

I stopped, noting how my voice was starting to shake. I'd always had a bit of a short fuse, and after my mom died, it'd only gotten worse. I could vent to her until my face went blue, and in the end she always knew just what to say and make everything all right. My dad wasn't like that. When I got going, it normally ended with us screaming at each other until the neighbors called the cops. I had his temper, and two hot-heads mixed about as well as oil and water. And Shannon? If she understood what I was going through and knew how to help, she didn't show it. She tiptoed around me just as much as everyone else in this town did.

"I just want to live my life like everyone else," I said, taking a calming breath, "Since that's too much to ask, apparently, then all I want is to be left alone, but I guess that's also too much to ask!"

Shannon's pen seemed to skitter across her notepad with each sentence that came spewing from my mouth. Eventually she stopped and flipped back a few pages, likely referring to a previous session.

"The last time we talked, you said something about having some pretty strange dreams," she remarked, "Have those been getting any better since the last time we met?"

"Not really," I replied, ignoring the change of topic. I'd grown wise to her little game back when I was still a freshman. Objective one: give a half-assed attempt at preventing me from fighting with Corey and Tyler. Objective two: try to prove that I am somehow affiliated with Jason and the death curse of Camp Crystal Lake, "If anything they've been happening a lot more often."

I should have left it at that. Anything that I said tended to be used against me in the court of this guidance counselor. Running through the woods at night, somehow stumbling upon the old abandoned camp, seeing a strange man in a mask somewhere in the trees; these were mainly what these dreams consisted of, and they really didn't help my case at trying to prove that I wasn't involved with, nor had I ever seen, Jason Voorhees.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Shannon asked, pushing a lock of aged blonde hair behind her ear.

Here we go.

"Well..." I started, "The dreams always start the same. I'm running through the woods in the middle of the night because someone or something is chasing me. Then all of a sudden I'm in the middle of the camp. In my last dream, I tried to hide in a patch of thick brush and I waited to see who was chasing me. I'm sitting there for a few minutes before I hear someone walking up behind me, and when I look back, there's a tall man standing there wearing an old hockey mask. He just stands there staring at me for a minute before he turns around and walks back into the woods."

By the time I'm finished speaking, Shannon's face is as white as a plain piece of paper. Maybe it would have been simpler if I'd just said I'd seen Jason in my dream, and left it at that. It would have been much faster and still had the same effect, because that's probably what she was already thinking. Why did I even bother?

Eventually, Shannon set down her pen and laced her fingers together as she stared me down with a serious look.

"Listen, Jedidiah," she started slowly, "I want to believe that you're right. That your last name really doesn't mean anything, and that it has nothing to do with the stories about Jason or Camp Blood. I really, really want to believe that, but at this point... I'd say the best person to ask about that is your father."

A confused look settled on my face, "What are you talking about? Yeah, my dad's also a Voorhees, but--"

Before I could get another word in, the bell in the hallway rang, signaling that it was almost time for first period to start. I instinctively picked up my bag and got up from my chair.

"Just trust me on this," Shannon said, pushing her pen and notepad aside, "If I could tell you, I would, but I think it would be better if you heard from him rather than me. You might just find that you've got more in common with Jason Voorhees than you might think. If it turns out that I'm wrong, we'll move forward from there."

And with that, I was shooed out of the guidance office and into the bustling halls of my high school... and right into the waiting clutches of Corey and Tyler Sharp.

"Well look who's back!" Corey piped up, wheeling his brother around from his locker, "If it ain't the spawn of Satan himself!"

I barely had enough time to process it before the two of them were staring me down like vultures drawn to a scrap of roadkill. The twins wore the same thing almost every day; matching jeans, matching varsity jackets, matching sneakers. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they both wore matching boxer briefs. They were essentially carbon copies of one another, all they way from the way they slicked back their dirty blond hair to their obnoxious voices and mannerisms. The only way that anyone could tell them apart was that Corey walked with a slight limp, on account of the fact he busted up his leg pretty bad during a football game last year. If it weren't for that, I'm pretty sure they would have kept up their old antics of confusing the shit out of everyone they met.

"Leave me alone, guys," I growled as I attempted to slip past them, "I'm not in the mood right now."

"Aw, what's wrong?" Tyler cooed, slinging his arm over my shoulders, "Rough night at Camp Blood? Ran out of hot counselors to kill, or did Jason run you out for having all the fun?"

"Seriously? Don't you guys have a class you got to get to, or something?"

"Get a load of this guy," Corey said in a snarky tone, "Hey, tough guy! Do you think you could teach me how to hide a dead body? Or maybe you could put in a good word to ol' Jason for me!"

I clenched my fists, fighting off the urge to send one of them through Corey's face. I'd already been suspended three times this year because of these assholes. My dad would have my ass if I got suspended a fourth time... or worse. But I could already feel my vision going red. My little session with Shannon a minute ago didn't exactly help, either. I'd be lucky if I made it to first period without slamming one of the Sharp brothers into the lockers.

"Look! For the last time, just leave me alone!"

"Or what?" Corey asked, "You'll go and cry about it to your mommy? Oh, wait!"

Before Corey and Tyler could collapse in a fit of hysterical laughter, and before I could effectively put either of them through a brick wall, a stern voice barked at us from a few doors down the hall, "Mr. Sharp One and Two! Mr. Voorhees!"

Standing there outside of the office, with his arms crossed and a scowl planted firmly on his face, was our principal, Mr. Williams, and even though Corey and Tyler were the ones causing the ruckus, I could tell that his sour expression was mainly directed towards me, because of course it was. Tyler immediately pulled himself off of me, ready to scurry away with his brother to leave me to deal with the brunt of our principal's wrath, but it was already too late.

"You three, my office. Now!"

The Sharp brothers cursed under their breaths and pushed me ahead of them, thinking that would somehow save them from whatever punishment Mr. Williams decided to serve us for acting like fools in the halls, which was pretty much guaranteed. Williams closed the door to his office behind us as we marched to the chairs positioned in front of his desk. Corey and Tyler took the two seats to my right, and I scooted myself as far over to the left as I could away from those two jerks.

"What does a man have to do to keep you three from killing each other?" Mr. Williams asked sternly, "You especially, Mr. Voorhees. You've all ready been suspended three times this year. I figured three days away from these two idiots would do you some good!"

"It worked wonders, actually," I countered, "That was three days where I didn't have to put up with their crap!"

"Did you do the assignments I asked you to do?"

I gave him a nod as I pulled my school bag onto my lap and rummaged through my folders. It only took a few seconds before I found the two thick essays Mr. Williams had me write in repentance for fighting at school. Now all I had to do was pray to whatever God was out there, and hope he, she, or it would put their cruel sense of humor on hold for a few minutes and give me a break.

"One ten-page essay on why fighting at school is bad, and one ten-page essay constructing a game plan on how I'm going to do better."

"Excellent," Mr. Williams scanned the second essay briefly, "I didn't think you had it in ya."

"To be fair, I'd rather write two ten-page essays, rather than two twenty-page essays." I pointed out.

"Smart move. Now, I don't know what kind of exchange you were having with the Sharp boys out in the hall just now, and I don't want to know. What I do know is that I don't want you within eyeshot of them for the rest of the day, for all of our sakes."

"Can do!" I stated firmly, "I wasn't looking for trouble to begin with."

Mr. Williams looked me up and down for a moment before he turned his attention to Corey and Tyler, "As for you two boys... The two of you get to spend your time after school today reading the student handbook again and writing a five-page essay on the section that covers harassment and bullying, and you'll be cleaning all of the erasers to the chalkboards in the school every day for the rest of the week."

Compared to the punishments I had to deal with from Mr. Williams and the other teachers of the school, that was nothing, but Corey and Tyler's jaws dropped as though they were just told they had to kick a newborn baby.

"But we have practice!"

Mr. Williams leaned back in his chair and scratched at the balding spot on top of his head before he shot them a smug grin, "Well, then I guess you'll just have to explain to your coach why you can't make it."

I maybe a Voorhees, and as such sometimes it felt like the entire town was against me. But watching the Sharp brothers get handed down that punishment felt like the greatest victory of my life.