"Poor kid, he's been through hell…" said 35 year old Duke Smith, as he drove the medical transport wagon for the Unger Institute of Mental Health down the dirt road, whipping past the treeline going 60 in a 45.

Duke and his coworker for the day, Billy McCauley, craned their necks to see their patient in the back seat, separated from them by wire mesh, writhing in the back seat in the throes of a nightmare.

"Aw piss," Billy said scornfully. "So what, some nutjob tries to kill him. That's every night at the bar for me"

"Why am I not surprised?" Duke retorted with a grin.

"Hey, talk to my ex-wife," Billy said. "She's tried to kill me more times than I can count"

Both of them didn't really take their jobs seriously.

And that was probably a good thing.

With all of the stark raving mad lunatics they had in the back of their government-issued transport vehicle, ranting about nonsense, they were lucky to still have their sanity.

It wasn't like they were worried.

The steel mesh kept them in the backseat, so there wasn't a risk of harm, except for that one time that a seriously deranged patient had tried to claw his way through.

Most of the time, they were just plain amusing and it was fun to push their buttons.

The rest of their time was spent driving around, which meant they could hang out in small towns, pick up chicks, get shitfaced and be all ready to start the next shift the next morning.

Duke was a father of two, divorced with his kids in college, getting by with his menial labor job like many other normal middle-aged men.

William McCauley was a simple guy that could be pleased by the simple pleasures of life.

Dope, sex and beer.

Both were horrible at their job.

They relished in it.

Getting paid 17 an hour to take a driving course, do a background check, drive around and talk shit with your buddies? It couldn't have been a better deal.

In the backseat, Tommy awoke from his hellish nightmare, his bloodshot eyes darting back and forth frantically like a soldier hearing gunfire outside his bunker, making sure he was safe and that there wasn't any blood anywhere. He glanced down. He had all his limbs. He took in deep gulps of air, his cheeks sucking in as he gasped for a breath. Beads of sweat dripped down his face and onto his cheeks.

Just another goddamn dream, he thought. He stared out at the trees passing him by, searching the woods. Searching for the monster.

No sign of anything. Just North American wilderness. Some fresh roadkill lay on the dirt shoulder.

The two medics sitting up front didn't notice Tommy waking. Billy flipped through a Playboy and ran a comb through his black bushy mustache and through what little hair he had left on his head. Duke lit a cigarette, and puffed it out the window.

Tommy didn't know which was worse. He almost would rather deal with Jason than deal with these two clowns. Another day, another unhelpful service by people who he thought he could trust. Doctors and first responders were the people he trusted the least so far. They couldn't help him. All he could try to do was just forget.

Just forget that it had happened. Just erase it from his mind and focus on other things. Take deep breaths. Don't get triggered. Jason was dead. Long dead and gone. Even if he was alive, Pinehurst County was 20 miles from Crystal Lake.

Not far enough, he thought.

Not far enough.

It was still Crystal Lake to him. It was still Crystal Lake to Jason Voorhees.

But maybe this would be just what he needed. The space to clear his head and forget for a little while. Work on chores around the place. Fix up his room the way he liked it, with all his masks in full display. Maybe he could play video games with some of the other kids. Focusing on all those things just might be enough to finally kick this Jason nonsense for good.

He was so tired. Tired of living under that monster's thumb, thinking about those deranged eyes everyday after waking up and everyday after lying down to go to sleep.

As much as he tried to think positively and reluctantly follow his therapist's advice, he just knew in the back of his mind that this would be a long, long summer.

A long summer out at Crystal Lake.

The white government-authorized transport van with Unger Institute of Mental Health emblazoned on the passenger door almost screeched to a halt, and fishtailed onto another narrow dirt road, leaving behind a cloud of dust.

The van bumped noisily down the road, which eventually turned into even noisier gravel.

A wooden sign overhung the road, displayed on an old arbor covered with vines.

PINEHURST YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CENTER. PRIVATE PROPERTY.

The sign read.

The van drove past a ramshackle old barn, its red paint now faded to a husky maroon, and a horse stable. The sedan hit a pothole, and Tommy was jolted out of his dissociative state, and he looked out the window, his eyes directed to the loud sound of machinery, seeing a man driving a big freshly painted yellow bulldozer and scooping up mud from the horse field.

The grounds were heavily wooded. Big shade trees lined the road, and Tommy began to grow anxious.

Here he was, again, out in the middle of nowhere. What could go wrong? he thought.

Lots, he reminded himself. A lot of things could go wrong. They always did for me.

The doctors, Trish and Mr. Jarvis had all thought it best for Tommy to go here. The doctor knew a colleague who worked at Pinehurst and strongly recommended it as a place for "troubled teens who don't belong". What a crock.

It was probably owned by some asshole who was only in it for the money.

Places like this are like snake oil, Tommy thought. It was just like those AA groups where they give you twelve steps and send you on your way.

Nothing but a crock. Nothing could save him. Not doctors, not anyone.

Billy squinted out the dirt-splattered windshield, chewing on a toothpick intensely.

He was staring at the foxy redhead who was standing by the road, whispering excitedly to a chubby boy in a sweatshirt and blue jeans.

Her auburn hair fell gently around her shoulders as she smiled, and her fair complexion gleamed in the sunlight. A cherry red shawl was wrapped around her white blouse, dangling just below her short denim skirt.

Billy licked his lips. What was her name again? Rachel? Or…Rebecca? No. Robin.

He had been out to Pinehurst before delivering nuts, as he called them, and had gotten to know all of them pretty well.

Robin craned her neck to see into the backseat, checking out the new kid as Tommy avoided her stares.

Robin was the one with the eating disorder, Billy thought. She starved herself one week to the point of exhaustion and had to be hospitalized. She looks fine to me, Billy thought. What's a girl like that doing starving herself? If she was older, he would absolutely have gotten some if she wanted it, which usually women did with Billy.

His overly sarcastic and blunt attitude was attractive to any girl who was into that sort of thing.

The chubby kid, he thought, was mentally slow and autistic. A mess of a family too. His father moved off somewhere, unwilling to accept his son's difficulties and a burden on the family, and the mother died.

He was shipped around from foster home to foster home until finally he wound up at Pinehurst and had been there almost three years.

Sad, sad case.

Violet was a tall, slender brunette, but her hair was dyed platinum blonde with a few strands dyed neon purple. Yeah, she was one of those chicks. Freaky in bed, but a total controlling bitch. Goth is what they called them now, but back in his day, they were just called freaks and queers.

Doctors said she had serious manic depression and suicidal tendencies. They caught her trying to cut her wrists with a piece of broken glass in front of her own sister. That's all nothing but attention seeking, he thought.

All they needed was discipline.

Maybe what Violet needed was a good time, he thought, thinking about just how freaky she might be in the sack. Hell, she just might lose her mind and cut off my pecker.

Total nutcases at Pinehurst, Billy thought. Total fucking lunatics.

Jake had anxiety and a stutter, one so bad that the kid could barely get a sentence out when he got excited.

Then there was the nymphomaniac couple.

He had forgotten what their names were and he frankly didn't give a fuck.

One time, he went in to buy some cigarettes, and found them both going at it in the back of his transport car.

It took him weeks to scrub the backseat.

He couldn't get them to stop, no matter how hard he kept honking the horn and screaming at them.

They got pulled in to Pinehurst when they were caught fucking in a public bathroom and some woman and her kid called the cops. That is something I would have liked to see, Billy thought.

He couldn't believe that they hadn't gone to prison for endangering a child, or at least public indecency, but the judge got paid, the father knew the judge, and the judge agreed to send them to rehabilitation.

And now, this new kid was getting shuttled in and the kid looked like he had been through World War 3. He had more PTSD than anyone he had ever seen before, and he had seen some fucked up people in the back of the van.

"Hey, you remember that schizo who tried to saw his own arm off when ol' Bud was driving one night?"

Duke flicked his cigarette and smirked.

"Yeah…that was back in 83?"

Billy nodded, reminiscing on all the nights in the Unger Institute's private employee lounge, sharing sordid stories of experiences dealing with "nuts" and "loonies".

There was ol' Bud, Duke, Billy, and another paramedic named Roy. They'd sit, share beers, and stay after work until the morning.

"Bud had his eyes off of the rear view for a split second, and the guy had already cut into the bone," Billy emphasized, as Duke grimaced.

"What did he manage to smuggle in…was it a…uh…an old toothbrush handle? Razor blade?"

"I thought it was a switchblade and the guy had it in his sock.." Billy said, his voice trailing off as he glanced back at Tommy, who was wide awake, but staring off into the distance, staring at seemingly nothing. Quiet as a mouse.

"You hear that, new kid? Whatcha think about the other nuts that are gonna be at this place, huh?" Billy asked.

Tommy didn't answer or even look at him.

Billy frowned and groaned.

"Well, at least you're not one of the talkative ones. Some of these guys will talk your head off about the most insane shit" Billy said, turning back around to face the front of the cab.

Duke chortled and glanced back at Tommy.

"Be careful with this one, Bill…I heard he slammed a kids head into a tree,"

Billy chortled.

"I'm real scared," he mocked. "Kid couldn't hurt a fly"

Tommy still said nothing.

The van pulled to a stop, did a three-point turn, and backed up right to the front porch of a modest, two-story ranch-style house with white clapboard siding, a wrap-around porch, and big picture windows in a large clearing.

Billy glanced back at Tommy, and saw the distant glaze in his eyes and how tightly his jaw was locked. He refused to give Billy any eye contact, seemingly staring into the void.

He shook his head, and climbed out of the passenger side. He slid open the side door across from Tommy and gestured for him to exit the van.

Tommy didn't move.

"Last stop. Everybody out," Billy said.

Tommy still couldn't or didn't want to move or speak. He sat still as a stone, breathing hard and slow.

"Tommy!" Billy exclaimed, trying to snap him out of it. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Tommy didn't even flinch.

Billy hung his head in exasperation.

"Alright, fine. Sit there then, I don't give a shit,"

He turned and was met by the glaring eyes of an attractive young woman in slacks and a white blouse carrying a clipboard and strolling out of the house, who clearly had heard his last remark and wasn't amused.

She gave the oafish medic a critical look, and then brushed a strand of her long, blond hair out of her face. She tried to ignore his eyes transfixed on her chest.

"Hey, how ya doin," Billy said casually, shameless about his behavior.

The young woman didn't respond, and turned her eyes to the strapping young sandy-haired man sitting silently in the van like he was glued to the upholstery.

"Tommy Jarvis?" she asked him.

Tommy said nothing.

The young woman went on, giving Billy a wry look.

"Hi, I'm Pam Roberts, I'm the assistant director here at Pinehurst. I'm glad you're here,"

Tommy was silent. Pam thought she caught him glancing at her behind his glasses, and softened her voice, injecting some motherly comfort into her tone.

"If you'd like to grab your things, Tommy, I can take you in to meet the doctor, alright?"

Same reaction from Tommy. He stared straight ahead, not moving a muscle or uttering a sound.

She looked around nervously as the silence grew tense.

Then, ever so slowly, Tommy started to get up. He hesitated, then slid across the seat and robotically climbed out of the car, the same dead expression on his face. He reached in and grabbed the leather strap of an army green duffel bag.

iPam directed Tommy up the stairs to the front door, thanking the driver reluctantly. She kept staring forward, knowing he was looking at her ass and rolling her eyes.

"Anytime, doll," Billy said, his eyes scanning her body lustfully.

Pam and Tommy stepped into the front area of the house, and she closed the door behind him, satisfied as she heard the transport van peeling out.

"How was the ride?" she asked with a pleasant smile. Tommy tried hard to avoid eye contact but couldn't help but notice her eyes were a deep shade of blue.

He still didn't answer, and Pam took the hint gracefully.

"Come on, Tommy," she said.

Tommy morosely followed her through a few rooms. The decor of the quaint old house was much like his home back in Crystal Lake, and he felt his stomach sink. There was a sprawling kitchen, an open dining area connected to a covered patio, and two big living rooms with old, plush sofas and armchairs.

It definitely wasn't like anywhere he had stayed before. This felt like a home and not a cage.

The walls were painted shades of yellow, green, and blue, unlike the somber grey of the last few facilities. The wallpaper also wasn't peeling and the lights weren't flickering.

Tommy noticed something else that set him at ease.

It was quiet.

No screaming.

No beeping of medical equipment.

No alarm bells.

No cars honking.

All he heard was the birds singing outside the big picture window in the living room.

"Are you okay?" Pam asked over her shoulder as they walked through the kitchen.

Tommy didn't respond. He was looking around the house at the quaint knick-knacks that were placed in every room and the paintings on the wall.

Pam and Tommy walked down a small hallway at the back of the house and stopped at a pair of wooden sliding doors. She knocked.

A man in his late thirties who was dressed far too casually for a doctor in jeans and a collared shirt opened the door and invited them inside.

His hair was dark and wavy, and his eyes were warm and paternal.

"Hi, Tommy," he said. "I'm Dr. Matthew Letter, have a seat,"

Tommy ambled inside and sat down in a leather chair across from the doctor's small wooden desk in the corner. Dr. Letter's office was converted from an old laundry space. His diploma from University of Minnesota was displayed on the wall above him, and around him were various motivational posters including one that read "Destroy a Family Tradition" and "Family is what Matters,"

Tommy groaned internally. Family? he thought. How does family even matter if they can be gone in the blink of an eye?

Great, he thought. Just more snake oil.

"Alright Tommy," said Dr. Letter, snapping Tommy out of his trance. "What I'm gonna do is tell you a little bit about Pinehurst and then you can go to your room and unpack your things, how does that sound?"

Tommy stared at the floor, not making a sound. He absent-mindedly fumbled with the zipper on the duffel bag in his lap.

"Tommy?" Matt repeated himself in a more firm tone. "How does that sound?"

Tommy avoided eye contact, still toying with his zipper, self soothing himself so the vicious and callous remarks bottled up inside wouldn't fly out of his mouth and get him kicked out.

Finally, he mustered up enough care to mutter "Yeah, sure," as Matt smiled compassionately. He relaxed back in his swivel chair. Pam stood by, observing and jotting notes on her clipboard.

"So about Pinehurst…" Matt went on. "You can see we are different from the state institutions…we don't have any guards here,"

Tommy's gaze drifted to the window across the room and stared out into the grassy yard, where the redhead who had looked at him when he was pulling up in the van was folding clothes and hanging them on a clothesline.

"Nobody's gonna tell you what you can do and what you can't do…Basically, you're your own boss," Dr. Letter explained.

"It's an honor system, Tommy," Pam said. That brought Tommy's attention to her. He couldn't stop staring at her. She almost looked like Trish with her blond hair and crystal blue eyes. It caught him off guard now that he was fully staring at her, and once he realized, he dropped his gaze back to his zipper.

Matt leaned forward.

"What you're doing here, Tommy…is preparing yourself to re-enter society and start a new life," he said.

Still, Tommy was quiet and despondent.

Matt patted his leg affectionately.

"So, Pam, do you want to show Tommy to his room?"

Pam nodded as Tommy stood up. She pointed towards the staircase near the front of the house.

"You go up the stairs and it's the first room on the left," she said and closed the door behind Tommy as he ambled towards the stairs with his bag.

Pam shut the door and let out a breath. She had been holding it the whole time. The tension with Tommy had been so unbearable and so thick you could cut it with a knife. What exactly had happened to that poor kid? she thought. She was also curious as to why he was here. Certainly not any body issues or sexual deviance like some of the kids here. Tommy seemed much more reserved and absorbed into himself.

She peered at the file in Matt's hands curiously, and then glanced around, deciding to make conversation and ease the gloom.

"So what do you think?" she inquired, sitting on the edge of his desk.

Matt chortled.

"He's a real talker,"

"Yeah I noticed…" she said. "How did they diagnose it?"

Matt opened Tommy's file and scanned it intently.

"Severe trauma at age 12. Brutal self defense murder of a psychopathic killer," Matt read. Pam's eyebrows lifted as her interest piqued. She gulped.

My God, she thought. No wonder the kid looked and acted like someone straight off of the battlefield.

"Dissociative disorder with fits of rage…trouble sleeping…manic depression…" Matt sighed. "They've given him every treatment they can think of,"

Matt read on to the next page.

"It's a wonder his mind isn't fried from all the drugs they've given him," Matt said, as he saw the lengthy medication chart. There were sleeping drugs, mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, and more.

Pam shook her head.

Jesus…she thought as she pictured what Tommy had had to suffer through. There wouldn't be enough drugs to help me recover from something like that.

She remembered all those murders like it was yesterday, and she knew that a young boy had survived the spree, but hadn't known his name until

now.

Why on God's green earth would they send him back here? she thought. That seems like the worst idea in the world. Take a traumatized teen and stick him in a halfway house away from his family back where he had experienced the trauma? Crystal Lake was miles from Pinehurst, but she still couldn't fathom why a doctor would think of such a strategy.

It might have been the only thing they hadn't tried, she surmised.

Desperation can lead people to crazy outcomes.

Pam had questioned the idea of working at a halfway house in college when she was studying social work and psychology.

Was it really best for kids to be taken away from their families? Sending them out to a house in the middle of nowhere with strangers? She didn't see the usefulness. For any kid who had gone through something horrible, Pam's intuition had told her that family support was all they needed. Someone to make them a warm meal. Someone to run them a hot bath.

What Pam realized instead after working with disadvantaged kids is that many young people don't even have a parent who can stop drinking long enough to take them to school, much less make them dinner.

Once Pam saw the collaborative, nurturing, supportive environment that Matt was trying to create, she could see what he was doing.

She had seen the records of many of the kids at Pinehurst, and could see why Matt tried to give them a "home away from home".

This felt more like a home to many of them than their own childhood homes.

They had chores to do, or not do, and didn't have to worry about food not being on the table. Pinehurst had a long-running cook on staff, George, who made all of their meals and was almost like a grandfather to them.

They didn't have to worry about alcohol or drugs, because Pinehurst was strictly sober.

It was a place that rewarded good behavior and hard work, and made it fun and exciting with the honor system.

How could she have turned that down? A place for kids with shitty families to run to in times of need. A place that helped them learn how to interact with others, and build time management skills and other pursuits worthy of pursuing. It was a home where they could set their worries aside and focus on becoming who they want to be.

Even if some of them wanted to be strippers or flip burgers.

The one thing with Matt that irked her was that he needed a different approach for different kids. He often pushed them all into going to college, or a trade school, but was that really realistic for all kids? Maybe a small accomplishment, like getting a minimum wage job, was the right thing to help them

strive for.

What about kids like Joey?

Joey was one of the patients who struggled the most. His IQ was only about sixty-five, and his reading was at a third grade level, despite being almost twenty years old.

Joey's parents were a prime example of the kind of parents that had made Pam realize not every child had a stable, supportive family to care for them. He had been an orphan since he was a child.

His father had just walked out on him after his mom passed. He apparently didn't want to bear the burden of a challenged child alone.

It was so selfish for people to have kids and not take care of them, Pam thought. How could a father hold his own pain and burden over that of his child? How did his father think Joey felt, being the way that he was? Being different? Instead of caring for him and getting him help, he just left. She couldn't imagine her own guilt if she had to make that decision.

She could understand how kids like that felt so isolated. She had been a quiet, unassuming kid once-very reserved, and she paid the price for it. Maybe that's why she empathized with Joey the most.

Not only did he suffer from being ostracized by the other kids, but he also had suffered the loss of both his caregivers.

Even more selfish were Robin's parents who had enabled her eating disorder, constantly pointing out her weight.

Pam shuddered to think about Tina and Eddie's past. She had read that teens who engage in hypersexuality typically face sexual trauma in their early years. Maybe it wasn't true for every person. But something must be wrong if the only way they know how to feel happy and good about themselves is to have sex.

Sad, sad cases. It was hard not to dwell on them, and dwell on so many of the mistakes their parents made.

Pam guessed that's what the "Destroy a Family Tradition" poster was about on Matt's wall above his desk. It was claiming that the newfangled socially acceptable tradition was to make your children afraid of you and by destroying that, you get back to what works. Love, support, hard work, and rules and all that jazz. Teaching them why chores matter instead of scaring it into them.

It was honestly kind of corny to Pam, but she could understand why a guy like Matt would subscribe to that kind of philosophy.

From a few late-night conversations and dinners in town, Pam had gathered that Matt came from

a fairly dysfunctional background and was working to correct the mistakes that his father and mother made by helping other kids.

He had told her his dad was physically abusive and a raging alcoholic, while his mother sat and let it all happen.

He argued that kind of parenting, being too aggressive but also being too passive, is what led to children growing up with all sorts of problems, problems that Matt himself had struggled through.

It was noble of him to want to use his traumatic past to help others, and maybe that's why she signed on. As corny as it sometimes was, she could see his heart was in the right place for every kid here. Of course, she did think he could be too lax.

Tina and Eddie had been caught having sex on the grounds multiple times, and still no punishment was brought.

"That is not what we stand for here, you're too young" He would say, but they wouldn't listen.

Again and again, Joey would run into the office, his face flushed red, barely able to speak.

"Tina and Eddie…uh…Tina and Eddie are…" Joey would manage to say, stammering like a nervous schoolboy.

Matt and Pam would know instantly what he was referring to by his blushing and sweating.

They'd get another lecture and maybe sent to their rooms, but did he ever talk to them about STDs? Pregnancy? No. Just repeating to them the "honor system" values.

But after all, Pam was only an assistant. She didn't feel it was her place to tell a doctor how to run things.

As broken as Matt's past was, she suspected he had a huge ego and she didn't want to wound it, and lose her job.

Even when she tried to make small suggestions, he would get flustered, and agitated.

She learned that her opinion didn't really count to him, and she did resent that fact, but the job brought in money and she could help the kids under Matt's supervision regardless.

Pam figured some sexism from his father had leaked out onto him. Everyone is on their healing journey, but she did hate the fact that her opinion, even though she had a degree in clinical psychology, wasn't counted equally to his at times.

"Maybe Joey would be better working an easy job, like fast food," she'd suggest.

"Maybe Joey can't handle chopping wood and you should let one of the stronger guys handle it,"

But every time, Matt blew her down.

Nonetheless, she loved her job. She loved being one of the only people to show these kids some compassion in their lives.

It was only that that kept her here. She felt she had connected personally with each one of these kids.

Then, she thought about Tommy. He might be the toughest to crack.

Sure, their kids had been through a hellish childhood, with neglect, abuse, and poverty, but being forced to protect your family from a serial killer?

Tommy might be too fucked up for Pinehurst.

There was something about him, in his brooding silence, that unnerved her.

She had never felt nervous around a patient before.

His eyes were almost piercing when she caught him looking at her. Not in any kind of sexual way like Eddie or that creepy ambulance driver, but in a much different way.

It was like he was staring into her soul. His eyes were such sad eyes that told a world of hurt. A tale of terror. That must be what he felt like when it had happened, like he was being plunged into a nightmare, ripped from normality like a hawk snatching a rabbit from the grass with its razor sharp talons.

She didn't know if she could handle a patient like this. That kind of severe trauma can destroy a person.

And at 12 years old?

Jesus, she thought. Imagine being twelve years old and facing a serial killer after your family.

There was also something she liked about him.

The bravery.

What a brave young man to take on a murderer and save his sister, she thought.

She felt an emotional groundedness around him and she felt safe around him, for the most part. It was like she couldn't tell if he wanted to hurt her or not. His eyes were piercing and made it seem that way, but she could tell he had a huge heart.

Her intuition told her he was a good person that had just been through an inhumane tragedy.

Still…something in the back of her mind kept telling her to watch her back. That look…that look in his eyes had taken her aback, and she wondered…

What else was he capable of?