CHAPTER THREE
Early morning dawned over the sleeping residents of Pinehurst, but one resident was wide awake.
"Die!
"Die!"
"Die!"
"Make it stop…" Tommy thought. "God, please make it stop,"…He slammed his hands against his temples, trying in a desperate attempt to squeeze the thoughts out of his head.
They kept coming.
He heard Trish's terrified voice calling to him.
"Tommy!!" she had screamed. "Tommy, no!"
He could still remember the silver gleam of the machete in the moonlight; it had all been coming back to him in pieces, in broken fragments of morbid images and colors and voices. It had been the monster's own machete. The same one the monster had used to slaughter his mother.
"Die!" Tommy had screamed until his throat was raw.
He didn't know what had overtaken him.
But something did. Something deep and primal within him that he couldn't understand. Something that stuck with him and haunted him.
All he had known at the moment was that he had to die. He had to die. That thing had to die.
All he could hear was Trish's screaming and his own words tearing out of him: "Die! Die!…"
His eyes darted around his bedroom, trying to find something comforting. The morning sun streamed through the window and the birds were singing outside.
No use.
He could still see it all happening in his head. He could see Jason's grotesque, inhuman appearance flashing in his mind, his rotted, yellow, leathery skin and his mangled teeth. He could smell him…the scent of body odor and blood…and death.
He could hear the way the machete had sliced into his skull and remember how it felt, how he had felt the vibration up through the handle when he swung it into Jason's head.
He had managed to fool the deranged serial killer long enough to get the upperhand, but he had still been alive.
He just wouldn't die.
He could still see it all. And hear Trish screaming, and crying..begging for him to stop but he couldn't. The monster had to die.
All the blood flashed into his mind suddenly, images of his own living floor splashed with brilliant scarlet flooded him, the sound of metal cutting into flesh was deafening…
"God, I need drugs!" Tommy thought.
He pulled himself out of bed and scrambled to the dresser, rifling through the top drawer.
"Antipsychotics…where are the antipsychotics?!" his mind screamed at him.
He found the right bottle, dumped out pills frantically on the dresser, and finally grabbed one, swallowing it without water.
Tommy took deep gulps of air. In. Out. In. Out.
And then, as he looked in the mirror, his blood ran cold at who he saw staring back at him in the reflection.
It was Jason.
Wielding an axe in one hand and Mrs. Jarvis's severed head in another, her mouth open in a silent scream.
Jason's hockey mask was stained with blood.
Tommy whirled around to face the monster.
But there was nothing there.
The kitchen and dining room at Pinehurst Center were together in a converted sunroom, with an open French door leading to the patio and large floor-to-ceiling windows.
George was standing at the stove, frying one last serving of eggs for Reggie.
It was morning at Pinehurst, and George beamed at Reggie, who stood nearby impatiently waiting for his breakfast.
"Be patient, Reggie," he always told him, but he never listened. Reggie was at that age where adults were the most uncool thing ever. He only brought him to work to get him out of his mother's hair for a week.
They didn't call him "Reggie the Reckless" for nothing. He had been one of the bravest kids growing up, learning to ride a bike before other kids, going off on his own when he was seven to play basketball with kids in the neighborhood, and taking a bus to the city without his parent's knowledge at ten.
The kid was a handful. As George had become
accustomed to saying, Reggie was "13 going on 30".
George tried not to be too hard on the kid. He was now an only child, ever since his older brother moved out of the city and out just a few miles away from Pinehurst.
They almost never got to see each other, except when George brought Reggie to work, which Matt didn't like happening too often.
Now, Reggie's mother had told George that he had been getting in with the wrong crowd.
At first, that's why George opted to bring Reggie to his job, so he could show him how Matt instilled discipline into the kids. He had thought Reggie could learn a thing or two from that kind of environment.
But after yesterday's fiasco, he was questioning that idea.
He couldn't believe that had happened to Joey. Sure, Joey could be agitating but he never expected someone to be pushed to the edge like that. Or maybe he was already on the edge and Joey was what made him finally snap.
Vic always did seem on the edge, George thought. Even Matt was apprehensive around him, and he had seen Matt break up plenty of fights and restrain hostile patients. Whenever Vic walked into the room, the room would hush. It was like walking on eggshells being around someone like that, someone who lets their emotions control them, and can flip a switch and turn evil at the drop of a hat-at the smallest inconvenience.
Vic flipped a switch, alright. George had seen the look on his face as he was taken away in the police car. He was almost smiling, as if he were proud of what he had done.
Maybe George's daughter was right. Maybe Reggie was safer back in the city. He at first had begged his daughter to let Reggie stay with him, away from the inner city violence and drugs, but out here there seemed to be some kind of dark curse over the area. George didn't really believe in curses, but it was the only explanation he had.
It had gone on for years.
The town of Crystal Lake had had a long, dark history.
George remembered it all, and he had to believe that whatever dark force had come to wreak havoc in his neck of the woods was the curse of Crystal Lake.
1957-Camp Crystal Lake was the place.
The peace at a cozy campground for kids was shattered one night when a boy drowned in the lake.
1958-Camp Crystal Lake reopened and was struck with another disaster when two counselors were found brutally stabbed to death.
Then, twenty years later, the camp reopens. A young girl swore she saw a mad killer, Pamela Voorhees, coming after her with a machete, screaming about how the boy who drowned in the lake wasn't properly watched over. It had been her son, Jason who drowned in the lake the year before.
Mrs. Voorhees had killed all of the other counselors, and also the camp director, Steve Christy.
The young girl? Fought Pamela to the death and decapitated her with her own machete.
All the locals say Jason is still out there, and seeing his mother be decapitated that warm summer night in 1979, he sought his revenge almost five years later.
Some still said it wasn't Jason-just some unidentified madman, but for the two young girls who survived Jason's murders, they said that it had to have been Jason Voorhees, seemingly back from the dead, never having drowned, looking like some kind of feral deformed beast.
George fully believed in the legend of Jason Voorhees and the toll it was taking on the town.
He was sure whatever curse, devil, or force you believed in in this world that made Jason and his mother kill was the same one that had made Vic kill.
Generational sin, George thought. Had to be generational sin.
Or maybe it was witchcraft. Some locals said they had seen Pamela performing rituals out in the woods.
Maybe that was it. Black magic. George wasn't a superstitious man either, but he couldn't think of a better explanation.
He had seen Pamela Voorhees around town back before it had happened, and he always noticed she seemed to be wound tighter than an oil drum, and never talked to anyone.
It must have been isolating for Mrs. Voorhees to have a mentally impaired son like Jason was. No wonder she had lost it. The burden of having a son who wouldn't play with the other children and never spoke must have been damaging.
But who could have known she would turn out to be fully deranged? God knows what kind of drugs she was on. Maybe she just went mad.
You have to be crazy to do what she did. He remembered seeing all the body bags on the news, and the way it was described…"mutilated… "posed for shock value."
What was wrong with this world? George wondered. Ted Bundy was another series of brutal murders he had heard about on the news. And now, in his own area of the United States, you have the murders at Camp Blood. This country is headed for disaster, he thought.
They should have never opened that place up again. Camp Crystal Lake. Greedy, selfish men of the world, George thought.
Didn't care about anyone's wellbeing but their own. The real damage had been inflicted on that poor boy, Jason, who died because his caregivers weren't paying attention and due to the help he didn't receive.
He didn't condone the violence, but he could understand how Mrs. Voorhees had gone to that length all because of her child. As a father, George knew all about protecting your children and your grandchildren.
If only grandchildren like Reggie would listen, George thought as Reggie anxiously groaned.
"Come on Gramps, I'm hungry," Reggie whined.
"Alright, alright," George said, and scooped eggs out of the skillet and onto Reggie's plate.
"Gramps, can I go see my brother?" Reggie asked. "He'll be in town tomorrow,"
George gave him a stern look.
"We'll see," he said.
George didn't feel right sending Reggie to go hang out with his eldest grandson, Demon. That's what his son-in-law had named him during a previous marriage. George wasn't too religious of a man, but still didn't know why on earth you'd name a child Demon.
His name fit what kind of trouble he got into.
Drugs, police, drinking, you name it.
He had had to drive up to Winston County just to bail him out of the county jail.
He didn't want Reggie around that kind of influence. The only job Demon had was playing guitar in a band in backwoods dive bars until three in the morning. Sure, call him old-fashioned but George believed in doing things that paid the bills. Lord knows what Demon was getting into out at those bars.
Pinehurst wasn't exactly a picturesque, family-oriented town. The bars were full of all kinds of creeps and drugs. George's daughter would have a cow if she knew Reggie was getting into all of the things Demon had been exposed to.
He couldn't fathom what had happened with Demon. Lazy parenting from that no good husband that his daughter was betrothed to, he figured.
He had hoped Reggie would learn things from coming to the halfway house, but boy, had he picked the wrong week.
First Tina and Eddie getting pulled in, and then Joey. It had been one hell of a week and he hoped Reggie would never have to see anything like that again, and that George himself didn't have to see it either.
"You know how I feel about that, Reggie," George replied.
"But, Gramps!" Reggie protested.
"I said, 'We'll see',"
Reggie moaned and threw a mini temper tantrum, slumping down at the table.
George couldn't stay mad at the kid.
He smiled.
"Come here, Reggie the Reckless,"
Reggie knew it was coming. A big kiss on the forehead. Tina and Violet were setting the table, and he knew they'd make fun of him.
He walked reluctantly over to George, who pulled him into his arms and kissed him.
Reggie squirmed and wiped his forehead.
"Do me a favor, don't kiss me when there's people around, okay?" Reggie said.
George chuckled and rubbed his head affectionately.
"Go and tell everyone that breakfast is ready,"
Reggie complied and went to the open French doors.
"YO! BREAKFAST! COME AND GET IT!" he shouted.
"Well, I coulda done that," George scoffed.
Robin, a somber look on her face, came strolling in. Her auburn hair was washed and naturally frizzy, and she wore a white jacket over a pink top, and a denim skirt. Jake came in behind her, also looking despondent with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped.
"I m-m-miss Joey already," Jake managed to struggle out.
"So do I," Robin said:
Tina sat down at her place at the table, and crossed her hands in front of her. She too was somber, and not saying much.
The teenagers had an oppressive cloud hanging over them.
Joey's death had hit them all.
Violet didn't seem too fazed, or maybe it was her defense mechanism. She plugged in her headphones to her Walkman and disappeared into her music.
Robin and Jake both sat down, as Pam also entered the room, her blond hair pulled back into a long braid and changed into a pink sweater and jeans.
"Morning, everybody," Pam said, trying to inject some cheerfulness, albeit artificial, into the atmosphere.
She read their faces and knew instantly they were reeling from what had happened, as she sat down at the head of the table.
The group muttered a chorus of deadpan "Good morning"'s.
As the group started to pass around plates of sausage, bacon, eggs and grits, Tina suddenly realized something, and turned to Violet.
"Violet, you set too many places," Tina said.
Violet pulled off her headphones, and her blaring techno-funk music cut through the palpable awkwardness.
"Huh?"
"You set too many places," Tina repeated herself.
Violet looked around indignantly.
"No, I didn't," she said.
Tina cut her eyes to the two empty chairs and two sets of plates near the end, and Violet looked down sheepishly.
"I'm…I'm sorry…" she said defensively, grabbing the plate and giving it to George.
"I don't think Vic or Joey will be joining us this morning, Violet," George said.
"Or any other morning," Reggie remarked.
"Reggie!" George scolded him with a disapproving stare.
As Violet started to sit back down, Jake spoke up.
"You d-don't s-s-set a place for a d-dead person!" Jake cried. His stutter made him less intimidating, but the piercing look in his eyes unnerved everyone.
"I said I was sorry!" Violet said angrily back at him.
The tension was suddenly broken by Matt's authoritative voice.
"What's going on here?"
The room fell into an awkward silence as Matt stood, hands on his hips stoically.
Violet quietly grabbed the plate and silverware mistakenly meant for Vic and brought them over to George. She sat down with the rest of the silent, morose teenagers.
Matt walked to his seat at the opposite head of the table from Pam, and looked at all of them solemnly.
"Look," he said, his voice dropped into an even lower, more serious tone. "I know how you all feel, this thing isn't easy,"
He could see the shock written over all their faces. One of their own. Dead. Robin had seen it happen right in front of her, and she looked the most disturbed.
Violet had her headphones back in, and wasn't affected all that much, and Matt knew why. With all the things she had been through, this horrific tale probably seemed like a children's story.
Jake was quiet this morning, but then again he was always quiet. Matt's eyes surveyed him, saw his slumped, dismal posture and his eyes not making contact with anyone else in the room. He toyed absentmindedly with his fork, staring down at his lap.
He guessed it was just another sad day for Jake, and that he would get over it pretty quickly.
Tommy and Eddie were missing.
Tina was usually bright and vibrant, but this morning, she looked like she had tossed and turned all night.
Her wavy, thick black hair was disheveled, and there were bags under her eyes.
Matt went on.
"So let's just have breakfast," he said.
"I'm sorry Vi, I was out of line," Tina said.
Breakfast commenced and everyone followed proper table etiquette, enforced by Matt, and the process of passing plates of bacon, eggs, sausage, and hash browns around began.
None of them wanted to eat very much. Jake had his head in his hand stirring his grits, and Robin and Tina both barely nibbled their eggs.
They ate in silence for several moments.
The effect of Joey's death had shaken them all. This morning wasn't the usual exciting breakfast for the halfway house. Usually Tina and Eddie would run in together, freshly showered and smelling like the strong perfumes and aftershaves that they wore, and would flirt with each other the whole meal. Violet would fake-gag and mock them, and Robin would laugh.
Not this morning.
At one point, Matt asked where Eddie was, and Tina said he was upstairs. After that, still more silence.
The silence was broken by slow footsteps coming in through the open French patio door.
"Tommy?" Matt called to the figure standing in the doorway.
Tommy didn't look up at him.
"Would you mind going and telling Eddie breakfast is ready?" Matt asked.
Tommy shifted his weight nervously, but didn't respond.
Matt immediately caught himself. An overly masculine approach would probably just threaten him.
"Tommy?" he said softer. "Would you mind?"
Tommy unclenched his fists and his jaw and relaxed.
"Yeah, alright," he mumbled.
As Tommy turned to head back outside and up to the bedrooms, a grotesque figure suddenly lunged at him from just outside the doorway.
Tommy jumped backwards instinctively, raising his hands to protect himself.
It was Eddie.
Wearing one of his masks.
Then, he heard the laughter.
All of them. Robin, Violet, Tina, all laughing. Laughing at him. Laughing at him for being scared.
Eddie pulled off the mask, a devilish grin on his face. Tommy could do nothing but glare at him.
Eddie tossed the mask at Tommy. Tommy couldn't even catch it. It hit him in the chest and fell to the ground.
Tommy didn't even care about his mask lying discarded on the floor. All he felt was the rage building in him. All he could think about was watching Eddie's head be crushed in his hands.
The laughter of everyone in the room, Eddie smiling in his face, it was all pulsating in his mind, ringing in his ears. His face was turning the color of blood, the blood that was boiling inside of him, steaming so hot he could feel it in his cheeks. Rising to the surface.
It was coming. Another blackout.
Eddie took his fist and slammed it into Tommy's chest. Smiling at him.
"What's wrong, chief? Can't take a joke, no sense of humor?"
Pam and Matt saw it coming. They both flew from their chairs but they were far too slow. It happened like lightning.
The last thing Tommy remembered was lunging at Eddie.
Right in front of the teenagers' eyes, Eddie was lifted high into the air as Tommy flipped him, and slammed him onto an end table, smashing it to bits.
The lamp on the table toppled. Shattered on the floor.
Nobody could do anything. They all just watched in incredulity.
Before they could blink, Tommy had Eddie's collar in his fist and was heaving him into the wall, again and again.
"Tommy!" Matt bellowed, but no use.
The group of teenagers all pushed away from the table as the fight suddenly went onto the floor.
Eddie screamed and begged him to stop, but Tommy kept pounding at him. He had him on the floor pinned and struck him, again and again.
All Tommy could think was "Die….Die….Die…."
"I'm gonna chop you up into itty, bitty pieces, my friend,"
Ethel Hubbard was lonely and it was making her a tad off her rockers.
Sometimes it manifested in her talking to inanimate objects.
The locals called her crazy.
She'd walk around grumbling to herself through town, with a shopping cart full of her vegetables, people staring and pointing.
Ethel hadn't given a fuck in years and couldn't remember the last time she did.
Now, she was holding up a dead chicken, freshly picked from her flock, and talking to it.
She laughed with glee.
"Just like they did to that piggo out at that fuckin' crazy farm." She brandished a huge, razor-sharp meat cleaver and brought it down onto the dead chicken's throat, severing its head.
"Hiyah!" she screeched like a madwoman.
Junior sat at the kitchen table, inhaling a hot bowl of vegetable stew, spilling it down the front of his motorcycle grease-stained overalls.
He mimicked her, chopping down at his stew
with his spoon and splashing it all over the table.
Ethel glared at him dismally.
How did I end up here? she thought. How did I end up in a trailer, the roof of which was caving in, out in the middle of nowhere?
Cheap property, that was why, she remembered.
Her last two ex-husbands left her with nothing, and now here she was, with her fat slob of a son and no help in a rundown house in a rundown town.
Her first husband?
He held a gun to her head, and forced her to drive a getaway car 20 miles down the interstate, and had her stop at a motel to sleep only for her to wake to the sound of seven police officers ramming down the motel door.
Next thing she knew she was in a cell making a plea deal in exchange for ratting out her husband and testifying.
Her second husband beat her and Junior like a sack and never gave her a dime, even though she was financially ruined after her first marriage.
And now, here she was, on the run from her second ex-husband, living out near a nuthouse in the middle of bum-fucking nowhere, she thought.
With her first ex-husband's son, who looks, talks, and acts like him. Like a goddamn moron. Who rides around on his Harley all day and doesn't clean the house and doesn't have a job.
"You big dildo," Ethel spat at him. "Eat your fuckin'
slop,"
Junior complied as he usually did, and went back to slurping the soup noisily.
"Ain't I make the best goddamn stew in the whole wide world?" Ethel asked.
"Best goddamn stew in the whole wide world, mama!" Junior repeated back to her like a parrot.
Ethel was like most residents of the Crystal Lake area. She peaked in high school.
She remembered her senior year of high school and getting in the backseat of a cherry red convertible and driving out into the woods to make out with the quarterback sitting next to her.
She remembered driving home that night down a country road, the wind in her long, curly blond hair.'
She remembered all the cigarettes and grass they used to smoke in the girl's bathroom and all of the juicy gossip like it was yesterday.
And then, the worst thing happened.
She got knocked up and married to a thief.
And then another thief.
And now, here she was. In her cramped trailer with her disabled son who reminded her all too well of the bastard crook.
Some days, she could barely stand to look at him with all his sloppy habits.
The way he was slurping his soup made her want to strangle him. It was the way he breathed sometimes. Everyday it was like this. She hated the way he talked, the noises that he made, his mannerisms, all of his socially disgraceful habits. Ethel often wondered how she hadn't ended up in that halfway house herself, but they couldn't make her go to that place.
She'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming to have to live there with crazy teenagers who do nothing but trespass and fondle each other like wild animals.
She still couldn't believe those nuts had been doing the deed on her property.
So many times, she had thought about grabbing that gun and watching for them, waiting to pull the trigger.
Hell, I'd be justified under the law, she thought. They shouldn't have been trespassing.
Especially not with their repugnant purposes.
It obviously needed to be shut down. How could the mayor fund a place where the patients are allowed to run wild, do whatever they want and screw on other's property?
Didn't they punish them at that crazy farm? she wondered.
Those kids had it easy. They got to have a summer out screwin' in the woods and when she was a young woman in the nuthouse after her traumatic experience, she had her ass grabbed by three different guards and watched somebody get stabbed right in front of her.
Some days, Ethel thought that living at the nearby nuthouse might be better than living with Junior but with her luck, Junior would end up right next to her in a padded room, both of them in straitjackets, and she wouldn't be able to smack him in the head if he annoyed her.
That would be the ultimate nightmare, she thought.
She would rip her own hair out and be bald before they locked her in a room with Junior.
Ethel suddenly turned to face the backdoor as she heard the telltale sign that something was creeping around her yard. The chickens were all clucking madly, and she could hear them scattering back to the coop.
"It's that goddamn coyote again," Ethel said furiously, lunging for the double-barrel shotgun she kept by the door.
"He's trying to kill my lot, but I'm gonna show that bastard once and for all, ya hear me Junior?"
Junior hadn't been listening. He was busy forking cabbage into his mouth, spilling some onto the table. Ethel bit the inside of her cheeks, resisting the urge to tear him a new one.
If the chickens died, that meant no food, and that was a lot more important than Junior.
Ethel crept to the open back door, holding the shotgun out in front of her. As she approached, a tall, unkempt, scrawny old man in a dirty tank top and work pants came into view from outside.
Ethel jumped backwards, gasping, and pointed the gun straight at him.
"Holy shit!" she exclaimed. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?"
"Haven't got a place to stay," the man said nervously, his eyes directed at the gun aimed for his chest. "Name's Raymond. Ain't eaten in three days, I'd like to earn a meal,"
Ethel lowered the gun suspiciously and narrowed her eyes.
"Yeah?…" she said. "What can you do?"
"Whatever you need done," Raymond replied.
Ethel thought for a moment. She didn't want to be desperate enough to hire a man off of the street to do her chores, but it sure beat the hell out of doing them herself, or asking Junior to do it and screw up somehow.
The last time she asked him to do anything, it resulted in half the bedroom ceiling caving in.
"Go up in the attic," she had said, only to see Juniors foot hanging from her bedroom ceiling ten minutes later.
"Okay," she said. "Clean all the chicken shit up and dump it behind the shed. Come back here and then I'll fill your stomach,"
Raymond nodded graciously.
"Yes, mam," he said and headed off for the shed.
He looked like an old, gangly scarecrow, Ethel thought as she grimaced.
"That is one fuckin' ugly man that goes there," she said, putting the gun back by the door.
Junior repeated her again with his mouth full of stew.
"One fuckin' ugly man, mama,"
Ethel spun around to face him, her eyes wide with fury.
"Would you shut your trap?" she snapped at him. "You ain't so pretty yourself, ya know!"
Junior was used to his mama's biting words, so he just grinned at her with the few teeth he had and a mouthful of food.
"I ain't so pretty myself, I know!"
Ethel clenched her fists. She needed to hit him. Hit something. Anything.
She saw the meat cleaver still lying on the cutting board.
She grabbed it, rose it into the air and lopped off another chicken head.
"Hiii-yah!"
Sheriff Tucker stepped out of his police cruiser and surveyed the scene.
Harper Road was a long stretch of paved road surrounded by desolate woods and fields. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the sun was glaring down, and was slowly cooking the two bodies in black body bags that were sprawled out in the road.
Tucker got a whiff of decomposition and reached into his shirt pocket, taking out some lotion and rubbing some under his nose.
"What do we got, boys?"
Deputy Dodd was peering under one of the sheets, squatting beside the bodies, trying hard to breathe through his mouth.
"Two homicides, Sheriff. They got done dirty too," Deputy Dodd replied.
"What the hell?" Tucker thought. First that slow kid at the nuthouse and now these two?
The Sheriff kneeled down and peeled back the sheet. His jaw dropped in horror.
Pete was lying on his back, his dead eyes staring straight up at the hot son. His throat was nothing but a gaping wound, and it looked like he had a second bloody mouth that smiled up at Tucker.
The other body was Vinnie, whose eyes were blood red; his face had turned purple and his tongue dangled out of his mouth. Big pink blisters had formed all around his lips.
"Jesus," Tucker muttered under his breath.
The only one who could have done something like this was Victor J. Faden, Tucker thought, but he was sitting in a holding cell back at the station.
Or it could have been Jason Voorhees. Back to finish his macabre killing spree.
The murders were brutal enough to have been committed by Jason, Tucker thought. But no way in hell Jason survived back in 1984.
He couldn't be alive.
A beat-up old AMC hardtop sat by the shoulder of the road, the hood propped open.
"We are guessing these two punks were broken down on the side of the road here, and someone came by and did em' off, but we can't find any other tire tracks," Dodd said, scratching his head.
The Sheriff pointed at two officers who were standing around chatting.
"I want a full search of the area, come back with anything you can find!" The Sheriff ordered.
He was hoping they'd come back with the missing ax from the evidence locker at the station.
He hoped it wasn't a failed effort by one of his deputies, but he was sure he saw Dodd place the ax in an evidence bag back at the crime scene. Now it was gone, and there were two more murders. What was next?
The officers nodded in response and walked down a nearby trail.
Roy and Duke both walked from the ambulance towards the body bags and started to lift them onto a stretcher.
Sheriff Tucker wasn't paying attention, he was deep in thought. Who the hell could be committing murders now? Mrs. Voorhees and her son Jason were long gone, both buried in a cemetery far from Pinehurst.
Who was it this time?
The thought that the killer could very well be Tommy Jarvis entered his mind. The bodies were both killed in ways similar to the way Jason Voorhees had killed his victims. What if Tommy had finally snapped and decided to be a copycat?
Tommy would be the first place to start looking, he thought. He had seen the look on Matt's face when he asked about Tommy the day before, and knew that Tommy had had a troubled past. What was the kid truly capable of? Maybe Ethel was right.
Maybe that nuthouse was causing problems for the town.
Who was next?
First Joey gets killed at the nuthouse, then the ax that was used to kill him goes missing, and now two seemingly random murders.
"What the hell is going on?" Tucker said, more to himself than anyone else.
"You say something, Chief?" Roy asked, as he lifted the second body onto another gurney.
Nothing, Roy," Sheriff Tucker responded.
Deputy Dodd readjusted his hat and walked up behind Sheriff Tucker, his eyes squinting in the sun.
"Well, Sheriff, it looks like we have a maniac on the loose,"
"Yeah…" the Sheriff mumbled, his voice trailing off. The Sheriff's thoughts were a million miles away, thinking of who could possibly be the killer and what to do. He knew he had to keep this under wraps or the mayor would have his head mounted on the wall.
No need in getting the town panicked about a serial killer.
One thing he knew for certain: the murders didn't
start until Tommy Jarvis arrived at Pinehurst.
The headlights of a 1968 Dodge Charger illuminated the narrow stretch of country road; it flew past the treeline, going almost ninety.
Billy McCauley whooped as the car sped up to a hundred miles an hour.
He was high as a kite, and high on life.
He had just gotten off of his shift at the Unger Institute and was headed back to town for a good time, and a speed limit certainly wasn't going to impede him.
It also wasn't like the hick cops around Pinehurst could catch him.
It had been a long day and all he wanted to do was cope with his usual: booze, a little blow and a foxy girl from town.
All he wanted was to be on every kind of drug or substance available to him and forget reality and his job for a little while.
Today, he had been on duty cleaning. For six straight hours. He was going to have a good time tonight if it killed him.
He revved the engine, letting it purr as he cruised, windows rolled down, the smoke from a cigar that was slowly burning out in his ashtray wafted out.
"I can't believe Joey got chopped into pieces yesterday," Billy thought.
Finally, it happened. One of them finally completely lost their marbles.
Billy had always had a bad feeling around Vic. A feeling of dread.
He never joked around with Vic. Billy liked the blood inside of his body, but poor Joey…poor kid was too slow to know not to mess with Vic, and he got the axe. Literally.
Billy knew it was just a matter of time before one of the nuts went and did something like this. He figured something like what happened to Joey was bound to happen at a mental hospital that let the patients wander around like they did.
Joey's death hadn't really shaken him up, but he might be saying differently if he had been the one working yesterday. Duke had told him all of the gory details with a sneer on his face but Roy had really been affected by it. Usually Roy at least said "hello", but not today at work. He had walked around silently, a brooding expression on his face.
Then again, Roy had always been a quiet man who kept to himself.
He had asked Roy after work if he wanted to go for a drink, and Roy had shaken his head silently.
Bud was at home with his girlfriend, Duke was still on duty and Billy had nobody else to party with so he had decided to call an old girlfriend who was working the late shift at a nearby diner.
Talk radio suddenly interrupted his blaring rock music.
"…Breaking news for Pinehurst County…two young men were found dead in an apparent homicide after their car broke down out on Harper Road… Sources tell us that the murders seem to resemble the old M.O of the late deranged mass murderer Jason Voorhees…" talk radio suddenly interrupted
"Jesus…" Billy said out loud.
First Joey, and now two more people get the axe?
What if there was a killer on the loose? It couldn't be Vic. He was undoubtedly locked away in a holding cell, but he didn't trust those buffoon cops as far as he could throw them.
Vic had probably tricked them and escaped and greased those two kids out on Harper Rd.
'Holy shit, a killer on the loose', Billy thought.
Just like what happened out at Camp Blood.
Camp Blood was a moniker that the locals used to refer to Camp Crystal Lake.
It was only two short years ago that a maniac named Jason Voorhees slaughtered a bunch of kids there.
And now, it looked like it was happening here.
What if it was that Jarvis kid? He remembered the unnerving silence and the negative energy he exuded and there was something in Tommy's eyes…the kid sure seemed like the type to go off at the drop of a hat. What if he left his bed in the middle of the night, sneaked out, and greased those two kids that were killed last night?
He had thought maybe Tommy wouldn't hurt a fly, but ever since Tommy had arrived in Pinehurst, the blood kept falling and people kept dying.
It would make sense with Tommy's past. He had read about it in his file at the Unger Institute.
The same guy who killed all those kids at Camp Blood was the very same man who fucked up Tommy Jarvis and his family, Billy thought.
"Jason fuckin' Voorhees," he said to himself. A notorious name around the area.
The guy must have been living out in the woods for years. Billy had heard that one of the ones who survived his killing spree reported that Jason was living out in the woods of Crystal Lake in a crudely made dilapidated shack.
She had said that he kept his mother's severed head on a table with candles, like some kind of deranged shrine, and stored all of his bodies there, posing them around the room like works of art.
Another girl said he was a deformed hideous monster, and could barely be seen as 'human'. She was one of the ones who was still locked away in an institution somewhere from all the hell that Jason had put her through.
He had killed all of her friends, and set them up all along her property for her to find, and then chased her into her family's barn as she screamed for help.
But everyone she knew was dead. All of her friends. Slaughtered like the others.
She finally managed to seemingly kill him with an ax, but he came to life in the hospital, killing a nurse and a morgue technician before escaping and killing another group of teenagers who were renting a house at Crystal Lake.
This time, Tommy Jarvis lived next door.
It was there he had had to fight Jason to the death.
No wonder the kid was mentally screwed in the head.
Billy wondered what it had been like to see and face the great Jason Voorhees. What if it hadn't even been him to commit those murders? Surely, the legend and the story had to be exaggerated and the real story was likely an amalgamation of different versions.
How could Jason have survived for twenty long years out in the wilderness unless he had been superhuman? Maybe the rumors about his mother dabbling in black magic were true.
Billy didn't believe in all that shit but sometimes, with the kinds of things he saw everyday, he thought there could be dark forces in this world.
But for the most part, he liked to stay in reality.
That girl who survived Camp Blood probably dreamed that she saw a shrine with Pamela Voorhees's head. After all, a traumatic experience can make your mind go completely unhinged.
Maybe they had been making it all up.
Billy wasn't afraid of the legend like the other locals were.
"Yeah, fuck Jason," he said, as he sped around a bend and honked his horn at a driver who swerved slightly into his lane.
"Asshole!" he called out the open driver's side window.
As his Dodge Charger whipped around another curve in the rural stretch of road, a flickering neon sign lit up the road suddenly, and Billy left the highway, veering into the parking lot of a small, old-fashioned diner that looked like it was straight out of a 50s beach movie.
Billy sped up faster, skidding across the pavement, showing off as he performed doughnuts around the parking lot. Smoke from his tires filled the air.
He finally pulled up to the front doors and stuck his head out the window.
"Lanaaaa!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.
His rock music was once again blaring from his radio. If this didn't get her attention, nothing would.
A young, vivacious blonde in a crisp, pink 1950s-style waitress uniform stepped outside and smirked at Billy.
"Sorry, buster," she said playfully. "We're closed,"
She pointed to the "CLOSED" sign on the door.
"That's alright," Billy said, flirtatiously playing along. He eyed her unzipped blouse. "I just want a take-out order,"
"You do, huh?" Lana said. "Well, what would you like?"
"I would like Lana to go…with nothing on it," he joked.
"Oh?" she said, giggling. "And who wants her?"
Billy sighed. Usually, he would flirt right back, but it had been a long shift and he didn't want to play these games. He was horny, a little drunk, exhausted, and pissed off.
"The Pride of the Unger Institute of Mental Health, who has cleaned his last bedpan and wants to party, now would you get your ass out here?" he said.
Lana looked off into the distance, pretending to think, still teasing him.
"Lana…hmm…I don't know about that, I'll have to ask her. Lana?!" she called back into the diner. "Do you want Billy? Are you sure?"
Billy rolled his eyes into the back of his head.
"Ok, Billy, Lana can come play but you have to wait until she's done inside," Lana finally said and disappeared into the diner.
"Yahooo!" Billy exclaimed, tapping along to the rock music on the steering wheel.
It was time to party and nothing was going to stop him, not his job, not Jason Voorhees, not anyone.
He pulled his sun visor down, and retrieved a small mirror, a razor and a dime bag of cocaine.
"There it is…" he said. "That's the whole fuckin'
thing right there. That's just what the doctor ordered,"
He set the mirror down on the console and began lying out the lines of coke.
"And the forecast today is cloudy in the mountains, sunny in the valleys, and snow flurries up your nose," he said, as he snorted the first line through a tiny brass pipe.
His face scrunched up as he felt the burn, and he shook his head.
"Good shit…" he said, feeling the rush from the narcotics instantly.
After a few more minutes, he began to get impatient.
"Lana!" he called, sticking his head out the open driver's side window. "Lana! Hey!"
The missing ax from the police station came out of nowhere, splitting the back of his head.
Billy felt the searing pain that lit his cranium on fire for a split second before his life ended. The rock music drowned out his pained yelp, as his hand reached out in a death spasm, knocking the cocaine into the floorboards.
Inside the diner, Lana had finished wiping the tables clean and pushing in all the chairs and she sighed heavily.
Billy suddenly stopped calling her name and she looked towards the door.
All she heard was his rock music. Then suddenly, it stopped as well and she heard his car engine die down.
God, he could be so impatient, she thought.
"I'm coming Billy, don't get your panties in a twist!" she called, giggling.
She had planned on fucking him anyway, ever since the first time he had flirted with her at the bar on Main Avenue downtown. She had told him
where she worked and that he could pick her up after her shift ended and it looked like now was the time that he was taking her up on her offer.
The least he could do was wait for her to finish her shift and change out of her uniform.
Didn't he want her to look hot and put on some perfume?
"Now, I'm going to go party!" she exclaimed exuberantly. Lana snatched up her purse, and ran into the small private backroom in the back of the diner.
She changed hurriedly into a white, lace blouse and jeans, and sprayed some perfume down her bra and panties.
She applied some pink lipstick and smiled at herself in the mirror.
"It's showtime!" she said.
Just then, the sound of shattering glass jolted her out of her primping in the mirror, and she slowly opened the bathroom door and peered out into the empty dimly-lit restaurant.
"Billy?" she called.
No response.
The only sound she heard was the buzzing from
the flickering neon light in the window.
She shrugged it off, and went back into the bathroom, reapplying lipstick in the mirror and then checking herself out.
"Girl, you are so hot…" she said to her reflection.
She could picture Billy's sweaty body glistening and moving into hers…both of them were stressed about their long workday and ready to relax and really explore each other, and she knew that it would really be a great night, especially if he had some coke like he had promised.
Some guys will promise to bring surprises like that and then flake on you, but Billy showed right when he said he would.
She hoped he didn't think they were just going to drink. Lana much preferred the harder stuff when it came to sex.
If a guy supplied, she'd be happy to provide her body. The coke made it easier to forget, and way more fun.
Billy wasn't even all that cute. Sure, he was balding and kind of old, but she needed a good time, he wasn't a hick like the rest of the townspeople, he had a nice car, and he was older and more mature than half the guys she knew.
She hoped he'd be good in bed. They had only gone out but hadn't had sex yet, despite all of the body language and dropped hints and flirty comments.
Lana turned the bathroom light off, and left, closing the door behind her. As she walked towards the exit, there was a loud screech and a yowl as a cat leaped from behind the corner into one of the booths, the hair on its back standing straight up.
Lana screamed and fell backwards, catching herself on the bar.
"Oh my God, kitty…what are you doing?" she said, catching her breath.
The cat had definitely been spooked by something, or someone.
She scooped the cat into her arms and let him out the back door, laughing sheepishly to herself. After locking the back door, Lana strolled to the front and left the diner, locking the door behind her.
"Sorry!" she called to Billy.
No answer.
As she approached his Charger, she noticed he wasn't in the car. The driver's side door was wide open.
"Billy?" she called into the night.
There was no answer, and there was no sign of him either. No cars were coming down the highway. She was all alone out in a deserted parking lot at night, after she had just heard on the radio there was a psycho on the loose.
Great, she thought.
She climbed into the passenger seat of his car and closed the door.
A few more moments of silence, with no sign of Billy anywhere.
"Billy, what are you doing, it's cold!" Lana called.
Still more silence. The night air whipped through the Charger and she shivered. Maybe he was taking a leak in the woods, she thought. Dumb time to do it.
"This is nice," she said sarcastically.
"I like this. A whole lot,"
She sighed and stared out the window miserably.
Maybe Billy was like the other guys, she thought. Just leaves you out in the cold like the rest of them.
This really wasn't looking like the good time he promised.
Then, she looked into the floorboard and saw the intact mirror, sprinkled with white dust.
"Oh, Billy…you made a mess!" she said. "Oh well, more for me."
Maybe it would be a good time after all, she thought and leaned down, dipping her finger into the cocaine and sniffing it.
"Yummy," she said, and then as the head rush started to kick in, she looked out the open driver's side door and saw something else.
Blood.
Staining the pavement.
Two legs attached to heavy workman's boots that were coated with blood.
A crimson-stained ax held by a man's hand, a man's blood-soaked hand.
Lana then saw the blood on the driver's seat in the moonlight as her eyes adjusted.
Her heart started racing even more than the cocaine was already making it race.
Her eyes darted around frantically; she grabbed for the passenger door handle, tugged at it.
The door wouldn't open.
She saw the man slowly start to walk around the car.
Step…Step…she heard his boots coming around the car ever so slowly.
God, no, she thought. What had happened to Billy? She began to hyperventilate, her skin felt like it was crawling, she had to get out. She wrenched at the door.
No use. The door was stuck.
She screamed out, tears filling her eyes as the realization hit her. It must be the psycho that was loose, and he was dead set on her ending up like Billy.
She was now panicking, throwing her body against the door until it finally gave way and she tumbled out of the car onto the pavement.
"Help me!" she shrieked as she started to run, but she wasn't fast enough. There was a loud whoosh as the ax plunged into her stomach up to the hilt.