Trauma can leave an imprint on you.
It can follow you long after the trauma has happened in ways that many people aren't aware of. Most people distract themselves in a myriad of ways. They get wasted, or numb out on pain pills or by smoking. They chew their nails to the nub and become raging control freaks. Some behave like absolute narcissists and wreck the lives of everyone they touch.
For some brave souls…they face it.
Survivors of trauma can always remember the dreams.
Sometimes they happen when you're awake.
Everything is fine one moment and then you realize all of a sudden that you're seeing it all happen again in your head.
The screaming, the blood, the carnage...the faint smell of cigarette smoke in the air…the slam of a door..one small change in the environment can send you into a flashback. It can all feel so real as if it were happening all over again.
Sometimes, sixteen year old Tommy Jarvis could still smell the metallic odor of blood in the air. Sometimes, he could picture himself in an out-of-body experience, imagining himself hacking away at a person with a machete until their screams stopped or strangling the life out of some innocent bystander. He could feel the bloodlust rising within him, seconds away from erupting out of his chest and out into the world, nothing he could do to stop it.
It was a dark cloud, a force, a feeling so intense it consumed him.
The doctors called it manic depression, PTSD and dissociative disorder.
Tommy had begun to believe it was just who he was. Some outcast in the dregs of society, too mentally fucked to function. He was turning into the monster who did this to him and he felt as if everyday he was getting closer and closer to going stark raving mad.
Or maybe, it was the curse of Crystal Lake.
He would be sitting on his bed in his room alone, staring at his collection of monster masks he had designed himself. They were the one thing that helped him stay sane most of the time. It was something to lose himself in and escape from the unbearable reality he was forced to endure. He would be engrossed in them, having visions of what it would look like onscreen sitting on a prop table at some big movie set in California, only to have it tarnished by visions of steel blades piercing through flesh, and sounds of screaming, the kind of screaming that had torn out of his throat, seemingly from nowhere, back when it had happened. He didn't want to feel these things anymore. He was tired all the time from sleepless nights of tossing and turning. He wished he could have gone back in time and begged his mother to take them back to the city, away from that godforsaken place.
Tommy had had a quasi-normal childhood, despite his parents' divorce, and had a potential of growing up to be something big one day, full of dreams of finally putting his skills to good use and bringing entertainment to the world.
It had all been snuffed out in one night. One horrible night back in 1984 when it all happened.
Back at Crystal Lake where a maniacal evil had descended upon his childhood home.
It was a tale of pure terror, something that Tommy's prepubescent mind could never have even fathomed.
Five years had passed since it had happened. Five long years of therapy sessions, and mental institutions, and weekends of getting high with strangers, or blackout drunk to escape the visions. Five grueling years of hospital visits for getting in fights with kids at the many city schools he was sent to in Chicago.
Some punk would saunter over to him at the lunch table and whisper…"Mommy's in heaven…" and the next thing Tommy knew, he was pounding the kids head on the table and couldn't remember doing it. All he could see at the time was red.
That was the one that got him sent away.
The one that got him kicked out of school the first time.
He felt like everyone blamed him instead of the monster who had turned him into one.
"But he's dead Tommy" They all would say. "The person who did this to you is dead!"
"Don't you understand, he is alive inside my mind!" Tommy would always tell them.
And he was. Every single day of his life after it had happened. Alive in his mind, in his thoughts, in his soul. Those demented eyes were all he could see, the last thing he saw before he had to fight for his life. When he had picked up the machete and hacked the monster to death, he had blacked out then too. His eyes had totally misted over and something had just come over him and overtaken him.
He just wanted the monster to die.
But now, he was seeing everyone as monsters even after his monster was dead and gone. They all hated him and judged him.
He would picture them saying "Get a grip Tommy, he's dead get over it!".
Sometimes, he wanted to hurt them. His sister. His father. Kids at school. Anyone who triggered something in him. That small part of him with a hair trigger defense mechanism: rage. Unstoppable rage.
Nothing his therapists and doctors had told him had helped. Meditation just brought more images and memories back. Hypnotism didn't work either. The meds turned him into a lifeless shell of a person.
Through it all, he kept thinking of Trish and his mother, to pull himself back into reality. Trish had saved and protected him when it had happened, and he was lucky she was alive. The monster had nearly murdered her in a vicious rage.
His mother had met a similar fate except the monster succeeded, taking her from the world in the blink of an eye.
Gratitude wasn't enough. Positive thinking wasn't enough. Whenever he closed his eyes he could still hear Trish's terrified screams of terror ringing in his ears, begging the monster to stop. He could still picture his mother's last moments with the monster.
And then once the blackouts started, Tommy felt hopeless. It was like he had some dark cloud over his head since it had happened and had attracted misfortune after misfortune after another and he was getting nowhere fast. He was losing control.
And then, his meds stopped working and he was plunged back into a living hell.
The dreams were almost every night now, dreams that sent his body into throes of terror, and cold sweats.
He was plunged forcibly into one now.
This time, he was back at Crystal Lake. Again. At his childhood lakefront home where it had happened.
Everything was pitch black and hazy, like he was walking through a cloud of black smoke and then he was enveloped in foliage.
Tommy pushed aside the branches and took a look around.
He was deep in the wilderness in the dead of night.
Thunder crashed over his head. He looked down at the yellow raincoat he was wearing from his childhood, the same one his mother had always made sure he was wearing when it rained…back when she was alive.
The storm was now deafening, and rain pelted him like bullets.
Tommy moved underneath a huge pine tree, taking shelter from the storm and trying to gain his bearings. He wiped the rain from his big, wire-rimmed glasses.
His mind screamed at him to wake up, but he couldn't. He was now being forced to look upon whatever his deranged mind could conjure up.
With Tommy's imaginative and creative mind, his dreams were always a little too vivid and surreal.
Wake up…He muttered to himself. He heard his own, high-pitched prepubescent voice urging himself, and realized he was a young lad again.
Oh God…he thought. He was reliving it all over again.
And then, noises around him started cutting through the sound of the storm, and he jerked his head towards the treeline.
Guided by seemingly some unseen force, Tommy reluctantly went the other way and trekked off into the dense woods surrounding him on all sides.
Now he was being taken wherever his mind wanted to.
He moved aside the wet branches, his galoshes that his mother had also bought for him sinking into the thick black mud up past his ankles.
Thunder crashed again and he could see the lightning flash above the canopy of pine trees that towered above him.
He could barely make out his hands in front of his face through the sheets of rain that seemed to be able to make it through the canopy, but he kept moving.
And moving.
The woods seemed endless and time felt slow and sluggish.
It felt like an eternity even though he had only been asleep for thirty minutes or so.
Finally, the trees cleared and he froze at the sight of where he found himself.
He was at the open gate of the Crystal Lake cemetery.
Wake up …wake the fuck up…His mind urged him. but as if he were being pulled by an invisible string, Tommy marched on into the cemetery.
The tall pine trees that scattered the graveyard whipped around in the wind, long skinny bolts of lightning, reminiscent of gnarled, bony fingers, flashed across the sky; they were streaks of white incandescent light that illuminated the path ahead of little Tommy Jarvis.
A thin, white fog weaved in and out of the tombstones and between the slats of the rusted, overgrown iron fence that surrounded the perimeter.
The obelisks and tombstones seemed to tower above him, surrounding him. Marks of death. All around him.
He kept marching on.
What was his mind leading him to? He kept wondering.
He didn't want to find out but it was inevitable that his mind would force him to look upon it.
The rain came down even harder, whipping at
him. He didn't feel a thing. He was a boy on a mission, weaving in and out determinedly through the maze of graves.
Finally, he stopped at a small clearing at a small isolated section at the back of the cemetery.
Tommy froze with terror as he saw the name written on the shoddy wooden tombstone in front of him:
JASON VOORHEES.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from it.
It was the name that had haunted him for so long.
It was the name of the monster. His monster.
Then, the sound of his own voice came to him, seemingly by the wind, screaming: Die…Die…Die….it ricocheted off the inner walls of his mind, pounding at him, until he closed his eyes so tightly he thought they would burst.
It wouldn't stop.
He opened his eyes again; they were once again locked on the monster's grave.
God please make it stop, he thought. He tried to cover his ears with his hands, but he couldn't move. He just stood and stared in horror at the dirt where his monster was lying a few feet beneath.
Die…Die….Die…those words were what he had screamed over and over again back during that summer at Crystal Lake.
They always came back to him, throbbing, pulsating, ringing in his ears.
All of a sudden, another voice, an unfamiliar voice, came to him through the storm.
"He's gotta be around here somewhere!" the voice said.
Then, another unfamiliar voice rang out.
"I don't know about this, man"
Tommy ducked behind a tombstone, moving out of sight of the two men carrying shovels that were coming through the rain and fog towards the grave of the mass murderer.
As they got closer, he scurried back into the woods just at the treeline, and bent down to get a better look.
Graverobbers…he thought. Oh shit.
The tall, blond man in a camouflage bucket hat, a grey parka and rain boots turned to his slender, dark-haired partner in crime.
"You know how much money this could make us?" he said. "This guy is one of the most famous serial killers of all time!"
The blond man nudged him with the handle of the shovel in his hand. The dark haired man looked on nervously, the glowing lantern rattling in his hand.
"We gotta keep looking! He's gotta be here"
They weaved in and out and between the tombstones, searching for the monster.
"I know he's here somewhere," they continued on, shining the lantern on the face of the tombstones, searching for the one they were after.
Tommy stayed, shrunk down in the undergrowth, watching, his heart racing.
The two graverobbers suddenly stopped in their tracks when they saw the wooden grave marker jutting out of the dirt underneath a tree.
"Look, over there!" one of the men exclaimed, pointing. There it was
The grave of mass murderer Jason Voorhees. Placed away from the other graves as if he were an outcast.
"This is it!" the blond man said, as the lantern illuminated the scrawled letters on the wooden plank. "Let's get a look at the main man!"
They set their lanterns down and started digging fervently with the shovels, tossing dirt all around haphazardly, laughing and whooping excitedly.
"Come on, dig faster!"
"I'm trying!"
Tommy bit his lip in anticipation, not wanting to watch but forced by his mind. He wanted to run but his body wouldn't let him.
The graverobbers hit wood with their shovels, and looked at each other.
"This is it! Come on, get all the dirt off!" the blond man urged, as they both hurriedly brushed dirt off the rickety wooden door of the coffin.
There it was, only a few feet deep. And Jason's body was inside.
Tommy couldn't believe what he was seeing. His eyes were transfixed on the open grave.
The two thieves grabbed each other's shoulders with glee, laughing exuberantly.
"This is it!"
"Yahoooo!" the other one shouted, finally losing his nervous twitch and gaining a surge of ecstasy.
Slowly, and with anticipation, the two robbers bent down and heaved the wooden lid off of the coffin.
They slowly rose erect, staring down in a mix of fear and fascination, their eyes wide, their mouths ajar.
Tommy was glad he didn't have to see what was inside.
And then, the unbelievable happened.
A rotting, meaty arm suddenly flashed out from the open grave.
Lightning flashed, and the machete that the arm was carrying gleamed in the split second of intensely bright light.
The blade plunged into the blond man's stomach, and he doubled over, coughing up blood.
Tommy's jaw dropped. His eyes were as wide as saucers. He wiped his glasses again to make sure he saw what he thought he saw.
And then, with another flash of lightning and clap of thunder, another hand shot out of the grave. This time, it held a rusted screwdriver.
It plunged into the other graverobber's throat.
The two men never knew what hit them.
Both men collapsed to the ground. The dark-haired man fell, grasping and clawing at the handle of the screwdriver that protruded from his Adam's apple, choking on the blood that frothed at his lips.
His partner was dead on his back, his blood and his life draining away, the machete sticking up into the sky like many of the tombstones around him.
Both of them finally lay and stopped squirming as Tommy watched, paralyzed with nauseating terror.
The machete and screwdriver were like gravestones atop the two dead men. Lightning flashed again and Tommy winced.
Then, a gigantic, dark shadowy form rose from the grave and up into Tommy's field of vision. His jaw dropped again and his whole body began to quake.
It was Jason Voorhees. The hulking killer was back from the dead, illuminated again by lightning.
Crack. BOOM.
Maggots had eaten out his eyes, and two empty soulless pits of black stared back at Tommy through the eyeholes of the hockey mask that the mass murderer wore to hide his grotesque appearance. His tattered work suit was covered in dirt, and pieces of flesh that had begun to rot were exposed. Jason lumbered out of the grave and stood to his feet.
He was likely a whole three feet taller than Tommy, a giant beast of a man.
The only thing worse than his appearance was the fact that he had his eyes directed straight at Tommy and pulling the machete out of the slaughtered graverobber, he advanced through the rain.
Tommy couldn't move. He couldn't scream. He shook his head.
"No…no".. he muttered, barely audible through the howling storm.
But Jason kept coming, brandishing the blood stained machete that gleamed in the moonlight.
"No….no…" Tommy's voice grew louder and more frightened as Jason closed the gap between them.
Tommy still couldn't move. He was paralyzed. In a trance. Jason kept coming.
He stopped right in front of Tommy and stared down at him menacingly.
Tommy let out one final shriek, as Jason raised the machete into the air and brought it down in a single
swoop.
Tommy felt it slice into him.
It cut deep.
He felt the excruciating pain that was like getting shot by a thousand bullets at once.
And then everything went black