The sounds of shouts from outside his bedroom window stirred Nathan out of his peaceful slumber.
"What's going on - ?" he grumbled, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
Yawning, he struggled out of bed, realizing that with all the commotion outside, he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again until tomorrow.
Just as he began searching for his shoes, his mother, a short, kindly woman with the same crisp, sapphire eyes as her son, opened the bedroom door, sticking her egg-shaped head inside.
That particular night, however, Mrs. Matthews' eyes had seemingly lost their luster, and instead they were filled with worry and fear.
"Mom - " Nathan began, slightly taken aback by his mother's haggard appearance. "What's with all the shouting...?"
"Something's the matter over at your school, Nathan," she breathed, visibly concerned. "All the kids on our street are driving over there to see for themselves."
The idea that someone he knew could be hurt - or worse, killed - bombarded Nathan's thoughts, hitting him like a cannonball.
Oh my God...
"What happened?" he demanded to know, sprinting over to the window.
Sure enough, dozens of his classmates lined the streets, running up and down the pavement spreading the news of whatever disaster had taken place.
"Well..." Mrs. Matthews began, unsure of where to begin. "Apparently, someone fiddled with the school circuit breaker, and the football field shed burst into flames."
Nathan felt a wave of relief wash over his entire body.
"Is that all?" he breathed, sitting back down atop his bed.
As he had closed his eyes, he did not notice the aggrieved look painted across his mother's face.
"No, not exactly... Oh, Natey - they found blood in the men's locker room!"
Nathan's eyes fluttered open, his heart clenching in horror.
Blood.
"Whose...?" he asked, barely able to speak.
Mrs. Matthews merely shook her head.
"They don't know."
"They...?"
"The fire department," Mrs. Matthews explained. "After containing the fire, they searched the building. Once they found the blood, well - I think someone called the police."
Nathan nodded, his expression stern and serious.
Without warning, he leapt to his feet, and continued his search for his shoes.
"And where do you think you're going?" his mother asked, displeased.
Nathan looked up from the floor and stared into the woman's tired eyes.
"I'm heading over to the school - I need to talk to some people."
xxx
Gwen, as she lived relatively close to Clearmont High, could easily spot the fire from her bedroom window, and the sudden sight sent chills down her spine.
Jesus Christ - it never ends in this God-forsaken town...
Grabbing her cell phone, she dashed down the stairs that led to the family's living room, shooting off a frantic message to Erin, whose house was situated too out of the way for her, or anyone else in her family, to notice the flames.
Met me at the FB field in 15 minutes - there's been an accident...
xxx
Nathan, pulling up to the field in his silver BMW, realized that nearly half of the entire school had to have been present, as what seemed to be hundreds of high school students were being forced back into the parking lot by visibly-frustrated police officers.
Leaping out of his car, Nathan began to maneuver his way through the yelping crowd, struggling to catch a glimpse of the eradicated equipment shed, which was now nothing but a smoking pile of blackened ash.
In the distance, sirens and klaxons blared as a half-dozen or so firefighters were spraying the remaining flames with an industrial-sized hose.
After a number of shoves, kicks, and punches, Nathan managed to make his way to the front of the pack, where he spotted a hysterical Gina talking to the officer in charge.
Gina...?
Just as he was about to run up to his distraught peer, a second officer, tall, burly, and armed with both a holstered gun and a nightstick, dashed in front of Nathan to block his path.
"No one's allowed to go near the fire." the man growled, prodding Nathan back into the crowd with his club.
"Hey - ! That girl over there is my friend..." Nathan protested, but his arguing got him nowhere - within the blink of an eye, he was thrust back into the restless horde, unable to get back to his car.
I hope Gwen and the others are having better luck than me...
xxx
"Look - I already told you what happened!" Gina snapped, her eyes bloodshot and her skin cold - it certainly was a frigid night.
The officer standing before her looked up from his notepad, frowning.
"Would you mind going through the events of the evening just once more, Miss? We need to be sure of all the facts, you understand."
Sighing in frustration, Gina recounted how her boyfriend, Mark, had gone off to help the football coach with a few bags after the game. Apparently, all he had to do was drop them off inside the equipment shed, but Gina ended up waiting a good fifteen minutes for him to return until she decided to leave him there. Just as she was about to drive away, she spotted the fire engulfing the shed and, fearing the worst, called 9-1-1.
The officer nodded, satisfied, as Gina's story came to an end.
"It all checks out," he mumbled beneath his breath. "Thank you for your time, Miss, and we'll be sure to update you when we locate your friend - he probably just set the shed on fire, as a joke, or something, and then high-tailed it out of there when he heard the sirens."
"But what am I supposed to tell his parents?" Gina wailed, distraught. "What do you think Mark is, a pyromaniac? He doesn't spend his time blowing up stupid old shacks...!"
The officer didn't seem to be the least bit concerned.
"I promise you, Miss, that your boyfriend will turn up in the next few days - he just doesn't want to be caught; it's understandable. But if you find him hiding in your backyard or something, it's your civic duty to turn him over to us."
Gina rolled her eyes angrily.
"Yeah, I'll be sure to do that."
Unable to detect Gina's sarcasm, the officer smiled and turned away.
Angry with Mark, with the world, Gina suddenly felt dizzy, her head spinning and her thoughts dark and muddled.
"Oh..." she moaned, losing her balance.
With a terrific plop, Gina collapsed on the ground, nearly striking her head atop the hard macadam.
As the police officers began to swarm Gina's limp body, Nathan slipped out of the crowd, and stealthily made his way over to the school building, which looked ancient and sinister in the shadows of the night.
Passing a group of unobservant firefighters, Nathan sprinted across the black pavement, rounding a sharp turn and emerging at the spacious gym's back door, which was flung open.
To his complete surprise, Nathan found Nicole and Chloe embracing one another in the doorway, while officers with radios in their hands dashed in and out of the gym.
Nathan, fearing the worst, approached the two girls, both of whom looked up as he drew nearer.
"Natey!" Nicole wailed, releasing Chloe and running into her boyfriend's arms.
"What's happening?" Nathan breathed, eager to remove a clinging Nicole from his waist.
"Oh, it's awful!" Nicole sobbed, her eyes raw and her make-up smudged all across her gorgeous face. "The p-police found blood in the locker room, Natey...and they think it might be Derek's..."
At the sound of her boyfriend's name, Chloe burst into tears, blindly stumbling about for something to hold on to.
"Oh my God... Oh my God - !"
Chloe was hysterical, that much was clear - she was clawing at her face, ripping and tearing out her hair, and tears were streaming down her dark cheeks, giving her the appearance of a rabid animal.
Nathan struggled to swallow the lump in his throat.
"What would make them think that?" he asked, his voice chocked and hoarse.
"No one's seen him for hours...h-he was supposed to be at hockey practice, and he was...b-but he had to leave early, and w-when his mom came looking for him, he was gone...a-a-all that w-was left was a p-pool of b-blood..." Nicole stammered.
Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the crisp wind to strike him, both exhilarating him and terrifying him like nothing else could.
Why didn't I just stay in bed...?
It was far too late now - he was in deep...
Too deep.
Opening his eyes, he moved away from the panic-stricken girls, and slowly made his way inside the brightly-lit gym.
Off to the side, a tired-looking Mrs. Myers, who trembled as if she had just seen a ghost, spoke with the detective the police force and sent to investigate her son's disappearance.
Nathan frowned - Mrs. Myers had always been so alive, so upbeat...now her clothes were soaked with fresh tears, and she looked pained - terribly pained.
But where the hell could Derek be...?
The gym was swarming with police officers, and every few seconds, camera lights would snap, temporarily blinding anyone who stood too close.
It's like a circus in here...
It wasn't long before one such officer discovered Nathan snooping and forcefully escorted him back outside.
By the time Nathan returned to Nicole and Chloe, he spotted two new additions to the group - Gwen and Erin, both shivering tremendously, suddenly appeared from the direction of the parking lot, making their way towards the gym.
"What are they doing here?" Nicole snapped, gritting her teeth ferociously.
Chloe, however, was too distraught to start a fight, and so she muttered, "Nicole, just be cool tonight, okay? We've all been through too much already..."
Gwen smiled faintly as she approached, rubbing her arms in order to protect them from frostbite.
"Hey..." she breathed, struggling to smile.
Motioning over to a silent Erin, she explained, "We heard about the fire, and we thought we'd check it out...to make sure everything was okay, you know."
She shrugged her shoulders rather helplessly, still trying to fight away the cold.
"For all we knew, one of you guys might have been in trouble."
Nicole snorted rudely, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, thanks for the concern, sweetie," she snapped. "But I'd be more worried about Derek and Mark."
Upon hearing this, Erin looked up, her face paler than usual.
"What happened to them?" she asked, genuinely concerned.
Nicole pursed her lips into a sour frown.
"No one has seen either of them since this evening - and the police think Mark burned down that stupid equipment shed."
Both Gwen and Erin exchanged looks of shock -
Oh, no...
Jason - !
"Is there any proof that Mark lit the shed on fire...?" Erin asked, slightly hesitant.
Chloe, visibly flustered, grumbled, "No - none at all! And that's what I don't get...knowing Mark, he would've screwed up and left evidence all over the place."
"But everything inside the shed burned to a crisp," Nathan pointed out. "No evidence would be left for the police to find."
"I can't believe you, Nathan! You're blaming your best friend for all of this nonsense...?" Nicole screamed, slapping Nathan's arm.
"There's got to be another explanation." Chloe mumbled matter-of-factly.
While her peers began to argue and shout possible elucidations at one another, Gwen squeezed her eyes shut, pictures of old newspaper clippings penetrating her mind...
"Local Woman Found Dead..."
"Ambulance Crash Claims Three Victims..."
"Masked Man Seen Roaming Woods - Authorities Baffled..."
It all pointed to one man.
No - one monster.
Jason Voorhees had been awakened, and now he was exacting his revenge.
Her weariness beginning to take its toll, Gwen turned away from the gym, taking Erin by her arm and calling back over her shoulder, "We've got to get going - let us know how things turn out tomorrow in school, okay?"
The three teens left standing in the cold of the night nodded their heads, refocusing their attention on their missing friends.
When the two girls were out of earshot, Gwen whispered, "This isn't good, Erin - something's really wrong here..."
Erin bobbed her head up and down in agreement.
"I believe you, Gwen - oh, God, I believe you!" she wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Tomorrow we've all got to meet up - maybe after school, or during lunch. We need to make a plan. Otherwise, we'll be defenseless."
Erin, despite the fact that she still had no jacket and was freezing beyond belief, stopped in her tracks, eyeing Gwen in terror.
"Y-you don't think he had something to do w-with M-mark and Derek's d-disappearances, d-do you...?"
Gwen bit her lower lip, a sudden wave of horror washing over her body and drowning her, pulling her down into a pool of despair.
"Well...if they don't show up for first period in the morning, that's a tell-tale sign that something's off."
The two walked along the pitch-black streets in silence for what seemed like an eternity before Erin mumbled, "I don't like this at all, Gwen..."
Gwen, dark thoughts of death churning in her mind, could only brace herself against the cold and continue across the endless stretch of pavement that led back home, while Erin turned away to find her car, which was lost somewhere in the horde of curious students.
"Neither do I..."
xxx
As the hours flew by, evening rapidly transformed into night.
About twenty minutes after the moonlight began to shine down upon the parking lot, illuminating everyone and everything, almost all of the students had begun to return home, bored with the fire that had destroyed the decrepit equipment shack...
Before long, it would be morning.
And Death would reign supreme.