Chapter 1
"Are you going to hold that blanket forever, or are you going to help me finish this bunk?"
Deborah Kim's shoulders twitched involuntarily as she realized she hadn't been moving. With a sheepish smile she held the blanket out across the bed. "Sorry, AJ. I was just trying to make a mental note of all the chores we have to finish." She crouched down to tuck in her side of the bed as neatly and carefully as possible.
AJ Mason shrugged, tucking her side under with brisk precision. "It's the heat. It's getting to all of us. I'm surprised Kenny isn't out of his mind with people spacing out or taking twenty-minute-long 'Breaks.'" Deborah giggled a little as she stood up. Kenny Riedell, their head counselor, was a really nice guy all things considered, even if she'd only known him about a week. But even she'd noticed that slight nervous eye twitch he got when certain counselors slacked off. Notably Mr. Privileged himself, Chad Kensington.
The sound of the door across the room opening drew both of their attentions. "Oh dear, Mr. Riedell, I can't possibly put these first-aid kits in the cabins. I might sweat on my $2000 shirt!" Vanessa Jones leaned dramatically against the partially open door, one arm flung up across her forehead. Her imitation was far too high-pitched and whiny to truly sound like Chad, but it got the point across without a problem.
"We've only got one more day to get ready, and the camp isn't made of money!" AJ replied in an exaggeratedly deep voice.
"Just ask my father for a loan! My family's rich, if you couldn't tell!" Vanessa pretended to adjust an invisible sweater around her neck, and AJ swaggered back at her, tugging on the top of her skirt like it was a pair of baggy cut-off shorts. All three burst into laughter, leaning against whatever desk or nightstands they could find to keep from falling on the floor.
Deborah got a hold of herself first. "Something up, Vanessa? We're just about done with this cabin.
"Nah, Kenny's got me checking on everyone, that's all." She winked and unclipped the water bottle from the waistband of her tracksuit. "Looking for slackers. Mind if I sit for a few minutes? It is way too hot to be running around outside like this."
"Suit yourself, I won't tell Kenny," AJ responded, heading over to the next bunk. "He's nuts for having you running around in this heat." Vanessa laughed.
"Beats bunk duty or chopping firewood for the meeting tonight. Or listening to Chad whine."
Deborah unfolded another blanket and shook it out. "I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow sometime, hopefully it'll be cooler once the kids get here."
"Yeah, hope so. I kinda regret wearing my track suit today," Vanessa said between sips of water. She drained the last mouthful out and shook the bottle a bit. "I gotta hit the caf on the way out of Blairs, I need a refill." With a loud, exaggerated groan she stood up from her chair. "Oh yeah, Kenny'll have my head if I don't check before I go. You guys getting enough water over here?"
AJ pointed at the plastic water bottle on the desk nearby. "I've got mine. Where's yours, Deb?"
"Um..." Deborah fluffed up the pillow in her hand before putting it on the bed. "Hang on." She walked out of the room for a moment, coming back with a shiny metal bottle. "I forgot it in the other room."
Vanessa shook her head with a frown. "Don't go getting dehydrated, Debbie." She planted her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest. "I don't want to write anyone up until after the campers arrive," she said in an exaggerated Kenny voice. Deborah giggled sheepishly.
"I'll try not to, I just need to stop losing my water bottle."
Vanessa double-checked the bottle on her hip before doing a few stretches. "Well, I should get going, gotta get back up to Higgins camp before Kenny sniffs me out." She opened the front door to the cabin, before looking back over her shoulder. "Oh, by the way Deb, Eric wanted me to tell you to head over to Evergreen when you have a chance. Something about you needing to know how to work the CB or whatever, I didn't catch it."
A small smile crossed Deborah's face. Vanessa was a bit too loud and never slowed down, especially to pay attention to something she thought was boring, but at least she tried a bit. "I'll be over once we're done with this cabin, it's the last one that needs attention over here." Vanessa shot her a thumbs up, before taking off out the door. They could hear her sneakers slap against the pavement as she left.
AJ sighed, giving the beds a once-over before picking up her water bottle. "Thank you, Hurricane Vanessa. I think we're about done here, you want to head over to Evergreen? I can finish up anything we have left."
"You sure?" Deborah asked, but she was already picking up her water bottle and checking her pockets to make sure she hadn't dropped anything again.
"Yeah, it's no problem. I like the quiet anyway." Liking solitude wasn't anything new to Deborah, either. It could be hard sometimes keeping up a lot of the louder, more enthusiastic counselors like Vanessa or Buggzy. Knowing AJ, though, as soon as Deborah left, out would come the walkman and headphones.
She shrugged a bit. "Okay, AJ, I guess I'll head out. Um... have fun?" Deborah hoped the cringing she was doing inwardly didn't reflect on her face.
"Yeah, seeya. Don't let Lachappa talk over you too much!" As she left the cabin, Deborah glanced back over her shoulder. Yup, headphones and walkman, right on cue.
"...Now this is a newer model, much more high-tech than the old 23-channel 3.5 watt radios. It's got all 40 channels and with that antenna we can reach Forest Green without any signal degrading at all! And that's without shooting skip at all, which of course is illegal and you shouldn't do it." Eric J.R. Lachappa abruptly pushed his glasses further up his stubby nose, as if trying to change the topic he himself brought up, and looked over at Deborah. Somewhere within his fifteen-minute-long explanation of the history, mechanics and operations of CB radios, Deborah had mentally checked out and returned to her internal list of things that needed to be done before the camp opened. It wasn't entirely surprising either that Eric had completely failed to notice that she wasn't listening. Just as she could lose herself in thoughts and fail to see what was going on around her, Eric never seemed to notice that people seemed to wander off during his explanation of all things mechanical.
"-It's all very impressive, Eric, but I do need to get back to work before Kenny starts wondering where I went. Can you give me the information I need in layman's terms?" It felt wrong interrupting him, he was so animated and excited talking about it and Deborah could just see her mother shaking her head at her daughter's rudeness.
"Oh! Well, we don't want to get in trouble, do we?" Eric said, clapping his hands together. "Basic operations. Set the channel with this dial here, the indicator on the front shows which one you've got." Realizing that it was actually useful information this time, Deborah grabbed a nearby pocket notebook and began to write it down. "Channel nine is your emergency channel; I doubt we'll need it but it's there just in case. Channel 19 is usually reserved for travellers or trucking. The other channels will be used mostly by hobbyists probably, you won't need them."
There was a wand-like microphone attached to the set and he picked it up. "This is your mic, you talk into this when you call. Don't put your mouth on it, it's plenty hot; unless you're across the room it should pick you up. Press the call button down and hold it until you're finished, like a walkie-talkie. If there's other people on the line, wait until they pause and say 'Break' so they know you're there. Okay?"
"That's everything?" Debora tapped her pencil against her chin, before erasing a few words and writing them tidier.
"Should be. There's a whole barrel of codewords the experts like to use, but this setup is just for emergencies really. I can bring in an operations book on Monday-"
"-No, that's okay!" She didn't want to sound like she was eager to get away but well... if you got Eric talking on a subject he liked, you could be there for literal days. "I can always ask you if there's something I don't understand! And it's getting late, we should be getting back to the lodge!" Eric nodded with a smile, oblivious to the rushed way she was talking.
"Okay, see you there! I've still got some things to pack up here," he said, switching off the radio, then straightening up to wave as she left the small side hallway that the radio was tucked into. There was a nice big room beyond with a couple of armchairs and a couch, and as soon as she closed the door to the hall she sagged against it with a sigh. She really did have to get back up to the lodge, but she felt a little bad using it as an excuse to leave. Eric meant well, she just found him overwhelming at times.
The outside door swung open and a young woman with an open, cheerful face framed by lightly curling brown hair peeked in. "Oh hi, Deborah! Kenny wants everyone to meet at the lodge ASAP, can you let Eric know?"
"Can you do it, Jenny?" Deborah asked, sliding off to the side of the door to get out of the way. She dropped her voice a bit, hoping to not be overheard from the other rooms. "I just got away and I like my ears on my head where they belong, and not talked off onto the floor."
Jenny Meyers laughed and shook her head. "Okay, I'll let him know. If you'd like to wait I'll walk back with you?" It wasn't far to the area with the big lodge and barn, but it would be nice to not have to make the trip on her own.
"Sure, I'll wait!" Jenny nodded and smiled as she poked her head in the door and called out the message, waiting for a distant "Okay!" before closing the door again. Then the two left, heading out along the forested paths towards the lodge.
Deborah idly ran her fingers along the rough wood of the map board as they passed it. "You know, I think Eric might like you a bit? He's not so talkative around everyone else." She pulled her hand away sharply at Jenny's words, almost as if she'd encountered a splinter from her sentences.
"He just likes the fact that I listen, that's all. Or at least try to. Sometimes..." She lowered her eyes, not wanting to look over at Jenny. Even if Eric had a crush on her, she didn't like him that way back. Someone else had already caught her attention-
"Wasting your time, Jen, Deborah only has eyes for the Chad," a sing-song voice called out, as the rhythmic slap of sneakers came up behind them. Seconds later a brown-haired girl in a midriff-bearing pink shirt and extremely short denim Daisy Dukes jogged past. "Isn't that right, Debbie?"
Blood shot to Deborah's face, coloring her cheeks a bright shade of pink. "TIFFANY!" She hunched down, pulling her head low and her shoulders high as if she could disappear into her oversized sweater like a turtle. "Don't say that out here, what if he hears?" Tiffany Cox leaned against a nearby section of fence and lazily snapped her gum.
"So what if he hears? There's only two possibilities- he laughs it off and everything goes back to normal, or he sweeps you off your feet and onto his yacht, right?" A pink bubble of gum ballooned from Tiffany's mouth for a few moments, before she popped it and went on chewing. "He does have a yacht, right?"
By this point, Deborah's face was half-buried in her sweater neck. "It's the first option I'm worried about. I don't want him to laugh at me." Small whimpery noises escaped her throat as she looked at the taller girl, her eyebrows pinched up over too-damp eyes. The thought of telling someone, especially Chad, that she liked them was the most terrifying thing she could imagine.
"That's enough, Tiff," Jenny said, placing a hand on Deborah's shoulder. "There's no way Chad could hear anyway, he's off at the lodge with a 'heat headache' I think. I hope he's better behaved once the kids show up, or else we'll have more work dodgers for sure."
Tiffany scoffed from her spot by the fence. "Chad? No way, he's totally gonna rub off on the kids. Ya' better team him up with someone like Adam or we'll have a cabinload of lazy brats. At least Adam might be able to run damage control." They'd only been working here a week and already Chad had gotten himself a somewhat deserved reputation. His family was rich, his clothes were expensive, his hair impeccably styled, and his work ethic was non-existent. And despite it all, Deborah couldn't deny he was attractive, in that same unobtainable way one swoons over the latest, hottest movie star. He'd never notice her with her glasses and unfashionable clothes and hair too straight to put in the current fashionable styles. Unless he decided her Korean background was exotic enough for a summer fling, that is, but that wasn't really what she wanted.
She wanted romance, maybe something exciting too but definitely she wanted it to last longer than a single summer. And with Chad's attention span and the way he'd fainted dead away when Buggzy cut himself chopping wood the other day, "lasting" and "exciting" were probably off the menu.
The girls had started walking again, the conversation gradually shifting over to discussions of the upcoming camp opening when they reached the barn. Predictably, Adam and Kenny were attempting to keep Brandon "Buggzy" Wilson from injuring himself yet again.
"Get down from there, Brandon! The loft isn't safe!" Even from the fence around the barn entrance, Deborah could see the tension in Kenny's neck. "I don't want to have to keep a log of your injuries, it's been hard enough getting this camp ready to open as it is! If you're not down in ten minutes I'm writing you up!"
The three girls craned their necks to look up, and sure enough, Buggzy's bright red-and-white varsity letter jacket could be clearly seen in the loft doorway. "Nah, man, it's all good! I got this!" Holding onto the loft doorway with one hand and a thick rope tied to a ring at the end of an old hay winch, Buggzy leaned out over the barnyard. "Sweet! I can see all the way to the old graveyard from up here!"
Off to one side, a tall young man with long shaggy hair and a leather jacket covered with buttons and pins and studs shook his head. "Buggzy, c'mon out of there, dude. Kenny's gonna bust a blood vessel and it's gonna get all over me."
"Y'gotta check out this view, Adam! Major rush up here!"
"Major trouble if you fall and have to go to the hospital. C'mon, dude, we got pictures to take!"
"Oh, that's right! The pictures!" Tiffany gave Deborah's sweater sleeve a tug. "Let's jam, I want to touch up my makeup before we do that!" With a wave at the guys (which only Adam returned, Kenny and Buggzy being too preoccupied to even notice) they turned their steps towards the big lodge ahead.
Somehow, surprisingly, the counselor photos all went off without a hitch. Even Buggzy managed to be there and in one piece, once Kenny and Adam managed to talk him down. The shadows were long by the time all the pictures were finished. All that was left was the final counselor meeting before they were free to leave. The team split up into two groups; Kenny, Buggzy, Eric and Chad headed down to the campsite at Stillwater to make sure it was set up and the fire was lit, while the ladies brought the food down, along with Adam and a counselor Deborah barely knew who together carried the heavy cooler with the drinks and hot dogs.
Toting along bags with potato chips, Deborah snuck a peek at the dark-haired young man. She wasn't bad with names, why couldn't she remember his? Honestly she'd never spoken to him, and he didn't interact that much with the others, just followed whatever he was told to do really. Something in the back of her head whispered that his name started with a "R," but she couldn't remember.
Well, she had all summer to find out his name anyway.
The meeting itself was routine. Kenny checked in with all the groups of workers from the day, went over safety precautions one more time -just in case someone had forgotten or the rules had changed in the last day or so- refreshed everyone on the rules, and finally went over the schedule for the upcoming week. By the time he'd finished, the majority had finished their suppers or were picking at the last bits while they waited.
"Okay, I've talked enough for tonight." Kenny slid his clipboard under his chair. "It's our last night of freedom before the kids get here on Monday! Let's have some fun!"
"FINALLY!" came a chorus of about four voices, Vanessa included as she dramatically threw her arms up towards the darkening sky.
"Save room for s'mores!" Deborah called, holding up the bag of marshmallows after having already loaded up her stick with one.
Adam scoffed nearby. "That's kids sh-," he muttered, but took the bag once she'd set it down, and forced three onto his hotdog stick, holding them over the fire until the white outsides began to turn black.
"So what now?" Tiffany asked, sprawled across a log she was using as a seat. "I mean, I'd like to have some fun today. We could go up to the lodge to, I dunno, play cards?" An impish twinkle crossed her face. "Or something else?"
"Well, we've got a campfire, don't we?" AJ chimed in. She'd been silent almost the whole time, so everyone turned to look at her once she started talking. "We could tell ghost stories." A small smile crossed her face as murmurs of agreement spread around the circle. Everyone seemed interested, save Chad whose face had gone a shade paler and his mouth was twisted up into an odd shape.
"Does anybody actually know any ghost stories?" Eric asked, looking a little nervous himself, though definitely not so strange as Chad. A deviously wicked smile crossed Buggzy's face, and he leaned closer towards the fire as if about to share a secret.
"I know a story," he began with a grin. "They say it still lurks around in the Pine Barrens.."
A charred, squishy marshmallow flew through the air and hit him solidly on the left side of his face. "Don't you even start with that Jersey Devil stuff again, Buggzy!" Vanessa called from across the firepit, rising out of her seat in irritation. "That is a load of bullsh- and you know it! It's not even real!"
Buggzy was on his feet too, wiping hot gooey marshmallow off his face. "It is too!"
"IS NOT!" Vanessa stepped forward, ready to vault the campfire to shout in his face.
"SIT DOWN, BOTH OF YOU!" The bickering stopped and all stared at Jenny, shocked to hear her bellow that way. Guiltily, Vanessa and Buggzy sat down again. "It's our last night here before the kids arrive on Monday, let's not have any bloodshed over a legend!" Her cheeks were slowly going back to their normal color from the pinkish shade they'd gone when she yelled.
Vanessa huffed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms across her chest. "Does anyone else - besides Buggzy- know any ghost stories, or is this going to be the most boring campfire ever?"
From his seat closest to the cabins, Kenny cleared his throat. "Well... there is one. But I will warn you, it's not for the faint of heart."
"Chad better leave right now then," Adam mumbled behind his hand, prompting a very nasty look from Chad. One look from Jenny shut them both up, thankfully.
Kenny settled into his seat, leaning forwards with his elbows resting on the arms of the flimsy chair. As he spoke, his husky voice took on a smoother quality, one reserved for telling tales. "You know, there's a legend about this camp. Or, more specifically, the lake. Camp Crystal Lake used to be further around the lake, way over there." He gestured out towards the water and the shore beyond. "There was a family that lived nearby, the Voorhees family. Now, Mrs. Voorhees worked as a cook for the camp back then, and her son Jason would come to the camp with her while he worked. But that's when tragedy struck.
"You see, Jason was an odd looking child and people weren't as accepting of that back then. There was a lot of bullying that went on behind the counselors backs, and one day those same bullies chased him right off the docks and into the lake. But Jason couldn't swim. The counselors who should have been on duty for such problems were ditching work for some alone time." Kenny shot a pointed glance at Chad when he mentioned the counselors not doing their jobs.
"Nobody ever found Jason's body. For years afterwards, however, the camp seemed cursed. The very next year, two counselors were found dead, stabbed to death with a knife. And every time after that, whenever the camp tried to re-open, parts of the camp would mysteriously burn down. One year the water went bad. Soon, the locals began to call it Camp Blood. They tried to reopen it again in the seventies, but nearly the entire staff was killed in one night, and all by one woman. Mrs. Voorhees had been trying to keep the camp closed all those years, and that fateful friday night on June 13th, the last counselor killed her with a machete. Chopped her head clean off."
There were a couple of cringes around the fire, Chad included, and Deborah shivered even with the heat from the fire and the warmth of her sweater. "According to the legend, however, Jason didn't die. He lived, surviving in the wild on what he could hunt, gather or steal. By that point he was a grown man. And they say he saw his beloved mother beheaded that night, and vowed revenge. And revenge he got, on as many people in Crystal Lake as he could. Around thirty people were slaughtered in an astonishingly short amount of time, and the last thing they saw was an expressionless white hockey mask." Kenny raised a finger, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "But you know, as terrifying as he was, he could still be beaten. I'm going to tell you what I was told, and you can believe it or don't. The terror only ended when he was finally killed himself, before he could murder the entire town. And by a kid no less, a kid scared and angry enough to save what little family he had left."
Buggzy scoffed and muttered something under his breath that if Deborah was the type who was prone to gambling, she'd wager it was exceptionally rude. Kenny waved his hands. "It's how the story goes, you don't have to believe it. But supposedly Jason didn't stay dead. Nobody's really sure how, but he crawled back out of that grave and he wasn't too happy about being in there in the first place. Maybe he got bored of being dead, or maybe it was some unholy miracle, but years after he died he got back up and went after the people around here in Forest Green."
Kenny stood up, waving his hand slowly towards the water. "The legends say Jason was sunk in the water out there, back to the place he drowned as a boy. That he's still out there, waiting, listening. Angry. That he'll be back again someday, back to kill any intruders in his woods." Deborah leaned out of her chair after the bag of marshmallows she'd put nearby, hoping her hands weren't shaking as visibly as she feared. Scary stories weren't exactly her thing, though she'd never been very vocal about it. But she knew she'd have nightmares after this.
"Wait." Tiffany held up a hand. "Do you hear that?" There was a soft splashing sound coming from the lake behind them.
"Frogs," Kenny said immediately, but Tiffany waved him off.
"It's not frogs, Kenny, it's too quiet." She was right, Deborah realized. The summery chirps of frogs and crickets had stopped, leaving the lake eerily silent. Everyone leaned a bit towards the lake, trying to peer past the moonlight surface to the inky depths below. For a second, Deborah thought she saw movement, but shrugged it off. Fish, probably.
Suddenly, something broke through the surface, a shadowy figure covered in muck and grime. Firelight glinted off water dripping from a bright white mask, a dripping machete in one of the figure's hands.
The shouts and screams from the counselors shattered the silence, but only for a second. There was laughter underneath it. Vanessa was the only one who hadn't jumped out of her seat in fear, and now she was practically falling out of it, with tears running down her face as she laughed.
"We got you guys SO! GOOD!" she crowed, standing up. "C'mon Rob, take the mask off! It's just Rob!" He obliged, grinning back at Vanessa. A wash or relief spread over the group as they returned to their chairs with sheepish chuckles. Of course, it was just Rob and Vanessa pranking them. Deborah felt simultaneously embarrassed that she'd forgotten his name earlier and completely humiliated that she'd been just as scared as the rest. Of course it was just a myth, why wouldn't it be? A serial killer in the lake was completely ridiculous, after all, right?
Abruptly, a strange feeling set in over her as she sat down, like an out-of-body experience. It was as if time was slowing down around her. Rob was just stepping past Deborah's chair when there was a sound like a shrill wind, and suddenly he was falling. A horrible gurgle escaped his throat before a loud thud echoed through the camp. For a moment nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The mirth was gone from everyone's face as they stared in horror at the slim knife sticking out of his back, buried deep into his heart and the spreading dark stain growing around it. Cold horror flooded through Deborah's body as she stared.
"I-is he..." Tiffany whispered, but they all knew the answer before she even opened her mouth. Chad, who hadn't even sat back down from the first time he'd stood up in panic, was the first to scream, and suddenly chaos reigned. All the counselors scattered. Everything they'd had with them at the campsite was left forgotten in their blind panic to get as far away from the lake as they could go. With the half-empty marshmallow bag still in her hand, Deborah spun to face the lake, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of the white edge of something slipping back under the water.
With fear clawing at her back, Deborah fled with the others. She knew exactly what she'd seen, even if it was just a second.
A white hockey mask.