Across the Lake

Chapter 12: The Mother

...

Jason trudged along the forest in silence. His movements were almost fluid, his whole body moving through the forest like water. As if the very layout of the forest was imprinted in his brain, mapped out and memorized, down to every detail.

I, on the other hand, was tripping over every rock, root and rough terrain in my borrowed hiking boots. My foot slipped one moment, causing me to nearly fall flat on my face. A pair of huge arms the size of tree trunks managed to wrap around me and stop my fall in time.

It caught me off guard because One: Jason was fifteen feet ahead of me before, there was no way he could have made it in time to catch me; but he did. Two: I had never been this close to him before.

I found myself inches from his mask, looking right into his eyes.

His eyes were hazel.

I suddenly felt very hot in my cheeks. He stared right back, not blinking. I felt his filtered breath through the holes in the mask. His arms gradually loosened around me and back to his sides. Turning around, he continued walking. I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I took in air. Goosebumps ran up and down my arms. The heat from my cheeks had spread across my whole face and down my neck.

I made my legs work again and continued walking, looking down at my feet to make sure I didn't trip again. Jason slowed his pace down to where he was almost walking next to me. I wondered if he was doing that to make sure I didn't trip and fall again. This made my face burn a brighter red.

I mentally shook my head.

No. No need time to be silly. Got to focus on where he's taking me, I thought to myself. I was so embarassed. This legend of a character walking next to me, and I trip and fall like a moron. I had to keep telling myself that I don't hike in the mountains every day like he did. He had been living here for years...

...

The small cabin eventually appeared through the trees. Jason placed one hand up between the 1 and the 3 on the door and pushed it open. The door creaked open, allowing the musty smell to waft our faces. Leaves crunched under our boots as we walked inside. Jason had to duck his head under the doorway. I looked around, seeing the same things I saw when I first walked in here.

Jason went to the other side of the room and began pushing the bunk beds away from the wall. My eyes widened at how effortlessly he did it. It was like the wooden bunk bed weighed nothing at all. Under the bunk bed, was a small wooden door, with a rusty metal ring attached to it. Jason knelt down and lifted the ring with one violent pull. The door flipped open, the rusty hinges screaming as the door flipped over and yawned open into a dark void. I peeked in.

It was a secret, hand dug basement.

I felt Jason's gloved hand press down on my right shoulder. I turned to look up at him. He turned his hockey masked face to me. I couldn't see his eyes because of how dark it was inside, so I just looked at the two black sockets of the mask where his eyes would be.

He gestured to me to go first. I hesitated, staring down into the black void. "Erm...why don't you go ahead first?" I said, smiling up at him. His eyes seemed to shine from the darkness as they stared down into mine. He eventually nodded and went down first into the hand dug basement with the ladder below his feet. Only his hockey mask could be seen through the dark shadows below. I took a deep breath, and began to descend the ladder after him.

Once my head dipped into the black void, I couldn't see a thing. I felt my foot slip on the ladder causing me to to fall. A pair of large, gloved hands wrapped around my waist to steady me. I froze. Jason lifted me off the ladder like I didn't weigh a thing and gently placed me down next to him. My face was flushed in embarrassment.

"Thanks," I managed to say.

My eyes began to adjust inside the basement. It was five feet by ten feet. The walls were hard packed earth with roots jutting out from them. Earthworms wiggled in and out of the dark rich soil.

At the end of the small room was a wooden, round, termite eaten table. Multiple candles were on the table and on the ground. The drips from the candles told me they always stayed lit. A frozen wax waterfall effect from the candles was a beautifully eerie sight. They bathed the room in a warm yellow glow. On the table was a moth eaten dirty light blue sweater; and finally, on the sweater, was a corpse head.

His mother.

I heard a gasp and realized it was me. I placed my hands over my mouth to keep from making another noise. Jason didn't seem to notice as he walked up to the corpse head and kneeled down in front of it like a religious shrine. Suddenly the air in the basement felt different. I dont know how but something felt...off. It felt as if there were three of us in the room, and not two. There was another presence. Goosebumps crawled across my skin.

A sudden cold breeze blew through the basement and rustled through my hair. My heart skipped a beat when I thought I heard a voice.

Good boy, Jason...

Jason stood up and stared down at the bodiless head on the table. He turned his head to me silently. I hesitated where I stood. Eventually I walked up beside him and stared down at the head. His mother's head. What was her name again? Pauline? No...Pamela. That's right.

Pamela Voorhees.

I stared down at the wrinkly face. A wrinkly face that reminded me of an ancient apple. Something clicked in my mind. This was the same face I saw in my dream. I looked over to the right and saw an old photograph of her when she was less...corpse like...and had her head attached to her body. She looked so happy, standing next to...I looked closer. Was that Jason?

The person standing next to Pamela in the photo was a boy, around ten or eleven years old. He wore black shorts and a yellow camp shirt. It was his face that caught my eye.

I remember Sheriff Jackson telling me that he was bullied when he was just a boy. The thought that the kids back then bullied him because he looked different made me sad.

Keep running, you scaredy cat!

I jolted from the sudden kid voice and whipped my head around. No one else was here. Just me, Jason, and his mother's head. Jason looked at me quizzically, tilting his head to the side. I shook my head. "It was nothing," I said, then remembered why we were here in the first place. I shrugged off my backpack and pulled the book out. The book felt heavy in my hands as I showed it to the head on the table. I felt silly at first, wondering how the head would take the book from me. Before I could do anything, a sudden wind flipped the pages rapidly. The pages stopped abruptly as if a hand stopped them in their rustling. I looked down at the page. It was the spell Jason showed me before we came here: How to bring back the dead. The symbol seemed to burn into my retinas.

I stared at the head. "I don't understand. Why are you showing me this? You brought your son back from the dead. I know. He doesn't need to be brought back, he's right here," I said, pointing to Jason next to me.

Read the book...

I could hear his dead mother talking to me. Was that normal? How was she talking to me? She was dead!

Read the book...

The room suddenly grew ice cold, despite the hundreds of candles. She wanted me to read the passage from the book. I hesitated where I stood. "I...I don't understand...I can't read Latin," I stuttered.

Just as I said that, the words began to change into English.

Nakbit Remta Etrnal Flames in the bowels of Hell. Gather my army! Hear my words and come forth...

Read the book! Read the book! I heard Pamela say.

What did this all mean? How did I suddenly know how to read Latin? Why did Pamela want me to read this? Did she want me to...did she want me to bring her back from the dead? If I did...wouldn't she just be a... living head?

I turned to Jason, who just stood there like a hulking statue. A sudden wind blew the pages again. This time stopping on another page.

The illustration depicted one person's soul going into another person. The words began to scramble before my eyes again.

To Possess Another Being. My eyes continued down the page.

For this spell to work, the host must read from the book, for the guest/spirit to be able to enter into the host; thus controlling their mind and body.

Read it! Read the book!

I nearly dropped the book.

Pamela was trying to possess me. She tried tricking me into reading something I had no idea what it meant or what it was. She needed a body. A body that she could control. Jason was mute so she couldn't rely on him reading from the book...Was Jason behind this too? She did tell him "Good boy." Was she giving him praise for bringing me to her? I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I was trapped. I didn't know what to do. I felt like one of those kids from those old fairy tales. Being tricked by an evil witch.

Well two could play at that game. Just like the kids from the fairy tales, I'll trick this witch.

"Erm...um...I can't read the pages without my reading glasses. I'll go get them and be right back..." I said, shoving the book back into my backpack, turning around and heading back to the ladder. It wasn't my best trick, but it was the best I could come up with on the spot.

Suddenly, a strong, angry wind blew through the basement once more, snuffing out all the candles in the basement. My vision became a black void.

Jason...Kill...I heard his mother say in her whispery voice. Fuck. I was dead.

I scrambled blindly to the ladder and ran up it. I bolted out of that decrepit cabin as fast as my legs could carry me...which apparently wasn't very far since I tripped over a thick root jutting out. I hate nature. I fell to the ground, skidding my knees and palms. I breathed through my teeth as blood welled up from the scratches. Great. I was dead. Any moment now, Jason was going to be coming out of that cabin with his machete and hack me to bits. I braced myself for the weapon to slice through me...

...Nothing.

I lowered my bleeding hands from my face and stared at the cabin door.

Jason didn't appear.

My breathing gradually slowed. I slowly stood up from where I fell, keeping my eyes on the cabin the whole time. No Jason. I waited a little longer, waiting for his hockey masked face to appear and stare right at me.

Nothing.

Minutes ticked by. I didn't have a phone on me but I assumed five whole minutes passed. Wasn't he going to kill me? He had all this time...His mother told him to kill me...Didn't he kill people for his mom? Was I reading into the legend wrong? Hesitant, I made my way back to the cabin. My steps were slow and deliberate. My eyes on the cabin door at all times. Once I got to the door, I stopped. I listened for any sounds. I heard his mother's voice. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but it sounded...angry? I decided to venture further into the cabin. I stopped when I came within five feet from the hand dug basement. There, I could see the back of Jason's jacket, and the angry hiss of his mother yelling at him.

-Going against your mother...I told you to kill...Kill Jason! Kill for Mother!...Don't you want your Mother to be proud of you?

I stared down into the basement speechless. I never thought I'd ever witness a grown, undead adult man being yelled at by his dead, mother's head. As I listened, it began to dawn on me that Jason didn't want to kill me. Once I had bolted out of there, he just stayed down there in the basement, ignoring his mother's request. As his mother continued to yell at him, I started feeling bad for Jason. Even after her death, he was still haunted by her. Taking over the kills for her. Listening to her every demand and fulfilling it. I wonder what made him not want to listen to her now. Was he tired of killing for her? Was it because I wasn't a camp counselor?

I decided to leave them to their bickering and find my way back to my dad's cabin.

...

On the upside it was still bright outside. On the downside...I was lost...again. Even when I tried going back to Jason's cabin, I couldn't find it again. It was as if it only appeared when Jason or Pamela wanted it to appear...or I was just blind and it blended in super well amongst the thick forest. As I walked through the forest, I couldn't help but to think back to Pamela. She seemed so hellbent on killing. Was she always like this? or was it because when Jason drowned in the lake, she just snapped? Now her restless spirit wanted to keep killing. Now her head dwelled underground in that basement with all those candles.

The candles. Wait...

I thought back to when I saw the warm orange light from the cabin when I was lost in the woods. She was underneath the cabin, how would I have been able to see the light from the candles?

Did her ghost light a candle for me to find the cabin?

I felt a shiver run down my spine. She lured me into the cabin. She already knew who I was. She was already planning to possess me. I wonder if she helped me find the book too at the library...

I stopped in my tracks. Oh shit...She planned this from the very beginning. She most likely chose me because I was an outsider...and is still young. Damn that bitch. I continued walking, but with longer strides. I slowed to a stop when something appeared above me. I looked up.

A wooden sign with the words Camp Crystal Lake appeared ten feet above my head. My eyes widened. The camp. I found it. The one Jason stayed at. I lowered my eyes from the sign and spotted the small wooden cabins. All similar to Jason's.

I counted twelve.

Suddenly, a dark figure appeared right before me, scaring the absolute shit out of me. My brain immediately went into survival mode, immediately thinking Jason finally listened to his mother and came to kill me.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!" I shouted, jumping out of my shoes and throwing my hands up and waving them violently in defense. Instead of finding Jason with his machete, I found myself in front of a thirty something year old man with a thin moustache and a wide rimmed hat. He wore a yellow camp counselor shirt and red short shorts. A whistle was around his neck so I immediately assumed he was the camp counselor leader. He stared down at his clipboard in his hands, oblivious to me screaming bloody murder and ready to punch his face.

"Ah yes, Here you are. The volunteer counselor everyone is talking about...good timing," he said, writing something down. "What's your name again?"

"I'm not a counselor-"

"Oh wait. I know who you are, your dad goes to Dana's Diner every Saturday. He's talked about you once or twice," he interrupted me then started crossing off something on his list. "Welcome aboard, camp counselor," he said as he gave me a yellow shirt with the words Camp Crystal Lake Counselor and an image of the lake printed on it.

I crumpled the shirt into a ball and threw it down. "No! I did not sign up for this!" I shouted angrily.

"Oh, but you did. Your name is right there," a familiar voice said behind me. I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. I didn't want to turn around. I could hear his boots crunching on the dead leaves and twigs underneath them as he approached me.

Kennith and Victoria. They already wore their yellow shirts and red short shorts. Victoria sneered at me in disgust when they stopped in front of me.

"Ew. What are you doing here?" she asked me. I threw my hands up. "I don't know! I got turned around and found myself here-" I started. Victoria snickered. "You got lost? Oh my gosh. How stupid are you?" she asked me, laughing. I glared angrily at her. "Not as stupid as you, being with that asshole," I said, pointing at Kennith.

Victoria glared at me, then her eyes noticed the shirt I threw on the ground. "Oh God. You signed up too?" she asked me. I saw Kennith smirking and glared at him. I picked up the shirt and gripped it it in my hand. "Yeah. Didn't your lying boyfriend tell you?" I snarled. Kennith's smirk vanished when Victoria looked up at him.

"I thought you were joking when you said your ex was going to be here!" she shouted. Kennith placed his hands up in defense. "Hey! I was! I don't know how this all happened!" I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, keep digging your own grave, Kennith," I said as I walked away from them. I walked up to the camp counselor leader and began to whisper to him.

"Do you happen to have any maps?"