Jason Voorhees's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Jason Voorhees wanted the lake back. Every summer, strangers pitched tents on his shore, and every summer he killed them one by one. But tonight, a problem gnawed at him. He had no den. He stood in the open pines, exposed. When trespassers looked up, they saw a huge man in a dripping mask, and they ran before he could reach them. A hunter needs a hole to wait in. Jason had none. Across the water, three young women waded in bikinis. One was blond, her face already tight with worry. She kept glancing at the trees. "I heard something," Marilyne Monroe said. Her friends laughed and splashed her. But she had seen his shape the night before, half-hidden, and lived. She knew a killer stood watching. Jason watched her point his way. He stepped back, and a branch cracked. All three screamed and bolted for their cabin. He had lost them again. Because he had nowhere to vanish into, they always spotted him first. Jason turned from the water. He needed a lair, close to the shore, dark enough to swallow him. He found the old cabin at the tree line. Its wood was gray and split. The steep roof sagged. A worn porch faced the lake through the pines. Jason forced the door. Inside smelled of rot and cold ash. It was empty, hidden, perfect. From its windows he could see the whole camp without being seen. But the cabin was not empty. Two soldiers had claimed it first. A blond man in camo swung a flashlight into Jason's mask. "Contact!" Lutenant Cole Mitchell shouted. He raised his pistol and fired. The bullet punched Jason's shoulder. Jason did not fall. "Steady, Mitchell." Sergeant Marcus Steel rose from a cot, rifle already up. He was older, calm, his helmet strap tight. "One target. Drop him." The rifle barked. Rounds hammered Jason's chest. He kept walking. Mitchell backed into a wall, reloading with shaking hands. "He's not going down, Sergeant!" Steel did not flinch. "Then we go down swinging." He fired again, point-blank. Jason grabbed the rifle barrel and wrenched it aside. He drove Steel into the log wall. The sergeant fought, cursing, until Jason's fist ended it. Mitchell fired his last rounds into Jason's back. Jason turned slow. The lieutenant's calm broke. He swung the empty pistol like a club. Jason caught his wrist and snapped it, then finished him against the floorboards. Silence returned. Jason stood among the wreckage, breathing wet through the mask. Blood ran down his arm, but the wounds meant nothing. He dragged both bodies out the back and let the dark take them. The cabin was his now. He had a den at last. From the window, he watched the girls' lamp glow across the water. But the gunfire had carried far over the lake. Other lamps were lighting now, one by one. Soon armed men would come looking for their two soldiers.