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.

The two soldiers lay in the weeds behind the cabin. Jason stood over them, listening. Lamps bobbed through the pines. Voices called for Mitchell and Steel. The search had already begun. If the men found the bodies, they would find his den. He had to bury the dead before the light reached the porch. Jason dragged both corpses toward the tree line. The ground there was soft and black. He knelt and tore at the earth with his hands, fast, deep. Roots snapped. He rolled the sergeant into the hole first, then the blond lieutenant beside him. He raked dirt and leaves over their faces until the ground looked untouched. A branch cracked behind him. Jason turned. A man stood frozen at the corner of the cabin, a startled camper in a green shirt, mouth wide, eyes locked on the fresh grave. He had wandered ahead of the searchers. For one breath, neither moved. Then the man screamed. "Bodies! There are bodies out here!" Jason lunged. The camper bolted for the water. Jason caught his shirt, spun him around, and drove him down into the dirt he had just packed. It was over in seconds. But the scream had carried. Across the lake, a shape rose on a low ridge. Scarlett Crimson lay flat behind her long rifle, red hair tied back, scope trained on the cabin. She was the unit's sniper, sent to watch the perimeter while the others swept the woods. She had heard the shout. Now she saw the masked giant standing over a body by the trees. "Contact at the old cabin," she said into her radio. "He's got two of ours. Maybe three." Her voice stayed flat and cold. She settled the crosshairs on the white mask. "I have the shot." Her rifle cracked. The round smashed into Jason's shoulder and spun him half around. He did not fall. He looked across the black water toward the muzzle flash. Then he stepped back into the cabin's shadow, out of her line. Below the ridge, Lieutenant Cole Mitchell crashed through the brush toward Scarlett's position. Blond and wild-eyed, he had survived the cabin once and come back for his men. "Talk to me, Crimson. Where is he?" "The cabin by the shore," she said, not lifting her eye from the scope. "That's his hole. He's been living in it." Mitchell keyed his radio. "All units, converge on the lake cabin. That's the target's nest. Burn it if you have to." Jason watched their lamps turn and stream toward him through the trees. He had buried the bodies. He had killed the witness. But the sniper had seen his face and named his lair. The camp knew now. His den was no longer secret. Machete in hand, he moved to the window and waited for the light to reach his porch.