HELLBABY 1. Joey B's was usually busiest just before midnight closing; the truckers en route to New Hampshire or Maine made a point of stopping at Crystal Lake's greasy spoon, no matter what the hour, but the coffee was best when the day wound down, the thirtieth pot having an edge to it and grizzled nomads seeking a last bit of conversation before a long night on the highway. Clarke had wanted to film during the day, but the bustling atmosphere meant more, so he conceded to the truckers' lifestyle and met his interview subjects at 11:00 PM on a bitterly cold November evening. The snow hadn't yet come down from the mountains, but icy winds knifing through the forest served as a harbinger of things to come. He'd talked to the management beforehand (Joey B. herself was no longer running things; another casualty) and they welcomed Clarke eagerly. Settling in a corner booth, he politely excused the staff. It would be enough for them to watch the proceedings from behind the counter. It never failed to amuse him how the exploitation of a local tragedy was the high point of the day for small-town folk. Tierney arrived first. A regular, he exchanged one-liners with the waitress before easing his girth into the booth across from Clarke. "I live on the chili," was the first thing he said. "Want a cup of coffee?" Clarke shook his head. "I've been drinking caffeine all day. How do you do it?" "You mean, how the does the old man keep his eyes open after five in the afternoon?" Tierney grinned, wiped his nicotine stained teeth with a napkin. "Never been much of a sleeper. It stays with you, you know, after you retire." "You mean being a cop." Clarke half-listened as he rummaged through his bag. In the adjacent booth, his cameraman was setting up the shot. The light on the camera stabbed into Clarke's weary eyes; he shot his lackey a glare. "Yeah," Tierney answered, "cop's hours are helter-skelter, even out here. Especially out here, I suppose. That'll be Dorf." He angled a thumb over his shoulder at the man entering the diner. Behind his glasses, Dorf's eyes were sharp. He smacked a wad of gum in his mouth and motioned for Tierney to slide over. "I'm late. Had to close up shop myself. Goddamn kids never stick around." "We may as well get started." Clarke told them. "Order if you'd like, it's on American Casefile's tab." At that, Dorf grinned and slapped Tierney's arm. "About time we caught a break." "You were both on Crystal Lake's police force twenty-five years ago, when Jason Voorhees began his killing spree." Clarke said. Dorf smacked his gum again and nodded. "I was first on the scene up at Packanack. Damn mess. Bodies literally strewn about." "I thought the bodies were in the shack in the woods?" Clarke countered. Dorf frowned, shrugged. "Plenty of blood, I'll tell ya that." He & Tierney both ordered beers and large bowls of chili. Tierney talked about the "death curse", the Pamela Voorhees crime scene, and how the city council forced most of the old police department into retirement before the ill-fated attempt to reopen Camp Crystal Lake under the Forest Green name. Dorf mostly talked about "goddamn kids." Clarke asked the right questions, held his stony reporter's countenance, and silently asked himself what the hell he was doing. Fact was, Jason Voorhees was as much an American Casefile institution as he was a Crystal Lake one. The nationally syndicated newsmagazine had risen above the ranks of its competitors by returning to Crystal Lake time & time again; losing host Robert Campbell to Jason himself didn't hurt ratings either. Even as the slasher's own hometown continued to languish in the wake of his numerous killing sprees, American Casefile was growing. Viacom acquired the show in 2004. They moved into their posh New York studios in '05, and that same year Graham Clarke became the lead anchor. It was principally his accent and looks that made him the man for the job, Clarke knew that. He hadn't been to England since he was twenty, and truth be told, his accent was gradually fading, but he kept up appearances around the show. That was what arsed him so much. He was actually playing himself now. The real Clarke didn't exist. And here he was doing another Jason exposé. He'd expected the Voorhees teat to shrivel up years ago - there hadn't been any murders connected to the infamous curse in the past few. But deep down, Clarke suspected that the public hungered for another killing spree as much as his producers did. Wrapping things up with the cops, Clarke hustled out of town. He had to catch a flight back to NYC, during which he'd grab a couple hours' sleep, then it was back in the trenches. Or, more appropriately, the tunnels. 2. "In these very sewer passages, beneath the streets of Manhattan, the FBI's manhunt for Jason Voorhees began. Here, Jason was caught in a tidal wave of toxic waste, and presumably washed out to sea. But they had to be sure - so a crack team of special agents descended into the sewers in May 1994." Clarke gestured to the filth-streaked walls around him, then beckoned to the man standing behind the cameraman, a former Bureau agent with a lean physique at sixty-odd years of age. He joined Clarke in front of the camera. "Agent Abernathy coordinated the search. He and his men combed the tunnels for any evidence of the killer's presence." Reaching the end of the passage, Clarke placed his hand on the rung of a ladder. "It was right here that Voorhees was reportedly struck by a wall of raw sewage. But despite an exhaustive search, you never did find his body, did you Agent?" "No." Abernathy said, hands in his pockets. "We thought he may have been destroyed by the waste - since we did find his mask." Clarke raised an eyebrow. This was news to him. "How long did the search last before the Bureau set up their sting in Crystal Lake?" "Five days. We didn't limit the hunt to the sewers, either. We were on the streets too. Jason - I mean, Voorhees - had killed several New Yorkers west of Times Square. We thought he may have gone topside to find more victims." "Today, when this city has fared tragedies far worse than a masked maniac" - Clarke steeled his gut to keep his breakfast down as he spoke - "Do you, Agent, think that Manhattan would be prepared for another spree?" "You mean Jason? Jason's dead." Abernathy shrugged. "What happened in 1994 was a fluke. It won't happen again." "You heard it here." Clarke said to the camera. He motioned for a cut. "We'll head back to the studio for the rest of the interview. It's suffocating down here." He tapped Abernathy's shoulder. "You said you found Jason's mask?" "Yeah." Abernathy took his hands out of his pockets and wrung them together. "Actually, I have it." So someone was looking to strike a bargain. "Is it with you now?" Clarke asked. "My hotel room." Abernathy replied. "I figured you might like to have a look at it." "You want to make a sale?" "Maybe. Depends." "Let me make a call." Clarke grabbed the ladder again. "Reception's shit down here." 3. I hate flying. I had to take a pill, and I knew I had to, but I got drunk before boarding the plane anyway. Now it's all sloshing around in my empty stomach and this paper bag tucked in the seat in front of me isn't very reassuring. Stewardess asks me if I'm okay. I tell her I'm fine. It's swimming in my gullet now, crawling up my throat. I'm going to wake up with five 7-dollar gin & tonics in my lap. Why am I going to New York? I massage my temples but it does nothing to break up the fog in my head. I do remember, however, why I'm on this plane. I have to do this. This suit is cheap and it looks like shit. Hair's a mess, weighing down my head. I want to call Ginny, like I always do when I'm like this, but these are the worst times to call. She'll know I'm drunk, no matter how carefully I form the words in my mouth, and she'll hang up and it'll add another mile to the distance between us. Scar hurts again. I trace the groove above my left eyebrow with my fingertips. I'm going to throw up. Swallow it. --- Paul Holt shifted uneasily in his seat, the cramped little coach seat that the show had coughed up for. He supposed it was a small price to pay compared to the fee he'd harangued out of them. Always the smooth talker, Paul. He used to command respect, to lead with his words. Now he could (maybe) buy himself another week with his creditors. Truth was that he didn't even know how deep in the hole he was. Interest always seemed to keep him just short of clearing his debts. Interest was compounded when he kept them waiting. They'd been waiting a long time now, and he knew he was out of second chances. Then the phone rang. Who's there? American Casefile. Paul dug through his pockets for his hotel info. It was supposed to be a nice place, not far from Times Square. They'd do the interview there. After he got some sleep. 4. The Viacom Building in Times Square played host to properties from various networks. American Casefile's studios had been on the third floor for four years. Graham Clarke's office was tucked away in the back; he preferred an unassuming location where people wouldn't look for him. At the moment, however, senior producer Bryan Bone was on the hunt for Clarke, and knew exactly where he was. He knew Clarke would have his feet up on his desk, phone glued to his ear - and their newest acquisition would be awaiting appraisal. Bone entered and snapped the hockey mask up off the desk. Wrapped in plastic, the burned and malformed relic, underside gummed with blackened matter, stared blankly up at the producer. "This is it?" He muttered. Clarke waved dismissively at him and went back to his phone conversation. "Hang up. Graham, hang up." Bone said. Clarke kept talking. Cocky bastard. Really thought he was something with that accent and swept back coif. And he'd just written some FBI reject a blank check for this piece of fucking plastic. Clarke finally put the phone down. Bone tossed the mask into his lap. "What are we going to do with this?" "Look. I've got guys who can authenticate it. C'mon Bryan, it's Jason's mask!!" "We're not an auction house, Graham! We use this in the next Jason series, then what? Put it in a closet?" "This thing is legend." Clarke retorted. "This is like buying the rights to the man himself." He was about to elaborate when the intercom on the phone squawked. "Graham, your wife's on 1." "She's not my wife." Clarke barked. "Sorry," came the female voice's reply, "the mother of your child, line 1." "Fire her." Clarke said to Bone. "Nope," Bone replied, and walked out. Clarke snatched up the receiver. "Graham?" "Wendy?" "Amanda doesn't really give a damn why you didn't show up last night. I thought I'd ask anyway." "Oh hell...Wendy, I was on assignment. Are you sure we had a thing last night?" "Yes, you had a 'thing'. You were taking her to Liberty Island." "Liberty...?" Clarke flipped through his day planner. Another reason to fire that secretary. "She lives in Manhattan. Who in Manhattan wants to go to Liberty Island?" "That wasn't the point, Graham - she wanted to hang out with you." He was drawing a total blank. When had he set this up? Probably agreed to it while half-listening on the phone. Shit. Still, he fought it. "Yeah, teenage girl wants to hang out with me. Wendy, a long time ago you said I didn't owe you anything. Tell Mandy she doesn't owe me anything, either." "You really don't get it, do you?" There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Clarke sighed away from the receiver. "She's trying, Graham. I haven't been pushing her into this. She's doing it on her own. And you...you're just as worthless as the day we broke up." Click. He lost that round. The mask was still in his lap. Clarke placed it back on the desk and returned its cold gaze. "I blame you." --- The mask went to Rothman Laboratories. The only tech on the evening shift was Morse, and he didn't understand why he was being forced to pull a double in order to analyze this hockey mask, and no one bothered explaining. "Story of my life," he said to an empty room, clearing his dinner off the table, putting on a pair of gloves and removing the mask from its bag. It was horribly scarred, with burns running across the entire surface and areas of blistering. "Chemical." Morse concluded. He carefully pulled a thread of melted plastic from the surface. The underside was worse. Covered in something organic. Morse refused to speculate on that one; better to let the tests sort it out. And he'd be here until sunrise monitoring them...his eyes hurt. Swiveling away on his stool, he cracked open a contact lens case. Popped out one lens, then the other, then dropped them into shallow pools of saline and retrieved his glasses from a drawer. Morse leaned over the mask and pried at the organic matter with a scalpel. A little fleck bounced off his glasses. Plenty more where that came from. A couple hours went by before he was satisfied that he'd isolated all of the elements of (and on) the mask; Morse cracked his knuckles behind his head and yawned. "Am I getting time and a half for this?" He rose from the stool and was struck by a dizzy spell. Veering away from the mask, he stumbled, and groaned as his glasses slipped from his face. The familiar tinkle of shattering glass, and he watched blurry debris scatter across the floor in dismay. Forget time and a half, if he kept doing that he'd be flat broke. Again. Morse dropped back onto the stool and grabbed his lens case. He didn't see - couldn't see - that the wayward fleck of organic material had drifted into the open case. Had settled on his left eye's lens. Morse hunched over the table and replaced the contact. His head immediately snapped back, and he let out a blood curdling scream. Hands flying to his face, Morse toppled backwards off the stool, crushing the frames of his glasses, and howled in agony. He only pulled his hands away in order to rise to his knees...dark blood streamed from the horror of his eroding eye. Staggering to his feet, he crashed against the table and was sent reeling across the room. The pain was blinding enough that he couldn't see out of either eye, and Morse plowed head on through a door where the world dropped out from beneath him. He bounced down a flight of steel stairs with a series of wet crunches. Limbs were caught underneath his body and snapped like balsa. Morse's head struck the wall, and shattered vertebrae nearly erupted through the skin of his neck. The sounds of his terrible demise echoed down the stairwell, then faded to silence. 5. Paul's wrist locked up as he was jotting down his room number on the message pad provided by the hotel. With a sharp intake of breath he dropped the pen and, starting at the shoulder, gently massaged his arm. The wrist was a cruel, lingering memory of the first and last time he'd tried to erase a debt with threats. Back when he thought the police might give a damn about some flat-broke drunk who spent his days & nights hustling and losing on the Vegas Strip. Back before he realized that he was just one of many, many flat-broke drunks who'd stepped willingly into the vicious circle. The guy who'd been tailing him that night was named Bale. He'd watched over Paul's shoulder at the craps table, and when Paul threw away the last of his cash, Bale gently took his arm and led him into a service corridor. "I was going to pay them back tonight," Paul insisted as they stood alone in the cold hallway. "If I'd had any damn luck out there...look, I can have it all inside of a week." Bale, shaven head and a slight build, nodded. He was still holding Paul's arm; now his hand moved to Paul's wrist, the wrist he used to cast those ill-fated dice. "I don't want to cause any trouble for your guys." Paul said, in what he hoped was a firm tone. It was such a sudden and deft snap that he hadn't even realized what happened until he tried to push Bale away, and saw his hand fold at an unnatural angle. Then came the hurt, in spades. Now, in the hotel room, Paul opened his overnight bag and fished through it for his pills. He'd wash them down with a few drinks and crawl right into bed. No need for nightmares. --- Clarke listened quietly, then hung up his cell. An employee at Rothman Labs, dead, and there was a good chance that Clarke wouldn't be seeing that hockey mask for a long time. Part of the crime scene. "Fuck." He said to his empty loft. --- CSI Mix, NYPD Central Park Precinct, watched as Morse was bagged and loaded into a white van. "I'll come down tomorrow afternoon." He told the deputy coroner, then headed into the Rothman building. Mix's prematurely silver hair never failed to fall in his eyes as he took in a crime scene. He slicked it back with his hand before pulling on gloves. He'd have to requisition any surveillance footage later. Upon calling Rothman himself, Mix had been told that this fellow Morse was the only one here. Yet - broken glasses, an overturned stool, and a fall down the stairs on the other side of the room. Then there was the eye, or lack thereof. There were no burns or other wounds on the face, nothing to indicate exactly what had gone wrong here. A field technician had already documented the scene with his camera; Mix carefully closed the contact lens case and placed it in a box. Didn't want to risk spilling the material by simply bagging it. He also noted that there was only one lens floating in the solution. --- He wormed his way through flesh and tissue, permeated bone, slipped into broken hands and feet as if putting on a suit. It was a poor fit...not just because of the small, soft frame, but because the body was splintered in dozens of places. Some parts were completely numb while others were drowning in blood. Jason opened his new eye. He was in a suffocating darkness, a black bag being jostled within a moving vehicle. Jason tried to raise an arm and couldn't. The restrictions of the bag were not what hampered him, though; the arm simply lay in pieces inside this bruised skin. His head felt thick and groggy. The skull was fractured, he could sense that much. Unlike his own body, it seemed this suit could only take so much. After all, he knew how easy it was to tear one limb from limb. And his spirit felt weak, detached. He didn't remember what had happened to him. Where was his familiar body...why, how? All that Jason could clearly grasp was that he himself, like the dead man in which he rested, was broken. So he lay still in the body bag. And waited. 6. Dr. Farmer stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray beside his keyboard. Unlike the rest of the city, his "day" was just beginning. He preferred the quiet, preferred working uninterrupted. Not much for company, Farmer enjoyed a long night in the morgue. Of course he wasn't alone, exactly. A quick trip down the hall to the coffee machine, then into the autopsy room where the new arrival had been stripped and laid out under fluorescent lights. Except he wasn't there. Farmer narrowed his eyes, took a sip of coffee. "Jimmy? You still here?" No answer from his assistant. Maybe he'd put the body on ice before leaving? "Never fails," Farmer muttered. "This is why I like working alone." The flailing corpse attacked him from the back, sending the doctor's coffee across the room and the doctor himself into the floor. Pain shot through his back and arms as he hit concrete. Farmer rolled onto his back, gasping, and the corpse wobbled toward him on broken legs. Farmer grabbed the leg of the autopsy table and half-pulled himself, half-pulled the table. He scrambled for the other end of the room where the phone was. Ran right past it and out the door. Morse's body buckled over the table. Blood and something darker ran in thick strands from its lips. Farmer bolted through a side door, heading back around the morgue for his office. He could lock himself in there, call the PD. His back felt like it might not make the trip. Pausing momentarily, Farmer listened to the eerie silence. Maybe it hadn't gotten out of the autopsy room. It - there had to be a reasonable explanation. One that no one had ever heard of, maybe, but still- - He heard feet scraping and turned to see the corpse raising an axe in its arms. Farmer screamed and shoved it back; the axe flew back over its head and clipped a fluorescent light. The cover smashed down on its head. Morse fell. Clutching his spine, Farmer limped for the office. Morse wrenched a tube out of the light fixture. "HELP ME!!" Farmer bellowed. He heard the tube shattering behind him. Then, a spear of jagged glass burst through his abdomen. Farmer grabbed the tube protruding from his belly, breaking the glass in his hand, and slumped to the floor. Pus bubbled from Morse's swollen lips. He collapsed atop the dead coroner. Flesh sloughed away from his palms where he'd caught himself; he was falling apart. Jason fumbled with Farmer's mouth, trying to pry it open; but his fingers were becoming more brittle even as his flesh liquefied. Snap, snap, snap. He fell on his shoulder and felt it give. Jason dragged his body toward the door at the end of the hall marked EXIT. Slapped at the handle until it gave. Rolled down stairs into an alley. Morse's back ruptured, and something tore free of the body, slithering toward an open sewer. INTERLUDE: LEARNING TO SWIM On May 13, 1994, Jason Voorhees was one month away from his forty-eighth birthday. Hardly aware of the fast-approaching milestone - the achievement of having lived (so to speak) half a century - Jason preferred to mark time in victims. He'd actually stopped counting heads long ago; now it was just more, more, more, each drop of blood spilled another second of his life, another ounce of tribute to his mother, another step toward redemption. So it was that Jason measured his life & purpose, and so it was that when he found himself eroding in a sea of toxic waste, being flushed from Manhattan's sewers, far from any victim, he had a profound sense of timelessness. Drifting quietly in the vile current, his hearing and vision both gone and what remained of his head just above the surface, Jason thought. For the first time in a long time he thought about something other than his purpose. He thought about what was happening to his body. It didn't really hurt; pain was a sensation he'd left behind. Like so many things, like fear, like death, Jason had let the notion of pain go because it hindered him. While he could still feel flesh and muscle peeling away in thick ropes and the insides of his eyeballs running down his mottled cheeks, it wasn't anything more than an inconvenience. A considerable inconvenience to be sure, but he wasn't anywhere near finished with his mission therefore this was not the end, just a stumbling block. His body rocked slightly as the current pulled him deeper into the tunnels, and something flickered in the bowels of his mind, those unused parts that always slept. Floating...swimming. Trying to swim. Crystal Lake. Of course he then thought of his mother, and the way she had chewed her fingernails to the quick as she watched him wade out for the first time; so worried, so protective and so right. But Jason had begged for her to let him feel the cool water embracing his body, hiding his ugly, bony frame beneath its black mirrored surface. He was so sure that he could be like the other kids at the camp once he got out there in the water. He would swim with them - past them! - and he'd win their approval. Even the counselors who normally avoided glancing in his direction had watched with interest as he entered the lake. He found his gaze wandering from Mommy's nervous stare to the faces of the others watching, forgetting about her. They all wanted to see him, and he wasn't going to disappoint. Pushing off from the bottom of the lake, throwing his arms out and closing his eyes, he'd left the warm summer world above for the world below... Jason was apprehensive about the entire thing, reflecting his mother's concern, but nothing was going to stop him now and as he felt his head submerge, his heart quickened - he'd done it! A smile, the smile that no one ever wanted to see, spread across his face, and he felt a surge of happiness even as he drifted downward. He almost wanted to laugh. Then he did, and he sucked the filthy water into his lungs and his pounding heart screamed. Jason spun underwater, opening his eyes and seeing only distorted shafts of light at absurd angles, each one teeming with particles. It was all dirt and bugs and fish guts, all the terrible things Mommy had warned him about and each panicked gulp brought more of it into his body. He couldn't breathe! He was losing air and the filthy water was settling like lead in his chest, pulling him further down! Suddenly the shafts of light all around him were torn asunder, and he was struck by a violent current. He was going to die. The lake had claimed him and he would be rooted in the earth at its darkest depths. Food for the giant fish that were surely watching him even now with their unblinking, hungry eyes. The current was coming from a pair of thrashing limbs. He recognized her sweater, felt her arms under his, and was jerked into the warm summer again. Almost as if the water in his lungs was reviled by exposure to the sun, it gushed from his lips and returned to the lake, leaving his lungs two deflated sacks of tissue. Jason's mother beat on his back as she hauled him towards the shore, where stunned gasps were turning into groans, into some sort of resentful, spiteful sound...? Jason just stared at his reflection in the water, air forcing its way back into his body whether he liked it or not. The counselors and kids on the shore were actually disappointed. He had finally caught their attention by nearly drowning himself and now they were angry with him for not following through. The all too-adult cynicism that resides in every child came out of Jason's mouth in a tired sob. If anything, this was only going to make life worse. But Mommy, who'd been right about the lake all along, would protect him. She'd keep him away from both the water and the kids. His dad used to say cuss words like "bastards" all the time, and Mommy would cover Jason's ears and shout back at Dad in pretty much the same language. Now, as Jason looked at the campers, his stare concealed by the thick skin of his brow, he reasoned that everyone at Crystal Lake was pretty much a fucking bastard. And yet his heart ached at the realization. He couldn't ever be like that and he couldn't ever be their friend. Not unless he learned to swim... While lost in the memory, some of that reasoning ability was dredged up from the dormant place in Jason's psyche and he sensed that he was being eaten away by the toxic waste at a rapid pace. Most of his skin was gone; acidic waves were lapping at bone now, and even worse, some parts of his body had already been exposed long before the waste engulfed him (like his ribcage) and tendrils of the stuff were squeezing & spurting their way into his innards. There was no attempting to swim in this vile soup now. His limbs were nubs. His face was gone too, and he withdrew from his head, withdrew from the notion that the movement of the human consciousness is limited to the brain. Jason withdrew into his torso and felt around. Streams of waste were filling him, bursting through his lungs and weighing him down. Strings of muscle and arterial tissue, worn thin, gave way and snapped. It was all coming down, this body was useless, no swimming out of this one. Not that he'd ever learned how anyway. He could trudge across the lake well enough, and just several hours prior he'd clawed his away along the bottom of a stormy harbor, and even kicked himself to the surface. But he couldn't move freely in the water. And any movement in this shit only hastened its erosion of his body. Jason fought off a strange feeling that was coming in with the liquid - fear - and withdrew further into himself, into his black heart. Drowning again. His heart thudded against softening ribs. Drowning again. This time, he wouldn't be able to rest & wait while the fish (who were actually quite small) picked at him. He would be all gone in a matter of moments, and then what? Would he just become one with the waste and go wherever it went? Part of an endless current, helpless in its grip? Jason didn't have any control if he didn't have a body. He didn't have any means of fulfilling his purpose. This meant failure, it meant those fucking bastards had beaten him for real. Worse yet, being caught in the current meant that he would never see Mommy again; even to be scolded and reprimanded by her would be better than this. Especially when she was probably worried sick about him. Jason had gone under again and this time she couldn't pull him out. He had to pull himself out then. HAD to. Body or not, he had to swim. Jason curled into a ball inside his thudding heart and wrenched it free of the torso. The remains of the vessel drifted away from him; no longer a part of Jason. Gone. The toxic waste couldn't truly kill him, but the heart was still vulnerable, so he infused it with his essence, threading himself through every fiber of muscle and riding strong atop the river. He was swimming now, he knew it. He was boundless and free and confident, and before long he would be able to get back to his mission. Jason would just need to find another body out there, like a ship adrift in the sea, and he would climb aboard and steer it back home. --- Now, re-entering the sewer, freed from Morse's rapidly decomposing meat, Jason remembered all that had happened in Manhattan fifteen years prior - he remembered making his escape, and remembered leaving part of himself behind on the charred underside of that hockey mask. And he remembered how he had indeed found a new body down there... --- "Midnight." Agent Gaines barked through his gas mask. A shallow wave of toxins spilled over Abernathy's boots. The city had closed off this sector (allegedly), but it never failed that this noxious ebb tide washed through the tunnels as each new day began. He planted a gloved fist against the wall. "I'm ready to hang it up." "Sir? We haven't found anything yet. Nothing." "He's been flushed out of the sewer. Or worse, he walked out." "We haven't heard anything- -" "Doesn't mean he isn't up there." Abernathy snapped. "He sure as hell isn't down here." Gaines fell silent. It had been a miserable, fruitless five days. Abernathy hadn't been confined to the sewers all that time; he spent two days grilling the survivors of the doomed Lazarus. They were both a mess and yielded little information beyond the location of Jason's last stand. He tapped a radio mic on his shoulder. "Second unit." A distant voice rasped through static. "Chesterfield here. We're about done with our sweep. Got zilch, boss." Abernathy nodded bitterly. "Pull it out. I'll call Myers in New Haven." Gaines gave him a questioning look. "We're going to Crystal Lake." His superior muttered. At the other end of the winding, fetid labyrinth, Agents Chesterfield and Haley gathered their equipment. Making a sound like a backed-up pipe, Haley gagged, tugged at his mask. "I've got a leak. My eyes are burning!" "Take it off," Chesterfield said nonchalantly. "Are you kidding me??" Haley spat. "Take it off!" Chesterfield barked. Haley peeled the gas mask from his head and immediately clapped a glove over his nose and mouth. "It's worse out here!" "No it isn't. Give it a second." Slinging a bag over his shoulder, Chesterfield pointed down a tunnel on their right. "That'll take you out. Hustle." Haley nodded, said something through his glove and broke into a half-run. Chesterfield shook his head and headed in the opposite direction. He'd drawn the low card against Patterson and been stuck down here, instead of on the streets where he'd actually be useful. No one had been enthusiastic about the hunt for Jason Voorhees. His file had been sealed and reopened more times than anyone cared to remember. Should've been declared dead years ago. Anyone could put on a hockey mask and- - Chesterfield stopped in his tracks. Craned his neck to look back at a mess of debris wedged in a corner. "Goddamn." He carefully fished the mask from the rest of the detritus. In his stifling outfit, loaded down with the gear that he & Haley should've split, Chesterfield was chilled to the core. It was as if the mask were made of ice, chewing through his gloves and bonding with his flesh. He dropped it with a start. "Goddamn." Had he not been so mesmerized by the discovery, Chesterfield might have heard Haley's faint cries. The other agent was lost. All these fucking tunnels looked exactly the same. Haley slapped his radio again and tried to get a signal. First time he'd had any trouble with it. And fuck Chesterfield, his eyes were still watering, a discomfort only made worse as his boots sloshed through a puddle of waste. "CHESTERFIELD!!" He bellowed. Should he try and go back? Get more lost? Hell, either way he went he was gonna get more lost. Haley choked on a lungful of fumes, then slipped and went facefirst into the waste. It splashed out and up, all over his head, feeling like cool water, then in a split second the temperature leapt and his skin was aflame. Haley threw his head back and screamed. Another split-second passed. He never saw the dark, maggoty thing corkscrewing through the air toward his face, nor did he feel his cheekbone give way as the worm tore through, driving straight into his skull. Hair and scalp sloughed off in sickening lumps. Jason rose to his knees - Haley's knees, rather - and mauled most of the flesh from what remained of his face. An eyeball plopped in the waste and shrank to nothing. Protecting the remaining eye with his hands, Jason staggered down the tunnel. He could sense the salty, filthy tang of the sea close by. He could sense home. --- The worm had once again returned to Manhattan's sewers. This time, Jason knew, his pulsating mass writhing on the cold floor, the bodies wouldn't come to him. It was time to hunt. 7. Paul stirred from sleep at four in the morning. He saw Jason standing at the foot of his bed - not the modern myth of the hockey mask and rotting flesh, but the Jason from Packanack - a bulbous, calloused head and a toothy grin. Paul sat up with a scream just as Jason lunged. The apparition blurred and vanished before it could lay claim to its victim. Paul screamed again, to convince himself that he was indeed awake, then flopped back on the bed. In that first waking moment, at the first sight of Jason, there had been a palpable feeling that he was really THERE - now there was only a vacuum, which in itself seemed to suggest that something HAD been there...Paul needed a drink. Luckily, there was one beside the phone. Half a bottle of Bombay Sapphire, if he remembered correctly. Snapping on the bedside lamp and narrowing his eyes to slits, Paul harrumphed. A fourth of a bottle. Enough to reduce the nightmare to just a nightmare, at least. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, taking a pull off the bottle, he should call Ginny. He was reasonably sober, especially after that wake-up call, and if this wasn't a legitimate reason to talk to her, what was? He placed his hand on the phone, hesitated. What would she think of his gig in NYC? Facing his past, or paying off loan sharks? Paul took his hand off the phone and mopped the sweat from his brow. He'd call her when he got home, once things were settled. That was better. He took another drink. --- After a sleepless night, Clarke cleaned up for another day at the office. The receptionist on the ground floor stopped him as he entered the Viacom Building. "Your secretary called down - said your daughter's been trying to get a hold of you." Clarke nodded and pulled out his phone. Wendy had said that Mandy wasn't hurt over their missed date, but if she'd been calling... He fished through his wallet and searched the back sides of business cards until he found the one Mandy's cell number was scrawled on. So maybe Wendy had lied, and the girl'd been waiting this whole time for him to pick up a phone. Typical. When his ex said she'd shoulder the burden of raising a child alone, she was really just hoisting another cross onto her back. Always the victim. And now she was victimizing their daughter. "No more relaying messages through her, then." Clarke was dialing when Paul Holt walked into the lobby. "Mister Holt!" He slipped the phone back into his jacket. "Did our producer call you this early?" Holt shook his head. "No, I just hadn't heard from anyone since I checked into the hotel." "Well, there have been some complications. I don't know if we'll be doing the interview today." "I'm flying out tomorrow. Seems like it's now or never." Shoving his hands into his pockets, Holt smiled uncertainly. His eyes were bleary from a hangover. Clarke patted his shoulder. "Relax. If we have to rearrange things a bit, you'll get to stay in town on American Casefile's dime." He didn't bother explaining the situation with the dead technician. In fact, even as Clarke spoke, he was processing the other situation in the back of his mind. Maybe there was a way to spin the accident at Rothman Labs. Of course there was. The ol' death curse, at it again. But he needed to get that mask back- - Holt was talking. Clarke coughed into his fist. "I'm sorry, come again?" "I'm on something of a deadline." Holt repeated. "Any time you can clear a spot for me, that'd be great." "I promise I'll do that, as soon as I can." Clarke replied. His phone rang shrilly. Had Mandy gotten the number? "I'm sorry Mister Holt, we'll talk again. Today. You'll be at the hotel, right? I'll give you a call." He half-turned away from Holt and answered the phone. "Graham." "Graham Clarke?" A gruff male voice. "Yes, who's this?" "My name is Mix, I'm with the NYPD crime lab. Have a moment?" The "ol' death curse" had struck again. --- When Paul arrived back at the hotel, he too had a visitor. "Holt! Have a drink with me!" Called the familiar, genial voice. A thin hand belying its true strength waved from the bar. And maybe it was just Paul's cynical nature, but he wasn't the least bit surprised. "Still gin & tonic, right?" Bale asked. Paul slipped onto the neighboring barstool and shook his head. "Yes, it's gin & tonic, but no thanks." Bale played with the little straw in his cocktail. "How's the Apple so far? This is a nice place, Paul. Didn't think you could foot the bill for a joint like this. At least not the way you talk." "I'm not paying for it." Paul said. "Look, I came here to get the money. All of it. You didn't need to come after me." "Yeah, I did. You're not our most reliable client, you know that? You're what we call a bad investment. Bad investment hops on a plane and flies 2,500 miles to a big city, we worry." Paul's wrist locked up; he moved it to his lap. "I'll wire the money before I leave town. You can watch." "I will." Bale shook a few melting ice cubes into his mouth and chewed on them. "They didn't send me out here for a conversation." "I know." "You mind picking up my tab?" --- Descending the stairs into the basement of the building, Bert called for Charlene. There was no answer, but he knew she was down here. Playing coy. He walked into the laundry room. She'd given him a look, THAT look, before slinking out of their third-floor apartment. But why down here? The floor was icy cold, the only sound the thrumming of a solitary washing machine. A quick glance told him Charlene wasn't in the room. Exiting, Bert padded quietly down the hall to the open door marked MAINTENANCE. The boiler room was warm and dank. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. But she was in here, he sensed it now. Smelled her. Bert called again and got nothing. This game was getting tiring. Wait, there she was - barely visible behind a huge black pipe rising from the floor. Careful to keep out of her sight, Bert crept forward. Behind the pipe, Charlene's foot, severed, lay in a massive pool of blood. Matted bits of hair and flesh were plastered to the floor, the pipe, the wall beyond. The blood, thick & syrupy, led to an open drain in the corner. Bert turned to run. --- From his place on the ceiling, curled around a warm water pipe, Jason watched the cat sniff the remains of the other feline. When it began to flee, he dropped onto its back. After feeding, Jason moved behind a heater. Weak as he already was, he knew he couldn't stay like this. He was soft and small and vulnerable. It was a feeling he hadn't experienced in a long, long time. He made himself harder. Lifted his fat belly off the floor with plated limbs. Yes, his strength was fading, but his will was uncompromising; and as he pulled himself across the room, Jason knew he'd need to eat again. Something bigger. 8. CSI Mix examined the body of his friend, the late Dr. Farmer, in stolid silence. There were...fluids on Farmer's face that looked foreign. Perhaps from the killer. Morse's corpse was a mystery unto itself. Mix had only been able to identify him based on the toe tag lying in a puddle of liquefied tissue. Maybe this was a progression of what had started in his eye. A bacteria, a virus? Rothman Labs didn't deal with pathogens. Still, Mix covered his mouth with his fist and backed away from the remains. --- "I haven't seen your cats, and frankly it's not my responsibility to keep track of pets." Ms. Perry snapped. One of her tenants, a thin little DJ named Alvarez - he looked like a vegan, or maybe a meth addict - had confronted her in the hall, spindly arms crossed and a tight frown beneath his ridiculous moustache. How someone like him made enough money to pay the rent was beyond Perry, but his checks always cleared. "The front door wasn't open, was it? It shouldn't be. I don't want them getting out into the park." Alvarez grumbled. Perry sighed loudly. "Don't you have them microchipped or something?" "That's cruel." Alvarez sniffed. Perry wondered if the little bastards had even gotten their vaccinations. She should start requiring proof. "Look," she said, "I'm sorry but if you allow your pets to leave the apartment, I'm not liable for that." Glowering at her one last time, Alvarez headed downstairs. The laundry room was freezing. "Bert?" Alvarez called. If he and Charlene had gotten behind the washers, they'd probably refuse to come out. Perry, that hag, she wouldn't be any help. He angled his head into the hall and spied the open maintenance door. "Oh, shit. Bert!" Who knew what filth was in there? Perry's handyman Combs always smelled of sewage and chemicals; Alvarez quickened his pace and pushed the door the rest of the way open. "Charlene!" He nearly slipped in the oily mess on the floor. Cursing silently, he examined his $200 sneakers. There was a bit of fur stuck to his heel. His heart leapt into his throat. Pain bit into Alvarez's ankle. He toppled forward, palms stinging as they broke the fall; the oily substance on the floor was blood and was now plainly visible on his hands, his jacket, coppery in his mouth. He screamed. The thing tore voraciously up the back of his leg and dug claws, thick like skewers, into his shoulder blades. Alvarez thrashed about on the floor, trying to throw the creature off, but despite its small (catlike) size it held him down, and something sharper and thicker than its claws flayed him open. --- "Thank you, thank you, thank you," Clarke whispered, tearing open the package on his desk. A few plaintive calls to his NYPD contacts had actually paid off. The hockey mask fell loose. With the debacle at the morgue, the mask had been dismissed as unrelated to the deaths. Clarke breathed relief and reached for his phone. Had to call Mandy back. The intercom cut him off. "Graham, there's a Detective Mix from the New York Crime Lab to see you." Jesus! He threw open the top drawer of his desk and swept the mask inside. "Send him in." Mix extended a hand to Clarke as he entered. "We spoke on the phone this morning." "Right." Clarke accepted the firm handshake and gestured to a chair. "Terrible thing about the coroner. Do you know yet what happened?" "Not quite." Crossing one leg over the other, Mix fiddled with his shoelaces. "Of course, I called you because of the business with Morse's body. I'm concerned that his condition may be connected to the mask he was examining - now I find that we've misplaced it somewhere in our evidence room." Ever the stalwart journalist, Clarke maintained an attentive yet detached gaze. Inside, his guts turned. "Maybe you can tell me a bit about it," Mix continued. "The mask, purportedly, was worn by one Jason Voorhees - the Crystal Lake Killer. We obtained it from a source in the FBI and I sent it to Rothman for authentication. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the mask myself. I was waiting to hear back from the lab." Mix was scratching notes on a little pad. "Voorhees, hmm. I remember that. Okay, interesting. Who was your contact at the Bureau?" "I'm really not obliged to say." Clarke put on a sympathetic frown. Mix's frown was more sincere. "Then can you tell me where he or she obtained the mask?" "Here. Manhattan. The sewers, you might remember that manhunt back in '94?" Mix nodded. "Sewers." He was writing furiously. "Mister Clarke, if I could be frank." "Please." "The mask might be contaminated in some way. I'll have to run some tests to be sure - and to do that, I'll have to find the damn thing - but I would suggest you get some blood work done by your doctor." Clarke scooted away from his drawer. "I'll do that. Thank you so much, Detective." He forgot all about calling Mandy. --- Upon returning to the precinct, Mix pulled up the Times' 1994 Voorhees articles on microfiche. He jotted down the name of Logan Abernathy, leader of the FBI task force. He also noted in a later piece that one of the agents involved with the search had gone AWOL following the assignment. Rookie named Haley. 9. Ms. Perry had sent Combs up to the second floor to hassle once again with the garbage chute. Damn door lost a screw and locked up every week, it seemed. Muttering gibberish, he grabbed the handle and shook it. Stuck fast, as usual. Christ forbid tenants actually leave the building once in a while, carry their trash outside like he had to. Putting his weight behind the next tug, hoping he wouldn't tear the handle off - Combs let out a cry as the door shrieked open. One thing had gone right today! That was a new record. He poked his head into the chute, trying not to inhale, and examined the door's hinges. Something scrabbled up the shaft with lightning speed. Combs briefly had the impression of a mewling baby lizard before its claws latched onto either side of his face and tears of agony flooded his vision. --- Jason wrenched Combs' entire body into the chute with ungodly strength. As his belly filled with meat and his energy returned, so did the rage. The rage at his current situation, the rage at being so far from home, where the woods - Mother's woods - were surely being desecrated by the witless bastards who never ceased to enter his territory. Jason often asked himself why they kept coming. Didn't they understand what happened to all those who came before them? Didn't they understand...? They had to. They just didn't care. Their contempt for him knew no bounds, from his youth to the present day. And in his absence, they were no doubt defiling the grounds where he paid tribute to his mother in spilled blood. INTERLUDE: WINTER CHAPTER December, 1983 Jason skirted the woods around the old camp quietly, avoiding the brittle layer of snow on the ground. Rather, he moved from patch to patch of bare grass, eyeing the cabins. He'd been scavenging the campground for months now. Taking sheet metal from the kitchen, and wood from just about anywhere else, he'd been able to erect a shack as the weather grew less tolerable. Plenty of nails lay around the camp for Jason to use, albeit crudely, and he'd built the hovel in a clearing not far off. He'd also taken a toilet from the counselors' cabin, although he hadn't used it; in fact, Jason was beginning to question most of his bodily functions. Slaughtering and eating rabbits didn't seem to satisfy the gnawing in his body. When he breathed, it was as if nothing entered his lungs; things smelled stale and dead all around him, and he felt...unnatural in his own skin. Was this his purpose? To sit in the shack with Mother and silently beg for her return? He thought not. Years back, only two months after her death, after he'd retrieved her severed head, Jason had made an offering. Horrified by the unstoppable decay of her, her skin losing its color and drying out, the insects crawling in her hair - horrified and enraged, Jason had gone after the girl who killed Mother. It was all too easy. The girl had returned to the abandoned camp, as if to relive her atrocity, and from there Jason followed her to a house just inside town. And there, there, he'd showed her Mother's head, showed her what she had done to Mother's beauty, showed her the gruesome expression frozen on Mother's face - then he'd planted an icepick in her temple. It was all too easy. But Mother didn't come back. She didn't praise him, didn't comfort him. What was he supposed to do? Boots crunched in the snow. Jason cowered behind one of the cabins and searched for the source of the noise. Two men in heavy gear emerged from the woods just beside the lake. He recognized fishing poles and tackle boxes. Jason had always wanted to learn to fish but wasn't allowed. And for good reason - look at him now. Look what the lake had taken from him, and from Mother. "Jason." Absorbed as he was in his own thoughts, he almost didn't hear the voice. Jason turned away from watching the fishermen and studied the woods. Then he heard it again. "Jason." His hands began to tremble. He lifted them to his face, covering the growths that marred his childlike appearance. It was her. She was everywhere, her voice coming from the icy trees, the desolate cabins, from within Jason himself; she permeated Crystal Lake. Of course. She had died right there, right there where the fishermen had trodden. She had bled into the earth as her head bobbed in the waters. "Jason." She'd been here all along, with him all along...this place. Now the fishermen were perched on the thick ice, hacking at it. This was her lake. They shouldn't be here. Jason rose and walked forward. He stepped carefully onto the ice, remembering his struggle when he'd gone down, down to the bottom. He tugged nervously on the legs of the overalls he'd stolen from a clothesline. He approached the fishermen. One of them, face sheathed in an unkempt beard, started at the sight of him. "Holy Christ," he breathed, then barked gruffly, "what do you want?" The other man looked up and flinched. Jason knew why and was stung by shame, but he couldn't back down. He just stared. "Hey, you hear me?" The bearded one snapped. "What're you looking at? Get the hell outta here!" "He's retarded, Jim." Said the other one. "I don't care." The bearded man stood up and pointed past Jason. "Get going!" "Get outta here!" "Jim." "Are you deaf too, boy? Get the hell away from us- -" The bearded man stuck two fingers hard into Jason's chest. The arrogance, the hatred of the man... (NOT YOUR LAKE) Jason grabbed the fisherman's hand and folded it in half with a terrible SNAP-SNAP-SNAP of bones. The man gave him an incredulous look, then his lips parted and he screamed. The other one rose with an ice saw in his grip. "Hey! HEY!" Jason grabbed the bearded man's head, sank a thumb into his eye. He hurled him aside. The other one ran forward, fear and uncertainty in his eyes; Jason caught his wrist and tried to tear the saw free. The man held on tight. Jason grunted, wrenched at it. The bearded man grabbed a tackle box with his good hand and slammed it into Jason's temple. He startled the other man, and Jason got the saw - he ripped the man's throat open, loosing gouts of warm blood. The bearded man screamed again. Jason swiped the tackle box from his hand and leapt at him. The temperature of the water stunned Jason as he and the fisherman went through the ice. Stark white surroundings were replaced by darkness; he lost hold of his thrashing victim, but both continued their rapid descent into the lake. Jason was momentarily seized by panic. He was eleven again, plummeting helplessly to an eternal grave. He was...he was... Not starving for breath. Not drowning. Not dying. Jason relaxed his limbs and watched as the fisherman settled on the lake bed. And he was satisfied. But the sensation was fleeting. It was replaced by rage. Because he knew more would be coming. 10. Paul set his cell phone on the bar, took a drink and contemplated it. Anxiety was eating his insides. How long would it be before American Casefile came through? Would Bale wait? The hairs on the back of his neck stood at the thought. Bale could be watching him right now. Probably was. He dialed Ginny's work number. "Beechwood, front desk." "Um, yes, I'm looking for Virginia Field. Er, Miller." He silently chided himself for making the mistake he always made. The receptionist put him on hold. Ginny was there, working late as usual. Did she ever go home to him? "This is Doctor Field." "Ginny, it's Paul. How are you?" He immediately felt like a fool, covered his drink with his palm. "Paul! I'm good. How about you?" "Fine." "You sound well." "I'm getting by." He hoped there wasn't a grim edge to his voice. "I hate to bother you at work- -" "No, it's no problem at all. I was just straightening up my office. You know I'm a pack rat." He laughed. "Sure." "So what's on your mind, Paul?" "Lots of things. I'm in New York." "Really? What for?" "Well...I know this won't sound anything but awful, but...I'm here to do an interview. For TV. It's about Jason Voorhees." "Oh." He couldn't read her emotion. Instead, he waited. "It could be good for you," she finally said. "What do you think?" "Yeah, it's good. I just thought I should call you, I don't know." "Is there something else? Paul?" "I'm trying to clean up." (Translation: I'm still a mess.) "I'm doing this to try and put some things behind me. I guess I wanted to let you know." "I'm glad." Ginny replied. "I really am. You know I want you to be well." "I know." "You have debts?" He nodded into his glass. "Yeah. It's not much, but...it's enough. A rude awakening." Knowing he shouldn't say what he was about to say, Paul sighed and said it. "I think back, you know, to better times, to things that I lost because of...well, it's because of me. I'm past making excuses. I know I'll never have those things again, Ginny." He traced the scar over his eye. "But you should know, I should tell you, that you were always..." "Paul." He stopped. Stirred melting ice with his finger. "Are you drinking?" "No, no. It's just something I needed to say. A bit overdue, I suppose." "Please don't lie to me." "I'm not drinking. I'm just being honest. I know it doesn't seem plausible coming from me, right?" She was tapping her nails on her desk. I guess I'm fucked, Paul thought. "Maybe we can talk later. I should really get back- -" "To straightening up, I know. I'll call you some time." "All right then. Take care." "Mmm." He pushed End and let the phone clatter on the bar. Fuck. Why, why, why did I do that. Because I'm a fuck, that's why. "Women." Bale propped his sympathetic mug on one fist and shrugged. "I'm going to check out a few clubs tonight. How about I call you after?" "I won't have the money yet. Look, it's not my fault." "Nothing's ever your fault, is it?" Bale rapped his knuckles at the bartender. "Smirnoff straight." Returning his gaze to Paul, he asked, "How's the wrist?" "Fuck you Bale. Really." "I like you Paul. I do. You know what's funny? I'm going to enjoy what I do to you for that very reason. Figure that one out." Bale took out a ten, made a neat crease in it before passing it to the bartender. "Maybe your ex can help me with that." "What?" Paul turned to face Bale, sober as the day he was born. "She's a shrink, isn't she? Beechwood Hospital in Atlanta. You two still talk, that's nice." Paul did something he didn't expect of himself. Wrist locked, he grabbed Bale's jacket and drew him close. "You'll get the goddamn money. Stop threatening me." "I wasn't threatening YOU, Paul." "You want to push it, Bale? Over fifteen grand?" Paul bared his teeth, rank breath whistling between them. "You're just another legman, that's all. I'm worth more to your employers than you are. So. Back. Off." Bale bowed his head and tried to smile, but there was something boiling behind his eyes. Paul released him, sat back. "You'll get the money." "I think you want this to be about more than money." Bale said quietly. He threw back his drink and set the empty glass on the bar. "Now it is." --- "You called. Wow." Clarke tried to imagine Mandy wearing her sardonic grin. "It's been hell the past couple of days. I got your message but I was tied up. What's this about a missed date at Liberty Island?" "I think Mom was the one to set it up," Mandy answered, "but neither of us were listening to her." The common thorn in both their sides. Clarke resisted going on a rant. "What say you and me set something up?" "Sure." "So...did you really want to go to Liberty Island?" "Anywhere's fine." Though only sixteen, there was a remarkable maturity in her voice - born mostly of cynicism, Clarke figured. This could be an opportunity for both of them to come out of their shells. "Let's do it tonight, then. Can you make it?" "I can." Mandy answered. "I don't think Mom'll care, she's got somebody coming over." Clarke pursed his lips and nodded. "Let's make it six o'clock then. The monument's extending its evening hours before winter hits. Might still be cold, angel." Clarke nearly choked on the last word as he said it. He hadn't meant to. How would she react? "I'll be fine," she replied without missing a beat. "Mom'll probably wrap me in four layers of clothing. You just worry about yourself." Clarke cracked a smile. "What's that supposed to mean?" "She more than makes up for your absence." It was meant in jest, but it stung Clarke deep. He stood silent for a moment, until Mandy called "You still there?" "Yeah, phone trouble here. Can you hear me okay?" "I can now." "All right, well, six it is. I'll see you then." "Okay. Dad." "Bye." Sitting down at his desk, he transferred the hockey mask from the top drawer to his briefcase. Didn't want to leave it lying around for anyone to find. He pondered how the mask could possibly make it on-air now, with that detective searching for it. Bryan Bone was going to be none too pleased with this little situation. At least I got the damn thing back, Clarke told himself. We still have our investment. 11. Jason slithered through the cold and into the welcoming darkness of Central Park. It was almost like home, but this place reeked of people and unnatural things. Jason searched the trees. He needed more meat, but before that... His stomach was full, heavy and fat. He drew the meat into himself, building his muscles. The plates covering his flesh grew thicker, studded with knobs of bone...opening his mouth, Jason willed longer, sharper teeth into place, grunting softly as his jaw widened. Now his reptilian claws more resembled human hands, though his skin was a fiery red. Nerve endings pricked to life, bones shifted beneath leathery flesh, a ridge swelled atop his head and bone spurs emerged to guard his spine. He was growing to six feet; the lashing tail receded into the pelvic cavity as the stubs of legs wormed outward. Now, he would be able to make it home. He would have to feed again though; without a human "suit", he was forced to manifest this terrible body by his own will, and it sapped his energy at an alarming rate. Newer, keener ears focused in on a rustling sound. Jason cocked his horned head to one side and listened. --- Dirge eyed the Park's lit pathways in search of police. None were visible - hell, there weren't nobody out there. He pulled his coat tight around his body and settled on the ground. Some of the cops didn't care if people stayed out here, long as they was discreet. Others...Dirge examined the welts, both old and new, on his hands and wrists. "There's monsters out there," he breathed. "Gotta watch your back, they everywhere, always waitin' for you to- -" Something from Hell appeared before him and roared with a mouth full of a thousand teeth. Arms clamped onto Dirge's shoulders. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out except the stream of piss filling his lap. Dirge managed to scream, once, for the police. When Jason was done, he pulled the man's blood-soaked rags over his body. It gave him some sense of normalcy; but more than anything, ANYTHING, he wanted his mask. --- Skyla was walking along Central Park West when she spotted a loser in nice clothes. Most Central Park clientele discreetly called her to their homes, but they were the ones who treated her like meat, who forced her head into the pillow and tossed a wad of bills at her backside when they were finished. The johns on the street were looking for more...and she could get more out of them. He met her languid gaze half a block away. "You look like you're lonely tonight," she said as they came face-to-face. "Perceptive." He gave her a hard look. She smiled wryly. "I make good company." He nodded slightly, that look still on his face, but behind his eyes he was somewhere between walking away and pulling her close. Skyla felt the tension emanating from his stance. "I'm Skyla." "Paul." "Buy me a drink, Paul?" "I'm not drinking tonight." His breath betrayed his words, but she still doubted she'd be able to get him into a bar. He'd already sought comfort in the bottle today; now he needed a woman. "I was about to cross into the Park," he said. "Maybe you can walk with me." Before she could respond, he tugged a thick fold of bills from his jacket. He wants to into the Park, Skyla thought. I know what happens when we go into the Park. I can't. But...his face seemed genuine. And maybe she wasn't the best judge of character, but that's why she had a tiny pepper spray next to her hip. "You just want to walk?" "And talk. We'll stay in the light." "Fair enough." She reached out tentatively, and in one fluid motion took the cash from his hand and encircled his fingers with her own. So they walked, and talked. He was a nice guy, definitely a mess though. Pining for some ex-girlfriend down south, scratching the scar above his eye whenever he mentioned her. The wind picked up a little, but he kept talking; Skyla listened quietly with seven hundred dollars to keep her warm. The wind shook the trees up ahead. Skyla glanced up and, for half a second, saw fetid rags dangling from the branches. Then they were pulled out of sight. "Wait." She placed her hand on Paul's arm. "Did you see that?" "What?" "In that tree." She squinted. "I swear I...do you see that in there?" "No..." "Paul, there's someone in that fucking tree." Jason leapt at her. She saw the horned, distended face, the glassy eyes, row after row of fangs. Paul saw Jason Voorhees in the flesh - the burlap sack over his head splitting like a shark's mouth and falling upon the girl. Paul hit the sidewalk hard. Skyla was already dead, dead before she'd even collapsed under the fiend's weight. Jason turned to look at his other victim- - Recognition. Paul bolted. She must have been screaming before she died, though Paul hadn't heard it, because there was a cop on horseback waiting at the edge of the trees. --- "Paul Holt?" The cop nodded. Mix frowned, turning the name over in his head. He looked at the haggard man sitting beside an ambulance. "I'll be right back." Popping the trunk of his car, Mix dug through the Voorhees files he'd pulled. 1984...Paul Holt. Survived Voorhees' first killing spree. Mix began to reconsider his theory on the deaths he was investigating. He approached Holt with the 1984 file in hand. "Mister Holt, I'm Detective Mix with the crime lab. Would you mind telling me what happened?" "Do I really need to say it again?" "I haven't heard the officer's report. I'd rather hear it from you." "...Jason." "Mister Holt, why don't you come with me." 12. The American Museum of Natural History closed at 5:45. Kelly normally appreciated the silence in the vast halls beyond the main exhibits, closed off to the public; but tonight the quiet was shattered by the giggling of college students purportedly doing some project. The night guard scowled, rapping the toe of her shoe on the tile. Down the winding maze of musty corridors, two co-eds passed a joint back and forth, sitting atop a cluster of cabinets. "Prof's gonna find us," Rose coughed. Derick smirked. "No he won't. I don't even know where the hell we are." "We're supposed to be..." She snapped her fingers, trying to jump-start her thoughts. "We're supposed to be cataloguing something." "Yeah." Derick took a long drag and handed the joint back. "Don't worry about it. I'll throw something together before we leave. Besides - he trusts me." Rose didn't trust Derick at all, but that only made it more exciting. She saw him leering at her with his eyes, even as they became redder and less focused. He possessed that aimless boyish quality that a lot of people would call "laziness", but by all accounts he knew what to do with that gorgeous body of his. She found herself touching his chest and gasped. "Sorry..." "Nah." He smiled and rolled his t-shirt up over his head. "It's okay." Kelly panned her flashlight over the props from last summer's Rainforest in Peril exhibit, collecting dust in haphazard piles. She nearly nicked her hand on a machete. "Son of a bitch." More and more often she found herself straightening up back here. She probably knew more about ancient history than the vapid part-time tour guides. She sure as fuck knew more about sanitation than the cleaning crew. SHHHLLLKK Kelly spun. The hall was empty behind her, but something seemed out of place... The machete was gone. Derick brushed his thumbs over Rose's nipples, reaching around her back to draw her closer and unclasp her bra. His mouth was thick and smoky, but it didn't matter to her. She worked furiously at his jeans. "How the hell do you get these off?" They both broke into laughter. In a small office lit by two desk lamps, Professor Joe Orlando checked his wristwatch. "How long have those two been gone?" Justice Reid, a slim black girl with dust covering her hands, shrugged. "They weren't much help anyway." "Well, I'm liable if they break anything." Orlando sighed, removed his glasses. "Honestly, how did you get grouped with them?" "They were the last ones left without a third person." Sitting down across from Orlando, Justice brushed off her notebook. "I guess I'm a little shy." "You've got no reason to be." The professor told her. Inside, her heart was thundering. Forget it, she told herself: it's just another case of the pathetic smart girl falling for her nice teacher. Orlando probably had to put up with it every semester. And though he may not have looked it, he was probably three times her age. Just think of all the places he's been, she thought, and nearly swooned right out of her chair. "Shit!" "You okay?" Orlando stood and touched her hand. "You need a coffee?" "Um, no, I mean, sure. Thank you. Yes." She clasped her hands and forced a sweet smile through her embarrassment. The professor nodded and stepped out. "Which way to the cafeteria?" He asked himself, studying the corridor. He realized he'd forgotten his glasses. Oh well. He wasn't completely blind, after all. Rounding the corner, he slipped in something and smacked his tailbone on the floor. Oh, hell! How was that for irony? He leaned forward, trying to discern the lump before him. It was the security guard, or what was left of her. "Jesus," he breathed. He was suddenly grateful for the lack of detail. Then the machete cleaved his head in two. Derick ground his hips against Rose with a series of agitated grunts. "It's all right," she whispered, but he muttered "Hell no" and pushed harder. He wasn't even half-hard and looked to be on the verge of passing out. She wished he would. Derick suddenly threw his head back and stiffened. Maybe- - Then the Aztec spear that had pierced his back penetrated Rose. Jason swept the two naked bodies aside, looking for another weapon. A faux-dinosaur fossil, looked like a leg bone, sat atop the cabinets. He wrapped his claws around it. Justice tiptoed down the corridor, holding Orlando's glasses. "Professor?" It was dark as hell out here, easy to run into something. She came around the corner and found his bisected skull lying among the guard's entrails. The glasses broke apart on the floor. Justice turned and ran. She ran back into the office, grabbing a phone off the desk. Goddammit, a rotary phone! She dialed with hands trembling. Oh God, Joe was dead. He went to get her a coffee. She should have just told him the truth- - "911 emergency." "I'm at the museum, the American Museum of, of, oh god I can't remember! My teacher's dead! The guard and maybe the others, I don't know, please send someone!" I should have locked the door. Justice dropped the receiver and turned. The bone caved her face in. --- Mix grabbed his radio. "Twenty-two to dispatch, I'm a block from the museum. I'll respond." Paul sat uncuffed in the back seat. He was watching the street with frantic eyes. Jason. Jason was out there. He was here for Paul. Paul had come to New York to bury his demons, and they weren't about to let him. "Jason. Jesus, JASON!!" --- Clarke frowned and turned up the police scanner mounted on his dashboard. He muted the radio. Mandy rolled her eyes. "...from the museum. I'll respond." Then the dispatcher replied, then Clarke heard: "Jesus, JASON!!" "That's Paul Holt." "Who's Paul Holt?" Mandy asked, not really interested. "We've gotta make a quick detour. It'll only take a minute, okay?" "Dad..." "This might have something to do with Dad's news story." "Don't talk to me like a fucking child." "Where the fuck did you learn- -" Clarke slammed on the brakes as he noticed the red light up ahead. He quickly flipped a U-turn in the intersection. "Did you hear what museum it was? Must have been Natural History. Did you hear, Mandy?" She crossed her arms and said nothing. "I swear to God we'll catch the ferry right after this," he pleaded. "I wouldn't normally do this." "No, you'd normally cancel, or just forget." "That's not fair and you know it. You know your mom's been messing with me just like she messes with you." His accent grew thicker as he shouted. She raised an eyebrow. "Okay, jeez." "Well, she has." "I know, I know. I wish I had a British accent." "No you don't." Clarke concentrated on the road. --- "Ten-four." Mix said into his radio as he approached the museum entrance. There was a black-and-white en route, but the call had been urgent. No time to wait. There was a door ajar. Mix placed his hand on the butt of his pistol. Pitch black in there. Maybe he should wait. "No," Mix whispered, and stepped inside. He rested his flashlight on his wrist and followed its path with the gun. They'd need more than one unit if there was a violent perp in here. The museum was monstrous in size. "NYPD!" He called. In Mix's car, Paul wrestled with the back door. Wouldn't budge. Looking up at the museum, he had a sick feeling of dread swimming in his guts. Jason. Paul laid back in the seat and drove his feet into the window. Mix stepped over a pile of shattered glass. He still couldn't hear a damn thing. Who would be here after hours, anyway? Just the staff? His light landed on the face of a demonic statue. Beyond it, light shone from a corridor. The statue shifted to stare him down. "Don't move." As he said it, Mix added in his mind: turn back into a fucking statue. Jason raised the machete and roared. Mix emptied his clip. Outside, Paul crawled out the car window and started up the steps. "Holt!" Came a cry from the street. It was Graham Clarke, sitting in an SUV on the curb. "What's going on??" CSI Mix hurtled through the doors, a mangled pulp crisscrossed with bone-deep wounds. In the SUV, Mandy screamed. Paul threw open the back door and jumped in. "Drive drive DRIVE!!!" "The fuck was that?" Clarke yelled. "Jason!" Came the incredible reply. Clarke opened his glove box and produced the hockey mask. "You mean THIS Jason?" Paul snatched the mask from him. "Is this real?" "Of course it is! Now are you telling me that Jason Voorhees is back there?" "He's going to come after me." "The police, we're going to the police." "He just threw the police through a door, Clarke! We've got to get somewhere where he can't reach us!" "Okay, okay." Clarke glanced over and saw tears forming in Mandy's eyes. "It's all right angel. We just need to get somewhere safe, then we can make a phone call." He headed for the Liberty Island Ferry. 13. A light snowfall started to come down as the ferry pulled away from the dock. Clarke held Mandy close under an awning; she was stiff against him, angry, but she wasn't about to pull away. Paul held the hockey mask in his hands, looking into those empty eye sockets. "Nice weather for sightseeing." Slowly, he lowered the mask and turned to Bale. "I was at your hotel room but you never showed. I'm walking outside when I see you zip by in an SUV. I guess you really want to see Lady Liberty, eh pal?" "There's a problem." Paul said. "I couldn't agree more." Noticing the mask, Bale smiled. "Ah, memory lane. You know I'm going to kill you, right?" Paul looked out at the water. Bale buttoned up his coat and pulled on a pair of gloves. "We'll wait until we reach the island." Clarke moved close to Paul and nudged him. Paul shook his head. "The water's beautiful." He said to Bale. "You'll get a better look at it, in a while." Paul swung the mask as hard as he could, splintering the bridge of Bale's nose, following it up immediately with a right hook. He threw Bale into the railing and grabbed at his legs. Bale drove a knee into his teeth. The ferryman ran toward them; Bale whipped out a snub-nosed pistol and shot him dead. Paul slammed his fists into Bale's wrist but failed to dislodge the gun. Bale stepped back to fire- - Clarke grabbed his arms and forced them up over his head. "STOP!" "DAD!!" Mandy screamed. Bale shoved Clarke aside, slipped and fired as he did so. The stray bullet tore through the ferry's control panel. Beneath the snow-covered awning, sparks erupted, then flame. Paul tackled Bale to the floor. The gun clattered off somewhere. He made the mistake of looking after it and caught an elbow in the eye. Jason's claws crept over the railing. Bale rolled onto Paul and plowed his leg into the other man's groin. Clarke was fumbling after the gun; Mandy clung to the railing beside the ferryman's corpse. She was the first to see Jason, and she shrieked. Clarke stopped in his search and looked back. "Oh my God!" Bale had Paul by the hair; he beat his head against the floor until there was no resistance, then got up. "Where's my fucking gun." He snarled. The Brit and the girl were ignoring him. Bale saw Jason climbing onto the deck. The awning was on fire. Heat singed Clarke's arms and he pulled Mandy toward the back. "You bastard." Bale muttered; Paul didn't know if he was talking to him or Jason. He saw the gun underneath a plastic seat. Took a step toward it; Jason took a step toward him. Again he saw the hooded woodsman in the filthy overalls, the one who had taken his life from him despite the fact he'd survived that long night. In the alien eyes of the horned creature he saw Jason's rage. Clarke stood in front of Mandy. "Jason!" The thing turned. Clarke nodded to Paul. "Get it!" Jason growled, spittle flying from his raw lips, and he hurled his machete into Clarke's heart. Mandy fell onto the deck beside her father and screamed bloody murder. He was gone; the light from the flames played over his face, making him look alive, but there was no longer any real light in his eyes. Paul rose with the gun and shot Jason twice in the head. Voorhees careened back into the railing, snarling. Bale took the opportunity to leap for the gun. Paul spun and fired again, catching Bale in the chest and hurling him to the floor. Jason was recovering. Paul walked straight toward him, emptying the gun into his face and chest, and Voorhees finally went over the railing into the deep without so much as a whimper. Bale coughed up a thick stream of blood. He reached for Mandy, who was in shock, hands gripping her father's. Paul grabbed him about the waist and dragged him to the railing. "Fire or water." He said in a tone only Bale could hear. "Which is it gonna be?" "I'm just a legman, Holt." Paul made the choice for him, heaving his body over the side, then running to Mandy. "We've got to get off the boat. C'mon!" She stirred, as if from a dream, and looked at him. "Why? Why is this happening?" Because of me, Paul wanted to say, but instead he took the shaking girl into his arms and looked ahead. Liberty Island was coming up. The dispassionate face of the robed woman loomed high overhead. She had seen, had seen it all and done nothing. There was no answer to the girl's question. No answer to anything. --- Jason pulled Bale's body to him. Together, they descended into blackness. CODA: VEGAS The Sol-Ra hotel/casino was the Strip's latest monolithic resort. A garish hodgepodge of Egyptian and Central American motifs, it boasted at its entrance a visual display to rival all the other hotels: an enormous globe with digitized flames churning within on plasma screens, a sun illuminating the complex in the dead of night. "You look fucking awful." Was the first thing that Mr. Nehru said upon seeing Bale. He was a large, meaty man inside an impeccable suit, not a bead of sweat on his head as he moved about the casino floor. His eyes, however, tensed with fury as they spied Bale in his stained suit. "Where have you been?" He snapped. "You look like a corpse! Did you know Paul Holt's back in town?" "Where?" Bale asked in a monotone. "No no no, you already had your shot. And you fucked it up! He probably paid you off, didn't he? I don't think I need your services anymore." Nehru said menacingly. Bale deftly sank his hand into Nehru's gut. Pulling him close, careful not to spill anything, he wormed his fingers through the man's guts, watching him die in agony. Bale sat Nehru in a chair and closed his jacket. --- Paul dialed Ginny's home number as he walked down the Strip. Got the machine. "You've reached Richard and Ginny Miller, please leave a message." He slumped against the wall and cupped his hand over the phone. "Ginny, it's Paul. Things...didn't go well in New York. I just wanted to say goodbye. Be happy. Okay?" His voice broke and he quickly ended the call. The week had been a blur. Amanda Clarke had cleared his name, and although they were still dragging the harbor, Bale's gun had been matched to other hits he was suspected of. It was assumed he'd been stalking Paul and killing those around him. Unfortunately, there was nothing tying him back to the Sol Ra. Paul entered the casino. He would've played a few hands of blackjack, but he was flat broke. No sense in putting this off. He tapped the pit boss's shoulder and asked for Mr. Nehru. Then he saw Bale across the room. His face was bloated and dead, and Paul knew instantly that it was Jason. Voorhees pulled the hockey mask over his head and started across the casino floor. The pit boss followed Paul's gaze and spoke into a radio on his cuff. "Hey C.J., grab that goon in the mask by roulette two." A guard standing six-foot-five nodded and moved to intercept Jason. "You- -" Jason slammed his fist through the guard's teeth and out the back of his skull. He hurled the body with ease onto a craps table. Panic swept across the casino. The pit boss produced a Glock and shoved the fleeing patrons aside. "YOU! Stop right there, asshole!" Jason lifted a card table off the floor and swatted the man out of his way. Paul backed toward the elevators. "Okay, Jason. This is how you want to do it?" He punched the call button. "C'mon, fucker." He backed into the compartment, and the doors slid shut before Jason could interrupt them. Tenth floor. That would do it. Paul pressed the button and waited. And when he stepped out onto the tenth floor, with the perfect logic of a nightmare, Jason was waiting by the stair entrance. The fire alarm was blaring. "Why didn't you go home, Jason?" Paul asked, backing down the hall. "You had to come after me. Is it because you took Bale's body? Because he hated me as much as you do? You want to settle this, let's settle it." Plate-glass window at his back overlooking the hotel driveway. Jason stepping forward with calm certainty. Paul did the last thing Jason expected. He lurched TOWARD Jason, grabbing Bale's jacket, heaving the both of them into the window with enough force to blow the entire thing out. Bits of glass, like stars, rained through the night and clattered off the surface of Sol-Ra's golden sun. Jason saw the globe rushing up to meet them and had a sensation not unlike deja vu. Then they hit. A supernova ripped across the hotel/casino's lawn. Something surged and struggled inside the ruined sun, snarled in smoking cables, impaled on shards of glass. Flames overtook the thing and it crumpled. Jason felt his being eroding away. He clutched at Paul, but the other man was nearly gone as well. The burning was indescribable. He stopped moving and sank into the fiery debris, thinking about the coolness of the lake, willing himself to be there. The empty husk of Bale's corpse crumbled to ash. The hockey mask softened and draped like a surrealist painting over Paul Holt's ribs. Eventually, the fire devoured all it could and died out.