Her name was Crystal

Crystal found herself in that dark place again. She was floating, endlessly, numb and safe in the world of her subconscious.







She’d been here before.







She almost couldn’t remember it now. It felt so long ago. She’d been in this dark place before she met Jason. And before she met Jason there was nothing. No memories of anything. No family, no friends.. no people. Before the teenaged boy had stumbled into the camp, Crystal had forgotten that there were other people in the world at all. To her, there had been no one other than Jason and herself. And now these two men..







She was trapped!!







Crystal woke and snapped up into a sitting position.









She was.. where was she?







She looked around at the room she was in. It was small and cramped with a desk, a chair and the bed she was sitting on. The walls were bare, and there were piles of paper everywhere. A mid-morning sun shone through a tiny window at the head of the bed. She scrambled over the blankets to get to it and see if she could open it and squeeze through.. but even as tiny as she was, there was no way she would fit.





Outside the window there were thick evergreen trees. She could see an old dirt road and the same huge truck she’d seen the night before. That truck must have brought her here. Wherever here was.







She sat on the edge of the bed and put her face in her hands, trying to hold in a sob. She wondered where Jason was. Did he know she was gone? Would he come looking for her? She was almost certain he would.







That thought brought her small little feeling of hope. Jason would find her. Jason would soon rescue her and bring her back to the camp. He was probably already halfway here. He’d come running out of those trees any moment, angry and slashing that machete of his at her kidnappers. But until he arrived.. she would have to be brave. No more crying. No more fear.







She wiped at her eyes and sat up straight on the bed.









Somewhere outside the bedroom she was in, a door opened. She listened as two pairs of boots stomped their way in, then heard the door close behind them. Then she heard voices.











“The other guys are on their way. They’ll be here in a couple hours. The bulldozer wont be here till Monday though.”







That was the voice of the man named Jedd. Crystal crept to her bedroom door and pressed her ear against it to listen.







“Didn’t think it’d be here any sooner than that. We’re so far out in the middle of nowhere here. Makes me wonder why those villagers stick around. Where do they all work? What do they do all day?”







Jedd laughed at his brother.







“Aww, c’mon. It’s beautiful out here. And secluded. Long ways away from the city. It’s the perfect location for a resort. The village’ll pick up in business and such once the rich folks start comin’ round to vacation.”







Jake shook his head, sitting down at the table in the tiny trailers kitchen. He opened his laptop and waited for the satellite Internet connection to load.







“I dunno, Jedd.. I think maybe they shoulda listened to the villagers before they bought that old Crystal Lake place.”







Jedd was pulling a beer out of the mini-fridge. He popped the cap and took a long swig, then belched. He dropped down into the chair opposite his brother, leaning back and putting his dirty boots up on the table. Jake frowned and moved his laptop away.







“You don’t seriously believe them, do you? They’re all old and full of so much superstitious crap. The camp isn’t haunted.”







Jake shook his head.







“They didn’t say it was haunted. They said there’s a monster man who lives there and guards the place. That anyone who goes there never comes out again.”







“Yeah, yeah.. the Boogey Man gets all the kiddies, I know. More like the kiddies come all the way out here and get wasted.. then they drown themselves in the lake by accident. It’s all bullshit, Jakey. You get scared too easy. Besides.. we went in last Winter and came out alive. And last night we went in and came back with the missing girl. If there’s a boogey man killing everyone there, we wouldn’t have found her alive.”









Crystal stepped back from the door, her eyes wide. She was shocked at what the men were talking about. Resort? Bulldozer? Someone had.. bought the camp?







No one could buy the camp! It belonged to Jason!! The camp, the lake, the woods.. it all belonged to Jason!







Her eyes fell around the room again, and rested on one of the piles of papers on the desk. She stalked over and grabbed up what was on the top of the pile. It was a very old blueprint. She frowned and looked more closely at it. There were several small buildings with numbers on them, and one large building in the middle. There was a square marked ‘playground’ next to it.







It was the camp.







Crystal set the blueprint aside and started to leaf through the other papers. She found another blueprint. This one was much newer.. like it had just recently been drawn up.







It was titled ‘Crystal Lake Resort’. The large building at the centre remained, but all the cabins around it were gone. There was a boathouse and a horse stable. There was a building labeled ‘spa’ and another labeled ‘restaurant’. There was even a gift shop.







Crystal threw the papers down, disgusted. They couldn’t do this. The camp was Jason’s home.. and it was her home too. These men couldn’t take it away.. even if they did have a bulldozer. She would find a way to stop them!







She tiptoed back to the door to listen again. Jake and Jedd were still talking.







“See, here she is.” Jake pointed to his laptop’s screen, and Jedd leaned forward to peek at it. It was a news website. There were many different pictures of a pretty, smiling girl with auburn hair and green eyes featured throughout an article that explained her disappearance the year before.







“Says she’s from Springwood. That’s about five hours from here.”







“Springwood?” said Jedd, throwing back another good swallow of his beer. “Ain’t that where all them weird murders took place years and years ago? On Elm Street or something?”







“Yeah, but I guess she lives on the next street over with her parents. Cedar street.”







Jedd laughed.







“Why do they always use trees to name streets?”







Jake shrugged and clicked on a link in the news story.







“Here’s the reward information. Her parents are offering ten thousand dollars for her safe return. Says that even after a year they’re still hopeful that she’s alive. I guess she was pretty tight with her parents. She worked at a library or something.”







“Yeah? What’s her name?”







“Kristine.”











Crystal jerked away from the door like it was on fire.





She stumbled backwards until her legs hit the bed and she sat down.





Her eyes were wide open and she stared straight ahead.. yet she did not see anything that was in front of her.





Her mind was reeling. The room was beginning to spin. She felt sick.





She carefully lay back on the bed and put her hands over her face. Her tears leaked through her fingers. Her memories.. they were coming back.. they were all coming back to her..







She was.. her name was.. Kristine. She was twenty five years old. She’d grown up in New York City.







When her parents had decided to leave the big city to move to the tiny, sleepy little town of Springwood she’d decided to go with them. She loved her parents so much and hated the thought of being without them. The change from big city life to a small town had been tough on her, but she’d thought it had been a good choice. New York City was so dangerous.. little Springwood would be a much safer place for a young woman to be.





She’d gotten a job at the local library. She loved books. One night after closing up she was walking to her car, ready to go home for the evening. Two men had screeched into the empty parking lot in a huge, ugly van, then jumped out and grabbed her.





Those.. those men.. those horrible, evil men..









Crystal moaned and turned over on the bed, burying her face in the blankets. Her attempt to hide from her memories was fruitless. They were coming back relentlessly in full force.







What those men had done to her.. the pain.. the way they violated her.. the way they’d almost killed her with their fists…







She was going to be sick. She pushed herself up off the bed and stumbled out of the room, not caring if Jedd and Jake saw her. She needed to find a bathroom. She needed a toilet.







“Hey sweetheart… are you ok?” Jedd called and stood when he saw the girl stumbling down the hall.







Crystal ignore him and pushed open every door in the trailer until she found the bathroom. She fell to her knees and hovered over the lid. Then in painful, heaving waves she brought up all of the contents of her stomach.







Both of the men stood at the doorway, watching helplessly as the girl finished and wiped her mouth. She slumped back against the small bathtub, dizzy and weak.







Jake pushed past Jedd and grabbed the bathroom cup, filling it with water. He knelt down next to the girl and handed it to her. She took it and sipped to get the taste out of her mouth.







“Hey there.. you ok?”







Crystal shook her head. No, she wasn’t ok. She’d had her innocence taken away from her. She’d been a virgin before those men had gotten their filthy hands all over her. She’d been saving herself for the day she met Mr. Right. She remembered that she used to daydream about a Prince Charming. A daring, dashing, hero of a man who would come to rescue her, protect her, care for her and love her forever. Somewhere deep inside she’d doubted that man really existed. But if there was even a small chance that he was out there, somewhere.. then she would wait for him. When she found him, she wouldn’t let him go. She would be with him, always.







Jake took the cup from her hands and fished around for a washcloth. When he found one he wet it with cold water, then knelt back near Crystal and gently mopped her sweaty hair out of her eyes. Crystal sat still, her memories still flooding her field of vision, blurring everything else.









So much knowledge about the wild land, and much more resourceful than any ranger could ever hope to be. A fierce need to defend and protect. An innocent little child who’d had his mother and life ripped from him... grown into a frighteningly powerful man. Huge and violent.. but to her so very gentle and caring. So patient and selfless. So loving…







Jason.









She’d met the man that she’d been waiting for. He was out there looking for her.. and she was trapped here with these two trespassers. They were planning on bringing even more intruders in and taking Jason’s camp from him. From her.









“Kristine? You gonna be ok?”









Crystal blinked her eyes to clear them. She focused her gaze on Jake, who was kneeling over her. She frowned. She shoved him away and then she stood.







“Don’t call me that. That’s not my name anymore.”









Jake, who’d landed on his ass after being shoved, got to his feet and brushed off his knees. He was shoved again as Crystal pushed past him and left the bathroom. Jedd knew enough to step back and let her through.







Both men followed her into the tiny kitchen, watching as she looked around. Then she turned to face them.







“You can’t have Camp Crystal Lake. It belongs to him.”







Jake gazed at her curiously and Jedd crossed his arms.







“Belongs to who, sweetheart?”







“Jason.” She answered simply.







Jedd chuckled.







“The camp belonged to the old dude who built it years and years ago, sweetheart. He died, so it got put up for auction and now some vacation company owns it. We’re gonna be leveling most of it in about a week.”







“Who’s Jason?” Jake asked, and Crystal started to laugh.







“He’s the man who’s going to kill you both.”







---------------------------------------------------



Wow, two chapters in one day! Pretty cool, eh?



And no, Freddy isn't behind all of this. I just threw some Elm Street in there because I love Nightmare on Elm Street and wanted to pay some tribute. Hehe.