Le Petite Mort- The Little Death

Note: Jason’s first kill…

Jason’s mother hadn’t spoken since that morning, now it was close to midnight. He knew that he would have to hunt down the teenagers alone. But that didn’t faze him. He could hear their raucous voices disturbing the otherwise tranquil evening. They were just like the others Jason had murdered. Perhaps even worse. None of the previous teens had dared to park their car right beside the lake before. It would be fitting to destroy the vehicle as well as the kids.

Just as Jason was thinking this, something crackled beneath his foot. It wasn’t grass. It was thin and rectangular. He looked down in bewilderment to see several photographs littering the floor. It looked as if somebody had tossed them there in a great haste, making no effort to hide them. Jason bent down to pick them up and saw at once that they were evil. Just like the teenagers.

The girl. Her shiny black hair. She… half-naked, pale skin, bad bad bad. Mommy wouldn’t like it. She smiles. Bad smile. Wrong. Must find her. Bad girl. Kill her.

Jason’s mind was burning with outrage. The seemingly crimeless girl he had seen had photographed herself in only her underwear. She was smiling teasingly, eyes looking down at her own body sinfully. She must certainly die now. A quick yet painful death. A slash to the throat, for example. Her friends would perish too. Jason knew there were more of them. Four more drunken wastes of human flesh to be put the slaughter.

He hadn’t killed for several months now. His woods and lake had been clean of wickedness. But it had come back. It always came back in the end. And, like he always had done, he would destroy it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Becky pushed her hand up the inside of Kevin’s shirt, stroking his chest seductively. They were locked in a passionate kiss, tongues crossing over each other in an almost hungry embrace. Becky’s heart was beating a drunken rhythm and she was sweating although the evening was cool. All she wanted was to move somewhere that strange, uptight little Jomo wasn’t watching with beady eyes, somewhere she could make love to Kevin until all her wanton urges had faded away. Deep down she knew she was a cheap slut, but she didn’t care. No matter how hard she tried not to give in to her lust, she always did.

Becky was giving in now. Kevin was slowly but surely pushing her down onto the plastic sheet. He kissed the corners of her lips, her collarbone, her breast. Becky moaned rapturously. She wanted him to take her and defile her in any way he wanted. Something about Kevin set her senses insane, reducing her to little more than a ball of aching desire. Now Kevin parted her legs with one knee. She could feel his hardness against her thigh. Hot, throbbing, wanting.

Kevin’s warm wet tongue caressed her skin.

“You ready?” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” she said breathily in reply. She let out a choked yelp when Kevin dived for her mini-skirt. “Not with her watching!”

They turned and looked at Jomo. Liz and Bobby had sneaked off into their tent for their own passionate coupling but Juno remained sprawled out on the plastic sheet. For a moment Becky thought she saw those dark, emotionless eyes boring into but she was mistaken; the girl was engrossed in a mouldy old newspaper. Becky shivered as she watched Jomo’s pale, thoughtful face become less and less like the chirpy girl she had been during daylight. It was as if a glow inside her had been extinguished as soon as the darkness fell.

Becky shook her layered hair briskly, casting away such weirdness to make way for welcome thoughts of Kevin. Even now, when the moon swelled huge and white in the sky, he had refused to remove his shades. None of her other boyfriends had ever been so attached to their accessories. Most of them were overly eager to take their items off. To be fair, though, Kevin was reaching for his fly whilst stealing a kiss from her submissive mouth.

“Kevin…”

“Yeah?”

Kevin pulled her skirt up to and slipped a thumb under the edge of her panties. Becky felt his callous fingertips snake up her thigh, teasing her skin.

“I love you. You’re my life now.”

The words just spilled out. She had been with Kevin for longer than anybody else- a full month. Becky figured that if their relationship had lasted that long it might as well be forever. She was infatuated. So with adoring eyes she looked up at Kevin’s handsome face, waiting for him to declare his love in return. To her immense disappointment he did no such thing. He frowned. Then he sighed, as if Becky was just an irritating toddler he was forced to entertain.

“Shut up, baby,” he said quietly. There was a slight edge to his voice. So Becky shut her mouth obediently.

He does love me, she told herself firmly. He just doesn’t wanna admit it yet.

She closed her eyes, ready to give Kevin what he so strongly desired. He paused at her entrance, his breath hot on her chest. He stayed there for a heart beat. Two heartbeats. Three. What was he waiting for? Becky opened her eyes a crack and looked up. Kevin was grinning slyly at Jomo. She was visibly glaring back. There was a tense silence hanging between the pair. Becky couldn’t understand what was going on.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Jomo? You want some, huh?” Kevin challenged. Becky curled her lip as Jomo smiled coldly.

“From you? Never in a million years, you arrogant piece of shit,” Jomo said. Her words were sharp, cutting through Becky’s heart like a shard of ice. “Especially not after what I’ve just read about this place.”

Becky tried to return Jomo’s soullessly evil look. She failed miserably.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause you’re the only virgin here,” she said in a weak effort to insult her. Jomo just barked out a laugh that was riddled with hate. She didn’t even bring herself to reply. She simply turned her back and continued to scan the newspaper.

Bitch.

Becky was going to ask Kevin to continue their love session when there was a sudden, horrendous crack from the woods to their left.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jomo leapt to her feet, heart in her mouth. Kevin and Becky promptly joined her, scuttling like crabs across the floor and staggering half-dressed into standing positions. All of their heads swivelled towards the ominous group of trees, temporarily united in their fear. Moments later another crack sounded, a few steps away from the last. Jomo swallowed hard. Her palms were beginning to sweat and she wasn’t smiling any more. She knew what was lurking there. She knew, and was mortally afraid of it- him. The ignorance of the other two simply made this worse. Kevin, with his usual cockiness, was the first to recover from the shock.

“I’m gonna check it out,” he said offhandedly, buttoning up his shirt. Jomo grabbed his arm before he could move an inch. He turned, his features pale and twisted. To Jomo’s surprise she realised he was just as spooked as she was. He was simply putting on a brave face to show off. It didn’t help he was also slightly drunk and probably felt invincible. She could smell the beer strong on his breath. He wasn’t safe.

“Don’t go,” she urged him. “Rule number one of camping- don’t follow the creepy noises.”

Kevin removed her hand as though it was diseased.

“Why? What are you afraid of?”

Jomo picked up the newspaper and ran her finger under a couple of lines on one page. In case he couldn’t read it in this dim light she spoke the words aloud.

“Last year at Camp Crystal Lake the notorious killer Jason Voorhees struck again. Corpses of several teenagers were found mutilated in the woods. Enquiries have been made as to why the police have done nothing to prevent these attacks and the answer is so bizarre many do not believe it to be true. But according to legend, Voorhees died several years ago and has returned to punish those who allowed him to pass away. He has been identified as a huge man in a hockey mask…”

The words sunk into their brains, filling the night with further horror. Becky tried to laugh at her but Jomo could see it was an effort.

“There’s no way that’s true. The press makes shit like that up all the time. Isn’t that right, Kevin?”

Kevin said nothing. His jaw set with determination. Jomo knew he was going to investigate no matter what, which was both stupid and admirable in equal measures.

“Um, Kevin. Tell her. There’s no such person as this un-dead Jason guy, is there?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin snapped at her. “But whatever’s out there needs checking out. Could be nothin’. But if it is some murderer, we need to finish him before he does anything funny. Agreed?”

Becky shook her head but Jomo was thinking fast. She didn’t like Kevin, and that was one of the reasons she had arranged this trip in the first place. She’d wanted to build up some kind of friendship between them. Maybe this would be the one act to end their dislike for one another.

There was another crack, closer still, and a heavy thud as if a tree had fallen. A cloud of birds fluttered up from the woods in a state of panic. Becky started sobbing under her breath. Jomo sneered at her in disgust, turning away.

Coward.

Then she saw Kevin beginning to shuffle towards the woods, stopping every few steps to listen intently. Jomo didn’t blame him for being cautious. The things she’d read about Jason had sent fingers of pure ice crawling down her spine. She certainly didn’t want to end up like those unfortunate teens named in the newspaper. Kevin was both insane and incredibly courageous to be considering going anyway near those woods where Jason was most likely waiting for him.

Perhaps Jomo should have stopped Kevin right then and there and begged him to stay at the camp. But she didn’t.

Let him do what he likes. If he wants to go like a lamb to the slaughter then fine by me. Wasn’t I praying for his death just a few hours ago?

Jomo sighed heavily and shrunk back towards the campfire.

“Go if you wanna die. You know he’s in there really. Don’t you?”

Kevin shrugged.

“Maybe the fucker’s waitin’ for me. So what? I ain’t sittin’ on my ass doin’ nothin’.”

Without another word he took to his heels and ran headlong for the woods. Becky choked out a little shriek of outrage. She hovered nervously on the edge of the plastic sheet as if wondering what to do with herself. Then she barked at Jomo as if this was all her fault.

“Oh, smart move Einstein. Now we have to go after him so that he doesn’t get himself killed.”

Jomo quirked an eyebrow. “We?”

But Becky was already tottering off in her high-heeled boots, swaying drunkenly. Both she and her boyfriend had knocked back way too much alcohol. There was no knowing what they would do when left alone. Jomo had known them long enough to know how irrational the pair could be, seemingly sensible one minute and crazily reckless the next. She had no choice but to go after them.

Taking a deep, fearful breath, Jomo began to jog awkwardly across the ground towards the woods, refusing to break into a full on run. Not only was it extremely muddy and therefore slippery; she also hated going much faster than a gentle jog. She was paranoid that she looked like a penguin in a hurry and anyway, she wasn’t very fit. A one-legged penguin could probably overtake Jomo. The idea coaxed a rattling chuckle from her but it quickly ended. She didn’t want to alert anything lurking in those trees she was coming. But despite all her efforts to move quietly there was a low bellow of agony from the woods and a string of obscenities. Jomo could hear the squelch of Becky’s heels sinking into the mud. Then it stopped abruptly. Jomo paused, confused. Why wasn’t Becky flying from the woods screeching at the top of her lungs? Why had it all gone silent?

Mortally afraid now, Jomo made one final sprint and promptly bumped into Becky’s back. She was staring, jaw agape, in petrified horror at something impaled on a low tree branch. Jomo knew it wasn’t Kevin because he was just ahead of Becky, shakily lighting a cigarette with his left hand. He seemed to have forgotten he wasn’t ambidextrous and consequently kept singing his fingertips.

“Who screamed?” Jomo asked unsteadily. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. “And what happened?”

Becky pointed wordlessly at the thing in the tree. Jomo focused on it and felt her stomach lurch. Dimly she head Kevin saying, “Man, this kid was screwed over bad”, but she barely took in a word. She was too busy gulping hard and gawping in horrified fascination.

It was a fresh corpse, steaming and stinking to high-heaven. Flies buzzed into its mouth and crawled over what was left of its face. It- or he, going by the attire on its grotesquely mutilated body- had been lifted of its feet, smashed down on the sharpened branch and beaten repeatedly. His face was splitting and oozing, and some of his innards were dangling from his pierced chest. The body was twisted limply, as if its spine had been snapped, and on the floor below one lifeless hand lay a bag filled with drugs. He must have been a friend of Kevin’s sneaking down to bring supplies to the camp. In Jomo’s eyes that made things ten times worse. She was now struggling with the contents of her stomach, clamping both hands over her mouth. Her chest heaved with repulsion and nausea.

“Poor dude,” Kevin said regretfully. “He nearly made it out, too.”

Jomo felt Becky’s manicured hand touch hers comfortingly. She shook it off, wild-eyed and panting. Jomo was just about to do something irrational like slap the useless slut or throw up, but then she stopped. A subconscious part of her mind could sense the presence of somebody else lurking nearby. Alarmed, Jomo turned and caught sight of something big moving behind a few trees. Her mouth dried up completely.

For standing there and gazing right back at her was a colossal man with a hockey mask concealing his face.

And in his hand was a huge machete, glinting in the dull moonlight.