CNN was much the same as the other rolling news stations. For once, it agreed entirely with Fox News in its reportage of unfolding events. All the channels that they were surfing did. "According to criminal and demographic experts," reeled off the slick, gray-flecked reporter on site, "there is an unexplained phenomenon that places this section of rural New Jersey at the epicenter of a new, statewide epidemic of violent crime. In some cases, the spate of murders, violent hold-ups and predatory sex crimes seems to have spread out beyond the state borders, which makes it all the harder to glean any discernible pattern."

They sat around the glow of the cathode-ray tube in the common room, as if awaiting words of wisdom from some ancient oracle. Though in truth, no one believed the corporate-sponsored commentators were going to have any answers. "It's like Dante's Inferno just erupted into Middle America," Lisa said. "Like every damn deviant and miscreant in the pit has come roaring back for revenge.”

No one said much. What should they say? Her explanation was totally wack, but no one else could make a better diagnosis. "Anyone want to make a guess as to who's at the very center of the epicenter?" Trey tried to make light, but it was hard to laugh at something that faced you each way you turned. The sheriff had put cops and security guards over every inch of campus, and still it didn't stop. Whoever wanted to kill them all was relentless. And, by all accounts, invisible and unstoppable.

"So like, how are we supposed to be around each other," Shawna asked Trey, the behavioral science major. "As nobody and everybody's a suspect, should I be wary of you?" She responded quickly to his frown. He, after all, was the only one who had been taken downtown as a suspect. "Or you of me? Or would that just be symptomatic of mass hysteria?"

"No. No. This is something outside of us." They were all startled to hear Gretchen speak up. So silent, and seemingly so passive, for so long, they had assumed she was becoming psychologically withdrawn. "The moment we start suspecting each other is the moment we're all finished. Whoever's doing this would just be laughing at us."

Trey shrugged. He guessed she was right. He'd heard no more pertinent a reading of their situation. Whoever divided would surely conquer.

"We just have to stick to commonsense rules of survival. We can't go playing stupid games of dare with our lives. Not like Patti and her dumb boyfriend." Their silence gave grim consent. The murders in the co-ed dorm had been the worst yet. The most vicious. The most gruesome. The closest to home. It seemed like some force of homicidal rage, of evil, in plain old-fashioned terms, was ever present. Always close at hand.

Locked down in her own head, Gretchen seemed to be giving it much thought. She was nervous, uneasy to a degree that made them all the more uncomfortable. But she was not as passive, as timid, as her usual demeanor indicated. The horror that was in their midst was waking Gretchen Andrews up, alerting her to take control of her life.

"In rural Craven County, Sheriff George Casey is making use of a little-known and controversial state by-law." Someone had flicked the screen. The forty-something black woman talking on Fox looked like Oprah in her intermediate slimming-down period. The screen showed the sheriff pontificating earnestly and silently to camera in front of the college, its parking space crammed with ambulances and squad cars. The reporter's voiceover continued over the top of him. "It states that cases of mass homicide can be described as a civil emergency. In such conditions, Sheriff Casey has pointed out, the affected area can be subject to conditions close to those of martial law."

"Since when did that redneck become an expert in law?" murmured Trey. It seemed to him like Casey had been taking advice from somewhere, and it wasn't from the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The by-law is being applied to students at the local University of Forest Green, who have numbered no less than six among the seven recent local murder victims. It enables the local police to impose a curfew and to temporarily incarcerate anyone even suspected of criminal or misdemeanor violations such as underage drinking, unruly behavior or abuse of illicit substances."

"Way to go, lawman," sneered Shawna. "Keep us locked down and waiting for the slaughter without the compensation of getting high."

"This is no time to get high," Gretchen spoke up again, emphatic. "We need to stay real. Stay focused. We need to sleep at night with one eye on the door." Shawna regarded her friend. This had all totally rattled her cage. But then, why shouldn't it? Everyone else was totally wired with fear too.

"You're right. I know, stupid remark," Shawna offhandedly reprimanded herself. "So since we're virtual prisoners, what are we doing in our own defense?"

They ran through the ad hoc procedures they had hurriedly initiated. Shawna was organizing her fellow co-eds into a vigilante group, armed with every lawful item that could be improvised into an offensive weapon. That evening, Trey was going to start teaching everyone basic offensive and defensive martial arts moves. "But it's not any of that Wu-Tang bullshit, like Enter the Dragon overnight. This is the basic shit for anybody in a tight spot. If he shows his face to you, then go straight at him. Fight to disable quickly. To maim, if possible."

"What if he doesn't show you his face?” James spoke up with trepidation, sounding morose. "I mean, what if he wears a mask all the time?” Everyone was silent. They all knew what he meant. "Tf he's the guy that everyone says he is. You know. The Crystal Lake Killer."

"Masks have eyeholes,” spat back Trey. "If that's all he's showing you, then go for it. If his eye offends you, pluck it out." His blood boiled a little each time he heard someone refer to "Lake Blood," "Hell Lake," or "Jason." It was bad enough having a kill-crazy psycho in their midst, without someone conjuring up zombies from hell. But then, he argued with himself, take a look at the facts. Whoever this bastard was, he had a knack for pulling off the inexplicable. When nothing could be explained rationally, then the natural herd response was to look for solutions in old folk myths.

"I hold a gun license back home!" Gretchen piped up again, unprompted. "It's a State of Connecticut license. But there's nothing to stop me packing a piece here is there?"

No one responded. No one really knew whether or how local gun licensing laws corresponded with each other. But they were not going to dismiss the idea out of hand.

"We'll take a ride down to the Arms 'N' Ammo mart in the morning, during a study session. That's if Casey's stupid stormtroopers will let us off campus."

"And if they don't confiscate it on searching you after your return," cautioned Trey.

"Or arrest us both for some suspected felony that hasn't happened yet," added Shawna. "But if we get through," she emphasized, "then we'll lock it up somewhere that we're all aware of. Just for safekeeping."

As the early evening fell, despite the presence of guards and sheriff's deputies everywhere, Trey managed to loiter long enough to pay a prohibited visit to Shawna's room. It was the first time they'd been alone in her bedroom for many a month. But still, all they did was get to talking. There was too much on their minds, too much in the air, to concentrate on anything but immediate anxieties.

"Poor babe's so stressed out, she's likely to blow away the first pizza delivery guy who shows up, Shawna observed of Gretchen. She'd never seen her so enervated, but at the same time so purposeful. It was almost as if a hyper case of coffee nerves was making her ultra-alert and aggressive. But then she remembered Gretchen couldn't drink coffee unless it was decaffeinated. It gave her minor palpitations.

   Friday the 13th: Hell Lake, chapter 7