She turned to run up the cabin steps when the second shot sounded. She felt the hot whack as something smashed into her left shoulder and spun her around. She'd been hit.

She fell. She didn't stay down long. She climbed up the steps on all fours, and dove in through the open doorway just as the third gunshot rang out.

This time the searing pain ripped into her left foot. Groaning with pain, she forced herself to keep moving out of the doorway, out of the line of fire. The next bullet zinged through the door, ricocheted off a metal bunk bed, and bit deep into the back wall of the cabin.

Jesus, Kelly thought, that guy was an incredible shot.

Keeping low to the ground, she dragged herself to the window, which was draped with mildewing clothes. She peeked out the side. She could see the big man starting toward the cabin.

She didn't have a lot of time. She also didn't have a plan. She made one fast. The trap was useless. But there was still the gun, the one she'd left with Doug. Unless that was down in the hole with—

The horrible image she had just seen of her boyfriend jammed itself back into her brain. The outstretched hand, the other hand bent across his body. No gun. Unless he dropped it when he fell, in which case she was doomed. She'd have to go on the theory that she wasn't doomed.

She turned to crawl across the floor when, for the first time, she became aware of the radio, still playing its tinny tunes, but also playing static as the batteries slowly ran out.

Then she became aware of something else. The cabin was smeared with blood. If that blood was Kelly's own blood, then she had already bled to death, she thought wildly.

Then she saw the body parts. They were strewn everywhere. Her stomach turned over. But she got to her feet and started limping back through the cabin, trying to stay hunched over and low. The pain in her foot was astounding; it was singing an evil duet with the searing pain in her shoulder.

As she climbed out the back window, she could see the big man in the mask coming up the cabin's steps. He stopped when he saw her going out the window. He started to run.

She jumped, landing with an awful smack, cutting her face against a tangle of branches. A few feet ahead of her was the big pile of black dirt they carried back here from the trap. An insane thought occurred to her. If only they had put the dirt under the window to cushion her fall!

She got up and started limping away through the woods.

That was four bullets he had fired, she told herself. Probably his gun held six. She knew that's what was loaded into the gun in her cabin. She figured that if she could survive two more shots, and if she could circle around to the back of her cabin, she'd be home free. If! If! If!

She looked back, expecting to see the big man climbing out the window to follow her. He wasn't. And as she passed behind the center cabin, she could see him through the trees. He had gone back into the clearing; he was aiming the gun at her. She forced herself to put her full weight down on the wounded foot as she ran harder and

Bang! The gun fired, but she was still running, so he must have missed her.

Which wasn't that big a breakthrough, because there was still one more bullet left and plenty of cabins to pass before—

Bang! This time he shot straight through the open front and back windows of Cabin Seven, and she felt the hot slug whistle past her head as she ran by.

But that was six bullets. Six! Six! She yelled the word over and over again to herself, rejoicing, as she reached her cabin and pulled herself up through the open window. She slung one leg, the good leg, into the cabin, all the time praying that the gun would be where she had left it this morning, on the windowsill.

It wasn't.

And as she stared heartbroken at the empty sill, bullet number seven slammed through the open window, splintering the wood of the back window frame, right next to Kelly's leg.

And now she knew where her gun was. The man had it.

She swung her leg back out the window as the eighth bullet fired. She still had one hand inside the cabin, holding the sill, and that was where the bullet struck. It felt like the bullet nailed her hand to the wood. She fell, hitting the ground hard. She almost passed out from the pain. But she got up. She started dragging herself off through the woods.

There was no way in hell she was going to last through twelve bullets, she thought bitterly. It was a miracle she had survived the first eight.

   chapter 23

Red's glass eye kept showing him exactly where that mean girl was, zooming in on her as she ran through the woods. The eye helped him aim.

   Friday the 13th: Jason's Curse, chapter 24