Jason appears

When he would not accept the object, Jason hurled it up onto the ridge. It was a scalp. Or rather, a "scalping," in the manner of the old white bounty hunters whose barbarities were adopted in revenge by belligerent Native American tribes.

Ringed by an angry red top layer of human flesh, the crimped and layered brown hair dripped blood like a wig worn by someone on the guillotine. Of the few little items that were still attached to the human hair, Trey recognized one of them as the Egyptian Ankh cross he'd bought from an East Village street market. A symbol of life after death. This was the scalp of Shawna, torn fibrous and bloody from a body still living at the time of the mutilation. The body that was almost certainly dead by now.

Trey dropped her earthly remnant and withdrew. Scurried up the hill as fast as his shaking, clambering hands and his feet would carry him. Snapped at the hallucinating Gretchen and dragged her along by her wrists. Got out as quickly, and as far away from the scene as his horrorstruck brain would allow.

As they ran for the trailer where they had been allowed to take shelter, Trey had no compunction about throwing the two sleeping young men they bunked down with out of the door. He dragged the locks of their slumbering heads till they moved, not quite of their own accord. They could stay and meet Jason, if they insisted on it. He and Gretchen were not going to cede him that advantage.

Then, tears still welling from his eyes, he turned the ignition key and gunned the gas pedal. "We're going back. We're going right back to the beginning,” he told Gretchen. Though there was little that could break through her darkly fogged mind, she could recognize his fear. Sense the cowardice that had haunted him in recent days. Yet still, she understood what he meant. And how necessary it was.

As he hurtled down the freeway, it was so much easier to get back than it had been to get away. Straight up the Interstate, through Maryland, Delaware and, finally, NJ. Craven County was full of ghost towns, where the ghosts were all off on hiatus. There were no roadblocks, no security checks. Everybody had wanted to get out of the place, not to get back in. But now, in the pre-dawn desolation, before the sun had started to come up, it was empty even of the murderers and human monsters who caused the great exodus. They too had gone on their way, or followed those honest citizens who made their escape from the place, extending the "Friday the 13th crime-wave" to whatever distant state the exodus had headed towards.

It bothered Trey's conscience that he had stolen the main mobile trailer onsite. It had belonged neither to him nor Shawna or Gretchen, but it was relied on for shelter by many of the people on the site. It had also been a source of light and heat, the big electrical generator it carried helping to provide power to people who had become a subculture of nomads. But it was too bad. Everyone was on his or her own now. Trey's needs were more pressing. They panted at his hind with the urgency of a hellhound on his trail. In the last reckoning, nobody was going to be able to say Trey Leblanc failed. Nobody would be able to say he was a coward.

"Don't weep anymore for Miss Shawna." Gretchen spoke in the two-toned voice that was driving him almost as insane as she now clearly was. "She did what she did because she wanted to. She didn't have to attack Jason. He wouldn't have killed her if she didn't."

"Will you cut that shit out?" Was Gretchen so totally divorced from reality that she really believed she was Mother Voorhees? It felt as if she was driving Trey to the very limits of his own sanity. But perhaps, he told himself as he turned off the main road and onto the dirt track that led to Crystal Lake, he was already there.

The lake was tranquility itself. There was not a soul anywhere. The night air was cool and the waters were still. The nocturnal wildlife had not deserted this accursed place, chirruping or calling out oblivious to the stench of human wickedness.

"We're back there, aren't we?" Just for one moment, Gretchen spoke with her own voice, not in the imagined tones of some longdead madwoman. "This is where it all began."

"Yeah, yeah, we're back there all right." He studiously ignored her, occupied solely by what he had to do. As he revved the engine of the old camper and charged its battery, so the power generator received a further boost. As he exited the trailer section he struggled to carry the generator with him, entangling himself in its long wire leads, before scraping it to the ground in relief.

Gretchen was already drifting aimlessly around the fields surrounding the lake, like the lost soul she now was. He made no effort to rein her in, letting her go her own way. She gave him a concerned parting glance, speaking silently, but he answered her with words. "Bless you, Gretchen. May God, or whatever is out there in the universe, guide you and protect you.

There was nothing more to be said. He had work to do, to make sure everything was in fully functional order. And Gretchen? By bringing her back there, Trey knew he was chancing fate. But if that was what their destinies had in store, then she could no more evade it than he could.

He continued to work, tweaking fussily at leads and power connections whose purpose he was only dimly aware of. If anything happened to Gretchen, he would hear it. Though he would probably be as powerless to protect her as he had been with Shawna.

"What did I say, Jason? Didn't mommy always promise that she would come back and find him if Jason was a good boy?" So it began. Trey didn't even look around to check whether she spoke to herself, or whether the murderous presence had manifested itself. As they had all learned the hard way, if Jason plagued your mind then his form could follow you around. Trey continued to mess with components whose purpose he was unsure of.

"This is a place of peace, Jason. Put all the hurt and all the unhappiness out of your mind. That's all in the past. The past can only hurt you if you keep bad memories. Forget all those people who hurt you."

All those people who hurt you? Trey didn't allow his disbelief at this madness to deter him from what he had to do. He worked manically to ensure the generator would keep on pumping, and that the long cables he attached were fitted to the machine's main power outlets.

"Remember all the good times we had when it was just you and mommy, back at Camp Crystal Lake during the summer, when mommy worked as a cook? Forget what came later, Jason. It can't hurt you anymore. Come back to mommy, Jason. Come back to your golden childhood. Mommy's waiting for you there."

Jason's presence was palpable, though Trey didn't dare look back. He just kept working regardless, tying the ends of the power cables to the belt straps around his black jeans. He had no time to procrastinate. No time to think. No time to doubt himself. The consequences for him were just one more horrific detail, out of many.

"Come with mommy back to the lake. We're going to wash ourselves in the waters, just like Jesus was cleansed by John the Baptist. We're going to wash away everything horrible that happened afterwards, and go right back to where we were."

There he stood. The thing. The half-human. The freak. The murderous mistake of nature. Trey's contempt for Jason was now stronger than the crazed Gretchen's sympathy for him. But the creature truly believed Gretchen to be his mother. Back when she was in the full bloom of youth. Back when she gave birth to an abnormal child that would grow into a monster.

Trey didn't know how truly Gretchen believed herself to be Mrs Voorhees, but he was grateful for what she was doing. Somewhere, beneath the shattered psyche and the multiple personality, Gretchen Andrews was playing out her own heroic role.

Jason removed his solid black mask and revealed his face to her. It was not the triumphal act it had been when he had killed. This was an act of trust, an act of devotion. To Trey, his appearance was more repulsive than ever. He was wounded, mutilated, his flesh decaying. In his enemy's eyes, Jason's deformities mirrored the loathsomeness of his soul.

   Friday the 13th: Hell Lake, chapter 19