Friday the 13th: Lost Lake

❦ Chapter 9 • Nomads ❦

Jason would leave Claire and her dog sitting on the hillside to look out over the horizon while he went out in search of food to eat. He figured she must have ran out of snacks and didn't want to let her risk wasting money on vending machines or whatnot. He wasn't sure if Claire could smell it or not, but there was a small barbecue in a nearby park further down the hill and closer to the beach.

The Crystal Lake Killer observed them from behind a tree, his gloved hand gripping onto the bark. The small gathering had sausages, bread, burgers, fruit, everything Claire and her canine companion could possibly want.

"Adam, honey, turn that radio off. We're about to say grace," an older woman with curly black hair gently chided a small boy, almost appearing as a little version of her.

The young boy turned the radio off in the middle of its broadcast before joining the rest of his family, seeming to wait for his mother to take her attention off of him to sneak off, presumably to play by the beach. Meanwhile, Jason was piecing together how to accomplish his task as he stalked the little family. There were no other souls in the park, and it was just this little group of people. This would probably be easy.

Jason waited until everyone had closed their eyes and pressed their hands together before making his move, towering over the adults and a sole teenager in the group and simply hacking them from behind. His blade struck the teenager first, perhaps an older brother to the black-haired child as he shared similar features. Then he slammed his blade into the three full-grown adults sitting next to him, slicing them in half all at once. Lastly, Jason moved on to the man who was still saying grace at the head of the wooden picnic table. The man's words began to trail off as he said "amen", realizing the others were dead silent. Once the older man's eyes opened and witnessed the carnage before him, Jason had already grabbed a fistful of his graying brown hair and ripped his head off forcibly, a bit of the spinal cord still attached as Jason chucked it on the ground and swiped the goodies on the table, using the tablecloth as a makeshift sack to carry it all.

Even before he left, he could hear Adam stumble back to the picnic table and let out a cry of anguish and horror.

Sorry kid, I have mouths to feed.

Jason wasn't too worried about the Adam boy running for help and alerting authorities. Surely by then, he and Claire would be long gone, and if they tried to stop them he'd just kill them like he always had done.

He dragged the cloth stuffed with food all the way back up the hill where Claire was waiting, opening it to reveal its contents once the human realized what he had brought with him.

"Holy shit... that's a lot of food," Claire murmured as her eyes widened. "Even better, we can actually take it with us!"

Jason tilted his head at her words. What does she mean by that? Is she wanting to leave? He supposed it would be for the best. The place would soon be swarming with cops and would surely try to set up roadblocks. Jason made up his mind to take Claire and her dog to a safe spot before taking out anyone who may be in their way.

"You... uh... killed people for all that, right?" Claire asked warily, and Jason saw her eyes staring particularly at the bloodstains on the tablecloth.

Jason slowly nodded. It wasn't like Claire could scold him. Jason was and always would be a killing machine. It was just in his nature. Up until he met her, it felt like it was all he knew how to do.

Instead of being met with her reprimanding him, Claire would just softly smile and jerk her head towards the wilderness. "Come on, we'd best get a move on before we have some uninvited company."

Her words took Jason by surprise. Surely no human would be so calm and accepting of his murderous nature. But Claire was, as if she knew she couldn't change him and accepted Jason as he was. Perhaps she was just grateful that he hadn't slain her yet. Jason was still perplexed why he hadn't. Sure, they were similar, but they were also so different at the same time. Jason was full of anger and wrath, and Claire, other than her own need for revenge, was actually gentle and sweet. Jason partly doubted she could go through with the mission once they caught Cole.