As they all came downstairs, with Finn exploring the new home, they heard a car stopping in front of the house. Going to check, they were happy to see a red and white van, from which Jack and Dan came out with a man who looked very happy, dressed in a military green workwear and a mouse gray cap on his head. Jasmine would not have given him less than sixty years. They all went to met the newcomer.
"Hi people!" He saluted, stretching out his hand toward Robert "Steve Mills, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Robert Hatefield, my wife Anna and my daughter Jasmine" The two shook hands, and in turn all of them did it, including Ian.
"Thank you for coming so fast" Ian said.
"No problem, and then I was curious to know the new fellow citizens. Finally you and your agency have been able to sell this house." Ian chuckled nervously at those words.
Dan and Jack started to pull out the boxes from the van, helped by Steve and Robert. Jasmine and Anna took out of the car's trunk some shopping bags, full of supplies, and began to set them up in the kitchen. Anna had brought a lot of long-term stuff to avoid having to go shopping once they arrived. Jasmine set the two bowls for Finn next to the backdoor. She filled one with dog's food and the other with water and the dog immediately hurled on them. Then they went to put everything in the pantry. And while there were boxes of plates, pots, and kitchen linen at the entrance, the four men carried on the top floor a sand coloured sofabed to be placed in one of the guest rooms.
At about 20 o'clock the truck was completely emptied, Dan and Jack were paid and they left off. Steve greeted everyone, and he was really happy to have met new people that seemed good. He was paid too, went up to his van and before leaving the behind he could not restrain himself from recommending them a "Be careful!" Which worried a little Mrs. Hatefield and Ian Blake. Mr. Hatefield tried to seem calm and raised his hand in greeting. Jasmine, on the other hand, felt a shiver crossing her back, she could not say whether of excitement or of fear.
One thing was sure: if Jason was really in the area, she wouldn't have done anything to disturb him.
The movies had taught her so. That was his territory, and he would not have allowed anyone to invade it to make stupid parties among teenagers who only thought about sex, alcohol, and smoke. Anyone who had approached too much that place would have been punished.
If that was the problem, Jason would not have any trouble from her. Jasmine was a very quiet girl, she had no interest in those things, because she preferred to have fun doing something else.
In this regard, she recovered the boxes with her name written above and began to take them one by one to her new room. The bricklayers had left everything clean, so there was no need to dust or anything else. The mattress was covered with a plastic sheet, not even the time to lift it off and Finn had already jumped over it.
"Finn! Get down from there before mom sees you!" Her good hairy friend immediately obeyed. From one box she pulled out a green dog's bed and put it near the bedside table.
"Be good, go there." Obedient, the docile puppy went to his place, getting some caress and his bone of boar skin. "Do you like here? Do you think we will be fine?" He replied tilting his head slightly and watching her.
Jasmine decided to start from the bed and put on the blue sheets, a blue striped in white quilt and two square pillows, one white with a black silhouette of a deer jumping and one gray with a white tree. She placed all the other sheets and blankets in the wardrobe, and then arranged all the clothes.
"Coats and jackets here, sweaters here and there the dresses. I put here all the winter stuff and there the summer stuff..." Shortly, wardrobe and dresser were pretty full and everything about clothing had found a place.
As she pulled out the bedside lamp she passed by the window. With the object still in her hands, she stopped looking out, the outside lights illuminating the bushes around the house. She stared for a moment at an unspecified point underneath her window, until her mother came into the room without announcing herself, scaring both the girl and the dog.
"Jasy!" The girl jumped to hear her nickname and almost dropped the lamp. Finn got to his feet, all the senses in alert.
"Mom! You got me a heart attack!" It wasn't the first time that something like that happened and Jasmine hated it.
"Oh sorry sweety! Did I frightened you? But look! You've already arranged almost everything ... You really couldn't wait uh?" The last sentence said in a strange tone, almost resigned. Her maternal gaze paused on a large sheet of lucid paper rolled over itself. She took it and handed it to her daughter. "Are you going to hang this up?"
The girl put the lamp in its place and rolled out what turned out to be the poster of the last movie released on Friday the 13th saga. She laid it on the bed, looking at one of her treasures. "No, I don't think I'll hang it ... it would be a bit of a bad taste here ..."
Her mother seemed calmed by the answer. "Good. You know I've never opposed to your "passion" because it never caused any problems, even though I do not share it." She approached her daughter and took her hands. "I didn't even oppose you when you insisted on coming to live here. But let's keep on making sure it won't be a problem."
"Don't worry Mom. I'm not going to go around the woods in search of a big guy with murderous manias." Jasmine hugged her mother. "But I and Jason have something in common, you know?"
"And...what?" She squeezed more her daughter, hoping she would not say anything worrying.
"We both love so much our moms" Jasmine smiled. Obviously she was sincere, she loved her parents. They had always supported her and had never forced her to choose a road that she did not want to go through.
Even her mother smiled, relaxed "Now change your clothes and get down, little maniac. We're going out for dinner." She went out and left her daughter to herself.
Jasmine was still smiling. She rolled up the poster and stored it carefully in the closet, then threw herself on the bed, looking at the ceiling. "I'll make sure everything goes for the best."
She got up, took clean clothes and her red towels and went to the bathroom to cool and change. She put on a pair of light jeans, high sandals, a short-sleeved white shirt that fell soft and long and that showed up the corvine black of his long straight hair. She put a little bit of light pink lipstick and a bit of black eyeliner. Makeup was not one of the things she used with much pleasure. She brushed her hair, took a white shoulder bag not too big and then went downstairs, accompanied by the faithful dog, who, you now know, followed her everywhere.
Even her parents had changed. Her mother had worn a black and white blouse and a pair of black trousers, while her father was wearing the classic trousers and shirt. Even Ian had changed his shirt, he would have gone to dinner with them. "With this heat I always keep an extra shirt in the car" he said.
Everyone got on their own vehicle, heading towards the town. They decided to go to eat in a fast food. They were all tired and did not want to wait too long to receive their meals. They stopped in front of a typical diner, at the corner of two streets. The light sign above the door recited in red letters "Horace's Place". They sat at a table for four in front of one of the windows and waited to order. Mr. and Mrs. Hatefield chatted with Mr. Blake, while Jasmine pulled out her gray J3 with a transparent blue cover. She had notifications in most of her installed applications and opening whatsapp she found 347 messages on the "JAWS" group. The name was a funny acronym for "Jasmine - Alex - Wendy - Stuart". They were her best friends and Stuart was also Wendy's boyfriend and Alex's older brother. At least half of the chat messages were for her. They asked her if she was there, if she had arrived, what she was doing and similar things. In fact, she had not touched the phone since she had fallen asleep in the car.
Jasmine: Ehy :)
Alex: Jasey! You're alive! We started thinking that Jason had already found you :D
Wendy: Hey! Finally! You left this morning and you've already forgotten us! :(
She smiled reading the answers. She would miss them a lot.
Jasmine: Sorry, I was too busy to stay on the cellphone. No sign of Jason for the moment, count to look for him tomorrow. I'm already preparing the rooms for when you'll come to visit me ;)
Other messages were from other close friends and relatives, even Italians. Her cousins asked her about the place, told her they would miss her that summer.
Virtually every year, in summer, she went with her parents in Italy for a couple of weeks. The first was spent in Rome and in the surrounding area, where most of the mother's relatives lived, and the second they went to visit other cities. But the whole family had come to find them in America too a couple of times. Only one year they had not seen them at all, as she recalled, when they decided to go to Santorini. That would have been the second, but they already talked about a possible vacation in Croatia or in Vancouver all together for the next year.
Lost in her thoughts she had not realized that from time to time somebody turned and looked at them, exchanging a few words with their neighbors. Finn tried to attract her attention putting his paws on her leg and leaning on her, making his sweet puppy eyes. When she finally noticed him, he remedied a piece of bread, which he ate happily.
After a while, meals came, and between an exchange of stories and anecdotes of the past came the time to go home. Ian handed them a bunch of keys and then he got in the car, headed for a b&b from which he would have left in the morning.
The Hatefields crossed the threshold of what was now officially their home. Anna went upstairs to arrange the bedroom, while Robert went in the office trying to connect the phone and the internet modem. Jasmine went to her room, as usual with Finn. She looked at the boxes that were left to be emptied, but the tiredness of the journey made feel itself so she settled down to go to sleep.
She put on the pajamas, blue shirt and blue shorts with white spots, and went to give the goodnight to her parents, then she went to bed. She looked for a while the summits of the trees and the summer sky that could be seen out of the window, then turned off the abatjour and shortly fell asleep.
When all the lights in the house had been turned off, a shadow emerged from the bushes. A human figure, but definitely higher and more massive than the norm.
Jason was watching the house carefully, turning around it without making any noise, like a shark that was about to attack his prey. Finally, all the hustle of the last weeks made sense. There was fresh meat at Crystal Lake and he would not have let it escape.
It was so long that a normal family did not move in the area. Generally, there were always groups of teenagers renting a house for a few days and then returning home inside a corpse sack. As long as he had left the bodies, or parts of them, recoverable.
He could have entered without problems and without making too much noise. He could have killed them all in their sleep, but the thrill of the hunt was the only thing he had to pass the time.
He would have waited for the best moment and in the meantime he would have observed them. He wouldn't have allowrd anybody to disturb him and his mother.
And as he had arrived, he left. He had some work to be done.
The next morning they all got up early, including Jasmine, though no one had awakened her. After a quick breakfast of bread with jam and orange juice she came back to her room. She wanted to finish arrangements as soon as possible so she could get around to explore the area. She changed, putting on a pair of jeans shorts and a white shirt with the helmet of a Star Wars stormtrooper, and resumed to empty the boxes.
She brought all the towels, the bathrobe, and the cosmetics into the bathroom, arranging them in a compartment of the light wooden cabinet. In their old apartment they had only one bathroom and she had to keep her things in the closet of her room due to the little available space. Then she went to fill the library, filling four shelves of books of almost all kinds, two of various DVDs and CDs. She dedicated one to video games and her old black DS, covered with stickers of kittens and puppies and one with comics and mangas. In the last two, the highest ones, she put the plushes.
Only Jason's little mopeez had the honor place on the drawers. Together with him she set up her little Pop collection that included a bobble-head Darth Vader, a Goku, the Joker of the Nolan's trilogy, a Severus Snape, and the unmissable Jason. Then she noticed a nail that protruded from the wall just above the drawers. Se went to one of the last boxes missing, and pulled out a day frame, completely wrapped in newspaper. She unpacked it and hung it off, watching the group photo of her and her four friends, plus Finn, obviously. The trio had made this gift to her before she moved, so she would have thought of them each time she came into her room. She smiled at the memory of when they took the picture. They had gone to a picnic at the neighborhood park where they all lived. Finn chased a squirrel who panicked and who had swapped Stuart for a tree and climbed over him, followed by the dog who jumped on him, all finishing with Stuart on the ground. Stuart was always the target of the animals he met. He had been chased by a goose and a swan and several times dogs and pigeons had swapped him for a toilet. Not to mention the hate that his grandmother's cat had for him.
She arranged between the desk and the drawers her many stationery, electronic accessories and more. Then she went downstairs, her intent was inspecting the basement, but the doorbell ringed. Who could have ever been? From the little she could see from the two windows at the sides of the door, there were at least two men with identical clothing. Her mother immediately reached and opened the door, followed by her father.
They found themselves in front of none other than the sheriff and an agent, both in gray uniforms. A police car was parked in front of the house, with the CLPD letters on the side.
"Good morning! Sorry to disturb you. I'm the sheriff Tom Berger and this here is my son and colleague Mike" He said, nodding to the young man beside him with a movement of the head. The sheriff was a fairly robust man with grizzled hair and a pair of mustache covering his upper lip. The boy, who seemed a bit embarrassed, greeted politely. He had short dark blond hair and smoke gray eyes.
Her parents introduced themselves and invited Jasmine to do the same.
All shook each other's hands, then Robert asked: "So Sheriff, what do we owe this visit? Are there any problem?"
"No, not yet at least. I just came to tell you a couple of things, recommendations. Don't take it personally, but I have a duty to do so. I suppose you know what happened in this town... "
Sheriff Berger felt a bit uncomfortable having to make that talk to every single person, the very few at least, who decided to move or stay for a while at Crystal Lake. Obviously he had all the attention of Jasmine, anxious to know what he had to say.
"Yes, we know it. We can understand and we're sorry for what happened but we do not want to have or create problems. Right?" Robert turned toward his wife, who immediately nodded.
"Yes, of course!" And then both of them turned to her daughter, giving her intense glances, maybe a little accusative. She also nodded, emitting an affirmative sound from her lips, which would not have seemed very convinced to her, but it was enough for the sheriff.
"I had no doubts about this." Mr. Berger continued. "First of all, I want to welcome you. But now I have to warn you of a couple of things" Anna's tension was palpable, among the three she was the least convinced of the choice made. Jasmine was also a little agitated, and to hide it, she was torturing her thumbs with her hands behind her back.
"I must inform you that it is absolutely forbidden to enter the area of the old abandoned camp. You have to stay far away and be careful if you ever see someone trying to sneak in. Every summer is filled with teens and curious who try to enter. The second thing is that if you have the intention of walking through the woods you have to be very careful where to put your feet. Some crazy huntsman believes he can do what he wants and placed beartraps around, hoping to blame someone... let's say more famous."
"Oh my God!" Anna put her hand to her mouth, worried. The only idea made her shiver.
Mike promptly intervened to put a brake on his father. "Do not scare them, dad. Obviously the area is safe, just be careful as you would in any other wooded area. There is no danger here." Jasmine, and in large part even her parents, did not believe it. However, she did not seem too concerned about the thing. Years of movies, readings and insights had prepared her about how to behave.
"Well ... then we'll go, call for anything, we're always available." Sheriff and colleague greeted them, entered in the car and left. The family returned inside the home closing the door.
First, the couple launched eloquent glances to their daughter, who, having noticed them, rushed to climb the stairs before they could tell her anything.
"Jasmine! Where are you going?!" exclaimed her mother.
"Bathroom!" And instead she closed in her room, for now forgetting about her mission in the basement.
She threw herself on the bed, as usual, looking up at the ceiling. She had the confirmation she was looking for. She did not know how to feel and what she felt. Surely now there was one more reason to be careful when going to explore the area.
She stayed in that position for a while, processing the information received and fantasizing about the situation. It was about 11 o'clock when she decided to go to the basement, determined to rummage in it from the top to the bottom.
She went down the stairs again and opened the door. She switched on the light and illuminated a mass of furniture, boxes, and crates amassed at the worst. She stepped down the stairs of the cellar and began to search in a large box to find something interesting.
Right in that moment, in a spot not too far from the house, in the forest, a trap snapped. The powerful metal jaws closed with a sharp crack, tearing the flesh and breaking the bones of whatever was finished inside it.
A cry of pain filled the air as a life ended.
A/N
Hi everyone!
Sorry for the delay, but in this period I'm very busy.
Here we have the first, albeit brief, appearance of our dear Jason. I hope I can do him well, it's a pretty difficult character to "interpret".
I don't know when I will post the next chapter, I hope soon. I have to translate it before.
Let me know what you think!
See you soon!