A Nightmare Reborn: FVJ 02

The most appalling example of this sort of mentality was the hushed series of murders in Derry, Maine. Every thirty years counting backwards from 1985 to the 16oo's there had been gruesome outbreaks of disappearances and murders in the small city. The last one that Loomis had read about was an outbreak of murders and disappearances in 1985 (the spree of madness ending with a storm that dropped a better portion of the downtown area into a large sinkhole). Most of the victims (children more often than not) this killer claimed were never found. And when they were, they were mutilated and sometimes much, much worse. This series of events was so secret, he actually had to call the local police department and request the case files with the backing of governmental influences, namely through a favor from the director of the FBI.

And yet, the Derry Murders never made national headlines.

And then there were examples of super-killers being turned into urban legends and almost mythological figures in the national conscience.

'The Crystal Lake Murderer' Jason Voorhees and his mother were the best example of this, followed by Fred Krueger, "The Springwood Slasher." There was the bizarre case of Norman Bates and his hotel, as well as the Woodsboro "Ghostface" Slasher and the Candyman in Chicago's Cabrini Green. The list of unsolved murders relating to 'super-killers' was staggering, going on and on. Loomis had combed through as many of these cases as he could find, searching for a common link or element that might help identify what made this strange breed tick. He had hoped to shed some light on them, to help recognize them before they lashed out.

In his many years of pursuing the truth, he had only found three common factors that he could safely apply to them all.

They left few survivors and those they did miss, they eventually came back for. They all were without remorse or conscience over their deeds. And no matter what, despite the laws of physics and nature, they always seemed to come back from death. Somehow, they always came back.

Loomis knew that this last fact was what kept most people from being able to handle them. The average person just could not believe that sometimes the evil these killers harbored was more than the flesh could contain. He had told Lori that Freddy Krueger coming back from the dead was fantasy, but he didn't really believe that. With rare exception, a super-killer found no restrictions in death. If anything, dying somehow made them stronger, able to bend and even break the rules of reality. And if the killer did fall, another would rise to take the mantle of his madness.

How many lives could have been saved if those in authority had just opened their eyes to the truth? Perhaps conventional thinking could catch your nastier killers like Dahmer, Bundy and Gacey. But with these super-killers, conventional thinking was what got most people killed.

Loomis thought of poor Lori again, her suffering over knowing what she saw and the fact that so few believed her. Loomis had no doubt that she and Will saw Freddy Krueger that night, just as he knew that Jason Voorhees was probably out there at Crystal Lake somewhere still. He knew that death meant little to these killers. Death held no sway over them, because as his father had once written about Michael Myers, they were "evil, pure evil."

Evil does not answer to the flesh.

Loomis muttered as he opened his file cabinet and thumbed through the folders inside. He finally came to the one he wanted towards the back and pulled it out, opening the folder wide on his desk. The folder was filled to capacity with newspaper clippings, articles, crime scene photos and reports on Michael Myers. He flipped through the pile of documents until he came to a black and white photograph of the killer. Loomis felt a chill run through his spine as he gazed into the lifeless eyes behind the white Halloween mask. It looked so impassive, so cold to everyone and everything. The hair jutting out above the pasty white forehead of the mask was wild and untamed.

"Untamed," Loomis muttered as he stared at the picture. He had a similar picture of Jason Voorhees in his file cabinet as well, along with an equally thick case history. Loomis sat the photo down and rubbed his eyes.

"Heaven won't take you," he told the photo of Michael, "Hell won't have anything to do with you. Where else could you possibly go?"

The phone rang. Loomis let it ring for a minute, something in the back of his mind telling him not to pick the phone up, not to answer. A part of him calmly suggested he ignore the call, pack in his papers for the night and go have a beer.

"Dr. Matthew Loomis speaking," he said into the phone.

"Matt?" came a shaking, feminine voice.

Loomis frowned. "Yes..."

There was silence on the end of the line, but he knew whoever it was hadn't hung up yet. He could hear water in the background, maybe a shower or bathtub filling up.

"Who is this?" he asked.

Another moment of silence, and then the woman spoke again, as though she had been forced to, "It's Mary, I'm sorry. My brain is scattered today."

"Mary," he smiled ruefully, not sure as to why in the world his ex-wife would be calling him, "To what do I owe this displeasure?"

"Research," she said, ignoring his sarcasm, and then after a moment of silence, "I've found something I think only you could appreciate."

Loomis felt his interest peak despite himself. "Such as?"

"I understand you've been working with one of the Springwood Massacre victims from a few years back?"

Suspicion was tugging at his ear. "Yes, I am. How did you know that?"

Another odd silence. "You mentioned it to me last time John and I were in New York. Last month, don't you remember?"

"Oh yes," Loomis leaned back in his chair, still not sure he remembered telling Mary about Lori. He did, however, remember John. Bitterly, he asked, "How is John, anyway?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't talk long, Matt," she said suddenly, "Can you spare me a few days?"

Now he knew something was up. Mary had always worked solo, even before their marriage had fallen apart. It was Mary's stubborn commitment to solitude that had led to their eventual breakup. And of course, there was that little extra-marital affair she had committed to with John Bilk on the side. Loomis had resigned himself to losing Mary to her work, but when he found out she was not only working with but sleeping with his rival John Bilk, he had been crushed. The end result wasn't remotely amiable, and it had led to a long period of silence between the two. Only their mutual interest in serial super-killers had brought them back together a few years back. And even then, she still preferred her distance.

To be honest, so did he.

"I thought you worked alone," Loomis said, testing the water.

"Matt," she said impatiently, "I need you here. I'm on to something big, and if you want in on it you'd better come to Springwood immediately."

"Springwood?" he repeated, the coincidence of Lori's destination being this same place causing alarms to sound in his head like an aircraft carrier going into battle.

"Yes," she said, and then more kindly, "Please, Matt. I need you here."

"No, Mary," he shook his head.

"Please," she insisted.

"It would be as awkward as the last time I saw you two," he declined, feeling a familiar rush of jealousy and betrayal, "I don't need to see John."

"He isn't here, Matt," she said.

"Strange," he mused, "You two were always attached at the hip..."

"Please Matt."

Loomis still remembered walking in on them, his wife atop John and riding him like some crazed cowgirl on a bull. She had brought that man into the bed Loomis had always believed would be theirs and had sex. From the sounds of her screams and moans, probably better sex than he had ever been able to give her. The jealousy stung at him again and he sighed.

"What have you found?" he asked.

"Evidence."

Loomis knew she was being deliberately vague, which wasn't like her at all.

"Evidence of what?"

He could hear Mary grinding her teeth, "Evidence that will validate our work and maybe help you in your personal pursuits."

"Our work?" Loomis laughed, "Our worked ended when you boinked that hack, Mary."

"You want in or not?"

Loomis breathed deeply.

The convergence of events here was too pronounced to ignore. Mary's request for his presence in Springwood at the same time as the two-year memorial of the massacre was strange enough. John not being there with her was even more bizarre. But the fact that Lori and Will would be there at the same time made him uneasy. If he had learned anything from his father, it was that if you find yourself with a coincidence the odds are it isn't a coincidence at all. And there was also Mary's sudden willingness to bring him back into her loop...

If had simply been Mary asking him to go, he would have refused. But Loomis had developed a special liking for Lori, protectiveness if one wanted to put a finer point on it. If something bad was going to happen, as Lori seemed to believe, then perhaps he should be there. He had no doubt John would be there as well, that Mary was lying just to get him out there. He knew that John hated seeing him as much he hated seeing John.

If nothing else, it was a golden opportunity to get under that prick's skin. Loomis smiled and took comfort in the fact that he wasn't above a little needling to those who deserved it. He flipped through his desk calendar for a moment, though he didn't need to look at the days. He already knew his answer, just as he had picked up the phone when it rang earlier, despite his gut instinct to skip the call.

"I can be there by tomorrow afternoon," Loomis said.

"Excellent," she said, a strange combination of happiness and what he thought to be sorrow in her voice.

"What evidence Mary?" he asked again, "What have you found?"

"Matthew," she began wearily.

"Give me something to work with here."

"Freddy Krueger," Mary said flatly, "And Jason Voorhees. You want proof or not?"

"Of course I do," he said, and then asked, "Mary, will we be attending the memorial service?"

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"I understand there's a memorial in place for the victims of 2003 massacre."

Mary said, "I'm surprised at you, Matthew. Who would want to remember that here?"

"But," he began, and then stopped, "I must be confused..."

Loomis considered calling Lori, and warning her about what he had just been told. 'Coincidence?' he thought dismally, 'I think not...'

"Mary," he asked, "are you feeling well?"

"Never better, Matt. See you tomorrow."

"Of course," Loomis said, "Good evening."

The phone clicked on the other end and the connection was broken.

Loomis sat there for a few minutes, hands flat on his desk and eyes fixed into the space in front of him. The hair on the back of his neck had prickled and risen, anticipating a danger that he wanted to say was probably just in his head. No one could see the future, and nothing was set in stone. Still, with all the amazing things this world was capable of letting happen, he could allow for intuition. He wondered if this was how his father had felt the first time he realized Michael Myers wasn't going to just go trick-or-treating that night he escaped from the hospital back in 1978. No, Loomis imagined this was feeling his father had felt the night he went back into the asylum in 1995 to find Michael.

His intuition told him not to go.

Loomis picked up the phone and dialed Lori's number. The phone rang for what seemed like forever. There was no answer. He waited for the answering machine to pick up, but it never did. He breathed deeply. Mary was right. A memorial in Springwood, the city that chooses to forget?

"Something is not right here," he said.

He tried calling Lori's cell phone. Nothing. No answering service either.

"Damn."

Loomis considered calling the police, but instead returned the phone to its cradle.

"What have I gotten myself into?" he whispered, looking down at the photo of Michael. He went to his file cabinet and thumbed through the case files. Pulling out the thick rubber band-sealed dossier on the Camp Crystal Lake murders, he sat down again. He thumbed through the vast stacks of police reports and newspaper clippings until he found what he was looking for. He held the black and white police photo up and away from him.

"Where are you, my friend?" he asked the picture of Jason Voorhees. The darkened eyeholes of the hockey-masked monster stared back at him, even through him to the rainy window beyond. Loomis placed the picture next to the one of Michael and began to see eerie similarities between them. Both of them possessed by lifeless eyes that were cold and calculating like a shark. Both men hiding behind non-descript white masks, perhaps consumed by shame and guilt, compelling them to hide their faces?

The two photos had been taken by crime scene photographers who believed them to be dead at the time, in actuality only the killers waiting for an opportune moment to strike. These were headshots of the undead, and yet even in the stillness of their supposed end, Loomis could see life in their eyes. It was impossible, but there it was. They were life beyond death, surviving and preying on the ignorance of those around them.

"Michael always came back for Halloween," Loomis spoke to the Voorhees picture and laughed nervously, "Will you come back for-"

Loomis suddenly stopped, seized by the birth of realization. He fingered through the old police reports quickly, searching for the dates on them. He spent the next five minutes almost frantically shuffling through the folder until he had what he was looking for. The Crystal Lake police department had compiled a list, a hit list if one pleased, of all of Jason's killing sprees. One date, no, one particular day on the list kept screaming for Loomis' attention like a radioactive isotope under a Geiger counter.

"Friday the 13th," Loomis muttered and looked at his desk calendar, "Yesterday was Friday the 13th."

Loomis quickly pulled his super-killer files from the cabinet and placed them in a large storage box from his office closet. He hastily put on his tan overcoat and sat the heavy box on the desk. His mind raced with horrific possibilities as he gathered himself for the trip, taking as much care as time would allow collecting his work. Mary's voice during their conversation had been more than enough to give him pause. But beyond that, she had asked him to go to a place that was marked with blood. He was heading into a great unknown where super-killers had committed horrendous crimes. He was going to well-treaded ground for two of the most infamous and violent killers ever.

And it seemed Lori and Will was going to the same place.

It was both exhilarating and frightening. If his scientific curiosity was chomping at the bit to go, then his common sense was equally opposed to leaving.

He looked down at the picture of Jason Voorhees.

"Right," Loomis picked up the phone, and then sat it down again in its cradle.

He looked into black eyes of the hockey mask, and in his heart he knew. Mary knew his quest to find Michael Myers better than anyone, and she would never call him into the field lightly. If Mary really had discovered something, then he knew it would help him find his father's killer.

Loomis prayed a silent prayer for Mary and picked up the phone again.

"United Airlines," the pleasant woman on the other end of the line greeted him, "How can I help you?"

"I need a seat on your first available flight to Ohio," Loomis closed his eyes, his heart pounding in his ears like a muffled jackhammer. He had no idea what to expect from the next few days, but he was sure that it wouldn't be good.

Not when you're in a place like Springwood anywhere near a Friday landing on the 13th.

***

Jason Voorhees was motionless, laid out flat on his back in a thick patch of bushes just beyond the gravely south shore of Crystal Lake. Not one of his powerful muscles moved as he watched the night sky. The ambulance that had picked up the woman had been gone for hours now, but he waited for the others that would follow. He had watched the woman surface in the middle of the lake and float over to the shore, looking like she was very much dead.

Jason had turned away and disregarded her.

She was dead, just like her man.

But then she had risen and stumbled into the forest. In her hand she had carried something he couldn't quite make out. Jason had followed her, slowly and cautiously through the woods as she made her way to the road. Instead of going to her truck and driving away, she had abandoned the vehicle on the shore and went crashing through the woods. Jason wondered how she could still be alive after being underwater for so long.

But then, he also knew that drowning didn't always equate to death. He didn't know much, but of that fact he was perfectly aware.

As he had approached her, his machete held firmly in his left hand, his good hand that still had all its fingers, he suddenly smelled a familiar stench. The smell had repulsed him and made him angry, forcing him to stop in his tracks.

It was the smell of the man in his dreams, a strange otherworldly odor that Jason had come to hate and even fear. The man in his dreams had almost killed him, succeeding where so many others had failed. He had forced him to relive the drowning in the lake, and for Jason it was as frightening and violent as it had been the first time. He could still taste the water in his throat, and as he stood there watching the woman run, he felt his lungs hitch involuntarily.

Jason lowered his machete and watched her, trying to understand why she wreaked of the dream man.

Was the dream man still alive?

No, he had to be dead. Jason had set his severed head in his dwelling, a hard-earned trophy.

Still, he knew that death didn't mean much here at Crystal Lake. The dream man was very good at disguising himself.

He recalled the image of his mother, and how the dream man had worn her face. He had believed his mother was there, talking to him, telling him to go to Elm Street where the children had been bad. They had been bad like the counselors at the lake had been that day. Bad like they had been when the cut his mother's head off on the shores of his lake. Bad like they had been ever since he found his true purpose in life.

For Jason, all he had was his purpose, what his heart raged every waking moment for him to do.

He would punish.

Jason's eyes didn't blink once as a Brown Recluse spider crawled across his mask slowly. The strange arachnid skittered along on its strong legs and stopped just below his left eyehole. Jason regarded the spider for a moment and they seemed to stare at each other. The spider then turned and scurried away. It fell from his head and into the flattened brush crushed beneath the bulk of his powerful frame.

Jason looked back to the sky.

He had watched the woman fall into a ditch by the road that led up to the Camp Crystal Lake entry. There she had lain until a car pulled up. Jason impassively watched a man get out and cautiously approach the woman. He poked at her with his foot for a moment and talked to her. After a moment, he pulled out a cell phone and frantically called for help. And then the ambulance had arrived, picked her up and took her away. There had been a police car too, but it left with the ambulance.

The smell was still here though.

Even as Jason laid low in the brush, waiting for the men that would soon come to investigate, he could smell the dream man. The odor angered him and filled him with a blind, hot rage. Jason gripped his machete so hard his knuckles popped loudly like pieces of tempered steel snapping.