"This isn't happening, this isn't real," Max said to himself after tripping over half of Joe's dismembered body and landing on his stomach. "This is a nightmare, I'm just dreaming. My friends are alive and partying, I just have to wake up."
A hand grabbed his shoulder as Max instantly started to fight back before realizing it was Will who had grabbed him. "Max, Max! It's me!" Will shouted as he faced Max. "We gotta go!" Taking Max's hand, the two raced around the house toward the front yard to where Grady's old dinosaur of a car was, only for the two to find that it had been totaled. The tires were slashed, the windows broken and the lights smashed. "Someone did the same thing to my truck," Will said. "I think it was that guy in the hockey mask." "He killed everyone!" Max shouted, his voice breaking. "He cut off Grady's head and put it on the grill!" "I saw some of the carnage when I came to find you," Will said. "I think that's the killer that haunts this place, or maybe a copycat, I don't know! But we have to go, now!" "Where?" Max asked. "Your truck and Grady's car are totaled, and there's no one for miles around!" "We'll call the cops and hide," Will told him. "Come on!" The two rushed toward Will's house, not seeing Jason anywhere in sight as they ran. "Where do you think he is?" Max asked. "He might be following us, he probably knows this place better than anyone," Will told him as they got through his front door. "Block the doors! I'll call 911." Max started moving a cabinet in front of the door as Will picked up the phone, only to find the line was dead. "He must have cut the phone line, do you have a cellphone?" "Who would call me?" Max asked him. "Grady was my only real friend, so I never bothered with a cell phone." "Great," Will told him. "Trapped with a serial killer after us, what else could go wrong? Fuck, I'm sorry, Max, you just lost some people you really care about. I wasn't thinking." "It's okay," Max said. "He didn't get all the people I care about. There's still you, and I don't plan on--" Jason smashed through the window, grabbing Will from behind. "Let him go!" Max shouted as he grabbed a fire poker. He rammed it into Jason's eye as hard as he could. It had been enough to get Will out of Jason's grip, but not enough to stop him from continuing to climb through the window. "Okay, if this hat has powers, now would be a very good time for them to help! Come on, you stupid hat!" "Max, this is so not a good time," Will said as he grabbed Max's hand. "Let's get the hell out of--" Jason's machete came down, cutting Will's arm off halfway toward the elbow. Blood started squirting as Will held up his bloody stump and started screaming. "You son of a bitch!" Max shouted as he went to strike Jason with another fire poker, but Jason backhanded him hard enough to send Max flying across the room. He hit the wall and crumpled to the ground. Jason looked down at Will, who only closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Max." Max, now in a lot of pain and suffering from a few broken ribs, tried to lift himself up just in time to see Jason's machete go through Will's body, sending blood spraying onto the floor. "No." Max cried as the last of his strength had become spent. He fell to the floor, no longer having the energy, or the will, to try to get up, which is when Jason turned his attention to the teenager. * "Max. Come on, buddy, you have to get up." 10-year-old Max sat up in his bed, feeling his body to make sure this was real. "This isn't right," Max whispered to himself as his father walked through the door. "Dad? But-- but you died. It's been seven years." "Max, you can't let it end like this," the man told him. "You're capable to so many great things, I know you can fight this." "Grady's dead," Max told him. "And Joe, and Becka and Bev. He killed them, Dad. He killed Will and I couldn't save him. I think Will was--" "I know what he meant to you," his father said as he hugged Max. "I'm so proud of you, Max. Even without your powers, you did great things." "I almost drowned," Max told him. "I gave up on everything. I couldn't even admit to myself that I was gay. How are you proud of me?" "Because you're my son, that's all the reason I need," the man told him as he pulled out the hat and put it on Max's head. "This hat isn't the source of your powers. You are. The hat's just a conduit to focus them. The power's in you, Max. Use it to help others, to beat monsters like Jason Voorhees. You'll know what to do, but you can't give up, otherwise many more people are going to die." "Why did you have to leave me?" Max asked. "You could have helped me." "Everything happens for a purpose," the man told him as he kissed Max's forehead. "And you have to find yours. But you have to start fighting. I love you, Max." "I love you, too, Dad," Max told him as he wiped the tears away. "Will I ever see you again?" The man just smiled as a white light filled the room. * Jason pushed Will's body off of his machete, not realizing that Max had started to get up across the room. His body was still in intense pain from his broken ribs, but Max knew now what he had to do. "Hey, asshole!" Max said as Jason turned his attention toward the sole surviving teenager. "You killed my brother, my friends, and the guy I wanted to go out with. Now I'm going to kick your ass!" Jason just tilted his head quizzically as Max ran toward him as his hat started glowing. He jumped at Jason, tackling him into a portal that had opened behind the masked killer. * "Did it work?" the older man asked as the teenager in the passenger seat opened his eyes. "Did you get through to Max?" "Dude's got serious emotional issues to work through, but yeah, I think imitating his dad gave him that extra push," the boy told him. "The rest is up to Max now. I just wish we could have saved his friends. Even if we do get this guy on board, he's gonna be really messed up for a while." "I know," the man said as he focused on the road. "It sucks losing loved ones, but it's all part of the job. Like my mom or your parents. All we can is try to save as many people as we can and hope we're not too late. We'll be at Crystal Lake in 30 minutes, get some rest in the meantime. You're going to need it." * A portal opened in the ceiling of a cabin on the other side of the lake as Max fell through, using Jason as a landing pad as he hit the floor. Max kicked him before rolling off and grabbing a large broken bedpost and using it as a bat to hit Jason with until it broke into pieces after several hits. "Ah, I see you've taken wood to the face before," Max said as Jason swung his machete. Max ducked and dived, grabbing Jason's legs as another portal opened underneath them. "Alright, let's see where this takes us." Jason fell through the portal with Max along for the ride with the portal closing after they were gone. * A portal opened high over the Earth as Jason found himself plummeting toward the ground miles below. Max fell alongside him, smirking as he flipped Jason off with both hands. "Should have packed a parachute, bitch!" Max shouted as portal opened under him. Max fell through as he landed safely on the ground below. He stood up and watched Jason hit the ground with a devastating impact, causing a small crater where he landed. "That looks like it hurt." Jason started standing up moments later with the machete in his hand. "Well.... fuck." Max said as he focused the power of the cap again to open another portal. * Having tossed Jason in front of a moving train, throwing him off of a mountain, blowing him up in a building slated for demolition and putting him into a car compactor in the junkyard, Max was starting to run out of ideas. * L.A. "And why should I trust you?" teenager Cody Warwick asked the mop-headed brunette haired boy that stood in front of him. "Why should I trust anyone?" "No one's asking you to trust us," a man said as he stood nearby. He had shortcut black hair and wore a trenchcoat. "What we are asking is if you want to help us take down the kinds of monsters that just fucked up your life." As they stood in the alley, a portal opened as Jason fell through, landing on the ground. He immediately stood up and looked around for Max. "Uh... maybe we should take this conversation elsewhere," the mop-headed boy told them. "Like far away. Shit like this happens and I kind of want to be far away." "Hey, asshole, looking for me?" Max asked as he sat up on the building's ledge, his legs dangling over the side, just as a portal opened over Jason and a large dumpster started falling out. "GARBAGE DAY!" The dumpster fell right on top of Jason, crumpling the killer underneath. Within moments, Max had come down from the roof, slowly approaching the dumpster. Before he got too close, the dumpster started creaking as Jason cut his way out of it. "Oh, come on!" Max shouted. "What do I have to do, drop you into a live volcano? Trust me, I would if I knew where to find one. Nothing I'm tossing at this creep is slowing him down!" Jason grabbed Max around the neck, lifting him up into the air. Struggling to breathe, Max focused as another portal opened under them, dropping both into it before the portal closed. * Max and Jason both hit the waters of Camp Crystal Lake, now both being far from shore. It took a few seconds for Max to get used to being in the water again as he started treading. "This isn't good." Max said as he looked around, not seeing Jason anywhere around. Max felt something grab his leg and pull him down into the water as he tried to break free. Jason slowly pulled Max toward him with a machete raised. Pulling his foot out of his shoe, Max kicked Jason in the face with his other foot as he tried to swim, but Jason's machete stabbed him through the leg. Max screamed in pain, with only air bubbles escaping his mouth as his blood started tainting the water. Letting his machete go, which was now embedded in Max's leg, Jason pulled him back, in the process Max's cap floated off of his head, rising toward the surface. Unable to reach it, Jason started strangling Max to finish the last victim of this murder spree. Not knowing what to do, Max reached down and pulled the machete out of his leg, pushing the blade through Jason's neck and forcing it out the other side. Blood started pouring out, making the water murky as Max finally forced himself of out of Jason's grip. Bursting through the surface of the water, Max gasped for air as he started treading water. After a few seconds, it started to sink in that he was in the middle of a lake with no boat and no cap to take him to shore. "I'm going to die out here." Max said as Jason burst through the surface of the water in front of him. As he reached for Max, he grabbed the machete still stuck in Jason's throat and yanked it to the side, causing Jason's head to fall forward, only being attached now by the barest thread. Jason's body fell forward as Max tried to swim backward, watching Jason's body sink in the water. * Hours later, Max had found a piece of driftwood to latch onto, having fallen asleep. As he floated in the water, waiting for death, the hum of a small motorboat came from a distance. Soon it had reached Max's location, where the two young men on the boat pulled him in. "Is this him, Jacob?" Tommy Jarvis asked as he saw the wound on Max's leg. "Is this the guy?" "Yeah, it's him," Jacob Johnson told him as he held Max's cap in his hands, having fished it out of the water an hour ago. "He's our guy." "Then let's get him home and patch him up," Tommy told him. "I think this war just turned in our favor." The boat turned back toward shore with the unconscious Max finally being able to dream peacefully for once. * Deep within the Earth in a hellish landscape, a large shadowy figure sat on a throne made of bones. His fingers impatiently tapped the arm of his throne while one of his minions, a small lava creature, headed toward him. "Master, the boy's powers, he's found a way to activate them!" "I am well aware of this," the creature on the throne said in a calm tone. "The boy's powers were never supposed to come to the surface. That's why I had his father killed. That's why we arranged for his... little swimming accident. Tell me, where did his newfound confidence come from?" "I believe he fell in love." the figure on the throne stood up and stepped on the smaller creature, killing it instantly. "LOVE!?" the figure said angrily. "Well, then, we'd better make sure that something like this never happens again. I had hoped to toy with the cap bearer through the years, breaking him down slowly until there was nothing left but a crying mess. But now I'm thinking I have to speed up my plans to escape this place. The cap bearer will die by my hand and the cosmic key will be mine to wield. Then the world will die by the hand of Skullmaster!" NEXT: THE GATHERING
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TOBIAS CHRISTOPHERAuthor, cap-bearer. Archives
April 2019
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