Although the cut beneath Ash's ribs was shallow, Heather was right that it should still be cleaned and bandaged. He was about to lead everyone back into Nick's cabin when he noticed two people were missing from the frightened group gathered outside.
"Where are Amanda and Tina?"
Gwen immediately answered, "Amanda grabbed Tina and said she was getting them out of here by car."
Ash closed his eyes for a second. That explained why Jason had suddenly abandoned the second floor despite having several victims within reach. Someone had just committed one of the worst possible mistakes at Crystal Lake and tried to drive away alone.
Before Ash could decide whether he could reach them in time, a violent crash sounded from the direction of the middle cabin. Metal folded with a dull impact somewhere among the trees, followed almost immediately by Amanda's terrified scream.
"They're still alive." Ash tightened his grip on the greatsword. "Everyone get inside. Stay together, turn on every light you can, and call the police if the phones are working. Nobody goes anywhere alone."
He did not wait for an answer. Ash sprinted across the campground with the silver greatsword in both hands and disappeared toward the sound of the crash.
A few minutes earlier, Amanda had dragged Tina back to their cabin and hurried upstairs for the car keys. Tina followed while repeatedly trying to convince her mother that leaving Crystal Lake would not guarantee safety, but fear had already overwhelmed Amanda's judgment.
"Mom, running away won't solve anything. We read the newspaper. Jason has followed survivors before."
"Then we'll go straight to the police," Amanda replied as she pulled Tina toward the car. "A group of tourists with shotguns is not protection. The police can lock this place down and bring enough officers to deal with him."
Tina knew arguing was useless. Amanda shoved her into the vehicle, climbed behind the wheel, and started the engine before racing toward the campground road.
As the car began moving, Tina looked into the rearview mirror and froze.
Jason stood behind them.
His hockey mask was back in place, and both arms Ash had severed were attached to his shoulders again. They had not completely healed, however. The joints hung unnaturally, and the damaged flesh around them looked as though the limbs might tear free under enough force.
"Mom! Jason's behind us!"
Amanda looked into the mirror.
Nothing was there.
"Tina, I don't see—"
She returned her attention to the road and screamed.
Jason was now standing directly in front of the car.
There had been no time for him to move from behind them to the road ahead, yet he appeared there without warning as though the darkness itself had carried him.
"Hit him!" Tina shouted.
Amanda reacted on instinct, but instead of driving straight through Jason, she jerked the steering wheel sideways. The car swerved off the road and crashed into the trees.
The front end slammed into a thick trunk with enough force to crumple the hood. Metal twisted, the headlights flickered wildly, and the damaged horn began producing broken bursts of sound that echoed through the quiet forest.
For several seconds, Amanda remained stunned behind the wheel.
Then something moved beyond the failing headlights.
Jason stepped out from beneath the trees.
He crossed the distance to the driver's side and punched his left hand through the broken window. His fingers closed around Amanda's collar, and he dragged her halfway through the opening with brutal force.
Amanda screamed and fought desperately while Jason raised the machete in his right hand.
His damaged arms prevented him from moving with his usual strength. The left shoulder was already beginning to separate under Amanda's violent resistance, while the machete rose slower than normal.
That hesitation saved her life.
From the back seat, Tina watched Jason prepare to kill her mother. Terror and rage overwhelmed every other thought, and something inside her finally snapped.
Invisible force exploded outward.
Jason was struck as though an enormous hammer had hit him squarely in the chest. His grip on Amanda vanished, and his massive body flew several yards backward before crashing into the mud.
For once, the silent killer appeared genuinely confused.
Amanda collapsed beside the damaged car. Tina climbed out through the opposite door, rushed around the wreck, and pulled her mother upright before Jason could recover.
"Run!"
The two fled toward their cabin and the shoreline beyond it. Neither dared to look back until they reached the open ground beside Crystal Lake, where pale moonlight reflected from the gently moving surface.
Heavy footsteps followed them.
Jason had already risen.
His arms still hung awkwardly from his shoulders, but the damage did nothing to weaken his determination. He advanced through the darkness like a walking corpse that had forgotten how to stop.
Tina turned and tried to summon the same force she had used beside the car.
Nothing happened.
She raised both hands and concentrated harder, but fear only tightened her chest. The invisible power refused to answer.
Jason continued approaching.
Amanda pulled Tina behind her, though both knew she had no chance of protecting her daughter from the machete.
The blade began to rise.
A figure suddenly rushed from the darkness.
Ash arrived at full speed and swung the silver greatsword horizontally with both hands. Steel crashed against Jason's machete, and the violent impact sent a metallic screech across the lake.
Ash glanced at Jason's loosely reattached arms.
"I have to give you credit. You really don't know when to quit."
Jason silently tilted his head before attacking again.
With both arms still half-healed, he had lost much of the strength he displayed inside the cabin. Ash caught the machete without difficulty, shoved it aside, and drove a boot into Jason's chest.
The undead killer hit the ground.
Jason immediately started getting back up.
Before Ash could move in for another strike, the surface of Crystal Lake erupted behind him.
Water exploded upward.
A middle-aged man rose from the lake.
Ash instinctively turned as the figure surged forward and seized the heavy chain wrapped around Jason's body. Before the killer could react, the man pulled with impossible strength and dragged him backward toward the water.
Jason struggled, but his damaged arms could not free him.
The two disappeared beneath Crystal Lake.
Ripples spread outward before the surface gradually became calm again.
Ash stood at the shoreline with the greatsword still raised.
He had been seconds away from finishing the fight himself.
"Tina," he said slowly, "if I'm understanding what just happened…"
Tina stared at the lake in complete disbelief.
"That was my dad."
John Shepard.
The same man Tina had accidentally sent into Crystal Lake years earlier had somehow returned from the water and dragged Jason back beneath it.
Ash lowered the sword but did not relax.
Something about what he had witnessed was wrong.
John looked almost exactly as Tina remembered him. His body showed none of the decay Ash would expect after years underwater, and unlike Jason, he had not appeared as a bloated corpse damaged by the lake.
Tina only saw her father.
Ash saw more.
His Demonic Power allowed him to perceive a faint supernatural layer beneath ordinary sight. When John emerged, Ash had briefly seen something resembling a narrow fracture in space beneath the surface of Crystal Lake.
It was not a physical crack in the lakebed.
It looked more like an opening between worlds.
John Shepard's physical corpse had not simply climbed out of the water. Something spiritual had crossed through that opening and taken the shape of the man Tina remembered.
When John seized Jason, Ash saw another disturbing detail.
The thing he dragged into the water was not only Jason's body.
For a fraction of a second, Ash saw a dark spiritual presence being pulled from the rotting flesh. John dragged that presence with him toward the strange rift before both vanished from Ash's supernatural perception.
Ash stared at the quiet water.
If his interpretation was correct, whatever lay beyond that opening was connected to the realm of the dead.
Hell was one possibility.
That raised an even larger question.
What exactly could Tina Shepard do?
Her power was clearly not limited to ordinary telekinesis. She could throw Jason several yards without touching him, but she had also wished for her dead father to return and unintentionally awakened Jason instead.
Perhaps Tina had not resurrected Jason's body directly.
Maybe her grief reached across the boundary between life and death and called for a spirit. Jason's soul answered instead, returning to the corpse that remained chained beneath Crystal Lake.
Now Tina had reached across that same boundary again.
This time, John Shepard answered.
That interpretation also failed to explain everything. Tina had seen Michael's death without being anywhere near him, which suggested another psychic ability entirely. Whether she had witnessed the murder as it happened or seen it moments before remained uncertain.
Ash looked at the exhausted girl standing beside her mother.
Telekinesis. Visions. Possibly calling the dead.
Tina Shepard was far more extraordinary than any of them had realized.