By the time Ash returned to the cabin with Amanda and Tina, Heather and the others had already followed his instructions and contacted the police. Sirens soon broke the silence surrounding Crystal Lake, and several patrol cars pulled into the campground one after another. Officers secured the area, separated the survivors, and began collecting statements from everyone who had witnessed the massacre.
Their reaction to Jason Voorhees was exactly what Ash expected. The veteran sheriff leading the investigation repeatedly looked between the old Crystal Lake reports and the surviving witnesses with an expression caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief. "Jason Voorhees? You're telling me the same killer who disappeared here more than a decade ago came back tonight?"
The sheriff shook his head while flipping through the old case records. "Even if his body was still somewhere in that lake, there shouldn't be enough left of him to walk around with a machete. A copycat makes more sense than a dead man coming back to life."
The physical evidence did little to change his mind. Investigators found the wrecked car Amanda had crashed, deep footprints in the mud, signs of a violent struggle, blood throughout Nick's cabin, and the bodies left behind by the attack. They also recovered weapons and numerous damaged doors, but nothing conclusively proved that the killer had been Jason Voorhees himself.
Years beneath Crystal Lake had left Jason's body severely decomposed. His rotting hands provided no usable fingerprints, while the corrupted tissue and black fluid he left behind were too damaged to produce anything the police could immediately identify. Ash's explanation that Tina's dead father had risen from the lake and dragged Jason's spirit back beneath the water sounded even less believable than the resurrection itself.
Without evidence that could survive outside a campfire story, the department refused to officially declare that Jason Voorhees had returned. The murders were instead attributed to an unidentified killer deliberately imitating the infamous Crystal Lake murderer, and authorities issued a public notice asking anyone with information to contact the sheriff's office.
Local newspapers quickly picked up the story.
Most readers accepted the copycat explanation. Some treated the entire incident as another gruesome chapter in Crystal Lake's already infamous history, while others blamed the campground owners for reopening property associated with so many deaths.
Older residents reacted differently.
Men and women who had lived near Crystal Lake during the previous massacres stared at descriptions of the enormous silent killer, the hockey mask, and the machete without laughing. They remembered what happened whenever the name Jason Voorhees returned to the newspapers.
Those people knew there had been no copycat.
Jason had come back.
The only comforting part of the witnesses' unbelievable testimony was the claim that Tina Shepard's father had dragged him beneath the lake again. If that portion of the story was true as well, then perhaps Crystal Lake had finally swallowed its monster for good.
The campground management wanted nothing more to do with the surviving guests. To prevent arguments, lawsuits, or demands for refunds, the operator immediately waived all lodging and activity fees for Ash, Gwen, and Heather. Each of them also received two thousand dollars in compensation for the trauma and danger they experienced during the stay.
Heather looked at the paperwork and briefly wondered whether their road trip had somehow developed a habit of paying them whenever something tried to kill them.
For Tina, however, the experience brought something more important than money.
Seeing John Shepard emerge from Crystal Lake and protect her finally broke the guilt she had carried since childhood. Tina had spent years believing her anger killed her father and that he would have hated her for it. Whatever force allowed John to return, his final act made one thing clear: he had not come back to condemn his daughter. He came back to save her.
Amanda decided they were leaving as soon as the police finished their initial questioning.
While packing Dr. Crews's belongings, she discovered several notebooks and research files hidden among his things. What she read completely changed her understanding of Tina's treatment.
Dr. Crews had never been focused solely on helping Tina recover.
His private notes documented Tina's telekinesis, emotional triggers, and previous uncontrolled incidents in clinical detail. More disturbing were his deliberate efforts to preserve her trauma surrounding John's death because fear, anger, and guilt made her psychic abilities easier to activate. He had intentionally provoked Tina during therapy because he wanted to study her powers.
Amanda was devastated.
She had trusted a psychiatrist to help her daughter heal, only to discover that he considered Tina's suffering useful research material. Whatever doubts Amanda once had about leaving Crystal Lake disappeared immediately.
Before departing, Tina exchanged phone numbers with Ash, Gwen, and Heather. That was when they discovered she also lived in New York, which meant their strange friendship did not necessarily have to end at the campground.
"If anything weird happens again," Heather told her, "call us."
Ash glanced at her.
"Maybe specify what kind of weird. With our luck, that covers half the state."
Tina actually laughed.
Nick and the remaining members of his group left soon afterward. Too many of their friends had died for anyone to continue treating the weekend as a vacation. The survivors carried injuries, grief, and memories that would probably remain with them long after Crystal Lake disappeared in their rearview mirrors.
The campground became almost empty overnight.
Ash, Gwen, and Heather were the only tourists who stayed.
After surviving mutant cannibals, a demonically possessed Leatherface, and Jason Voorhees during the same road trip, the three had developed a strange ability to accept disaster once it ended. Their reservation still had two days remaining, and Jason was supposedly gone, so they saw little reason to immediately abandon the vacation they had already fought so hard to reach.
While police officers searched the woods and processed evidence, the three spent their remaining time beside the lake. They grilled food, walked along the shoreline, talked on the porch, and enjoyed the scenery whenever investigators were not moving through the campground.
Two days later, their planned three-day, two-night stay officially ended.
Ash loaded the Ford, Gwen returned the cabin keys, and Heather took one final look across Crystal Lake before climbing into the car. The three quietly left New Jersey and began the long drive back toward New York.
The campground was not as fortunate.
News of another massacre at Crystal Lake destroyed what little confidence tourists had in the newly reopened property. Reservations vanished, cancellation requests flooded the office, and no advertising campaign could convince families to spend a weekend beside a lake now associated with yet another group of murders.
The redevelopment project collapsed almost immediately.
Before the campground could complete its first real season, it closed again.
Ash, Gwen, Heather, Amanda, Tina, Nick, and the rest of the ill-fated group became its first and last guests.
Crystal Lake eventually returned to silence.
Days passed without campers, music, or headlights moving between the abandoned cabins. The dark water remained undisturbed beneath the moon as though nothing had happened there at all.
Then a small houseboat drifted onto the lake during the night.
The young couple aboard were not local. Jim Miller and Suzi Donaldson had been spending time on the water and allowed the boat to drift farther than intended before deciding the isolated lake was the perfect place to stop for the night.
Jim dropped the anchor.
The heavy metal sank into the darkness and struck an underwater electrical line.
The cable tore apart.
Electricity exploded through the water in violent flashes, illuminating the lakebed for brief fractions of a second. One surge traveled directly through the motionless corpse still resting beneath Crystal Lake.
Jason Voorhees opened his eyes.
Far beyond anything visible in the physical world, something answered the electricity running through his abandoned body. The connection between corpse and spirit reformed, and whatever John Shepard had dragged away began forcing its way back.
Jason returned once more.
Above him, Jim and Suzi remained completely unaware of what their anchor had awakened.
By morning, the houseboat drifted without either of them alive.
Farther down the water, the much larger SS Lazarus prepared to depart with students from Lakeview High School aboard for their graduation trip. Their destination was New York City.
As the ship began moving, something emerged silently from the water.
Jason grabbed one of the ropes hanging beneath the stern and pulled himself aboard.
Crystal Lake was behind him now.
His hunting ground was about to become much larger.
On the highway back toward New York, Gwen rested in the passenger seat and looked through the windshield at the endless road.
"This trip has been unbelievably cursed."
Ash laughed from behind the wheel.
"You're looking at it wrong. We actually came out ahead."
Heather leaned forward from the back seat.
"Oh? I'd love to hear this."
"The West Virginia cannibals helped us walk away with almost two hundred thousand dollars. You inherited a mansion and more than a million dollars. Crystal Lake refunded our entire stay and paid each of us another two grand."
Ash tapped the steering wheel.
"We even upgraded to this Ford."
Gwen stared at him.
"It's used."
"Still an upgrade."
Heather rose slightly between the front seats just as she had near the beginning of their road trip. She reached forward, caught Ash's cheeks between both hands, and squeezed them.
"You forgot the most important thing you gained."
Ash spoke through compressed cheeks.
"What?"
"A girlfriend."
Ash considered that for a second.
"Then you forgot two things. You gained an amazing boyfriend and the world's best future sister-in-law."
Heather released his face and stared at him.
"I'm not shameless enough to call myself the perfect girlfriend, and Gwen actually has a strong argument for being perfect. You, on the other hand, are unbelievably narcissistic."
"Why? Don't you trust your own taste?"
Ash glanced toward her through the mirror.
"If you chose me, doesn't that prove I'm great?"
Heather opened her mouth, paused, and then reluctantly leaned back.
"I hate that your argument almost makes sense."
Ash smiled before his expression became slightly more serious.
"How's your side?"
Heather touched the injury near her waist. The wound from their encounter with the West Virginia cannibals had almost completely healed during the journey.
"Barely hurts anymore."
She noticed the concern in Ash's eyes and immediately gave him a mischievous smile.
"Why are you asking? Getting impatient now that your girlfriend is almost fully recovered?"
Ash kept his eyes on the road.
Gwen slowly turned her head toward the window and pretended she had heard absolutely nothing.