Under Ash's control, the black Demonic Power spread across Jason's dismembered remains like living smoke. Wherever the energy touched, the rotten flesh hissed and crackled as though acid were eating through it, and Jason's scattered body parts began thrashing across the pavement with far more violence than before. The reaction immediately told Ash what he needed to know.
It was working.
Black mist climbed around Ash's face and shoulders while he increased the flow of energy. "There you are," he muttered. "Let's see what's really keeping you alive."
Instead of attacking Jason's physical body alone, Ash forced the Demonic Power deeper. The corrosive energy passed through dead flesh and followed the supernatural presence hidden within, eventually reaching the dark spiritual force responsible for Jason's immortality.
Something inside the corpse reacted.
The evil spirit immediately fought back, and two currents of dark energy collided inside Jason's ruined body. Ash felt the resistance through his Demonic Power as the hostile presence twisted, clawed, and attempted to push him out, but its strength was not enough to overwhelm him.
Jason's physical body could no longer scream, yet his spirit certainly could.
A piercing supernatural shriek erupted directly against Ash's senses. The sound reminded him of the Bloodthirsty Demon's death inside Leatherface, except Jason's spiritual presence resisted far longer, desperately clinging to the corpse as Demonic Power tore through it.
Ash maintained the pressure.
Little by little, Jason's corrupted soul began dissolving.
The black spiritual mass melted under Ash's attack until only thin wisps remained. They escaped through the severed neck and damaged chest like smoke leaking from a burned-out building, only to vanish completely a moment later.
Jason's body stopped moving.
The severed hands that had been crawling toward the torso collapsed onto the pavement. His legs became still, and the remaining flesh rapidly darkened, shriveled, and broke apart until the once-immortal killer was reduced to brittle, waterlogged bones scattered across the street.
Ash slowly withdrew the Demonic Power.
Silence returned to the industrial district.
He pulled the greatsword from the pavement, shook the remaining grime from its blade, and looked down at Jason's bones. "Funny how things work out. I spent weeks looking for something supernatural in New York, and you came all the way here yourself."
Ash rested the sword against one shoulder.
"Our first reunion didn't end well for you, and the second one ended worse. Still, I appreciate the delivery."
With that brief farewell to Crystal Lake's most persistent murderer, Ash collected his duffel bag and disappeared into the industrial maze before the police arrived.
By the time patrol cars reached the waterfront with Rennie Wickham, Charles McCulloch, Julius Gaw, Sean Robertson, and Colleen Van Deusen, Ash was already several blocks away. Officers found scattered human bones, deep sword marks cut into the pavement, blood from the earlier robbery, and enough damage to suggest an extremely violent confrontation had taken place.
The situation became even stranger when authorities later located the SS Lazarus and discovered the massacre aboard the ship. Combined with the survivors' statements, investigators concluded that a killer resembling Jason Voorhees had boarded the vessel, murdered most of its passengers, followed the survivors into Manhattan, and eventually fought an unidentified third party near the port.
The bones complicated everything.
Forensic examination showed that they had been exposed to water and decay for far longer than anyone who supposedly died that night. The remaining tissue was so badly degraded that investigators could not reasonably explain how the skeleton could have belonged to a living attacker only hours earlier.
There was also no normal explanation for why nearly all the flesh had disappeared.
The police searched for the mysterious young man described by Rennie and the others, but Ash had been careful from the moment he entered the waterfront district. The older industrial port had cameras only around major entrances and loading areas, while alleys between storage yards, abandoned service corridors, and maintenance routes created numerous blind spots.
Ash had used those gaps both entering and leaving.
One camera near the outer road captured only the bottom corner of his duffel bag as he passed beyond the edge of the frame. The image was so incomplete that investigators eventually dismissed it as ordinary cargo being moved around the docks.
With no identifiable suspect and evidence that contradicted ordinary forensic logic, the case was eventually filed as an extreme violent incident connected to the SS Lazarus massacre. The impossible details were documented, questioned, and ultimately buried beneath paperwork.
Ash returned to the Upper West Side apartment long after midnight.
Gwen had already come home from work and gone to sleep. Heather was asleep as well, so Ash quietly checked their room from the hallway before returning to his own and removing the greatsword from the duffel bag.
He cleaned the blade carefully and stored it beneath the bed.
Only after changing into pajamas and lying down did Ash finally examine what he had gained from Jason.
It was not the almost supernatural stealth ability he wanted.
It was not Jason's absurd regeneration either.
Instead, Ash had gained something more subtle.
Prey Tracking.
Ash turned his head toward the wall separating his room from Gwen and Heather's. He could not physically see through the wall, but another sense allowed him to perceive two familiar presences resting only a short distance away.
He had marked both women earlier after returning home.
The ability worked through deliberate visual targeting. If Ash looked directly at someone and focused on them, he could place a supernatural mark on that person and continue sensing their location afterward.
At close range, the result was remarkably precise. Ash could tell exactly where Gwen and Heather were inside the neighboring room and even distinguish their positions from each other.
Distance weakened the accuracy.
The farther a marked person traveled, the less exact the perception became until Ash could sense only a general direction and approximate distance. It was still useful enough that someone would have difficulty disappearing completely once he marked them.
There did not appear to be a hard limit on how many people Ash could track.
In theory, he could eventually mark hundreds, thousands, or even more. The restriction was that he could actively create only one mark at a time and needed to look directly at the target while focusing.
The strangest part of the ability came from Jason himself.
Anyone who approached Crystal Lake would still be automatically marked without Ash doing anything.
That explained a great deal about Jason's impossible hunting ability. Once someone entered his territory, the killer always seemed capable of locating them no matter where they hid, and his strange habit of appearing nearby without warning made escaping feel almost impossible.
Unfortunately, Ash could not relocate the automatic marking zone.
Crystal Lake remained permanently connected to the ability.
Unless Ash planned to turn the campground into some bizarre supernatural surveillance station, that portion was nearly useless to him.
Even so, Prey Tracking was valuable enough that he had no reason to complain.
Ash closed his eyes while still sensing Gwen and Heather through the wall. Jason's stealth would have been more entertaining, but knowing the position of anyone he deliberately marked had obvious advantages in a world filled with kidnappers, demons, killers, and disappearing supernatural creatures.
For once, the hunt had paid off.
The following morning, Gwen woke before either of them.
She tied on an apron and moved quietly through the kitchen while the apartment remained dim. Soon the sound of eggs sizzling in a skillet mixed with the hum of the coffee machine, and the smell of bacon, toast, and fresh coffee drifted through the rooms.
Ash heard the activity and got out of bed.
The moment he opened his door, Heather emerged from the other bedroom with messy black hair and half-closed eyes. She rubbed her face while walking toward the bathroom, looking far less like the confident law graduate she normally presented to the world.
Gwen leaned out of the kitchen.
"Go wash up. Breakfast is almost ready. I also washed the clothes you two left lying around and put everything on the sofa, so take your own things and put them away."
Ash and Heather answered in the same lazy tone.
"Yes, ma'am."
Gwen narrowed her eyes at them before returning to the stove.
By the time Ash and Heather finished washing and changing, breakfast was waiting on the table. The three ate together while Gwen discussed work and Heather reviewed the schedule for another law-firm interview later that morning.
The domestic routine felt almost absurdly ordinary compared with Ash's previous night.
After breakfast, Gwen left first for the newspaper office. Heather followed soon afterward with a folder of résumés and documents tucked beneath one arm, leaving Ash alone in the apartment.
Before leaving, Gwen pointed toward several corners of the living room.
"Since you apparently have nothing important to do today, clean properly. Not just the obvious places. I want the dust behind the furniture gone too."
Ash gave her a salute.
"Yes, boss."
Once both women were gone, he tied on an apron, rolled up his sleeves, and started with the kitchen. Plates clinked beneath running water while Ash scrubbed them with a sponge and wondered how his life had gone from destroying an immortal serial killer after midnight to cleaning breakfast dishes before noon.
Then someone knocked on the front door.
Three firm knocks echoed through the apartment.
Ash put down the sponge, dried his hands with a towel, and walked toward the entrance. He opened the door and immediately began examining the stranger standing in the hallway.
The visitor was a white man around six feet tall, slightly heavyset but still solidly built. His gray-brown hair was thinning along the front, the sideburns had already turned white, and his tired face suggested a man somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. A briefcase hung from one hand, and everything about his posture suggested an ordinary professional who had spent too many years dealing with office work.
Then Ash looked properly at his face.
He froze.
Tom Hanks?
The man outside his apartment looked uncannily like an older version of the actor Ash remembered from his previous life.
Ash stared for another second.
Forrest Gump?
No. Almost certainly not.
The man did not look remotely like someone about to discuss shrimp boats, cross-country running, or sitting on a park bench telling strangers his life story. More importantly, if Ash had learned anything since arriving in this world, recognizing an actor's face did not mean the person belonged to the movie he remembered best.
That was the problem.
Ash had watched movies casually in his previous life. If something caught his attention online, he might look it up later, while theater trips were usually reserved for large action movies and visual-effects blockbusters. Most dramas and smaller films were things he watched at home whenever he happened to have time.
When it came to Tom Hanks, only a few images immediately came to mind, and Forrest Gump was by far the strongest.
Ash looked at the middle-aged stranger holding the briefcase and silently wondered what kind of horror movie he had just wandered into this time.