Scent of Blood, Part 2, Ian Waylan

***Content Warning: Gore, Violence, and Scary imagery.  Viewer/Reader Discretion is advised***

***I also apologize for any inaccuracies or discrepancies of lore, content, or descriptions.  I'm writing this mostly for fun.***

Two Days Earlier

"Yo short stack!" bellowed a voice in his ear.  "We're here!"

Ian Waylan sat up with a jerk.  He looked across the interior of the bus blearily, blinking his gummy eyes several times before the haze of drowsiness left them and he could see better.  The others were already filing off, leaving him alone with the bored-looking driver.  They met one another's eyes in the rear-view mirror.  The man gave a single jerk of his head towards the doors and then looked away again.

He hurried to pick up his stuff.  He clipped on the straps of his metal-framed, green, army-issued rucksack.  His movements forced it to jostle about as he struggled to stand up underneath its weight.  Be prepared, his father had told him.  Bring plenty of changes of clothes and supplies in case of emergencies, his mom had said.

He knew it was smart but he was paying for it now by having to tote it all around, looking utterly ridiculous compared to the light weight packs and bags the others had brought with them.  Still, at least all of his stuff was in just one and not multiple smaller items like everyone else.  Even so.  Maybe he should have paid attention more when his Dad had been teaching him how to pack it all away.

When had he fallen asleep anyway?  He shuffled and stumbled slowly forward, backpack catching on seemingly every single seat in the cramped aisle before he finally extricated himself and made his way past the driver.

"Thank you," he told the man over his shoulder, trying to be polite.

The driver didn't respond.  He looked at Ian with the same, passive, dead-eyed stare that he had had since they got onto the bus at the hotel.  It was the kind of expression of looking at someone in a funeral casket that you didn't know well but didn't exactly feel all that sorry for.  It was a very unsettling look to say the least.  He immediately looked away again, rubbing at his nose and sparsely whiskered cheeks.

Ian shrugged and turned to go.  The man spoke then, a harsh muttering of a voice that made his skin crawl.  "You're all doomed..." he half-whispered.

Ian glanced back behind him.  "Excuse me?" he asked, confused.

The driver met his eyes once more.  "Doomed.  You're all doomed."  He sucked on a thumbnail and looked frantically away from him once again.  His other hand jittered nervously on the handle to the doors.  He seemed...eager to be gone from here.  He didn't say another word.

Ok...little creepy, Ian thought but tried to dismiss it.  He carefully climbed down the steps and had barely exited the doors before they hissed closed, almost catching him in them.  The bus driver immediately began driving away, turning the wheels sharply and flinging gravel everywhere as he sped off.

All of the teens in front of the vehicle were startled, the girls squealing and several of the boys letting out swear words as they were all pelted by gravel and dirt.  Ian, being the closest, got the worst of it, covering his face with his hands but thankfully he was spared most of it by his oversized military rucksack.  Even so, he felt several sharp stings across his lower body from where sharp bits of rock and dirt clods had scraped his exposed legs.

"Asshole," muttered one of the boys.  There was a chorus of agreement from the other eleven counselors.

"All right then, listen up!" bellowed the same, authoritative voice as had woken Ian up before.  He turned his attention, as they all did, to see who was speaking.  A heavily-built boy Ian's age stood at the front of the group.  He wore the same yellow camp t-shirt as the rest of them, emblazoned with a pastel printing of a lake and cabin, as well as the same red life-guard shorts.  On his muscular legs, they strained quite tightly.  More than one of the girls had been heard commenting on him during the ride.  "My name's Garret and I'm senior counselor this summer.  Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake!"

There was a small amount of clapping.  Ian joined in but it faded as quickly as he tried to do so and thus he was the last to stop.  His face burned a bit awkwardly but he tried to put it out of his mind.

Garret posed confidently in front of them all, his back to the long forest trail that stretched off behind him.  Mist rolled in across the ground, obscuring the sides of the path.  They must have been close to the said lake for mist to be that thick.  "I'm sure you've all heard the B.S stories about this place," he continued.  "So let's get one thing straight.  There is no monster or anything of the sort around here.  It's all just rumors and speculation."

Ian blinked in surprise.  What rumors?  What monster?  This was the first he had heard anything about this.  He glanced around but saw that everyone was wearing the same, amused smile as Garret.  Apparently everyone knew but him.  Still, no harm in clarifying.  He stuck up his hand.

Holding a clipboard, Garret glanced up, noticing him.  "Yeah, what?" he asked, obviously not enthused to already be answering questions.  He checked the list.  "Who are you again?"

Wincing a bit internally to be a nuisance already, he cleared his throat.  He had already tried to introduce himself on the bus but maybe Garret hadn't been paying attention.  None of them had really given him much mind when he tried to talk on the trip over.  Most people didn't.

"Uhh, yeah hi.  I'm Ian."  He waved at everyone around him.  Only a few acknowledged him.  Most of them were too busy trying to see if their cellphones had any reception out here.  From their frustrated expressions and many different varieties of holding their phone out and above their heads as if that would help at all.  "I just wanted to say hi and ask what rumors and such are you talking about?"

Everyone stopped what they were doing, either idly chatting to one another, Simba-ing their phones, or messing with their belongings, to stare at him.  He shrank a bit underneath all the attention.  Garret's eyes narrowed a bit before he rechecked his clipboard.  "You're kidding, right?" asked a pretty girl with long fake nails.  Her nametag, on her very stretched out shirt front, declared her as Helen.

Ian shook his head.

A muscular black boy who already had tattoos on his bulking forearms despite barely looking to be in high school, named Jerome, rolled his eyes.  "Wow, and he even looks the bookie type.  And he doesn't do any research.  Sad."  Many of their fellow teens laughed.  "How old are you anyway, shorty?"

Ian pursed his lips in annoyance at being talked down to.  "I'm 18."

Everyone laughed.  "Yeah right," sneered a large guy named Freddie.  His mop of scraggly red hair hung mostly over his pimply and heavily-freckled face.  "You look like you're barely 16."  Like he was one to talk.

He crossed his arms over his chest.  "I am 18!" he declared.  That only made them laugh more.  "Look."  He dug into his backpack and pulled out his wallet.  He flipped it open, past the military coin his father had given him, and held out his driver's license.

Garret stalked over, obviously irritated, and snatched it out of his hand.  He looked it over while everyone continued to chuckle.  He blinked once then looked back up from the picture to its owner.  "No kidding," he mused, sounding contemplative.  "He really is 18.  Old as me."

Everyone quieted down a bit, looking disbelieving.  More than one walked over and read off his birthdate as well.  When they had all had a chance to apparently check of the validity of his license, Ian held out his hand for the faded, scuffed leather wallet.  "Believe me now?" he asked.

Garret didn't give it back yet though.  He instead dug the little plastic card out of its protective sleeve and held it up to the light as if trying to see if it was a fake.  Then, with perhaps the most condescending sneer possible, he flicked it and the wallet back towards Ian.  "So you'll be the next oldest.  Counselor guidelines says that means you'll be essentially second in command around here for sake of seniority."

Everyone scoffed at that as Ian, face flushed, bent down to retrieve his possessions.  He nearly tumbled from the jostling weight of his backpack but managed to snatch up both wallet and license before he tucked them back into their assigned pocket securely.

"Well then, second in command," drawled Garret, sounding far too pleased with himself.  "We are gonna have a lot of fun here."  Ian felt a sense of dread hang over those dangerous sounding words.  Their summer internship as counselors had just started and somehow he was already being targeted.  What was this, high school all over again?  Garret turned again to address the rest of them.  "Let's get up to the cabins y'all," he announced.  "Unload your stuff and then we meet Mr. Starkey, the coordinator.  Just FYI, don't worry about your phones and stuff, there's no reception here.  And you'll be turning them in anyway."

There were many grumbles and complaints.  "Why can't we keep our phones?" demanded Helen, sounding affronted.  The other girls, one an Asian girl named Lia, and the other a caramel-skinned beauty with the nametag of Lorraine, chimed in as well with their objections.

"Camp policy," explained Garret.  "Apparently it all started when this kid drowned while the counselors were supposed to be on watch."  At least nobody snickered at that.  "Ever since, the camp's had pretty strict policies and guidelines that they update every year.  So.  No phones."  He held out a plastic bag in front of him.  "Might as well collect them now."

Everyone grumbled but did as Garret instructed.  Ian was last in line since he had to dig the device out of his rucksack.  When it was his turn, he again tried to bridge the gap and ask his fellow 18-year old, "So...what are the rumors?"

There was a large amount of eye rolling from all around.  Garret was one of them before his eyes gleamed and he leaned down toward Ian, looming intimidatingly over the shorter boy.  "Oh, just stories of some psycho in the woods..." he growled out in a sinister voice.  "Hunting down people for the kicks.  Hacking them up."

Ian swallowed but tried not to give into the obvious scare tactic.  "Yeah, right.  Anything else?  Werewolves?  Vampires?  Animated dolls?"

Garret seemed annoyed that Ian didn't rise to his teasing.  "How about a sock in the head and getting thrown in the lake?" he growled.  Several of the other guys laughed.

Ian just sighed and handed over his phone, plopping its faded, outdated model in alongside all the other more expensive ones.  Looks like things were already off to a great start.  He shouldered his rucksack higher up onto his shoulders and fell in line with the others as Garret turned and began leading them down the trail.

"Why don't we have a jeep to carry us?" whined Helen.  "My cross trainers aren't meant for walking in the dirt."

Several others either grumbled in agreement or scoffed at her prissy attitude.  Garret walked at the head of the pack.  "Because locals don't like driving down the road," he explained.  "It isn't paved as well and..." he flashed a look over his shoulder at Ian.  "Rumors..."

More laughter rang around the trees.  They rounded a bend and came in sight of a huge sign staked into the ground.  The yellow paint was chipped and faded, large red letters spelling out "Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake, New Jersey!  Established 1935."  A picture of the same lake and cabin as was on their shirts was detailed into the wood.  Heavy foliage and greenery surrounded the sign on all sides.

They kept walking on past it.  Ian stopped to admire the rustic old sign.  It at least seemed welcoming, as was its intent.  At least, it did, until he spotted something else, lightly obscured by a branch.  He pushed it to the side.  His stomach dropped and he felt suddenly cold.

Scratched into the wood was a crude secondary message and an even cruder drawing.  The letters spelled out, hacked into the wood with a rough knife, "BEWARE.  HER."  There was a large stain, dark red and brown like clay or paint, in the shape of a handprint right next to the last letter, partially blotting it out.  The picture beside the hand looked like some kind of mask or featureless face.  It wasn't very well done so it was impossible to make out much, but if Ian had to guess, it almost looked like an old hockey mask.

The red staining of the handprint was especially grim.  He leaned in closer to inspect it.  Only by peering so closely to the rust-colored paint, so dark red that it was almost brown, was he able to tell another letter was scratched underneath it.  The message didn't say "BEWARE.  HER."

He mouthed the two words out loud.  "Beware...Here..."  He rubbed his thumb across the paint over the last E.  He winced in shock as a splinter gouged into him, making him jerk back his hand.  A fresh red stain now decorated the wood.  He eyed the piece of wood sticking out of his skin and he jerked it out delicately.  More blood beaded at the surface and he sucked it away.

A sudden rustling in the bushes nearby made him jump.  He looked out into the misty woods toward where the sound had come from.  Was it just his imagination, or did he see somebody there, lurking just out of sight?  A shadow, just in-between two large trees?  He squinted his eyes, trying to make them out.  There, just there, the shape had begun to move.  Was it getting closer...?

That was when a heavy hand fell across his shoulders, making him stumble and give out a yelp of shock.  He whirled around to see one of the other boys, Carl, gazed down at him impassively.  He looked a lot like Lorraine.  "Hey, 18," he grumbled.  "Garret says hurry your ass up.  We're already assigning cabins."

"Oh...t-thanks," Ian mumbled, heart still racing.  He tried giving the other boy a smile.

Carl instead just turned around and kept walking.  "Whatever man," Ian could hear him mutter.

Sighing, he turned back and peered through the trees again.  The figure was gone.  Whatever it had been, person, animal, or just a trick of the light, it wasn't there anymore.  He took one last glance at the message carved into the board, staring at the dark red handprint and the crudely drawn mask.  The eyes, even as roughly carved as they were, seemed to stare into him with a foreboding sense of finality.

As he began making his way after Carl, he again heard the ominous rustling from somewhere.  It lent some speed to his steps.  He didn't dare look back, already freaked out enough as it was.  The image of the psycho killer Garret had taunted him about played in his mind, a faceless, unknown predator that even now might have been watching its latest victims slowly enter its bloody domain.

If only he knew how right he was...

***

Far off in the woods, a pair of flat, shadowed eyes watched the slenderly built young man hurry off down the trail towards the camping ground.  Cast in shadows by the trees overhead, the burly figure observed the ten or so teenagers mill about in front of the main dining hall.  All of them were healthy, attractive, and sociable, apart from the loner who arrived last.  He was seemingly treated less than well by all the others.

The girls ignored him but whispered needless things about him, from what could be seen of their lips moving.  The boys mocked him more openly, making him put away all their bags in the pair of large living quarters up the path away from the dining hall.  He was then given the last, smallest, and most run down of the cabins, usually reserved for a camp coordinator in years past but no longer used for that function.  The current head of the summer camp, an older, maliciously eyed man who leered at the girls whenever they weren't looking, barely had time to stick around.  Negligence hadn't changed.

The figure hung back as the older man sped away from the camp only an hour or so after the teens arrived and began working on getting the place ready.  Another group to make the camp presentable, clean, and open to the potential of summer crowds again flocking to its pristine waters and misty forest trails.  None ever wanted to look too deeply however, wary of what might be at the bottom of the lake.  No one, even the most foolhardy of the boys, wished to stay out late and explore those trees and what might lurk behind them.

Maybe.  Maybe this group would be different.  Maybe they could change.  Maybe...these people weren't evil as they usually were.

Hope, like oil in water however, only made the reality seem more pleasant.  Meanwhile it did nothing but pollute the purity, the calm silence and sad reality.  Just like the others...they invariably began to show their true colors, their true horrible stench that, like oil, did nothing but make her hate them just like all the rest.  And just like skimming oil out of the lake, she would wipe the slate, and Crystal Lake, clean once again.  There was no room in her heart, or her home, for hope, for intruders, for anyone.

The festivities began when the camp coordinator returned to the site a few hours later.  While the popular ones shared in the beer and food the older man brought back from town, one was left out in the gloom to work on scrubbing boat hulls, cleaning signs, and wiping down windows.  She watched him take time to even try and clean the welcome sign, scrubbing at the bloody handprint marking the warning she had carved there.

She contemplated taking him first.  Isolated ones like him were always the easiest and were unlikely to be missed.  She could have done it so easily as she stood directly behind him, barely a few feet away as he scrubbed and scrubbed at the dark stains with a brush.  She watched him repaint the sign and letters after with new coats of yellow and red and blue.  His hands were gentle, steady, and sure.  Artist's hands.  It would be such a shame, really, when they were still.

Something about this one made her wait.  While the others partied, drinking beer, scattering trash and cans, and often openly groping one another as the alcohol affected them more and more in the main hall, he stayed outside and away from it all.  Part of it might have been that he felt unwelcome.

They made no attempt to make him feel otherwise, but a tiny part of her mind wanted to imagine that he cared for their antics as little as she did.  She lurked behind the porch, just out of sight in the shadows, as she watched him draw a squirrel in a tree overhead as the others continued their debauchery and enjoyment of a seemingly easy and carefree summer job.  It was easier this way, perhaps, to focus on the one bit of brightness that these latest intruders brought than focusing as always on the pervasive, perverted darkness.

She left him.  She knew others more deserving for now.  She waited for the camp coordinator, her mother's old job, to offer to walk the girls back to their assigned cabin when the stars had finally come out.  His eyes betrayed his intentions as nothing short of wicked as he lurked outside their window inexpertly, watching them change.  He didn't notice her until it was too late.  A hand over his mustached mouth quieted him as she lifted him and dragged him away.

Once safely hidden in the darkness of the trees, she saw a window open.  One of the girls looked outside for the slight bump that her taking of the man had caused.  He struggled in vain against her, trying to bite and shout through her thick paw of a gloved hand over his mouth.  He thrashed against her with all his might but it didn't matter.  She was strong.  She let him feel as helpless as she once had.  The window had closed eventually and she took him away, back into the woods themselves where no matter his voice, no one would hear him.

She had intended to make it quick for him but, as ever, they had to fight.  His slapping, roving hands gripped at the handle of a sharpened railroad spike at her waist.  He jerked it up and impaled her through a shoulder, causing her to drop him for a second.  She considered the length of rusted metal sticking out of her before she gave chase to the desperately fleeing man.  She was fast and knew this place better than any.

She caught him again by stepping out from behind a tree as silently as a whisper of air.  Her gloved hands gripped the sides of his head between them in a crushing but barely even flexing hold, making his skin go pale beneath her palms as he beheld her masked features up close.  She began to squeeze, staring directly down into his gasping, breathless face.

She wanted to see the light leave those horrible, bulging eyes, even as his mouth went open wide in a strangled shout she could not hear.  Eyes.  Blue.  Deep.  Sodden with wetness of desperation, panic, and mindless terror.  Like pools of water.  Or lakes.  Dark, bottomless lakes that swallowed everything that fell into them while everyone stood around and laughed and watched.  She couldn't bear those eyes, her eyes, staring back at her.

The grip on his skull relaxed, just enough to cradle the back of his skull with her fingers, wrapping around the back of it easily because of the size of her hands, rotating her palms slowly forward and lifting the glasses up out of her way.  He blinked away the pressure blindness, no doubt shocked and confused alongside his horror and surety that he was going to die.  Was she sparing him, perhaps?  That was what he was thinking, no doubt.  She was not that merciful.  Because no one had ever shown her that mercy.

Her thumbs went over those eyes, blotting out everything, close enough to nearly touch his irises.  She paused for but a second as her memories roared through her mind.  He struggled in her grasp, confused and blinded by the rough fingers that obscured the darkened woods around them.  Her jaw clenched beneath the mask.  She squeezed.  His vision exploded in crimson and blackness.  It was over in a second, perhaps the only mercy she had for him, for anyone.

There was a shiver, a shuddering cough that rocked his body.  A final, rasping breath.

He was gone.

She had put out those lecherous, lake-like eyes.  His glasses fell to the ground.

She stood there, silently, as she dropped the now lifeless corpse of the adult man onto the cold forest floor to lay alongside his blood-spattered glasses.  Her eyes panned slowly down the hill, peering through the trees towards the lights blazing in the cabins before they began to go out.  One by one.  No one was going to help these souls.  Not when no one had come to help her in her own time of need.  They had to die.  They were evil.

She stowed his body in a place where no one would think to look, where she stowed most of her victims, the trespassers to her oldest and only home: in a shallow grave outside the ancient camping grounds.  Then she returned to watching, waiting, studying.  She knew evil when she saw it.  She knew debauchery well.  But life would be spared if any were decent enough to deserve it.  None before ever had.  It was when they fought back, like he had, that truly made this all so tiresome.

The next day came but she did not stir from her hiding place.  She did not feel the cold anymore.  She simply waited, and watched, and learned.

There were ten of them this time.  Three girls, seven boys, including the lonely, small one that they all forced to do the worst tasks and stay behind when they explored or otherwise continued in their invasive, destructive, or selfish methods.  They had also, as always, paired off into several couples since the first night.

The large, blond man who seemed to be in command spent a lot of time with the girl with long pink nails.  The black boy was with the caramel skinned girl.  The one whose nametag spelled Lia wasn't as perverse as the others but she had brought drugs which the others partook in.  Time was spent down at the lakeside quite a lot, where the women wore their lecherous bathing suits and the boys leered.  Again, the lone one avoided them all.  She took to following him more than the others, staying well back and moving in utter silence despite her size.

He explored the grounds farther and farther away as day turned into evening.  That was when he found her hidden place.  Her shrine.  The shack that, as a child, she had hid away in time after time, known only to her and her mother who would always drag her back out and convince her to try just one more time.  Her mother had taught her how to speak with her hands and hear with her eyes, gave her the best she could with what little they had.

It made the other cruelties easier to handle, knowing that her mother had at least wanted the best for her, known that her out-of-place, over-sized, disabled daughter just wanted to belong.  It made it all the worse knowing what happened after that tragic day.

She had not been there when her mother tried to avenge her death upon the counselors who had been too busy having sex to save her.  She had only learned of the fate when, for whatever reason, she mysteriously crawled back out of the lake to find everyone gone and the campgrounds shut down.

Stalking into town, she had stolen clothes when she needed them, as well as newspapers.  She knew how to read, had always loved doing so, if only to imagine hearing the words on the page spoken aloud.  Her mother's things remained in the old coordinator's cabin for a time but during one of the many reopening's of the park, they had been taken away.  That was when the killings had begun for her.  The defilement of the only place she had left had been too much.  Every time the camp was opened again, more and more youths came to oversee it.  Every time, she inevitably saw them be just like all the others.

The cycle would never end.

Back in her hidden place, Jaye watched the lonely boy read the story about when she had been allowed to drown.  Was he her age?  She had drowned ten years ago, but somehow been brought back.  She had kept growing too, stronger, faster, tougher, stranger.

His features, from what she had seen of them before now, were handsome but he looked so sad as he read her story and dark works over the years.  Maybe he wasn't as bad as the others, but he was still a trespasser.  Her fingers curled around the handle to the door, ready to jerk it open and end him like she had so many others.  This was not his place.  She stepped slowly inside, blade leaving its sheath as he cradled her old teddy bear in his hands as delicately as if it was made of glass.

With machete lined up with the small of his back, she prepared to impale him.  But then...he shuddered.  Not with fear, he had no idea she was there, but from something else.  She watched him gently pet the bear's head, ignoring how moldy and old it was.  He placed it gently back down on the altar of scrap cloth and old blankets then wiped at his eyes with a hand.  She stepped back, confused.  Was he really different from the others?  He turned to leave and she melted back into the shadows.

She followed him back to the camp.  Her eyes never left his back.  It wasn't until they had just reached the outskirts of the trail, a forest clearing where she often came to think when he paused.  There was something else in the air, something familiar.  That was when the bear burst out of the forest.  Its dark pelt shone in the moonlight as it barreled toward him, eyes shining, teeth flashing.  It would have been over in seconds.  That old gnarled grizzly had killed his share of intruders here.

And yet, right before Gnarl closed with the screaming boy, she moved with lightning speed, intercepting the beast.  Her hands took a tight grip on the thick fur and hauled it up and away from him just before the teeth and claws caught hold of his flesh.  She lifted the massive beast overhead, arms shuddering slightly.   That was when their eyes met.  His face was a mask of total shock, awe, and terror as she held the struggling, thrashing wild animal up off the ground as easily as a sack of flour.

He turned, crawling on his knees for a step or two in a panicked rush, and took off sprinting toward the camp's lights beyond.  Gnarl lashed around angrily in her grasp and she felt one of his claws catch at her arm.  It didn't hurt even as he gouged a set of long slashes into her skin through her already torn jacket.  Naughty bear.

She slammed the beast down into the ground, briefly stunning him.  She leaped on top of the bear in a flash while the air was still knocked out of him, gloved hands taking firm grips of the perfect spots and beginning to clench hard.  The boy looked back only once as she did, pinning the bear in place.  She saw he had some scrapes and cuts of his own.  Their eyes met again.  He saw her holding down the still furiously struggling animal and then kept running.

Putting him out of her mind for the moment, she turned and focused her attention on Gnarl.  Their eyes locked onto one another and, while she could not speak, she clenched her voiceless throat and exhaled hard through it.  The rumble that shook her chest sent shockwaves through her fingers.  The bear recognized her and quieted down.  She petted his thick pelt vigorously, soothing the knots her grip had formed in his fur before she got up off of him.

As she let him gnaw on one arm lovingly, she glanced back down toward the camp.  He had seen her.  But why save him from a bear?  Wasn't he just like the others?  It made no sense.  She patted Gnarl on the head once and he let go of her.  She turned and followed after his easy trail.  Nothing for it now, she might as well see what became of this.

His reaction had been as much as she had truthfully expected.  She could have left, she could have gone back.  With the alarm sounded, the tedium of their reactions to her presence would no doubt commence.

Something, however, had her follow him to the main building where the rest of the teens were.  Was it the same something that had made her save him just now?  She couldn't be sure.  She caught up with him just as he raced into the center of camp and hurtled toward the main hall, her silent boots hot on his heels.

She could have caught him outside if she had wanted to.  But she didn't.  Maybe they might hear his words of what was out there among them all and they could all just leave?  She held no hope of it, and, if she was being honest with herself, a part of her hoped this wouldn't be the case.  These were perhaps some of the worst examples of humanity she had seen in a long time.

That was when she noticed that there was a light on in one of the outlying buildings up ahead.  Her target was not so fast as to outdistance her so she sped along toward it, outdistancing him but keeping him mentally checked.  He still had quite a distance to run and she could easily catch up.

Just as she suspected, upon approaching the lone building, she saw there was indeed someone inside.  The flashes of dim light and small drifting puffs of smoke that trailed out of an open window, to provide ventilation, even told her who it was.  Lia, the drug-user.  She opened the door without feeling rushed.  There, sitting on the floor of the storage shed was the black-haired girl.  A glass bong was in her hands and she was puffing away.  Looking up at the gust of cool air that rushed past her, she squinted her eyes.

She must have been too high to realize who or what was in front of her.  Instead, she just looked annoyed.  She recognized her mouth as uttering the words, "What the fuck?  None of you morons ever heard of a hotbox?"  She returned to smoking, assuming the huge shape in front of her was just one of the boys.

Jaye quickly enlightened her to the truth.  She stalked over and took a grip of the girl's hair just as she was again lighting the bong.  Her face, even through the high, went pale and pained and her mouth opened in agony as she hauled her head up.  Leaning down, she met the girl's stunned, glazed eyes, allowing her to perceive just who was in front of her.  Lia's eyes, red as they were, still went wide in horror.  Her mouth opened to scream.

She slammed the girl's head back down and onto the glass device.  Even through her full hand's hold of hair against the back of Lia's skull, she felt the impact of her face shatter the bong.  There was a quiver and rapid jerking before the girl went still.  A quick inspection showed her the deadly lacerations as the shards of glass had been embedded into Lia's face, throat, and mouth.  she dropped the twitching body, leaving her to bleed to death in her 'hotbox'.  She even closed the door for the dead girl.  9 to go.

Jaye reached the center of camp just in time, despite her slight detour, to watch from behind the kitchen window as Ian burst into the common room where the others were.   His fellow counselors all sat around the dining tables or lounged on the floor drunkenly.  Their reactions to his words were not quite what she, or indeed Ian obviously expected.  They laughed.  She couldn't hear them but she knew what the mocking laughter of the unkind and cruel looked like.  The sounds, as ever, haunted her memories, as they had been the last things she had ever heard before the waters claimed her.

For his part, the boy appeared just as shocked as she was, no doubt still professing the severity of his claims.  He wildly gesticulated with his hands, imploring them no doubt to believe what he was saying, that they all needed to go.  A smart boy.  They should listen to him, she thought.  A shame they weren't going to.  It was a mistake none of them would live to regret.

The pretty girl with long fake nails crossed to a window then, using the darkness beyond to inspect her makeup haughtily, thoroughly ignoring the others as the boys all surrounded their compatriot.  Now standing directly in front of the kitchen window which reflected the lights of the common room, Helen brushed her hand through her silky, yellow hair, uncaring for the drama going on behind her.  Without meaning to, Jaye did so as well, mirroring the gesture.

She had once always wanted to be pretty like this one was.  She had always been big, oversized, unfeminine, too strong for her own good.  That had led others at first to fear her, and when they realized she was harmless, shy, and introverted, they had learned to mock and belittle her as much as possible.  It was why she preferred the company of animals but still always wanted to belong.  It wasn't her fault she had been born different, had lost her hearing at a very young age.  Girls like this one had teased her probably the worst, stealing her things, playing pranks on her...

Behind Helen, or so said the nametag emblazoned across a decently rounded chest, the boys had started to poke and shove at the one she had followed here.  It almost looked like a game, or would have, if she did not recognize the actions  In the back, Lorraine sat atop Jerome's lap, draped across him sexily, both laughing at the other's tormenting of Ian.  One, a redheaded boy bearing the name of Freddie, then pushed him to the ground even as he kept pointing back outside, trying to get them to understand he wasn't joking.  Everyone laughed, pointed, as he tried to ward off the large boys above him who began to belittle and pour things onto him for no other reason than to do it.  Garret, the obvious leader of them all, punched Ian in the face.

Her eyes narrowed.  She was going to enjoy this far more than she ever had before.  The faces came and went, but bullies were always the same.

That was when Helen's eyes peered past her own vapid, haughty expression to the person directly behind the glass.   They went wide and she turned to scream.  Jaye wasted no time now.  Her fist crashed through the window and grabbed a hold of Helen's shirt from behind.  The resulting shower of glass exploded out from the punch, littering the floor beyond.  All activity ceased at once.  Helen struggled like a rat in her grasp before she hauled her up off her feet and slammed her against the window, pulling her steadily outside.

The spine bent more and more underneath her steady, one-handed grip on both bra and shirt.  She couldn't see anything now through the opening now blocked by Helen's slowly bowing body, but she didn't need to.  She was a 'focus on one thing at a time' kind of person.  Helen's back snapped like a thin branch and she pulled the body back outside, dropping it onto the ground.  She lay there, trembling, shaking, shuddering in shock, no longer able to scream.

Lifting a booted foot, Jaye ended her misery with a single hard stomp to the skull, crushing it flat.  Not so pretty anymore.

She rounded the dining hall now, no longer trying to be subtle.  She smashed open the double glass doors with a single blow, sending glass flying once again as well as the wooden frames crashing to the floor before she ducked her head and bulky body inside.  The rest of the teens stared, dumbstruck.  She eyed them all.  Seven boys.  One girl.  They clung to tables, hid behind chairs, or pressed themselves flat against the far wall, faces one and all stricken with shock and terror.  Ian, face bruised, remained on the floor gazing up at her.

Don't run, she thought with a slight tint of hope.  Don't make it more troublesome for me.  You're all awful, horrible, evil.  Maybe this time would finally be the last and everyone would just leave her alone.  It made no logical sense why more and more people kept coming back to a place where so many had vanished.  The bodies were never found, she made sure of that.  Maybe she'd leave these ones though.

One of the boys broke first.  He ran to the nearest wall placement and hefted a harpoon from it, thinking himself brave or perhaps blinded by his terror.  Whatever his reasoning, he charged.  She caught the barbed tip just behind the point with one hand, jerking him to a complete stop.  Towering over the boy, his nametag designating him as Tyler, she jerked the harpoon out of his grip with a simple twist.  He jerked forward and she grabbed for his throat with her spare hand.  She felt her grip catch and she easily lifted him off his feet.

Face to face, while the others around her screamed in open-mouth but muted terror, she turned the harpoon around in her hand with an elegant, trained flip.  Then she hammered it into his chest from point-blank.  More screams that she couldn't hear.  Blood coated the wooden and iron rod in her hand.  She saw a boy who could have been Tyler's twin scream 'NO!' in denial, rage, and shock, as the head of the harpoon burst from his brother's back.  She hurled the impaled body and spear at him, not feeling the weight upon the weapon at all.

He didn't move in time.  Both brothers were pierced, back to front, into the wall.  Fitting, really.  They had done everything together since arriving, most of that being breaking quite a lot of stuff just for the fun of it.  Only right that they died together.

There were more screams, muted and open-mouthed.  The others streamed around and away, trying to keep out of her reach.  The boy on the floor seemed to remain stock still, frozen in fear.  She could have gotten to him the easiest.  Again, something stayed her hand.  Instead, she just stood there until he too took off out of the doors after the others as she turned slowly and began to stomp after them.

Then began the chase.  The hunt.  She didn't need to hear them to know the most likely places where they would hide.  Where they always would hide.  It was almost like a game at this point.  Check the boats.  Check the cabins.  She found Lorraine and Jerome there.  How fitting.  They only spent nearly every spare moment here.  

The screaming girl picked up the nearest thing to her and threw it at her in a panic.  The lamp exploded against the wall a good five feet away from Jaye.  She didn't stop at that though.  She hurled books, pillows, items from her purse, anything she could get her hands on as if any of it would make a difference or stop her.  While she did this, Jerome surged to the side of the room in search of a more reliable weapon.   She ignored his frantic searching and focused instead on the girl in the back of the room still chucking everything on hand her.   She decided that if that was the name of the game, that was how it would be played.
So she threw something back, namely an entire bunkbed, steel frame and all.  It crushed her instantly.

Jerome tried to flee, showing just how much he cared for Lorraine in the end.  An offhand strike of her machete took out one of his tendons, leaving him to stumble and trip outside.  She sheathed the blade, thinking of other suitable ways to tend to him when he finally regained his feet just as she stepped out after him and adopted a boxing stance.  She blinked behind her mask at the bravado and sheer lunacy.  A high school student was going to punch her out.  She could have laughed.  Instead, she just let him punch her.  She didn't even feel the impact of his fists, nor did her body respond at all.  He might as well as be punching a wall.

When he finally tired, she reached for him and grabbed him by the head as she had the lecherous older man earlier.  Only this time, she didn't put out his eyes.  Tighter and tighter she squeezed until, with a sickening crunch, she broke his skull between her palms.  Dropping the corpse, she resumed the search.  Two boys were caught out alone.  They had come out of the main hall, one wielding a gun no doubt pilfered from the lockbox.  Wielding it sideways, like an idiot, he fired round after round at her, walking forward with each one.  She felt the impacts of the bullets but they didn't stop her.  The other, the portly red-head wailed on her from one side with an oar, as if that would do anything.

She decided on her ax for these two.  One strike split the gun-wielding Carl's head all the way down to his collarbone.  Spattered in his blood, the one named Freddie staggered back in alarm, tripping and falling prone onto his back.  She stepped over the gun-wielding corpse and lifted her ax again, double-handed.  It took more than one strike to kill him and she almost regretted the mess.  Even so, she had seen him do quite a bit of the pushing and shoving of his fellow counselor.  Carl too.  She found a particular sense of satisfaction in tending to them.  Bullies deserved everything that came to them.

She found the worst of them all trying to climb into the most run-down, smallest, and most infrequently used cabin.  To impress the girls, Garret, or that was his name as much as she had observed, had done tricks with a lasso, roping things, people, items, all with simple twists of his wrist.  He'd even tripped the boy, Ian, and sent him sprawling by hooking his ankle with it.  She would enjoy this one and so took her time, allowing him to get almost all the way up and into the window before she made her move.  She didn't have a lasso on hand.  So instead she procured a length of chain, attached it to a blade, and hurled it at his back.  It stuck fast and she jerked him down off the wall and back towards herself in the bushes.

Looking down at him now, coughing blood and gasping for air, she drew her favorite weapon, the machete, once more.  He tried to ward her off, red-stained teeth and lips opening over and over in pleas and begging moans, but she gave him no mercy.  More than any of the others, she took pleasure in this kill.  In his face, as she loomed above him, she saw all the evil and cruelty of all who had come before.  He lurched to his feet and began staggering away.  She timed it just right and hurled the machete.

Garret was struck in the spine, hurlted through the air from the impact, and impaled to the wooden post behind him through the chest, leaving him dangling several feet up off the ground.  His feet jerked and she crossed over to grip and retrieve her favorite blade.  She felt him tremble and jerk as she gripped the handle and twisted it up and out.

They deserved to to die.

At last she finally stepped back out on the main path and stood beneath the flickering lamp post above just as the storm rolled in overhead.  The scent of blood came to her then even as she mentally counted.  She was familiar with who it must have belonged to.  The last one left.  Ian.  Her eyes turned slowly to look at the window where Garret had been trying to climb inside.

She crossed to the small building and looked directly through and into the interior of the cabin.   Her massive height made it easy.  She saw no one immediately but she noticed the door was boarded up and blocked by debris.  No one would have done that unless they were still inside.  He had been smart.  Almost smart enough.

Jaye tested the door first before she lifted a boot and smashed it open.  Broken wood went everywhere as the rain started to fall more heavily just as she stepped inside.  Her eyes scanned the interior as she stepped softly around the cramped room.  He hadn't hid in the usual places that people tended to.  Not in the drawers, not under the bed.  Here at least did not smell befouled as all the other cabins had.  She inspected his green rucksack, laying on its side against a wall, extracting with the utmost gentleness his drawing pad.  She saw the squirrel he had drawn earlier, as well as numerous shots of the lake and trees.

Something shifted beneath the floor and she gave a deep, silent sigh.  She put the notepad delicately back down and slowly turned.  She smelled his blood again, fresh.  He was underneath the floor.  So smart, right until the very end.

As she revealed him, breaking the flooring with the utmost ease, she lifted the machete to dispatch him.  She felt no joy in this.  Here he was, cowering on the floor as he had been in the dining hall.  She could at least make it quick, aiming right for the heart.  There was no way to not make it hurt.  The one bit of mercy she had ever offered anyone.    His eyes stared up into hers before they shut tight in preparation for the end.  Her arm drew back like the arm of a guillotine.  The game, once again, was over.

***TBC!***