It felt like her heart was beating right up against her sternum, as if it would pound its way right out of her chest. Adrenaline kept her body rigid and her eyes bug-wide on the road in front of her. And yet there were instances when she could have fallen dead-asleep. Blood and bits of glass matted the back of her head. She was not aware of the bleeding.
She turned to look at the Brouwer residence as she passed it. All the partygoers had gone home. The house was quiet and dark next to the graveyard of automobiles that the late Brouwer brothers had stolen and stripped down to make money off the parts.
She faced forward again and slammed on the breaks when she saw her mangled-faced attacker standing in the middle of the road. The pickup truck skated across mud before coming to a stop. The path in front of her was empty. He was gone. Or maybe he had never really been there at all.
Taylor pressed the gas pedal and continued on. She had no idea where she was, but she kept going. This road must lead somewhere, she thought.
She flashed on a memory of when she was a little girl. She was nine-years-old again and running through the rain, terrified of the dog that was chasing her through the park. She felt a hard tug at her back every time it snapped its jaws around the tail of her raincoat. Through the rain and tears, she spotted the blurry shape of an adult sitting on a park bench. She ran hard toward him.
The man saw her coming and got up. She hid behind his legs, using him as a shield. The dog gave up the chase and wandered off. The man crouched down and gave her a hug and brushed the long hair away from her forehead. He asked where her parents were, and she said they were at home. Then the man wanted to take her for ice cream. What's your favorite flavor? he asked. I should go home now, she said. But the dog might get you, he said. Let me buy you some ice cream. I promise we'll be right back. Taylor looked into the man's kind face, and she had the notion that it was some sort of mask. He began shepherding her toward the parking lot. Before they reached his car, she ducked under his arm and ran the other way. Back into the park. Where the dog was waiting for her.
Now, so many years later, she had that same feeling of running away from danger and toward it at the same time.
Through the trees and the downpour, she saw an amber light floating in the woods. She had the absurd notion that a UFO was stalking her. She stopped the truck and rolled down her window to get a clearer view. The light was stationary. Square. It looked like a lighted window.
She pulled the truck to the side of the road, shut off the engine, and got out. Although her pistol was jammed, she removed it from the holster and held it with both hands. Standing up made her dizzy, but she focused on the beacon in the dark and ran straight toward it.
A blast of lightning revealed a two-story colonial house painted white with dark trim—the antithesis of the ramshackle shitbox that J.R. and Randall Brouwer had called home. The house stood far back from the road.
The light emanated from an upstairs window. Deputy Taylor knocked on the front door with the butt of her gun. A few moments later, the porch light switched on. Taylor put the gun back in the holster. The door cracked opened, and a middle-aged woman dressed in a nightgown cautiously peered out.
"Yes?" she said.
"Sheriff's Department. I really need to use your phone."
The woman's eyes widened as she surveyed Taylor's appearance. She opened the door and let the deputy in.
Taylor took three steps inside the living room and dropped to the floor. Her world started to fade. She fought hard to bring it back. The woman helped her to her feet and sat her down on the sofa.
"My God," the woman said. "Your head is bleeding."
She rushed out of the living room and returned with a first aid kit and some towels. She poured hydrogen peroxide over the gash in the back of Taylor's head.
"What happened to you?" the woman asked.
"I need to use your phone to call for help."
"The phone isn't working on account of the storm. I can see you're going to need stitches. Let me clean this up, and then I'll take you to the clinic. What on earth happened to you?"
"I don't know where to begin," Taylor said. "I feel like I'm gonna pass out. I think I need something to drink."
The woman left her again and came back with a glass of orange juice.
"Thank you," Taylor said.
"I'm going to put on some proper clothes, and then we'll go. You wait here."
Taylor drank deeply from the glass. The orange juice was too sweet for her parched mouth, but the sugar revitalized her. It wasn't much, but it was enough for her to maintain a grip on consciousness. She thought she could walk without feeling too dizzy.
When she finished the orange juice, she set the empty glass on the end table. And there she saw a framed photograph of a boy looking back at her. There was no mistaking the facial deformity or the twisted grin on his face.
"Jesus Christ," she whispered and got to her feet.
The woman re-entered the room. She was dressed in galoshes, jeans, a sweater, and a rain slicker opened in the front.
"Who are you?" Taylor asked sharply.
"I'm Pamela Voorhees."
"Who is the boy in that picture?"
"That's my son Jason."
Pamela walked to the end table, picked up the empty glass and stared at the photo.
"Your son?"
"Yes," Pamela said.
"Your son," Taylor repeated.
"Yes, my son."
"Where is your son now?"
The question inflicted something on the woman. Pain registered in her eyes.
"My son is dead."
Taylor felt consciousness try to flee her again, like a slimy eel wriggling out of her hands. She tried to hold on. She reminded herself that she was still on the job. Despite her battered condition, she had to assess what was going on here.
There was absolutely no doubt that the face in the photograph belonged to the young man who had been tracking her through the forest, hellbent on killing her. Unbelievable, she mused. Of all the houses, I manage to knock on the door of this one. His house.
Taylor studied the woman. She had said that her son was dead, and she seemed to believe it. She was either crazy or trying to protect him. Taylor didn't believe in the living dead, but she knew the extent to which some parents would protect their children. So Pamela Voorhees was lying.
"I need you to tell me where your son is," Taylor said.
Pamela's head tilted to one side. She stared at the deputy, appalled.
"My son is dead. He drowned in the lake shortly after that photo was taken."
"Your son has committed terrible crimes—"
"My son was innocent!" Pamela screamed, and the force of it made Taylor flinch. The empty glass shattered in the woman's hand. "How dare you lay a shred of blame on his head. You're just like the others. Did you know the counselors tried to blame him for what happened? Can you imagine? Even though they broke the rules when they let him go into the water unsupervised. Not a damn one of them was there to save his life. They were probably drinking or fucking or tending to the 'normal' children."
Her hand was balled up in a fist around shards of glass. Blood was staining her white knuckles and dripping on the carpet. She dropped her head, opened her hand, and examined the lacerations. She seemed surprised at what she had done. "They were terrified of Jason because he looked different. They despised him. But my son was innocent. And now he's dead."
She leveled her gaze at Taylor. Her eyes were blue, cold, and wet.
"I could still pick him up and hold him in my arms the day that I buried him," she said. "Now you get the hell out of my house."
After witnessing the woman's display of raw emotion, Taylor reviewed her previous assessment. Perhaps Mrs. Voorhees wasn't lying. Perhaps she was bat-shit crazy.
Taylor's hand fell on the butt of her gun, and she made sure that Pamela saw it. Nobody but Taylor knew that it was jammed. She then spoke in a measured and calm voice.
"No, ma'am. You and I are gonna take a ride to the Sheriff's Office now. We'll sort this out there."
The tension in Pamela's face relaxed. She picked up one of the towels and wiped the blood off her hand.
"I apologize for my outburst. Every day it feels like I've lost him all over again. I don't know what this is about, officer, but I'm happy to cooperate."
"Good. Let's go now, please," Taylor said.
"My car is in the garage out back. We can go out through the kitchen," she said.
"All right."
Taylor followed her into the kitchen and briefly looked around while Pamela plucked her car keys from a hook mounted on the wall and looked for an umbrella. She kept a tidy house. There were no dirty dishes in the sink. The linoleum floor had the sheen of being recently mopped. There were two papers stuck to the refrigerator by magnets. One looked like a church newsletter. The other was a child's drawing that resembled the one from the shack in the woods. Taylor looked at it for a beat. Then her eyes fell on the kitchen table, where an open box of crayons sat next to more drawings.
From the pit of her gut came a sure-voiced command: Get out of there. You're not safe.
But she knew she wouldn't make it very far in her current condition.
Pamela opened the back door and grimaced against the wind and the rain. She stepped out into it and opened the umbrella. She had to hold on tight to keep it from blowing away. She stood there waiting for Taylor to join her.
"Officer," she said. "Would you mind? My kitchen floor is getting wet."
Taylor crossed the threshold into the bad weather, and Pamela shut the door behind them.
The umbrella did little to block the rain, which was blowing sideways. They approached a detached garage that resembled a small house with a roof, siding, and windows. It was large enough for two cars and appeared to have an attic.
Pamela opened a side door and switched on the light. There was a dark green Jeep Wrangler parked inside. The usual tools hung on the wall. A narrow stairway led up to the loft.
The garage doors shook on their tracks from the force of the gales.
Pamela shook the rainwater off the umbrella and collapsed it. Then she helped the deputy into the passenger seat of the Jeep and shut the door.
Through the windshield, Taylor watched her pass in front of the vehicle and stop to fish the car keys out of her pocket. There was a silver cross hanging from the rearview mirror inside the car. And in the mirror, she saw a face staring at her from the backseat. She gasped and whirled around.
It was David Tierney, and though he was sitting upright as if he were just another passenger, he was clearly dead. His face was pale and his eyes were colorless and empty. There was a large wound directly over his heart. The dark blood stain ran wide down to his waist. She saw his backpack in the seat next to him. And his pistol.
The driver's side door was opening. Deputy Taylor's hand moved to her belt and unsnapped the cover of the pouch that held the pepper spray. The door opened. Taylor withdrew the small canister, raised it to Pamela's face, and released a steady stream of the irritant into the woman's eyes.
Pamela shrieked and reeled backward, her hands flying to her face and her keys flying out of her hand.
Taylor turned back toward David and grabbed the pistol next to his body. She prayed that there were bullets in it. She checked the chamber. There were.
She was out of the car and moving fast around the front of the Jeep, thanks to one last shot of adrenaline. It was all that was left.
Pamela was choking and wiping at her eyes. Taylor saw the keys on the concrete. She put the pepper spray back in her belt and picked them up off the floor.
"I want you to get facedown on the ground and put your hands over your head," she ordered.
"What are you doing?" Pamela protested between fits of coughing.
"Facedown on the goddamn ground," Taylor shouted.
Pamela obeyed.
Taylor took the handcuffs from her belt and started moving toward her.
The thunderbolt sounded like a bomb exploding over the rooftop. It rattled the walls. It rattled Taylor's heart. And it extinguished the power and the lights.
"Why are you doing this?" Pamela wheezed from the floor. "Why?"
Taylor resisted the urge to quiet her. The voice helped orient her in the darkness.
"I'm placing you under arrest," she said and felt for the flashlight on her belt.
"Why? What have I done?"
Pamela sounded incredulous.
Taylor switched on the flashlight. It was dim. The battery was nearly dead. She Mirandized Pamela while placing the handcuffs on her wrists.
She then backed toward the garage door and found the handle. She tried to lift it, but the door remained locked on its tracks. The emergency release cord. She had forgotten to pull the cord. She shined her fading light around the ceiling. There it was, directly over the Jeep. She would have to climb on top of the vehicle to reach it. She considered ramming the car right through the garage door like a tank.
A wave of dizziness washed over her again. She felt her knees go wobbly. She leaned against the wall and tried to think of what to do next.
Get out of here, she told herself. Go back to the truck you left parked on the side of the road. Drive until you get to town. It can't be that far.
She doubted that she could even make it back to the house without collapsing. Her only ticket out of here was lying on the floor, handcuffed and blind. A suspect. An accessory to David's murder. Or his actual murderer. She didn't know. She had abandoned him before he died.
Sergeant Tierney had sent his son to help her search for a missing hiker. As an officer pledged to serve and protect people, she had a duty to preserve him from harm. Instead, she left him lame and alone in the woods, and now he was dead. She had failed at her duty. Worse, she had failed Sergeant Tierney, who had mentored her and embraced her as family ever since she joined the Wessex County Sheriff's Department. If she survived this ordeal, she would have to live with that.
And what about Tierney? Would he be able to live with that? Would he resent her for his son's death? He had already lost his wife in a horrific car crash three years ago. He had never been the same after that. What would he be like after burying his only child?
And with those thoughts came a suckerpunch of guilt.
I'm sorry, she thought. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Unable to hold herself up any longer, she slid against the wall and down to the floor. The flashlight died in her hand.
He had taken shelter from the storm in the attic of the garage, and now he descended the stairs without making a sound. He had no difficulty seeing in the dark, and he saw his mother lying facedown on the floor with her hands bound behind her back. The sight of it angered him. And there was the police officer who had managed to get him and his mother. He touched the spot on his shoulder where Taylor's bullet had grazed him earlier that day. Then he began moving toward her.
A flash of lightning betrayed his presence. Taylor was not entirely surprised to see him there.
She raised David's pistol and fired into the black. The flash of the muzzle showed her two things instantly: she had missed, and he was coming at her with a knife. She fired again, and this time she saw that he had crouched low to avoid the shot. He was upon her then, snarling like a dog. Blinded by darkness, she didn't know if it was the knife or his teeth that was tearing open her throat.