Friday the 13th A novel by Robert Helliger

Friday, June 13, 1958

***

A full moon glistened in the New Jersey sky. 

Several campers were asleep in their cabins. Five campers were around the warm campfire. Barry waited. Claudette, his girlfriend, was singing a song. The 77 degree weather was hot; the cabins, like the old 1930's era barn, and the glistening lake, created a sense of unease. Barry made his first move. 'Milk and honey...hang your head, Tom Dooley! Hang your head...Hallellujah!', she said. She went inside the barn. Barry opened the door; Claudette followed him. Since nineteen fifty-seven, the eighteen year old camp counsellors were inseparable since Harold Christy, the forty year old head camp counsellor, and his wife, Margaret Christy, thirty-eight, hired them to look after Camp Crystal Lake. But, sadly, teenage hormones got in the way of working. 

'Does Mary Ellen kiss better than I do?', Claudette asked.

'How do I know. She was my first girlfrend back in nineteen fifty-six', Barry answered, off-handedly. He wasn't sure he could tell her about all of the girls he had sex with; he was sure that Claudette, who was innocent, would make out with him. 

'Oh, you!', she smiled.

***

They both had short, blonde hair, bright, blue eyes, and wore yellow colored T-shirts with the words: CAMP CRYSTAL LAKE written on their uniform. Claudette's breasts heaved as they made love. Outside, the killer moved towards the open barn. She walked upstairs. A flash of lightning boomed in the blackened sky; the sky was dark. Claudette heard the sound of footsteps. She fumbled with her T-shirt with her hands. 'Someone's here, Barry', she gasped. 

He fumbled with his T-shirt with his right hand.

'Hey, we weren't doing anything, really...'.

The knife stabbed him in the chest. 

Barry's body crashed into the bales of hay.

Claudette screamed.

She grabbed some boxes.

And then she threw some hay with her right hand.

'No! Please, no!'. 

It was too late, as the knife came across her throat.

The death curse of Camp Crystal Lake had had started, as the killer went downstairs...and left the camp.

***

Harold Christy was shivering in the cold rain. 

He saw the dead bodies of Barry, and Claudette. 

'Impossible! This is a summer camp', he told Sheriff Earl Tierney.

'The Voorhees boy drowned last year', the Sheriff said.

'It was an accident. Things like that happen', Harold said.

The Sheriff sighed. 

'No, it doesn't, Harold', he said.

Then the storm became more ferocious.

***

Steve Christy was asleep in bed.

He had heard about what happened to Jason Voorhees.

It was an accident. 

He was eight year's old. 

He looked under the covers of his bed.

No monsters. 

He had been born in nineteen fifty. 

Now, as President Dwight Eisenhower was in charge America, after a military career, the country had been through World War II, and the Korean War. 

And, as the darkness arrived, so did the horror.

***

The Sheriff ate his dinner with his wife. 

'How was your day, dear?', she asked him.

'Not good, dear. Two camp counsellors are dead at Camp Crystal Lake. There's a killer on the loose in Crystal Lake', Sheriff Tierney answered. And she didn't want to hear about it on the new television.

***

Page 1.

Page 1.