“don’t worry, i’ve got you.”
"Go," he tells her, pushes his last pocket knife into her hand--for the traps-- like he’s never been more calm about anything. There’s no time to argue the details, anyway—Fix the fuse, call the cops, be fucking safe. She’s smart, she can do it—she’s the only one left that can. They have one chance left at this. Her hands are gripping the baseball bat with white knuckles, she’s staring at him under a fringe of dark, mussed hair.
“I’m coming back,” she says firmly, like she means it.
“Okay,” he says, like he doesn’t. There isn't really time to talk--she disappears into the dark woods.
Deb has been gone for a while.
Jason, it’s me you want, remember?
How long has he been staggering like a wounded animal between cabins?—just a bit longer, just the next cabin, just the next one— vault through a shattered window, watch him step effortlessly through the barricaded door, rinse and repeat, keep him occupied. That’s all you have to do. He’s been cutting his hands on broken glass, forcing his lungs to run on fumes-- his gun had been spent a ways back blowing several holes into Jason--none of which stop him. Every so often a knife whizzes by his ear, a sign of impatience, he thinks, until one nails him in the shoulder. And still Jason moves after him like a freight train, slow but relentless. Just like the nightmares. It will hurt when he catches you.
When Jason finally comes up on him, Tommy lurches at him around a corner with the wrench--miss. Jason moves out of range, cracks him once in the face with the handle of the axe and slams him into the cabin wall, and he can only process the white hot pain exploding behind his eyes, breath kicked out of him in an instant. Struggle. Struggle or you die here. Shoes scrabble for purchase in open air, fingers digging and clawing into the killer’s arm, cursing, gasping, reeling. Jason only needs the one hand to hold him there, the other wedging the blade of the axe firmly in the dirt, and Tommy’s seen this one before, and he feels nothing. He hopes Deborah is long gone.
With little effort, he’s thrown down hard, knees taking his weight in the fall. All he can hear is his heartbeat, and the steps that circle him slow and deliberate. He’s been watching the red drip-drip into the dirt between his palms, struggling to take in a proper breath. Was it always raining? Jason hefts the axe, levels it at Tommy's eyeline like he’s prospecting, tilts his head.
His vision is dim, but he recognizes the flash of beige sweater moving somewhere behind the monster and the axe, street lamps gleaming like glaciers in a pair of glasses. Her sweater is more red than beige, isn’t it.
There’s a scream, animalistic and pitched with adrenaline.
“Hey--fuck you!” The bat swings overhead, and Deb snarls, cracking the towering form in the back of the head, wood splintering with the force of the impact. Jason stumbles, whirls to swing at her, and Tommy’s quick enough on his feet to throw his weight into his shoulder, pushing Jason off-kilter. Deb is already dragging him up and away by the arm. “Don't worry, I've got you.” She’s got a handful of fireworks, and he almost doesn’t hear them over the ringing. Get back up. Keep going. Smoke rushes around their shoes. She has seen too many friends get hurt tonight and it’s written in her bared teeth.
He’s vaguely dazed and still uncertain that he’s alive, but he laughs, ragged.
“You’re kind of like a superhero, huh?”
“Let’s fucking go, Jarvis.“ She sounds tired, but he thinks the most minute smile passes her expression, behind the steady concentration, behind the intensity she seemed to constantly bare. Jason will be back on them again soon.
Her eyes are sharp, intent. “I said I was coming back.”
Though he argues with her, she shoulders a bit of his weight and helps them both clear the cabin door. Deb’s hands don’t shake when she sets the first beartrap on the floor; he picks up a discarded machete. They have a long way to go. The police sirens are wailing somewhere in the distance.
