The Places We Called Home

I had never heard of Jason Voorhees in my small home town in Michigan. But the day that my mother, my two sisters, and I packed our belongings and moved to Vermont was the day that everything I knew changed. From the setting of my home, to physics itself.

The cool clear waters of Crystal Lake were glazed over with ice the very first time I saw it. The half-acre of land that was my new property cut into the forest, like a stage. The trees were the curtains and the lake was the backdrop. The home itself was tastefully subtle, a small log cabin with a visible chimney. I didn't like it. I could hear my sisters, Candice and Emma, twittering in the back seat of the Jeep and I could practically feel my mother beaming next to me in the front.

My skin took no time breaking out in goose bumps when I stepped out of the car, it was cold. Me and my sisters practically trampled each other trying to get into the house. We were used to cold, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't mean we have to like it. The house was more modern on the inside, but not by much. It looked straight out of the 80's.

Right on the inside was the kitchen with semi-modern appliances and rose-colored wall paper. Off of that was the dining room. If you turned the corner to the right, there was the living room and off of that was the only bathroom and three bedrooms. Mom and Candice got their own rooms while Emma and I had to share.

It was 10 degrees outside and even colder in my heart. I knew I was being a bitch to my family, and as soon as we moved everything from the moving van into the house, I stopped off to what was mine and Emma's room. There was no furniture in there yet, but it had a huge window that over looked the lake. It looked so much like home, it made my heart ache. Unknown to me, Emma had slipped in silently with a huge box of her stuff. Right as I was about to let out a deep sigh of frustration, Emma let the box slip from her hands. I jumped a good foot in the air and she laughed softly, walking over to me.

I was always a little jealous of Emma. She was the epitome of perfect in my mind, long blond hair, porcelain skin, and baby blue eyes. Right now, her hair was pulled into a pony tail at the nape of her neck, leaving her blunt bangs free. That showed of her already big eyes.

Her bow pink lips pulled into a smile as she talked to me, "Anne, baby, it's going to be okay. I promise. Look out at the lake," she then pointed a perfect finger to the lake beyond the window, "it's almost the same as home. You will learn to love it, or just pretend to for mom."

That night was the first time I had ever heard of Jason.

Sense Emma had talked to me I had tried to be more cheerful. It really helped when Candice made my favorite meal, spaghetti. Then we split up into our separate rooms. I don't know what Candice and my mom did, but Emma and I got to decorating.

We finished with that a lot quicker than we thought, and soon found ourselves sitting on my bed with our separate laptops. She opted towards working on her novel (she had an aspiration of being an author) while I went onto Google.

Obviously, I was still pissed about being here, so I went to researching this place. The first thing I saw surprised me, to say the absolute least.

Mass Murder on Crystal Lake

Camp Crystal Lake Closed-Again

Police on Hunt for Murderer-No Leads

I stared in shock at the multiple links, all saying the same think in different words. In a moment of sensibility, I decided to click on one to see if it was this Crystal Lake and not some lake in Arizona. Nope, it turned out it was the one I could just turn my head to look at. And I was tempted to do just that, but I was almost certain that if I did, there would be some 50 year old child molester with a butter knife ready to pry my eyes out of my nose.

Emma noticed my very sudden discomfort, "What's wrong doll-face?"

I didn't say a word as I turned my computer towards her, showing her the website and thus also showing a picture of one of the gruesome murders. She took about ten minutes to soak it all in before she turned her eyes towards me, shock clearly written across her face.

Wordlessly, we both decided we no longer felt safe in our room, and we both exited together and went into our mother's room. It was dark in the hall, and we held each other's hand as we practically ran to mom's room.

She accepted us into her bed, probably thinking that we went yet comfortable in our new house.

2 Months Later

School was over! It was so hard catching up because this school was so far ahead of my last one; I really had to bust my butt to pass. At that time, I had completely forgotten about those news reports that had scared me so much, but not easily. When finals week had started was when it was really pushed from my mind.

And I didn't remember it until the second week after school ending. I saw people, actual real people on the opposite shore of the lake.

They were teenagers, I saw that when I went out on our dock. They were all wearing the same shirt and it ran through my mind that maybe the camp across the lake was re-opening. Then, it once again hit me. I had a slight panic attack, okay, maybe a huge one. I was hyperventilating and unable to move as I kept looking at those kids, hoping, praying even, that the killer was gone for those kids sake. But then I started to really panic, because I had just realized I was in the same boat as them, I and my entire family was in serious danger.