"Jason, Mother is talking to you!" It took every bit of nerve Ginny possessed to not flinch back from the heavy old pick-ax the monster was even now poised to strike with. Confusion registered in that single eye yet again as he cocked that curiously hooded head.

Please let this work… oh please…

He seemed to be struggling within, as the pick-ax slowly, oh so slowly began to creep downwards.

Jason, Mother is talking to you..

To her immense relief he lowered the ax again, as she fought not sigh in relief and risk shattering the fragile grasp she held over him again. This was no time to relax, even enthralled as he was for the moment, he was without a doubt dangerous, and there was no doubt in her mind that if she failed at this she was as good as dead.

"Come on. Come on… That's my boy." Although he had not abandoned his weapon the way she had hoped he would, Ginny was almost astonished with how quickly his demeanor had changed from ready to slaughter her with a rusty old pick ax to almost complete docility. It seemed that her gamble was paying off, but better not to call the game before she cashed in her chips.

To her surprise, he obeyed, eye riveted on her as she struggled to smile encouragingly, like his mother might have when trying to convince him to eat just one more bite of his vegetables before promising him cookies.

Well, Ginny, he's listening, he's coming over. How exactly do you plan to pull that machete out on him before he realizes you're not his beloved Mommy and he decides to finish what he started with that ax? Honestly, she hadn't thought that far ahead. She could barely believe her ruse had worked thus far, but while she might be able to convince him to lower his weapon and approach her, she doubted that her silver-tongued mother act would convince him to just stand there and let her run him through with the machete she held behind her back.

Her hands twitched as she contemplated the concealed blade, every fiber in her screaming out to end it now, before her cat and mouse game played out. No, better to wait until she could deliver one solid blow, he needed to be closer…

Besides, she needed to get him down on her level. It would be much easier to bring the blade down with sufficient force from a greater height. Yes, get him down on his knees…

Ginny's own calculation shocked her. Sweet, peaceful Ginny, who cried over accidentally running over a squirrel, who still cried watching Bambi, for Christ's sake was trying to puzzle out the best way to quickly end another's life, killer or not.

"Come, kneel down." He slowly drew closer, like a feral cat being cajoled into approaching a dish of food. Although he continued to obey her, suspicion was still evident in that eye, and for a moment Ginny wondered if she hadn't taken it too far too quickly. "That's a boy." She added soothingly, hoping she could convince him to heed her request.

It was the only way.

Kneel down… Kneel down Jason…
Mommy's voice issuing from Ginny held him in thrall, and he found himself approaching the girl wearing her sweater, who had somehow become her. This was…somehow not what he had expected. He'd expected Mommy to somehow be alive, corporeal, not to manifest through another, especially not a girl that he failed to see any redeeming qualities in.

Was this what his efforts had wrought, some sort of vessel for Mommy? He wavered for a moment, but upon hearing Mommy's soothing voice he pressed on, until her was standing before the girl who it seemed was becoming her. Pamela's face flashed before him, and almost automatically he acceded to her request, ashamed of the doubt that still lingered in his mind. What did he know of resurrection, of magic? He only knew he had offered tribute after tribute to her, and the blood staining his hands must have finally appeased whatever god that had heard his mute petition.

She stood before his homemade shrine, illuminated by the dozens of candles, that mother-glow shining so brightly upon her face that he'd have been struck dumb if he'd even had the ability to speak anymore.

That's my good boy. Good Jason…

He could only gaze up from his spot at her feet with near worship in his eye as the Ginny/Mommy thing began to draw something from behind her back. She had spoke of a reward after all, and mommy had always been so giving…

But it wasn't a box firecrackers or any sort of baked good she produced, it was his own machete. Jason looked up in confusion as she raised the weapon, only to be greeted with

MOMMY!

Her all too lifeless head remained on the shrine, eyes blank, unseeing.

Looking from her obviously lifeless visage back to the Ginny/Mommy thing…

No, wait. No Mommy, nothing even reminiscent of her anymore.

Just her. Just Ginny, the girl who'd dared to enter the shrine, to invade his home, to don his saintly mother's relics, to stand in her place and whisper sweet lies arousing false hope.

To TRICK him.

The fury coursing through him was like nothing he'd ever felt, as he brought the ax up to deflect her carefully orchestrated would-be deathblow. The machete clattered away uselessly, and he brought it down again against the lying, mother-impersonating girl's jean clad calf, gashing it wide open. She shrieked in pain, and just as he drew back to deliver a killing blow of his own, he heard a man call out her name and felt arms ensnaring him.

Dropping the pickax in the struggle, he turned his rage toward this interloper, wrestling him up against the wall of his shack roughly. Such rough activity was too much for the crudely built domicile, and poorly reinforced rotted boards rained down upon them. Ginny was ignored for the moment, however not forgotten at all. First he would dispatch the man responsible for bringing all of those unwanted people here in the first place, and then it would be Ginny's turn.

Even as he scuffled with that Steve Christy wannabe, in his mind he was killing Ginny a thousand times over, each imagined death more gruesome and painful than the one before it. Jason managed to wrestle Ginny's would-be rescuer down to the ground, and retrieve the ax he dropped earlier. Ax in hand once again he reared back with it intending to drive it straight into his victim's head, and then finish Ginny off.

But as he raised the blade, searing pain shot through his shoulder and chest. He looked down in disbelief to see his a familiar blade protruding through the front of his blue flannel shirt. His hand went to the wound unbidden, disbelieving.

But how…?

Everything was rapidly growing cold save for the blade that burned like hellfire. As he slowly fell backwards, still clutching his pickax, Jason caught sight of Ginny's horrified face even as his vision began to darken for the second time in his life. An incredible sense of déjà vu ran through him, as he dimly realized why this all seemed familiar to him.

He was dying.

Jason could do nothing but lay helplessly on the floor of his shack even as he was vaguely aware of fingers working at the tie securing his hood. The cold, crushing feeling of death overrode the coolness of the night air on his exposed face, and the rushing of blood in his ears made it difficult to hear Paul's disgusted oath upon viewing it.

And yet as he lay there, the coldness seemed to recede the slightest bit, and he was aware of footsteps leading out of the room, and the door to his shack swing open then closed. The wound burned brighter, yet the coldness was steadily retreating.
The darkness fogging his mind and vision must have taken it's cue, for it also began to recede. Soon, all that remained was the pain of the wound, and the burning hatred that filled him now.

The effort to lift his body from the ground was staggering, but amazingly he was soon upright again. Struggling for breath, he looked down at Mommy questioningly, only to be met with the silence of past years.

Jason stood there, fists clenching, the rusty machete blade still embedded in his flesh. Death had come to claim him, he was sure of it, but had hesitated and withdrawn for whatever reason.
He didn't know quite know if that was a good thing or not, but he did know that as long as he continued this existence he would continue to kill, that his hands would remain bloody. Of that he was sure.

He could feel it in his bones.