RETURN TO CRYSTAL LAKE
CHAPTER 18- A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH


"Are you sure you saw a light?" Krista asked, as she trailed behind Kevin heading down a dark path to nowhere.

"Yes! I swear I did! And it was this way," Kevin replied.

We have been lost in this cave for hours, Krista thought, wandering around this endless seam of nothing.

She was just about to tell him to head back to camp when a small light pierced their eyes.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to get their attention in the pitch black cave.

Then, all of a sudden, there it was.

They could hear it before they saw it.

A magnificent waterfall.

"Wow, look at this! This is great!" Krista exclaimed, dipping her hands in the ice-cold water.

Seeing this, Kevin then ran his entire sweaty head under the water and got an adrenaline rush the size of Texas.

"Ohhhhhhhhh, that's cold," Kevin shivered. "But it feels great! Like every bar of Irish Spring."

"What?" Krista asked, giving him the "weird" look.

"Oh, sorry, thought I was in a commercial there for a minute," Kevin responded.

Then, they looked up and could barely make out a small cliff, with a light at the top.

"There's the light I saw," Kevin said.

They looked down from the top of it, and the rushing whitewater gave way to a small pool of groundwater, almost like a miniature Crystal Lake.

"Incredible," Krista said with awe. "This is paradise."

Just then Kevin peeled his head back from underneath the water and gave Krista a weird look, as a painful flashback hit him:

"Hey hun, look at this place, this is paradise," said a cheerful Jessica in the bright sunlight.

"I know, I swear I am staring at heaven," Kevin replied, setting down the picnic basket.

Kevin and Jessica were having a picnic overlooking the entire town of Newkirk at the top of Mount Miner.

They exchanged a loving kiss, but then...

Everything went black.

The only image that appeared next was of Jessica's dead body the day after she was murdered, when Kevin had to go identify her body because it was so mutilated by those street thugs.

"AHHHHHHH!" Kevin screamed, coming back to reality and breaking out into tears.

"What is it?" Krista asked.

Kevin said nothing, just sat down on a rock and sunk his head into his hands.

"Are you ok?" Krista asked, sitting next to him. "Do you want to head back?"

Kevin slowly peered up at her, the pain clearly in his eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. "I am here for you if you need me."

Kevin remained silent.

Krista then went over and hugged Kevin, sending a warm and fuzzy feeling straight through him.

A feeling he hadn't felt since...

Well, since Jess.

He immediately looked up to make sure it was, in fact, Krista there and not his beloved Jess.

Seeing that it was Krista, he hugged her anyway.

"Well, it's a long story," Kevin stated.


***

"Where the hell am I?" Emmy asked, hiking up a remote trail.

"God, why does Sean have to be such an asshole?" she continued. "All he had to do was come with me like every other normal guy would do for his girlfriend."

"But no, he had to stay there and be a dumbass," she continued to herself. "Now I am out in the middle of nowhere, looking for my friends all by myself, and I am probably lost."

She then got out her compass, to make sure she knew where she was.

Strangely enough, the arrow on it was spinning around.

"Great, now I'm really lost," she said, throwing her compass down on the ground with a thud, shattering the glass.

Then, knowing she was really lost, she just stopped.

Right in the middle of the woods.

Maybe I am close, she thought. Maybe I am right on top of it and Kevin and Krista will hear me if I call for them.

"Kevin? Krista?" she yelled.

No response.

"Where are you guys? I'm lost!" she yelled again.

Still no response.

Sighing, all Emmy could say was a sarcastic "Great."

"I give up," Emmy said, turning and heading back the way she came, hoping it would take her back to the camp before it got dark and everyone started to worry.

Nearly running, Emmy was hiking her way back to what she thought was the camp.

Oddly enough, she was heading in the right path.

Or so she thought.

Because, as she came around the turn, there it was.

The lake.

She knew she couldn't be that far away.

However, as she got to the shore, she didn't recognize any of the surroundings.

There were no cabins, no fire, nothing.

And she certainly didn't notice the man hiding behind a large oak tree, watching her every move.

It was Jason, moving in for the kill like a wolf stalking a sheep.


***

"Jess was everything I've ever wanted," Kevin continued his story to Krista. "There was nothing I wanted more out of life than to have Jess by my side. I didn't care what life threw at me, I knew I could get through it as long as Jess would be there."

"I don't know what to say," Krista replied.

"Don't say anything," Kevin responded. "We were gonna be married this year, on Christmas Day. We had everything planned out, we were even gonna have our colors as red and green, to coincide with Christmas."

"But none of that will ever happen now, and it's all my fault!"

"No, it's not your fault," Krista tried to assure him.

"You were in no position to take her home that night," she continued, "So don't blame yourself."

"If I would have been there, none of this would have ever happened," Kevin commented. "She would still be here with me."

Then Kevin lost it again, burying his head into his arms once again.

"I am so sorry," Krista stated.

"I have no life now," was Kevin's glum reply. "I don't even want to move on. There is no tomorrow."

"Please, Kevin," Krista piped back. "I don't want to see you like this. It is making me feel just as helpless knowing I can't help you. I am here for you. I love you."

That did it.

Kevin lost it even more.

"Love?!" Kevin commented, "I don't know what love is anymore."

"Yeah, well I do," Krista said. "Ever since I laid my eyes on you, I've felt this strange attraction to you. After all the time we've spent together the last few days, I now realize that you are the one for me."

Kevin just gazed at her, before breaking his silence.

"You know what?" Kevin stated, as a smile appeared on his face, "You don't know how happy I am to hear you say that."

"Really?" Krista asked.

"Yeah," Kevin replied. "Because I feel exactly the same way about you."

"You do?" Krista asked again.

"Yes, I do," Kevin eagerly responded. "The fact is, you are almost a mirror resemblance of Jess. That is why all this has come back to me," Kevin stated.

"Oh, is that good or bad?" she asked.

"It's good," Kevin replied, "Because I now know that while what I had with Jess was special, that was in the past, and I also know that what we have is special, too, and I don't want to lose you like I did Jess. I love you Krista."

Hearing that, Krista started to cry.

"Thanks to you, I can start life over, and move on. For that, I am eternally grateful," Kevin concluded.

Krista wiped the tears from her cheek and hugged him.

"I told you before, I am here for you. I love you," she responded.

"I love you, too," Kevin replied, and they exchanged a soft, loving kiss on the lips.

Kevin then got up, washed his hands and face off in the waterfall, and reached for Krista's hand.

Kevin then made a makeshift ring out of a blade of grass that he had in his pocket from outside and placed it on Krista's ring finger.

"Awww, thank you," Krista graciously said, kissing him again.

"It's not much," Kevin said. "But it will do...for now."

"Yeah, it sure will," Krista replied.

"Come on, let's head back before it gets dark. We got a lot to fill them in on, don't we?" Kevin stated.

"Yes we do," Krista replied.

So they climbed up to the top of the cliff and exited the cave through the narrow opening, and started on their trek back to camp.

But what they didn't notice was the inscription on the cave nearby, that perhaps would have warned them for the horrors they were about to face:




***

"Brrrrrrr," Emmy shivered as she swam in Crystal Lake.

All the hiking and the heat sure made her tired and exhausted, so she figured she would cool off for a while in the unusually cold water of Crystal Lake.

Emmy, stark naked, did her best impression of a backstroke before she couldn't take it anymore.

The water was just too cold.

Now she knows what Rose must have felt like on the Titanic.

Walking out of the lake, she grabbed a towel from her bag and started to dry off.

Her body was so cold, it was almost turning blue.

That water must have been as cold as death, she thought.

Even after putting her clothes back on, she was still freezing.

She then wrapped her hair in her towel and then wrapped herself in a warm blanket.

She was still freezing her ass off.

It is all Sean's fault, Emmy thought, if he would have came along, he could have kept me warm.

As she sat down on a nearby rock, she was beginning to think that maybe she had just about enough of Sean and his bullshit.

Maybe it was time she moved on.

Hey, maybe Kevin's available, Emmy thought, knowing nothing of Kevin and Krista's relationship. He seems like a nice guy, and besides, he's kinda cute.

But before she could think about it anymore, a mysterious noise pierced her ears.

It was some sort of hideous grinding sound.

Rum, Rum.

She could almost figure out what it was because it was starting to pick up.

Rum, Rum, Rum, Rum.

Just then, she knew what it was.

As she figured it out, Jason popped out from behind a bush, carrying it.

It was a chainsaw.

Emmy screamed and started to run, with Jason in hot pursuit.

Emmy could almost feel the blades of the blazing chainsaw at her back when she tripped and fell.

She then realized that she couldn't get far, because she didn't have her shoes on!

With Jason getting ever so closer to her, she tried to limp away, but her limp got slower and slower, until she climbed on a nearby boulder.

She then looked down at her ankle, and the bone was popped out!

Completely out of her skin.

She also saw what tripped her.

It looked like an old camp sign, but she couldn't quite make out what it said:



Then, with Emmy crying and screaming in pain, Jason was now right next to her.

The chainsaw was as loud as ever.

Emmy let out her final, blood-curdling scream as Jason buried the saw deep into her stomach and out her back, spraying blood everywhere, and causing the saw to cut into the boulder as well, making the most awful noise you can imagine.


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