Jason Zoorhees. That was not the name I was given upon my birth. I was given that name after the reputation I received from being the most dangerous teenager in the nineties and the most dangerous man in the apocalypse. However, every person needed to start somewhere, and I started with the name Bartholomew Starks—named after my grandfather who died in prison after being convicted of arson and two counts of second degree murder.

  This “quirk” of mine ran in the family. Although, I never understood why a mother voluntarily running inside a house engulfed by flames to save her baby would count as second degree murder. That fool ended her own life to save the life of a significantly lesser being, and she didn’t even save him in the end.

  I remembered it clearly. That infant looked like a burnt little raisin, and seeing that on the news gave me great amusement. My parents noticed me giggling like any other five year old would, and you would think that this would disturb them. It did not. In fact, it made them smile from ear to ear. I did not enjoy the term, but I was what people called a crybaby.

  It didn’t matter if my father was a successful real estate agent or that my mother was an attorney working at a big time law firm. It didn’t matter if they had my butt in a nice, big house in the suburbs. Nothing ever seemed to make me happy. And when I wasn’t crying, I had a blank face. It was no wonder my parents were elated at the sight of me laughing at those corpses. They were finally given a moment of peace and happiness, and they wouldn’t stop until those were the only things I made them feel.

  It started with the neighbor’s pet cat. That thing was an aggressive little creature, so my mother considered it probable cause to chop it up into little pieces in front of me. The blood squirting on my chubby little cheeks was a sensational feeling. I loved every second of it, and she loved that I loved it. Any mother should do anything for the happiness of their child.

  That was why I tolerated her existence.

  On the other hand, my father was more reluctant to have the fun I wanted to see. He spent several years only showing me low quality tapes of people getting murdered. They were not that hard to obtain considering his wife stole those pieces of evidence for him frequently. Sure, he was trying his best. Though, they were getting very boring after the first hundred times.

  So, I started to cry again—so loud that the neighbors started to complain. Eventually, my mother gave me a kitchen knife and told me “Do with it what you will.” I might have been young, but I was smart enough to understand what she meant. That night, the neighbors’ incessant complaints were put to a permanent end, and so was my freedom.

  My “imprisonment” did not last long as there wasn’t much you could do against an eight year old with a corrupt lawyer as a mother. All I had to say was that it was “self-defense” from a crazed family who blamed me for their missing cat. I mean, who could blame such an innocent looking child for such a heinous—well, not heinous to me—crime?

  That was a question I would quickly find an answer to as the half-witted, idiotic, and foolish students at my half-witted, idiotic, and foolish school blamed me relentlessly. Afterschool beatdowns, shoved into lockers, swirlies—those were just the start of what I had to endure. One of those maniacs brought a machete to school just for me. Obviously, she failed.

  That dastardly elementary school was the first place I was given the name Jason

  Zoorhees. I was Bartholomew Starks!

  These kids had the freedom to do anything that brought them joy, made them happy. Playing their little sports, hanging out with their daft friends, or tormenting me for no reason. And yet, when I participated in a little murder, everyone wanted to burn me at the stake. Why was I not allowed to relish in my happiness and enjoy my freedom?

  It wasn’t fair. Luckily for me, my parents understood that well. They moved me to different schools every year, but I couldn’t escape the constant news coverage on what I “definitely” did. Once I reached my teenage years, my parents couldn’t afford to move around anymore. They were dropped from their job to avoid any bad press from working with parents of a “murderer”.

  With the two having bills and rent blasted at them constantly, I made sure to do the best I could in my new school. After all, my parents always tried their best to make me happy. Now it was time I did too. However, I still had urges that needed to be fulfilled, which came at the cost of the lives of a few class pets—small bunnies and turtles.

  Never a human though. Even between my freshman and senior years where teachers gossiped behind my back and other students never called me by my actual name, I didn’t let a human die by my hands. I couldn’t afford to make my parents unhappier than they already were.

  That’s what I kept telling myself. Until the day of my graduation. It was supposed to be a peaceful day. A day where I was finally free from that hellish landscape. A day where all my hard work would finally be paid off.

  My father decided to ruin that. I do not remember his name now, but I knew I got the Starks name from him. It was a name filled with power, authority, and respect. A name meant to be feared by all except for one’s family. So you could imagine my surprise when I woke up to find him threatening to stab my mother with a broken glass bottle.

  “This all started with you, you stupid bitch!” he screamed, aiming the makeshift weapon at my cowering mother. “You enabled him, encouraged him, and you created a goddamn freak! We have a freak living in this rundown apartment because you didn’t know how to make a baby stop crying.”

  “Well, maybe if you didn’t go out drinking with your friends all night, I wouldn’t have had to resort to doing it! You left me alone, you bastard!”

  “Oh, boo-fucking-hoo! Taking care of little Bart was so hard for you. Don’t act so high and mighty, Emmy! I was struggling back then too. Why do you think I was going out all night? It was so I didn’t need to hear the constant crying and whining from both the baby and you!”

  Steam hissed from the pot my mother was standing in front of, bubbling furiously as if it, too, had something to say.

  “Fuck you! I loved Bartholomew no matter what made him laugh or smile. I did everything for him while you did the bare minimum!”

  “I lost my job because of him. I lost my house because of him. I lost my good reputation because of him. Don’t tell me I’m going to lose my wife because of him too? I mean, how long until he kills us to make himself happy?”

  She grabbed a knife and aimed it at him with shaky hands. “Take-Take that back!”

  My father scoffed, his confidence overshadowing the fact that his spouse was threatening to kill him. “Oh, look! Another member of this family who likes to play with knives. Did Bart affect you with his disease or did it always come from you?”

  “You know better than I that your crazy father only burned that woman’s house because he was feeling ‘bored’. It comes from your side of the family!”

  “You little…” He gritted his teeth, inching closer. “I’ll kill you!”

  Father attacked first and my mother’s stomach was the target. I only knew that was where he specifically stabbed because I had studied some human anatomy before.

  Perhaps I needed to read more about human emotions as I had no idea what to feel in that instant of chaos. I should have felt elated to see someone actually die in front of me after so long, but this was my mother.

  I… did not want her to die.

  “Mother!”

  I fought. As a boy who never confronted his prey face to face, this was a new experience for me. Plus, it was to protect someone I… cared about rather than for myself. Getting stabbed in the stomach wasn’t instantly fatal, though the blood painting the floor suggested I needed to hurry it up.

  Winning a tug of war with my father wasn’t possible, so I let the bottle go, causing him to slip on the blood and fall down. It didn’t take long for me to grab the knife my mother was holding and shove it deep into the man’s heart.

  I didn’t remember what my expression was during that moment. I remembered my father’s though. Shock, anguish, with a sprinkle of regret—ingredients that made the perfect meal for me to devour. Although, I had bigger things that needed to be dealt with.

  A wet, searing pain exploded across my face, hotter than anything I'd ever felt. My skin burned, flesh screaming under the boiling water. I didn’t even see it happen. Maybe the pot spilled during the scuffle with my now-dead father. We’d slammed into the counter enough times—sooner or later, something had to fall.

  I endured it. Who cares about my pain when my mother had just been stabbed? I called 911, and it took them fifteen minutes to barge through our door and survey the bloody surroundings. I expected medical professionals to take my mother away and place her in an ambulance. While that did happen, what I didn’t expect was for me, the hero in the situation, to be immediately handcuffed and read my Miranda rights.

  It was the very first time I hurt… killed to protect the life of another, and yet I was being punished for it. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. I was supposed to be the hero. And the police had the audacity to call me by that fake name I hated so much.

  “Jason Zoorhees, you have the right to remain silent.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I wasn’t Jason Zoorhees. I was Bartholomew Starks! Call me…

  Those were the words I screamed repeatedly while the cops dragged me outside our home. I didn’t stop until I saw my mother, my kind and loving mother, being carefully lifted into an ambulance.

  What kind of son thought of himself when his mother was suffering from a potentially fatal stab wound? Thankfully, it was that sight that allowed me to change my words completely.

  “Please… Please save my mother!” I was pretty sure the whole neighborhood heard my cry considering most of them were watching from afar. “Please save her! Just tell me what I have to do! I’ll do anything you people want! I’ll pay any money you people want! Don’t let what I did to that man mean nothing in the end! There’s no reason I get to live and she doesn’t! So please… please… don’t let someone who deserves to live more than me die in that fucking ambulance!”

  Multiple news teams were there that day, filming my pleas for my mother’s survival. It did not help me avoid the twenty year sentence the judge cursed me with, but it did grant me some sympathy from my fellow prisoners.

  Jason Zoorhees—Williams State Penitentiary’s Resident Momma’s Boy.

  The name was not enjoyable by my standards, but if it got those idiotic brutes off my back until I got out, then it would have to do. Although, it was prison, and someone is always going to cause a problem with you. Working out daily through the years kept my intimidation factor up, and the various masks I used to cover my burnt face made people think I was a muscle-brained enigma.

  Classes every other week helped me with my “problem”, allowing me to channel my urges into labor and exercise. My mother had long since recovered in the hospital, so life in prison was looking pretty good for me.

  All it took was eight long years to gain the peace and solitude I desperately wanted. Sadly, that didn’t last long. The police thought it would be a great idea to place someone with borderline Tourette’s Syndrome in my cell. I only thought that’s what he had since he would spout random ways a person could die whenever I spoke to him.

  “Asphyxiation”, “Drowning”, “AIDs”—those were just a fraction of what would leave his mouth. I wanted to kill him really badly. Unfortunately, doing so would only grant me a longer sentence, so I withstood my verbal abuse.

  After months of listening to that annoying insect ramble nonsense, I decided to ask the guards what his deal was. According to them, he had watched a stand-up comedy act—where the comedian’s entire shtick was shouting out different ways to die—while, at the same time, a burglar broke into his home and murdered his family.

  It looked like the trauma caused him to only remember the thing that brought him the most joy from that night—the comedian on his television. The man ended up killing several people, and their cause of death matched with the three words he said the most—Asphyxiation, Headshot, and Drowning.

  Once I realized that, there was a newfound sympathy I had for my prisoner roommate. He reminded me of me—a human who couldn’t control how they treated the lives of lesser beings. He was the first person I actively asked the name of.

  Jerome Travis Hunter—a fitting name for a potential friend. At least, that’s what I thought. The poor man ended up dead after being brutally stabbed by a prisoner who was the uncle of one of Jerome’s victims.

  The reasoning for his murder was… very weak. I couldn’t believe it upon hearing it. I remembered feeling the same emotion I felt when my mother was stabbed—a sharp knife carving through my insides and pouring acid into me. Jerome has a reason to kill those people. He had a “disease” he couldn’t find a cure for, and killing was the only way he could relieve himself. Why was that so bad? All he wanted was the freedom to do what he needed to do because no one understood him enough to find a better option.

  He was a victim. I was a victim. If he could be killed despite those problems instilled in his soul, then what was stopping them from doing the same to me? What was stopping anyone from hating me, misunderstanding me, killing me!?

  I was a victim, and I needed to protect myself from others and the world. They wanted to take away my freedom, and there was no way I was letting that happen.

  The Massacre of April 1st. I hated the idea of my birthday being on the same day where fools played tricks on each other, but this day changed that opinion. It was a day to honor my first friend. A day to avenge the life of my first friend. A day spent cutting down the population of Williams Penitentiary by about half.

  Self-defense is all that was, and yet the judge didn’t see it that way. What was once twenty years turned into life in prison. What those fools didn’t expect was for that day to be the same day the world ended, bombs destroying everything the humans called their home.

  The day everyone else’s world ended was the day my world finally began. Hundreds of millions of humans were ripped to shreds by the overwhelming intensity of the nuclear bombs, and I was one of the lucky thousands who survived. The freedom I was searching for since the day I was born had finally been granted to me by some divine being who felt like doing a good deed that fateful day. I was going to take full advantage of that.

  Bartholomew Starks died on April 1st. Jason Voorhees—the Mad Man of the Apocalypse—born on the same day.

  ******

  Hallowsville was a place that was the culmination of the freedom I earned once my prison was destroyed. A town full of survivors that only celebrated my favorite holiday—Halloween. Who could possibly not like Halloween? With a holiday like that, everyone could dress up like freaks and threaten to kill each other without certain people thinking it was probable cause to call the authorities.

  Except in Hallowsville, murder was the norm here. Well, not too much murder. It wouldn’t be a proper civilization if everyone was dead. It was my home away from my prison known as Underground City A. Perhaps being stuck here in a place that promotes this much freedom was actually a good thing.

  So it was unfortunate that three men from the Corleone family decided to ruin my happiness with their incessant babbling.

  “Would y’all rather be a female during the Medieval era with a five percent chance of being inherited by the royal family or live in Washington D.C on the first day the bombs dropped?” The one who asked that purposeless question was named Ricky Saints, chowing down on a basket of cheese fries with his white shoes on my round table. Despite how hot the food was, the cheese dripping on his bare chest didn’t faze him.

  “What kinda dumbass question is that, Ricky?” At least someone here understood that man’s idiocy. I regretted not remembering his name earlier. “You should at least clarify how sexy we'd be as girls. I mean, are we talking about A cups or double D’s?”

  I took back what I said earlier.

  Ricky licked the cheese off his lips and wiped the saliva on his black suit pants. That made me want to kill him even more. “You’ll look like a female version of your current self, but you'll be considered attractive during those times. Since you're a big guy with a big chest, I'll say you’d have double D’s.”

  “Fuck yeah!” he shouted, banging the table with his fists. “I'm gonna be such a pretty girl.” Despite his stature being similar to mine, the one thing that caught my attention were the black rods lodged in his bald scalp. How he survived that wasn't something I could answer.

  “You do realize being an attractive woman in the medieval era makes you an easy target for violation, yooo.” I didn't know the name of the one who just made the good point, but I was satisfied to see someone here looking out for their own safety. “Do we have the option to be sexually unappealing to the male gaze, yooo?”

  “Nah, Conny, you gotta be a pretty female,” answered Ricky, smirking. “You also don't keep the same strength you do now, so good luck. Like I said though, you have a five percent chance to actually be something.”

  Conny took a sip from his soda. There was a zipper where his lips should've been. In other words, his mouth was a zipper. “The real question is which country’s royal family do we join, yooo? Is it a British thing, an Egyptian thing, a Japanese thing, yooo?”

  The rod head leaned back, raising an eyebrow at Conny. “What kind of dumbass question is that? It's the medieval era, so obviously you're gonna be in Europe, dummy.”

  “Medieval is pretty much knights, armors, kings, and queens, yooo,” replied Conny. “Europe wasn't the only continent to have those things, you know, yooo. That's why I asked the question, yooo.”

  For men who wore suits–well, aside from Ricky–they didn't seem to be all that civilized.

  Ricky put his hands out. “Alright, enough arguing. To answer your question, Conny, you'll only be in Europe so a European royal family. But it seriously doesn't matter considering you have a ninety-five percent chance to be an absolute nobody.”

  “Yeah, but-”

  “AIDs!” I roared, slapping the table hard.

  Ricky chuckled. “AIDs in the Medieval era? Well, it depends on who you fucking, Jason.”

  The rod head scratched his chin. “AIDs existed in the Medieval era?”

  “He wasn't talking about AIDs, yooo,” said Conny. “He was demanding for us to stop talking about this nonsense and tell him why we asked to meet him here, yooo.”

  I unsheathed my machete and stabbed the table slowly. “Decapitation.”

  “Woah there buddy,” Ricky snickered. “No need to threaten us with that little blade of yours. What we want to talk about won't take long.”

  “He actually just repeated his question, Ricky, yooo.”

  Ricky scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. “I never liked this prick’s annoying gimmick. Gets me a little tense. You never know when he's just saying the word or using his ability. Jason Zoorhees. The ‘mad man of the apocalypse’. I know Mr. Corleone didn't give you that arrogant name. Don't tell me you gave yourself it?”

  “Devil of the Apocalypse. Mad Man of the Apocalypse.” The rod head started to smoke a cigar. “Now we got a Type Two Zombie out there tryna screw everything up.”

  Conny looked at me. “That Type Two Radion is what we wanted to talk about with you today, yooo. The longer he protects that little girl, the more money we lose, yooo. Can't make money if all the people making it for us might die in the future, yooo.”

  “Exactly,” Ricky agreed. “Not to mention, that absorption ability of his could be a real problem too. For our ‘freedom’ and yours as well, Zoorhees. And we think that the problem needs to be handled accordingly and absolutely. However, the boss doesn't want him to be terminated just yet. He wants him alive… for now.”

  “We’d get him ourselves, but that horse weirdo and Daemon’s brat is with him. We can't let Daemon know what we're doing, and we definitely don't want to fight Hernandez by ourselves.”

  “Lethal injection?”

  Conny looked at his two allies, then looked back at me. “Well, in exchange for you joining our little group and helping us take down the Type Two’s squad, Corleone promises to take care of your little problem in the near future, yooo. We know Daemon’s always treated you like shit, yooo. Why not get the help of a family who cares about their members, yooo?”

  I pondered that deal for a moment, glaring at both Ricky and the rod head smiling confidently at me. I really wanted to squeeze their heads like grapes, but the offer didn't sound bad. The fact that I could kill them at any moment made it even sweeter. However, there was something I needed to make sure of before agreeing.

  I clasped my hands. “Type Two Diabetes.”

  Conny translated to the two.

  Ricky widened his eyes slightly. “The girl and Dante? We can guarantee the child, but Dante might be a little hard to get rid of. We can do it though. All you gotta do is make sure the Type Two is erased temporarily. You have the perfect ability for that, remember?”

  The rod head held his hand out for a handshake. “So, we got a deal?”

  I looked at his hand for exactly sixty seconds before standing up from my seat and putting out his cigar with my fingers. Then, I threw Ricky’s legs back to the floor.

  “Headshot.”