Confrontation

There had been six left in all, but I only killed two. The other four used their companions' bodies as cover and slipped away.

It looked like I had the advantage, but only I knew how fast my stamina was draining. I had only brought three magazines for the shotgun, and I had already used two. I had plenty of handgun ammunition, but that could only hamper their movements a little. I had to end this quickly.

As I thought, everything around me suddenly seemed to go quiet, as though they had given up. But I knew these things were like goddamn bloodsucking bugs. Once they sank their teeth in, they would never stop until one of us was dead.

Suddenly, faint footsteps came from behind me, where the house had collapsed. I turned at once. Sure enough, two monsters were creeping toward me on tiptoe, their bodies twisted. I raised my handgun and shot one precisely in the head, then charged with the silver dagger in my hand. The dagger pierced the other's heart. I twisted the silver blade, and he went down for good too.

Paul rushed in through the wide-open door behind me, carrying a wooden club, and struck my arm hard. But he must have torn it from somewhere inside the cabin, and the wood was already rotten. It did not break any bones, but it knocked both my handgun and silver dagger to the floor.

I immediately backed up two steps, dodging one of the girls as she lunged at me. Paul thrust the broken club at me. Though I dodged, I was still hurt. The broken end stabbed into the left side of my waist, and blood soaked my clothes there.

Paul brought the blood on the club to his nose and narrowed his eyes. "You smell good. I'm starting to look forward to tasting your meat."

The girl beside him had never taken his eyes off me, but he was not looking directly into my eyes. His gaze was angled slightly higher. Soon, I understood why.

The girl gave a shrill laugh. "I want his brain!" With that, she lunged at me.

I rolled across the floor, picked up the handgun, and fired several shots at close range, blasting apart his wrists and ankles. Only after the final shots hit his neck and brain did she stop moving altogether.

But I was out of bullets too. There was definitely no time to reload now. Panting hard, I stared at Paul in front of me.

He had clearly noticed my exhaustion too and lunged at me. He caught me by the throat and brought me down to the floor. His strength far exceeded that of a normal person. I could even feel his nails digging into my neck.

I struggled, my face turning from red to an increasingly dark purple, while Paul laughed wildly. "You know what? I learned something back when I worked as a counselor." He leaned close and licked my face, his rotten breath washing over it.

"When someone is suddenly grabbed by the throat, they don't die right away. They pass out. I'll tie you up and start eating the unimportant parts first. Then, at the end, I'll tear out your heart while you're still alive."

My hand kept fumbling at my waist. Paul was still talking when a fistful of salt hit him in the face. Black vapor immediately rose with a hiss. He screamed and stood up, covering his face. Then I drew the knife from my waist and chopped his head off in one stroke.

I looked at Paul, my handgun aimed at his head. His initial screams had turned into disgusting, shrill laughter, like a broken windup doll. I looked at him in revulsion. "When you get to hell, give that disgusting fish-skin boss of yours my regards."

Ash was not having an easy time either.

He could not outrun Jason at all, but a man like him had his own tricks. Whenever he heard the breathing and footsteps closing in, he tossed a handful of salt behind him or splashed some water, then took off running again.

When the blade swept over his head once more, a chill rose from the soles of his feet. The danger drove home yet again that money was not easy to earn.

Eventually, he plunged headfirst into Crystal Lake. It was not deliberate. It was dark, and Ash had to keep track of what was happening behind him. One careless moment, one more step, and he fell straight into the lake.

He struggled to climb ashore, only to touch someone's trouser leg. Terrified, he scrambled back into the lake.

Then he realized the big guy had stopped moving, as though something had frozen him in place.

After a brief standoff, Ash seemed to realize something. "You're scared of water? You're scared of water!"

Only then did Ash truly take a good look at the hulking figure. He was built like a butcher, with bluish-gray skin, a battered hockey mask, and equally tattered clothes. He was completely different from the waterlogged-looking things Ash usually encountered. This thing was too quiet, nothing like those loathsome things that snickered and jeered.

He was still breathing, the sound deep and heavy, as though his lungs were full of water. His whole body was horribly ravaged, which was nothing unusual, but the feeling he gave off was so fucking different.

This thing looked tolerable enough, but he gave Ash a feeling a hundred times more horrifying than the others he had encountered.

The thing stared at him silently for a while, then turned and left. Ash slapped the water arrogantly. "Go on, run away! Go find your leather-faced daddy book kiss." But he soon remembered something.

"Wait, that book! And Luo Ya! Luo Ya's still there! Luo Ya!"

"Come back, you big idiot! You baseball-bat-mask bastard!" Ash shouted.

But Jason's figure simply disappeared resolutely into the vast darkness.

Ash staggered as he tried to climb out of the water and chase after the big idiot, only for several skeletal limbs to yank him back into the lake. He swallowed a huge mouthful of water.

He struggled for a long time before managing to pull the dagger from his waist. He quickly hacked through several of them, then scrambled ashore with a few severed hands still hanging from him.

"What the fuck!" From the seemingly clear lake, corpses crawled out in layers upon layers. Some had been reduced entirely to skeletons, while others still had a layer of rotten flesh covering them. Ash swore loudly.

"Go to hell, you goddamn things."

He had known this small rocket launcher, which had caught his eye at first sight, would come in handy. Even with Jason chasing him like that, he had been unwilling to throw away something so heavy. He braced it on his shoulder and fired. In an instant, the whole pool of skeletons was blasted to pieces, bone fragments flying everywhere.

It looked like that pot of savory oatmeal soup his dad had made for him and his sister just after their mother died. Ugh, it smelled like it too. The recoil knocked him onto his backside hard enough to hurt, but he still had to scramble up.

"Okay, boss, Luoyaer, Luo Ya, your best employee is coming to save you!" He removed his silver hand and replaced it with the chainsaw hand he had always insisted on wearing. Luckily, the water had not ruined it. With a click from his wrist, he ran in the direction he remembered.

I hacked apart the last body to keep them from going berserk again, then threw away the large blade in my hand, which was covered in who knew what.

Luckily, the car was still intact. I got in, lifted my clothes, and bandaged my waist, neck, and left ankle, then headed straight for the cabin without stopping.

The moment I opened the door, a gust of cold air mixed with dust hit me in the face. I returned to the cellar entrance. The boards covering it had been smashed to pieces. I jumped down.

I turned on my headlamp, illuminating every inch of the cramped cellar. Black, dried blood still clung to the walls. Some was mine, and I guessed some was Jason's. Almost without hesitation, I walked up to the book and poured gasoline over it.

"Wait, Luoyaer, my lovely Luoyaer."

I did not stop, making sure his entire book was soaked in diesel. Unfortunately, the thing was already greasy. Then I sprinkled salt over it and lit the lighter...

"Wait, you don't want to do this, Luoyaer. You know fire doesn't hurt me. Hmm... fine, maybe your other little toys do have some effect on me... but killing me is the same as killing Jason. You don't want to do that, do you?"

My hand stopped. The book had achieved its aim.

"Poor Jason, sweet Jason. Kind Mrs. Pamela was willing to trade many other souls for Jason, so I agreed to bring his little soul, that crying soul wandering around Crystal Lake, back into his body."

"I should have known... but I truly didn't notice at first... he's magnificent, you know? He can absorb power, good or bad, living or dead... perhaps if he keeps developing, in a few decades or centuries, he'll become an evil god, the kind that can be recorded on my pages."

"But unfortunately, I couldn't have that soul, because this was a bargain, a contract. I could only take what I was owed. I should never have been able to get little Jason."

"But you know what? He was willing to make a deal. He was willing to trade himself for you, a soul that already belonged to me."

"So I let you go, and I even thoughtfully undid that ritual for you. You should have gone off and lived your own life. You should have been grateful."

"But no, poor Luoyaer, you came back again. You're courting death."

As he spoke, something suddenly jumped down into the cellar, landing with a dull thud and stirring up a cloud of dust. It was Jason.

I instinctively moved to defend myself, but Jason did not lunge at me. He simply stood there blankly.

The book roared with laughter. "He isn't sparing you because he still remembers you. It's because he belongs to me now."

The next second, Jason seized me by the throat and slammed me against the wall. Pain wracked my entire body, especially the back of my head. Waves of dizziness washed over me, and I felt sick enough to vomit, while that book just kept laughing. "He's mine now! Hahahahaha..."

"He's my new vessel. His soul will remain under my control forever, for millions upon millions of years. Or, to put it in a way you can understand, he's dead. Completely dead. Heaven can't find him, and hell has no trace of him either."