Chapter Text
The woods were Howie's quiet place.
Well, quiet being a relative term. The calls of birds, the wind whistling through the trees, and the chirps of crickets towards the evening could all be heard in the calm patch of wilderness he currently found himself in.
He came here when he needed to think or just to be alone, feeding his nicotine addiction with the Lucky Strikes he had become so fond of as he admired the scenery.
Sometimes, like now, he would find himself sitting at the end of a dilapidated dock just outside of the woods. The dock had belonged to some camp that now sat abandoned on account of it's bloody history.
Apparently, some woman had gone mad and killed several teenagers seeking retribution for her deceased son, who had apparently drowned in the very lake he now observed.
The body of the poor boy was never found.
Sometimes, Howie would imagine the pale, unmoving form of the boy lying on the slimy lake floor, an icy blanket of dark water keeping him from escaping his final resting place.
It was at these times that he could feel eyes looking back at him from the gently rolling water.
He shook those sinister thoughts from his head, running a hand through his honey brown hair.
Thoughts like those were the last thing he needed right now.
The reason he had gone out there that night was to escape.
At the age of 20, Howie's life was on a downward spiral.
He still lived with his parents who were extremely vocal with their displeasure with his lifestyle.
The thought of moving away from them crossed his mind every day, but then he was reminded of his practically nonexistent savings that were a result of working minimum wage at a diner and having to give nearly all of his money to his parents as rent.
That day they had been especially aggressive in their criticisms of him. He decided that the abuse was bad enough that it warranted leaving for a while, so he barricaded himself in his room, packed a ratty old backpack full of clothing and a few dollars for food, grabbed his old sleeping bag and crawled out the window in favor of camping out in the woods for a night or two.
It was days like this that he contemplated letting himself fall into the cool water below, joining the drowned child in his eternal sleep.
Howie laid back against the dock, staring up at the midday sky as a wave of tiredness rolled over him.
'Surely a nap couldn't hurt...' he thought as his eyes fluttered shut and he let himself enter a relaxed state, comforted by the warm glow of the sun.
It had to have been less that 20 minutes when he was jarred awake by a shout from directly above him.
His eyes snapped open only to fall on a pack of boys surrounding him and staring down at him, evil grins and sneers adorning their faces as they began to yell slurs at him.
Howie jumped to his feet, pushing past his bullies and walking back into the woods.
He knew these boys all too well. Their harassment had begin back during his senior year of highschool, when he began wearing t-shirts and drainpipe jeans and asked people to start calling him Howie. Even after he graduated, they followed him, shouting slurs after him whenever they spotted him.
That was one of the problems with living in such a small town.
Usually, simply walking away and ignoring their taunts worked, but of course that was when they were in a public space.
Now, there was nobody around.
He hadn't even noticed the quickly approaching footsteps behind him until it was too late.
The first blow landed on the back of his head, causing him to recoil and whip around to face his attackers.
Against his better judgement, Howie threw a punch at the boy in the middle of the pack, their leader. It hit him square in the nose with a loud crunch, causing blood to gush from his face.
The boy stared at him for a brief moment before snarling and hitting back hard, the rest of the posse following suit.
Howie fought back as hard as he could, but as outnumbered as he was the odds were against him.
He fell to the ground, bruised and bloody, yet still the attacks continued.
Howie curled into the fetal position, fearing that his ribs would be broken on account of the relentless kicks as well as the bandages wrapped tightly around his chest.
Suddenly, it all stopped.
From his position on the ground, he could hear the boys yelling in confusion and fear, before they took off sprinting back towards the woods.
Howie chanced a look up despite his darkening vision. What he saw was something from a horror film.
Towering above him was what appeared to be a man, the term "man" being used loosely however. The thing that stood above him was a 7 foot tall humanoid with decayed black skin that had worn away to the bone in a few places.
The man/thing/whatever's face was obscured by what appeared to be an old, worn hockey mask. The left edge of it had been broken off to show that the skin of his cheek had rotted away, revealing a row of teeth that formed a wide, sinister grin.
The man's clothes were dripping wet, as if he had been soaking in the lake just before scaring off the band of bullies.
Actually, that was probably exactly what he was doing.
One of the more odd things about him (which is REALLY saying something) was the chain wrapped around his torso, as if someone had attempted to hold him somewhere. Obviously, this person had failed.
The last thing Howie saw before going unconscious was the monster bending down and reaching for him.
He knew he wouldn't be waking up.
--
When he woke up, he was shocked to say the least.
Upon sight of the thing, anyone would assume that they were about to be gored to death or eaten or something.
But no, here he was, still breathing, albeit with a bit of pain.
Not to mention he was in an entirely different place now.
The room around him was dark on account of nightfall, but thankfully illuminated by the gentle glow of various candles scattered about the room.
The space was dusty, clearly unused for quite a while. Cobwebs of all shapes and sizes clung to the ceiling. Howie's skin crawled when he thought about the spiders that made said cobwebs.
The floors were concrete, and the walls were unfinished. It was clearly not meant to be lived in. Perhaps a work shed of some sort?
The room was mostly empty, the few occupants being various equipment ranging from paint cans all the way to an old rowboat that was most definitely no longer seaworthy.
It dawned on him that the building may have been used for storage for the old camp, assuming that's where he was.
The place where he was sitting was a nest of various blankets and pillows, some old and tattered and some brand new.
Suddenly, he remembered the bandages around his chest, and he fumbled to get his shirt off to remove his bindings and check the state of his ribs.
When he pulled up the article of clothing to reveal his chest, he was, once again, shocked to find that the bandages had been removed.
A cold surge of realization hit him.
The monster must have removed them.
He shivered thinking about that thing's cold, slimy hands anywhere near him, let alone on his chest.
Giving himself a quick once over, he made another discovery.
He had sustained multiple wounds during the fight, but now he found them to be cleaned and bandaged.
What in the fresh hell was going on here?
"Hello?" he called out, his voice raspy from sleep and thirst. He attempted to stand only to be knocked back on his ass by a wave of pain.
The door to the small building flung open, making Howie jump in surprise and agitating his bruises.
Through the door walked the creature, nearly hitting his head on the top of the doorway due to his height.
The two had an awkward moment of staring, before Howie broke the silence with a casual "Hey."
The monster tilted his head at the man's greeting, understandably unsure what to make of him.
Hell, Howie wasn't sure what to make of this hulking creature himself. He incited terror within him, but at the same time the thing seemed to show some sort of kindness towards him, seeing as he'd scared off his tormentors and even taken him here to patch him up.
Howie noticed a half full bottle of water in the thing- no, man's partially fleshless hand.
"I-is that for me?" he stuttered nervously, pointing weakly at the bottle of liquid.
Surprisingly, the zombie-like man nodded, taking a few steps forward and extending his arm to offer the bottle.
Howie downed the liquid in under a minute, not caring where it might have come from.
The two sat for a moment longer in silence before, once again, Howie broke it.
"Umm... I'm Howie by the way. What's your name?"
He didn't expect the rotting man to speak, and he didn't. Instead, he bent down and with one finger he drew something in the dirt and dust covered floor.
When he was finished, the young man glanced over it, trying to make sense of what had been traced there.
He realized that it was letters, and they spelled a name.
J a s o n
He smiled at the monster of a man.
That was how it began.