ONCE WAS NOT ENOUGH
Beautiful, auburn-haired, nineteen-year-old Chris was going back.
Back to the place where the others had been hideously butchered.
Back to where she had been found near-mad with terror.
Back to prove to herself that the horror was over and she could live and love again.
This time she brought her friends.
They all thought the weekend would be a kick.
All they had in mind was goofing off and getting off on fun and games.
It was party time—until an uninvited guest showed up.
His name was Jason . . . and he was out to have a bloody ball of his own . . .
PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRESENTS
A JASON PRODUCTIONS, INC./
FRANK MANCUSO. JR. PRODUCTION
A STEVE MINER FILM
FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3
Starring
DANA KIMMELL • PAUL KRATKA
and RICHARD BROOKER as JASON
Co-Producer TONY BISHOP
Director of Photography GERALD FEIL
Produced by FRANK MANCUSO, JR.
Directed by STEVE MINER
A PARAMOUNT PICTURE
Copyright © 1988 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.
“FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH PART 3” logo and artwork TM and copyright © 1982 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, ONYX, PLUME, MERIDIAN and NAL BOOKS are published by NAL PENGUIN INC., 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019
First Printing, May, 1988
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Prologue
Sometimes, Edna Hockett got so frustrated, she just wished she could die. Her life was going absolutely nowhere. She often wondered what the point of it was. There was no way out; she was stuck. And the worst thing was that she had done it to herself.
If anyone had told her back when she was seventeen that she would wind up married to a fat slob who ran a tiny roadside market way out in the middle of nowhere, just off a two-lane highway, and that her nights would be spent curled up on an old sofa in front of the TV, knitting sweaters endlessly just to have something to do with her hands so she wouldn’t start pounding on the walls and screaming, she would never have believed it. But there she was, in her flannel nightgown and curlers in front of the TV in their living quarters over the store. They didn’t even have a decent house to live in, not even a mobile home, just a lousy, cramped apartment above the store. How did she ever get herself into this mess?
When she had married Harold at eighteen, fresh out of high school, she felt so proud and free and full of life that it seemed as if nothing could hold her back. She married her high school sweetheart, the captain of the football team and the best-looking guy in school. Harold had a football scholarship to college and she planned on getting a part-time job to help make ends meet. They had wonderful plans. Harold was going to work hard and win a position as the starting quarterback in his sophomore or junior year. Then he’d get picked in the draft and spend some years playing pro ball, after which he’d take all the money he would have invested and start a business of his own. Well, Harold got drafted, all right, but it wasn’t by any football team. This team was called the U.S. Army.
The big jerk just had to flunk out and get drafted. For a while, she was terrified that he’d get sent to Vietnam, but they shipped him off to West Germany instead, where he picked up a taste for dark beer and bratwurst and Wiener schnitzel and apple strudel. Pretty soon it was all that he could do to fit into his uniform. And after Harold go out of the army, he just kept on eating.
She couldn’t really remember when she stopped calling him “honey” and started referring to him as “the big jerk.” She wasn’t sure when she started letting her own appearance slip, though she’d never allowed herself to get as sloppy and overweight as Harold. She couldn’t remember when she’d finally realized that all her dreams were merely that—just dreams—and instead of “making it,” she had started to settle for “just getting by.” She was thirty-eight years old, but she looked forty-eight and sometimes she felt even older. She changed the TV channel with a sigh and sat back to see what bad news there was in the world.
The eleven o’clock news came on. “The quiet little community of Crystal Lake was shocked today with reports of a grisly mass murder scene,” the anchorman said.
Her eyes grew wide and she leaned forward, staring intently at the screen. They were just down the road from Crystal Lake! She turned the volume up.
“Eight bodies have been discovered in what is already being called the most brutal and heinous crime in local history,” the newscaster continued. “A police spokesman told ‘Eye-On News’ that they have been combing the area since just before dawn and are afraid that their gruesome discovery is just the beginning.”
My God, she thought, it was almost like the last time, when that crazy Vorhees woman ran amok and killed those kids at that camp by the lake! Edna shuddered at the thought. “Camp Blood” was what all the newspapers had called it. And to think that Pamela Vorhees had actually been in their store every now and then! Who would have thought that a perfectly normal-looking woman like that . . . but these new murders couldn’t have been done by her. She was dead. Edna remembered reading that she had been decapitated. She shuddered, imagining the gruesome sight of a body with its head cut off.
There was a crash outside and Edna jerked, startled by the noise. She ran over to the window and looked out. Of course, she thought, who else? It was Harold. The light of my life, she thought wryly. Some light. Some life.
He had stumbled into one of the poles
