Simon Hawke. Friday the 13th (№ 190242)

He had been working in camps for five consecutive seasons and heard a considerable number of ghost stories, which supposedly swarmed with this type of place. Most of them were a free retelling of one, which has already become classic, history. Stories of Crazy Hook. There was, they say, some kind of maniac who killed a decent number of people. And so he was imprisoned for treatment in some kind of asylum, which - “it happened” - is located not far from one of the camps. So: this killer once lost his arm and instead had a steel hook. Nobody could find his hand. This paranoid all his life tried to find his hand, and he lost it in one of the nearby forests. And if you tell this story in an appropriate setting, describing in detail how he killed his victims, then the eyes of the listening children usually crawl out of their orbits from fright, and they, hanging their ears, follow every word of the narrator. Many of the listeners believe that this is a fairy tale that they are told overnight. But this happens only until the narrator finally says that exactly one year ago here, in this camp, there lived exactly the same guys as those sitting in front of him, who decided to drive a car one evening. They drove up to the forest and turned off the headlights. They were sitting in the cabin, listening to the radio, but suddenly the girl heard some noise nearby. Some kind of crunch: as if someone was wandering nearby. A barely audible but very disturbing noise: as if someone was trying to open the car door with something metallic ... She got scared and began to beg her boyfriend to leave. The boy, too, was from a timid dozen and jerked from his place. They went along the road - here the narrator should clarify that they went exactly along the road that leads to the camp and passes a stone's throw from them - then, realizing the ridiculous nature of such a sudden flight, they stopped, began to explain to each other what it was simply stupid of them, and wrote off everything to their outburst of imagination. Well, when they started to get out of the car, something prevented them from opening the door. It turned out that a steel hook stuck in the doorway ... This produces the effect of an exploding bomb. Earlier this evening, the storyteller was supposed to inform the guys that he had heard on the radio that a killer had escaped from a madhouse, and the police asked everyone to be at home, as this person is very dangerous. Police are combing through the forest, trying to find this man, and rather not a man, but a beast that roams somewhere nearby in search of his hand, his hook. The police also informed that the killer was last seen in the area of ​​the camp (here the narrator gives the name of their camp). He's looking for his hook, the narrator says in almost a whisper. The same hook that I lost a year ago, trying to kill those guys who guessed in time to give a fight. He is sure that his hand is somewhere here, the narrator continues, in this very camp. And, in the end, those two forgot this hook in the camp. His hand is here, and the killer knows about it. He knows that the hook here, in them, the ion will not calm down until it finds its hand. And here comes the most solemn moment: the narrator crawls in his bosom and pulls out a steel hook, which shows each of the listeners. This works even better if the gun sparkles in the firelight. And it will be wonderful if the narrator hooks the tip of the hook and adds some dirt there - it will look just like clotted blood. First, the killer lost his hand - here the narrator turns the hook so that the fire of the fire is reflected in it - and then his prosthesis. All this should be pronounced in the most dramatic, afterlife voice. And the maniac knows that the hook is here, he is looking for it ... At this moment, one of the assistant storyteller jumps out of the darkness and yells in a hysterical voice. Something like a pillowcase with slots for his eyes could be on his head. One hand should be tucked into the sleeve, so as to create the illusion that it does not exist; in his other hand he should have an ax, knife or machete clamped. He jumps on one of the listeners and knocks him to the ground, uttering terrible screams. All this is very good on the nerves of the audience.