A Nightmare Reborn Ch. 07

"Maybe," Lori replied and gritted her teeth as she struggled to pull him out onto the loading dock. Her muscles were burning and crying out in pain. Her body felt as though she had run a decathlon. Her lungs ached from smoke and the toxic air of Freddy's dream world. Her eyes had gone red from irritation, the left cornea rimmed with blood. Her skin was streaked with dirt and grime, her hair tangled with sweat and gore.

The heavy clouds above were melting away as pastel blue sky filled the horizon. The smoke from the Springwood fire was still thick and casting an orange tint over the sun, but it was shining nonetheless. The light caught the fleeting raindrops and mist causing it to glow as Lori dragged Freddy out onto the dock and into the light.

"I'm not a fucking vampire, you bitch," he laughed bitterly.

"I know," she said and then let go of his burnt clothing. Krueger fell on his back with a heavy thud, his head smacking hard against the cement. Lori flipped the spout open on the bottle and began squirting him with lighter fluid, dousing him from head to toe as his stumps bled more of his oily blood.

"What the hell is this?" he sputtered as some of the fluid splashed in his mouth, "This isn't over, Lori!"

She made sure to soak his chest and legs thoroughly, "It will never be over."

"You can kill me now, but I'll come back for you. I swear I'll come back for you!"

Lori took out the book of matches and ripped one of the blue-tips from the cardboard backing. She took a deep breath and looked at Freddy, her eyes alive and bright blue in the smoky morning light. Her tears had cleaned twin streaks of pale flesh down her dirty cheeks a she licked her bloody lips. She placed the match head between the folds of the cover and pulled.

She looked at the flame and then at Freddy.

"You bitch," he seethed at her.

Lori dropped the match.

It tumbled through the cool morning air and then landed on Freddy's stomach. Blue flame erupted in an "fwoosh!" of ignited air and kerosene. The blue edge of the fire fanned out across his body, traveling up his chest and down his legs and then finally to his face. Freddy writhed and kicked as his body burned and his clothes flamed and fell away. The stench of burning flesh invaded Lori's nose as she stood back from the immolation unfolding in front of her.

Freddy's hateful yellow eyes fixed on her through the blaze as he thrashed about on the dock, ash and blackened flakes of his dead body blowing into the breeze as the sunlight illuminated him. He howled and mewled and screamed as fire consumed him once again. The tendons in his legs fried and stiffened while the flesh and muscle sizzled and cooked. His internal organs boiled and finally burst inside his flaming body. Freddy wildly flailed his torso about as his boots caught fire and the rubber began melting.

"I'll be back for you, you cunt!" he screeched, "Your children will never be safe! I'll come for them and rip their fucking hearts out just make you scream! I'll be back for you!"

Lori looked down at him impassively, "And I will be waiting for you."

Freddy moaned one last time as his face burned away to reveal a blackened skull. The yellow eyes inside the sockets withered and shriveled as his body burned up in a blaze of hatred. The energy inside this physical incarnation of Krueger erupted from the corpse and ignited in the flames. It arched through the air and then bolted into the ground like red lightning. Lori stood back as the unearthly power of Freddy Krueger was returned to the depths of Hell. The smoldering monstrosity convulsed once, and then twice and finally was no more.

Lori turned her back on the pile of ashes and looked to the burning orange sun rising in the east.

"I'll be waiting for you," she said again and then collapsed.

***

Dr. Alexis Rowan was riding in the first of several cars that pulled into the Springwood Power Plant around noon of Tuesday, May the 17th. The phone call she had received from Matthew Loomis earlier that morning had been both amazing and unbelievable. Rowan trusted few people in both her professional and personal life, but Matthew Loomis was one of those few people she could rely on. And if he told her that he had captured Jason Voorhees, then she was more apt believe him than anyone else.

As her driver pulled the sleek, blue Crown Victoria around the plant she saw on one side of the complex two police cruisers. One was overturned and smoldering with dark black smoke. As the car rounded the south end of the facility, she saw two people sitting on the loading dock. One of them was Loomis and the other was a blonde woman she didn't recognize.

Rowan stepped out of the car even before it stopped completely, straightening out her smart black business suit. As she approached them, she began to realize that they both looked as though they had been through a meat grinder. The girl was stained with mud and grit, bleeding in several places and her hair matted down in wet locks. Loomis, normally always so professional in his suit and ties wore only his dress shirt, slacks and shoes. He too was covered in dirt, though the side of his face was bloody and gashed. He looked up at her and waved.

"Dr. Loomis," Rowan gasped as he and the blonde woman stood up and greeted her, "What the hell happened?"

"Jason Voorhees happened," Loomis took her hand and smiled as best he could.

"Your face," she cringed sympathetically, "Oh, Matthew."

"A flesh wound," he reassured her.

"Are you okay, miss?" Rowan looked to Lori.

"Yes," Lori crossed her arms and walked away from them. Loomis looked after her for a moment, as though he might say something and then decided against it.

"You said you captured him?" Rowan looked at Loomis as an ambulance, with its lights flashing and sirens wailing, pulled up beside the five white vans that had followed her in.

"Actually, two of the local police officers caught him," Loomis grimaced and felt like crying as he thought of Sean and Tessa down in that awful place, "It cost them their lives, Alexis."

"I'm so sorry," Rowan put her arm around the doctor and led him to the ambulance. She glanced over at Lori, who was standing alone to the side of the dock, "Miss, would you come this way?"

Lori looked as though she had been woken from a dream, startled. She took her fingers from her chin and followed them over to the paramedics.

"The entire city has been burnt to the ground," Rowan told Loomis as one of the emergency workers tended to the wound on his face, "It's been all over the news for two days now. Jason did this all on his own?"

"No," Loomis shook his head, "Michael Myers had something to do with it as well."

"Thee Michael Myers?" she asked, her beautiful Mediterranean features gaping with awe, "he was here?"

"He was here and he escaped," Loomis said dismally.

Rowan, who had spent her years in graduate school under the tutelage of Loomis, knew all about his work and history. She was in many ways the daughter he never had and it was her enthusiasm for the work that had reinvested Loomis after Mary split. She knew the stories of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers by heart, and she also knew Springwood was famous not for either of them but for another reason. She said, "The latest reports have the mass suicides numbering over two hundred now."

Loomis looked at her, understanding her completely, "Yes, I imagine they'll discover more such cases as the investigation goes on."

"Was it him?" she asked discreetly, the name of the dream killer on her lips.

"Oh yes," Loomis nodded and then winced as the paramedic sterilized his wound, "It was very much him."

"What happened?"

"Lori," he nodded to the silent woman beside him, "She exorcised the demons, so to speak."

Rowan nodded and looked to Lori with a healthy respect. She shook Lori's hand and said, "Well done."

"Thank you."

Loomis watched as several men in what looked like generic military uniforms deployed out of the vans and scrambled about. They had all kinds of gear with them, including harnesses and chains. They carried assault rifles with them as they hurried into the complex through the loading dock. They trampled Freddy's remains with the thick boots. Loomis was seized with the urge to tell them to go around the pile of ash, but thought better of it. He sighed and braced himself for the second round of disinfections.

"Dr. Wimmer has already tried to take control of this," Rowan said to him confidentially as the paramedics turned their attention to Lori.

"Wimmer?" Loomis laughed, "Oh good God, I only called you an hour ago."

"I had to get clearance to throw together a team. Wimmer's my boss, unfortunately," she shook her head and crossed her arms across her chest, "He almost came with me, but I convinced him it might be dangerous… asshole can stay in Dayton for the rest of his life, for all I care. He believes Jason should be studied for his regenerative abilities."

"Jesus," Loomis looked at her seriously, his eyes haunted, "Kill him. Work on a way to kill him, Rowan."

"I intend to," she smiled reassuringly and squeezed his shoulder. She looked around and lowered her voice, "What should be my official statement to the press?"

Loomis thought for a moment and said, "Tell them that the Springwood Police department valiantly fought and trapped Jason Voorhees. Tell them that he and Michael Myers were responsible for the mass fires and for the death of every single police officer in town. Tell them that two women in particular, Lori Rollins and Alice Johnson, helped the officers who trapped Jason. The mass suicides were a result of mass hysteria."

Rowan took a pad of paper from her pocket, "The officer’s names?"

"Officers Sean Renaud and Tessa Alexander," he said as a tight sadness gripped his heart. He added, "They're in the basin with Jason. Be gentle with them. They've earned their rest."

"Of course," she wrote the names down and then whispered, "And Freddy Krueger?"

"He's dead," Loomis looked out at the smoky sky, "He's gone for now."

"He never existed?" she suggested.

"No," Loomis shook his head, "He was never here."

"I understand," Rowan said.

***

FIVE DAYS LATER

Lori stood in the Springwood Memorial Cemetery alone.

The sun was bright and shining, most of the smoke from the fires cleared out by the prevailing winds to the north. There was still the smell of smoke and destruction in the air, but it didn't matter very much now. The city of Springwood was dead, burned and buried under a heap of rubble and ash. Lori had hoped it would stay that way, but she had already heard rumors of plans to begin rebuilding as soon as that coming fall. There were only two places in the city that hadn't been destroyed by the fires; the power plant and the cemetery.

Lori thought there was a certain irony to that, but she had to let it go. In the days following her interviews with the police, state officials and the FBI she and Dr. Loomis had covered up the involvement of Freddy Krueger and pinned the crimes on Jason and Michael Myers. With a little help from Dr. Rowan, their stories were airtight and the government let them go five days after the battle in the power plant.

There was still a nationwide search going on for Michael Myers. The governor of Ohio had posted a reward of $100,000 dollars to the person who led the authorities to the serial killer. There were news reports about bounty hunters from all over the entire world showing up in the United States to hunt him down as well as mass sightings everywhere from Sacramento, California to Albany, New York. Like Loomis, Lori imagined that the search would be fruitless. Based on the news so far, she had no reason to believe otherwise.

As Loomis pointed out to her, Michael was nothing if not stealthy.

Rowan had left shortly after the inquest wrapped up. With her, she took the prisoner of the year Jason Voorhees. He had survived his blow to the head (much to no one's surprise) and was still as angry and deadly as ever. They had chained him and locked him tightly for the transport to a protected facility where Rowan promised they would find a way to kill him. Lori trusted Rowan implicitly, though she knew her comfort was partially due to the trust Loomis had in her. Rowan had even talked about establishing a research facility at Crystal Lake in a better effort to understand Jason.

"The devil's always in the details," she had said to Lori the last time she saw her, "Maybe if we can figure out what keeps him alive in this environment, we can break his immortality."

Lori agreed with that.
In front of her stood four headstones, three old and one new. The first three belonged to the long dead Johnson family, Alice's father, brother and son Jacob. Next to Jacob's headstone was the memorial to Alice Johnson. Lori had paid for the funeral herself from the money she and Will had been saving for a vacation to the Bahamas later that winter. Since there was going to be no vacation, Lori thought it was fitting that the money be used to honor her friend. Inscribed on the headstone was this:

Alice Lisa Johnson
Beloved Mother, Daughter, Sister, Wife and Friend
September 15, 1970 – May 17th, 2005

And below this was an inscription that read:

"…Once and always the Dream Master…"

Lori had been hesitant at first to use the term "wife" as Alice and Dan Jordan had never had the chance to get married. But she also knew from what Alice had left with her that they would have if they had been given the chance, and that they would have been great together. She hoped Alice would have appreciated the gesture.

Lori placed two red roses on the fresh earth of her grave, one for Alice and one for Will. His body had been burned beyond recognition and burial in the fire that started in the police armory. So she buried his memory here with Alice where he could be safe.

"I love you both," she kissed her fingers and then pressed it to the delicate petals of the flowers.

Lori shivered though it was not cold and stepped back from the graves. A breeze caressed her pale skin and carried her blonde hair to one side. She slipped her hands into the pocket's of her jeans as her blue flannel shirt fluttered in the wind. She thought of Will and remembered how much she loved him. She wanted so badly just to see him one last time, even for one second.

She mourned her husband and her lost friend for what seemed like an eternity and then let them go. She released them from her heart and turned away from them. She could carry their memory with her, but she couldn't carry the burden of their deaths. It wasn't what either of them wanted and it was what Alice had warned her so passionately about.

"Good-bye."

Lori closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as her skin tingled in a release of spiritual pain.

"Hello Lori."

Lori didn't have to ask who it was. She recognized the accent and the kindness in his voice. Loomis smiled at her gently as he walked up beside her. Lori looked at him and smiled back. His presence was comforting, and there was something so wonderfully familiar in seeing him again. He was dressed in his usual droll suit and dark overcoat, though he had shaved and trimmed his beard into a goatee. The knife wounds from Michael Myers had already begun healing, though he would be scarred for life. Loomis didn't seem to mind all that much. Like Lori, he was happy to be alive.

"Dr. Loomis," Lori hugged him.

"Are you well?" he asked as he returned the embrace.

She broke the hug and shrugged, "I'm… dealing."

"You're a survivor," he said to her, "And the world owes you and Alice a debt of gratitude that can never be fully repaid."

"They owe Sean and Tessa," Lori added, “And you, doctor. We owe you too.”

The doctor nodded.

"Tessa's family arrived to take her back to Michigan this morning," Loomis cleared his throat, "She'll be buried in the family plot so I'm told."

"And Sean?"

"His brother, who lives in Oregon, has sent for him to be cremated and interred at the Springwood Memorial Monument."

"They're building a monument?"

"Yes," Loomis smiled, "And it will actually be constructed on the land where the power plant is. The governor has ordered the complex condemned and destroyed to make way for the largest park and wild life preserve in Ohio. It will cover the entire area of the city limits, save for the cemetery. Springwood will be given back to nature after all."

"That's fantastic," Lori said.

"Yes," the doctor nodded and put his hands in his coat pockets, "I believe your father and Alice would have been very pleased."

"I think so too."

Loomis took a deep breath and then looked to Lori, "Tell me, eh… where will you go from here?"

Lori began walking, her arm linked around the crook of Loomis' elbow, "I'm not sure. Probably back to New York. I make a pretty good living there as an accountant."

Loomis tilted his head, his brown eyes bright with curiosity, "Might I suggest an alternative?"

Lori glanced at him doubtfully, "Like what?"

"Well," he said, "With all that has happened, naturally I'll be writing my memoirs and I'll need some one there to refresh my memory and help keep track."

"A secretary?" Lori asked.

"A glorified secretary," Loomis laughed, "Actually, I was thinking of an assistant. You'd make a fine criminal psychologist given your experience."

"You can't afford me, doctor," she patted his arm.

"And if I doubled you current salary?"

Lori looked him, her eyes wide and a half smile on her full red lips, "You're serious?"

"Always," he replied as they walked down the grassy knoll leading to the road.

Lori thought for a moment and then looked around her. Springwood was gone, all around them was the blackened burned out husk of the once thriving city. Soon, there would be no remains of the houses and buildings Freddy had haunted for so many years. Only animals and occasional visitors would be coming through here. Freddy's reign of terror ended when the body in which he festered burned and blew away. The diseased vessel of Springwood was gone, and thus he had nowhere to go or to hide. What began with the locals taking the law into their own hands ended with the death of their city. It had come full circle. It was done.

"There's no need for me here now, is there?" she asked as she surveyed the charred horizon. It was so flat, so featureless and twisted. Only the lone silhouettes of house frames and scorched trees and burnt cars dotted the landscape.

"No, I imagine not," Loomis agreed, "But you are the Dream Master now."

"Yes," she said and then asked, "If he comes back?"

"Something tells me that if he ever comes back," Loomis said, "You'll be the first to know."

Lori looked out across the smoldering city one last time and then at Loomis. She said, "I accept."

Loomis grinned, his smile lighting up his kind eyes, "Excellent."

Lori felt so safe at that moment, a feeling she hadn't know but a few times before. And that was only with Will. Now, she felt it with this unassuming man who was almost twice her age. It wasn't unbridled love or passion she felt for him or the budding of a romance. No, it was too soon to even consider that. Rather, it was a deeply affecting admiration and love as only two friends can feel. It was the kind of connection that only two survivors could know. She and Will had shared it and Alice and her had shared it. Now, she shared it with Loomis.

"Shall we?" she offered him her hand, and then added, “Matthew?”

Loomis smiled and took her slender fingers into his own.

"Indeed."

***

EPILOGUE

In Haddonfield, Illinois Ray Carver and his mistress, Josie Burke were enjoying their limited time together. Josie had just purchased the old Strode house from the city with her first advance on her fifth novel, "Shock Therapy." She had gotten it cheap, and it was a fixer upper opportunity to be sure. But Josie thought it had charm. And it was a great place for Ray to come when his battle-axe of a wife Lydia was making his life hell.